Quest of the mythical Jesus available online

[MrMacSon]

I've read most leading scholarship on Simonian tradition ...

Have you read the paper I referred to above? -

Jan N. Bremmer , 'Simon Magus: The Invention and Reception of a Magician in a Christian Context', Religion in the Roman Empire (RRE), Vol. 5 (2019) / no. 2, pp. 246-270 (25).

(I haven't, yet. I'm interested in how it might relate to other Simon Magus literature).

[Chrissy Hansen]

Not yet, but I'm going to be buying it in the coming weeks. I'm working on an article on why I don't think Simon existed and why the Christian literature on him does not have any historical core (it is a fact that none of the Christian authors we have knew or were familiar with any supposed Simonians first hand, and relied primarily on rumor, hence why Justin Martyr's information is considered by basically every scholar to be unreliable trite).

I'm fully of the opinion that Simon was invented in Acts as a literary polemical double for Jesus, and basically everything that followed in Christian literature is of a similar vein. If there were Simonians, I'm highly doubtful anything that is reported about them amounts to anything more than a polemic, personally.

[Chrissy Hansen]

I'd add, using a term like "mythicism" where the key component is "myth" I think would require just as much justification, especially since the term "myth" is basically nonsensical as used throughout this world commonly. Hence why I am so apprehensive about virtually every term as applied in this debate. I'm also not offering terms as they would be commonly used, because colloquial definitions are the reason we are in the mess we are. I'm arguing for academic, rigorous, and highly specific terms being used. Terms whose only definition amounts to levels "certainty" are just specious, because they are automatically subjective and offer no concrete or categorical values.

[Paul the Uncertain]

Just to tie off the early source evidence on Simon, Helen and the Simonians, and what's at stake for different interests:

Justin's testimony comes in two surviving parts (we've lost a possible third part which might have discussed Simonian beliefs).

One extant part is plainly debunked: he misread the inscription on a type of Roman statue, and from that inferred a visit by Simon to Claudian Rome. We have an example of the type of statue in question, and we can see how Justin misinterpreted it. That "visit to Rome" takes on a life of its own in later Christian literature, and in Clementine material, Peter shoots Simon out of the skies over the Forum. Um, no, that didn't happen, either.

The other extant part? Justin says Simon has many enthusiastic followers in Samaria. Justin is from the area, he can say this of his own knowledge. Origen served in the area, he found some Simonians, too. He also says Celsus found some Helen-followers (we can't confirm Origen, but his report is of lived experience by an author he's reading).

Cyril offers nothing from his own knowledge about Simonians, but his views on who were the anti-Christs (and not pseudo-Christs) of 1 John remain interesting. Independent of Cyril and regardless of the possible dependence of the epistle on the Fourth Gospel, nevertheless, John 8:48 offers as good evidence as the canonical gospels offer about any question of fact that sometime during the "Gospel Era," some Chirstian exhibited concern about somebody confusing Christ Jesus with some Samaritan with a demon.

I have no stake in whether Simon existed, and for my limited purposes, I have no stake in what Simonians really taught. (Interested, surely, and I thank Mr MacSon for the lead.)

It suffices for me to establish what ancient Christians thought some of their opponents taught to impose a burden on living apologists to impeach their own sources.

On your remark about myth and other terminology:

I can only agree. But the difficulty isn't peculiar to this debate or this set of partially opposed and partially intersecting possible stances. All I would ask is to avoid adopting unnecessarily loaded terms.

Agnosticism is a peculiar word, because it was coined by a conscious act of will, and whittled down in its range of application as it became common currency. All of that in modern times, each step written down. Folk etymology has chosen to emphasize its negative character (uncertainty whether a proposed set of hypothetical beings is empty) rather than its positive aspect (holding that the set of problems beyond disposition by secular inquiry isn't empty).

The HJ-MJ question is resloutely secular and in principle (if not in practice) resolvable by ordinary types of evidence. It is nothing like the Question of God.

There is little point adopting a pithy word to designate a position if you then need to spend a paragraph explaining how that word applies, and how the distinguishing aspects of what the word has always meant in the domain where you found it don't apply to this new usage.

You want a term that designates somebody who believes we face an open secular question of fact. You don't want a term loaded with religious import.

