Jesus Myth Theory

[danny la rouge]

I don't get sketchy evidence being astonishing mojo pixy, think we've noted before he came from a social milieu that would have left few records or artefacts and only became significant beyond that later. In that sense, even wobbly proofs seem telling.
Plus there's that tea towel with his face on it.

Yup. We are happy to assume there was a real Socrates, although we have no grave, no birth certificate, we don’t know if we can trust Plato gave us his real words, and the events of his life may have been embellished by legend. And that was a famous Athenian, not a Hebrew Rube.

 

[danny la rouge]

I think there's a lot hanging on 'was Jesus a real person'

Not really. For people with faith, they won’t be swayed either way. For those of us just with an interest, it’s just interesting. It would also be interesting if he hadn’t been real. But there’s more than enough evidence that he was, for a man of his time and milieu.

 

[mojo pixy]

I'm with lbj, there's not really much hanging on it. If Jesus was real that doesn't prove or disprove Christianity. Like many people I think he was probably real but was just some bloke.

Now if you could conclusively prove that he wasn't real, that would be a different matter, but since it's pretty damn hard to prove such a negative claim I don't believe it will ever happen.

The important hurdle, imo, is to recognise that the thing called Christianity is not based on 'the words of Jesus' whether or not said Jesus really existed.

Christianity is totally about the words (and actions) of Jesus. That's what the gospels literally are, all about him, his words, and his actions. And in that sense I'm in the camp that says it doesn't matter if the person was real because its the figure that matters. Was Odin real, is he based on a real man? It doesn't matter, what matters are the stories and the inspiration people take from those.

Or, maybe what matters is the power over believers, over society, that owning the stories bestows. The hierarchies that can be made from that. Rome used this, Constantine I understood it, I do not believe for one moment that his conversion was a spiritual matter; it was political. Christianity, was harnessed for political reasons and has been ever since. This is why Jesus being or not being real matters more than you suggest. If Jesus wasn't real, the messages about love for fellow humans and forgiveness etc are unaffected because those are to do with the stories, not the person. But when power gets involved I think there needs to be a justification, a fallback position that cannot be questioned. Jesus being not just a story but a real person, is that gravitas.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yup. We are happy to assume there was a real Socrates, although we have no grave, no birth certificate, we don’t know if we can trust Plato gave us his real words, and the events of his life may have been embellished by legend. And that was a famous Athenian, not a Hebrew Rube.

We have accounts of Socrates from two people who claim to have known him personally, so I'd say there's more direct evidence of Socrates than there is of Jesus.

That said, Xenophon's Socrates is very different from Plato's Socrates. I think the best thing to do with Plato's Socrates is to say that he is using 'Socrates' as a device to put across his own ideas. Those ideas may or may not have originally come from the real Socrates, but it doesn't matter either way really. It doesn't change the value of the ideas.

 

[Silas Loom]

It’s a retranslation. He wouldn’t have had a Greek version of a Hebrew name.

Retranslation into what? Bloke would have spoken Aramaic.

 

[Santino]

...but what really matters is there's nothing conclusive, or even really convincing. Which, when I consider the stature of this man (if man he was) is astonishing.

I think there must be a name for this kind of reasoning, which is very comforting but really just magnifies one's own point of view. It's appealing to something that one thinks ought to exist, without really having the basis to defend that assumption. It's similar to assuming that we must have more information about Shakespeare than we have because he was supposedly so important, without understanding the general level of sources we have for people of that time.

 

[mojo pixy]

It’s a retranslation. He wouldn’t have had a Greek version of a Hebrew name.

Yes but we don't know for sure if there was a he to have a name, it's a made up thing to act as a placeholder till an actual person with an actual name shows up. And even if one does he might turn out not have been called Ben Yosef. His family name might have been Natzaretu, or Cohen, or anything.

 

[danny la rouge]

Yes but we don't know for sure if there was a he to have a name, it's a made up thing to act as a placeholder till an actual person with an actual name shows up. And even if one does he might turn out not have been called Ben Yosef. His family name might have been Natzaretu, or Cohen, or anything.

We do know.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

He was Ben Yahweh, no?

 

[mojo pixy]

We do know.

Then it's a silly thing to do

 

[Santino]

We do know.

I think I would go with 'we can be reasonably confident, on the balance of probabilities'.

 

[8ball]

He was Ben Yahweh, no?

AKA Obi-wan Keyahweh.

 

[danny la rouge]

Then it's a silly thing to do

We do know there was a man.

We know his name was not the Latinised version of a Greek version of a Hebrew name, Yeshua. We can safely assume he had the Hebrew name. The surname isn’t a surname as we know today. At the time he’d have been called just Yeshua, as surnames weren’t the custom. But the phrase son of Joseph would have been used occasionally to distinguish him from other Yeshuas. A very common name at the time.

Incidentally, the fact that he had a common name is evidence he existed. If he was made up they’d probably have picked something more distinctive.

If you’re interested in the kind of scholarship around this, have a read. If you’re determined not to think he existed, that’s absolutely fine. But it is considered eccentric.

 

[danny la rouge]

I think I would go with 'we can be reasonably confident, on the balance of probabilities'.

Aye, fair enough. But that’s close.

It’s the same with my atheism. We can be reasonably confident there’s no god. So reasonably confident that my shorthand for that is that there isn’t one.

 

[Santino]

Aye, fair enough. But that’s close.

It’s the same with my atheism. We can be reasonably confident there’s no god. So reasonably confident that my shorthand for that is that there isn’t one.

I think atheism is a different order of belief. There's no version of theism (at least one that demands any kind of behavioural or doctrinal response) that's coherent, so atheism just means a refusal to indulge in an incoherent belief system, or the morality that attaches to it.

 

[mojo pixy]

I think there must be a name for this kind of reasoning, which is very comforting but really just magnifies one's own point of view. It's appealing to something that one thinks ought to exist, without really having the basis to defend that assumption. It's similar to assuming that we must have more information about Shakespeare than we have because he was supposedly so important, without understanding the general level of sources we have for people of that time.

I get your point, though Shakespeare may not be the best example as there are portraits, contemporaries mentioning him, and all his writing. If there was all that of Jesus this whole conversation would be different. But yes, there's an expectation bias (or something) to this view, I'm sure.

 

[danny la rouge]

I get your point, though Shakespeare may not be the best example as there are portraits, contemporaries mentioning him, and all his writing. If there was all that of Jesus this whole conversation would be different. But yes, there's an expectation bias (or something) to this view, I'm sure.

Are there contemporaneous portraits of Shakespeare?

 

[8ball]

Are there contemporaneous portraits of Shakespeare?

Is he not still on the debit cards?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It is a pity that the word 'agnostic' has lost its original meaning for many people. As coined by TH Huxley, it was intended to mean specifically 'do now believe anything where there is not sufficient reason to believe it'. It wasn't intended to convey an idea such as 'I'm not sure' but something stronger than that - 'I am sure that there is not sufficient reason to believe this thing'.

In the original TH Huxley sense, I am agnostic towards all theistic systems and for that reason I am atheist. FWIW this is also the reasoning put forward by Bertrand Russell when he postulates his flying teapot. He was also an atheist because he was agnostic. Agnosticism as a method can lead to very firm conclusions.

 

[mojo pixy]

We do know there was a man.

We know his name was not the Latinised version of a Greek version of a Hebrew name, Yeshua. We can safely assume he had the Hebrew name. The surname isn’t a surname as we know today. At the time he’d have been called just Yeshua, as surnames weren’t the custom. But the phrase son of Joseph would have been used occasionally to distinguish him from other Yeshuas. A very common name at the time.

Incidentally, the fact that he had a common name is evidence he existed. If he was made up they’d probably have picked something more distinctive.

Yeshua, I'm fine with, but people at that time had other names than son- or daughter- of X. I just see no reason to retcon a name this way.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Are there contemporaneous portraits of Shakespeare?

There are contemporaneous records of him and his company, plays they put on, bills paid, etc. And his plays were collected in a folio by people who say they knew and worked with him. You'd think the image of him on that folio is probably a reasonable likeness. Why wouldn't it be if it was done by his former colleagues?

I'd say the evidence of his existence is on a totally different level from that of Jesus.

 

[danny la rouge]

Is he not still on the debit cards?

The most famous portrait, the Droeshout Portrait, was posthumous.

 

[8ball]

The most famous portrait, the Droeshout Portrait, was posthumous.

He was looking quite well, considering.

 

[8ball]

Yeshua, I'm fine with, but people at that time had other names than son- or daughter- of X. I just see no reason to retcon a name this way.

Ok, let's just settle on Josh and be done with it.

 

[danny la rouge]

There are contemporaneous records of him and his company, plays they put on, bills paid, etc. And his plays were collected in a folio by people who say they knew and worked with him. You'd think the image of him on that folio is probably a reasonable likeness. Why wouldn't it be if it was done by his former colleagues?

I'd say the evidence of his existence is on a totally different level from that of Jesus.

The evidence for Shakespeare’s life is a millenium and a half newer. He was a literate early modern. Jesus was an illiterate preacher from First Century Judea.

 

[mojo pixy]

The most famous portrait, the Droeshout Portrait, was posthumous.

Ben Jonson (who knew him personally) wrote that it was a good likeness:

This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Grauer had a strife
with Nature, to out-doo the life :
O, could he but haue drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face ; the Print would then surpasse
All, that vvas euer vvrit in brasse.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
Not on his Picture, but his Booke.

 

[8ball]

Jesus was an illiterate preacher from First Century Judea.

I think that's blasphemy in some quarters.

 

[danny la rouge]

Ben Jonson (who knew him personally) wrote that it was a good likeness:

This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Grauer had a strife
with Nature, to out-doo the life :
O, could he but haue drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face ; the Print would then surpasse
All, that vvas euer vvrit in brasse.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
Not on his Picture, but his Booke.

Ben Jonson is a candidate for being him.

(Not that I believe that. I think the guy from Stratford was the guy who wrote the plays and sonnets).

 

[Serge Forward]

We know his name was not the Latinised version of a Greek version of a Hebrew name, Yeshua. We can safely assume he had the Hebrew name. The surname isn’t a surname as we know today. At the time he’d have been called just Yeshua, as surnames weren’t the custom. But the phrase son of Joseph would have been used occasionally to distinguish him from other Yeshuas. A very common name at the time.

I bet he was known as Yeshua the Chippy (in Aramaic).

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The evidence for Shakespeare’s life is a millenium and a half newer. He was a literate early modern. Jesus was an illiterate preacher from First Century Judea.

Sure.

I'm not saying that we should expect greater evidence than there is if he were real. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

FWIW from what I've read, Paul is the closest evidence we have. He never met Jesus but will have met people who did. And it's Paul's writings that form the basis of a lot of (most?) Christian doctrine.

So there's a parallel there perhaps with Socrates and Plato.

But then again, Paul was a nutter. Who knows what stuff he made up or imagined?