Christ myth theory Puns

I have seen that people and even professionals believe that a historical Jesus didnt exist like this one. sorry for my im new to the topic of the historical Jesus.

The Christ myth theory is a fringe position in modern scholarship, with only two adherents with serious academic credentials , Richard Carrier and Robert Price. It postulates that Jesus of Nazareth was a mythic invention - a rendition of existing mythic accounts of dying and rising Gods that, for some reason, grew rapidly like an urban legend into the religion we call Christianity today. It has a number of problems, which I hope to highlight briefly here today.

To begin, the Christ myth theory hinges upon there existing a specific genre of myth involving dying and rising Gods. Justin Martyr in the second century compiled a work in which he considered many parallels to rising Gods in other religions (Justin Martyr, First Apology, 21.). The first account is that of the Greek mythological figure Adonis which did not appear until after AD 150 (Günter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967), 197–201.). There are no resurrection accounts of the phrygian god of vegetation, Attis, until the third century AD at the earliest (Ibid., 213, 219, 221, 223–24, 229, 251, 265.), and no clear resurrection or even death of Marduk (Günter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1967), 164–66.). The only potential parallel that both includes a bodily resurrection in continuity with the corpse and is contemporary or prior to the apostles is that of the cult of Osiris, but even this is questionable. Osiris was, according to one account of the story, Osiris was killed by his brother and chopped up into fourteen pieces. Then the goddess Isis or even their son Horus attempted to put him back together, but they only found thirteen pieces. Finally, he was instated as ruler of the underworld thereafter. The picture we got of Osiris is nothing like that of Jesus for a few simple reasons.

Moreover, Osiris was never brought back to life and seen by others as Jesus was, which is not an insignificant point as many religions believe in a form of afterlife. The fact that Osiris was never claimed to be seen by anybody in any version of the story simply means that Osiris cannot be considered to have risen from the dead since the accounts have him appointed as a high ranking official of the underworld. This is far different from Jesus’ resurrection, in which he is claimed to have been seen by many and is the triumphant prince of life.

Thus, the claim central to the Christ myth theory that there existed accounts

As the title asserts, apologetics dominates the Wikipedia 'Christ Myth Theory' page. This series of posts will critique and seek to eliminate that and weasel-words (literally, eg. by strike-through). [endnote numbers are removed]

The page starts with

>Christ Myth Theory
>
>For the body of myths associated with Christianity, see Christian mythology and Jesus in comparative mythology. For the scholarly study of the historical Jesus, see Historicity of Jesus, Historical Jesus, and Quest for the historical Jesus. For sources on Jesus, see Sources for the historicity of Jesus and Historical reliability of the Gospels.

While the first two links, Christian mythology and Jesus in comparative mythology, are on-topic, as is Quest for the historical Jesus, the other four are clearly designed to overshadow, or are downright apologetic, and would seem to be unnecessary. The on-topic links are noteworthy -

>Christian mythology is the body of myths associated with Christianity. The term encompasses a broad variety of legends and stories, especially those considered sacred narratives. Mythological themes and elements occur throughout Christian literature, including recurring myths such as ascending to a mountain, the axis mundi, myths of combat, descent into the Underworld, accounts of a dying-and-rising god, flood stories, stories about the founding

In many popular circles the notion that Christ as a person was a "myth" is a very widely circulated view. However most mainstream scholars and historians view the mythicist movement the same way that most scientists view the young earth creationist movement. It's seen as a pseodo intellectual movement with no credibility. And I make that specific comparison because the arguments that mythicists make is also very similar to the arguments that creationists make. Creationists say we can't trust the science of evolution because it's atheistic(which is false and fallacious reasoning). Mythicists argue that we can't trust the historical consensus because they are bias and shaped by religious belief(which is also false, Bart Ehrman who is an agnostic is a prominent New Testament scholar that debunked mythicist claims).

Edit: I spent all day reading every single reply and rewarded two deltas (congratulations!) so far. There have been some good points made, particularly the one about Bethlehem and how it appears a nativity story needed to be "invented" to fit Jesus being from Nazareth, but I'm still not really convinced that the Gospels are fact and not fiction - mostly due to the fact that the knowledge we have about the use of the death penalty and the Jewish people's hate of the Romans make the idea they would have Jesus turned over to be killed and tortured highly implausible.

