Affirmative arguments for the non-existence of Jesus

by WhatSexRU 24 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Narkissos

  R.M. Price is certainly one of the best advocates for the "mythical Jesus" around. And his thesis of Jesus as a mostly Jewish rather than Gentile myth allows him to make a better use of "mainstream" scholarship than Doherty and others. Yet he knows fully well that proving a negative "Jesus never existed" is impossible -- and of little interest actually.

  What matters imho should be rather obvious to all, i.e. that the character who came down from heaven, walked on the sea, and rose from the dead belongs in literature rather than history.
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  nvrgnbk

  The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (Hardcover) by Dennis R. MacDonald (Author) Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?: Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles (Hardcover) by Dennis R. MacDonald (Author) The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus (Paperback) by Earl Doherty (Author) I have not read the above books. I simply present them for consideration. Could be brilliant, could be a waste of time.
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  yaddayadda

  The question is not whether Jesus existed or not. It's obvious he was a real historical figure. No historian really denies this.
  
  The question is: how much that is written about him in the NT is historical and how much is embellished.
  
  The position that the gospels are firmly in the genre of fictional literature is, of course, the only possible explanation for atheists. Certainly there were some liberties taken by the gospel writers, but to conclude that the gospels represent pure literature, like folklore, does not stand up under closer scrutiny and a growing body of contemporary research.
  
  Here's some threads that will give you another perspective:
  
  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/128069/1.ashx
  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/120128/1.ashx
  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/129981/1.ashx
  
  At the end of the day we cannot be certain about what is historical and what is fictional in the NT. But it is a mistake to insist on 100% certainty. If that were the test then we would have to reject all of ancient history. And it simply isn't good enough to reject the gospels simply because they contain miracles when there is a lot of evidence that supports their historicity notwithstanding the miracles.
  
  Ultimately it all comes down to faith. If you believe in God then believing in the historicity of the gospels is a small step of faith. It doesn't have to be a giant leap of credulity.
• 

  Gill

  Jesus christ is just a title and not even a name.

  Much like saying 'God' so is the impersonal phrase 'Jesus Christ'.

  These heroes all follow the pattern of 'myth' even the similarities between Moses and Jesus are many.

  It is a sad reflection on the lack of thinking capacity and even independent thinking capacity of the human race. The world is full of easily led fools and that really is a FACT!
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  Shawn10538

  There is a great book called Myths of the Bible and their paralells in other religions by TW Doane. This guys arguments are pretty good, but Doane goes a lot further and presents the pre-semitic pagan origins of Bible stories, including the Jesus myth.
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  nvrgnbk

  Thanks Shawn10538! I'll look into that.
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  slimboyfat

  Narkissos,

  What matters imho should be rather obvious to all, i.e. that the character who came down from heaven, walked on the sea, and rose from the dead belongs in literature rather than history.

  You say that almost like there is a difference.

  Slim
• 

  5go

  The question is not whether Jesus existed or not. It's obvious he was a real historical figure. No historian really denies this.

  http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/index.html

  Somewhere on the above website is a list to the contrary. I just can't remember the article with it.
• 

  AllAlongTheWatchtower

  I've got this theory I came up with (well, actually, I recently found out it's not an original idea, others thought of it before me). Much of the material in the new testament is from the writings of Saul/Paul. I think he's got second place when it comes to amount or percentage of material, and first place when it comes to number of bible books. (I had actually researched all this before, and attempted to post it here with links as references, but my comp crashed in the middle of it...too lazy to do that work over again).

  Yet Paul only claimed to have seen Jesus in a vision, a la the whole "Road to Damascus" incident. He never actually met him, or was there for any of the events of his life. Supposing he made the whole thing up? He was originally a sort of Gestapo character, going around trying to destroy the Christians...what if he got the idea to destroy it from within instead, and "converted", so as to insert his own ideas, and water down the original? During the periods of unrest, revolt and war between 70 and 135 AD, the Jews as a people were scattered and exiled, which pretty much killed Jewish Christianity, and left Pauline Christianity as victor by default.

  While researching all this stuff, I found out about a group of people called the Ebionites, who apparently actually branded Paul as an apostate. Google 'pauline christianity' or 'ebionites" if you find this idea to be of interest, there's lots of info out there.
• 

  Narkissos

  The question is not whether Jesus existed or not. It's obvious he was a real historical figure. No historian really denies this.

  Sure, as long as the ones who do deny (or question) this are disqualified ipso facto as historians in your eyes...

  The question is: how much that is written about him in the NT is historical and how much is embellished.

  A subsidiary question would be, how does the "quantity" ("how much") of historical accuracy relate to the "either/or" issue of character identity? Iow, under what "floor level" of historical accuracy (or verisimilitude) do we stop calling that an "embellished" legend about one historical character and start calling it a fiction (although possibly inspired by a number of historical as well as literary characters)? This is a semantic question for sure, but a very important one imo. So many sensational "lives of Jesus" end up with a Jesus who doesn't look like Jesus at all... kind of "I met that guy, but it was not him".

  The position that the gospels are firmly in the genre of fictional literature is, of course, the only possible explanation for atheists.

  Certainly not. Thirty years ago or so the fashionable Marxist readings of the Gospels, for instance, would take the core of them (not the miracles of course) as historical, not fictional. And what about the atheists among the "historians" who do believe in a historical Jesus?

  At the end of the day we cannot be certain about what is historical and what is fictional in the NT. But it is a mistake to insist on 100% certainty. If that were the test then we would have to reject all of ancient history. And it simply isn't good enough to reject the gospels simply because they contain miracles when there is a lot of evidence that supports their historicity notwithstanding the miracles.

  This somewhat muddies the issue: uncertainty actually comes in at different levels, at least as to (1) what in the Gospels is deemed historically plausible; (2) which version of the historically plausible (Mark's, Matthew's, Luke's or John's or yet another) is to be retained as potentially historical; (3) how much of it is actually to be ascribed to the historical Jesus.

  slim:

  There remains, at least, a difference in literary genre.

  Aatw:

  You might be interested in Robert H. Eisenman's provocative theories, especially about James and early Jewish "Christianity" -- that may have been much less "Christian" than the extant "Jewish-Christian" works, which all presuppose the conflict with Paulinism, suggest. The open question is what role, if any, did the figure of Jesus play in those Jewish circles prior to the encounter with Hellenistic, and especially Pauline, Christianity?