The Mythicist House of Cards

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Peter Kirby
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Re: The Mythicist House of Cards

Post by Peter Kirby »

Blood wrote:I'm confused here. You say the last essay (which cites Doherty) dates from 1998, but in the first post above you say that "the author's moment of skepticism of Jesus wouldn't come until 2001, after reading the website and first book of Earl Doherty." (You quote an article by Doherty from 1997. Was this his first published work on the historic Jesus? "The Jesus Puzzle" was first published in October, 1999.)

You've been at this a long time.
I didn't read the book in 1998. :)

The website antedates the first book by Doherty.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Mythicist House of Cards

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Peter Kirby wrote:
ANONYMOUS wrote:
This paper is a critique of this theory and a defense of
the historical Jesus. A fuller treatment of the existence of Jesus
would involve much more detailed NT studies, of which mythicists in
particular seem woefully unaware.

I wonder how he would respond to Brodie's studies and ideas?

Besides how much of NT studies actually involves accepting dogma as truth?

EG: The "Paul" who wrote the "genuine Pauline letters" is an historical figure.

The "House of Cards" idea suggests that the cards themselves are hypotheses.
While they are considered to be true (or right) they will stand.
If they are shown to be false then they will fall.

The "House of Christian Origins" is the structure formed by combining all the various hypotheses (assumed to be true).

These hypotheses may all be able to be expressed as mutually exclusive antithetical pairs.

EG: (Where H0 is the mainstream null hypothesis, and H1 the antithesis)

Was "Jesus" an historical figure? H0 = YES H1 = NO
Was "Paul" an historical figure? H0 = YES H1 = NO
Was "Mark" an historical figure? H0 = YES H1 = NO
Was "Marcion" an historical figure? H0 = YES H1 = NO
Was "Papias" an historical figure? H0 = YES H1 = NO
Was "Origen" an historical figure? H0 = YES H1 = NO
Was the Resurrected Jesus an historical figure? H0 = YES H1 = NO
Was Josephus interpolated? H0 = YES H1 = NO

Was Mark authored in the 1st century? H0 = YES H1 = NO
Was Mark authored in the 2nd century? H0 = NO H1 = YES


etc.
And so on.


One would need a great deal of these to incorporate hypotheses of chronology. But that's why computers were invented.

In theory one could construct a program to build the "House of Cards Christian Origins Theory" based on the answers to a long series of such checkboxes, for both HJ and MJ theories.

After all they must address the same evidence data set. It's just that HJ and MJ proponents seem to evaluate each of these hypotheses about the evidence by means of different criteria and weighting.




LC
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Peter Kirby
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Re: The Mythicist House of Cards

Post by Peter Kirby »

Leucius Charinus wrote:In theory one could construct a program to build the "House of Cards Christian Origins Theory" based on the answers to a long series of such checkboxes, for both HJ and MJ theories.
Yes I've thought about that before as well. A sort of "choose your own adventure" book/program for people interested in Christian origins.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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