Talk:Jesus myth theory/Archive4

The range of the Jesus Myth
"One of the biggest problems is thanks to Volney and Dupuis having different views regarding the Christ myth the term (be it "Jesus myth theory", "Christ myth theory", or "Ahistorical Jesus") includes ideas that accept Jesus existed as a human being. The terms of "myth", "historical" and "fiction" are no help either as what exactly they mean varies from author to author. In fact the very term "historical Jesus" has a huge spectrum of hypothesis."

The Christ Myth Theory article goes into the many ways the term has been used - including ones that accept Jesus as existing as a human being--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:46, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Another theory
Has been covered yet?

Changing the topic slightly - how many 'Exit the Roman Empire' activists, and how many 'preacher-men' were there in Judea? Given that there was a period of time between when 'Joshua ben Joseph' seemingly lived and when the gospels and related texts were written down to what extent could there have been a degree of syncretism in writing the various oral histories of such persons - with the 'John the Baptist stories' being another such conflation? Anna Livia (talk) 12:07, 11 February 2019 (UTC)


 * That second part is touched on in the Josephus article under Length and a host of holy men and as you can see from that list there were quite a few 'preacher-men' were in Judea. --BruceGrubb (talk) 01:42, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Article name
This article should be more appropriatley named: "Jesus myth theories". –Dbz (talk) 13:17, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The problem is there is this (mistaken) view there there is only one Jesus myth theory which is why the article has the name it does.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:28, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Also, “theory” used in the singular does not necessarily mean there is only one, but can be used to designate a broader “school of thought”, cf. gender theory, queer theory, quantum theory, Marxist theory etc. ScepticWombat (talk) 20:43, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I added the following to the WP article:  --Dbz (talk) 01:59, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

r/atheism historical Jesus FAQ
Just FYI, if anybody is interested. --Dbz (talk) 19:57, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
 * "FAQ: Did Jesus Really Exist?". Reddit. r/atheism.

Is this theory fringe?
Wikipedia at least says so. I don't know anything about the subject, but I think this article pmight give too much credit to an idea that was perhaps discarted for now. GeeJayK (talk) 16:36, 14 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Please read §. "Historicity is the consensus only by assumption".


 * NB: none of the following scholars:
 * Maurice Casey
 * Michael Grant (classicist)
 * Bart D. Ehrman
 * Chris Keith
 * William E. Arnal
 * Daniel Gullotta
 * Robert E. Van Voorst
 * have produced a peer reviewed defense of the historicity of Jesus that was published by a respected academic press.


 * Can you cite any contemporary "secular" scholar that has written a peer reviewed defense of "The Historicity of Jesus" that was published by a respected academic press?


 * Gullotta clearly agrees with Ehrman—whom he quotes—that "bona fide" scholars comprise a minority view.
 * [NOW BOLDED]:"Even Ehrman concedes that there are ‘a couple of bona fide scholars . . . Their books may not be known to most of the general public interested in questions related to Jesus, the Gospels, or the early Christian church, but they do occupy a noteworthy niche as a (very) small but (often) loud minority voice’. [Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, p. 3.]"
 * --Dbz (talk) 03:10, 15 March 2021 (UTC)


 * As I said, I don't know anything about the subject and I'm not a Christian at all. I'm not saying the theory is wrong. At all. What I'm asking is if this theory isn't fringe. If it's not, why do you believe that Wikipedia says so? That's an honest question. Also, the attempt to explain the unpopularity of the theory with the Shill gambit part of the article should be removed in my opinion. GeeJayK (talk) 03:47, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

"the Shill gambit part of the article"

