Jesus myth theories

Any models for Jesus more likely came from Jewish, not pagan, sources.
Christians believe that Jesus was fulfilment of OT prophecy and traditions. Therefore, details of His life would reflect those prophecies and traditions. Skeptics might say that Jesus was invented on the basis of those prophecies and traditions. Which came first, the man or the myth? I’d say the man, on the basis of all the arguments I’ve previously advanced. The important point I’d like to make here is that it is Jewish scripture, not pagan myth, that predominates in NT accounts of Jesus.

In trying to explain Jesus to the populace, the various writers of the NT turned to themes and analogies drawn from Judaism. Paul starts it off with a brilliant analogy between Jesus and the Jewish traditions of the Paschal lamb and the scapegoat. Mark, generally considered to be the first gospel, draws on the analogy to the Suffering Servant of Second Isaiah. Matthew develops the metaphor of the new David and Moses, complete with the slaughter of the innocents, the flight to Egypt, and the Sermon on the Mount. Luke extends the comparison to other great prophets, especially Isaiah, Elisha, and Elijah, emphasizing Jesus’ role as champion of the downtrodden. http://www.philipharland.com/Blog/2...-of-jesus-jesus-as-the-prophet-elijah-nt-212/
I should emphasize here that these NT writers all make a clear distinction between Jesus and the OT figures they are using for comparison.

 

hmm yea well maybe ill do more research on historical evidence later.

 

Parsimony and plausibility make it easier for me to believe that Jesus was real than to accept alternative explanations for which there is little credible evidence.
Occam’s razor is a widely accepted rule of thumb in choosing among competing hypotheses in the absence of certainty. In reality, of course, the more complicated explanations may be correct, but when we don’t know that, it makes sense to go for the simplest ones. The fewer assumptions we need to make, the better. To explain why Palestinian Jews in the first few decades of the first century, c.e., decided to start worshipping a crucified itinerant preacher, I think the simplest explanation is that he existed. Certainly, Galilee and Judea weren’t hermetically sealed from pagan ideas, but the notion that Jews in that area made up a new hero-god out of whole cloth based on pagan models should require better evidence than the superficial similarities alleged by the mythicists. There are other ways to explain those. There is certainly nothing amazing in the idea that a wandering preacher got himself crucified for being perceived as a troublemaker in Roman-occupied Jerusalem during Passover. Claims by his followers that their leader rose from the dead are also not surprising, considering the widespread beliefs by Pharisees and Essenes alike, that the end of the world was near and resurrection was expected for everyone. (The reality of Resurrection is another story).

I think it’s most plausible that there was such a historical figure, and that His seemingly ignominious death left followers who had invested their lives in the faith that Jesus was the expected Messiah to explain what happened. This led to the development of an oral tradition which later became the New Testament. In Palestine, the believers drew on the Old Testament for support, and as the new faith spread among the Gentiles, they added their own understandings based, yes, upon the pagan traditions that were familiar to them.

I rest my case!

 

[FONT=&quot] I recently acquired Dr. Richard Carrier’s 696 page book, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason to Doubt. I must say it’s the best of the mythicist offerings—head and shoulders above the Zeitgeist crap and S. Acarya’s sloppy scholarship; but it’s still flawed and unconvincing. The book is the second in a two volume series in which he uses Bayes Theorem to advance the mythicist thesis. The first book, Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, explained and defended the Bayesian analysis that he uses in the second book to expound a mythicist case concerning Jesus. The first book ballyhooed the Bayesian approach as a big breakthrough in historical analysis, so I was eager to see what he did with it. Dawkins warned us that Bayesian approaches are only as good as the original numbers fed in. When these are purely subjective estimates instead of measured quantities, the results are vulnerable to the GIGO principle (Garbage In Garbage Out) which is well-illustrated by Carrier’s execution. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Bayesian approaches to religion attained a high level of notoriety when Stephen Unwin used it to prove the existence of God (or at least a 67% probability that He exists.) Theologian Richard Swinburne picked up the ball and ran with it, using Bayesian conditional probabilities to prove not only the Existence of God, but the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus. So I guess it’s only fair that an atheist should use it for the other side. Like the Christian Bayesians, though, Carrier relies on his own subjective estimates of the various conditional probabilities involved. Although he acknowledges that “To ascertain these probabilities with the kind of vague and incomplete data typically encountered in historical inquiry “ requires special efforts, he is confident he’s up to the task. Given his reputation as a militant atheist, I think there’s reason to be skeptical, especially in light of some of the questionable “facts” that he cites.[/FONT]

