Did Jesus Exist? The Jesus Myth Theory, Again.

Did Jesus Exist? The Jesus Myth Theory, Again.

The consensus of scholars, including non-Christian scholars, is that a historical Jesus most likely existed and the later stories about “Jesus Christ” were told about him.  The idea that there was no such historical person at all and that “Jesus Christ” was a purely mythical figure has been posited in one form or another since the eighteenth century, but is not taken seriously by anyone but a tiny handful of fringe scholars and amateurs.  Despite this, the Jesus Myth thesis is accepted by remarkable number of New Atheists, including Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers, and is regarded with favour by Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.  Christopher Hitchens had some hesitations about it, but generally considered it reasonable.  This blog has already tackled some of the prominent proponents of the Mythicist thesis, such as Dave Fitzgerald and, of course, the inevitable pseudo historian Richard Carrier, but here is a summary of why Mythicism is not accepted by the overwhelming majority of scholars.  Please note that this article refers to the likely existence of a historical person about whom the later gospel stories were told.  The issue of whether those stories – complete with their alleged miracles, supposedly fulfilled prophecies and reported visions and apparitions – are historical is a different question.  The existence of a historical Jewish preacher and the existence of the “Jesus of the gospels” are not the same thing.

Background

Scholars who specialise in the origins of Christianity agree on very little, but they do generally agree that it is most likely that a historical preacher, on whom the Christian figure “Jesus Christ” is based, did exist.  The numbers of professional scholars, out of the many thousands in this and related fields, who don’t accept this consensus, can be counted on the fingers of one hand.  Many may be more cautious about using the term “historical fact” about this idea, since as with many things in ancient history it is not quite as certain as that.  But it is generally regarded as the best and most parsimonious explanation of the evidence and therefore the most likely conclusion that can be drawn.

The opposite idea – that there was no historical Jesus at all and that “Jesus Christ” developed out of some purely mythic ideas about a non-historical, non-existent figure – has had a chequered history over the last 200 years, but has usually been a marginal idea at best.  Its heyday was in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when it seemed to fit with some early anthropological ideas about religions evolving along parallel patterns and being based on shared archetypes, as characterised by Sir James Frazer’s influential comparative religion study The Golden Bough (1890). But it fell out of favour as the twentieth century progressed and was barely held by any scholars at all by the 1960s.

More recently the “Jesus Myth” hypothesis has experienced something of a revival, largely via the internet, blogging and “print on demand” self-publishing services.  But its proponents are almost never scholars, many of them have a very poor grasp of the evidence and almost all have clear ideological objectives.  Broadly speaking, they fall into two main categories: (i) New Agers claiming Christianity is actually paganism rebadged and (ii) anti-Christian atheist activists seeking to use their “exposure” of historical Jesus scholarship to undermine Christianity.  Both claim that the consensus on the existence of a historical Jesus is purely due to some kind of iron-grip that Christianity still has on the subject, which has suppressed and/or ignored the idea that there was no historical Jesus at all.

In fact, there are some very good reasons there is a broad scholarly consensus on the matter and that it is held by scholars across a wide range of beliefs and backgrounds, including those who are atheists and agnostics (e.g. Bart Ehrman, Maurice Casey, Paula Fredriksen) and Jews (e.g. Geza Vermes, Hyam Maccoby).

Unconvincing Arguments for a Mythic Origin for Jesus

Many of the arguments for a Mythic Jesus that some laypeople think sound highly convincing  are exactly the same ones that scholars consider laughably weak, even though they sound plausible to those without a sound background in the study of the first century.  For example:

1.  “There are no contemporary accounts or mentions of Jesus.  There should be, so clearly no Jesus existed.”

This seems a good argument to many, since modern people tend to leave behind them a lot of evidence they existed (birth certificates, financial documents, school records) and prominent modern people have their lives documented by the media almost daily.  So it sounds suspicious to people that there are no contemporary records at all detailing or even mentioning Jesus.

But our sources for anyone in the ancient world are scarce and rarely are they contemporaneous – they are usually written decades or even centuries after the fact.  Worse still, the more obscure and humble in origin the person is, the less likely that there will be any documentation about them or even a fleeting reference to them at all.

For example, few people in the ancient world were as prominent, influential, significant and famous as the Carthaginian general Hannibal.  He came close to crushing the Roman Republic, was one of the greatest generals of all time and was famed throughout the ancient world for centuries after his death down to today.  Yet how many contemporary mentions of Hannibal do we have?  Zero.  We have none.  So if someone as famous and significant as Hannibal has no surviving contemporary references to him in our sources, does it really make sense to base an argument about the existence or non-existence of a Galilean peasant preacher on the lack of contemporary references to him?  Clearly it does not.

So while this seems like a good argument, a better knowledge of the ancient world and the nature of our evidence and sources shows that it’s actually extremely weak.

2.  “The ancient writer X should have mentioned this Jesus, yet he doesn’t do so.  This silence shows that no Jesus existed.”

An “argument from silence” is a tricky thing to use effectively.  To do so, it’s not enough to show that a writer, account or source is silent on a given point – you also have to show that it shouldn’t be before  this silence can be given any significance.  So if someone claims their grandfather met Winston Churchill yet a thorough search of the grandfather’s letters and diaries of the time shows no mention of this meeting, a solid argument from silence could be presented to say that the meeting never happened.  This is because we could expect such a meeting to be mentioned in those documents.

Some “Jesus Mythicists” have tried to argue that certain ancient writers “should” have mentioned Jesus and did not and so tried to make an argument from silence on this basis.  In 1909 the American “freethinker” John Remsberg came up with a list of 42 ancient writers that he claimed “should” have mentioned Jesus and concluded their silence suggested Jesus may never have existed.  But the list has been widely criticised for being contrived and fanciful.  Why exactly, for example, Lucanus – a writer whose works consist of a single poem and a history of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey (in the century before Jesus’ time) “should” have mentioned Jesus is hard to see.  And the same can be said for most of the other writers on Remsberg’s list.

Some others, however, are more reasonable at first glance.  Philo Judaeus was a Jew in Alexandria who wrote philosophy and theology and who was a contemporary of Jesus who also mentions events in Judea and makes reference to other figures we know from the gospel accounts, such as Pontius Pilate.  So it makes far more sense that he “should” mention Jesus than some poets in far off Rome.  But it is hard to see why even Philo would be interested in mentioning someone like Jesus, given that he also makes no mentions of any of the other Jewish preachers, prophets, faith healers and Messianic claimants of the time, of which there were many.  If Philo had mentioned Anthronges and Theudas, or Hillel and Honi or John the Baptist and the “Samaritan Prophet” but didn’t mention Jesus, then a solid argument from silence could be made.  But given that Philo seems to have had no interest at all in any of the various people like Jesus, the fact that he doesn’t mention Jesus either carries little or no weight.

In fact, there is only one writer of the time who had any interest in such figures, who also had little interest for Roman and Greek writers.  He was the Jewish historian Josephus, who is our sole source for virtually all of the Jewish preachers, prophets, faith healers and Messianic claimants of this time.  If there is any writer who should mention Jesus, it’s Josephus.  The problem for the “Jesus Mythicists” is … he does.  Twice, in fact.  He does do so in Antiquities XVIII.63-64 and again in Antiquities XX.200.  Mythicists take comfort in the fact that the first of these references has been added to by later Christian scribes, so they dismiss it as a wholesale interpolation.  But the majority of modern scholars disagree, arguing there is solid evidence to believe that Josephus did make a mention of Jesus here and that it was added to by Christians to help bolster their arguments against Jewish opponents.  That debate aside, the Antiquities XX.200 mention of Jesus is universally considered genuine by Josephus scholars and that alone sinks the Mythicist case (see below for more details).

3.  “The earliest Christian traditions make no mention of a historical Jesus and clearly worshipped a purely heavenly, mythic-style being.  There are no references to an earthly Jesus in any of the earliest New Testament texts, the letters of Paul.”

Since many people who read Mythicist arguments have never actually read the letters of Paul, this one sounds convincing as well.  Except it simply isn’t true.  While Paul was writing letters about matters of doctrine and disputes and so wasn’t giving a basic lesson in who Jesus was in any of this letters, he does make references to Jesus’ earthly life in many places.  He says Jesus was born as a human, of a human mother and born a Jew (Gal 4:4). He repeats that he had a “human nature” and that he was a human descendant of King David (Rom 1:3), of Abraham (Gal 3:16), of Israelites (Rom 9:4-5) and of Jesse (Rom 15:12). He refers to teachings Jesus made during his earthly ministry on divorce (1Cor 7:10), on preachers (1Cor 9:14) and on the coming apocalypse (1Thess. 4:15). He mentions how he was executed by earthly rulers (1Cor 2:8, 1Thess 2: 14-16) that he was crucified (1Cor 1:23, 2:2, 2:8, 2Cor 13:4) and that he died and was buried (1Cor 15:3-4). And he says he had an earthly, physical brother called James who Paul himself had met (Gal 1:19).

So Mythicist theorists then have to tie themselves in knots to “explain” how, in fact, a clear reference to Jesus being “born of a woman” actually means he wasn’t born of a woman and how when Paul says Jesus was “according to the flesh, a descendant of King David” this doesn’t mean he was a human and the human descendant of a human king.  These contrived arguments are so weak they tend to only convince the already convinced.  It’s this kind of contrivance that consigns this thesis to the fringe.

The Problems with a “Mythic” Origin to the Jesus Story

The weaknesses of the Mythicist hypothesis multiply when its proponents turn to coming up with their own explanation as to how the Jesus stories did arise if there was no historical Jesus.  Of course, many of them don’t really bother much with presenting an alternative explanation and leave their ideas about exactly how this happened conveniently vague.  But some realise that we have late First Century stories that all claim there was an early First Century person who lived within living memory  and then make a series of claims about him.  If there was no such person, the Mythicist does need to explain how the stories about his existence arose and took the form they do. And they need to do so in a way that accounts for the evidence better than the parsimonious idea that this was believed because there was such a person.  This is where Mythicism really falls down.  The Mythicist theories fall into four main categories:

1. “Jesus was an amalgam of earlier pagan myths, brought together into a mythic figure of a god-man and saviour of a kind found in many cults of the time.”

This is the explanation offered by the New Age writer who calls herself “Acharya S” in a series of self-published books beginning with The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold (1999).  Working from late nineteenth and early twentieth century  theosophist claims which exaggerate parallels between the Jesus stories and pagan myths, she makes the typical New Age logical leap from “similarity” to “parallel” and finally to “connection” and “causation”.  Leaving aside the fact that many of these “parallels” are highly strained, with any miraculous conception or birth story becoming a “virgin birth” or anything to do with a death or a tree becoming a “crucifixion” (even if virginity or a cross is not involved in either), it is very hard to make the final leap from “parallel” to “causation”.

This is particularly hard because of the masses of evidence that the first followers of the Jesus sect were devout Jews – a group for whom the idea of adopting anything “pagan” would have been utterly horrific.  These were people who cut their hair short because long hair was associated with pagan, Hellenistic culture or who shunned gymnasia and theatres because of their association with pagan culture.  All the evidence actually shows that the earliest Jesus sect went through a tumultuous period in its first years trying to accommodate non-Jews into their devoutly Jewish group.  To claim that these people would merrily adopt myths of Horus and Attis and Dionysius and then amalgamate them into a story about a pagan/Jewish hybrid Messiah (who didn’t exist) and then turn around and forget he didn’t exist and claim he did and that he did so just a few decades earlier is clearly a nonsense hypothesis.

2.  “Jesus was a celestial being who existed in a realm just below the lunar sphere and was not considered an earthly being at all until later.”

This is the theory presented by another self-published Mythicist author, Earl Doherty, first in The Jesus Puzzle (2005) and then in Jesus : Neither God nor Man (2009).  Doherty’s theory has several main flaws.  Firstly, he claims that this mythic/celestial Jesus was based on a Middle Platonic view of  the cosmos that held that there was a “fleshly sub-lunar realm” in the heavens where gods and celestial beings lived and acted out mythic events.  This is the realm, Doherty claims, in which it was believed that Mithras slew the cosmic bull, where Attis lived and died and where Jesus was crucified and rose again.  The problem here is Doherty does very little to back up this claim and, while non-specialist readers may not realise this from the way he presents this idea, it is not something accepted by historians of ancient thought but actually a hypothesis developed entirely by Doherty himself.  He makes it seem like this idea is common knowledge amongst specialists in Middle Platonic philosophy, while never quite spelling out that it’s something he’s made up. The atheist Biblical scholar Jeffrey Gibson has concluded:

“… the plausibility of D[oherty]’s hypothesis depends on not having good knowledge of ancient philosophy, specifically Middle Platonism. Indeed, it becomes less and less plausible the more one knows of ancient philosophy and, especially, Middle Platonism.

Secondly, Doherty’s thesis requires the earliest Christian writings about Jesus, the letters of Paul, to be about this “celestial/mythic Jesus” and not a historical, earthly one.  Except, as has been pointed out above, Paul’s letters do contain a great many references to an earthly Jesus that don’t fit with Doherty’s hypothesis at all.  Doherty has devoted a vast number of words in both his books “explaining” ways that these references can be read so that his thesis does not collapse, but these are contrived and in places quite fanciful.

Finally, Doherty’s explanations as to how this “celestial/mythic Jesus” sect gave rise to a “historical/earthly Jesus” sect and then promptly disappeared without trace strain credulity.  Despite being the original form of Christianity and despite surviving, according to Doherty, well into the Second Century, this celestial Jesus sect vanished without leaving any evidence of its existence behind and was undreamed of until Doherty came along and deduced that it had once existed.  This is very difficult to believe.  Early Christianity was a diverse, divided and quarrelsome faith, with a wide variety of sub-sects, offshoots and “heresies”, all arguing with each other and battling for supremacy.   What eventually emerged from this riot of Christianities was a form of “orthodoxy” that had all the elements of Christianity today: the Trinity, Jesus as the divine incarnate, a physical resurrection etc.  But we know of many of the other rivals to this orthodoxy largely thanks to orthodox writings attacking them and refuting their claims and doctrines.  Doherty expects us to believe that despite all these apologetic literature condemning and refuting a wide range of “heresies” there is not one that bothers to even mention this original Christianity that taught Jesus was never on earth at all.  This beggar’s belief.

Doherty’s thesis is much more popular amongst atheists than the New Age imaginings of “Acharya S” but has had no impact on the academic sphere partly because self-published hobbyist efforts don’t get much attention, but mainly because of the flaws noted above.  Doherty and his followers maintain, of course, that it’s because of a kind of academic conspiracy, much as Creationists and Holocaust deniers do.

3.  “Jesus began as an allegorical, symbolic figure of the Messiah who got ‘historicised’ into an actual person despite the fact he never really existed”

This idea has been presented in most detail by another amateur theorist in yet another self-published book: R.G. Price’s Jesus – A Very Jewish Myth (2007).  Unlike “Acharya S” and, to a lesser extent Doherty, Price at least takes account of the fact that the Jesus stories and the first members of the Jesus sect are completely and fundamentally Jewish, so fantasies about Egyptian myths or Greek Middle Platonic philosophy are not going to work as points of origin for them.  According to this version of Jesus Mythicism, Jesus was an idealisation of what the Messiah was to be like who got turned into a historical figure largely by mistake and misunderstanding.

Several of the same objections to Doherty’s thesis can be made about this one – if this was the case, why are there no remnants of debates with or condemnations of those who believed the earlier version and maintained there was no historical Jesus at all?  And why don’t any of Christianity’s enemies use the fact that the original Jesus sect didn’t believe in a historical Jesus as an argument against the new version of the sect?  Did everyone just forget?

More tellingly, if the Jesus stories arose out of ideas about and expectations of the Messiah, it is very odd that Jesus doesn’t fit those expectations better.  Despite Christian claims to the contrary, the first Christians had to work very hard to convince fellow Jews that Jesus was the Messiah precisely because he didn’t conform to these expectations. Most importantly, there was absolutely no tradition or Messianic expectation that told of the Messiah being executed and then rising from the dead – this first appears with Christianity and has no Jewish precedent at all.  Far from evolving from established Messianic prophecies and known elements in the scripture, the first Christians had to scramble to find anything at all which looked vaguely like a “prophecy” of this unexpected and highly unMessianic event.

That the centre and climax of the story of Jesus would be based on his shameful execution and death makes no sense if it evolved out of Jewish expectations about the Messiah, since they contained nothing about any such idea.  This climax to the story only makes sense if it actually happened, and then his followers had to find totally new and largely strained and contrived “scriptures” which they then claimed “predicted” this outcome, against all previous expectation.  Price’s thesis fails because Jesus’ story doesn’t conform to Jewish myths enough.

4. “Jesus was not a Jewish preacher at all but was someone else or an amalgam of people combined into one figure in the Christian tradition”

This is the least popular of the Jesus Myth hypotheses, but versions of it are argued by Italian amateur theorist Francesco Carotta (Jesus was Caesar: On the Julian Origin of Christianity. An Investigative Report – 2005), computer programmer Joseph Atwill (Caesar’s Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus – 2005) and accountant Daniel Unterbrink (Judas the Galilean: The Flesh and Blood Jesus – 2004).  Carotta claims Jesus was actually Julius Caesar and imposed on Jewish tradition as part of the cult of the Divius Julius.  Atwill claims Jesus was invented by the Emperor Titus and imposed on Judaism in the same way.  Neither do a very good job of substantiating these claims or of explaining why the Romans then turned around, as early as 64 AD (fifteen years before Titus became emperor) and began persecuting the cult they supposedly created.  No scholar takes these theories or that of Unterbrink seriously.

No scholar also argues that Jesus was an amalgam of various Jewish preachers or other figures of the time.  That is because there is nothing in the evidence to indicate this.  This idea has never been argued in any detailed form by anyone at all, scholar or Jesus myth amateur theorist, but it is something some who don’t want to subscribe to the idea that “Jesus Christ” was based on a real person resorts to so that they can put some sceptical distance between the Christian claims and anything or anyone historical.  It seems to be a purely rhetorically-based idea, with no substance and no argument behind it.

So What’s the Evidence for the Existence of a Historical Jesus?

Many Christians accept a historical Jesus existed because they never thought to question the idea in the first place or because they are convinced that the gospels can be read as (more or less) historical accounts and so don’t need to be seriously doubted on this point.  But why do the overwhelming majority of non-Christian scholars also accept that he existed?

The Total Lack of Evidence for a “Mythic Christianity”

Essentially, it’s because it’s the most parsimonious explanation of the evidence we have.  Early Christianity, in all its forms, and the critics of early Christianity agree on virtually nothing about Jesus, except for one thing – that he existed as a historical person in the early first century.  If there really was an original form of Christianity that didn’t believe this, as all versions of the “Jesus Myth” idea require, then it makes no sense that there is no trace of it.  Such an idea would be a boon to the various Gnostic branches of Christianity, which emphasised his spiritual/mystical aspects and saw him as an emissary from a purely spiritual world to help us escape the physical dimension.  A totally non-historical, purely mystical Jesus would have suited their purposes perfectly.  Yet they never taught such a Jesus – they always depict him as a historical first century teacher, but argue that he was “pure spirit” and only had the “illusion of flesh”.  Why?  Because they couldn’t deny that he had existed as a historical person and there was no prior “mythic Jesus” tradition for them to draw on.

Similarly, the memory of an earlier, original Christianity which didn’t believe in a historical Jesus would have been a killer argument for the many Jewish and pagan critics of Christianity.  Jesus Mythicists claim this mythic Jesus Christianity survived well into the second or even third century.  We have orthodox Christian responses to critiques by Jews and pagans from that period, by Justin Martyr, Origen and Minucius Felix.  They try to confront and answer the arguments their critics make about Jesus – that he was a fool, a magician, a bastard son of a Roman soldier, a fraud etc – but none of these apologetic works mention so much as a hint that anyone ever claimed he never existed.  If a whole branch of Christianity existed that claimed just this, why did it pass totally unnoticed by these critics? Clearly no such earlier “mythic Jesus” proto-Christianity existed – it is a creation of the modern Jesus Mythicist activists to prop up their theory.

Indicators of Historicity in the Gospels

The main reason non-Christian scholars accept that there was a Jewish preacher as the point of origin of the Jesus story is that the stories themselves contain elements which only make sense if they were originally about such a preacher but which the gospel writers themselves found somewhat awkward.  As noted above, far from conforming closely to expectations about the coming Messiah, the Jesus story actually shows many signs of being shoehorned into such expectations and not exactly fitting very well.

For example, in gMark Jesus is depicted as going to the Jordan and being baptised by John the Baptist (Mark 1: 9-11), after which he hears a voice from heaven and goes off into the wilderness to fast.  For the writer of gMark, this is the point where Jesus becomes the Messiah of Yahweh and so there is no problem with him having his sins washed away by John, since prior to his point he was man like any other.  The writer of gMatthew, however, has a very different Christology.  In his version, Jesus has been the ordained Messiah since his miraculous conception, so it is awkward for him to have the chosen one of God going to be baptised by John, who is a lesser prophet.  So gMatthew tells more or less the same story as he finds in gMark, which he uses as his source, but adds a small exchange of dialogue not found in the earlier version:

But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 
Jesus replied, Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness. Then John consented.
(Matt 3:14-15)

When we turn to the latest of the gospels, gJohn, we find a very different story again.  The writer of this gospel depicts Jesus as being a mystical, pre-existent Messiah who had a heavenly existence since the beginning of time.  So for him the idea of Jesus being baptised by John is even more awkward.  So he solves the problem by removing the baptism altogether.  In this latest version, John is baptising other people and telling them that the Messiah was to come and then sees Jesus and declares him to be the Messiah (John 1:29-33).  There is no baptism of Jesus at all in the gJohn version.

So in these three examples we have three different versions of the same story written at three times in the early decades of Christianity.  All of them are dealing with the baptism of Jesus by John in different ways and trying to make it fit with their conceptions of Jesus and at least two of them are having some trouble doing so and are having to change the story to make it fit their ideas about Jesus.  All this indicates that the baptism of Jesus by John was a historical event and known to be such and so could not be left out of the story.  This left the later gospel writers with the problem of trying to make it fit their evolving ideas about who and what Jesus was.

There are several other elements in the gospels like this.  gLuke and gMatthew go to great lengths to tell stories which “explain” how Jesus came to be born in Bethlehem despite being from Nazareth, since Micah 5:2 was taken to be a prophecy that the Messiah was to be from Bethlehem.  Both gospels, however, tell completely different, totally contradictory and mutually exclusive stories (one is even set ten years after the other) which all but the most conservative Christian scholars acknowledge to be non-historical.  The question then arises: why did they go to this effort?  If Jesus existed and was from Nazareth, this makes sense.  Clearly some Jews objected to the claim Jesus was the Messiah on the grounds that he was from the insignificant village of Nazareth in Galilee and not from Bethlehem in Judea – John 7:41-42 even depicts some Jews making precisely this objection.  So it makes sense that Christian traditions would arise that “explain” how a man known to be a Galilean from Nazareth came to be born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth – thus the contradictory stories in gLuke and gMatthew that have this as their end.

If, however, there was no historical Jesus then it is very hard to explain why an insignificant town like Nazareth is in the story at all.  If Jesus was a purely mythic figure and the stories of his life evolved out of expectations about the Messiah then he would be from Bethlehem, as was expected as a Messiah.  So why is Nazareth, a tiny place of no religious significance, in the story?  And why all the effort to get Jesus born in Bethlehem but keep Nazareth in the narrative?  The only reasonable explanation is that it’s Nazareth that is the historical element in these accounts – it is in the story because that is where he was from.  A historical Jesus explains the evidence far better than any “mythic” alternative.   

“Alexamenos worships his god” – A Roman graffito mocks the idea of a crucified god

But probably the best example of an element in the story which was so awkward for the early Christians that it simply has to be historical is the crucifixion. The idea of a Messiah who dies was totally unheard of and utterly alien to any Jewish tradition prior to the beginning of Christianity, but the idea of a Messiah who was crucified was not only bizarre, it was absurd.  According to Jewish tradition, anyone who was “hanged on a tree” was to be considered accursed by Yahweh and this was one of the reasons crucifixion was considered particularly abhorrent to Jews.  The concept of a crucified Messiah, therefore, was totally bizarre and absurd.

It was equally weird to non-Jews.  Crucifixion was considered the most shameful and abhorrent of deaths, so much so that one of the privileges of Roman citizenship is that citizens could never be crucified.  The idea of a crucified god, therefore, was absurd and bizarre. This was so much the case that the early Christians avoided any depictions of Jesus on the cross – the first depictions of the Crucifixion appear in the fourth century, after Christian emperors banned crucifixion and it began to lose its stigma.  It’s significant that the earliest depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus that we have is a graffito from Rome showing a man worshipping a crucified figure with the head of a donkey with the  mocking caption “Alexamenos worships his god”.  The idea of a crucified god was, quite literally, ridiculous.  Paul acknowledges how absurd the idea of a crucified Messiah was in 1Cor 1:23, where he says it “is a stumbling block to the Jews and an absurdity to the gentiles”.

The accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion in the gospels also show how awkward the nature of their Messiah’s death was for the earliest Christians.  They are all full of references to texts in the Old Testament as ways of demonstrating that, far from being an absurdity, this was what was supposed to happen to the Messiah.  But none of the texts used were considered prophecies of the Messiah before Christianity came along and some of them are highly forced.  The “suffering servant” passages in Isaiah 53 are pressed into service as “prophecies” of the crucifixion, since they depict a figure being falsely accused, rejected and given up to be “pierced …. as a guilt offering”.  But the gospels don’t reference other parts of the same passage which don’t fit their story at all, such as where it is said this figure will “prolong his days and look upon his offspring”.

Clearly the gospel writers were going to some effort to find some kind of scriptural basis for this rather awkward death for their group’s leader, one that let them maintain their belief that he was the Messiah.  Again, this makes most sense if there was a historical Jesus and he was crucified, leaving his followers with this awkward problem.  If there was no historical Jesus at all, it becomes very difficult to explain where this bizarre, unprecedented and awkwardly inconvenient element in the story comes from.  It’s hard to see why anyone would invent the idea of a crucified Messiah and create these problems.  And given that there was no precedent for a crucified Messiah, it’s almost impossible to see this idea evolving out of earlier Jewish traditions.  The most logical explanation is that it’s in the story, despite its vast awkwardness, because it happened.

Non-Christian References to Jesus as Historical Figure

Many Christian apologists vastly overstate the number of ancient non-Christian writers who attest to the existence of Jesus.  This is partly because they are not simply showing that a mere Jewish preacher existed, but are arguing for the existence of the “Jesus Christ” of Christian doctrine: a supposedly supernatural figure who allegedly performed amazing public miracles in front of audiences of thousands of witnesses.  It could certainly be argued that such a wondrous figure would have been noticed outside of Galilee and Judea and so should have been widely noted as well.  So Christian apologists often cite a long list of writers who mention Jesus, usually including Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius, Lucian, Thallus and several others.  But of these only Tacitus and Josephus actually mention Jesus as a historical person – the others are all simply references to early Christianity, some of which mention the “Christ” that was the focus of its worship.

If we are simply noting the existence of Jesus as a human Jewish preacher, we are not required to produce more mentions of him than we would expect of comparable figures.  And what we find is that we have about as much evidence for his existence (outside any Christian writings) as we have for other Jewish preachers, prophets and Messianic claimants of the time.  The two non-Christian writers who mention him as a historical person are Josephus and Tacitus.

Josephus

The Jewish priestly aristocrat Joseph ben Matityahu, who took the Roman name Flavius Josephus, is our main source of information about Jewish affairs in this period and is usually the only writer of the time who makes any mention of Jewish preachers, prophets and Messianic claimants of the first century.  Not surprisingly, he mentions Jesus twice: firstly in some detail in Antiquities of the Jews XVIII.63-64 and again more briefly when mentioning the execution of Jesus’ brother James in Antiquities XX.200.  The first reference is problematic, however, as it contains elements which Josephus cannot have written and which seem to have been added later by a Christian interpolator.  Here is the text, with the likely interpolations in bold:

“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 paradoxical deeds, 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, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; 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.

There has been a long debate about what parts of this reference to Jesus are authentic to Josephus or even if the whole passage is a wholesale interpolation.  Proponents of the Jesus Myth hypothesis, naturally, opt for the idea that it is not authentic in any way, but there are strong indications that, apart from the obvious additions shown in bold above, Josephus did mention Jesus at this point in his text.

To begin with, several elements in the passage are distinctively Josephan in their style and phrasing.  “Now (there was) about this time …” is used by Josephus as a way of introducing a new topic hundreds of times in his work.  There are no early Christian parallels that refer to Jesus merely as “a wise man”, but this is a term used by Josephus several times, eg about Solomon and Daniel.  Christian writers placed a lot of emphasis on Jesus’ miracles, but here the passage uses a fairly neutral  term παραδόξων ἔργων – “paradoxa erga” or “paradoxical deeds”.  Josephus does use this phrase elsewhere about the miracles of Elisha, but the term can also mean “deeds that are difficult to interpret” and even has overtones of cautious scepticism.  Finally, the use of the word φῦλον (“phylon” – “race, tribe”) is not used by Christians about themselves in any works of the time, but is used by Josephus elsewhere about nations or other distinct groups.  Additionally, with the sole exception of Χριστιανῶν (“Christianon” – “Christians”) every single word in the passage can be found elsewhere in Josephus’ writings.

The weight of the evidence of the vocabulary and style of the passage is heavily towards its partial authenticity.  Not only does it contain distinctive phrases of Josephus that he used in similar contexts elsewhere, but these are also phrases not found in early Christian texts.  And it is significantly free of terms and phrases from the gospels, which we’d expect to find if it was created wholesale by a Christian writer.  So either a very clever Christian interpolator somehow managed to immerse himself in Josephus’ phrasing and language, without modern concordances and dictionaries and create a passage containing distinctively Josephean phraseology, or what we have here is a genuinely Josephean passage that has simply been added to rather clumsily.

As a result of this and other evidence (eg the Arabic and Syriac paraphrases of this passage which seem to come from a version before the clumsy additions by the interpolator) the consensus amongst scholars of all backgrounds is that the passage is partially genuine, simply added in a few obvious places.  Louis H. Feldman’s Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1984) surveys scholarship on the question from 1937 to 1980 and finds of 52 scholars on the subject, 39 considered the passage to be partially authentic.

Peter Kirby has done a survey of the literature since and found that this trend has increased in recent years.  He concludes “In my own reading of thirteen books since 1980 that touch upon the passage, ten out of thirteen argue the (Antiquities of the Jews XVIII.3.4 passage) to be partly genuine, while the other three maintain it to be entirely spurious. Coincidentally, the same three books also argue that Jesus did not exist.”

The other mention of Jesus in Josephus, Antiquities XX.200, is much more straightforward, but much more of a problem for Jesus Mythicists.  In it Josephus recounts a major political event that happened when he was a young man.  This would have been a significant and memorable event for him, since he was only 25 at the time and it caused upheaval in his own social and political class, the priestly families of Jerusalem that included his own.

In 62 AD the Roman procurator of Judea, Porcius Festus, died while in office and his replacement, Lucceius Albinus, was still on his way to Judea from Rome.  This left the High Priest, Hanan ben Hanan (usually called Ananus), with a freer reign than usual. Ananus executed some Jews without Roman permission and, when this was brought to the attention of the Romans, Ananus was deposed.  This deposition would have been memorable for the young Josephus, who had just returned from an embassy to Rome on the behalf of the Jerusalem priests.  But what makes this passage relevant is what Josephus mentions, in passing, as the cause of the political upheaval:

Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so (the High Priest) assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Messiah, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

This mention is peripheral to the story Josephus is telling, but since we know from Christian sources that Jesus’ brother James led the Jesus sect in Jerusalem in this period and we have a separate, non-dependent, Christian account of James’ execution by the Jerusalem priesthood, it is fairly clear which “Jesus who was called Messiah” Josephus is referring to here.

