Steven DiMattei: Case Against Mythicists

[ficino]

Has anyone seen this?

http://stevendimattei.com/case-mythists/

Views?

Note: elsewhere, DiMattei rejects the TF and holds that the "Christ" is indeed a literary creation.

[Blood]

5) If Jesus Christ of the gospels was a literary invention (which he was even from my admission above; so let’s say a literary creation ex nihilo from the Mythists’ perspective) then for what reason? So that a heretical sect of Aramaic Jews and later non-Jewish Greeks could be persecuted by its mainstream father-religion? Or burnt alive by Roman emperors? So that this community of people, many of whom were poor and outcasts, could hand over their very last possessions, be labeled as criminals by the political hegemony, and opt out of living economically in the world to sit and wait for the messiah?

And once again the good old argument from incredulity to save the day. Mormons use this same apologetic for their holy revelations.

Contra this guy and Maurice Casey, "Aramaic [speaking] Jews" are strangely absent from early Christian literature, an omission one would not expect if it were an authentically sectarian grassroots nationalist movement. We happen to have a good textual contemporary witness to the kind of literature such a sect would produce: the Dead Sea Scrolls. And what do we find there? Hardcore dedication to the purity of the Torah, in Aramaic. We pointedly do not find endless ass kissing of the Gentiles combined with equally endless vilification of "the Jews," nor facile and stupid reasons to trash the Torah.

[maryhelena]

Has anyone seen this?

http://stevendimattei.com/case-mythists/

Views?

Note: elsewhere, DiMattei rejects the TF and holds that the "Christ" is indeed a literary creation.

5) If Jesus Christ of the gospels was a literary invention (which he was even from my admission above; so let’s say a literary creation ex nihilo from the Mythists’ perspective) then for what reason?

That is the bottom line in the historicist verse the ahistoricist debate. Acknowledging that the gospel story is a literary work and not an historical account of it's main character is step one. Step two requires answering questions such as what was the motive, what was the purpose, what was the originator of this story attempting to convey. Saying it's a story, in view of the impact this story has had when viewed as a historical account, is never going to be a sufficient argument in the historicist verse ahistoricist debate. Sure, saying this story re-worked ideas found in the Jewish Bible adds to the mechanics of how the storyteller developed his story - but while that is important it does not address the fundamental questions of what purpose, for what reason, for what audience, was the story created.

However well the ahistoricists/mythicsts might interpret the Pauline letters and their Christ figure - it's the gospel Jesus story that has captured the imagination - and the loyalty - of the Christian world - and it's army of scholars stand ready to fight the battle with the mythicists for the faithful.....

The Pauline spiritual Christ figure is no substitute for the Jesus of the Gospels. They are two very different stories. Each story needs to be addressed on it's own terms before any attempt to 'marry' the two stories. As I've said so many times - as mythicists suggest - don't read the gospels into the Pauline epistles - then, likewise, don't read the Pauline epistles into the gospel Jesus story. Each story needs to stand on it's own feet before any relationship, 'marriage', between the stories can, itself, contribute to a fuller grasp of what the writers of the NT were endeavoring to articulate.

[Solstice]

5) If Jesus Christ of the gospels was a literary invention (which he was even from my admission above; so let’s say a literary creation ex nihilo from the Mythists’ perspective) then for what reason? So that a heretical sect of Aramaic Jews and later non-Jewish Greeks could be persecuted by its mainstream father-religion? Or burnt alive by Roman emperors?

The answer to this question is "Candida Moss"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Persecution

The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom is a 2013 book by Candida Moss, a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. Moss's thesis is that the traditional idea of the "Age of Martyrdom", when Christians suffered persecution from the Roman authorities and lived in fear of being thrown to the lions, is largely fictional.

[outhouse]

5) If Jesus Christ of the gospels was a literary invention (which he was even from my admission above; so let’s say a literary creation ex nihilo from the Mythists’ perspective) then for what reason? So that a heretical sect of Aramaic Jews and later non-Jewish Greeks could be persecuted by its mainstream father-religion? Or burnt alive by Roman emperors?

The answer to this question is "Candida Moss"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Persecution

The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom is a 2013 book by Candida Moss, a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. Moss's thesis is that the traditional idea of the "Age of Martyrdom", when Christians suffered persecution from the Roman authorities and lived in fear of being thrown to the lions, is largely fictional.

Lovely quote mining, and taking Candida's work way out of context


Largely fictional does not mean that christians were not persecuted, or burnt alive. They were.



Yours was a pathetic attempt, the likes that embarrass mythicism and shows how weak most are.

[MrMacSon]

"Largely fictional" infers 'to a lesser degree than has previous been stated or claimed', that is all.

[spin]

5) If Jesus Christ of the gospels was a literary invention (which he was even from my admission above; so let’s say a literary creation ex nihilo from the Mythists’ perspective) then for what reason? So that a heretical sect of Aramaic Jews and later non-Jewish Greeks could be persecuted by its mainstream father-religion? Or burnt alive by Roman emperors?

