Talk:Christ myth theory/Archive 10

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Undue weight in the Criticism section?

I'm wondering if we may be giving too much weight to Earl Doherty in the Criticism section. What we have now is an introductory paragraph that lists, by my count, a half dozen authors who argue that the Christ myth theory generally falls outside the current academic mainstream. Short quotes from a couple are included, the longest of which is two sentences.

We then have four paragraphs discussing Earl Doherty's responses to these criticism, two of which are nothing but extended quotations from his writings.

It's certainly appropriate for a criticism section to also cover responses to those criticisms, but it strikes me that what we have now unbalances the section. The response comes from a single author, and the text describing to the response is two and a half times longer than that describing the criticisms. It would seem more appropriate to either expand the explanation of the criticisms, or provide a shortened summary of the response at about the same level of detail used to describe the positions of the critics. EastTN (talk) 15:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you are really making 3 points which are different:

More detailed criticism are needed
Balance between criticism and refutation is off
Earl Doherty is being undue weight.

On (3) I agree. The issue is that Doherty has been the most systematic in debating all comers. We could broaden this, for example Leidner gives a great critique of the Kurn/Brown school but we don't mention the Kurn/Brown school except in passing. So I'm not sure what to do.

On (1) that would be great. The problem is they don't exist. What exist are primarily refutations of straw men. April DeConick has promised to address the mythicist case in detail so hopefully in the future they will exist. I just bought N.T. Wright's book (ISBN 0801012945), Bock's book (ISBN 0785212949) and Peter Jones' most scholarly book (ISBN 1883893747) so hopefully they have something. But based on the online previews (or in Jone's cases his online lectures) I doubt it. If you know of something please, bring it up.

On (2). What would you propose?

jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

You've analyzed me more thoroughly than I did myself! Seriously, what struck me first and most forcefully was #3. My sense is that dialing back the coverage of Doherty a bit would go a long way towards addressing #2. A single paragraph that summarizes his main arguments, without the long block quotes, would seem adequate to cover the issue without short-changing his point of view. EastTN (talk) 20:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

OK I trimmed one of the quotes. Bock's book arrived in the mail today so I'll see if the full version is better than the online in terms of addressing the problem directly. He has quite a bit on Walter Bauer. jbolden1517 ^Talk 21:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - that helps. EastTN (talk) 21:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

OK I've read Wright and Bock now (Jones still hasn't come). Here is what they add:

While both their criticisms are unfair they are substantially better than the ones we have in the article today, particularly Bock.
Their criticisms are more complex then anything this article covers. For example Bock discusses Edessa, Corinth and Alexandria separately with different counter arguments. Which means to deal with his criticisms we would need to break off the early Christianity of Italy (Rome), from Syria (Edessa and Antioch), from Egyptian Christianity (Alexandria) and discuss the development separately. AFAIK the only explicit Christ mythicists that break things down this carefully are Price and Acharya S/Murdock (and here only to a limit extent), the implicit ones (like Pagels, and Pearson) do as well. This is a huge jump in the sophistication of the reader we are expecting.
The criticisms both assume a reader relatively familiar with the church fathers, so for example 1Clement plays a big role.
Wright for example wants to separate off Cainites style gnosticism (where they agree with Pearson on Jewish origins) from Sethians where he disagrees since he understands how deadly this piece of evidence would be.

On the plus side.... These sources do tie this whole family of arguments together killing OR/Synth issues.

So I'm not sure what to do. But potentially we could create a much more interesting criticisms section. jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:16, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Jbolden, which books are you talking about? Can you provide citations for Bock and Wright? I'd like to look at this stuff myself. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I thought it was clear. These are the 3 I just bought mentioned a few paragraphs earlier: Wright's book (ISBN 0801012945), Bock's book (ISBN 0785212949) and Peter Jones (ISBN 1883893747) jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I missed the ISBNs when I read through the section before. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

If you have the time, I'd encourage you to bring their arguments into the section. We don't have to decide who's right; we just need to point readers to the best thinking on both sides and summarize it as well as we reasonably can. EastTN (talk) 20:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Here is my proposal if we want to do this. We need an article on New school (theology) and dig into Bauer, and the moderns (Pagels, Pearson, Turner, Ehrmann...). Then we summarize New school and Christ myth in a section here linking off to that as a main. We add criticism from the New School criticism section (which allows us to link). What are everyone's thoughts? jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to have to defer to you and Akhilleus on that one - you guys are both more familiar with the literature on this than I am. It sounds reasonable on the face of it, though. EastTN (talk) 21:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

A related issue is how "criticism" should be characterized in the lead. I think there should be a sentence (just one) that says that the theory is not mainstream and is not even part of the discussions of most academics--the purpose here is simply to indicate how the theory is regarded by mainstream scholarship. We don't need to make it more complicated than that; assertions by the theory's supporters that mainstream scholarship is distorted by faith or "professional self-interest" should be reserved for the "criticism" section. --Akhilleus (talk) 12:09, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I would agree. I think as much as possible the Christ Myth attack on the liberal Christian / mainstream view should be in a criticism section as well. jbolden1517 ^Talk 01:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense to me, too. All the lead section needs to do is flag for the reader the fact that the theory is criticized by mainstream scholars. If they want to know either the details of the criticism or the response by advocates of the theory, they can go to the criticism section. EastTN (talk) 13:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

"assertions by the theory's supporters that mainstream scholarship is distorted by faith or professional self-interest" should be reserved for the blogosphere. Please. If they cannot defend their theory academically, I see no reason to report their flamewars. WP:NOT. I still think that this article fails to establish a justification for its existence separate from historicity of Jesus. --dab (𒁳) 09:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

While I disagree with the idea the article needs to be reintegrated with historicity of Jesus I do agree it has problems. First is that not even Christ myth theory is used consistently among the authors and Christ myth and Jesus myth even less so. Second it is not always clear where a person falls on this issue. Schweitzer, for example, puts Frazer in one camp in the 1913 edition of his The Quest of the Historical Jesus (which appears to have no more input from him after that date) but put him in the same category as John M Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, and Arthur Drews in his 1931 Out of My Life and Thought.

Again "J. Reuben Clark: Selected Papers on Americanism and National Affairs‎" 1987 (University of California and Brigham Young University) from pg 129 on looks like the best source material to help sort out this mess but no one seems able to find a copy.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:55, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The criticism section is horrid. "Richard Burridge and Graham Gould (2004: References below) state that the questioning of Jesus' existence is not accepted by mainstream critical scholarship.[8] Robert E. Van Voorst has stated that biblical scholars and historians regard the Jesus never existed thesis as "effectively refuted"." - really? Using sources - all of whom "happen" to be members of clergy - can make the claim of what is accepted by allegedly "critical scholarship"? If nothing else, it needs re-worded almost entirely. 98.168.204.179 (talk) 05:32, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Bias in article title

I disagree with the change from "Jesus myth hypothesis" to "Christ myth theory". This is a pretty blatant attempt to state with bias something as fact that by all accepted accounts has not been proven, which is the definition of "hypothesis." If I do not see any good reason/discussion as to why it should stay this way, I will be changing it back the way it was shortly. The "Christ myth theory" should instead redirect. Nodekeeper (talk) 18:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia's policy on article names, which states that the titles of articles should reflect what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject. "Jesus myth hypothesis" is a made-up term used by very few, if any, reliable sources; "Christ myth theory" is used more commonly. It is perhaps not the ideal title, but it's better than Jesus myth hypothesis. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:04, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Akhilleus is right in this regard. After looking around I found only one reliable source (from 1931) that used the term Jesus myth hypothesis and it actually talked about "Jesus myth" hypothesis. As I said at the time you can't build an article title on one article. I would prefer the use of non-historical hypothesis due to its more NPOV but articles that use that term are nowhere as common as the other terms. Take a look at Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_21#RfC:_How_is_Christ_myth_theory_defined.3F where the issue of what to call this article was kicked all over the field.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:29, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I do not even understand the alleged "bias". What is being "stated as fact"? The content of this theory is that the Christ is pure myth, and that the man Jesus never lived. This theory has no credibility in scholarship, as the article amply elaborates, but this is nevertheless its content. --dab (𒁳) 10:18, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

(remove indent)Actually Dbachmann, you just showed the bias in your comment. The Christ myth theory is a range of ideas as demonstrated by the source material:

"This view states that the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology, possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes,..." Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (1982) International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Bromiley then uses Lucian, Wells, and Bertrand Russell as idea examples despite there being far better examples.

"Or alternatively, they seized on the reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name and arbitrarily attached the "Cult-myth" to him." (Dodd, C. H. (1938) under the heading "Christ-myth Theory" History and the Gospel Manchester University Press pg 17)

"The year 1999 saw the publication of at least five books which concluded that the Gospel Jesus did not exist. One of these was the latest book (The Jesus Myth) by G. A. Wells, the current and longstanding doyen of modern Jesus mythicists." (Doherty, Earl (1999) Book And Article Reviews: The Case For The Jesus Myth: "Jesus — One Hundred Years Before Christ by Alvar Ellegard)

"The radical solution was to deny the possibility of reliable knowledge of Jesus, and out of this developed the Christ myth theory, according to which Jesus never existed as an historical figure and the Christ of the Gospels was a social creation of a messianic community." (Farmer, William R. 1975 "A Fresh Approach to Q," Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults (Vol 2), eds. Jacob Neusner, Morton Smith Brill, 1975) p. 43)

"Defence of biblical criticism was not helped by revival at this time of the 'Christ-myth' theory, suggesting that Jesus had never existed, a suggestion rebutted in England by the radical but independent F. C. Conybeare." (Horbury, William (2003), "The New Testament," A Century of Theological and Religious Studies in Britain Oxford p. 55)

"In particular these rationalist organisations helped to promulgate the quasi-dogma of the non-historicity of Jesus of Nazareth and thus to foster the 'Christ-myth' school of thought, to be encountered later in this study." (Jones Alan H. (1983), Independence and Exegesis: The Study of Early Christianity in the Work of Alfred Loisy, Charles Guignebert, and Maurice Goguel; Mohr Siebeck, p. 47)

"I especially wanted to explain late Jewish eschatology more thoroughly and to discuss the works of John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, James George Frazer, Arthur Drews, and others, who contested the historical existence of Jesus (Schweitzer, Albert (1931) Out of my life and thought pg 125) There is no evidence that Schweitzer made any effort to update The Quest of the Historical Jesus from 1913 on as there is no new information added to the post 1913 editions.

"Christ-myth theorists like George A. Wells have argued that, if we ignore the Gospels, which were not yet written at the time of the Epistles of Paul, we can detect in the latter a prior, more transparently mythic concept of Jesus,[...] The Gospels, Wells argued, have left this raw-mythic Jesus behind, making him a half-plausible historical figure of a recent era." (Price, Robert M (1999) "Of Myth and Men A closer look at the originators of the major religions-what did they really say and do?" Free Inquiry magazine Winter, 1999/ 2000 Volume 20, Number 1)

"G.A Wells is the eminently worthy successor to radical 'Christ Myth' theorists..." (Price, Robert M (2002) back cover of Can We Trust the New Testament?)

"The theory that Jesus Christ was not a historical character, and that the Gospel records of his life are mainly, if not entirely, of mythological origin." (Pike, Royston (1951) Encyclopaedia of Religion and Religions)

"The theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ-myth theory, and the theory that he was an historical individual is called the historical Jesus theory." (Walsh, George (1998) "The Role of Religion in History" Transaction Publishers pg 58)

"The extreme form of denial is, or was, the Christ Myth theory. It affirmed that Jesus was not an actual person at all." (Wiseman The Dublin Review‎ pg 358)

"When Bertrand Russell and Lowes Dickinson toyed with the Christ-myth theory and alternatively suggested that, even if Christ were a historic person, the gospels give us no reliable information about him, they were not representing the direction and outcome of historical inquiry into Christian origins." (Wood, Herbert George (1955) Belief and Unbelief since 1850)

Of this only three actually define the term (rather than simply list authors) only three (Farmer, Horbury, and Wiseman) directly state that Christ Myth theory says Jesus never existed and of those Farmer points to the Gospel Jesus not existing, a position held by Wells who Voorst claims did an "about-face".--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I do not see why you dump half a ton of references on my innoent comment, or what they are supposed to show, or how it is relevant to the point. My one-line characterization of the topic still stands. Of course you can go into obsessive detail, as you have just proven. So there. The actual point was, is "Christ myth" any more "biased" than "Jesus myth". If there is anything in your contribution shedding light on that, it must have escaped me. --dab (𒁳) 08:03, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess the perceived problem with "Christ myth" is related to this: If you read "myth" as a slur rather than in the technical sense, then treating Christ myth theories as fringe can be seen as amounting to saying that not believing in certain Christian dogmas is fringe. Just saying this in the hope that it advances the discussion. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:40, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

that's an interesting point. I never manage to wrap my head around the concept of seeing "myth" as a slur. To my mind, a "myth" is the highest order of sacral abstraction and the very essence of religion, as it were the intangible numen behind the mere sacred text or the crude physical ritual.

for practical purposes, we should just treat "Christ myth" and "Jesus myth" as synonyms. --dab (𒁳) 08:59, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

This whole theory is based on the idea that "myth" = "false story", i.e. OMG CHRISTIANITY IS A LIE! It's a bit silly, really.

But the objection that kicked off this thread is that there is a (perceived) difference between theory and hypothesis--according to Nodekeeper, calling this article's subject a "theory" implies that it's been proven true. This is not what "theory" means in scientific discourse, but that really doesn't matter because this is not an article about science--it's a subject in the humanities, where "theory" and "hypothesis" are often used interchangeably with little difference in meaning. This is a topic that's come up several times in the talk archives, and usually the same misconception is in play--that the use of hypothesis or theory in the title conveys something about the truth of the topic discussed in the article. --Akhilleus (talk) 11:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Good points though I have to agree the title does have problems mainly due to the ambiguity of all the words used: Christ can refer to the person or the beliefs about that person; Dundes, Alan (1984) Sacred Narrative; Readings in the Theory of Myth University of California Press shows even scholars have different meaning for the term myth; and of course the theory issue (used by many Creationists to try and debunk Evolution "because it is only a theory").

The reason I used all these references was to show even among people who use the term Christ myth theory can't agree on what it means. Walsh's, Dodd's, and possibly Bromiley's definitions would agree with Wells' current position Christ myth theory as independently demonstrated by Price (who has published articles in Journal for the Study of the New Testament ("one of the leading academic journals in New Testament Studies"), Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith ("The peer-reviewed journal of the ASA"), Themelios ("international evangelical theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith"), Journal of Ecumenical Studies ("The premiere academic publication for interreligious scholarship since 1964"), Evangelical Quarterly, Journal of Psychology and Theology, Journal of Unification Studies, etc. Even questionable PRO historical Jesus source Strobel admits Robert Price is part of "a very small handful of legitimate scholars) and Doherty (called a scholar by BOTH Wells AND Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases (2008) pg 320) calling Wells a Christ Myth theorist and current Jesus myth supporter respectively well AFTER Jesus Legend (1996) and that has a preface by Hoffmann (Westminster College Oxford) talking about the old Christ Myth school.

Yet these definitions are totally at odds with those given by Horbury and Wiseman and then you have Schweitzer and Wood putting people like James George Frazer and Bertrand Russell who are actually questioning the accuracy of the gospel accounts. As I said a long time ago it is one thing to say the story of Washington and the Cherry Tree, Paul Reveres' ride via Irving, or Columbus and the flat earth is a myth (all parallel examples of what Bromiley says how Christ Myth theorists regard the story of Jesus in the Gospels) but it something else to say those people never existed. As demonstrated even Drews started out by showing that "everything about the historical Jesus had a mythical character and thus it was not necessary to presuppose that a historical figure ever existed" before apparently going to a Jesus never existed stance in later editions yet BOTH these versions are known as the Christ Myth.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:44, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

you know my position: it is that this article shouldn't even exist, precisely on grounds of such ambiguities. This is an article that cannot even make up its mind what it is about. It shouldn't be deleted, of course, but it should be merged into historicity of Jesus on grounds of {{duplication}} of scope.

seeing that I dispute the entire ratio essendi of this article, it is futile for me to contribute to any discussion about the particulars of its content. I still think that it will never be stable until it is merged, and that after years of debate, the merge option will gradually transpire as the only actionable course. --dab (𒁳) 11:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Aren't there some examples of successful Wikipedia articles about problematic terms? (I can only think of anthropic principle right now, which has very similar problems and not solved them yet.) The term "Christ myth theory" clearly has a potential range of interpretations from the unquestionably true ("some of the Jesus stories have many of the typical characteristics of what is technically known as a myth") to pure fringe ("Jesus was invented when a certain Jewish sect became the official religion of the Roman state; the myths about him were plagiarised from those about Julius Caesar"). If this article goes into too much detail discussing the truth of the various interpretations, it's indeed a content fork of historicity of Jesus. Instead it could discuss (1) the various definitions that have been used, and discussions about the term itself; (2) people who have used the term; and (3) people who have been called proponents of a Christ myth theory.

PS: Nigger is an example of an article that discusses exclusively the provenance and usage of a word. --Hans Adler (talk) 14:27, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

well, yes, I could see this turning into a discussion of terminology exclusively. Similarly, we have god (word) separate from God. Aryan is also supposed to be on the term exclusively as opposed to Aryan race. There are other examples, but most of the time, these "terminology" articles remain unsatisfactory and would profit from a merger (like kung fu (term)). --dab (𒁳) 14:33, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a merging with Quest for the historical Jesus might be better as that is more a history of how the view of what Jesus was and how historical the events related in the Gospels were. Let's face it, there are extremists on both ends of the historicity of Jesus issue ultra extreme views are about as fringe as you can get. Interesting in The God DelusionRichard Dawkins makes several comments:

"It is even possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all. [...] Although Jesus probably existed, reputable biblical scholars do not in general regard the New Testaments (and obviously not the Old Testament) as a reliable record of what actually happened in history..." and a little further on the same page he states "The only difference between the Da Vinci Code and the gospel is that the gospels are ancient fiction while The Da Vinci Code is modern fiction." (pg 97)

"Unlike the cult of Jesus, the origins of which are not reliably attested, we can see the whole course of events laid out before our eyes before our eyes (and even here, as we shall see, some details are now lost). It is fascinating to guess that the cult of Christianity almost certainly began in very much the same way, and spread initially at the same high speed." A little later Dawkins on page states "John Frum, if he existed at all, did so within living memory. Yet, even for so recent a possibility, it is not certain whether he lived at all." (pg 202-203)

The strange thing here is if the gospels are the 1st (or perhaps 2nd) century equivalent of the Da Vinci Code how do you separate the wheat (actually historical events) from the chaff (made up events). Worst if we with all of our technology and record keeping cannot prove John Frum didn't exist just after just 30 years after the movement supposedly started (1930) how could anyone in c66 CE prove Jesus didn't exist? When put this way Price's position is clearly like that of David Kusche regarding the Bermuda Triangle myth:

"Say I claim that a parrot has been kidnapped to teach aliens human language and I challenge you to prove that is not true. You can even use Einstein's Theory of Relativity if you like. There is simply no way to prove such a claim untrue. The burden of proof should be on the people who make these statements, to show where they got their information from, to see if their conclusions and interpretations are valid, and if they have left anything out."

In this regard the Christ Myth Theory is the ultimate null hypothesis and while some of the how you get there parts are a little off the wall as a whole the idea has some merit. Especially as unlike older scholars you have the John Frum cult as a near textbook example of how a Jesus Christ cult might have formed.--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:36, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, this article is not getting merged anywhere; the idea's been put forward already and hasn't gone anywhere. Despite the obfuscation that makes up most of this talk page, it's pretty clear what the article is about: the fringy idea that there was no historical Jesus. Despite Bruce's wall-o-text posts, repeated ad nauseam, that the "Christ myth theory" is ambiguous, inconsistently defined, or whatever, his last post shows us that the topic of this article is clear: as Dawkins puts it, the "historical case that Jesus never lived at all."

People are focusing way too much on the article title. If you look at the individual words "Christ", "myth", and "theory", you're going to come up with a number of potential meanings for the title. But this isn't a dictionary focused on the meanings of words; it's an encyclopedia, focused on topics. The topic here is the idea that there was no historical Jesus, and this idea is sometimes (not always) called the Christ myth theory. The fact that other things are called the Christ myth, the Jesus myth aren't that important for this article; the fact that "myth" can have lots of different connotations isn't that important either. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:48, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Akhilleus -- what, do you suppose, is the historicity of Jesus article about? As opposed to the historical Jesus one? That's right, "the fringy (or historical debate on the) idea that there was no historical Jesus".

the topic is valid indeed, but we already have an article on it.

as for Bruce -- Christianity is a religion like any other in origin. What makes it special is its worldwide success story a millennium after its foundation. Nothing about its foundation makes it special in any way, or different from any other religion founded in antiquity, including Mithraism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism or Manichaeism. So we don't have reliable biographcal sources on its founding community -- big deal -- the same applies for pretty much everyone alive at the time excepting members of major royal dynasties. Dawkins is "atheism for dummies", he is trying to debunk the "Christianity" of the illiterate bible-thumping masses of the US bible belt. The historians' question of the history of Jesus has nothing whatsoever to do with theism vs. atheism. --dab (𒁳) 06:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why we have historical Jesus and historicity of Jesus. The latter article, though, is distinct from Christ myth theory--historicity of Jesus is about the evidence one can use to reconstruct the historical Jesus, and adopts the (entirely mainstream) position that early Christian sources tell us something about Jesus of Nazareth. This is not the attitude of the Christ myth theory. You could, I suppose, think of this article as a sub-article of historicity of Jesus, but the ideal setup would be to have a fully detailed Quest of the historical Jesus article, and have this article as a sub-article of that. --Akhilleus (talk) 11:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Historicity -- You start with the assumption that the historical Jesus should be treated no differently than the historical Julius Caeser. Sure their are claims of Caeser's divinity and legends which are patently impossible
Myth -- you start with an assumption that the historical Jesus should be treated no differently than the historical Osris. There is some scattershot evidence for the historical Osris but that doesn't mean that in any sense he is a real person.

