Talk:Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ/Archive10

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Followers of this article may wish to note there is now an effort underway to heavily rewrite, restructure, and remodel the article Christ myth theory on Wikipedia, partly motivated by one apparently troublesome editor of the article having been finally been topic-banned. The discussion on the Talk page (fairly short right now) is here [1] (The WickerGuy in that discussion is the same as I.) Discussion on why that editor was banned may be found here [2].--WickerGuy (talk) 23:05, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

The efforts to push the Christ myth theory article into narrow confines NOT supported by all the material doesn't surprise me--that has been a problem with that article from the get go. As I mentioned before getting topic banned there is if there was anything holding all the things called Christ myth theory together as one concept it was

1) Christianity was a Great Moment event that didn't need a founder

2) There is nothing to suggest the Gospel Jesus is an accurate description of the life, ministry, or death of the supposed founder of Christianity.

Especially troubling is the removal of Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall's contention that the term "historical Jesus" has two meanings

A) that Jesus existed, rather than being a totally fictional creation like King Lear or Dr. Who

or

B) that the Gospel accounts give a reasonable account of historical events, rather than being unverifiable legends such as those surrounding King Arthur.

"We shall land in considerable confusion if we embark on an inquiry about the historical Jesus if we do not pause to ask ourselves exactly what we are talking about."

It should be mentioned that the clarification that "mythist" was simply "the upholder of the theory that Jesus is a myth" (1946 Archibald Robertson) and that "The mythicist denies the supernatural aspect of Jesus." (Gorden Stein 1989) has also been removed from that article.

"Inversely, the mythicism of Strauss provides the presupposition for Baur's literary criticism of the Gospels." (Auberlen, Karl August (1874) The divine revelation: an essay in defence of the faith Page 284) is just one example of how Strauss (a man who most assuredly believed in a historical Jesus) was classified as a "mythicist"--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:15, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

What in fact happened at WP was a complete revert to a version that was extant in mid-2011 which is now being followed by a selective restoral of pieces of what was essentially a sweeping deletion in steps and starts. Obviously, most secular historicists think the Gospels are fairly distorted and the main indicators of their being some historical Jesus concerning whom we know next to nothing comes from Paul's letters.--WickerGuy (talk) 05:01, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

As [[3]] shows the mid-2011 version had POV problems. Drews and John Robertson were willing to admit to the existence of a flesh and blood Jesus but that the Gospel told us nothing about that Jesus:

"If in spite of this any one thinks that besides the latter a Jesus also cannot be dispensed with, this can naturally not be opposed; but we know nothing of this Jesus. Even in the representations of historical theology he is scarcely more than the shadow of a shadow." Drews (Christ myth)

"(John) Robertson is prepared to concede the possibility of an historical Jesus, perhaps more than one, having contributed something to the Gospel story. "A teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named teachers called Messiahs " (of whom many are on record) may have uttered some of the sayings in the Gospels. (...)

The myth theory is not concerned to deny such a possibility (of there being a flesh and blood Jesus being behind the Gospels story). What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded. (Robertson, Archibald (1946) Jesus: Myth Or History)

A Historical myth is "a real event colored by the light of antiquity, which confounded the human and divine, the natural and the supernatural. The event may be but slightly colored and the narrative essentially true, or it may be distorted and numberless legends attached until but a small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially false. A large portion of ancient history, including the Biblical narratives, is historical myth. (Remsburg, John (1909) The Christ)

As I flippantly stated you could have a Jesus born c12 BCE in the small town of Cana, who preached a few words of wisdom to small crowds of no more than 10 people at a time, and died due to being run over by a chariot at the age of 50 and per John Robertson's definition you would STILL be talking about the Christ myth theory because that Jesus while in the right place and time did NOT 'teach as as reported in the Gospels' NOR was he 'put to death in the circumstances there recorded'.

THAT is what the Christ Myth theory really is--the Gospel account is so full of myth, legend, and distortion that any connection between the Gospel Jesus and the actual Jesus who preached in Galilee is purely coincidental.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:34, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

That raises a question as to where you draw the line to define "mythicism". Mythicist George Wells ultimately decided that all the sayings attributed to the Q document came from a single source, probably a preacher-figure like the Jesus depicted. Preaching and parables of Jesus take up about 35% of the Gospel of Matthew which would make about 15% of the Gospel of Matthew from the Q source, the rest being material from Mark and the hypothetical M document. Does that qualify as more than coincidental? Most people who are not fundamentalist Christians but labeled "historicists" by the mythicists agree that the Gospels are not tightly reliable. The film Davy Crockett: Rainbow in the Thunder is an almost entirely unreliable as a source of information on the historical Davy Crockett, but the link between the film and the man is still much more than coincidental. I wonder if we aren't getting too pedantic about the definition of "mythicism".--WickerGuy (talk) 18:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Which was my point with adding all the stuff that is now being happily being deleted from that page. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J (1982) Geoffrey W. Bromiley (editor) is quite clear on this: "This view (Christ Myth theory) states that the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology, possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes..." Note it states the story of Jesus and NOT the man himself.