For example, in chapter four, he tells us of Plutarch’s account of the “virgin birth” of Romulus, son of a god and the legendary founder and first ruler of Rome. Carrier says that the similarities between this and Jesus described in the Gospel of Mark account of Jesus “are too numerous to be a coincidence, and that “it certainly seems as if Mark is fashioning Jesus into the new Romulus.” While conceding that Romulus was a king, while Jesus was a mere peasant, Carrier theorizes that Mark's account was an intentional effort to transvalue "the Roman Empire's ceremony of their won founding savior's incarnation, death and resurrection." Hmmm.

But there are some problems with this theory. First of all, it is curious that Carrier would cite Plutarch's version of the Romulus story, since it was written in 80 to 120 C.E., which means that he could have modeled his account of Romulus on Jesus. Carrier recognizes this problem and provides a footnote assuring us that Plutarch "is certainly recording a long established Roman tale," and that earlier writers before Christ (Cicero, Livy,Ovid, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, etc., had written about it. So why didn't Carrier simply use them? Good question, but I checked out some of them, and of their accounts bring out details that are a bit different from Plutarch's. In particular, we learn form Livy that Romulus' mother was "forcibly violated", or as Dionysius of Halicarnassus puts it "ravished". Plutarch puts it more delicately, that she was "with child", leaving the particulars unmentioned. So was that a "virgin birth"? True, his mother was a Vestal Virgin before she was allegedly raped by Mars, but rape and virginity aren’t consistent. The devil is in the details.

Another problem: there is no virgin birth story in Mark. We have to wait for the later gospels of Matthew and Luke, at earliest in the 80s, for that one. Paul, the first Christian writer also says nothing about the virgin birth. So Christianity was well under way before that alleged similarity surfaced. Another problem was that the Roman story of Romulus never claimed that he was the product of a virgin birth. Nor is there an ascension story in Mark--just an empty tomb and a man in white explaining that Jesus wasn't there. Later scribes filled in additional details to the original make the ending less stark and more consistent with the later gospels. No virgin, no asciension.

As for the alleged “resurrection” of Romulus, Carrier’s conclusion is similarly puzzling. Resurrection is generally understood to involve somebody who was dead coming back to life. The account of Romulus says he was reviewing his troops when a dark cloud and mist came along and when it lifted Romulus was gone. It was later attested that he had been taken away by the gods. Nothing about him being dead. A parallel legend that was prevalent among the educated Roman elite was that he had been murdered by the Senate, which concocted his “ascension” as a cover story. Of course, the important thing to Christians about Jesus’ death and resurrection is that He died for our sins and that his return from the dead showed his triumph over death for all who believe. The Romans didn’t believe that Romulus died, let alone for their sins, and that they would also rise like him after death. Mark doesn’t get into Jesus’ ascension at all, so that’s not a parallel. And they certainly didn’t believe that Romulus, King of Rome, was crucified like a common criminal. So to say that Mark was “fashioning Jesus into the new Romulus” seems to be stretching it.

Finally, a critical step in Bayesian analysis is comparison of the probabilities of one theory against alternative explanations. If Mark used a Roman model to parody the official Roman gods, it's more likely he used one more current than Romulus. I think Octavian Caesar Augustus was the more likely candidate. He was demonstrably the son of a god, being the adopted son of Julius Caesar, whom Augustus persuaded the Senate to proclaim a god. According to Seutonius, he was also biologically fathered by the god Apollo after his mother slept in a temple and was impregnated by the god in the form of a snake. Is that a virgin birth? I'd say no, but it's debatable. He had the official title of savior, and he did actually die.

But I think it's less probable that Mark used a Roman model than a Jewish one. One alternative to the theory that he was fashioning Jesus into Romulus is that he was fashioning Him into a model more familiar to Jesus' Jewish following—the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. As for the Resurrection, it was a widespread expectation among the Jews of the day that all the dead would soon be raised, and Paul saw Jesus as the “first fruits” of this development—an expectation that goes back to the aftermath of the revolt of the Maccabees against the Syrians.