Specifically, the Jewish people of the 1st century pretty much abolished the death penalty either around the time Jesus was supposedly killed, or in 70 AD when the Temple was destroyed, and were generally turning against it by the 1st century. If there was no crucifixion, there is no historical Jesus.

Can anyone bring up points that might suggest that the Pharisees, Sadducees and Romans would all conspire to kill Jesus even though they were all at odds with each other and Jesus was supposedly a nobody during his lifetime? I just find it really hard to believe and I'm surprised historians don't factor this in more.

I should note I'm not writing this to bash religion. I'm an agnostic atheist, but I'm not an anti-theist. I think religion has personal value to many people, as well as evolutionary value, and I can't say for sure that religious people are wrong because that would be arrogant and I just don't know.

I just find the idea that Jesus may have not existed incredibly interesting, partly because it makes me wonder how much of our "factual" knowledge about history is not really true. Secondly, I am disturbed by the bullying of knowledgeable people like Carrier by historical academia for not sticking to the consensus and it makes me wonder if there is some kind of payola going on in the field of Biblical studies, perhaps even from religious organizations.

OP:

As an ex-Catholic, I'm very interested in the idea that Jesus didn't exist at all. I'm pretty agnostic on the concept of Jesus historicity, I think it's possible he did live and also possible he didn't.

However, from everything I've read there seems to be little evidence that Jesus was a real person. Sure, Josephus briefly mentions him, but this doesn't mean he had proof that Jesus existed. All it means is that Christians told him Jesus ex

The next section is 'Christ myth theorists'

This section is disjointed & superficial, though it briefly introduces some noteworthy concepts and variations such as

1. Jesus agnosticism, that is, 'whether there was a historical Jesus is unknowable and, if he did exist, close to nothing can be known about him', and
2. the notion of a 'mythical Christ of Paul', in the context of that entity being fused with 'a historical Jesus'; a position supposedly held by 'moderate' authors ...

... as opposed to 'radical mythicists' who supposedly hold the "Jesus atheism viewpoint."

These latter terms and their conflation are stupid.

Hidden among them, however, is an outline of an interesting concept. That

>... a mythical character...developed out of a syncretistic fusion of Jewish, Hellenistic and Middle Eastern religious thought; was put forward by Paul; and historicised in the Gospels, which are also syncretistic.

Inferring such a character was mostly 'put forward by Paul' is, however, probably a stretch, as would be the proposition the Pauline Christ Jesus was "developed out of [an overt] 'syncretistic fusion' that included so-called 'Middle Eastern' religious thought''.^(1) Paul's theology could well have been developed out of Jewish theology and thought filtered through Hellenistic thought and theology, but probably not Hellenistic thought per se.

^(1) 'Middle Eastern' was unlikely to have been a concept in the first century CE. Perhaps whoever wrote that term meant Egyptian or Persian religious thought such as, respectively, the Egyptian mystery cults or Mithraism (though Persian Mithraism was different to roman Mithraism).

It's all potentially misleading. And doesn't provide very much information at all about people skeptical whether Jesus was historical, which is what one would think a section titled 'Christ Myth Theorists' would do.

The next section is a doozy -

>Demise of authenticity and call for memory studies
>
>See also: Criticism of Historical Jesus research and Memory studies
>
>Since the late 2000s, concerns have been growing about the usefulness of 'the criteria of authenticity.' According to Keith, the criteria are literary tools, indebted to form criticism, not historiographic tools. They were meant to discern pre-Gospel traditions, not to identify historical facts,^(1) but have "substituted the pre-literary tradition with that of the historical Jesus". According to Le Donne, the usage of such criteria is a form of "positivist historiography".

^(1) 'not to identify historical facts' [lol], but [to] "substitute [a supposed] 'pre-literary tradition' with that of 'the historical Jesus". lol, again [see below re a supposed 'oral gospel tradition']

>Chris Keith, Le Donne, and others argue for a "social memory" approach, which states that memories are shaped by the needs of the present. Instead of searching for a historical Jesus, scholarship should investigate how 'the memories' of Jesus were shaped, and how they were reshaped "with the aim of cohesion and the self-understanding (identity) of groups".

lololololol - the implication that memories of early Christians can be shaped by 'the needs of the present' is ridiculous: it's illogical.