Almost without exception, modern scholars consider this passage genuine and an undisputed reference to Jesus as a historical figure by someone who was a contemporary of his brother and who knew of the execution of that brother first hand.  This rather unequivocal reference to a historical Jesus leaves Jesus Mythicists with a thorny problem, which they generally try to solve one of two ways:

(i) “The words “who was called Messiah” are a later Christian interpolation” –

Since it is wholly unlikely that a Christian interpolator invented the whole story of the deposition of the High Priest just to slip in this passing reference to Jesus, Mythicists try to argue that the key words which identify which Jesus is being spoken of are interpolated.  Unfortunately this argument does not work.  This is because the passage is discussed no less than three times in mid-Third Century works by the Christian apologist Origen and he directly quotes the relevant section with the words “Jesus who was called the Messiah” all three times: in Contra Celsum I.4, in Contra Celsum II:13 and in Commentarium in evangelium Matthaei X.17.  Each time he uses precisely the phrase we find in Josephus: αδελφος Ιησου του λεγομενου Χριστου (“the brother of that Jesus who was called Messiah”).  This is significant because Origen was writing a whole generation before Christianity was in any kind of position to be tampering with texts of Josephus.  If this phrase was in the passage in Origen’s time, then it was clearly original to Josephus.

This argument also requires Josephus to have initially referred to Jesus simply as “Jesus” with no identifying appellation and then later as “Jesus, son of Damneus”.  Except nowhere in his work does Josephus do this.  On the contrary he is very consistent: if he refers to someone with such an appellation he does so when he introduces that person to his narrative and then refers to them simply by their name if he mentions them again later in the same passage or anecdote.

(ii) “The Jesus being referred to here was not the Jesus of Christianity, but the ‘Jesus, son of Dameus’ mentioned later in the same passage.”

After detailing the deposition of the High Priest Ananus, Josephus mentions that he was succeeded as High Priest by a certain “Jesus, son of Damneus”.  So Mythicists try to argue that this was the Jesus that Josephus was talking about earlier, since Jesus was a very common name.  It certainly was, but we know how Josephus was careful to differentiate between different people with the same common first name.  So it makes more sense that he calls one “Jesus who was called Messiah” and the other “Jesus son of Damneus” to do precisely this.  Nowhere else does he call the same person two different things in the same passage, as the Mythicist argument requires.  And he certainly would not do so without making it clear that the Jesus who was made High Priest was the same he had mentioned earlier, which he does not do.

Mythicists are also still stuck with the phrase “who was called Messiah”, which Origen’s mentions show can’t be dismissed as an interpolation.  They usually attempt to argue that, as a High Priest, Jesus the son of Damenus would have been “called Messiah” because “Messiah” means ‘anointed” and priests were anointed with oil at their elevation.  Since there are no actual examples of any priests being referred to this way, this is another ad hoc argument designed merely to get the Mythicist argument off the hook.  Therefore the references to “Jesus, who was called Messiah” and “Jesus, son of Damneus” are clearly Josephus using two different appellations in the way he usually does: to differentiate between two different people with the same common first name.

So the consensus of scholars, Christian and non-Christian, is that the Antiquities XVIII.63-64 passage is authentic despite some obvious later additions and the Antiquities XX.200 passage is wholly authentic.  These references alone give us about as much evidence for the existence of a historical “Jesus, who was called Messiah” as we have for comparable Jewish preachers and prophets and is actually sufficient to confirm his existence with reference to any gospel or Christian source.

Tacitus

The mention of Jesus in the Annals of the aristocratic Roman historian and senator Publius Cornelius Tacitus is significant partly because of his status as one of the most careful and sceptical historians of the ancient world and partly because it is from what is obviously a hostile witness.  Tacitus absolutely despised Christianity, as he make clear when he mentions how the emperor Nero tried to scapegoat them after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD.  He also gives an account to his readers as the origin of the Christian sect and their founder in Judea:

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 Judæa, 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.
(Tacitus, Annals, XV.44)

Again, this clear reference to Jesus, complete with the details of his execution by Pilate, is a major problem for the Mythicists.  They sometimes try to deal with it using their old standby argument: a claim that it is a later interpolation.  But this passage is distinctively Tacitean in its language and style and it is hard to see how a later Christian scribe could have managed to affect perfect Second Century  Latin grammar and an authentic Tacitean style and fool about 400 years worth of Tacitus scholars, who all regard this passage and clearly genuine.

A more common way of dismissing this passage is to claim that all Tacitus is doing is repeating what Christians had told him about their founder and so it is not independent testimony for Jesus at all.  This is slightly more feasible, but still fails on several fronts.

Firstly, Tacitus made a point of not using hearsay, of referring to sources or people whose testimony he trusted and of noting mere rumour, gossip or second-hand reports as such when he could.  He was explicit in his rejection of history based on hearsay earlier in his work:

My object in mentioning and refuting this story is, by a conspicuous example, to put down hearsay,and to request that all those into whose hands my work shall come not to catch eagerly at wild and improbable rumours in preference to genuine history.
(Tacitus, Annals, IV.11)

Secondly, if Tacitus were to break his own rule and accept hearsay about the founder of Christianity, then it’s highly unlikely that he would do so from Christians themselves (if this aristocrat even had any contact with any), who he regarded with utter contempt.  He calls Christianity “a most mischievous superstition …. evil …. hideous and shameful …. (with a) hatred against mankind” – not exactly the words of a man who regarded its followers as reliable sources about their sect’s founder.

Furthermore, what he says about Jesus does not show any sign of having its origin in what a Christian would say: it has no hint or mention of Jesus’ teaching, his miracles and nothing about the claim he rose from the dead.  On the other hand, it does contain elements that would have been of note to a Roman or other non-Christian: that this founder was executed, where this happened, when it occurred (“during the reign of Tiberius”) and which Roman governor carried out the penalty.

We know from earlier in the same passage that Tacitus consulted several (unnamed) earlier sources when writing his account of the aftermath of the Great Fire (see Annals XV.38), so it may have been one of these that gave him his information about Jesus.  But there was someone else in Rome at the time Tacitus wrote who mixed in the same circles, who was also a historian and who would have been the obvious person for Tacitus to ask about obscure Jewish preachers and their sects.  None other than Josephus was living and writing in Rome at this time and, like Tacitus, associated with the Imperial court thanks to his patronage first by the emperor Vespasian and then by his son and successor Titus.  There is a strong correspondence between the details about Jesus in Annals XV.44 and Antiquities XVIII.63-64, so it is at least quite plausible that Tacitus simply asked his fellow aristocratic scholar about the origins of this Jewish sect.  Or he may have asked any of the many other aristocratic Jewish exiles at the court of Titus; such as the emperor’s mistress, Princess Berenice, the daughter of Herod Agrippa.  These fellow aristocrats of his acquaintance would have been a far more obvious and, to him, reliable source for Tacitus’ information rather than some peasant followers of a sect he despised.

Conclusion

The question asked if historians regarded the existence of Jesus to be “historical fact”.  The answer is that they do as much as any scholar can do so for the existence of an obscure peasant preacher in the ancient world.  There is as much, if not slightly more, evidence for the existence of Yeshua ben Yusef as there is for other comparable Jewish preachers, prophets and Messianic claimants, even without looking at the gospel material.  Additionally, that material contains elements which only make sense if their stories are about a historical figure.

The arguments of the Jesus Mythicists, on the other hand, require contortions and suppositions that simply do not stand up to Occam’s Razor  and continually rest on positions that are not accepted by the majority of even non-Christian and Jewish scholars.  The proponents of the Jesus Myth hypothesis are almost exclusively amateurs with an ideological axe to grind and their position is and will almost certainly remain on the outer fringe of theories about the origins of Christianity.

(Note: A version of this article appeared on Quora, where it became the top-voted answer to the question “Do credible historians agree that the man named Jesus, who the Christian Bible speaks of, walked the earth and was put to death on a cross by Pilate, Roman governor of Judea?”.  In the time since I posted it there, it has been linked to and recommended on a variety of fora, but some people don’t like the fact they have to join Quora to read it.  So I am posting it here for those who would appreciate easier access to it.)

434 thoughts on “Did Jesus Exist? The Jesus Myth Theory, Again.

  1. Thanks Tim. Re:crucifixion – I’ve heard it said that Roman authors were so repulsed by crucifixion that the New Testament is pretty much the most detailed written documentation we have of it from this period. Is that fair?

    1. That could well be correct. There is still some doubt about exactly how crucifixions were carried out – the most common shape of the cross, how often victims were nailed rather than tied etc. – largely because actual descriptions are very rare. This could be because of revulsion, as you say, though it could also be because writers just assumed “everyone knew” the mechanics involved.

      13
      3
  2. Tim,
    Great article! I have often linked to your articles on the historicity of Jesus because I have always felt that you were better read and better studied than I have been and could better articulate the case that I can. I believe another reason for the historical Jesus can be added to your list. I am convinced that Jesus was a failed apocalyptic Jewish holy man. He seemed clearly convinced that the end of the world as they (fellow Jews) knew it was imminent and that he would return in the lifetime of his disciples.

    This didn’t happen. I have challenged mythicists to explain why, if the Christian faith was based on earlier myths or was a creation of whole clothe, why would the gospel authors create a mythical figure, historicize him, and ascribe a failed prophecy to him, only to then have to invent another myth to explain away the failed prophecy ( partial preterism, for instance). The idea of a real Jesus who just gave a failed prophecy that the later church invented a rationalization to keep the faith alive is a much simpler explanation.

    10
    3
    1. The prophecy wasn’t failed. Titus came to Judea exactly one generation later and slaughtered over a million Jews and burned down their temple. If that’s not apocalyptic I don’t know what is.

      9
      12
      1. Read the rest of the things Jesus is predicted as saying will happen in this apocalypse. The idea that he was talking about the Jewish War simply does not make sense.

        12
        2
        1. Jeez, you really ask a lot out of “prophesy.” He predicted pestilence, famine and war at the end of the generation. As well as the complete destruction of the temple: “And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

          The only thing really missing is ‘his name:’

          “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.”

          What else could he possibly have been referring to.?

          3
          12
          1. “What else could he possibly have been referring to.?”

            He is clearly being depicted as referring to the destruction of the Temple and the reference to “‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong” (Mark 13:14) is obviously referring to Titus’ troops sacrificing to their standards to profane the Temple in 70 AD. But then gMark has Jesus go on to predict that this period would be short and that the apocalypse would follow very soon afterwards and that “at that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”

            So the apocalypse referred to is not the destruction of the Temple – that’s just the precursor to it. The writer of gMark depicts Jesus noting the destruction of the Temple and saying “when you see this, you will know the end is very near”. Given that he was most likely writing directly after 70 AD, his putting the prediction of the fall of the Temple in Jesus’ mouth would give his “the end is near” message special urgency.

            20
            1
        2. The son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory is taken from the book of Daniel and literally means that the son of man sat on a heavenly throne next to God as ruler of the world, this is made clear in Daniel, it says nothing about end of the world or resurrection of the dead. In other words, it already happened in 70 AD, it was the vindication of the son of Man. As in other excerpts from the synotypes, during the interrogation Jesus says: “and from now on you will see the son of man coming on the clouds”.

          1. I know. Read my article more carefully. I’m talking about how that text was interpreted as a prophecy in Jesus’ time.

  3. Dominican priest Thomas Brodie is not a fringe scholar and he takes a very different route to arrive at the conclusion that Jesus is a literary creation and not a historical figure.

    It’s a complex and subtle argument, one which I can’t pretend to reduce to a paragraph here but in essence he finds a broad enough pattern within the Gospels and Acts of pericopes which are re-writes from earlier sources, principally the Elijah/Elisha narrative as it appears in the Septuagint but others as well, that he declares the whole thing to be based on earlier literary sources, not historical facts.

    He admits that there is much work to be done filling in gaps, but wonders why they would have rewritten old stories if they had historical facts, eyewitness accounts and such to work with. I don’t find it completely convincing, but it’s provocative and based on serious textual study. Brodie’s work is mostly scattered in scholarly journals but some four or five years back he wrote an autobiographical confession about his own journey to disbelief in the historical Jesus called, “Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus.”

    Thinking of Abraham passing Sarah off as his sister and into the harem of Abimelech and then Isaac doing the same with Rebekah, I wonder if these texts about Jesus don’t fit better with other examples in scripture where we get the same stories over and over with different details.

    The strongest counter example I can think of would be Herodotus’ account of the battle of Thermopylae where death of Leonidas is portrayed as a highly stylized Homeric Aristeia even though we can be pretty sure that there was a historical battle in which a real king Leonidas of Sparta was killed.

    What’s your take on Brodie’s angle?

    And I have to point out, that nearly all historical Jesus scholars believe there was a historical Jesus is hardly surprising. They would, wouldn’t they? I’d bet most astrologers believe in astrology too.

    11
    25
  4. “Dominican priest Thomas Brodie is not a fringe scholar”

    Brodie is certainly a scholar in the relevant field, but even before his foray into Mythicism he was hardly a leading light. He was a very minor figure, at best.

    “in essence he finds a broad enough pattern within the Gospels and Acts of pericopes which are re-writes from earlier sources, principally the Elijah/Elisha narrative as it appears in the Septuagint but others as well, that he declares the whole thing to be based on earlier literary sources, not historical facts.”

    Pretty much everyone in the field acknowledges that the narratives in the gospels reflect Old Testament precedents and everyone except perhaps the most conservative fundamentalists acknowledges that these precedents shaped the story of Jesus. But it’s a leap to go from this to deciding that these “prophecies” and OT precedents are the whole cloth and that there was no historical Jesus at all. It makes perfect sense that Jews of this time would look to their scriptures and weave them into the story of their Messiah. It also makes sense that people who thought Jesus was the Messiah would interpret things he said and did with those scriptures in mind even at the time. It could even be that Jesus thought he was the Messiah and so did and said things that were in line with Messianic expectations and scripture. Put these things together and you are going to get a hell of a lot of OT parallels in any telling of his story.

    The problem with Brodie’s argument is that if there was no Jesus at all and the whole narrative is made up of these OT elements, it’s very odd that Jesus doesn’t fit Messianic expectations better. It’s also strange that we have elements that don’t seem to have any OT precedent or parallel but which have been shoehorned into the story anyway – his origin in Nazareth and Galilee is one of several of these.

    “The strongest counter example I can think of would be Herodotus’ account of the battle of Thermopylae where death of Leonidas is portrayed as a highly stylized Homeric Aristeia even though we can be pretty sure that there was a historical battle in which a real king Leonidas of Sparta was killed.”

    I can think of dozens of others. Ancient writers always wrote with one eye on earlier works and on tropes and formulae. To be surprised that we find exactly this in the gospels is naive. To base a theory on this surprise while ignoring counter evidence in the same text is a good way to ensure your theory isn’t taken very seriously. To my knowledge, Brodie has convinced no-one in the field.

    34
    4
    1. > The problem with Brodie’s argument is that if there was no Jesus at all and the whole narrative is made up of these OT elements, it’s very odd that Jesus doesn’t fit Messianic expectations better.

      I think Jesus was most likely historical for various reasons.

      Having said that, was it even possible to invent Messiah that would actually fit Messianic expectations? The whole point of Messiah is that he would trigger the apocalypse. Since you cannot trigger the apocalypse any invented Messiah would by necessity deviate from expected one. You had to invent some mechanism to delay the apocalypse and “he actually came as a sacrifice” would work as well as anything.

      What would be your response to that?

      5
      5
      1. “The whole point of Messiah is that he would trigger the apocalypse. “

        There were various ideas about what the Messiah (or Messiahs) were going to do, and that is just one of them. But yes, the whole idea of an invented Messiah is pretty far fetched.

        6
        2
  5. How do you know Tacitus wasn’t drunk when he was researching the Jesus case? Do you have the recordings of his interviews with either Josephus or Berenice? How could they know anything anyways this alleged Jesus existed before they were even born and no one can ever 100% know what happened before they were born. Maybe they were putting Tacitus on or just being nice to him knowing he had already done some research on this alleged Jesus….

    Furthermore I am puzzled by why didn’t Tacitus ever once put of this alleged Jesus’ birth certificate or death certificate for his readers.

    Lastly how do we know this Tacitus ever existed at all. The earliest copy of his alleged writings are from around 850 AD, yet he allegedly wrote in the late first century. Very suspicious I must say, very suspicious indeed. I think in fact was some sort of secret church anagram lost to the ages and his entire “history” is a spurious construct in order to create “evidence” of this so called Jesus….

    So we don’t know if Tacitus even existed and if we didn’t we don’t have the records with these so called Josephus and Berenice who weren’t even born when this alleged Jesus was alive. We don’t know the motives of those two or the mental state of Tacitus . I am very troubled indeed by why didn’t Tacitus show his readership the birth certificate or death certificate of this so called Jesus.

    I see no evidence whatsoever from Tacitus for a historical Jesus and furthermore what we now know it makes far more sense from a myther perspective.

    David Fitzgerald, professional historian and myther

    On a serious side now. I would have been driven nuts dealing with mythers as long as you have, glad you posted this. Thanks

    60
    3
    1. The fact that it took me until I had read about half of your comment before it became clear I was dealing with a parody and not a genuine Mythicist comment speaks volumes about them. I have encountered Mythicists for whom the comment above would be too mild and well-considered, including those who seriously think that every single Christian writer prior to Eusebius didn’t exist and that the whole first three centuries of Christian history were invented wholesale by Eusebius and Constantine. I’ve long since ceased to be astounded at just how utterly bonkers Mythicism can get. Thanks for the laugh.

      47
      5
      1. No problem, glad I made you laugh.

        I was laughing as I wrote it but part of me was and is concerned that mythers might use it for an argument!!

        I have given up serious discussion with mythers. It is as tedious as arguing with creationists in particular the young earth variety. There are far better things to do with ones time then try to convince people who have zero interest in how history is actually done . Life is too short to be wasted on such stuff.

        16
        2
      2. You said in the article “Tacitus made a point of not using hearsay, of referring to sources or people whose testimony he trusted and of noting mere rumour, gossip or second-hand reports …Well is there any historical evidence that he used primary sources for his writings of this “Chritus”? What makes these sayings historical,if we do not know exactly who he got this information from?
        Simply because he said he didn’t use hearsay ,or rumor ,does not mean he actually vetted these people who gave this info! So who were these sources then ,if you say he referred to sources of testimony from people he trusted?
        I am not a mythicist of Jesus no more than I am of Apollonius of Tyana. Neither one has done anything for me or society. I just like historical accuracy ,and honesty..

        10
        13
        1. “Well is there any historical evidence that he used primary sources for his writings of this “Chritus””

          Direct evidence, no. We can only go on what we know about his care, scepticism and good judgement and the fact that we know he was careful about checking his information.

          “What makes these sayings historical,if we do not know exactly who he got this information from?”

          If we rejected all ancient sources where we don’t exactly where they got their information from, we’d have to throw away about 99% of our sources and abandon the study of ancient history altogether. That’s not exactly reasonable. What historians actually do is accept that an ancient writer most likely did have a solid source for their information unless we have reason to suspect they did not. Raising the bar so high that this reference has to be rejected because Tacitus didn’t give us a footnoted citation is pretty silly and would require us to reject most of our ancient sources.

          23
          5
          1. A typically bad bit of clickbait. The headline reads “A Growing Number of Scholars Are Questioning the Historical Existence of Jesus”, though by the time we get into the article this becomes “historians and bloggers alike”. When the article finally gets around to mentioning any names we find Ehrman and Aslan (who don’t question the historical existence of Jesus), Fitzgerald and Atwill (who are neither historians nor scholars) and, of course, the lone but inevitable Richard Carrier.

            The article is full of statements which are plain stupid, such as:

            “Some even question whether or not Jesus was born on December 25. The Orthodox Church for example celebrates Christmas on January seventh, as according to the Julian calendar which predates the Gregorian, a date they claim is more accurate.”

            This shows the writer doesn’t have the faintest clue about the date of Christmas. Then there is this gem:

            “Historians have measures in terms of a burden of proof. If an author for instance is writing about a subject more than 100 years after it occurred, it isn’t considered valid.”

            Really? Well I suppose we should throw out Arrian’s accounts of the campaigns of Alexander and about half of Tacitus then.

            The author seems to think that the fact we don’t have much information about Jesus’ childhood years (standard in ancient biographies) or the fact that the gospels are contradictory (standard in pretty much any comparison of ancient sources on the same subject) somehow means Jesus didn’t exist, though he never explains how this follows. Then he tells us that “St. Paul is the only one to write about events chronologically”, though I suspect that simply means the writer doesn’t actually understand what the word “chronologically” means. Of course, he follows this up with the tired Mythicist claim that “Paul’s Epistles rest on the ‘Heavenly Jesus,” but never mention the living man”, which is simply wrong.

            The references to the relevant Josephus and Tacitus passages are garbled and seem to imply that all three of these references can be said to have been “altered over time by Christian scribes”, when that can only be said about one of them.

            He finishes with this prfound flourish:

            “Most antiquarians believe a real man existed and became mythicized. But the historical record itself is thin.”

            Which shows that “antiquarians” is another word this idiot needs to look up in a dictionary. In fact, the whole thing reads like a low grade essay by an overexcited seventeen year old who needs to learn what a dictionary is. And to get a clue generally.

            33
            6
          2. My sentiments exactly. There’s a bunch of Jesus entries on a site (by yet another pissed of anti-christian who is “unsympathetic to the idea” that Jesus ever lived) called usbible.com. Stuff about astrology and sun god connection you might care to check out and debunk

            7
            5
          3. I never said that we should reject Tacitus reference to “Chritus”. I only asked how do you ,and most historians interpret the historical method on ancient history. Yes ,you are correct. 99% of ancient history would be discarded if we actually followed the historical method. I think a lot of what we think we know should be discarded. But to accept this reference just because we have faith in Tacitus is fallen short as well.
            I think he could have been a real historical person ,but I think it’s still up for debate as well. It’s not an absolute.

            6
            9
          4. “Yes ,you are correct. 99% of ancient history would be discarded if we actually followed the historical method.”

            That is not what I said and that is also not correct. The historical method does not require us to disregard anything where we don’t know precisely where the writer got their iniformation. What I actually said was that this would be absolutely absurd and would make the study of ancient history impossible. What we actually do is assess if there is some reason to suspect their source was not reliable. And in the case of Tacitus we have good reasons not to do so. See my recent article on the Tacitus reference where I go over this in detail.

            “But to accept this reference just because we have faith in Tacitus is fallen short as well.”

            No-one is accepting this out of any “faith in Tacitus”. It is accepted out of a reason-based analysis of what Tacitus is likely to have known. See my article linked to above.

            “I think he could have been a real historical person ,but I think it’s still up for debate as well. It’s not an absolute.”

            Nothing in historical is “an absolute”. But it’s precisely because pretty much everything is potentially “up for debate” that historians make judgement calls on what is most likely to have happened. It is most likely that a historical Jesus existed and the Tacitus reference is just one piece of evidence that shows why this is most likely.

            22
            2
          5. Exactly what ” reason base analyses” are you referring too? I have read one of your articles concerning Tacitus. By the small reference concerning Nero ,and the Christians , do you take that as evidence of a historical Jesus alone ,or are there other elements besides the NT ,and Josephus? What is this evidence exactly?

            3
            9
          6. “Exactly what ” reason base analyses” are you referring too?”

            As I detail in the Tacitus article, we can be relatively confident that Tacitus had good sources of information because (i) when we can check what he says with other sources on other matters, he proves to be reliable, (ii) he was openly and explicitly sceptical about histories that simply reported rumour, (iii) when he did report rumour, he tended to indicate this in his text (e.g. “it is said”, or “by the common report” etc.), (iv) we know he had access to and often used documentary sources, including official records and (v) we know he had access to Jewish aristocratic exiles who would be a good source of information about a Jewish sect that had its origins in Judea.

            “By the small reference concerning Nero ,and the Christians , do you take that as evidence of a historical Jesus alone ,or are there other elements besides the NT ,and Josephus?”

            No. As I just said to you, it’s one piece of evidence that points in that direction.

            “What is this evidence exactly?”

            You are making comments on an article that summarises what this evidence is. Read the article.

            22
            2
          7. One more thing. Why do you consider Richard Carrier as pseudo? Lol
            Would like to hear your take brother! I am no historian. But I do love academic honesty. I have degrees in both theology ,and philosophy.I think Carrier is an expert in the field. I hope his bias is not that bad. I am also an avowed atheist ,and skeptic who still loves fairness on both sides.

            4
            18
          8. I consider Carrier a pseudo scholar because his bias IS that bad. He repeatedly champions fringe ideas, peddles ludicrously contrived and unconvincing theories and makes patent errors of interpretation purely because of his weird biases against religion in general and Christianity in particular. The fact that he had a PhD does not make him “an expert in the field”, it just makes him someone who is qualified to be an expert. It’s what you do after that first step that decides whether you are an expert in the field and all Carrier has done is prove himself a failure.

            58
            8
          9. I would also like to add that the earliest accounts of Hannibal (mostly because you brought him up) are apparently from Polybius who wrote around 50 years after the battle of Cannae and apparently interviewed survivors of the wars. He is considered contemporary which would (in my opinion) qualify Josephus as contemporary. I am curious as to what you think about the James Ossuary.

          10. He is considered contemporary which would (in my opinion) qualify Josephus as contemporary.

            Polybius is a contemporary of Hannibal in the sense that he was in his twenties when Hannibal died. So their lives overlapped somewhat. But his writings about Hannibal are not contemporary, given they date to well after Hannibal’s death. I’ve had people try to claim Polybius is a contemporary account because he and Hannibal were contemporaries (sort of), but I usually respond by saying I’ll accept that if they accept that Paul’s references to Jesus are contemporary for the same reasons. They never seem to want to take that deal.

            I am curious as to what you think about the James Ossuary.

            The names on that box are very common ones at the time and the idea that because they coincide with some of the names of the reported family of Jesus it’s James’ burial ossuary is silly. And the inscription is probably a fake one anyway.

            1
            1
        2. According to Philostratus, Appolonius ability to teleport ( granted by his vegetarian diet ) was witnessed by the Emperor Dominitan. From a historical perspective, he is far more problematic than Jesus ( with the notable exception of us still having what is most likely some of Apolloniusses own letters )

    2. I have my own parody argument of mysticism I don’t think bart erman exist I think he’s based off Frank Turner because of parallels tell us everything both him and Herman are both white men both born in North Carolina both went to Moody Bible college both became New testament scholars and both started off as Evangelical Christians

  6. From the point of view of the Gospel writers, Jesus was a figure of recent history – if he existed. If he didn’t exist, then we have a unique case of inventing recent history. There is no other case in the ancient world where four fake biographies were written about someone who “lived” less than a hundred years earlier. This looks more like a very big hoax than a myth.

    Now we consider Paul’s letters. Since we are dealing with a hoax, the natural assumption must be that Paul’s letters are part of the hoax. This would make the hoax even bigger, but it is already pretty big.

    Curiously, most mythicists are unwilling to dismiss all of Paul’s letters as fake. This is where the myth theory really collapses. The mythicist has already pushed credulity to the limit by assuming that we are dealing with a unique case of historical fraud in respect of the Gospels. If the mythicist must now invoke a separate theory to explain Paul’s letters, the argument is lost.

    The question is not just whether a mythicist explanation of Paul’s letters is plausible, but whether the cost of needing a separate explanation can actually be borne. The mythicist already has a potential explanation for Paul’s letters: they are part of the same hoax that produced the Gospels. If the hoax theory cannot also explain the letters and another theory is needed, then we should be very suspicious indeed.

    22
    3
    1. Of course it was a hoax. Unkess you believe Jesus was born of a virgin, healed the blind, cast demons into pigs, and died on a cross only to come back to life three days later. Christians are dupes. The questions now are: how badly have they been duped? By whom? To what end?

      5
      19
      1. *stunned face*

        Well I certainly don’t believe any of “Jesus was born of a virgin, healed the blind, cast demons into pigs, and died on a cross only to come back to life three days later”. Nor am I any Christian and never have been.

        And yet I don’t accept that there is any “hoax”. I respect the consensus of the secular scholarship that beneath all the mythology: There was an historical Jesus.

        14
        2
          1. I think we need to clarify what we mean by “hoax” here. In the case of Mormonism (and even more so, Scientology) we know that a specific person deliberately invented a mythology and theology out of whole cloth with the express intent of gaining money and power. We unambiguously label that sort of thing a hoax.

            In the case of Christianity it’s not so clear. When you look at the modern phenomenon of the urban legend, you realize that ordinary people readily embellish stories that have significance to them, without even being fully aware that they’re doing so. Thus, we can see how “Our dear martyred Rabbi Yeshua appeared to me in a dream last night” can become, after a decade or so of oral transmission, “Yeshua walked out of the tomb and broke bread with the disciples”. Does it still qualify as a hoax when the entire community is happily duping *themselves*? Not that there’s ever been any great shortage of deliberate charlatanry, but it’s not always necessary to invoke malice when normal human fallibility is an adequate explanation.

        1. I guess the difference is Moroni and Nephi and all the characters from Smith’s book of Mormon were fictional and it was Smith that was perpetrating the hoax on 19th century Americans.

          But, if you don’t believe Jesus was the literal son of God then who was perpetrating the hoax on 1st century Judeaens? Saul/Paul? Jesus himself? Someone else?

          2
          6
          1. Are you really so lacking in intellect and nuance that you cannot actually distinguish between an historical person and a myth?

            No I don’t think Christianity is true. And I don’t believe in the supernatural nor mythology. Nor am I speculating upon where the mythology began.
            That’s not what’s up for debate here.

            Wheat’s being debated is whether there was an actual historical person, probably some passive-aggressive cult leader with an antisocial personality disorder, called Yoshua, from Nazareth and who got executed by Pontius Pilate, upon which the legends and myths of Jesus Christ were later based upon. And no he had no supernatural powers.
            This has nothing whatsoever to do with whether Christianity and any of it’s mythology is true. Nor does it have anything to do with who embellished the stories about the man.

            I expect the average adolescent to be capable of making this distinction.

            14
            1
          2. “Nor am I speculating upon where the mythology began.”

            I think you really missed my point. We don’t have to “speculate on where the mythology” began. According to the historical evidence it began no later than Paul confirming from Peter and James the Just that Jesus was indeed resurrected.

            But my concern is less with the mythology which we know is bullshit and more with any actual direct connection between a “historical” Jesus and the many churches that currently bear his name.

          3. Well this entire article is debating against Jesus mythicism, which holds the position that he evidence for historical Jesus isn’t good enough and therefore assumes that Jesus was a fabrication.

            This is against the consensus of recognised secular scholarship, which concludes that based upon the evidence, we can assume an historical Jesus.

            This connection between an historical Jesus and the mythological Jesus in the Gospels that you’re fixated upon isn’t really the topic here.

            9
            2
  7. Oh come on EVERYONE knows that there is more evidence for Apollonius of Tyana than this mysterious “jesus” character!1

    7
    16
      1. Sorry, fell afoul of Poe`s Law there. Still bemused that Jesus=Apollonius is taken seriously as a theory, by “Alex Legends”, above, for example, but then again…

  8. Thanks again Tim.

    Just as an aside, if we allow that Luke was mistaken about which census occurred about the time of Jesus’s birth, i.e. that he misidentified an earlier census for one under Quirinius (he was writing 60 years later, it could happen), then the time frames of the nativity accounts can be lined up.

    Then it’s just a matter of placing each event the gospel writers record in sequence, remembering that neither gives an exhaustive list.

    Some sort of census is commanded under Augustus. In Israel at least, Jews go to their ancestral home in order to be counted, so Joseph takes his wife to Bethlehem. Some time later she gives birth in the downstairs “family” room, where they also keep the animals, of the house they’re staying at because the upstairs “guest-chamber” (Luke uses katalymati in 2:7, which some versions translate “inn”, and katalyma in 22:11 for the room where Jesus held his last supper, which is translated “guest-chamber”) was full. They then, as Luke records, fulfill the normal commands for ransoming a firstborn son in the Temple. Some time after that, while they’re still in Bethlehem, or have returned to visit family, the magi visit occurs, with the resulting threat to Jesus’s life and the flight to Egypt. That other accounts don’t record Herod’s order to kill boys two years and younger could be a problem except, as you note, much of history isn’t recorded, and from what we know of Herod, the killing of a handful of children in a small village was far from the worst, or most notable, thing he’d done.

    I’m also inclined, especially with Matthew, to say that the gospel writers’ use of the Old Testament was somewhat midrashic in a lot of cases. They’d record an event from Jesus’s life, then find an Old Testament passage to highlight it. I won’t rule out the possibility of some predictive prophecy, but I think they were more often looking for pattern rather than prediction.

    Anyways, my two cents worth.

    4
    8
    1. Just as an aside, if we allow that Luke was mistaken about which census occurred about the time of Jesus’s birth, i.e. that he misidentified an earlier census for one under Quirinius (he was writing 60 years later, it could happen), then the time frames of the nativity accounts can be lined up.