[Chrissy Hansen]

So, actually most people doubt he had any familiarity with Samaria or the Samaritans at all. In other places, Justin claims to be a Gentile. If you want an overview, read S. Haar's book, Simon Magus: The First Gnostic?. The fact that Justin couldn't get the inscriptions right indicates he probably misunderstood, by second hand information at best, the Samaritans worshiping a pagan god for them worshiping Simon. In any case, all his evidence is worthless.

If you have no interest in what the Simonians really taught, then the claim they were mythicist is... well unable to be founded.

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THe HJ-MJ question has never been resolutely secular in any way. It is firmly a development out of anti-Christian sentiment and pro-revolutionary movement. The whole debate only exists to attack Christianity, that is literally how it started. Our earliest references are all to people who were adamantly against orthodoxy and using it to attack the orthodox Christian faith.

And again, if there is "little point adopting a pithy word to designate a position if you then need to spend a paragraph explaining how that word applies" then we shouldn't use mythicism, because the term is just as nonsensical as it is used in this debate. Lena Einhorn is a historicist, but she is called a mythicist. Alvar Ellegard, W. C. van Manen, A. D. Loman (who switched back to historicity), and G. R. S. Mead are too. Also, all of these terms being used have a huge amount of religious import. The term mythicism exists because it developed as a polemical term by conservative Christians for D. F. Strauss' work. It was then applied to Arthur Drews and others by people like T. J. Thorburn.

I did a whole history of the term. It is just as Christianized and religious in connotation as any other term. But this is the problem with mythicists today in general. They don't know their own history.

[Paul the Uncertain]

So, actually most people doubt he had any familiarity with Samaria or the Samaritans at all. In other places, Justin claims to be a Gentile.

Not my problem. Let's review the terms of our discussion:

Resolved: No ancient commentator on Christianity asserted that Jesus wasn't a real person.

The burden is on the affirmative to make its case. Justin is one of my opponents' sources for what was taught and what needed rebuttal apologetics in ancient times. If they roll over on him, why should I lift a finger to stop them?

In generosity to my opponents, however, there is no logical impediment to the same person having been a resident of Samaria and a Gentile. (And Justin did get the inscriptions right enough for us to know what he was looking at and that he'd misinterpreted it. Where the rest of his ideas about Simon's Roman Adventure came from beats me.)

Thank you for the pointer, however. I have an interest in Simon for some wider matters than the narrow issue before us currently.

In any case, all his evidence is worthless.

Also in generosity to my opponents, that's not your call.

If you have no interest in what the Simonians really taught, then the claim they were mythicist is... well unable to be founded.

It's not my claim, it's the claim of my opponents' sources. If their testimony is "unable to be founded," then my work is done here.

It's certainly possible that the resolved is true. I can even make an argument for it. Briefly, "Jesus didn't exist" isn't an argument, it's a fact claim. Given that there were actual arguments against Christian teaching available, why would anybody waste bandwidth to pursue a non-argument instead?

Nevertheless, the resolved is facially impossible to establish on an incomplete record of ancient teaching. In the incomplete record that survives, there is testimony from sources firendly to my opponents to the contrary of the resolved.

I honestly do believe that the resolved fails.

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It is firmly a development out of anti-Christian sentiment and pro-revolutionary movement.

The question, however, is secular.

Obviously, a book about the history of the question is going to focus on the people who've been interested enough in the question to write about it (or these days, make a video or a podcast). No doubt those people have other commitments in their lives besides the one that brought them to your attention.

Peachy, but irrelevant to the character of the question.

I defer to you about what kind of people have been attracted to the question in the past 450 years +/-. As to whether the question is secular: it is. That's not a personal choice for anybody to make.

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Lena Einhorn is a historicist, but she is called a mythicist.

So I've heard, and I believe I've heard her speak to the mistake.

Part of her difficulty is that she does teach that the canonical gospels are fictive, and if they are fictive, then they are fairly called myths based on their content. That's just how English is spoken. She is not a Jesus mythicist, she just thinks he's the focal character of a traditional morality tale filled with heroic and magical deeds about the origins of a larger-than-any-nation group. The potential for confusion is there, and Murphy's Law bites: such potential will occasionally be realized.

So far as I know, any word at all can be misused, any category mistakenly applied. I don't see that much follows from that for the fate of any particular word.

They don't know their own history.

Kids these days, eh?

[Chrissy Hansen]

"It's not my claim, it's the claim of my opponents' sources. If their testimony is "unable to be founded," then my work is done here."

