this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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Take it one step further: outside of the New Testament, all the "evidence" that Jesus ever existed at all is circumstantial at best and from a handful of religious Jewish and Roman historians with enormous confirmation bias.
Historians who specialize in that time and area are (for obvious reasons) amongst the most frequently religious academics outside of actual theologians, so most of them have enormous confirmation biases as well.
This is known as “mythicism.” The problem is that it basically requires you to believe in a vast conspiracy by historians and/or that nothing from history can be verified via textual sources. The basic argument against it is that it makes any sort of critical analysis of the past nearly impossible.
No, it's known as source skepticism.
It's not exactly tinfoil hattery not to automatically trust the objectivity of people whose deeply held but completely unscientific beliefs rely on a specific conclusion.
Especially not when those beliefs are inherently authoritarian and have been the enforced default for billions of people for over a millennium.
Mythicism takes “source skepticism” to conspiratorial levels. They effectively dismiss all experts and historical scholars views on the topic. It is not far off from being a tinfoil hat level of skepticism.
What I'm saying isn't mysticism, though. Not even close.
You're just building a strawman mystic because you don't have a counterargument to what I'm ACTUALLY saying.
It is exactly mythicism. Everything you said is a repeat of stuff said by mythicists a thousand times over.
Dude, you're talking absolute nonsense.
Speaking of repeating things, saying " it's mysticism" again and again doesn't make you any less wrong.
Again, your argument is just a copy of what other people have said a thousand times over. At least acknowledge that.
You're right about one thing: people have rightfully dismissed poorly sourced claims thousands of times over. Millions, even.
Here's something else that people have said before: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
To claim that even a non-divine version of Jesus existed is an extraordinary claim. The extraordinary proof just isn't there. On the contrary.
As for your claim that it's mysticism to doubt religious authorities, that only applies if you disagree for woo-woo spiritual reasons of thinking you "know God better" or some such bullshit.
Requiring concrete evidence like I am is about as far from the "hidden truth" claims of mysticism as anything gets.
Historical scholars are not religious authorities. It is more or less a field of scientific study. All claims are built on the basis of evidence and logical inferences from the evidence.
I will merely add that your position is not new and in fact it is many decades old. In that timeframe, it has made zero progress at convincing the historical community. And a major stumbling point appears to be the total lack of an alternative explanation and evidence for it.
As I've already explained, historical scholars who specialize in that time and that area are almost without exception followers of one Abrahamic religion or the other.
That is an inherent confirmation bias since they'd be showing themselves to be very gullible if they admitted that one of the most important figures in the scriptures that they consider capital T Truth is entirely fictional.
Add the paucity of evidence they base their "Jesus was real" claim on and there's really no rational, evidence-based reason to believe them.
History in general, yes. That specific subsection of the field has always attracted religious hacks with confirmation bias, though, always will.
Again, the specific evidence for this specific claim is ridiculously lacking. There's more reliable evidence of the sexual orientation of Alexander the Great than there's even sketchy evidrnve of Jesus existing.
As is the scientific method.
Because those specific historians are religious hacks who accept even the most spurious evidence for their preferred result and no arguments against it. Sort of like you.
First of all, no. A lack of dispositive evidence doesn't make up for a lack of positive evidence. That's not how proof works.
Second, there IS an alternative explanation. One agreed upon by everyone who doesn't believe in bronze age fairy tales:
Jesus was a fictional character based on older mythologies such as that of the Egyptian god Horus as well as other stories and the imaginations of the authors.
This is a true ad hominem fallacy. Not just personal attacks. You are really dismissing the scientific consensus entirely because you doubt the motivations of everyone involved. This is not the basis of a valid argument.
That's because Alexander was a king, and Jesus was not. The problem with this rationale has always been the same: Everyone except a handful of nobles vanishes from history because very little was written about most people. Even then, the documentation about Alexander is surprisingly scant. Almost no primary sources survive to the present day.
Again, a true ad hominem fallacy. Also, I am an atheist just like you. I just happen to not be anti-science on this topic.
That is one theory by one mythicist. In fact, it's the pet theory of Gerald Massey, someone who wrote about the subject in the 19th century. It has zero credibility among modern historians, from either the Egypt side or the Judea side. The person simply didn't know enough about either to make any sort of credible argument. This idea only survives in pop culture.
Other than that, it's been a cavalcade of one idea after another. Every mythicist has his own explanation. There has never been consensus on what the alternative explanation could even be.
You really need to be more honest with yourself. Your position is most definitely mythicism. And a very generic form of it at that.
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MYTHicism! The word he keeps using is MYTHicism! You fucking dingus!
That's just not true in this case.
If those experts and scholars are looking at the same dearth of evidence, they don't magically count as additional evidence, themselves.
... also, Viking_Hippie keeps misreading the word you're using and bickering about something else entirely.
It's not a conspiracy because no one says they planned to do it. It's just being skeptical. If they want to believe something then they're more likely to think evidence confirms that belief. Also, since that was the default view, they're more likely to accept it. Assuming that they must be right is not the only way we can trust historians. I'd argue the only way to really trust them is to assume they can be wrong and analyze what they say and what they're basing it on.
there is the Flavian theory that a Christianity was cooked up to quelle the Jewish fanatics.