      No, that doesn’t actually work. This would require Quirnius to somehow be administering a census or some other “enrollment” during the lifetime of Herod the Great – something no Roman legatus ever did in the territory of a client kingdom. It would also require Quirinius – a patrician of consular rank – to be working as some kind of delegated subordinate of a fellow consular patrician, since he would be doing this during the Syrian governorship of either Publius Quinctilius Varus or Gaius Sentius Saturninus. This did not happen either. The Syrian governor would delegate a lower ranked subordinate, just as Quirinius delegated the equestrian Coponius to rule Judea when he took control of that territory in 6 AD. Apologist attempts at reconciling the gMatt and gLuke accounts always fail because of details like this.

      Some sort of census is commanded under Augustus

      No such census of non-Romans was ordered by Augustus that would have affected Jews in client kingdoms.

      In Israel at least, Jews go to their ancestral home in order to be counted

      This would make no sense for any tax census or for any other kind of enrollment. The Egyptian papyrus that apologists claim supports this idea says nothing about people travelling to the home of some distant ancestor of centuries before and simply says people who may be away from their homes during that census should be sure to avoid travel.

      The rest of your attempted reconciliation of the accounts is about as inventive as most such attempts and still unsustainable for the reasons given above.

      16
      7
      1. Well I must ask Tim ,because i always bring this historical discrepancy up in my debates. But Apologetics always seem to come with some irreconcilable angle. Is there any way to shut this cognitive dissonance all the way down on this subject in the N.T. at least?

        4
        1
        1. I’ve debated fundamentalist Christians and other conservative apologists on this point many times over the years. They are nothing if not inventive and ingenious in their efforts to get gMatt to agree with gLuke on the infancy narratives. I’ve seen them do everything from shifting the death of Herod into the ADs to inventing an earlier governorship for Quirinius, neither of which make any sense historically. But while their many inventive contrivances are all riddled with historical problems, the one fact that they all fall apart on is this: the Romans didn’t administer client kingdoms. That was actually the whole point of having client kings: they did the work for you and you just skimmed off a substantial cut of the taxes they collected. So the whole idea of Quirinius, in any capacity, administering a census in Herod’s kingdom is absurd and is contrary to all evidence of how these things worked. This is why Luke 2:1-2 makes it clear that the census of Quirinius was “the first”; i.e. the first because it was the first one taken when the Romans assumed direct administration of Judea in 6 AD. It’s also why this census sparked a revolt, since it was the first time the Old Testament injunction against “numbering the children of Israel” had been broken by a foreign power. It makes no sense that Quirinius would have been administering some earlier census and it makes no sense that the 6 AD census would spark a revolt if there had been one just a few years earlier. So however you cut it, the GLuke story is set in 6 AD and the gMatt one is set before the death of Herod in 4 BC. These two stories simply can’t be reconciled.

          11
          4
          1. I’d say we don’t and can’t know. Nothing much in the infancy narratives can be trusted as historical apart from the fact his family were from Nazareth and he grew up there. His followers probably only had a vague idea of roughly when he was born and it could well be that Jesus himself didn’t really know. In many pre-modern cultures people tended not to pay much attention to such things, probably because of the high infant and child mortality rates. As late as 1389 the poet Geoffrey Chaucer gave testimony in a court case and when asked his age replied “about 40” – he wasn’t sure. Even today one of the problems associated with child soldiers in Africa is often they have no idea exactly how old they are or how old they were when forced into the army or some militia. So we actually have no clear idea of when he was born and no reliable way of working it out.

            18
            3
          2. . In many pre-modern cultures people tended not to pay much attention to such things, probably because of the high infant and child mortality rates. As late as 1389 the poet Geoffrey Chaucer gave testimony in a court case and when asked his age replied “about 40” – he wasn’t sure. Even today one of the problems associated with child soldiers in Africa is often they have no idea exactly how old they are or how old they were when forced into the army or some militia.

            Indeed. I used to be an immigration/asylum lawyer, and in my experience many people from some places (particularly rural Afghanistan) simply don’t know their date of birth. For that matter, well into modern times some British people didn’t. An elderly relative of mine (now passed on) was apparently mistaken by a year as to their year of birth.

            So our modern Western assumption that everyone knows their exact date of birth really doesn’t work for other cultures or time-periods, even ones which are far closer to us than Jesus’ time and place. It’s very plausible to me that first-century Christians had absolutely no idea of Jesus’ actual date of birth, and that those who invented the birth narratives were working from very limited information.

          3. “They are nothing if not inventive and ingenious in their efforts to get gMatt to agree with gLuke on the infancy narratives.
            ================

            It may be that Luke gets his information from Matthew: Luke 1:5 although he may be repeating Mark’s mistake in referring to
            one of Herod’s sons as king Herod.
            Sanders suggested that Luke MAY have conflated two events jesus birth in the days of King Herod and Quirinius census.

            This is not because there were two censuses, but because there was rioting both upon Herod’s death and during the census

            The main problem is that both Herod and his sons paid tribute and would have collected taxes toward that end. A census became necessary when

            Archelaus was deposed in 6 and the Romans decided to rule Judea directly and so conducted a census. Jesus family lived under Herod Antipas and would not have been subject to the census of Judea, as Herod paid tribute. The idea that the Romans would have deliberately had descendents of a previous Jewish king gathering in one place (which was symbolic of pre Roman times) to be reminded of their resentment toward their over lords is incredible. Maybe the Romans bent over and spread their cheeks while they were at it? Just remember guys,vasoline wont be invented till the 19th century, so be gentle.

  9. Hey Tim. You should’ve also mentioned the Last Supper in Paul’s epistles clearly showing an earthly Jesus. Just look what Paul says:

    1 Corinthians 11:23-26: For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

    Paul literally narrates the events of the night of the last supper the disciples had with Jesus, and mentions things such as Jesus literally breaking bread and whatnot, and outright quotes the very words Jesus told His disciples during this supper. This busts mythicism again (disregarding the fact that mythicism is already debunked). Just wanted to mention this.

    23
    2
    1. I haven’t read Carrier’s book, but I take it his explanation of this is that Paul thinks this last supper happened in the celestial sphere?

        1. So basically this “celestial realm” which seems only known to them was populated with people with mundane names, they had mothers, brothers, had to eat, worried about marriage and died. Have these clowns ever heard of Occam’s razor. How is this idea remotely simpler than a human being who lived in Judea, who had a mother, a brother, ate food and was crucified which is exactly what the ancient sources report. How is this crap remotely rational?

          21
          1. It requires a special kind of genius to ignore the most obvious reasdings of the evidence and concoct wildly contorted alternatives that assume the Mythicist thesis. It seems only people like Carrier and Price are capable of this special thinking, which is why they are pretty much the only ones who accept these amazing alterantive readings.

            21
            3
          2. I have been an atheist for almost two decades now. I used to be a baptist but when I was twenty I read some good critiques of Christianity and decided Christianity was simply false. I still believed in god for awhile but more and more I came to realize the notion of any sort of theistic god simply made no sense in light of the fact no one can point out one thing this god has clearly done and no one can agree on what it wants people to do anyways. ( maybe just maybe it wants people to act like mature responsible ethical adults and quit whining to it all the damn time. I know that is what I would want if I was a deity. Hey if mormonism is true it is just a trip to a temple in Salt Lake City Utah and becoming a deity is assured. ) Perhaps there is some sort of god out there but the one that acts like the proponents of major religion claims sure as heck seems absent to me. ( I would be too in fairness, look the followers these deity seems to attact) I should note this kinda kills the myther claim that people simply cannot consider mytherism because it is too radical of an idea after all it seems to the former baptist in me that rejecting the idea of god is a bit more radical that rejecting the idea a human lived.

            Back to mytherism though. It has always struck me as very implausible after all religious movements tend to have founders. For example Mohammed founded Islam, Joseph Smith founded Mormonism, David Koresh was a founder of the Branch Davidians, Martin Luther founded Lutheranism etc you get my point. The John Frum type movements are the very rare exception to this trend. Some mythers have pointed out to me we don’t know who founded Hinduism or ancient Paganism but this is probably just a product of lack of historical knowledge, not the fact these movements had no founders.

            So it makes perfect sense to say Christianity had a founder and all the ancient sources agree this founder was more or less a man named Yeshua ben Joseph who was claimed by his followers to be the Messiah. Big yawn the Branch Davidians claimed David Koresh was the Messiah, some still do despite his abject failures and his sex with children. People can be irrational that way.

            It just seems very hard to look at the writings of Paul and conclude Paul thought Jesus was some of celestial being. Odd celestial with a common name( why can’t he have a real awesome name like Gabriel and not the ancient equivalent to Bob), a mother ( and clearly a father to so is celestial sex simply divine ), a brother ( do they sibling rivalries in the celestial realms), that taught about such celestial things as marriage ( do you wonder if they only have two genders in these realms and how does gay marriage work there. What is the divorce rate?) and the end times ( really after we die we have to worry about the apocalypse in the hereafter!!), ate with his followers ( so in this celestial realm the celestial beings cook bread now. Do their restaurants use yelp?) was crucified ( did they use celestial wood and nails and if you are crucified there does it really even hurt… Can you get celestial ointment for that?) and these celestial beings die ( do their celestial spirits go to yet another celestial realm) and are buried ( so they had celestial shovels and celestial grave diggers) . Damn truly this is heaven on Earth if you take the mythers seriously !! Or in this case Paul was simply talking about events that happened on Earth which is what rational people conclude . So of course if this stuff was Earthly then it wrecks mytherism along with all the reasons you have listed for mytherism being a bunch of garbage.

            I could go on and on but I just view mytherism as the creationism of a bunch of pissed off anti Christians who just want to do the equivalent of throw everything including the kitchen sink at Christians. It really is a joke if you actually study the arguments of the movement though. Oh well it is fun

            10
            2
          3. @Kris: I’ve read Carrier’s book on mythicism. The answer in a nutshell is that he lists multiple things that he believes to be more likely under mythicism (I can get the list together if you’re interested) and, once he’s finished multiplying together all the ‘and this thing here is X times more likely to be what we’d see if Jesus was mythicism than if he was a historical figure’ estimates that he comes up with, it comes out with Jesus-as-myth being vastly more likely than Jesus-as-history.

            (The massive flaw in this, of course, is that he doesn’t input any of the probabilities from things like the Josephus mention, or Paul’s mention of ‘James, the brother of the Lord’, or any of the other details that would be more likely to occur with a historical Jesus than with a mythical Jesus. He comes up with alternative Jesus-myth explanations for all of these points, but never (from what I’ve seen) figures in how they might affect the probability. So that’s a huge flaw in his probability calculations.)

            I’d actually be really interested to see Tim or someone else who knows the history of this time period discuss some of Carrier’s other points, such as his claim that Clement’s letter to the churches never quotes from Jesus’s sayings and this seems strange if Jesus actually existed. In any case, this post has had some very helpful information about the Josephus passages, for which my thanks to Tim.

            9
            3
          4. Thanks for your comment Sarah. I’m guessing that Carrier leaves out the Josephan material and the Pauline reference to Jesus’ brother James because he’s arrived at the conclusion that these elements are not actually referring to Jesus (Ant. XX.200), are later interpolation (Ant. XVIII.63-64) or are speaking figuratively (Galatians 1:19). Unfortunately his arguments for these positions are dubious, contrived and – in the cases of the ones about Ant. XX.200 and Galatians 1:19 at least – clearly flawed.

            It’s been a while since I read Carrier’s clunky opus so I don’t recall his argument about Clement (1Clement or 2Clement or both?). I can look it up in the library today, so do you have some page references? My understanding was that Earl Doherty seemed to think both of the Clement epistles dated to when the historical Jesus idea predominated and were written by people who believed in a historical Jesus. This means their lack of details about him is more of a problem for Mythicism because it undercuts the Mythicist argument about the relative lack of such references in the Pauline epistles.

            11
            2
          5. Basically Carrier comes up with a view, tries to torture the evidence to fit it and the evidence that does not fit it he declares to be an interpolation. He then sprinkles some mathematics over this to give it a nice shinny gloss that will convince no professional historians; but will make his gullible readership go wild with excitement. No wonder he is unemployed.

            18
            2
          6. Pretty much Kris. His fanboys have conniptions when I refer to Carrier as a pseudo historian, reminding me (yet again) that he has a PhD. Dr Gerry Bouw also has a PhD, in astronomy in his case, but that doesn’t stop his whacko geocentric claims any less pseudo scientific.

            20
            2
          7. Don’t forget that Michael Behe and Jonathan Wells both had PhDs in biology, so I guess that means intelligent design must be correct. And don’t forget PhD William Dembski’s mathematical proof that ID is correct.

            9
            3
          8. When people start invoking Carrier’s doctorate I’ve given up trying to explain to them that unemployed history PhD graduates are a dime a dozen. So I note that Dr Gerry Bouw also has a PhD (in astronomy) and ask them whether that suddenly gives his geocentric theories credibility. Pseudo scholars are not defined by their qualifications but by the nature of their scholarship.

            17
            2
          9. Dr Richard Carrier is a brave freethinking rationalist whose ideas are being unfairly marginalized by a stagnant body of “historians” who have given into pressure from the shadowy forces of the Christian Right who seek to hide all facts which would undermine their religion.

            I too was the victim of a narrow minded academia who did not appreciate my brilliant views.

            My books too were a tour de force and were ridiculed by lesser minds.

            Please consider

            Dr Immanuel Velikovsky

            9
            2
    2. Paul throughout his letters made it clear that any knowledge he recieved about Jesus was through revelation and scipture. In other words visions and previously written documents he interpreted to be now understood to be about helping interpret his dreams. Having meet the other apostles he never clearly says, this is what Peter said about Jesus when he was alive or this is what James says about Jesus when he was alive. Its always his interpretation of his visions with respect to scripture. Just once i would like to see Paul say that yes Peter/ James confirms this story or that saying about Jesus when he was alive. He never does. So not only did Paul never meet a real in the flesh Jesus neither did Peter James etc, in my opinion. Always happy to be shown wrong though.

      1. The claim Paul only talks about receiving information via revelation is dead wrong. In several places he emphasises a teaching is “from the Lord” and in each case we find the same teaching presented in the gospels as being taught by Jesus in his earthly ministry. In 1Cor 15 he talks about the appearances of Jesus to Peter and James etc as something he “received” and something the Corinthians then received from him. This is exactly the language used in the Talmud for information passed on and “received” from earlier authorities.

        Paul does emphasise some aspects of his particular view of Jesus as coming from direct revelation, but if you look at these in context, they are always in reference to his idea that non-Jews could be Christians and not keep kosher etc. But anyone who thinks those references mean he got all his teaching this way is simply misreading the evidence.

        6
        2
    3. Paul never references a “Last Supper”.

      There is a reference to “The Institution of the Lord’s Supper” before 1Co 11:23, NRSV.

      It does occur at night, but there is no mention of it being a last supper, and there is no mention of any disciples being there. Paul never mentions the term “desciple” in any of his writings. Paul does not tell us where it occurred. He does tell us how he obtained this information, “from the Lord”.

      “Betrayed”, translated from paradidomi, could just as easily have been translated as “handed over” or “delivered up”. So, I don’t see how this passage “busts mythicism”. The passage would be compatible with either historicism or mythicism, in my opinion.

      1
      8
      1. It certainly is not user friendly for mytherism. Do spirits eat bread? Do spirits need to drink? Do spirits have blood? Are spirits subject to death? All of this is things that are done by earthly beings.

        10
        1
      2. According to Doherty the Last Supper would have happened in some sort of Heavenly realm.

        Here is 1st Corinthians 11:23-26

        For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

        Notice it mentions blood.

        What did Paul say about blood?

        1st Corinthians 15:50

        I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

        The Kingdom of God is clearly Heaven

        And who came from Heaven? See verse 47.

        47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.

        So Jesus was in Heaven and blood cannot be Heaven. Therefore Jesus could not have had that Last Supper Scene in Heaven. It had to be on Earth.

        4
        1
        1. Thank you for the reply(s)
          Re: kris #1
          Yes, visitors to the firmament could eat bread, drink, have blood and be subject to death.

          Ascension of Isaiah (AoI) 7:10 “And as above, so also on earth, for the likeness of what (is) in the firmament is here on earth.”

          Re: kris #2
          Yes, according to Doherty (and Carrier) the Lord’s Supper would have occurred in the firmament.
          I don’t see the relevance of the scripture you quote, more to the point might be Heb 8:5 “They offer worship in a sanctuary that is a sketch and shadow of the heavenly one…”

          If you were to somehow demonstrate that the cosmology of the time and place that we are discussing did not involve copies of things on earth in the heavens, then yes, you would easily be able to dismantle mythicism, at least the Doherty / Carrier brand.

          Re: Frankb
          I don’t really see anything there specific to my post to respond to.

          1
          3
          1. Quoting Carrier and Doherty is akin to a creationist quoting Gish and Ham on biology. No one is going to take you seriously.

            Let’s look at what Doherty admitted in a discussion.

            “I get the idea that you have interpreted me as though I were saying: the pagans placed the myths of their savior gods in the upper world, therefore we have good reason to interpret Paul that way. Actually, my movement was in the opposite direction. I have always worked first with the early Christian record, and come to a heavenly-realm understanding of it through internal evidence (supported by the unworkability of an earthly understanding of that record)”

            Basically he just made it up and then used his fantasy to read Paul.

            Atheist Biblical scholar Jeffrey Gibson has engaged Doherty and his followers in online debate and came away scornfully unimpressed. He noted:

            “… the plausibility of D[oherty]’s hypothesis depends on not having good knowledge of ancient philosophy, specifically Middle Platonism. Indeed, it becomes less and less plausible the more one knows of ancient philosophy and, especially, Middle Platonism.

            “If you think that this is not the case, please name anyone among the actual and recognized experts in ancient philosophy and/or on Middle Platonism who thinks D’s views on what the ancients thought about the way the world was constructed, and who did what where, has any merit

            Basically Carrier and Doherty simply assert without a shred of evidence that strange notion to get around clear Earthly references to Jesus.

            I have already noted just how Earthly these things Paul discussed are. I also noticed you did not discuss how Paul specifically discussing blood utterly crushes any idea of trying to shove this into some sort of heavenly realm.

          2. @Buddy: what exactly needs to be specified regarding “JM doesn’t have a reliable and well tested method”? Plus the evidence I gave for this statement? Or is it “no reliable method, no credible conclusions” that you don’t understand? Perhaps don’t want to admit?

      3. “The passage would be compatible with either historicism or mythicism, in my opinion.”
        Everything and anything is compatible with JM, because JMs simply can maintain “made up” and don’t bother about supporting evidence. JM doesn’t have a reliable and well tested method. Everything is acceptable but “Jesus was historical”: Julius Caesar inspired the Gospels, it’s a Roman conspiracy, both at the same time, Shimon ben Kochba was Jesus, whatever.
        At the other hand there is largely consensus regarding Jesus among professional historians.

        4
        1
        1. Thank you for the replies.
          Re: Kris
          I never quoted Carrier or Doherty. I did quote AoI and Heb.
          Jeffrey Gibson disagrees with Doherty, agreed.
          I still don’t see how that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”, or the other verses that you provided, overturns, or is incongruent with the cosmology as evidenced by the verse of AoI that I provided. It should also be noted that we have good reason to believe that Paul at least subscribed to a multi layered heaven from 2 Co 12:2 “I know a person in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven…”

          Re: FrankB
          My original assertion re: 1 Co 11:23-26 only said “the passage would be compatible with either historicism or mythicism”. In your defense, I should have been more specific with the term “mythicism”, I mean that to be specifically the the minimal mythicism as outlined by Carrier in his OHJ, I won’t bore you with the definition, I’m sure you have the book. I will assume you still think that even that specific brand “doesn’t have a reliable and well tested method”. That’s a pretty big blanket statement, it may be true in part or whole, I don’t know.
          Again, my only contention is that 1 Co 11:23-26 would be compatible with either historicism or mythicism (as now defined) and I have provided evidence to support this statement.

          1. Buddy. Yes you did quote them as anyone can see. If Paul tells you you cannot have blood in Heaven then discusses an event with blood in it then it could not according to Paul have happened in Heaven. It is that simple. That leaves it happening on Earth.

          2. @Buddy: thanks for clearing up the misunderstanding. Indeed I won’t say that everything and anything goes with RichardC’s methodology. However that has it’s big problems too. They have been extensively addressed on this blog. No professional (either regarding history or math) is willing to take it over.
            In short: referring to RichardC doesn’t favour your case, on the contrary. He’s a quack. Like all JMs.

            1
            1
    1. I’ve read the first volume (of three!) and won’t be bothering with the others. It’s as bad as Nailed and more evidence that when Fitzgerald isn’t just parroting his “hero and mentor” Carrier he’s totally out of his depth.

      14
      1
      1. Hi Tim. Apparently there is a controversy over whether the Q Document existed. For example, Mark Goodacre has written a book called “The Case Against Q.” What is your opinion on whether the Q Document existed?

        1. I go with the majority of scholars who accept that it did. There are a number of very good reasons for this majority view. And the minority view championed by the likes of Goodacre has the additional problem of a theological bias – conservative Christians don’t like the idea of a work that is “inspired by God” being lost and only appearing in fragmentary form in gLuke and gMatt. There is a good summary of the textual arguments for Q here.

          1. Yes, Mythicists also dislike the idea of the Q material (it is very unlikely it was a single “document”). That’s because their thesis needs all of the “historicised”stories of Jesus to derive from one source – gMark – so the existence of any independent traditions and other sources for the gospel materials has to be denied to keep their theory from collapsing. It’s one of a number of points on which Mythicists are forced to agree, ironically, with conservative Christian interpretations.

            11
          2. Yes, but if you read his arguments there you’ll see why I don’t waste any more time on this guy. The fact is he’s actually not very bright.

          3. I would absolutely agree. I lost all respect for him when he tried to dismiss the consensus of scholars by claiming they are mostly Christians. And then he asserts: “But it is worth noting that atheist scholars who think Jesus existed don’t share the level of absolute certainty that most Christian scholars have. For them, it’s a matter of probability [as all history is], which may be only a notch or two above the fifty percent level [WTF?], while the mythicist may assess his confidence as [quite] a few notches below. And make no mistake about it. There are serious historians and scholars who are not highly confident that Jesus existed [exactly TWO: Richard Carrier and Bob Price], because the evidence does not support that level of confidence.”

            10
          4. I would absolutely agree. I lost all respect for him when he tried to dismiss the consensus of scholars by claiming they are mostly Christians.

            – Like Tim, you are incapable of understanding what I said. I never dismissed the historical consensus. Those who are certain beyond any debate are mostly Christians. That’s all I was saying. The fact is, there is plenty of room for debate. And those who are not so biased understand that.

            16
          5. Sorry, but virtually all non-Christian scholars agree Jesus was a historical figure. As John Dickson states, “Anyone who dips into the thousands of SECULAR monographs and journal articles on the historical Jesus will quickly discover that mythicists are regarded by 99.9% of the scholarly community as complete ‘outliers,’ the fringe of the fringe.” Whether Jesus resurrected in vindication of his blasphemous claims or whether the Gospels portray an accurate picture of him is a separate issue, but there is simply no debate over whether the historical Jesus existed. Bart D. Ehrman pulls no punches: “Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed.”

            17
          6. Like it or not, a growing number of scholars find reason to be less than certain. That’s not history, it’s a fact.

            2
            20
          7. Oh please. Mythicists have been repeating that hopeful “growing number of scholars” mantra for the whole 20 years I’ve been debating them on this stuff. You can still count this “growing number” on the fingers of one hand. The numbers have only grown among a non-scholarly demographic: clueless, historically-illiterate, dogmatically anti-Christian fanatics. Like you. So the only growth has been among the people least qualified to judge these matters. What does that tell you.

            And in the last couple of years I’ve seen a change on many online atheists fora, with more and more rationalists pushing back against Mythicism as the counter arguments to its flawed thesis become better known. Mythicism is losing.

            23
          8. “Like it or not, a growing number of scholars find reason to be less than certain.” Certainly, a growing number of uneducated atheists on the Internet are doubting the historicity of Jesus. However, like it or not, virtually all scholars agree Jesus’ existence is historically certain. On your blog post, you claimed, “Although many apologists would protest loudly about the very idea of mythicism, the evidence of his life is so scarce that there is no real basis in fact to establish with a degree of certainty much greater than 50/50 that the historical character Jesus ever even lived.” Please stop ignoring the vast consensus of non-Christian scholars who trash Jesus mythicism, and framing people who believe in a historical Jesus as “apologists.” I encounter this frustrating tactic over and over again, and I would like you anti-Christian folks to stop employing it.

            Furthermore, dude, you should see creationists who parrot the claim an increasing number of scientists are beginning to doubt the theory of evolution, which is absolute BULLSHIT. Why should I believe your equally ridiculous pablum?

            22
          9. “Some time ago, I got into an unpleasant exchange [translation: exchange where I got destroyed] with a guy named Tim O’Neill who calls himself an atheist, but whose attitude appears to be unreasonably hostile toward [historically-illiterate] atheists. I looked at his blog, which is called History For Atheists, and found many articles that are quite critical of atheists (especially the ones he calls ‘New Atheists’) and the [un]historical claims they make, and none that are even slightly critical of dubious claims made by religionists [because the purpose History for Atheists is to correct erroneous claims spread by ATHEISTS]. He often mocks the idea that atheists are skeptical [of what?]. This struck me as rather odd, because there’s no balance. He defends religious claims and beliefs [which are perfectly compatible with atheism], while criticizing the claims of [historically-illiterate] atheists. For example, he strongly defends the idea that there was no such thing as the ‘dark ages’, which seems to be a matter of opinion [WTF?], and that the church was always [straw-man fallacy] supportive of the advancement of science, which I think is patently false. I’m all in favor of criticizing false claims, including those made by atheists, but this guy seems to go overboard [maybe it’s because atheists go overboard with their historical illiteracy]—to the point of revealing what appears to be a clear bias in favor of religionism [NO—clear bias in favour of history] and against [inaccurate claims about history spread by adherents of] atheism. And that’s why I said that I ‘could find no reason to think that he is anything other than a Christian who claims to be an atheist.’ [You spoke too soon.] He could well be an atheist [Tim IS an atheist], but he sure doesn’t sound like one [garbage]. His brand of skepticism seems to be highly selective [what on Earth does that mean?].
            “But O’Neill isn’t the only atheist I have encountered who seems to have an obnoxiously anti-atheist attitude [NO—he has an anti-bad-history attitude]. There’s a guy who calls himself ‘The Spiritual Anthropologist’, and he says he’s an atheist, yet he has nothing but harsh words for other atheists. [How is The Spiritual Anthropologist’s supposed atheism a single bit relevant to Tim O’Neill’s beliefs?] And at the same time, he is quite friendly toward religious beliefs. He actually came into a discussion (I won’t say where) claiming without basis that all the atheists there were biased and hateful toward theists. He demanded that they produce evidence in support of their non-belief, and even claimed that they are all religious in their own right. And of course, when asked to provide evidence for some of the things he was saying about bias and hatred, he refused to back up those statements. And when asked to provide evidence for his own lack of belief, he placed himself in a different category from the rest of the atheists, claiming that he doesn’t make any positive or negative belief claims like everyone else who calls himself an atheist. This is without regard to what they have actually said—he simply assumes that they’re all hateful, anti-theistic believers in some kind of materialist religion. So because he doesn’t make any claims, he doesn’t need to provide evidence. The burden of proof is entirely theirs.
            “But aside from his own statements that he is an atheist, he sounds for all the world like a theist. Which is puzzling. It makes me wonder what his shtick is all about. Why does he differentiate himself from other atheists? And why is he so hostile toward them, while expressing no similar attitude toward theists or the things they believe?
            “I found the blog run by The Spiritual Anthropologist. He comes off sounding like a scientist (although he has only a BS in mathematics, by his own admission). And if you peruse the articles there, you will see many that seem to take an apologist position in favor of various religious beliefs. But you don’t see anything that is critical of religion. Take, for example, this article defending the idea of a rational soul that is separate from the brain and would survive after the death of the body. It mirrors the unscientific concept of the ‘brain-as-receiver’ that is popular among religionists, and shows no scientific understanding of cognition.

            “Yet this guy tries to make himself sound like someone with a level of scientific understanding that most atheists lack. He even espouses his own ‘theory of religious rejectionism’, which he calls a religion in its own right. He claims that most people who call themselves atheists actually have this religion, and that idea serves as the basis for his presumptions of bias and hatred on their part. This so-called theory is based on the ‘seven dimensions of religioid belief’, which are contrived to fit his stereotyped paradigm of the materialist/humanist/free-thinker, but somehow fails to include anything about gods or supernatural beliefs. Here’s a snippet from that article:

            “There are some interesting aspects to American religious rejectionism that make it quite different from other religions. Besides the obvious point that the rejectionist defaults to a belief in nonexistence, the rejectionist also tends to have issues with religion and faith. Yet there is just as much faith required to sustain their religioid beliefs. This results in a complex system of ideology used to simply reconcile their own faith with the rejection of faith.”—The Spiritual Anthropologist

            “This idea of the religious atheist sounds exactly like the standard us-against-them religionist dribble you might find in any anti-atheist blog. The only difference is that he calls himself a real atheist, which he apparently equates with making no claims one way or the other about the things we traditionally ascribe to religious belief. He doesn’t claim there is no god, or that there are no souls. He is neutral on the concept of an afterlife. Apparently, by his definition of religion, if you have enough scientific understanding to justify a rejection of the supernatural, that makes you religious. Obviously, The Spiritual Anthropologist lacks any such scientific understanding. [Dude, you literally wasted over half of your blog on red herrings about The Spiritual Anthropologist.]

            “What is the common factor between anti-atheist atheists like Tim O’Neill and The Spiritual Anthropologist? [Finally.] Here’s my take. As far as I can tell, they both set themselves apart from the ‘common’ [unsophisticated, in the case of Tim] atheist, and consider themselves to be superior [“superior” in what sense?]. O’Neill regards himself as [somewhat of] an expert in [ancient and medieval] history, and is so determined to prove the common [unsophisticated] atheist wrong that he often takes the religious apologetic [NO—the historically accurate] stance on issues that are not settled by virtue of historical fact [complete garbage]. Similarly [nope—dissimilarly], The Spiritual Anthropologist regards himself as an actual anthropologist who is superior in his scientific understanding, despite the fact that he has an obviously unscientific worldview. Both of them feel justified in wielding their own self-proclaimed superiority [can you provide a quotation of Tim’s “self-proclaimed superiority”?] against the common [unsophisticated, in the case of Tim] folks who call themselves atheists or skeptics, and treating them with outright hostility. In the process of doing so, they find it convenient to assume the stance of the religionist or apologist [stop propping absurd caricatures]. Both of them have a serious chip on their shoulder [WTF does that mean?].”

          10. As annoying as that guy is, I’m afraid this isn’t on topic for the subject of Mythicism. Please keep to that subject on this thread.

          11. Sherlock actually believes Jesus “a symbolic personification of the sun”—you heard me right. Furthermore, he wrote an embarrassingly inaccurate Facebook post documenting nine supposed problems with the historicity of Jesus:

            (1) “The entire corpus of literature that testifies to Jesus’ earthly existence are four short and conflicting biographies, ‘Matthew,’ ‘Mark,’ ‘Luke’ and ‘John.’ The earliest Christian writings, the epistles of Paul, say virtually nothing about his life, so impeach these four alleged eyewitness testimonies and you have debunked his alleged historicity.”

            (2) “The Gospels are pseudonymous, meaning they weren’t written by the authors whose names appear on the works.”

            (3) “They fail the historical test of contemporaneity, meaning, the earliest Gospel, ‘Mark,’ was written an entire generation after his alleged crucifixion.”

            (4) “They are affected by bias, meaning, they are not impartial accounts of history.”

            (5) “They are affected by arguments from similarity, meaning, pretty much all of the miracles and motifs contained within these Gospels existed amongst earlier religions, including the alleged revelations or teachings of Jesus.”

            (6) “Their testimony pertaining to Jesus are further impeached by arguments from silence, meaning, no contemporary witnesses, but for two brief mentions in the works of a first century Jewish historian, Josephus, which have been shown to be Christian forgeries.”

            (7) “The Gospels themselves have been thoroughly established to contain forgeries or interpolations as it is more politely referred to by textual scholars.”

            (8) “People are not born of virgins and ghosts, turn water to wine, walk on that water, etc, so to keep the validity of these ‘historical testimonies’ alive, historicists, those who argue for the historicity of Jesus, the human, argue that the genre of ancient biographies often included legendary elements.”

