Jesus Myth Theory

[8ball]

Those debates were quite something and I still can't quite nail the difference between monophysites and miaphysites.

The Chalcedonian angle seems to be the closest to making any sense imo.

 

[kabbes]

Also interesting is the way that figures once generally agreed to have been real people start to get written out of history as mere inventions. Pythagoras, Homer, Jesus. You can even see it beginning to happen to Shakespeare.

Even more interesting is what gets agreed to be “real” in the first place, and how that agreement takes place.

 

[DotCommunist]

Also interesting is the way that figures once generally agreed to have been real people start to get written out of history as mere inventions. Pythagoras, Homer, Jesus. You can even see it beginning to happen to Shakespeare.

and which don't. Nobody questions if there was a julius caeser

 

[kabbes]

Personally, I don’t think there ever really was a firky.

 

[JimW]

The Chalcedonian angle seems to be the closest to making any sense imo.

I only know they were one of the parties rather than what their particular standpoint was, tbh.

 

[JimW]

julius ceaser

Desisted in his prime.

 

[belboid]

There are surviving complete manuscripts of gospels that predate the Roman Empire's official adoption of Christianity.

still at least 100 years after JC had supposedly been crucified

 

[JimW]

Julius left writings and i presume some of the busts are contemporary, quite apart from your Cicero etc. You'd have to be going some to query him.

 

[8ball]

I only know they were one of the parties rather than what their particular standpoint was, tbh.

Dyophysitism - one person but two distinct natures.

It’s the only one that doesn’t make it blatantly silly that Jesus prays while in the garden of Gethsemane imo.

 

[Chz]

Way back when I studied this stuff, I had a strong notion that Christ was just another cult leader without Paul and Christianity is effectively based on Paul's writing and not Christ's life. The Catholic Church as it exists today wouldn't be a thing without him.

 

[8ball]

Way back when I studied this stuff, I had a strong notion that Christ was just another cult leader without Paul and Christianity is effectively based on Paul's writing and not Christ's life. The Catholic Church as it exists today wouldn't be a thing without him.

This is a fairly common position to take ime. Has some merit to it.

 

[Jimmy Don't]

Also interesting is the way that figures once generally agreed to have been real people start to get written out of history as mere inventions. Pythagoras, Homer, Jesus. You can even see it beginning to happen to Shakespeare.

Fakespeare! (All written in the 90's by JK Rowling, before she created the George Eliot/Mary Ann Evan's author character)

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

There are surviving complete manuscripts of gospels that predate the Roman Empire's official adoption of Christianity.

i know - i believe i referred to them. They paint a very different picture of what Jesus represented.

 

[Humberto]

i know - i believe i referred to them. They paint a very different picture of what Jesus represented.

Ok cool, wasn't sure what you meant as you say in (my) bolded bit:

This i what I've decided occurred. The evidence is in the text imo. If the Romans had invented Jesus then he wouldn't have been attributed as saying all the inflammatory and anti Roman things that he did say. Also Jesus contradicts himself all over the place which is something that eastern teachers would do to provoke independent thought, but is alien to modern Christianity. I just think he was nobody special but that a legend about him grew, posthumously, to proportions that were impossible to ignore, in times when writing anything down would have been seriously risky in occupied Roman territory. There are texts, older than anything in the Bible, which suggest that Jesus was very much influenced by eastern philosophy and did not think of himself as anything but a man, and a teacher. There is a legend in India that Jesus visited in the years that is not covered at all in the scriptures, and then returns in old age to die. There's even an alleged tomb. I mean, nobody believes that he died on a cross and came back to life right? To me that all feels like a Roman fabrication. I expect when things got a big hot for him he escaped on a trade route out to India, which he'd used before when he was a younger man.

A lot of the stuff about him that is harder to believe does align with legends/beliefs that existed prior to Christianity - almost as if they just bolted on different elements to make him appeal to Roman citizens.

I mean there's also no direct evidence that Socrates actually existed either - just the writings of Plato.

