Is Christ Myth Theory Credible?

[Kenny]

2. There are no relevant historical sources for Jesus in non-Christian sources,

Luke was a Gentile and wrote the book labelled by his name. Historical, having talked to those who were later called Apostles.

What would Christianity look like without a historical Jesus?

If you're a Christian, could you, like the ancient Gnostic and Docetic Christians, revere a wholly non-material Christ who never lived on earth "in the flesh"?

It would not be available with no historical Jesus and there would be no gospel.

 

[Terry Sampson]

I didn't miss it; I just think it's mostly irrelevant.

So is the opinion of an atheist, but who's complaining? This isn't my thread and I'm not a Moderator.

It wasn't me to propose it; I mainly accept the consensus of the Jesus seminar on the existence and nature of a historical Jesus.

Ahhh, ... the "don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger" defense. Sorry, I've never heard of The Jesus Seminar until you mentioned it.

What consistency do you see in the idea of an entirely mythic Jesus?

Oh, I dunno, ... the consistency of a faux pearl, maybe? If I were offered one, I wouldn't typically concern myself with the question: "Is there a grain of sand at the center of it?" or "How much is this fake pearl worth?"

Besides, ... the consistency of the "mythical Jesus" isn't the end of the matter, is it?

... and which Jesus myth are you talking about?

LOL! That's funny, IMO. The script has been written already. I'm not a "Jesus Myth" collector, much less a "Jesus Myth" appraiser. I'm surprised that there are such appraisers among atheists; I wouldn't have expected there to be.

 

[Audie]

So is the opinion of an atheist, but who's complaining? This isn't my thread and I'm not a Moderator.




Ahhh, ... the "don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger" defense. Sorry, I've never heard of The Jesus Seminar until you mentioned it.




Oh, I dunno, ... the consistency of a faux pearl, maybe? If I were offered one, I wouldn't typically concern myself with the question: "Is there a grain of sand at the center of it?" or "How much is this fake pearl worth?"

Besides, ... the consistency of the "mythical Jesus" isn't the end of the matter, is it?




LOL! That's funny, IMO. The script has been written already. I'm not a "Jesus Myth" collector, much less a "Jesus Myth" appraiser. I'm surprised that there are such appraisers among atheists; I wouldn't have expected there to be.

The arrogance of Christian humility is
always a lol, exceptin' it is not actually funny.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So is the opinion of an atheist, but who's complaining? This isn't my thread and I'm not a Moderator.



Ahhh, ... the "don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger" defense. Sorry, I've never heard of The Jesus Seminar until you mentioned it.




Oh, I dunno, ... the consistency of a faux pearl, maybe? If I were offered one, I wouldn't typically concern myself with the question: "Is there a grain of sand at the center of it?" or "How much is this fake pearl worth?"

Besides, ... the consistency of the "mythical Jesus" isn't the end of the matter, is it?




LOL! That's funny, IMO. The script has been written already. I'm not a "Jesus Myth" collector, much less a "Jesus Myth" appraiser. I'm surprised that there are such appraisers among atheists; I wouldn't have expected there to be.

My mistake: I assumed you were interested in reasonable discussion. If you're looking for someone to snark at, find someone else.

 

[Ponder This]

[My own bias is that it's credible, even to the point of it becoming the wave of the future.
However, I still keep the question of the historical Jesus on the back burner because at any time a discovery could be made of eyewitness testimony from Jesus, his original disciples, or better yet, from hostile sources. In which case Christ Myth theory would be stood on its head.]

Christ Myth - central tenets:

1. There is no unambiguous reference to a historical, or a Gospel Jesus in the earliest known Christian texts, namely, the seven authentic letters of Paul.

2. There are no relevant historical sources for Jesus in non-Christian sources, because these have either been debunked (e.g., the Testimonium Flavianum in its several versions);
or
are simply too late (Pliny-Tacitus, Celsus, etc.). These latter merely explain what their contemporary Christian peers were saying about Jesus, and do not use early sources from Jesus's own lifetime.

3. Thus the historian is thrown back, and narrowly, on Paul.

4. Paul was citing the earliest christology, which was shared by James, John and Cephas, "the Jerusalem Pillars".

5. Pauline christology held that "Jesus" never had a historical existence, but did have a completely real spiritual existence in heaven as an angelic figure.
This is why Paul does not know of, and never cites, the life or example of a historical Jesus.
He had no historical Jesus to cite.

