Freethought Nation

Another discussion on Ehrman

Jane: "Jake: I agree with your take on Bart Ehrman completely. I have by now read numerous books published by him -- and have noted the *liberal* and *left-wing* tone he took in them. It seems to me that he simply doesn't know how to think entirely rationally; somehow, he doesn't understand where all his research leads to. It baffles me that in the final analysis, Jesus (in his mind) was an historical person -- despite all his own investigations into and analysis of scripture, tradition, etc."

RT: Yes, it is a paradox. The evidence that Ehrman has himself published screams 'fraud' but the desire to believe can still hold onto a doctrine with no evidence. The emotional factor is that these scholars consider themselves Christians first. Christianity means believing in Jesus. And believing in Jesus is intimately bound up with the historicity of the Gospels. The scale of deception, delusion and stupidity involved in creating the myth of Jesus as a real man was immense. It is very difficult to accept that the early Christians were so credulous, incompetent and duplicitous to erect a myth that convinced the world for millennia of something that was simply untrue. Christians see faith as a virtue, so they go with Kierkegaard to take the leap into the circle of unreason.

Jane: "My point, in an earlier post, was that -- interestingly enough -- he's not the only one who refuses to take the final step, the logical conclusion to all the liberal scriptural studies, research, and analysis. Crossan, Spong, and company all seem to be stuck on the idea that the canonical NT Jesus (gospel or epistle) was a literal figure. So that's really the $64 million question: what makes these scholars think so -- despite everything they've read and written on the subject? There have been hints that a part of the answer may lie in the writings of Josephus (not the interpolated text, but elsewhere) Well, we can't find out for sure with Ehrman, until his book comes out ... Jane."

RT: It is about the nature of faith. The story of Jesus is very seductive for Crossan and Spong. The idea of an outsider king presents an immensely powerful ethical message that is central to the worldview of these leftist theologians. The passion story is the archetype of the moral tale of the triumph of love over worldly corruption. For them to accept that King Jesus was not real undercuts their politics. They see Jesus as deconstructing the Roman concept of lordship, as a vision of an alternative framework of power. This political agenda, like the old spiritual agenda of salvation, is far more attractive when we imagine that it is grounded in fact than in myth. Very like Anselm's psychological observation in the ontological proof that a real God is far better than a fake one. Crossan and Spong see the efforts of Jesus to speak truth to power as a precedent for their own work. Abandoning this emotional support provided by faith in Christ would suggest an existential worldview that is unbearable in its bleakness, confronting the abyss of the scale of lying and error in human psychology. Faith in Jesus protects them from the angst of existence.

Thank you for that RT. That is a very interesting conversation. I'm rather young to the whole HJ/MJ debate. I never intended to answer that question.

One of the things that bugs me about most consensus scholarship, is that it is mostly based on HJ first, then dates are assumed. Even if there was an HJ, it should be irrelevant to dating the texts.

I worked on other things first, and accidently found MJ. The whole concept of basing any biblical scholarship on an assumed nature of Jesus, seems counterintuitive. The nature of Jesus should be derived from the texts, rather than fitting the texts to an assumed "nature of Jesus."

You nailed that one Robert. Leftist theologians do have a political agenda and claiming an historical Jesus, even if only a mere man, serves their purpose. For Ehrman I think it just boils down to being an historian and concluding that historians have been mistaken all this time doesn't sit well with him. It's a real black eye for his career in general. And that's something worth trying to defend to the bitter end I would think. I can't see how this e-book is addressed to any concern other than the preservation of accepted world history by an historian trying to make historian-ship seem more concrete than it actually is.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Bart Ehrman's best seller, Misquoting Jesus, contains an introduction by Ehrman that is a "deconversion" story. He writes about how he went from having an evangelical Christian faith to losing his belief in God altogether. Today, he refers to himself as an agnostic. Ehrman is a tenured professor at a secular university, and he has no apparent interests in supporting the Christian religion. Each of his late book titles makes enemies with orthodoxy. His latest book:

Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are

Sound like a sympathizer of Christianity?

