Jesus was Myth

[nash8]

The Jesus of the Bible never existed. I have a friend named Jesus.

My best friend is named Joshua, so when I'm talking to people trying to convert me to traditional Christianity. I'm always like, hold up, Jesus is my best friend lol.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Yes yes yes. So when does your trolling end exactly?

When people I'm given something to work with. This is hardly the first time I've heard the same stuff regurgitated, so I've already addressed this stuff. For example, the video gets into Paul's letters. I started a thread on mostly on this:
Doherty, Paul, Brothers and Lords

Unfortunately, that's the only thread I started on this, but luckily it is hardly the only response:

First, Paul wrote letters, not books. And they were letters to communities of Jesus' followers. Second, if one posits he created some Christ myth, then we run into several problems:
1) Paul's letters reflect his lower status in the church. Peter, for example, had more authority than Paul.
2) Paul's letters were written to places where other followers of Jesus, including those who actually knew him, were said to have lived or visisted. If he was making it all up, then why would anybody listen to him?
3) Paul and Josephus both refer to James, the brother of Jesus. Kind of hard for a myth to have a living relative.
4) None of the gospel authors show any awareness of Paul's letters, and the author of Luke/Acts was around when Paul was, so we have an independent account of Paul's subordinate position to those who actually knew Jesus when he was alive.

If there is no Jesus, then clearly Paul cannot be telling the truth about meeting his brother or this has to be understood in a different way. Eleanor Dickey, in addition to her book Greek Forms of Address, wrote a paper "Literal and Extended use of Kinship Terms in Documentary Papyri, Mnemosyne, vol. 57, 2004, 131-176" which is far more relevant because
1) It concerns kinship terminology used in letters written in Greek from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE
2) These letters are written not in classical Greek or even by Greeks but by those like Paul who dictated (or wrote) letters but were from cultures across the Roman empire
3) It concerns what we can say about literal vs. metaphorical use of address.

Basically, she found that, like Paul, metaphorical use of kinship terms are ubiquitous in letters. The main exception, however, is when the author's term is used to "relate the person mentioned to someone who is neither writer nor the addressee". Paul's use of adelphoi is not uniquely Christian in its metaphorical use of kinship terminology but is standard. However, he mentions in passing that, while visiting Kephas, he saw no one else of the disciples except "Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου/Iakobon ton adelphon tou kuriou/James, the brother of the Lord." This is the only time he uses this expression, which is a formulaic (one might call it a construction) method of identification via kin. It quite similar to the way in which Josephus identifies James, but more importantly it an instance of a kinship term which relates neither the addresser or addressee but rather identifies a 3rd party. How might we explain this? Price suggests "leaping over" this "tiresome debate", W have what Doherty claims (but if memory serves, he admitted that the syntax/grammar was not abnormal; I can't remember how that lengthy argument ended up in terms of specific conclusions). We do know that this "rule" of Dickey's begins to have exceptions in specifically Christian letters in later centuries, so perhaps Paul simply started this rather than that these later letters imitated his (or a then specifically Christian metaphorical kinship terminology).

And then we can find ways to explain how Mark and Josephus both identify a brother of Jesus named James.

But that is not how historians proceed (as Carrier and the sources he cites on historical methodologies agree). The idea is not to try to explain away evidence but simply to explain it. So when we find Jewish literature that has clear connections with both oral transmission of that time and Greco-Roman as well as Jewish literature and is best characterized as a type of ancient historiography, a contemporary of Jesus who refers to Jesus as Lord and uses a specific construction typical of kinship identification referring to this Lord's brother that is completely atypical both of him and of kinship term usage in letters in general, and we clear sociological connections with the evidence we have an religious movements centered around an individual who is later described in mythic ways, from Socrates and Plato to Tafari Makonnen (a 20th century Ethiopian religious figure known as Haile Selassie, who the "god of all the ages" among Rastafarians very quickly), and a great deal more that tells us we should explain the evidence we have by starting with a historical Jesus as the nexus (as even Wells admitted), that's the best solution.

You can read an older version of my take on gospel genre in the Wiki entry I wrote years ago: Gospel genre
However, it needs updating (and I critique it below):

Although not without critics, the position that the gospels are a type of ancient biography is the consensus among scholars today." (source)

Surely you wouldn't DARE question Wikipedia!??

