Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

cienfuegos wrote:In the Outer Space thread, John T has repeated the claim below:

JohnT wrote:After watching hours of Carrier debates/lectures as well as reading parts of his blog and then reading Ehrman's book, "Did Jesus Exist?" it is abundantly clear that mythicists are not interested in promoting their own religious agenda.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1018&start=180

This viewpoint has been expressed by a number of scholars, including as John T points out, Bart Ehrman. Also, though, it was a theme of Maurice Casey's final book. I want to explore this thought further.

Proposition: Mythicists are only interested in promoting their own religious agendas, not in doing historical research.

Yes or no? What evidence is there to support that proposition? Is this true of all mythicists? Some mythicists? Is there basis for this allegation or is it a case of poisoning the well?

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Answer: Bart Ehrman in his book; "Did Jesus Exsist?" listed several leading mythicists of our time and gave several examples to support the proposition that mythicists (in general) are not interested in doing historical research but in promoting their own religious agenda.
I concur!

Their common goal is to kill Christianity and replace it with atheism.
Some atheists may take offense to that fact but it is the truth.

So, I decided to verify what Ehrman had to say by taking a closer look at the leading mythicist of our time, Richard Carrier.

Richard as an atheist, wants to kill all religious beliefs but his own.(1:37 into the video).
http://youtu.be/HMyudP5z2Xw

Carrier is not interested in doing unbiased historical research on Jesus. If he did then why does he dismiss out of hand, all historical evidence passed down from people who knew Jesus or the people who knew Jesus' disciples; e.g. James the Just (martyred 62 A.D.) or Polycarp of Smyrna (martyred 155 A.D.)? To Carrier, those early Christian leaders were all liars or hallucinating or the scriptures were interpolations.

When pressed as to just what historical evidence/criteria would Carrier accept in proving Jesus was real, this is his response:

"Had Paul said [wrote in his epistles] for example that: Jesus was crucified by the Romans or Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate or in 1Thess2 that the Jews killed him, if Paul actually said that, that would be confirmation of historicity. That would pretty much kill the Jesus is a myth theory. However, Paul never says that."...Richard Carrier

So, out of convenience, Carrier throws out all historical evidence and only allows selective writings of Paul to be used against his myth theory.

"Historical reconstruction based on the principle of convenience. If historical evidence proves inconvenient to one's views then simply claim that the evidence does not exist and suddenly you're right"....Bart Ehrman, "Did Jesus Exist?" pg 118.

Carrier knows full well the epistles of Paul were not about the life and times of Jesus but the message of the gospel and the discipline of the church.

Still even then, Paul writes about the crucifixion of Christ ( but we proclaim Christ crucified 1 Cor1:23) however, Carrier would just say that is a interpolation or that Paul didn't explicitly say who killed Jesus, so by extension that is proof that Jesus is a myth.

Now tell me how can historical scholars take mythicists like Carrier seriously?

His twisted reasoning has no room for historical research but relies heavily on ignorance of others, dogma and propaganda, which in a nut shell is religion.

P.S. Carrier also believes in the hoax of man-made global warming. I wonder if he also believes in the flying spaghetti monster?

Sincerely,
John T

John T wrote: Answer: Bart Ehrman in his book; "Did Jesus Exsist?" listed several leading mythicists of our time and gave several examples to support the proposition that mythicists (in general) are not interested in doing historical research but in promoting their own religious agenda.

I concur!

So it's actually Erhman's comment that mythicists (in general) are ... "promoting their own religious agenda".

Thanks for making that clear. With the examples furnished, this agenda is being described as "anti-religious" .

I may be missing something but the OP only makes sense to me as follows: "Mythicists: Promoting anti-religious agendas?"

Be well,



LC

Not to muddle the waters but the typical mythicist is indeed promoting a religious agenda.

Man is his own god.

"Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not."..Protagoras

Which of course makes atheism a religion, whether they like the term 'religion' or not.

I can not remember exactly how Ehrman wrote it but he basically said most mythicists are really atheists hiding in scholarly clothing and they have an agenda. They hate the Christian God and the influence Christianity has over the western world so much that they are willing to ignore/lie about the historical evidence about Jesus in hopes of promoting among the ignorant the canard that Jesus is a myth.

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Their tactic reminds me of the "Big Lie" by Hitler. That is, tell a "lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." so therefore it must be true.

I will ask it again: Do you really think someone like Carrier would admit that Jesus was real even if a grave was dug up in the Qumran cemetery that had a head stone or scroll that said the body unearthed was one of Jesus 12 disciples and then the DNA from the body and radio carbon dating of the scroll agreed the evidence was from the 1st century A.D.?

Of course not!

So, it is not about historical evidence (or lack thereof) but mainly about trying to discredit Christianity in hopes of replacing it with their more enlightened religion of atheism.