            (9) “There is no archaeological evidence for Jesus or his alleged disciples, but that is not a major hurdle for historicists, for archaeology isn’t the proper tool in examining the evidence of these kinds of characters, although it does help to kill the certainty of his existence.”

          12. Okay, I really don’t know what purpose is served by you posting this stuff. Yes, I know what arguments Mythicists use – I’ve been reading them and debating them for years. So what is the point of these comments, exactly?

        2. Mythicism is losing.
          – Unlike you, I am not biased in favor of one side or the other. I am willing to look at actual evidence. I hear the arguments on both sides. I see that you make the same arguments apologists make. You’d be better off looking at the evidence

          you should see creationists who parrot the claim an increasing number of scientists are beginning to doubt the theory of evolution, which is absolute BULLSHIT. Why should I believe your equally ridiculous pablum?
          – Unlike he science deniers, my arguments are based on evidence, or lack thereof.

          3
          15
          1. That’s like a YEC claiming he’s not biased. All Christ-mythers are biased, who are you trying to fool?

            16
            1
          2. Both sides?? I swear mythers are just like creationists. Mythers find one person with a relevant degree who peddles mytherism against the historical consensus that Jesus existed and now they think there are two sides to this issue.

            16
            1
          3. The parallels between the Mythicists and the Creationists are many and are deeply ironic. Both pretend to be objectively challenging an entrenched status quo, when in fact they are driven by a clear ideological agenda. Both insist that the tiny number of contrarians in their ranks who hold some form of relevant qualification instantly gives their thesis credibility. Both try to explain the overwhelming consensus against them by reference to a dark conspiracy by the establishment, whereby science is somehow completely dominated by atheists according to the Creationists and history similarly mind-controlled by Christians according to the Mythicists. And both are constantly heralding a coming new dawn, when their thesis will come to be widely accepted, which is always just around the corner, so long as the believers keep the faith strong.

            I find the same thing with Holocaust Deniers, Climate Change “Skeptics” and the whackos who think Shakespeare didn’t write the plays of Shakespeare. The psychology of these kooky contrarians is all the same.

            19
          4. Anyone who refuses to listen to any evidence that disagrees with their own dogma shouldn’t be comparing the rest of us to a YEC. You sound more like a YEC to me. Please note that I am not a mythicist, because I find the evidence to take a hard stance on either side. When Tim speaks to others, he says When it comes to pre-modern history, being “sure” is a luxury we can rarely afford and various degrees of being “not sure” is the perpetual norm. But when he speaks to me, he says Bart D. Ehrman pulls no punches: “Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed.” So which Tim is the one I should agree with?

            1
            10
          5. *Chuckle* Poor little Skep is getting confused again. He can’t keep track of who is saying what to him, possibly because to a fanatic all opponents are heads on the same hydra. I didn’t give you that quote from Ehrman, Skep, someone else did. Try to keep up. I would never give that quote because I disagree with Ehrman’s use of the word “certainly” there. And that’s precisely because I always remind people that we can’t be “sure” or “certain” about this or a whole range of other issues in ancient history.

            But while you’re still stumbling from one blunder to another Skep, please tell us which evidence I “refuse to listen to”. I’ve been listening to all the “evidence” the Mythicists can muster for about two decades now, so please enlighten me as which parts I’m simply ignoring. Good luck.

            13
          6. “Unlike you, I am not biased in favor of one side or the other.” Unlike you, Tim is extremely biased towards what the evidence indicates—that Jesus certainly was a historical figure.

            “I am willing to look at actual evidence. . . . You’d be better off looking at the evidence.” You have NOT shown a single sign of willingness to accept the historical evidence.

            ” I see that you make the same arguments apologists make.” Dude, STOP ignoring the vast consensus of non-Christian scholars and framing us as “apologists.”

            “Unlike he science deniers, my arguments are based on evidence, or lack thereof.” Bullshit. You should hear creationists argue how a “lack” of transitional fossils is evidence evolution never happened, which is an embarrassingly ignorant argument. Similarly, your atheistic apologetics for Jesus mythicism ain’t working here either.

            “Anyone who refuses to listen to any evidence that disagrees with their own dogma shouldn’t be comparing the rest of us to a YEC.” Problem is, there is not a slightest shred of “evidence that disagrees with” the existence of a historical Jesus. Furthermore, how is Jesus mythicism NOT perfectly comparable to young-Earth creationism? It is.

            “You sound more like a YEC to me.” Right—you’re deluded.

            “Please note that I am not a mythicist, because I find the evidence to take a hard stance on either side.” Dude, apply your standards consistently to other ancient figures contemporaneous to Jesus, and see how they stack up when under scrutiny. The case for Jesus-mythicism is literally the epitome of special-pleading.

            Furthermore, the quotation of Ehrman I provided (which you somehow attributed to Tim) is not exactly incompatible with Tim’s statement, since Ehrman was obviously referring to historical certainty rather than mathematical certainty—the kind of “certainty” one could purchase within the realms of ancient history. Nonetheless, ancient history will always be a matter of probability and weighing the evidence.

          7. I would never give that quote because I disagree with Ehrman’s use of the word “certainly” there.
            – OK. Sorry. So who should I believe – you or your cultist? And why are you so convinced that your’e right. Despite your arguments, I still haven’t seen convincing evidence to draw a solid conclusion. So you ridicule me for following your own advice. As to the evidence from mythers that you’re ignoring, I’d say all of it.

            Nonetheless, ancient history will always be a matter of probability and weighing the evidence.
            – That is exactly what MY point has been all along. Glad to see that Tim’s cultist has changed his tune.

            10
          8. ” So who should I believe – you or your cultist?”

            Daniel has already responded with how he reads Ehrman’s use of “certainly” there. Just a couple of weeks ago Ehrman was interviewed by Seth Andrews of thethinkingatheist.com and he stated things precisely as I have always done: “many things are merely possible, but historical analysis is the informed assessment of what is most likely, and the existence of a historical Jesus is most likely”. You can see the interview on YouTube here and his response on history and the likelihood of Jesus begins around 22.40.

            “And why are you so convinced that your’e right.”

            Because, (i) I’ve studied the period, the relevant texts and the relevant linguistics for 30 years and so have a very solid understanding of the context of the issue and (ii) I’ve read and analysed the arguments of the main proponents of Mythicism in depth for about 20 years and then tested my issues with them in detailed discussion with them or their supporters, often for weeks at end. As an atheist, it doesn’t matter to me if there was no historical Jesus. But the arguments of the Mythicist are too contrived, supposition-laden and dependent on weird readings of the texts and ignorance of their social and historical context to be in any way convincing. A historical Jewish preacher from Nazareth called Jesus just fits the evidence better and doesn’t require all the mental gymnastics and contorted special pleading that Mythicism needs. That’s why.

            “I still haven’t seen convincing evidence to draw a solid conclusion.”

            Welcome to ancient history. You regularly don’t have enough evidence to draw a “solid” conclusion when it comes to historical analysis of the pre-modern world. So you go with the conclusion that accounts for the most evidence with the least number of suppositions. This is what historians call “the argument to the best explanation”. It is usually all you can come to and there is no point in just saying “I don’t want to do that”. There has to be an explanation that fits this bill and that is the one any rational person arrives at.

            “As to the evidence from mythers that you’re ignoring, I’d say all of it.”

            And its this kind of pathetic high school level blurt that makes people ridicule you. How the hell can I be “ignoring all of their evidence” when I have read their books (several times), tangled with them and their supporters for years and have already written detailed article of up to 15,000 words taking apart their key arguments detail by detail? Yet somehow I can do this while “ignoring all of their evidence”? Stop saying such idiotic things and perhaps people might take you a tiny bit more seriously.

            16
          9. As I said in my own article, I think there probably was someone (or perhaps a combination of people) that the legends were based on. But that person would most likely not be recognized by Christians as the real Jesus (not born of a virgin, never performed any miracles, never did the things claimed in the bible). So does that mean the real Jesus existed, or not? It depends on how you look at it

            1
            14
          10. “As I said in my own article, I think there probably was someone (or perhaps a combination of people) that the legends were based on.”

            There is no evidence to suggest the “combination of people” part. I’ve been asking people who claim this is “likely” why they think it “likely” for about 15 years now and none of them have ever been able to give me a single piece of evidence that indicates a “combination of people”. So no, that is not “probable” at all. But a person who the legends are based on? Yes, that is the most parsimonious read of the evidence. Far more so than Mythicism.

            ” But that person would most likely not be recognized by Christians as the real Jesus”

            Yes, and that’s something people tend to fall back on when forced into a corner and made to admit a historical Jesus is most likely. It’s not relevant here, since I am not arguing for any “real Jesus” of Christianity. Go find a Christian and talk to them about that – I don’t care.

            “So does that mean the real Jesus existed, or not? It depends on how you look at it”

            No, it just depends on your definition of a “real Jesus”. If you define it as the supernatural being and deity that is the focus of orthodox Christian belief, then see above – I am not talking about that figure. But if you accept that there was most likely a historical Jewish preacher this figure was based on, much as the god called the Divine Julius was based on the historical man called Gaius Julius Caesar, then we have no argument. You just need to stop pretending Mythicism is just as likely as that perfectly reasonable position, because it isn’t.

            16
          11. To illustrate how extreme Jesus mythicism is, I will borrow the example of young-Earth creationism.

            Currently, there are several hundred qualified PhD scientists working in astronomy, astrophysics, biophysics, nuclear physics and so forth who believe in a young Earth. (James Bishop has catalogued around THREE HUNDRED.) These scientists are whom young-Earth creationists like Ken Ham and his Answers in Genesis will appeal to in order to bolster the contrived nonsense they peddle. Nonetheless, despite these scientist’s often impeccable qualifications, hardly anybody in the scientific community takes them seriously.

            On the other hand, there are exactly TWO qualified scholars who are Jesus mythicists: Richard Carrier and Robert M. Price. (Price is the only New Testament scholar who denies the historical Jesus, while Carrier is an unemployed blogger.) Yet, im-skeptical rambles about how “there are serious historians and scholars who are not highly confident that Jesus existed.” Absolutely pathetic.

            13
          12. Yes, and that’s something people tend to fall back on when forced into a corner and made to admit a historical Jesus is most likely. … If you define it as the supernatural being and deity that is the focus of orthodox Christian belief, then see above – I am not talking about that figure.

            – So you agree with me that whoever it was, it's not the Jesus that Christians believe in. Frankly, I don't understand why you are arguing so hard against what I said. I don't see much disagreement.

            11
          13. Then read back over the comments here and you can see what several people have “argued against”. You’ve overstated the level of acceptance of Mythicism among actual scholars, pretended it has a level of credibility that it does not have, denied that many of its defenders’ arguments are straight from the standard kooky theory playbook (a la Creationists), claimed I’ve “ignored Mythicist evidence” when that’s patent garbage and made a few other stupid comments into the bargain. If you agree that it’s most likely a historical Jesus existed and are done saying stupid things, then I think we’re done here. On this subject at least.

            16
          14. The difference is that Tim recognises the evidence is sufficient to establish the existence of a historical Jesus, while you deny his conclusion.

            13
          15. Then read back over the comments here and you can see what several people have “argued against”.
            – I think you better go back and look. You tend to read way too much into my words. I haven’t overestimated anything. But there ARE serious scholars (and it’s definitely more than “exactly two”, as your cultist insists) who have good reason to doubt that that the historical Jesus existed, and their position, while still in the minority, is gaining support. Furthermore, I haven’t heard you address their arguments. All you do is claim that you’ve been dealing with them for years, and dismiss them as crackpots.

            15
          16. “I haven’t overestimated anything”

            Nonsense. Simply by talking about Mythicism as anything other than a fringe theory of little scholarly credibility you’re overestimating it.

            “But there ARE serious scholars (and it’s definitely more than “exactly two”, as your cultist insists) who have good reason to doubt that that the historical Jesus existed”

            You can count them on the fingers of one hand. And they claim they “have good reason to doubt that that the historical Jesus existed”, but that is not supported by their arguments. Making the claim and actually having the solid basis for it are not the same thing.

            “their position, while still in the minority, is gaining support. “

            Yes, among historically illiterate online amateurs. In the academic sphere it is a non-issue and it is not “gaining support”. You clearly don’t read the literature or you would know how ludicrous that claim is.

            ” I haven’t heard you address their arguments.”

            For fuck’s sake. You’re on a blog where I do so in summary HERE and then tackle one in detail HERE and a key one in even greater detail HERE. That alone is about 30,000 words of detailed argument, and I’ve only just got started on my series on the flaws in Mythicism. How the hell did you manage to miss all that?

            “All you do is claim that you’ve been dealing with them for years, and dismiss them as crackpots.”

            Er, yup. See above, you complete idiot. I’m beginning to think you’re some fundamentalist Christian planted to make atheists look stupid. No actual atheist could be this dumb.

            16
          17. “There ARE serious scholars (and it’s definitely more than ‘exactly two’, as your cultist insists) who have good reason to doubt that . . . the historical Jesus existed.”

            Unfortunately, im-clueless decided to misrepresent my original statement, which claimed there are exactly two qualified scholars who follow Jesus mythicism—not merely “doubt” the historicity of Jesus. Nonetheless, im-clueless has yet to acknowledge the overwhelming consensus among secular New Testament historians, which affirms the historical existence of Jesus.

            “Their position, while still in the minority, is gaining support.”

            I agree—Internet crackpots and kooks definitely are abundant! However, Christopher Price is absolutely correct: “I have often been asked why more academics do not take the time to respond to the Jesus Myth theory. After looking into this question, I discovered that most historians and New Testament scholars relevant to the topic have concluded that Jesus Mythers are beyond reason and therefore decide that they have better things to do with their time.”

            “Furthermore, I haven’t heard you address their arguments.”

            Poor dude suffers from severe carpal tunnel syndrome, so after writing a response he struggles to search articles on History for Atheists where Tim dismantles and rips Mythicist arguments to pieces.

            “All you do is claim that you’ve been dealing with them for years, and dismiss them as crackpots.”

            We rational human beings have every right to dismiss Jesus mythicists as crackpots. Furthermore, I challenge you to consistently apply your skepticism to other figures of antiquity, rather than commit egregious special-pleading.

            For anybody who is interested, watch the debate between InspiringPhilosophy and Godless Engineer, where Godless simply got schooled on the historical Jesus:
            (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdiUgQFV30U
            (2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXDGinGIJEM

          18. After specifically telling im-clueless multiple times NOT to ignore the consensus of secular scholars . . . he does it yet again: “We all are subject to biases, and ideologies especially make us vulnerable to bias. That’s the biggest reason Christians are so firmly fixed on the notion that the evidence for Jesus so solid as to be beyond any dispute, or that only a crackpot would doubt it. I’m not saying that secular scholars are free of their own biases, but it is obvious that they are at least free of Christian ideology. I do not feel the need to pick a side. I don’t call myself an expert in this arena, and I have tried to remain unbiased on the matter. On the Christian side, I have read arguments from both scholars and non-experts, and I really don’t see any fact that erases any doubt about the existence of Jesus. On the secular side, I have read their arguments as well, and I see no fact that would convince me that Jesus did not exist, either. Where does that leave me? I can’t say one way or the other. If you look strictly at the available evidence, I’d have to say it is not clear-cut on either side. But there is one thing I can say for sure (as far as I’m concerned). Anyone who pretends to have little or no doubt that Jesus was a real person (as Christians are prone to do) is probably influenced by bias more than actual evidence. They talk about evidence for Alexander the Great being no better than for Jesus. That is patently false. There is ample reason to believe Alexander lived. Nothing comparable exists for Jesus.”

          19. Dude . . . actually stop ignoring the consensus of secular scholars and posting complete horse crap: “The thing is, nobody really knows who changed what. It might be easy to assume that the story you grew up with ‘always was’, when in fact it was invented long ago. It was during the 19th century that scholars began to seriously question the truth of that story, and (needless to say) those scholars were rejected as ‘crackpots’ by the (mostly Christian) consensus of historians. In more recent times, there has been a new movement among secular scholars to re-examine the whole issue, which had been taken for granted for so many centuries. It might be the case that certain secular scholars have an ideological motivation to show that Jesus didn’t exist, but I don’t think that can be said of the entire movement. And after all, what they’re doing is raising doubts— urging a fresh look at the evidence, and re-evaluating that evidence in the absence of religious motivation. If the evidence clearly shows that Jesus existed, so be it. We all want to know the truth. The problem is that the evidence really isn’t that strong.”

          20. Furthermore, those “secular scholars” you speak of either (1) occupy the absolute fringe minority of historians or (2) are amateur kooks reviving silly nonsense through the Internet. Your attitude is the equivalent of a creationist kiddie attempting to score points by Googling PhD scientists who believe in a young Earth, and subsequently dropping their names in order to coerce their opponent into believing they are not qualified to criticise the position of rational scientists, which is exactly what you previously did: “But even if it was about that, what on earth makes you think O’Neill is in any way qualified to go around berating actual historians? And who the hell are YOU to pass judgment? You are a dolt.”

  10. I can understand being mistaken, people make mistakes. But there is no way Carrier doesn’t know better. He is trained in history. Any undergrad in history would know better than all this. Why continue making a known error?

    I get it having a PH.D in History without getting a teaching job can make things rough but not impossible in the job market. He could have become a librarian. When he was younger he served in the Coast Guard if I do recall, why not get back in and do OCS? He had options and a supportive wife. Why did he choose the path of the pseudo historian and throw it all away?

    12
    1. Ego. He’s convinced that he’s a great genius and that it’s important that he continues to peddle his multiple contrarian theories to the world. And Richard Carrier the library assistant wouldn’t get the regular injections of fawning adulation that Richard Carrier the itinerant “independent scholar” gets giving lectures to small atheist groups around the US, even if it means a life of relative poverty and regular couch-surfing.

      17
      2
      1. I have always wondered when the poverty will get to him and he becomes a Christian Apologist. He could have the many new fans, a paycheck, a roof over his head and all the ink and paper he needs to promote his new views etc. He would have to give up the orgies though.

        6
        1
  11. Carrier’s approach is completely flawed. He begins by assigning Jesus to what is supposed to be an appropriate reference class – namely, the Rank-Raglan class. Jesus’ membership of this class is then used to calculate the prior probability that he existed, which turns out to be low.

    There are two problems with this. Firstly, as Johann Ronnblom has shown – http://ronnblom.net/is-jesus-a-rank-raglan-hero/ – Jesus isn’t actually a Rank-Raglan hero. The second problem can be illustrated by an analogy:

    Obama belongs to a reference class whose other members have all been white. Hence, there is a high prior probability that Obama is white. Therefore there is a high prior probability that Obama really is white and there has been a conspiracy to cover this fact up.

    This is nonsense, of course. Any kind of conspiracy or massive hoax that fools everyone will always be the least likely explanation of the facts. And, as I pointed out above, the myth theory requires a hoax.

    10
    1
  12. 1 Corinthians 2:8: None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, because if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

    This verse settles the issue on whether Paul was speaking of a celestial Jesus or not. Jesus was executed by earthly authorities by means of crucifixion, a common way of authorities executing supposed criminals.

    Something that is just bewildering I’ve seen is that mythicists try to claim that the Greek word for ‘rulers’ in this passage (ἀρχόντων / archón) is actually used in the New Testament to mean ‘spiritual powers’ or something. However, every single use of archontōn in the entire New Testament, with the sole exception of Ephesians 2, refers to earthly rulers. The most comparable use of archón in the New Testament is another passage in Paul’s own authentic letters, Romans 13:3. I’ll quote the full context to this verse.

    Romans 13:1-7: Let everyone submit to the governing authorities, since there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are instituted by God. So then, the one who resists the authority is opposing God’s command, and those who oppose it will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers (archón) are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have its approval. For it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason. For it is God’s servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong. Therefore, you must submit, not only because of wrath but also because of your conscience. And for this reason you pay taxes, since the authorities are God’s servants, continually attending to these tasks. Pay your obligations to everyone: taxes to those you owe taxes, tolls to those you owe tolls, respect to those you owe respect, and honor to those you owe honor.

    Paul uses the Greek term archón the exact same way in both Romans 13:3 as he does in 1 Corinthians 2:8. Every other New Testament passage where the Greek term archón appears also has it applying to physical, earthly rulers (Matthew 9:18, Luke 23:35, John 12:31, Acts 4:8, Acts 13:27, etc), and the entire exception to this is… A verse specifically talking about Satan in the Book of Ephesians, a book that mythicists don’t think Paul wrote anyways. Spectacular.

    Mythicists are a group of people who really just can’t believe that historians don’t take them seriously.

    9
    1
    1. A remarkable number of Mythicist arguments require a very “special” methodology when reading relevant texts:
      (i) Ignore the most obvious face-value meaning given the context
      (ii) Find a way that the text can be read so that the “celestial Jesus” contivance can be somehow maintained
      (iii) Insist that this must be the correct reading and that all context from later gospel material must be ignored.
      This weird heuristic is applied almost consistently to the Pauline material.

      The main problem (of many) with this approach is that it is all predicated on this idea that there was a “celestial Jesus” form of mythic urChristianity – something Mythicists strive and fail to actually demonstrate. Whereas the mainstream readings are based on something that is well-established and not a hypothetical propped up with weak arguments and hand waving: the later traditions of a historical human Jesus which give every indication of dating back to at least the time Paul wrote. So Occam’s Razor alone slices up the Mythicist readings.

      11
      1
        1. I often hear Mythicists citing the silence of Philo of Alexandria as evidence against a historical Jesus. Why do you believe this argument is problematic?

          1. It’s a stupid argument. Philo wrote theology, not history, and there are literally thousands of figures of the time he doesn’t mention. He also mentioned precisely zero other early first century Jewish preachers, prophets or Messianic claimants. This makes any attempted argument that he “should” have mentioned this particular one completely incoherent. I like to ask those who try this argument to show me exactly in Philo’s works he “should” have mentioned Jesus. That always stumps them because virtually none of them have actually read any Philo.

  13. This could use a good rebuttal
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ2kGJk4Jo4 Him trying to weasel his way out of comparing Yeshua’s supposed nonexistence with that of Hannibal, Socrates, Pythagoras, Sun Tzu, Buddha, etc. was just pathetic (there’s also Qin Shi Huang, Catherine of Alexandria, Muhammad, Ragnar the Viking. If one puts the same amount of effort into disproving them, one would come to the same conclusion)

    1. Judging from the trailer, the premise (such as it is) seems to be that because Jesus is depicted in the gospels as having “superpowers” we should read them as fiction, much like a modern superhero comic book. I’m guessing they are also trying to argue they were meant as fiction even though they never say this, much as comic books are understood to be fiction despite never explicitly saying they should be. This may seem superficially reasonable, but it’s actually naively imposing a modern genre category on ancient texts for polemical purposes. The problem with it is that we have many depictions of other people in the ancient world who have “super powers”, but we know those people are historical. Augustus has a miraculous conception at the hands of a god. Caesar ascends into heaven after his violent death. Vespasian heals the blind and the lame. Does this mean we should read accounts of these people as “fiction” and assume they didn’t exist? Obviously not. So the analogy between the way people were depicted in the ancient world and modern comic books really doesn’t work. The fact that Jesus is depicted as having miraculous powers does not necessarily make him a “fictional” character, because at least some of the people depicted that way in the ancient world were clearly historical.

      I also recently responded to a Mythicist who claimed that if we take all the miraculous elements out of the Jesus stories “there’s nothing left”. He seemed to think this meant the idea of a kernel of historical elements minus the miraculous accretions was therefore unsustainable. Out of interest, I then summarised the whole gospel of Mark for him chapter by chapter, removing all the miraculous elements. Far from there being “nothing left” when I did this, it was interesting how little I had to take out. The core of story consists of “Jesus went here and said this” or “Jesus went there and disputed with some other people”. I’d argue we could leave in the faith healings and the exorcisms, since they are things we see in many traditional societies today and can even see in any revivalist or Pentecostal church any Sunday – there’s no actual miracles happening there, just group psychology. Which means all you have to take out are the big miracles: the feeding of the five thousand, walking on water, the Transfiguration and that’s about it. We don’t even have to remove any stories about a risen Jesus, because gMark doesn’t depict that, it just implies it. Far from being left with “nothing”, when we take out the “Jesus as superhero” stories, we’re left with a historically plausible story of a Galilean peasant in a very small world of other Galilean peasants, preaching a Jewish message of a coming apocalypse using mainly peasant imagery (farming, fishing, herding) to some other peasants.

      Anyway, the rest of the trailer is amusing in a juvenile and silly way and I imagine the whole “Batman” premise will appeal to Mythicists because a hell of a lot of them are … well, pretty geeky. And we have the usual grab bag of fringe scholars (Price and Carrier) and total nobodies (Fitzgerald, “Aron Ra”), along with that esteemed history expert, Killah Priest from Wu Tang! All in all it looks like yet another nerdy circle jerk by the usual suspects.

      13
      1
      1. Thanks for the reply, I think comparing to “Batman” of all DC figures is the stupidest decision considering well… he doesn’t even have any powers at all (other then being rich). Maybe superman would’ve been perfect because we see his imagery as being similar to Jesus in comic and film (Came from out of this world, born with super powers, saves the world multiple times, has Jesus imagery in the man of steel film and also sacrifice himself and resurrected in some comics!).

        Plus you could’ve saved your time removing the miracles from the Gospel of Mark, and just shown him the Jefferson Bible, literally the gospels without anything divine or miraculous about them.

        anyway, when the film comes out, would you have any interest in reviewing the film or just ignore it and move on from it if its not really that interesting?

        7
        1
        1. True, Batman is a very odd choice. As you say, Superman fits better. Maybe the film will explain why they went with a rather unsuper superhero.

          I may review the movie. As far as I can tell, it’s the first attempt at something like this since the rather feeble The God Who Wasn’t There back in 2005.

          11
          1
          1. Wow. Truly awful. This is why you don’t turn to people with no grasp of historical analysis for your understanding of history. He links to this amateurish garbage site as his “evidence Jesus never existed” and then cites absolute nobody Dave Fitzgerald as an example of a “historian” who has come to accept this! Then he declares he has seen the light because he has interviewed Carrier, “Acharya S”, Bob Price, Frank Zindler and, again, Dave Fitzgerald on his podcast, “all of whom are scriptural experts” according to this Aron Ra guy! And then he burbles about their “interesting theories” that he declares to be convincing and true because … well, this Aron Ra person says so. And this is the kind of stuff that passes for historical analysis with these people. It’s absolutely hilarious.

            And the comments on this article are even worse. What a freakshow.

          2. The amount of people who actually believe in Jesus mythicism is ridiculous. For example, listen to the late particle physicist Victor J. Stenger in his Huffington Post article: “There is absolutely no evidence that the Jesus of the gospels even existed. He is only mentioned in the New Testament, which was written long after his death by people who did not know him. St. Paul says little that suggests a historical Jesus. He also did not know Jesus. His ‘evidence’ for Jesus is just his own mystical visions. He said, ‘I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preach is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.’ . . . The fact that Jesus is not mentioned by any of the many Roman historians of the time, some living in Jerusalem and who wrote voluminously, proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Jesus described in the gospels is largely of not totally a fictional character. However, secular scholars disagree on whether Jesus is a historical figure. . . . No one who wrote about Jesus ever knew him as a real, living human being. Three people who wrote about Socrates at the time knew him: Plato, Aristophanes, and Xenophon.” Furthermore, he claims “science was well on its way in ancient Greece and Rome. But the Catholic Church muffled science when it took over the Roman Empire in the 4th century, ushering in the 1,000-year period known as the Dark Ages. This ended with the Renaissance and the rise of the new science, when people could once again think and speak more freely. So it is ludicrous to argue that science was a product of Christianity”—familiar New Atheist Bad History.

          3. Yes, and Stenger is an expert on history by merit of his training as … a physicist. That’s a lovely concentrated dose of New Atheist bad history, with at least one error or dubious assertion per sentence. I loved this part:

            “The fact that Jesus is not mentioned by any of the many Roman historians of the time, some living in Jerusalem and who wrote voluminously, proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Jesus described in the gospels is largely of not totally a fictional character.”

            It’s always fun to ask these people to name exactly who these “many Roman historians of the time” who “should” have mentioned Jesus in their “voluminous writings” and then watch what they come up with. Absolutely none of them know how to construct an argument from silence, yet they constantly try to do so.

          4. Although you trash those who deny the existence of a historical Jesus, what is your take on those who are merely unsure about whether Jesus existed?

          5. “what is your take on those who are merely unsure about whether Jesus existed?”

            My comment to those people is usually “if you want to be ‘sure‘ about things, I suggest you avoid ancient history completely”. When it comes to pre-modern history, being “sure” is a luxury we can rarely afford and various degrees of being “not sure” is the perpetual norm. The way historical analysis works is we accept that we usually can’t be “sure” and then look at the alternative possible explanations of our relevant evidence to make an assessment of which is most likely. The evidence is almost never so finely balanced that we simply can’t do this and it certainly isn’t so in the case of the existence of Jesus. So we can all accept that none of us are “sure” if Jesus existed (apart from dogmatic Christians, who think they are “sure” about all kinds of things) and then come down on what is the argument to the best explanation – likely existence or likely non-existence.

            Of course, I’ve found those who declare themselves “agnostics” on this subject tend to fall into two broad categories. The first tend to be those who think in absolutes and who don’t understand how historical analysis is done, as detailed above. So they think that unless they can be “sure” they need to sit on the fence. Others, however, adopt this “agnostic” position not out of naivete but out of cunning. They know that the Achilles heel of Mythicism lies in trying to construct a story for the origins of the stories of Jesus that stands up to Occam’s Razor and realise that all such attempts by Mythicists like Carrier are clunky contrivances. So claiming to be “agnostic” allows them to nitpick at any arguments for historicity while absolving them of any need to commit to a viable and parsimonious alternative. There are several such pseudo “agnostics” who claim they are not championing Mythicism per se and so dodge any challenge to come up with an alternative origin story for Christianity. Yet, despite their pretentions to lofty objectivity, they spend all of their time peddling Mythicist arguments and bolstering Mythicists at every turn.

          6. A frustratingly dishonest tactic several atheists employ when being skeptical about Jesus’ existence is to create or imply a false dichotomy: Only Christians believe there is sufficient evidence for Jesus’ existence, while non-Christians reject that claim. However, they rarely acknowledge the overwhelming of majority of secular historians and scholars who believe in the historical Jesus. Another tactic is a fallacious argument from silence.

            Tim, I recently watched an episode of the Atheist Experience, where Jeff Dee employs both of these fallacious tactics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KifLDNsfOYM. However, Dee makes several claims:

            (1) There’s no extrabiblical evidence for Jesus. (You don’t have to respond to this, because I already know Josephus and Tacitus mentioned Jesus. However, I’m only mentioning this to highlight Dee’s main point.)
            (2) All our sources which mention a historical Jesus were written by biased Christian believers. “It’s only believers who appear to have written about Jesus. . . . The only people apparently who ever wrote about [Jesus] were people who were already in the religion and already believed.” “We have all kinds of ancient documents about all kinds of things. If Jesus was in fact the big deal he’s supposed to have been at the time, there would have been people who heard about that and wrote it down other than folks who were already in the cult—there would have. So, the fact that doesn’t exist is a big red flag.”
            (3)”There’s no examples of contemporaries who just heard about Jesus and mentioned him—none. That’s the problem.”

            As an extra question, if we were to strip down all the extrabiblical references to Jesus, would the Gospels and the Epistles of the New Testament still furnish sufficient evidence for the historian to establish Jesus’ existence?

          7. ” ‘… If Jesus was in fact the big deal he’s supposed to have been at the time …’ “

            There is the problem with that argument. Even if we were to take the gospels at naive face value, even their exaggerated accounts don’t depict Jesus as being a “big deal at the time”. gMark tells its readers how remarkably famous Jesus became by assuring them that “News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.(Mark 1:28)” Considering that Galilee was a tiny backwater of a backwater region and one so small you could stroll across it in a day, this isn’t very impressive. The author of gMatt certainly seems to have realised this, because he boosts this a little saying that “large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him” (Matt 4:25). That’s slighly better, though anyone reading this outside of Syria would probably say “where?” about all those places apart from maybe Judea and Jerusalem.

