![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 | → | Archive 32 |
I was struck by IP96's addition of a quote from Thomas Brodie: (1) The quote, though lengthy, adds very little information to what's already in the article; and (2) starts to be undue weight. Although Brodie did emphasize the link between the Elisha/Elijah stories and the New Testament, there's a lot more to his ideas than just that. He talks a lot about Matthew's dependency on Deuteronomy and on the Pauline epistles, for example.
I notice that Gonzales John has recently been blocked indefinitely for sock puppetry, and that IP 49.144.167.188 is one of his suspected socks. So I guess that's the end of the RfC saga.
But, there were several other experienced editors who agreed with GJ that this article is out of control. Part of the reasoning behind the idea of creating topical sections, was that the biography sections could get shorter. So now we've started creating the topical sections, but I haven't seen much migration of text. Instead, the biographies just keep getting longer.
I'd like to suggest that we re-open the discussion about what's important here, and what the article should be emphasizing. JerryRussell ( talk) 23:33, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
MacDonald, Dennis R. (7 May 2015).
Mythologizing Jesus: From Jewish Teacher to Epic Hero. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 2–3.
ISBN
978-1-4422-3350-8. The Markan Evangelist, as we shall see, created most of his characters and episodes without the help of antecedent traditions or sources; instead, he imitated the Homeric epics that centuries earlier had come to define Greek cultural identity and retained this unrivaled status for at least a millennium. The author of the Gospel of Luke rightly read Mark as a historical fiction and expanded its imitations to include even more Homeric episodes. Thus, to read the Gospels as historically reliable witnesses to the life of Jesus obscures their authors intention to demonstrate for their first readers that Jesus was the ultimate superhero, superior to gods and heroes in books such as the Iliad and the Odyssey as well as Jewish Scriptures. Not only is he more powerful, but he also embodies different ethical values, such as justice, compassion, and love.
96.29.176.92 (
talk)
13:01, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
There are a few statements used in the criticism section that perpetuate wrong thinking when dealing with this issue. Here they are with my comments:
If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned. - COMMENTS: We should question them! Simply because we accept the historicity of other persons based on slim evidence, does not mean we should compound our error with yet another.
no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus - COMMENTS: In whose opinion are the scholars 'serious'? How do we know that they have not? What difference does it make to the discourse if they did? The answer of course is that it makes no difference at all, and it is surplus to the discussion.
The insistence of this article and of the Jesus page main article of claiming things like 'most scholars', and 'there is broad consensus' etc., is against the spirit of WP in my view, and amounts to weasel words. Even if we could provide 1000 sources of criticism against the JMT, we still could never make this claim about this theory or any other. How many historians are there in the world? How many have we sourced?
HappyGod ( talk) 03:53, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Hi HappyGod, I appreciate the sentiments. Unfortunately, the statements you mention above are real quotes from top scholars in Biblical Studies departments, and they seem to represent the actual state of affairs in the field. At Wikipedia we can only report what exists, we can't change it. However, I do wonder if there are other academic specialties (such as studies of folklore, or fictional literature, or hagiography) where we would find a wider spectrum of opinion? Biblical scholars might have a narrow view of the world as a whole. JerryRussell ( talk) 17:26, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
[Doherty's jesuspuzzle.humanists.net - retrieved 23AUG2006] Responses to Critiques of the Mythicist Case - Four: Alleged Scholarly Refutations of Jesus Mythicism (with comments on "A History of Scholarly Refutations of the Jesus Myth" by Christopher Price)
The failure of historicist to give a straightforward and robust definition of Jesus is remarkable, whereas Carrier gives:
"The main reason for holding to the historicity of the figure of Jesus . . . resides not primarily in historical evidence but derives instead from a modern theological necessity." (Emanuel Pfoh. “Jesus and the Mythic Mind: An Epistemological Problem”, Is This Not the Carpenter?, pp. 80-81) - review by Neil Godfrey
Ellegård, Alvar (2008).
"Theologians as historians". Scandia: Tidskrift för historisk forskning (59): 170–171. It is fair to say that most present-day theologians also accept that large parts of the Gospel stories are, if not fictional, at least not to be taken at face value as historical accounts. On the other hand, no theologian seems to be able to bring himself to admit that the question of the historicity of Jesus must be judged to be an open one. It appears to me that the theologians are not living up to their responsibility as scholars when they refuse to discuss the possibility that even the existence of the Jesus of the Gospels can be legitimately called into question.
-
96.29.176.92 (
talk)
20:32, 20 October 2016 (UTC) & update 20:14, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Pardon my French, but I'm starting to get f***ing annoyed by the constant policy violations on this page. The CMT pushers are determined to make the page what they want and will ignore any discussion that doesn't go their way. The most common tactic is to simply drag on and on and on and wear everybody else down, and then do what they planned to do anyways. So no matter how often we agree on using WP:RS, they will just wait it out and put their cherrypicked pet tin foil hats (Murdock, Ellegård etc.) back into the article. Not to mention the main NPOV-violation, trying to make it sound as if CMT is the scholarly debate instead of what it really is, a "debate" between academia on one side and uneducated conspiracy theorists on the other. Jeppiz ( talk)—Preceding undated comment added 10:02, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
1. A more focused article.
2. Moving away from focus on persons to focus on content.
3. Using reliable sources.
4. Following NPOV.
In my reading, the article then went in the completely opposite direction. First, it was extended beyond belief. When I reverted to a previous version (not so long ago), it was almost 30000 signs. That's not making a more focused article. It's the opposite, it's extending an already very long article, making it less focused. (I'm not opposed to length as such, though it is an issue for readers). This is something I, and others, have repeated a hundred times (and I don't think I exaggerate): Just because something is written on CMT, it does not automatically belong here. This is an article in an encyclopaedia, not an actual encyclopaedia on anything ever written on the topic. Next, the article remained very focused on persons, not content. At least this was not going in the wrong direction, but the changes didn't improve it much either. There was a consensus not to have sections on individual proponents. We're interested in the ideas, not the people who put them forward except as references when they are WP:RS. And that brings us on to the third point. Non-scholars or people with an academic degree do not belong here. This is not a matter of "I think, you think. It's an established Wikipedia policy. Anyone is free to think otherwise, but not free to WP according to that belief. Yes, we should mention the main ideas of the main proponents, of course. But even that needs to come from reliable sources. And that usually mean not using the sources produced by these people themselves, except where we make it clear it's an opinion. For instance: If we want to present Murdock's view, then we have a good RS in which Ehrman summarizes Murdock's view, and that's relevant. Murdock's own writings aren't RS, and don't belong here. Last but not least, NPOV. We are dealing with a fringe theory here. That means two things: one, the introduction should make it clear it's a fringe theory (not using the word "fringe", as that has negative connotations); two, the mainstream scholarly view should dominate the article. This should not be an article devoted to presenting CMT as science, with a "criticism" section at the end. It should present what CMT says, but make it clear throughout the article that mainstream academia rejects it. Jeppiz ( talk) 20:16, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
I share Jeppiz's frustration, and the reason it's hard to be specific about what's wrong with the article is because there's so many problems with its current state. Here are a few issues that I have:
That's not everything wrong with the article by any stretch of the imagination. Probably the biggest problem is how to write the article so that it accurately describes the CMT while making it clear that its regarded as highly implausible (and that's putting it politely) by experts in the field. I think that will be difficult as long as the article is written by amateurs who are themselves CMT enthusiasts. --Akhilleus ( talk) 21:27, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Longer quotations may be hidden in the reference as a WP:FOOTNOTE to facilitate verification by other editors without sacrificing readability. Verification is necessary when a topic is controversial.I suspect that may be why the article has got so many quotes: because the article has been so controversial, the quotes may have been used to provide verification. We can certainly review that.
@ Akhilleus, Prior to the RV there were only 2 sections with bullet points, please cite the WP policy that supports your objection to bullet points (or numbers) in the text of an article. 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 22:00, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Per Citing sources § Additional annotation, a footnote may also contain a relevant exact quotation from the source. This is especially helpful when the cited text is long or dense. And Quotations § Specific recommendations, longer quotations may be hidden in the reference as a WP:FOOTNOTE to facilitate verification by other editors without sacrificing readability. Verification is necessary when a topic is controversial. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 23:44, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Per Quotations § Overusing quotations, using too many quotes is incompatible with the encyclopedic writing style, however provided each use of a quotation within an article is legitimate and justified there is no need for an arbitrary limit, but quotes should not dominate the article.
Prior to the RV each proponent section contained the the following number of quotes (which includes 1 block quote per section):
One block quote per proponent is hardly overusing quotations and is also per policy in regards to dealing with a controversial subject, since controversial ideas must never appear to be from Wikipedia. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 00:29, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
The CMT (also known as the <alternative names>) refers to several theories for the origin of Jesus in relation to the origin of Christianity. The hypotheses for these diverse theories include: the hypothesis that Jesus never existed, or if he did exist, no meaningful historical verification is possible; the hypothesis that Jesus did exist but had virtually nothing to do with the origin of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels; the hypothesis that Christianity started, just like all the other Mystery religions in the Greco-Roman world; the hypothesis that Christianity started as a variation of Gnosticism; etc.. These various theories contradict the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many mythical or legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the biography of a historical figure.
There is no monolithic CMT, where one size fits all and the CMT includes theories on the origin of Christianity in relation to the origin of Jesus, thus the opening sentence should note it, as given above for example. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 05:01, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
What Doherty actuall writes: Doherty, Earl (September 2009).
Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus. Age of Reason Publications. pp. vii–viii.
ISBN
978-0-9689259-2-8. [The Mythical Jesus viewpoint is] the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction, and [also rejecting the
Q source advanced by Wells] that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition
I have just removed the "secular evidence" section. There are a few reasons why: "secular" is not an apt characterization of Josephus or Tacitus. Information should not be presented solely through a table, and this information is better presented in prose than through a table. --Akhilleus ( talk) 00:53, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
I used the utility at readability-score.com to count the "readable prose" size of our article. (The guideline WP:SIZE recommends using a javascript, whose instructions I found quite inscrutable.) I got a result of 39,526 characters. This doesn't include footnotes, or quotes in footnotes, or images, or other markup, which in this article are quite extensive.
The guideline says that length alone does not justify division for articles <40K. Above that, the likelihood that a division is called for goes up with size, while articles >60K should definitely be divided.
At one time I had been concerned about notability for an article on 'history of CMT' but my guess is this will not be a problem. I think we should go ahead with the plan of adding topical sections; but with the understanding that as we do so, the article will grow to the point where it needs to be split. JerryRussell ( talk) 20:27, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Akhilleus, could you explain your doubts about topical organization? We had interpreted it as a consensus of the earlier RfC. Jeppiz also mentioned it as a consensus goal ("Moving away from focus on persons to focus on content."
)
JerryRussell (
talk) 01:12, 24 October 2016 (UTC) tweaked
JerryRussell (
talk)
04:13, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
For comparison, please consider the article as of August 2013. From the point of view of readability, topicality and focus, I feel it's far superior to what we have today, although there's certainly room for discussion about sourcing. 1
I agree with Akhilleus that the lede was stronger when it simply stated Bauer's three-fold argument, exactly as it is reported by Voorst. I suggest the following text for the lede:
Typically, one or more of the arguments used are derived from or directly taken from the threefold argument first developed in the 19th century by Bruno Bauer:
As a reference, we could use the extended quote from Voorst, currently note 7.
The material that IP96 has been accumulating into the lede is all good, I have no objection to any of it, but I think it belongs in the body of the article, not the lede.
Akhilleus, is this what you're looking for? Jeppiz, would this be a move in the right direction? IP96, what's the rationale for building so much material into the lede? Any other votes? JerryRussell ( talk) 03:36, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
The entire "Raison d'être" was to remove the lede "bullet points"—that Akhilleus doesn't like. Thus the current lede bullet list should be removed.
Per the new section, Voorst is cited per the 3 items corresponding directly to Bauer's arguments, however the arguments of Bauer do not properly encompass:
Bauer/Voorst is outdated in the sense that modern proponents often make distinct arguments between the gospels and the epistle early writings and agnosticism and secular independence as per carrier, "For all the evidence anyone has ever adduced from the Epistles (once we exclude those known to be forged): it is ambiguous as to whether an earthly or celestial Jesus is being referred to. The Gospels I found wholly symbolically fictional and not even interested in actual history. And the Jesus in them I found to be so very like other mythical persons of the period. And then I found that no other evidence can be shown to be independent of the Gospels. At the very least, putting all of that together should make agnosticism about the historicity of Jesus a credible conclusion." - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 20:33, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
* The list of "arguments commonly used by Christ myth theory proponents" is odd. The list we have now is not based on any single source, but seems to have been cobbled together by editors, and it's highly redundant--the first five points are essentially "the evidence for Jesus isn't good," stated in various ways. Some of those ways are actually conclusions rather than arguments—e.g., "that no evidential conclusion is possible—for the existence of Jesus—that is also independent of the New Testament." The lead used to say that there were three arguments commonly used by CMT proponents, based on a passage from Van Voorst (2000). Those three arguments were: 1) the New Testament has no historical value 2) there are no 1st-century non-christian references to Jesus and 3) Christianity has pagan and/or mythical roots. This is a much better list than the one we've got now--the Van Voorst list is more coherent, and actually includes a point left out in our article (no non-Christian references to Jesus).
Asserting that some given "Secular evidence" can not be guaranteed to be free ("independent") of Christian contamination is a conclusion of agnosticism. That is not the same as asserting that there's no evidence, which is a conclusion of absolute negation and rejection. Clearly you are not fully presenting the CMT viewpoint in violation of NPOV - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 21:47, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Even the editors who think that the mainstream view is wrong can at least acknowledge that it is our duty as WP editors to basically treat it as if it were right. How about we create a table that lists mythicist charges and lines each one up with mainstream answers? Then everyone could see that there's a mainstream answer to every mythicist charge. A table would help establish the mainstream view, and then when other parts of the page got weird, at least the table would be there as a sort of anchor. Honestly, the editors who are fired up about showing that Jesus never existed are more ardent in their zeal than those of us who simply want to promote mainstream scholarship, so this page will always lean toward the fringe. Likewise, the Jesus page will alway incline toward the Christian view. But our lead on this page is pretty clear, and a table denying each CMT charge would likewise ground the page in mainstream scholarship. Thoughts? Jonathan Tweet ( talk) 00:45, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Per using tables with a Mainstream column and a CMT column, I propose that an RFC on their usage should be created. They are an excellent way of presenting the Mainstream viewpoint in conjunction with a NPOV presentation of the CMT viewpoint. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 03:09, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Example table
| ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
96.29.176.92 ( talk) 14:29, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Per Akhilleus and Jeppiz' recommendation, I'm planning to go through the article and see if I can trim anything out. Today's project was the 20th century proponents section. I managed to trim about 1K of text, and I don't feel that anything important has been deleted. I found several items that seemed irrelevant or unsourced. Any objections? Having gone through the process, I feel that the remaining material in this section is all highly relevant and encyclopedic. JerryRussell ( talk) 17:15, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
I got another 1K out. I'm not coming anywhere close to Akhilleus' suggestion that the text size could be reduced by 1/3. Even with this small cut, I'm wondering if I took too much out. As I've left it, the prose seems a little choppy, purged of detail & human interest.
This section ends with a little link farm list of other proponents. Is this a valid function for the article, to provide links to information that's not been deemed important enough for detailed coverage here? I think it's reasonable that this article can serve as a hub for CMT resources. But if so, shouldn't we provide a secondary-source reference that puts the links in context? JerryRussell ( talk) 18:24, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
I did a character count on the two sections. The total now is about 8500 characters, so I've managed to cut by almost 20%. JerryRussell ( talk) 18:31, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
IP96, this is very similar to the material that you've tried to insert a couple of times before. Akhilleus objected to it, and I'm concerned about it, for three reasons. First, the material would be better expressed as prose, rather than as bullet points. Second, that several of the items seem to be getting at more or less the same point. Third -- that for an outline view of the topic, we should be able to cite a reliable secondary source, rather than relying on our own editorial viewpoint. The sources for each individual point are good, but a list of (some of) the trees isn't the same as a map of the forest. If we draw the map ourselves, we risk presenting a highly idiosyncratic viewpoint. Voorst 2000 and his summary of Bauer, along with the claim that those same points have been regurgitated by everyone since then, has been our map up until now. Do you know of anything better? I'm going to look around and see what I can find.
