Dr. Sarah's Friendly Refutation of all Mythicism

[rgprice]

I would say that the case I put forward in Deciphering the Gospels is fundamentally different from many other "mythicist" arguments, such as those put forward by Carrier and Doherty.

The Doherty case, and many related mythicist cases, argument primarily that the "original" worshiper of Jesus were worshiping a heavenly being who was crucified in heaven.

This is not really something I address or spend time on.

Instead, I focus on understanding the Gospel narratives and attempting to determine the intent of the authors and the sources used by the authors. So its an entirely different approach, and this just happens to be the approach that made sense to me. I also disputed the claims of many mythicists and was not convinced by Doherty's case. It wasn't until I started understanding the scriptural references in the Gospels that I started to conclude that the account of the life of Jesus was not based on, or even inspired by, the life of a real person.

So for me, instead of focusing on the pre-Gospel origins of Christianity and trying to show that pre-Gospel writers were talking about a heavenly Jesus, I focus on understanding the prevenance of the New Testament writings and the basis for the Gospel narratives. IMO, once it is determined that the Gospel narratives aren't based on based on any kind of account of a real person and that the writers weren't working from any information even claimed to come from accounts of a real person, then everything else falls into line from that.

[Giuseppe]

So for me, instead of focusing on the pre-Gospel origins of Christianity and trying to show that pre-Gospel writers were talking about a heavenly Jesus,

I understand that you would like to sound (rightly) original with the your theory of Mark (and I like a lot your solution to the Synoptic Problem and the Reductio ad Paulum applied on Mark), but it is a great error to ignore the pre-Gospel traditions, especially when you recognize that the original Paul and the Ascension of Isaiah share the same belief about a heavenly entity crucified by heavenly entities, even if also there you believe in the originality of the 'pocket gospel').

Otherwise how can you answer to historicist objections that there is a historical Jesus in Paul?


For me there would be one (Jesus ben Sapphas) if Paul post-dates the 70 CE, but with a pre-70 Paul very probably there was not a historical Jesus.

[rgprice]

So for me, instead of focusing on the pre-Gospel origins of Christianity and trying to show that pre-Gospel writers were talking about a heavenly Jesus,

I understand that you would like to sound (rightly) original with the your theory of Mark (and I like a lot your solution to the Synoptic Problem and the Reductio ad Paulum applied on Mark), but it is a great error to ignore the pre-Gospel traditions, especially when you recognize that the original Paul and the Ascension of Isaiah share the same belief about a heavenly entity crucified by heavenly entities, even if also there you believe in the originality of the 'pocket gospel').

Otherwise how can you answer to historicist objections that there is a historical Jesus in Paul?


For me there would be one (Jesus ben Sapphas) if Paul post-dates the 70 CE, but with a pre-70 Paul very probably there was not a historical Jesus.

I agree that stuff needs to be address, it just wasn't the focus of the case I made in Deciphering the Gospels. IMO address the content of the Gospels is also more concrete nad easy for people to grasp. Its less speculative and more demonstrable.

[dbz]

The content of the Gospels is also more concrete and easy for people to grasp. Its less speculative and more demonstrable.

Which brings us full circle

Kurt Noll’s hypothesis is that Jesus—real or not—would result in the fake historicity presented in the gospels as a Darwinian claim for who really learned from Jesus on Earth and what he said and did “for real bro”.

Quite possibly, but why would that lead to the gospel authors inventing earthly biographies for Jesus if they believed him to have been a heavenly being who visited earth only to pass on pronouncements? We know that, whatever the early Christians believed about Jesus’s existence on Earth, they certainly believed he could visit Earth following his death to make announcements and tell his followers things. The gospel authors could easily enough have written a story about a Jesus who did that. Why invent an earthly life, in the recent past, with all the biographical details, just to show Jesus making declarations that he could have made as a heavenly figure?

an analysis of Paul’s dispute with Cephas and James and its provocation of an eventual break with Judaism […] a “historical” Jesus had become necessary for the success of Paul’s doctrines

Which all raises another question about the theory that the gospels were written to promote the Pauline viewpoint; why, in that case, do they shy away so much from the one major question on which we know Paul and the pillars clashed? According to Paul’s account in Galatians, the main problem was that Paul thought the law was now obsolete while Cephas, James, et al. wanted to stick with it. Why would gospels written to promote the Pauline viewpoint not just have Jesus saying straight out that the law was now obsolete?