Ehrman believes that Jesus was an "apocalyptic prophet." That phrasing is common in critical scholarship to describe a model of Jesus who was a religious leader who predicted that the existing world order would come to an end within the immediate generation with catastrophe and chaos, and a new sinless kingdom of God would be established. He wrote another book arguing for that theory, titled Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. He claims that this model of Jesus has been predominant among historians for 100 years (since Albert Schweitzer), at least until recently--the cynic-sage model of Borg and Crossan may be more popular in the present era--and Ehrman criticizes that model because it follows the patters of historians trying to make Jesus relevant for modern times. Ehrman believes that the historical Jesus was relevant only for Jesus' own time.

Mythicism is not necessarily the final stop on the progression of critical scholarship. The theoretical final stop is a probable model of Christianity's origins. If we could efficiently explain the origin of Christianity with no historical Jesus, then that is what we would do. With the "apocalyptic prophet" model of Jesus, you can seemingly do that. The evidence is what we expect it to be. All of our earliest sources (Mark, Q, Paul) have imminent eschatology, and Mark quotes Jesus twice as saying that the end of the world would happen within his own time, within "this generation" and before "some standing here... taste death." It was a time period when apocalypticism was popular, as we see in the writings of the Essenes. The miracles attributed to Jesus are what we expect from of a cult that had Jesus as its founder. Similar things happen with all cults that turn into religions. The reputed-human-founding figurehead of the cult is always the actual-human founder of the cult. That is what we see in Islam, Mormonism, Rastafarianism, Scientology, Christian Science, Universal Church and Raelianism. So, why not Christianity?

If it is an argument from silence (no direct written attestations from or about Jesus), then I think such an argument needs to be assessed in the context of a culture where almost everyone was poor, 9 out of 10 people could not read let alone write, and hardly anyone wrote anything (see page 54 of The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart Ehrman, Third Edition, 2004). If you wanted to "write" anything, you had to hire a professional scribe to do the writing for you. In the context of a rural area with small towns where everyone was poor (including Jesus and his disciples), absolutely nobody wrote anything. Period. Not all arguments from silence fail, but it is very easy to do it wrong. You need to know when silences are expected and when they are not, based on the historical contexts.

People who get into this subject as amateurs typically don't know things like that, unless a rhetorical opponent mentions it in an online forum. Their favorite authors won't say so unless it serves the position. But, the well-educated scholars--they know the historical contexts, because they are the one who have the primary evidences in front of them, they read all of it, and they analyze and debate the arguments in light of the historical contexts.

They just have trouble communicating their ideas to the public, unfortunately.

I have problems understanding how claiming historical Jesus is a "leftist" theologian political agenda. Theologians claim historical Jesus no matter political views, as claims of Jesus not being historical is equal to saying Christianity is a fraud. The separation is between literal interpretation and non-literal interpretation, and not claims about historical facts. If theologians claims of historical Jesus is reason to label them as promoting a "leftist" agenda, what kind of label would theologians who rejected the historical Jesus get? A theologian with an agenda left of the "leftists"......?

Our difference in views could come from difference in culture background I think. I grew up with my fathers family not being religious, and my mothers family being in Norwegian terms, strict christian. Although my grandmother was deeply religious, I grew up with her telling me biblical stories as well as stories about trolls, adventuring heroes and those beings dwelling in the forest or underworld. Brought up with both biblical stories combined with folklore, it becomes natural to understand them as the same. It is perhaps more correct to say, I grew up with a cultural heritage of the saga tradition. In Norway most people rarely define themselves within the strict frameworks as I see in the USA. Few people feel the need to label themselves as atheists, as not being religious in a society where religion have little relevance remove any necessity. Most of those who regard themselves as christian, as well as the church as institution, rarely concerns themselves with issues like historical truth or literal interpretation. Perhaps you could call it the result of defiance towards the Holy Roman Empire, where absorption and infusion of a myth into ancestral culture was the closest to christian conversion managed. In some sense it could be loosely compared to how Norse pagan culture have infused and shaped christian practice and culture.

What I am trying to say is that viewing most things as related to politics, could be a reflection of the current state of thought dominating in the divided society one lives in. Could it be that your views are colored by the myths that influence your society today? If I am not entirely wrong you Robert are from Australia, and you "Tat" are from the US. Two countries that together with Great Britain comes of as very similar in many aspects, at least with view from "outside".
I will elaborate with some examples of what I mean by "myths that influence your society today".

- When the "leftists" describe the people attending Tea party rallies and similar events, they see crazy racist evangelical inbreed rednecks.
- When the "right-wing" describe the people attending the Occupy movements and similar events, they see communist invading anarchist evil muslim lovers.