I apologize for reverting the material. I'm concerned that if we don't self-regulate and do quality control, Jeppiz will come back and zap everything again. JerryRussell ( talk) 21:24, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
OK. Let me re-write it in prose, and see if you don't like it better. Here's how I would say it:
Most Christ Mythicists agree that the evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus Christ is weak at best. No eyewitness accounts survive, in spite of the fact that many authors were writing at that time.[25] The Pauline epistles are dismissed because, aside from a few passages which may have been interpolations, they contain no references to an earthly Jesus who lived in the flesh. There is a complete absence of any detailed biographical information such as might be expected if Jesus had been a contemporary of Paul.[28][29][30] The canonical Gospels and other apocryphal materials cannot be verified as independent sources, and may have all stemmed from a single original fictional account.[26][27] Other early second-century Roman accounts contain very little evidence,[25] and cannot be guaranteed to be independent from Christian sources.[31][32] While some mythicists feel that the lack of evidence alone is sufficient to justify skepticism, others go further, and adduce various arguments to show that Christianity has syncretistic or mythical roots. As such, the historical Jesus should not be regarded as the founder of the religion, even if he did exist.[35][36]
What do you think?
JerryRussell ( talk) 23:05, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
I think JerryRussell makes some great points above, especially in the first paragraph in this section. Nothing I've seen in the latest edits convinces me that we need to move beyond what Van Voorst says about common arguments used by CMT proponents. However, someone might want to look at Ehrman's book and see what he says about commonly used arguments. In any case a description of commonly used arguments needs to be based on a secondary source that discusses which arguments are commonly used by CMT authors—it's original research for a Wikipedia editor to compile their own list of commonly used arguments. --Akhilleus ( talk) 23:13, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
IP96 sent me some quotes from Eddy & Boyd and Ehrman at my talk page, and I've been reviewing Ehrman's introductory chapter. I believe we can give Ehrman, Eddy & Boyd and Carrier as sources for the overview. I don't see anything inconsistent, or that we're missing anything important. Furthermore, I think the new summary is considerably more complete and explanatory than the B/V threefold argument. @ Akhilleus:, would you agree that this is ready to go in, given the additional secondary sourcing? JerryRussell ( talk) 21:09, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Rather than starting from the existing article, I began with IP96's most recent version before the Jeppiz revert. I was able to cut about half the body text from that starting point. However, I kept all IP96's quotes in the footnotes. A few items were brought in from today's version. The net result is that the text size is down about 25% from today, but the markup size is plus 5K. @ Akhilleus:, @ Jeppiz:, would you say that the support via quotes in footnotes is excessive, or is it OK? JerryRussell ( talk) 04:37, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, maybe I already know in my heart that it was excessive. I sliced back 5K of quotes. Markup size is now unchanged.
This entire process was a lot of work. Does anybody have opinions about whether this is getting better or worse? IP96? JerryRussell ( talk) 04:53, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
I've been working on the article this morning. First I finished up my project of trimming up the proponent sections and bringing them up to date, also fetching back a few key items from earlier editions. Then I brought in text for sections on "Lack of historical evidence about Jesus from first century" and "Syncretistic and mythological roots of Christianity", again drawing on earlier versions of the article. I went through this material, consolidated, and did some quality control on the sourcing.
I learned how to install the page metric javascript, so it's now easy for me to measure the prose length of the article. Before Jeppiz' revert of Oct. 22, we were at 47K bytes of prose, 177K of markup. Today we're at 41K bytes of prose, and the markup is all the way down to 136K. The drastic reduction in markup reflects a huge reduction in the amount of quoting, both in blockquotes and footnotes. The prose length utility doesn't count blockquotes or bulleted lists.
I'm hoping that the result of all this work by myself and IP96 meets Jeppiz' first three criteria:
1. A more focused article.
2. Moving away from focus on persons to focus on content.
3. Using reliable sources.
Also, I believe that every item in Akhilleus' bulleted lists of problems has been addressed.
There's still an open issue regarding IP96's outline of our topic, expressed as bullet points and supporting footnotes with quotes. In my opinion, the best way to incorporate this material would be to distribute the information into the appropriate topical sections, to provide additional support. Another option would be to use my prose version, incorporated into the lede. Yet another approach would be to hold back the material for now. I don't have a strong opinion, and am waiting for consensus to develop.
The most important issue is NPOV. The fact is, neither IP96 nor I have made any effort to hide our personal POV. And there's nothing against policy if editors have a point of view, as long as it isn't pushed into the article against consensus. We've made no effort to remove mainstream rebuttals to CMT, and I've brought in mainstream answers to the best of my ability. But the fact is, because of our bias, IP96 and I might not be the ideal editors to bring this article to a truly neutral position. Aside from institutional factors, I really don't understand why the mainstream thinks we're bonkers.
My challenge to editors supporting the mainstream POV is to bring in more mainstream arguments and evidence to counter the CMT point of view, rather than attempting to "win" by hacking away at our supporting materials again. Do you think you could do that? JerryRussell ( talk) 22:36, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
BTW, the article version from Aug. 2013 that I've recommended as a benchmark, was 67K bytes of prose. That was way above the size that should "probably be divided". So compared to back then, at least this version isn't so much TLDR. JerryRussell ( talk) 00:18, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
[A Mythical Jesus viewpoint is, that if Jesus did exist], he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity.
{{
cite book}}
: External link in |chapterurl=
(
help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl=
ignored (|chapter-url=
suggested) (
help)Is there any specific follow up by Ehrman on whom he is referencing —Wells et al. ? - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 23:22, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
In a recent exhaustive elaboration of the position, one of the leading proponents of Jesus mythicism, Earl Doherty, defines the view as follows: it is “the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction, and that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition.” 1 In simpler terms, the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity.The footnote is to Doherty's "Jesus:Neither God nor Man" (2009). Also see our note [4] in the existing article. JerryRussell ( talk) 23:43, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
The "mainstream" of the time would have been the Sadducees, who collaborated with the Romans and their Herodian proxies in maintaining and operating the Temple. The Sadducees helped the Romans collect the temple offerings and taxes. The Pharisees were a populist 'loyal opposition' group, but also had some Hellenistic tendencies. The radical nationalists such as the Essenes were basically underground, and they went by many names, such as Zealots, Sicarii, Nazarenes, and perhaps Therapeuts, but it's hard to tell how distinct those groups really were. These radicals were looking for a Messiah who would lead them in a military revolt against the Romans and Herodians. If I understand correctly, the mainstream speculation about historical Jesus is that he was one of these radicals, and that early Christianity grew out of one of these radical groups. JerryRussell ( talk) 19:21, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Messianic claimants by Jona Lendering includes Judas, the Galilean (6 CE). And the claimants would likely be included in J. M. Robertson's viewpoint that there were several Jesuses who claimed to be Messiahs. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 20:51, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Hello, I recently removed a category, because this is a theory,and not a person, so technically it doesn't fit there.Bye!
Sexperson (
talk)
00:02, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
:
User:JerryRussel, I reverted back to my revision,because I think we need consensus here before we change it back.Sexperson 01:52, 16 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Sexperson (
talk •
contribs)
::It looks stupid from the Category page, because the page is for people, not theories. I suppose it would be sensible to move the Category from here to Jesus (though this page is more useful, but Jesus would make more sense).Sexperson 03:11, 17 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Sexperson (
talk •
contribs)
::::Yeah, I understand. But it still looks dumb, when you click the link to Category Page you'll see this theory alone amongst numerous people articles, looks totally out of place.Sexperson 03:16, 17 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Sexperson (
talk •
contribs)
Discussion opened at Category_talk:People_whose_existence_is_disputed. JerryRussell ( talk) 04:56, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Struck through edits by sock of Gonzales John Doug Weller talk 19:02, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
I just reverted 96.29.176.92's latest edit; I used a popup tool which didn't let me leave an edit summary, which wasn't my intention. So I'll explain myself here. The lead is no place for a long disquisition on variations in the CMT--these details, if important, are things that can be explained in the body of the article. However, there is a strong tendency in this article for people to include all sorts of minor details at the expense of the big picture, which is a big reason the article is as long as it is. Judicious editing could reduce the length of the text by at least a third, I'd say.
Furthermore, the notion that "However in the modern era, disparate proponents, typically have multiple ways of adducing their viewpoint beyond Bauer's three arguments..." is not something that finds much support in secondary sources on this topic. With few exceptions, what's striking about the CMT is how similar modern formulations are to early 20th-century versions of the theory. The exception is Carrier's use of Bayesian reasoning—however, his use of Bayes is so flawed that I'd call it pseudo-Bayesian. But I wouldn't put that in this article, because there aren't any secondary sources that back that opinion up. Similarly, unless there's a reliable secondary source that supports the text 96.29.176.92 added, it shouldn't be in the article. --Akhilleus ( talk) 00:46, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
The same might be said of describing a "zebra" in the lede of an article about "mules". The enumeration of Bauer's arguments does not need to be in the lede, and in fact clutters up the lede. Clearly Bauer's adduced viewpoint and other leading proponents adduced viewpoints should be presented in a section "Adduced viewpoints of proponents", where similarities and differences can be clearly presented. Restating each proponent's adduced viewpoint in their corresponding section, would once again be focusing on the individual proponents, it would be better to group them in one section. Clearly Carrier has the most WP weight and due, and his adduced viewpoint is as similar to Bauer's adduced viewpoint as a zebra is like a mule, which is—sort of. Thus it is clearly incorrect to portray Bauer's arguments as the "Christ myth theory". And just because we are not talking about Ellegård and Allegro, does not mean they are not CMT proponents whose adduced viewpoints are radically distinct from Bauer.
Compatibility Thesis:
Premise 2 is problematic as, per Bauer the conclusion is correct. However per Carrier and Price—the argument is not be sound, as Premise 2 is incorrect. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 02:13, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
"gained no lasting following or influence on subsequent scholarship, especially in the mainstream". Is this saying that Schweitzer was not mainstream? At any rate, this article isn't about the mainstream. Bauer has been influential among mythicists in general. So, I'm not sure we should be including this particular Voorst quote in the lede, and especially not without mentioning the qualification that Voorst was mainly talking about Bauer's lack of influence on the mainstream.
At the end of his study of the Gospels, Bauer is inclined to make the decision of the question whether there ever was a historic Jesus depend on the result of a further investigation which he proposed to make into the Pauline Epistles. It was not until ten years later (1850–1851) that he accomplished this task, (Kritik der Paidinischen Briefe. (Criticism of the Pauline Epistles.) Berlin, 1850-1852.) and applied the result in his new edition of the "Criticism of the Gospel History." (Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs. (Criticism of the Gospels and History of their Origin.) 2 vols., Berlin, 1850-1851.) The result is negative: there never was any historical Jesus.
[Bauer] had long been regarded by theologians as an extinct force; nay, more, had been forgotten. [...] It was, indeed, nothing less than a misfortune that Strauss and Bauer appeared within so short a time of one another. Bauer passed practically unnoticed, because every one was preoccupied with Strauss. Another unfortunate thing was that Bauer overthrew with his powerful criticism the hypothesis which attributed real historical value to Mark, so that it lay for a long time disregarded, and there ensued a barren period of twenty years in the critical study of the Life of Jesus. [...] Bauer's "Criticism of the Gospel History" is worth a good dozen Lives of Jesus, because his work, as we are only now coming to recognise, after half a century, is the ablest and most complete collection of the difficulties of the Life of Jesus which is anywhere to be found.
Bauer's "Criticism of the Pauline Epistles" and "Criticism of the Gospel History" appeared around 1850, and as far as I know they've never been translated into English. "Christ and the Caesars" didn't come out until 1877. I wonder if he changed his mind or softened his position during that time, based on criticism of the earlier works? Anyhow, for Wikipedia purposes, we have no choice but to rely on Schweitzer's review of the ~1850 German works. However, having just read through Schweitzer's chapter on Bauer, I would not say it represents a serious attempt to refute Bauer's work in "Christ and the Caesars". It's more of a quick, incredulous dismissal. JerryRussell ( talk) 16:09, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
His published work on the Synoptic Problem had already contributed towards exploding the theory of the "Christ-myth"—that Jesus as a historical person never existed—by providing the two oldest records of His life to be genuine historical documents.
Translated by W. Montgomery, J. R. Coates, Susan Cupitt, and John Bowden from the German Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, published by J. C. B. Mohr, Tübingen. © J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1906, 1913, 1950. (1st English translation of the 1913 2nd ed.)- 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 08:02, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Christianity and its Christ, Bauer argued, were born in Rome and Alexandria when adherents of Roman Stoicism, Greek Neo-Platonism and Judaism combined to form a new religion that needed a founder.
Jesus Christ did not exist and the morality of the Gospels, are from two different series of precepts belonging to different social groups.
Philo used philosophical allegory to attempt to fuse and harmonize Greek philosophy with Jewish philosophy. His method followed the practices of both Jewish exegesis and Stoic philosophy. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 00:14, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Acharya S/Murdock should be in this article as she once was and should never have been removed. She deserves her own section as she wrote the very first succinct, comprehensive position for mythicists:
The Mythicist Position:
|
---|
"Mythicism represents the perspective that many gods, goddesses and other heroes and legendary figures said to possess extraordinary and/or supernatural attributes are not "real people" but are in fact mythological characters. Along with this view comes the recognition that many of these figures personify or symbolize natural phenomena, such as the sun, moon, stars, planets, constellations, etc., constituting what is called "astrotheology." As a major example of the mythicist position, various biblical characters such as Adam and Eve, Satan, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, King David, Solomon & Jesus Christ, among other figures, in reality represent mythological characters along the same lines as the Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Indian, Greek, Roman and other godmen, who are all presently accepted as myths, rather than historical figures." - Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection page 11-12 The Mythicist Position | What is Mythicism? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63BNKhGAVRQ There are plenty of highly respected scholars who support Acharya's work. Scholars who've actually studied Acharya's work tend to be supportive: "I find it undeniable that many of the epic heroes and ancient patriarchs and matriarchs of the Old Testament were personified stars, planets, and constellations." "I find myself in full agreement with Acharya S/D.M. Murdock" - Dr. Robert Price, Biblical Scholar with two Ph.D's, review of Acharya's "Christ in Egypt" Earl Doherty defers to Acharya for the subject of astrotheology: "A heavenly location for the actions of the savior gods, including the death of Christ, would also have been influenced by most religions' ultimate derivation from astrotheology, as in the worship of the sun and moon. For this dimension of more remote Christian roots, see the books of Acharya S" - Earl Doherty, Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, (2009) page 153 "Your scholarship is relentless! ...the research conducted by D.M. Murdock concerning the myth of Jesus Christ is certainly both valuable and worthy of consideration." - Dr. Ken Feder, Professor of Archaeology "...In recent months or over the last year or so I have interviewed Frank Zindler and Richard Carrier and David Fitzgerald and Robert Price all on the issue of mythicism ... when I spoke to these people I asked for their expertise collectively and what I got, especially from Fitzgerald and Robert Price, was that we should be speaking to tonights guest D.M. Murdock,author of 'Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver'." - Aron Ra, The Ra Men podcast EP10 - Did Moses Exist? with D.M. Murdock "I've known people with triple Ph.D's who haven't come close to the scholarship in Who Was Jesus?" - Pastor David Bruce, M.Div "...I have found her scholarship, research, knowledge of the original languages, and creative linkages to be breathtaking and highly stimulating." - Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham, Pastor "I can recommend your work whole-heartedly!" - Dr. Robert Eisenman "This book is a slightly revised version of my doctoral dissertation entitled “Solar Worship in the Biblical World” which was submitted to the Graduate School of Yale University in the Spring of 1989. As may be judged from the title of that work, I had at one time planned to cover more territory than sun worship in ancient Israel, but found the material pertaining to ancient Israel so vast that I never got beyond it." - Rev. Dr. J. Glen Taylor, "Yahweh and the Sun: Biblical and Archaeological Evidence for Sun Worship in Ancient Israel" (1993) "At Stonehenge in England and Carnac in France, in Egypt and Yucatan, across the whole face of the earth are found mysterious ruins of ancient monuments, monuments with astronomical significance. These relics of other times are as accessible as the American Midwest and as remote as the jungles of Guatemala. Some of them were built according to celestial alignments; others were actually precision astronomical observatories ... Careful observation of the celestial rhythms was compellingly important to early peoples, and their expertise, in some respects, was not equaled in Europe until three thousand years later." - Dr. Edwin Krupp, astronomer and director at Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles Mythicism and the Ph.D.: A Brief History http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=18805 Zeitgeist Part 1: The Greatest Story Ever Told https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt-qYDb7UcI Astrotheology of the Ancients http://stellarhousepublishing.com/astrotheology.html Star Worship of the Ancient Israelites http://astrotheology.net/star-worship-of-the-ancient-israelites/ Zodiacs on the Floor of Synagogues http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=4148 2,750-year-old solar-aligned temple discovered in Israel http://freethoughtnation.com/2750-year-old-solar-aligned-temple-discovered-in-israel/ Stone Age Zodiac by National Geographic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk8R6IyM5Ec “The claim that the 12 tribes of Israel were identified with the 12 signs of the zodiac is spelled out clearly by the ancient Jewish writers Philo and Josephus, during the first century. During the first century BCE, Diodorus Siculus identified the 12 tribes with the 12 months. “See Exodus 39:9-14: "...they made the breastplate... And they set in it four rows of stones... And the stones were according to the names of the children of Israel, twelve...according to the twelve tribes.” As Josephus says (Antiquities, 3.8): “And for the twelve stones, whether we understand by them the months, or whether we understand the like number of the signs of that circle which the Greeks call the zodiac, we shall not be mistaken in their meaning.” (Josephus/Whiston, 75.) Earlier than Josephus, Philo (“On the Life of Moses,” 12) had made the same comments regarding Moses: “Then the twelve stones on the breast, which are not like one another in colour, and which are divided into four rows of three stones in each, what else can they be emblems of, except of the circle of the zodiac?” (Philo/Duke, 99.)” – Christ in Egypt, 261-2 Malachi 4:2 “…the sun was worshipped by the Israelites, who associated it with their tribal god Yahweh. Like Father, like son, and the connection between Jesus and the sun is first evidenced in the OT book of Malachi (4:2), which immediately precedes the New Testament and in which the author refers to the “Sun of Righteousness” who will “arise with healing in his wings.” This scripture, which is in the last chapter before the Gospel of Matthew, sounds much like the winged solar disc of Babylon and Egypt.” “This scripture in Malachi is perceived as a reference to the coming messiah, Jesus Christ. In this regard, this clearly solar appellation “Sun of Righteousness” is repeated many times by early Church fathers as being applicable to Christ.” |
For more information: Jesus as the Sun throughout History http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/jesussunexcerpt.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.94.225.154 ( talk) 20:29, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
The problem occurred to me when I noticed "an historical Jesus", a variant that is overwhelmingly more common in British English than American English (although not non-existant therein) and is difficult to pronounce in a way that doesn't sound like Cockney slang (see [1]). But the article is a mess ENGVAR-wise. Excluding direct quotations (obviously), -ise is used twice, while -ize appears more than a dozen times. Obviously there is a preference in the current version for American spellings and ... vocabulary (?), but what was first, and should we WP:PRESERVE that if British spellings were? The topic doesn't apparently have strong WP:TIES one way or the other. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 06:23, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Biblical inerrancy? Biblical literalism? Is the implication that there is some connection between belief that Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical person and biblical inerrancy? Because as a non-inerrantist who accepts the historical consensus regarding the existence of Jesus I find that association questionable.