As I said just because the story of Davy Crockett and the Frozen Dawn "is a piece of mythology, possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes" doesn't not mean there wasn't real a Davy Crockett. So how do we get from the story of Jesus being a piece of mythology to the man himself being a piece of mythology? The logic is non sequitur in the extreme.

Furthermore, Euhemerism (the idea that the gods were the exaggerated stories of what had been flesh and blood people) was common from 5th century BCE on to at least the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. As late as 1919 it was stated "Osiris, Attis, Adonis were men. They died as men; they rose as gods" (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics pg 646)

THIS is what Justin Martyr likely was referring to when he wrote “When we say that Jesus Christ was produced without sexual union, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended to heaven, we propound nothing new or different from what you believe regarding those whom you call the sons of Jupiter.” (First Apology [21:30]).

But if the Christ myth theory is just about the story of Jesus being mythological rather than the man himself (per The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia) then you are going to have fringe parts of it that take the idea to the extreme.--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Extremely well put. I hope the stuff you mention gets put back.--WickerGuy (talk) 23:07, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it. The comments about much of the material being old shows there is an effort to ignore that fact that "the" Christ Myth theory is in fact a broad mess of theories that at best have the theme "Jesus was a myth" to tie them together.

"The theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ-myth theory and the theory that he was an historical individual is called the historical Jesus theory " (Walsh, George. The Role of Religion in History. Transaction 1998, p. 58.). O,k but what about some guy c30 CE inspired by this myth taking up the name "Jesus" preaches to a few followers, cause some problems, and was crucified by Pontius Pilate as a result ie much what seems to have happened with regards with John Frum?

Since the myth came first you are talking about the Christ-myth theory BUT and this is the kicker you also have a historical individual called Jesus--so using Walsh's definitions there NOTHING preventing the Christ-myth theory and historical Jesus from BOTH being true! In fact in The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology Joseph Campbell stated "(i)t is clear that, whether accurate or not as to biographical detail, the moving legend of the Crucified and Risen Christ was fit to bring a new warmth, immediacy, and humanity, to the old motifs of the beloved Tammuz, Adonis, and Osiris cycles." ie the myth came first!!--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:53, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I wonder then if this doesn't stretch out the definition of "Christ myth" theory too far to cover too many things. Every historicist who is not a fundamentalist Christian agrees that Jesus became thoroughly mythologized in the Gospel of John (though if they are pastors of liberal churches they might not admit it) and that Jesus is unlikely to to have spoken anything attributed to him in that book, the only one of the four Gospels which declares Jesus to be God. So in that sense, every historicist who is not a fundamentalist would in the broader sense also be a "mythicist". It might be more practical then to limit the definition of "mythicist" to those who hold there is no historical Jesus. But this is semantics.--WickerGuy (talk) 21:47, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ No it doesn't stretch out the definition of "Christ myth" theory too far because as Remsburg said in the Chapter "The Christ a Myth" in The Christ (1909):

"While all Freethinkers are agreed that the Christ of the New Testament is a myth they are not, as we have seen, and perhaps never will be, fully agreed as to the nature of this myth. Some believe that he is a historical myth; others that he is a pure myth. Some believe that Jesus, a real person, was the germ of this Christ whom subsequent generations gradually evolved; others contend that the man Jesus, as well as the Christ, is wholly a creation of the human imagination. After carefully weighing the evidence and arguments in support of each hypothesis the writer, while refraining from expressing a dogmatic affirmation regarding either, is compelled to accept the former as the more probable."

Volney one of the often cited "father's" of the Christ Myth theory allowed for confused memories of on obscure historical figure to be part of the myth in his version of the thing (Wells, George A. (1969) "Stages of New Testament Criticism" Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 30, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1969), pp. 147-160) so this historical myth idea has been there since the beginning.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:42, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Excellent choice of citation! Clearly, the concept of a Jesus myth or Christ myth has been used in both senses, as you assert. I would like to note that in contemporary terminology, the self-appointed label "mythicist" does seem to used mainly to refer to option 2 (no historical Jesus or as the title of one recent book put it "Jesus: Neither God nor Man"). However, you make a good case for discussing both usages of the term "Christ myth" as it has been used in the past. But I'm still worried that this effectively makes any non-Christian a subscriber to some form of Jesus-myth theory.--WickerGuy (talk) 00:09, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Interesting, but who cares?

