On the History of the Christ Myth Theory

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Giuseppe
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On the History of the Christ Myth Theory

Post by Giuseppe »

There this blogger who means to write a thesis about the Mythicism, precisely:
For my thesis, I have decided not to look at the Christ Myth Theory as a hypothesis to be written in favor of or against. Rather, I am choosing to look at the subject as a movement and an intellectual history, analyzing its evolution and impact on scholarship and popular culture. I am fascinated by how this theory — which has almost zero academic support, and has had no new arguments or evidence surface in a century — somehow continue to gain adherents. I have my own hypothesis, but further research is necessary. My senior thesis paper will elucidate.
http://casualhistorian.com/finding-fasc ... is-part-1/

Therefore he has analyzed all the mythicists of the past, something that also I have made enough, even if for a different, personal reason: to remove the suspect that the old mythicists had said something that modern mythicists ignore.

Before these readings, I was afraid that, to have really the benefit of the doubt about the historical Jesus, one has to have the same encyclopedic (!) knowledge of, for example, Secret Alias about the Fathers of the Church, etc. What I have learned instead is that the old mythicists (and I refer here to only those worthy of mention) are all alike among them (and with those modern) since they have in mind the same minimal paradigm of the Christian Origins (as proposed by Richard Carrier in his OHJ), therefore the serious mythicism is not only for an elite. OHJ really synthesizes the best case for a mythical Jesus. If that book doesn't persuade you, then no other book will do. If that book does persuade you, then you are as mythicist as the same author. There is not a more or a less of ''Mythicist certainty'', once you are persuaded that in the pauline epistles is missing a historical Jesus.

The true battlefield between mythicists and historicists are the Pauline Letters + Hebrews, while the Gospels can only serve to explain:
1) to the mythicists: how the mythical Jesus was euhemerized and when and by who.
2) to the historicists: which was a possible portrait of the historical Jesus.

It is basically about the point 1 that the old mythicists have yet something to say, even in comparison to what is said by Carrier. It is there where the differences emerge.

The blogger lists four Arguments made in the time:

1) Comparative Mythology Argument
2) Argument by Negation
3) Argument from Silence.
4) Argument by Misinterpretation

I agree with the skepticism of the blogger about the first two 'argoments''. Argoment 1 may serve only merely as a priori remarks, while about the Argument 2 I think that, if there is a reason to be historicists, in my advice, is to have only an enigmatic Gospel as earliest source about Jesus, excluding the epistles as later forgeries. The same Radical Critic (and mythicist) Van Eysinga wrote that authentic epistles give more support against the historical Jesus than the contrary.

Since they help to raise the Argument 3.

Somewhay, it seems that the blogger minimizes the force of the Argument from Silence when he writes (my corsive):
In the early 20th century, we see the third type of argument was pioneered by an American School Teacher, John Remsburg. In his book, The Christ, he has a chapter dedicated to listing 42 contemporaries of Jesus who did not mention his existence. This argument has been incorporated into later arguments as well, with the list being expanded over the last 100 years. This argument already had a name when I came across it, The Argument from Silence. The purpose of this argument is to delegitimize the existence Jesus by pointing to all the people who would have known about him, but never mentioned him. This argument is fairly popular, but never by itself. It is always incorporated into a bigger thesis, rather than being the foundation of one. I classify it as a separate argument because it is using a different justification than the others.
It seems that even his separation of the ''Argument from Silence'' from the next ''Argument by Misinterpretation'' is deliberately interested, so that he can face the latter without the previous and viceversa. But the two Arguments are strictly linked, for the serious mythicism. The Silence about earthly activities of a mythical god is an intrinsic part of the his being mythical.


The first mythicist to realize very well this essential feature of the pauline ''Silence'' about a historical Jesus was William Benjamin Smith :
It is the general tenor of these scriptures that must decide, and as to this there cannot be the slightest doubt in the mind of the unbiassed. This general tenor gives great dogmatic value to the Death of Jesus as a God, but does not recognise at all the Life ofJesus as a Man. The very few exceptions are trivial, and only apparent ; but even if they were not trivial, and not merely apparent, it would still not matter—they could not weigh against the utterly unequivocal general tenor. Many more important isolated statements may have been, and confessedly have actually been, interpolated into the text, no one knows when or how, but the general tenor is unmistakable and determinative. The general tenor cannot have been interpolated or corrupted.
(Ecce Deus, p. 23, original corsive)

If Paul ignored really a historical Jesus, then accordingly Paul had to write zero epistles, since for him the Celestial Jesus shared intimately the same nature of the Historical Jesus.
If he would have not talked about the Historical Jesus, then he should not have talked about the Mythical Jesus and vice versa.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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