But we don’t; in fact, in one gospel we have the complete opposite, with Jesus cited as stating that every detail of the law was still in place. Even setting that aside as a possible interpolation by someone from a different branch of the early church, we just don’t see Jesus coming out with Paul’s viewpoint here. The gospel authors do all make much of Jesus supposedly arguing with Pharisees about the Sabbath laws… except that, as we now have records of rabbinical teaching, we know that Pharisaic law wouldn’t have banned faith-healing on the Sabbath, and that the arguments Jesus used in favour of Sabbath healing were Pharisaic arguments. There’s a comment tagged onto Jesus’s handwashing argument that could be translated as ‘Thus he declared all foods clean’, but we don’t see Jesus declaring all foods clean.

So the question is not just ‘why would someone write fictional biographies about the imagined earthly life of a heavenly being just to show him making pronouncements to people?’, it’s also ‘having done that, why would they not even show him making the pronouncements they wanted made?’

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--Dr Sarah says June 25, 2023 at 5:29 am

If it is a given that gMark was a fictional creation from day one as argued by Price.

…which you know it isn’t, because you’ve seen the multiple posts I’ve written pointing out the flaws in Price’s theory…

Then gMatthew is updating and correcting gMark. Then gLuke is updating and correcting gMark & gMatthew.

I’ve already discussed the problems with this at https://freethoughtblogs.com/geekyhuman ... ix-part-2/.

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--Dr Sarah says June 25, 2023 at 5:29 am

In the Gospel of Mark the Jesus figure is most unlike any ordinary human figure in ancient (or modern) literature. He is a human, of course, with brothers and sisters and a mother, and he eats and drinks. But he is unlike any other figure in works that we know to be ancient biographies or histories. . . . With that background, the two horns of the dilemma are modified somewhat:

• • If Jesus did exist, we have to explain how, within a relatively short time of his death, he was being spoken of as some kind of mythical semi-deity in the writings of some of his followers.
  • If Jesus was a myth from the start, on the other hand, we have the reverse problem of having to explain how he then came to be written about and taught about as a parabolic or allegorical type of person who walked the face of the earth conversing with humans and spirits and did many inexplicable things and spoke in ways that his hearers did not understand.

Or maybe I should make the dilemma a triceratops with a third horn:

• • If Jesus was a myth from the start, on the other hand, we have the reverse problem of having to explain how two of the three canonical evangelists [viz. Matthew and Luke following after the earliest: Mark] . . . “corrected” his account [as given by Mark] and made him and his followers a little more realistically human.

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--Godfrey, Neil (26 November 2018). "A Response to Dr Sarah, Geeky Humanist, on the Jesus Question". Vridar.

[rgprice]

Yeah, my view is that all of these, "We have to explain this or that" hypothetical questions totally miss the point. One has to follow the data, period. "Why would someone write this, why would they write that?"

These issues are irrelevant when one has not established the writer's intent.

Here is the story of Publius which comes to us from a 2nd century text, but is believed to have been composed in the first century BCE:

After the rites had been discharged General Publius began to rave and behave in a deranged manner, making many utterances in a state of divine possession, of which some were in verse and some in prose. When word of this matter reached the ordinary soldiers, they all rushed to Publius's tent, partly from anxiety and amazement that the best man among them, an experienced leader, had fallen into such a state and partly from a wish to hear what he was saying. As a result some men were pressed together so powerfully that they were suffocated.