Ok, so the guy who wrote this is off, but not entirely. He's relied too much on the variability within and between ancient biographies, and ignored too many similarities between biographical literature and early "novels" of sorts. He's also ignored the unique circumstances in this situation that would ensure even if Plutarch, Xenophon, Diogenes Laertius, and Philostratus wrote the gospels with the purposes the authors had we'd find very different "lives".

But he's right, IMO, when it comes to identifying the gospels as a kind of ancient historiography. Also, many biographies share with the gospels something extremely important: they use fictional contexts, loose chronologies, exaggerated stories to outright fictional ones, and (most importantly) focus on the character of one person via the contexts (historical or no). So, for example, there isn't any good a priori reason to think the setting of any particular teachings (apothegms, parables, etc.) actually took place where and when the authors said, and good reason not to think so (stories and sayings/logia were repeated many times).

Once again, this is where genre and intent comes into play. There's all sorts of bias and reason to doubt parts of Paul's letters that refer to historical events. However, these support, rather than cast doubt, on the reality of the historical Jesus. Paul was a contemporary, but he wasn't a follower of Jesus. His letters indicate his attempts to legitimize his status as a disciple, comparable to Peter and other leaders of the early church. The fact that he is concerned with establishing his authority as comparable to those who were followers of Jesus before biases his account in particular ways. If Jesus was a myth, and Peter or James didn't know him as a historical individual anymore than anyone else, then Paul's "revelational" knowledge of Jesus would be no less legitimate than Peter's or James.

His letters are written to believers. He's not trying to convince anybody that the historical Jesus existed. In fact, he tends to ignore the historical Jesus (whom he almost certainly didn't know), entirely. This could be because the historical Jesus didn't exist, but even using only Paul, this explanation is very poor and a much better one is that while he didn't know Jesus while he was alive, others did. After all, he refers to Jesus' brother. One specific literal brother, identified by his kinship relationship to Jesus. There's no reason to believe that Paul was lying, or that he lacked the ability to realize James' kinship was made-up, or any other reason to doubt that Paul actually knew a relative of the living Jesus. This is only strengthened by the one unquestioned non-christian early reference to Jesus: Josephus' reference to the same brother. So even if one discounts the majority of specialists who argue that the so-called testimonium flavianum is entirely an interpolation, rather than an edited version of an original which did refer to Jesus, there is still this second reference to James Jesus' brother.

If I made any of the claims you made I would have defended myself.

You've stated already that Jesus didn't exist. Apart from a youtube video, you haven't substantiated that claim. The above is a small portion of what I have done to substantiate one subset of my claims. Where's yours?

 

[Agnostic75]

Message to LegionOnomaMoi:

The famous, well-known, and important New Testament passage 1 Corinthians
15:3-8 is as follows:

3. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

4. And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

5. And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:

6. After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.

7. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.

8. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

You are not a Christian. Where do you believe that Paul got his information from?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

You are not a Christian. Where do you believe that Paul got his information from?

It is highly likely that Paul did actually persecute members of the Jesus sect. He mentions it in his letters and all it does is demonstrate that he not only didn't follow a living Jesus, but didn't believe those who said Jesus was the way to go.

However, we're dealing with a fundamentally different type of community structure and communication structure. If you've ever watched the film version of Fiddler on the Roof, you'll know that things (like a guy playing a fiddle on a roof) are just the way things are.

For most of human history, and still today in some places, the idea of independence and individuality was virtually non-existent. If there was a communal tradition, rule, practice, etc., one just didn't question it. Their identities were based in a far more fundamental way than in the modern West and elsewhere could dream of. Those who lived around you weren't just "neighbors" in the modern English sense of the word, but were kin by blood or marriage (the word neighbor is etymologically a Germanic word that means pretty much exactly what the Greek word translated as neighbor in the NT means; those near you). Everyone's identify was defined by their relationship to this community (and by religious practices, language, etc.). Kenneth Bailey wrote two books in which he used his perspective gleaned from preaching in places which are very much like those of Jesus in many ways for exegesis. I don't really care so much about NT exegesis, but the communal aspect he observed that is reflected in the historical record is something I care very much about.


And it all adds up to this: connections between people were everywhere. One's name literally indicated one's ancestry or place of origins. Even without the internet, we can see form Pliny letter's, the recoveries of papyri mostly from Egypt, Tacitus, and from graph theory that social structure enabled a communication that was very much literally like the Wikipedia. That is, various nodes within the social network graph had degrees with high cardinalities. Everyone was connected to many, many other people such that communication flowed fast and openly and could be corrected.

