Resource for Mythicist and Response Documentation

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Chrissy Hansen
Posts: 546
Joined: Thu Jun 25, 2020 2:46 pm

Re: Resource for Mythicist and Response Documentation

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

Writing a detailed and accurate history means more than just looking at the arguments and noting their trajectories and historical cores in other theories, etc. It means also looking at what factors play into mythicisms popularity, or what contributes to its loss of popularity. It also isn't a "personal life" issue. Sexually harassing, then suing, and being banned from Skepticon are all *public* matters. Which, because he received a lot of PR in the community, it is directly pertinent to whether or not his book will have enduring popularity and if it does, how that popularity will be affected.

Historical analysis requires us to discuss unfortunate and uncomfortable things. If I were writing a book on quest for the historicity of Jesus, I would do the *exact same thing.* This is how histories are done, whether one likes it or not. You cannot do a complete nor competent history of mythicism without discussing its uncomfortable links and bad PR.
Chrissy Hansen
Posts: 546
Joined: Thu Jun 25, 2020 2:46 pm

Re: Resource for Mythicist and Response Documentation

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

Now if you want to call this "poisoning the well" so be it. I will just take note that you think so little of me and of proper history that you can't stand negative PR and must cry intellectual dishonesty if it comes your way.
Chrissy Hansen
Posts: 546
Joined: Thu Jun 25, 2020 2:46 pm

Re: Resource for Mythicist and Response Documentation

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

This is the last I'm talking on the matter. If one does not like thorough history that may turn up bad things, so be it. It is no one's fault but your own though.

I respect you Giuseppe, but I don't appreciate it when people accuse me of dishonest tactics which are not my intent.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Resource for Mythicist and Response Documentation

Post by Giuseppe »

Chris Hansen wrote: Sun Jun 28, 2020 8:43 pm "Carrier's paradigm", again applying it to Price is anachronism. You are just making everything Carrier-centric. It is honestly rather disheartening that you make the whole of mythicism revolve around Carrier.
Compare by yourself:

As these free-lance apostles lost out to consolidating church institutions, history was rewritten to depict a limited number of twelve apostles who had been pupils of a historical Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 1:21-22). This was the work of what Käsemann called nascent Catholicism.[13] It was part of the same theological transformation whereby the myth of the
slaying of the Man of Light by the archons before the foundation of the world was rewritten as the historical crucifixion of a human being, Jesus Christ, at the hands of the Sanhedrin and the Roman procurator.
As the extraction and seeding of the spiritual photons of the Son of Man had enlivened the new-made earth, so the blood of Jesus was now said to redeem the souls of humanity.

(Robert M. Price, The Amazing Colossal Apostle, p. 144, my bold)

“At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was though to be a celestial deity much like any other.
“Like many other celestial deities, this Jesus ‘communicated’ with his subjects only through dreams, visions and other forms of divine inspiration (such as prophecy, past and present).
“Like some other celestial deities, this Jesus was originally believed to have endured an ordeal of incarnation, death, burial and resurrection in a supernatural realm.
“As for many other celestial deities, an allegorical story of this same Jesus was then composed and told within the sacred community, which placed him on earth, in history, as a divine man, with an earthly family, companions, and enemies, complete with deeds and sayings, and an earthly depiction of his ordeals.
“Subsequent communities of worshipers believed (or at least taught) that this invented sacred story was real (and either not allegorical or only ‘additionally’ allegorical).”

(Richard Carrier, On the historicity of Jesus, p. 53)

Even a blind realizes that here Price's case is a mere instance of the Carrier's paradigm. As any instance worhty of this name, it introduces his specific elements ('Man of Light', 'photons', 'before the foundation of world', etc), but it is still an instance that can be easily classified under Carrier's paradigm. Hence the merits of the instance become merits of the paradigm. Hence the merits of Price become merits of Carrier.

if you are devoted to a sociological analysis, I am ok with that, hence I am ok with your mention of nazi mythicists, just as I like your reference to the historical 'Aryan Jesus' as useful propaganda of regime and particularly the fact that the nazis were more historicists than mythicists (even if you mean to classify them as 'identity historicity' to distinguish them from 'normal' historicists).

But my suspicions that you are poisoning the well with Carrier are founded. When, for your same admission:
Carrier himself in his lawsuit claimed that the harassment case may have hurt his book sales and popularity. Therefore it is directly relevant.
...I see that you are doing the exact contrary of the thing wanted by Carrier. He said that the fact that Richard Pervo was a pedophile should not influence minimally our (positive) views about his book on Acts. So also Carrier doesn't like that his private problems influence the judgement on his views in history.

All here.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
User avatar
maryhelena
Posts: 2877
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:22 pm
Location: England

Re: Resource for Mythicist and Response Documentation

Post by maryhelena »

If it's the perfect man we seek we seek a phantom.

Arguments against the claimed historicity of Jesus of Nazareth will not fall to 'woke' attempts to discredit them - or those individuals who present them.