This article has a lot of content, and frankly it could have a lot more. We still really are only scratching the surface. Historicity focuses on a few passing references and their authenticity. Useful information for this article and most Christ mythers spend a chapter or so dealing with the Tacitus, Suetoniu, Josephus and just dismiss them. In other words looked at from the perspective of the Christ myth historicity addresses about 10% of the topic and it is a long and detailed article. We have multiple articles because we have lots and lots of content.

But the more important issue is this:

Historical / Historicity -- Deal with the origins of the stories about Jesus
Christ myth -- Deals with the origins of Christianity, in is just as much a subarticle of Early Christianity as one of Historical Jesus.

jbolden1517 ^Talk 13:55, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

this debate has long been circular. The upshot is that we have four articles on the historicity of Jesus. This isn't proper, and they need to be merged. I don't care which is merged into which, but the merging needs to be addressed now, because there can be no real progress otherwise. --dab (𒁳) 16:08, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Despite what Akhilleus claim if you really look through the material you will see that large parts of this article as well as its focus have WP:SYN problems. For example, author A says Drews and several others are "Christ Myth theorists", then author B lists Drews or some of the other authors with others and says they "contested the historical existence of Jesus" and therefor we are told these other authors are "Christ Myth theorists". Better yet when this line of reasoning fails (as with Dawkins or Frazer) the old "they are not expressly called Christ Myth theorists" song and dance begins.

Dbachmann, Christianity is critically different from Mithraism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism or Manichaeism is Christianity's dependence on its founder being what the religious text say he was. Buddhism by contrast is about individual paths to Enlightenment and is perfectly fine with saying that Gautama Buddha's path is likely not the one you will take; even questioning of some of the teachings is encouraged. Christianity by contrast depends on Jesus being what the New Testament says he is. Just saying Jesus was a ordinary person causes problem for Christianity so saying that the version of the Gospels is a myth with little or no connection to a Jesus who may have lived in the 1st century is a real nightmare for the religion.

That goes into the biggest problem this article has--it makes no clear distinction between those saying Jesus didn't exist at all and those who hold that the Gospel accounts are elaborate fictions that tell us little to nothing about the Jesus who actually lived in the first century. Note that several of definitions I cited above talk about the story of Jesus rather than the man. Throw in popular books by non scholars with counterclaims by other non scholars and you have the mess that is this article. When you have a non scholars like Holding slapping the term "Christ myth theorist" on people like Mead and Dawkins ("Dawkins’ Ironic Hypocrisy") with total abandon and scholars putting out definitions that are vague is it any wonder this article is a mess?--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:30, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Dab -- I don't see any evidence we haven't had progress. In fact above there was a request for a subset (Bauer and the New School) get broken out. On Higher Criticism there is discussion of breaking out the 19th century guys like F. C. Baur out. Who knows where this goes with time. We may have 100 articles on historicity, covering different views/schools in detail. I personally think that is great. We end up with a few summary articles and then a bunch of specialized articles. That's the way we handle most topics, like optics or dual spaces. Even this article arguably this article might want to split into classical (18th, 19th century and early 20th) from modern theory (post Bauer). A Doherty or a Price has much more in common with an Pegals than with a Drews. This article started with the moderns and then went through a period of having the classical people added. For some reason you don't think these people deserve an article, despite the fact that there is a wealth of reliable sources. jbolden1517 ^Talk 19:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with jbolden1517 that this article has made great strides in the last year or so but there is still the issue of just what exactly what the Christ Myth theory is to sort through. It is clear from an objective reading of the material and definitions is is NOT just the idea that Jesus never existed. It is also the idea that the stories that the Gospels contain so little actual historical information that the Jesus they describe might have as well not existed. I would like to point out that Weaver states that this was Drews position in the first and second editions of Die Christusmythe, and this was or is held by other such as Tom Harpur, Price, Wells, Frazer and (if we could believe Holding) Dawkins. Note NONE of these people say Jesus didn't exist as a person in the 1st century but rather say that there is so little trustworthy information in the Gospels that the Jesus described within might as well not existed.

Again I refer to Miner's article "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" which is in reality a satire of the anthropological methods of his day. It showed how the bias of the researcher can influence the data gathered and therefore the results. Every aspect of 1950s American culture is see through though the primitive magic man lens and the result shows that the model itself lends to that result. The lesson as later scholars stated and Burke brought to the public in Day the Universe Changed is that the very structure dictates what is acceptable evidence. That was why the Piltdown hoax lasted as long as it did--it fitted the structure of the time so well.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:32, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

One of the basic problems with the discussion on this talk page is that Bruce repeatedly and tendentiously misstates what the sources say. I would say "misreads", but I don't think Bruce has read much of what he quotes. Just to look at Weaver, who Bruce mentions in his last post. Weaver says that Drews "would become the most notorious spokesman for the deniers of Jesus' historicity," and includes him (along with William Benjamin Smith and John M. Robertson) in a chapter entitled "the Nonhistorical Jesus". --Akhilleus (talk) 05:20, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Akhilleus, it has shown it is you who don't read the material carefully. You have made statements like "Since Schweitzer, Drews, Case, Goguel, Van Voorst, Bennett, and Weaver all present this as a coherent position..." something that has been shown to be NOT true. Schweitzer can't even agree with himself where Frazer is in this and Weaver is the one who points out Schweitzer placement of Frazer with Drews despite Frazer not saying there wasn't a historial Jesus. The "Unless this business about Santa Claus, John Frum, etc. is brought up by a JMH theorist..." statement after commenting an article by Price which as I demonstrated made a direct reference to Santa Claus in the very first senctance, the mess with the supposed Grant quote which the majority were saying was questionable at best, WP:SYN regarding the very definition (we are still waiting on that reference that expressly and directly ties all the definitions above into a whole), and on the list goes.

In fact the very link above shows the kinds of selective reading Akhilleus does as on the very next page of the link he happily provides is "What was his work all about? (new paragraph) It proposed the theory of a pre-Christian Jesus cult." (it then does into the details of Drews position). But that is exactly what Wells has been saying from Jesus Legend all the way to Can We Trust the New Testament? with the only real change as far as Wells is concerned is a historical 1st century teacher being integrated into this pre-Christian Jesus cult to form the Gospel Jesus. Remember Welsh's definition states "The theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ-myth theory, and the theory that he was an historical individual is called the historical Jesus theory" and just before this he states "My present opinion is that, in the case of Jesus, we simply do not know for certain anything about his biography, not even that he existed." As I pointed out since it is an excluded middle position it ignores the possibility Wells puts forth--of a historical 1st century teacher of the same name being plugged into the pre-Christian Jesus cult forming the composite Jesus of the Gospels. As a composite character by definition the Gospel Jesus cannot be historical.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Bruce, is this still about possible article titles and merge options, or have you once again gone off on one of your tedious tangents unrelated to the point at hand? Your inability to focus on one thing at a time and seek some progress in clarity there is imho largely responsible for the interminable impassé on this talkpage. --dab (𒁳) 12:00, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry that I tend to write like Binford rather than Dunnel but all the points I raise are really relevant. The title and scope of this article are joined at the hip so to speak. The plain fact is any title you choose (Christ myth theory, Christ myth, Jesus myth, or nonexistence hypothesis) has the same problem: inconstant, unclear, or vague definitions. For example, someone trying to say that Bromiley, Dodd, Farmer, Horbury, Pike, Welsh, and Wiseman are all using Christ myth theory in the exact same way and yet cannot (or will not) provide any source to prove this idea is doing WP:SYN ("Do not put together information from multiple sources to reach a conclusion that is not stated explicitly by any of the sources" "To demonstrate that you are not presenting original research, you must cite reliable sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and that directly support the information as it is presented.").

Going back over the material I have to say the very linkage between Christ myth theory, Christ myth, Jesus myth, and nonexistence hypothesis itself has WP:SYN problems largely because the definitions of the various terms do very. Remember ""A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument in relation to the topic of the article." But you can't point to any article reference that connects any three much less all four terms together.

So you have two related WP:SYN issues: the very use of the terms Christ myth theory, Christ myth, Jesus myth, and nonexistence hypothesis and how (as well as when) they relate to each other.--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:58, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Blog sites by non experts don't quality

Christopher Price by his own words only has a minor in historical studies. His website also doesn't pass the recognized authority requirement.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Something new on Drews

Looking around for an online version of Drews' work using the original German title produced a university paper by Peter De Mey called The Influence of Metaphysical and Epistemological Presuppositions on Jesus Research Then and Now: Reconsidering the Christ-Myth Debate (PDF format)

Now here is where it gets interesting: "In the second chapter of part II, Der evangelische Jesus (159-216), Drews departs from a rare consensus between all specialists of the Gospels. “The Gospels are no historical sources in the ordinary sense of the word, but writings of believers, edifying books, literary sources of the communty’s Christian consciousness.”

Now De Mey was thoughtful enough to provide the passage in the original German: “Wie weit auch die Ansichten auf dem Gebiete der Evangelienkritik noch immer auseinandergehen mögen: in einem stimmen doch gegenwärtig alle wirklich kompetenten Beurteiler mit seltener Einmütigkeit überein: die Evangelien sind keine Geschichtsurkunden im gewöhnlichen Sinne des Wortes, sondern Glaubensschriften, Erbauungsbücher, literarische Urkunden des christlichen Gemeindebewußtseins.”

Curious I threw that at babblefish and got: “As far also the opinions on that areas of the gospel criticism still apart-go like: in one all really competent critics agree nevertheless present with rare concord: the gospels are not stories documents in the usual sense of the word, but faith writings, building books, literary documents of Christian municipality consciousness.” showing that De Mey's translation is within reason.

Now here is what I don't understand. Given Drews himself talking about a "Christian consciousness" or "Christian municipality consciousness" depending on the translation in Die Christusmythe and we use a one sentence quote from James Charlesworth out of book he himself edited and reviewer Jonathan Reed pointed wasn't above using pictures from his own collection even if they seemed "misplaced or could be replaced with something more appropriate" (Using a bichrome Canaanite decanter picture in an article on Sidonian Greek-inscribed glass just boggles the mind of anyone who knows archeology; it's on par with using an picture of an Olmec artifact in an article on the Aztecs. What were the Q&A people at Eerdmans doing to allow that kind of thing to happen?) how is Fischer's comment regarding Jesus in the Anthropology of Consciousness not relevant especially when it is stated in much the same matter both in the abstract and the main body text?

I should mention regardless of your view regarding Fischer, De Mey's article in the form of "Appendix: Overview of Contemporary Reactions on Arthur Drews’s Book" give us a much broader range of reactions to Drews then we currently have.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:06, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments regarding spliting and combining

The article now has two flags: WP:SPLIT and duplication WP:CFORK; these are related. The argument section for instance is effectively a reworking of Historicity of Jesus. A short reference explaining the position with links to the relevant article would nearly eliminate this section. The same can be said of Jesus Christ in comparative mythology as many of the same sources are use--only their interpretation differs.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't have any problem with shorting the argument section to a few paragraphs. The comparative piece I think is a short summary already jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Problems with this article?

I was pointed to this page from the Reliable Sources noticeboard. Is there a problem? A cursory reading suggests it is fine. I was introduced to the theory many years ago for a theology diploma. All the main elements are there in the article, particularly the importance of Bruno Bauer. So what is the problem? It is a readable and interesting article perhaps it goes on a bit at the end but this is Wikipedia. Peter Damian (talk) 11:19, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The very definition of what "Christ myth theory" is the problem. Here are the four we have wound up with:

1) there was no Jesus in any way, shape, or form in the 1st century CE (Farmer read one way, Horbury, and Wiseman)
2) ANY deviation from the Gospel account (Bromiley's "story of" while using Lucian, Wells, and Bertrand Russell as examples)
3) The idea of Jesus starting out as a myth regardless of connection to any historical person (Walsh)
4) Pre existing mythology connected with a historical person who may or may not have lived in the 1st century CE (Dodd, Pike, Wells per Price and Doherty, Farmer read a different way)

I think we can agree that definition 1 is fringe while definition 2 is main stream and definitions 3 and 4 are interesting (the idea that the Gospel Jesus is a composite character and therefore by definition no more historical than the Paul Revere of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or the Christopher Columbus of Washington Irving.) But if you really look at this article it is clearly going for definition 1 despite the fact there is NOTHING that even shows HOW these different definitions relate to each or even if they do.

Please note that definitions 3 and 4 fit very well into the The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins who on one hand accepts Jesus existed but also states the Gospels are no more history than the The Da Vinci Code is. (pg 97)--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:42, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

the problem is not, of course, with Bauer and the discussion of 19th century scholarship, but with the contemporary authors of rather dubious quality. Problems of delineating the scope of this article from that of historicity of Jesus. Bruce's insistence to keep conflating this with pop atheism of the Dawkins sort. If we could only restrict this to discussing serious theologians like Bauer the article would be fine. To structure this article along the lines of "Bauer, Doherty, Price. Dawkins" is like structuring the Physics article along the lines of "Newton, Einstein, Gyro Gearloose, Dr. Strangelove. Spiderman". --dab (𒁳) 06:05, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Hate to burst your bubble Dbachmann, but Dawkins is Professor For The Understanding Of Science at Oxford University, Fellow of New College, as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society-- the same society Isaac Newton was president of in the 18th Century! Nevermind, that Gyro Gearloose, Dr. Strangelove, and Spiderman are all FICTIONAL CHARACTERS something that is NOT true of Richard Dawkins. I should mention by Dbachmann's loopy logic an article on immunization could NOT include Pasteur simply on the grounds he was a chemist not a doctor or a microbiologist. We have James H. Charlesworth used as a counterpoint despite no evidence that his degree is even in the relevant field and Dbachmann is trying to claim Richard Dawkins is on par with FICTIONAL CHARACTERS?!? If he wasn't dead I would be expecting Serling to come on with his "you are now entering the Twilight Zone" introduction.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:00, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

you got me there Bruce, I tried to sell you Spiderman as a historical person. Conspiracy! This proves that Jesus is just as fictional as Spiderman, why else would I resort to such desperate measures. Also, Newton discovered the law of gravity. Dawkins is a member in a society where Newton also was a member 350 years earlier. It follows that Dawkins must be at least 350% more brilliant than Newton. From this it obviously follows that Jesus is a myth. qed. --dab (𒁳) 19:42, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

(remove indent) Dbachmann, your statement here just doesn't make sense. My point is that even people like Dawkins who think there was a historical Jesus fell the Gospels tell us nothing about that man ie the Gospel Jesus is a fiction. This is not the same thing as saying the man didn't exist a position the material doesn't uniformly support. In fact as one of the armchair researches points out the proof that there were people who doubted Jesus was flash and blood in the 1st century is shown in the Bible itself!

"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:

And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world." --1 John 4:1-3 KJV

"For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist."--2 John 7 KJV

Now the date range for 1 John and 2 John is c85 to c117 CE and this creates a real problem to whose who claim that the Jesus Myth is very recent because why is John (or who ever wrote 1 John and 2 John) taking such pains to state that people who said Jesus didn't come in the flesh are the antichrist?--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

1 & 2 John are likely opposing docetism, not some sort of proto-Christ myth theory. The docetics believed that Jesus was observed in the real world doing basically the things the gospels describe but that his physical and fleshy nature was illusory since the physical universe is inherently corrupt and the divine Jesus would never have condescended to involve himself in that corruption. Put crudely, the docetics that the letters of John opposed believed that Jesus was a ghost, not a myth. Eugeneacurry (talk) 18:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Didn't really read the point did you? "...there were people who doubted Jesus was flash and blood in the 1st century is shown in the Bible itself!" 1 John and 2 John do indeed confirm this and agree with the Bromley definition above.--67.16.86.217 (talk) 03:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Pretty sure Eugeneacurry is right here and that sources would back it up if we looked for them, which perhaps we should. Шизомби (talk) 03:34, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Lead in.

I was looking at the lead in and was wondering do we have any consensus in our sources that the Christ Myth Theory is that Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist or the broader idea that the Jesus of the Gospels didn't exist? James Randi has pointed out that there is no good scientific evidence that Nazareth existed in the proper time period. And clearly if there was no Nazareth in the proper time period there there can be no Jesus of Nazareth in the proper time period either.

some references I found related to this are:

Tonneau, R. Revue Biblique XL (1931), p. 556. Reaffirmed by C. Kopp (op. cit.,1938, p. 188).

Kopp, C. “Beiträge zur Geschichte Nazareths.” Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, vol. 18 (1938), p. 188.

Fernandez, F. Ceramica Comun Romana de la Galilea. Madrid: Ed. Biblia y Fe, 1983, p. 63.

Feig, N. “Burial Caves in Nazareth,” ‘Atiqot 10 (1990), pp. 67-79 (Hebrew).

Bagatti, B. “Ritrovamenti nella Nazaret evangelica.” Liber Annuus 1955, pp. 5-6, 23. B. Bagatti, “Nazareth,” Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplement VI. Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1960, col. 318.

Bagatti, B. Excavations in Nazareth Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, vol. 1 (1969), pp. 254, 319. “Nazareth” in Encyclopedia Judaica, New York: Macmillan, 1972, col. 900.

Bagatti, B. Excavations in Nazareth, vol. 1 (1969), pp. 272-310.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:37, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry, what "time period"? The first century? Then it would be rather remarkable that the gospels, which were all written in the 1st century, refer to the a town that was only to be founded at a later "time period". Or are you saying Nazareth did not exist in the 10s AD, was built during the 30s to 50s, and by the 60s to 70s when the gospels were written, they happened to pick a town where the paint wasn't yet dry to set their "myth"? This is silly. This entire "Jesys myth" idea is quite obviously the haunt of people who hate Occam's razor. --dab (𒁳) 19:35, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

You have to remember that Nazarene is a translation. The Nazireate (later Nazarene c150 BCE) group goes all the way back to the times of Moses ("Jesus: A True Nazarene" Theosophy Vol. 57, No. 9, July, 1969 ages 271-276). So "Jesus the Nazarene" could refer to Jesus belong to a GROUP called Nazarene rather than being from a place called Nazareth. Only far later (c3rd century) did the group become a place

As for the Gospels as we know them there is no evidence they were written in the first century. John Dominic Crossan Professor of Biblical Studies of De Paul University stated in the 1996 AD&D program "Who wrote the Bible?" that the oldset fragment of the Gospels is John (18:36 first sentence) dated c125 CE. "Then you have to go to the year 200 for anything from Matthew or Luke and a least the year 225 or later before you get anything from Mark (8:34 fragment)"

Worse the first person with good provenience to quote extensively from the Gospels is Bishop Irenaeus who clearly stated his position that Jesus was at least 49 years old when he was crucified in Book 2 Chapter 22 paragraph 6 of Against Heresies and that Pontius Pilate governor under Claudius Caesar (41-54) in paragraph 74 of his Demonstration (Grant, Robert McQueen (1998). Irenaeus of Lyons. Routledge. p. 33. ISBN 0415118379.Grant, Robert McQueen (1990). Jesus After the Gospels: The Christ of the Second Century. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 107. ISBN 0664221882. Grant, Robert McQueen (1990). Jesus After the Gospels: The Christ of the Second Century. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 107. ISBN 0664221882.) and that this non historical nonsense was "supported by the Gospel and the Elders".

By Occam's razor there is no evidence that Jesus as we know him existed and John Frum shows the idea he may have not existed at all is NOT as out there as the apologetics would like to claim.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:17, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

For a good case that Clement (mid 90's) uses another work that was based on the Gospel of Matthew: [1] Hardyplants (talk) 07:57, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The dating of Clement at c95-97 CE is based on one phrase but there is nothing that shows that it actually was written at that time (the earliest one can actually show is somewhere in the 2nd century perhaps as late as the 3rd). If you look at the letter you notice the same problems that you have with Paul--no references that allow you to put Jesus in a time or place.

Another problem is there is nothing to show that these phrases were not already floating around and independently incorporated into the Gospels as we came to know them. For example the supposed quotes of Mathew 7:12 and Luke 6:31 are simple reworkings of the Confucius saying of "Do unto others what you want done unto you" that predates Jesus by nearly five centuries.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Good edit or bad?

diff. I'm a little concerned the language follows Bromiley too close; he's cited, but it's almost verbatim yet not in quotes. Also, what use is the quote from the anonymously-written Acts with hearsay about "the king" or the quote from the pseudonymous 2 Peter, etc.? Шизомби (talk) 09:48, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Onfray

french philosoph Michel Onfray thinks jesus myth. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onfray —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.195.254.76 (talk) 02:54, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Onfray also says Jesus wasn't crucified because crucifixion wasn't used at the time despite the indisputable literary and archaeological evidence to the contrary... --Ari89 (talk) 13:08, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Reversed burden of proof?