I'm somewhat curious why we should give a damn about Wikipedia doing something, or why you both Tl;dr so muchil'Dictator Mikal 17:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I would hope that in some cases there would be a symbiotic relationship between what WP does and what we do.--WickerGuy (talk) 18:15, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

why, we arent wikipedia--il'Dictator Mikal 18:20, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Wow. Are we going to have articles about Wikipedia articles now?--Bob^{"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."} 18:39, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I suspect you're trying to use any random thing you think you can grab to shore up your case, as you try not to come to the realisation that you spent years of your life on two degrees in pseudoacademics - David Gerard (talk) 19:13, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest you watch one of Greta Christina's talks about making the rationalist community a safe (as in 'welcoming') place to land for a variety of folk, and/or various other presentations around the rationalist web on ex-seminarians who have thrown in the towel. Incidentally, even Richard Dawkins allows that what religion and/or seminary professors do in the field of religious history, the study of religious art, and occasionally even contributions to ethical philosophy so forth is entirely legitimate academics, though he considers theology per se to be an empty field of study devoid of content, and I would entirely agree it consists of metaphysical speculation based on a presumption of a supernatural basis to a narrow selection of peak experiences. As no one can agree on how to map or model supernatural reality and all such propositions are untestable unless you hold some sacred scripture as a touchstone (which I don't), theology strikes me as largely spinning wheels in the mud. However, theology was only a small fraction of my coursework, and I didn't go to a bogus right-wing seminary like Bethany Bible, but the most ultra-liberal seminary in America which I would mainly fault for too much liberal political correctness (and post-modernism) if anything. If fundamentalist schools have too many people doubting Obama's birthplace, mine had too many 9/11 truthers who thought Bush planned the whole thing. I focused heavily on history of religion and the arts, and I remain quite proud of my Master's thesis on the poet William Blake which has nothing pseudo-academic about it, thank you very much. (Why Richard Dawkins remains a major fan of the heavily supernaturalist poet William Butler Yeats but scorns William Blake as an obscurantist mystic remains a bit puzzling to me, unless its due to the fact that Blake directly attacked Newtonian physics. Otherwise, Yeats' involvement with the Golden Dawn and Blake's involvement with Swedenborgianism seem equally esoteric to me.) (Oh, and I get a kick out of being the only staff member of the humanist summer camp Camp Quest West with a seminary degree. Most folk there think it qualifies me to make a distinctive contribution to the place.)

David Gerard, this is your second and stronger direct personal attack on me, but I guess this isn't Wikipedia, but please try not to second-guess my motives for anything. It is really irritating, and while I realize I am overly verbose, there is a LOT more to a Gish Gallop than verbosity. It's a very unfair comparison.--WickerGuy (talk) 00:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

WixkerGuy, you are an utter and incomprehensible moron. Repeat three times. Now I am ahead of DG. ħuman 03:01, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

It's very simple. I am an ex-seminarian who has developed a fairly jaded view of even progressive liberal religion- though am pleased to have grown up that way, rather than some fundamentalist born-again tripe, am very eager to fight pseudo-science with real science, am unconvinced by Jesus-mythicism (though lacking the expertise of either Bart Ehrman or Robert Price on Biblical scholarship- I hardly know any Greek), didn't buy into many of the prevailing ideas at my seminary (including post-modernism, post-colonialism, etc.) but think it's a silly overstatement on the part of David Gerard to say I wasted years in "pseudo-academics". And I think the intellectual strategies of the way liberal theology tries to immunize itself from criticism by its lack of testability are worrisome to me. I hope I make myself more comprehensible.--WickerGuy (talk) 03:45, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Justin Martyr, hearsay?

I was wondering about this, since even though he lived long, long after the alleged time of Jesus, doesn't he urge skeptics to look into the records of the time (First Apology 35)? That seems to imply that the records once existed, which seems stronger evidence for the existence of Jesus than, well, everything on this page. Sake Fueled (talk) 03:37, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Gold status

I just read this for the first time and was quite impressed. It isn't flawless, but it's very good. So how does an article get upgraded to gold status? This one has to be close IMO. VOX^HUMANA 22:12, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Answer - by reading the pages devoted to the very topic. VOX^HUMANA 22:16, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Cover nomination

I'd like to nominate this for cover status. My reasons are that it is:

1. - Comprehensive
2. - Well written
3. - Well referenced, (I haven't validated 100% of the refs but I did a random sample and they were all good)
4. - Highly on-mission.

