Reconstructing the Historical Jesus

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Please explain why the person that the jesus character was based on doesn't matter when discussing the jesus character.

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This topic is about the historical Jesus. If there wasn't one that's all that need be said.

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From what I've heard they aren't dodgy.
There are definite similarities.
They may not all be as clear-cut as some mithra's supporters might want, but they still exist.

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It's the dating that is the problem. Roman Mithraism - which is what you are talking about - shows up relatively late in the 1st Century. If you can't show that the Mithraists had the idea first, the question of who copied who (if there was any copying) is still open.

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Interestingly though, there is a more varied selection of archaeological evidence for mithra than for jesus.

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I presume you mean for the Roman Mithras cult over the Christianity of the same era. Mithras was never a real person.

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Though it seems that if the jesus character is based on a character in a pre-dating religion, then you would rather not discuss it.

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I don't want to discuss it in this thread, because it would be off-topic.

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But if jesus is a copy of a different character then you need to identify that historical character, as there is no actual historical jesus.

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Only if that historical character is close enough to Jesus to count. Horus certainly doesn't, and Roman Mithraism seems to be VERY loosely based on older Mithras worship, so the original of Mithras would likewise be way too old.

Huh? Who said that this was one of the defining characteristics of the historical Jesus?Are you just making up the strawmen as you go along? There are canonical and non-canonical sources that talk about Jesus; they very widely in their theological take on him, but they all have some very basic things in common, e.g., they agree that he was executed. Well, you just described pretty much every historical document ever written. So, what do you expect to be left?Jon

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Bullshit. Utter bullshit. Why not bother actually learning something about the topic before spitting off stupidity?It is almost unanimous amongst serious scholars that Mark was written during or shortly after the first revolt, around 70 a.d.. That's nice. You want to throw out all the evidence and then complain that there isn't any. That's nice.Let us know when you're ready to be serious.Jon

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Love your enemies!

Since you seem to accept that there wasn't an historical jesus, I guess this discussion is closed.No?
Then we should discuss how older religions helped define the jesus character.

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Since you seem to accept that there wasn't an historical jesus, I guess this discussion is closed.

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Well it would be if you were right. But you're wrong. So it isn't over.

I have to say that I have never seen a date for Mark so early. The date for Paul is what is commonly accepted. Even if Mark was 50 AD, that hardly gives time for Paul to hear of, gain access to, read, and finally reject the majority of Mark in favour of his own invented Jesus theology, then nip around the middle east establishing churches, so that he can write to them in 51 AD. Am I the only one that detects a hint of fanaticism here? Even though I am now an atheist, I retain an interest in the historical and archaeological aspects of Judaism and Christianity. I can certainly entertain the idea of Jesus being entirely invented, and it would be interesting to see how that would fit around the historical charatcters of Peter, Paul, James, etc, and their rifts. But I think it is more likely that there was a historical Jesus, and the mythical elements of the story grew, as they say, in the telling.

How historians investigate ancient figures is kind of relevant, I would have thought. It is not circular, since it does not go around in a circle. There is a pile of evidence for Jesus' existence, and historians sift through that evidence to see if anything can be said to be reliable evidence supporting his existence. But claims regarding ancient figures do rely almost solely on documents written about those ancient figures at or around the time of their existence. Then there is the work of the historian to try and figure out what is propaganda, religious dogma and what might actually be true, or more exactly, what can be called historical. And you can't think of a reason why the claim 'A man was executed and came back to life' might require higher evidential support than 'A man was executed'? I suppose 'I saw a cat yesterday' is a claim that requires the same degree of evidence as 'I saw a hippogryph yesterday'. It's not my historicism. It's the likes of Gza Vermes, Paula Fredriksen, Bart Ehrman, Ernest Renan and so on and so forth. No, and nor am I proposing the beliefs of present day children are the evidence for the historical Jesus. I don't know that exact details of the evidence for Nikolaos of Myra but I suspect a lot of it is in the written claims made by other people, as is also the case with Socrates. Or did you think that Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and Aristophanes referred to an assortment of modern 7-year olds?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

The goal is not to determine whether every claim is true or false; the goal is to look for the best explanations behind the claims. Sometimes the best explanation is that the claim is true or mostly based on truth. Other times there are better explanations.In the case of the resurrection reports, the better explanation isn't that it actually happened. In the case of some of the other material, however, the better explanation may easily be that the events described actually happened.This is based on established methodologies developed and advanced by the scholars Mod cited in the previous post.What are your methodologies? Why should we use them? How do they lead to better explanations?Do you have any methodology in mind for sorting out which explanations are to be preferred over others?Jon

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Love your enemies!

Then we should discuss how older religions helped define the jesus character.(All you had to do was read all of my last post and we could have skipped this step.)

Well, you did, when you signed on to defend the notion of a historical Jesus who didn't do anything "Jesus-y." Total non sequitor, so I'll repeat the point: It's never ridiculous to ask what evidence supports a claim. Another often-repeated lie by the Historical Jesus side: "every source is as bad as the Bible." But frankly that's just not true. For instance the Magna Carta isn't

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utterly untrustworthy, mutually plagaristic, cannot corroborate themselves, were written long decades after the events they supposedly chronicle, and are full of impossible invention and embellishment.