>James D. G. Dunn's 2003 study, Jesus Remembered, was the onset for this "increased ... interest in memory theory and eyewitness testimony". Dunn argues that "[t]he only realistic objective for any 'quest of the historical Jesus' is 'Jesus remembered'." Dunn argued that Christianity started with the impact Jesus 'himself' had on his followers, who passed on and shaped their memories of him in [a supposed] 'oral gospel tradition'.^(2) According to Dunn, to understand who Jesus was, and what his impact was, scholars have to look at "the broad picture, focusing on the characteristic motifs and emphases of 'the Jesus tradition', rather than making findings overly dependent on individual items of the tradition".

That paragraph^ essentially says Christianity started with some stories about some

The next section has a very apologetic heading, apologetic references, & links to apologetic 'main articles'

>A historical Jesus existed
>
>Main articles: Historicity of Jesus, Historical Jesus, and Sources for the historicity of Jesus

that are supposedly 'critical 'methods'' that

>... have led to a demythologization of Jesus.

Yet,

>The mainstream scholarly view is that the Pauline epistles and the gospels describe the Christ of faith, presenting a religious narrative which replaced the historical Jesus who did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine.

"Yet",

>.. that there was a historical Jesus is not in doubt. New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman states that Jesus "certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees".

Inserting and relying on assertion and appeal to consensus from Bart D Ehrman is poor form.

It goes on

>Following the 'criteria of authenticity-approach', scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus, but the baptism and the crucifixion are two events in the life of Jesus which are subject to "almost universal assent". According to historian Alanna Nobbs,
>
>>While historical and theological debates remain about the actions and significance of this figure, his fame as a teacher, and his crucifixion under the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, may be described as historically certain.

So, some truth in this dubious section: namely, "scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus".

Then 'portraits of Jesus' and a 'most widely held view'.

>The portraits of Jesus have often differed from each other and from the image portrayed in the gospel accounts. The primary portraits of Jesus resulting from the Third Quest are: apocalyptic prophet; charismatic healer

Now, before I get too far along, I'm well aware that the majority of scholars reject the Christ myth theory. However, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be carefully examined. Either way, there are still scholars who seriously defend this position. I'd like to go through a few points that support it.

• A lack of primary sources by individuals that witnessed the resurrection and other miracles of Jesus.

People can't even decide when the man died for heaven's sake. If someone performed miracles and was resurrected, everyone and their grandma would have written about it. There would be an absolutely mind-boggling number of accounts on the issue. Instead, we know that very few Jews in Judea actually converted to Christianity (the majority of Christianity's growth came from converted "barbarians" and pagans elsewhere in Europe) and the oldest source detailing Jesus' life came almost 40 years after his death (Gospel of Mark). If the spread of Christianity is evidence of anything, it shows how insecure European pagans were in their traditional religions more than anything else.

• Discrepancies in accounts that are considered canon.

There are numerous stories that were removed from the Christian canon after the fact that have no less evidence than the rest of the Bible. For example, the Acts of Peter, Pseudo-Clementines, and the Epistle of the Apostles, report that Simon Magus could levitate and perform magical abilities. In the Acts of Peter, he even engages in combat reminiscent of a Jedi knight. Why were these other books removed from the Bible, and why were those who held dissenting views suppressed?

• Lack of early sources that were not Christian.

The earliest source known that is not Christian in origin is the account of Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus which was written about 60 years after Jesus' death. Think about it, as irritated as the Romans were with Jesus' antics, they would have had no choice but to accept the gravity of such a situation as the resurrection, and there would have been a definite response by those in authority. There would have been imperial edicts made and other Roman actions that would be in line with a major historical event. Instead, the Romans don't appear to give two shits about anything having to do with Jesus at all. They don't even acknowledge his existence after his crucifixion for 60 years.

• Liar, lord, or lunatic fallacy.