From reading the article, I have the impression that the burden of proof is placed on the proponents of the myth theory, while good scientific procedure would place it on the non-myth proponents. (In other words, the latter have the prove that Jesus existed, not the former his non-existence.)

Obviously, this article should not attempt to resolve the issue of who is right, but reflect the academic debate in a NPOV manner. At the least, however, this reversal of burden of proof should be commmented upon and explained. 188.100.199.10 (talk) 05:16, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

That is simple, the theory is rejected by the academic community. But this article is about those, in spite of that consensus, who maintain that they have other explanations for the data. Hardyplants (talk) 06:33, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually that statement as I have repeatedly stated depends on what you define the "Christ myth theory" as. Some like Bromiley define it as any challenge to the Gospel account (why else use Lucian and Bertrand Russell along with Wells?), while others like Dodd and Pike hold to the idea of a preexisting myth being applied to an actual historical person but these stories tell us little to nothing of that person, and then you have the Horbury and Wiseman group who state it is claim that Jesus didn't exist at all (which given the example of John Frum is not as nutty as it first sounds)

We can agree that the Bromiley and Horbury are extreme views and rejected by the academic community but (and here is where the whole argument fall apart) where does the middle views resented by Dodd, Pike, and now Wells fit into all this? This is where the article has problems--the Christ myth theory" has a range of ideas and as we dig it becomes more and more evident that the definition being used has WP:SYN problems out the wazoo.

Then you have the fact that there really isn't much on this issue in peer reviewed journals. In fact to day the only thing actually on the existence of Jesus that came out of a peer reviewed journal was Fischer's comment in Anthropology of Consciousness that stated in its synopsis "There is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived, to give an example, and Christianity is based on narrative fiction of high literary and cathartic quality. On the other hand Christianity is concerned with the narration of things that actually take place in human life." and in the main body stated: "It is not possible to compare the above with what we have, namely, that there is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived."--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:14, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

That the "academic community" are in agreement on a historical Jesus is true only if we exclude academics who aren't theologians. Among academics in all fields, we would expect to find a much broader spectrum of opinion. But they're not writing about it, and why would they? After all, they regard the life of Christ as a fairy tale, too trivial to bother attempting to refute. Theologians may indeed be united in their opinion on the subject. For others, the question rests on whether the Bible is plausible. It's not. Even if original manuscripts did exist.drone5 (talk) 12:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the reason the issue on a historical Jesus is so low on the Western academic radar is that as far as the big picture is concerned it doesn't really matter; the formation of Christianity itself is a historical fact and it is far easier to look for how it evolved rather than get bogged down in the issue of if it founder existed as portrayed in the sacred writings.

There is also some degree of bias involved as seen in the fact historians are perfect willing to question the existence of Sun Tzu who according to tradition directly wrote his Art of War on grounds that if applied to Jesus should lead them to to the same conclusion espcially as Jesus himself wrote nothing!--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:32, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Guilt by association

Isn't one of the theory's more notable advocates going so far as to deny the historicity of the Holocaust a pretty ugly case of guilt by association? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.253.50.76 (talk) 19:09, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

This is not a case of "guilt by association". It is significant that arguably the most notable recent advocate of the theory (possibly barring Wells, but he's since moderated his position making an evaluation difficult), the only one I'm aware of of the last generation to hold a tenured professorship at a real university in a relavent-ish field, was also a holocaust denier. I think it demonstrates the sort of conspiratorial and over-skeptical mind that the theory appeals to. Eugeneacurry (talk) 21:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with the the anonymous poster, but I think a stronger case could be made regarding undue weight. The fact that one current proponent of the Christ myth theory is also a Holocaust denier is entirely irrelevant to the article. Would it be relevant to note that Henry Ford was virulently anti-Semitic in an article about the theory of assembly lines? TechBear | Talk | Contributions 21:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

At least Henry Ford is a notable figure in the development of the assembly line. Oliver is not an especially notable proponent of the Christ Myth Theory, certainly not at the level of Wells. Oliver's views on the Holocaust are his own, and shouldn't be used to tar other people. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:33, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, Oliver is the only very recent consistent advocate of the Christ Myth theory to have been a tenured professor in a vaguely relevant field in a fully accredited university. (Wells abandoned the theory--at least the strong version--years ago.) If Oliver doesn't count as notable then none of the theory's advocates are notable. As for the relevancy of his views on the Holocaust, it certainly is relevant that among the one or two serious academic advocates of the Christ Myth in recent history, one was a holocaust denier; it reveals the sort of mindset the allows a person to continue to support the theory in the face of the counter-evidence.Eugeneacurry (talk) 21:46, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Have Oliver's views been covered by secondary sources? Were they published anywhere except Liberty Bell? Wells may have abandoned the theory, but his early books were actually reviewed in academic journals, and he's mentioned fairly often by secondary sources as a proponent of the theory. In contrast, I've never seen Oliver mentioned anywhere. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

My point is not that Oliver is preeminently notable specifically as a Christ Myther, my point is that among the people who have promoted the Christ Myth recently, in terms of sheer personal Wikipedia notability and academic attainment, Oliver may top the chart. And, thus, if the best that the Christ Myth community has in terms of modern academic support is a recently recanted Wells and a Holocaust denying Oliver, it seems that that information is very relevant to the article. Eugeneacurry (talk) 23:12, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Again this only fits if there is any agreement on what "the theory" even is which there isn't. Remsburg talked about the Christ Myth and yet also felt Jesus lived as a historical person, Richard Dawkins also accepts that Jesus existed as a historical person but also feels that the John Frum cargo cult is likely how Christianity started. Tom Harpur a former 'Professor of New Testament and New Testament Greek of Wycliffe College (accredited by both the US and Canada) echos much of Remsurg and even Drews (1st and 2nd editions) in saying Christ is a myth and his relevance a historical person who lived in the 1st century is basically nil. So we have Oliver AND Harpur former professors of accredited colleges in the relevant fields in support of the Christ Myth.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:01, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, so with Harpur (who never earned a doctorate, by the way) the amount of tenured professors of accredited colleges in the relevant fields who have consistently advocated the Christ myth recently while also denying the Holocaust drops to a piddling and trivial 50%. Hmm. Also, I have to wonder, BruceGrubb, why do you keep bringing up Dawkins in this context? Surely you understand that Dawkins' specific academic background no more qualifies him to comment on the historicity of Jesus than Phillip E. Johnson's specific academic background qualifies him to comment on the historicity of evolution.

Akhilleus, your point about Oliver's work is well taken. While his ideas have been published outside Liberty Bell (they've been published through Historical Review Press and repoduced at Stormfront [http://www.stormfront.org/rpo/|here]) and have been discussed by others (j. P. Holding at Tektonics mentions him a couple times [2] and [3]), he never came close to the sort of notoriety that Wells achieved. I've removed the relevant material from the opening section and replaced it with more defensible stuff.Eugeneacurry (talk) 01:11, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

(remove indent) Comparing the Christ myth (which includes the idea that there was a historical person to which a preceding myth was attached per Dodd, Wells and Remburg) to Holocaust denial is a strawman and even an armchair investigator can see that. The Holocaust has mountains of contemporary provenancanal valid evidence covering its existence, development, scope, and duration. By contrast here is nothing with good provenance that gives us any real details of Jesus (Paul gives us no real details)--the Gospel have dates all over the map but none date from Jesus life time and not a single pagan contemporary comments on Jesus. Richard Carrier who has a PHD in ancient history has shown that the people of the time were not skeptical and were quite willing to believe fantastic stories and so our skeptical view was not working then. Richard Dawkins showed with the John Frum cargo cult just how fast an entire belief system can form and yet we with all our technology and record keeping cannot show that John Frum either did or did not exist.

On a side note Joseph Campbell never got a PHD either so that argument does a major crash and burn.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

That the historicity of the Holocaust is better attested than the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth is not now and has never been the issue here. The issue is that often the individuals who promote the Christ Myth theory display a style of thinking comparable to the style of thinking employed by holocaust deniers: conspiracy mongering, ideologically motivated hyper-skepticism, scornful distain for the academic consensus, and a persecution complex. Take a look at the Holocaust Denial talk page and the rhetoric found there seems eerily familiar: "the article should refer to the fact THAT THERE IS A DEBATE", "This article is unfairly biased", "The reason there is no debate is that one side of the argument refuses to allow the other to be heard", "people like yourself always want to parrot that same old lie that it is so well documented.....well then where are the documents? there aren't any!"

The notion that Paul gives us "no real details" about the historical Jesus is ignorant nonsense. Taking only the undisputed letters of Paul into consideration, Paul tells us that Jesus was born of a woman, as a Jew (Gal. 4:4), and was in some way regarded as a descendant of David (Rom. 1:3), that he had a brother whom Paul had personally met (Gal. 1:19), that he taught authoritatively on matters including divorce (1 Cor. 7:10-12), ministerial remuneration (1 Cor. 9:14), eschatology (1 Thess. 4:15), and Passover—radically reinterpreted in some way that focused on his own person (1 Cor. 11:23-25)—to a group of followers that included men named Peter and John--whom Paul had also personally met (Gal. 2:9-10)—that were based in Jerusalem (Gal. 1:17-18), that at the Passover he was betrayed (1 Cor. 11:23), that he was subsequently killed (1 Cor. 2:18) by crucifixion (2 Cor. 13:4) in some way that implicated the Jews (1 Thess. 2:14-15), that he was then buried (1 Cor. 15:4), and that subsequently he “appeared” in some fashion to a number of his followers in a series of distinct episodes (1 Cor. 15:3-7).

Your claim that “not a single pagan contemporary comments on Jesus” is trivial. Considering that Jesus lived a politically insignificant life in Judea and Galilee, not a pagan context, pagan “coverage” is inherently unlikely. Of course there are the non-Christian Josephus’ comments, that mainstream historical scholarship accepts as legit.

As for Carrier, I was wondering when he was going to come up on this page. Sufficed to say that the credulity of the ancient Mediterranean world, while real, was not inexhaustible. And while Dawkins does dabble in comparative mythology in his God Delusion, he does so as a layman and is thus entitled to only the same amount of prima facie credibility we extend to others, like Phillip E. Johnson, who dabble in fields outside their expertise. Fair is fair after all.

Yes, Campbell didn’t have a doctorate. But I’m not sure what “argument” this is supposed to undermine. I don’t recall building an argument on a lack of a doctorate; I merely noted in passing that Harpur didn’t have one. Eugeneacurry (talk) 08:26, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure you have a few extremists going overboard with the conspiracy angle but when you have non tenured professors being fired for suggesting that Adam and Eve are a myth (Steve Bitterman of Southwestern Community College) you can't say there is a persecution complex. The case of John Frum shows the claim of hyper-skepticism to be total garbage and there is no real consensus regarding what the Christ Myth even is! When historians can postulate historical Robin Hoods who lived a full century after the period the stories are set in why is suggesting Jesus living a century before the setting of his stories suddenly "non-historical"? The logic simply doesn't hold. As for the comment by Josephus, honest scholars admit that the passage has problems--is the Jesus what was called Christ the same Jesus who was the son of Damneus. Furthermore as demonstrated by earlier works by people like Remsburg you find these "scholars" have conveniently forgotten that they originally had James the Just dying c69 CE (per Hegesippus) some seven years after the James in Josephus. To get the account to fit they drop Hegesippus like a hot potato. When you see them engage in this type of nonsense and bring out Thallas like a good and faithful hound you get more a picture of the same kind of delusional self-deception seen in Creationists than anything truly scholarly.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:31, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that this thread is a pretty good representation of the thinking behind the Christ Myth and why it's utterly rejected by academics. I don’t have the energy to continue beating this dead horse so this will be my last posting on this particular thread. Steve Bitterman's experience (though more complex than you let on and currently resolved) is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Bitterman seems to have been dismissed from his very part-time adjunct position at a state sponsored jr. college for a number of reasons, one of which was that he said Genesis shouldn't be taken literally and some students threatened a lawsuit over a perceived violation of the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment as a result. So, to recap, Bitterman doesn’t advocate the Christ Myth, didn’t mention it in class, and was fired for reasons that had nothing to do with the theory. How this is supposed to legitimate the persecution complexes of Christ Mythers is beyond me.

Again, your references to John Frum are dependant on Richard Dawkins, a non-specialist, and don’t seem to be particularly relevant to the historicity of Jesus despite Dawkins’ amateurish insinuations to the contrary. John Frum, if he existed, operated in secret among the tribes whereas Jesus’ ministry was quite public, public enough to get him condemned by the Jewish Sanhedrin and executed by the regional Roman governor. Further, whereas John Frum’s followers are dependant on amorphous communal stories to establish his historicity, we have the letters of Paul that establish that he personally knew Jesus’ own brother, James, and two of Jesus’ direct disciples, Peter and John. So, again, despite the hobbyist sleuthing of Dawkins, John Frum is irrelevant to the question of Jesus’ historicity.

The appeal to a “weak” form of the Christ myth is really no help either since, again, Paul’s personal contact with James, Peter, and John demonstrate that the central figure behind Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth, was a first century personage who can be reconstructed to at least the degree that I sketched above based on the biographical material found in Paul’s letters. Also, just so you know, holocaust deniers also sometimes resort to a weak form of their nonsense theory: Oh sure, there may have been some sporadic massacres of the Jews and some labor camps, and many of the inmates may have succumb to disease while in custody, but we just can’t have any confidence that there was a coordinated campaign to exterminate the Jews under the Nazi regime. Blah, blah, blah. So, again, Christ Mythers and Holocaust deniers are riding the same kind of ideological hobby horse, if not for the same reasons.

As for the disparity between Josephus’ account of James’ death and the account found in Eusebius’ quotation of Hegesippus, so what? This sort of thing is found all over the place in ancient history. One author records an event a certain way and another author records it in another way and the details conflict. That even happens sometimes in modern contexts. To jump from a conflict of details in two records of an event to a denial of the historicity of the event itself is a goofy non sequitur. And comparing the scholarship of Sanders, Koester, and others with young-earth creationism (even if obliquely through lumping them in with those who utilize Thallus uncritically) is just too pathetic to deserve a response.Eugeneacurry (talk) 23:27, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Dawkins is not the only one to compare John Frum to Jesus. Holger in Cargo, Cult and Culture Critique University of Hawaii Press points out the various similarities, Frey in "Cognitive Foundations of Religiosity" The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior uses John Frum as example of how Religiosity can form despite inconsistencies (sound familiar--can you say Matthew and Luke?).

DJ Crowley, ML Crowley (1996) "Religion and Politics in the John Frum Festival, Tanna Island, Vanuatu" Journal of Folklore Research states that the John Frum Headquarters had pictures Christ who they identified as John Frum! So saying there is no connection between Christ and John Frum is garbage.

As for those who use Thallus, I am also including those who vaguely point out some of the problems and then still use Thallus ignoring everything they just stated. Van Voorst is a prime example of this type of nonsense.

"Belief in Christ is no more or less rational than belief in John Frum" Worsley, Peter, (1970) "The trumpet shall sound: a study of cargo cults in Melanesia" quoted and sited in the University of Wollongong Thesis collection. I should mention that to be published a thesis must pass peer review.

"“John promised you much cargo more than 60 years ago, and none has come,” I point out. “So why do you keep faith with him? Why do you still believe in him?”

Chief Isaac shoots me an amused look. “You Christians have been waiting 2,000 years for Jesus to return to earth,” he says, “and you haven’t given up hope.”" Smithsonian Magazine Feb 2006--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:17, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

(Remove indent)I would like to point out that the list of usual suspects is so predictable than Scott M. Oser an Associate Professor of Physics wrote a Historicity Of Jesus FAQ regarding them showing that every one of these external sources has problems. As for Paul's so called details they are of the same quality as those for John Frum--vague little scraps that at the end of the day don't really tell you anything. Many of the supposed details listed above fall into general mythical archetypes as explained by none other than Joseph Campbell in Hero with Thousand Faces and in Thou art that: transforming religious metaphor. Real details such as specific things Jesus did as well as parables he spoke are missing from Paul's writings even when referring to them would seem to be in Paul's best interest. Luke 1:1 clearly states that "many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us" and yet Paul seems totally unaware of these many writings. Also despite having met people who supposedly knew Jesus Paul gives us very little in terms of real details about Jesus that would firmly set the man in history.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:23, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

No More Clap-Trap, Please

Recently an anonymous poster added this unsourced gem to the article which reflects a common sentiment in the Christ-Myth microcosm: "It is perhaps worth noting that it would be expected that the vast majority of New Testament scholars would view questions about the historicity of Jesus as "bizarre" because the vast majority of New Testament scholars are devout Christians. Given this conflict of interest, it is extremely difficult to draw objective conclusions about the historicity of Jesus by citing New Testament scholars. Conversely, those who would deny that Jesus even existed could not possibly be Christians."

This charge is no more meaningful than a creationist moaning that the vast majority of biologists view questions about the historicity of common descent as "bizarre" because the vast majority of biologists are convinced Darwinians. Further, the scholars cited in the opening section who oppose the Christ-Myth are NOT all "devout Christians." Among others cited are: Grant (atheist), Segal (Jewish) and Ehrman (agnostic); further, Crossan, Borg, and Bultmann, while aligning themselves with a vague Jesusy spiritual perspective on life, are clearly outside the bounds of anything even approaching meaningful orthodoxy and are no more "devout Christians" than Robert M. Price who happens to attend an Episcopal church and styles himself a "Christian atheist." So please, no more clap-trap like this. Eugeneacurry (talk) 21:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

This kind of thing has been going on for a long time, and will probably continue to happen. It's best to ignore it as much as possible, because it leads to endless discussions on the talk page with no improvement to the article. Just remove uncited opinons from the article and move on. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that saying the majority historical Jesus supporters are Christians or all Christ Mythers (regardless of how you define it--there is major WP:SYN and POV pushing in this article on the definition currently used which I have fixed with a reliable source and Wells) are atheists doesn't do this article any good. There are Christians who believe in a form of the Christ Myth (such as Tom Harpur an ordained priest of the Anglican Church of Canada) and there are atheists who believe in a "minimal" Jesus.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Reversion of 12/5/09

I've just reverted this series of edits by User:BruceGrubb. Here's why (of course, all of this has been discussed extensively on the talk page before):

Bruce changed the dablink at the top from "This article is about the view that Jesus never existed." to "This article is about the view that Jesus as depicted in the Bible never existed." As most of us know, mainstream scholarship often holds that the historical Jesus was significantly different than the figure we see in the NT. This position is reasonably interpreted as "the view that Jesus as depicted in the Bible never existed." This article, of course, is about the idea that there was never a person Jesus at all, and the Gospels are a fiction with no historical Jesus at their core. The original form of the dablink states this clearly, so I've reverted to it.

Bruce added a ref and quote from Dodd to the first sentence. Why? (For that matter, why are there multiple references there and on the sentence at the end of the lead? It looks horrible, and seems more like a quotefarm than a set of useful references.

Bruce also added a ref and quote from Wells' Can We Trust the New Testament?: Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony. Why is this here? This is from a book in which Wells has accepted that there was a historical Jesus, so it doesn't pertain to the subject of this article. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Price refers to Wells as a successor to Christ Myth theorist on the very back Can We Trust the New Testament?: Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony something I have repeatedly stated. Stop POV pushing for a definition of Christ myth theory NOT supported by the material.--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism by User:Eugeneacurry (Relating to Holocaust comments)

(Posted on Eugeneacurry's Talk Page) Please stop making nonconstructive edits to the Christ Myth Theory article. These edits come under WP:UNDUE. The sources were extremely weak, and highly disreputable, and the edits themselves tried to depict the group in an extremely negative way. I don't go around vandalizing the religion articles, however much I disagree with them. – TigerTails talk 23:17, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd hardly call well-sourced references to published works by major relevant scholars "vandalism". The fact that these references themselves denigrate the subject under consideration isn't my problem. Nice try though. Eugeneacurry (talk) 04:52, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I discussed the article with User:PeterSymonds while I was editing it, and he told me to "Clean up what you can", and then said my edits "Look ok". I must warn you, repeatedly adding edits that have been previously undone is against Wikipedia rules (See: WP:EW). Looking at the edit history, almost all of your edits for that article (and others) get reverted due to WP:UNDUE. Wikipedia is not the place for you to try and pimp your own views. It's supposed to be encyclopedic, and explain things from both (or no) particular side. Reverted your edits. – TigerTails talk 13:42, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Another user (A catholic) has just reverted my edits. This is clearly just a case of somebody trying to discredit beliefs that they don't agree with. ONE individuals opinions on the holocaust are not relevant to this article. Eugeneacurry has edited this in many times now, and all of them have been undone (with explanations in the edit reason). Eugeneacurry has made no effort to talk about the issue, and the last edit reason by him was "reverted heavy-handed knee-jerk reversion". My reversion was discussed rather deeply with PeterSymonds, and Peter agreed with my decision to remove the comments regarding the holocaust. Other editors who have previously reverted your edits also agree that the holocaust is not at all relevant this article. Some christian priests have been convicted of pedophilia, does that mean I can say -all- priests are pedophiles? – TigerTails talk 14:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

you appear to be removing far more than the comments on Holocaust denial.©Geni 14:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It may appear like that in the source, but most of what I removed were sources that were no longer needed. All I removed was the line "some going so far as to compare the theory's advocates with...", and replaced two words to appear less 'emotional' (something someone else had commented on in the edit log).