The following utterance in verse was made by him while he was still inside the tent.
[a long prophecy that I'm not going to re-type]

After he had proclaimed these verses he darted out of the tent in his tunic and made the following utterance in prose. "I reveal, soldiers and citizens, that crossing over from Europe to Asia you will overcome King Antiochos in battles at sea and on land, and become master of all the land on this side of the Tauros and of all the cities established in it, having driven Antiochos into Syria; this land and these cities will be handed over to the sons of Attalos. The Celts dwelling in Asia who face you in battle will be worsted, and you will take possession of their women and children and all of their household goods, and convey them to Europe. But European costal-dwellers, the Thracians of the Propontis and Hellespont, will attack you around the land of the Ainioi as you return from your campaign, killing some of your men and capturing some of your booty. When the others have some safely through and been conveyed to Rome, there will be a treaty with King Antiochos, according to which he will pay money and withdraw from a certain region."

When he had made this proclamation he cried out the following in a loud voice.

"I see bronze-chested forces crossing over from Asia, kings gathering together into one place, men of every nation against Europe, and the din of horses, the clashing of spears, gory slaughter, terrible plundering, the fall of towers, the razing of city walls, and the unspeakable desolation of the land."

After this be spoke again in verse.
[a long prophecy that I'm not going to re-type]

After he had uttered this he fell silent, and proceeding outside the camp he climbed up a certain oak tree. The crowd followed, and he called to them: ‘Romans and other soldiers, it falls to me to die and be devoured by a huge red wolf on this very day, but as for you, know that everything I have said is going to happen to you: take the imminent appearance of the beast and my own destruction as proof that I have spoken by divine intimation.’

Saying this, he told them to stand aside and not to prevent the approach of the beast, saying that it would not be to their benefit to drive it away. The crowd followed his bidding, and presently the wolf came. When Publius saw it, he came down from the oak tree and fell upon his back, whereupon the wolf ripped him open and devoured him while everyone looked on. Having consumed his body except for his head it turned away to the mountain. When the crowd now approached, wishing to take up the remains and give them a proper burial, the head, which lay on the ground, proclaimed these verses:
[a long prophecy that I'm not going to re-type]

When they heard this they were extremely upset. After constructing a temple to Apollo Lykios and an alter at the place where he lay, they embarked on their ships, and each person sailed to his own land. Everything foretold by Publius came to pass.

Of this narrative, classicist J. R. Morgan notes, “close analysis of the passage demonstrates that the whole thing is a farrago put together by a redactor during the Mithridatic War, adapting and combining narrative and prophetic material from several earlier contexts. From the perspective of 88 B.C. the piece is clear propaganda of resistance to Rome, using earlier oracles to demonstrate its own validity but also pointing to future defeats for the Romans which never in fact occurred.”

Now, not a single classicist claims that this narrative is based in any way shape or form on any real events. Everyone acknowledges that this is an entirely and completely made up story invented y the writer. And, if we were to find 4 or 5 or 20 variants of this story, all saying basically the same thing but with a few minor changes, everyone would likely agree that all of the variants trace to a single origin from which they were all copied and modified. They wouldn't go about arguing that since there are multiple versions of the story, they must be true.

The only reason we are having this argument about the Gospels today, or about Jesus at all, is because some people in the 2nd-4th centuries believed that the story they were reading was literally true AND they developed a religion based on their reading of the story that ended up getting the full backing of the Roman state and becoming enforced through the law, requiring that everyone believe the claims of the religion. Failure to do so was punishable by death. Fundamentally the Gospel stories are no different than the story of Publius. There is nothing actually about the stories that compel us to account them any level of credibility. What we know is that almost everyone in the Roman world believed stories like this. The story of Publius was also believed to be literally true. It comes us from a catalogue to "true marvelous stories". We know that the Roman Senate was run by priests and prophets and that the Roman Senate relied upon books of prophecy to guide their policies. So, that people at this time, at the highest levels, were entirely duped by made up written stories is well established.

So when I hear people say stuff like, "But the writer said that he had a mother, so it must be true," I am simply aghast with shock at their credulity...

