Jesus Myth - The Case Against Historical Christ

[Jernau]

I happened to StumbleUpon (no prizes for guessing the kind of websites I've been giving the green 'thumbs up' to [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]) this in depth and scholarly investigation into the evidence (or lack thereof) for a historical Jesus Christ. I thought that SMP might find it interesting: Jesus Myth - The Case Against Historical Christ.

NB: It is a long article that will take you a couple of hours to read.

[Big Bend]

Good stuff..

I wonder if I should pass this info along to my cousin, who recently became a Catholic priest...

Nah.. but I enjoyed the read.

BB

[Insp. Clue!So?]

Sounds like he should get together with these guys:

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/cser/index.html

[BigBuffet]

Here is a link to a video that shows various mythological characters (including JC) and how they all have pretty much the same 'superpowers'.

The god who wasn't there

It's just that the JC and world-level mythological characters that lugheads around the world have fought about had better marketing gurus... [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[BigBuffet]

Maybe JC was the first April Fool's joke [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[txag007]

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Virtually every detail of the life of Jesus comes from "Old Testament" scriptures

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While this is used by your link as evidence that Jesus never existed, it should also help eliminate the notion that Jesus did exist but was not God.

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The Gospels make many claims that are contradicted by the historical record

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The article headlines this sentence, but further reading reveals that the author only names one alleged contradiction (not the "many" it headlines).

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John the Baptist – Killed early in the Gospels, died in 36 CE according to Josephus.

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The truth is that Josephus does not give the date of John the Baptists' death. An assumption is made by the author that places his death around 36 CE.

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The war between Herod and Aretas took place in 36 CE and thus Josephus' mention of the Jews blaming Herod's defeat by Aretas on his killing of John the Baptist implies that Herod had John the Baptist killed some time within a year or so of the war.

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This isn't necessarily implied. From www.tektonics.org:

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"The Jews felt that God's revenge did not always occur immediately at the time of the misdeed..." The death of Antiochus was regarded as a judgment for his profanation of the Temple, though he died three years after the event; Pompey died in 48 BC, 15 years after he profaned the Holy of Holies, but it was still regarded as a judgment for that act (Jos. Ant. 14.71-2; Ps. Sol. 2:30-5), and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 was thought by some to be a judgment for the execution of a high priest who lived in the 50s (Jos. Ant. 20.160-7).


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The article's reference of Josephus brings up an interesting point, however. If he is willing to quote him for his purpose, then surely the author must place some degree of validity in Josephus' work. What, then, about this quote by Josephus from Antiquities?

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At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good and was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that He had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that He was alive; accordingly, He was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets had recounted wonders.

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It sounds like He existed to me.

[Phil153]

Josephus's work is generally valid. That quote is disputed by most scholars (the earliest copies are copies of copies that date back to 900 years after Jesus) as it's probably an alteration by Christians at a later date. There's certainly evidence of tampering.

Wikipedia says:

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Judging from Alice Whealey's 2003 survey of the historiography, it seems that the majority of modern scholars consider that Josephus really did write something here about Jesus, but that the text that has reached us is corrupt to a perhaps quite substantial extent. In the words of the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Flavius Josephus, "The passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations."

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If we're going to have this debate, let's at least be honest.

[RJT]

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…it seems that the majority of modern scholars consider that Josephus really did write something here about Jesus…

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So, do we agree with this or not?

[Phil153]

The obvious corruption makes it impossible to say what was written and what wasn't. Historians consider the lack of quotation by early scholars to be rather odd, given how desperately early Christians were grasping for support of their accounts. However, they generally conclude that some part of it wasn't fabricated, and I accept their expert opinion. But wonder how they arrived at that conclusion.

I think it's quite likely that a person called Jesus (a common name) lived around 30AD. The rest is completely unsupported by history.

[Zeno]

None of this is new or unique, see for instance a book by G. A. Wells: The Historical Evidence for Jesus .

J. M. Robertson wrote a total of five books about the histoical evidence of Jesus and the basic mythos antecedent and built around him almost 100 years ago, and research and scholarship that stared in the enlightenment has continued to this day on the historical evidence for and against a living Christ.

All this is mostly a moot point to the majority, mythology is too powerful and trumps all.

-Zeno