Discuss. VOX^HUMANA 22:19, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Nearly there. Needs to cover the problem with biblical history, as nailed by Avalos and Carrier: 1. The academic consensus is a historical Jesus. 2. It is trivially obvious that the arguments for a historical Jesus use terrible reasoning and logical fallacies. 3. These are in fact the arguments used in the academic study of biblical history, which is why real historians don't take them the least bit seriously. So it is the academic consensus, even though it's stupid. This means I have to (or someone has to) sit down with Proving History and/or The End Of Biblical Studies and crib and condense furiously - David Gerard (talk) 13:07, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

RationalWiki? More like IrrationalWiki

The following is an amusing rant, apparently written by the author of this blog

My favorite part is how the writers of this article actually argue against what has generally been agreed upon by scholars. The article attacks all the historical accounts which mentioned Christ by claiming that they don't argue in favor because they are minimal. This is a very flawed argument. The fact that the Christ of Christians (not Jews as the section on Pliny The Younger claims) is mentioned at all speaks volumes. Apply some logic here and it's logical to assume that these Christians (whose existence as agreed upon in the article has been documented all the way back to 60 AD) either had seen Jesus themselves back in 33 AD or had family who did hence why they began following a movement which could cost them their lives.

The section titled "Would the Disciples die for a lie?" is fallacious and the argument it attempts is quite pathetic actually. The example it lists of "people killing themselves for a belief" such as modern-day suicide bombers and their "promise" can't be used in comparison to the early Christians who gave up their lives only a few decades after Christ. One can argue people didn't live very long back then for a witness of Christ to be alive in 60 AD but then again, there were quite a few who would live to 40 - 50 years back then and 45 years was the average life expectancy according to the shorter life span myth. So according to the shorter life span myth, witnesses to Jesus would have been alive in 60 AD not only to give up their lives but to preach to others about what they saw and tell their children (who would have no reason to doubt their fathers/mothers) so this article is debunked by the oral fact itself. Paul would need great evidence to convince people to die for something that was a lie and people wouldn't follow one man's hearsay unless they had seen this man before. The outside Biblical evidence in this article plus the numerous martyr accounts (again the "Would the Disciples die for a lie?" section fails here because it almost attempts to boast that all the true martyr accounts - as documented by contemporary records - are lies because of a few hoaxes and lies) show there was a movement before Paul's involvement and more than one man could start (due to how quickly it spread and the countries it spread to. By this reasoning alone it becomes clear that more than one man/woman was behind the movement and you would have to be pretty illogical to believe this formed from a lie initiated by one man. The alternative would be to believe in a conspiracy theory where a group came together to spread the lie but you would have to be pretty dead-set on not believing in Jesus and ignoring all evidence to believe that a baseless lie could go far. It's more logical to assume - based on the speed of the spread - that entire scores of people preached about Jesus because they had seen him).

Back to the shorter life span myth and this myth has "no basis in scientific fact" according to a 2009 article by Livescience titled "Human Lifespans Nearly Constant for 2,000 Years". Therefore it's likely to assume that there were likely a great few alive in 60 AD who had seen the individual Christ who was crucified back in 33 AD (as reported by several historians) and lived to preach about it 28 years later. This alone destroys most of the argument within this article.

The conclusion I gather from this article is that it's extremely atheistic biased. It admits there was likely a historical basis for Jesus but can't even decide if it was an individual or many people.

"What most historians and scholars think is that a human named Jesus was the seed for the Christian myths."

A poor misinterpretation of what has actually been said about Jesus. This section then goes on to dispute against scholars if they are theologians because they are bias. Just as bias as the atheist then who wrote this article. If we can ignore what a scholar says about Jesus because they are religious (and there are actually atheist/agnostic/non-religious scholars who do agree an individual called Jesus existed and that he preached and was later executed) then we can ignore what this article says about Jesus because it has an atheistic bias.

Now to the section about Tacitus which claims he's wrong about what happened in 60 AD and that there "wasn't a great score of Christians back then". How can this article make that claim without any evidence of its own? Were the writers of this article alive back then to know if Tacitus was repeating something from a untrustworthy source as it proclaims? No. Therefore the writing of Tactius mentioning the Christian's crucified founder - CHRIST - holds more value than a baseless assumption from an atheist who wasn't even around back then to get the oral/written accounts of what had happened back in 60 AD.

This article contains so many fallacies that it's not even funny. I came here looking for a non-biased account of Christ but got an extremely biased version grossly misinterpreting the facts and cherry-picking.