Your opponents sources never say they denied an incarnation of Jesus in the past. They just said it was Jesus and he wasn't flesh. And could you just stop with the whole "resolved" language. Just makes things confusing and unnecessary.

"The question, however, is secular."

There is no such thing as a question that is inherently secular or not. A question is a question. Whether it is secular or not, depends on the context within which it is asked... and mythicism is rarely asked in a secular context.

"fictive, then they are fairly called myths"

See my introduction. This is a critical misunderstanding of what "myth" is. In fact, there is no consensus of what "myth" is in any academic sense. I suggest reading Russell McCutcheon. This is why the term "mythicism" cannot be defined by its connection to the word myth.

"So far as I know, any word at all can be misused, any category mistakenly applied. I don't see that much follows from that for the fate of any particular word."

And I don't see why agnostic having been (most erroneously) used in a religious context means it cannot be used in a new context for Jesus agnostic (full term I use). Mythicism is, historically, a religious polemic term (and it continues to be used in that way). So, I really don't see how it is any more exempt than agnosticism.

"Kids these days, eh?"

Yeah, I'm (by my own admission) a bit of a grumpy grandpa about mythicism's lack of knowledge about its history.

[Paul the Uncertain]

Your opponents sources never say they denied an incarnation of Jesus in the past.

So? There's no foundation for that reading of their report of what someone whom they believed to be a contemporary of Jesus and the first apostles said. You have more degrees of freedom than my opponents do.

And could you just stop with the whole "resolved" language. Just makes things confusing and unnecessary.

Peter Kirby tells me what I can and cannot write here.

Resolved and the longer "Oxford Union" form Be it resolved that are the conventional language of formal debate, and identify who has what burden in a discussion. Without a stated resolution, who has what burden is undefined, and somebody might have been confused about what my burden is. He sure acted like it.

There is no such thing as a question that is inherently secular or not.

Who won the 2016 United States Presidential election?

Whether it is secular or not, depends on the context within which it is asked.

Only if the context changes the referents of the terms used in formulating it.

"Who's depicted in the portrait over there?" If you're in the Sistine chapel, secular or not might depend on where you're pointing when you ask.

The question of Jesus's historicity is generally sufficiently well-posed to place it in the same category as the question of the historicity of Julius Caesar, Pythagoras, ..., Cicero's slave Marcus, and so on. Context isn't going to change the meanings of the words used.

This is a critical misunderstanding of what "myth" is.

Your complaint isn't with me, it's with the English language.

One of the well-attested meanings of myth isn't even a literary form: a widely held but mistaken view (in the opinion of the speaker); example: The myth of American exceptionalism unites Trump's political base.

Face it: there are some Jesus mythers whose idea of myth may be exactly that (i.e. that Jesus was a real person: is it widely held?, check, is it a mistaken view in the opinion of the speaker?, check).

They're educated native speakers, too; they have the same vote you do.

And I don't see why agnostic having been (most erroneously) used in a religious context means it cannot be used in a new context for Jesus agnostic (full term I use).

I can't stop you, of course. I'll just resist you.

Hey, welcome to authorship, where every reader is an editor. Some of them literally so.

[Giuseppe]

Chris,

I can't imagine what I have seen today reading the Carrier's post (follow the link):

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archive ... ment-30378

My first thought has been: does Carrier allow the presence of it?

[Chrissy Hansen]

To Giuseppe:

I think that Carrier's statement in the comments, "rarely do historians read an entire work; they only read the portions of a book or article that they need" kind of sums up just how much he lacks the ability to do what he wants others to do with his own work. He outright claims that scholars rarely read an entire work, but then everywhere else has the audacity to accuse others of not reading his whole book. It is honestly kind of hilarious just how little self awareness he has and how he just shot his own allegations against scholars in the foot.
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Now as for what Carrier is allowing... well in my opinion, that he is putting up with that demonstrates rather plainly just how little commitment he has toward having a good community to harbor mythicism in. He isn't willing to put in the self policing. But it goes back to my statements on mythicism and its connections with these groups too. It is really unfortunate, but I think it is rather predictable of Carrier's character to allow Nazis in his chats. I also think it is rather telling of what kind of product he promotes that he is attracting these people.

All the more reason for us to distance ourselves from him where possible, in my opinion.

But thanks for bringing this to my awareness. I just documented all of this.