Paul knew this. And he knew (and admitted) that he didn't have the claim to authorities other "pillars" did. So he downplayed the importance of any living Jesus, and told about his ecstatic (in the mystical sense) experience with YHWH. Whether he was lying or was actually driven into that state I don't know. But it also doesn't matter, as merely by indicating that he had persecuted the Jesus sect he tells us he knew of it. And in a region where a graph of weighted and directed communications lines between people/nodes has an incredible number of clusters, there is simply no way for one, like Paul, to claim he'd been with Jesus all along.

Nero blamed the Christians (according to Tacitus) for the fires. Pliny wrote to the emperor about how one should deal with these new "Christians". The earliest scrap of any copy of the NT came merely a few decades after it was written in a different country. Papias tells us of his questioning the disciples of Jesus' disciples. So in a century in which we have almost know evidence from anybody living in that century writing about anything, Paul's letters alone show how extended communication networks were. Also, given the distrust most people, including authors, had of written works relative to spoken, the fact that the gospels were written is indicative of a need to transmit information across long distances in a permanent form. The gospels are the only example of this kind of extensive documentation within the same century of an individual, because communication lines usually did not require more than the locally available oral sources and the now and again news from X location many leagues away.

Paul lived, preached, persecuted, wrote to, established, and even spent two weeks just with Peter all to communicate with other followers. The mere fact that admits to persecuting the sect is indicative of how futile it would be to ignore his earliest interaction with the sect. But even before he joined, he knew of it. After he joined, he claims to have been ordained as an apostle by god, but that's irrelevant. He knew before he was a member, he learned before he met with Peter, and he spent to weeks just with Peter. Whether he really experienced an altered state of consciousness or just lied I don't know. But whatever he says about having received info from god can be easily explained by the fact that, even in his letters, he was arguing with his superiors. Not focusing on Jesus' life or on the fact that Paul joined late is explainable through typical social mechanisms: the construction and maintenance of power structures with in a group.

He got his information from people. The famous lines you refer to are formulaic. They are like a prayer/pledge/oath/etc., in which one recites a memorized formula. Were I a believer in some god, I don't think it would be one that inspired formulaic expressions. Too tedious. And if he had to wait for a revelation, how did he know who to persecute? One can't persecute a group without knowing who the members are, and knowing who the members are entails knowing something about the group.

EDIT: Regarding graph theory and communications: there is a site about one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, Paul Erdös, which concerns graph theory and small world networks. Basically, it's a dynamic graph that assigns degrees of separation from Erdös. Thus, if you've worked directly with someone who worked with Erdös, you get an low (i.e., the distance is very small) Erdös number. Someone did the same for Kevin Bacon. The point is that it is graph edges, not nodes, that determine the flow of network communication and the dynamics of the flow (a regular graph has neither directions nor weights; a graph which one might use to model communications in the Roman empire during the 1st century would have both weighted and directed edges). Consider an old-school call list, where one person calls another, and that person has one specific person they call, and that person has yet another specific person they call, etc. In graph theory, this would be a number of nodes connected by directed edges, and no node (except perhaps the first and last) would be connected. Remove any node, and communication stops. A dynamic directed graph, however, is far different, It is adaptive, emergent, and not only increases communications but tends to ensure corrections of data flow.

 

[Agnostic75]

Paul.......knew (and admitted) that he didn't have the claim to authorities other "pillars" did.

That is what I am most interested in regarding what you said. Why did Paul trust the testimonies of the pillars of the church? Did he know them? Did he spend a good deal of time with them?

Where did the pillars get their information from about the risen Jesus?

 

[Curious George]

When people I'm given something to work with. This is hardly the first time I've heard the same stuff regurgitated, so I've already addressed this stuff. For example, the video gets into Paul's letters. I started a thread on mostly on this:
Doherty, Paul, Brothers and Lords

Unfortunately, that's the only thread I started on this, but luckily it is hardly the only response:




You can read an older version of my take on gospel genre in the Wiki entry I wrote years ago: Gospel genre
However, it needs updating (and I critique it below):

You've stated already that Jesus didn't exist. Apart from a youtube video, you have substantiated that claim. The above is a small portion of what I have done to substantiate one subset of my claims. Where's yours?