            And these guys never seem to grasp that the way you assess how many references we would expect to find is by looking at analogous figures. And when we do this we find they are much more of a “big deal” that Jesus is depcicted as being, yet we have no contemporary references to any of them. Around 44 AD Theudas had a following of “a great part of the people” and led them to the Jordan with the promise that he would miraculously divide the waters. His following was large enough that the procurator Cuspius Fadus had to dispatch a cohort of cavalry to disperse them. How many contemporary mentions of these events? Zero. Or there is the Egyptian Prophet, who is said to have led “30,000 men” out of the wilderness to the Mount of Olives with the promise that they would see the walls of Jerusalem miraculously fall down. All they actually saw were the swords of the several cohorts of both auxiliary infantry and cavalry that the Roman procurator Antonius Felix sent out to kill them, but how many contemporary references do we have to these large scale disturbances? None.

            So even if we were naive enough to take the gospel stories at face value, there is no reason to think that we should find contemporary references to Jesus’ career in far off Galilee. These other troublemakers were operating in Roman occupied Judea (not in the unoccupied client state of Galilee) and were clearly a threat to Roman rule, yet we don’t get a squeak about them in any sources of the time. The idea that Jesus doing some preaching and apparent miracles in Galilee would get a mention is obviously absurd.

            ” ‘There’s no examples of contemporaries who just heard about Jesus and mentioned him—none. That’s the problem.’ ”

            Ditto for every single other early first century Jewish preacher, prophet or Messianic claimant. These second rate Mythers just don’t have a clue about the nature of ancient source material and so apply a fake criterion that simply makes no sense.

            “As an extra question, if we were to strip down all the extrabiblical references to Jesus, would the Gospels and the Epistles of the New Testament still furnish sufficient evidence for the historian to establish Jesus’ existence?”

            Yes. Given the reference to his brother in Galatians 1:19 and the fact that there are so many elements in the gospel stories which don’t really fit Jewish Messianic expectations at all and yet are shoehorned into the narrative anyway (the awkward and evolving stories of his baptism by John, his inconvenient birth in the wrong town and the crucifixion that has to be propped up theologically by a plethora of ill-fitting Old Testament texts), that would still be the most parsimonious conclusion. Ehrman doesn’t think the Tacitus and Josephus references count for much, but still concludes that it is most likely Jesus existed.

          8. In reference to the claim by the Atheist Experience guys about how Jesus wasn’t as big a deal as they claimed he should have been, I say this:

            In the grand scheme of things, not much is known about certain aspects of ancient history. There are many events that should have been more attested to in writings at the time, but simply weren’t. For example, the collapse of the Greek Bronze Age civilization in around 1200 BC is still a mystery to archaeologists. Some have posited that the Mycenaeans (Greeks) were destroyed by an invasion from the north by the Dorians. Others have proposed that the mysterious “Sea People” invaded their land, like they did with the Egyptians. Another hypothesis is that a great famine followed by tremendous civil unrest toppled the mighty kingdom. The thing is, it’s still not really known with any real level of certainty what brought about the destruction of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilizations and ushered in the Greek Dark Age. Most historians rather cautiously attribute it to a combination of natural and man made disasters. The point of all this is that, for something as catastrophic as this, you’d think there would be more writings on what conclusively caused it. The fact that there’s still serious scholarly debate over this shows how little solid evidence has been found. I mean, this disaster sent the entire region into turmoil and hardship. Why haven’t we found more contemporary historians writing about it? In fact, we have a sudden lack of writings from this period (Linear B script suddenly vanished around this time).

            So the fact that we have ANY writings talking about a historical Jesus is fascinating to me. That anyone mentioned him at all is pretty strong evidence of his existence.

            Whether or not he was the son of god is another matter entirely.

            4
            1
          9. All true. Another example I like to give is the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD. Here we have two large provincial towns buried under tons of ash, with thousands of their inhabitants dying yet nowhere in our surviving sources are the towns even mentioned. We only have six mentions of the eruption of Vesuvius, of which four are very much in passing and only two – the letters of Pliny – give any detailed account. None of them mention the towns by name on only Pliny makes any mention of any towns or settlements, but doesn’t name them. There may be an allusion to Herculaneum in Martial’s Epigrams, IV.44, which refers obliquely to “a place where Hercules left his name …. buried by flames and mournful ash”. But that’s about it.

            Most people would expect that we would have an extensive literature on the total destruction of two whole towns, with frequent references to them by name. But we have essentially nothing specific about them. This is the nature of ancient source material.

    2. I’ve seen that argument in many different forms. What mythicists ignore is the fact that historians look at evidence both for and against a particular argument. We have positive evidence that Batman/Superman/Spiderman/Harry Potter are fiction. We know who wrote them and when. We know they wrote them as fiction. We have copies of the original publications. We have none of that for Jesus (or any one in antiquity), so comparing Jesus to any of them is simply absurd.

      9
      2
  14. It started off good (interesting bit about Hannibal not having contemporaries and Philo not mentioning other people) but then you said this: “the Antiquities XX.200 mention of Jesus is universally considered genuine by Josephus scholars and that alone sinks the Mythicist case (see below for more details).” You should have first established Josephus’ credibility beforehand.

    Also, Tacitus was writing about another Jewish sect, not Christianity. Consult Suetonius, Pilate Stone (which demonstrates that Pilate would have been called prefect, not procurator), and Josephus. It should be obvious that there has been a systematic attempt to place Christianity within 1st-2nd century (see interpolations in Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, Aurelius, etc.) to compensate for the lack of contemporary witnesses and to prop up the so-called myth. Interpolation in Pliny’s letter: “They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god…” In Julian’s essay, he notes that none of the founders of Christianity had called Jesus god.

    If Jesus existed, he wouldn’t have gathered crowds and he wouldn’t have been sent only to Jews. Galilee had a mixed population, the Jews there were distinct from the wealthier ones in Alexandria. Jesus’ loftier teachings would have been given to initiates, they were not meant for everyone. He would have been betraying his principle of not casting pearls. His viewers wouldn’t have been able to comprehend them. It would have brought his teachings into ridicule and destroyed his authority.

    It’s also absurd to think that he would have stormed into the temple and done all those things listed, as perpetuated by anti-Semites. He would have most certainly been arrested or killed on the spot. Just because it occurs in all four gospels doesn’t make it true. We must recall that the council had a massive selection of works to shift
    through. They would have picked the ones that were most consistent.

    2
    15
    1. “You should have first established Josephus’ credibility beforehand.

      Why? Do we have any reason to think he was lying about this? And when Jesus’ brother James was executed Josephus was 25 years old and living in Jerusalem. The city was relatively small – with an estimated population of about 80,000 people. I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in a small town, but in small urban centres like this if you don’t know someone personally, you know them by sight or you know of them, especially if they have an local prominence at all. And Josephus had a reason to at least know of James, because his execution caused the high priest Hanan ben Hanan to be deposed. Given that Josephus was from a priestly family himself, that was a political big deal. The idea that this information, made in a passing comment, is somehow unreliable is absurd. Speaking of which …

      “Also, Tacitus was writing about another Jewish sect, not Christianity.”

      Utter garbage. Another Jewish sect that, by an absolutely amazing co-incidence just happened to also be founded by a “Christus” (from the Greek, Χριστος, translating the Hebrew for “Messiah”) who also just happened to be executed by Pilate in Judea during the reign of Tiberius? Don’t be ridiculous.

      “Pilate Stone (which demonstrates that Pilate would have been called prefect, not procurator”

      Except these titles weren’t used with any great precision and Tacitus often used anachronistic forms. “Procurator” was what the Roman governors of Judea were called in his time. And even arch-Mythicist Richard Carrier argues that Pilate can be regarded as both a Procurator and a Prefect anyway. I’ll deal witht he crappy Myther attempts at dismissing the Tacitus reference in an upcoming article.

      “It should be obvious that there has been a systematic attempt to place Christianity within 1st-2nd century (see interpolations in Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, Aurelius, etc.) to compensate for the lack of contemporary witnesses and to prop up the so-called myth.”

      Yet this amazing and apparently “obvious” conspiracy has somehow not been noted by thousands of scholars over several centuries of analysis. Luckily we have internet kooks to tell us what really happened. Lucky us. The rest of your silly comment is not even worth a response. Take your crackpot conspiracy theories elsewhere.

      31
      2
      1. Your all ego Tim a debater extraordinaire – yet most of the stuff you peddle is completely wrong- never mind it holds your disciplines in thrall.

        16
        1. Gosh. Well, that really sorted me out. “Most of the stuff you peddle is completely wrong”. I guess that settles that then.

          I hope that inarticulate, misspelled and ungrammatical little blurt made you feel better, “Pythinia”.

          15
  15. I’ve read all of this, & the comments. So, do biblical scholars, actually, believe that a man made the blind see, healed the sick, & rose from the grave in two days?!! Even the the non-christian ones?

    2
    15
    1. Clearly it depends on who you ask. A Non-Christian biblical scholar would say ‘no’, because they presumably dont believe in the miraculous, at least about Jesus of Nazareth. If you asked a Christian biblical scholar, then most would say ‘yes’ (though some would say ‘no’).

      So Tim’s blanket reply of ‘no’ simply isnt true.

      1. My “blanket reply of ‘no'” is true, given that I was responding to a question that specified they were asking about non-Christian scholars. Obviously non-Christian scholars don’t believe he rose from the dead and don’t believe he really healed anyone, though he may have done some faith healing of psychosomatic or simply imaginary conditions, the way faith healers do.

        1. The question was ‘do biblical scholars believe… even the non-Christian ones?’ That wording would seem to imply the poster is effectively asking ‘do all biblical scholars…’. which is how I read it.

          I would clearly disagree with your view of healing, whether by Jesus then or today.

          1. Okay. To me, ‘do biblical scholars believe …. even the non-Christian ones?’ means do ALL scholars, including the non-Christian ones, believe this. The clear answer to that question is “no”. As I said. And your religious beliefs are of little to no interest to me, I can assure you.

  16. “The consensus of scholars, including non-Christian scholars, is that a historical Jesus most likely existed and the later stories about “Jesus Christ” were told about him”

    So was there a poll? How do you know what the “consensus” is.

    1. Why would we need a poll? You can count the number of actual scholars who support the idea no historical Jesus existed on the fingers of two hands, and that’s if we are very generous with the word “scholars”. If you think you can make a case that the consensus goes the other way, let’s see your evidence.

      15
      1
  17. “The idea of a Messiah who dies was totally unheard of and utterly alien to any Jewish tradition prior to the beginning of Christianity, but the idea of a Messiah who was crucified was not only bizarre, it was absurd”.

    Jews actually have an idea of suffering and dying Messiah, read Old Testament, book of Isaiah for example.

    1. If you have some historical evidence that the “Suffering Servant” passages in Deutero-Isaiah was interpreted as a Messianic prophecy by Jewish people before the rise of Christianity, then please produce it. Otherwise all you are saying is that these passages were given that interpretation by Christians. That’s a theological position – this blog is focused on history. So either produce some historical evidence for your claim or take your Christian eisegesis elsewhere.

  18. Hi Tim,

    What are your thoughts on Kenneth Humphreys? He seems to be a staple in the Jesus myth camp. He comes highly recommended by Richard Carrier (of course that doesn’t really mean much).

    1. Humphreys is the author of the crazy and chaotic jesusneverexisted.com website, which is as nutty as it is badly laid out and confusing. It’s mainly Jesus Myth stuff though it also has equally bad pages on how Christianity is wicked, how it destroyed the Classical world, ushered in the “Dark Ages” and all the other tropes of New Atheist bad history, so no wonder Carrier endorses it. Humphreys originally published the book version of his “research” via Historical Review Press, which also publishes such titles as Epic: The Story of the Waffen SS (they were great guys, apparently), The Banking Swindle (the world is run by the Jews), The Inequality of the Human Races (white people are superior) and the Holocaust denial classic Did Six Million Die (spoiler: it says no). That Humphreys was happy to keep company with these neo-Nazi pinheads speaks volumes.

      1. Woah. I knew that Humphreys was a little nutty, but I didn’t know he was chummy with actual fucking Nazis. Whether or not he shares their views is important too, obviously, but it is telling that he’s okay being associated with them. To your knowledge, has he espoused anti Semitic/racist talking points? I can’t seem to find anything.

        1. No, Humphreys is not a Nazi. But, as you say, the fact that he had to use a Nazi press to publish his silly book is indicative of how fringe this stuff is. Of course, when anyone notes the analogy between the fringe status of Mythicism and Holocaust Denial the Mythicists have conniptions and the ones who have no grasp of the concept of analogy shriek that you are saying the level of evidence for a historical Jesus is as extensive and solid as that for the Holocaust, which is not what is being said is analogous.

        2. Judging by both his horrible-looking 1990s style website and his age and demeanour in his videos, old Kenny doesn’t strike me as the most up-to-date guy when it comes to online tech. So POD services may have been a bit newfangled for him. The book published by his Nazi pals was a 533 page monster cobbled together from his chaotic website, though he’s since published a slimmed down 140 page version. And this time he’s used a small outfit of non-Nazis called Nine Banded Books as his publisher. This seems to be a one man band that publishes whatever takes his fancy, though that runs to the odd and mildly provocative – including such titles as Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture and Attack the System: A New Anarchist Perspective for the 21st Century. So a slight improvement on the “Jews are Running the World” stuff of his former buddies I suppose. Atheist New Testament scholar R. Joseph Hoffmann wrote an amusing analysis of Humphreys a few years ago.

      2. This is a quote from one of Humphreys’ articles on his site, in response to the statement that the scholarly consensus is that Jesus existed:

        “Unlike men of religion, broad-brush generalists expatiating on life, death and eternity, academia is populated by scholars who are increasingly specialized, knowing more and more about less and less. Personal advancement and professional kudos come from small advances within their own narrow field of research. Understandably many are loath to proffer commentary beyond their own area of expertise.

        Within the confines of their own disciplines, academics certainly do challenge and reject biblical nonsense. Many of them are quoted in this collection of articles, indeed have made the demolition of the Jesus myth possible. Few choose to take on ‘Big Church’ with its $billions and millions of gullible supporters. It requires others, not constrained by the politics of academia, to bring the thousand and one pieces together.

        Having said that, the idea that Jesus of Nazareth never existed is not new but has been endorsed by a minority of scholars for more than 200 years.”

        1. That is about typical of the kind of thing amateur nobodies with no grasp of how academia works say to justify the fact that the experts reject their silly conspiracy theory. Humphreys used to publish his books via a neo-Nazi publisher called Historical Review Press, and you could take what they say about why no historians take Holocaust denial seriously and just change “Holocaust revisionism” to “the Jesus Myth” and “the Jews” to “Big Church” and you’ll have exactly what Humphreys says above. Humphreys is an idiot.

          1. Huh.

            I usually try to avoid comparisons of Jesus mythers and Holocaust deniers, because it usually makes them REALLY mad. They usually say something along the line of “theres actual evidence for the Holocaust, unlike Jesus. This is an unfair comparison.”

            So I usually avoid making those comparisons. Plus I’m not as knowledgeable on the subject as you, so I can’t afford to not stay on the opponent’s good side haha

          2. The analogy is not between the nature and extent of the evidence for the existence of Jesus and the reality of the Holocaust. The analogy is between how both fringe theses’ proponents use conspiracy theory logic to explain why their theory is not accepted by scholars. Anyone who objects to that simply doesn’t understand analogies, is not thinking clearly or both. So I happily use that analogy, because the objections of the Mythicists is just more evidence that mean of these supposed “rationalists” couldn’t reason their way out of a wet paper bag.

          3. I understand the ideological motives behind Jesus Mythicists attempting to debunk Christianity. However, what on Earth is the incentive behind denying the Holocaust’s historicity?

          4. Holocaust denial is generally the province of neo-Nazis and their sympathizers. The motive seems to be to make out that Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy after all, and that the Jews are trying to drum up sympathy as part of their nefarious plans for world domination (or whatever it is Jews are supposed to be up to, in the fevered minds of these fools).

  19. Interesting stuff. Might I ask why Richard Carrier says that Jesus scores so highly on the Rank-Raglan hero-type? What’s up with that?

      1. So it’s basically shoehorning? Something not just believers are guilty of.

        Even if Jesus does score highly, so does Mithradates of Pontus, a real (albeit heavily mythologised, like Jesus) historical figure.

        1. Exactly. This is why the Rank-Raglan Scale, like all this dusty old nineteenth century stuff about “mythic archetypes”, is useless when it comes to deciding if a figure was historical or not. Historical figures become encrusted with legendary/”mythic” elements relatively quickly, so the whole enterprise is pointless. But that never deters our doughty little friend Carrier …

      2. Cool. Thanks.

        So, side note: have you heard of Carrier’s new endeavor? He’s created, in partnership with some Canadian guy, a smartphone app called “Chrestus” that supposedly has all of the most up-to-date arguments both for and against Jesus’ existence complete with bibliography and a Bayesian calculator. It’s supposed to be a “let the best argument win” kind of thing, just laying the facts out and letting the conclusions fall where they may, nonbiased style. Have you heard of it?

        1. I saw his blog post on it. It seems like another gimmick and more evidence of his obsession with this kooky idea that historical analysis can be quantified. Who decides what the “facts” are? How can they be presented in a sufficiently objective manner to ensure that things don’t get skewed in any way? Why is he still trying to use Bayes to analyse history? Another complete waste of time, though I gather the unemployed Carrier has quite a bit of time to waste.

  20. I often hear claims from mythicists like this one from an acquaintance of mine who is a mythicist:

    “30 years ago, if you said Moses never existed and that the Exodus never happened, ‘scholars’ would laugh at you and make sure you never got work or were taken seriously.

    Now it is the consensus that Moses never existed and that the Exodus never happened.

    In 30 years so will the consensus be that Jesus never existed.”

    How would you respond?

    1. I’m not familiar enough with OT studies to comment on why the consensus on Moses has changed, though my impression is that it is due to a better recent understanding of the relevant archaeology. The Jesus Myth thesis in its current manifestation has already been kicking around for about 15 years, and shows no sign of being on the brink of mainstream acceptance, despite the fond hopes of the tiny handful of Mythicists. And it’s not like there are any major new arguments that are suddenly going to propel it into wider scholarly acceptance, given that most of the arguments current Mythicists use are just rehashed versions of the same ones which were rejected a century ago. So it could be that things suddenly turn around in the next 15 years, but I seriously doubt it.

          1. Not as bad or wacky as Acharya S, Fernando Conde Torres or Joseph Atwil (Whom Dawkins promotes as a scholar) I presume though.

            I personally believe, however, surprisingly enough, that the worst mythicist is actually Richard Carrier, for the simple reason of Hanlon’s Razor. He is not incompetent in the subject matter (He has a PhD in Ancient History), rather he is trying to fulfil and Antitheistic agenda.

          2. Career has earned his qualifications but don’t forget that PhD’s aren’t graded. He published his PhD thesis in the science of Ancient Rome as a book in early 2017 and it’s not exactly stellar scholarship.

            Yet I’ve still seen so much to completely question his competence. One that sticks out is hiss hackneyed theory that the Jesus in book XX of Antiquities that’s used to identify James (being executed) as the brother of Jesus Christ originally was referring to the high priest Jesus ben Damneus.
            Has Carrier even read much further?!

        1. The consensus on Moses is that there’s no way to archaeologically (how often often do people find monuments and statues of desert nomad leaders?), or historically (the Egyptians were known for twisting history when it made them look good – look at Kadesh for instance – and eliminating the memory of people that made them look bad — see what they did to Akhenaten’s family for example) verify his existence anyway. Many however acknowledge there must have been one or more individuals who inspired the figure of Moses. Jesus’ existence however is an inescapable fact – all things considered – and the only ones denying that have anti-Christian bias to some degree. Real academics find Carrier and his followers annoying, at best

      1. What’s going on Tim. We were discussing the issue of Jesus Birth awhile ago and I can’t seem to find that post now. But you were going in depth on the historical contradiction of Matt 2:1 and Lk 2 where he was born during the time of Herod and then born during the time while Qurinnius was governor in 6 ce. Also it was an issue with the taxation that never took place. Was it only one or two during that period?

          1. I remember this summarization from Quora. But it was here I think where you expounding on why Rome and its provinces simply would not have told Joseph or any Jew to return to the home of their ancestors…You explained it well.

    2. Ah, “Today it’s Moses, tomorrow it will be Jesus”, the next day it will be Muhammad and Buddha, and the day after that it will be Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon. Moses’ case is somewhat understandable, purely empirically speaking (how often do archaeologists find statues and monuments to desert nomad leaders? that and the Egyptians were known to twist history when it made them look good and eliminate people who made them look bad). But the day Jesus is erased from history is the day history dies, because it won’t stop there

  21. “THE LOGIC DEMON” wrote
    “Tim, what is your opinion on Aron Ra’s article?http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2015/11/03/jesus-never-existed/”

    Obviously Tim has already responded to this but I would like to point out that Aron Ra is utterly ignorant of how history works. I lost all respect for his writings when he seriously tried to make a connection between the Bible and Wiccan neopaganism
    http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=294
    – “Point # 4 may be a matter of interpretation. In the first case for example, Leviticus 14 details a component spell which must include an EARTHenware bowl, running WATER, a WOODen wand, LIFE/BLOOD taken from one bird and the blood carried by another bird through the AIR. While not universally accepted, these have been described by Wiccans as the five elemental points of the neopagan pentacle. ”
    Not universally accepted indeed!

  22. I have found a good way to deal with those “agnostics” is to ask what other ancient historical figures with similar evidence to Jesus they are also agnostic about.

    If they are consistent they will be throwing out 90% of ancient history before they are done.

    1. Yes, that usually works. It’s remarkable how many Mythicist arguments or criteria set for Jesus fall apart as soon as you try to apply them across the board. Though I have often found that when you point this out to them they simply don’t care (or pretend not to), saying that this just means ancient history is therefore substantially baseless and not worth pursuing. Basically they have no actual interest in history at all and their sole purpose is their burning emotional need to deny the existence of a historical Jesus in any form. Of course, backing them into a corner on this does expose the inherent emotional and irrational basis of their position for others to see, so it’s still worth doing.

      1. In his POS book, Carrier tried weaseling out of the Socrates comparison by making it appear that his existence was more likely than Jesus after all. It’s always amusing seeing him squirm

    2. I suppose I would count as “unsure” in the sense that I don’t think I could hold my own against a Mythicist who was well-versed in the arguments. Given that the Christian movement was a going concern by c. 100CE, with its own circulating literature, and self-understood as having been started by this Jesus fellow some 70 years earlier, the most parsimonious explanation would seem to be that that founder indeed existed, even if half the things they believed about him were sensational nonsense. But from what I’ve seen over the past few years, it seems like I’d have to know a lot more about historical analysis than I do, in order to have a position I could confidently own.

      By comparison, I’ve been involved in the creation/evolution debate since about 1990, and have enough scientific knowledge (and a smidgen of philosophy of science as well) to say that the creationists/IDists are full of shit, and why. I lack the equivalent background on the history side.

      1. That would make you unsure of how to counter every single Mythicist argument, but not an agnostic on the question – you have made a very sound assessment of that and taken a sensible position. But, like Holocaust deniers and Climate Change “Skeptics”, the Mythicists have developed convoluted arguments to prop up their position and it often takes some time to untangle these to see why they are contrived and unconvincing. That’s the whole reason I am writing my Jesus Myth series here, since most other counters to the Mythicists have been rather broad brush in approach and don’t get down to the detail of the (bad) Mythicist arguments. And that, unfortunately, includes Bart Ehrman’s book Did Jesus Exist? (HarperOne, 2012).

        Ehrman’s book is fine as a general overview of why scholars don’t take Mythicism seriously, which was it’s intention. But he did not go into the detail of a lot of the Mythicist counter-arguments to the points he made, largely because he didn’t aim the book at Mythicists, but at the general public. As a result, the Mythicists crowed that his book was superficial and that he didn’t take them on properly, ignoring the fact that he had not intended to. Ehrman’s book is useful for a general audience, therefore, but not much use for those who encounter Mythicists versed in their more detailed and contorted arguments. I’m trying to fill that gap.

        1. Thank you. Note I said “unsure” rather than “agnostic”. I recognize varying levels of personal epistemic confidence, ranging from “good enough for a personal working hypothesis” to “publicly defensible”, and on this topic I’m nearer the former.

          Re what you say about convoluted arguments, my engagement with creationists (and pseudoscience in general) taught me two things:
          1) It’s possible to put together a superficially plausible argument for damn near anything, no matter how absurd.
          2) It’s further possible to elaborate that argument to the point where you need to be a domain expert to see through it.
          3) Having a Ph.D. doesn’t prevent one from being a flaming crackpot, even in one’s own field.

          Ehrman’s book sounds like a good place for me to start — just to understand the landscape of the debate, and where the consensus of experts lies, and why. *sigh* Another book to add to the ever-growing reading list….

      2. Don’t worry, if you’re a genuine history buff, you have more awareness of how history works than the Christ-mythers do. They are Atheism’s young-earthers, make no mistake about that

        1. For background: I’m a retired engineer, general science geek, now doing a BA in philosophy. To the extent that I’m a “history buff” it’s more history of ideas, specifically how Greek proto-science (“natural philosophy”) was elaborated on during the Roman and Medieval periods, and started turning into science in the Early Modern.
          I have to admit that Mythicism is probably low on my priority list. I’m an ex-Christian, and I have quite adequate reasons to reject the first part of the thesis that there was a God-man running around Roman-occupied Palestine, without worrying about the second part. But being somewhat involved in the skeptical movement, it’s in the air, so I suppose I should develop a proper opinion on it.

      3. I can understand that. Sometimes it is possible for a proponent of any view to make a lot of claims that generalists might not be able to refute due to a lack of knowledge.

        I have degrees in both science and history so I have my views on both Jesus Mytherism and Creationism. Sometimes still I need to really investigate their claims before responding. Sometimes I need to check with actual scholars to see what they say before responding. It is far easier to make garbage claims then refute garbage claims after all.

        Despite this I still know the consensus against these claims and why they are considered fringe views . I am sure you could say the same.

  23. Tim,

    Ehrman uses the argument that the gospels have value for discerning the historicity of Jesus because they come from multiple oral sources (yet still mention the same guy). Is this a sound argument?

    1. The argument that Ehrman uses is that we can discern multiple independent written source traditions about a historical Jesus. So we have the Pauline material, then we have gMark and the likely written sources it drew on. Then we have gMatt and gLuke, which drew on gMark and at least some other independent source or (more likely) sources represented by the Q material. And then we have gJohn, which drew on different traditions again.

      Mythicists have to deal with this by saying Paul was only referring to a celestial Jesus and that all the other elements derive from gMark or are just inventions embroidering gMark. To do this they have to reject the Two Source Hypothesis to dismiss the Q material and claim that, despite there being very little overlap between gJohn and the synoptics, the last gospel also depended ultimately on gMark. There are a host of problems with these arguments.

      1. Mythers basically conclude a historical Jesus never existed because the evidence presented is not enough to convince them he is indeed God in the flesh. Odd way for atheists to analyze history; makes perfect sense for militant anti Christians though.

  24. @IM

    There is certainly debate about the best historical understanding of Jesus and who he was however if one uses the historical method the idea he didn’t exist is long refuted. No matter how much you wish to the contrary.

    Now there is certainly a lot of arguing about if Jesus existed or didn’t for the simple reason mythers do not use the historical method. Arguing with a stubborn myther is like playing chess with a person who refuses to play by the rules, feels free to make up new piece moves every round and then chides you for failing to beat him. It simply is a waste of time.

  25. People like IM are pretty much pointless to argue with as they simply are not interested in an academic discussion in numerous subjects. He doesn’t care about facts or methodology. He is simply a young knee jerk anti religious type who has a poor understanding of religion in the first place. I am not particularly religious myself whoever I have learned it is far far more complicated then the New Atheist parodies of it.

    He doesn’t understand history at all but he likes the conflict thesis and mytherism because they are the biggest whips with which to hit Christianity. Who cares if they are actually correct, Christianity is simply just that awful and if it takes lies to save humanity from it so be is his view.

    Michael Ruse was correct when he described the New Atheism movement as a disaster.

  26. So we are cultist for accepting the vast consensus of ancient historians instead of simply parroting the arguments of kooky mythers. That is an odd view of how a cult operates to me. If anything it seems the mythers would be cultists…..

    Not sure which myther arguments we are ignoring around here. I suspect by ignore you mean not parroting uncritically like you do IM.

    1. The fourteen names of scholars who are Jesus mythicists: Richard Carrier, Richard C. Carrier, Richard Cervantis Carrier, R. C. Carrier, Dick Carrier, Dick C. Carrier, Dick Cervantis Carrier, Robert M. Price, Robert Price, Robert McNair Price, R. M. Price, Bob Price, Bob M. Price and Bob McNair Price.

      1. Don’t flatter those Carriers, they’re not bible scholars like the Prices. They’re historians with anti-Christian axes to grind…and need money.

  27. Everybody, click on this hyperlink* and enjoy a chuckle over the utter nonsense im-clueless posted. Initially, I decided to write a response. However, I decided im-clueless was simply beyond reason and subsequently declined.

    *https://theskepticzone.blogspot.co.nz/2018/04/battling-consensus.html

    1. Geez, does the guy not get what the *secular* historicist thesis is? Of course we don’t believe that Jesus was what Christian belief makes him out to be. What Skep says, about there possibly being a real human around whom the specifically religious stories accreted is exactly it. Good grief, he’s not that far off from my position on the issue. There’s a legitimate question about what would constitute a meaningful connection between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith — how much of the deeds and words of the latter have to be found in the former to say “Yes, he’s the source”, but that’s down in the details of the historicist thesis. Like asking what it would take to identify a real historical person as the original source of King Arthur or Robin Hood or Ragnar Lothbrok — all subjects of extensive creative fiction.

      And the rest is so much tone-trolling. Tim Is Mean? Maybe. Carrier ain’t so polite either.

      1. “And the rest is so much tone-trolling. Tim Is Mean? Maybe. Carrier ain’t so polite either.”

        Strangely these Tone Police are also less zealous when it’s atheists being “mean” to fundamentalists and Creationists. Selective indignation.

        1. A synopsis of Richard Carrier’s beliefs:
          —Adolf Hitler was an avowed Christian
          —Christianity contributed NOTHING towards systematic scientific thinking in antiquity, while atheism and pagan theology somehow did
          —Christianity is partially responsible for ushering and sustaining the Dark Ages
          —Jesus never existed
          —Poverty rose under Christian care
          —The Scientific Revolution was no different to science in antiquity, and it cannot be attributed to Christianity

          8
          1
          1. And that anybody who criticizes him is either insane or a liar. “That’s the function of my writing. It ends all rational debate”…..so does sticking your head in the sand. As a fanatical history buff, idk whether to despise or feel sorry for the poor saps who give him money and promote him as an intellectual powerhouse. One dumbass even called him the Copernicus of our time. I’m like don’t ever shit on his good name like that. Wtf is wrong with people? It’s as if their irrational hatred of Christianity overrides their reason…wait

      2. >Geez, does the guy not get what the *secular* historicist thesis is?

        No, Steve Watson, mythicists do not. Most (all?) of them (like their christian counterparts) just recite what others say. If you want to stump a mythicist, ask him or her what critical scholars mean by historical Jesus. The answer will most likely go very quickly to the miracle working son of god found in the NT. In my experience, they haven’t bothered to read the scholars they criticize (taking the word of Carrier et al) I recently had a discussion with someone who defended Lataster, while the guy had a very good understanding of the flaws in criteria of embarrassment, he didn’t understand just how poor and uninformed Lataster’s arguments were. Heck, after reading some of Lataster’s statements about Q etc, I hadn’t realized just how terrible his arguments were. I had never thought he made any compelling arguments, but thought of him as a Carrier wannabe.
        I think many mythicists are of this stripe. Many like Lataster, seem drawn to Carrier’s insulting language and like calling others “pathetic” etc.

  28. That’s the one thing that’s always irked me about Richard Carrier.

    It’s never that his opponents are just simply mistaken. No, to him, they’re always lying and actively trying to suppress what they allegedly know to be the truth. To Carrier, it’s all a conspiracy. That’s what happens when you’re so arrogant that you truly believe that your words should be taken as the obvious and absolute truth and therefore anyone who disagrees is either insane or just plain evil. To Carrier, it’s the only rational explanation as to why anyone dares to question him.

    The victim mentality is strong with him, like fundie Christians who screech “Get behind me, Satan!” when you challenge their beliefs, even on the most inconsequential and mundane subjects.

    I can never respect people like that, theist or atheist.

