The Myth of Jesus? Or the Myth of the Mythical Jesus?

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The Myth of Jesus? Or the Myth of the Mythical Jesus?

Post #1

Post by Tart »

This is a big question of our times... Was Jesus a myth? Is it reasonable to believe Jesus never even existed?

You see how often people throw around cliche phrases like "the Bible is proof of Jesus, and comic books are proof of spider man", or "there is the same amount of proof of Jesus as there is for King Arthur."

It seems like a lot of us question if Jesus ever even existed.. This is such an important aspect of Christianity, because if Jesus never even existed, than Jesus was never Resurrected and Christianity is false testimony about God, and even the first disciples confessed that.

There can be a lot said on this subject, but I think all the evidence points to one thing, a historical Jesus... And when I say "all the evidence" I mean it...

Many people point non-biblical sources as to give evidence of a historical Jesus, and certainly there are many of them. But even more so, its not JUST these sources that point to a historical Jesus, it is ALL the sources point to a historical Jesus. There is NO source whatsoever, from any time period from the first century AD, when Jesus existed, all the way up to the 18th century, that will tell us Jesus never existed. The earliest sources we have that question if Jesus was a myth are just a few hundred years old.

"The beginnings of the formal denial of the existence of Jesus can be traced to late 18th-century France" (Wikipedia "Christ myth Theory")

"The idea that Jesus did not exist is a modern notion. It has no ancient precedents. It was made up in the eighteenth century. One might as well call it a modern myth, the myth of the mythical Jesus"
Bart Ehrman (agnostic Biblical scholar).

Scholars literally turned this idea upside-down and called the "mythical Jesus" a "modern myth". They are saying that if you believe Jesus is a myth, you believe a myth...

So what is the evidence Jesus existed?

I think the best evidence is the Bible itself, and its reliability. Take the biggest critics of a historical Jesus, like Dr. Carrier for example, and we have them confessing certain truths about Christianity. Like the existence of Paul, I have never seen anyone argue that Paul never existed, because we know he existed and we know he wrote the majority of the New Testament. For example we have archaeological evidence of Paul on trial, backing up exactly what is talked about in the Book of Acts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_Inscription

No one thinks Paul never existed, not even biggest scholars that argue Jesus never existed, we all agree Paul existed. We also know that Paul knew the Disciples, I have never heard anyone say otherwise. Paul knew Peter, eyewitness and disciple of Jesus. Paul knew James, the brother of Jesus. Paul knew John. Likewise the first disciples are depicted in the book of Acts, and also the Gospels. We have Pauline epistles name dropping, and we have the letters written by Peter, James, and John. So we know that the first disciples were real. The evidence shows us that the people who walked with, talked with, and knew Jesus first hand actually existed. I have never seen anyone give a reasonable case against it, and I see no reason to believe these people didnt exist.

And these people knew others, like Saint Stephen, and Thomas the Apostle, Mark the Evangelist, Philip the Apostle, Jude the Apostle, Luke, etc... These people knew, first hand, the disciples... This is the history of Christianity... And likewise it just continued to spread, to people like Polycarp of Smyrna, Justin Martyr, Ptolemaeus and Lucius, Saint Pothinus, etc... We have the records from the earliest disciples all the way down to the first churches, and beyond. And even the biggest critics of Christianity, and a historical Jesus, has to admit that (at least some) of these people are historical... And there is no reason to believe that any of these people didnt exist...

Jesus was surrounded by historical people.

Even going backwards from Jesus we have historical people... As mentioned in the Gospels, King Herod, Pontius Pilate, John the Baptist, etc... In fact, people use to say the same about Pontius Pilate, that he never existed. That didnt last long, as we have found archaeological evidence of him. These people are historical, and even the BIGGEST critics have to admit it. Not to mention, all this was going on when the Jews were smack dab in the middle of written records.