All I see are desperate people, in a desperate situation, searching for answers to a situation different from experience and expectations one have.

- When the "leftists" describe the political right as reason for all problems in society, they also promote own views as salvation to current problems.
- When the "right-wing" describe the political left as reason for all problems in society, they also promote own views as salvation to current problems.

All I see is the common need for finding some to blame, better known as a scapegoating. Not forgetting that faith will bring forth a savior performing miracles and solving all problems. As Bush by some was personified as reason for all things gone wrong, others personified Obama as the savior who would change everything. As some personifies Obama today as reason for all things still going bad, others await the rise of a new savior to restore paradise.

While I disagree with Erhman on historical Jesus, it is with disregard to political affiliation. Arguing against him with "leftist" agenda as reason for him being wrong, is flawed and equally faith based. Historical Jesus is a theological and historical agenda, and is unrelated to any political affiliation regardless. Literal or non-literal interpretation of the bible on the other hand, can perhaps be argued in connection with political views. That is of course, if one knows that political views shape religious views, and that it is not religious views that shapes political views.

When Acharya is attacked and discredited with claims of serving all kinds if weird agendas, instead of rational and intelligent arguments, I often put my foot down and confront foolishness. It is a strategy and tactic needing to be confronted, as it brings little if anything to the table. Not because of being a blind follower of some spiritual leader, but in respect of the effort and academic work presented. It is a matter of respect I think.

Not that it changes my view of Jesus as myth, and the construction of a historical claim from myth is by itself a very weak argument. Especially when it comes to factual claims of a specific persons actions, and insignificant existence. Removing the myth leaves you with any ordinary fool strung up by the Romans. Unfortunately a subject with little worth of researching, discuss, nor devote much attention to.

_________________
Eyvitar firna - er maðr annan skal, þess er um margan gengr guma; heimska ór horskum - gerir hölða sonu - sá inn máttki munr.

Never place blame on man, because it happens to all. No matter how wise, a fool he becomes, when love steals his powers.

Hávamál

Hang on now, no one even said that claiming an historical Jesus is strictly a "leftist" theologian political agenda. What was said is that among leftist political agenda, it is popular to believe in Jesus as historical even if not the literal "Son of God." That's the liberal Christian angle. The way you shot back at that quote is as if someone here was saying that belief in an historical Jesus necessarily makes them leftist with a political agenda. That's obviously not true and haven't seen anyone make such an assertion, because obviously there's more than plenty of right wing historical Jesus believers with all sorts of political agenda's of their own.

My response to Robert involves a working knowledge of what leftist theologians are up to and how belief in Jesus as great man supports their world views. Now of course a anyone can reject an historical Jesus also, from either the left or right. But rejection of an historical Jesus doesn't do too well for those promoting social herding and politics. It makes one very unpopular and viewed as evil, basically...

I think that you simply read through Robert and I using the term "leftist" and saw red, with not much consideration given to what was actually being said. The theologians on the liberal, or simply left side of center, enjoy keeping the idea that Jesus was, at the minimum, an historical man with great insights. That's just something common to theologians of a liberal or "leftist" bent...

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

ApostateAbe, the fact remains that there exists no credible evidence for the existence of the biblical Jesus. Josephus mentioned around 20 different Jesus' and none in particular turn out to be the New Testament Jesus. In over 20 passages throughout the canonical gospels claiming Jesus was famed far and wide not a single one has ever been substantiated with credible evidence. Jesus famed far and wide:



I think Zoroaster has a good video discussing how the origins of Christianity do not require a historical Jesus. Same as other religions.

The fact is, if Erhman came out of the closet and finally admitted there was no Jesus he'd still probably be out of a job. Ehrman also knows that so long as he continues to claim to believe in a historical Jesus he stands to sell many more books, or e-books in this case, as well. In Ehrman's e-book, Did Jesus Exist?, he purports to take on mythicism even though I have never seen anything from him in all his books that indicate he has ever studied the subject. There is no requirement in New Testament scholarship to study the case for mythicism in order to receive a Ph.D. If the Euhemerus / Evemerist position has existed since the 3rd/4th centuries BCE then, the mythicist position should've been made available long ago. The fact that very few are even aware of astrotheology and its myths based in natural phenomena concerns me and it should concern you - it's precisely what's missing from the discussion. I think we've heard from enough academics that have never looked outside the NT long enough to take notice of anything else.