Others are arguably just as weird, though. Criticism of Christianity only links to this page in a misleading paragraph loaded with weasel words and misrepresents criticism of Christianity as "originating" with the "Christ Myth theory", and Criticism of Christianity only mentions this topic while quoting a self-contradictory opinion of Bertrand Russell that Jesus didn't exist but at the same time was worthy of being argued with; honestly, I don't see why you would want to criticize someone who you don't think ever existed.
The section needs to be culled, IMO.
Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 06:34, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
The above quoted (J. M. Robertson (1910), p.287) ap. Archibald Robertson (1946) was redacted per "Quote taken out of context." - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 08:01, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
It's a near-certainty that several Jesuses made messianic claims, since Jesus was an extremely common name and messiah claims were almost as common. And it's in Josephus. It has no bearing one way or the other.I'm not so sure it has no bearing one way or the other. Several recent books have made claims that characters mentioned in Josephus, such as Judas the Galilean, or The Egyptian, were in fact the historical basis of the Jesus character in the New Testament. Furthermore, Judas the Galilean may have been the actual founder of the Christian religion, or at least the Ebionite (Jewish Zealot) branch. The Egyptian may have been an important prophet and leader of that same Ebionite church. Yet neither of those characters was said to be born in Nazareth, or crucified under Pontius Pilate. So if someone claims that Judas the Galilean was the Historical Jesus, is that person a mythicist? How would such a claim be evaluated by the mainstream? Can this discussion be worked into the article, given that the Wiki RS status of the books making these claims will be subject to debate? JerryRussell ( talk) 19:33, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
What we should do is (in the body of the article!) discuss the fact that some mythicists have claimed that the existence of other Jesuses making messianic claims is evidence against Jesus of Nazareth having existed, and balance it out with the claims of their opponents that this is irrelevant.Hijiri88, do you have a source for this claim by opponents? I agree it should be in the article. JerryRussell ( talk) 18:44, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Per René Salm, Semi-mythicists endorses the existence of a prophet at the origin of Christianity, but maintains that prophet had little or no resemblance to Jesus of Nazareth.
René Salm's list of semi-mythicists
|
---|
(Semi-Myth) = Semi-mythicist. Endorses the existence of a prophet at the origin of Christianity, but maintains that prophet had little or no resemblance to Jesus of Nazareth. 1791 • (Semi-Myth) COMPTE DE VOLNEY, Les Ruines. Volney argued that the gospel story was compiled organically when simple allegorical statements like “the virgin has brought forth” were misunderstood as history. Volney parted company with Dupuis by allowing that confused memories of an obscure historical figure may have contributed to Christianity when they were integrated with solar mythology. He predicted the final union of all religions and the recognition of a common truth underlying them all. 1871 • (Semi-myth) SYTZE HOEKSTRA, De Christologie van het kanonische Marcus-Evangelie (Dutch). One of the first Dutch Radicals, Hoekstra considered Mark’s gospel worthless as a biography of Jesus. For him, the synoptics are symbolic poetry. 1886 • (Semi-Myth) ABRAHAM DIRK LOMAN. Quaestiones Paulinae (“Questions on the Paulines”) contends that not only Galatians, but all of Paul’s Epistles are (following Bruno Bauer) 2nd century forgeries. Loman finds no evidence of the Paulinae before Marcion and considers the epistles to be Gnostic treatises. For him, Jesus is a 2nd century fiction though ‘some’ Jesus may have existed, quite buried in history. The Jesus of Christianity is an ideal symbol, a non-historical construction. 1914 • (Semi-Myth) FREDERICK C. CONYBEARE, The historical Christ, or, An investigation of the views of Mr. J.M. Robertson, Dr. A. Drews, and Prof. W.B. Smith. Conybeare was an Orientalist and Professor of Theology at Oxford. For him, the texts show a gradual deification of an existing human source. 1930 • (Semi-myth) DANIEL MASSÉ, The Enigma of Jesus Christ. Massé believed that Jesus was in fact John of Gamala, the son of Judas of Gamala. The true Nazareth was Gamala, where Jesus bar Judah was born. Massé viewed the gospels as deliberate efforts on the part of the Church to falsify history. For him, exegesis is a way in which ecclesiastics propagandize the masses. 1957 • (Semi-Myth) JOHN MARCO ALLEGRO, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of Christianity. Prof. Allegro, one of the original DSS team, had the courage to buck his teammates. Prescient in many ways, Allegro’s provocative proposals may not be all correct but they nevertheless attest to a remarkable scholar. 1975 • (Semi-Myth) GEORGE A. WELLS, Did Jesus Exist? Greatly influenced by Arthur Drews, Wells is a prolific writer and arguably the foremost mythicist representative in Europe today. Wells may be best characterized as a semi-mythicist, for he does not exclude the possibility that a prophet lay at the origins of Christianity, yet one with little in common with Jesus of Nazareth. Wells is a former Chairman of the Rationalist Press Association, with degrees in German, Philosophy, and natural science. 1999 • (Semi-myth) ALVAR ELLEGARD. Jesus—One Hundred Years Before Christ: A Study In Creative Mythology. Ellegard argues that Jesus is to be identified with the Essene Teacher of Righteousness and actually lived a century before the common era, during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus. 2008 • (Semi-Myth) RENÉ SALM. The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus. Presents an exhaustive review of the primary archaeological evidence from the Nazareth basin and concludes that the town came into existence between the two Jewish revolts. Salm received undergraduate degrees in Music and German, and was active as a composer and keyboardist for a number of years. Interest in religion began in early adulthood and led to independent study of Buddhism and then Christianity, including occasional post-graduate coursework. Salm considers himself an Atheist, a Buddhist, and (in an ethical rather than doctrinal sense) a Christian . He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and maintains several websites. He is pursuaded that Jesus of Nazareth is a pure invention as regards all biographical particulars, but suspects that a prophet may have lived several generations before the turn of the era, one who inspired the gnostic religion known as Mandeism and (though considerable perversion) Pauline Christianity. |
More of Carrier's key points noted by Brian Bethune
|
---|
|
96.29.176.92 ( talk) 20:21, 1 December 2016 (UTC) & update 20:54, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
section is for references only
|
---|
This section is for reference purposes. Citations are listed in reverse chronological order: (1) FROM BOOKS AND JOURNALS:
(2) SCIENTIFIC SUPPORT FOR THE CHRIST MYTH THEORY:
Frank R. Zindler, “Where Jesus Never Walked.” American Atheist journal, Winter 1996–97.
(3) FROM NON-PRINT SOURCES (WEBLOGS, ETC.):
|
The Thomas Brodie case with the Dominicans was closed in 2014. The source for this information is the Dominican periodical 'Doctrine and Life'. The Dominicans seem to be rather old-fashioned: this publication doesn't appear on the Web as far as I can find, except where it is quoted at the Wikipedia article for Thomas L. Brodie. Is it considered reasonable to assume that the earlier Wiki editor (in this case, Kky123), has quoted the material correctly?
Continuing through my tour of the archives, I found that this 2010 version had briefly been awarded 'good article' status. In following discussions, CMT proponents claimed that the article had been 'owned' by mainstream critics of the CMT, and the article was delisted from 'good' status as a result. Looking at the 2010 article, it does seem that it's a little thin on its representation of proponent viewpoints. But, the section on criticisms is really very good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Christ_myth_theory&oldid=345603403#Scholarly_reception
— Preceding unsigned comment added by JerryRussell ( talk • contribs) 20:00, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
There is an obvious fringe claim in this Wikipedia article, and that is noting that Dorothy Murdock believes that Jesus is based on earlier characters like Horus. This clearly outrageous claim violates Wikipedia:Fringe theories and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Dorothy Murdock is not a notable individual in academia in the slightest, in fact she doesn't even have anything more than a Bachelors degree in historical fields. She's just a conspiracy theorist who got too popular. Either way, the inclusion of her claims is in clear violation of at least two important Wikipedia policies, and dare I say a violation of WP:NPOV. This must obviously be removed. Korvex ( talk) 22:31, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Dorothy Murdock is not a notable individual in academia in the slightest...I beg to differ. Her writings have been criticized by a number of highly notable individuals, including by the preeminent scholar of New Testament history alive today. Please familiarize yourself with WP:FRINGE, WP:NOT and WP:WEIGHT. I understand that you are a new editor and that some aspects of WP may seem counter-intuitive, but our policies have stabilized to their current form with good reason. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:44, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
This must obviously be removed.with an edit count of less than 200 is very bad form, and likely to only galvanize resistance to your position by more experienced editors. Your limited experience just doesn't lend itself to a complete understanding of WP policy. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:46, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Off-hand dismissals do not qualify as scholarly scrutiny.You are clearly unfamiliar with the treatment of her writings. Her claims have been highly influential among mythicists, and as such have gotten significant coverage. For example, Ehrman devotes an entire subheading of Did Jesus Exist? to her most popular book and cites two other works of hers on the subject.
her citation still violates Wikipedia:Reliable sources.No. Otherwise unreliable sources most certainly can be used to evince the views of the author. That is how they are used in this case.
But thanks about noting to me that scholarly scrutiny can also qualify one to bypassing Wikipedia:Fringe theories.It's not bypassing anything. So long as the fringe material is attributed to the source and isn't given undue weight, it's perfectly acceptable. How else could we possibly have a Flat earth article?
One thing to ask as well -- did you figure out I'm a new user by quickly clicking on my profile?That and the way you write on talk pages.
Point is, unless one can show published scholarly scrutiny rather than off-hand dismissals of her fringe views, Dorothy's notion gets shot down by WP:FRINGE and the current citation is subject to WP:IRS regardless.I STRONGLY suggest you carefully read both of those pages, because you are not representing them in a way that conforms to the community's understanding.
This discussion has gone quiet, and I'm happy with the outcome. But for the record, I want to add that the existing text about Acharya was a compromise that I suggested as a resolution to a long-standing conflict. At one time, Acharya's views were the topic of an entire paragraph in this article. This was deleted after much controversy as undue. Not too much later, one of Acharya's readers stopped by the talk page and demanded to know how such a famous individual could go unmentioned. I feel the same way, and introduced the existing sentence with a link to her Wikipedia article. I should also add, the suggestion above that Acharya's views on the relation between Horus and Jesus are universally rejected by respectable scholarship, is incorrect. Or at least, if you view Price as a respectable scholar. His review was full of praise for Acharya's book "Christ in Egypt: the Horus-Jesus Connection", complaining only that Acharya did not go far enough. That's why I chose that particular source. JerryRussell ( talk) 17:37, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
I should also add, the suggestion above that Acharya's views on the relation between Horus and Jesus are universally rejected by respectable scholarship, is incorrect.No, it's not. There are no scholars who have put any serious study into this assertion and concluded that there might be something to it. Price has mentioned it a few times to my knowledge, but Price's qualifications to make accurate statements about Egyptian mythology are non-existent. The differences between Horus and Jesus are vast, and most of the similarities described by Acharya are simply made up, and do not appear anywhere else in the available literature (except where they're sourced to her). Hell, just checking the publicly accessible sources at Horus will show that this is so. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:02, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
I did qualify my statement with the premise that it's based on the notion that Price is a respectable scholar.I see what you mean. When it comes to theology, sure; I respect his opinion a great deal. But as has been pointed out by a number of experts: you're only an expert in your particular field of study.
I've come to see you as an editor who puts NPOV above your own opinions.Well thank you for saying so. Respect goes both ways. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:38, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Quite interesting tool. -- RosaLuxemburgOnFreedom ( talk) 08:54, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
![]() | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
Christ myth theory (365 days)
![]() | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
talk:Christ myth theory (365 days)
How about a larger archive size? 75k is quite inconvenient, when one wants to scroll through the archives. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 05:09, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
Why does this keep getting removed? Slatersteven ( talk) 11:18, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
Apparently it is because the source is not "scientific" (whatever that means). Slatersteven ( talk) 11:57, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyHfVReWpTA
I think that the founder of a rival religious belief system cannot be open-minded and therefore scientific honestly deliberate on whether Jesus of Nazareth existed and on what he did. Therefore it isn't proper to include it in THIS article. If that founder's opinion on "Christ myth theory" is an important topic for that belief system then it has to be added THERE. (But until now it isn't even mentioned there.)-- RosaLuxemburgOnFreedom ( talk) 19:57, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels". It goes on to point out that "
The Christ myth theory contradicts the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many mythical or legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the biography of a historical figure".
Wells, George Albert, ed. (1987). J.M. Robertson (1856-1933): liberal, rationalist, and scholar : an assessment by several hands. Pemberton. pp. 162–163.
ISBN
0301870020.
. We're relying on the editorial skills and reputation of
George Albert Wells and the publication process of Pemberton Publishers to give us confidence that the source is reliable in what it says about Robertson's views. See
Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources for the full guidance.Corydon, Bent; Ambry, Brian (1992).
L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman?. Barricade Books. p. 353.
ISBN
0-942637-57-7.
, then state it here.
WP:BALANCE tells us "when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both points of view and work for balance. This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint." It doesn't tell us to leave out both sets of views, when it is clear that they are relevant and significant per WP:NPOV. -- RexxS ( talk) 01:41, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
Hard to believe the amount of discussion for something very simple: Hubbard does not belong here. This is an article about a specific scholarly view. Hubbard was not a scholar, and his personal opinion is entirely WP:UNDUE here. Perhaps relevant in the article about Hubbard or about Scientology. The user arguing that the opinion of any notable person is a notable opinion on any matter is quite simply mistaken. This is not the article to list any Tom, Dick or Harry who thought this or that about Jesus, no matter if they are notable in other regards. Jeppiz ( talk) 00:56, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
"All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."? That's all of the significant views, not just the ones that you cherry-pick. -- RexxS ( talk) 01:30, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
This is an article about a specific scholarly view.No. This is an article about the Christ myth theory in general, which most certainly has a footprint in popular culture. It's not limited to the scholarly aspects of the theory. See Christ myth theory#Documentaries for a list of popular documentaries alleging it. Those are most certainly not scholarly works. Considering that this mention is a single sentence, relegated to a subsection called "Other modern proponents" at the end of the "Modern proponents" section, I hardly think there's any case to be made for this being undue. This is akin to suggesting that we not mention Jenny McCarthy in MMR vaccine controversy. I understand the assertion that this person is not an expert and that their opinion is worthless. I even agree with that assertion, wholeheartedly. But to suggest that it's not notable because it's not reliable is ridiculous. If we only acknowledge experts, we'd have to gut a huge chunk of the encyclopedia, including virtually everything we have on entertainment and the arts. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:48, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
RexxS, I'm afraid you're unfamiliar (or, given your veteran status, you momentarily forgot) WP:DUE. It is unclear to me, at least, how the views of an uneducated cult leader (Scientology is a "cult" as per my county's parliament, so that's the term I'll use) are due here. If you want to make the argument for why it's due, please do. I'm merely pointing out it has not been made. It's not as if we post the bogus "interpretation" of Egyptian hieroglyphs made up by Joseph Smith in any article on Egyptology. Jeppiz ( talk) 01:09, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.It is the policy that determines whether a piece of content should be included in an article or not. Do you agree with me so far?
Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Again you see the insistence on the the phrase "all significant viewpoints". I hope you can see that the word "due" in content terms actually means "proportionate" as the policy makes clear. Can we agree that?
Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views.". And I can see some face value in the argument: not many people subscribe to Hubbard's views on the Christ myth theory. But what if not many people hold the views of Bruno Bauer? Note that "Bauer's work was heavily criticized at the time ... and his work did not have much impact on future myth theorists." Not much impact = little significance, yet it gets a sentence in the lead and a whole section with two paragraphs in the article body. Or to the viewpoint that "Christianity was an amalgamation of various ancient mythologies and that Jesus was a totally mythical character." per Volney & Dupuis, which gets a whole paragraph (admittedly only two sentences), and so on through all the different sections. Hubbard's view is given a single sentence (admittedly a paragraph in its own right) in a section comprising of nine paragraphs devoted to the 20th century proponents. So I ask you: is Hubbard's viewpoint held by such a tiny minority that it does not even deserve a single sentence, while the views of the MP John Mackinnon Robertson (that Jesus was invented by a first-century messianic cult, which believed in a solar deity symbolized by the lamb and the ram) are worthy of a paragraph of six sentences. I could go on, but I'm sure you can appreciate the point I make, regardless of whether you agree with it. If Hubbard's viewpoint in the published, reliable sources has achieved the same order of magnitude of prominence as those of Robertson, then your only argument to exclude it would be if nobody held that view. But I expect a lot of hard-core Scientologists take what Hubbard expressed as their gospel, and I very much doubt that your argument will stand up to that scrutiny.
Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views." Is this not the article devoted to this view on Christ, which Hubbard subscribes to? Hubbard's view was that no historical Jesus existed. Well, when I look that view up at Historicity of Jesus I'm directed right back to this article. Which is as it should be.
all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources. -- RexxS ( talk) 16:31, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
This was recently added to the lead: " According to these theories, the Jesus of the Gospel sayings is a literary construct, the embodiment of Wisdom, while the Christ of Paul is a mythological redeemer whose death opened the convenant for non-Jews. Together with Messianistic and apocalyptic expectations, the two characters converged in the Gospel narratives, which were later taken as historical accounts." This seems very problematic to me, number one there is only one Christ myth theory, which is that Jesus never existed, it should not say "theories", then it is not the case that all proponents of this theory say that Jesus in the Gospels is the embodiment of Wisdom and Paul's Christ is a mythological redeemer. I think this passage should be removed but will wait to see what others think. Smeat75 ( talk) 18:49, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree that the quoted sentences sum up only a subset of the various mythicist positions, and I'm glad to see they were removed from the lede. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:45, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I fear this article is trying to eat its cake and have it. Far too often, it combines amateur tinfoil conspiracy theorists (like Doherty) with minority scholars (like Price). It basically uses Price as a cover while putting forward the conspiracy theories. It's time to make a choice and stop conflicting these - are we going to present the scholarly minority and do away with the amateurs, or are we going to present amateurs and clearly identify it as a conspiracy theory? Both options are fine, but this current practice of using the odd scholar as veneer for the conspiracy theorists just isn't serious. Jeppiz ( talk) 23:55, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
What's missing are the arguments pro a mythological account, that is, the comparisons with Jewish mythological themes of the time, et cetera.This is a totally valid criticism of the article, especially when it comes to Jewish and gnostic mythological themes. Partly, this is because most mythicist authors emphasize pagan, Greek, Roman and/or Egyptian sources much more so than Jewish sources. Thomas Brodie comes to mind as a primary advocate for the view that Jesus is based on Jewish myth. I don't know if any of our page editors have read Brodie -- I certainly haven't. So, @ Joshua Jonathan:, I am looking forward to any information you can add to the article about this. JerryRussell ( talk) 17:13, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
@ JerryRussell: thank you for your response; I'll response later; dinner is waiting. But you've got a point about Carrier's polemics, and I'd love to incorporate more about the pro-arguments. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 17:22, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
I've re-ordered the info in the lead and in the first section:
I hope that this adds to the readability of the article. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 19:58, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
According to Carrier, as cited in the lead, "Jesus was originally a [deity] who was later historicized." This is incorrect, at least regarding Wells and Doherty. They both relate Jesus to a wisdom tradition, as represented in Q; accoridng to Wells, there may have been a real teacher, while according to Doherty this character is "fictionous," the personification of Wisdom. Both agree that Paul's Christ was mythological. They also both state that the Gospels joined together various views, most notably this Q-teacher and Paul's cosmic Christ. According to Doherty, the Gospel is a form of midrash, reading new meanings intoe xisting texts. Doherty further argues that the Gospel of Marc borrowed the baptism by John the Baptist from a concurring group. Altogether, it gives the sequence of Baptism - preaching - crucification. So, it seems to me that Carrier's definition is misleading, or, at least, not accurate. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 06:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
"Paul sincerely believed that the evidence (not restricted to the Wisdom literature) pointed to a historical Jesus who had lived well before his own day; and I leave open the question as to whether such a person had in fact existed and lived the obscure life that Paul supposed of him. (There is no means of deciding this issue.)" Wells, George (2013). The Jesus Legend. Open Court Publishing Company. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-8126-9872-5.
Naming: God, Wisdom, Torah and Christ
|
---|
The pre-Exilic (before 586 BCE) Old Testament allowed no equals to Yahweh in heaven, despite the continued existence of an assembly of subordinate servant-deities who helped make decisions about matters on heaven and earth. The post-Exilic writers of the Wisdom tradition (e.g. the Book of Proverbs, Song of Songs, etc.) develop the idea that Wisdom, later identified with Torah, existed before creation and was used by God to create the universe: "Present from the beginning, Wisdom assumes the role of master builder while God establishes the heavens, restricts the chaotic waters, and shapes the mountains and fields." Borrowing ideas from Greek philosophers who held that reason bound the universe together, the Wisdom tradition taught that God's Wisdom, Word and Spirit were the ground of cosmic unity. Christianity in turn adopted these ideas and applied them to Jesus: the Epistle to the Colossians calls Jesus "...image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation...", while the Gospel of John identifies him with the creative word ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"). |
74.138.110.32 ( talk) 19:12, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
First published: "The Historicity of Jesus" in The Hibbert Journal 37, (1938). p.193-214
James Patrick Holding, Shattering the Christ Myth; Mark Gerard Craig Med, The Christ Myth; Bart Ehrmann, Did Jesus Exist? - they all note that "the Christ myth" i gaining popularity, and take aim at this popularity. Is this an American debate? In Holland, frankly, most people don't care if he existed or not, and are also not interested in analyses which state that he didn't. So, is this an American debate? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 21:26, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Per Jesus Mythicism: An Introduction by Minas Papageorgiou, Nineteen prominent academics and researchers were asked to comment upon the question: Did Jesus really exist? The interviewees are: Dr Robert Price (theologian), Dr Richard Carrier (historian), Dr Maria Dzielska (historian), Dr Gerd Ludemann (theologian), Dr Gunnar Samuelsson (theologian), Dr Lena Einhorn (biologist and history researcher), Dr Payam Nabarz (writer and recreationist of the Mithraic Temple), Raphael Lataster (academic and researcher), Earl Doherty (historian), D. M. Murdock/ Acharya S (writer and scholar of comparative religion and mythology), Kenneth Humphreys (writer and researcher), Joseph Atwill (writer and researcher), Neil Godfrey (coordinator of the mythicist blog Vridar), Fritz Heede (filmmaker), Francesco Carotta (linguist and researcher), Daniel Unterbrink (writer and researcher), Ioannis Mpousios (writer and organiser of the “Gardens of Adonis” celebrations), Christos Morfos (writer and researcher), and Harita Meenee (philologist and writer). —Ref. Neil Godfrey (4 May 2015). "Jesus Mythicism: An Introduction by Minas Papageorgiou". Vridar.
There have been a lot of changes to this article recently, mostly for the better imo, however at some point these quotes were removed from what was the "criticism" section "Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees". Bart D. Ehrman states that the existence of Jesus and his crucifixion by the Romans is attested to by a wide range of sources including Josephus and Tacitus. Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan, highly skeptical with regard to the Gospel accounts of miracles, wrote in 1995 That (Jesus) was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus... agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact." I think these need to be re-instated, I will slightly modify them, because they show why classical/ancient historians regard the idea that Jesus never existed as preposterous. Anyone who has studied ancient history at all knows that there is nothing unusual about all sorts of major personages or events being known about from only one reference hundreds of years later in one of the very few works of ancient history that survive.Historians do not look at a passage from Tacitus and say "I don't think there ever was such a person" as the person Tacitus says did this or that. What is unusual in the case of Jesus is that there is so much evidence for him, multiple attestation in ancient documents, Christian, Jewish and Roman, exceedingly rare. Smeat75 ( talk) 13:56, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
@ Joshua Jonathan:Richard Carrier uses Paul's letters to show that Paul and Peter believed in a visionary/dream Jesus, with the resurrection stuff coming from Septuagint verses Isaiah 52-53, Daniel 9, Zechariah 3 and 6 etc. This is not an "argument from silence". VictoriaGrayson Talk 23:57, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
(Morton Smith, "The Historical Jesus," in Jesus in Myth and History. ed. R. Joseph Hoffmann and Gerald A. Larue [Buffalo: Prometheus, 1986] 47-48)- 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 18:12, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
I've re-inserted the edits at the apprpriate places, namely the "Pauline epistles" section and the "Richard Carrier" section. We have to be carefull, though, not to lend too much weight to too little pieces of info from specific writers. As for the various opinions of editors: it's up to each one what to believe, or what too conclude. The task for the Wiki-article, though, is to give a representative overview. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 18:34, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
The section for potential authors on Sheffield Phoenix Press's website says, 'Manuscripts offered by the author will always be sent for evaluation to a series editor or a reader for the Press.' [11]
That's absolutely standard for history books published by UK academic presses, although frequently it's two readers, often one of series editors and an outside reader.
Series editors will be major experts in the field covered by the series. That they are the editors of a particular series is not secret. Typically the one who will read it will be whichever of them is most qualified. If a second reader is used, this will usually be an outside expert. The series editors then take a collective decision on whether to accept the book. Obviously the views of the one who has read the book tends to carry the most weight. Given that one of the readers' reports will probably be by a series editor, it may not be too difficult for the author to work out who wrote that particular report. But the author will know that it's the series editors who have the final say anyway. The author may well also find out who the other reader was, as this is where the publishers get their blurbs from. Or the reader may just tell the author.
The process for collections of essays in history is usually much the same. Most academic presses will send them out to one outside reader. That's because the editor(s) of the collection will usually have invited the contributors to contribute and so cannot be considered independent.
Academic publishers will sometimes ask authors for recommendations for possible readers. But of course they do so in the full knowledge that authors will recommend names they think will be sympathetic. This can be used as a way of working out who not to send the book to.
Trade publishers are rather different. Some do retain prominent academics to read submissions. But this may involve them reading submissions on subjects on which they're not really an expert. Indeed, what the publisher may want from them is not a thorough check so much as a general sense of its quality. Others trade publishers do not use academic readers at all.
In any case, saying that a history book has been peer-reviewed does not mean that what the book says is correct. Criticisms that a reader might make are not necessarily taken on board. An author is entitled to try to convince the editors that those criticisms are wrong, irrelevant or simply a matter of opinion. Yet those criticisms could still prove to be well-founded. It is also not unknown for readers to recommend publication while saying that they personally disagree with the author's conclusions. Nor is there any requirement for a particular series or a publisher's wider list to be consistent. I'm pretty sure that many of the other authors published by Sheffield Phoenix Press will strongly disagree with Carrier's views. The only person involved in the whole publication process who must agree with Carrier's views is Carrier himself.
Finally, the real process of peer-review of history books happens after publication, when the book gets reviewed in academic journals. The glowingness of the readers' reports counts for little if the journal reviews are damning.
74.138.110.32 (
talk)
17:16, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
Aviezer (2016) is not a review of OHJ (2014) - Per Carrier, "Harvard University philosopher, Aviezer Tucker, just published a review of my book Proving History: [Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (2012)]... It is also important to note his qualifying remark: “I disclaim any expertise in the historiographical debate about Jesus.” He is thus not attempting to evaluate any claims in that field. He is only interested in looking at my Bayesian analysis of them and assessing how far it gets toward what he’d like to see done." [Ref. "Tucker's Review of Proving History in the Journal History & Theory - Richard Carrier". Richard Carrier. 3 February 2016. - 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 02:41, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Per Petterson, Christina (2015). "Book Review: On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, by Richard Carrier". Relegere. 5 (2): 253–258. - Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception is a journal dedicated to the study of reception history, broadly conceived, in the fields of religion and biblical studies. Relegere is published online two times a year and is open-access. All articles undergo blind peer review. [13] - 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 03:13, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Before all of the recent shuffling, there had been a section titled "Syncretistic and mythological roots of Christianity". Most of the material in that section has been moved into the section on the Gospels. But the arguments in that section weren't specific to the Gospels, but would apply to the entire New Testament and much of the apocrypha and early church literature and traditions as well. So I feel it should be moved back into its own section, as it had been previously. Thoughts? JerryRussell ( talk)
I already did: User:Joshua Jonathan/List of Christ myth proponents. No missing refs, so it could be moved into mainspace rigth-away. but if we condense the correspondng info in the main article, there are probably some named refs missing, so that might take some work to correct. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 17:19, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
At seconf thought: this listpage probably won't work; it may easily become a coatrack, with an incredible long list of myhticists, unreadable, and abandoned by those who also want to give the counter-arguments. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 06:19, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
In the previous thread, I wrote "The best this article can do is to give an overview of the arguments, the authors, and some sort of insight into the "development" of these ideas, c.q. who was influenced by who. Paul-Louis Couchoud, for example, is mentioned in only one short sentence. Yet, he influenced Ellegard (not mentioned anymore in the article), and Price mentions Couchoud's comment on the Christ Hymn as the last blow to the historicity of Jesus in "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man."" Vridar.org quotes Doherty, stating "It wasn’t until the 1920s that Paul-Louis Couchoud in France offered a more coherent scenario, identifying Christ in the eyes of Paul as a spiritual being. (While not relying upon him, I would trace my type of thinking back to Couchoud, rather than the more recent G. A. Wells who, in my opinion, misread Paul’s understanding of Christ." Couchoud argued that Jesus is not a "myth," but a "religious conception," and as such, a new deity, not a person who was deified. A few additinal lines seem to be justified. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 06:17, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
Some essential info is still missing:
Ample space here for more links to relevant Wiki-pages. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 09:33, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
PS: the two opening descriptions in the lead should be reversed, in my opinion. AnEhrman's description should be appended with his own words: "In simpler terms:". Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 07:48, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
Reply by 74.138.110.32
Per Thompson:
Per Arnal:
And excerpted in Pfoh, Emanuel (2012). "Jesus and the Mythic Mind: An Epistemological Problem". In Thomas L. Thompson (ed.). "Is this Not the Carpenter?": The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus. Thomas S. Verenna. Equinox. p. 85. ISBN 978-1-84553-986-3. —Ref. [Godfrey, Neil (2 September 2012). "Why Historical Knowledge of Jesus is Impossible: 'Is This Not the Carpenter?' chapter 5". Vridar.] - 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 00:37, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
The "cherry-picking" was my own work... My apologies. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 07:47, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
When it is about the number of mythicists, they are marginal. But when it is about the number of PhD's among them, there are suddenly much more, so that the percentage of PhD's is very small. Curious. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 05:42, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
Literature & Aesthetics. Vol 26 (2016). ISSN: 2200-0437- 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 08:05, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
Per Raphael Lataster, "Throughout Did Jesus Exist? Ehrman asserts that the highly questionable, fiction-filled, and relatively late Gospel accounts can generally be trusted, because of the written and oral sources underlying them that “obviously” existed, though they do not anymore (for example, see pp. 75-79). Not once does Ehrman explain the rationality and widespread endorsement of this ‘method’. Nor does he explain how his approach can provide information about the content, genre, and so forth, of these hypothetical sources."Note that I'm responding to the Lataster quote.
New edition, Revised and Expanded, Originally published under the title: The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? - Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus
4th print [1st print Ottawa: Canadian Humanist Publications].