But was Jesus just an invention based on the Suffering Servant instead of being a real man? I think it's more likely He was a real man.
Why would Mark construct a mythical Suffering Servant? The Jews didn't expect the Messiah to be Suffering, and if you're going to create a Messiah out of whole cloth, wouldn't you want to create one who is believable? It's more plausible that Mark drew on the "Suffering Servant" model to explain a real person who he thought was the Messiah and did suffer. Using "Suffering Servant" model, which hadn't previously been associated with the Messiah, makes the most sense as a way of explaining how a real man in whom people had messianic expectations could still be the Messiah.

So what is left of Carrier’s claim except a lively imagination? There is a low statistical probability that Mark modeled Jesus on Romulus because:

• Romulus wasn't born of a virigin
• Mark didn't claim virgin birth for Jesus either
  
• Romulus wasn't resurrected (because he didn't die)
• Jesus didn't ascend into heaven in Mark
• A more likely Roman model is Augustus than Romulus, but
  
• Mark most likely modeled Jesus on the OT Second Isaiah's Suffering Servant, and
• Mark most likely did so to explain the suffering of a real man thought to be the Messiah
  

I should make clear that what I've said so far barely scratches the surface of Carrier's Bayesian analysis of Jesus. I'll continue to explore his complex arguments in future posts. Yet the example that I've given should at least suggest that Carrier's claims should be treated skeptically.
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

 

I do plan to take on Carrier's entire thesis, which is a remarkably complex one, incorporating no less than 48 "elements". For the time being, I'll continue to pick low hanging fruit: e.g., Element 31: Christianity borrowed the resurrection from pagan myths about dying and rising gods, which were a common and peculiar feature of pagan religion when Christianity arose, so much so that influence from paganism is the only plausible explanation for how a Jewish sect such as Christianity came to adopt the idea".

Such a bold statement. And yet Carrier surely knows that it is at odds with scholarly consensus. Maybe scholarly consensus is wrong, but elsewhere Carrier insists that it should be given great weight. He notes, for example, that some historians would challenge the Syria-Palestine origins of Christianity, but he says "their theories have yet to survive peer review or persuade anything near a consensus agreement among experts.” The same assessment might be applied to Carrier’s “dying and rising gods” myth, which has fallen out of favor with the majority of experts.” (See for example the Wikipedia article which says: “The very existence of the category "dying-and-rising-god" was debated throughout the 20th century, and the soundness of the category was widely questioned, given that many of the proposed gods did not return in a permanent sense as the same deity. By the end of the 20th century, scholarly consensus had formed against the reasoning used to suggest the category, and it was generally considered inappropriate from a historical perspective. As J.Z. Smith concluded, in his devastating critique of the theory in the prestigious Encyclopedia of Religion: “The category of dying and rising gods, once a major topic of scholarly investigation, must be understood to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts…there is no unambiguous instance in the history of religions of a dying and rising deity.” Surely Carrier knows this, if only because his nemesis, Bart Ehrman, makes much of it in Did Jesus Exist? A book which elicited an over-the top diatribe from Dr. Carrier. Yet Carrier presents the “dying and rising god” theory as though it were virtually and established fact.

And to dispel all doubts, he provides a footnote telling us that “previous attempts to deny that there were dying and rising gods have been thoroughly refuted by Tryggve Mettinger…” Mettinger’s study argued that the consensus against dying-rising gods might have gone too far. Yet in re-examining the evidence, he could find only three firm examples which held up under scrutiny: Baal, Heracles (Melqart), and Dummuzi (aka, Tammuz). The worship of Baal was a remote memory in the first century, and Tammuz was associated with a cycle in which he would spend part of the year in the underworld and part in this one. As Mettinger points out, most of these deities were part of fertility cults, whose revolving door cycle of death and rebirth marked the change in seasons. So it isn’t quite the same as the Christian idea of a one-time resurrection for all of us—a point which Carrier recognizes but dismisses as a modification to fit in with Judaism. Carrier adds two pagan examples of resurrection of as single events: Romulus and Zalmoxis. But as I noted in a previous post, Romulus was raptured alive instead of resurrected. Zalmoxis was a Thracian diety who was believed to believed to have been human[FONT=&quot], but taught his followers that he and they would return from the dead. According to Herodotus, he disappeared for three years, living in an underground hideout he constructed, and then resurfaced, convincing his followers he had returned from the dead.[/FONT]If Zalmoxis was the model for Jesus, we might ask for some evidence explaining how this Thracian cult figure came to influence the beliefs of Jewish Palestinians. The Jewish idea of resurrection, which was pre-Christian, arose after the revolt of the Maccabees, when it believed that surely the fallen heroes would not be left by God to rot in Sheol. It certainly isn’t obvious that the idea must have been borrowed from the pagans, or that the early Christians got their idea from the pagans instead of the Jews.

