Mislabelling in Historicist Versus Mythicist Debate

[ghost]

Unfortunately this legitimate idea has been stained by logically fallacious theories related to Roman Caesars.

Do you have Stauffer, Courtney and Carotta in mind? If they are wrong that Jesus's death is based on Caesar's death, then I really want to know what causes them to make such a mistake. If I'm deluded that Jesus was transposed from Caesar, then I want to know what such a delusion is caused by. Where do I start?

[neilgodfrey]

Unfortunately this legitimate idea has been stained by logically fallacious theories related to Roman Caesars.

Do you have Stauffer, Courtney and Carotta in mind? If they are wrong that Jesus's death is based on Caesar's death, then I really want to know what causes them to make such a mistake. If I'm deluded that Jesus was transposed from Caesar, then I want to know what such a delusion is caused by. Where do I start?

I don't know anything about Stauffer or Courtney. I was thinking of the methods I have seen used to argue for the theses of Carotta and Atwill. Parallels are interpreted through false-dilemmas and rhetorical questions.

[spin]

There is probably a mislabelling regarding "historicist" as well. It is not sufficient to claim that Jesus existed to be a historicist. This is purely an ontological commitment. To be a historicist requires an epistemology, evidence for how you can conclude that Jesus existed and this equates to historical methodology. As such a historicist is a modern pundit. No ancient writer on the subject evinces conscious signs of historical methodology. The ideas of history were being slowly developed through a Greek historiography starting with Herodotus and slowly developed by a few from then on. It was still in development in the early modern era. If you maintain the understanding that a historicist has an epistemology for his understanding of what constitutes history, then we should be able to eliminate all ancient writers on the subject of Jesus as historicists. They may have had an ontology that included a real Jesus, but no epistemology. We can only say that ancients believed Jesus was real; we can't say that they believed him historical.

[toejam]

I don't see any problem with the terms. It's specialised language for a specific topic.

A "historicist" thinks there was a historical crucified Jewish cult figure behind the gospels (whether that be a minimal view like that of Bultmann, or a highly fleshed out view like that of N.T Wright). A "mythicist" thinks there was no historical figure. An "ahistoricist" has no conviction either way. Makes sense to me. There are as many quack historicist views as there are mythicist views.

[spin]

I don't see any problem with the terms. It's specialised language for a specific topic.

A "historicist" thinks there was a historical crucified Jewish cult figure behind the gospels (whether that be a minimal view like that of Bultmann, or a highly fleshed out view like that of N.T Wright). A "mythicist" thinks there was no historical figure. An "ahistoricist" has no conviction either way. Makes sense to me. There are as many quack historicist views as there are mythicist views.

What does the word "historical" mean in that context? Does it mean "demonstrated by methodology used by modern historians", or "real", or something else? (The first is epistemological, the second is ontological, and any others are to be determined.)

[neilgodfrey]

I don't see any problem with the terms. It's specialised language for a specific topic.

A "historicist" thinks there was a historical crucified Jewish cult figure behind the gospels (whether that be a minimal view like that of Bultmann, or a highly fleshed out view like that of N.T Wright). A "mythicist" thinks there was no historical figure. An "ahistoricist" has no conviction either way. Makes sense to me. There are as many quack historicist views as there are mythicist views.

What does the word "historical" mean in that context? Does it mean "demonstrated by methodology used by modern historians", or "real", or something else? (The first is epistemological, the second is ontological, and any others are to be determined.)

It's pretty obvious what toejam means by historical. The quibble comes -- like my own quibble over the meaning of the word "historicist" -- when addressing other/philosophical issues relating to the semantics used in a specialized discussion. I don't see anything to be gained for anyone who is not a pedant by pushing everyone who uses the terms that are understood well enough in their context into a discussion of philosophy and/or epistemology and/or what moderns classify as ancient historiography.

[neilgodfrey]

Did Jesus Exist?

How about Jesus Existentialists and Jesus Existentialism to replace Jesus Historicists and Jesus Historicism!

[toejam]

I don't see any problem with the terms. It's specialised language for a specific topic.

A "historicist" thinks there was a historical crucified Jewish cult figure behind the gospels (whether that be a minimal view like that of Bultmann, or a highly fleshed out view like that of N.T Wright). A "mythicist" thinks there was no historical figure. An "ahistoricist" has no conviction either way. Makes sense to me. There are as many quack historicist views as there are mythicist views.