That's not a 'Roman fabrication', it was in the earlier gospels before they stopped the persecution of Christians.

 

[Jennaonthebeach]

Ok cool, wasn't sure what you meant as you say in (my) bolded bit:


That's not a 'Roman fabrication', it was in the earlier gospels before they stopped the persecution of Christians.

Paulian fabrication then. For sure, it didn't happen. Who faked it is kind of academic.

 

[ohmyliver]

Blessed are the cheesemakers

cheese is Christ

 

[phildwyer]

Yes.

There was no need to make him up. First-century Palestine was crawling with people like him, saying and doing pretty much exactly what he's reported to have said and done.

It will save time if everyone just reposts what they said in 2016.

 

[Raheem]

It will save time if everyone just reposts what they said in 2016.

What, "Trump's got no chance and maybe we should think about joining the Euro after the referendum"?

 

[JimW]

What about the Jesus meth theory? There was a reason he was always so restless and talking nine to the dozen.

 

[zahir]

BUMP
Excellent lecture here, fact filled, peer-reviewed....includes some early christian and pre-chrisitan history which makes the case the jesus didnt exist at all very convincingly. the fact that there was already a Jesus that existed in Jewish angelography, and an angel in direct opposition to Satan at that, I found particularly interesting. Too much here to summarise at this time of the morning


tldw theres a sort of summary here, but its not a very good read, whilst the lecture is crystal clear

Richard Carrier - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Less controversially than Richard Carrier's mythicism here's his review of Robyn Faith Walsh's book on what kind of literature the synoptic gospels actually are:

Robyn Faith Walsh and the Gospels as Literature • Richard Carrier Blogs

Robyn Faith Walsh, a professor of New Testament studies at the University of Miami with a Ph.D. in religious studies from Brown University, has recently hit the circuit promoting her “controversial” thesis (building on her dissertation at Brown) that the Gospels are deliberate literary...

www.richardcarrier.info

And an interview with Robyn Faith Walsh on Bart Ehrman's podcast:

 

[CH1]

This video is really interesting but long, so heres an imperfect AI summary of it

That video is 6 years old. Nothing there contradicts RG Price, maybe not even SP Laurie.
Richard Carrier is however plugging his books. Quite a few answers to questions at the end were essentially - it's all in the book!
Not sure I agree this lecture was crystal clear - but certainly his explanation of the Parable of the Fig tree was.

I thought his statements about the Nag Hammadi codices were either sloppy or ill-informed - or both.

 

[Serge Forward]

On the subject of multiple Jesuses, in 2020, the name Joshua (the anglicised version of Jesus) was apparently the 25th most popular baby name in the UK. I suspect the Hebrew/Aramaic name Yeshua was also pretty common two thousand years ago in bible land. In other words, preachers who were called a variation of Josh and who had a few conjuring skills were probably ten a penny back then. So basically, the Jesus character was a Yeshua composite of antiquity of... David Copperfield, Darren Brown, David Blane and Paul Daniels all rolled up with Billy Graham, Ravi Shankar, Pope Francis and Rabbi Charley Baginsky (hmm... the last is female so doesn't count ).

 

[CH1]

Less controversially than Richard Carrier's mythicism here's his review of Robyn Faith Walsh's book on what kind of literature the synoptic gospels actually are:

Robyn Faith Walsh and the Gospels as Literature • Richard Carrier Blogs

Robyn Faith Walsh, a professor of New Testament studies at the University of Miami with a Ph.D. in religious studies from Brown University, has recently hit the circuit promoting her “controversial” thesis (building on her dissertation at Brown) that the Gospels are deliberate literary...

www.richardcarrier.info

And an interview with Robyn Faith Walsh on Bart Ehrman's podcast:

Seen her before on History Valley - another Youtube channel devoted to undermining the authority of scripture!
I am very concerned about Bart Ehrman. He seems to be churning out paid courses on atheism these days.
Maybe his tenure at Chapel Hill has finally come to an end? He is 68 so maybe the Uni have emeritised him?