I mean, I have never heard of anyone claime the Old Testament isnt historical, with respect to the nation of Israel. The Old Testament is the written records of the Israelite's. We have archaeological evidence of this kingdom, we even have evidence of Israelite's in Egypt all the way back to 1400BC. Backing up the very first book of the Bible, Genesis. We have verses in Genesis that mention real places, and real people, like the Pharaohs of Egypt for example. We have archaeological evidence of the twelve tribe of Israel going to the land Israel. We have evidence of their wars, the government, their laws, their kings, and their genealogy. It is clear that Israel kept some of the most detailed historical records in all of humanity, personally think if you want to study humanity itself, the best place to go is the Bible. Which isnt surprising because knowledge is said to begin with God. These are the best records of where our laws came from, where our history came from, and the likes.

So all the while, Jesus appears right smack in the middle of historical written record, and was surrounded by real people and places, and we dont have any early sources challenging the existence of Jesus.

It starts historical with the kingdom of Israelite's and there written record, included in the Old Testament, it continues on to the New Testament with people like King Herod, and the genealogy of King David, all the way down to Joseph and Mary. And places like Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Samaria, etc... The story continues with historical people like Nicodemus, and Pontius Pilate, John the Baptist, etc.. And places like Corinth, Rome, Galilee, the Jordan River, etc... The disciples, like Peter, James, John, Simon, etc... And Jesus dies a historical death (according to every source we have), and is resurrected.. And the history continues on, to people like Paul, Saint Stephen, Aeneas, Luke, Jude, Mark, etc. And the Christian Church comes into existence.

Everything we know about this is historical, and the biggest critics of a historical Jesus have to admit it...

So given ALL this historical evidence, the people places and events around Jesus Christ, can anyone give an example of anyone of history (or mythology/fiction) who was surrounded by this magnitude of historical evidence who was in fact a myth, or fictional?

And if you believe Jesus never existed, can you give us any reasoning or evidence that led you to believe that? How can you reasonably believe Jesus never existed?

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Re: The Myth of Jesus? Or the Myth of the Mythical Jesus?

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Post by Divine Insight »

Tart wrote: And if you believe Jesus never existed, can you give us any reasoning or evidence that led you to believe that? How can you reasonably believe Jesus never existed?
I see a major problem with this question that theists often fail to understand.

The first question should be, "What do you mean by Jesus?"

Are you talking about the character described in the Gospel rumors? If so, then it may very well be true that the Jesus described in the Gospel rumors never existed.

On other other hand if you are asking whether some historical person named Jesus existed who became the fodder for the Gospel rumors, then I would suggest that this is extremely likely. But this would then not be the same "Jesus" that is being described in the Gospel rumors.

In other words, was Elvis Presley really a famous rock and music star that actually exist and was even dubbed "The King of Rock"? The answer is yes.

So does this then mean that every rumor ever told about Elvis Presley must then be true? If not, then those rumors are telling stories about a "Mythical Elvis", that never existed. even though an actual person named Elvis did historically exist.

Apply this same principle to Jesus and perhaps you can better understand when people speak of a "Mythical Jesus". They aren't necessarily saying that there was never any historical person who might have been fodder for these rumors of a mythical Jesus. All they are saying is that there was never any mythical Jesus as described in those rumors.

This is my position on the Gospel rumors of Jesus.

I don't deny that a rebel Jew who strongly disagreed with Orthodox Judaism may have publicly argued with, and insulted, the Jewish Priests, as the Gospel rumors claim. I don't deny that this may ultimately have led to his brutal death by an unofficial crucifixion called for by the Jewish Priests as the Gospel rumors claim. I don't even deny that there may have been confusion over what happened to the body of Jesus after this unofficial crucifixion causing rumors of a miraculous resurrection. I don't even personally deny that Jesus might have actually survived a botched unofficial crucifixion and lived to show his wounds to people after it was rumored that he had actually died and was risen from death.

All of that could easily be true. So I have no reason to deny any of it. I currently have no compelling reason to believe that any of it is necessarily true either. However, my position is that even if everything I described above could be verified to have actually happened, I would still have no reason to believe in the claims of the Gospel rumors.