The fourth case, that his life was largely fabricated, is omitted. Why do Christians thi

[Following on from the end of the previous post, 1/n]

The next section is -

>Quest for the historical Jesus
>
>Main articles: Quest for the historical Jesus, Textual criticism, and Historical criticism
>
>A first quest for the historical Jesus took place in the 19th century, when hundreds of Lives of Jesus were being written. David Strauss (1808–1874) pioneered the search for the "Historical Jesus" by rejecting all supernatural events as mythical elaborations. His 1835 work, Life of Jesus,[16] was one of the first and most influential systematic analyses of the life story of Jesus, aiming to base it on unbiased historical research. The Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, starting in the 1890s, used the methodologies of higher criticism, a branch of criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text". It compared Christianity to other religions, regarding it as one religion among others and rejecting its claims to absolute truth, and demonstrating that it shares characteristics with other religions. It argued that Christianity was not simply the continuation of the Old Testament, but syncretistic, and was rooted in and influenced by Hellenistic Judaism (Philo) and Hellenistic religions like the mystery cults and Gnosticism. Martin Kähler questioned the usefulness of the search for the historical Jesus, making the famous distinction between the "Jesus of history" and the "Christ of faith", arguing that faith is more important than exact historical knowledge. Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976), who was related to the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, emphasized theology, and in 1926 had argued that historical Jesus research was both futile and unnecessary; although Bultman

Many like to argue that the story of Christ has borrowed elements from other stories in history. Some will point to myths that predate Christ, draw some very vague comparisons, and conclude that it is proof that the Christ story is not original and therefore, was invented entirely by humans.

There is at least one major problem I see with this argument: the Christ story draws on earlier stories from the Bible itself, which are incredibly (almost shockingly) more parallel with the story of christ. Let me give some examples:

Moses: As a baby, he escaped the decree of a king and avoided certain death He lived in Egypt as a child but later returned to his homeland. He was known by his followers to be both humble and strong He was tempted while in the wilderness He was attested by God through signs and wonders He worked a miracle at the sea He miraculously fed thousands of people with bread He spoke God’s word and taught God’s law from a mountain He was the mediator between God and his people

Joshua:His name, when translated from Hebrew, means "God saves" He descended from a man named Joseph He had a humble, obscure beginning but rose to a place of honor He was anointed by God He was filled with God's Spirit He led and shepherded his people He did for God's people what Moses could not do He delivered God's people from the enemies of God He promised rest and provided it

Joseph:He was the special object of his father's love He was underestimated and discounted by his own family He had the ability to resist a temptation He fed bread to people to relieve their hunger He accurately foretold the future He was sold by someone he trusted for pieces of silver He was stripped of his robe and delivered to gentiles He stood before rulers in the assembly He was falsely accused His own people did not recognize him

Elisha:His name, when translated from Hebrew, means "God is salvation" His ministry started at the Jordan River He received the Spirit of his Father He was surrounded by more disciples than his predecessors He was attested by God with miracles, signs, and wonders He raised a woman's adult son from the grave He fed many people with just a few loaves and had more to spare He healed a leper He gave sight to the blind He fed the hungry He was betrayed for money

Jonah:He preached repentance to gentiles He knew that salvation belongs to the Lord He slept on a boat during a storm He acted and the power of God calmed the storm He chose to sacrifice himself for o

Hello, I was curious if there were any anti-Christian authors from the ancient world (let's say 1st to 6th century) that claimed Jesus was not a historical figure. The only polemicist I know of is Celsus, but I don't think he claimed such a thing. Also, I heard something about Origen of Alexandria writing about the historicity of Jesus. I was wondering if his writing is in the context of responding to an ancient mythicist.

I was talking to my friend about Easter the other day and he brought up a fringe theory I’ve never heard before, in which Jesus didn’t actually exist. I’ve long been convinced that Jesus wasn’t a messiah, but I never thought to question his historical legitimacy. After some preliminary research, it seems that the vast majority of our information on Jesus comes, of course, from Christian sources, which aren’t exactly historically accurate. My question to you guys is whether or not you believe in Jesus’s secular existence or fabrication, and why?

A while back, I was browsing a history forum where someone mentioned a satire of the "Christ-Myth" theory that claimed Napoleon Bonaparte was not a historical figure, published a few years after Napoleon's death.

