Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist

[neilgodfrey]

What assumptions are reasonable to make about the Gospel of Mark, in your mind? Is it reasonable to assume that the Gospel of Mark was received as about an actual person? Is it reasonable to assume that the Gospel of Mark as written around the 70s or 80s CE, in your mind? What makes an assumption reasonable when it comes to the Gospel of Mark?

That's not how valid historical inquiry works. Such a method can only produce speculative results. Not historical reconstruction.

According to the normative methods of dating documents the gospel of Mark could have been produced anywhere between 70 and 140 or even later CE. The only reason scholars prefer the earlier date is because of that mother of all assumptions, the presumption that the gospel's narrative derives from a historical Jesus or events and they need/want the text to be as close as possible to that event so a proposed oral tradition chain does not lose too much in the process. And so the circle turns.

And that's not even addressing the clear evidence that our form of the gospel is not what it was in the beginning.

What other historical inquiry works with "assumptions" that can never be corroborated from which they build their entire historical reconstruction? I suggest any that do are invalid.

[nili]

The letters of Paul serve as evidence. The Pastoral Epistles serve as evidence. Acts serves as evidence. Josephus serves as evidence.

Not proof ... not even evidence of miracles, but certainly sufficient evidence to establish an historical Jesus as an example of inference to the best explanation. Mythicism has all the qualities of a underwhelming mantra chanted with unfounded confidence and unseemly belligerence.

Why do you find this statement necessary? What, Really does it bring to the conversation? Aside from negative hyperbole that is?

But you do not find comments such as

"The Mother of All Assumptions is that the gospels contain some historical nuggets or are gateways to discovering historical nuggets."

... to be "negative hyperbole" worthy of comment?

Perhaps you're right. To be completely honest, I read 'gospel' as a reference to the bible as a whole rather than being limited to Mark, Mathew, Luke and John, so I was responding to what I took to be a stunningly stupid assertion. Limiting the scope of the reference certainly makes the assertion less stunning.

In any event, I apologize if you were offended.

[nili]

The letters of Paul serve as evidence. The Pastoral Epistles serve as evidence. Acts serves as evidence. Josephus serves as evidence.

Not proof ... not even evidence of miracles, but certainly sufficient evidence to establish an historical Jesus as an example of inference to the best explanation. Mythicism has all the qualities of a underwhelming mantra chanted with unfounded confidence and unseemly belligerence.

Evidence of what? How can anything "serve as evidence" if it lacks independent corroboration and if we cannot know its original form?

Evidence of a Jerusalem sect and complex tensions with that sect. Evidence of proto-Christian diaspora communities in existence within roughly a quarter of a century of the purported crucifixion. What I have not seen is the existence of anything approaching a 1st century C.E. mythicist polemic by anti-Christians who could claim familiarity with Jerusalem.

Now, one possibility is that the epistles and Acts are clever and sometimes torturous fabrications -- that there simply is no 'there' there: no communities, no struggle with the Jerusalem folks, nothing. And it is possible that these fabrications reflect a conspiracy by Paul and the author of Acts. (Although why Paul would have fabricated all the nonsense about his conversion is beyond me. It would have been far easier had he simply claimed to have been a trusted apostle.)

It is also possible to view these works as self-serving apologetics with an historical core: that there was, indeed, such a sect, and that there was, indeed, a sect leader who may or may not have claimed to be the messiah. This would have been far from remarkable in the waning days of the 2nd Temple Period.

The evidence is inconclusive. You, we, are left to choose between an ahistoric, convoluted fabrication, or an embellished, self-serving mission to promote a Jerusalem sect leader in the diaspora. Again, I suggest that the latter represents the inference to best explanation.

Josephus is only evidence for what a text dated over a generation after the supposed event says. By normative standards of historical research that is not evidence for anything that happened 60 years earlier.

I'm not a historian (or, for that matter, a Christian) so you have me at a disadvantage. I was unaware that "normative standards of historical research" required one to summarily dismiss anything that was not contemporaneous. Could you recommend a text on historiography that addresses this guideline?

[andrewcriddle]

Sometimes someone seems to expect me to argue a mythicist case, or accuses me of somehow hypocritically hiding my mythicist views. I'd like to make my view on the historicity of Jesus question clear.