Sincerely,
John T

John T wrote:I will ask it again: Do you really think someone like Carrier would admit that Jesus was real even if a grave was dug up in the Qumran cemetery that had a head stone or scroll that said the body unearthed was one of Jesus 12 disciples and then the DNA from the body and radio carbon dating of the scroll agreed the evidence was from the 1st century A.D.?

Of course not!

So, it is not about historical evidence (or lack thereof) but mainly about trying to discredit Christianity in hopes of replacing it with their more enlightened religion of atheism.

(1) Overwhelming evidence would not convince C.
(2) If overwhelming evidence would not convince C, it is not about historical evidence for C.
(3) Therefore, it is not about historical evidence for C.

Supporting (1) is obviously your problem.

It would be easier for you if we had overwhelming evidence. Then you'd be able to say it is being ignored.

So far all you've done is argue from assertion ("of course"?!). I'm not just taking your word for it...

John T wrote:Not to muddle the waters but the typical mythicist is indeed promoting a religious agenda.

Man is his own god.

"Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not."..Protagoras

Which of course makes atheism a religion, whether they like the term 'religion' or not.

I can not remember exactly how Ehrman wrote it but he basically said most mythicists are really atheists hiding in scholarly clothing and they have an agenda. They hate the Christian God and the influence Christianity has over the western world so much that they are willing to ignore/lie about the historical evidence about Jesus in hopes of promoting among the ignorant the canard that Jesus is a myth.

****************************

Their tactic reminds me of the "Big Lie" by Hitler. That is, tell a "lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." so therefore it must be true.

I will ask it again: Do you really think someone like Carrier would admit that Jesus was real even if a grave was dug up in the Qumran cemetery that had a head stone or scroll that said the body unearthed was one of Jesus 12 disciples and then the DNA from the body and radio carbon dating of the scroll agreed the evidence was from the 1st century A.D.?

Of course not!

So, it is not about historical evidence (or lack thereof) but mainly about trying to discredit Christianity in hopes of replacing it with their more enlightened religion of atheism.

Sincerely,
John T

I've asked you for evidence to support your claim. You keep making assertions or referring to the assertions of others (for example, Ehrman, who thinks Jesus was a deluded, suicidal martyr, but somehow is not promoting a "religious agenda"). I just want you to defend your position.

Having skimmed this thread using the simple heuristic of skipping all mentions of the outside toilet, what we in Australia call a dunny, I would like to confess that I consider myself a religious mythicist. Neil Godfrey has expressed aghast alarm at this confession, but I maintain it is a purely logical and evidence based response to the available information on Christianity. The idea that humanity could do without religion is itself a religious idea, a cosmic theory of meaning and purpose.

My view is that a new Christian reformation is required that will reconcile faith and science. The old idea that Jesus Christ is the mediator between time and eternity, between earth and heaven, can readily be interpreted in scientific terms, as long as we understand that Jesus Christ was a modus vivendi, a symbolic means of depicting the ideal man, the messiah who had to be invented because he did not exist, to paraphrase Voltaire’s comment on God. The supernatural dross was introduced by the popularising orthodoxy, while the original high enlightened gnostic vision was entirely natural.

Mythicism is an extension of the high Calvinist principle that when science and faith conflict, we should go with science. The point is to understand what Calvin in the TULIP acrostic called Total Depravity, the recognition of the fall from grace. A central result of the fall was the need to invent Christ as a saviour, to escape from the slough of despond. As with the invention of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc, Christ was invented on Anselm’s principle that a real God is far better than an imaginary one. So claiming that your God is real gives political traction, and creates a groupthink doublespeak crimestop revulsion towards the thoughtcrime of exposing the invention. Orwell’s Big Brother was modelled on the Pope.

We should keep Christian ritual and ceremony and worship, while recognising that its literal content is built upon a Big Lie. The emotional comfort of baptism and eucharist have a perfectly legitimate social and intellectual role, but these ritual observances lack ethical value while their devotees maintain the delusion that Jesus Christ actually existed.

The religious agenda I promote is to make scientific evidence and reason the highest values. The ineluctable result of this ethical stance is to recognise that Christ did not exist. But Christianity is more than capable of recovering from this insight, and in fact needs it to obtain any credibility and legitimacy.

Peter Kirby wrote:No thesis is without its difficulties. Taking an HJ hypothesis shifts those difficulties away from "how did he get to be human" and towards "how did he get to be divine." So we get all these big books analyzing the mind of Paul and how he turned a crucified peasant into the fulcrum of history and the way to salvation for both Gentile and Jew. Perhaps we're simply more comfortable with the difficulties that the historicity of Jesus position throws up.

