Why I don't see myself as a Christ Mythicist
Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2017 1:41 pm
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.
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.