Reconstructing ancient Christ-myth theory

eta. Site went down for a few hours so I couldn't edit in the required time. The coin shows "Herakles" on the front and "Zeus" on the back along with inscription indicating they were coins "of Alexander". Anyway, we have primary historical sources, oodles of cross references to no longer extant contemporary sources (ie contemporary and not anonymous), coins and very good archeological evidence. Unlike jesus, for whom we have exactly 0 of these things.

Contemporary mentions of jesus in any writings of historians, observers, letters, documents, anything..........................0.

Mentions that can be cross referenced to no longer existing primary documents mentioning jesus.......................0.

Contemporary evidence of any kind for jesus......................................0.

Should there be such things? Absolutely there should. Leaving out the magic, which obviously didn’t happen. A great healer and preacher who was known far and wide and drew multitudes. A triumphal ride into Jerusalem. Throwing money changers out of a temple complex of 30 acres or more in size, among hundreds of armed guards, with a Roman garrison nearby.

The Sanhedrin breaking many of their own rules to implicate jesus, the dramatic trail with Pilate where he feels great remorse, washes his hands of it and lets an enemy of Rome go free. Claims of resurrection.

The only way this is likely to have been entirely overlooked, is if it didn’t happen. We really only have the anonymous, contradictory and largely “magical/mythical” gospels to base this on. The best we can really say is that they seem appear in the historical literary record some time around 150-180 CE.

It's pious fiction.

originally posted by: Butterfinger
You could say the same about 90% of england's monarchs, Plato, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Homer, Lycurgus of Sparta, Pythagoras, Sun Tzu, William Tell, Budda, Zoroaster, Shakespeare... I could probably make a smaller list of people who we can confirm actually existed.

Outside of a few books, there are no bodies. Who is to say?

It's not about bodies, it's about contemporary evidence which, in historical references, it means it was written by people who existed in the same time frame and were aware of them or written in the lifetime of the person.

There are contemporary mentions of Pythagora: Heraclitus (who said Pythagora 'engaged in historia, this usually meant being religious), Xenophanes (who mocked Pythagoras for his religious pretentions) and others. You can read about them in this book 'Pythagoras, his life teaching and influence'. By Christoph Riedweg 2002.

Socrates, Plato and Aristotles existed: we have first hand evidence from Plato and Aristotle and Socrates is mentioned by contemporary writers: Xenophanes (again, he hated the Greeks), Aristophane and Plato. Plato was the disciple of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle.

I agree with you regarding Buddha, he is in the same league as Jesus, no evidence and strange that his myth also funded another religion.

Ergo has shown you the vidence for Alexander and others.

There is no first hand or contemporary evidence for Jesus. None.

a reply to: misskat1

Paul reinvented Jesus. He wrote most of the new testament.

Not true at all. There are twenty seven booklets in the NT and Saul/Paul wrote seven of the twenty seven. That would be less

And remember Paul never met Jesus.

Also not proven at all. Doubtful that they shook hands but very probable that Paul being a member of the Sanhedrin did see and perhaps engage Jesus at His trial.

The reason James was more documented was that he established a synagogue in memory of his brother and established a legitimate Jewish sect. Even then he was eventually murdered by the house of Ananus. Roman law protected the right to any god one would choose. Jesus had no liturgy of any sort established. He practiced and obeyed the national Judaic temple rituals. Brother James did not.

A new installment of the "Jesus and Josephus" series has appeared. The dicey passage this time is from Josephus' Jewish War.

One night, shortly before the disastrous war began, priests heard strange and not-quite human voices coming from inside the Temple, apparently during a small earthquake. The voices said "Let's get out of here."

Tacitus, a priest of the Roman state religion, retold the incident tersely and wrote that the voices were those of the gods, plural. A Jewish miracle thus became a pagan miracle.

Jerome, who was a priest of the Christian religion (hmm, another Roman state religion in his day), wrote that the incident supposedly happened while Jesus was being crucified. Jerome especially emphasized that that is what Josephus wrote. A Jewish or pagan miracle became a Christian miracle. PLUS if Jerome's version had been beleived, that would have been a third "non-Christian testimony" to the historical Jesus from the First Century.

uncertaintist.wordpress.com...

a reply to: Cogito, Ergo Sum

52 AD is the earliest I know about, and its from a detractor.

2000 years is a long time, this is more than alot of other historical nobodies have written about them.

Thallus (52AD)
Thallus is perhaps the earliest secular writer to mention Jesus and he is so ancient his writings don’t even exist anymore. But Julius Africanus, writing around 221AD does quote Thallus who previously tried to explain away the darkness occurring at Jesus’ crucifixion:

“On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.” (Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18:1)

a reply to: Butterfinger

We don't have Thallus' writing. We have the later Julius Africanus writing about Thallus writing about a solar eclipse.

Julius doesn't say that Thallus mentioned Jesus. Julius seems confused how Thallus could fail to mention that the eclipse occurred at the full moon, which is when Christians say Jesus died.

I can think of a reason. Thallus was writing a solar eclipse that occurred at the new moon, as they all do. That would have nothing to do with Jesus, his death, or anything other than the natural oribits of the Earth and Moon.

www.newadvent.org...

See Fragment 18, part 1

This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Saviour fails on the day before the passover; but an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time but in the interval between the first day of the new moon and the last of the old, that is, at their junction: how then should an eclipse be supposed to happen when the moon is almost diametrically opposite the sun?

Julius goes on to mention Phlegon (of Tralles) reporting a full-moon darkness during the time of Tiberius. That's lost, too. but Phlegon was a Second Century writer. Origen confirms that Phlegon wrote about a solar eclipse and earthquakes, but somehow Origen failed to note that Phlegon's eclipse occurred at the full moon. (Origen, Against Celsus, II.14, II.33 and II.59)

www.newadvent.org...

Summing up: First Century mention of Jesus? The author is either Josephus (the disputed Testimony and the James' brother remark in Antiquities) or a Christian.

originally posted by: Butterfinger
a reply to: Cogito, Ergo Sum

52 AD is the earliest I know about, and its from a detractor.

2000 years is a long time, this is more than alot of other historical nobodies have written about them.

Thallus (52AD)
Thallus is perhaps the earliest secular writer to mention Jesus and he is so ancient his writings don’t even exist anymore. But Julius Africanus, writing around 221AD does quote Thallus who previously tried to explain away the darkness occurring at Jesus’ crucifixion:

“On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.” (Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18:1)

This is apologetics, not history. What would make you say it's from a detractor?

We don't really know what Thallus said. We only know that Africanus connects what he might have said to the crucifixion.

There is also no way of knowing that it (Thallus) was written circa 52 CE as apologists claim, and therefore no way to know if he was contemporary anyway.

www.jgrchj.net...

If the gospel story relies on a total eclipse, it relies on one that is impossible. So the gospel claim is not a historical one and is clearly fiction. Similar superstitious stories are not uncommon in antiquity. It also seems an effort at fulfilling prophecy.

Amos 8.9.

“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.

Jesus is a mixture of Jewish (mostly) and Pagan myths. Probably from no earlier than the second century (earliest sources don't seem to know anything about a historical person nor his amazing magical ministry). It also seems this sect of apostate Judaism went to some effort to implicate the Jews and see the Romans as poor unwilling conspirators. The whole crucifixion story is either hugely fictionalised, or more likely fiction in its entirety.

Installment 3 weighs in. The task this time is to estimate what Josephus could have written about Jesus. Maybe nothing, of course, but there is a plausible 10th Century Arabic version of the Testimony by Agapius of Hierapolis.

Agapius' version may be based solely on his own judgment about what he had read in Eusebius (the obvously faked Testimony), and not based on Agapius having read any other version of Josephus than what we have. Even so, it would be an expert estimate of what Josephus might have written, adjusted a bit for 10th Century audiences who are already familar with Christianity, something that would have been a novelty in the 1st Century.

Taking this and other factors into account, the blog proposes the following "upper bound" estimate on what Josephus might have written,

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, a teacher. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. They thought Jesus was the Christ. When Pilate had condemned him to the cross, those that had loved him did not forsake him, for they said he appeared to them alive again the third day. The divine prophets had foretold wonderful things about the Christ. Christians, so named from Jesus, are not extinct to this day.

Although the styles are different, the actual information content is very similar to what Tacitus wrote 15 - 20 years later,

... a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Chrestians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease...

Neither one offers much support for the existence of Jesus. Both are explaining the origin and content of Christianity as told by Christians. There is no evidence whatsoever of any independent investigation into the reality of Jesus as a man by either historian. Indeed, Tacitus' "invetsigation" may have been to read and rewrite Josephus, as we saw him doing in the last installment regarding the voices in the Temple.

Conclude: This evidence offers as much support for a historical Jesus as the same team, Josephus and Tacitus, offers for the reality of gods or angels having been overheard deciding to leave town. In both cases, Josephus heard a story and wrote it down for Tacitus to read and rewrite to suit his agenda.

uncertaintist.wordpress.com...

originally posted by: Agartha
There is no first hand or contemporary evidence for Jesus. None.

Sometimes the minds of the young can see things from another perspective than those whose minds have been inundated by countless messages from every quarter. Or otherwise described as a constant flow of persuasive messages, an information overload. I was actually quite impressed with ATS' over 20 million posts, but not as impressed as I was with this young man's response to that argument, objection or critique as it was used in The Atheist Experience show:

a reply to: eight bits

From an article back in 2014:

1. No first century secular evidence whatsoever exists to support the actuality of Yeshua ben Yosef.

Tarico uses only an extensive quote from skeptical Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman in which he explains that there are no first century non-Jewish, non-Christian sources that mention Jesus. If this is proof that a historical Jesus never existed, then someone needs to tell this to Professor Ehrman.

In his book, Did Jesus Exist?, Ehrman argues that a historical Jesus did exist. He explains:

"[N]o Greek or Roman author from the first century mentions Jesus. It would be convenient if they did, but alas, they do not. At the same time, the fact is again a bit irrelevant since these same sources do not mention many millions of people who actually did live. Jesus stands here with the vast majority of living, breathing human beings of earlier ages. (pg. 43)"

The fact that there are no non-Christian or Jewish accounts of Jesus seems somewhat irrelevant to me. As a former mythicist, I never found this argument to hold as much weight as some do. It implies that the first century documents contained in the New Testament are unreliable simply because they were written by Christians. But as Ehrman also points out, this would be a bit like “dismissing early American accounts of the Revolutionary War simply because they were written by Americans” (pg.74)

I think that's a very good point.

You can find the source here.

Cheers.

a reply to: eight bits

Good points! Don't know what to add.

S/F

a reply to: IsidoreOfSeville

Sorry for the delay; I was traveling for a few days.

The quoted snippet is from an article commenting on a particular website's presentation of a "mythicist" position. Since I don't have anything to do with the website being criticized, not even as a reader, there's not a lot for me to say about the article.

As to the reliability of Christian sources, I found Ehrman's apparent analogy to the American Revolution absurd. First, because who has ever taken an American's uncorroborated story about the origins of America for granted? Second, the American Revolution was a protracted intercontinental conflict with combatants from Britain, Canada, France, Germany and other countries besides the United States. Diverse human eyewitness combines with museums full of physical evidence and continuing archeological investigation.

So, if you happen to know, in what way is the American Revolution like the Christian origins lore?

Utnapisjtim

Thnaks for the kind words.

a reply to: eight bits

The sooner one accepts and realizes the religion of the bible is all sacred geometry.

The sooner may see.

Truths.

Reconstructing is key, so if belief is the core of the belief, a belief that proclaims through history/fable or truth the existence of Jesus with a degree of factual history, possibly re-written? was Jesus the way to the light or the greatest deception in the history of humanity?

What proof is there? or is it just the power of belief, the indoctrinated, non argument, of interpretation, that provokes the discussion of endless dogma?

Then, is it only, an individual acceptance of an interpretation, if that be a religious or energetic al approach to our own individual belief system/spirituality that surely has some basis- in the evolution of humanity, as it is so strongly bonded within us, whatever our own interpretation of, it is……………..

Is the endeavour of our creation the self-neglect of being as our own egotistical advocate of being our interpretation of what we feel that we must envisage to the wider world is actually the neglect, due to our misguided representation of our out-put.

Will. Our becoming be the realisation that religion in whatever guise we evoke it, is only the initial step towards a greater sense to date uncharted, as we only perceive the grounded pre steps of our evolution, that in our current climate is in an obvious state of expansion.

The Truth Will….Unfold

a reply to: Agree2Disagree

We have historical documentation of others who claimed to be messianic figures like Mani. That people wouldn't document the historical true Son of God because few believed him is ridiculous. If he did exist then we would know. The man responsible for ordering his execution wrote that he only crucified one Yeshua ben Onanias and he was nobody important. So yes he would have mentioned it.

The truth is Jesus is a combination of several people and his myth of dying and resurrecting on the third day is based on the December solstice and the sun. Virgin birth is not in the Hebrew Isaiah and was a translation error In the Greek. It makes him the new Horus and Mary the new Isis.

It takes the Jewish Messiah concept and paganized it to the Son of God . Instead of restoring the glory of Israel it caused its demise . To the Romans it was a political tool.

Believing in myths is superstitious and religious is just a nice way of saying it. If I believe in Zeus or Dionysus I'm insane but if I believe in Jesus am a Christian. But no more evidence exists to prove that Jesus was real than Zeus. Same goes for Jehovah.

Just like the Romans created one religion out of many so did the Hebrews. The Tanakh is the history the Israelites wish happened and the stories of the ancient world world rewritten as original Hebrew history. Solomon never existed and neither did the glorious kingdom of Israel.

Reading it as a historical account of the world is just pointless.

The key to the new testament is the death of the old self(repentance), resurrection as the new self(baptism) and enlightenment (Holy Spirit of Truth blesses with Wisdom).

The Kingdom of God is for the followers of Jesus. Immortality.

For those who don't understand the mystery of baptism there is the kingdom of grace. This is the wide path. This is path that deceives.