6. Paul says that this celestial figure "emptied himself" (Paul calls it "kenosis") and entered the sphere of the lower heavens, where he was "found" (probably by Satan) to be "in the likeness or form" of a man and of a servant. This is the Pauline "Incarnation", but it happened in the sublunar celestial sphere, not on geophysical earth.

7. The original Gospel or "Good News" was announced via a series of mystical experiences in which Jesus himself made it known that he had "incarnated", suffered, died, had been buried (again, this transpired in the lower heaven, not earth), and then been raised back to his previous position at God's "right hand".

8. The risen Jesus originally did not involve a resuscitation of the corpse of a dead Galilean carpenter-sage, but rather the raising up of a preexistent spiritual Jesus as "heavenly Adam".
If there was ever an empty tomb, it was located in the lower heaven, not in the suburbs of ancient Jerusalem.

9. Heaven was considered to be the grand model of creation, the earth only being a kind of shadowy duplicate of heaven. Heaven had residents, gardens, temples, rivers, and soil (wherein Adam was said to be buried, and where Jesus was temporarily buried prior to his resurrection).
This is supported by the Letter to the Hebrews which depicts the risen Jesus entering the heavenly city of Jerusalem, entering the heavenly Temple with its heavenly sanctuary.

10. Because there was no historical Jesus who died and rose again, there was originally no tradition of a risen Jesus who walked with disciples, broke bread with them, or permitted them to prove his crucifixion wounds.

11. Such material resurrection narratives only arose with the first Gospel, Mark.

12. Mark's Gospel is the first known expression of a process of historicizing an originally heavenly, non-material Christ into a biographical person with a personal history and career. This process of concretization, reification and solidification created the Jesus of the Christ Myth theory out of the spiritual Jesus of the earlier celestial Christ revelations. This process is called "euhemerization".

13. To the commonplace objection by mainstream/historicist exegetes, namely, that "No mainstream scholars accept Christ Myth theory!", mythicists retort that - as has been said of the sciences generally - knowledge proceeds one funeral at a time. That is, the issue is not the popularity of the mythical Jesus model, or about the number of scholars who support it. The issue is only about serious, relentless searching for evidence. So far, no such evidence for a historical or a Gospel Jesus has been disclosed.

What do you think?

How plausible is Jesus's existence in view of Christ Myth claims?
[Recall that Paul never mentions Jesus's supposed miracles, cures, exorcisms, the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, the raising of the dead, his Torah teaching, his conflicts with Pharisees, priests, and his own family and disciples, his trial and arrest, etc.]

What would Christianity look like without a historical Jesus?

If you're a Christian, could you, like the ancient Gnostic and Docetic Christians, revere a wholly non-material Christ who never lived on earth "in the flesh"?

The question of credibility has to do with who is making the claim.
So, no, there isn't much credibility to the claim of non-historicity at this time.

 

[Terry Sampson]

The arrogance of Christian humility is always a lol, exceptin' it is not actually funny.

You came looking for a Christian "patsy" and I've disappointed you. Excuse me while I weep.

 

[sojourner]

What is the evidence of very early transmitted quotations of Jesus?

The communities that produced Q (Galilean) And Thomas (Syrian) must have separated very early, in order for the Thomas community to find its way to where it finally landed, and become settled enough for writing to appear. When we find multiple attestations of Jesus quotes (both Q and Thomas are collected sayings) that are found in both documents, it means that the quotes are very, very early (before the communities separated). This gets us back to less than probably 7 years following the crucifixion, 30 or more years earlier than the earliest Gospel account.

 

[Terry Sampson]

My mistake: I assumed you were interested in reasonable discussion. If you're looking for someone to snark at, find someone else.

My apologies. "Snarking" is what I tend to do when someone ignores my question and wants to focus on the "fakeness" of a Christian pearl while conceding that there may be a grain of sand in it, all the while avoiding the opportunity to consider the possibility that Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism offer fake pearls too.

