Quick Review of "No Meek Messiah" by Micael Paulkovich

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi All,

A while ago, I saw an article about this recent book that intrigued me. It said that the author argued that Jesus was a myth and offered a list of 126 writers who should have written about Jesus but did not. It seemed to be based on serious research.I was excited about reading it.

Unfortunately, the book is not primarily concerned with the issue of Jesus as a myth. The argument for Jesus as a pure myth is briefly presented in the midst of the book's primary argument that Christianity has historically been a force for evil and savagery in the world. The book primarily recites a long list of crimes committed by Christians and Christian groups over the last 1900 years. This takes up most of the book's 365 pages.

The book is a sermon on why people should not be Christians. Since plenty of sermons are given all the time about why people should be Christians, this book is a nice counterbalance. It is kind of like Bertrand Russel's "Why I am Not a Christian" on steroids. I think every young Christian should get it for Christmas to get a more balanced perspective on the history of the religion. I did find lots of bits of information that I did not know. For example, I did not know that the Emperor Constantine had the philosopher Sopater put to death, or that the Christian Emperor Valens had the philosophers Simonides and Maximus put to death around 370. I thought Hypatia was the first philosopher to suffer at the hands of Christians for her wisdom The bad part is that the historical and social conditions that have resulted in so many horrible actions are never presented in a clear or rational light. In some cases the actions are rather unfairly attributed to Christian teaching. For example, the book begins strangely enough with an attack on Joseph Stalin. It is alleged that his Christian upbringing was responsible for his activities as leader of the Soviet Union from 1927 - 1954. The issues are significantly more complex than Paulkovich suggests.

I still think that Paulkovich's argument about the 126 sources is a valid and powerful argument against the historical existence of a biblical Jesus. In a way, it is sad that it is presented in this type of book, as it makes the argument seem more subjective than it is. The numerous attack against the specific argument that I have seen have focused on straw man arguments, for example, critics note that no works of about 1/3 of the authors presently exist. Obviously, if Jesus had been mentioned in them, we should expect that at least the mentions of Jesus would be transmitted, so this counter-argument can be immediately dismissed.

While in the politics of Atheism and Christianity, the book has some interest for its straight forward and rather passionate case against Christianity, for this website, the only thing of interest is the appendix from pgs. 329-354 which lists the authors who missed Jesus and the bibliography where Paulkovich found them.

[Peter Kirby]

Well... We do cover General Religious Discussion here. Thanks for the review!

[Leucius Charinus]

Hi Philosopher Jay,

Thanks for this ... http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/paulkovich.html

• Conclusion
  
  When I consider those 126 writers, all of whom should have heard of Jesus but did not, and Paul and Marcion and Athenagoras and Matthew with a tetralogy of opposing Christs, the silence from Qumran and Nazareth and Bethlehem, conflicting Bible stories, and so many other mysteries and omissions, I must conclude this "Jesus Christ" is a mythical character. "Jesus of Nazareth" was nothing more than urban (or desert) legend, likely an agglomeration of several evangelic and deluded rabbis who might have existed. The "Jesus mythicist" position is regarded by Christians as a fringe group.
  
  But after my research I tend to side with Remsburg—and Frank Zindler, John M. Allegro, Thomas Paine, Godfrey Higgins, Robert M. Price, Charles Bradlaugh, Gerald Massey, Joseph McCabe, Abner Kneeland, Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Harold Leidner, Peter Jensen, Salomon Reinach, Samuel Lublinski, Charles-François Dupuis, Rudolf Steck, Arthur Drews, Prosper Alfaric, Georges Ory, Tom Harpur, Michael Martin, John Mackinnon Robertson, Alvar Ellegård, David Fitzgerald, Richard Carrier, René Salm, Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy, Barbara Walker, Thomas Brodie, Earl Doherty, Bruno Bauer and others—heretics and iconoclasts and freethinking dunces all, according to "mainstream" Bible scholars.
  
  If all this evidence and non-evidence including 126 silent writers cannot convince, I'll wager we will uncover much more. Yet this is but a tiny tip of the mythical Jesus iceberg: nothing adds up for the fable of the Christ. In the Conclusion of No Meek Messiah I summarize the madcap cult of Jesus worship that has plagued the world for centuries. It should be clear to even the most devout and inculcated reader that it is all up for Christianity, and in fact has been so for centuries. Its roots and foundation and rituals are borrowed from ancient cults: there is nothing magical or "God-inspired" about them. The "virgin birth prophecy" as well as the immaculate conception claims are fakeries, the former due to an erroneous translation of the Tanakh, the latter a nineteenth century Catholic apologetic contrivance, a desperate retrofitting.
  