The answer to this question is "Candida Moss"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Persecution

The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom is a 2013 book by Candida Moss, a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. Moss's thesis is that the traditional idea of the "Age of Martyrdom", when Christians suffered persecution from the Roman authorities and lived in fear of being thrown to the lions, is largely fictional.

Lovely quote mining, and taking Candida's work way out of context


Largely fictional does not mean that christians were not persecuted, or burnt alive. They were.

When exactly?

Do you not find our only tangible report of christian persecution in the first century (Ann. 15.44) highly problematic? Did the Romans have any interest in christians qua christians before Decius? And even then it's hard to see if it were in fact christians qua christians rather than just people outside the limits of conservative Roman religious tolerance.

Yours was a pathetic attempt, the likes that embarrass mythicism and shows how weak most are.

That's the sort of thing that would make one feel sorry for outhouse. Higher brain functions so deeply cauterized that there is no skepticism left in there.

[stevencarrwork]

5) If Jesus Christ of the gospels was a literary invention (which he was even from my admission above; so let’s say a literary creation ex nihilo from the Mythists’ perspective) then for what reason? So that a heretical sect of Aramaic Jews and later non-Jewish Greeks could be persecuted by its mainstream father-religion? Or burnt alive by Roman emperors? So that this community of people, many of whom were poor and outcasts, could hand over their very last possessions, be labeled as criminals by the political hegemony, and opt out of living economically in the world to sit and wait for the messiah?

And once again the good old argument from incredulity to save the day. Mormons use this same apologetic for their holy revelations.

According to Paul in Galatians 6, Christians were persecuted on the issue of circumcision, and people could avoid persecution by compromising on this issue.

In Galatians 5, Paul uses the fact that he is still being persecuted as a proof that he has not compromised on the issue of circumcision (unlike others, who presumably were not persecuted).

If early Christians were preaching that a crucified criminal was divine, they would have been stoned to death as blasphemers before you could say 'historical anachronism'.

[Huon]

According to Paul in Galatians 6, Christians were persecuted on the issue of circumcision, and people could avoid persecution by compromising on this issue.

In Galatians 5, Paul uses the fact that he is still being persecuted as a proof that he has not compromised on the issue of circumcision (unlike others, who presumably were not persecuted).

If early Christians were preaching that a crucified criminal was divine, they would have been stoned to death as blasphemers before you could say 'historical anachronism'.

So, early Christians would have been persecuted in Galatia on the issue of circumcision, by the "traditional" Jews. And they would have been stoned to death by the "traditional" Jews ?

And the rulers of Galatia would have tolerated these stonings ?

And apart from Stephen, who exactly was stoned to death ? The early Christians would have kept the name(s) of the victim(s), no ?

[Solstice]

It only takes a few clicks on outhouses previous posts to find his agenda:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=39&p=111#p111

On a side note. While reading your article it reminded me of the first day I switched from mythicism towards believing in Jesus historicity. And it was "naturalism" of sorts that did it.
Most people have never really had the education or knowledge to be able to place these collections of scripture in context to the time they were written. Placing yourself in the authors shoes in his own time with his belief of the natural world surrounding him, how they viewed the spiritual world in their daily lives.
The day I changed my personal view, with a view of the context I imagined they held, was my last day as a mythicist.

So he's pro-historicist/anti-mythicist. OK, I don't mind as long as one uses cogent arguments instead of just Ad Hominem one-liners. There's also some obvious logical fallacies in there like the "never had the education or knowledge" thing to go along with the "lovely quote mining" and the "pathetic attempt" logical fallacies. I also see the tactic of "I once held this pov, but I've seen how wrong it is". And lots of butt-kissing to the forum moderator. Slingin' sh*t from the outhouse.


Back on-topic: Any google search will show that the main topic of Ms Moss's work was indeed to show that the martyr stories are largely fictional. This is totally plausible given the extreme evangelical/proselytizing nature of the early Petrine-Catholic church in the face of competition from other sects and religions. In fact, her work is not new.. there were church historians who were discussing this stuff about martyrs as far back as the 17th century.


Now back even further the original topic:

1) There are frankly speaking no mythic elements in the Jesus story/stories preserved in the gospels. There are no talking serpents, no anthropomorphic deities, no allusions to agricultural myths, no presentation of a primordial or pre-historical time-frame, no description of a decent and ascent from the underworld, no personified rivers, trees, magical palm leaves, etc. The only element that might be inferred as mythic is the virgin birth story, but even there the claim is dubious

OK, But what about
-- demonic possession and exorcisms
-- miracles miracles miracles
-- prophesy
-- 3 hours of darkness
-- resurrection of the dead
-- ascension to heaven

Those don't count?