That said, I'll repeat my question expressed elsewhere in this thread: Why focus on the historical Jesus alone? Spread the love around and de-mythologize (1) Judaism's Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (2) Islam's Mohammed, and (3) Buddhism's Siddartha Gautama.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

My apologies. "Snarking" is what I tend to do when someone ignores my question and wants to focus on the "fakeness" of a Christian pearl while conceding that there may be a grain of sand in it, all the while avoiding the opportunity to consider the possibility that Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism offer fake pearls too.

So...

- you wanted to take the thread off-topic.
- I didn't take the bait.
- you didn't like this, so you felt justified in responding rudely.

Not a great way to behave, especially if you want people to engage with you.

 

[Terry Sampson]

So...

- you wanted to take the thread off-topic.
- I didn't take the bait.
- you didn't like this, so you felt justified in responding rudely.

Not a great way to behave, especially if you want people to engage with you.

Actually,

--you took the thread off-topic;
--I pointed that out;
--you said it was irrelevant;
--I expanded the theme of the thread before you showed up (from Christian myth to Abrahamic myth, which together with Buddhist myth, took the topic into Religious myth;
--you wanted to focus on your off-topic amendment but not my amendment;
--I got miffed and disappointed you.

Feel free to ignore me like I'm going to ignore you.

 

[Audie]

You came looking for a Christian "patsy" and I've disappointed you. Excuse me while I weep.

Arrogant, and inclined to falsehoods. See all three
above claims for latter.

Actually, you meet or exceed expectations.

 

[oldbadger]

[My own bias is that it's credible, even to the point of it becoming the wave of the future.

A 'Myth Theory' is incredible, surely?
But Jesus the man was very real.

However, I still keep the question of the historical Jesus on the back burner because at any time a discovery could be made of eyewitness testimony from Jesus, his original disciples, or better yet, from hostile sources. In which case Christ Myth theory would be stood on its head.

Celcus wrote about Jesus and his disciples, and was copied by Origem. Celcus offered some new information about all 13 persons.

2. There are no relevant historical sources for Jesus in non-Christian sources, because these have either been debunked (e.g., the Testimonium Flavianum in its several versions);
or
are simply too late (Pliny-Tacitus, Celsus, etc.). These latter merely explain what their contemporary Christian peers were saying about Jesus, and do not use early sources from Jesus's own lifetime.

Josephus obviously wrote about Jesus because of where he placed this description, but Christians obviously edited it to suit.

Celcus wrote about Jesus from other sources than those of the Christians which is how he could add information for us.

3. Thus the historian is thrown back, and narrowly, on Paul.

4. Paul was citing the earliest christology, which was shared by James, John and Cephas, "the Jerusalem Pillars".

5. Pauline christology held that "Jesus" never had a historical existence, but did have a completely real spiritual existence in heaven as an angelic figure.
This is why Paul does not know of, and never cites, the life or example of a historical Jesus.
He had no historical Jesus to cite.

6. Paul says that this celestial figure "emptied himself" (Paul calls it "kenosis") and entered the sphere of the lower heavens, where he was "found" (probably by Satan) to be "in the likeness or form" of a man and of a servant. This is the Pauline "Incarnation", but it happened in the sublunar celestial sphere, not on geophysical earth.

All the above shows clearly how Paul has little or no value to the student of the real Jesus. Paul either didn't know about, or didn't care about Jesus's life and times.

7. The original Gospel or "Good News" was announced via a series of mystical experiences in which Jesus himself made it known that he had "incarnated", suffered, died, had been buried (again, this transpired in the lower heaven, not earth), and then been raised back to his previous position at God's "right hand".

The original account of what the Baptist and Jesus did was recorded in G-Mark from which Matthew and Luke were copied, and G-John had a bunch of stories, some true, but he didn't know the timeline to place them in his account. Ergo.... useful anecdotes but rubbish overall.

8. The risen Jesus originally did not involve a resuscitation of the corpse of a dead Galilean carpenter-sage, but rather the raising up of a preexistent spiritual Jesus as "heavenly Adam".
If there was ever an empty tomb, it was located in the lower heaven, not in the suburbs of ancient Jerusalem.

9. Heaven was considered to be the grand model of creation, the earth only being a kind of shadowy duplicate of heaven. Heaven had residents, gardens, temples, rivers, and soil (wherein Adam was said to be buried, and where Jesus was temporarily buried prior to his resurrection).
This is supported by the Letter to the Hebrews which depicts the risen Jesus entering the heavenly city of Jerusalem, entering the heavenly Temple with its heavenly sanctuary.