[dbz]

The Book of Marvels, a compilation of marvellous events of a grotesque, bizarre or sensational nature, was composed in the second century A.D. by Phlegon of Tralles, a Greek freedman of the Roman emperor Hadrian. This remarkable text is the earliest surviving work of pure sensationalism in Western literature. The Book is arranged thematically: Ghosts; Sex-Changers and Hermaphrodites; Finds of Giant Bones; Monstrous Births; Births from Males; Amazing Multiple Births; Abnormally Rapid Development of Human Beings; Discoveries of Live Centaurs. This volume also contains and Introduction and commentary on the texts, as well as translations of fragments of two other works and a translation of Goethe's well-known vampire poem, The Bride of Corinth, which was inspired by Phlegon's Book of Marvels. [Phlegon of Tralles’ Book of Marvels. Exeter Studies in History. (University of Exeter Press, 1996).]

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"Phlegon of Tralles' Book of Marvels". Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. Retrieved 3 September 2023.

For the Book of Marvels and other works of Greek paradoxography I use Giannini’s edition, noting any departures from it as they arise, and Jacoby's texts of Olympiads (FGH 257 F 1 and 12) and Long-Lived Persons
(FGH 257 F 37).

(p.22)

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--Hansen, William, ed. (2010). Phlegon of Tralles' Book of marvels (Nachdr. ed.). Exeter: University of Exeter Press. ISBN 978-0859894258.

[dbz]

So when I hear people say stuff like, "But the writer said that he had a mother, so it must be true," I am simply aghast with shock at their credulity...

db says January 8, 2020 at 9:11 am

Per the OP:

[O]ne big question that’s relevant to gMark:
• Why did Mark give the Romans in general, and Pilate in particular, the role he gave them in his gospel?
In gMark (as in the other three canonical gospels), the Romans are the people who ultimately put Jesus to death, with Pilate – an important, powerful historical figure – playing the key role of pronouncing sentence on him. And Mark clearly isn’t happy with having to portray them that way. He plays it down, plays up the role of the Jews, writes it to show the Jews insisting on the death sentence and Pilate/the other Romans reluctantly going along with this. It’s not at all surprising that he’d feel this way about minimising the role of the Romans in Jesus’s death; they were the powerful ruling class, so it’s understandable that Mark wouldn’t have liked the idea of casting them as the bad guys who killed his protagonist.
• So… why has he put them in that role at all?

IMO:
The Markan text is a fictional allegorical polemic against a specific sect of Jewish converts to Christianity.
[...]
Another purpose of the Markan author is to show why Lord God allowed the destruction of the temple—which reqiures the inclusion of Romans in the story, thus:
• the destruction of the temple, is by Roman hand.
therefore
• the destruction of Jesus, is by Roman hand.

Given that lots of mythical heroes were “killed” by named persons, in this case Mark’s selection of Pontius Pilate is an outcome of the story timeline.

It is likely that Mark’s Jesus figure is based/derived on a real earthly being attested in Josephus’ Jewish War—”Jesus son of Ananias”. Also it is likely that Mark’s “John the Baptist” figure is based/derived on a real earthly being attested in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews.
So if the Markan author understood that Jesus son of Ananias was born 1 CE (or whatever and simply backdated) and died 70 CE during the “Siege of Jerusalem”. And he also understood that John the Baptist was executed by Herod Antipas c. 30 CE.
Then the Markan author created a work of fiction by “retrojecting” the time and method of Jesus’ death to match Old Testament prophecy that foretold the temple’s destruction some X years after the shameful death of the “suffering servant” sent by Lord God.
The timeline of this story just happens to fall on the 10 year administration of Pontius Pilate (26 to 36 CE).

NB:
Irony of ironies, even though the Markan author would of regarded Josephus’ Jesus son of Ananias and John the Baptist as historical people—they likely were not.
• Miller, Merrill P. (2017). “The Social Logic of the Gospel of Mark: Cultural Persistence and Social Escape in a Postwar Time”. In Crawford, Barry S.; Miller, Merrill P. Redescribing the Gospel of Mark. SBL Press. pp. 207–400. ISBN 978-0-88414-203-4.