  29. Holocaust deniers are simply strange to me. They hate the Jews and want them all dead. Yet they deny the largest massacre of Jews in history. You think they would be celebrating.

  30. I had this verse pointed out to me yesterday. I do not recall you discussing it.

    2nd Corinthians 5

    16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view;[b] even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view,[c] we know him no longer in that way.

    Kinda hard to have once known Jesus from a human point of view if he was never human.

    1. This is one of several places where Paul uses the phrase “κατὰ σάρκα”, meaning “according to the flesh” or “in accordance with the flesh”, in reference to Jesus. Pretty much everyone takes this to refer to Jesus’ incarnation on earth – the word “incarnaton”, after all, is from the Latin incarnationem, meaning “the act of being made flesh”. Another example of Paul’s use of this phrase is Romans 1:1-14:

      “Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who having come from the seed of David according to the flesh (κατὰ σάρκα), and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit (κατὰ πνεῦμα) of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”

      It is extremely hard to interpret this passage any other way than to say Paul is talking about a man, descended from King David, who was exalted to be the Son of God by his resurrection. The contrast between his former status as a human being “according to the flesh” (κατὰ σάρκα) and his exalted status as Yahweh’s anointed “according to the spirit” (κατὰ πνεῦμα) could not be more clear. And this is further emphasised by the reference to Jesus coming “from the seed of David” – a historical, human ancestor. But Carrier follows Earl Doherty’s reading of the phrase. As he summarises it in the 2002 review he wrote of Doherty’s book, the one that marked his own Dasmascene conversion to Mythicism:

      “But the most common, relevant meanings of kata with the accusative do at least fit Doherty’s theory that Jesus descended to and took on “the likeness of flesh” (Romans 8:3), in which case kata sarka would mean ‘in the realm of flesh.'” (“Did Jesus Exist?”)

      Of course, the most obvious “realm of flesh” is here on earth, which is why pretty much everyone reads this phrase as Paul referring to Jesus’ incarnation as a historical human being. But Doherty and Carrier think it can also refer to the “fleshly sub-lunar realm” in the sky where they imagine their celestial, non-human and non-historical Jesus was born, lived, died and rose again. And this contorted reasoning is not even close to the bizarre way Carrier reads “coming from the seed of David” as “made from the sperm of David”, by positing a literal sperm bank in the heavens.

      1. So it refers to a ” fleshy sub lunar realm” that the ancients didn’t even have a concept of instead of simply Earth.

        You don’t need Occam’s razor to deal with this one, you need his chain saw.

  31. Tim, since you mention Jewish scholars who accept the existence of Jesus in this post and Vermes by name, I figure this would be the most on topic thread to post this question; this still likely qualifies as off topic, though, so apologies for that.

    You had mentioned in a reddit badhistory thread that “Jesus The Jew” changed your life. Would you recommend “Jesus The Jew” and Vermes’ other work to someone who wishes to understand the historical Jesus within the context of first century apocalyptic Judaism? Given it was published a few decades ago, does his analysis still hold up in 2018?

    1. Even before his death in 2013 Professor Vermes was described as “the greatest Jesus scholar of his generation”. His work on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Aramaic Targums would be enough to make him a great scholar, but his contribution to putting Jesus into the Jewish context of Second Temple Judaism effectively changed the course of modern Jesus studies, making him one of the most important scholars in the so-called “Third Quest”. He does acknowledge Jesus in the context of Jewish apocalypticism, but unlike others (Fredriksen, Ehrman, Allison) he does not give that his main emphasis. His Jesus is, like all humans, multidimensional. So Vermes places as much emphasis on him as an exorcist and hasidic wonder-worker of kinds known at the time as he does on him as an eschatological prophet. Not everything he argued back in the 1970s is still widely accepted, but the thrust of his image of Jesus as a Jew and a Jew of his time stands up extremely well – so much so that it now seems rather unremarkable because it is so mainstream.

  32. I have been studying the NT and the epistles in particular. It has always been in the background of these that Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice to Yahweh and he was compared with the imperfect animal sacrifices of the OT.

    Now earthly animals were offered to Yahweh; not celestial ones. So it would make no sense to compare a celestial Jesus to the animals of the OT sacrifice system, but it would make perfect sense to compare a human Jesus to the sacrificed animals of the OT.

  33. ‘The existence of a historical Jewish preacher and the existence of the “Jesus of the gospels” are not the same thing.’

    Of course it is – it is meaningless to talk about some “Jewish preacher” if it is not the same person as “Jesus of the gospels” – if it is NOT “Jesus of the gospels” – then it is not ANYONE . .

    1
    3
    1. Bizarre comment. If it is a historical preacher who was the point of origin for those later stories in the gospels then he is not “not ANYONE” – he’s the origin point for Christianity.

  34. I know that this topic is from a while ago. But I was wondering what Tim makes of an article published a few years ago now by a retiring professor of English at Carnegie-Mellon University called Paul Hopper where he argued that the testimonium flavianum is an interpolation in it’s entirety?
    Here’s super-polemicist blogger Neil Godfrey heralding victory with it (as though an interpretation of an ancient text is “fresh evidence”):
    https://vridar.org/2015/01/16/fresh-evidence-the-jesus-passage-in-josephus-a-forgery/

    Personally I think it’s a slanted and fanciful assessment that deliberately pretends that the strong similarity articulation style of much of the testimonium flavianum with the rest of antiquities somehow doesn’t exist.

    1. I’m pretty sure I’ve addressed this before, but anyway – the problem with this kind of stylistic or linguistic analysis of the TF is that it is such a short passage: a mere 89 words in the original Greek. Given that everyone agrees that at least some of it is interpolated, this leaves even less that someone like Hopper has to work with to base his analysis on. If you read Hopper’s paper, most of the examples his conclusion is based on come from passages that clearly are interpolations or arguably are. So this leaves his conclusion that “the most likely explanation is that the entire passage is interpolated” resting on very little.

      I’ll stress yet again that a solid case can be and is made for the wholesale interpolation of the TF and it is made, on the whole, by scholars who don’t have any overt dogs in the fight over Jesus’ historicity. But a solid case can be and is made for partial authenticity too and, rightly or wrongly, this remains the majority view. So I consider the whole thing moot and place very little emphasis on it. The Jesus-James reference in Ant. XX.200, on the other hand, is pretty clearly original, despite the weak attempts by Carrier to argue otherwise. Given that Josephus was a younger contemporary of James and lived in the same small city, that reference paired with the James reference in Galatians 1:19 anchors Jesus in history sufficiently even before we do any analysis of likely roots of the gospel stories.

  35. “Atwill claims Jesus was invented by the Emperor Titus and imposed on Judaism in the same way.  Neither do a very good job of substantiating these claims or of explaining why the Romans then turned around, as early as 64 AD (fifteen years before Titus became emperor) and began persecuting the cult they supposedly created”

    (…)

    “The two non-Christian writers who mention him as a historical person are Josephus and Tacitus.”

    (…)

    “But there was someone else in Rome at the time Tacitus wrote who mixed in the same circles, who was also a historian and who would have been the obvious person for Tacitus to ask about obscure Jewish preachers and their sects.  None other than Josephus was living and writing in Rome at this time and, like Tacitus, associated with the Imperial court thanks to his patronage first by the emperor Vespasian and then by his son and successor Titus.”

    I mean come on…

      1. Whether it’s true or not you just did a lot of work confirming the plausibility of Atwill’s Ceasar’s Messiah theory. If you can’t see that maybe it’s your biases I should be concerned about, not his…

        1. “Whether it’s true or not you just did a lot of work confirming the plausibility of Atwill’s Ceasar’s Messiah theory”

          Garbage. Atwill’s theory makes even less sense than Mythicism.

          If you can’t see that maybe it’s your biases I should be concerned about, not his…”

          I “can’t see that” because Atwill’s theory is idiotic. Go away.

  36. “If there was no such person, the Mythicist does need to explain …..”
    why the authors of the Gospels (or their sources) picked Jesus and not an actual historical characters. There wasn’t exactly a shortage of messias claimants there and then.
    Crickets all the way.

    “The Christ Conspiracy”
    I love that title! It confirms what I’ve concluded several years ago: JM basically is a conspiracy theory, with early christians involved in a huge though local conspiracy. Several like to expand it (conspiracy theories never know any boundaries) to christian authors from the second and third Century.

    “Doherty’s theory has several main flaws.”
    More irony on his website: after “demonstrating” that the (in)famous Flavius Josephus quotes are fiction, because later insertion, ED continues to do something many atheists (and about all JM’s are atheists) despise: exegesis. Unless it results in conclusions they enjoy, apparently.

    I’d like to add another point. Historians, like all scientists, have developed methods to reach consensus – to decide which theory or hypothesis is most likely correct. Hence general consensus.
    You have summarized four JM theories. Where are the congresses or equivalents about the question which version of JM is likely correct? Where are the attempts to reach any JM consensus? They are non-existent – just like creationist attempts to formulate an alternative to evolution theory. Just like creationists JM’s simply refuse to recognize that it’s a problem.

  37. Tim – following on from a comment above about Q, what do you think of Maurice Casey’s “chaotic” model of Q? As I recall, he argued persuasively that Q was not one document but multiple sources, some of which must have been in Aramaic. I was particularly struck by his comparison of Matthew’s “mint and dill and cumin” with Luke’s “mint and rue and every herb”, arguing that Luke misread the Aramaic for “dill” as “rue” because they are only one character different.

      1. So did I. I just wish I could get a copy of Casey’s 1996 book on the Gospel of John. It seems to be out of print and available only in university libraries.

  38. I don’t agree with you that lack of contemporary evidence is of no big deal.

    Jesus supposedly had thousands of followers who he preached to. He performed many miracles, including raising people from the dead.

    Someone of such magnitude would definitely have been written about, and it wasn’t just illiterate people, he had the attention of high authority, well educated people as well.

    And how we never hear of his family, especially Mary, is completely telling to me that it’s all a fake story.

    2
    5
    1. “Jesus supposedly had thousands of followers who he preached to. He performed many miracles, including raising people from the dead.”

      You seem to be new here. If you want to argue that someone who had “thousands of followers, performed miracles and raised people from the dead” should have been mentioned by contemporaries, I can only suggest you go find someone who accepts all those things about Jesus. I don’t. I’m an atheist and a sceptic, so I don’t think he performed any miracles or raised anyone from the dead. I also don’t think there is good evidence he had “thousands of followers”. I address the whole issue of why we wouldn’t expect any contemporary references in a detailed article on the subject – see “Jesus Mythicism 3 – ‘No Contemporary References to Jesus'”. I suggest you read that before commenting further.

      “And how we never hear of his family, especially Mary, is completely telling to me that it’s all a fake story.”

      How much do we hear about the families of the other Jewish preachers of the time? Nothing. So why would you expect to hear anything about the family of this one? You don’t seem to be thinking this through very clearly.

      6
      1
      1. Well, if you’re an atheist and skeptic, I don’t understand why you even care if Jesus existed or not. Why such fervor against the mysticism argument? Why does it matter? All I would care about is whether or not Christianity is real.

        2
        6
        1. “Well, if you’re an atheist and skeptic, I don’t understand why you even care if Jesus existed or not.”

          I’m interested in history and the question of how the largest religion on earth arose is an interesting question. To me, at least. But also to many other people interested in history. If you aren’t interested in it, feel free to go do something else.

          “Why such fervor against the mysticism argument? “

          Because it’s bad historical analysis pursued out of an emotionally-based irrational prejudice against Christianity by people who are supposed to be rationalists.

          ” All I would care about is whether or not Christianity is real.”

          I do. And I conclude it’s not “real” (I think you mean “true”) precisely because I’ve applied historical analysis to its origins and accept the mainstream historical conclusion that Jesus was a Jewish apocalyptic preacher. That is based on good analysis of the evidence. Mythicism is not. So it’s like someone who is interested in the origins of biological diversity rejecting Creationism because it’s a bad idea based on irrational prejudices and does not explain the evidence as well as evolutionary biology.

          1. Why are there so many Davids on this blog? (For the record, I’m the one who is an atheist, thinks mythicism is crap, likes Maurice Casey, and occasionally alludes to my far-left political views. Not the one above.)

            1
            1
          2. “I’m interested in history and the question of how the largest religion on earth arose is an interesting question. To me, at least. ”

            People want an easy solution to the unfair, difficult world we live in. They let the emotional overide their rationale. That’s were religion can shine.
            Why Christianity rose due to what’s it’s now is like asking why anything evolves.

            I will reread everything, this is very interesting thanks.

          3. “Because it’s bad historical analysis pursued out of an emotionally-based irrational prejudice against Christianity by people who are supposed to be rationalists.”

            It seems like you are the one that’s emotionally based.

          4. “It seems like you are the one that’s emotionally based.”

            That’s a rather illogical conclusion to draw from what I said.

          5. @Tim O’Neil you say in your article “Tacitus absolutely despised Christianity, as he makes clear when he mentions the Emperor Nero tried to scapegoat them after the great fire of Rome in 64 AD” – And no-one else does. There is no Roman record of such persecution from any other writer in this period. Pliny should certainly have heard of it yet he writes to the Emperor saying he had never heard of Christians before. The lack of early copies of Tacitus is also very suspicious. There is a growing discussion among some scholars that the Tacitus reference is a clever interpolation to promulgate the idea that Christians had been persecuted.

          6. “There is no Roman record of such persecution from any other writer in this period.”

            The other accounts of the Fire put the blame on Nero and have no reason to mention any alternative culprits.

            “Pliny should certainly have heard of it yet he writes to the Emperor saying he had never heard of Christians before.”

            Pliny says no such thing.

            “The lack of early copies of Tacitus is also very suspicious.”

            No, it isn’t. It’s normal for all sources of this kind.

            “There is a growing discussion among some scholars that the Tacitus reference is a clever interpolation to promulgate the idea that Christians had been persecuted.”

            Nonsense – there is no “growing discussion” on this at all.

        2. “Why such fervor against the mysticism argument?”
          Because it makes atheists look stupid and irrational and hence give christians an excellent but undeserved chance to shine.
          Take your last sentence.
          Christianity is real.
          The christian god isn’t.
          The two are not the same.

          9
          1
          1. “.The christian god isn’t real.”, Normally l would ask you to prove that extraordinary claim but as this is a secular blog that solely deals with history, we’ll not have that back-and-forth.

          1. Basically, your entire position for anti mysticism is because “most scholars agree” and mysticism itself is just an opinion.

            That’s what I get from your blog.

          2. “That’s what I get from your blog.”

            If that’s what you get from my blog then I’m beginning to think you aren’t here to do much thinking at all.

          3. Dumb Dave: Could you at least manage to read closely enough to get that it’s “mythicism”, not “mysticism”? I realize that spelling mistakes don’t invalidate a point (especially now that our devices are eagerly “correcting” our mistakes, even when what we typed was damn well what we meant), but seriously, it makes you look like you don’t give a damn. I’m currently arguing with a couple of obtuse Christians on Facebook, and so far you just look like their atheist opposite number.

        1. “I know enough of that drivel”

          Ah no.
          You miss the salient point that this has nothing to do with “had thousands of followers who he preached to. He performed many miracles, including raising people from the dead”.

          An historical Jesus was probably an ordinary person whom was later mythologised.

    1. Except that could be a rhetorical device to show exactly how opposed to Jesus these Pharisees supposedly were. Keep in mind that the whole theme of “Pharisees opposing Jesus/Jesus condemning the Pharisees” probably has more to do with rivalry between the Jesus Sect and their rabbinical Jewish opponents in the late first century than anything from Jesus’ time. Though that is not to say that there were no Pharisees opposed to the historical Jesus, it’s just hard to tell how much in the tradition (if anything) derives from that and how much is a reflection of later disputes.

  39. Hi Tim, your analysis of Tacitus makes convincing reading and supports the view that he was indeed referring to Jesus of Nazareth. One bizarre criticism of the Tacitus passage that I’ve come across is that it’s “too polished” to be correct or too good to be true. In other words it was written by a Christian interpolator who falsely constructed the passage with appropriate language to give the impression that it was written by Tacitus and therefore genuine. But this can be dismissed for a whole lot of reasons.

    But what I wanted to run pass you is something that Tacitus says in the passage which is: “…..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….”. I’m specifically referring to Tacitus’ use of the words “our procurators”. This seems to me further evidence that this is not something a Christian would say (if it was an interpolation) because Tacitus was referring to a fellow Roman. Is it also possible/probable that Tacitus was recording events for primarily for the consumption of a Roman audience or readership?

    Your thoughts, please.

    1. Obviously the argument that the passage looks so genuine that it must be fake is typically silly Mythicist sophistry. But if it was a Christian interpolation, we’d expect the interpolator to at least try to make it sound like something Tacitus would say. So “our procurators” doesn’t really tell us if this is fake or not. That said, it is hard to imagine a much later interpolator would be able to resist the urge to have Tacitus say nice things about Jesus and Christianity, so the clearly hostile tone speaks to this passage’s authenticity. As I note, the passage also gives no indication of anything we would expect in a Christian interpolation or if Christians were the source of Tacitus’ information – there no hint of Jesus’ teaching, no reference to miracles and no indication of any story of Jesus rising from the dead. It takes some pretty fancy footwork to make out this passage is anything but genuine.

      1. We’re looking for independent accounts of Jesus’ death, that’s literally what we’re asking for. any look into the ‘evidence’ you tout and you’ll see that it’s either shoddy or not independent of the Christian influence of what they believed. We’re not talking about a peasant preacher, we’re talking about someone some people thought was the Messiah (based on the prophesies he supposedly fulfilled). Even in Paul you only see the death and resurrection cited as a prophecy Jesus fulfilled. You’d think someone mentioning the death and resurrection would get into other prophesies he fulfilled if it was a gospel and he was trying to teach but he doesn’t get into convincing not of the faith that Jesus is Messiah. Paul says he learned his teachings from no man but through revelation of Jesus Christ. You say he learned from Cephas even though the text doesn’t say that and he outright states his only sourced are from revelation of Jesus Christ in scripture. He doesn’t cite Cephas being a source of his teaching or that Cephas had different Criteria than him for believing in Jesus.

        I don’t need an argument that Philo never mentioned Jesus because he did, but he knew him as an archangel in Jewish angelology called the Logos named Joshua.

        A cursory look at the ‘evidence’ you cite and you see it’s shoddy. Concerning the TF, he doesn’t explain what a Christ is even if the Gentile audience used the word in their Mystery Cults he would have still made a reference to how it relates to Messiahship. He doesn’t explain the nuances of what made ‘Christians’ ‘Christians’ and how it relates the history of Judaism when he goes into way more detailed nuances about other sects of Judaism. Conceding the James passage, how James the Just is said to die in this passage isn’t how Christians wrote James the Just dying. He doesn’t explain why he’s singling this Messianic claimant as The so-called Christ while other Messianic claimants get called liars, in other words, he’s too nice. There’s no callback to the TF mentioning Christians.

        Concerning Galatians 4:4, in the Greek he uses a word with the root word ginomai which he uses to describe Adam’s body. That should be enough for people to question the rest of your claims. Taking things out of context and pointing out passages that may seem like evidence but a more closed look at it you’ll see the claims are spurious at best. You’re preying on people’s ignorance, demon.

        1. “We’re looking for independent accounts of Jesus’ death, that’s literally what we’re asking for. “

          Why would you expect such accounts to exist and where would you expect to find them?

          “We’re not talking about a peasant preacher, we’re talking about someone some people thought was the Messiah “

          And the evidence is clear that Jesus was both.

          “Paul says he learned his teachings from no man but through revelation of Jesus Christ”

          No, Paul says that he got his “good news” that Gentiles didn’t have to become Jews to benefit from the salvation of Jesus via revelation. Read what he says in context.

          ” You say he learned from Cephas even though the text doesn’t say that “

          I doubt he spent his time with Peter simply discussing the weather. And of course he doesn’t emphasise what he learned from Peter – that would further undercut his argument. Even admitting he met Peter and James undermines the point he’s trying to make.

          “I don’t need an argument that Philo never mentioned Jesus because he did, but he knew him as an archangel in Jewish angelology called the Logos named Joshua.”

          Please quote Philo mentioning any archangel called Joshua. Direct quotes mentioning that name only please.

          “he doesn’t explain what a Christ is even if the Gentile audience used the word in their Mystery Cults he would have still made a reference to how it relates to Messiahship”

          This assumes that any reference to Jesus as “the Anointed” was in the original version Josephus wrote.

          “how James the Just is said to die in this passage isn’t how Christians wrote James the Just dying”

          Garbage.

          “He doesn’t explain why he’s singling this Messianic claimant as The so-called Christ while other Messianic claimants get called liars”

          Because this is a passing reference in another passing reference.

          “there’s no callback to the TF mentioning Christians.”

          Why should there be? And that also assumes the original form of the TF did mention Christians.

          “in the Greek he uses a word with the root word ginomai which he uses to describe Adam’s body”

          He does? Where? Citation and quote of the Greek please.

          “You’re preying on people’s ignorance, demon.”

          And that’s just hilarious. If you come back here, try to bring more than just a weak parroting of Carrier’s failed claims. You people get pretty boring.

          1. Paul only refers to Jesus being born of a woman, dying on a cross and rising again. No reference to Joseph, Mary, Nazareth, Pilate, John the Baptist, the sermon on the mount, walking on water, water into wine, raising the dead, feeding the 5,000 etc. He does say he met James ‘brother of the lord’ which is phrase used to descirve a follower of Jesus, not necessary a blood relative. Despite allegedly meeting these ‘disciples’ he does not get any information from them about Jesus’ life. I suggest you read Carrier’s breakdown of Paul’s version of Jesus. Paul never met Jesus but only says he saw him in a ‘vision’. The Pauline epistles, those few that have not been shown to be fakes, come from the ‘divine revelation’ (ie hallucination or BS (ala Joseph Smith)) of Paul. There is historic source or witness quoted and Paul may well have been, as Carrier argues, speaking of a celestial Jesus. You have read the works of Philo and the early works of the docetics haven’t you? The earliest writing on Jesus is in Philo’s commentary on the theology of Judaism where he identifies the angel Jesus as the ‘son of god’ and the agent of creation etc, this comes before the time of Jesus earthly ministry and death. The first Euhemeristic description is in the gospel of Mark, written a long time after the alleged time of Jesus by a non-eyewitness.

            Regarding Galatians 4:4 and Romans 1:3. Paul doesn’t even say anything about Jesus having a father. Paul uses a word that he did not use for childbirth he uses the word gennao and it’s the same word he uses for gods manufacture of Adams body from clay, neither of which are born or have parents or are descendants of anyone.

            In short, what Paul says in Romans 1:3 is, for Paul, weird. It’s even weird if Jesus existed. Christians even found it so weird themselves, they tried doctoring later manuscripts to replace this word that Paul only uses for manufacture “coming to be” with Paul’s referred word for birth. I suggest reading Carriers article on this https://www.richardcarried.info/archives/13387

          2. “No reference to Joseph, Mary, Nazareth, Pilate, John the Baptist, the sermon on the mount, walking on water, water into wine, raising the dead, feeding the 5,000 etc.”

            Where and why would we expect these details?

            “He does say he met James ‘brother of the lord’ which is phrase used to descirve a follower of Jesus, not necessary a blood relative. “

            Wrong. See here for details.

            “Despite allegedly meeting these ‘disciples’ he does not get any information from them about Jesus’ life.”

            That is not what he says at all. He makes no mention of “details of Jesus life: or where he did or didn’t get them.

            ” I suggest you read Carrier’s breakdown of Paul’s version of Jesus. “

            I suggest you educate yourself on who you are parroting Carrier’s failed arguments at. I know his crappy arguments quite well, thanks.

            “The earliest writing on Jesus is in Philo’s commentary on the theology of Judaism where he identifies the angel Jesus as the ‘son of god’ and the agent of creation “

            I asked you to quote Philo talking about this “angel Jesus”. You failed to do this. What seems to be the problem? Yes, I’ve read Philo. I strongly suspect you haven’t. Don’t bring this Philo crap up again until you quote him mentioning an angel called Jesus.

            “Paul uses a word that he did not use for childbirth he uses the word gennao and it’s the same word he uses for gods manufacture of Adams body from clay”

            This is the second time you’ve made that claim. I asked him to cite and quote Paul saying anything about Adam’s body being manufactured from clay. You failed to do this. What seems to be the problem? I am beginning to see a pattern here.

            “I suggest reading Carriers article on this”

            I don’t need to. I’ve read it. And his various other articles trying to prop up his hilariously bad “cosmic sperm bank” theory. And his book. But keep squarking, little parrot, and I’ll explain to you exactly why that argument is garbage and why no-one takes it or Carrier seriously.

            Hint: When you come across someone who argues that they are the only person who has worked out the truth and everyone else in the field is wrong, you are usually dealing with a crank. Guess what Carrier is.

          3. And regarding your argument on Josephus. There are two alleged references to Jesus in Josephus, the Testimonium Flavianum and the ‘who is known as the Christ’ reference. The first one has been considered a likely forgery for over a century. The TF was ‘discovered’ by Eusebius. Eusebius worked from the same physical copy of Josephus’s works that had belonged to Origen. Origen had tried to argue that Josephus had mentioned Jesus but the only evidence he cited was the whole is known as the Christ’ reference. He did NOT cite the TF nor any smaller version it had overwritten (as some have suggested), hence we can be quite confident in considering the TF a whole cloth invention by Eusebius. (Not a surprise as he had a track record for ‘editing’ scripture). That leaves us with the ‘who is known as the Christ’ reference. This passage is speaking about the political machinations between the priestly families over the position of key posts in the temple and especially the position of high priest. The Jesus in this passage is Jesus son of Damnius who actually did later become high priest. He did have a brother named James but this is clearly not the Jesus of the gospels (the Christ reference is a likely scribal interpolation when copying). This leaves us with the only possible conclusion which is that Josephus does NOT mention the Christian Jesus. This is also backed up by the comments of 2nd and 3rd century Christian writers who lamented that such a high profile and reputable historian as Josephus does not mention Jesus.

          4. Here is our latest drive by Myther, back again to try to lecture me about things I’ve been studying in depth for 35 years. And doing on the basis of mangled half-facts gleaned from Carrier and crappy online atheist “sources”.

            “The TF was ‘discovered’ by Eusebius.”

            You don’t know that. Stop stating what you would like to be true as though it’s established fact. The majority view of Josephus scholars is that the reference to Jesus in Ant. XVIII is partially authentic.

            “Origen had tried to argue that Josephus had mentioned Jesus but the only evidence he cited was the whole is known as the Christ’ reference. “

            Origen didn’t “try to argue” anything of the sort. He just referred directly to the Bk XX Jesus-James reference and quoted it in three separate places in his works.

            “He did NOT cite the TF nor any smaller version it had overwritten (as some have suggested), hence we can be quite confident in considering the TF a whole cloth invention by Eusebius.”

            Garbage. We can only be confident it didn’t exist in the form we have it today. If all it said was Jesus was “called Messiah” and got executed, where and why would Origen have mentioned it? It’s not like those points were contentious.

            “The Jesus in this passage is Jesus son of Damnius who actually did later become high priest. “

            That is bullshit. It is totally contrary to the way Josephus uses identifiers. I explained that in detail in my “James, Brother of the Lord” article, which I linked to for you and which you clearly haven’t even bothered to read. You don’t have the faintest clue.

            “This is also backed up by the comments of 2nd and 3rd century Christian writers who lamented that such a high profile and reputable historian as Josephus does not mention Jesus.”

            No such comments exist, so that is more bullshit. Go away you clown.

          5. Tim you say that the idea that Josephus meant Jesus son of Damnius is ‘bullshit’. Really? That’s a surprise to me as I read that passage (admittedly in translation) and it clearly was talking about Jesus son of Damnius and it will come up as a surprise to the biblical scholarship and historian community who have made the same point many times. Josephus was also very careful about staying his sources and explaining terms when he used them. The word Christ was not in common usage and does not appear anywhere else in his works, hence he would have explained his usage of it, but doesn’t. The fact that he doesn’t, the fact that the passage IS talking about the sons of Damnius (James and Jesus) and the fact that pre 4th Christian writers said that Josephus did not mention Jesus tells you that it must be an interpolation.
            Tell you what, just to keep you happy, you go on believing that Josephus mentions Jesus, even though 2nd and third century Christian writers, modern biblical scholars, historians etc disagree with you. I wouldn’t want to rattle your world view. And also aside from Origen not quoting the TF despite having works of Josephus, another problem with the TF is that it is also inserted in a section describing a series of disasters for the Jews hence it’s not making any sense there and it is written in a different style of Greek.

          6. Here is is again, to yap some more:

            “That’s a surprise to me as I read that passage (admittedly in translation) and it clearly was talking about Jesus son of Damnius and it will come up as a surprise to the biblical scholarship and historian community who have made the same point many times.”

            Nonsense. The only people who try to resort to this little gambit are the tiny handful of Mythicists who need the Jesus who was the brother of James and the other Jesus mentioned later to be same person so they dimsiss this reference. Everyone else accepts the pretty obvious conclusion that Josephus calls one “Jesus who was called the Messiah” and the other “Jesus son of Damneus” to differentiate between two different people. I’ve referred you twice now to my detail article on this passage, but it seems you refuse to look at anything outside the weird world of smug self-deluded Mythicists. So I’ll have to spoon-feed you.

            Josephus often referred to people who had the same common first names and so had to find ways to let his readers understand exactly which Simeon, Antiochus or Ananus he was talking about so that his narrative didn’t become confusing. He did this by using a range of identifiers – patronymics (“X the son of”), gentilics (“X from Y”, “X of Y”) and cognomens (X who was called Y”) being the main ones used. Since he had to use these identifiers a lot, he was very consistent in how he did so. So when he used them, he always did so when he introduced a person, and then just referred to them by their first name for the rest of the passage involving them. He never referred to one person using two different identifiers and he certainly didn’t do this in the same passage, for the obvious reason that this would be confusing.

            Carrier’s argument that the words “who was called the Messiah” are a later accidental interpolation and that the only Jesus in the XX.200 passage is “Jesus son of Damneus” doesn’t work because this would require Josephus to introduce this person simply as “Jesus” without an identifier and then only later refer to him as “Jesus son of Damneus”. He NEVER does this anywhere in his work. It also doesn’t make sense that he would refer to this Jesus as the brother of the executed James in the beginning of the story and then not make it clear that Ananus was succeeded by the executed man’s brother. Not only would this ironic ending to the story be worth noting, but he tended to make this kind of thing clear elsewhere (e.g. Antiquities, XVII.29 or XX.234-35).

            So what Carrier proposes is contrary to the consistent pattern of Josephus’ use of identifiers, it’s contrary to common sense and it’s contrary to how Josephus would usually relate that story. If, on the other hand, the two people called Jesus he refers to are different people, the passage makes sense as it stands, given that Josephus has clearly differentiated between the two men with the same very common first name by giving them two different identifiers. Carrier’s convoluted ad hoc reasoning doesn’t fit the evidence. The consensus reading does. Carrier is wrong.

            “Josephus was also very careful about staying his sources and explaining terms when he used them. The word Christ was not in common usage and does not appear anywhere else in his works, hence he would have explained his usage of it, but doesn’t. “

            More nonsense. Josephus regularly identified people, places and things by reference to what they were “called” without bothering to stop and explain why or what the cognomen meant. Just a little earlier in the same book he refers in passing to “Joseph, who was called Cabi, son of Simon” without bothering to explain what on earth “Cabi” might mean. “Cabi” wouldn’t even be an intelligible word for a Greek speaker (it’s Aramaic), whereas anyone reading “Jesus who was called ‘Smeared’/’Anointed'” may not understand why he was called this, but at least the word would mean something. We have other examples of Josephus saying people and places were “called” something without explaining why in many places, including Ant. IX.11, XIV.342 and Vita 54. You clearly don’t know the material and are just parroting debunked crap by failed nobodies.

            “pre 4th Christian writers said that Josephus did not mention Jesus “

            You keep making this claim and have been challenged to back it up with citations. Who said this? Where? You failed to back it up last time, yet here you are repeating it without evidence again.

            You also failed to produce any reference by Paul to Adam’s body being “manufactured”.

            And you failed to produce any quote from Philo referring to an archangel called “Jesus”.

            You keep making claims based on second or third hand bullshit from the Mythicist fringe and, when challenged, you can’t back them up. Because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Because you are an embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger Effect and know just enough to not realise how much you are getting totally wrong. I know vastly more about all this than you are every likely to learn and I’ve only let you yap here to allow you to demonstrate your near total ignorance. You’re like a Creationist trying to lecture a biology graduate on evolution based on their reading of Ken Ham. In other words, you’re an idiot.