TigerTails, you're not fooling anyone pretending that this is the point of your edits. Btw, you really shouldn't go calling other people bias when you have repeatedly vandalised the article by removing the opinions that disagree with you. And for further note, if you want to attack me don't arbitrarily make up things like claiming I am a Catholic, etc.-Ari (talk) 14:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Ari89, you say in your user page you are a "Member of the Eastern Orthodox Church." Which is also officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church. So, I didn't "arbitrarily make things up", I just used what you chose to publish about yourself. As for 'vandalism', the article clearly tries to make it seem like all "christ myth theoriests" are holocaust deniers and believe the earth is flat. Looking at the sources, they're both disreputable, and seem like nothing but an assault on the theory, rather than a fair examination of the theory. The point is, holocaust denial is not relevant to this article, at all. – TigerTails talk 16:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Within the english speaking world the Orthodox churches are not generaly refered to as Catholic. I belive it has something to do with a disagrement in 1054.©Geni 16:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

You sound right to me, Geni. I believe his claim is just as authentic as his conversation with PeterSymonds. Also, TigerTails, you haven't answered to why you removed a lot more than just Powell's quote. --Ari (talk) 02:15, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

TigerTails, where did you have this discussion with PeterSymonds? It wasn't on this talk page, so it doesn't appear that it's a discussion that Eugeneacurry or any of the other regular editors of this article could have joined, or even been aware of. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It was on IRC, so no, they couldn't have seen that. I thought it would be clear enough that the comments were out of line and didn't feel the need to create a discussion about them. It seemed fairly clear to everyone else on IRC that it was. There is no relevance between this article, and holocaust denial. One supporter does it, that doesn't mean all are holocaust deniers. In one of your edits you also left the summary that "his views on the Holocaust are not relevant here." Eugeneacurry was wrong to re-add his opinions multiple times, after it was reverted multiple times by other editors. To me it just seemed like blatant vandlism, and trying to promote their own personal beliefs. – TigerTails talk 16:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't change the fact that you are removing large amounts of text that only with the stuff you are objecting to on this talk page.©Geni 16:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

"Large amounts of text"? The edits removed less than a whole sentence, around 30 words. With that particular edit I only removed what seemed immediately objectionable, I had plans to contribute more to the article, but this was something that needed correcting immediately. – TigerTails talk 16:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

~5KB of material. It appears it didn't need correcting because it wasn't wrong.©Geni 17:43, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) IRC discussions shouldn't determine what goes in the article. In this edit I said that Revilo P. Oliver's opinions on the Holocaust are not relevant. What the article currently says is that "some going so far as to compare the theory's advocates with Holocaust deniers, flat-earthers, and people who believe the moon landing was faked." There are scholars who say exactly this, and they are cited in the footnotes. The absurd number of footnotes on the last sentence of the lead does not help to make clear who says this, but footnote #26 in this version is the one to look at. The comparison to Holocaust denial, etc. has been discussed before at Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_21#Godwin.27s_law, and at that time, there was consensus not to include the comparisons. However, that scholars would make such a comparison is a good indication of the fringe status of the theory... --Akhilleus (talk) 16:48, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Those footnotes were part of the problem anyway, I'm sure they can be cleaned. Ok, so now we've (I've) established that the source for the holocaust is decent. Just one more problem, I'm not too sure about #22 (in your link), the moon landing one. It doesn't explicitly compare Moon-hoax believes and Christ-myth believers. It depends on how you read it. Surely it would be more appropriate to just put "compared to conspiracy theorists", which would umbrella holocaust denial, moon landing, etc. And I think that'd be much more neutral, rather than reeling off a list of conspiracy theories. – TigerTails talk 17:13, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That would be original research.©Geni 17:43, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll be wikifying the references in the opening section this week. This should resolve at least some of the problem Akhilleus notes. As for TigerTails assertion that my recent edits amounted to "vandalism" and that the sources cited were "disreputable" (John Dominic Crossan and Mark Allen Powell), I think we can put that to rest. Eugeneacurry (talk) 02:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

While I agree the references are good by Wikipedia standards they do have POV and strawman issues. The idea of a Spherical Earth goes all the way back to 6th century BE with some very good logical reasons behind it, the Holocaust has mountains of contemporary documents and physcial evidence, and the moon landing "issues" have been explained (like why no stars appear in the photos). By contrast the Christ Myth theory has a huge range going from Dodd's, Remsburg's, and Wells first century teacher plugged into an already existing myth to the he never existed at all. Focusing only on the he never existed at all end of the arguments does the reader a disservice and is POV pushing.

Let's be honest here--the evidence for the existence of the Biblical Jesus is effectively nil:

50 some gospels whose dates are all over the place of which four were canonized in the 4th century (though NOT the one supposedly written by Jesus himself ie the Gospel by Jesus Christ whose contents are lost to us) for form the version best political suited to that time
one reference in Josephus that is known to have been tampered with and the other within the same work vague,
Tacitus who could just as easily been repeating what Christians were say saying and it has now come out he may have been talking about Chrestianos (a splinter movement?) and that was changed to make the passage better support the existence of Jesus,
Suetonius reference to Chrestus shoehorned with very little supporting evidence as a reference to Jesus
and the worst of the lot Thallus who is actually Eusebius supposedly quoting Julius Africanus supposedly quoting Thallus.
Pliny the Younger only confirms the existence of the Christian movement.

and that is all the supporters of the Biblical Jesus have. No explanation as to why every contepory historian including Philo seems to have taken a snooze. Nor does it explain how a Bishop could claim c180 that Jesus lived for 49 years, expressly put Pontius Pilate under the wrong Emperor, and yet not one person of the time commented on the fact.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a forum. If you are here to debate you are in the wrong place. I was about to suggest Internet Infidels as a better venue but it appears that the forum in question is now located at the Freethought and Rationalism Discussion Board. Still a far better venue than wikipedia.©Geni 22:16, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is one of the pillars of Wikipedia: "An article should clearly describe, represent, and characterize all the disputes within a topic, but should not endorse any particular point of view. It should explain who believes what, and why, and which points of view are most common. It may contain critical evaluations of particular viewpoints based on reliable sources, but even text explaining sourced criticisms of a particular view must avoid taking sides." "Neutrality requires views to be represented without bias." Allowing strawman arguments like this violates this key point of Wikipedia especially when it is clearly an opinion help by ONE person.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Your case for it being a strawman argument should be interesting. It's simply a description from someone who is in a position to know of how widespread the hypothesis is within the field of historians. This is a useful bit of information since the hypothesis would generaly be considered to come under the purview of historians and thus it is useful to show what the overal consensus of historians on the subject is in thw words of someone who is in a position to know.©Geni 14:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:NPOV seems less relevant to this discussion than other Wikipedia conventions like Wikipedia:Fringe theories and, my personal favorite, Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia cannot claim the earth is not flat. Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:36, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

"I think that there are hardly any historians today, in fact I don't know of any historians today, who doubt the existence of Jesus... So I think that question can be put to rest." is rather weaselly and an argument from ignorance, isn't it? Is that really worth including? The comparison of the Christ myth theory to Holocaust denial (Godwin's Law?) and the moon landing conspiracy theory is also rather hyperbolic. Among the ways in which it's a false analogy, evidence exists from the time of the latter two, whereas none exists for the first. Шизомби (talk) 19:33, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The person the quote came from is in a position to know what the general population of historians think. If there was a non trivial number of historians who doubt the existence of Jesus then we would expect the person to be aware of their existance.©Geni 22:16, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Just an interesting fact, but antisemitism was only removed from the catholic church's teachings around 50 years ago. And at the time, all catholics were happy with the antisemitism. They just follow what someone else tells them, first they say its good, everyone likes it -- then they say its bad, and suddenly everyone thinks its bad, because one person told them it is. – TigerTails talk 21:15, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

did you know that your comment has no relivance to this article?©Geni 22:16, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You forgot to mention that all Catholics drown innocent puppies and bunny rabbits just for the fun of it, and that they are responsible for all the worlds evil, right? Take careful note of this please, TigerTails, and don't be afraid to keep your interesting facts to yourself: WP:Talk --Ari (talk) 00:14, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

So that's what happened to my puppy! Geni is, of course, correct. Wright's argument is not, "I'm awesome, I don't know about X, therefore X doesn't exist." The actual argument is basically, "I know hundreds--maybe thousands--of Biblical historians and none of them espouse X. So considering my familiarity with the field of scholarship in this area, if X had any serious supporters, I'd likely know about them. Since I don't know about them, X likely has no serious supporters." Of course the hard-line Christ Mythers who just can't allow the relevant scholarship to decide this matter can always claim that Wright is being blinded by bias or some such self-serving rationalization, but the agnostic Ehrman's not liable to even such contrived responses and he offers the same basic argument in his discussion with the Infidel Guy. Also, just for fun, even Ehrman refers to Holocaust denial in the context of this discussion of the "Christ Myth" at roughly timestamp 28:00. The comparison is seeming less and less extreme.Eugeneacurry (talk) 05:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It's clear that the quote in question is logically invalid as an argument from ignorance ("I don't know about X, therefore no X"), but if you could at least try to hide your obvious contempt for him... --King Öomie 16:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Defining "Christ Myth theory" via the reliable sources

Sigh, as I have have stated before there is no real consensus on what the Christ Myth Theory even is and efforts to push it to a subset of the material in an effort to strawman the entire argument is a violation of WP:NPOV.

Even limiting ourselves to writers who used the exact term "Christ Myth Theory" doesn't help as Dodd, C. H. (1938) said it could include reports of an "obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name", SPrice called Wells a Christ-myth theorist in 1999 and 2002 even though Wells was accepting a historical 1st century teacher behind Q, Bromiley using Lucian and Bertrand Russell along with Wells when far better examples like Drews exist, and Pike with his "Jesus Christ was not a historical character, and that the Gospel records of his life are mainly, if not entirely, of mythological origin."

Resorting to lists is no help either as Schweitzer including James George Frazer (who held there was a historical Jesus) with Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, and Arthur Drews in 1931, and Bromiley throwing Lucian and Bertrand Russell together with Wells.

Again the material is mess with what the topic even is, so taking comments on the extreme edges doesn't help.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:34, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

BruceGrubb, I understand that the notion that the Jesus of the New Testament is in some sense a "myth" can cover more conceptual ground than just the "Christ Myth theory" proper. But so what? It is precisely the Christ Myth theory proper that is the subject of this article. After all, J. R. R. Tolkein, C. S. Lewis, Andrew Greeley, and Rene Girard all believe(d) that the Jesus of the New Testament was a "myth" while believing that "myth" to be itself historically factual. Would you argue that these men belong in this article? I seriously doubt it. And since this article is about a specific theory--that there is no actual "historical Jesus" standing at the beginning of the Christian movement--and not some broad array of views loosely and coincidentally connected by semanitc similarities, the critical comments relating to that very specific (and very fringe) view are entirely appropriate. If you want to encorporate the views of men like Pike and Russell into Wikipedia, do so on more widely-ranging articles such as Jesus or Historicity of Jesus. Eugeneacurry (talk) 05:06, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Eugeneacurry, the so what is that several editors have held that this entire article is based on WP:SYN (I didn't hold this position initially but after reading through much of the literature presented here I have to agree with them). As I have asked before how is it that suggesting a candidate for Robin Hood some 100 years after the events supposedly took place is perfectly reasonable but suggesting Jesus lived 100 years before the story takes place isn't? That makes no sense and is an inconsistent use of historical methods.

Furthermore some of the people listed in this article do not say Jesus never existed but rather he existed in another time or that the Gospels records are so mythologized that they tell use nothing about the actual man (Drews' position in the 1st and 2nd editions, and held by Remsburg). As I have said before the one peer reviews journal article presented in this whole mess that expressly states anything on this issue is quite clear in both the abstract and the main body of the text: "there is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived." Fischer, Roland (1994) "On The Story-Telling Imperative That We Have In Mind" Anthropology of Consciousness. Dec 1994, Vol. 5, No. 4: 16. A whole bunch of WP:OR tap dancing has been used by a select few to keep it out of this article (despite the fact Drews himself talked of a "Christian consciousness" and there is a book called From Jung to Jesus: Myth and Consciousness in the New Testament) but at the end of the day that is exactly what the abstract and main text of a peer reviewed journal article published by no less than the American Anthropological Association says on the matter.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:19, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Christopher Hitchens talking on the Jesus Myth states at 4:00-4:15 that the idea does not exclude the possibility of a deluded charismatic individual wondering around at that time. He rightly points out that if the story was woven out of whole cloth as extremists like Joseph Wheless have suggested why not simple have Jesus born in Bethlehem rather than going through social-political hoops that even at the time make no sense. Again the idea that Christ Myth Theory is only the idea Jesus never exist is a violation of WP:NPOV and it is time to stop the nonsense and clean up this article with a merging with the Quest of the historical Jesus article.--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:17, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Noted just in case Hitchens becomes a Biblical scholar or historian in the next few minutes. --Ari (talk) 22:38, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I would like to point out that the "Christ Myth theory" section in the chart expressly states "Earlier versions or pieces of the Q document may have some components that talk about a historical person, but that person had nothing to do with founding Christianity nor was the being that the epistles talk about" with some four references to back that up. So saying the "Christ Myth theory" somehow states Jesus never existed in any shape or form is directly refuted by references within the article itself!--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:22, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

BruceGrubb, this is getting tiresome. As I've said, the notion that the complete, integrated Jesus of the New Testament is in some sense a "myth" can cover many, many views—all views, really: Orthodoxy Christians like Lewis and Tolkein have argued that Jesus is a "myth" in the sense that he is the singular, factual, and historical consummation and fulfillment of the myth-hungering part of the human heart. Christians of all strips routinely argue that Jesus was really divine and resurrected and so on but that the gospel accounts have been structured so as to conform to preexisting notions of Messiahship or the prophets or whatever with possible additions made to the story to reinforce this picture. Non-Christians who nevertheless accept a lot of material regarding the historical Jesus (baptism, teachings, temple confrontation, crucifixion, etc) generally agree with this approach.

Given all this, the scope of this particular article must focus on a more specific position to be helpful, and the focus is, as the very first line of the article states, on "the contention that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical person, that the Jesus of early Christianity is a personification of an ideal saviour or mythical being to whom earthly events were later attached."

Your constant insistence that this amounts to reducing the Christ Myth to "a strawman" is frankly bizarre given your equally constant reference to a (Oh my God!) peer reviewed article on this page and several others that ostensibly claims that "there is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived". That sounds like the basic idea the critical references in this article address. So are you yourself also advocating a strawman of the theory? Or, as seems more likely, is this just tactical equivocation? Honestly, your comments on this talk page seem so similar to the humorous "special pleading" arguments on the Wikipedia essay regarding "Close Encounters Of The Fringe Kind" that they might as well be quotes. (What a minute, maybe there is no BruceGrubb! Maybe he's just the personification of an ideal dedicated fringe advocate cobbled together from preexisting fringe advocacy!)

The focus remains narrow; the thundering scholarly condemnations remain relevant. Eugeneacurry (talk) 20:13, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Eugenacurry, you must be new here: BruceGrubb has been making this argument for years now, and makes almost the same identical post every time. If you stick around, you'll probably see the same post again. It's best to ignore it, really. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:29, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I should point out that Akhilleus has tried to hold to a potion not supported by the reliable sources and pushed for the retention of very questionable sources even when consensus was against it (That pathetic "quote" that was actual Michael Grant quoting two others who we didn't know from Adam) and is the one of the people who has fought against Fischer being included even while admitting that it is a peer reviewed article and yet has fought for a quote by James Charlesworth who has not been demonstrated to have so much as a Bachelors in history, archeology, or anthropology and wasn't above using pictures out of his own collection even if they weren't well suited to the subject matter of the paper in question (see the review by Jonathan Reed noted above). Compromising accuracy in the name of cost or convenience is at best questionable in terms of ethics and something that no reputable publisher of archeology papers would allow certainly with papers that didn't originally have those pictures in the first place.

You get another example of 'what where they thinking?' with Wright's statement that that he doesn't "know of any historians today, who doubt the existence of Jesus". Just where has Wright been the last 15 years Richard Carrier (currently Phd in ancient history) has been touting this very point? The article is full of nonsense like that with strawman arguments that don't even hold up to basic armchair research much less any serious scholarly effort.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:33, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Hilarious swipe at James Charlesworth there. Maybe if you had ever read some scholarship on the historical Jesus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, early Christianity, Second Temple Judaism or the New Testament and archaeology you would know his credentials. What is your replacement for this renowned Professor? Richard Carrier - a newly minted PhD (not in Biblical studies) who spends most of his time writing anti-Christian polemics online. C'mon BruceGrubb. --Ari (talk) 09:15, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Hate to burst your bubble Ari89, but James Charlesworth is a Professor of New Testament Language and Literature and the director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Project. There is nothing anywhere that says that he even has a Bachelors in the actual fields of history, archeology, or anthropology. Also if Charlesworth was this famous why does he have so few peer reviewed journal articles written by him and what he has had done is in things like The Heythrop Journal whose subject matter is Philosophy and Theology not history, archeology, or anthropology? I would like to point out is was Carrier and not any of these supposed experts who pointed out to the public that Dr. Jerry Vardaman claim of microlettering was unfounded. This is especially troubling as Vardaman had been an archaeologist at the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University at the time he made the claim and was quickly discredited in the The Celator in 1991 and yet there were archaeologists that were touting Vardaman's imaginations as as a real discovery right up to the time Carrier published this fact in "Pseudohistory in Jerry Vardaman’s Magic Coins: The Nonsense of Micrographic Letters." Skeptical Inquirer 26.2 (Mar-Apr 2002): 39-41, 61.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

"Just where has Wright been the last 15 years Richard Carrier... has been touting this very point?" Where has Wright been? Well, among other places, teaching at McGill, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Regent, Otago, Durham, Gregorian, and Hebrew Universities--not to mention delivering the official university lectures at countless more major institutions. In fact, given the list, it seems that the only place Wright hasn't been is Conference Room "C" at the Akron Holiday Inn to hear Carrier's lectures to the local chapter of Angry Adolescent Atheists of America. But, then again, it seems Ehrman missed that fine opportunity too. Eugeneacurry (talk) 23:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Considering that Richard Carrier has been in the media's face this doesn't excuse Wright especially when you know that Wright has also published The resurrection of the Son of God which pulls a lot from the sun myth connection used by many Christ Mythers. The finally piece of insanity is that in The resurrection of the Son of God which as documented by no less than Time magazine that "argued forcefully for a literal interpretation of that event." In short Wright represents the fringe theory of the Gospels are totally historical. A fringe theorist argueing that something else is a fringe theory; wonderful.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Ernst Bloch

Currently the dismissive comments relating to the Christ Myth in the opening section are mostly limited to Biblical exegetes and historians. Would it be inappropriate to include comments from secular philosophers with a long-time interest in religion, like Ernst Bloch? While he wasn't a specialists in this field, he was familiar with the material and his comments would serve to broaden the base of dismissive scholars to include more non-Christians (in this case a Marxist atheist). Eugeneacurry (talk) 21:41, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I would recommend against opening the flood gates. I am sure some people could find many non-historians/biblical scholars to say the converse. E.g. Michel Onfray mentioned above. --Ari (talk) 22:35, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

You're probably right. Eugeneacurry (talk) 04:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually he is wrong as the one field that needs to be involved is ethnology (historical anthropology in older works) and it as far as true scholars in the field is concerned is out to lunch on this topic. Sure, nearly everybody from Remsburg to Schweitzer to Carrier has taken a stab at an ethnological study of Jesus but the results are at best primitive.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:48, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

regarding Nazareth existing during Jesus time

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8425094.stm I think this evidence should be include in the article.Oren.tal (talk) 06:46, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

A denial of the historicity of Nazareth in the early 1st century doesn't currently figure in this article (though that idea has been advanced by some Christ Mythers) so there's no real need to address the issue in this particular forum; it would only serve to further bloat an already bloated page. I recommend integrating the content into the Nazareth article since denial is found there. Eugeneacurry (talk) 07:32, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I already added it to the Nazareth article when it was announced. No reason for it to be on here - not really sure why it is on the Nazareth article as Zindler isn't a scholar in the field. --Ari (talk) 07:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

If the Israel: First Jesus-era house found in Nazareth story in USAToday pans out I would say the Nazareth didn't exist idea is effectively dead. However, the Christ Myth group (regardless of how you define it) was split between the "it never existed" and it was so small that people would have keep saying "Jesus of where?" ideas so it wasn't that big an issue. Besides, it was pointed out in Bauer lexicon that the reference in Matthew 2:23 may be to the Nazirite practice rather than Jesus being of the small hamlet of Nazareth so the debate may continue.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:37, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Edwin Johnson

I demoted Johnson from his previous position and will probably move him to the "other authors" section soon. He's just way too much of an oddball for the sort of prominence the article was giving him. I mean, not all holocaust deniers are Esoteric Hitlerists. Eugeneacurry (talk) 08:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Clean-Up

The Recent Proponents' "Other Writers" section is quickly becoming a hodgepodge of somewhat noteworthy people (Allegro, Oliver, Price) and uncredentialed laughing-stocks (Murdock, Lovewisdom). Further, a number of the entries read like advertisements. How does everyone feel about just shortening this section into one or two sentences that merely list names and an identifying comment or two? Eugeneacurry (talk) 17:29, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I am all for cleaning up the references to Acharya s/D.M. Murdock, especially to The Christ Conspiracy. Her self-published work of quoting unknown authors from the 1800s as authoritative despite arguing mutually exclusive things (E.g. the Bible was written in the 4th century by Constantine, then she later argues the gospels were written in the late 2nd century!) has had it ripped on by just as idiosyncratic Christ mythers like Robert Price. It simply isn't a reputable source - at least Price and Wells demand respect in being able to discuss some ancient sources, and compose a coherent work free from blaming the conspiracy on the masons! --Ari (talk) 00:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing mutually exclusive about saying the Bible was "written" in the 4th century with Gospels being written in the late 2nd century because the Bible is not one book but a collection of books!--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, unfortunately there is something more or less "reality-exclusive" about such a statement, because I think pretty much every book of the Bible, including at least almost all of the books of the NT as it is regarded in the west which is pretty much the target of these articles (I don't know about other books, like the Ethiopian Orthodox books of Maccabees or Meqabyhan, for instance), were written before the fourth century, and can be verified as such by existing manuscripts. Now it could be argued that the canon of the Bible wasn't drawn up until the fourth century, but I'm not sure if that is the same thing.