This guy did the sort of this Robyn Faith is talking about starting in 1983 Dennis MacDonald - Wikipedia
and Richard Carrier PH D thinks he's marvelous Review of The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark » Internet Infidels

 

[nogojones]

It will save time if everyone just reposts what they said in 2016.

Nailed it

Not sure I brought that much to the table back in 2016

 

[zahir]

Maybe his tenure at Chapel Hill has finally come to an end? He is 68 so maybe the Uni have emeritised him?

According to his podcast he's still teaching.

 

[Humberto]

Paulian fabrication then. For sure, it didn't happen. Who faked it is kind of academic.

I think you are right that Paul must have greatly influenced the writing of the gospels, and was a massive influence in the early church. You would have to assume that Paul was dishonest to 'fabricate' somehow that community's belief in the resurrection of Jesus. He's a very lucid and deep writer within the parameters of early church development and spread. And is an impressive writer. I guess his ability (for argument) to impress his own agenda and set out an orthodoxy according to his weighty influence is somewhat shrouded by time. As belboid mentioned earlier, the earliest surviving New Testament texts come some decades later.

So, although I'm a Christian and hold Paul in esteem, I think your enquiries are interesting and food for thought.

 

[ouirdeaux]

Way back when I studied this stuff, I had a strong notion that Christ was just another cult leader without Paul and Christianity is effectively based on Paul's writing and not Christ's life. The Catholic Church as it exists today wouldn't be a thing without him.

I agree that Paul turned the religion from the basically Jewish sect into something that would have mass appeal -- don't bother about circumcision, which puts a lot of people off, and you don't have to stop eating all those things which the scriptures say are an abomination, because that's not important now. All you have to do is believe in Jesus, and you're saved. Doesn't that sound nice?

But he also says in 1 Timothy that a bishop should be the husband of one wife, and furthermore that there will be false prophets who talk against marriage, but you shouldn't listen to them. I've never worked out how the Roman Catholic Church explains that away, but they probably have something. They usually do.

Also, priestly celibacy in the RCC came about quite late, and most scholars don't think Paul actually wrote 1 Timothy, but never mind, eh?

 

[Humberto]

I agree that Paul turned the religion from the basically Jewish sect into something that would have mass appeal -- don't bother about circumcision, which puts a lot of people off, and you don't have to stop eating all those things which the scriptures say are an abomination, because that's not important now. All you have to do is believe in Jesus, and you're saved. Doesn't that sound nice?

But he also says in 1 Timothy that a bishop should be the husband of one wife, and furthermore that there will be false prophets who talk against marriage, but you shouldn't listen to them. I've never worked out how the Roman Catholic Church explains that away, but they probably have something. They usually do.

Also, priestly celibacy in the RCC came about quite late, and most scholars don't think Paul actually wrote 1 Timothy, but never mind, eh?

I'm struggling to remember but it was a hefty debate on circumcision? It was Simon Peter who is said to have resolved it, rather than Paul, and here we are!

 

[ouirdeaux]

? It was Simon Peter who is said to have resolved it, rather than Paul

No, Paul told Peter off, and that was that. It's all in Galatians 2, if you care.

Obviously it's one person's account, and if you aren't buying into the religion and treating it as one would any piece of testimony where we only have one account, there's no reason to believe it happened exactly that way. But it isn't surprising that the adherents of what started off as a Jewish cult would consider circumcision to be important, and we know that this view was abandoned. So it's likely to be more or less correct.

 

[Humberto]

Well you'll have to show that as I can't recall. What I can recall is the account of Saint Peter in the book of Acts 11:1-18:

11 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him 3 and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.” 4 Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. 6 I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds. 7 Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’

8 “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

9 “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ 10 This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

11 “Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. 12 The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. 14 He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’ 15 “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with[a] water, but you will be baptized with[b] the Holy Spirit.’ 17 So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

18 When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”