This topic contains 41 replies, has 8 voices, and was last updated by 
-
Posts
-
I have read those critics and I have read the original myths. If you are looking for a direct correlation you aren’t going to find it in most cases. It comes from understanding the basic assumptions of those myths and the need for a sacrifice. As I read through the myths, the theology of paganism and the reasoning used by D.M. Murdock and others it makes more sense to me than a real Jesus. I have observed these processes within modern myth making and while the majority of scholars disagree, I don’t find their reasoning as compelling.
I find the idea that Jesus is the son of god dying for our sins and raising from the dead completely unsustainable from history. I find, from what I know of humanity’s ability to make up fantastic stories to feel good, that the syncretic explanation is more believable.
I have learned the truth is not a democratic process and that often the majority is wrong. Just because I have different conclusions doesn’t have to be an insult to you.
But the topic in question isn’t really to do with the divine Christ, its to do with the correlation of Christ to other religions and gods. You keep seeming to flick back to this notion of the absurdity of the divine Jesus when I was merely debating the areas you presented, that is the doubt on the historical Jesus and the relation of him to Paganism. And it is your prerogative to believe that Jesus and his story was made up, but its always worth knowing that the majority historical academic community wouldn’t agree with that, regardless of belief, so you have to be careful when you talk in absolutes which is what you were doing before by saying that the New Testament accounts were “clearly” made up.
And your conclusions aren’t the insult, its the distorted way you view history, and your general ridiculing it as if its not worthy a field in the search for truth. Though I wouldn’t call it insulting, more taken aback.
If I might interject… I have a friend who’s quite interested in mythology and has me read books about comparative mythology and Egyptology and the fabrication of a Jesus myth. It seems that this is the general landscape:
1. most historians and scholars, regardless of belief, generally seem to agree that the Jesus story is based on a historical person in Galilee who taught and was killed by the authorities for his political views.
2. there is a small school of theorists and even scholars injecting questions and doubt into the historical accuracy of #1’s claims, and this school is growing into a growing and popular opinion.
3. this only has to do with the historical man now called Jesus and nothing to do with divinity or belief.
4. i wonder what game is at play: is the research and conclusions of the theorists and scholars of #2 met with suspicion because of sloppy biased research or because #1 is the ruling party that determines what gets passed as truth or not.
My stance at this point is to avoid rushing to conclusions. I read books and articles from scholars and non-scholars on both sides. Sometimes it is clear to me when an argument is agenda driven and it is easy to hold that one as suspect. But other times an argument is offered that seems really plausible and so I have to add it to my personal intellectual data base concerning the historical Jesus.
AnonymousI’d like to weigh in with all my academic inadequacy. I barely made it out of high school and for the first 25 years of my life I was thoroughly evangelical as schooled by the legacy of John Nelson Darby. I was thoroughly dispensationalist. It makes me shudder now. I am not the least bit scholarly, I’m much more like the kid who asked the question of the emperor’s new clothes.
So, I’d just like to say, “All we have are constructs” any discussion about God, His Son, or the Great Spirit is simply us taking our best shot at explaining the unknown. Some call it the God of the gaps.
I tend to agree with Richard regarding any decision to trust the gospel story. I have taken a giant step back from anything Christian. However, it’s deep in my psychological DNA, and therefore hard to shake. When I listen to the likes of Richard Rhor, Parker Palmer or even Joseph Campbell I here things that resonate with my deepest parts. Perhaps this a conditioned response, or perhaps there is a spiritual realm, or dimension. J Campbell’s writing on mythology demonstrates that there are at least a few universal myths that carry perennial wisdom, and that there is a pattern of development/evolution. It’s a mistake to think that the Jewish/Christian story is somehow unaffected by those influences.
I think the big question is what are those perennial truths and how do we make sure that we don’t miss the point(s).
@Rick And it is your prerogative to believe that Jesus and his story was made up, but its always worth knowing that the majority historical academic community wouldn’t agree with that, regardless of belief, so you have to be careful when you talk in absolutes which is what you were doing before by saying that the New Testament accounts were “clearly” made up.
Since when is walking on the water an accepted reality? Since when is rising from the dead something we consider real? I don’t think that’s much of a stretch to say it’s clearly made up.
@Rick And your conclusions aren’t the insult, its the distorted way you view history, and your general ridiculing it as if its not worthy a field in the search for truth. Though I wouldn’t call it insulting, more taken aback.
Exactly where did I ridicule the field? And why call it an insult to you in the first place when it’s not an insult? And why is being skeptical about historical accounts distortion when we have ample evidence that history is often the tale of the most powerful?