Ideas are powerful things - they don't fall by way of the hammer or kneel when faced with human failings.

Nelson Mandela is reported to have said that no man takes away his dignity. Mandela stood tall in spite of his own failings (the violence of the armed struggle of uMkhonto we Sizwe) and his years of imprisonment.

Searching for human failings is easy - we all have plenty of them. Negativity, however, is not the root to human greatness.

Rhodes may well fall to the 'woke' onslaught - but, methinks, Churchill will be the Rubicon it won't cross.

Image
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Resource for Mythicist and Response Documentation

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Chris Hansen wrote: Sun Jun 28, 2020 8:26 pmTry learning how themes work. Cherry picking is also fallacious, so it demonstrates your argument is baseless logically.

....

Your points about literalism are irrelevant.

....

You quoted out of context and without historical literacy. It is fallacious, and also a disingenuous misconstruing of Wyatt's positions, since he refutes the dying-rising template for Baal.

....

If so, then you prove that your case is so flimsy and lacking in methodological rigor that it your Baal argument is even worse off.
We are obviously done here. Good talk. :cheers: :tombstone:
ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
Chrissy Hansen
Posts: 546
Joined: Thu Jun 25, 2020 2:46 pm

Re: Resource for Mythicist and Response Documentation

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

"...I see that you are doing the exact contrary of the thing wanted by Carrier. He said that the fact that Richard Pervo was a pedophile should not influence minimally our (positive) views about his book on Acts. So also Carrier doesn't like that his private problems influence the judgement on his views in history."

It doesn't particularly matter what Carrier wants when it comes to recording detailed history. And, frankly, the fact that Pervo was a pedophile SHOULD influence our views of his work. You cannot fundamentally separate scholarship from the person, because scholarship is as much a product of personal mind as it is a product of academia. There is an actual ethic to citation.

Regardless, an accurate history must take note of these details. It does not matter at all whether someone wishes for it or not. Their wishes are not to impede a proper and accurate history be done, and frankly, after all the PhD academics who have helped me with my work read through, not a single one was against me doing this (not even mythicist ones). So, your argument is unfounded. If it affects the ability of mythicism to spread around in popular or academic circles, then it is worth noting, irregardless of the effects it has. I would do this whether I was a historicist or mythicist, I would do this whether I was writing a history of historicism or mythicism, and I would do this regardless of what the author would expressly wish.

People's squeamish attitudes do *not* get in the way of history.

And I'm done with the paradigm argument. It is anachronistic and Carrier has no monopoly on the paradigm. It isn't even a paradigm as I would define it either, i.e. in the Kuhnian sense.
Chrissy Hansen
Posts: 546
Joined: Thu Jun 25, 2020 2:46 pm

Re: Resource for Mythicist and Response Documentation

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

maryhelena wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 12:20 am If it's the perfect man we seek we seek a phantom.

Arguments against the claimed historicity of Jesus of Nazareth will not fall to 'woke' attempts to discredit them - or those individuals who present them.

Ideas are powerful things - they don't fall by way of the hammer or kneel when faced with human failings.

Nelson Mandela is reported to have said that no man takes away his dignity. Mandela stood tall in spite of his own failings (the violence of the armed struggle of uMkhonto we Sizwe) and his years of imprisonment.

Searching for human failings is easy - we all have plenty of them. Negativity, however, is not the root to human greatness.

Rhodes may well fall to the 'woke' onslaught - but, methinks, Churchill will be the Rubicon it won't cross.
It isn't a 'woke' onslaught.

If I were writing a history of Nelson Mandela, I would talk about his failings. If I were writing a history of Acts scholarship, I would Pervo's predilection for pedophilia.

In fact, I am becoming somewhat well-known for tracking sexual harassment and assault of all kinds.
https://cmepshansen9.wixsite.com/mysite ... ies-a-list

If something is going to affect the history and spread of mythicism, it is worth mentioning. It is not a 'woke' attempt. It is called historical accuracy. And if mythicists don't like that I'm being accurate in my history... well it does not exactly reflect well on their own ability to be consistent with the view that we should be accurate historians.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Resource for Mythicist and Response Documentation

Post by Giuseppe »

Chris Hansen wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 5:11 amand frankly, after all the PhD academics who have helped me with my work read through, not a single one was against me doing this (not even mythicist ones). So, your argument is unfounded.
In my eyes this does not stand in their favor of all of them. At the most, but just at the most (!), you could make "history" by reporting his private matters if Carrier was already dead and buried. But to my knowledge he isn't. It escapes here the difference between mere defamation and 'report of history'.

At any case, as interested to mythicism, I enjoy your book, even if I should tolerate all that anti-mythicist gossip of background more or less implicit.

As to paradigm, between you and prof Stevan Davies, I know definitely who follow.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: Resource for Mythicist and Response Documentation

Post by Giuseppe »

Remove from me a curiosity, please: are you a Christian?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Post Reply