10. Because there was no historical Jesus who died and rose again, there was originally no tradition of a risen Jesus who walked with disciples, broke bread with them, or permitted them to prove his crucifixion wounds.

The early bible manuscripts mention a 'Jesus Son of the Father' who rioted in Jerusalem and caused a death, but the people so loved him that Pilate felt obliged to pardon and release him. Later Bibles withdrew his first name (Jesus) and used the E-Aramaic Barabba (Son of the Father).
Jesus may never have been executed, or if he was he was taken down, his lungs cleared and he was got away.

11. Such material resurrection narratives only arose with the first Gospel, Mark.

12. Mark's Gospel is the first known expression of a process of historicizing an originally heavenly, non-material Christ into a biographical person with a personal history and career. This process of concretization, reification and solidification created the Jesus of the Christ Myth theory out of the spiritual Jesus of the earlier celestial Christ revelations. This process is called "euhemerization".

The last verses of G-Mark were added. There was no resurrection in the original G-Mark.

13. To the commonplace objection by mainstream/historicist exegetes, namely, that "No mainstream scholars accept Christ Myth theory!", mythicists retort that - as has been said of the sciences generally - knowledge proceeds one funeral at a time. That is, the issue is not the popularity of the mythical Jesus model, or about the number of scholars who support it. The issue is only about serious, relentless searching for evidence. So far, no such evidence for a historical or a Gospel Jesus has been disclosed.

That far back, historians can only work on the balances of probability and possibility. Jesus probably did exist.

There is too much circumstantial and oral tradition (2nd-3rd hand) evidence. And the Baptist most certainly did exist. Jesus just picked up the Baptist's mission and carried it on for a further 11-12 months.

 

[sojourner]

Sorry, I've never heard of The Jesus Seminar until you mentioned it.

The Jesus Seminar is a diverse collegium of NT, Greek and anthropological scholars whose sole purpose is to search for and define the historical Jesus. It is a well-known and respected group.

Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it’s neither real nor credible. It simply means that you don’t spend much time in biblical scholastic circles.

 

[Desert Snake]

What makes you think that episode actually happened?

Personally, I think that the name of Barabbas ("Son of the Father") seems too symbolic to be accidental, which suggests to me that this part of the story was a made-up addition.

Edit: believing that there was historical Jesus doesn't necessarily mean assuming that everything but the miracle claims literally happened as described in the Gospels. A lot of the stuff that doesn't involve miracles and magic may be fabricated, too.


Sure, but the fact that he would throw "the so-called Christ" in like he did means that he got the idea of a man named Jesus who claimed to be a messiah and had a brother named James from somewhere. Where did he get it from?

I think it's entirely likely that he got it from stories handed down in the community about events that had happened a few decades earlier.

If Jesus was entirely mythical, how would Josephus have known about him to mention him, and why would he have thought this Jesus had a familial relationship to a real person (James)?


I put the odds of there being no historical figure at all at the root of any of the Jesus story to be pretty low, but like I've said a few times, I think it's largely irrelevant. The existence of a historical Jesus wouldn't make the fantastical elements of the story suddenly plausible.

Confirming that Abraham Lincoln was a real person doesn't mean we can use Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter to confirm the existence of vampires.

If anything is made up in scripture, the most likely is the crucifixion. Not only is it 'not literal', it also is a "teaching" that would be part of the religion
John 10

•
Most seem to think it the 'most likely occurence, without realizing how "mythical", the scenario actually is, religiously.

Either way, not concerned with proving the historicity of Jesus, personally.

 

[Desert Snake]

The myth is plausible. There's no contemporary evidence of Jesus.

He had thousands of followers, he raised people from the dead. There were tombs opened of dead people walking around when he was crucified. The Sun got dark (no astronomical evidence of an eclipse)...

Apparently, nobody bother to document this.

Problem with that is, Jesus taught things that weren't explained, in scripture.

That is the nature of a actual teaching, written down by scribes.

The church goofed on some things, also. Why would they goof on something they wrote?