 

Only "serious" Christian scholars. There is basically no mention of this person outside of the Bible. There are some passages but the idea that he was divine is only found in the bible. He was one of many people claiming to be the son of God at the time. Did a person named Jesus exist? Probably but his message is much more in line with Buddhism and the idea that because you are part of "god" you are god. He was a man and you can do anything he did.

It is the Catholic church who made up the idea that salvation comes through them several centuries later. The idea that they are the only one with the direct line to god and they will let you know what he says. They are actuly what you Christians would call Satanic. Even your bible says the greatest trick the devil plays is convincing you he does not exist. Well that is the Catholic church, Satan hiding in plan site pretending to be the polar opposite. By doing this the Vatican actuly keeps you from true spiritual growth.

Look at the Vatican, do you think this is a place someone who kicked the money changes out would support? It is decadent and selfish. Doesn't the idea that the Pope is picked by god or divine in of itself contradict Christianity? Jesus is the only one who can make that claim right?

"Heaven" is the same thing as the Nirvana of Buddhism. It does not require anything but your own desire and discipline to reach. The morals of kindness and compassion Jesus taught are the key not the worship of a church or any tribute to anything or anybody but your self.

The fact is that the old testament and new are from two different sources and entities. This is why god is so angry and vengeful in the old and why half of the 10 commandments really only focus on him. Like "Have no gods before me" "don't take my name in vein". Doesn't that imply there are other "gods"? Why do they not deal with morals more important? Why even though it says do not kill are there numerous places where it says murder is acceptable? For example I can murder my neighbor for working on Sunday or I can murder my wife if she is a witch. The old testament is an alien that said it was god because it wanted to use man as a slave race. The Vatican still pays tribute and speaks with this race. In exchange they are given power over others. They follow the left hand path. Knowledge can be used for good or evil, they have made their decision. But they are still slaves, they have been lied to.

The new testament is more in line with the god energy. Jesus was descended from another race that wished to help man learn of its true power. This could explain the virgin birth. We now know of artificial insemination but this is a concept ancient man would not understand.

You do not have to be threatened or angered if you are Christian by all this. Do not think the idea of your own power is "satanic". You can believe in your power and take the left hand path and be satanic but it is possible to also do this in line with Christianity.

Most people reach "heaven". What is important is not what you believe be it atheist, Jew, Muslim whatever. It matters how you act while on your journey in this human vessel. That alone is enough to reach that higher place.

 

Thanks for responding. I was getting lonely. I agree with a good deal of what you say.

The question I was dealing with was whether or not he was a real historical person, or whether he was made up from pagan myths. This might seem like an academic concern, since I agree that the claims to supernatural status can't be proven. But I think it's important to be accurate about the little evidence we do have. I'm interested in how Christianity developed and what, if anything, Jesus was about, so it matters to me whether or not he really existed. Besides, for the sake of intellectual honesty and rationality, I think it's important to form opinions about history that are based on the most plausible inferences from the data, and not to accept wild assertions that are based on sloppy scholarship and thinking. Toward this end, I put forward nine reasons why I think Jesus was a real person, and lots of additional reasons why some of the leading Jesus myth theories that pervade the blogosphere are misguided. So far no one has addressed any of my arguments, leading me to conclude that either people were bowled over by my irrefutable logic, or that nobody else gives a rats ass.

I'm not a great fan of the Catholic Church, although I think Pope Francis has promise. The history of the Church suggests that it's very human institution confirming Lord Acton's maxim that "Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely." There were and are good Catholic Christians trying to do the Lord's work (Saint Francis comes to mind), but the contrast between Jesus and the institutional Behemoth purporting to be His creation couldn't be greater. But frankly, the Evangelical bible thumpers seem to me to be just as off base.

Jesus wasn't exactly clear about what He meant by Heaven, and neither was the Buddha clear about Nirvana, but Jesus seemed to envision a state in which individuals would experience the Kingdom of God, and the Buddha envisioned annihilation of the self. The messages are similar, but I find the more detached attitude of Buddhism to be less attractive than Jesus' active concern for society's rejects.