{{
cite book}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1=
(
help)I understand that Doherty (2009) content supersedes the Journal and Website content. - 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 00:59, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 | → | Archive 32 |
I was struck by IP96's addition of a quote from Thomas Brodie: (1) The quote, though lengthy, adds very little information to what's already in the article; and (2) starts to be undue weight. Although Brodie did emphasize the link between the Elisha/Elijah stories and the New Testament, there's a lot more to his ideas than just that. He talks a lot about Matthew's dependency on Deuteronomy and on the Pauline epistles, for example.
I notice that Gonzales John has recently been blocked indefinitely for sock puppetry, and that IP 49.144.167.188 is one of his suspected socks. So I guess that's the end of the RfC saga.
But, there were several other experienced editors who agreed with GJ that this article is out of control. Part of the reasoning behind the idea of creating topical sections, was that the biography sections could get shorter. So now we've started creating the topical sections, but I haven't seen much migration of text. Instead, the biographies just keep getting longer.
I'd like to suggest that we re-open the discussion about what's important here, and what the article should be emphasizing. JerryRussell ( talk) 23:33, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
MacDonald, Dennis R. (7 May 2015).
Mythologizing Jesus: From Jewish Teacher to Epic Hero. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 2–3.
ISBN
978-1-4422-3350-8. The Markan Evangelist, as we shall see, created most of his characters and episodes without the help of antecedent traditions or sources; instead, he imitated the Homeric epics that centuries earlier had come to define Greek cultural identity and retained this unrivaled status for at least a millennium. The author of the Gospel of Luke rightly read Mark as a historical fiction and expanded its imitations to include even more Homeric episodes. Thus, to read the Gospels as historically reliable witnesses to the life of Jesus obscures their authors intention to demonstrate for their first readers that Jesus was the ultimate superhero, superior to gods and heroes in books such as the Iliad and the Odyssey as well as Jewish Scriptures. Not only is he more powerful, but he also embodies different ethical values, such as justice, compassion, and love.
96.29.176.92 (
talk)
13:01, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
There are a few statements used in the criticism section that perpetuate wrong thinking when dealing with this issue. Here they are with my comments:
If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned. - COMMENTS: We should question them! Simply because we accept the historicity of other persons based on slim evidence, does not mean we should compound our error with yet another.
no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus - COMMENTS: In whose opinion are the scholars 'serious'? How do we know that they have not? What difference does it make to the discourse if they did? The answer of course is that it makes no difference at all, and it is surplus to the discussion.
The insistence of this article and of the Jesus page main article of claiming things like 'most scholars', and 'there is broad consensus' etc., is against the spirit of WP in my view, and amounts to weasel words. Even if we could provide 1000 sources of criticism against the JMT, we still could never make this claim about this theory or any other. How many historians are there in the world? How many have we sourced?
HappyGod ( talk) 03:53, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Hi HappyGod, I appreciate the sentiments. Unfortunately, the statements you mention above are real quotes from top scholars in Biblical Studies departments, and they seem to represent the actual state of affairs in the field. At Wikipedia we can only report what exists, we can't change it. However, I do wonder if there are other academic specialties (such as studies of folklore, or fictional literature, or hagiography) where we would find a wider spectrum of opinion? Biblical scholars might have a narrow view of the world as a whole. JerryRussell ( talk) 17:26, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
[Doherty's jesuspuzzle.humanists.net - retrieved 23AUG2006] Responses to Critiques of the Mythicist Case - Four: Alleged Scholarly Refutations of Jesus Mythicism (with comments on "A History of Scholarly Refutations of the Jesus Myth" by Christopher Price)
The failure of historicist to give a straightforward and robust definition of Jesus is remarkable, whereas Carrier gives:
"The main reason for holding to the historicity of the figure of Jesus . . . resides not primarily in historical evidence but derives instead from a modern theological necessity." (Emanuel Pfoh. “Jesus and the Mythic Mind: An Epistemological Problem”, Is This Not the Carpenter?, pp. 80-81) - review by Neil Godfrey
Ellegård, Alvar (2008).
"Theologians as historians". Scandia: Tidskrift för historisk forskning (59): 170–171. It is fair to say that most present-day theologians also accept that large parts of the Gospel stories are, if not fictional, at least not to be taken at face value as historical accounts. On the other hand, no theologian seems to be able to bring himself to admit that the question of the historicity of Jesus must be judged to be an open one. It appears to me that the theologians are not living up to their responsibility as scholars when they refuse to discuss the possibility that even the existence of the Jesus of the Gospels can be legitimately called into question.
-
96.29.176.92 (
talk)
20:32, 20 October 2016 (UTC) & update 20:14, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Pardon my French, but I'm starting to get f***ing annoyed by the constant policy violations on this page. The CMT pushers are determined to make the page what they want and will ignore any discussion that doesn't go their way. The most common tactic is to simply drag on and on and on and wear everybody else down, and then do what they planned to do anyways. So no matter how often we agree on using WP:RS, they will just wait it out and put their cherrypicked pet tin foil hats (Murdock, Ellegård etc.) back into the article. Not to mention the main NPOV-violation, trying to make it sound as if CMT is the scholarly debate instead of what it really is, a "debate" between academia on one side and uneducated conspiracy theorists on the other. Jeppiz ( talk)—Preceding undated comment added 10:02, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
1. A more focused article.
2. Moving away from focus on persons to focus on content.
3. Using reliable sources.
4. Following NPOV.
In my reading, the article then went in the completely opposite direction. First, it was extended beyond belief. When I reverted to a previous version (not so long ago), it was almost 30000 signs. That's not making a more focused article. It's the opposite, it's extending an already very long article, making it less focused. (I'm not opposed to length as such, though it is an issue for readers). This is something I, and others, have repeated a hundred times (and I don't think I exaggerate): Just because something is written on CMT, it does not automatically belong here. This is an article in an encyclopaedia, not an actual encyclopaedia on anything ever written on the topic. Next, the article remained very focused on persons, not content. At least this was not going in the wrong direction, but the changes didn't improve it much either. There was a consensus not to have sections on individual proponents. We're interested in the ideas, not the people who put them forward except as references when they are WP:RS. And that brings us on to the third point. Non-scholars or people with an academic degree do not belong here. This is not a matter of "I think, you think. It's an established Wikipedia policy. Anyone is free to think otherwise, but not free to WP according to that belief. Yes, we should mention the main ideas of the main proponents, of course. But even that needs to come from reliable sources. And that usually mean not using the sources produced by these people themselves, except where we make it clear it's an opinion. For instance: If we want to present Murdock's view, then we have a good RS in which Ehrman summarizes Murdock's view, and that's relevant. Murdock's own writings aren't RS, and don't belong here. Last but not least, NPOV. We are dealing with a fringe theory here. That means two things: one, the introduction should make it clear it's a fringe theory (not using the word "fringe", as that has negative connotations); two, the mainstream scholarly view should dominate the article. This should not be an article devoted to presenting CMT as science, with a "criticism" section at the end. It should present what CMT says, but make it clear throughout the article that mainstream academia rejects it. Jeppiz ( talk) 20:16, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
I share Jeppiz's frustration, and the reason it's hard to be specific about what's wrong with the article is because there's so many problems with its current state. Here are a few issues that I have:
That's not everything wrong with the article by any stretch of the imagination. Probably the biggest problem is how to write the article so that it accurately describes the CMT while making it clear that its regarded as highly implausible (and that's putting it politely) by experts in the field. I think that will be difficult as long as the article is written by amateurs who are themselves CMT enthusiasts. --Akhilleus ( talk) 21:27, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Longer quotations may be hidden in the reference as a WP:FOOTNOTE to facilitate verification by other editors without sacrificing readability. Verification is necessary when a topic is controversial.I suspect that may be why the article has got so many quotes: because the article has been so controversial, the quotes may have been used to provide verification. We can certainly review that.
@ Akhilleus, Prior to the RV there were only 2 sections with bullet points, please cite the WP policy that supports your objection to bullet points (or numbers) in the text of an article. 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 22:00, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Per Citing sources § Additional annotation, a footnote may also contain a relevant exact quotation from the source. This is especially helpful when the cited text is long or dense. And Quotations § Specific recommendations, longer quotations may be hidden in the reference as a WP:FOOTNOTE to facilitate verification by other editors without sacrificing readability. Verification is necessary when a topic is controversial. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 23:44, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Per Quotations § Overusing quotations, using too many quotes is incompatible with the encyclopedic writing style, however provided each use of a quotation within an article is legitimate and justified there is no need for an arbitrary limit, but quotes should not dominate the article.
Prior to the RV each proponent section contained the the following number of quotes (which includes 1 block quote per section):
One block quote per proponent is hardly overusing quotations and is also per policy in regards to dealing with a controversial subject, since controversial ideas must never appear to be from Wikipedia. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 00:29, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
The CMT (also known as the <alternative names>) refers to several theories for the origin of Jesus in relation to the origin of Christianity. The hypotheses for these diverse theories include: the hypothesis that Jesus never existed, or if he did exist, no meaningful historical verification is possible; the hypothesis that Jesus did exist but had virtually nothing to do with the origin of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels; the hypothesis that Christianity started, just like all the other Mystery religions in the Greco-Roman world; the hypothesis that Christianity started as a variation of Gnosticism; etc.. These various theories contradict the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many mythical or legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the biography of a historical figure.
There is no monolithic CMT, where one size fits all and the CMT includes theories on the origin of Christianity in relation to the origin of Jesus, thus the opening sentence should note it, as given above for example. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 05:01, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
What Doherty actuall writes: Doherty, Earl (September 2009).
Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus. Age of Reason Publications. pp. vii–viii.
ISBN
978-0-9689259-2-8. [The Mythical Jesus viewpoint is] the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction, and [also rejecting the
Q source advanced by Wells] that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition
I have just removed the "secular evidence" section. There are a few reasons why: "secular" is not an apt characterization of Josephus or Tacitus. Information should not be presented solely through a table, and this information is better presented in prose than through a table. --Akhilleus ( talk) 00:53, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
I used the utility at readability-score.com to count the "readable prose" size of our article. (The guideline WP:SIZE recommends using a javascript, whose instructions I found quite inscrutable.) I got a result of 39,526 characters. This doesn't include footnotes, or quotes in footnotes, or images, or other markup, which in this article are quite extensive.
The guideline says that length alone does not justify division for articles <40K. Above that, the likelihood that a division is called for goes up with size, while articles >60K should definitely be divided.
At one time I had been concerned about notability for an article on 'history of CMT' but my guess is this will not be a problem. I think we should go ahead with the plan of adding topical sections; but with the understanding that as we do so, the article will grow to the point where it needs to be split. JerryRussell ( talk) 20:27, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Akhilleus, could you explain your doubts about topical organization? We had interpreted it as a consensus of the earlier RfC. Jeppiz also mentioned it as a consensus goal ("Moving away from focus on persons to focus on content."
)
JerryRussell (
talk) 01:12, 24 October 2016 (UTC) tweaked
JerryRussell (
talk)
04:13, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
For comparison, please consider the article as of August 2013. From the point of view of readability, topicality and focus, I feel it's far superior to what we have today, although there's certainly room for discussion about sourcing. 1
I agree with Akhilleus that the lede was stronger when it simply stated Bauer's three-fold argument, exactly as it is reported by Voorst. I suggest the following text for the lede:
Typically, one or more of the arguments used are derived from or directly taken from the threefold argument first developed in the 19th century by Bruno Bauer:
As a reference, we could use the extended quote from Voorst, currently note 7.
The material that IP96 has been accumulating into the lede is all good, I have no objection to any of it, but I think it belongs in the body of the article, not the lede.
Akhilleus, is this what you're looking for? Jeppiz, would this be a move in the right direction? IP96, what's the rationale for building so much material into the lede? Any other votes? JerryRussell ( talk) 03:36, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
The entire "Raison d'être" was to remove the lede "bullet points"—that Akhilleus doesn't like. Thus the current lede bullet list should be removed.
Per the new section, Voorst is cited per the 3 items corresponding directly to Bauer's arguments, however the arguments of Bauer do not properly encompass:
Bauer/Voorst is outdated in the sense that modern proponents often make distinct arguments between the gospels and the epistle early writings and agnosticism and secular independence as per carrier, "For all the evidence anyone has ever adduced from the Epistles (once we exclude those known to be forged): it is ambiguous as to whether an earthly or celestial Jesus is being referred to. The Gospels I found wholly symbolically fictional and not even interested in actual history. And the Jesus in them I found to be so very like other mythical persons of the period. And then I found that no other evidence can be shown to be independent of the Gospels. At the very least, putting all of that together should make agnosticism about the historicity of Jesus a credible conclusion." - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 20:33, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
* The list of "arguments commonly used by Christ myth theory proponents" is odd. The list we have now is not based on any single source, but seems to have been cobbled together by editors, and it's highly redundant--the first five points are essentially "the evidence for Jesus isn't good," stated in various ways. Some of those ways are actually conclusions rather than arguments—e.g., "that no evidential conclusion is possible—for the existence of Jesus—that is also independent of the New Testament." The lead used to say that there were three arguments commonly used by CMT proponents, based on a passage from Van Voorst (2000). Those three arguments were: 1) the New Testament has no historical value 2) there are no 1st-century non-christian references to Jesus and 3) Christianity has pagan and/or mythical roots. This is a much better list than the one we've got now--the Van Voorst list is more coherent, and actually includes a point left out in our article (no non-Christian references to Jesus).
Asserting that some given "Secular evidence" can not be guaranteed to be free ("independent") of Christian contamination is a conclusion of agnosticism. That is not the same as asserting that there's no evidence, which is a conclusion of absolute negation and rejection. Clearly you are not fully presenting the CMT viewpoint in violation of NPOV - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 21:47, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Even the editors who think that the mainstream view is wrong can at least acknowledge that it is our duty as WP editors to basically treat it as if it were right. How about we create a table that lists mythicist charges and lines each one up with mainstream answers? Then everyone could see that there's a mainstream answer to every mythicist charge. A table would help establish the mainstream view, and then when other parts of the page got weird, at least the table would be there as a sort of anchor. Honestly, the editors who are fired up about showing that Jesus never existed are more ardent in their zeal than those of us who simply want to promote mainstream scholarship, so this page will always lean toward the fringe. Likewise, the Jesus page will alway incline toward the Christian view. But our lead on this page is pretty clear, and a table denying each CMT charge would likewise ground the page in mainstream scholarship. Thoughts? Jonathan Tweet ( talk) 00:45, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Per using tables with a Mainstream column and a CMT column, I propose that an RFC on their usage should be created. They are an excellent way of presenting the Mainstream viewpoint in conjunction with a NPOV presentation of the CMT viewpoint. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 03:09, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Example table
| ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
96.29.176.92 ( talk) 14:29, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Per Akhilleus and Jeppiz' recommendation, I'm planning to go through the article and see if I can trim anything out. Today's project was the 20th century proponents section. I managed to trim about 1K of text, and I don't feel that anything important has been deleted. I found several items that seemed irrelevant or unsourced. Any objections? Having gone through the process, I feel that the remaining material in this section is all highly relevant and encyclopedic. JerryRussell ( talk) 17:15, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
I got another 1K out. I'm not coming anywhere close to Akhilleus' suggestion that the text size could be reduced by 1/3. Even with this small cut, I'm wondering if I took too much out. As I've left it, the prose seems a little choppy, purged of detail & human interest.
This section ends with a little link farm list of other proponents. Is this a valid function for the article, to provide links to information that's not been deemed important enough for detailed coverage here? I think it's reasonable that this article can serve as a hub for CMT resources. But if so, shouldn't we provide a secondary-source reference that puts the links in context? JerryRussell ( talk) 18:24, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
I did a character count on the two sections. The total now is about 8500 characters, so I've managed to cut by almost 20%. JerryRussell ( talk) 18:31, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
IP96, this is very similar to the material that you've tried to insert a couple of times before. Akhilleus objected to it, and I'm concerned about it, for three reasons. First, the material would be better expressed as prose, rather than as bullet points. Second, that several of the items seem to be getting at more or less the same point. Third -- that for an outline view of the topic, we should be able to cite a reliable secondary source, rather than relying on our own editorial viewpoint. The sources for each individual point are good, but a list of (some of) the trees isn't the same as a map of the forest. If we draw the map ourselves, we risk presenting a highly idiosyncratic viewpoint. Voorst 2000 and his summary of Bauer, along with the claim that those same points have been regurgitated by everyone since then, has been our map up until now. Do you know of anything better? I'm going to look around and see what I can find.