- User:GeeJayK

Please identify by section heading the specific content that you feel is appealing to the "Shill Gambit". --Dbz (talk) 05:19, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * And here in August 4, 2021 we are still waiting.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:27, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
 * October 1, 2021 and we got nothing. Conclusion there is no "Shill Gambit".--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:18, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The shill gambit/Galileo gambit/Appeal to the minority is quite clear, you can see how the article basically revolves on "hey, the mainstream is wrong, we are the good guys, they are evil!". See, Bruce, I have a family, which means I don't have time to be 247 on the Internet. I still intend to Afd this article soon. Considering how it's very hard to engage with you and Dbz it's better than discuss in the talk page. GeeJayK (talk) 19:54, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * That is your option and not evidence of a shill gambit. Remember this is rationalwiki and your conclusion is not supported by the article (Sir James George Frazer is in the minority and his view is not mainstream?!  Are you serious?!).  AfD is not some magical "I don't know how to properly challenge this article on the talk pages' hammer.  You had six months to produce something, anything to support your claim. No actual evidence of this supposed bias has been produce and when called on it you give some flimsy excuse (anyone can tweak User contributions to see the activity of any user).--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:28, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * See, Bruce, this is what I'm talking about when I mentioned engaging with you (and I'm not the first one that believes you often engage in batd-faith). I didn't "have" six months to come up with something, first because I have to obligation to do so, second because I have work and a family, which means, editing anything that takes more than 5 minutes is not an option. I didn't say the article uses shill gambit, I said Dbz used this, although some passages of the article suggest it. I don't know why you're so obsessed with a single word. My main criticism here is that the theory is fringe and used lots of deprecated sources, the main one, this Carrier guy, being a highschool teacher. 5 minutes on the Google suggest that yes, he's on the same level as those guys that made Zeitgeist. You're just talking about a subject that wasn't even in my original post. I don't care about what one single guy that died 80 years ago (hardly a good source for modern research for the same reason we don't use Keynes on Economics, except for a few fringe lunatics). Point here are reliable sources, not whining about how the mainstream is evil. Besides, the article is barely unreadable with all those quotes (at least 90) poping up after three sentences. GeeJayK (talk) 13:32, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, regarding Afd, don't worry. I don't think the page will be deleted in case I Afd it. But at least maybe people will pay more attention to this pet project of yours and might at least add a Wikify this ugly article a bit. GeeJayK (talk) 13:38, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Some Observations
This subcategory is because the above has become way to long to go through in a reasonable period of time.

So, you who don't have that much time out would effectively waste other people's other people with a move you know will fail just so this article gets more eyeballs. I have already taken the more prudent step and asked a fellow admin to look at this article because and I quote " I honestly need a new pair of eyes on the article. Yes, there is a lot of stuff there that could be daughtered out (some advice there would be welcome as I an kind of overwhelmed so to where to even start)". As for your other points I will address those accordingly,
 * 1. " I didn't say the article uses shill gambit": You clearly did. Here is the post in question as it appears

"'Also, the attempt to explain the unpopularity of the theory with the Shill gambit part of the article should be removed in my opinion. GeeJayK (talk) 03:47, 15 March 2021 (UTC)'"
 * 2. "the main one, this Carrier guy, being a highschool teacher ": Unless you are the "highschool teacher" this is blatant Ad hominem and factually wrong.  Richard Carrier's vita is public and you can clearly see Carrier has a doctorate in Ancient History awarded Oct 2008 and the main work from him I consider relevant is the peer reviewed On the Historicity of Jesus and there Carrier even admits that there is a 1 in 3 (33.33..%) chance he is wrong.
 * 3. Zeitgeist". That...thing is labeled as "pseudoscholarl" which is a polite way, at least IMHO, of saying "it's garbage". Heck, even the Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ article states "If you want to see just how bad Christ Mythism can get (and want to kill a few brain cells in the bargain) watch Zeitgeist; everything in that thing is wrong and is the poster child of bad Christ Myth."  And I am the one who wrote that part of that page!
 * 4. As for "hey, the mainstream is wrong, we are the good guys, they are evil!" go and read the "The historical Jesus spectrum or color me completely confused" section and the "Arguing the wrong Jesus and the Jesus myth" right after it so you can understand that some versions of the Jesus myth are mainstream.

Do I agree the article has become somewhat of a meandering mess? Yes. But the solution is to try and daughter out the ramblely pieces or at least point out "section has a problem" so other editors can fix it as even with my combination of High functional Autism w ADHD I am overwhelmed without some direction as where to begin.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:54, 3 October 2021 (UTC)=

Wikipedia
"What I'm asking is if this theory isn't fringe. If it's not, why do you believe that Wikipedia says so?"

- User:GeeJayK

--Dbz (talk) 06:35, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The examination of the issue of Jesus’ historicity by incorporating a direct and probabilistic (and also logically exhaustive) comparative analysis of the two (historicity v. ahistoricity) plausible hypotheses—is not fringe, it is a minority view. held that the ahistoricity viewpoint should be accepted as plausibile in NT studies.
 * Bias in Wikipedia is a known issue.
 * "The historical Jesus spectrum or color me completely confused" section shows the main issue is that the very meaning of Christ myth theory (Jesus myth theory) is all over the place. The Christ Myth Theory article goes into many of the definitions used over the years which the last one being the one that shows the issue:


 * Jesus actually existed "but had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity" In other words Jesus either took over an already existing Christian movement or his movement was turned into Christianity after he died. Michael O. Wise, points to a messiah in 72 BCE while Israel Knohl points to a messiah who died 4 BCE who could have left movements in their wake that Jesus directed into what became Christianity by the 2nd century.


 * This is the definition of Jesus Myth Theory that scares the pro historical Jesus brigade as they conflate "Jesus existed" with "Gospel stories are largely true".--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:37, 29 April 2021 (UTC)