What does the word "historical" mean in that context? Does it mean "demonstrated by methodology used by modern historians", or "real", or something else? (The first is epistemological, the second is ontological, and any others are to be determined.)

I like the time-travel analogy: If one had access to a Dr. Emmett Brown modified Delorian and could travel back in time, would one expect to be able to locate a specific crucified Jewish cult leader from whom the legends began sprouting. If you answer yes to that, then you're a historicist - you think it's an event that happened in history. If you answer no, then you're a mythicist. If you're not swayed either way, you're an ahistoricist. Given that we don't have time machines, the question of methodology then is a different question - there can be methodologically justified and unjustified thoughts about what happened in history.

But I see what you're getting at - there is the everyday usage of the word "history" - what we think happened in the past - and the academic/scientific field of "history" - which might tell us what is most likely, if not probable. But even that is problematic, because good/bad methodologies themselves aren't always agreed upon!

Ultimately, I just don't think it's that big a deal. Just about every category label will be stereotyping in some way. That's just the way language works. Anyone with an interest in Christian Origins knows what the two terms mean in that context, just like anyone who follows basketball knows that an "and one" is better than a "2-pointer", despite that that may be misleading to outsiders.

[MrMacSon]

I don't see any problem with the terms. It's specialised language for a specific topic.

A "historicist" thinks there was a historical crucified Jewish cult figure behind the gospels (whether that be a minimal view like that of Bultmann, or a highly fleshed out view like that of N.T Wright). A "mythicist" thinks there was no historical figure. An "ahistoricist" has no conviction either way. Makes sense to me. There are as many quack historicist views as there are mythicist views.

What does the word "historical" mean in that context?

It's misleading.

A "historicist" thinks & proposes there was a real crucified cult figure. There is not, however, any contemporary real evidence. ie. no actual historical data.

[spin]

I don't see any problem with the terms. It's specialised language for a specific topic.

A "historicist" thinks there was a historical crucified Jewish cult figure behind the gospels (whether that be a minimal view like that of Bultmann, or a highly fleshed out view like that of N.T Wright). A "mythicist" thinks there was no historical figure. An "ahistoricist" has no conviction either way. Makes sense to me. There are as many quack historicist views as there are mythicist views.

What does the word "historical" mean in that context? Does it mean "demonstrated by methodology used by modern historians", or "real", or something else? (The first is epistemological, the second is ontological, and any others are to be determined.)

It's pretty obvious what toejam means by historical.

I see no difference between what the christian means by saying they know Jesus existed and most who say that Jesus is historical. It is a purely ontological commitment that tells us little other than what the individual believes to be true. So if you think that is quibbling, you may as well still be in a religion.

The quibble comes -- like my own quibble over the meaning of the word "historicist"

That merely deals with the applicability of the term to certain people. It doesn't actually touch on what "historicist" means. You just provide an unanalysed phrase, "historical reality", that may allow some wiggling towards a more relevant meaning, but "historicist" in the context we are dealing with is just a recoining based on "mythicist". It has nothing to do with history as such, other than the colloquial sense of "real in the past", a purely ontological commitment.

-- when addressing other/philosophical issues relating to the semantics used in a specialized discussion. I don't see anything to be gained for anyone who is not a pedant by pushing everyone who uses the terms that are understood well enough in their context into a discussion of philosophy and/or epistemology and/or what moderns classify as ancient historiography.

You can wallow in the confusion that derives from the persistent ambiguity of the terminology. The majority of the use of the term "history" is not about history at all. History specifically deals in how you know. The what you know is insufficient: it must be backed by the how you know, otherwise it is no different from christian faith.

The whole attempt to find the historical Jesus is an effort to retrofit a semblance of historiography to the central christian belief (in light of the development of historiography in the post-enlightenment period). They inherit the what and manufacture the how through hermeneutics.

It is not sufficient to negate that how in order to say that Jesus did not exist, but it is sufficient to say that Jesus was not historical. However, due to the colloquial meaning of "historical", that difference is obscured. Through the rigorous meaning of "historical" you can dismiss the claim of Jesus being historical as unsustainable nonsense. Asserting that Jesus did not exist in the murky context of the available documentary evidence can equally be dismissed as unsustainable nonsense. I'd rather stick with the scholarly understanding of "historical".