Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by rationalrevolution on September 10, 2010 at 10:48am

Yes, but what I'm saying, along the lines of Earl Dougherty says as well, is not just that we don't have evidence of his existence, but rather what I'm saying is that we have a mountain of verifiable positive evidence which indicates that he in fact never existed.

In my view, the case against his existence is overwhelming and pretty much beyond refutation. As far as I'm concerned, its a fact that the "Jesus" of Christianity originated as a mythical heavenly messiah worshiped by a small band of Jews, and then became "histororicized" because someone wrote a fictional allegorical story, using traditional techniques of Jewish midrash, about the destruction of Jerusalem after the war with Rome in 70CE, and this fictional story then became the basis of the belief in a real live Jesus. This story was copied by others and added to, and every single account of this person's "life" stems from this one fictional story, which can be proven to be fiction.

So what I'm saying is that we don't have evidence, I'm saying that we do have lots of very solid evidence, and that evidence shows pretty conclusively that this "person" never existed.

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Permalink Reply by Atheist Exile on September 11, 2010 at 9:51am

I haven't read any of Dougherty's works and am curious about the "mountain of verifiable positive evidence which indicates that he in fact never existed". It seems to me that real evidence for a mythical Jesus would be pretty earth-shattering . . . but I've never heard of any such evidence. Do you really mean to use the word, "evidence", or do you really mean something like "argument" or "reason"? If you really mean evidence, then what are some examples of this evidence?

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Permalink Reply by Atheist Exile on September 12, 2010 at 2:15am

Thanks for that link, Doone,

Either Jesus existed as a person or he didn't. Either way, most -- if not all -- the stories of Jesus' life are myths. Jesus the person, if he existed, has been set aside and an idealized version of him has been deified in his place. Whether Jesus existed or not, what we know of him is myth.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on September 12, 2010 at 2:24am

if the methodology is valid then that's absolutely not the case. if the methodology is valid then it can tell us what he is likely to have said and done. indeed, it is because what the methodology tells us he is likely to have said and done is absolutely mundane and therefore shows us a progression from the mundane to the fantastical that it leads us to believe that there is a historical core to the gospel narrative.
again, some question whether the methodology is valid but if it is it's flat wrong to say that all we know of him is myth.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on September 11, 2010 at 11:50am

Doherty's book has a huge problem insofar as it fairly well tramples Occam's Razor. it almost comes off sounding like a conspiracy theory in places with the way it posits elaborate processes involving numerous unrelated (and unaware of each other) "conspirators" to explain away what would otherwise be simple straightforward observations. it's an interesting theory but in the end there's too much "what if?" seems like even if a person were to accept his argument as fundamentally sound you'd still only be justified on the basis of the "what if?" in being agnostic on the question.

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Permalink Reply by Atheist Exile on September 12, 2010 at 10:35pm

Nobody knows for sure.

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Permalink Reply by Malcolm on September 22, 2010 at 12:30pm

I've read just about everything Doherty has written and I would disagree strenuously with your assertions. He never describes anything that would even remotely resemble a conspiracy among early Xians (although he joking used that word in a chapter title in one of his books). "Elaborate" processes are not involved either. And he points out (someone else here made this point, too), the theory of an historical Jesus has difficulty explaining a lot of evidence that the mythicist theory doesn't. Ultimately he argues that his theory is a better explanation of the evidence, not that it is at all certain.

I'm looking through the posts here to see if anyone has given an adequate explanation of the mythicist case. So far I don't see one. If no one else has done it, i'll supply my own.

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Permalink Reply by Malcolm on September 24, 2010 at 8:34am

I should've elaborated a little more on my mention of the word "conspiracy" in one of the chapters in Doherty's book. The chapter title was "A Conspiracy of Silence" in which he talks about the fact that the earliest Xian writings make no mention of any events from the life of Jesus. Not that may NT scholars have commented about this curiosity, but those that have have had difficulty coming up with any plausible explanation for this. For example, it has been posited that early Xians "had no interest" in the life of Jesus (if you could believe that!). It's also been speculated that early Xians were afraid to mention Jesus' name because of Roman persecution (despite that there's no evidence for this). It was for this reason that Doherty joked that the theory of the historical Jesus requires the belief in a conspiracy theory.

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Permalink Reply by Malcolm on September 22, 2010 at 12:36pm

There are huge problems with using the Talmud as your source for information about (or even evidence for the existence of) Jesus:
1. The Talmud dates to the early 3rd c. at the earliest, and the parts that reference Jesus are much later, from the 5th c. or later.
2. Some characters that are identified with Jesus in the later strata of the Talmud were originally unrelated people in earlier parts.
3. The descriptions of Jesus in the Talmud are often wildly at odds with even the barest sketch of the story we see in the Gospels, to the point that some Talmud stories have him living a century earlier or later than he is traditionally thought to have lived.

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Permalink Reply by Jason on September 10, 2010 at 12:40pm

Stump an evangelical.

I’ve asked this to some evangelicals and hardcore Catholics. They never have a good answer.

- If Jesus was standing on a rail road track…. And a train was coming…. And the only thing that would save Him was for you to push Him out of the way and you receive the brunt of the train and die…. Well…. I’m pretty sure you would push Jesus out the way and die for Him. But what if Jesus said to you just before the train hit him, “Listen… I did live 2000 years ago… I did teach all that stuff…. I was crucified…. But, I never turned water to wine… I never did any miracle….. I never died for your sin…. I never rose from the dead. I’m not the Son of God. I’m just a man.” Would you still push him off the rail road track and die for Him? If the Gospels never mentioned any miracles of Jesus would you believe he is God?

That’s when they (evangelicals) give me the deer in the headlights look.

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Permalink Reply by Gaytor on September 10, 2010 at 1:48pm

And that's where it becomes interesting. When talking about the historical person known as Jesus, the miraculous stories aren't found in Mark, the first Gospel. In fact the earliest copy that we have ends at 16:8 with the ladies walking away from the cave, no resurrection. Most Theists will charge that this is because the copy is extant. Incorrect. The authorship changed from 16:9 on. We ended up with magic like speaking in tongues and not being afraid of snake bites. Until 16:8, the story is about a simple man.

In Matthew and Luke, the stories about Jesus aren't divine in nature. They do have some supernatural stories, but nothing more than what Lazarus did. He still has to go to John the Baptist to be Baptized. Why would the Son of God, God in the Flesh need to be Baptized?

The view of Jesus and his divinity changes with John. John was written even later after much of Jesus' generation had passed, about 90 CE. From this Gospel we go from a story about a great teacher whom may have, or may not have been divine to the Son of Man who will save everyone. "I have glorified thee on earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." John 17:4 But go back to Mark's illustration of Jesus, "A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house." Mark 6:4 Matthew and Luke are similar in referring to him more commonly as a Propeht rather than God in the Flesh. "A great prophet has arisen among us!" Luke 7:16. Why not refer to him as God, Son of Man, the Messiah, or the King of the Jews?

If you can get anyone to hear you in a discussion, you can take it much further down that road.

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Permalink Reply by Morgan Matthew on September 10, 2010 at 2:05pm

Jason and Gaytor great responses! +1

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