With that said, my short and wasted trip to this wiki is finished. I never meant to write a long essay like this but there you go. One thing has been gained though, I have now found the source behind most atheistic arguments against Jesus and debunked them. Since this post will one day fade into the fossil record, I will post this on a blog I just created titled "Rational Wiki is Irrational" (which can be found on my profile) which will be complete with quotations of some of the embarrassing poorly thought out arguments in this article. I'm good at advertising too so it'll probably get around a bit so my time isn't completely wasted because at least people can see the illogical mindset behind the writers of "Rational" Wiki.

Good day. --SodiumPurified (talk) 04:26, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't forget to send a link! Sam ^Tally-ho! 04:29, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Instant reply huh? That was fast. Well here you go: http://therationalwiki.blogspot.co.uk/ and if - IF - I feel like wasting some more time I might go to town on some other articles of yours that you propose as being scientific when they are in actual fact very unscientific. The only thing I can praise about this site is that's it's open and not censored like Conservepedia but that doesn't mean much. Signing out. --SodiumPurified (talk) 04:35, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Probably the biggest obstacle to responding to your essay is that it is, with respect, rather poorly written. I can't really make out what you are arguing for in most of your paragraphs. I suggest that you take it away, refine what you are trying to say, proof read it a bit, and come back with something that can be responded to. I suspect that points you want to make are clear in your mind, but unfortunately they do not come across well. Perhaps lowering the level of rhetoric might help. Damo^Hi 04:55, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Damo. It's a little bit hard to get a handle on what the author is saying except that he disagrees with us and " I thought this was Rational Wiki".--Bob^{"I thought this was supposed to be "Rational" Wiki?."} 07:41, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't like your chances - David Gerard (talk) 07:47, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

It is a bit of a PRATT fall, isn't it. Innocent Bystander (talk) 09:49, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I am always prepared to listen to what our critics have to say, I sometimes even think they make some good points, but there is no point in drive-by posting an essay that is basically unreadable. I think the poster is probably genuine, and may even have something sensible to say on the subject (that remains to be seen). BUT people like him have to realise that a massive blob of text does not an argument make. Damo^Hi 10:16, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Editing the article in a way that's agreeable to all would be more effective than this. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 11:54, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Getting any article edited in a way that's "agreeable to all" is a tall order - at least if "all" really means "all". I'd say that getting this one edited so that's it "agreeable to all" would be downright impossible. Or have I misunderstood you point?--Bob^{"I thought this was supposed to be "Rational" Wiki?."} 13:01, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that it's a contentious subject. As Carrier notes in Proving History (and Avalos had bludgeoned into the ground in The End Of Biblical Studies), it is both true that (1) subject area academic opinion holds that Jesus existed (2) said academic area is epistemically hopeless in really trivial and obvious ways (which is why skeptics look at the criteria and go "you can't be serious"), and actual historians don't take Biblical historians seriously as historians at all. This needs a section in this article, though dealing with it reasonably will probably take the article over 100 kilobytes - David Gerard (talk) 14:29, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

(Remove indent) I agree with Damo in that the essay is effectively unreadable. Furthermore, some of the points you can tease out of the mess makes no sense. Take the comment "this argument itself is flawed because it's Christians mentioned and therefore it's their Christ - Jesus" Christ is a TITLE not a name and even the wikipedia article notes three Messiah's (or Christs in Greek) predating Jesus. WIth such rambling how can we take anything it says seriously? - BruceGrubb (talk) 07:40, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Small thing to point out: the "religious extremist die today for their faith, but christian disciples died long ago, so that means that christian faith is real" makes no sense. Why? Because in more than one religion, there were supposed wise men sent by the gods that have been mistreated or even killed by the "bad guys", that would make their religious claims valid by that pseudo-logic, yes? not to mention that i do not see how the lifespan of humans back then would have to do anything with this logically, even less that the lifespan average constant is affected by the infant moralities, medicine, crime rate etc and isn't an indicator of when an individual person of that time drops dead to begin with. Even in today's newly rising myths and religions, like Scientology, you can witness such drama, that would make them valid as well. Second, the idea of faith that many today not only die, but kill for, can be traced to long ago, how does people killing others and themselves for it today make any less of an impact than when it was supposedly done long ago? Also, special pleading by claiming all the other martyrs if different idea and religions are fake but yours isn't without any empirical proof. Let's also reverse the argument by saying that Hindus who were slaughtered because of their faith have the real religion, and you would have to be deaf and blind not to believe in it. (PS: i know this article is old, but just wanted to cast some light on a few inaccuracies) Imadmagician (talk) 13:58, 10 November 2014 (UTC)