I apologize for reverting the material. I'm concerned that if we don't self-regulate and do quality control, Jeppiz will come back and zap everything again. JerryRussell ( talk) 21:24, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
OK. Let me re-write it in prose, and see if you don't like it better. Here's how I would say it:
Most Christ Mythicists agree that the evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus Christ is weak at best. No eyewitness accounts survive, in spite of the fact that many authors were writing at that time.[25] The Pauline epistles are dismissed because, aside from a few passages which may have been interpolations, they contain no references to an earthly Jesus who lived in the flesh. There is a complete absence of any detailed biographical information such as might be expected if Jesus had been a contemporary of Paul.[28][29][30] The canonical Gospels and other apocryphal materials cannot be verified as independent sources, and may have all stemmed from a single original fictional account.[26][27] Other early second-century Roman accounts contain very little evidence,[25] and cannot be guaranteed to be independent from Christian sources.[31][32] While some mythicists feel that the lack of evidence alone is sufficient to justify skepticism, others go further, and adduce various arguments to show that Christianity has syncretistic or mythical roots. As such, the historical Jesus should not be regarded as the founder of the religion, even if he did exist.[35][36]
What do you think?
JerryRussell ( talk) 23:05, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
I think JerryRussell makes some great points above, especially in the first paragraph in this section. Nothing I've seen in the latest edits convinces me that we need to move beyond what Van Voorst says about common arguments used by CMT proponents. However, someone might want to look at Ehrman's book and see what he says about commonly used arguments. In any case a description of commonly used arguments needs to be based on a secondary source that discusses which arguments are commonly used by CMT authors—it's original research for a Wikipedia editor to compile their own list of commonly used arguments. --Akhilleus ( talk) 23:13, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
IP96 sent me some quotes from Eddy & Boyd and Ehrman at my talk page, and I've been reviewing Ehrman's introductory chapter. I believe we can give Ehrman, Eddy & Boyd and Carrier as sources for the overview. I don't see anything inconsistent, or that we're missing anything important. Furthermore, I think the new summary is considerably more complete and explanatory than the B/V threefold argument. @ Akhilleus:, would you agree that this is ready to go in, given the additional secondary sourcing? JerryRussell ( talk) 21:09, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Rather than starting from the existing article, I began with IP96's most recent version before the Jeppiz revert. I was able to cut about half the body text from that starting point. However, I kept all IP96's quotes in the footnotes. A few items were brought in from today's version. The net result is that the text size is down about 25% from today, but the markup size is plus 5K. @ Akhilleus:, @ Jeppiz:, would you say that the support via quotes in footnotes is excessive, or is it OK? JerryRussell ( talk) 04:37, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, maybe I already know in my heart that it was excessive. I sliced back 5K of quotes. Markup size is now unchanged.
This entire process was a lot of work. Does anybody have opinions about whether this is getting better or worse? IP96? JerryRussell ( talk) 04:53, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
I've been working on the article this morning. First I finished up my project of trimming up the proponent sections and bringing them up to date, also fetching back a few key items from earlier editions. Then I brought in text for sections on "Lack of historical evidence about Jesus from first century" and "Syncretistic and mythological roots of Christianity", again drawing on earlier versions of the article. I went through this material, consolidated, and did some quality control on the sourcing.
I learned how to install the page metric javascript, so it's now easy for me to measure the prose length of the article. Before Jeppiz' revert of Oct. 22, we were at 47K bytes of prose, 177K of markup. Today we're at 41K bytes of prose, and the markup is all the way down to 136K. The drastic reduction in markup reflects a huge reduction in the amount of quoting, both in blockquotes and footnotes. The prose length utility doesn't count blockquotes or bulleted lists.
I'm hoping that the result of all this work by myself and IP96 meets Jeppiz' first three criteria:
1. A more focused article.
2. Moving away from focus on persons to focus on content.
3. Using reliable sources.
Also, I believe that every item in Akhilleus' bulleted lists of problems has been addressed.
There's still an open issue regarding IP96's outline of our topic, expressed as bullet points and supporting footnotes with quotes. In my opinion, the best way to incorporate this material would be to distribute the information into the appropriate topical sections, to provide additional support. Another option would be to use my prose version, incorporated into the lede. Yet another approach would be to hold back the material for now. I don't have a strong opinion, and am waiting for consensus to develop.
The most important issue is NPOV. The fact is, neither IP96 nor I have made any effort to hide our personal POV. And there's nothing against policy if editors have a point of view, as long as it isn't pushed into the article against consensus. We've made no effort to remove mainstream rebuttals to CMT, and I've brought in mainstream answers to the best of my ability. But the fact is, because of our bias, IP96 and I might not be the ideal editors to bring this article to a truly neutral position. Aside from institutional factors, I really don't understand why the mainstream thinks we're bonkers.
My challenge to editors supporting the mainstream POV is to bring in more mainstream arguments and evidence to counter the CMT point of view, rather than attempting to "win" by hacking away at our supporting materials again. Do you think you could do that? JerryRussell ( talk) 22:36, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
BTW, the article version from Aug. 2013 that I've recommended as a benchmark, was 67K bytes of prose. That was way above the size that should "probably be divided". So compared to back then, at least this version isn't so much TLDR. JerryRussell ( talk) 00:18, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
[A Mythical Jesus viewpoint is, that if Jesus did exist], he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity.
{{
cite book}}
: External link in |chapterurl=
(
help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl=
ignored (|chapter-url=
suggested) (
help)Is there any specific follow up by Ehrman on whom he is referencing —Wells et al. ? - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 23:22, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
In a recent exhaustive elaboration of the position, one of the leading proponents of Jesus mythicism, Earl Doherty, defines the view as follows: it is “the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction, and that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition.” 1 In simpler terms, the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity.The footnote is to Doherty's "Jesus:Neither God nor Man" (2009). Also see our note [4] in the existing article. JerryRussell ( talk) 23:43, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
The "mainstream" of the time would have been the Sadducees, who collaborated with the Romans and their Herodian proxies in maintaining and operating the Temple. The Sadducees helped the Romans collect the temple offerings and taxes. The Pharisees were a populist 'loyal opposition' group, but also had some Hellenistic tendencies. The radical nationalists such as the Essenes were basically underground, and they went by many names, such as Zealots, Sicarii, Nazarenes, and perhaps Therapeuts, but it's hard to tell how distinct those groups really were. These radicals were looking for a Messiah who would lead them in a military revolt against the Romans and Herodians. If I understand correctly, the mainstream speculation about historical Jesus is that he was one of these radicals, and that early Christianity grew out of one of these radical groups. JerryRussell ( talk) 19:21, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Messianic claimants by Jona Lendering includes Judas, the Galilean (6 CE). And the claimants would likely be included in J. M. Robertson's viewpoint that there were several Jesuses who claimed to be Messiahs. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 20:51, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Hello, I recently removed a category, because this is a theory,and not a person, so technically it doesn't fit there.Bye!
Sexperson (
talk)
00:02, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
:
User:JerryRussel, I reverted back to my revision,because I think we need consensus here before we change it back.Sexperson 01:52, 16 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Sexperson (
talk •
contribs)
::It looks stupid from the Category page, because the page is for people, not theories. I suppose it would be sensible to move the Category from here to Jesus (though this page is more useful, but Jesus would make more sense).Sexperson 03:11, 17 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Sexperson (
talk •
contribs)
::::Yeah, I understand. But it still looks dumb, when you click the link to Category Page you'll see this theory alone amongst numerous people articles, looks totally out of place.Sexperson 03:16, 17 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Sexperson (
talk •
contribs)
Discussion opened at Category_talk:People_whose_existence_is_disputed. JerryRussell ( talk) 04:56, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Struck through edits by sock of Gonzales John Doug Weller talk 19:02, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
I just reverted 96.29.176.92's latest edit; I used a popup tool which didn't let me leave an edit summary, which wasn't my intention. So I'll explain myself here. The lead is no place for a long disquisition on variations in the CMT--these details, if important, are things that can be explained in the body of the article. However, there is a strong tendency in this article for people to include all sorts of minor details at the expense of the big picture, which is a big reason the article is as long as it is. Judicious editing could reduce the length of the text by at least a third, I'd say.
Furthermore, the notion that "However in the modern era, disparate proponents, typically have multiple ways of adducing their viewpoint beyond Bauer's three arguments..." is not something that finds much support in secondary sources on this topic. With few exceptions, what's striking about the CMT is how similar modern formulations are to early 20th-century versions of the theory. The exception is Carrier's use of Bayesian reasoning—however, his use of Bayes is so flawed that I'd call it pseudo-Bayesian. But I wouldn't put that in this article, because there aren't any secondary sources that back that opinion up. Similarly, unless there's a reliable secondary source that supports the text 96.29.176.92 added, it shouldn't be in the article. --Akhilleus ( talk) 00:46, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
The same might be said of describing a "zebra" in the lede of an article about "mules". The enumeration of Bauer's arguments does not need to be in the lede, and in fact clutters up the lede. Clearly Bauer's adduced viewpoint and other leading proponents adduced viewpoints should be presented in a section "Adduced viewpoints of proponents", where similarities and differences can be clearly presented. Restating each proponent's adduced viewpoint in their corresponding section, would once again be focusing on the individual proponents, it would be better to group them in one section. Clearly Carrier has the most WP weight and due, and his adduced viewpoint is as similar to Bauer's adduced viewpoint as a zebra is like a mule, which is—sort of. Thus it is clearly incorrect to portray Bauer's arguments as the "Christ myth theory". And just because we are not talking about Ellegård and Allegro, does not mean they are not CMT proponents whose adduced viewpoints are radically distinct from Bauer.
Compatibility Thesis:
Premise 2 is problematic as, per Bauer the conclusion is correct. However per Carrier and Price—the argument is not be sound, as Premise 2 is incorrect. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 02:13, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
"gained no lasting following or influence on subsequent scholarship, especially in the mainstream". Is this saying that Schweitzer was not mainstream? At any rate, this article isn't about the mainstream. Bauer has been influential among mythicists in general. So, I'm not sure we should be including this particular Voorst quote in the lede, and especially not without mentioning the qualification that Voorst was mainly talking about Bauer's lack of influence on the mainstream.
At the end of his study of the Gospels, Bauer is inclined to make the decision of the question whether there ever was a historic Jesus depend on the result of a further investigation which he proposed to make into the Pauline Epistles. It was not until ten years later (1850–1851) that he accomplished this task, (Kritik der Paidinischen Briefe. (Criticism of the Pauline Epistles.) Berlin, 1850-1852.) and applied the result in his new edition of the "Criticism of the Gospel History." (Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs. (Criticism of the Gospels and History of their Origin.) 2 vols., Berlin, 1850-1851.) The result is negative: there never was any historical Jesus.
[Bauer] had long been regarded by theologians as an extinct force; nay, more, had been forgotten. [...] It was, indeed, nothing less than a misfortune that Strauss and Bauer appeared within so short a time of one another. Bauer passed practically unnoticed, because every one was preoccupied with Strauss. Another unfortunate thing was that Bauer overthrew with his powerful criticism the hypothesis which attributed real historical value to Mark, so that it lay for a long time disregarded, and there ensued a barren period of twenty years in the critical study of the Life of Jesus. [...] Bauer's "Criticism of the Gospel History" is worth a good dozen Lives of Jesus, because his work, as we are only now coming to recognise, after half a century, is the ablest and most complete collection of the difficulties of the Life of Jesus which is anywhere to be found.
Bauer's "Criticism of the Pauline Epistles" and "Criticism of the Gospel History" appeared around 1850, and as far as I know they've never been translated into English. "Christ and the Caesars" didn't come out until 1877. I wonder if he changed his mind or softened his position during that time, based on criticism of the earlier works? Anyhow, for Wikipedia purposes, we have no choice but to rely on Schweitzer's review of the ~1850 German works. However, having just read through Schweitzer's chapter on Bauer, I would not say it represents a serious attempt to refute Bauer's work in "Christ and the Caesars". It's more of a quick, incredulous dismissal. JerryRussell ( talk) 16:09, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
His published work on the Synoptic Problem had already contributed towards exploding the theory of the "Christ-myth"—that Jesus as a historical person never existed—by providing the two oldest records of His life to be genuine historical documents.
Translated by W. Montgomery, J. R. Coates, Susan Cupitt, and John Bowden from the German Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, published by J. C. B. Mohr, Tübingen. © J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1906, 1913, 1950. (1st English translation of the 1913 2nd ed.)- 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 08:02, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Christianity and its Christ, Bauer argued, were born in Rome and Alexandria when adherents of Roman Stoicism, Greek Neo-Platonism and Judaism combined to form a new religion that needed a founder.
Jesus Christ did not exist and the morality of the Gospels, are from two different series of precepts belonging to different social groups.
Philo used philosophical allegory to attempt to fuse and harmonize Greek philosophy with Jewish philosophy. His method followed the practices of both Jewish exegesis and Stoic philosophy. - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 00:14, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Acharya S/Murdock should be in this article as she once was and should never have been removed. She deserves her own section as she wrote the very first succinct, comprehensive position for mythicists:
The Mythicist Position:
|
---|
"Mythicism represents the perspective that many gods, goddesses and other heroes and legendary figures said to possess extraordinary and/or supernatural attributes are not "real people" but are in fact mythological characters. Along with this view comes the recognition that many of these figures personify or symbolize natural phenomena, such as the sun, moon, stars, planets, constellations, etc., constituting what is called "astrotheology." As a major example of the mythicist position, various biblical characters such as Adam and Eve, Satan, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, King David, Solomon & Jesus Christ, among other figures, in reality represent mythological characters along the same lines as the Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Indian, Greek, Roman and other godmen, who are all presently accepted as myths, rather than historical figures." - Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection page 11-12 The Mythicist Position | What is Mythicism? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63BNKhGAVRQ There are plenty of highly respected scholars who support Acharya's work. Scholars who've actually studied Acharya's work tend to be supportive: "I find it undeniable that many of the epic heroes and ancient patriarchs and matriarchs of the Old Testament were personified stars, planets, and constellations." "I find myself in full agreement with Acharya S/D.M. Murdock" - Dr. Robert Price, Biblical Scholar with two Ph.D's, review of Acharya's "Christ in Egypt" Earl Doherty defers to Acharya for the subject of astrotheology: "A heavenly location for the actions of the savior gods, including the death of Christ, would also have been influenced by most religions' ultimate derivation from astrotheology, as in the worship of the sun and moon. For this dimension of more remote Christian roots, see the books of Acharya S" - Earl Doherty, Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, (2009) page 153 "Your scholarship is relentless! ...the research conducted by D.M. Murdock concerning the myth of Jesus Christ is certainly both valuable and worthy of consideration." - Dr. Ken Feder, Professor of Archaeology "...In recent months or over the last year or so I have interviewed Frank Zindler and Richard Carrier and David Fitzgerald and Robert Price all on the issue of mythicism ... when I spoke to these people I asked for their expertise collectively and what I got, especially from Fitzgerald and Robert Price, was that we should be speaking to tonights guest D.M. Murdock,author of 'Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver'." - Aron Ra, The Ra Men podcast EP10 - Did Moses Exist? with D.M. Murdock "I've known people with triple Ph.D's who haven't come close to the scholarship in Who Was Jesus?" - Pastor David Bruce, M.Div "...I have found her scholarship, research, knowledge of the original languages, and creative linkages to be breathtaking and highly stimulating." - Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham, Pastor "I can recommend your work whole-heartedly!" - Dr. Robert Eisenman "This book is a slightly revised version of my doctoral dissertation entitled “Solar Worship in the Biblical World” which was submitted to the Graduate School of Yale University in the Spring of 1989. As may be judged from the title of that work, I had at one time planned to cover more territory than sun worship in ancient Israel, but found the material pertaining to ancient Israel so vast that I never got beyond it." - Rev. Dr. J. Glen Taylor, "Yahweh and the Sun: Biblical and Archaeological Evidence for Sun Worship in Ancient Israel" (1993) "At Stonehenge in England and Carnac in France, in Egypt and Yucatan, across the whole face of the earth are found mysterious ruins of ancient monuments, monuments with astronomical significance. These relics of other times are as accessible as the American Midwest and as remote as the jungles of Guatemala. Some of them were built according to celestial alignments; others were actually precision astronomical observatories ... Careful observation of the celestial rhythms was compellingly important to early peoples, and their expertise, in some respects, was not equaled in Europe until three thousand years later." - Dr. Edwin Krupp, astronomer and director at Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles Mythicism and the Ph.D.: A Brief History http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=18805 Zeitgeist Part 1: The Greatest Story Ever Told https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt-qYDb7UcI Astrotheology of the Ancients http://stellarhousepublishing.com/astrotheology.html Star Worship of the Ancient Israelites http://astrotheology.net/star-worship-of-the-ancient-israelites/ Zodiacs on the Floor of Synagogues http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=4148 2,750-year-old solar-aligned temple discovered in Israel http://freethoughtnation.com/2750-year-old-solar-aligned-temple-discovered-in-israel/ Stone Age Zodiac by National Geographic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk8R6IyM5Ec “The claim that the 12 tribes of Israel were identified with the 12 signs of the zodiac is spelled out clearly by the ancient Jewish writers Philo and Josephus, during the first century. During the first century BCE, Diodorus Siculus identified the 12 tribes with the 12 months. “See Exodus 39:9-14: "...they made the breastplate... And they set in it four rows of stones... And the stones were according to the names of the children of Israel, twelve...according to the twelve tribes.” As Josephus says (Antiquities, 3.8): “And for the twelve stones, whether we understand by them the months, or whether we understand the like number of the signs of that circle which the Greeks call the zodiac, we shall not be mistaken in their meaning.” (Josephus/Whiston, 75.) Earlier than Josephus, Philo (“On the Life of Moses,” 12) had made the same comments regarding Moses: “Then the twelve stones on the breast, which are not like one another in colour, and which are divided into four rows of three stones in each, what else can they be emblems of, except of the circle of the zodiac?” (Philo/Duke, 99.)” – Christ in Egypt, 261-2 Malachi 4:2 “…the sun was worshipped by the Israelites, who associated it with their tribal god Yahweh. Like Father, like son, and the connection between Jesus and the sun is first evidenced in the OT book of Malachi (4:2), which immediately precedes the New Testament and in which the author refers to the “Sun of Righteousness” who will “arise with healing in his wings.” This scripture, which is in the last chapter before the Gospel of Matthew, sounds much like the winged solar disc of Babylon and Egypt.” “This scripture in Malachi is perceived as a reference to the coming messiah, Jesus Christ. In this regard, this clearly solar appellation “Sun of Righteousness” is repeated many times by early Church fathers as being applicable to Christ.” |
For more information: Jesus as the Sun throughout History http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/jesussunexcerpt.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.94.225.154 ( talk) 20:29, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
The problem occurred to me when I noticed "an historical Jesus", a variant that is overwhelmingly more common in British English than American English (although not non-existant therein) and is difficult to pronounce in a way that doesn't sound like Cockney slang (see [1]). But the article is a mess ENGVAR-wise. Excluding direct quotations (obviously), -ise is used twice, while -ize appears more than a dozen times. Obviously there is a preference in the current version for American spellings and ... vocabulary (?), but what was first, and should we WP:PRESERVE that if British spellings were? The topic doesn't apparently have strong WP:TIES one way or the other. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 06:23, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Biblical inerrancy? Biblical literalism? Is the implication that there is some connection between belief that Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical person and biblical inerrancy? Because as a non-inerrantist who accepts the historical consensus regarding the existence of Jesus I find that association questionable.