There are two simple principles to keep in mind when it comes to the mythicist position:

1. When the mythological layers of the story are removed, there is no core to the onion.

2. A composite of 20 people, whether historical, mythical or both, is no one.



Evangelical Mike Licona was recently fired and kicked off from being a board member by fellow Christian academics. Christians are cannibalizing their own for not falling lock-step into the party line like the good ol' days of the dark ages again. There are a minority of atheists who come off as fundamentalists about a historical Jesus - aren't you one of them, ApostateAbe?


Do you have any relevant qualifications, formal training or credentials?

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

This comes as another misunderstanding of Roberts post. I'm sure the Robert knows Erman's story and status all too well. He's known as an agnostic by just about everyone who's read anything or watched anything on youtube by Ehrman. That's why I responded to Robert's post with the notion that in his case he seems to be interested in preserving his career as an historian, not necessarily anything religious oriented.

Yes, that is a popular idea. If you try and strip away the mythological layers, and stop short in the process, you can leave yourself with something resembling a real historical apocalyptic prophet type. But even that is but one of the layers of the coreless onion....

Because Christianity is more akin to something like Hinduism or Buddhism where no such fixed historical founder can either be found or is even necessary to explain the existence of the religions.

Well of course there were historians writing in the era in question during the time period in question. Some even say that the Roman period was one of the best attested. The question is why the Jewish religious authorities, or the Romans for that matter, who did write and did document, failed to make any mention whatsoever of either Jesus or any of his supposed disciples? This isn't about wondering why illiterate peasants didn't write about Jesus. I'm afraid it's much more deep reaching than that.

How about when people are supposed to be causing havoc in the capital city, in and around the temple?

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Yeah, OK. What do you think may happen to Bart Ehrman's career if he says that maybe Jesus never existed? Think he may lose his job? He has tenure, which means that he can not be fired for controversial opinions. Not that I think we should simply trust Bart Ehrman. I just think we need to be careful about explaining his opinions with ephemeral conflicts of interests. Maybe he believes in a historical Jesus because that is how he thinks he can best explain the evidence. For example, on the Infidel Guy radio show, he was asked for an argument for the historical Jesus, and he gave Galatians 1:19, where Paul writes in passing about meeting "James, the Lord's brother." James was reputed by both the gospel authors and Josephus to be a Christian leader and a brother of Jesus. This means there seems to be first-hand written attestation to a brother of Jesus. Now, maybe you know better, and maybe you think there are more probable ways to explain that evidence, but it seems to be a strong argument on the face, and you can understand why a historian would accept that. Conflicts of interest don't need to have anything to do with it.

OK, cool. I would say Christianity is like Buddhism, and not like Hinduism. I divide religions into two genetic categories, as follows:

1) Religions that started from tribal/nationalistic mythology and evolved after that, such as Judaism and Hinduism.
2) Religions that started from personality cults and evolved after that, such as Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism.

Whenever you have a religion that started as a personality cult, the figure of that personality cult was always a human being. That is the pattern in the modern world and all historical cults that we know about. If there are exceptions, if the personality behind a personality cult never existed, then we simply don't know about them. I see no reason why Christianity has to break that pattern. You can either explain Christianity as something that we know for sure happens typically, or you can explain Christianity as something that has never happened as far as we know for sure. I like to explain anything as something that we know for sure happens typically. That is how I define, "plausibility." You don't have to think that same way. I think almost everyone in society likes to explain Christianity as something extraordinary. They like to think that the beginning of Christianity is either historically extraordinary or a baseline for an extraordinary new theory of history. I think Christianity was normal.

OK, this requires some further explanation on my part. It is true that there were a handful of historians writing at about the same time as Jesus, such as Plutarch. The problem is that most of them were not writing about the region of Israel. They were writers of Greece and Rome. There was really only one historian who wrote about the time and place of Jesus and lived adjacent to that time and place--Philo of Alexandria. He was ten years old when Jesus was supposedly crucified, probably living in Alexandria, Egypt.

The following paragraph contains all of the contemporary non-Christian writing about Pontius Pilate by a contemporary historian. You may want to take the time to read it all, because, if you would expect any contemporary historian to have mentioned Jesus, it would be contained somewhere in this passage.