You are distorting what I actually posted and implying things that I’m not posting. It seems that if you don’t agree with what I’m saying then you give it some sort of label.@David
The points you listed are pretty much the points I am arguing for, that the man himself actually existed, that he caused commotion in Judea and was executed as a result, and that a huge band of people devoted to him grew after this event. When it comes to the gospels accounts themselves, and the divinity of Jesus, then it becomes a very wide area for debate. I was also merely laying down what the historic community thought about the relation of mythology to Christianity and Jesus that Richard inadvertently supplied me with via the wiki article
“Exactly where did I ridicule the field?”
When you said:
“They are fine for extrapolation and creating some type of story, but I would never call history truthful.”
“The idea of historical accuracy is only true within a very narrow set of assumptions.”
“The idea of actual historical accuracy is a myth.”You are basically saying that its an area for interest but that’s about as far as it goes because you think it lacks the depth required to ascertain historical facts and create a valid perception of historical truth. You’re limiting history to being some kind of cosmic lie, that the details we know of the past are mere distortions based on the premise that people can lie. To say that historical accuracy is a myth is ridiculous and completely contrary to the actual reality of the subject. Yes people can lie and yes people have agendas but that doesn’t mean that everything anyone ever says in history is a distortion of the true events, the majority of the time, what a person in history says about a specific time is generally accurate and useful in conjunction with other sources from the time, regardless of bias. The majority of the time, people have no reason to lie about a given event, and even if they have an agenda, then still provide an accurate account with their opinion or perspective of the events. This in relation to historical period and analysis, I’m not really talking about the gospels. And its one thing to be skeptical about historical accounts, and its another to flatly deny them via faulty logic and a lack of understanding of the subject.
@Rick And its one thing to be skeptical about historical accounts, and its another to flatly deny them via faulty logic and a lack of understanding of the subject.
I didn’t flatly deny them. This is an exaggeration on your part. I don’t trust history to make my life decisions for me. I rely on direct experience. Your distortion of my statements is evidence that history is unreliable because even in this conversation you aren’t able to accurately report what I have posted. You add your own assumptions. If we can’t even communicate in a single iteration, how can we trust writings that are over 2000 years old and copied multiple times?
I fail to see how my statements about history are faulty logic. In terms of pure logic any part of a claim that is false makes the whole claim false. Mathematically this is expressed as any zero within any multiplication problem makes the whole equation zero. As soon as any source is shown to be unreliable, the whole enterprise is under suspicion.
I recognize that in history we can’t have strict logic applied otherwise we would have no narratives. Since human perception is known to be unreliable every report of history is clouded by the assumptions of the culture in which they were created. Even if you have two sources reporting the same thing, you can’t ever be sure they both aren’t tainted by the same assumptions. That’s why history, when applying strict logic, is not a truth telling enterprise unless you loosen the rules of logic. And this is what the analysis of history does. It narrows the assumptions in which it dialogs. I never said this wasn’t useful or lacked intelligence or suggested the study of history should be ridiculed. These ideas only exist in your mind.
You have provided no logic for assuming that Christianity is real in any sense. You say that when you strip away the myth that some how there is this obvious truth of Jesus there. I have yet to see any rational explanation for that. It’s a nice story and a belief, but I certainly don’t see it rationally within anything that you have presented.
If your defense is misrepresenting my statements as exaggerations and knocking those over and stating that I have a lack of understanding of the subject, then that looks more like name calling to me than presenting your point. I have never suggested you lack in anything. I have not called you ignorant or suggested you weren’t intelligent. I haven’t pulled any authority card or expert claim. I have stayed with my points of view and let them stand on their own merit. I suggest you do the same.
You should also remember the context in which this topic resides. It is in the atheist/agnostic section. One of the major points of view of atheism is the mythic nature of Jesus and all claims of divine truth. I don’t think it should be a surprise that I would bring up the reason I might be interested in the mythic nature of the actual Jesus is to also suggest another reason to doubt the truth of Christian claims.
I don’t care if you disagree with me. I don’t particularly like being told I lack an understanding of history as a counter point. I would prefer an actual explanation and it’s corresponding logic. I can’t respond to the accusation that I’m ignorant of the historical method with anything other than “am not.” And that’s pretty immature since it’s just the old playground standoff with big words.
I tend to agree with the completely questionable reliability of “history”. I mean, I believe something “happened”, but the documentation of it is pretty much completely unreliable. I wouldn’t stake my life on it, in other words.
Just look at The Central Park 5! That just happened in 1989… 14 years ago. And still the truth of what actually happened is still murky. Even the most “original sources” were highly agenda driven and painted a picture that allowed innocent people to be prosecuted.