No one is suggesting that historical scholars are always right. But the weight of evidence is on their side. The other point is that the mythicism position comes from people with very little or zero credibility. Since this topic has been around for decades, you think they would convince at least a few conventional scholars to just their side. This has instead been basically zero. The rational conclusion is that the mythicism side is either wrong or simply doesn’t have enough evidence to be a viable theory.
There is almost no secular evidence for it, and it is only on those who posit he exists to prove it. So yeah, there's very little (zero) evidence that he didn't exist, or at least the accounts from the Bible aren't accurate. There can never be any evidence for that unless we lived in that time. That doesn't mean we need to trust the alternative. I don't believe in any god, and I don't need evidence they aren't real. Equally I don't necessarily believe Jesus was real, because essentially all evidence for that has a motive to prove he was real.
Almost no evidence is not "no evidence." That's pretty much where the mythicism position falls apart, because they have to resort to dismissing what evidence we have to make their position valid. The other point is that if we use the level of standards demanded by mythicists, virtually all people from history can no longer be verified as real. It effectively deletes most of history.
The thing about that is we know the people you're saying that would need to conspire and lie absolutely did because literally everything in their gospels is made up - beside those all you have is few later people vaguely saying Christians exist which no one doubts
Then if he did exist and was in anyway significant we have to ask why did none of the contemporaries write about him or events when we have plenty of writing about less important things from the exact time and region.
You have an entirely invalid understanding of what people actually wrote in that time period and what would survive. This is before the printing press, and nearly everyone was illiterate. As a result, only a tiny fraction of events would be written down, and without the printing press nearly all of it would be lost to time. What we do have are things that were hand-copied by later scribes. This limits most surviving texts to either be about kings or major political events. Every else is a pure dice-roll for survival. So you wouldn’t actually expect anything written about the historical Jesus to survive to the modern day. But seeing text about him showing up a few decades later is consistent with a real person.
Also, no historian is saying that we know all of this for certain. It is merely a reconstruction of what is most likely. On the other hand, the mythicism position produces no coherent alternative explanation. It just insists that a historical Jesus didn’t exist, and replaces it will a thousands different possible answers without ever converging into a single answer.
How is not having a singular answer evidence that he (as written in the Bible) was real? It's only evidence that we don't have enough evidence, and almost certainly never will.
Not being able to explain how the planets moved isn't evidence that the accepted model before Galileo was accurate, even though all agreement then was behind it. The issue is that people had a motive to promote geocentrism. This example could be proven with later observations though. The historicity of Jesus will not have this benefit.
We could accept that there's agreement on one side and trust it, or we can understand that our knowledge is flawed and biased and question it.
Historical scholars do not claim the story from the Bible is real. In fact, they have done a very good job of figuring where they came from and how it likely differs from the real person.
You're also making a lousy guilt by association fallacy by suggesting that since past scientific knowledge was wrong, it therefore must be wrong in this very specific context too.
Very few people in the historical community cares whether a historical Jesus existed. This is a true ad hominem fallacy. They merely point out that the evidence suggests that he existed, regardless of what anyone thinks of that.
Dude, you're just trying to make me sound wrong. I did nothing of the sort. That example was there to say we can be wrong by concensus, not that we are. I don't know how you can even pull that meaning from it if you try. Just stop. I'm not telling you not to believe anything. I'm saying why I don't necessarily believe it and why. I don't think they're wrong. I just don't think they're right either. I don't really have an opinion on it because him existing or not has no bearing on reality.
The people who they're basing their knowledge on for sure had an opinion on it, whether they do or not. We have little to no first hand records. Almost everything is recorded by someone who cared. To ignore this would be a huge issue with the legitimacy of the argument.
Of course, anything can be wrong. But it cannot be the basis of any argument. For one thing, this can easily be applied to your position. You could be wrong too.
Historical scholars will be the first to tell you that this is the problem with all of history. There are almost never first-hand records of any event before the modern era. Their job is to piece together a sequence of events that is most likely based on what evidence they do have. If this isn't sufficient for you, then problem then becomes that nearly all of history before the modern era can no longer be verified.
It can't be applied to my position because my position is just that we don't have enough evidence and can't know. My position isn't that he didn't exist, only that there's no good reason for me to believe he existed. I think I've made that plenty clear by now.
Yep. We can't varify it. That's my whole position. The evidence isn't solid enough for me to believe, and it doesn't change anything either way. We do know much of the Bible is wrong, so people trying to protect it by arguing he was a historical figure at least have a bias. Historical scholars can discuss it all they want, and come to the best conclusions possible. That's great. It still doesn't really solidify anything. If the reason to believe it is for the Bible, it's pointless. If the reason to believe it is because concensus, sure but why?
We have about as good enough reason to believe that he existed as any other historical person. That is my point the whole time. And it is the point of all historical scholars on this topic.
If that isn’t enough evidence, and we instead insist on a standard of proof that puts historical Jesus in the unconfirmed category, then we have to abandon nearly all historical people from the list of confirmed. History before the modern era almost completely vanishes in that case.