Considering that this is a fringe theory, the lenght of the article seems amazingly long and amounts to a form of promotion. Since most of the arguments made by myth advocates are already contained in the history sections, what does everyone say about just wiping out the separate "Arguments" section? Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:36, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree regarding the length to such a fringe idea. Is it really necessary to include every unknown person who has ever argued it? I am all for deleting the paragraph on "Johnny Lovewisdom". His work is absolutely ridiculous (Jewish Sectarians = Buddhists, etc??) nor is he prominent or a scholar. I don't know why Robert Eisenmann is listed here as he isn't a Christ myther. Hoffman having a paragraph based on a preface to Wells' book is insufficient. Deterrinng writes some really ridiculous things about the Pauline epistles online, but I don't know about his approach to the Christ myth, nor his notability. --Ari (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Whether or not this theory is fringe depends on the definition which as I have repeatedly shown is all over the map. The definitions of the term "Christ Myth theory" given by Dodd, Pike, and Price and Doherty when applied to Wells do not exclude a historical person. The term Christ Myth is even broader as best summed up by Remsburg: "While all Freethinkers are agreed that the Christ of the New Testament is a myth they are not, as we have seen, and perhaps never will be, fully agreed as to the nature of this myth. Some believe that he is a historical myth; others that he is a pure myth." Robert Eisenmann is firmly on the historical myth part of the spectrum of the Christ Myth and even Drews in the earlier editions of his book accepted the possibility of a historical person being woven into an already existing myth to form the Gospel accounts. Only later did Drews go for the more extreme 'there is no historical anything here' position that this article has been shoehorned into.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:54, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Why is Remsburg even mentioned? And what is with the super loaded thing about self-published authors and a list. I'm for deleting it.--Ari (talk) 09:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Remsburg is mentioned because he is very popular with the armchair researcher crowd one both sides of the historical Jesus a FACT like so many other Akhilleus.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think a lot of what happened coming off the Dec 11th-16th discussion worked out. References were removed which are needed (because other wise lines from the chart will get deleted). Eisenmen is part of the New School who denies a central claim that the Christian church and the church of Jesus are meaningfully related. He also clearly associates himself with the Price camp. I think those deletions deserve some reconsideration. The Acharya S I'm just undoing that was linked 3 different places. jbolden1517 ^Talk 21:27, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Odd way of arguing

The sub-section on George Albert Wells begins:

"A number of Christ myth theories start with the notion that Christianity had obscure beginnings and fail to notice that the early Christians appealed to historical events already known by the general public.[94] "For the king knows about these matters, and I speak to him also with confidence, since I am persuaded that none of these things escape his notice; for this has not been done in a corner.” Acts 26:26, and “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” 2 Peter 1:16. The early Christians appealed to real historical events to advance their faith and they opposed speculative and mythical notions by appealing to eyewitness accounts."

As a lawyer who frequently has to construct arguments, I find the order of viewpoints very odd. I know that Wiki ain't the Law, but it usually respects some principles. So, avoiding Latin BS, it seems to me that there are two problems with the text as it stands:

Firstly, it is usual to set out the principal argument before demolishing it, whereas here, the criticism/objection comes before the main point being made. This gives the impression that the whole article is biased, and that its function is simply to "denounce the heretics". Secondly, the criticism in question relates to all modern proponents of the Christ-myth, rather than just Mr Wells. As such, it should either be placed at the end of the section (which would be fair), or at the start, before and not after any mention of Mr Wells.

Theeurocrat (talk) 19:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I've been slowly working my way down the article, tightening up the style and moving criticism into the "Scholarly reception" section. Wells' section is next on my to-do list so it should be cleaned up in the next few days. Eugeneacurry (talk) 19:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Blogs are not reliable sources

I am not going to get into a three-revert situation over this but if you read WP:V you will see that blogs cannot be accepted as reliable sources. At the moment the article is using several - 'Answering Infidels', 'New Testament Gateway', 'Recliner Commentaries' - to reference quotes. That is why I cut them. What should hve been an uncontroversial edit has now been reverted twice, once by Ari and once by Paul Baker. I will give those editors a chance to self-revert before waiting and doing it myelf or if necessary going to WP:DR.Haldraper (talk) 15:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Please read more carefully, Haldraper. Your edit removes lots of sources, most of which are not blogs. Unless, say, you think James Dunn's Jesus Remembered is a blog. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:16, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Please identify the 'blog' to which you object. Then we can meaningfully discuss your point. In fact you deleted a mass of references, as I'm sure you know only too well. Hence my edit summary that you misrepresented your edits. Paul B (talk) 15:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Verifiability, self-published sources, such as blogs, may be used when "produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications" or when "used as sources of information about themselves". The few sources in the lead to which Haldraper objects that actually are self-sublished (less than half) meet BOTH of these criteria. Ingolfsland is a well published professor of the Bible at an accredited university, Licona is likewise a published scholar with a doctorate in NT studies employed in the field, and Ehrman and Crossan are so well established as to not need any defense here. Further the references connected to these men in this instance are essentially being used as sources on themselves: the body text states that some scholars go this far, the sources are by some scholars indicating that they themselves go this far. Eugeneacurry (talk) 16:24, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Comparing Christ Mythers to Anti-Semites

Holocaust denial is generally considered to be antisemitic. -Wikipedia ^^James^^ (talk) 01:21, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

And? Eugeneacurry (talk) 02:56, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll assume you are dumb rather than pretending to be. There is no comparison between saying there is no evidence a man lived two thousand years ago and there is no evidence six million Jews were murdered less than seventy years ago for which there are contemporary documents and eyewitness accounts. Only someone whose mind is confused by religion would make such a link.Haldraper (talk) 16:41, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for being so charitable, Haldraper. The problem with your hand-waving objection to the comparison in question is that it's founded on your own private opinion. On the other hand, the comparison itself has been made by a number of highly credentialed scholars who teach in the relevant fields. Considering the contrast, your own personal views carry no weight. Further, when you state that "Only someone whose mind is confused by religion would make such a link," are you implying that the agnostic, Bart Ehrman, is confused by religion, since he makes the link? Also, a few somewhat credentialed atheists have also made the link. While they are not as notable as the people I've listed in this article (and are therefore not included), John W. Loftus has made the link (http://www*opposingviews.com/comments/it-s-the-convergence-of-evidence) [here] and Tim O'Neill has made it here. Are these men also "confused by religion?" Further, the comparison is grouped in the article with other comparisons (to flat-earthers & moon landing skeptics) precisely to indicate that Christ-Mythers are engaged in "history denial" (to use Dawkins' term), not anti-Semitism. I suspect that you simply don't like that this link has been made by scholars and don't want it pointed out to those who view this page. In any event, the neutrality tag you included in the article is unnecessary since the article clearly states that only some scholars make the comparison. I'll leave it to some other editor to delete the tag, though, so I won't be accused of edit warring. Eugeneacurry (talk) 18:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Or conflict of interest given you are the pastor of a Christian church? Haldraper (talk) 21:14, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

My edits clearly do not represent a conflict of interest. I am not editing an article about myself, my family, my business, my band, my pending legal case, or any other similar thing. I am editing an article about a historical/literary theory articulated in the 18th century and developed since then. Further, my edits are heavily footnoted with reliable 3rd party sources which generally derive from recognized experts in relevant fields.

If I were a lab technician employed by a university's evolutionary biology department, would you object to me editing the page on creationism on the grounds that such edits represent a "conflict of interest"? Eugeneacurry (talk) 22:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

And, Haldraper, would you object to me editing an article on the Holocaust if I were an Holocaust survivor? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 19:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Eugene, you have either not read WP:COI or are interpreting it in a selective or self-serving way. Here are some relevant sections:

"If ...you are receiving monetary or other benefits or considerations to edit Wikipedia as a representative of an organization (whether directly as an employee or contractor of that organization, or indirectly as an employee or contractor of a firm hired by that organization for public relations purposes)...then you are very strongly encouraged to avoid editing Wikipedia in areas where there is a conflict of interest that may make your edits non-neutral (biased)."

You are an an employee of an organisation which clearly has a financial interest in discrediting the theory under discussion.

"if you have a conflict of interest avoid, or exercise great caution, when: Editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors" [my emphasis]

Do you and your Church not see yourself in competition with those who deny the existence of Jesus?

"Conflict of interest can be personal, religious, political, academic, financial, and legal. It is not determined by area, but is created by relationships that involve a high level of personal commitment to, involvement with, or dependence upon a person, subject, idea, tradition, or organization" [my emphasis]

Your list of what constitutes conflict of interest - "myself, my family, my business, my band, my pending legal case" - is your own, not Wikipedia's.Haldraper (talk) 09:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

COI refers to editing practice and is a guideline, not a policy. There's nothing to stop me editing articles on, say, my relatives as long as I abide by wikipedia's rules. Sadly, any attempt on my part to create articles on my relatives would be doomed to failure, since they are not notable (sorry mother). However, I have edited the article on my wife's former lover and one on a close friend. I admit that I have not revealed my personal "interest" in these persons, but my edits were pretty uncontroversial. Of course your argument is self-defeating, since your interpretation of the guideline obviously excludes you from editing this article - given your evident COI as a sympathiser with Christ Myth theory. Your interpretation would exclude academic experts from editing on the topic of their expertise on the grounds that they make their living from the topic they are writing about! Paul B (talk) 00:54, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The fact he is presenting the clear consensus of academia on the topic has very little to do with alleged conflicts of interest. Unless Bart Ehrman et al are actually covert missionaries sent to defeat the Wikipedia Christ Myth page. --Ari (talk) 09:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Ari, you are confusing two points here: I accept there is a consensus amongst Biblical scholars as to the existence of Jesus; I do not accept an academic consensus exists that rejection of that consensus is equivalent to Holocaust denial.Haldraper (talk) 12:18, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

It is you who are confusing things. The text never claims that there is any such consensus. It says that some scholars go "so far as to compare the theory's advocates to Holocauust deniers" etc. Paul B (talk) 17:43, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

The language we had in June was appropriate, "Many biblical historians and scholars are dismissive of the theory." There is no need for 30 quotes indicating that just site the fact the theory is rejected by the mainstream and move on. If we are going to discuss it in more detail than the discussion should be the nature of why it is rejected not quotes that just proves that some individual scholar really hates it. jbolden1517 ^Talk 06:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The current version is more accurate and better sourced that the June language. Further, the large number of quotes serve to forestall the ideologically motivated criticism the lead has recieved recently. By including the large number of quotes (which don't intrude unduly in the body text of the article) the article indicates that the highly dismissive evaluation is shared by scholars from a wide variety of theologial positions: conservative evangelicals like Licona, moderate Protestants like Dunn, Catholics of all sorts like Johnson and Miller, hardcore theological revisionists and anti-realists like Bultmann and Crossan, agnostics like Ehrman, and atheists like Grant. Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

First off I haven't seen a great deal of criticism that this article a month ago was insufficiently harsh. The article indicate the theory had little support from the mainstream of biblical studies, though also indicated it did have support in areas like history of religions. I still am not sure why 20 paragraphs providing evidence that biblical scholars said mean things about the Christ myth was needed.

However, if it turns out the quotes are needed I'd have no objection to most of the quotes if they were labeled that way. For example label Licona an mainstream scholar and absolutely not, label him a conservative evangelical and I have no problem using a quote / link as an example of evangelical criticism. I still have some issues with hate speech / incitement as being appropriate for an encyclopedia. We generally don't allow quotes like that. When you incorporate a quote like Ehrman it needs to be treated in a way that is consistent with his role in the Christ myth. Ehrman wrote "Orthodox Corruption of Scripture" which is one of the key books in the new school (which he self identifies with p 7-11 since there is still this claim that there is no New School). Ehrman needs to be treated with care. If he is going to be quoted he needs to be handled with nuance.

It is the same way that we wouldn't permit an article that said "Judaism is a false religion" including:

a quote by a evangelical Christian about Judaism being a false religion since the dispensation of Jesus
a quote by a neo-Nazi about Judaism being a false religion based on the genetic failures of the Jews
a quote from an ultra orthodox Jewish leader rejecting the legitimacy of about Reformed and Conservative Judaism

The 3rd quote needs to be contextualized if it is going to be used. jbolden1517 ^Talk 10:41, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Ehrman doesn't use the term "New School" in pages 7-11 of Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. The term doesn't appear in the book at all, as far as I can tell. Pages 7-11 deal with the influence of Walter Bauer's Orthodoxy and Heresy in earliest Christianity, but that's hardly affiliating himself with some kind of school. Jbolden, I really wish you'd tell us what your understanding of this "New School" is--you seem to think that Ehrman and Pagels belong to a theological movement that espouses the "real" Christ myth theory. Of course, I could be entirely wrong, because you've never made it clear what you think the "New School" believes. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:20, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The New school believes in the core ideas of Bauer. That Christianity emerged organically without the 1st century events in Palestine playing a prominent role. There were a diverse collection of Christian faiths which only much later become a single orthodox faith. This is contrasted with the traditional view that Christianity was born in Palestine and then rapidly spread with Christianity being a reaction to 1st century events. The divergence among New Schoolers regarding the Christ myth is whether Christianity arose originally in Palestine and spread out, or whether it arose in many places but primarily Alexandria. jbolden1517 ^Talk 21:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. Thing is, I don't see what this "New School" has to do with this article. This article is about the ideas of Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, J.M. Robertson, and so forth--guys who said there was no historical Jesus. The people you've identified as members of the "New School" (not a term they use for themselves!)--Bart Ehrman, Elaine Pagels, Helmut Koester, and James M. Robinson--don't share these ideas, as far as I can see. In fact, Ehrman wrote an entire book detailing his reconstruction of the historical Jesus, and it looks like Robinson has written extensively about who he thinks the historical Jesus was. From just googling around, it looks like Koester is more cautious about reconstructing a historical Jesus, but he certainly doesn't doubt that there was one. Pagels, as far as I know, hasn't written on the subject. So I don't understand the relevance of your "New School" to this article. Obviously, what these folks say about the diversity of early Christianity and its spread is relevant at early Christianity. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:18, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It is the opposite inclusion that is of interest. Christ mythers (modern) are part of the new school, but the new school is very diverse on the issue of the Christ myth. It is the same in Christianity, where all Pentecostals are Christian but Christians are divided on charismatic gifts. Price cites Pagels all the time, Freke and Gandy basically build on ideas from Pearson. So a Deconnick (a new school person but not a myther) constitutes a friendly critique while most of the people cited would have just as many objections to the New School. The major difference is the New School exists within universities. Further the Christ myth, crowd Robert Graves, Archarya S and Merlin Stone... write popular literature which advances many of the ideas of the broader New School movement. And this BTW has been the case for a long time. Many of Bauer's, Pagels, Pearson, King's ideas were first proposed by GRS Mead. In other words a fair characterization of the modern Christ myth are members of the New School who reject the meaningful historicity of Jesus.

So Christian critiques on the Christ myth should be seen no differently than Christian attacks on Wicca. It is fundamentally a religious disagreement. You cannot be an evangelical Christian and have anything like the New School be correct.

As for Bauer, Drews, Robertson... they certainly were early leaders and innovators but the theory has advanced since they died. jbolden1517 ^Talk 21:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I think I see the problem here. You believe it to be a "fundamentally a religious disagreement". No, not at all. No one can prove or disprove the historical existence of JC (or any other ancient historical figure for that matter). There is only evidence that allows for probabilities to be formed, which in turn leads to a consensus (pro or con) among historians. And there is a near-unanimous consensus that JC did in fact exist. That's it in a nutshell. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:19, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Dec 5th poll

Lets kill this consensus / discussion topic right now. I'm going to let this run till the 9th when the article reopens:

The changes between Dec 5th and January 2nd had consensus and my full approval to move foreword. I support them.

The changes between Dec 5th and January 2nd did not have consensus and my full approval to move foreword. I reject them.

jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Haldraper (talk) 09:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
BruceGrubb (talk) 14:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 18:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC) -- as noted above, I object to the clearly tangential, irrational comparison of adherents to this view to the adherents of other views. This content is unWikipedian, and nothing like this should exist in any Wikipedia article. It is uninformative and unscholarly, and in my opinion, included as a way for those with a strong bias against the subject to tweak readers' emotions rather than state the case clearly, without such abrasive language.

- This statement is about a line of text, not over 120 edits by over 20 editors jbolden is proposing to revert without reason. --Ari (talk) 18:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
  - Isn't that obvious from my statement? But if this inclusion of tangential, irrational text is any indication of bias pushing during December, then I would agree with you in that the others taking part in this valid poll declare as much as reasonable those additions or subtractions that appear to push the same kind of incitement from bias that I am concerned with. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 19:09, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
    - Actually receiving reasons to arbitrarily revert 120 edits by over 20 editors would be the dream, but so far you are the only person to do so. However, it turns out your vote isn't on the topic of the vote, but a specific issue. --Ari (talk) 02:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This isn't the way things work. You need to be specific about what changes you have an issue with, and why. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

No the way things work is that people who want to change an article have to discuss it, reach a consensus and make changes. The talk page for the last month indicates nothing remotely like that has happened. You have had strong objections and edit wars for the last month as you have been ramming through inaccuracy. When I've tried to raise objections, like the incorrect removal of references they were reverted as against the consensus. So lets determine first if there really was a consensus for the changes, if they were really were discussed and agreed to. In other words I'm not granting that January 1st should be the baseline. My preference is going back to the June version that had consensus and working forward with changes from there, but if not there doesn't appear to have been much heat before Dec 5th. If there is a consensus for the January 1st version then I'll just give up. So lets see if I'm right that no one discussed or agreed to this campaign or if it did have consensus. jbolden1517 ^Talk 19:14, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

That's total nonsense. There's a huge amount of discussion on this page covering the last month, and even more in the archives. Of course the discussion and the editing has been contentious, it's often that way on articles of this nature. That's no reason to pick an arbitrary date to roll back to. As for consensus, I'd say there's a consensus right now to remove the chart; the only reason it's still here is because your edit warring has caused the article to be fully protected. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

We shall see if there was a consensus, that the point of the poll. If people agree with your version of events they should put their name on the top line. So far I see 3 people: you, Ari and Eugeneacurry who were in favor of and about 1/2 dozen opposed. I don't see any place where the other people agreed or you all ever offered a compromise. You simple asserted what reputable sources say and removed reputable sources who disagreed. jbolden1517 ^Talk 20:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a consensus to remove the chart. We have been moving forward on the article which is evidenced in our numerous discussions and edit summaries. There is no reason for us to roll back to an arbitrary date just because you want to protect your POV edits. --Ari (talk) 01:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

No there is just 3 people who are advancing the whole agenda to Christianize the article and so of course they want to remove the chart. And if it is just the 4 of us on January 9th you can have the article say whatever you want, which basically amounts to "The Jesus myth believers have cooties because everyone know the Godsicle really is both fully human and fully God." But given what I see above, I don't see any evidence there was every agreement to the program you carried nor any real discussion. Just a bunch of insults and intimidation. 6 months ago we had discussion and hopefully once it is established that the Christianization program does not have a consensus we will be able to address any concerns you have that are based on evidence and not just a desire to suppress the writings of religions you disagree with. jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Removing a problem riddled and generally irrelevant chart is part of 'Christianising' the article? Really, I have no idea what to say to your paranoid delusions anymore. --Ari (talk) 02:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The chart is not "problem riddled" nor is it "irrelevant". It was a reasonable attempt to show the huge range Christ Myth theory has.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:20, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Bruce. As someone who was around earlier in 2009 when we were creating these consensus, do you agree with the Christianization program that Ari, Eugeneacurry and Akhilleus carried out this month? i read the above and I see your legitimate points just being dismissed and not addressed at all. Did these edits have your support? Do these edits represent your opinions? jbolden1517 ^Talk 05:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

But it is problem riddled. We had false citations, incomplete citations, misrepresentations of groups, broad categories which are essentially meaningless, POV pushing, etc. And others have commented on this as well. Asserting the opposite without any basis really doesn't mean anything at all, Bruce. But you are so heavily invested with the constant spamming various talk pages that we shouldn't expect anything else. --Ari (talk) 06:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I vote to support jbolden's proposition and also associate myself with his comments about "the Christianization program that Ari, Eugeneacurry and Akhilleus carried out". The last para in the lead now constitutes WP:UNDUE WEIGHT given this page is Christ myth theory not 'Christian Criticism of Christ Myth theory'.Haldraper (talk) 09:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

We are not talking about the lead, but reverting 128 edits which have been discussed and accepted without any reason. Claiming a conspiracy doesn't cut it. Evidently, there is no reason to cut back to this arbitrary date and if there was, I am sure someone would have provided a reason by now. --Ari (talk) 10:03, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Show me when they were "discussed and accepted". I see nothing but since the gang of 3 started their rule that these changes were discussed and rejected by the overwhelming number of people posting to these pages. I wouldn't really call this discussion since all that has happened is that people trying to defend years of consensus have been demeaned, degraded and insulted (as well as in at least one case blocked) when someone disagrees or brings up counter evidence. The idea that hundreds of posts to a talk page indicating strong disapproval and people attempting to revert again and again constitutes anything like "acceptance" is a monstrous abuse of the word. These may be some edits that are acceptable in those 128 but the proper baseline is a version that has some level of community support, which is not the current version. jbolden1517 ^Talk 10:30, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Open your eyes and read this talk page, read the edit summaries, notice how no one objected to most of these edits until you decided you wanted to restore unsourced and misleading data. Until you can explain why we should restore unsourced material, ridiculous POV claims or remove the cited material through your arbitrary and subjective dating there is no reason to revert it. The onus is on you to show what is wrong with all of these edits. The best you can come up with is claiming a conspiracy or insulting editors and respected scholars. I'd love to see the 128 reasons to revert. --Ari (talk) 10:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

First off I did indicate the objective criteria by which that date was chosen. I also presented a counter date which was absolutely objective, the last data a consensus existed to use as a baseline. The standard at wikipedia is that changes to articles once objected to get reverted and discussed. I'm not sure there is a 128 reasons, there may only be 120 or 110. What I am sure though is that when there have been attempts to discuss the problems you demean and degrade the people attempting to discuss them. Not for one second have you allowed that perhaps people who disagree with you have valid reasons for doing so. That your edits are proposals and suggestions not holy writ. I'm sure over time the issues can be addressed. They can't be addressed until the bullying ends and that means that we revert to the last version of the article where the discussion was collaborative which seems to be Dec 5th and then have a discussion about those changes. If not the objective date is in June.

