Why are historians so anti Christ myth theory? (1800s, Lincoln, state)

[mamabear1972]

What I think is most interesting about the Christ story is that there is a nearly identical story in Egyptian mythology - a messiah born of a virgin with godlike powers over life and death who died and rose again after 3 days. I'm not dissing Jesus, BTW - I think everything he said was spot on.

[neutrino78x]

What exactly do atheists hope to gain from Jesus being a myth, anyway? They do realize this has nothing to do with whether or not there is a God, right?

We would still be left with the great institution of the Roman Catholic Church, which, while not perfect, has done much to advance mankind. Just a couple of examples are all the charitable work The Roman Catholic Church does all around the world and that, during the Dark Ages, the Roman Catholic Church preserved the intellectual and cultural treasure of the Western World.

We would also be left with the Bible being a great work of literature with profound spiritual truths written therein.

So, again, and this is directed at the original poster, what's your point?

As a Deist, finding that Jesus of Nazereth never existed wouldn't change my belief in God one iota. Completely irrelevant. I think the Jesuit Order of Roman Catholic Priests would say the same about Catholicism. Basically the only people whose belief systems would be harmed by such a discovery would be the fundamentalist Christians, and they are on the fringe. Mainstream Christians would be unaffected.

[TenorSax83]

Here are a few quotes from primary sources and Jewish/Roman historians who were contemporaries of the time. Here's what they have to say.


Flavius Josephus (94 CE) Antiquities of the Jews Book 20, Chapter 9, Verse 1:

Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent.

Book 18, Chapter 3, Verse 3:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, (9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.



Cornelius Tacitus (115 CE) Annals Book 15, Chapter 44:

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

[Mini-apple-less]

"Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works" - This quote in particular is known to be a forgery.

[Mini-apple-less]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Ehrman was at one time a deeply immersed evangelical Christian. He was able to overcome his emotional attachment to that when he could not reconcile the beliefs with the historical evidence. He went through the transformation that involves admitting to yourself that you had been a fool all along, a conquest of one's own ego as it were.

So, as much as he may have an emotional investment in there being a historical Jesus, he has demonstrated that his commitment to scholarly conclusions is also great.

I do not claim certainty, but having read several of his books, and having seen what a careful, scrupulous approach he takes to the evidence, I'm willing to extend him the benefit of the doubt.

Just because the scholarly consensus right now is that Jesus was a real person doesn't mean it's a fact though. The field is still dominated by Christians and being that the Christ myth theory is not only extremely controversial but threatens the existence of their field, it's no wonder they are so strongly opposed to it.

You can't compare the Christ myth theory to global warming denial, for example, because the latter has tons of contemporary evidence. With Jesus all we have is a couple quotes from historians, letters by a guy who never actually met him, and then the Gospels themselves. Academics don't have access to any secret information, all we know about Christ (which is VERY little) is available on the Internet.

Occam's Razor doesn't apply because of the extraordinary things Jesus supposedly did.

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by valsteele

Occam's Razor doesn't apply because of the extraordinary things Jesus supposedly did.

No, dude, it still applies. Jesus of Nazereth could have existed without doing any of the miracles that the Bible associates with him. There are all kinds of legends about people like George Washington, many of which are just stories, with no basis in fact, but we know George Washington existed.

[neutrino78x]

...and remember, when he was alive, Jesus of Nazereth was not famous outside of the towns where he went. You're making it sound as if everyone in the Roman Empire at the time should have heard of him and that is just not the case.

[Mini-apple-less]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

No, dude, it still applies. Jesus of Nazereth could have existed without doing any of the miracles that the Bible associates with him. There are all kinds of legends about people like George Washington, many of which are just stories, with no basis in fact, but we know George Washington existed.

You can't compare Jesus to George Washington. We still have George Washington's teeth for crying out loud. There's zero evidence of Jesus aside from written hearsay.

And cutting down a cherry tree has nothing on walking on water.

[Woof]

Originally Posted by valsteele

........With Jesus all we have is a couple quotes from historians, letters by a guy who never actually met him, and then the Gospels themselves. ........

You keep referring to the gospels as if they were a single piece of evidence, but they were written separately - at different times, with different writing styles. Only later were they linked together in the Bible collection. (Plus there were some non-canonical gospels, some of which may have been written early). Much of what they said was different in details, but they agreed on most basic issues such as him being a wandering preacher and miracle man, baptized by John (who apparently was more famous than Jesus, according to the number of references in Josephus iirc) executed by the Romans in a crucifixion, who later rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples. What are the chances of at least four manuscripts written years later with that many agreements, if the basic story were fictional?

Originally Posted by valsteele

You can't compare Jesus to George Washington. We still have George Washington's teeth for crying out loud. There's zero evidence of Jesus aside from written hearsay.
.....

There's no scientific evidence, but the standards of evidence for historians are greatly different from those of scientists.

[Mini-apple-less]

Originally Posted by Woof

What are the chances of at least four manuscripts written years later with that many agreements, if the basic story were fictional?

I'm sure there have been thousands of Harry Potter fanfictions written since the first book was released in 1997. So I'd say pretty high.