In fact, I would actually be shocked if such rumors didn't evolve if everything I described above had actually happened. Even the Gospel rumors themselves have the Pharisees predicting that such rumors would be created by the followers of Jesus. Of course, we don't know if that is actually true. All we have to go by on that are the Gospel rumors themselves.

~~~~~~~

The question for me personally does not need to be a question about whether or not there existed a historical Jesus, as I have shown above that question is rather meaningless. It doesn't get you anywhere in terms of knowing what might have actually happened.

So for me, a far more telling question is to ask whether the overall story makes any sense in terms of this overall religion. And my answer to that is clearly, "No it does not".

And so that's the only question that is important to me. I won't go into the details of how I arrive at the answer for the question I ask since that would require a quite lengthy reply that would basically be off-topic to the questions you are asking.

So my answer to your question is simple:

There may have been a historical "Jesus", who served as fodder for the Gospel rumors. But that doesn't make everything claimed about the "Jesus" rumored in the Gospels true.

In other words, the existence of a historical Jesus doesn't loan any credence at all to the Gospel rumors.


So even if there was undeniable evidence for a historical person named Jesus who lived, rebelled against Orthodox Judaism, publicly argued with and insulted Jewish Priests, and was ultimately crucified for apostasy in an unofficial botched crucifixion, and that there was later controversy over whether or not he died from this botched crucifixion, I still would have absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe the claims made in the Gospels Rumors.

So for me, the Gospel rumors would STILL be about a mythological Jesus.
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Re: The Myth of Jesus? Or the Myth of the Mythical Jesus?

Post #3

Post by Willum »

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

DI is far more generous than I.

Examination into EVERY source outside the Bible reveals outright forgery, if not questionable squirreliness, and you find weird insertions, stuff in the margins, and even the term "Christos" is most likely a bastardization of the word in Greek for Gold.
Which is important because there was a movement during and preceding Jesus' alleged time, where a people calling themselves, the "Golden People," preached, you guessed it, "Do unto others as you would have done to you."

We find other Biblical scholars are usually from periods of time when to say Jesus didn't exist, would have gotten them burned at the stake.

Proof of Pontius Pilate is from a piece of scrap stone found underneath a stairwell... Hardly a good reference, and quite possibly just an error. Of all the scrap stones in all the era's, the odds of one being a mistake are good.
Pilate should have had multiple references to him.

This is conclusive enough, but how do we know with 100% certainty Jesus was a myth.
Well, Jesus, to the Greek and Roman speaking world is a homophone of Ie Zeus, or "hail Zeus,"
Jove, when pronounced in Latin is :
Jov -e

So Jove is Yahweh, but also Jehovah, by changing the accent.

We have no records of the most famous carpenter ever known: No "Tables by Jesus" are ever put up for auction, even the "Holy Grail," is a holy nowhere.

But then there is Lazarus.
The man back from the dead - surely more popular than Pilate, surely Kings and Emperors would want to meet the man, get his biography, and find out, JUST WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BE DEAD, and be brought back?

Surely required reading for ages to come.
Instead, nothing.

Teeny tiny wisps of evidence, when there should be volumes.

No Jesus.

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Post #4

Post by Tart »

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]
Right-o... Jesus existed... While Jesus divinity is certainly important to Christianity and stands on its own evidence, this discussion is about the mythical Jesus...

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Re: The Myth of Jesus? Or the Myth of the Mythical Jesus?

Post #5

Post by Tart »

[Replying to post 3 by Willum]

Willium,
How do you make sense out of the foundations of the existence of Christianity? I see you claim that this is Rome professing Zeus, all the time... So, how do you make sense out of Paul, Peter, James, John... The authors of the New Testament? The beginning of the first churches? The killing and the persecution of the first believes, by the authorities of Rome?

How do you gain justification and consistency with your overall beliefs? When taking all the evidence we have into consideration? That is, the foundations of Christianity?

Simply ignoring the evidence, and saying Jesus sounded like "hail Zeus" in Latin... Seems absurd...