Right now we need to establish what is the appropriate baseline through conversation. You do not get to declare that myself or Haldraper agreed with your actions. Before we can even begin to discuss your edits the first thing that needs to be strongly asserted is you don't have the right to speak for other people. They get to actually disagree with you. jbolden1517 ^Talk 11:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Somebody left a message for me to participate in this poll.. but I'm not going to, because I still believe Eugeneacurry shouldn't be allowed to edit articles because of extreme outside influence. So far he has offered NOTHING constructive to this article, his edits were reverted multiple times by multiple people, and he just edited them back in without discussion (even though off-the-record some highly influential editors said that his edits were out of line). All his edits need to go, and as far as I'm concerned that's the only way this article is gonna get fixed. I won't be checking this talk page anymore, so if somebody wants to get my attention leave a message on my talk page.. Just check the talk and edit history of this article, there are huge objections to his claims.. and very little in favor. – TigerTails talk 17:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

So now we have canvassing going on, huh? This poll is invalid, and no matter what its results are I think it should be ignored. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Other than the fact he canvassed numerous people (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc) it wasn't going to be valid anyway. All I have managed to get out of this poll is "YOU GUYS ARE CHRISTIANISING THE ARTICLE" nonsense. No reasons to revert over 120 edits by over 20 different editors has been presented. In response to TigerTails, however, I don't believe that alleging to have a non-recorded conversation with an editor who has nothing to do with this article means anything at all. --Ari (talk) 17:30, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. I asked the people whom you all asserted supposedly agreed to these changes if they did agree or not. Very neutral language. Your claim has always been that these people consent to the changes you were making and I was just being an ass because I hadn't been around. Turns out that other than the gang of 3, no one consented to these changes. There was strong opposition and people were intimidated into silence. I think the case is proven now that there was nothing remotely like a consensus for what happened in December. The edits did not then nor do they now represent the result of discussion. They represent the result of a successful intimidation. What was attempted on me was attempted on the others. When this board gets freed I am going to roll back these changes which did not have the consent of the people who were on these talk pages at the time. The January version of the article has been rejected as the baseline. jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I see, you're declaring that you intend to edit war as soon as the protection is lifted. This is a recipe for getting the protection extended, or getting blocked. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Whether there is an edit war or not is up to the gang of 3. I intend to do one rollback what happens after that has to do with what happens during this week. Doing things like blocking Haldraper to be able to push through non consensual change was part of what happened in December, that led him to object. He attempted to raise objections and enforce rules and was blocked for it. I think the protection should be extended until there is a general realization that this article should proceed by consensus and not intimidation. I've been subjected to non stop threats and insults in the last 2 days as I've tried to work through issues. That was what was done to other editors in December and it completely invalidates the changes that occurred in December. 4 editors have now come forward and indicated that the changes that occurred did not represent their opinions and did not have their consent.

Do you realize how serious that is? jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you realise how every time you rant about your paranoid conspiracy, you lose whatever credibility you had left after condemning 99.999% of scholarship?

Seriously, who in their right mind actually thinks that Wiki editors are out to get them because they deleted non reliable sources, or are against them deleting over 120 edits by over 20 different editors? --Ari (talk) 18:09, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Should we submit a request for arbitration now to forestall an edit war? jbolden1517 has made it clear that he intends to mass revert a month's worth of effort at the first chance he gets despite the self-evident and demonstrated bankruptcy of his stated reasons. I'm fairly confident that the current lead will withstand scurtiny (less, perhaps, the reference to the blog article by Licona and, just possibly, the reference to Piper's book).Eugeneacurry (talk) 00:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If you mean filing a request for arbitration, that's definitely premature--there have been very few attempts at dispute resolution. A request for comments is usually the way to start, but I regard RfCs as useless for anything but the simplest of disputes, so I'd go for mediation. Or we can try to come up with some sort of solution ourselves. It would really help if Jbolden or the other editors who have a problem with the article as it stands would be specific about the problems they see with the article's content. To be fair, Jbolden has named a few specific problems, but nothing that would justify a mass rollback--and the other editors who have commented have not been specific about what problems they have. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:44, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

A Modest Call for Sanity

To all those who would like to object to the content of the Christ Myth article on the basis that the criticism is biased, or the editors are trying to undermine the subject, or that the article describes a straw man, or that the reliable sources used aren't really reliable sources for some reason, or whatever, please read the Wiki essay "Why Wikipedia Cannot Claim the Earth is Not Flat", specifically the section entitled Special Pleading. If you recognize yourself in that section, please, don't bother objecting; you'd just be cluttering the talk page and wasting other people's time with unnecessary arguments. Eugeneacurry (talk) 19:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

From the article: Of course, if there is a popularly held or notable view that the earth is flat, Wikipedia reports this view. But it does not report it as true. It reports only on what its adherents believe, the history of the view, and its notable or prominent adherents. Note that the flat earth article doesn't compare adherents to racists.

Lack of contemporary evidence for Christs existence has not been very controversial. But questioning the assumption that he ever existed is. Perhaps that distinction should be made in the article. ^^James^^ (talk) 20:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Exactly that the sort of distinction this article should be dealing with. Older versions of this article used to talk about the fact that the Christ myth theory proponents reject the meaningful historicity of Jesus this article is now mischaracterizing the position as a rejection of the entire historicity. For example Doherty and Wells both accept their may be historical information in Q. If Doherty isn't a Christ myther than who is? jbolden1517 ^Talk 21:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Quite correct. Originally I thought that the non-historical position had merit but as more and more of the material came to light I had to accept that that was not what the Christ myth theory was. As I have repeatedly shown the definition varies from author to author with some definitions including the possibility of a historical person being involved (Dodd, Pike, and Price and Doherty) and some of the people in the article support the idea of a historical Jesus and put him a century before the setting in the Gospels. The question of how this is non historical when possible Robin Hoods who lived a full century after the events of the stories supposed took place has never been addressed.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I think BruceGrubb's last post perfectly captures the thinking behind much of the obscurantism plaguing this talk page: "I used to think X had merit, but then I realized that X is ridiculous, so X just can't be the Christ Myth since... well... because I don't want the Christ Myth to be ridiculous." Eugeneacurry (talk) 05:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah what a shock, it works like any other scientific theory. It is tested against the evidence and as evidence comes to light the theory is further refined. So for example in the 1920s when the Rylands Library Papyrus P52 came to light scholars that argued for a late 2nd or 3rd century date for John changed their opinion. To continue to assert that the Christ myth theory holds to a very late date for gospel of John is simply false. It is not false to argue that 19th century Christ mythers held those opinions. The objections here are to mischaracterizations the Christianization program is introducing into this article. jbolden1517 ^Talk 06:03, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Wrong again. Theories only have so much flexibility. Let's say a scientist believes that the earth is the center of the solar system and he calls the theory the geocentric theory. The theory is given a wide hearing and enters into the collective awareness of the culture as a distinct view. Then the scientist is exposed to evidence that strongly suggests that the earth is not the center of the solar system but that the sun fills that spot. So should the scientist call a news conference and declares that he was mistaken, that, obviously, the geocentric theory really argues that the sun is the center of the universe. No. Geocentricity is definitional to the geocentric view and by rejecting the former one is necessarily rejecting the later. Likewise, the non-existence of the historical Jesus is definitional to the Christ Myth theory. By postulating a historical Jesus a Christ Myther ceases to be a Christ Myther. Fail. Eugeneacurry (talk) 06:20, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Eugeneacurry's comment about "I used to think X had merit, but then I realized that X is ridiculous, so X just can't be the Christ Myth since... well... because I don't want the Christ Myth to be ridiculous." captures the insert what I think they say rather than what they really say nonsense we have seen all too much in this talk page. Here are the examples (again) that show the Christ myth theory is NOT just the idea he never existed:

"This view states that the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology, possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes,..." Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (1982) International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Bromiley then uses Lucian, Wells, and Bertrand Russell as idea examples despite there being far better examples like Drews.

"Or alternatively, they seized on the reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name and arbitrarily attached the "Cult-myth" to him." (Dodd, C. H. (1938) under the heading "Christ-myth Theory" History and the Gospel Manchester University Press pg 17)

"The year 1999 saw the publication of at least five books which concluded that the Gospel Jesus did not exist. One of these was the latest book (The Jesus Myth) by G. A. Wells, the current and longstanding doyen of modern Jesus mythicists." (Doherty, Earl (1999) Book And Article Reviews: The Case For The Jesus Myth: "Jesus — One Hundred Years Before Christ by Alvar Ellegard)

"I especially wanted to explain late Jewish eschatology more thoroughly and to discuss the works of John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, James George Frazer, Arthur Drews, and others, who contested the historical existence of Jesus (Schweitzer, Albert (1931) Out of my life and thought pg 125) Weaver points out that Frazer never denied the existence of a historical Jesus

"Christ-myth theorists like George A. Wells have argued that, if we ignore the Gospels, which were not yet written at the time of the Epistles of Paul, we can detect in the latter a prior, more transparently mythic concept of Jesus,[...] The Gospels, Wells argued, have left this raw-mythic Jesus behind, making him a half-plausible historical figure of a recent era." (Price, Robert M (1999) "Of Myth and Men A closer look at the originators of the major religions-what did they really say and do?" Free Inquiry magazine Winter, 1999/ 2000 Volume 20, Number 1)

"The theory that Jesus Christ was not a historical character, and that the Gospel records of his life are mainly, if not entirely, of mythological origin." (Pike, Royston (1951) Encyclopaedia of Religion and Religions)

"My present opinion is that, in the case of Jesus, we simply do not know for certain anything about his biography, not even that he existed. " Walsh, George (1998) The role of religion in history Transaction Publishers (Publishes in all areas of international social science)--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Bruce. I think it is time for wikipedia's voice to indicate that an insistence of the Jesus being entirely mythical is a common mischaracterization while the correct line is lacking meaningful historicity. In other words Jesus is mythical in the same way that Hercules is mythical there is no greater barrier that needs to be met. It is clear from this dialogue that the current into isn't doing the job and the common mischaracterization is still being employed. These were the proposals right before the split. jbolden1517 ^Talk 10:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Bruce has produced all of these quotes time and time again. At this point, one could program a bot to generate his posts. Of course, Bruce's interpretation of these quotes is plain wrong, and ihe's cherry-picking quotes. Take a look at the Doherty essay--a few sentences after the part Bruce quoted, Doherty says "Mythicist ranks seem to fall into two distinct camps—though, as I have said elsewhere, this distinction is "non-essential" and does not affect the bottom line, that the Gospel story is invention and that the man envisioned by 19 centuries of Christian faith had no historical existence." In other words, no historical Jesus. In the next sentence Doherty says that some mythicists think that the early Christians believed there was a human Christ who had lived earlier than the 1st century BC--again, that's not the historical Jesus.

Pike's statement that the Christ myth theory is "The theory that Jesus Christ was not a historical character, and that the Gospel records of his life are mainly, if not entirely, of mythological origin." is just fine. "not a historical character" = no historical Jesus. Simple! --Akhilleus (talk) 15:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Tracking down BruceGrubb's self-serving half-truths is getting tedious. So George Walsh supposedly supports your broader definition of "Christ Myth theory" or the theory's credibility? Well, I wonder what he said right after your close-quote. Oh, that's right, I don't have to wonder: "My present opinion is that, in the case of Jesus, we simply do not know for certain anything about his biography, not even that he existed. Nevertheless, we have to explain the origin of Christianity, and in so doing we have to choose between two alternatives. One alternative is to say that it originiated in a myth which was later dressed up as history. The other is to say that it originated with one historical individual who was later mythologized into a supernatural being. The theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ-myth theory, and the theory that he was an historyical individual is called the historical Jesus theory. My present position is that the Christ myth theory is less probable." So, like with jbolden1517-- fail. Eugeneacurry (talk) 00:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

An example of a fair analysis

April DeConick is a leading biblical scholar at Rice [4] Unlike most of the "scholars" listed here she has actually read Christ myth positions (even though she rejects them). If we are looking for quotes from reputable figures who indicate the actual state of the evidence I think she offers a reasonable assessment,

“

First, the goal to prove Jesus' existence or not is methodologically a black hole from my perspective.

Second, another quest for what we can know about Jesus will turn up nothing new, because each thing that will be identified will be easily deconstructed by the members of the group. When this happens, I can imagine that the minimal-to-nothing "evidence" could be framed as "proof" for Jesus' non-existence. The media will have a heyday - "now scholars prove that Jesus didn't exist" or "scholars say that we can know nothing about Jesus".

This line of reasoning became very evident to me when Tom Verenna quoted a statement of mine published on my blog (in which I stated that the historical Jesus we reconstruct only exists in our imaginations) as somehow aligning with his myther position, as giving validity to it. This is simply false. Because I recognize that my colleagues in the Jesus Seminar have constructed the historical Jesus from their imaginative interpretation of the evidence available, has no bearing on whether or not Jesus actually existed.

In fact, I think that Jesus did historically exist, although I cannot prove this anymore than the mythers can prove he didn't. I have reasons to think that he did exist, including the fact that Paul knew Jesus' brother James and that Hegesippus reports that he knew that the grandsons of Jesus' brother Jude had been interrogated under Domitian. And yes I know how mythers get around this evidence (how it is deconstructed), just as I know how Christians have traditionally gotten around it using some of the same arguments (since human brothers don't coincide with theologies like Mary's perpetual virginity, just as they don't coincide with the position that Jesus was not a historical person). [5]

”

If the purpose of adding the moon landing denials and holocaust denial nonsense had been to give an accurate summary of mainstream scholars I wonder why she wasn't include? Maybe because she considers the position a reasonable one that she merely disagrees with and not an insane crackpot theory. A refreshing change from the hate literature that's being pushed on wikipedia now. jbolden1517 ^Talk 05:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

April DeConick is a leading biblical scholar, but the actual big names like James Dunn, Richard Bauckham and others who are universally known are non-scholarly and apparently producing hate literature. I am glad you make your dishonesty and agenda pushing so obvious to us all. --Ari (talk) 10:39, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It is remarkable that within seconds you post a point that you had discussion during the last month and it wasn't just bullying and then when someone tries to make a point your immediate response to refuse to engage that material instead call me "dishonest" (even though I gave a cite for DeConick) and "agenda pushing". Perhaps if you addressed editors respectfully you would be able to reach consensus on some of your edits and not have a situation where people feel they were simply bullied. jbolden1517 ^Talk 11:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing bullyish about this and you most certainly know that. Your agenda is transparent, and you haven't raised anything to really discuss. Whether or not you provided a citation (not quite sure what this has to do with anything?) isn't why I noted your consistent dishonesty. The irony is that you started insulting myself and other uses without reason, and now you object to me noting your agenda. I should add hypocrisy to the list, but some obvious things need not be stated.

Maybe instead of calling everyone bullies or accusing reputable scholarship of being nothing but unscholarly hate mongers you could start finding those 128 reasons to revert 128 edits. --Ari (talk) 11:09, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea why Jbolden is upset that a blog post isn't being used as a reference in this article, but it should be noted that DeConick's description of what "mythers" think is: "In fact, I think that Jesus did historically exist, although I cannot prove this anymore than the mythers can prove he didn't." In other words, the "mythers" think there was no historical Jesus. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Why am I upset DeConick isn't in the article? I'm not, upset about it. I'm suggesting her as offering a counter point. The claim was made that all mainstream scholarship treats the Christ myth people as insane crackpots and she proves an obvious counter example. Moreover she is knowledge, as an active member of the new school her debate with Christ myth positions aren't primarily religious. Unlike most of the other quotes here is familiar with mythicists, and is friendly with Joseph Hoffman (of The Jesus Legend). She actually has written about 20 pages total on mythicism and has written extensively on the methodological problems of the Jesus seminar. She is reflective of the sorts of scholarship we should aim for in this article. Someone whose disagreements with the Jesus mythicists isn't religious or even methodological and thus can offer a balanced critique of their conclusions. This is much more in keeping with wikipedia, we don't cite Muslims as the primary authorities on the Christian trinity and we shouldn't be citing leaders in the evangelical movement as an authorities on mythicism. jbolden1517 ^Talk 16:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

This "Christians are biased!" argument is a non-starter. As I've said many times, we use sources based on their academic expertise, not their creed. Some scholars who study early Christianity are practicing Christians, some aren't. What matters is their qualifications and prominence in the field.

If DeConick has published on the Christ myth theory, then let's cite her. If all that she's written on the subject has been published on her blog, then we shouldn't prefer that to the published statements of scholars. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:39, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, if the leading expert on the Christian trinity were a muslim, of course we would cite him/her. Not to do so would smack of religious bias. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Well then thats the case, Mohammid / the Angel Gabriel himself wrote on the trinity, he beats the credentials of any of the people we normally cite. So we should open the article on the trinity with "The trinity is a defiance of God (ref) Qur'an 5:72-75(/ref) and a rejection of monotheism" to not do so would be "religious bias". In any case few of the comments in that thread of Christ mythers have cooties, are actually published. Why the new standard? jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Mohammed had a university degree, a teaching position at a reputable college/university, or published in a peer reviewed venue. So don't be silly; obviously I was talking about 20th/21st century scholarship, and you know that.

If there are unreliable sources cited in the lead, they should go out. Identifying specific sources you object to would be far more constructive than the hand waving that's going on in every section of this talk page. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

OK then Ali Khamenei is still alive, published in authoritative sources daily, certainly in general more authoritative than anyone else cited and would agree with Mohammid. I'm not being silly I'm showing you how ridiculous the standard is of using people of hostile religions without qualification. I think you are the one being silly in trying to pretend that a John Piper is first and foremost a scholar. jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Jbolden1517, are you intentionally misunderstanding what I'm saying? Let's try this again. If there were a scholar at Cambridge, Tübingen, Oxford, Princeton, or Berkeley who was an internationally recognized authority on the Christian Trinity, and that scholar happened to be a Muslim, they should be used as a reference in Trinity. Same thing if s/he were Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, atheist, agnostic, or anything else you can name. The decisive factor would be their expertise and their prominence in the field. As far as I know, Ali Khamenei is not a recognized authority on the Trinity, and isn't cited in academic literature on the subject, so there's no reason to cite him.

