I said all I have to say anyway. I don’t know how or why I even got on this site other than I got an Email and responded to it. I tried posting another comment about WLC but it was not allowed.
Who sent that email?
Perhaps auto? I didn’t deny any posts from him about WLC. Perhaps it was breaking the forum rules though.
And yet I can’t think of even one history professor or religious studies professor at a major university who denies the existence of the first century Jesus. (I’m talking ranked professors with faculty contracts, not the occasional part-time lecturer of some 100-level and 200-level undergraduate courses. Perhaps there are a few such lecturers at some state university but, if so, they just haven’t been identified yet. Jesus-mythers in a history or religious studies departments would earn just about as much respect from their peers as a flat-earther in a geography or astronomy department.)
Welcome to Peaceful Science. An interesting aspect of this forum is that so many of us have spent lifetimes in the academy, some as scientists, some as religious studies scholars, some as linguists—and, well, all sorts of fields. So when someone makes bold claims about the academy, they are likely to experience pushback from those in this forum who are first-hand observers of the relevant fields.
You say that “The Jesus myth position is rapidly moving to forefront in academia”, so I am very interested in the names of some of those academics and their institutions.
In my entire career I only personally met two full-fledged Jesus-mythers even within the huge membership of AAR/SBL (American Academy of Religion & Society of Biblical Literature): Robert Price and Richard Carrier. Last I checked neither had been able to secure a position at any major university. Instead, they built their careers in association with independent research institutes and organizations well outside of the academy and largely via marketing to the general public through their books and debates. Unless some major change occurred since my retirement, both remain associated with the fringe.
For as long as I can remember there have been anti-evolution activists claiming that the Theory of Evolution is (allegedly) rapidly losing ground among scientists and academy. Many Jesus-mythers appear to hold a similar false hope of “any day now.”
POSTSCRIPT: Some people wrongly assume that the late Robert Funk invited Robert Price to the Jesus Seminar because they shared a similar denial of the Historical Jesus. I’ll not start a sub-tangent on that topic (and Bob Funk’s talent for gathering media attention for his interesting band of “fringe friends” on the JS, which included Hollywood Paul Verhoeven, a film director/screen-writer) but I’ve got some good Robert Funk anecdotes I could share “someday.”
4 Likes
Here’s a list of people who have written that Jesus never existed past and present: M. M. Mangasarian, Bruno Bauer, Edward Carperter, Albert Kaltoff, Ryner Couchoud, Charles Virolleaud, Thomas Thompson, G.R.S. Mead, Tom Harpur, Georg Brandes, Raymond O. Faulkner,John M. Robertson, Emil Felden, J.C. Stendel, Emilio Bossi, Arthur Drews, Theodor Gaster, Kersey Graves, W.B. Smith, Robert Price, Gerald Massey, Gerard Bolland, Samuel Lublinski, Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Edwin Johnson, Timothy Freke, Raymond Martin, Raphael Lataster, Richard Carrier, Godfrey Higgins, Joseph Leidner, Earl Doherty, James George Frazier, Thomas William Doane, David Fideler, Hermann Samuel Reimarus, Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire), Baron d’Holbach (‘Boulanger’) Count Constantine, Volney Edward Evanson, Charles François Dupuis Robert Taylor, David Friedrich Strauss, Logan Mitchell, Ferdinand Christian Baur, Charles Bradlaugh Sytze Hoekstra, Robert Ingersoll, Walter Cassels, Allard Pierson, Bronson C. Keeler, Abraham Dirk Loman, Samuel Adrianus Naber, Edwin Johnson, Rudolf Steck, Franz Hartman, Willem Christiaan van Manen, Wilhelm Wrede, Thomas Whittaker, William Benjamin Smith, Prosper Alfaric, Peter Jensen, Karl Kautsky, Edouard Dujardin, Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga, Alexander Hislop, Marshall J. Gauvin, Joseph Wheless, Henri Delafosse, L. Gordon Rylands, Herbert Cutner, Georges Las Vergnas, Georges Ory, Guy Fau, John Allegro, George Albert Wells, Phyllis Graham, Jean Magne, Samuel Max Rieser, Abelard Reuchlin, Nikos Vergidis, Karlheinz Deschner, Hermann Detering, Gary Courtney, Michael Kalopoulos, Gerd Lüdemann, Alvar Ellegard, D. Murdock, Peter Gandy, Harold Liedner, Hal Childs, Michael Hoffman, Dennis MacDonald, Burton Mack, Luigi Cascioli, Israel Finkelstein, Neil Silbermann, Frank R. Zindler, Daniel Unterbrink, Francesco Carotta, Joseph Atwill, Michel Onfray, Kenneth Humphreys, Jay Raskin, Jan Irvin, Andrew Rutajit, Lena Einhorn, Roger Viklund, René Salm, David Fitzgerald, Thomas Brodie, Michael Paulkovich, Sid Martin, Minas Papageorgiou.