Can you give an explanation for who, when, where, why, and how Christianity was created? According to you?

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Re: The Myth of Jesus? Or the Myth of the Mythical Jesus?

Post #6

Post by Willum »

[Replying to post 5 by Tart]

Not as absurd as walking on water or resurrections, I think you will agree.
However it may comfort you to know that since about 300 BCE, Rome, when it conquered a nation, drew analogies between its gods and the conquered country's gods, and told them Zeus was the same as Odin, Dagda, Ba'el, or Yahu. Yahu, is spelled YHVH, which you will recognize as the tetregrammon. Rome selected YHVH because it was similar to Jov-e, and replaced Yahu with Zeus.

You should not be too skeptical, most of the Catholic world worships the cognate of Zeus even today:
Zeus is also, Theos, Dyeus and Deus. Deus in French is Dieux, in Italian Dio, in Spanish Dios, you get the idea.

The argument about words games is a good one: However one thing we know about word games, is they prove without a doubt, world-games. The opposing argument having nothing at all, means there is greater evidence for word games about Jesus, then there is about Jesus being a man.

But you asked me about the disciples; I find zero indisputable evidence for Jesus, we find even less evidence for the disciples.
A non-existent witnesses witnessing a non-existent person, is hardly any proof.

According to me? What the heck difference does my opinion make?

But if you look at the spread of Christianity, you will find it spread with the Roman Empire.
And if you look at the teachings of Jesus -
THE ONES YOU CAN PROVE:

We find Jesus tells us to pay Caesar's tax (Caesar being a pagan god,) and obey Rome. Queer commandments for a Palestinian religious figure and alleged king of the Jews.

But I am curious about why Lazarus' biography isn't required reading in schools...

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Re: The Myth of Jesus? Or the Myth of the Mythical Jesus?

Post #7

Post by Mithrae »

Willum wrote: Examination into EVERY source outside the Bible reveals outright forgery, if not questionable squirreliness, and you find weird insertions, stuff in the margins,
Of all the earliest direct and indirect non-Christian references to Jesus (in Josephus, Tacitus, Mara bar Serapion, the Talmud and Seutonius) there is only one instance in which a plausible case for Christian influence can be made to my knowledge. It's certainly true that some folk are eager throw out accusations of forgery without the slightest shred of evidence, but that reveals only certain biases against Jesus' historicity rather than anything about the sources themselves.
Willum wrote: and even the term "Christos" is most likely a bastardization of the word in Greek for Gold.
Which is important because there was a movement during and preceding Jesus' alleged time, where a people calling themselves, the "Golden People," preached, you guessed it, "Do unto others as you would have done to you."
What is your source for that claim? I can't find anything to back it up.
Willum wrote: Proof of Pontius Pilate is from a piece of scrap stone found underneath a stairwell... Hardly a good reference, and quite possibly just an error. Of all the scrap stones in all the era's, the odds of one being a mistake are good.
Pilate should have had multiple references to him.
Unfortunately the universe does not respond to your whimsical "should haves." When the most powerful man in the strongest empire at the peak of its power - the Emperor Trajan - conquered one of the most ancient and most famous regions of the world and visited its most famous city - Mesopotamia and Babylon - what kind of evidence do you think we "should have"? Amazingly, there is more evidence about Jesus' existence than about Trajan's Parthian campaign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan%27 ... gn#Sources
https://www.quora.com/Did-Rome-conquer- ... used-to-be
Willum wrote: This is conclusive enough, but how do we know with 100% certainty Jesus was a myth.
Well, Jesus, to the Greek and Roman speaking world is a homophone of Ie Zeus, or "hail Zeus,"
What is your source for that claim? I can't find any credible source to back it up. In fact not only does Iēsous have an 'S' sound instead of the 'Z' sound of Zeus, but the Greek word for hail is χαί�ω (chaír�) and the Latin is ave. By contrast the Jewish scholars translating the Septuagint rendered 'Joshua' (Yĕhowshuwa) as ᾿Ιησοῦς (Iēsous) long before 'Jesus' was even born. Scraping the bottom of the barrel with this kind of conspiracy theory stuff would suggest that the mythicist position is very weak indeed, though fortunately you're the only person I've seen who has tried it!

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Re: The Myth of Jesus? Or the Myth of the Mythical Jesus?

Post #8

Post by Willum »

[Replying to post 7 by Mithrae]