Perhaps I have misunderstood, but do you see difficulty in the following?:

1. Israel was desperately seeking their long-predicted Messiah, and expecting him during their generation

2. A religious teacher arose who was thought by some to be the Messiah, and was possibly known of by many people.

3. Seen as a threat to Rome and/or the religious establishment, He got crucified during Passover, possibly due in part to his own anti-Roman actions.

4. Because He and his followers were seen by some as a potential threat to Rome, as would be any Messiah claimant, some initially thought of his death as a way to save Israel from Rome's wrath.

5. Some of his followers thought his spirit was resurrected, and so he went to live with God, whom he had called 'Father'.

6. Some of those that thought of him as a good man or Prophet unjustly killed, began to see his death during Passover as more than just a military sacrifice, but also as a spiritual sacrifice for the sins of Israel -like the sacrificial lambs of Passover, since their domination by Rome and previous nations had always been a direct result of Israel's sins.

7. A mixture of all of the above led religious thinkers to see connections to Messiac scriptures - most powerfully Isaiah 53, resulting in 'insights', maybe even visions, which confirmed to them the idea that Jesus had been the Messiah who had died for the salvation of the people, and so the Christian movement was quickly born.

8. Paul, one of the more gifted of those thinkers, dramatically converted through spiritual 'revelation', and profoundly spread the message throughout the surrounding countries, with an entire arsenal of Jewish scriptures to back him up, promising the same eternal life that Jesus had to those who believe, and was helped by like-minded Hellenistic Jews throughout those lands. His movement was opposed by many of the Jews.

9. About 40 years later, the destruction of the Temple and scattering of the Jews, in conjunction with the failure of Jesus to return with God and his Angels to pronounce Judgement on Rome as many initial believers had expected based on scriptures, caused more to see the 'salvation' as being a personal salvation from sins which results in eternal Life and available not just to Jews, but to Romans and all the Gentiles, both concepts which Paul had been preaching for decades.

Which of these is difficult to swallow?

I will ask it again: Do you really think someone like Carrier would admit that Jesus was real even if a grave was dug up in the Qumran cemetery that had a head stone or scroll that said the body unearthed was one of Jesus 12 disciples and then the DNA from the body and radio carbon dating of the scroll agreed the evidence was from the 1st century A.D.?

Of course not!

So, it is not about historical evidence (or lack thereof) but mainly about trying to discredit Christianity in hopes of replacing it with their more enlightened religion of atheism.

Are you really so deficient in the understanding of simple logic that you do not even realize what is wrong with this imaginary scenario of yours?
Finding the grave of some 1st century 'disciple' of 'Jesus', or yet another christian religion produced scroll (or a hundred more such) would do nothing towards proving whether there actually was once any flesh and blood 'Jesus' behind the Christian mythology claiming that he was the one and only god almighty and the creator of heaven and earth.

What you would have with such a find if genuine, is no more than a bit of actual evidence (at long last) that this death cult did actually exist within the 1st century. It would prove nothing at all regarding a life or death of this death cults cultic godling figurehead.

We already have our fill of christian religious tales full of magical religious malarkey up the wazoo. We already know they exist.
Finding an actual 1st century example, and/or the actual carcass of a cult member would not be particularly earth shaking.
At best it would at last confirm that this cult actually did arise and exist within the 1st century, something yet in dispute, being that not one authenticated 1st century Christian writing or archaeological artifact has ever been found ...but thousands of forgeries, which have been the Zombie Jezuz death cults stock and trade for these last two millennia.

What you need John, to establish 'Jesus' (sic) as an actual figure of history is independent, (non- Christian cult sourced) unquestionably authentic contemporary first hand witness attestation of a first-hand observance of, or interaction with this as yet entirely story-book character.
Good luck with finding that ...rather than stooping to forging such 'evidence', as your dishonest religious forebearers have repeatedly done.

I don't believe in 'Jesus' or in 'Christianity' because of the religious tall tales it is all based upon ...and because of the actual and verifiable history of this notoriously dishonest and murderous cult.

TedM wrote:

Peter Kirby wrote:No thesis is without its difficulties. Taking an HJ hypothesis shifts those difficulties away from "how did he get to be human" and towards "how did he get to be divine." So we get all these big books analyzing the mind of Paul and how he turned a crucified peasant into the fulcrum of history and the way to salvation for both Gentile and Jew. Perhaps we're simply more comfortable with the difficulties that the historicity of Jesus position throws up.

Perhaps I have misunderstood, but do you see difficulty in the following?:

1. Israel was desperately seeking their long-predicted Messiah, and expecting him during their generation

2. A religious teacher arose who was thought by some to be the Messiah, and was possibly known of by many people.

3. Seen as a threat to Rome and/or the religious establishment, He got crucified during Passover, possibly due in part to his own anti-Roman actions.

4. Because He and his followers were seen by some as a potential threat to Rome, as would be any Messiah claimant, some initially thought of his death as a way to save Israel from Rome's wrath.