1 Like
That historical records of a person aren’t found doesn’t in anyway suggest they didn’t exist. At best, you conclude there is no evidence for that person’s existence. There are many things I did this morning that will never be recorded in history, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t do them. You are resorting to an argument from silence, which in no way provides evidence for the bold positive claim of Paul’s nonexistence.
That doesn’t mean Peter did not exist.
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Let that sink in.
There are historical records of Herod ordering executions, so its not unlikely he murdered some innocent babies back then. I am not saying it happened, but being agnostic due to the absence of conclusive evidence seems to be the best position.
That was a badly crafted response.
1 Like
As best I can tell, this isn’t true (though Voltaire’s habit of ascribing his views to others in order to circumvent censorship complicates matters).
Unfortunately I can’t find a translation of Examen important de Milord Bolingbroke and my French isn’t up to the task.
So Jesus did not exist. Paul did not exist. Keep going. Maybe the people who invented Jesus and Paul did not exist. No Tertullian, Augustine, or Constantine either. This post? - doesn’t exist.
5 Likes
I didn’t ask you for a list of random people. I asked for some names of professors of history or religious studies at major universities who deny the existence of a first-century historical Jesus.
Just for fun, I decided to Google the last name on your list and this was the first biographical description: “Minas Papageorgiou is a freelance journalist (member of the Journalists’ Union of the Athens Daily Newspapers (ESIEA)) . . .”
Impressive. Yes, curious minds want to know what random newspaper editorial staff have to say. [sarcasm alert]
Academics like me [retired in my case] value peer-reviewed scholarship. Not the random rantings of those outside the academy. The fact that you were unable to name even one history or religious studies professor at a major university makes your random list of denialists all the more unfortunate.
I could compile an equally unimpressive list of random pop writers who churn out books and articles denying an oblate-spheroid earth and yet another list of writers who claim that reptilian overloads have disguised themselves as major world leaders waiting for the signal to assert their domination over mankind. Who knows? Perhaps Minas Papageorgiou or some other random journalists are among them.
Of course, I’m saddened even more that the hospitals in my area have no ICU hospital beds remaining due to a big surge in COVID-19 cases----and yet many people around here still think that Bill Gates has placed tiny 5G “trackers” in the vaccines and that it makes magnets stick to the vaccination site. That’s enough to turn some people against vaccination. I could compose an unimpressive list of writers, bloggers, Youtube vloggers, and “health advocates” who have produced this brand of anti-vaccine mythology. Yes, some denialists/mythicists can be dangerous. All are sad.
Peer-reviewed scholarship that is respected within the academy matters.
7 Likes
Try doing the Introductory tutorial. Completing that will automatically boost you to the next Trust Level.
My understanding is the evidence for a historical Jesus is strong, but the details are sketchy. The best criticism I have seen, is that it was a time of many revolutionary prophets, and the stories attributed to Jesus could represent an amalgamation of several historical figures.
@AllenWitmerMiller may shoot me down this, but it’s a reasonable way to look at the historical evidence from the atheist viewpoint.
3 Likes
“Peer-reviewed scholarship that is respected within the academy matters.” Not when it comes to the study of the Bible. Only people outside of that or any other cult can tell what’s wrong with it. Academics like you? You’re not too full of yourself are you? Someone who can’t tell the difference between historical fiction and mythology and actual historical narratives is not my idea of an academic. The conspiracy theorists of the world more closely resemble so-called Bible scholars and Christ believers than the people who doubt the historical veracity of the Bible and the existence of Jesus. We’re the rational ones here. So-called Bible scholars and theologians are in a special tin foil hat section of academia that has little resemblance to the rest of it where people graduate and get real jobs and produce results.
A person doesn’t need a degree in Bible Babble to spend fifteen or twenty minutes discovering that outside of the Bible there isn’t one reliable contemporary source of information on Jesus or any of the apostles. Most people learn in elementary school that when they read a text from antiquity that has people and various bogeys all speaking to each other in complete sentences, they are reading fiction. Yet others can spend years in college and seminary and can’t figure that out. I assume you are in the latter group unless you can show me differently.
Having said all that I see you identify as a Biblical Linguist. I had seven semesters of Ancient Greek in college and it was the most difficult field of study for me and most of my classmates, judging from the number of them that dropped out. After all that I’m hardly an expert. But you know you have to keep up and that can be difficult when you’re raising a family.
Thanks. I kept a lot of my textbooks including a “Greek Grammar for Colleges” and A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature." I really just need to read the ancient texts, especially the Septuagint. Yeah Jesus is the result of religious syncretism, no doubt about that. The evidence for a historical Jesus is not strong, it is non-existent. The golden paragraphs in the works of Josephus are obvious forgeries done by Eusebius. The other writers Christians cling to do not mention Jesus or any disciples by name only the existence of Christians. Plus they are about a hundred years too late anyway. All this has been hidden from the public for almost 2000 years but now with the Internet it’s been exposed. Christianity is crumbling faster than a stale cookie and “biblical scholarship” is revealed as the conspiracy cult it’s always been.
2 Likes
You may be right, but from my viewpoint it’s not a useful argument, so I give it very little thought. I’d rather spend my time helping people to better understand science.