If we approach the question of Christian origins the same way a historian would be expected to approach any other question, I believe we will begin with no a priori reason for working with the idea of the Jesus figure as historical.

After all, a number of biblical scholars see everything in the gospels as "mythical" and even the crucifixion as a heavily theological narrative that can have no historical reliability. They are not called "mythicists".

Critical scholars who do not believe Moses existed are not called Moses Mythicists.

How many William Tell Mythicists have you heard of?

The gospels are of unknown provenance, authorship and date. Moreover, their narratives have no independent support for historicity. They are accordingly worthless as evidence for the historicity of Jesus.

They might be based ultimately on a historical person but if so we cannot know anything about that so we simply cannot use them as evidence for the historicity of Jesus.

Without the gospels the contents of Paul's letters are equally or even more problematic as sources for the historicity of Jesus.

The "secondary" (late) evidence is also seriously problematic for various reasons.

There is simply nothing to reliably point to a historical Jesus.

Contrast Julius Caesar or Socrates or any other person of some significance in ancient history. The evidence for such people is independently corroborated at some significant level, generally of known provenance, etc.

There is indeed much in ancient history that we cannot know for sure, that is not independently corroborated and that only comes to us through late sources, and I am on the side of ancient historians like M.I. Finley who do state that we simply cannot know about those times, persons, events as historians. Some historians ignore Finley's advice but what they produce is a rewriting of ancient myths, one might say. It is not serious history.

A historian needs to start with sources that can be independently corroborated, tested and evaluated for their provenance, date, authorship. To the extent that is not possible with some questions the entire enterprise is compromised to a lesser or greater degree.

In other words, I see no reason a priori to think of the figure of Jesus as having a historical existence because all our earliest sources about him talk about a theological figure and are unable to be corroborated independently for historicity.

There might have been some David or Moses figure in the past but if so quite unlike the one we read about in the Bible. Scholars who do not accept the historicity of these figures are not called David or Moses mythicists and I see no reason to treat Jesus any differently.

We work with what we have, a theological and literary figure.

It's not about a lot of detailed arguments relating to passages in Romans or Galatians or Josephus, etc.... The question simply never gets off the starting block to begin with.

Hi Neil

Could you clarify please ?

Is your argument that although 1st century CE Christians believed in a recently executed historical Jesus, we cannot tell if this Jesus really existed or not ?

Or is your argument that we cannot tell whether 1st century CE Christians believed in a historical Jesus or not ?

Andrew Criddle

[Edward M.]

Hi Neil,

As mentioned before on this forum, do you think Matthew 28:13-15 (if written in 1st CE) could be a anctual response against the Jews of 1st CE who believed Jesus body was taken by his disciples after being crucified and thus evidence of historicity?

13 telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

[Jax]

The gospels are of unknown provenance, authorship and date. Moreover, their narratives have no independent support for historicity. They are accordingly worthless as evidence for the historicity of Jesus.

Out of interest, are they also worthless as evidence for the non-historicity of Jesus? I.e. can a positive 'mythicist' case be supported using the Gospels and the letters of Paul?

I would say no. While a celestial Christ derived from personal revelation and close reading of the LXX is clearly stated by Paul in his 'authentic' letters by no means can we discount a historical figure based on these letters alone.

However, if Paul is actually talking about a historical person, it is clear that he knows little if anything about this person directly.
If not outright interpolations by a later hand, what little that he says about this person sounds like second hand information, thus making him a witness to a real person somewhat problematic.

[Bernard Muller]

to Neil,

No, they can't. T and J are late secondary sources that cannot corroborate anything from the early first century. The best they can do is inform us what T and J believed in their day. But of course there are also problematic issues with the authenticity even of that secondary evidence so they are even less useful than secondary evidence usually is for such inquiries.

The fact is the corroboration from Tacitus and Josephus are from non-Christians, who certainly had no interest to attest to someone who did not exist.
Tacitus and Josephus described events and mentioned persons happening/living before their time and most of them are not contested, even if sometimes uncorroborated. Why should it different in that case?
But Tacitus & Josephus corroborated in a different ways with each other about the existence of Jesus/Christ. And I do not see why there are problems with the authenticity of this secondary evidence. Mythicists do see problems, but that's because their half-baked theories would crash if they accept that evidence.

