Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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neilgodfrey
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Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist

Post by neilgodfrey »

Sometimes someone seems to expect me to argue a mythicist case, or accuses me of somehow hypocritically hiding my mythicist views. I'd like to make my view on the historicity of Jesus question clear.

If we approach the question of Christian origins the same way a historian would be expected to approach any other question, I believe we will begin with no a priori reason for working with the idea of the Jesus figure as historical.

After all, a number of biblical scholars see everything in the gospels as "mythical" and even the crucifixion as a heavily theological narrative that can have no historical reliability. They are not called "mythicists".

Critical scholars who do not believe Moses existed are not called Moses Mythicists.

How many William Tell Mythicists have you heard of?

The gospels are of unknown provenance, authorship and date. Moreover, their narratives have no independent support for historicity. They are accordingly worthless as evidence for the historicity of Jesus.

They might be based ultimately on a historical person but if so we cannot know anything about that so we simply cannot use them as evidence for the historicity of Jesus.

Without the gospels the contents of Paul's letters are equally or even more problematic as sources for the historicity of Jesus.

The "secondary" (late) evidence is also seriously problematic for various reasons.

There is simply nothing to reliably point to a historical Jesus.

Contrast Julius Caesar or Socrates or any other person of some significance in ancient history. The evidence for such people is independently corroborated at some significant level, generally of known provenance, etc.

There is indeed much in ancient history that we cannot know for sure, that is not independently corroborated and that only comes to us through late sources, and I am on the side of ancient historians like M.I. Finley who do state that we simply cannot know about those times, persons, events as historians. Some historians ignore Finley's advice but what they produce is a rewriting of ancient myths, one might say. It is not serious history.

A historian needs to start with sources that can be independently corroborated, tested and evaluated for their provenance, date, authorship. To the extent that is not possible with some questions the entire enterprise is compromised to a lesser or greater degree.

In other words, I see no reason a priori to think of the figure of Jesus as having a historical existence because all our earliest sources about him talk about a theological figure and are unable to be corroborated independently for historicity.

There might have been some David or Moses figure in the past but if so quite unlike the one we read about in the Bible. Scholars who do not accept the historicity of these figures are not called David or Moses mythicists and I see no reason to treat Jesus any differently.

We work with what we have, a theological and literary figure.

It's not about a lot of detailed arguments relating to passages in Romans or Galatians or Josephus, etc.... The question simply never gets off the starting block to begin with.
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Bernard Muller
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Re: Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist

Post by Bernard Muller »

I think there are two things to consider:
a) Did a Jew named Jesus exist and, somehow, that "Jesus" being the one who triggered the beginning & development of Christianity (by others)?
My answer is obviously yes, thanks to Paul, Tacitus & Josephus (Ant. 20.20)

b) Can the gospels (more so gMark) give us additional information about the "somehow", which would not require any divine presence and supernatural?

For a) my answer is obviously yes, thanks to Paul (http://historical-jesus.info/6.html), Tacitus & Josephus (Ant. 20.20).

For b) Again, my answer is yes, it can be done clearly without going to any extremes (http://historical-jesus.info/digest.html).
Without adding anything, gMark (along with Josephus' Wars) contains enough information among religious crap in order to achieve a comprehensive backbone reconstruction.

Cordially, Bernard
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist

Post by neilgodfrey »

Bernard Muller wrote: Fri Dec 08, 2017 3:07 pm I think there are two things to consider:
a) Did a Jew named Jesus exist and, somehow, that "Jesus" being the one who triggered the beginning & development of Christianity (by others)?
My answer is obviously yes, thanks to Paul, Tacitus & Josephus (Ant. 20.20)

b) Can the gospels (more so gMark) give us additional information about the "somehow", which would not require any divine presence and supernatural?

Your point a) is bereft of any independently corroborated evidence for a historical Jesus. It is nothing but a hypothesis combined with a misuse of secondary sources. It is based on a methodology that is denounced by the most historians I have read who have written about historical methods and uses of sources.

Your point b) is again a reliance upon uncorroborated information. No historian worth his or her salt would employ such a method with sources like that.

NT scholars have set us a bad example. We follow their methods and assumptions without realizing that they are invalid and unsupportable.
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neilgodfrey
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The Mother of All Assumptions

Post by neilgodfrey »

The Mother of All Assumptions is that the gospels contain some historical nuggets or are gateways to discovering historical nuggets. That is nothing but an assumption without any sound methodological thinking or analysis to support it.

From that assumption we generate theories of oral traditions as sources; we generate all sorts of scenarios about what the historical Jesus thought or did or said; we rely fundamentally upon the myth of the gospel-Acts narrative of Christian origins. Most of what we do is tweak and have fun with variants of that myth.

Sound historical method opens up entirely different questions and pathways to explore.
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Jax
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Re: Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist

Post by Jax »

For what it's worth. My observations on this subject mirror those as stated by neilgodfrey so far on this thread.

In my opinion, it's all about what Paul was talking about. The trick is.... finding out what that might have been.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist

Post by MrMacSon »

Jax wrote: Fri Dec 08, 2017 4:24 pm
In my opinion, it's all about what Paul was talking about ...
.
I disagree. Like you, I agree with the points Neil makes in the OP, but I see Paul as just one tree in 'the forest' that is the NT (and the apocrypha and the pseudepigraphica).

I see at least 3 or 4 sects' texts - the Johannines, the Paulines, the Marcionites (Luke(?)), and the [two other] Synoptics. Some of the other ~20 books of the NT may be aligned with them, or aligned with an/other sect/s.
nili
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Re: Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist

Post by nili »

The letters of Paul serve as evidence. The Pastoral Epistles serve as evidence. Acts serves as evidence. Josephus serves as evidence.

Not proof ... not even evidence of miracles, but certainly sufficient evidence to establish an historical Jesus as an example of inference to the best explanation. Mythicism has all the qualities of a underwhelming mantra chanted with unfounded confidence and unseemly belligerence.
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Jax
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Re: Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist

Post by Jax »

MrMacSon wrote: Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:02 pm
Jax wrote: Fri Dec 08, 2017 4:24 pm
In my opinion, it's all about what Paul was talking about ...
.
I disagree. Like you, I agree with the points Neil makes in the OP, but I see Paul as just one tree in 'the forest' that is the NT (and the apocrypha and the pseudepigraphica).

I see at least 3 or 4 sects' texts - the Johannines, the Paulines, the Marcionites (Luke(?)), and the [two other] Synoptics. Some of the other ~20 books of the NT may be aligned with them, or aligned with an/other sect/s.
But when you tunnel down, it all seems to come to Paul.
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Jax
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Re: Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist

Post by Jax »

nili wrote: Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:13 pm The letters of Paul serve as evidence. The Pastoral Epistles serve as evidence. Acts serves as evidence. Josephus serves as evidence.

Not proof ... not even evidence of miracles, but certainly sufficient evidence to establish an historical Jesus as an example of inference to the best explanation. Mythicism has all the qualities of a underwhelming mantra chanted with unfounded confidence and unseemly belligerence.
Why do you find this statement necessary? What, Really does it bring to the conversation? Aside from negative hyperbole that is?
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MrMacSon
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Re: Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist

Post by MrMacSon »

Jax wrote: Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:22 pm
But when you tunnel down, it all seems to come to Paul.
.
lol. What makes you think I tunnel down like that?
  • ie. How dare you accuse me of tunnelling-down that rabbit-hole :P
Joking aside, I think 'tunnelling-down' is a huge problem in this field: the problem.

Many people can't see the forest for the trees; or the network for the tunnel they're stuck in; or whatever metaphor that applies.
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