  Jesus was no perfect man, no meek or wise messiah: in fact his philosophies were and are largely immoral, often violent, as well as shallow and irrational. There have been many proposed sons of god, and this Jesus person is no more valid or profound than his priestly precursors. In fact, his contemporary Apollonius was unquestionably the superior logician and philosopher.
  
  Christianity was a very minor and inconsequential cult founded late in the first century and then—while still quite minor—forced upon all the people of the Empire, and all rival kingdoms in the fourth century and beyond, as enforceable law with papal sanction. Christianity has caused more terror and torture and murder than any similar phenomenon. With its tyrannical preachments and directives for sightless and mindless obedience, the Bible is a violent and utterly useless volume, full of lies and immoral edicts and invented histories, no matter which of the many "versions" you may choose to read—including Thomas Jefferson's radical if gallant abridgment.
  
  The time to stop teaching the tall tales and nonsense to children, frightening them with eternal torture administered by God's minions, has long ago passed. Parents who do so are likely deluded, and most surely are guilty of child abuse of the worst sort ... The cult of Christianity has an incalculable amount of blood on its hands. And the "Jesus" tale seems to have been nothing more than oral legend, with plenty of hoax and fraud perpetrated along the ages. It is my hope that mankind will someday grow up and relegate the Jesus tales to the same stewing pile that contains Zeus and his son Hercules, roiling away in their justifiable status as mere myth.

After setting out all this stuff, what evidence is left over to allow Paulkovich to claim that Christianity was a very minor and inconsequential cult founded late in the first century?

He might think he has evidence - like Carrier - that Paul (as distinct from Pseudo-Paul) was an historical person, and that the church industry has had possession of this literary evidence since the 1st century of the very common era.


Be well,


LC

[Blood]

The author loses credibility when he includes Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny, and Lucian on his list. Even if a couple of those passages are disputed, the works as we have them mention Jesus or Christ or Chrestus. These are all meant to be the same individual. This is the kind of thing that makes mythicism look like a UFO cult. He could have said "122 writers" of the time don't mention Jesus and been more effective.

[outhouse]

This is the kind of thing that makes mythicism look like a UFO cult.
.

When exactly has it not been cultish?

Its all about denouncing credible evidence much the same way a creationist fights the facts of evolution.

[MrMacSon]

After setting out all this stuff, what evidence is left over to allow Paulkovich to claim that Christianity was a very minor and inconsequential cult founded late in the first century?

The vague references to Christianity and it's central characters, Jesus & Paul, through the 2nd and #rd C - in conjunction with texts variations on those references (eg. Gospel of Thomas; the pseudepigraphical/apocryphal literature) - suggests Christianity was a "minor and inconsequential cult" until it was elevated by Constantine & Eusebius via the Council of Nicea (where there was considerable debate on whether to promote Arianism or Christianity)

[MrMacSon]

The author loses credibility when he includes Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny, and Lucian on his list. Even if a couple of those passages are disputed, the works as we have them mention Jesus or Christ or Chrestus. These are all meant to be the same individual ...

Mean't to be the same individual; but hard to know. Only one of them mentions Jesus, and in a dubious way.

Given their fuller recordings of others, their vague references to Jesus or Christ or Chrestus are relevant. As is the view Tacitus was only repeating what Christians were saying about themselves or their belief.

[Peter Kirby]

Even at its worst evaluation (not exactly my evaluation), the idea of the non-historicity of Jesus is on the same level as Lamarckian evolution when it was first proposed... a good-natured if somewhat misguided attempt to explain a real phenomenon (evolution, the origin of the Jesus story).

It has precedent. There are personages with no real historicity. True fact. Look it up.

And this is why you should be on your guard against anyone who compares it to contemporary Creationism. Expect a load of baseless assumptions, innuendo, and outright bullying (but very little real argument) from that type.

[outhouse]

And this is why you should be on your guard against anyone who compares it to contemporary Creationism. Expect a load of baseless assumptions, innuendo, and outright bullying (but very little real argument) from that type.

What I see from many mythicist is denial of evidence which is similar, is it not? And not supplying a replacement theory, is that not similar?


While evolution Is based on facts, and the historicity of Jesus is based on weaker evidence, and it may be poor. But it is still evidence.

[Peter Kirby]

And this is why you should be on your guard against anyone who compares it to contemporary Creationism. Expect a load of baseless assumptions, innuendo, and outright bullying (but very little real argument) from that type.

What I see from many mythicist is denial of evidence which is similar, is it not? And not supplying a replacement theory, is that not similar?

While evolution Is based on facts, and the historicity of Jesus is based on weaker evidence, and it may be poor. But it is still evidence.

King Arthur has weak evidence for his existence, and there is not much to be said regarding any replacement theory other than the idea that some people made some stuff up in some story that other people liked enough to believe it were actually true. Still that does not make King-Arthur-mythicisists anything like Creationists.