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Neither is the US Constitution, the Code of Hammurabi, or Plutarch's Histories. Those are just examples: many historical documents are well-sourced and documentary, and the mundane claims they make can be taken more or less at face value, especially where they describe events that other independent sources also describe.That's just not the case with the Gospels and the Pauline epistles. If the Gospels and Paul are the only source of knowledge you have about Jesus then you know absolutely nothing at all, because they're the testimony of liars.

Documented fact. By which of course you mean "scholars who believe in the existence of a historical Jesus Christ." For real scholars who follow evidence there's evidence, apparently, for an authorship of Mark at least as early as 50 AD. What evidence?

But the problem is just that - "Q" doesn't exist. You can't put forward sources that don't exist as "independent support" for your claims.Here's a hint, Paul - when you're making up sources that would conveniently corroborate your claims if they existed you're not actually providing support for your claims - you're engaged in patent nonsense.Do you expect me to be convinced by a source that doesn't exist? Honestly? Which I've done. The more parsimonious claim is the one that assumes the existence of the least number of entities the existence of which is not required. Since the "Mythical Jesus" position has one less unnecessary entity, it's the more parsimonious of the claims. QED. The records you previously claimed didn't exist? How did Tacitus have access to them if they didn't exist, and if he did refer to records, why didn't he say that? Again, your recourse is to imaginary sources. How can you expect that to be convincing? Why are you putting forward arguments that you don't believe? Can we put this line of argumentation to bed, then, since I don't believe it either? Isn't it the obligation of Tacitus defenders to put forward some kind of evidence that Tacitus actually saw some records of the crucifixion of Jesus? And if they can't meet that obligation don't we have the right not to believe them, and consider their claims of Tacitus having unique and direct evidence of the existence and crucifixion of Jesus to be unfounded? And if they're unfounded, how can Tacitus be support for the existence of Jesus? Except that it does, as I've demonstrated. The context is quite clear. Do you need it quoted again? So, not written by Josephus but put forward as though he did.That's the precise definition of a "forgery." Yes - that it's reasonable to expect some actual evidence if Jesus actually existed. Not imaginary evidence from imaginary sources, which is all you've been able to provide. No. Wrong. What we need to work out is whether there is any actual evidence that such a person existed and was the basis of the Jesus mythology. And where did I ever indicate that I considered it "extraordinary" that Christianity existed? Please be specific. Yes, but you misunderstand the term "fiction." I don't mean to imply that the authors of the Gospels were the authors of the fiction - they were merely its recorders. Similarly, if I dictate a fiction story to someone who, for whatever reason, believes it and writes it down, the story they've written - that they're the "author" of - is a complete fiction, but they're not fiction authors. And how would the Gospels be based on such an individual? Please be specific. But again, you're not making any sense. What story was "replaced"? If there was no historical Jesus then there was no real origin Christianity to "replace." So what could possibly have been replaced?Your claim is utterly without sense, here. Please continue to elaborate so I can understand it. I would go so far as to say that it's a certainty that exaggeration and embellishment occurred. Ergo, it's most likely to assume that the exaggeration and embellishment parts go so far as to include his actual existence. Once you're lying about nearly everything, why not lie about the rest?

I'm aware of how historians investigate ancient figures, and the way they do it most definitely not by taking the self-serving claims of holy books at credulous face value. No, there's not. There's a pile of claims of Jesus's existence. And the best evidence you seem to have for the veracity of those claims is "why would first-century mythmakers lie"? Pardon me if I'm not as credulous. But nothing written about Jesus was written at or around the time of his existence. It was all written decades after he supposedly existed.Placing a fictional character in the near past? A common technique in mythmaking. It lends verisimilitude. But it indicates that the figure under discussion is a myth, not a historical person. That's why Jesus stories and myths were able to spread so rapidly - they weren't tied down to people's actual memories of the events surrounding a real person.The pattern of writings about Jesus is clear to anyone who's made a study of mythology and mythmaking, as I have. Topologically it's identical to other examples of mythological figure invention that spread by word of mouth, such as Jesus Malverde and John Frum. Ergo it's most reasonable to assume that, like Jesus Malverde and John Frum, Jesus was a mythological invention, not a mythological inspiration. But again the existence of men executed by Romans don't lend credence to the Jesus mythology, they merely lend verisimilitude. After all, none of those men wound up being the central focus of a major world religion. That's a bit more extraordinary than just "getting killed by Romans" and it creates a greater burden of evidence.It's insufficient just to demonstrate that the Romans killed a guy named "Josh." You have to provide evidence that demonstrates that the Romans killed a guy named "Josh" (you know what I mean) and that someone based a major world religion on him. And what evidence to Geza Vermes, Paula Fredriksen, Bart Ehrman, and Ernest Renan offer for the historical existence of Jesus? Please be specific. You've missed the point completely. If first century authors can make self-evident claims, why can't modern children?

And why couldn't his existence be one of the first elements to grow in the telling?

Then provide the documentation. You might want to cite those scholars.Jon

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Love your enemies!