          7. Tim I noticed how you avoided the arguments that I made against the authenticity of the TF. Aside from Origen not quoting the TF despite having the works of Josephus, another thing that proves that it probably wasn’t written by Josephus is that it is written in a different style of Greek. The text is written in a different style from the rest of the work. It is also inserted in a section describing a series of disasters for the Jews hence it’s not making any sense there and if you remove the passage then the previous passage and following passage flow much better.

            Another problem with 2nd Josephus is that it contradicts all other Christian descriptions of the death of James and elsewhere. The way Josephus introduces the brother of Jesus is not the way he did it. Josephus normally said X the brother of Y. Such Aron the brother of Moses. The way Josephus does it in this passage is by saying the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ whose names was James. Josephus usually did it the other way around.

          8. “Tim I noticed how you avoided the arguments that I made against the authenticity of the TF. “

            Nonsense. I responded to all of them. Few of them were actual “arguments”, most were just assertions. And the others were based on errors of fact.

            “Aside from Origen not quoting the TF “

            Where and why would be do this? If the majority of Josephus scholars are right and the TF is not wholesale forgery and was originally just a brief reference to Jesus being executed, why would Origen mention this? It’s not like there were any Jesus Mythicists in the third century that needed to be refuted, so in what context should be have mentioned a brief reference to Jesus in Bk. XVIII? Details please.

            “a

            nother thing that proves that it probably wasn’t written by Josephus is that it is written in a different style of Greek. The text is written in a different style from the rest of the work”

            No, it isn’t. There are some elements in it which are not in Josephan language, but given that they are in the parts of it that everyone agrees are later Christian additions, that’s hardly surprising. But there are other elements in it which leading Josephus scholars like Steve Mason note are found elsewhere in Josephus but are not found in any pre-Nicean Christian texts – see Mason, Josephus and New Testament (1992) for full analysis. So, wrong.

            “It is also inserted in a section describing a series of disasters for the Jews hence it’s not making any sense there “

            A “wise man” who taught “those who accept the truth gladly” and yet, despite this, was betrayed by the Jewish leaders and executed by the Romans? Sounds like what Josephus would consider a “sad calamity [that] put the Jews into disorder” to me. Take out the obvious Christian additions and this is what the reference says.

            “and if you remove the passage then the previous passage and following passage flow much better”

            Except Josephus often goes off onto digressions like this where you can do that and find the following passages flow much better. That’s just his style. Here are eleven other examples of Josephus doing just this:

          9. 1. Honi the Circle-Drawer – Antiquities XIV.21-28.
          10. 2. Galilean Cave Brigands – Jewish War I.304-313 and Antiquities XIV.415-430.
          11. 3. Judas son of Hezekiah – Jewish War II.56 and Antiquities XVII.271-272.
          12. 4. Simon of Peraea – Jewish War II.57-59 and Antiquities XVII.273-277.
          13. 5. Athronges – Jewish War II.60-65 and Antiquities XVII.278-284.
          14. 6. Tholomaus – Antiquities XX.5.
          15. 7. Theudas – Antiquities XX.97-98.
          16. 8. Eleazar ben Dinai – Jewish WarII.235-235 and Antiquities XX.161.
          17. 9. The Egyptian prophet – Jewish War II.259-263 and Antiquities XX.169-171.
          18. 10. An anonymous prophet – Antiquities XX.188.
          19. 11. Eleazar, an exorcist – Antiquities VIII.46-49
          20. Yet again, you show you are just parroting failed Myther arguments about texts you don’t know and don’t understand. I do.

            “it contradicts all other Christian descriptions of the death of James and elsewhere.”

            Oh? Okay – then how about you cite and quote these “other Christian descriptions of the death of James and elsewhere” and let’s see. I’m pretty familiar with the one such description and it doesn’t contradict Josephus’ brief account in any way.Perhaps if you actually bothered to read my article on the James-Jesus reference that I’ve recommended to you three times now you would see that I’ve been over all this in great detail.

            “Josephus usually did it the other way around.”

            Unfortunately for you, Josephus only introduces and identifies someone by reference to their brother about 10 times and sometimes he does use this construction, For example:

            “Jehoahaz …. delivered the Kingdom to a brother of his by the father’s side, whose name was Eliakim (Ant. X.82)

            Yet again, little parrot, you don’t know the material.

            And now I’ll remind you that you have failed to produce several things when challenged.

          21. You failed to produce any of these pre-fourth century Christian writers who said that Josephus did not mention Jesus.
          22. You also failed to produce any reference by Paul to Adam’s body being “manufactured”.
          23. And you failed to produce any quote from Philo referring to an archangel called “Jesus”.
          24. You also need to produce an example of where Josephus just introduces someone by their first name and only uses a patronym to identify them when he mentions them again later in the same passage.

            I think I’ve indulged your squawking long enough, little parrot. So unless you come back with all of that missing evidence, your next reply will go straight in the trash and all future squawks from you will be dealt with by the spam filter.

        2. (I’m out of threading, so not sure where this will end up in the thread, but it’s meant as a reply to Jack’s last comment below)

          ‘Another problem with 2nd Josephus is that it contradicts all other Christian descriptions of the death of James and elsewhere.’

          Just wanted to say that I’m always really baffled as to how Mythicists think ‘This would contradict all Christian writings on the subject!’ to be a valid argument. I mean, if you have a problem with the idea that Christian writings on a subject might contain incorrect information, how the heck do you manage to believe that Jesus never walked the earth?

          1. Pretty simple: X is evidence that Jesus didn’t, -X is also evidence he didn’t. It’s typical for all pseudoscience and quackery and especially conspiracy thinking. As there is a shortage of empirical data from Antiquity JMs have another nice trick upon their sleeve: they set the bar for a historical Jesus impossibly high (“skeptics” regarding climate change do the same) but the bar for their own conclusion as low as possible.

  40. Hi, just commenting here to show appreciation for your series of articles on historical Jesus. The whole subject itself is really interesting, and the arguments you’ve written really solidified my stance that Jesus did exist within history.

    In fact, your articles have actually helped me in a discussion I had with a stranger on Reddit who just straight up said that Jesus is a “monomyth character”. I told him about how there are accounts of Tacitus and Josephus and explained why they are reliable sources of information, but he just kept saying that the accounts are “third-hand garbage accounts” and that “we don’t have evidence for the existence of the character”. He wasn’t even paying attention to any details that I’ve given him. He kept repeating the same thing throughout the whole discussion and told me I “wasn’t smart enough” to even discuss about it and I had “religious bias” (I didn’t even tell him whether I was a Christian or Atheist). For the sake of my sanity, I just gave up. Guess some people want to remain ignorant.

    Again, great articles!

  41. Tacitus is writing long after the events and is writing about the beliefs of Christians in Rome so his account is hearsay (third hand at best). We have no early copies of Tacitus so we cannot exclude interpolation here. Especially since no other source describes Nero blaming the Christians for the burning of Rome. Pliny should certainly have mentioned this as he had been both consul and a regional governor. He writes that he had never heard of the Christians before so they were hard let a numerous or prominent sect at the time (early second century).

    1. “Tacitus is writing long after the events and is writing about the beliefs of Christians in Rome so his account is hearsay (third hand at best).”

      Pretty much all of our sources on anyone or anything in the ancient world tend to be “long after the events” and many of them are much longer after the events than the few decades between Tacitus and Jesus. So that is not any kind of issue. Tacitus does not say anything at all about “the beliefs of Christians in Rome” and gives none of his usual indications that he is reporting what others claim, let alone that he is relaying the claims of a sect he clearly despised. There is nothing in what he says about Jesus that indicates a Christian source or that he is reporting what Christians claimed – he simply gives a bald who, what, when and where about Jesus with no reference to any supposed miracles, resurrection or claims of divinity. This indicates a non-Christian source of information. And virtually all source material in this period is depending on “hearsay” to some degree. So all those objections fall completely flat.

      “We have no early copies of Tacitus so we cannot exclude interpolation here.”

      Nothing in the text indicates interpolation, which is why no current Tacitus scholars regard it as anything but genuine. Christian interpolators tended to try to make their faith sound good and so a text which calls Christianity “a most mischievous superstition …. evil …. hideous and shameful …. [with a] hatred against mankind” definitely doesn’t fit the bill, sorry.

      “Especially since no other source describes Nero blaming the Christians for the burning of Rome.”

      All the other sources blame Nero, so why would they mention the Christians?

      “Pliny should certainly have mentioned this as he had been both consul and a regional governor.”

      Pliny the Younger didn’t write an account of the Great Fire.

      “He writes that he had never heard of the Christians before so they were hard let a numerous or prominent sect at the time (early second century).”

      So? Why is whether they were numerous or prominent relevant at all?

      Perhaps you should read my longer article on the Tacitus reference before you waste more time presenting arguments I’ve already dealt with in detail. See

      1. In regards to the fire of Rome, which is mentioned by numerous sources, only Tacitus mentions Nero blaming it on the Christians. I can find no other source that says this and only Suetonius saying the Christians were persecuted but not saying why. The earliest copy of Tacitus we have is from the 11th century and is a X generation copy. You need to look at the analysis being published by recent historians analyzing the works of people like Tacitus. The Tacitus reference talks about Christians being blamed for the burning of Rome and there is zero contemporary evidence for this. While the case is still less than certain there is serious doubt that the Tacitus reference is free from interpolation or editing. We have no copies of Tacitus even close to the dates in question. Pliny in writing to the emperor mentions that he had never heard of Christians before and had only had their existence noted to him recently. This is a man who had been both a governor and a consul. So he certainly would have heard of them if they had been persecuted for the fire of Rome . We do have references to Christians being persecuted later, but for what reason is not made clear. I think that there is serious doubt that the Tacitus reference is genuine since the only only account we have blaming Nero for the fire comes from Tacitus. Contemporary accounts describe Nero helping organize fire fighting efforts. People have placed far too much faith in Tacitus. His account really has very little to support it. I think that Pliny should certainty have been aware of Christians existence before if they have been persecuted for the fire of Rome. I suggest you read Carrier’s dismembering of Tacitus, it is quite damning. In history there are standards of evidence. Verifiable physical evidence, contemporary of events being the of the highest value. First hand eye-witness testimony is of lesser value but still useful. Third hand accounts separated from events by decades is close to being valueless even if genuine. There is a good reason now to consider Tacitus to be a possible interpolation. Hence a third hand account long after the events of questionable authenticity is of very little value. We also have more contemporary physical evidence and accounts that do not match with Tacitus.

        1. You’re repeating points I’ve already answered and are just parroting Carrier’s bad arguments. I don’t need to “look at the analysis being published by recent historians analyzing the works of people like Tacitus”, as I’m pretty sure I’m far more conversant than you with that material already. And I definitely don’t need to read Carrier’s weak article, as I’ve already answered it in detail in my article on the Tacitus reference. I’ve already asked you to read that article and you clearly haven’t done so. Please do so now: “Jesus Mythicism 1: The Tacitus Reference to Jesus”.

          Any further comments from you that show you haven’t bothered to even read my article above will go straight to the trash.

  42. If L Ron Hubbard truly existed how come not a single history book on the Second World War mentions him, despite his alleged service in the US Navy during the war? How is it all these authors failed to notice the founder of a new religion, failed to notice the man who created a new branch of psychology, discovered the root problem of human existence and who ascended from his mortal shell to explore other planets.

    This silence forces me to conclude L Ron Hubbard is a myth.

    11
    1. If I recall correctly, it was either a Listserv discussion or one on the old FRDB discussion board, saved by “GakuseiDon” and, formerly, reproduced on the latter’s critique of Doherty’s book, on a site that no longer appears to be running.

      1. I was able to look up GakuseiDon’s site via the Wayback Machine. The quote in question is found on this page:
        https://web.archive.org/web/20150926222759/http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakuseidon/JNGNM_Review1.html

        He identifies it as being posted on, as you suggested, FRDB. The exact link he provides is http://www.freeratio.org//showthread.php?t=245333&page=2 but that site is no longer available and unfortunately, that particular page is also not saved in the Wayback Machine. I considered the possibility that the double slash after .org was a typo, but removing it still produces nothing. So we don’t have access to the original page, but can look at GakuseiDon quoting it.

        The transient nature of pages on the Internet really does often seem like the issue we have with really old documents, where we don’t have the actual document, just quotes from it from later writers.

  43. Hi Tim, I refer to your work a great deal since I’ve come across this site and studied this particular history in more depth for my works of fiction. I used to be an atheist myself, but became Christian for a multitude of reasons, largely based on history and my own conclusions. When I do refer to your work, I am careful to let others know Tim O’Neill does not endorse any supernatural defense of the events around Jesus, that would not be ethical. But Jesus Mythism is still seriously undermining any kind of common understanding and becoming worse in my opinion, and just seems to be getting worse as this new fascism against free thought has arisen. Have you seen what happened to Richard Dawkins? You don’t have to be atheist to see the injustice and intolerance coming.

    Most of all, well done for your patience here. You appear to deal with a lot of dogmatic and ridiculous claims and arguments. You’ve gone above and beyond.

    1. But Jesus Mythism is still seriously undermining any kind of common understanding and becoming worse in my opinion, and just seems to be getting worse as this new fascism against free thought has arisen. Have you seen what happened to Richard Dawkins? You don’t have to be atheist to see the injustice and intolerance coming.

      I haven’t seen any firm opinions by Dawkins on Mythicism (our host describes what he wrote as “flirting” with the idea). I don’t see where Dawkins has suffered at all over his virtual lack of opinion on the subject.

      Of course, Dawkins has suffered a great deal of criticism and the loss of an award or two over his shallow and sexist/cissist comments, but condemning intolerance is not intolerance.

  44. I am an LDS Christian gal who really appreciates the fairness and balance that Tim’s above treatise so well presents! Thank you ! Rarely, can a non- believer be so neutral and balanced. I am directing my atheist Hubby to read this Treatise !
    Pam Lane :}

  45. Very thorough indeed, thank you. Two comments:

    “Atwill claims Jesus was invented by the Emperor Titus and imposed on Judaism in the same way. Neither do a very good job of … explaining why the Romans then turned around, as early as 64 AD (fifteen years before Titus became emperor) and began persecuting the cult they supposedly created”.
    As Titus ruled from 79 to 81, “Atwill’s Christianity” had to be invented between 79 to 81. So Atwill would not need to explain why Romans “turned around” at 64 and persecuted the cult because his contention is that Christianity did not exist before 79. Instead, what Atwill would need to do –should he insist on Titus’ autorship– would be to demonstrate that no anti- (or even pro-) Christian activity took place before 79 or so.

    It is just me or there is something missing in this sentence?: “These fellow aristocrats of his acquaintance would have been a far more obvious and, to him, reliable source Tacitus’ information rather than some peasant followers of a sect he despised.”

    1. It is just me or there is something missing in this sentence?: “These fellow aristocrats of his acquaintance would have been a far more obvious and, to him, reliable source Tacitus’ information rather than some peasant followers of a sect he despised.”

      I have no idea that you think is “missing” from that sentence. What are you trying to say?

      1. I think he’s saying that the phrase “reliable source Tacitus’s information” doesn’t seen to make sense; it feels like there should be some word between “reliable source” and “Tacitus’s information” (maybe the word “for”?) for it to be a proper sentence. A minor thing to point out, but I think that’s what they were saying.

  46. Hi, just a quick question (although I hesitate, the tone here is too rough for my taste):

    Tim O’Neill, somewhere in the comment section you wrote:

    “Carrier’s argument that the words “who was called the Messiah” are a later accidental interpolation and that the only Jesus in the XX.200 passage is “Jesus son of Damneus” doesn’t work because this would require Josephus to introduce this person simply as “Jesus” without an identifier and then only later refer to him as “Jesus son of Damneus”.”

    And you make the same argument elsewhere.

    But couldn’t a later interpolation (“who was called the Messiah”) have replaced the phrase “Jesus son of Damneus”?

    Couldn’t someone even have moved the erased phrase, so only the first Jesus-mention (the introduction of the person) originally was followed by “Jesus son of Damneus”?

    Or is there some reason that this can be ruled out or at least is unlikely?

      1. @Oskar

        >But couldn’t a later interpolation…

        There’s a lot of could have here, but then if who was called christ replaced Ben Damenus, why do we have it at the end that Agrippa “made Jesus the son of Damneus high priest.”
        There’d be no reason to identify Jesus the son of Dameneus here since the identification would ready have been made.

        It’s also, imo, implausible that James would be the brother of someone so close to being high priest, without this detail being mentioned.
        So let’s say the “who was called Christ” was, for whatever reason, substituted for Jesus son of Dameneus and that the last line had simply said Agrippa “made Jesus the high priest.
        1.) We should have more made out of the fact that James was THAT Jesus brother and 2.) We should expect much more hesitancy on the part of the Sanhedrin of the judges, if James was one of their own. In other words, the line “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” should have carried a bit of mustard about James being Jesus son of Dameneus brother. Instead we only have them being uneasy about the law being broken, when we should expect something like and taken aback by the execution of one of their own.

        1. “There’s a lot of could have here, but then if who was called christ replaced Ben Damenus, why do we have it at the end that Agrippa “made Jesus the son of Damneus high priest.””

          Well, as I said, that phrase “son of Damneus” could’ve been moved there when the interpolation was made.

          No, I agree there’s a lot of “could have”, I was just speculating and asking for arguments. Which I got from you, so thank you, and I’ll read the blog post referred to above.

          1. @Oskar

            Nothing wrong with speculation. To me the significant point is that James, the brother of Jesus being executed by
            Ananas is he is unimportant in the story.
            The judges, or at least some of them, of the Sanhedrin are described as being bothered by “what was done” rather than to whom. My sense is that they underestimated Ananus figuring he wouldn’t go that far without the governors approval.
            It’s difficult to believe that a son of Damneus, would be executed without it being a big deal In and of itself. I suspect the Sanhedrin wouldn’t have been willing to convene to try someone in a priestly family. To be sure, I think it’s maybe a few pages later where Josephus says something about how badly things had deteriorated among the priestly case, with, iirc, them throwing stones at one another. I just can’t see this as a bringing them together for a trial, though that may depend on the nature of the accusations.

  47. One thing that always strikes me as odd, is when people confuse documenting the existence of Jesus with documenting all the claims about him. Arguments along the lines of “but people would have written about all those miracles, they didn’t, ergo Jesus didn’t exist”.

    But people we know existed, but whose biographies are riddled with dubious anecdotes, contradictions and supernatural claims, are a dime a dozen.

    Just look at almost every saint; many of them certainly existed, and virtually all of them supposedly worked miracles (mostly post-mortem in modern times, but still).

    Many medieval hagiographies are basically copy/paste of either the life of Jesus or some other hagiography, because they wanted to write about a saint (or proposed saint) they knew little about. Thus you got almost entirely fictional accounts of the lives of real people.

    I wrote my master’s thesis (it’s bad, don’t look it up) on what I called “magician ministers” in Norwegian folklore. These clergymen did stuff like banishing demons, riding on the Devil, making people freeze in place, lower people magically into the ground, etc, all the time. Many of these stories are found again and again, linked to different ministers,some named, some unnamed.

    But generally, those who were named actually existed, beyond any doubt. One worked as a mayor of my neighbouring municipality in the early 19th century. Another is still a very famous poet and writer of hymns.

    Are we supposed to think they didn’t exist because no newspaper or historian picked up on how they got rid of the latest demon infestation? That’s not how anything has ever worked

  48. Hey Tim, if atheists like you can accept that a historical Jesus existed and still be an atheist, how come other new atheists and mythicists can’t like Carrier, Fitzgerald, Price, Aron Ra, Godless Engineer or others can’t. It seems like they have an extremely bad bias towards religion and Christianity in particular and they’re so closed minded that they can’t even accept new theories, even if those theories explain older ones or even if the theories they once held to have been debunked numerous times. Smh 🙄

    1. I am not Tim, but I’ll still give you the beginning of an answer.
      Atheists aren’t any more rational than believers. They are just as capable of self deceit and arguing for predetermined conclusions.
      This is confirmed by psychology. Humans take decisions first and rationalize them afterwards.
      The good news is that this gives us a tool to recognize pseudoscience. It’s never skeptical towards itself. That’s what jesusmythologists, flat earthers, fans of the electric universe, of the 9/11 conspiracy, creationists and anti-vaccers have in common.

      1. Agree with you FrankB
        Newly minted atheists have a tendency to sometimes use the word rational as an argument. Rational to them seems to mean rejecting religion as they’ve come to see it as a problem, so they’re not really being rational, they’re just using it to bash their former faith.

  49. Hey Jacob

    It is simply the biggest hammer mentality. They want to smite those who they disagree with with the worst blows they can land. So they are willing to take the extremist stance instead of accepting a historical Jesus almost certainly existed who was simply embellished by his early followers. Many of them really dislike Christians and Christianity.

    Another issue is many of them come from a fundamentalist background, so for them if Jesus existed then he has to be the Jesus of their older faith which is not acceptable.

    Lastly being a myther is easy. No need to study any scholarship on the historical Jesus if he never existed. Lastly you get to know you are far more clever than the ” experts” who cling to outdated notions. Basically it is a nice ego trip.

    None of these mentalities help with making rational decisions I fear.

    1. Nothing, really. But a largish number of atheists seem very threatened by the idea, to the point where they expend considerable energies trying to prove he didn’t.

  50. No offense Steve but I highly doubt mythicist feel “very threatened” by a dead failed messiah. Imo, many mythicists are disillusioned Christians who
    having become convinced that some things they believed in were false, now are willing to go whole hog particularly to hammer their former community with.
    Atheist or even mythers are no more threatened by Jesus than they are by Moses, Paul, Peter or James.

    1. Eh, you should have seen the discussion I was in a few months ago. This one guy was being very dismissive of the idea that there was a historical Jesus. One of the other participants (an atheist) happens to have a degree in Religious Studies, during which he took a number of courses from Hector Avalos, so he knows the actual state of the evidence and the scholarly consensus, and set the first guy straight. The skeptical guy got rather upset, and started spouting standard Mythicist talking points, though he obviously knew nothing about the subject beyond that. He sounded exactly like your average creationist railing against evolution. It’s clear he was pretty threatened by the idea of giving even that much ground to the Christians.

      1. Not sure how that’s shows
        a largish number of atheists are very threatened by the idea. It’s hard for me to judge an experience I wasn’t involved with. Granted a historical Jesus may threaten to undermine an ideology based on the view that Jesus didn’t exist and it may be even more of a threat to a former christian who decided that Jesus didn’t exist because they thought other things about it were false. I can imagine
        a person like this equating Jesus existence with the divine son of God in Christianity.

        > started spouting standard Mythicist talking points, though he obviously knew nothing about the subject beyond that.

        Isn’t that all mythicists. Years ago before I’d ever heard of “Dr” Carrier et al,
        Someone told me about “The God Who Wasn’t There” At the time, I knew nothing about either biblical scholarship or historiograghy, but the film was terrible. A guy like that may very well be threatened by a historical Jesus in the sense that this film seemed motivated by his conflicts in school rather than an evaluation of the evidence.

    2. I am far from sure if the word threat is appropriate. But it seems obvious to me that JMs have quite some emotional investment in the idea. The first candidate then is revenge. But I don’t think it sensible to generalize too quickly. At the other hand JMs clearly strongly dislike christianity. That may also explain why some unbelievers who never were christian embrace the idea.
      Anyhow, I remember that I felt attracted to the idea when I met it the first time. It was JM itself – specifically Kenneth Humphreys and Earl Doherty – that convinced me that it’s crap.

      1. Jesus Mytherism is simply the biggest hammer one can hit Christians with and if one truly believes mytherism one has “realized” a great “truth” that has eluded the so called experts. It’s revenge and an ego stroking all in the same time.

        1. “Jesus Mytherism is simply the biggest hammer one can hit …..”
          Except that it isn’t. It makes christians laugh. But of course it’s very possible that JMs think it is.

      2. Kenneth Humphreys and Earl Doherty – that convinced me that it’s crap.
        ≈=====================

        Humphreys bleeeeckkkk!
        I can’t believe ppl listen to this guy, but then again they loonies Carrier, soo…

        1
        1
  51. All good points guys. I just think in my opinion it’s that that they are close minded and are simply unwilling to accept new theories that debunk their old ones. They grew up in their fundamentalist background and now that they got out of the faith the only other potential alternative to them is Mythicism which is just sad. But what they don’t realize is that this is not a false dichotomy. You don’t have to limit the scope down to just only two potential ideas when there are others available. I used to be a fundamentalist Christian myself. I grew up in that kind of a household with all that it entailed. But then as I started to get a little older I began to actually read the Bible more and more and study science, history, and philosophy more and more and I eventually just had to drop it. But after I became an atheist, I was stuck with this mindset that there were only two potential alternatives: fundamentalism or Mythicism. I of course was a mythicist but then when I heard about Tim’s blog, I eventually realized that you could still be an atheist and accept that a historical Jesus existed. Now today, I’m still an atheist but I still accept whole heartedly that a historical Jesus existed and let me tell you guys, it was one of the greatest realizations that I ever made because it made me realize that I wasn’t trapped in a prison cell with only two roommates: fundamentalism and Mythicism; Tim’s blog came to bail me out. So just thank you to Tim for his brilliant blog and for everything that he does here and thank you also to all of you guys for caring! Have an awesome day!

  52. Hey Tim, I’ve heard a lot of mythicists make an argument along these lines and they’ll basically say things like this, “Jesus couldn’t have existed because since modern scholarship moved from accepting Moses as a historical figure to rejecting it, then it CERTAINLY will happen to Jesus because there’s just as much evidence for Moses as there is for Jesus!” Those aren’t the exact words but they’ll say something along those lines. And they’ll extrapolate this back to other figures in Jewish tradition as well as like Abraham, Joshua, David, Solomon or others as well as they’ll say that there’s just as much evidence for them existing as there is for Jesus. I was just wondering how you would respond to this.

    1. I think it’s pretty obvious that the claim a similar change in the consensus “CERTAINLY will happen to Jesus” can’t be sustained. That doesn’t follow at all. But I don’t think I’ve seen the argument stated that way. It is usually more along the lines of “overwhelming consensus positions can change quickly, just look at what has happened in the last generation re a historical Moses. So it’s quite possible we will see this happen soon regarding Jesus”. Of course, it’s true that a consensus can change and can even do so fairly rapidly. But that generally only happens in the face of new arguments or evidence. Mythicism has simply been recycling the same old arguments for the last century or so and no significant new evidence has appeared. So what would drive this change?

      The situation with Moses was driven by Egyptologists and other specialists in relevant Near Eastern history and archaeology turning their attention to the question of the historicity of the Exodus narratives and by OT scholars becoming far more literate in the work of those historians and archaeologists. Nothing like that has happened in the field of historical Jesus studies. The argument also overstates the consensus about Moses before this change (there have long been plenty of scholars who doubted the existence of Moses). More importantly, it ignores the fact that the existence of Moses was largely something assumed, rather than concluded. The change really began when that assumption began to be seriously critically examined. This is nothing like the situation with the historical Jesus, where the idea he didn’t exist was examined a century ago and rejected and has been re-examined and rejected since then.

      This argument is usually made by people who are supporters of Carrier and Price who think their fringe work represents a brave new dawn and the beginning of the hoped-for change in the consensus. They don’t seem to be aware that there have always been outliers like Carrier and Price over the course of the last 100 years and they have made no impact on the consensus other than to be examined and found wanting by the majority of scholars. The change in the consensus this argument looks to is unlikely, largely because the situations with ideas about Moses and about Jesus are not in any way analogous.

    2. Mythicists are just so cute the way they keep trying by making incredibly poor arguments. They remind me so much of their Christian counterparts.
      Apart from Tim’s excellent points, Moses was part of a primordial prehistory and he is so ensconced in legend, it’s impossible to tell what may be historical. Barring some new discovery, there’s nothing for us to work with.
      Even the “rapid shift” in the consensus they like to reference was, as I understand it, a viable, if minority, view in the 19th century. Many Mythicists, bless their little hearts, have simply carried over the lazy intellectual habits from their fundamentalist days.

    3. I’m not Tim and he already responded, but let me add something. It is very common for mythicists to compare the evidence for Jesus to that of Achilles, Hercules, Romulus, Beowulf, Moses, etc. That’s a huge mistake.

      According to the book of Exodus, Moses was active in either the 1400s BC or 1200s BC, depending on dating tradition. Exodus itself is widely considered to have been written around 500 BC, although it may incorporate some oral traditions and poetry and possibly smaller written sources a bit older. Either way, the primary source we have is at least several centuries removed from the subject.

      Our oldest source on Hercules is Herodotus, writing around 430 BC. Herodotus claims Hercules lived around 1300 BC, give or take.

      Conventional dates of the Iliad and Trojan war (the Homeric question is hard) place the Trojan war at around 1250-1150 BC and the Iliad’s composition at various stages between 800-600 BC.

      Beowulf supposedly was active in the 500s, but our oldest sources date to around the 900-1000 range.

      On and on. These figures are set so far in the past, and cannot be connected to very many, if any at all, real places or real people.

      But with Jesus, he is written about by Paul only 2 decades after his death, and has a relatively complete biography (as far as ancient biographies go) within 50 years of his death. While we can’t verify everything, John, Peter, and James the brother of Jesus are almost universally believed to have been real people. Andrew and James son of Zebedee are also pretty well attested. Pontius Pilate and John the Baptist were also real, prominent, known, individuals that it is claimed Jesus interacted with. Nazareth and Capernaum, two places Jesus had close ties to, were real places with real people living there.

      So to sum it up, Jesus isn’t comparable to any of those figures. He is depicted in living memory interacting with known individuals, some of them quite notable, in known, well populated places. Now of course we can’t just take everything said about Jesus at face value. But he’s in a fundamentally different category than Moses, Hercules, Odysseus, Romulus, etc. He’s depicted in a relatively contemporary setting interacting with known individuals in known locations. Nobody ever claimed

      “Yeah, 50 years ago Moses was walking around this city”

      Or

      “40 years ago Hercules interacted with a prominent religious leader”

      Or

      “50 years ago Romulus interacted with a governor of a political entity”

      That in and of itself does not automatically mean Mythicism is wrong. But it means Jesus can’t really be compared to figures like Moses.

  53. I agree Tim and also something that distinguishes Jesus from those other Jewish figures like Abraham Moses or David is that we actually have EXTERNAL evidence from OUTSIDE the Bible that can confirm his existence. Now we probably wouldn’t expect to find extra biblical mentions of someone like Abraham who was just a nomadic shepard, but for someone else like Moses or king Solomon, we might expect to find a little bit more because Moses was said to lead an entire nation of people out of Egypt, and king Solomon was said to rule over an entire kingdom, but we have no surviving extra biblical mentions of either of them. We don’t really have that for any of the figures I mentioned above except for David on the tel Dan stele and maybe a few other inscriptions as well. However for Jesus, we have a tremendous about of evidence like from Josephus and Tacitus and in Paul’s epistles and in the gospels. And those were just written within mere DECADES after Jesus’s death. Now that’s not to say that that absence “proves” that those figures didn’t exist but I think it means that we need to take the stories in the Bible about these figures with a grain of salt and critically examine them within their cultural context. However most of the figures in the Bible like Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Joshua, David, or Solomon probably are based on historical figures but they’re largely exaggerated. For example, David and Solomon probably were real and probably ruled a “kingdom” of some kind but the biblical descriptions of them are largely exaggerated. Thanks for the response.

    1. The NT itself contains at least three independent sources for Jesus: Markus, the Q-document and Paulus of Tarsus. OneJM rebuttal goes like

      “There is no evidence for the Q-document”. Which is utterly stupid, because the Q-document by definition is everything Mattheus and Lukas have in common but can’t be found in Markus.
      One external piece of evidence is provided by Polycarpus of Smyrna. He was a pupil of Johannes the Apostle. And apostles don’t make sense without a messias. This is weak in itself, but is something JMs have to explain away too.

  54. Tim it’s obvious the hard work you put into all this. Lots of people focus on specific topics but you pull it all together. A wonderful resource.

    I’m sure it’s on your JM list of things to do so I look forward to your article about our old friend Mr Dying and Rising Gods. I first heard this idea in the writings of Joseph Campbell when I was in high School . .

    It is extremely depressing to read mythicists refer to James Frazer and Mircea Eliade as if it were cutting edge scholarship. But who ranges across entire fields of expertise without being aware of the current thinking in those fields better than mythicists?