And I would never “argue for” the fact that a man upon which the Jesus myth is based ever existed. I’m not an expert and even as an expert all we can argue for is probability. I tend to lean on the probability side of things… that a man did live, preach and was executed, upon which the Jesus story and gospels are based.
I have to be aware though that my “beliefs”… whatever they are haha… have mightily DEPENDED upon the historical Jesus in many ways. Extracting my “beliefs” from this dependency on historical accuracy or myth is delicate an scary.
I’m not personally vested in whether or not Jesus was an actual historical person. I don’t see a lot of difference between a historical Jesus starting a new religious movement and some other people starting a new religious movement and inventing a Jesus figure so people could better relate to the movement. In either case, it is clear that a new movement was started. I also don’t think it is absolutely necessary to believe in a historical Jesus to be a Christian. One could believe that “Jesus” came down to earth in the minds of those who wrote the gospel stories and it wasn’t a physical coming down but a spiritual coming down… and the gospel authors are the real Jesus.
Personally, I believe that there was a historical person that the gospel stories were based on but the stories took on a life of their own and probably bare little resemblance to that actual person.
I’m not vested in Jesus not being a real person either. It seems more plausible to me and doesn’t seem so fringe when I read the arguments. We don’t have the apposing view points to orthodox Christianity because their scriptures were systematically destroyed. We only have the orthodox apologetic’s representations of their positions. Elaine Pagels has suggested that the gnostic texts represent an earlier “new testament” than our current collection. There is some evidence that the orthodox writings we have today are a reaction to the gnostic texts and the gnostic mystery texts are the source of Christian beliefs. And certain gnostic traditions didn’t see Jesus as a literal being. This is reflected in other pagan mystery religions where their mystic is represented by a being that inhabits the inner self.
This is not without president in the ancient world. No one would seriously suggest that Hercules was a real being and even Socrates is an idealized philosopher described by Plato having much in common with Jesus. Plato is a major contributor to Christian philosophy and his idealized description of Socrates presents Socrates as a passive “savior” of Athens through his death. Socrates had a chance to escape but refused to do so, offering his life as a testament to the integrity of his message.
When I look at how various pagan mystical systems included every god within their description of truth it makes sense that these ideas would be collected together to present the perfect philosophy of reality. This was not an attempt at deception, it was simply a different descriptive method that dominated a world that hadn’t been exposed to the scientific method. When you have a religion that excludes every other truth but it’s own, you have the atmosphere for turning the mythical into the literal. This is what Messianic Judaism brought to the table. They had already been turning mythical beings into literal beings in the stories of the Old Testament. It is not such a leap to see how this might extend into the philosophies of Philo, a Jewish mystic in Alexandria who was mixing Egyptian, Hellenistic, and Jewish beliefs. We know that Philo was a considerable influence on a number of church fathers. Philo, who lived during the time of Christ makes no mention of Christians or Jesus in his writings. He mentions Pilate as being cruel, but doesn’t mention Jesus as an example of that cruelty.
If Germany had won the war and began systematically destroying any writings that disagreed with their doctrine of the “perfect race” we would be left with a severe gap in the narrative. Germany was already burning books that were considered “impure.” This same destruction was carried out by the Roman Empire under the leadership of the Orthodox Christian religion. If were not for Islamic enlightenment we wouldn’t have the Greek classics and other ancient writings. If we didn’t find caches of books hidden by gnostic traditions, we wouldn’t have any of those writings. So to call Christian history reliable is a considerable stretch of the imagination.
There are a number of eminent people in history that didn’t believe that Jesus was a real person. The point is a serious argument can be presented against the idea of a real Jesus. While this point will probably never be known for sure, appeals to majority of scholars is a not a point of fact, nor are appeals to the accuracy of history. It is entirely possible that the majority is wrong and history is a puzzle for the most part that is largely narrated on deduction.
Richard, I made it absolutely clear that I am not trying to validate the gospel records themselves in history, that such records are very much open to wide debate, I was merely demonstrating that the historical Jesus, or ‘Christus’ existed as a person, was baptised by John the Baptist and was executed under Pilate for stirring up shit, and then after that event a lot of people seemed strangely attached to him. These are simply historical facts that the majority historical community would agree with, and furthermore that this same majority historical community disagrees with the connections between Jesus and other religious god. That was the topic of this post originally was it not? I was addressing what you originally set out to discuss. Though when I presented the evidence to my claims, you decided to downgrade history in its entirety as a means of ascertaining facts and before you deny that you said these things, I suggest you re-read your replies above.