5. Some of his followers thought his spirit was resurrected, and so he went to live with God, whom he had called 'Father'.

6. Some of those that thought of him as a good man or Prophet unjustly killed, began to see his death during Passover as more than just a military sacrifice, but also as a spiritual sacrifice for the sins of Israel -like the sacrificial lambs of Passover, since their domination by Rome and previous nations had always been a direct result of Israel's sins.

7. A mixture of all of the above led religious thinkers to see connections to Messiac scriptures - most powerfully Isaiah 53, resulting in 'insights', maybe even visions, which confirmed to them the idea that Jesus had been the Messiah who had died for the salvation of the people, and so the Christian movement was quickly born.

8. Paul, one of the more gifted of those thinkers, dramatically converted through spiritual 'revelation', and profoundly spread the message throughout the surrounding countries, with an entire arsenal of Jewish scriptures to back him up, promising the same eternal life that Jesus had to those who believe, and was helped by like-minded Hellenistic Jews throughout those lands. His movement was opposed by many of the Jews.

9. About 40 years later, the destruction of the Temple and scattering of the Jews, in conjunction with the failure of Jesus to return with God and his Angels to pronounce Judgement on Rome as many initial believers had expected based on scriptures, caused more to see the 'salvation' as being a personal salvation from sins which results in eternal Life and available not just to Jews, but to Romans and all the Gentiles, both concepts which Paul had been preaching for decades.

Which of these is difficult to swallow?

4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

John T wrote:Not to muddle the waters but the typical mythicist is indeed promoting a religious agenda.

Man is his own god.

I see 'man as his own god' only in the sense that certain individuals are inclined to fabricate an entirely imaginary sky-buddy within their own minds, and then hold pretend 'conversations' with this figment of their imaginations where they provide ALL of the dialog for this 'god' made in their own image and likeness. One that not so amazingly always thinks just like they do. Hating whatever or whomever it is that they hate, ...while excusing whomever they are willing to excuse.

Other than that, from my atheistic position, No, man is not god, man is just another of this earths many evolved mammalian species. Born, eating, shitting, procreating, and then dying just like all the rest.
Howbeit men, because they are more highly evolved, possess vivid imaginations, which can when infected with religion and/or a religious fervor, become the most dangerous of all the beasts on earth, willingly becoming associates of the murderers of millions over the least differences of politics, religious ideologies, or ethnicity.

Which of course makes atheism a religion, whether they like the term 'religion' or not.

As an individual atheist, it really doesn't much bother me that you or your brain addled ilk would choose to term my resistance to your insane fabricated religious tales as being a 'religion' in itself.
Certainly I am willing to admit that the struggle for bringing an end to ignorance, superstition, and to those inhumane prejudices and injustices being perpetrated upon my fellow man under the guise of being ancient 'religious' beliefs, is an ethical obligation and a humanitarian pursuit that I am compassionately, even 'religiously' compelled to, and am proud to be a part of.

They hate the Christian God and the influence Christianity has over the western world so much that they are willing to ignore/lie about the historical evidence about Jesus in hopes of promoting among the ignorant the canard that Jesus is a myth.

'Hate the Christian God'? As there is nothing there ...other than a rather Silly Putty fabrication that each christer molds so as to suit their own persuasions, predilections and personalities ...the hatred is not of your imaginary god, but of those religious superstitions and lies you and your ilk peddle. ...and the needless unjust discrimination, suffering, wars, and death that such vile teachings bring.

There is no historical evidence about 'Jesus', all there are, is a bunch of self-contradictory religious tales composed by unknown writers writing under religious pseudonym's decades after the mythical events they purport to report. ...and of course that steady stream of religious horse shit being fabricated daily by deluded and lying 'witnesses' for christ.

Their tactic reminds me of the "Big Lie" by Hitler.

Which reminds me of ''THE GREATEST (fabricated, lying) STORY EVER TOLD'.
Greater STORY than any that Hitler could have came up with. Really The BIGGEST pack of lies ever told. ... I'm sure you are somewhat familiar with it?

So, it is not about historical evidence (or lack thereof)

Yes, I expect that you would like to be able to push your Chinese whispers superstitious death cult nonsense without being required to back it up with any evidence from a real and verifiable history.

.....but mainly about trying to discredit Christianity in hopes of replacing it with their more enlightened religion of atheism.

Really don't need to discredit it. Its bogus religious claims and lies, its verifiably unjust and violent history, as well as the moral corruption and hypocrisy of its leaders and practitioners both past and present, are fully sufficient to do that job more than well enough.
But the universe has been around for billions of years, will go on indefinitely, and eventually mankind will evolve enough to see through and leave all of these old lying religious myths behind, or go into extinction like so many other life-forms before them.
We have met mankind's mortal enemy, and behold, he looks just like us.


Sincerely,
Sheshbazzar