    Thanks!

    1. The Dying and Rising Gods theme is a big subject and not one I’ve read on extensively. So it may be some time before I get to it. But yes, it’s on the list.

    2. “It is extremely depressing to read mythicists refer to James Frazer and Mircea Eliade as if it were cutting edge scholarship.”

      It’s also funny ’cause neither James Frazer or Mircea Eliade were mythers. If they don’t mention that Frazer and Eliade rejected mytherism, that’s misleading. Did Eliade believe in dying and rising gods? JZ Smith’s article was in his Encyclopedia of religion.

      The most recent credentialled scholar to advocate the concept of dying and rising gods is Tryggve Mettinger, who is also not a myther, he doesn’t think Jesus was a dying and rising god and he is even a Christian. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781575063805-004/pdf Kind of an awkward authority figure for mythers.

  55. Yeah the dying and rising gods theme is one that they love, however there might be some truth to it however the vast majority of it is simply made up and is relied heavily upon “scholars” like Gerald Massey and D.M. Murdock. That and the Caesar’s Messiah crap are probably the two films that they use the most. Uhhhhh, it really hurts sometimes to see mythicists try to “debunk” the claim that Jesus existed the same way that creationists try to “debunk” evolution when it is pointless. Both don’t seem to realize that stepping back from their fundamentalist upbringings doesn’t disprove their religion or their atheism, it simply means that old theories should be abandoned and new ones should be accepted. Mythicism doesn’t “disprove” atheism because maybe Jesus existed but he simply wasn’t God. The same could be applied to creationists; Just because creationism is false doesn’t mean that Christianity or religion should be abandoned entirely. We have an entire history of church fathers who accepted non literal or allegorical interpretations of Genesis like Augustine so it really is just pointless. Why can’t they just get that through their heads 🙄?

  56. Hey Tim, is it true that Josephus is our earliest extra biblical source for Jesus? I know you already touched on this but could you clarify again on Mara Bar Serapion because his letter would have to date to between 73 ad. and the third century. Is it possible that his letter dates back that far and how likely is it that he was simply referring to another wise “King of the Jews” and not Jesus because his description of this “Wise king” does seem to match the description of Jesus pretty well, although he doesn’t include many details. Also, is Josephus’s account of John the Baptist contradictory to the gospels?

    1. Mara Bar Serapion is possibly referring to Jesus but because the reference is ambiguous we can’t take it as definitely or even most likely doing so. He doesn’t actually mention Jesus. Josephus does.

        1. Which Talmud, Babylonian?
          We can’t be sure how reliable either is having been written down centuries later. On the face of it, the reference is highly polemical suggesting its more about Christianity than the historical Jesus.

  57. “…So it sounds suspicious to people that there are no contemporary records at all detailing or even mentioning Jesus”

    LMAO, yes. Former Christian, now atheist here. People don’t understand how this works.

    A friend of mine is part of a locally predominant, wealthy family that owns an internationally-known food brand. He wrote a book about his family. The bibliography is huge and the footnotes are many, yet beyond his immediate grandparents, uncles and a couple of cousins, his narrative is unsure about the veracity of anecdotes, even whether certain relatives existed at all. This is a wealthy family in 20th Century America, yet he could not be certain. We vastly overestimate the “written proof” of history prior to our own birth, much less what would have been written about an itinerant preacher in 1st Century Galilee.

  58. Did you already covered the Ceasar Messiah theory? I dont think that makes sense, but i would love to see a break down of the argument.

    1. Not yet. But given that it and other “Jesus was invented by the Romans” theories seem to have gained traction among some atheists in recent years, I think I’ll have to. The problem here is I will need to read at least three thick books by people like Carotta, Atwill and Davis, annotate and analyse them and then write something sufficient to debunk them. This will take time.

      1. Man, that’s actually kind of hard to think about. I had a friend in highschool that was into Caesar’s Messiah and I actually read it myself. It’s so far off the wall I struggle to think of *how* one would even debunk it.

        Atwill wrote a second book called Shakespeare’s Secret Messiah that he claims provides even more support for his thesis. He claims William Shakespeare did not exist. Those plays/sonnets were written by some Jewish woman. The real key, according to Atwill, is that this woman still knew the true origin of Christianity having been invented by the Flavians and she hid coded messages revealing this fact into the plays/sonnets that she wrote under the name “William Shakespeare.” This was for revenge against the Christians for persecution of Jewish people in the middle ages.

        Like, with Carrier and Doherty you can go through and explain why their readings of Paul/Philo etc are strained and unsupported. How do you even begin to debunk something so far out in left field as the idea that neither William Shakespeare nor the Apostle Paul existed? I’m not even being rhetorical. Like seriously. Where would you even start?

          1. I suspect there is some good money to be made in being bonkers. I wonder how much they believe their own stuff.

        1. “How do you even begin to debunk …..”
          By shifting the burden to them. 1) They don’t provide evidence that those characters are fictional; 2) instead they rely on baseless assumptions; 3) with a bit of luck they’re incoherent and inconsistent, including using logical fallacies.

        2. ‘How do you even begin to debunk something so far out in left field as the idea that neither William Shakespeare nor the Apostle Paul existed?’

          In both cases, I’d make the obvious point that somebody wrote the plays/the letters. I mean, the argument here is supposedly that a different person wrote them under a fake name, but isn’t that like arguing that George Eliot doesn’t exist? George Eliot wasn’t her real name, but she clearly existed.

          1. Well, it’s more than that. It isn’t just arguing that those guys weren’t really named “Paul” or “William Shakespeare.” The idea is that Paul’s letters were actually written later in the second century and that the entire situation presupposed within the letters is completely made up. Similarly, Shakespeare’s Secret Messiah has a vastly different meaning to the works of William Shakespeare. They weren’t written as entertainment/art, they were written to secretly communicate the true origins of Christianity.

            So it isn’t just a case of fake name. It’s the entire situation and context of the writing along with its meaning being completely different. Like, if all these plays and sonnets were written by some dude whose real name wasn’t William Shakespeare but he just called himself that than yeah that basically is William Shakespeare. But, if these were written by a black Jewish woman to serve as vehicles to hide hidden messages regarding the Flavian origin of Christianity as revenge on Christians for persecution, then I could see describing that as “William Shakespeare didn’t exist.” But agreed, it is semantic I suppose and you could technically say that Shakespeare’s Secret Messiah isn’t actually supposing that Shakespeare didn’t exist.

          2. @Bradley K Wolfenbarger: Fair point.
            I think FrankB, above, has the right idea; shift the burden of proof back to the people making these way-out claims. (Or, better still, ignore them. It’s the equivalent of trying to debunk ‘Jewish space lasers’; some things are just too ridiculous to deal with.)

        3. Hilarious!

          Caesar: What can we do to stop Jewish rebellion?

          Flavian: We could write a book.

          Caesar: A book!?

          Flavian: Yes, one that has a messiah that is the opposite of what these rebellious Jews would expect. Then we have him killed by us for telling people to pay their taxes and go the extra mile for us. That’ll put an end to
          Jewish resistance.
          Caesar: Great idea.
          NOT!

          1. Then we’ll persecute this religion in the neuronian persecution and off and on for the next 300 years or so then we’ll convert to it even though we pretend we persecuted it it just doesn’t make sense why would you create a religion then persecuted for 300 years

      2. How… how is this even a thing? Silly question, I know the answer to that one is ‘Because some people will believe literally anything that sounds interesting/edgy to believe in, no matter how little sense it makes, and some people get a kick out of inventing and propagating completely weird theories, or (more likely) out of the money they can earn from inventing and propagating completely weird theories’.

        But… nothing about this makes sense from the bottom up. Why would the Romans have invented Jesus and how would the story have then ended up with so much detail? What about this is even remotely supposed to sound like a plausible argument?

        Sheesh, forget the ‘read three long books to debunk this’; that’s looking at it completely the wrong way round. Why *should* we believe it? @Victor, if there are actually any arguments for this that you find even passingly convincing, how about you post a brief summary, and if I get time *I’ll* try to debunk them, never mind Tim having to spend his time? I’m betting the holes are that obvious. (Though I might well regret this, since I actually need the brain cells that are going to end up melted by second-hand exposure to these arguments.)

        1. I was thinking the same thing Sarah. That’s kind of what I was getting at with Tim. I have read these things. When I was in highschool, a few of my buddies were into conspiracy theories and Jesus Mythicism was popular. Back then, the Carrier/Doherty version wasn’t very well known. It was all Roman provenance. Actually, I only first heard of Carrier’s version like 3 years ago. I had just thought all Jesus Mythicism was Roman provenance.

          To answer one of your questions, Roman provenance Jesus myth hypotheses postulate one or more of the following motives for the Romans to invent Jesus:

          1.) Spreading slavery, i.e. Jesus was invented by the Romans to help spread slavery across the empire.

          2.) Control the Jews, that is, Jesus was invented by the Romans to be used as an idea to control Jewish people.

          3.) Deify the emperor. Jesus/Christianity was invented in order to justify worshipping the emperor as a god.

          There are also two main temporal variations of roman provenance.

          1.) The Flavians did it. So Romans invented Jesus sometime in the late 1st/early 2nd century. This is Atwill and I’m pretty sure Davis and Corotta.

          2.) Constantine did it. In this version, Constantine got with the Pope and they invented Christianity. Fernando Torrens poses this view in Year 303: The Invention of Christianity and Acharya S took this view in her book
          The Christ Conspiracy.

          Some roman provenance versions go all in on just one of the above motives, others claim it was some mix of all three. Some versions claim it was only one of the two temporal versions, others blend the two together i.e. the Flavians started it, Constantine finished it.

          I don’t want to discourage you or Tim from debunking these if you really want to. But you might seriously find it a complete waste of time. I was 16 years old and these were all just complete and utter nonsense from only a background of basic history from highschool.

          1. @Bradley K Wolfenbarger: Thanks, that sounds like a good summary! I also found https://www.evidenceunseen.com/theology/book-reviews/a-critique-of-joseph-atwills-covert-messiah/ which points out the massive basic flaws in the theory. (It’s on a Christian apologetic website, but the article is based on actual arguments that make sense from the non-Christian perspective as well.)

            I definitely do *not* want to get into a detailed debunking of the entire thing. However, since Victor was asking about it, if he can actually find anything in it that he thinks might stand up as an argument then I can certainly have a go at addressing that specific point, whatever it is. I suspect it wouldn’t take long. 🙂

          2. @Dr Sarah
            I found that Christian page interesting, for itself, but also because it links to a post by PZ Myers, which when I scroll down turns out to have a comment by (drum roll) Yours Truly! https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/10/10/how-can-smart-atheists-be-bamboozled-by-joseph-atwill/#comment-703437 (under an old nym).
            Interesting to contrast what I was thinking 10 years ago with now: whereas then I was somewhat on the fence, I’m now pretty firmly in the Historicist camp, and my opinion of Carrier has gone WAY down (as has a lot of other people’s).

  59. This is a thing as gullible people will believe anything provided it rubbishes anything mainstream and if it rubbishes religion all the better as now you can be a ” brave freethinker” who has seen through the “lies of religion” ( you get to determine which part is lying)

    That crowd provides a nice little niche market to deluded crackpots such as the late Acharya S and charlatans such as Carrier ( I am sure he knows his stuff is nonsense, but it pays the bills and gets him laid).

    Basically Carrier, Acharya Setc get your money and they sell you a product which lets you feel smugly superior to ” lesser people who are trapped by the dogmas of the past”

    1. Dr. Sarah

      Hope you do debunk this! I suspect you’re right.
      The emperor’s, at least since Augustus were already considered divine. I understand Augustus had convinced people that a comet was his father going to the afterlife. The Senate recognized him as Divus Iulius leaving Augustus as divi Iuli filius. Why would they need a dead peasant to accomplish what they’d already done?
      Jesus certainly wouldn’t have matched their expectations. Here is a guy who supposedly did just as the Romans wanted, Render Unto Caesar etc. What does he get for this, what has yo be the most horrifying death at the hands of the Romans.
      How exactly would you sell this to Jewish rebels?
      No, no if you pay your taxes and love the Romans, you will…..
      Be crucified like Jesus?
      There’s something horribly wrong with this logic.
      And slavery. The Romans were already “spreading it” through conquest, although it existed everywhere.

      At bottom I can’t see how writing 4 books would have sounded persuasive a plan to accomplish any of it.

  60. Hey Tim, Godless Engineer tries to claim that 2 Peter is an early form of “Jesus Mythicism” among early attackers on Christianity, since he claims that the author of 2 Peter is referring to mythers in 2 Peter 1:16 when the author says that “We did not follow cleverly devised stories”. And he would also claim that Peter’s response with the Transfiguration is kind of an “early attempt” at trying to refute Jesus mythers, at least according to him. What do you think about this?

    1. That’s a pretty weak argument. The writer is simply saying “this is true, not something we made up”. It takes an active imagination to see it saying anything else.

  61. Hey Tim, Derreck Bennett, who runs the Atheologica YouTube channel, makes the claim quite often that Osiris was bodily resurrected from the dead and that this is a clear parallel to the bodily resurrection of Jesus in the gospels, and thus the resurrection of Jesus was directly lifted and based off of the resurrection of Osiris. (Derreck himself doesn’t make this claim, but many atheists often do.) I think Derreck is awesome and he relies on good scholarship, but I think he emphasizes pagan “parallels” to Jesus and gives them much more credit than they deserve.

    Anyways, the main argument that I found that he used was from John Granger Cook’s book Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis. I don’t remember the specifics of John’s argument, but one thing that stuck out to me was on pgs. 598-599 of the book, John says, “The Ptolemaic-Roman Temple in Dendera vividly depicts the bodily resurrection of Osiris in his tomb.” I’m not sure if you’ve read the book yet, but if you know anything about the claim that Osiris bodily rose from the dead, could you possibly respond? Thanks!

    1. This is the problem with these arguments from parallels – they only work if you focus on the parts that are somewhat parallel and ignore the parts that aren’t. The Osiris story has a few elements which are vaguely parallel (someone who dies is revived), but is mostly totally different. Depending on the version, Osiris’ dismembered body is reconstructed but either only revives briefly or doesn’t really revive as such at all. Then we get all the stuff about Isis copulating with the briefly-revived/not actually revived body, fish eating Osiris’ penis and Isis fashioning a dildo to use as a substitute etc., none of which is paralleled in the Jesus stories. And Osiris doesn’t get up and interact with others before ascending into the heavens and his soul stays dead and stays in the underworld. So to claim this is some kind of clear parallel with the Jesus story requires you to ignore the major bits which are nothing remotely like it and emphasise a few elements which are vaguely similar.

      There are some pre-Christian stories which parts of the Jesus narrative parallel closely enough for them to have likely been an influence on the Jesus version. This isn’t one of them.

    2. “a clear parallel …. thus …. directly lifted”
      This fallacy nicely demonstrates the Correlation Doesn’t Mean Correlation principle.
      What this parallel does show is simply that resurrections were not anything special back in those days. Personally I find that more harmful to 21st Century christian claims than “directly lifted”. It backs the hypothesis that the Resurrection story was the result of cognitive dissonance.

  62. Thanks for the response Tim! I agree though — the fact that certain elements of the Jesus story have (possible) earlier pagan precedents isn’t evidence of much at all. I’m currently going through the dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible by Toorn, Becking, and Horst, and I read the section on Osiris, and I couldn’t find anything on Osiris being bodily resurrected. I talked to Derreck about this, and he says that “many” Egyptologists will say that Osiris was bodily resurrected and he cites primary ancient Egyptian texts to show this (such as the Pyramid Texts). I don’t have the expertise or quantifications to comment on this (I haven’t studied this topic in depth), but from what I can tell, this claim has SOME merit. But like you said, there are different versions, so this isn’t really evidence of anything much, and correlation does not always equate causation.

    1. It seems to me the Pagan Copy Cat Thesis has two major problems:

      1st.) It assumes the followers of Jesus knew these stories.

      2nd.) It assumes if they knew these stories they would have used them as an explanation/inspiration for their claims about Jesus.

      Considering Jewish hostility to overt Paganism it seems highly unlikely they would have used such a source to make a claim about Jesus. Doubly so with Egyptian beliefs considering Jewish hostility to that culture.

  63. Hey Tim, what are your thoughts on Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence by Robert E. Van Voorst? I thought it was relevant to the article just because I know it deals a lot with Mythicism and the Josephus/Tacitus passages. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it (such as that it’s a good sourcebook), but I’ve also heard that Voorst’s treatment and analysis of the texts is questionable. Thanks!

    1. I can hardly do a full critique of Van Voorst in a comment here. It’s a sound book and I agree with a lot of his analysis and disagree with some other parts of it.

  64. Having binged the Jesus myth articles on this website, I then decided to peruse the relevant pages on RationalWiki, having vaguely remembered them being sympathetic to it.
    Turns out they don’t *quite* endorse it, but they certainly aren’t willing to bin it entirely –
    https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ and https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jesus_myth_theory should you want to check yourself. A pretty poor showing for the young-earthism of New Testament Studies on a wiki that proudly touts its rationality and scepticism.
    This further supports my long-held suspicion that there are very few true sceptics, but a great many people who call themselves that and are sceptical of what they want to be sceptical of.
    (On the side, Tim, do you have an opinion on RationalWiki generally, and if so what is it?)

    1. RationalWiki is pretty bad overall, terrible on history generally and the historicity of Jesus in particular. If you look at the talk and edit pages of that article and any others on the subject, they are dominated by a fanatical Myther called Bruce Grubb. Grubb, who posts on various forums as “BGrubb”, “SearchEngineGuy”, “SEGuy” etc., has never met a crackpot Mythicist idea that he didn’t like. He happily boosts anything and everything remotely related to Mythicism, with no regard for much of it being contradictory and incompatible. So a lot of those articles consist of Grubb trying his best to make them peddle Mythicism as the One True Truth ™ and others trying to rein him in. He tends to be more persistent than his correctors, so the articles veer from reasonable to kooky depending on how active he’s been. They are a mess as a result.

      6
      1
  65. “In fact, there is only one writer of the time who had any interest in such figures, who also had little interest for Roman and Greek writers. He was the Jewish historian Josephus, who is our sole source for virtually all of the Jewish preachers, prophets, faith healers and Messianic claimants of this time.”
    While this doesn’t impact your argument (since mythicists will dismiss any Christian source if they plausibly can), there’s a possible reference to the Egyptian in Acts (“Are you not the Egyptian, then, who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?” 21:38). Tim – to your knowledge, what’s the majority academic view on if this Egyptian and Josephus’ Egyptian Prophet are the same person, and what do you personally think and why?

    1. It’s almost certainly the same guy. And Acts also mentions Theudas. There is a solid argument that the author of Acts used Josephus, which pushes the date of Luke-Acts well after the usual “c. 80 AD”. But I was leaving the Christian writers to one side when I noted who and what Greek and Roman writers were interested in.

      1. In fairness it seems the author of Luke-Acts simply could have known what was going on and wrote it down in the same way Josephus simply knew what was going on and wrote it down. To the best of my knowledge Josephus and Acts contradict on occasions,do they not.

        1. Well, the author of Acts seems confused about when exactly Theudas was around, which undercuts the idea that he was working from Antiquities somewhat. So maybe.

          1. I believe one of the arguments on this point is that, while Judas the Galilean’s uprising was before Theudas’s chronologically, Josephus mentions Theudas first. The author of Acts then mistakenly mentioned them in the order used by Josephus.

          2. I hate to cite a wikipedia article but it seems that idea the author of Luke-Acts used Josephus as a source seemsa minority position.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_reliability_of_the_Acts_of_the_Apostles

            Time noted how Luke and Josephus contradict on the Theudas account.

            They also contradict on the census of Quirinius .

            Luke copied the Gospel of Mark very closely, often verbatim.

            On the other hand I am not aware of any part of Luke-Acts which is almost verbatim from Josephus.

            So I am not convinced of this argument.

            It seems the author of Luke Acts was using other sources and perhaps his personal knowledge on then well known events.

  66. I don’t know how I just realized this now, but Maurice Casey mentioned you in one of his books! You definitely must’ve done a good job debunking Mythicist arguments for you to be mentioned by Maurice Casey!

    1
    1
  67. Hi Kris

    >> it seems that idea the author of Luke-Acts used Josephus as a source seemsa minority position.

    This would be significant if it included reasons why this position might be wrong.
    There’s, imo, only one minority, actually fringe, view, mythicism, where this label tells us about its credibility.
    But here’s a question, is the claim that Luke depended on Josephus in the way he relied on Mark or is this more to supplement what he already has? And have you read Mason?

    1. The best answer as to why it is a minority position as there really is not a lot of evidence for it. Also minority simply means less than fifty percent. Mytherism is not a minority stance, it is a fringe stance.

      Josephus and Luke-Acts contradict each other on occasions. For example the dating of the Quirinius Census and The Theudas Revolt. Did the author of Luke simply read Josephus and forget these things?

      Luke-Acts contains much material within it that is not found in Josephus

      Luke copied his sources almost verbatim. Look at how much of Luke is almost identical to Mark. On the other hand there is no passage in Luke-Acts that has writings from Josephus this way. So why did the author of Luke Acts just change things up?

      So it seems much more likely that the author of Luke Acts simply used early Christian sources including his own knowledge of the events and some of these events are also found in Josephus simply because they happened.

      I do have to note the article provided those reasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_reliability_of_the_Acts_of_the_Apostles#cite_note-16

      Simply read sources 16-21

      So simply put I am not really seeing this argument as something beyond a logical possibility. For me unless someone can provide a strong example of Luke-Acts quoting Josephus almost verbatim, the same way Luke quotes Mark almost verbatim then I am not going to accept this argument as something beyond a logical possibility. You also have the issues I mentioned above such as how Luke-Acts and Josephus contradict and much of Luke-Acts cannot be found in Josephus.

      I have not read Mason.

      1. Also his description of the Egyptian Prophet is very different to that of Josephus – four thousand men instead of thirty thousand and no mention of a march on Jerusalem.

        1. My hunch would be whoever wrote Luke-Acts got that right as opposed to Josephus. Thirty thousand men is a lot of people,much less a march on Jerusalem. The account in Acts is far more reasonable in my humble opinion.

          Of course if the author Luke-Acts used Josephus as a source why diverge so much from it.

      2. > Also minority simply means less than fifty percent.

        Yes, I know what it means. My objection is to this being pointed out as if it counts against an idea. It can, but there are enough good reasons for a view to be in the minority and so simply pointing this out is worthless, imo.

        > Mytherism is not a minority stance, it is a fringe stance.

        Glad you agreed with my point!

        > Luke copied his sources almost verbatim.

        Not entirely, he changes Mark when it suits him.He claims to have relied on “many” sources or narratives. Also, Luke is said to have about 50 % of Mark, much less than Matthew.
        As you’ll note my question specifically addressed that point.
        While I’ve found some good stuff on WP, it also has its share of shit, bur I’ll check out the article.

  68. What are your thoughts on the idea that Peter, Paul, and James (the brother of Jesus) all “teamed up” to create Christianity (with there being no historical Jesus)? I heard someone online yesterday make this claim, although how they came up with this wacko idea I’ll never know.

    1. As you say, it’s a whacko idea. In his letters Paul clearly refers to “those who were already apostles before me” (gal 1:17) and talks of his “earlier life in Judaism” where “I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it” (Gal 1:13). So the Jesus Sect clearly existed before he joined it.

    2. >Peter, Paul, and James (the brother of Jesus) all “teamed up” to create Christianity…

      Quite a feat for a non historical Jesus to have a brother.

      1. How do we even know if Peter, Paul and James existed.

        You know the same nameless unknown people who made up Jesus could have made them up too 🙂

  69. Is it just Jesus, or are there equivalents for other religions – is there “Muhammed Mythicism” or “Buddha Mythicism”? If Jesus Mythicism is unique (or uniquely popular), why is that?

    1. Buddhists don’t seem to care much about the historicity of the Buddha, so Buddha Mythicism doesn’t get any traction.
      There have been attempts at Muhammad Mythicism, but not many. Jesus Mythicism is driven by a combination of (i) animus against Christianity and (ii) the fact Christianity is based squarely on claims about Jesus as a historical person. So if you take away the historical person the claims become irrelevant and you debunk the religion.

      1. I’ve seen a number of people try to claim that Mythicism isn’t a threat to Christianity by claiming that Christians would just ignore Mythicism if it were to be proven (which is probably true but tacitly acknowledges that Mythicism is, indeed, a threat), or by citing Thomas Brodie and a few other people who still self-identify as Christians and hold to som vague spirituality even after becoming mythicists. Needless to say, I think these rationalizations are highly disingenuous.

  70. To quote theologian Robert W. Jenson:

    “Nevertheless, it is conceivable that we might be driven, past “reasonable doubt,” to conclude that research falsifies the canonical narrative. To conclude that would be to conclude that no one person presents himself in the total tradition about Jesus, that Jesus is not now an agent in history. This is a real possibility; whatever may be true of other religions, Christian faith must be in this fashion historically vulnerable.”

    And Fr. Adrian Kimel:

    “ By the historical nature of the claims of the gospel, Christian belief is vulnerable to historical disconfirmation. If scholarship should demonstrate that Jesus never lived…the gospel would be decisively disproven. If secular biblical criticism should prove that Jesus was dramatically and irreconcilably different from the Jesus rendered in the canonical gospels, then faith would become impossible.“

    1. The phrase “born of a woman” is found repeatedly in Hebrew and Aramaic as a way of emphasising someone’s human nature. That seems to be how Paul is using it in his argument in Gal 4.

  71. I read the most idiotic thing from a mysticist saying that no one uses the criteria of embarrassment outside of New testament I did a Google scourge and I found for example that in your older, I forgot which one you said but a general for example a poem trying to make this general look like the greatest thing ever but the fact that he fleed from a battle probably happened because it does meet the criterion of embarrassment it was so well known about they couldn’t leave it out or an Egyptian pharaoh made a mistake when it most of you this doesn’t meet the criteria of embarrassment and it’s constantly used to have New testament scholar fields so the mysticist once again it just wrong

      1. I accept Jesus as existence and I’m not a mysticist I just made a mistake and I also accept the criterion of embarrassment here’s a good example the narrative of Sennacherib itself contains an indication that the conclusion of the campaign was not so successful as the author of it would have us believe, and that the Assyrian king was forced to return home without having accomplished the main object of his invasion of Judah. Though Hezekiah was shut up in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage, and a line of forts built against him, he was nevertheless allowed to remain there unmolested. Sennacherib admits by his silence that he never penetrated within the walls of Jerusalem.”

    1. Hi Daniel

      It’s more like there isn’t a special criteria with this name in other fields, but the principle is still viable.
      Mark Goodacre did a useful podcast on this.
      The criteria are often over used. They don’t prove anything.
      If we have a poet rhapsodizing about how great a general is and he tells you the General fled a battle, it’s more likely that this is true or, at least, that the poet thinks it’s true.

    1. It’s his last book, written not long before he died. It’s not a great book, unfortunately, because it tangles with various Mythicists in a fairly personal way but not in enough detail to be comprehensive. So they’ve been able to dismiss it as not scholarly enough and not detailed enough. Some of them also don’t like the fact he says nice things about me on page 26.

      2
      1
        1. There really isn’t a comprehensive response to Mythicism, largely because the existence of Jesus isn’t a live issue for scholars. Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist? (2012) is more of a summary of why the existence of Jesus makes most sense, but doesn’t cover all Mythicist arguments (because it didn’t set out to do so). It would take an immense volume or even a multi-volume work to comprehensively counter all of the twists and turns of the variety of Mythicist theses, and no scholar has the time to waste to do that for such a fringe set of claims.

          4
          1
          1. I’ve started recommending this blog when people want a resource. There are a few other things like Gullotta’s review of Carrier that stand out.

  72. I found a useful paper that refutes Richard carries use of the Ascension of Isaiah Jan Dochhorn, “World’ in the Ascension of Isa- iah,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 94 [2018] 241-56; L. R. Lanzillotta, “”The Cosmology of the Ascension of Isaiah: Analysis and Re-Assessment of the Text’s Cosmological Frame- work,” in Jan N. Bremmer et al. [eds.], The Ascension of Isaiah [Leuven: Peeters, 2016], pp. 235-58).

  73. Tim I’ve noticed a strange similarity between Mythicism and other French pseudo history have you ever heard of the book the myth of matriarchal prehistory it’s a good book it debunks the claim that ancient societies were matriarchal what shocked me after reading the book what shocked me is it’s similar to other friends pseudo history they think all the scholars who promote the consensus are in some strange conspiracy

      1. Tim the matrical prehistory thing came from the same damn tree as the dying and rising God theory it was proposed by yet everyone’s favorite pseudo astorian James Fraser Two Knights and a Goddess: Sir Arthur Evans, Sir James George Frazer, and the Invention of Minoan Religion

  74. I found a good book by an egyptologist the debunked the plane that Osiris was a dying and rising God the book is called ANCIENT EGYPT

    FACTS AND FICTIONS

    STEPHEN E. THOMPSON chapter 8

  75. It’s such a shame I have to write this especially because I have enjoyed reading this site after discovering it recently.

    After reading the comments on this article I have noted extremely inappropriate comparisons to Holocaust denial . These comparisons reduce the seriousness of what holocaust denial is and what actually happened during the Holocaust, which is a form of antisemitism.

    I will not be visiting this site again and I will alert others to the antisemitism here.

    2
    9
    1. I will alert others to the antisemitism here.

      That is absolutely absurd. The analogy notes the ways in which the behaviour of proponents of various fringe and crackpot theorists are often similar. Nothing else. That doesn’t mean those fringe and crackpot theories are equivalent in any other respect and it certainly doesn’t mean they are in any way all alike in seriousness. That’s not how an analogy works. I’ve been a prominent debunker of Holocaust Denial for many years, so of course I understand that it is not the same as Jesus Mythicism or Shakespeare Oxfordianism in regards to its seriousness and significance – how on earth could it be? They are utterly trivial by comparison. But there is an analogy in the respect that is noted – the tactics of its proponents when confronted with counter-arguments. To claim that noting this fact somehow “reduces the seriousness of Holocaust Denial” is completely ridiculous. And to characterise making this unremarkable but very specific analogy is “antisemitism” is totally ludicrous.

      So much so that I suspect your comment is not serious and is actually just trolling.

      5
      2
    2. Demonstrating that all those forms of denial use the same fallacies and tactics helps to expose antisemitism for what it is: full of lies. What’s more, jesusmythology has roots in 19th Century antisemitism. The idea was basically rather no Jesus than a jewish Jesus.
      Research suggests that people one form of denial (antisemitism essentially denies than jews are human) are susceptible to other forms. If we want to develop effective strategies we must reveal and understand the underlying patterns. That’s the value of comparing jesusmythology with creationism, islamophobia, homophobiam, misogyny and Holocaust denial. Etc.
      In itself Jesusmythology might be trivial; as part of a much bigger problem that includes all forms of discrimination it isn’t. The rise of antisemitism and the rise of jesusmythology are correlated.

  76. This doesn’t really matter that much, but what are your thoughts on the recent proposal that the mention of Jesus in Mara Bar-Serapion is a later Christian interpolation inserted back into his letter at a later date?

    You can read about it in this section from this book:

    Kathleen E. McVey, ‘The Letter of Mara Bar Serapion to his son and the Second Sophistic: Palamedes and the “Wise King of the Jews”’ , in Syriac Encounters: Papers from the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium, ed. Maria Doerfler, Emanuel Fiano and Kyle Smith (Leuven: Peeters, 2015), 305-25.

    1. The reviews indicate he’s an anti-Semite, so that would explain his motivation. “Creative Fire Press” seems to have published nothing much other than some strange collection of essays on the philosopy of technology by this same weird guy. Sounds like a kook.

    2. So, among fringe Mythicist theories, we can now choose between: 1) the Romans invented Jesus and Christianity in order to bolster their power, and 2) the Jews invented it in order to undermine Roman power. I want to see a cage match between this guy and Joseph Atwill ;-).

    3. People can’t work out if Christianity is a gentile plot to destroy the Jews or a Jewish plot to the destroy the gentiles. It’s hilarious.

      1. Have you considered the possibility there was in fact two groups of myth makers who created this so called Jesus at the same time, which is why we have variant accounts about this so called Jesus. The Jewish myth man was created to undermine Gentiles and the Roman myth man was created to pacify the Jews.

      2. The answer is it’s obviously both. It was a conspiracy invented by both the Romans and the Jews to destroy each other.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *