Jesus Myth Theory

[ska invita]

The faith in peer review apparent on this site is quite amusing. Tbf it gets brought up in all manner of scientific articles (I know we are talking about history here, but it’s not my area so I can’t verify).

i just meant its different from the usual ramblings on the internet, the guy is clearly an academic

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

This whole topic can get pretty meaningless. At what level does Jesus get to exist? Born of the Virgin Mary? Well no, that's just myth. OK, born of Mary and Joseph? No, not necessary. From Nazareth? No, not necessary. Wise men, shepherds, no room at the inn? No, just detail. Impossible to substantiate. Slaughter of the innocents? No, some stuff in Bible is just made up, possibly. OK, what about all the miracles and stuff? No, no, no, we can't be expected to prove any of that bollocks. So the crucifixion, rising from the dead, everything else? Well that kind of thing is just down to faith, innit?

What's left? A bloke, possibly called Jesus, who liked fish?

I think you probably need to watch the video to see what he was talking about. It does clarify this point.


I enjoyed the video, but I don't like his attitude at times. Bit sneery, when he would be better at making his point without.
I'm not au fait with his more personal attacks (or any for that matter)

But liked the video on a basic level . . . for instance what two sheds picked out below.

I liked the bit about the parables like fig tree/temple/fig tree in that talk, and how the miracles and improbable events have likely been attributed by people having a 'vision' that it went like that.

It's probably softened my view that the bible was written in some form as a device to control the people.
The idea that it was easier at some point to teach stupid people that what was going on was literal (so they could get them into it) but further down the line explain the allegorys.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

I think you probably need to watch the video to see what he was talking about. It does clarify this point.

It's probably softened my view that the bible was written in some form as a device to control the people.
The idea that it was easier at some point to teach stupid people that what was going on was literal (so they could get them into it) but further down the line explain the allegorys.

Fair enough on your first point, that I haven't seen the video, but I do think we still end up with a Palestinian version of King Arthur, I.e. someone with a particular name at a particular place had loads of myths invented about them.

Your last point though. Nobody wrote 'the ?Bible'. A whole heap of people over a long period of time wrote some texts which were later altered/changed/merged/hidden/forgotten to form a big, long, incoherent, contradictory book whose meaning has been argued about ever since. Multiple reasons for writing what was written. No coherence.

 

[two sheds]

Indeed, although you can also say they 'wrote the bible'. The video actually went into what you've just said in some interesting detail.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Indeed, although you can also say they 'wrote the bible'. The video actually went into what you've just said in some interesting detail.

OK. I get the message. I'll watch the bloody thing.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

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.

Shame we can’t simply turn water into wine nowadays without buying clunky equipment.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Fair enough on your first point, that I haven't seen the video, but I do think we still end up with a Palestinian version of King Arthur, I.e. someone with a particular name at a particular place had loads of myths invented about them.

Your last point though. Nobody wrote 'the ?Bible'. A whole heap of people over a long period of time wrote some texts which were later altered/changed/merged/hidden/forgotten to form a big, long, incoherent, contradictory book whose meaning has been argued about ever since. Multiple reasons for writing what was written. No coherence.

On point one.
Again. You will have to watch the video before you can comment. You will see if you watch it.

Point two
I commenting on the video, you have to watch it to see what I mean. I'm well aware that no 'one person' wrote the Bible. In fact that's exactly what I'm talking about ffs. Jebus.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

On point one.
Again. You will have to watch the video before you can comment. You will see if you watch it.

Point two
I commenting on the video, you have to watch it to see what I mean. I'm well aware that no 'one person' wrote the Bible. In fact that's exactly what I'm talking about ffs. Jebus.

See above. But anyway, did Jebus exist?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I liked the Meggitt theory

Why was Jesus killed by the Romans? Was he a dangerous subversive, executed because he declared himself to be the Son of God?

It’s interesting that he was killed by the Romans but then they became the driving factor in spreading Christianity.

 

[two sheds]

Worth adding this I think, which the good people of urban have in the past pointed me towards.

The Romans were the masters
When Jesus walked the land
In Judea and in Galilee
They ruled with an iron hand
The poor were sick with hunger
And the rich were clothed in splendour
And the rebels, whipped and crucified
Hung rotting as a warning

And Jesus knew the answer -
"Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's"
Said, "Love your enemies"
But Judas was a Zealot and he
Wanted to be free
"Resist", he said, "the Romans' tyranny"

Now Jesus was a conjuror,
Miracles were his game
He fed the hungry thousands
And they glorified his name
He cured the lame and lepers
He calmed the wind and the weather
And the wretched flocked to touch him
So their troubles would be taken

And Jesus knew the answer -
"All you who labour, all you who suffer
Only believe in me"

But Judas sought a world where no-one Starved or begged for bread
"The poor are always with us", Jesus said
So stand up, stand up for Judas
And the cause that Judas served
It was Jesus who betrayed the poor with his word

Now Jesus sowed division
Where none had been before
Not the slave against the master
But the poor against the poor
Caused son to rise up against father
And brother to fight against brother
For "He that is not with me Is against me" was his teaching

Said Jesus, "I am the answer
You unbelievers shall burn forever
Shall die in your sins"
"Not sheep and goats" said Judas but
"Together we may dare
Shake off the chains of tyranny we share"

So stand up, stand up for Judas
And the cause that Judas served
It was Jesus who betrayed the poor with his word

Jesus stood upon the mountain
With a distance in his eyes
"I am the Way, the Life" he cried
"The Light that never dies
So renounce all earthly treasures
And pray to your heavenly father"
And he pacified the hopeless
With the hope of life eternal

Said Jesus,
"I am the answer
And you who hunger only remember
Your reward's in heaven"

So Jesus preached the other world
But Judas wanted this
And he betrayed his master with a kiss

So stand up, stand up for Judas
And the cause that Judas served
It was Jesus who betrayed the poor with his word

By sword and gun and crucifix
Christ's gospel has been spread
And two thousand cruel years have shown
The way that Jesus led
The heretics burned and tortured
And the butchering bloody Crusaders
The bombs and rockets sanctified
That rain down death from heaven

They followed Jesus, they knew the answer
All unbelievers must be believers
Or else be broken

"So place no trust in saviours" Judas said,
"for everyone
Must be to his or her own self a sun"

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Worth adding this I think, which the good people of urban have in the past pointed me towards.

The Romans were the masters
When Jesus walked the land
In Judea and in Galilee
They ruled with an iron hand
The poor were sick with hunger
And the rich were clothed in splendour
And the rebels, whipped and crucified
Hung rotting as a warning

And Jesus knew the answer -
"Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's"
Said, "Love your enemies"
But Judas was a Zealot and he
Wanted to be free
"Resist", he said, "the Romans' tyranny"

Now Jesus was a conjuror,
Miracles were his game
He fed the hungry thousands
And they glorified his name
He cured the lame and lepers
He calmed the wind and the weather
And the wretched flocked to touch him
So their troubles would be taken

And Jesus knew the answer -
"All you who labour, all you who suffer
Only believe in me"

But Judas sought a world where no-one Starved or begged for bread
"The poor are always with us", Jesus said
So stand up, stand up for Judas
And the cause that Judas served
It was Jesus who betrayed the poor with his word

Now Jesus sowed division
Where none had been before
Not the slave against the master
But the poor against the poor
Caused son to rise up against father
And brother to fight against brother
For "He that is not with me Is against me" was his teaching

Said Jesus, "I am the answer
You unbelievers shall burn forever
Shall die in your sins"
"Not sheep and goats" said Judas but
"Together we may dare
Shake off the chains of tyranny we share"

So stand up, stand up for Judas
And the cause that Judas served
It was Jesus who betrayed the poor with his word

Jesus stood upon the mountain
With a distance in his eyes
"I am the Way, the Life" he cried
"The Light that never dies
So renounce all earthly treasures
And pray to your heavenly father"
And he pacified the hopeless
With the hope of life eternal

Said Jesus,
"I am the answer
And you who hunger only remember
Your reward's in heaven"

So Jesus preached the other world
But Judas wanted this
And he betrayed his master with a kiss

So stand up, stand up for Judas
And the cause that Judas served
It was Jesus who betrayed the poor with his word

By sword and gun and crucifix
Christ's gospel has been spread
And two thousand cruel years have shown
The way that Jesus led
The heretics burned and tortured
And the butchering bloody Crusaders
The bombs and rockets sanctified
That rain down death from heaven

They followed Jesus, they knew the answer
All unbelievers must be believers
Or else be broken

"So place no trust in saviours" Judas said,
"for everyone
Must be to his or her own self a sun"

Good track.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Cracking track, that.

Written by Leon Rosselson. He said this about it recently.

STAND UP FOR JUDAS

I can't cut and paste from that, but whole thing is worth a read.

I had never twigged the Judas = Jew link. One for the 'obvious shit you never realised thread'...

Leon is rather sceptical as to how much historical truth there is in the accounts of Jesus as opposed to them simply being a vehicle for the messages that Paul etc wanted them to have. That's the more interesting question, imo, rather than a narrow 'did he exist' question.

Bollocks to the Biblical Jesus, whether he was real or not.

 

[Riklet]

Lol of course Jesus existed historically.

This is such a stupid debate it's pointless even taking it seriously. Yes one or two contrarian academics may have built their careers on challenging this but pretty sure 99.9%+ of experts on the ancient world would accept Jesus existed. It's not like there's a lack of evidence.... I mean yes there is a lack compared to say Cleopatra or Alexander the great perhaps... but not compared to the millions of other shmoes forgotten over the past few millenia.

A lot of stuff was written shortly after Jesus' death too. And then corroborated or backed up by dozens of other sources. To name one - Josephus, born a few years after Jesus died. Ahhh but how do we know Josephus really existed bla bla bla

 

[two sheds]

Written by Leon Rosselson.

which is what I'm repeatedly told by the good people of urban

 

[A380]

I love Leon's work, We should have a whole thread on him, Song of the Old Communist for example is fantastic.

 

[two sheds]

Cracking track, that.

Written by Leon Rosselson. He said this about it recently.

STAND UP FOR JUDAS

I can't cut and paste from that, but whole thing is worth a read.

Isn't it just

I had never twigged the Judas = Jew link. One for the 'obvious shit you never realised thread'...

Leon is rather sceptical as to how much historical truth there is in the accounts of Jesus as opposed to them simply being a vehicle for the messages that Paul etc wanted them to have. That's the more interesting question, imo, rather than a narrow 'did he exist' question.

Bollocks to the Biblical Jesus, whether he was real or not.

Ta for that, and good to see you posting again

 

[Raheem]

Lol of course Jesus existed historically.

This is such a stupid debate it's pointless even taking it seriously. Yes one or two contrarian academics may have built their careers on challenging this but pretty sure 99.9%+ of experts on the ancient world would accept Jesus existed. It's not like there's a lack of evidence.... I mean yes there is a lack compared to say Cleopatra or Alexander the great perhaps... but not compared to the millions of other shmoes forgotten over the past few millenia.

A lot of stuff was written shortly after Jesus' death too. And then corroborated or backed up by dozens of other sources. To name one - Josephus, born a few years after Jesus died. Ahhh but how do we know Josephus really existed bla bla bla

There's a bit of Catch 22 in appealing to experts with regard to this, though. It's, on the face of it, a question to do with history, but there's no historical evidence regarding it (nothing contemporary, no eye-witness testimony), so it isn't something covered by mainstream history.

If you want to consult an expert, though, you can. But it takes a while because you generally have to wait for them to come back from their Christian retreat.

So, yes, there are few "experts on Jesus" who don't take the view that he existed, but that's not very surprising and not very informative as to the question.

That's not to say Jesus didn't exist, just that there's no basis on which to make determination. As with Socrates or Pythagoras, for example.

 

[8ball]

Lol of course Jesus existed historically.

This is such a stupid debate it's pointless even taking it seriously. Yes one or two contrarian academics may have built their careers on challenging this but pretty sure 99.9%+ of experts on the ancient world would accept Jesus existed. It's not like there's a lack of evidence.... I mean yes there is a lack compared to say Cleopatra or Alexander the great perhaps... but not compared to the millions of other shmoes forgotten over the past few millenia.

A lot of stuff was written shortly after Jesus' death too. And then corroborated or backed up by dozens of other sources. To name one - Josephus, born a few years after Jesus died. Ahhh but how do we know Josephus really existed bla bla bla

This is very persuasive. I have no doubt that he is at least as real as Robin Hood.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

There's a bit of Catch 22 in appealing to experts with regard to this, though. It's, on the face of it, a question to do with history, but there's no historical evidence regarding it (nothing contemporary, no eye-witness testimony), so it isn't something covered by mainstream history.

If you want to consult an expert, though, you can. But it takes a while because you generally have to wait for them to come back from their Christian retreat.

So, yes, there are few "experts on Jesus" who don't take the view that he existed, but that's not very surprising and not very informative as to the question.

That's not to say Jesus didn't exist, just that there's no basis on which to make determination. As with Socrates or Pythagoras, for example.

There's an obvious difference between Jesus and Socrates, tbf, which is that the two accounts we have of Socrates come from people who say that they were his students. Nothing written about Jesus was written by anyone who knew him.

But as with Socrates and Pythagoras, what really matters is the ideas, no? I haven't read Xenophon's Socrates but he is apparently much duller than Plato's version. And lots of Plato's Socrates is really Plato himself, no doubt. Don't see what that really matters. Same with Pythagoras - there was most certainly an idea around in ancient times that a sect called the Pythagoreans pushed the doctrine that everything is number. That idea - and the fact that it was formulated then - is very interesting whether or not Pythagoras himself ever existed.

I am by no means a biblical expert, but the idea that Christianity is largely Paulanity seems broadly correct to me, whether or not Jesus existed. Paul's stuff was written before the gospels, and he very clearly had an agenda with what he wrote. Presumably as literate Christian folk, the gospel writers knew about Paul and that influenced how they wrote the gospels. And they were all Greek. I'm with Leon that this smells of a post-facto Graeco-Roman imperialist anti-Jew conspiracy.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Next up: Muhammad.

Not as historically secure as many imagine him to be...

 

[two sheds]

My old yoga teacher did say that Paul was just as happy persecuting Christians as he was later trying to convert to Christianity.

 

[8ball]

Next up: Muhammad.

Not as historically secure as many imagine him to be...

Indeed.

I largely disagree with you about Jesus, though there is also a whole load of stuff that is just derived from previous mythologies.

And a lot of the kind of post-hoc rationalisation that you might expect from a cult that had their all-powerful Messiah nailed to a cross, including the post-traumatic group hallucinations shortly after.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

tbf on the balance of probabilities, I would strongly suspect that Jesus in some form did exist - and that Socrates and Pythagoras both existed as well. I agree with others when they point out that we are expecting too much of historical evidence by demanding 'beyond reasonable doubt' standards of proof.

For me, the more interesting questions are more to do with how and to what ends the stories of Jesus ended up as they are. What shaped them? Was it primarily the teachings of a historical Jesus that shaped Christianity, or are other hands on the tiller, and what were their aims?

Exactly the same questions can be asked about Muhammad and the books of Islam.

 

[Riklet]

This is very persuasive. I have no doubt that he is at least as real as Robin Hood.

Who again was almost certainly a real figure, historically. But with way less evidence behind him than Jesus.

This is a good short article which says quite a lot in relatively few words. No one has doubted the existence of Jesus of Nazareth recently until this kind of childish empiricism ("but how can we trust social history, story, comunal belief, legend") has taken hold. What are people expecting... a selfie and his personal diaries?

 

[8ball]

Who again was almost certainly a real figure, historically. But with way less evidence behind him than Jesus.

Robin Hood was more likely based on the coalescence of tales about a (small) number of people, a couple of whom are documented.

Jesus is similar, but without the documentation (the Roman forgery being laughed out of respectable circles decades ago). And of course more time has passed since his time than the time of Robin Hood, Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy (a spine-chilling character once you start digging into the back-story).

 

[Raheem]

No one has doubted the existence of Jesus of Nazareth recently until this kind of childish empiricism ("but how can we trust social history, story, comunal belief, legend") has taken hold. What are people expecting... a selfie and his personal diaries?

If you don't want a childish empirical answer, don't ask a childish empirical question.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Robin Hood was more likely based on the coalescence of tales about a (small) number of people, a couple of them who are documented.

This is an important point about myth-making generally, no? Given that it is the story (and its message) that matters rather than some reverence for historical accuracy, it is common for more than one figure to become amalgamated in myth-making.

 

[8ball]

This is an important point about myth-making generally, no? Given that it is the story (and its message) that matters rather than some reverence for historical accuracy, it is common for more than one figure to become amalgamated in myth-making.

Agreed, though if an all-powerful being has a child and then engineers their child’s torture and death in order to gain your devotion, you could argue there is something more fucked up than myth-making going on of the story turns out to be historically accurate.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Agreed, though if an all-powerful being has a child and then engineers their child’s torture and death in order to gain your devotion, you could argue there is something more fucked up than myth-making going on of the story turns out to be historically accurate.

I kind of take it as a given in these discussions that none of us believes that Jesus, if he was indeed a historical figure, was anything other than a regular human being.

To think otherwise is just silly.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Lol of course Jesus existed historically.

The best way to convince folk of this would be to continue writing fanciful tales following those in the old testament.