Um I might be completely off but I interpreted the video to suggest that while Jesus did exist his character was exaggerated over time. Is this contrary to what you have posted or did I miss something in the video?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

That is what I am most interested in regarding what you said. Why did Paul trust the testimonies of the pillars of the church?

He didn't. Or rather, he didn't for the most part. Galatians, in which we first find a common translation "pillars", is the same letter in which Paul castigates Peter and James.

The "trust" part came from ol' timers talkin' about the good ol' days when...

That is, in parts of the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, etc., there remain communities that are filled with members who are connected to almost all, if not all, the other members. However, the information they obtain from outside their social world may be quite limited.

Norman Cohn wrote a book dedicated to millenarianism in the middle ages. In it, he describes the incredible level of communal identities that villages, peasants, elite groups, etc., all had. One defined themselves first and last by belonging to this family, village, religion, and language. Often enough one could hear how villages a few miles away were weird, alien-like, uncouth miscreants. It all depends on the communications graph and the degree of directed edges per node (actually, the word "neighborhood" is used in graph theory as well quite independent of people or neighborhoods).

Paul travelled in social circles that were pretty limited in which the vast majority of nodes (people, communal and regular gatherings, community celebrations or functions, etc.) had a large number of edges. Everybody was connected to everybody. As the author of Acts attests, Paul was known to have persecuted the early "Christian" sect. He was also, according to all of our sources, not a disciple of Jesus. Yet even before he joined this sect, he knew enough about it to know whom he should persecute. That's because the clusters of graph neighborhoods were frequent and the average person was connected to both clusters and other nodes of people by numerous directed edges. Simply put, it would be basically impossible for Paul not to know who the members of the Jesus sect were.

Did he know them? Did he spend a good deal of time with them

Even though he disagreed, rather fundamentally according to him, with Peter, he spent two weeks learning from him after he had already joined the Jesus sect.

Where did the pillars get their information from about the risen Jesus?

There are numerous explanations and no evidence to narrow down many of them. The only ones usually excluded (at least by historians) are that the information came from a resurrected Jesus or was part of some Christ Myth theory junk.

You have to understand that these people, those who dwelt in Israel under an increasingly hostile relationship with their Roman overlords, based their identify not just on community but on a particular type of community composed of kinship, temple, and YHWH (and to some extend language). A person comes along who seems to be the savior and attracts many, and then ends up executed and having failed to liberate Israel. Perhaps the followers deluded themselves into thinking Jesus rose again. Perhaps one or several had visions (common today in certain parts of the worlds and mentioned in diagnostic manuals of mental health) of Jesus that they told others. Perhaps they lied. We don't really know because we don't have enough evidence for this particular part of the narrative. But was have far more than enough to know that Jesus existed.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Um I might be completely off but I interpreted the video to suggest that while Jesus did exist his character was exaggerated over time. Is this contrary to what you have posted or did I miss something in the video?

It's not so much your interpretation or the video, but the one who posted it:

This is a pleasant video I wish all of you who do not know of the Christ Myth to watch.

The OP has elsewhere quite clearly expressed the opinion that Jesus never existed.

 

[Muffled]

This is a pleasant video I wish all of you who do not know of the Christ Myth to watch.
[youtube]XKAHoYCWXF8[/youtube]

This video is quite comical and not exceedingly long but please watch it for giggles and its informative nature.

I can answer the question of whether Jesus could have become legendary. The answer is yes it is possible however I believe it is not the reality.

 

[Trantorfuzz]

Most biblical scholars, including noted biblical scholar and current agnostic Bart Ehrman, are convinced that there was such a man as Jesus of Nazareth (all quibbling about what his ancient name was aside). See this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

There are two kinds of claims that the historical existence of Jesus does not prove.

First, it does not prove the literal truth of New Testament miracle stories or the divinity of Jesus any more than the excavation of the city of Troy proves that a demigod was killed there by an arrow to the heel.

Second, it does not prove that biblical scholars are all incompetent and that Jesus never existed and that any atheist who admits that there was such a person could not really be an atheist at all.

For my own part, I defer to scholars such as Ehrman about the existence of this Jewish prophet/heretic whom the New Testament has enshrined in legends, some of which legends have been borrowed.

 

[steeltoes]

Most biblical scholars, including noted biblical scholar and current agnostic Bart Ehrman, are convinced that there was such a man as Jesus of Nazareth (all quibbling about what his ancient name was aside). See this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

There are two kinds of claims that the historical existence of Jesus does not prove.

