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Tag: Jesus Mythicism

PZ Myers and the Mythicists

PZ Myers and the Mythicists

Atheist activist and blogger PZ Myers has been on a journey regarding the likely existence of a historical Jesus and has been pretty honest about its stages. After a period of finding Jesus Mythicism at least compelling, if not wholly convincing, he has passed through a fairly thoughtful period of “Jesus agnosticism”, but now appears to accept the consensus position of almost all critical scholars: a historical Jesus most likely existed. This has not gone down well with some of…

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Jesus Mythicism 8: Jesus, History and Miracles

Jesus Mythicism 8: Jesus, History and Miracles

There is a common line of argument among the more naïve believers in Jesus Mythicism that goes “the stories of Jesus are full of miracles and other non-historical elements. So if any of them are not historical, why not all of them?” This all-or-nothing thinking is based on the idea that if any part of these accounts can be concluded to be not historical, this means the rest of them are as well: “it’s all made up”. But even in…

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Richard Dawkins Teaches the Children

Richard Dawkins Teaches the Children

In his latest book, Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide (Random House, 2019), Richard Dawkins sets out to give older children and teens an introduction to reasons to doubt religion. Unfortunately he manages to perpetuate a series of historical myths in the process and the book is characteristic of prominent New Atheists’ careless attitude toward history. Most atheists come to that position more or less on their own. For me, being raised by a scientist in a family of scientists and…

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History for Atheists on MythVision

History for Atheists on MythVision

Derek Lambert, the enthusiastic and open-minded host of the MythVision podcast and video channel, was kind enough to have me on as a guest. Derek is someone who has been both a Christian and then a Jesus Mythicist, but is now exploring ideas about the historical Jesus and the origins of Christianity with a broad range of guests. It was a pleasure to speak with him and explore the problems with Jesus Mythicism in a fairly long and wide ranging…

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Jesus Mythicism 7: Josephus, Jesus and the ‘Testimonium Flavianum’

Jesus Mythicism 7: Josephus, Jesus and the ‘Testimonium Flavianum’

Mythicists like to claim that the issue of the authenticity of Josephus’ account of Jesus – the so-called “Testimonium Flavianum” – is settled. They insist that the passage is a wholesale forgery, inserted by Christians. But while a scholarly case can be made for this position, one can also be made for the partial authenticity of the passage. Unless new evidence appears, the question remains moot. Of all the source material pertinent to the question of the historicity of Jesus,…

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History for Atheists on Answers in Reason

History for Atheists on Answers in Reason

It is always nice to be invited to speak to other atheists and to highlight the work I do here on History for Atheists. This week I had the pleasure of talking to Davidian from Answers in Reason in a live discussion which was mainly about the historical Jesus but also on how history is analysed, the nature of ancient source material and the problem of atheist bad history and anti-theist tribalism. We did not get to cover many other…

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Jesus Mythicism 6: Paul’s Davidic Jesus in Romans 1:3

Jesus Mythicism 6: Paul’s Davidic Jesus in Romans 1:3

The opening of Paul’s letter to the Romans contains a statement that Jesus was a descendant of King David (Romans 1:3). Most Jesus Mythicists claim that Paul only believed in Jesus as a celestial figure, not an earthly, human and recently historical one. So, as usual, they have to strive hard to find ways to make a text fit their convoluted theories. The results are typically contrived and unconvincing. Sometime in the late 50s AD Paul wrote a letter to…

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Jesus Mythicism 5: The Nazareth “Myth”

Jesus Mythicism 5: The Nazareth “Myth”

Not only is the idea that Jesus came from Nazareth a common element in all four canonical gospels, it also seems to have been an awkward fact that did not fit well with the gospel writers’ claim he was the Messiah. This indicates it is likely his origin in this small village was a historical fact. Jesus Mythicists often deal with this by removing Nazareth from the story and some even claim all the archaeologists are wrong and Nazareth did…

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Jesus Mythicism 4: Jesus as an Amalgam of Many Figures

Jesus Mythicism 4: Jesus as an Amalgam of Many Figures

When discussing the historicity of Jesus and debating the claims of Jesus Mythicists I often come across people who take the view that there may be at least some historical basis for Jesus, but there was no single historical person. They claim he was an amalgam of many different figures from the time, not one man. These people rarely back this idea up with evidence-based argument, but when they do, it does not stand up to critical scrutiny. The “Amalgam…

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2018 – The Year in Review

2018 – The Year in Review

Since we are now a few days into the new year, I have been looking at the statistics for this blog over the last twelve months and thought I would post a short summary, with a few comments. History for Atheists has been running since October 2015, and so is now into its fourth year of operation. In that time, I am happy to say, it has built up a solid following and has gone some way toward its objective…

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