I am seeing lots of discussions, articles videos about it, to the extent that whenever somebody talk about Christianity or Jesus it usually go down to circle-jerking about CMT, Carrier-Doharty, Josephus etc., So what's the reason behind the sudden surge? are there some new discoveries ?

As far as I understand, virtually all historians agree that Jesus Christ was born, preached in Galilee, was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified by Pontius Pilate.

Despite this, many people, especially the more irreligious, like to repeat that Jesus did not exist and is a mythical figure.

This leads me to question the historical consensus or at least wonder if there have been any recent attempted revivals of the theory. Thank you for all you do.

Whenever I read anything about Jesus Christ being a myth, it seems it's always accompanied with something along the lines of "the notion that Jesus never existed has little scholarly support".

And that's it. There's never any "the notion that Jesus never existed has little scholarly support because..."

I'll admit that I've not read a lot of the counter arguments, but in my frequent googling I've never actually seen any kind of smoking gun, it's always "People who study this think jesus probably existed".

So my question is... why?

I've been doing research into the CMT in an attempt to build a historiography of the theory, and I'm trying to find the earliest recorded accusation that Jesus did not exist as a historical character.

The earliest I've been able to find was in Les Ruines, ou méditations sur les révolutions des empires by Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney in 1791. Only the last four chapter of the book have anything to do with the CMT.

So my question stands, are there any earlier accusations of Jesus being a fictional character?

A while back I looked into if there was any contemporary evidence of Jesus' existence and I got some Christians to do some research into it for me (which was kinda nice as I got them to understand the burden of proof thing for a change) but the earliest they could manage was Josephus (maybe as early as 50 AD) and I found that academics suspect his work was altered due to the bit he wrote about Jesus being in a completely different style to normal.

The gospels started to be written in 70 AD, the Romans had no records of him, they began to write about him but only in the 2nd century and the only thing that it says in the Bible is that there were eyewitnesses (couldn't anybody say this?).

Despite all this I've heard that many people still think that Jesus was a historical character. Am I alone in thinking that the Gospel writers simply waited a few years then got him to match up with the OT prophecies?

As this is pretty much a big deal I'd like to know a couple of things; Does anybody out there know of any sources around the time of Jesus? Is it reasonable to expect evidence from his own lifetime?

TL;DR Sources for Jesus' existence are sketchy. Is there any evidence for Jesus from his own lifetime?

The Christ myth theory is a rather uncommon position in modern scholarship, with only two adherents with serious academic credentials as far as I’m currently aware, Richard Carrier and Robert Price. The hypothesis postulates that Jesus of Nazareth was a mythic invention - a rendition of existing mythic accounts of dying and rising Gods that, for some reason, grew rapidly like an urban legend into the religion we call Christianity today. It has a number of problems, which I hope to highlight briefly here today.

To begin, the Christ myth theory hinges upon there existing a specific genre of myth involving dying and rising Gods. Justin Martyr in the second century compiled a work in which he considered many parallels to rising Gods in other religions (Justin Martyr, First Apology, 21.). The first account is that of the Greek mythological figure Adonis which did not appear until after AD 150 (Günter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967), 197–201.). There are no resurrection accounts of the phrygian god of vegetation, Attis, until the third century AD at the earliest (Ibid., 213, 219, 221, 223–24, 229, 251, 265.), and no clear resurrection or even death of Marduk (Günter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1967), 164–66.). The only potential parallel that both includes a bodily resurrection in continuity with the corpse and is contemporary or prior to the apostles is that of the cult of Osiris, but even this is questionable. Osiris was, according to one account of the story, Osiris was killed by his brother and chopped up into fourteen pieces. Then the goddess Isis or even their son Horus attempted to put him back together, but they only found thirteen pieces. Finally, he was instated as ruler of the underworld thereafter. The picture we got of Osiris is nothing like that of Jesus for a few simple reasons.

Moreover, Osiris was never brought back to life and seen by others as Jesus was, which is not an insignificant point as many religions believe in a form of afterlife. The fact that Osiris was never claimed to be seen by anybody in any version of the story simply means that Osiris cannot be considered to have risen from the dead since the accounts have him appointed as a high ranking official of the underworld. This is far different from Jesus’ resurrection, in which he is claimed to have been seen by many and is the triumphant prince of life.

Thus, the claim central to