First, it does not prove the literal truth of New Testament miracle stories or the divinity of Jesus any more than the excavation of the city of Troy proves that a demigod was killed there by an arrow to the heel.

Second, it does not prove that biblical scholars are all incompetent and that Jesus never existed and that any atheist who admits that there was such a person could not really be an atheist at all.

For my own part, I defer to scholars such as Ehrman about the existence of this Jewish prophet/heretic whom the New Testament has enshrined in legends, some of which legends have been borrowed.

Erhman has stated that it never occurred to him that Jesus never existed. Ehrman has always assumed as do most people due to the influence that Christianity has on western culture. When push comes to shove all that Ehrman can say is that Paul met Jesus' brother. Well, Paul could not have met the brother of the gospel Jesus because the brothers of the gospel Jesus were non believers. Paul must have met the brother of some other Jesus or he met with James, son of Zebedee.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Erhman has stated that it never occurred to him that Jesus never existed. Ehrman has always assumed as do most people due to the influence that Christianity has on western culture.

Until a few years ago, I was victim of that cultural assumption myself. But as I began to watch the debate and engage it, I had to conclude that it's all most probably a fiction -- at least so far as a 30 CE Jesus.

When push comes to shove all that Ehrman can say is that Paul met Jesus' brother.

That's the only bit of evidence which seems to me to support the historical case. But it's not enough for me.

 

[steeltoes]

That's the only bit of evidence which seems to me to support the historical case. But it's not enough for me.

Some posters here will equate you with creationism and for being a dumb *** for not believing what they know is the truth if they haven't already.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Some posters here will equate you with creationism and for being a dumb *** for not believing what they know is the truth if they haven't already.

They have already, but they probably don't mind repeating themselves.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Some posters here will equate you with creationism and for being a dumb *** for not believing what they know is the truth if they haven't already.

Most of the people that support a historical Jesus believe in creationism. So there's that lol

 

[steeltoes]

Most of the people that support a historical Jesus believe in creationism. So there's that lol

LOL, yes, and isn't that the irony?

 

[Monotheist 101]

And if the religion of Christianity was created based soley on a person's imagination, why would they choose the name Jesus (or Joshua, or Yeshua) as the central character. If I was going to make a religion from my imagination I could think of something way more cool than Joshua.
My guys name would be Apolozueshoruzorocaesra.

LOL i reckon Joshua is cooler than the garbage u've managed to put together..but thats just me.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

What about a good old American name like Herman? Herman.... Now that's a messiah...

 

[Sha'irullah]

When people I'm given something to work with. This is hardly the first time I've heard the same stuff regurgitated, so I've already addressed this stuff. For example, the video gets into Paul's letters. I started a thread on mostly on this:
Doherty, Paul, Brothers and Lords

Unfortunately, that's the only thread I started on this, but luckily it is hardly the only response:




You can read an older version of my take on gospel genre in the Wiki entry I wrote years ago: Gospel genre
However, it needs updating (and I critique it below):








You've stated already that Jesus didn't exist. Apart from a youtube video, you haven't substantiated that claim. The above is a small portion of what I have done to substantiate one subset of my claims. Where's yours?

Putting words into people's mouth eh? Well for further clarification I claimed to provide no evidence. I merely started the thread to discuss the issue which result sin your needless idiocy.

I also never claimed that Jesus never existed. I have never gone into details about the subject but overall I find the existence of "Jesus" as in the man attributed with the myth undoubtedly unreal. A deluded man speaking nonsense and getting killed by the Romans is far more likely though.

Do me the favor and quit your childish behavior which I hope will occur soon.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Putting words into people's mouth eh? Well for further clarification I claimed to provide no evidence. I merely started the thread to discuss the issue which result sin your needless idiocy.

I also never claimed that Jesus never existed. I have never gone into details about the subject but overall I find the existence of "Jesus" as in the man attributed with the myth undoubtedly unreal. A deluded man speaking nonsense and getting killed by the Romans is far more likely though.

Do me the favor and quit your childish behavior which I hope will occur soon.

Even the whole "getting killed by the Romans" part doesn't make any sense. Why would the Romans care about killing a man who claimed to be the Jewish messiah? They certainly wouldn't release a murderer in favor of executing a blasphemer against a religion they didn't follow.