XXXVIII. "Moreover, I have it in my power to relate one act of ambition on his part, though I suffered an infinite number of evils when he was alive; but nevertheless the truth is considered dear, and much to be honoured by you. Pilate was one of the emperor's lieutenants, having been appointed governor of Judaea. He, not more with the object of doing honour to Tiberius than with that of vexing the multitude, dedicated some gilt shields in the palace of Herod, in the holy city; which had no form nor any other forbidden thing represented on them except some necessary inscription, which mentioned these two facts, the name of the person who had placed them there, and the person in whose honour they were so placed there. But when the multitude heard what had been done, and when the circumstance became notorious, then the people, putting forward the four sons of the king, who were in no respect inferior to the kings themselves, in fortune or in rank, and his other descendants, and those magistrates who were among them at the time, entreated him to alter and to rectify the innovation which he had committed in respect of the shields; and not to make any alteration in their national customs, which had hitherto been preserved without any interruption, without being in the least degree changed by any king of emperor. "But when he steadfastly refused this petition (for he was a man of a very inflexible disposition, and very merciless as well as very obstinate), they cried out: 'Do not cause a sedition; do not make war upon us; do not destroy the peace which exists. The honour of the emperor is not identical with dishonour to the ancient laws; let it not be to you a pretence for heaping insult on our nation. Tiberius is not desirous that any of our laws or customs shall be destroyed. And if you yourself say that he is, show us either some command from him, or some letter, or something of the kind, that we, who have been sent to you as ambassadors, may cease to trouble you, and may address our supplications to your master.' "But this last sentence exasperated him in the greatest possible degree, as he feared least they might in reality go on an embassy to the emperor, and might impeach him with respect to other particulars of his government, in respect of his corruption, and his acts of insolence, and his rapine, and his habit of insulting people, and his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity. Therefore, being exceedingly angry, and being at all times a man of most ferocious passions, he was in great perplexity, neither venturing to take down what he had once set up, nor wishing to do any thing which could be acceptable to his subjects, and at the same time being sufficiently acquainted with the firmness of Tiberius on these points. And those who were in power in our nation, seeing this, and perceiving that he was inclined to change his mind as to what he had done, but that he was not willing to be thought to do so, wrote a most supplicatory letter to Tiberius. And he, when he had read it, what did he say of Pilate, and what threats did he utter against him! But it is beside our purpose at present to relate to you how very angry he was, although he was not very liable to sudden anger; since the facts speak for themselves; for immediately, without putting any thing off till the next day, he wrote a letter, reproaching and reviling him in the most bitter manner for his act of unprecedented audacity and wickedness, and commanding him immediately to take down the shields and to convey them away from the metropolis of Judaea to Caesarea, on the sea which had been named Caesarea Augusta, after his grandfather, in order that they might be set up in the temple of Augustus. And accordingly, they were set up in that edifice. And in this way he provided for two matters: both for the honour due to the emperor, and for the preservation of the ancient customs of the city.

The only names contained within this paragraph are: Pilate, Herod, Tiberius and Augustus. These are members of the ruling elite. Everyone else is: "the multitude." There must have been some leading figures of that "multitude," but they were left unnamed by Philo. Neither did Philo ever write about Jesus, nor did he name those who caused disturbances. Why would he? He was in the upper class, and they were nameless peasantry. His writings focused on the upper class--the people who mattered.

This isn't evidence for the historical Jesus. Yeah, maybe Jesus didn't exist. But, I am saying that you shouldn't be using the silences of contemporary historians to that effect, unless you can explain in detail why you would strongly expect them to mention Jesus.

I suggest sticking with the positive evidences. We have the Christian writings, and they date to just a few decades after Jesus reputedly existed. It is not about believing the early Christian writings--we just need to explain them with plausibility and explanatory power. So, how do we best explain those writings? Are they best explained as myth that follows from a Jesus who never existed to begin with? Or, are they best explained as the myth that follows from a Jesus who founded and led a doomsday cult? Which theory has plausibility and explanatory power?