I have no familiarity with John Piper, but if his Wikipedia article is accurate I would call him a religious leader, not a scholar. So I wouldn't use him as a source in this article. But, you know, I'm not the one who added him into the footnotes, so please don't put words in my mouth. (I'm sure that I restored the Piper footnote when I reverted other users, but I'm not the one who added him in the first place.) --Akhilleus (talk) 18:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Well I'm not exactly sure why Mashhad doesn't count and but white cities do. As for Piper when I objected to his inclusion there was a barrage of personal insults, "Glad I am not the only one who has noticed that pretty much everyone who has criticised the Christ myth theory, including world renowned academics, are branded unscholarly apologists. Then when this is pointed out he begins with the personal attacks against editors. It's a boring and childish repetitive cycle, which has clearly demonstrated that the last thing on his mind is adhering to WP:NPOV." And that was earlier today. So no, I don't think I'm putting words in your mouth here. Piper is exactly what is being defended. jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for trying to put words in my mouth, however, I thought we already had a talk about honesty and paranoia. Claiming you were attacked because numerous people noted your tendancy to - well, claim everyone who disagrees with you isn't a scholar but a hate monger had nothing to do with Piper. It had a lot more to do with Dunn, et al. So yes, you are trying to put words in people's mouths.--Ari (talk) 19:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

128 Reverts, 128 Reasons

jbolden1517, could you please list your 120ish or so reasons to revert 120ish edits, many of which have been explicitly discussed. Others included removing false citations, pov editing, etc. So I guess you could just list them all here:--

Not liking other editors isn't a reason
~~non-reliable source was removed in line with wp:rs policy.~~ Jbolden rejected this.
~~Editors are out to threaten him.~~ - No threats were noted.
A conspiracy theory by editors????

Total: 0

Ari (talk) 11:17, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

First off two comments. One, the burdon is on the person who wants to change an existing article. There is one key reason these were not discussed and agreed to by the people who edit this article. They were discussed and rejected.

OK lets start with the first change I tried to make. Before I realized the extent of the damage I attempt to fix what I thought at the time was simply an error on your part [6]. Reverting an edit where you had removed a reference that is named, "Acharya Quest" and is used 3 places in the article. Generally the rule is on wikipedia that a named reference is moved not deleted so as not to break the other two references. Your response was [7] "Reverted to revision 335287461 by Akhilleus; unexplained addition of non wp:rs. (TW)" which I think summarizes why conservation stopped. Not breaking other references when doing a deletion is about the most clear cut case I think of. jbolden1517 ^Talk 11:28, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

This change was discussed as the edit summary claimed and you wanting the article to reflect only your opinion doesn't count as a reason.

Regarding your very weak claim against me, where exactly is the reason given? A non-rs source was removed, therefore we revert 128 revisions by over 20 editors? Oh my. --Ari (talk) 11:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Now that's interesting, are you completely unable to understand how offensive you are being? Where exactly did I indicate I wanted the article to reflect only my opinion? As for the 128 revisions that's a perfect example. You casually dismissed my concerns about breaking other references. You asked a question in this subthreaded and it has been answered. You broke two references during one of your edits and hence I wanted it reverted. I think at this point you need to address why it was correct to break references and why that didn't deserve conversation. Why was there no attempt on the talk page to respond to [8]. What you did was attempted to bully me, which is exactly what has been going on here for a month and is exactly why this edits may or may not have had consensus to move foreword. We can't undo the bullying that led to their getting into the article.

When you are ready to engage in a non polemical manner things go better. Part of being respectful is not assuming that everything you think is absolutely true and wasn't discussed by other people during the process of authoring this article. jbolden1517 ^Talk 12:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

No references were broken, that is why your claim was called "weak" as demonstrating nothing. The removal was discussed as the edit summary (which you conveniently omitted) stated. Non-rs sources are not to be used to describe other positions, especially when making consensus styled statements. Just state the 128 non-controversial reasons why to revert everything and you can have your way.

PS: you going from insulting various people to preaching respect is just confusing. Almost as confusing as you claiming a conspiracy then moving to false allegations of "bullying".--Ari (talk) 12:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Bullying was a means by which the program was carried out. I didn't start with insults. They came after the bullying. The insults you engage in were during December as much as now. An edit summary discussion is acceptable only if it has consensus. If it doesn't have consensus the appropriate place to discuss is the talk page. There is a difference between monologue and dialogue. I don't remember agreeing it was not a RS and I explicitly disagreed with your specific technique. Both of which invalidate the change having had consensus. And that's a perfect example of what has been happening for a month. You have been confusing your having written things in edit summaries you think are true with others having agreed to your changes to the article. jbolden1517 ^Talk 12:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I get it, you don't like me and have the need to constantly personally attack me. But I stated that isn't a genuine reason. Your argument was that citations were broken, that has no basis in truth. And even if it were true, it wouldn't even almost justify reverting so many edits. Now you are again grasping at straws attempting to launch another attack. I still see no reason to remove over 120 edits by over 20 editors.

Finally, I find it ridiculous that because you personally didn't agree to X while you were far away from Wikipedia, it has no place on the article. The article is not intertwined with your vision of what we should believe. --Ari (talk) 12:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The edit we are discussing is one where I did participate. I was there. You made an edit based on a claim that someone was not a reliable source. I reverted the edit based on the claim that your edit broke other things in the article. I open a discussion on the talk page which is the proper place to discuss controversial edits. You simply reverted the edit and even now have yet to deal with the actual content of your edit and provide any justification for it. What I'm trying to get you to do is discuss even one of your edits to the point that consensus is reached so that you have an understanding of the difference between what you did during December and how the process is supposed to work. You are absolutely right I don't like you. But that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you get the distinction between you having an opinion and there being a consensus. There was not a consensus for your edit. It was rejected. At that point you should not have reverted my change. You should have discussed it on the talk page. Your reversion was edit waring. Following it up with insults and threats was bullying. Having 3 people do this in a systematic manner was what led to where we are now. Now focus on this one example. Why did removed a named citation rather than move the name? jbolden1517 ^Talk 12:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Joining the conversation a few weeks after it all occurred isn't claiming you were there. Being creative with truth isn't winning you points here, especially when a few minutes ago your objection to the edit was entirely different. And now more creativitiy regarding threats.

When you provide the reasons to remove the 128 edits by over 20 editors and grow up, leaving the constant childish insults aside, we can continue talking. But your empty rhetoric is just a waste of time right now. --Ari (talk) 13:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

So Jbolden1517 is upset because the article no longer uses Acharya S as a source in the chart? At least that's something specific, rather than accusations that the article is being "Christianized" or we're "imposing a religious litmus test on the article." Thing is, the article shouldn't use Acharya S as a source, not when there are plenty of high quality scholarly sources we can use--she is decidedly non-scholarly. Mentioning Acharya S as a contemporary advocate of the theory is fine, of course--and that's what the article does right now. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so your single reason to revert 120 edits by over 20 editors is because a non-reliable source was removed in accordance with wikipedia policy? Wow. --Ari (talk) 18:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

No my reason is because 120 edits by 3 editors were made using techniques of intimidation like the deliberate misrepresentation and mocking as per the line above. You should focus on issues. 18:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Repeating a lie doesn't make it any less of a lie, Jbolden. So you have defaulted to the paranoid delusion/conspiracy theory argument again. I thought we were about to make progress. --Ari (talk) 18:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

We will make progress when you cut superior attitude, sarcasm, hostility nastiness and general ill will you have been demonstrating. Start relating to other editors politely and deal with issues. There are several posts of yours where I have raised issues and you have yet to offer a response which doesn't amount to either jbolden1517 is evil or stupid. Try dealing with the issues that have been raised. And how come 5 people so far share in my "delusion" if it is one? jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It's nice that you're saying things like "Start relating to other editors politely and deal with issues." Presumably that includes not accusing other people of being a gang of 3, imposing religious litmus tests, or Christianizing the article. Right? --Akhilleus (talk) 18:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)Well, you see, those five people who apparently share your delusion don't exist. I am yet to see any these five 'people' talk about me threatening them to keep my edits. What did I do? Threaten to change their US English to British English?

I got sick of dealing politely with someone who is yet to respond to anything. I tried a few posts ago, and all I received back from you is childish attacks. In fact, all I have gotten out of you are numerous insults, conspiracy rubbish, and a request to rollback over 120 edits by over 20 editors without reason. It's a repetitive cycle of nonsense with you. --Ari (talk) 18:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to tally up the 128 reasons provided:

~~A multiple cite was broken in a single edit.~~ - Did not occur
~~A source was removed without discussion~~ - the source was not a wp:rs and the removal was discussed.

Total: 0/128

--Ari (talk) 01:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Referencing defects

I'm having a lot of problems with this article's references. There are big inconsistencies in the style of references which break the serial references pretty badly; for instance, there are a number of references to "Dougherty (1999)" for which I cannot find actual identification of the work in question.

A more serious issue is that there seem to be a lot of references to unpublished works presenting controversial positions, and whose text is no longer accessible. The section on Q, for instance, is rife with these. I am inclined to eliminate these sections entirely if we can't find less transient sources for them.

Doherty 99 is Earl_Doherty#The_Jesus_Puzzle. I assume the rest of the links are organization problems he did a massive website overhaul about 2 months ago. jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, at least one is apparently to a teacher's paper for a course. THe document in question is no longer there. Mangoe (talk) 13:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

This Page Is Too Big

Can someone please archive anything they can on this talk page. It is way too big. I would do it myself but I don't know how. Thanks. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 00:42, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The page is set up to automatically archive any sections over 30 days old. A few sections will archive soon under that setting, but most of the current talk page is under 15 days old. Personally, I'm reluctant to manually archive sections when the discussion page is active--I've done it before and been accused of suppressing opinions and so forth. If someone else wants to do some archiving of the top few sections, that's fine with me. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, ok, Thanks for the info. I didn't know that it is automatically archived after 30 days. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 01:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

We have had arguments two different Noticeboards as to what Christ Myth theory even is!

Going back you will find that we have had at least four discussions across two boards on what this article even is about:

After all that no clear reference tying the various sources together or that WP:SYN is not going on has been presented. If there was anything even remotely resembling a consensus in all that it was that the very definition of Christ myth theory being used itself is a product of WP:SYN.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The "discussions" Bruce links to show that he reads references tendentiously, not that there is confusion about the definition. If not for Bruce constantly copy-pasting lists of misunderstood definitions, this article would be in a far better state. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm always impressed by just how much the Christ Myth talk page imitates the Holocaust Denial talk page. Here's a particularly apropos statement from the latter:

"Whether Holocaust denial is 'about the extent and means, not the existence, of the Holocaust' is actually a bit of word play - to be frank, one often exploited by Holocaust deniers themselves (not that I'm suggesting you are one). As Paul Rauber wrote regarding the Holocaust denying Institute for Historical Review:

The question [of whether the IHR denies the Holocaust] appears to turn on IHR's Humpty-Dumpty word game with the word Holocaust. According to Mark Weber, associate editor of the IHR's Journal of Historical Review [now Director of the IHR], 'If by the 'Holocaust' you mean the political persecution of Jews, some scattered killings, if you mean a cruel thing that happened, no one denies that. But if one says that the 'Holocaust' means the systematic extermination of six to eight million Jews in concentration camps, that's what we think there's not evidence for.' That is, IHR doesn't deny that the Holocaust happened; they just deny that the word 'Holocaust' means what people customarily use it for." Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

As I pointed out before even Refuting missionaries by Hayyim ben Yehoshua states "If the missionaries use the "Holocaust reply," you should point out that the Holocaust is well-documented and that there are numerous eyewitness reports. It should be pointed out that most of the people who deny the Holocaust have turned out to be antisemitic hate-mongers with fraudulent credentials. On the other hand, millions of honest people in Asia, who make up the majority of the world's population, have failed to be convinced by the Christian story of Jesus since there is no compelling evidence for its authenticity."--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

There are obvious non sequitors in Hayyim ben Yehoshua's statement. Not being convinced by claims made by or about a person is quite different to not being convinced by the existence of thast person. It's like saying that millions of people in the west have remained unconvinced by Marx, therefore we can't believe his lifestory. Paul B (talk) 00:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Clearly Paul B, you never have read the Refuting Missionaries article otherwise you would know that Hayyim ben Yehoshua states earlier "You should point out that although the existence of Julius Caesar, or Queen Elizabeth, etc., is accepted worldwide, the same is not true of Jesus. In the Far East where the major religions are Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism and Confucianism, Jesus is considered to be just another character in Western religious mythology, on a par with Thor, Zeus and Osiris. Most Hindus do not believe in Jesus, but those who do consider him to be one of the many avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu."--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

If professional historians, as well as otherwise intelligent people, can deny the scope (or historicity) of the Holocaust, which happened merely about 65 years ago, how much easier would it be to deny the historicity of JC? I mean, all we know about JC is in written texts - there are no living eyewitnesses, no photographs, and no film/video of, for example, the Sermon on the Mount.

Furthermore, since there is more textual evidence for the existence of JC than any other historical figure of that time, then the historicity of Julius Caesar, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius, Herod the Great, etc., are in even in more doubt. So, those who would deny the historicity of JC would also be forced to deny the historicity of all of the aforementioned personages, and the pursuit of ancient history becomes a meaningless endeavor.

Unlike the "hard sciences", accurate history is determined by the probabilities assessed by individual historians, and consensus by groups of historians. (Ancient historians don't offer proof; rather, they offer evidence.) In other words, the probability that JC is a historical person is high enough to make the vast majority of historians to come to the consensus that he really did exist. So, just as others have concluded, I have no problem with this fringe theory as long as it is clear that it is indeed WP:FRINGE. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 18:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

This is exactly what makes wikipedia look more like a joke instead of an encyclopedia. in case there are any sources out there that call Christ myth theory a fringe theory, go ahead an list the authors who claim so in the article. In no circumstances its up to wikipedia editors to come to a conclusion that this is a fringe theory. List the facts, keep your own opinions out of it and the readers are more than able to figure it out what is it all about.--Termer (talk) 21:03, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you have misunderstood what is meant by WP:Fringe. Here is how fringe theories are identified by Wikipedia - "We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study." See Here Therefore, the "Christ myth" theory IS fringe. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:55, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Except the very term "Christ myth" is used differently by different authors so the statement that the idea is fringe is dependent on which of the many definitions you use. It can be used to denote the man not existing or (and this is where the problems set in) the movement that grew up around him. Burton L. Mack in his 1995 Who wrote the New Testament?: the making of the Christian myth uses "Christ myth" for example defines Christ myth as "a mythology aimed at justifying a mixed congregation of Jews and gentiles as the children of the God of Israel" (pg 123). That has nothing to do with Jesus existing as a historical person. Even Dodd's and Pike's definitions leave the idea of historical man being mixed with mythology and that idea is not fringe.

That in a nut shell is the biggest problem with this article--even with the term "Christ Myth theory" there is some variance as what it means with definitions that can include a possible historical prophet involved. The terms "Christ Myth" and "Jesus myth" are even worse in their range of definitions.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not the problem at all. Of course we can find authors who use the phrase "christ myth" to mean "mythological narratives adhering to Jesus", but that's beside the point. The article is about a topic, not a phrase. Indeed it was called "Jesus myth theory" for many years. We could rename it "non-existence of jesus hypothesis" if it makes you happier, but IMO that would be pointless. Strangely, your argument only reinforces the relevance of the disputed analogy with holocaust denial. The word "holocaust" can be - and has been - used to refer to many things. It is one of strategies of denialists to deliberately confuse the topic with the term. You see it all the time on talk:The Holocaust and in webpages which deliberately use the word for Allied anti-Nazi military action. [9]. Paul B (talk) 00:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You missed the point I was making. There is no clear definition of what Christ Myth theory even means and what we do have clearly contradicts unless something can be produced to link them what we have together. The elephant in the room is where do the people that hold there was a first century teacher but the Gospel Jesus is essentially a composite character and therefore by definition non-historical fit into all this?

There are hardly any mainstream writers who think he was a "composite character" - if by that you mean that he was several separate persons combined into the figure of "Jesus". That's a variant of Christ myth theory for sure, and it's quite different from the mainstream claim that there was a historical Galilean preacher/faith healer who got crucified and who had a belief that the 'kingdom of heaven' was at hand. The former theory is a varient of "christ myth" because it assumes that the mythology appropriates otherwise unimportant historical persons, in just the same way that any historical strong man might have been the original of Hercules. If that is your point it's not a problem, but you seem to be confusing it with the idea that a historical Jesus who fits the basic outline of the gospel stories was mythologised to fit a messainic mythos. Paul B (talk) 01:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Paul Barlow. To be clear, a person who didn't exist at all has as much historicity as a composite "person". Therefore, in either case, both may legitimately fall under the umbrella of "Christ Myth Theory". Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 02:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Even if that composite person includeds a flash and blood teacher in the right place about the right time (Wells)? Remember some of the definitions of Christ myth theory expressly state that its is the idea that Jesus didn't exist in any shape, way, or form. So how does Wells Christ myth theory of mythical Paul + historical Q Jesus = non historical Gospel Jesus fit into all this?--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Where does the later Wells fit into this theory? He doesn't; the article says as much by quoting both Van Voorst and Price to communicate that Well's 1999 change of mind amounts to a rejection of the Christ Myth Theory. Even the definition of the Christ Myth Theory provided in The Role of Religion in History, a book you apparently find authoritative, supports this view. Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

(remove indent) Sorry Eugeneacurry, but that partial quote does not reflect Price's true view of the Jesus Myth. Here are Price's own words from his own website:

"In The Jesus Myth, Wells retreats from the pure Christ-Myth position, granting that Burton L. Mack (The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins) has established a credible portrait of Jesus as a Cynic-like sage whose sayings are contained in the earliest stratum of the Q Document. Wells is still quite adamant that the full-blown figure of the Jesus Christ of the gospels is a myth. The case is similar to that of King Arthur: there may well have been some Romanized British war chief back in the sixth century, who in some measure gave rise to the figure of King Arthur, but that hardly means that Mallory's Arthur is a historical figure. Still, we must not minimize the importance of what may seem a subtle shift. What Wells now says is not essentially different from the estimate of Bultmann and other Christian radical critics who have long admitted that only a largely unknown, minimally historical Jesus lies somewhere behind the myth-screen of the church's dogma."

Please note the Wells is still quite adamant that the full-blown figure of the Jesus Christ of the gospels is a myth. and the connection to King Arthur that I have repeatedly used.

"Christ-myth theorists like George A. Wells have argued that, if we ignore the Gospels, which were not yet written at the time of the Epistles of Paul, we can detect in the latter a prior, more transparently mythic concept of Jesus, according to which he is imagined as someone like Asclepius, a demigod savior who came to earth in earlier times, healed the sick, and was struck down by the gods but resurrected unto Olympian glory from whence he might still reappear in answer to prayer. The Gospels, Wells argued, have left this raw-mythic Jesus behind, making him a half-plausible historical figure of a recent era." Robert M Price Volume 20, Number 1 (Winter, 1999/ 2000) of Free Inquiry magazine.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not persuaded. On a procedural level, I wonder if Price is a WP:RS on anyone's views but his own. Also, I'd agree with WP:FLAT that a view like this "should not be described on its own terms," and using Price to authoritatively describe Wells seems like exactly this: Price has a vested interest in portraying Wells as a Christ-Myther so that his own (even more skeptical) position seems less lonely and fringe. Further, saying that the complete "Jesus Christ of the gospels is a myth" is a commonplace. Virtually every non-Chrisian thinks that the "Jesus Christ of the gospels" is a myth (including devout Muslims who think Jesus was a virgin-born, miracle-working prophet of God), but that doesn't mean that every non-Christian is an advocate of the Christ Myth theory proper and belongs on this page. Still, Wells is/was relevant to this article and he appears prominently in it as a result. Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:36, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Consider the following quotes from Price: "Here I represent the viewpoint of the Christ-Myth theory, the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, represents a subsequent historicization of a mythic deity, much as the Samson of the book of Judges is a literary incarnation of the Hebrew sun-god myth."

"Some mythicists (the early G.A. Wells and Alvar Ellegard) thought that the first Christians had in mind a Jesus who had lived as a historical figure, just not of the recent past, much as the average Greek believed Hercules and Achilles really lived somewhere back there in the past." Why would Price mention "the early G.A. Wells" specifically? Could it be because the later Wells thinks something very different? --Akhilleus (talk) 16:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Books on the subject at Amazon

Considering the number of books on the subject available at Amazon, it would appear that the theory isn't as exotic as some people would suggest, and thus it might a bit WP:UNDUE to mention in one of the first paragraphs that some have compared it to this or that?

And is the problem here that most people involved in the article have their entire world view at stake? - Tournesol (talk) 11:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Particularly that those people often lack relevant expertise. If they aren't experts in the Christ myth or holocaust denial then I'm not sure they even count as experts when making the comparison. I think it does prevent evidence for a more general statement like, "The Christ myth is completely rejected by mainstream academia". If we can say something that strong generally that is all that is done and we move on. And as far as the number of books, agreed. You should also check dates this theory is gaining popularity, along with other New School theories rapidly. jbolden1517 ^Talk 11:32, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

These days, just about anyone can publish a book. For this article, the relevant academic expertise is in the historical Jesus; the denial that Jesus is historical is a fringy offshoot of attempts to figure out what the historical Jesus was like. (And by the way, if you search amazon for "historical Jesus", I bet you get way more results than if you search for "Christ myth".) --Akhilleus (talk) 13:33, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

How many books claiming that the Holocaust didn't happen do you find at Amazon? - Tournesol (talk) 14:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Many. Wikipedia has scrubbed links to Amazon in the past so I'll just say that Amazon makes available books by such notable Holocaust deniers as David Irving, Arthur Butz, Robert Faurisson, Revilo P. Oliver, and so on. As for jbolden1517's claim that "If they aren't experts in the Christ myth or holocaust denial then I'm not sure they even count as experts when making the comparison," I'm reminded of a line from what's fast becoming my favorite Wiki essay: "Scientist X was not trained in flat-earth theory, and therefore could not make an expert judgment". However, the question of WP:UNDUE is a legitimate one (in contrast to almost every single other objection registered against the article on this page in the last month). I'm very willing to reasonably debate the matter, but it's hard to grant a presumption of good-faith to the "oppsition" when jbolden1517 is threatening to mass-revert a month's worth of changes. Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with jbolden that something like "The Christ myth is completely rejected by mainstream academia" is sufficient to establish WP:FRINGE. We could just cut down the final sentence of the current lead to "The Christ-Myth theory is essentially without supporters in modern academic circles, biblical scholars and historians being highly dismissive of it, viewing it as pseudo-scholarship". If "some going so far as to compare the theory's advocates with Holocaust deniers, flat-earthers, and people who believe the moon landing was faked" is going to be in the article it should be in the 'Scholarly reception' section, not the lead where it constitutes WP:UNDUE WEIGHT.