2 Likes
Wow! Are you actually trying to tell me that all of the professors in the history departments and religious studies departments at the major universities throughout the world are members of some cult? Seriously?
Are you also claiming that peer-reviewed scholarship focused on every other ancient texts matters but that somehow the collection of many ancient texts known as the Bible is somehow exempt?
I am beginning to strongly suspect that you are trying to pull my leg. I wasn’t born yesterday.
I’ve dealt with a lot of conspiracy theorists in my day—and I find that phenomenon fascinating on its own—but this is the first I’ve encountered someone who claims that all of the university history departments and religious studies departments of the world are conspiring to maintain some kind of “cult” promoting the existence of a Jesus who never lived.
Do you understand that plenty of history and religious studies professors at major universities are atheists and agnostics? Or have you somehow convinced yourself that only flaming Christian fundamentalists are hired for those positions?
I generally avoid mentioning the “T-word” in polite company and this forum. But you are really straining my incredulity-restraint neural circuits.
4 Likes
I have made no assertions on that topic at all. I have merely asked you to support yours, which instead of doing you provide so fatuous a response.
Me asking you to support your assertions is not me making claims.
It is difficult to conclude anything other than you can not support your claim that “The Jesus myth position is rapidly moving to the forefront in academia”.
2 Likes
Good luck with that. Sounds almost as tough as helping Americans understand English.
1 Like
It seems like he is the atheist version of Edgar.
3 Likes
Setting aside the historical Jesus for one moment, are you actually claiming that any ancient person for which there is no “reliable contemporary source of information” is assumed by historians not to have existed? Do you have any idea how many of the ancients would be relegated to never-existed status? (I can think of quite a few historical figures for which even the first mention of them came centuries after their death.)
Hmmm. What is it exactly about “contemporary source[s] of information” which makes them the gold standard? Have you actually asked a professor of history what they think of your . . . well . . . unusual claim?
I think you have been reading the wrong books. Just as in science, read the peer-reviewed literature and the books written by those who have authored relevant peer-reviewed scholarship.
Meanwhile, I’m still having this nagging suspicion that you are pranking me. I wish I didn’t—because I believe that common courtesy and forum etiquette encourages all of us to assume every post sincere. So I apologize for that admission but in this case I feel that my own sense of honesty requires it. Whatever the case, PS is a forum for everyone who wishes to sincerely engage so I’m certainly open to discussing this topic further.
4 Likes
I wouldn’t shoot it down. (Besides, my aim has deteriorated with my eyesight.) The details of the historical Jesus certainly continue to be hashed out and debated in the academy. Obviously, that is a different question than the existence of a man named Jesus in the first century whose teachings led to the Christian religion.
I got interviewed by a PBS film crew at the annual AAR/SBL conference in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s and the reporter’s first question to me, “Will there be a lot of papers on the recent discovery that Jesus probably never lived and that, even if he did, the sayings attributed to him came from others?” I explained that The Jesus Seminar was largely ignored by the academy even though the media is fascinated by it–and the scholars were often amused by TJS. (One of Bob Funk’s most brilliant attention grabbing devices was telling the media that the Jesus Seminar took a vote on various sayings of Jesus by passing around a goldfish bowl and having each scholar toss in a colored marble representing their conclusion. Yes, the second question for me in that PBS interview was asking about the colored marbles.)
The reporter also asked me, “Who should I interview of these 9000+ scholars who can defend the Jesus Myth position?” I replied, “How are you at finding a needle in a haystack?” [We were standing in a noisy room absolutely packed with talkative religion scholars because it was a time between all of the paper sessions.] I sent her to Robert Funk’s Westar Institute exhibit and he probably directed her to Robert Price.
1 Like
First of all, like most Christian apologists, you intentionally blur the distinction between History and Biblical Studies. They are not related. What History department discusses the supposed life of Jesus Christ? What texts or archaeological evidence would they use? That name never came up in any history class I was in. I hardly want to exempt the Bible from critical analysis. That is exactly what biblical “scholarship” has been doing since its inception. I want it treated like any other texts from antiquity, with the same critical analysis. I realize there are atheists and agnostics in biblical studies. But like Bart Ehrman their egos won’t allow them to admit they’ve spent most of their lives studying someone who never existed. Bart’s arguments are a perfect example of the circularity and silliness of the arguments used to defend the Christ myth. He insists there were witnesses to the life of Jesus. When pressed to identify them he said the eyewitnesses are the disciples! That’s like trying to prove the existence of Superman by citing the eyewitness testimonies of Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White and Inspector Henderson. And that sorry argument is the best one the Christ myth promoters have. Pathetic.
We don’t know who wrote any of the biblical texts, the writers never identify themselves or their sources the way many of the ancient historians did. The carefully constructed chiasm of the books, stories and epistles in the Bible is a dead giveaway that these stories are invented, not a report of historical events. There is no need to posit a supposed historical personage or nugget of truth in any of them. That just confuses people, exactly what apologists are trying to do.
3 Likes