I have not read Ehrman, other than reviews of his books, and was not actually aware of his claimed apostasy from Christianity. But I have read a fair bit of Spong, and some of Crossan. They were the ones I meant in saying that left wing theologians find the historical Jesus emotionally attractive. This is a line of thought that goes back to liberation theology in Latin America, for example Boff and Gutierrez, who take the gospel story as inspiration for political activism. Ehrman seems to be part of a broader liberal Christianity. I think his book should provoke something of a shock about the real scientific status of Christ belief, ie that it has none.

I recently read The House of the Spirits, a novel about Chile by Isabel Allende. She describes the common situation of left wing priests who use religion as a cover for agitation about class struggle. American liberal Christians are rarely overtly Marxist, but there is a Biblical background, such as the Dives and Lazarus story, that sees the saved as the poor and the damned as the rich. Jesus as the great hero of the poor becomes less politically powerful for this narrative if we accept the doubt that he was real.

Ehrman seems quite confused, as are many people who started off with the extreme fantasy of fundamentalism polluting their brains (apologies to those here who have fought free of this mental mess). I don't have the impression from the little I have read of him that Ehrman is pushing a political agenda, expect perhaps to maintain his own academic reputation as a "serious" scholar, defined as one who doesn't upset the University's Christian backers too much.

One decisive critique of historicism made by Earl Doherty in his superb Jesus Neither God Nor Man is that Paul never says "as Jesus our founder taught", but rather "as the spirit has revealed to me". Christianity is a total anomaly in having a supposed founder who is a complete mystery, and who is completely absent from all authenticated historical records. As Jake said in the comment I quoted earlier, Christianity did not spread from a single point, which is what the historicist hypothesis demands.

I wasn't shooting for the being afraid he'd be fired angle. But then again look at what just happened to Mike Licona for a far less assertion. What I was getting at is that Ehrman is an historian. He would like to make his job look very relevant and possibly much more concrete and certainty based than otherwise. I was listening to his interview with the Infidel Guy paying attention to how much he continued to present a concrete case where no such case exists. That's all I really meant by it. The appeal to authority went on and on...

I caught that too. And in Galatians it seems clear that this person James is a Christian brother, of the Christian brotherhood, not necessarily the blood brother of a literal Jesus Christ. And with Josephus we're discussing a "rank forgery". A "rank forgery" committed well after Galatians had been written and possibly forged to include this bit from Galatians - that I believe is also in Acts which was written later to try and fill in the dots - and seemed to get more confused over time until people took this to be in reference to James a literal brother of Jesus. Eusebius could have easily used this in what appears to be his own "rank forgery" of Josephus' work. But that's just one angle that comes to mind without thinking too deeply into it.

I only meant something very simple. There's no good reason to believe that either the Buddha(s) or Krishna were any more historical than Jesus. But aside from that, yes, these all fit into categories. Hinduism was an ethnic religion that spun off into Buddhism which became a proselytizing world religion. What had been exclusive could become inclusive. The same evolution happened with Judaism as an ethnic religion that spun off into a proselytizing world religion in likewise fashion, well after the eastern religious evolution had already occurred and was well known. This type of possible religious evolution exclusive to inclusive was known in Alexandria Egypt BTW. So little wonder efforts were made (consciously I presume) to give Judaism the same evolutionary kick towards an all inclusive world religion status as happened centuries earlier in the east with the exclusive ethnic religion of Hinduism. But that gets pretty deep down the rabbit hole, so to speak, and you'd have to understand at least something of Murdocks books - especially CiE - to follow along with the overall hypothesis...

Always? I don't know if I'd get too firm with Zarathustra as a literal historical character any more than Abraham or Moses as founding fathers of what would become Judaism. But in the modern cases yes, it would seem that those people founding their "personality cults". I wouldn't be so sure about the ancient cases though...

You have quite the task in first proving that anything in NT was written before the 2nd century - if by "Christian writings" you are referring to what is now the NT. That's quite a topic in and of itself around here and that goes for the Pauline Epistles and all. If Jesus were to have lived in the early first century, then it was about 100 years before anyone wrote anything about it in such a way as to appear into the literary and historical record. If you could prove that something was in fact written shortly after Jesus should have existed then you would be world famous for it:
The Gospel Dates: A 2nd Century Composition?






Now of course the Christian theologians above still hold to the idea of an historical Jesus, despite these problems which they readily admit. But that goes back to what Robert was saying earlier about this "leftist" or liberal theologians and what they are striving to preserve from the mythology...