In a monograph comparing the story of Jesus of Nazareth in Jerusalem and the story of Jesus ben Hananiah in Jerusalem, Ted Weeden Sr. has occasion to draw on Kloppenborg’s discussion of the Roman ritual of evocatio to argue that Josephus has himself composed the series of portents and prodigies as a theology of evocatio, obviously not in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Roman ritual, but to show that God had decided to abandon the temple because of the tyranny, false prophecy, and bloodshed of the rebels. The final portent, the oracle of Jesus-Ananias (Weeden’s shortened form for Jesus ben Hananiah) against the city, the temple, and the people represents the devotio. […] Weeden has presented an impressive list of parallels between Jesus of Nazareth in Jerusalem and Jesus-Ananias in Jerusalem in a Greco-Roman environment in which the penchant for mimetic writing was a central feature of literary production. —(pp. 263–264)

• Doudna, Gregory L. (2019). “Is Josephus’s John the Baptist Passage a Chronologically Dislocated Story of the Death of Hyrcanus II?”. In Pfoh, Emanuel; Niesiolowski-Spanò, Lukasz (ed.). Biblical Narratives, Archaeology and Historicity: Essays In Honour of Thomas L. Thompson. Bloomsbury–T&T Clark. pp. 119–137. ISBN 978-0-567-68657-2.

This article proposes that Josephus’s ‘John the Baptist’ passage in Antiquities is a chronologically displaced story of the death of Hyrcanus II, the aged former high priest, by Herod the Great in either c. 34 or 30 BCE.

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Comments per "'Deciphering The Gospels Proves Jesus Never Existed' review: Chapter One, part 2". Wayback Machine. Archived from the original on 3 Feb 2020.

[rgprice]

Note that the introduction of Phlegon's Book of Wonders has been lost, but in his Long Lived Persons Phlegon introduces the material as being factual in nature. For example he introduces a Sibyline passage by saying, "The Sibyl of Erythrai lived just short of a thousand years, as she herself says in her oracle in the following way:"

In another case he provides commentating testifying to the legitimacy of the Sibyl's prophecies. In the introduction to his commentary on the Book of Marvels, Hansen notes that, "More than twenty Greek paradoxographers were active between the third century BC and the third century AD, together with many other authors whose writings were connected in some way to paradoxography."

Paradoxographers were essentially cataloguers of "wonderous facts", who would put out collections of purportedly true stories and anecdotes collection from around the world. Most of these involved ghosts, strange animals like reports of live centaurs, prophecies, people coming back from the dead, people with magical powers, birth defects, and the like. Some of these accounts were likely based on real things, like some birth defects and stuff like two headed animals, while others were entirely contrived stories. All were mixed together into something like an magazine of oddities. They were frequently commented on and there are references to such tales from many othe4r writers who address these tales as if true or as if in need of some explanation. Writers such as Cicero made attempts to explain away some such accounts, not as entirely fabricated stories that were invented by writers, but by trying to explain how people might have not understood what they saw or how nature was supposed to work in some way that people didn't understand.

For example, Cicero tried to explain the claim that before Caesar was murdered a sacrifice was performed in which the sacrificial ox was missing its heart. Cicero's explanation was that apparently the heart wasn't an essential organ and so sometimes animals were missing organs that weren't essential so it was no big deal, it was just a coincidence. Of course, the more likely explanation in this case is that the ones who performed the sacrifice performed a "magic trick" and hid the heart using slight of hand. So in this case we have a true report of a performed deception.

But the point is that at this time, performers and writers were both consciously engaged in deceiving their audiences and virtually everyone fell for it, including emperors. People were practicing both the art of literary deception in the form of forgery and fabrication and people were practicing deception in live performances in temples and other religious settings using a combination of machines and slight of hand.

The issue here is not so much the perpetration of the deceptions, but rather the fact that so many people, including senators, emperors, generals, scholars, and of course the public masses, accepted all of these deceptions as true. The level of gullibility at this time was immense.

[dbz]

But the point is that at this time, performers and writers were both consciously engaged in deceiving their audiences and virtually everyone fell for it, including emperors. People were practicing both the art of literary deception in the form of forgery and fabrication and people were practicing deception in live performances in temples and other religious settings using a combination of machines and slight of hand.