Well, language, cognates and homophones are, quite definitively, credible sources. In fact, one can not get any stronger than a definition, or sound. How does the Latinized world pronounce Jesus today? HeySeus, right? If you understood Greek and Latin, what do you hear?

That, and you're understanding of old world languages is atrocious. S and Z indeed!

It is quite all right though, I can not find a single credible source for anything in Christianity, so, me not having anything to back up something that disproves something that has all the validation of "Spider-man and His Amazing Friends," is quite alright, since we really have no good reason to believe in "Spider-man and His Amazing Friends," to begin with. Made up derivations of a made up persons name fall into the same category: It is quite simple to write Joshua in Greek and Latin, and neither is Jesus.

Gold in Greek: Chrysós. Hardly rocket science.
One barely legible piece of waste stone validates the existence of Pilate? I'm sorry, that's simple desperation.

Where is Lazarus' biography?

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Post #9

Post by Divine Insight »

Tart wrote: [Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]
Right-o... Jesus existed... While Jesus divinity is certainly important to Christianity and stands on its own evidence, this discussion is about the mythical Jesus...
I think you misunderstood my post. I'm not supporting any claims that any actual "Jesus" existed. My point is that even if there were compelling evidence for a historical Jesus that alone would be absolutely worthless for the reasons I've given.

After all, there have been multiple rumors that Elvis was seen after his death. However, just because there actually exists evidence that a historical Elvis existed doesn't loan credence to rumors claimed about him after he had died.

The same thing would be true of any historical "Jesus" had he actually existed.

In short, even if you could show compelling evidence that a historical "Jesus" existed that wouldn't loan any support to the "Gospel Jesus" at all. The "Gospel Jesus" could still quite easily be a "Mythical Jesus".

So your position that if a historical Jesus could be shown to have existed this would somehow make claims of a mythical Jesus irrelevant simply has no merit.

So nothing I have said in my post loans any credence to your dismissal of a "mythical Jesus".

In fact, for you to even pretend otherwise suggests to me that you either totally failed to understand the points I've made, or you are living in extreme denial of the significance of the points I've made.

In short, you can't even produce evidence that a historical Jesus actually existed, never mind the Jesus rumored to have existed according to the Gospel rumors.

My point was to simply clarify that even if your could produce evidence for the former that wouldn't loan any credence to the latter anyway.

In other words, you're making a "Dead Horse" argument. At the very best all you could hope to come up with is some shaky evidence that some rebel preacher name Jesus might have possibly existed. That would be the absolute BEST that you could do. And you haven't even done that.

There's nothing in your quest that could possibly support the outrageous supernatural claims made by the Gospels.

This would be like arguing that since you can show that Elvis existed, then if anyone claimed later that Elvis was God it must be true.

Surely you can see the fallacy of that line of thinking? :-k
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Re: The Myth of Jesus? Or the Myth of the Mythical Jesus?

Post #10

Post by Divine Insight »

Willum wrote: [Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

DI is far more generous than I.
Apparently I'm far too generous when discussing these topics with theists. My explanation didn't help Tart's agenda at all. But apparently Tart is trying very hard to pretend that my explanation could somehow be used to loan support to the Gospel rumors of a mythological Jesus.

Hercules was also a mythological character. Yet there are many historians who believe that an actual man named Hercules actually existed who may have sparked those mythological tales. This doesn't mean that Hercules must then have been the Son of Zeus.

The mythological character of Santa Claus was sparked into its existence by the generosity of a real person named Saint Nicholas. But no one thinks that just because Saint Nicholas was a real person this means that Santa Claus must then be real.

Tart's arguments are clearly non sequitur if Tart thinks that if a historical Jesus could be shown to have existed this would somehow loan credibility to the mythological Jesus portrayed in the Gospels.

The existence of a historical Jesus would provide absolutely no credibility to the existence of the mythological Jesus of the Gospel rumors anymore than the historical existence of Saint Nicholas provides any credibility to the mythological tales of Santa Claus.
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