All we have is a document that says, in your words, that its author purports to say that he does not want readers to have a "worldly understanding of Jesus". I cannot see how that is evidence for a historical Jesus.

That "worldly understanding of Jesus" was administered in the past to the Corinthians by other(s) than Paul. And yes, that can be evidence for the past existence of a worldly Jesus. Even Paul was aware of that worldly Jesus:
1) His name is Jesus (Ro 5:15 "the one man Jesus Christ", 2 Cor 8:9, etc).
2) He was a Jew (said to be descendant of Abraham (Gal 3:16), Israelites (Ro 9:4-5), Jesse (Ro 15:12) & David (Ro 1:3)).
3) He was a minister/servant to (only) Jews (Ro 15:8).
4) He was of no reputation and humble (Php 2:7-8).
5) He was crucified (1 Cor 1:23, 2:2, 2:8, 2 Cor 13:4).
6) The crucifixion happened in the heartland of the Jews: see here.
7) He had brothers (contemporaries of Paul) (1 Cor 9:5).
8) These brothers were travelling with "a "sister", a wife" (1 Cor 9:5).
9) One of Jesus' brothers was named "James" (Gal 1:19), whom Paul met several times (Gal 1:19, 2:9).
10) James lived for a long time in Jerusalem (Gal 1:19, 2:9).
11) James was also an important member of some Jewish sect (Gal 2:2, 9, 12).

Notes:
a) I have been avoiding "crucified as Christ" because it is not clear, according to Paul, if HJ was considered "Christ" by any of his contemporaries before the crucifixion.
b) Also Paul wrote Jesus was poor, in poverty (2 Cor 8:9) and becoming of a woman (Gal 4:4).
c) Paul said Jesus was marked out (to show that someone or something is different from others (humans)) to be the Son of God ... by the resurrection from the dead" (Ro 1:4) meaning Jesus did not provide any indication he was the Son of God prior to his alleged resurrection.

We cannot be confident of anything a single, uncorroborated source says. True. Yes, that means we cannot simply swallow much of Josephus naively. That means that we are limited in the sorts of things we can "know for a fact" in ancient history, true.

I think we can be fairly confident of uncorroborated sources, but only after they pass the test of critical analysis. If not, we would have to throw away a lot of accounts of the ancient historians.

You are describing the fallacious "nugget" theory of historical method. It's lots of fun. Really stimulates the imagination. Opens up many avenues for intellectual creativity. And as we see in your comment it even gives a sense of superiority to its practitioners. But it's simply all built on fallacious methods. It only produces muck that has been reshaped into something more pleasing to its author.

My example was about cold cases investigators. I don't think they are having fun by stimulating intellectual creativity (but in many cases, they produce good results).
I did not experience that when I developed my reconstruction. And when I let my creativity take hold of me, I soon discovered that was leading me astray, when the evidence, most of the time from more than one source, lead me to another direction.
And I was not after nuggets, selected by opinion or according to an agenda.

Cordially, Bernard

[Jax]

In any event, I apologize if you were offended.

Thank you but I was not offended, I just wish that we could tone down the inflammatory comments and just concentrate on the subject material. That's all.

I apologize if I seemed hypercritical.

Jax

[Bernard Muller]

I agree. I've often said that if there was a historical Jesus, then he might as well not existed, since we can know very little about him.

Knowing about him is not very important, because Jesus was not important in his lifetime. But knowing about the events he got involved in, either directly or indirectly is what matters most. Christianity was triggered by a series of events, with the ones about Jesus, inserted in that chain of events. Anyway, that's what I discovered.
http://historical-jesus.info/digest.html

Cordially, Bernard

[MrMacSon]

Hi Neil. Could you clarify please ?

Is your argument that although 1st century CE Christians believed in a recently executed historical Jesus, we cannot tell if this Jesus really existed or not ?

Or is your argument that we cannot tell whether 1st century CE Christians believed in a historical Jesus or not ?

Were there 1st century CE Christians?