The issue here is not so much the perpetration of the deceptions, but rather the fact that so many people, including senators, emperors, generals, scholars, and of course the public masses, accepted all of these deceptions as true. The level of gullibility at this time was immense.

Compared to what other time?

I must confess, I had doubts that someone like Kipp Davis would embark on an angry and personal ‘gotcha’ campaign.

But after visiting his Twitter page, everything suddenly makes sense. He appears to be ensnared in a obsessive Carrier-hating feedback loop fuelled by individuals like Tim O’Neill, Chris Hansen, etc.

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--Comment by Andrew Atkins, September 2, 2023, 11:40 am per "And So Kipp Davis Conclusively Demonstrates His Incompetence as a Scholar". Richard Carrier Blogs. 31 August 2023.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Now, Dr. Sarah doesn't "buy" anything I'm selling.

I have somehow the impression that you are dissatisfied with Sarah's review of your book. I haven't read all the posts and discussions on Sarah's blog, but it seems to me that there is no basis for your dissatisfaction.

Sarah's first post already made it clear that she herself has a strong opinion on the question. It was therefore clear from the outset that she would only check your arguments for their validity and also look for better counterarguments. Against this background, your book has moved her a lot and also brought her new insights. That's more than one could realistically wish for. Perhaps Sarah's discussions should also give you the opportunity to rethink and sharpen your own arguments.

The Doherty case, and many related mythicist cases, argument primarily that the "original" worshiper of Jesus were worshiping a heavenly being who was crucified in heaven. This is not really something I address or spend time on.

Instead, I focus on understanding the Gospel narratives and attempting to determine the intent of the authors and the sources used by the authors. So its an entirely different approach, and this just happens to be the approach that made sense to me.

I think your approach is generally very good. However, one should not overlook the fact that the method has certain limitations. The limits lie in the fact that some details of the Gospels cannot be traced back to the Hebrew Bible, or at least not clearly. Sarah's discussion on Nazareth, for example, showed that it is not that easy to argue convincingly here. At first glance, the argument of HJ-scholars (Bethlehem, Nazareth) is brief, catchy and convincing. It's ultimately your method turned against you. You have to face it. Anyone who goes into long-winded explanations and perhaps brings Rene Salm into play has imho actually already lost.

[O]ne big question that’s relevant to gMark:
• Why did Mark give the Romans in general, and Pilate in particular, the role he gave them in his gospel?
In gMark (as in the other three canonical gospels), the Romans are the people who ultimately put Jesus to death, with Pilate – an important, powerful historical figure – playing the key role of pronouncing sentence on him. And Mark clearly isn’t happy with having to portray them that way. He plays it down, plays up the role of the Jews, writes it to show the Jews insisting on the death sentence and Pilate/the other Romans reluctantly going along with this. It’s not at all surprising that he’d feel this way about minimising the role of the Romans in Jesus’s death; they were the powerful ruling class, so it’s understandable that Mark wouldn’t have liked the idea of casting them as the bad guys who killed his protagonist.
• So… why has he put them in that role at all?

I find that the quality of Sarah's posts varies greatly. Sometimes her reasoning is flawless and, let's face it, many readers will think that she often or sometimes has the better arguments on her side. This includes imho, for example, Sarah's last post on the "Brothers of the Lord". Of course, I myself would never take this position with such self-confidence. Or as Joe put it, there are good reasons to be more skeptical.

But there are also really circular arguments by Sarah and she is apparently not even aware of it. This includes, for example, the quote you brought in.

It’s not at all surprising that he’d feel this way about minimising the role of the Romans in Jesus’s death.

If someone claims that Mark "minimised" the role of Pilate and the Romans, that claim implies a comparison with another account in which that role is not minimised. The question here is what this other account should be according to Sarah's idea. Apparently it cannot be about another gospel. Ultimately, it becomes clear that Sarah tacitly assumes a historical event on this point and assumes that the Romans crucified Jesus without much ado and that the "Jews" hardly played a role.

Sarah first asks for a historically plausible scenario, then she assumes this historically plausible scenario as historical truth and compares it with Mark's account. The result ("minimising") serves her in turn as an argument that her assumption is true.