Honestly, I find this hard to believe. Are we talking aliens from outer space? I could be wrong, but I think extraordinary claims warrant extraordinary evidence. I think Jesus was human.

I agree completely.

 

.

 

?

 

Jesus was black.Everyone knows that.

 

And studied Buddhism in India.

 

And had a sense of humour.

 

He was an australian aboriginal.

 

There's quite a few old school paintings with UFOs in them.

 

One of the facts about Jesus mythicists seem to have trouble dealing with is John the Baptist. Here is a figure attested to by all four gospels and the presumably independent account of the Jewish historian Josephus. The gospels depict him as baptizing Jesus, which is not a detail one would expect if the story were made up to show that Jesus was the Messiah. Ordinarily, the person doing the baptism would be assuming the superior role. The later gospels are at pains to explain why this is not the case. But if the whole story is made up, why would this be in there in the first place? And if baptism is a cleansing from sin, why would their Messiah god-man, presumably sin-free, have to be baptized at all? The baptism of Jesus by John marks the beginning of Jesus' mission, and is the very first even mentioned in the first Gospel, Mark. Two of Jesus' first followers, Peter and Andrew, were recruited from John's following. Josephus tells us that John was executed by Herod Antipas because of his success in stirring up the rabble. The gospels confirm John's execution. So what is this all about, mythicists? The closest I've seen to an explanation is the howler provided by the Zeitgeist documentary--that John was modeled on the made-up "Anup the Baptizer", identified by the nineteenth century amateur Egyptologist and atheist Gerald Massey and taken seriously by S. Acharya and Bill Mahr. Massey was possibly thinking of the god Anubis and the washing of the dead with palm wine preparatory to mummification, maybe? (He also said that the bilical references to Herod the Great, the well-documented Roman client-ruler of Judea when Jesus was born, were based on the Egyptian myth of Herrut, the evil hydra serpent. Quite an imagination, that one!) So what's with John the Baptist?

 

My favorite gift for Christmas was a book my son gave me:

The Lost Books of the Bible

Great Rejected Texts

by Joseph B. Lumpkin

I don't really have anything (else) to add at this point but that already I've read about the Dead Sea Scrolls and some others that contain information that isn't "religious" nor fiction, but - from what scholars can best determine - contain historical information.

I know that I've read in the past about Herod's history as ruler of Judea during the same time frame that Jesus would have been born is well documented, and not "only" in the bible.

Wasn't John the Baptist and his role prophesied?

For quite some time, I've felt that those that deny His, Jesus's, very existence are well...beyond my comprehension and being intentionally obtuse.

In the bible, the existence of other gods is not even disputed...it simply lets one know God Jehovah Yahweh is the one God that sent His son (and all that Jesus being born meant), is the creator, and can offer us eternal life, if we accept Him.

I must admit that there is a deep part of me that wants to say that He won't condemn you if you don't accept Him, God or Jesus as our savior in order to experience eternal life with Him...but then there is a deeper part that feels and knows that is exactly what one needs to do...just to get the best out of this life, if nothing else.

When I accept and believe in Jesus and God and absolutely accept everything that implies AND utilize prayer like mad...I love the Lord and use my belief now...I'm not a believer because I know what's gonna happen to me when I leave this flesh. That would be foolish.

I just think that when we leave this physical body there will still be time to "see" things as they are, if we have not blasphemed in the flesh. Sorry about this post if I have strayed too far from the subject.

I find what you said up ^ there, Okie, so very interesting you've jolted this post out of me.

 

Not a lot of time right now but the four bible accounts of Jesus life, ministry and death are pretty compelling and believable. Jesus was a great teacher and no one has taught better since. There are also secular historians that acknowledges Jesus life.

 

that a person named jesus existed is plausible, maybe even historically accurate but im not a historian. that he was a great teacher is reasonable.

but believing that he was a son of a virgin, which has never happened before or since, that he was the son of the god that created the universe, that he was dead for three days and then was alive again, that when you put your hands together and close your eyes, you can communicate with him, thats a whole 'nother story.


Point: nobody argues the bible accounts of jesus because its not special. a guy who existed a long time ago is nothing special. that historians, secular or not, acknowledge the existence of jesus is not adding any credibility to your religious views.

BOOM SHACKALAKA!