So, if it is "mythical", it was not invented by the church, although they tried to shape christianity using the textual material of course

 

[susanblange]

If anything is made up in scripture, the most likely is the crucifixion. Not only is it 'not literal', it also is a "teaching" that would be part of the religion
John 10
Jesus probably was crucified, but it didn't fulfill any prophecies. Jesus wanted to be and planned on being crucified because he thought it would fulfill scripture. All the acts in the NT were done in an attempt to fulfill scripture. The "crucifixion" is something that happened to the Messiah in her childhood, on October 22, 1969. It was committed by her parents. The day and year it happened correspond to the two Psalms it fulfilled. Psalms 22 and 69. Another one is Job 16.
•
Most seem to think it the 'most likely occurence, without realizing how "mythical", the scenario actually is, religiously.

Either way, not concerned with proving the historicity of Jesus, personally.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Christianity without a historical Jesus would look kind of like

• Judaism without an Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;
• Islam without a Mohammed; and
  
• Buddism without a Siddartha Gautama.

Well, there is no Siddhartha Gautama. ;0)

 

[blü 2]

What makes you think that episode actually happened?

I was trying to show that it was most unlikely to have happened. As such it'd be consistent with at the least a fictitious biography added onto a virtually unknown historical Jesus, and with no more effort, consistent with a wholly imaginary Jesus.

Personally, I think that the name of Barabbas ("Son of the Father") seems too symbolic to be accidental, which suggests to me that this part of the story was a made-up addition.

Yes, the use of a name meaning Son-of-Father is odd from any angle; it could almost be a joke played by an Aramaic speaker on a Greek speaker, but the context doesn't fit that view.

Edit: believing that there was historical Jesus doesn't necessarily mean assuming that everything but the miracle claims literally happened as described in the Gospels. A lot of the stuff that doesn't involve miracles and magic may be fabricated, too.

In my view, we don't need an historical Jesus at all to explain Paul or the gospels. It's simply one of the two possibilities.

Sure, but the fact that he would throw "the so-called Christ" in like he did means that he got the idea of a man named Jesus who claimed to be a messiah and had a brother named James from somewhere. Where did he get it from?

On the one hand, we'll never know. On the other, since he did get it from somewhere, which seems more likely ─ from a hard source like an official record, or from reports whose origin was Christian, if not the informer himself?

I think it's entirely likely that he got it from stories handed down in the community about events that had happened a few decades earlier.

Or someone's version of them. Paul's earthly bio of Jesus will fit in two lines. Mark's can be mapped onto the Tanakh, a fictitious fulfillment-of-purported-prophecy Jesus, and the Jesuses of Matthew and Luke, and the later Jesus of John, are all reliant on Mark.

If Jesus was entirely mythical, how would Josephus have known about him to mention him, and why would he have thought this Jesus had a familial relationship to a real person (James)?

As to how Josephus would know about him, as above; as a story, give some thought to Bart Ehrman's view ─ that what accounted for its popularity out of all the other stories in an age of stories was the idea of a real resurrection that made resurrection available to all.

But your question also touches on the heart of the problem ─ if there was an historical Jesus, how come all the followers we know about have not a clue about who he really was.

I put the odds of there being no historical figure at all at the root of any of the Jesus story to be pretty low, but like I've said a few times, I think it's largely irrelevant. The existence of a historical Jesus wouldn't make the fantastical elements of the story suddenly plausible.

Exactly.

 

[David J]

Regardless of historical records, what is within the Synoptic Gospels, compared to what came after in John, Paul, and Simon the stone (petros) is too profound to be made up by mortals; Yeshua's words and teachings interlink across the whole of the Tanakh, like a beautiful sinister tapestry to catch out the whole world in their lack of Dharma.

In my opinion.

I don't find anything profound in the writings. For example, Jesus never offered any teaching that was scientifically unprecedented, he just relied on supernatural magic. He never bothered to disclose us with his vast universe, that if we are truly alone here on Earth. He never shed any physics, astronomy, biology, chemistry, etc that would have been mind-blowing at the time.

 

[sojourner]

I don't find anything profound in the writings. For example, Jesus never offered any teaching that was scientifically unprecedented, he just relied on supernatural magic. He never bothered to disclose us with his vast universe, that if we are truly alone here on Earth. He never shed any physics, astronomy, biology, chemistry, etc that would have been mind-blowing at the time.

Perhaps because you're looking for science. These aren't science texts. In fact, Jesus comes to us with a broad disclosure: "You who have seen me have seen the Father." (John 14:9)