This is frustrating to me, because even now, in your last reply, you are referring to concepts and investigations within history, all information of which was obtained by a practice you consider unreliable in ascertaining facts. It just comes across as being very hypocritical, like you will gladly use history if it means it substantiates your claims, but when the academic community disagree with you on certain things, historical accuracy suddenly doesn’t exist.
I’m no longer contributing to this debate because I foresee us getting absolutely no where, we clearly have very different concepts and interpretations of what history is and how its used and being that this is a discussion within the realm of history, we’re not going to gain any understanding. Peace out.
Just a quick comment.
Richard you stated “The fact that the gospels claim that Jesus raised the dead, walked on water, transfigured himself, fed 5000 people, changed water into wine, are clear indications that these authors are making stuff up.”
Actually Richard these accounts of such miracles do not constitute “clear indications” of any such thing if in fact Jesus was divine. They may convince YOU of such and that is fine. But to state that “these authors are making stuff up” and that this conclusion is somehow “clear” is a false statement. If Jesus was divine then the accounts could very well be accurate. And if He was not divine, it is still a huge presumption on your part that the authors did not themselves believe the stories they had been told were false and therefore had to simply be “making stuff up”.
I’ll be honest (though not intending to be insulting in any way), I see much bias in many of your conclusions. This is not an attack at all because I struggle with my own biases every day and work hard to remove them wherever I can identify them.
@Rick This is frustrating to me, because even now, in your last reply, you are referring to concepts and investigations within history, all information of which was obtained by a practice you consider unreliable in ascertaining facts. It just comes across as being very hypocritical, like you will gladly use history if it means it substantiates your claims, but when the academic community disagree with you on certain things, historical accuracy suddenly doesn’t exist.
I think it’s a little silly to constantly put disclaimers on my view of history so that I don’t get called a hypocrite. It would really bog down any conversation. I think I should be able to at least reference the history we do have written down even though I don’t put a high confidence in it’s ability to really describe reality. I quote Jesus, but I don’t keep putting disclaimers that I don’t believe he is divine or probably didn’t exist. It would clutter the conversation with a series of qualifications which would make it difficult to make a point at all.
When I look at history I try to imagine what it would be like to view the world with the information available at the time. They didn’t really know where disease came from. They thought it was evil spirits. They had a whole view of many different beings causing things to happen in the natural world. They believed everybody’s gods really existed except some were more powerful than others. Even the Jews believed in other gods except they believed their god was above all other gods. A religion wasn’t legitimate unless it was really old and important people believed it. The scientific method didn’t exist in the public consciousness. There are a whole range of assumptions we have today that didn’t exist. I then try to imagine how I might describe what is true and it makes sense from what I have read that people would make up new stories and myths to make sense of their world and this did and could include making imaginary people real.
Now I don’t claim to know that Jesus didn’t exist, but I don’t label you as a hypocrite or uneducated or any other label because that has no bearing on whether the issues we are talking about are true or not. I try to stay away from any personal labels as part of my views. It seems like you keep presenting an exaggerated version of my post and then debate that. You aren’t even talking to me at that point. You are talking to an imaginary me.
I kind of get tired of unpacking all of this to respond. Unless I quote you specifically I’m generally outlining my own reasoning for my own views. You seem to take these as personal replies when I’m simply trying to give you a broad picture of my own motivations for what I believe to be true.
It is really beyond this medium to provide tons of references and detailed analysis because you can go and get the books and read those for yourself. D.M. Murdock has heavily documented 600 page books on this topic if you are so inclined. If you don’t find her believable then don’t read them.
@Gary Actually Richard these accounts of such miracles do not constitute “clear indications” of any such thing if in fact Jesus was divine.
Well I’m coming from the assumption that Jesus isn’t divine. As soon as you play the divine card you have no way to negate any claim. So yes, I have a basic bias that Jesus wasn’t divine. So from my experience with reality it is clear that these claims are made up.
This doesn’t mean that I believe the writers themselves didn’t believe it, but there is quite a president for forgeries and story making up in the ancient world.
I agree that even though the incidents documented might not have happened, it doesn’t mean the gospel writers didn’t believe them to have happened.
When I was taking my Masters in Theological Studies in New Testament under the Dr. Gordon Fee, one of the most respected text critics in the world, he said, when studying a text in its original language, that a general rule was that the most improbably text was probably the most correct one. That is, the text that seemed too crazy for a scribe to make up and insert or change from the original text, then it was usually right to go with that text. Also, the text that only appeared once, a “hapaxlegomena”, could very well be the right one because it stood out so unusually and unique from all the others… what we now call “the minority report”. I remember sitting there thinking how impossible it must be to find the original manuscript if that’s one of the top rules to employ when critiquing a text.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.