Others are arguably just as weird, though. Criticism of Christianity only links to this page in a misleading paragraph loaded with weasel words and misrepresents criticism of Christianity as "originating" with the "Christ Myth theory", and Criticism of Christianity only mentions this topic while quoting a self-contradictory opinion of Bertrand Russell that Jesus didn't exist but at the same time was worthy of being argued with; honestly, I don't see why you would want to criticize someone who you don't think ever existed.
The section needs to be culled, IMO.
Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 06:34, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
The above quoted (J. M. Robertson (1910), p.287) ap. Archibald Robertson (1946) was redacted per "Quote taken out of context." - 96.29.176.92 ( talk) 08:01, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
It's a near-certainty that several Jesuses made messianic claims, since Jesus was an extremely common name and messiah claims were almost as common. And it's in Josephus. It has no bearing one way or the other.I'm not so sure it has no bearing one way or the other. Several recent books have made claims that characters mentioned in Josephus, such as Judas the Galilean, or The Egyptian, were in fact the historical basis of the Jesus character in the New Testament. Furthermore, Judas the Galilean may have been the actual founder of the Christian religion, or at least the Ebionite (Jewish Zealot) branch. The Egyptian may have been an important prophet and leader of that same Ebionite church. Yet neither of those characters was said to be born in Nazareth, or crucified under Pontius Pilate. So if someone claims that Judas the Galilean was the Historical Jesus, is that person a mythicist? How would such a claim be evaluated by the mainstream? Can this discussion be worked into the article, given that the Wiki RS status of the books making these claims will be subject to debate? JerryRussell ( talk) 19:33, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
What we should do is (in the body of the article!) discuss the fact that some mythicists have claimed that the existence of other Jesuses making messianic claims is evidence against Jesus of Nazareth having existed, and balance it out with the claims of their opponents that this is irrelevant.Hijiri88, do you have a source for this claim by opponents? I agree it should be in the article. JerryRussell ( talk) 18:44, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Per René Salm, Semi-mythicists endorses the existence of a prophet at the origin of Christianity, but maintains that prophet had little or no resemblance to Jesus of Nazareth.
René Salm's list of semi-mythicists
|
---|
(Semi-Myth) = Semi-mythicist. Endorses the existence of a prophet at the origin of Christianity, but maintains that prophet had little or no resemblance to Jesus of Nazareth. 1791 • (Semi-Myth) COMPTE DE VOLNEY, Les Ruines. Volney argued that the gospel story was compiled organically when simple allegorical statements like “the virgin has brought forth” were misunderstood as history. Volney parted company with Dupuis by allowing that confused memories of an obscure historical figure may have contributed to Christianity when they were integrated with solar mythology. He predicted the final union of all religions and the recognition of a common truth underlying them all. 1871 • (Semi-myth) SYTZE HOEKSTRA, De Christologie van het kanonische Marcus-Evangelie (Dutch). One of the first Dutch Radicals, Hoekstra considered Mark’s gospel worthless as a biography of Jesus. For him, the synoptics are symbolic poetry. 1886 • (Semi-Myth) ABRAHAM DIRK LOMAN. Quaestiones Paulinae (“Questions on the Paulines”) contends that not only Galatians, but all of Paul’s Epistles are (following Bruno Bauer) 2nd century forgeries. Loman finds no evidence of the Paulinae before Marcion and considers the epistles to be Gnostic treatises. For him, Jesus is a 2nd century fiction though ‘some’ Jesus may have existed, quite buried in history. The Jesus of Christianity is an ideal symbol, a non-historical construction. 1914 • (Semi-Myth) FREDERICK C. CONYBEARE, The historical Christ, or, An investigation of the views of Mr. J.M. Robertson, Dr. A. Drews, and Prof. W.B. Smith. Conybeare was an Orientalist and Professor of Theology at Oxford. For him, the texts show a gradual deification of an existing human source. 1930 • (Semi-myth) DANIEL MASSÉ, The Enigma of Jesus Christ. Massé believed that Jesus was in fact John of Gamala, the son of Judas of Gamala. The true Nazareth was Gamala, where Jesus bar Judah was born. Massé viewed the gospels as deliberate efforts on the part of the Church to falsify history. For him, exegesis is a way in which ecclesiastics propagandize the masses. 1957 • (Semi-Myth) JOHN MARCO ALLEGRO, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of Christianity. Prof. Allegro, one of the original DSS team, had the courage to buck his teammates. Prescient in many ways, Allegro’s provocative proposals may not be all correct but they nevertheless attest to a remarkable scholar. 1975 • (Semi-Myth) GEORGE A. WELLS, Did Jesus Exist? Greatly influenced by Arthur Drews, Wells is a prolific writer and arguably the foremost mythicist representative in Europe today. Wells may be best characterized as a semi-mythicist, for he does not exclude the possibility that a prophet lay at the origins of Christianity, yet one with little in common with Jesus of Nazareth. Wells is a former Chairman of the Rationalist Press Association, with degrees in German, Philosophy, and natural science. 1999 • (Semi-myth) ALVAR ELLEGARD. Jesus—One Hundred Years Before Christ: A Study In Creative Mythology. Ellegard argues that Jesus is to be identified with the Essene Teacher of Righteousness and actually lived a century before the common era, during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus. 2008 • (Semi-Myth) RENÉ SALM. The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus. Presents an exhaustive review of the primary archaeological evidence from the Nazareth basin and concludes that the town came into existence between the two Jewish revolts. Salm received undergraduate degrees in Music and German, and was active as a composer and keyboardist for a number of years. Interest in religion began in early adulthood and led to independent study of Buddhism and then Christianity, including occasional post-graduate coursework. Salm considers himself an Atheist, a Buddhist, and (in an ethical rather than doctrinal sense) a Christian . He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and maintains several websites. He is pursuaded that Jesus of Nazareth is a pure invention as regards all biographical particulars, but suspects that a prophet may have lived several generations before the turn of the era, one who inspired the gnostic religion known as Mandeism and (though considerable perversion) Pauline Christianity. |
More of Carrier's key points noted by Brian Bethune
|
---|
|
96.29.176.92 ( talk) 20:21, 1 December 2016 (UTC) & update 20:54, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
section is for references only
|
---|
This section is for reference purposes. Citations are listed in reverse chronological order: (1) FROM BOOKS AND JOURNALS:
(2) SCIENTIFIC SUPPORT FOR THE CHRIST MYTH THEORY:
Frank R. Zindler, “Where Jesus Never Walked.” American Atheist journal, Winter 1996–97.
(3) FROM NON-PRINT SOURCES (WEBLOGS, ETC.):
|
The Thomas Brodie case with the Dominicans was closed in 2014. The source for this information is the Dominican periodical 'Doctrine and Life'. The Dominicans seem to be rather old-fashioned: this publication doesn't appear on the Web as far as I can find, except where it is quoted at the Wikipedia article for Thomas L. Brodie. Is it considered reasonable to assume that the earlier Wiki editor (in this case, Kky123), has quoted the material correctly?
Continuing through my tour of the archives, I found that this 2010 version had briefly been awarded 'good article' status. In following discussions, CMT proponents claimed that the article had been 'owned' by mainstream critics of the CMT, and the article was delisted from 'good' status as a result. Looking at the 2010 article, it does seem that it's a little thin on its representation of proponent viewpoints. But, the section on criticisms is really very good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Christ_myth_theory&oldid=345603403#Scholarly_reception
— Preceding unsigned comment added by JerryRussell ( talk • contribs) 20:00, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
There is an obvious fringe claim in this Wikipedia article, and that is noting that Dorothy Murdock believes that Jesus is based on earlier characters like Horus. This clearly outrageous claim violates Wikipedia:Fringe theories and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Dorothy Murdock is not a notable individual in academia in the slightest, in fact she doesn't even have anything more than a Bachelors degree in historical fields. She's just a conspiracy theorist who got too popular. Either way, the inclusion of her claims is in clear violation of at least two important Wikipedia policies, and dare I say a violation of WP:NPOV. This must obviously be removed. Korvex ( talk) 22:31, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Dorothy Murdock is not a notable individual in academia in the slightest...I beg to differ. Her writings have been criticized by a number of highly notable individuals, including by the preeminent scholar of New Testament history alive today. Please familiarize yourself with WP:FRINGE, WP:NOT and WP:WEIGHT. I understand that you are a new editor and that some aspects of WP may seem counter-intuitive, but our policies have stabilized to their current form with good reason. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:44, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
This must obviously be removed.with an edit count of less than 200 is very bad form, and likely to only galvanize resistance to your position by more experienced editors. Your limited experience just doesn't lend itself to a complete understanding of WP policy. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:46, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Off-hand dismissals do not qualify as scholarly scrutiny.You are clearly unfamiliar with the treatment of her writings. Her claims have been highly influential among mythicists, and as such have gotten significant coverage. For example, Ehrman devotes an entire subheading of Did Jesus Exist? to her most popular book and cites two other works of hers on the subject.
her citation still violates Wikipedia:Reliable sources.No. Otherwise unreliable sources most certainly can be used to evince the views of the author. That is how they are used in this case.
But thanks about noting to me that scholarly scrutiny can also qualify one to bypassing Wikipedia:Fringe theories.It's not bypassing anything. So long as the fringe material is attributed to the source and isn't given undue weight, it's perfectly acceptable. How else could we possibly have a Flat earth article?
One thing to ask as well -- did you figure out I'm a new user by quickly clicking on my profile?That and the way you write on talk pages.
Point is, unless one can show published scholarly scrutiny rather than off-hand dismissals of her fringe views, Dorothy's notion gets shot down by WP:FRINGE and the current citation is subject to WP:IRS regardless.I STRONGLY suggest you carefully read both of those pages, because you are not representing them in a way that conforms to the community's understanding.
This discussion has gone quiet, and I'm happy with the outcome. But for the record, I want to add that the existing text about Acharya was a compromise that I suggested as a resolution to a long-standing conflict. At one time, Acharya's views were the topic of an entire paragraph in this article. This was deleted after much controversy as undue. Not too much later, one of Acharya's readers stopped by the talk page and demanded to know how such a famous individual could go unmentioned. I feel the same way, and introduced the existing sentence with a link to her Wikipedia article. I should also add, the suggestion above that Acharya's views on the relation between Horus and Jesus are universally rejected by respectable scholarship, is incorrect. Or at least, if you view Price as a respectable scholar. His review was full of praise for Acharya's book "Christ in Egypt: the Horus-Jesus Connection", complaining only that Acharya did not go far enough. That's why I chose that particular source. JerryRussell ( talk) 17:37, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
I should also add, the suggestion above that Acharya's views on the relation between Horus and Jesus are universally rejected by respectable scholarship, is incorrect.No, it's not. There are no scholars who have put any serious study into this assertion and concluded that there might be something to it. Price has mentioned it a few times to my knowledge, but Price's qualifications to make accurate statements about Egyptian mythology are non-existent. The differences between Horus and Jesus are vast, and most of the similarities described by Acharya are simply made up, and do not appear anywhere else in the available literature (except where they're sourced to her). Hell, just checking the publicly accessible sources at Horus will show that this is so. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:02, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
I did qualify my statement with the premise that it's based on the notion that Price is a respectable scholar.I see what you mean. When it comes to theology, sure; I respect his opinion a great deal. But as has been pointed out by a number of experts: you're only an expert in your particular field of study.
I've come to see you as an editor who puts NPOV above your own opinions.Well thank you for saying so. Respect goes both ways. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:38, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Quite interesting tool. -- RosaLuxemburgOnFreedom ( talk) 08:54, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
![]() | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
Christ myth theory (365 days)
![]() | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
talk:Christ myth theory (365 days)
How about a larger archive size? 75k is quite inconvenient, when one wants to scroll through the archives. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 05:09, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
Why does this keep getting removed? Slatersteven ( talk) 11:18, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
Apparently it is because the source is not "scientific" (whatever that means). Slatersteven ( talk) 11:57, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyHfVReWpTA
I think that the founder of a rival religious belief system cannot be open-minded and therefore scientific honestly deliberate on whether Jesus of Nazareth existed and on what he did. Therefore it isn't proper to include it in THIS article. If that founder's opinion on "Christ myth theory" is an important topic for that belief system then it has to be added THERE. (But until now it isn't even mentioned there.)-- RosaLuxemburgOnFreedom ( talk) 19:57, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels". It goes on to point out that "
The Christ myth theory contradicts the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many mythical or legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the biography of a historical figure".
Wells, George Albert, ed. (1987). J.M. Robertson (1856-1933): liberal, rationalist, and scholar : an assessment by several hands. Pemberton. pp. 162–163.
ISBN
0301870020.
. We're relying on the editorial skills and reputation of
George Albert Wells and the publication process of Pemberton Publishers to give us confidence that the source is reliable in what it says about Robertson's views. See
Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources for the full guidance.Corydon, Bent; Ambry, Brian (1992).
L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman?. Barricade Books. p. 353.
ISBN
0-942637-57-7.
, then state it here.
WP:BALANCE tells us "when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both points of view and work for balance. This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint." It doesn't tell us to leave out both sets of views, when it is clear that they are relevant and significant per WP:NPOV. -- RexxS ( talk) 01:41, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
Hard to believe the amount of discussion for something very simple: Hubbard does not belong here. This is an article about a specific scholarly view. Hubbard was not a scholar, and his personal opinion is entirely WP:UNDUE here. Perhaps relevant in the article about Hubbard or about Scientology. The user arguing that the opinion of any notable person is a notable opinion on any matter is quite simply mistaken. This is not the article to list any Tom, Dick or Harry who thought this or that about Jesus, no matter if they are notable in other regards. Jeppiz ( talk) 00:56, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
"All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."? That's all of the significant views, not just the ones that you cherry-pick. -- RexxS ( talk) 01:30, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
This is an article about a specific scholarly view.No. This is an article about the Christ myth theory in general, which most certainly has a footprint in popular culture. It's not limited to the scholarly aspects of the theory. See Christ myth theory#Documentaries for a list of popular documentaries alleging it. Those are most certainly not scholarly works. Considering that this mention is a single sentence, relegated to a subsection called "Other modern proponents" at the end of the "Modern proponents" section, I hardly think there's any case to be made for this being undue. This is akin to suggesting that we not mention Jenny McCarthy in MMR vaccine controversy. I understand the assertion that this person is not an expert and that their opinion is worthless. I even agree with that assertion, wholeheartedly. But to suggest that it's not notable because it's not reliable is ridiculous. If we only acknowledge experts, we'd have to gut a huge chunk of the encyclopedia, including virtually everything we have on entertainment and the arts. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:48, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
RexxS, I'm afraid you're unfamiliar (or, given your veteran status, you momentarily forgot) WP:DUE. It is unclear to me, at least, how the views of an uneducated cult leader (Scientology is a "cult" as per my county's parliament, so that's the term I'll use) are due here. If you want to make the argument for why it's due, please do. I'm merely pointing out it has not been made. It's not as if we post the bogus "interpretation" of Egyptian hieroglyphs made up by Joseph Smith in any article on Egyptology. Jeppiz ( talk) 01:09, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.It is the policy that determines whether a piece of content should be included in an article or not. Do you agree with me so far?
Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Again you see the insistence on the the phrase "all significant viewpoints". I hope you can see that the word "due" in content terms actually means "proportionate" as the policy makes clear. Can we agree that?
Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views.". And I can see some face value in the argument: not many people subscribe to Hubbard's views on the Christ myth theory. But what if not many people hold the views of Bruno Bauer? Note that "Bauer's work was heavily criticized at the time ... and his work did not have much impact on future myth theorists." Not much impact = little significance, yet it gets a sentence in the lead and a whole section with two paragraphs in the article body. Or to the viewpoint that "Christianity was an amalgamation of various ancient mythologies and that Jesus was a totally mythical character." per Volney & Dupuis, which gets a whole paragraph (admittedly only two sentences), and so on through all the different sections. Hubbard's view is given a single sentence (admittedly a paragraph in its own right) in a section comprising of nine paragraphs devoted to the 20th century proponents. So I ask you: is Hubbard's viewpoint held by such a tiny minority that it does not even deserve a single sentence, while the views of the MP John Mackinnon Robertson (that Jesus was invented by a first-century messianic cult, which believed in a solar deity symbolized by the lamb and the ram) are worthy of a paragraph of six sentences. I could go on, but I'm sure you can appreciate the point I make, regardless of whether you agree with it. If Hubbard's viewpoint in the published, reliable sources has achieved the same order of magnitude of prominence as those of Robertson, then your only argument to exclude it would be if nobody held that view. But I expect a lot of hard-core Scientologists take what Hubbard expressed as their gospel, and I very much doubt that your argument will stand up to that scrutiny.
Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views." Is this not the article devoted to this view on Christ, which Hubbard subscribes to? Hubbard's view was that no historical Jesus existed. Well, when I look that view up at Historicity of Jesus I'm directed right back to this article. Which is as it should be.
all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources. -- RexxS ( talk) 16:31, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
This was recently added to the lead: " According to these theories, the Jesus of the Gospel sayings is a literary construct, the embodiment of Wisdom, while the Christ of Paul is a mythological redeemer whose death opened the convenant for non-Jews. Together with Messianistic and apocalyptic expectations, the two characters converged in the Gospel narratives, which were later taken as historical accounts." This seems very problematic to me, number one there is only one Christ myth theory, which is that Jesus never existed, it should not say "theories", then it is not the case that all proponents of this theory say that Jesus in the Gospels is the embodiment of Wisdom and Paul's Christ is a mythological redeemer. I think this passage should be removed but will wait to see what others think. Smeat75 ( talk) 18:49, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree that the quoted sentences sum up only a subset of the various mythicist positions, and I'm glad to see they were removed from the lede. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:45, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I fear this article is trying to eat its cake and have it. Far too often, it combines amateur tinfoil conspiracy theorists (like Doherty) with minority scholars (like Price). It basically uses Price as a cover while putting forward the conspiracy theories. It's time to make a choice and stop conflicting these - are we going to present the scholarly minority and do away with the amateurs, or are we going to present amateurs and clearly identify it as a conspiracy theory? Both options are fine, but this current practice of using the odd scholar as veneer for the conspiracy theorists just isn't serious. Jeppiz ( talk) 23:55, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
What's missing are the arguments pro a mythological account, that is, the comparisons with Jewish mythological themes of the time, et cetera.This is a totally valid criticism of the article, especially when it comes to Jewish and gnostic mythological themes. Partly, this is because most mythicist authors emphasize pagan, Greek, Roman and/or Egyptian sources much more so than Jewish sources. Thomas Brodie comes to mind as a primary advocate for the view that Jesus is based on Jewish myth. I don't know if any of our page editors have read Brodie -- I certainly haven't. So, @ Joshua Jonathan:, I am looking forward to any information you can add to the article about this. JerryRussell ( talk) 17:13, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
@ JerryRussell: thank you for your response; I'll response later; dinner is waiting. But you've got a point about Carrier's polemics, and I'd love to incorporate more about the pro-arguments. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 17:22, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
I've re-ordered the info in the lead and in the first section:
I hope that this adds to the readability of the article. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 19:58, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
According to Carrier, as cited in the lead, "Jesus was originally a [deity] who was later historicized." This is incorrect, at least regarding Wells and Doherty. They both relate Jesus to a wisdom tradition, as represented in Q; accoridng to Wells, there may have been a real teacher, while according to Doherty this character is "fictionous," the personification of Wisdom. Both agree that Paul's Christ was mythological. They also both state that the Gospels joined together various views, most notably this Q-teacher and Paul's cosmic Christ. According to Doherty, the Gospel is a form of midrash, reading new meanings intoe xisting texts. Doherty further argues that the Gospel of Marc borrowed the baptism by John the Baptist from a concurring group. Altogether, it gives the sequence of Baptism - preaching - crucification. So, it seems to me that Carrier's definition is misleading, or, at least, not accurate. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 06:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
"Paul sincerely believed that the evidence (not restricted to the Wisdom literature) pointed to a historical Jesus who had lived well before his own day; and I leave open the question as to whether such a person had in fact existed and lived the obscure life that Paul supposed of him. (There is no means of deciding this issue.)" Wells, George (2013). The Jesus Legend. Open Court Publishing Company. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-8126-9872-5.
Naming: God, Wisdom, Torah and Christ
|
---|
The pre-Exilic (before 586 BCE) Old Testament allowed no equals to Yahweh in heaven, despite the continued existence of an assembly of subordinate servant-deities who helped make decisions about matters on heaven and earth. The post-Exilic writers of the Wisdom tradition (e.g. the Book of Proverbs, Song of Songs, etc.) develop the idea that Wisdom, later identified with Torah, existed before creation and was used by God to create the universe: "Present from the beginning, Wisdom assumes the role of master builder while God establishes the heavens, restricts the chaotic waters, and shapes the mountains and fields." Borrowing ideas from Greek philosophers who held that reason bound the universe together, the Wisdom tradition taught that God's Wisdom, Word and Spirit were the ground of cosmic unity. Christianity in turn adopted these ideas and applied them to Jesus: the Epistle to the Colossians calls Jesus "...image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation...", while the Gospel of John identifies him with the creative word ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"). |
74.138.110.32 ( talk) 19:12, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
First published: "The Historicity of Jesus" in The Hibbert Journal 37, (1938). p.193-214
James Patrick Holding, Shattering the Christ Myth; Mark Gerard Craig Med, The Christ Myth; Bart Ehrmann, Did Jesus Exist? - they all note that "the Christ myth" i gaining popularity, and take aim at this popularity. Is this an American debate? In Holland, frankly, most people don't care if he existed or not, and are also not interested in analyses which state that he didn't. So, is this an American debate? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 21:26, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Per Jesus Mythicism: An Introduction by Minas Papageorgiou, Nineteen prominent academics and researchers were asked to comment upon the question: Did Jesus really exist? The interviewees are: Dr Robert Price (theologian), Dr Richard Carrier (historian), Dr Maria Dzielska (historian), Dr Gerd Ludemann (theologian), Dr Gunnar Samuelsson (theologian), Dr Lena Einhorn (biologist and history researcher), Dr Payam Nabarz (writer and recreationist of the Mithraic Temple), Raphael Lataster (academic and researcher), Earl Doherty (historian), D. M. Murdock/ Acharya S (writer and scholar of comparative religion and mythology), Kenneth Humphreys (writer and researcher), Joseph Atwill (writer and researcher), Neil Godfrey (coordinator of the mythicist blog Vridar), Fritz Heede (filmmaker), Francesco Carotta (linguist and researcher), Daniel Unterbrink (writer and researcher), Ioannis Mpousios (writer and organiser of the “Gardens of Adonis” celebrations), Christos Morfos (writer and researcher), and Harita Meenee (philologist and writer). —Ref. Neil Godfrey (4 May 2015). "Jesus Mythicism: An Introduction by Minas Papageorgiou". Vridar.
There have been a lot of changes to this article recently, mostly for the better imo, however at some point these quotes were removed from what was the "criticism" section "Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees". Bart D. Ehrman states that the existence of Jesus and his crucifixion by the Romans is attested to by a wide range of sources including Josephus and Tacitus. Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan, highly skeptical with regard to the Gospel accounts of miracles, wrote in 1995 That (Jesus) was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus... agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact." I think these need to be re-instated, I will slightly modify them, because they show why classical/ancient historians regard the idea that Jesus never existed as preposterous. Anyone who has studied ancient history at all knows that there is nothing unusual about all sorts of major personages or events being known about from only one reference hundreds of years later in one of the very few works of ancient history that survive.Historians do not look at a passage from Tacitus and say "I don't think there ever was such a person" as the person Tacitus says did this or that. What is unusual in the case of Jesus is that there is so much evidence for him, multiple attestation in ancient documents, Christian, Jewish and Roman, exceedingly rare. Smeat75 ( talk) 13:56, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
@ Joshua Jonathan:Richard Carrier uses Paul's letters to show that Paul and Peter believed in a visionary/dream Jesus, with the resurrection stuff coming from Septuagint verses Isaiah 52-53, Daniel 9, Zechariah 3 and 6 etc. This is not an "argument from silence". VictoriaGrayson Talk 23:57, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
(Morton Smith, "The Historical Jesus," in Jesus in Myth and History. ed. R. Joseph Hoffmann and Gerald A. Larue [Buffalo: Prometheus, 1986] 47-48)- 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 18:12, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
I've re-inserted the edits at the apprpriate places, namely the "Pauline epistles" section and the "Richard Carrier" section. We have to be carefull, though, not to lend too much weight to too little pieces of info from specific writers. As for the various opinions of editors: it's up to each one what to believe, or what too conclude. The task for the Wiki-article, though, is to give a representative overview. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 18:34, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
The section for potential authors on Sheffield Phoenix Press's website says, 'Manuscripts offered by the author will always be sent for evaluation to a series editor or a reader for the Press.' [11]
That's absolutely standard for history books published by UK academic presses, although frequently it's two readers, often one of series editors and an outside reader.
Series editors will be major experts in the field covered by the series. That they are the editors of a particular series is not secret. Typically the one who will read it will be whichever of them is most qualified. If a second reader is used, this will usually be an outside expert. The series editors then take a collective decision on whether to accept the book. Obviously the views of the one who has read the book tends to carry the most weight. Given that one of the readers' reports will probably be by a series editor, it may not be too difficult for the author to work out who wrote that particular report. But the author will know that it's the series editors who have the final say anyway. The author may well also find out who the other reader was, as this is where the publishers get their blurbs from. Or the reader may just tell the author.
The process for collections of essays in history is usually much the same. Most academic presses will send them out to one outside reader. That's because the editor(s) of the collection will usually have invited the contributors to contribute and so cannot be considered independent.
Academic publishers will sometimes ask authors for recommendations for possible readers. But of course they do so in the full knowledge that authors will recommend names they think will be sympathetic. This can be used as a way of working out who not to send the book to.
Trade publishers are rather different. Some do retain prominent academics to read submissions. But this may involve them reading submissions on subjects on which they're not really an expert. Indeed, what the publisher may want from them is not a thorough check so much as a general sense of its quality. Others trade publishers do not use academic readers at all.
In any case, saying that a history book has been peer-reviewed does not mean that what the book says is correct. Criticisms that a reader might make are not necessarily taken on board. An author is entitled to try to convince the editors that those criticisms are wrong, irrelevant or simply a matter of opinion. Yet those criticisms could still prove to be well-founded. It is also not unknown for readers to recommend publication while saying that they personally disagree with the author's conclusions. Nor is there any requirement for a particular series or a publisher's wider list to be consistent. I'm pretty sure that many of the other authors published by Sheffield Phoenix Press will strongly disagree with Carrier's views. The only person involved in the whole publication process who must agree with Carrier's views is Carrier himself.
Finally, the real process of peer-review of history books happens after publication, when the book gets reviewed in academic journals. The glowingness of the readers' reports counts for little if the journal reviews are damning.
74.138.110.32 (
talk)
17:16, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
Aviezer (2016) is not a review of OHJ (2014) - Per Carrier, "Harvard University philosopher, Aviezer Tucker, just published a review of my book Proving History: [Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (2012)]... It is also important to note his qualifying remark: “I disclaim any expertise in the historiographical debate about Jesus.” He is thus not attempting to evaluate any claims in that field. He is only interested in looking at my Bayesian analysis of them and assessing how far it gets toward what he’d like to see done." [Ref. "Tucker's Review of Proving History in the Journal History & Theory - Richard Carrier". Richard Carrier. 3 February 2016. - 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 02:41, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Per Petterson, Christina (2015). "Book Review: On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, by Richard Carrier". Relegere. 5 (2): 253–258. - Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception is a journal dedicated to the study of reception history, broadly conceived, in the fields of religion and biblical studies. Relegere is published online two times a year and is open-access. All articles undergo blind peer review. [13] - 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 03:13, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Before all of the recent shuffling, there had been a section titled "Syncretistic and mythological roots of Christianity". Most of the material in that section has been moved into the section on the Gospels. But the arguments in that section weren't specific to the Gospels, but would apply to the entire New Testament and much of the apocrypha and early church literature and traditions as well. So I feel it should be moved back into its own section, as it had been previously. Thoughts? JerryRussell ( talk)
I already did: User:Joshua Jonathan/List of Christ myth proponents. No missing refs, so it could be moved into mainspace rigth-away. but if we condense the correspondng info in the main article, there are probably some named refs missing, so that might take some work to correct. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 17:19, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
At seconf thought: this listpage probably won't work; it may easily become a coatrack, with an incredible long list of myhticists, unreadable, and abandoned by those who also want to give the counter-arguments. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 06:19, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
In the previous thread, I wrote "The best this article can do is to give an overview of the arguments, the authors, and some sort of insight into the "development" of these ideas, c.q. who was influenced by who. Paul-Louis Couchoud, for example, is mentioned in only one short sentence. Yet, he influenced Ellegard (not mentioned anymore in the article), and Price mentions Couchoud's comment on the Christ Hymn as the last blow to the historicity of Jesus in "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man."" Vridar.org quotes Doherty, stating "It wasn’t until the 1920s that Paul-Louis Couchoud in France offered a more coherent scenario, identifying Christ in the eyes of Paul as a spiritual being. (While not relying upon him, I would trace my type of thinking back to Couchoud, rather than the more recent G. A. Wells who, in my opinion, misread Paul’s understanding of Christ." Couchoud argued that Jesus is not a "myth," but a "religious conception," and as such, a new deity, not a person who was deified. A few additinal lines seem to be justified. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 06:17, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
Some essential info is still missing:
Ample space here for more links to relevant Wiki-pages. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 09:33, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
PS: the two opening descriptions in the lead should be reversed, in my opinion. AnEhrman's description should be appended with his own words: "In simpler terms:". Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 07:48, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
Reply by 74.138.110.32
Per Thompson:
Per Arnal:
And excerpted in Pfoh, Emanuel (2012). "Jesus and the Mythic Mind: An Epistemological Problem". In Thomas L. Thompson (ed.). "Is this Not the Carpenter?": The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus. Thomas S. Verenna. Equinox. p. 85. ISBN 978-1-84553-986-3. —Ref. [Godfrey, Neil (2 September 2012). "Why Historical Knowledge of Jesus is Impossible: 'Is This Not the Carpenter?' chapter 5". Vridar.] - 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 00:37, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
The "cherry-picking" was my own work... My apologies. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 07:47, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
When it is about the number of mythicists, they are marginal. But when it is about the number of PhD's among them, there are suddenly much more, so that the percentage of PhD's is very small. Curious. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 05:42, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
Literature & Aesthetics. Vol 26 (2016). ISSN: 2200-0437- 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 08:05, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
Per Raphael Lataster, "Throughout Did Jesus Exist? Ehrman asserts that the highly questionable, fiction-filled, and relatively late Gospel accounts can generally be trusted, because of the written and oral sources underlying them that “obviously” existed, though they do not anymore (for example, see pp. 75-79). Not once does Ehrman explain the rationality and widespread endorsement of this ‘method’. Nor does he explain how his approach can provide information about the content, genre, and so forth, of these hypothetical sources."Note that I'm responding to the Lataster quote.
New edition, Revised and Expanded, Originally published under the title: The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? - Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus
4th print [1st print Ottawa: Canadian Humanist Publications].
{{
cite book}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1=
(
help)I understand that Doherty (2009) content supersedes the Journal and Website content. - 74.138.110.32 ( talk) 00:59, 4 April 2017 (UTC)