And what are we doing here with Mark? Is the assertion that Mark is the eldest Gospel and that we ought to strip down to a doomsday prophet at the core? If so, if we are to take the doomsday material as real history why then brush aside the claims of popularity and fame far and wide in the region in question?



Why should we expect to read something from contemporary sources, and why should Philo have at least known something about this? Well because we're talking about someone who is supposed to be famed far and wide, whether a God-Man or just a man with a doomsday cult following. And if they're all lying about his fame far and wide in that region, and the multitudes of people involved, why then trust the authors about anything at all? Are the Mormons lying about Joseph Smith's fame? What about the SDA's and Ellen White's or William Miller's fame? Were these people known far and wide? Should we use them as an example to look back on the fame that Jesus should have had too, as the leader of a doomsday "personality cult"? What about Herald Camping? Doomsday nonsense brings fame along with it regardless how ridiculous and played out the concept of crying doomsday is.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

OK, that's cool. We haven't seen Ehrman make his case for the historical Jesus, yet. That thing about Galatians 1:19 is just the simplest and most straightforward evidence, in my opinion, but not the strongest. The strongest cases are cumulative, the case for the historical Jesus has that, and there is no possible way he could present the case on a radio show (nor was he prepared to). When I have presented my case for a historical Jesus, hardly anyone reads it, because it is long and cumbersome. When I have broken the case into a series of individual evidences, then it gets attention, but it is vulnerable to ad hoc rationalizations, because people compare their own cumulative case against my focused argument, and their own cumulative case seems to come out stronger. I am not yet sure how to solve that dilemma.

On Debate.org, I got into a formal debate about whether or not Jesus was a doomsday cult leader (http://www.debate.org/debates/The-histo ... -leader/2/). My opponent brought in four opposing hypotheses, including the proposition that Jesus was like a derivative or earlier myths much like Horus and Dionysus, and he cited Zeitgeist videos on YouTube. That was the argument I was most familiar with, so I made that the focus of my counterattacks, and I challenged him to provide citations to and quotes from primary sources. Well, he didn't, he stood behind his tertiary sources, and he moved on to arguments from Crossan and Borg. He actually won the debate that way, and one voter even complemented him on his credible sources. Debates on the topic of Christian origins are filled with so much bullshit, I think the winner tends to be the person who throws the most bullshit against the wall, because something will stick, and audiences are not inclined to think so deeply or investigate about a topic so time-consuming and complex. That means there is no subject of debate with as much false myths and confirmation bias as this one. Nobody is immune, not even me.

For what it's worth, I don't know if the opponent had the ZG part 1 sourcebook handy at the time, but it's out now and all of the sources that went into the movie script are readily available for viewing:

ZG part 1 Sourcebook

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Yeah, he most certainly did not have that book handy at the time. Are you sure it would have helped? The author Acharya S seems to have a record of citing and quoting only other modern authors, trusting the modern authors on what the ancient sources say, and she seldom seems to go directly to the ancient sources even when she has the opportunity. My impression from reading Christ Conspiracy is that it is like part of a big echo chamber of modern myths about the ancient myths. Maybe the Zeitgeist Sourcebook is better and different, but I don't know.

That's just it, you don't know because you haven't read all of the books. The CC is the first of a long line of works and each consecutive work was written with the criticisms of the previous book in mind. Some of the criticism of CC and ZG part 1 led directly to putting together the source book which follows along with the movie transcript. And the writing of CiE goes through the primary sources of the Egyptian texts very thoroughly and carefully cites them on each page.

So by the time CiE came out it was intentionally written to address a scholarly and lay audience both, whereas the CC started out as something she threw together to show a friend the highlights of Jesus mythicism. Much like how ZG the Movie was just set up for a film festival and then tossed online and then went viral with no expectations for such a response. And with the fame more and more people were demanding more primary source evidence and so they got it with CiE, among other works. And the latter part of CiE takes into consideration all of the Egyptian parallels and puts them to use in considering the Alexandrian Hypothesis which is unique to Murdocks work, something touched on lightly in the CC, and then again in SoG, but even much more in-depth by the release of CiE. And of course the CC itself is now being updated out of necessity with respect to everything that has been written since.

I doubt that Ehrman has read any of it. And there is a lot of information contained in Murdocks works that would serve Ehrman well to at least be familiar with...

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?