Tournesol makes an extremely vaild point: "most people involved in the article have their entire world view at stake". As someone with no religious beliefs, I am open to convincing whether Jesus was a historical, semi-mythical or mythical figure. The same cannot be said of those whose religion is based on the first option being true, even more so when their jobs depend on it and whose denials of WP:COI I find it hard to take seriously.Haldraper (talk) 16:47, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

That's an invalid point. One can be an atheist and still believe that there was a historical Jesus. One can believe that there was no historical Jesus and enjoy going to church regularly--apparently, Robert M. Price attends Episcopal services on a regular basis. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

It may be that many Christians are biased towards Jesus actually existing. However many authors are making substantial amounts of money out of writing controversial books saying he doesn't, money they probably wouldn't be making if they were writing ordinary books that upheld the status quo. DJ Clayworth (talk)

The number of books matching a keyword search on Amazon is not really a very useful indicator of anything, because the statistic alone doesn't tell us whether the books are reliable sources, what they are saying about it, etc. When you drill into the details, it isn't hard to recognize that the Christ myth theory is overwhelmingly rejected by experts in the field, receiving the support of only a very few. That doesn't mean it is necessarily wrong, but WP articles are supposed to reflect the content of reliable sources. At the same time, religion in general is an area that draws a lot of emotional reaction, and putting a comparison to something as emotionally charged as Holocaust denial in the lead just serves to amp that up. In contrast, a comparison to flat earth theories is even more dismissive but not half as inflammatory. --RL0919 (talk) 17:27, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

--Akhilleus twists my point to avoid answering it. Of course you can be an atheist and believe there was a man called Jesus who lived in first century Palestine, there is no contradiction there. But while you may be able to "enjoy going to church regularly" (nice music, pretty flowers, friendly people) I fail to see how you can be a believing Christian and deny his historical existence, the clue as to what they believe is sort of in the name isn't it?Haldraper (talk) 17:57, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Tom Harpur explicitly denies that Jesus existed, and claims to be a Christian. Bishop John Shelby Spong doesn't technically deny the existence of Jesus, but denies almost everything else historical about him. I don't think it would make much difference to his faith if Jesus never existed. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:05, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, anyone can claim to be anything according to their own self-defined meaning of a term. I could claim to be a vegetarian who likes a steak. However, I think believing in Christ is a pretty basic requirement of being a Christian, as I suspect would most other editors here. Haldraper (talk) 18:31, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

We have to be careful when we say "believing in Christ" as "Christianity" was nearly as diverse in its beliefs in the 1st through 4th centuries as it is now. Also we much remember that "Christ" is a title not a name and there were many would be "Christs" and their followers running around as noted by Paul himself in 2 Corinthians 11:4. Believing in a Christ didn't mean you believed in Paul's Christ.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Undue Weight?

All right, it seems that the discussion has finally begun to center on a meaningful and respectable point of contention: Is it appropriate for the negative comparisons between the Christ Myth theory and other discredited ideas to appear in the lead, or should these comparisons be relocated to the "Scholarly reception" section so as not to run afoul of WP:UNDUE? It's my position that it is appropriate to include the comparisons in the lead for the following reasons: WP:UNDUE states, "[A]rticles on historical views such as flat earth, with few or no modern proponents, may be able to briefly state the modern position, and then go on to discuss the history of the idea in great detail, neutrally presenting the history of a now-discredited belief. Other minority views may require much more extensive description of the majority view in order to avoid misleading the reader." Considering that the Christ Myth theory, while utterly repudiated by the relevant scholarship, is still a commonplace among lay audiences, the article is justified in describing just how thoroughly fringe modern scholarship regards it. The fact that the Christ Myth is largely an internet phenomenon (and Wikipedia may be that encyclopedia of note for internet users) only serves to reinforce this point. Further, WP:UNDUE states that "in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." Given that the negative comparisons are tied to multiple reliable sources (7 different authors for the Holocaust denial comparison, 8 if you include McClymond whom I forgot to list) it seems such a comparison is not at all marginal but fairly widespread within scholarship. This only adds to the appropriateness of including the material in the lead where it will be noticed by even those users who only skim the article. Eugeneacurry (talk) 19:10, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with presenting the theory as fringe (it clearly is) or with including mention of the comparison to Holocaust denial in the body, since there are reliable sources making the comparison. But putting a mention of the Holocaust in the lead is needlessly inflammatory and will simply lead to more edit warring later. Even the article on Climate change denial, where the title itself suggests the comparison, doesn't mention the Holocaust in the lead, opting instead for a generic reference to denialism. --RL0919 (talk) 20:22, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Holocaust denial is a particularly offensive comparison for Christian scholars to make, primarily as it involves denying the industrialised murder of six million Jews but also because unlike other fringe theories it is doubtful whether anyone who professes it actually believes it as most are Nazis seeking to downplay their history for current political advantage.Haldraper (talk) 20:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I understand that you find the comparison offensive (an agnostic, Ehrman, makes it too, not just Christians), but that's not the topic of this particular discussion; considering how well sourced they are they will be in the article somewhere. The question is, with an eye toward WP:UNDUE and WP:LEDE, can the comparisons remain in the lead or should they be moved to the body, probably the "Scholarly Reception" section? Eugeneacurry (talk) 21:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this discussion should be about what is best for the article, not about the comparison itself. I don't think the comparison is particularly apt, but it clearly belongs in the article since it is made with some frequency in sources. But in the lead it has a detrimental effect due to its provocativeness. --RL0919 (talk) 21:36, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

If you're going to keep it, leave it in the lead. It's a Godwins Law thing; the people making the comparison come out looking worse than the intended targets. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. ^^James^^ (talk) 21:47, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

We should not concern ourselves with whether the comparison makes anyone look good or bad. I just want a lead that reflects the article's contents without provoking unnecessary edit warring. --RL0919 (talk) 22:36, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, then lets apply some real scrutiny to these sources. This seems like an effort to support an association (Mythers are akin to holocaust deniers) that most people would never have heard of. One off-the-cuff statement on an obscure internet radio interview used as a reference for example? Aggressively partisan sources? It seems like scraps are being dug up wherever they can be found to justify including this statement. That's backwards and WP:UNDUE. ^^James^^ (talk) 00:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

RL0919 your comparison to climate change denial (CCD) page is interesting and helpful. There seem to be some significant points of difference though. First, the CCD page refers to a group of vauge "commentators" who compare CCD with holocaust denial whereas the Christ Myth theory (CMT) page refers to a group within the relevant scholarship who make the link. Also, whereas the CCD page also notes that the comparison between CCD and Holocaust denial has been contested by other "commentators", the CMT page doesn't contain a similar counter point. Do these issues affect things in any way in your opinion? Eugeneacurry (talk) 23:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC).

Not in regard to whether the specific should be in the lead, since my point is not based on how it is sourced or whether there is counterpoint commentary in the article. The detail level of the sourcing is probably more relevant to James' comment above, since his position appears to be more in the direction of total removal of this content, not just from the lead. Not having investigated the sources in detail, I defer judgment on whether some or all might be "aggressively partisan" (the topic draws strong opinions, so it seems likely at least some are), but reception sections normally include critics, so unless the sources fail WP:RS it is presumably OK to include their viewpoint in that part of the article. WP:UNDUE doesn't preclude inclusion of material that represents strong viewpoints or even strong minority viewpoints, provided they are contextualized appropriately. (Idiosyncratic viewpoints held by just one source may be excluded entirely, but if there are multiple independent sources that wouldn't apply.) --RL0919 (talk) 15:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

How about a compromise. I've two ideas. The current lead states "The Christ-Myth theory is essentially without supporters in modern academic circles, biblical scholars and historians being highly dismissive of it, viewing it as pseudo-scholarship, with some going so far as to compare the theory's advocates with Holocaust deniers, flat-earthers, and people who believe the moon landing was faked."

Idea #1: Depersonalize and resequence the comparisons to make them less "inflammatory"--"The Christ-Myth theory is essentially without supporters in modern academic circles, biblical scholars and historians being highly dismissive of it, viewing it as pseudo-scholarship, with some going so far as to compare the theory with flat-earth theories, Holocaust denial, and moon landing skepticism." This makes it clearer that the comparison is not to anti-semitism per se but to fringe nonsense and replaces "the theory's advocates" with simply "the theory".

Idea #2: Replace the specific comparisons with a broader blanket term--"The Christ-Myth theory is essentially without supporters in modern academic circles, biblical scholars and historians being highly dismissive of it, viewing it as pseudo-scholarship, with some going so far as to compare the theory with various forms of denialism." I'm fine with this option (though I like it less), but as someone pointed out a while back it would seem like a minor case of synthesis.

I intend to expand on the comparisons in the body text to make it clear that they are not just smears but criticisms of methodology and, as such, some form of the comparisons can remain in the lead per Wikipedia:Lead section discussion of "relative emphasis". So what do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eugeneacurry (talk • contribs) 17:36, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't have any strong objection to a generic mention of denialism in the lead (nor do I particularly care if it is entirely absent from the lead). It is the specific mention of Holocaust denialism that is unnecessarily inflammatory. One general question to consider for the inclusion of the overall comparison in the lead is how significant such comparisons are in the article overall, since the lead should (in theory) summarize the key points of the article. Since the article overall is frozen due to edit warring and there is debate about making much more radical changes than tweaking the lead, I don't know if that question can be answered with any confidence at this point. --RL0919 (talk) 18:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Seriously? After all the sound and fury on the talk page no one else wants to seriously discuss whether locating the comparisons in the lead violate WP:UNDUE? So far only RL0919, ^^James^^, and I have commented relevantly on this topic. I'm inclined to just depersonalize the comparisons and resequence them, ^^James^^ has indicated he's fine with leaving them in the lead for Machiavellian reasons, and RL0919 has said that the only reason he wants the comparisons moved to the body is because they can potentially provoke edit wars in the futre--not because they are WP:UNDUE. If no one else has anything relevant to say about the comparisons specifically related to WP:UNDUE, I think the balance of this discussion is that the comparisons will stay where they are with only minor changes. Eugeneacurry (talk) 20:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I guess I haven't explicitly said what I think about this, although by starting this section I was implicitly endorsing moving the Holocaust denial comparisons out of the lead. I don't think WP:UNDUE applies here at all; if there's a policy-based reason for moving the material out of the lead, it's because WP:LEDE says that the lead should be a summary of the article. I'm not sure that's a strong argument. This is a decision that needs to be guided by what would make that article better, rather than citations of WP:ALPHABETSOUP.

Incidentally, there are always going to be edit wars about the lead, whether the Holocaust denial stuff is there or not. Check the history--every couple of months someone wanders by and is unhappy to see text that says the theory is not accepted in academia. Even fairly bland statements of the theory's lack of support get attacked. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Personally I think the initial clause in the paragraph (with the footnote consisting of the long list of cites) is sufficient for the lead. The remaining material probably ought to be saved for the "scholarly reception" section. Mangoe (talk) 20:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Remsburg (again)

The fact Remsburg is used so many by so many people in the Christ myth debate, was notable in his own time, and his definition fits that of Dodds in a university publication makes him relevant to this article. If you have good reasons for keeping him out rather than the WP:OR nonsense used in the past let's see it.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

"used so many by so many people in the Christ myth debate"? Who, exactly? A bunch of websites, maybe, but Remsberg is a total unknown in actual scholarship. We've been over this before, more than once. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:25, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Bruce if you want to introduce the Remsburg material I support it. jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Not just websites. I provided the self published authros who use Remsburg-James Patrick Holding, Hilton Hotema, Jawara D. King, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and Asher Norman. Furthermore it doesn't matter if Remsburg is known in actual "scholarship" but if he is notable and if he is used at all in any significant way. He certainly was notable in his own time and has become popular with nonscholars. Not allowing us to point out that his is essentially being misused by such people does a disservice and since per references Drews himself in the 1st and 2nd editions held tot eh so called weak and that position is supported by a university publication remobving remsburg is clear POV pushing.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:40, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, websites and self-published authors. Zero impact on scholarship, though, so let's forget about it. He's got his own article, where his views can be explained. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:16, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

What the heck is going on?, discussion of RS

I'm shocked there hasn't been a bigger fight about some of these changes. hard fought compromises from March and earlier being ignored with no one saying anything. As far as I can tell the first point of dispute is the meaning of reliable source: Lets be clear. Everyone is a reliable source about themselves. So Earl Doherty is an RS on Doherty regardless of what you think about Doherty, Murdock is an RS on Murdock..... Any Christ myther is an RS on the Christ myth the same way since there aren't recognized authorities. Alot of the deletions are based on lack of RSes without clear counter sources.

So I think the first thing to address is RSes. This article is over a 1/2 decade old. What new RSes or RS evidence has been brought to light? And Christian conservatives are not reliable sources on the Christ myth so stuff from Eerdmans is not "scholarship" but rather the opinion of an opposing religion. Scholarship comes from secular scholarly sources. jbolden1517 ^Talk 06:25, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Um, no. Reliable sources are defined by the reliable sources guideline. Books published by academic presses, such as Eerdmans, are considered among the most reliable sources (see WP:SOURCES). It doesn't matter whether the author is an agnostic, atheist, liberal protestant, or conservative evangelical--if they're publishing with a reputable press, it's considered a reliable source (as Wikipedia defines it). Doherty, Acharya S, and any other self-published adherent of the Christ myth theory is not an RS, as defined by Wikipedia--see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Self-published_sources_.28online_and_paper.29. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:38, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Akhilieus appears to treat the page as trying to prove or disprove the myth theory. Of course Doherty is a reliable source about himself. E4mmacro (talk) 22:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:SELFPUB rule #1, (from WP:V_, "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field" Christ mythers are RSes regarding the Christ myth theory. As for Eerdmans, they aren't an academic press but rather a fully independent religious publishing house [10]. jbolden1517 ^Talk 06:45, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

So what you're saying here, Jbolden, is that self-published books and websites are more reliable than works published by academic press that have gone through the peer review? That's an interesting new policy, but I can't find it on wp:rs anywhere. --Ari (talk) 06:54, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

No I'm not saying that. Nor am I saying anything remotely like it and you know it. Deliberate dishonesty is not going to get to consensus faster. jbolden1517 ^Talk 06:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Jbolden, the part of WP:V you've quoted is exactly what I was talking about. Self-published sources can be used as sources of information about themselves. That's an exception to the general rule, which means that under certain circumstances we can use sources that aren't RSes. That doesn't magically transform them into RSes. Plus, the bit you're quoting doesn't apply here, because the Christ myth theory is not a person publishing about itself. The bit you're quoting works just fine for articles about people--Earl Doherty can use Doherty's own website as a source--but not so great for articles about a historical topic.

Eerdmans publishes lots of academic books which are widely held by university and college libraries, and they're highly reputable. Books published by Eerdmans are exactly the type of sources Wikipedia articles ought to use--especially in comparison to self-published websites. --Akhilleus (talk) 07:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Eerdmans is actually a very reputable academic publisher for Biblical studies. Our finest NT scholars such as Richard Bauckham, James D.G. Dunn, Larry Hurtado, John J. Collins, James C. VanderKam, James H. Charlesworth and others have no qualms about publishing extensive scholarly works with them. But maybe you know better than these scholars at defining scholarship. --Ari (talk) 07:03, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

You treat this as a page for disproving the theory. To describe the theory you quote Doherty, for example. Seems perfectly reasonabl;e to me. E4mmacro (talk) 22:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Again Eerdmans is an independent publishing house. An academic publisher is owned by a University. They publish academic books but that is not the same thing. Moreover they are explicitly religious. Your list of people being a very good example of that.

Bauckham falls under the Conservative Christian, no he isn't scholarship at all.
Dunn is a centrist I'm not sure I'd call him a "finest NT scholar". But he is approaching this also from a religious perspective
As for Hurtado be careful of giving him so much he cuts both ways in terms of this article. A good deal of what he says back the mythist position far more than the mainstream position.

jbolden1517 ^Talk 07:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, when the wp:rs policy states "reliable sources are evaluated purely on the subjective opinion of jbolden1517" we can add your changes. Eerdmans is a reputable academic publisher, and those scholars are leading scholars. Googling their names and attempting to delete every source that disagrees with the non-NPOV direction you want this article to go won't really change that. --Ari (talk) 07:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Ari get your head out of your ass. Eerdmans doesn't claim to be an academic publisher. See the link above. That has nothing to do with jbolden1517. What is your problem with honesty? jbolden1517 ^Talk 07:35, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Eerdmans has a reputable academic wing. They publish reputable academic works by reputable academic scholars. Having studied ancient history and early Christian and Jewish studies at a leading university, I am yet to see anyone who has the personal distaste for the publisher and authors who would brand it not real scholarship as you have done.

However, you are quite the big man trying to personalise this discussion into an attack. Grow up. --Ari (talk) 07:50, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

As Jbolden1517 has acknowledged, Eerdmans publishes academic books; they say so themselves, so I don't understand the point of this discussion. Books published by Eerdmans are of course reliable sources. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

jbolden1517, I understand your desire to see your position well represented in this article and opposing views marginalized. But your arm-waving denunciation of men like Bauckham only hurts your overall credibility. To claim that Bauckham "isn't scholarship at all" is so laughably self-serving as to be entertaining. Bauckham served as professor of New Testament at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, for 15 years and now teaches at Cambridge. Also, in addition to publishing through Eerdmans, Bauckham has published through Cambridge University Press, Brill, and Continuum. If Bauckham "isn't scholarship", no one is. Eugeneacurry (talk) 18:36, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

11 problems

Just to prove that the lack of good faith isn't coming from the people who want the article to move forward by consensus. Here is a partial list of objections:

Language was carefully agreed to in April of this year after extensive negotiations. [11]
Mischaracterization of the conservative position which holds to 4 independent eye witnesses: [12]
A highly non consensual editing. This was a revert of material with hate speech overtones that most editors found objectionable. [13]. I should mention the editor in question was ganged up on and threatened even though there was a clear consensus that racist material did not belong in the article. Misleading edit, where the controversial reintroduction of hate speech material was sandwiched with housekeeping edits [14]. There are dozens more on this topic during the month.
Deletion of Journal of Higher criticism which is notable among Christ mythers [15]
Deletion of Hoffman's pithy little line [16] which dates back about 5 years. I should mention I don't see any discussion.
Deletion of mainstream author who is reputable without any explanation [17]. I suspect the reason is that he is backing a point of the Christ myth.
Remberg deletions. [18]. Note the ganging up [19]
Elimination of what the proponents of the theory stand for [20]. I should mention there is claims of a discussion. I don't see any discussion of that change.
Wholesale removal of links by proponents even published proponents [21]
Removal of important Robertson link, since the 1960 version and the 1902 version are both around and are very different this is a regular cause of confusion. [22]. Also the removal of fingerprints is unwise as it is a related book by a major player in the movement.
Deletion of truth be known, [23]. Obviously a weekly news site by the best know proponent deserves an external link.

I should mention this is the Archarya diff I objected to as an example [24]. You can see there was no attempt to address the other two broken links.

Anyway that is about 10 days worth. jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for being specific, at least. I'm not going to address all of these, especially since I wasn't involved in many of these edits, but I'll respond to a few items.

#1-2: these are in the "Chart" section, which I've already said shouldn't be in this article. (this holds true for a few of the other items as well.) So I can't get too concerned about modifications to a part of the article I don't even think should be here.

#3. Absurdity. The comparison with Holocaust denial is not an insinuation of anti-Semitism--it's a way of saying that people who say that there was no historical Jesus are as mad as hatters, because there is ample evidence that Jesus existed. (That's the point of comparisons with people who think the moon landing was faked and JFK assassination conspiracists as well.) Calling this hate speech and racism is ridiculous and entirely misses the point of the analogy.

I understand the purpose. My point though is that other editors saw it as hate speech, in other words they disagreed that the comments were appropriate at all. Lacking consensus they never should have been included and the frequent attempts to discipline people who were removing them were very wrong. If someone says something meant to be highly offensive and they actually manage to offend more than they intended I think they are the ones being wronged. jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

They are not "mad as hatters" in an encyclopedic sense though. Calling anyone that is outside of the bounds of an encyclopedia. You can simply say something like "Most religious scholars find there was a historical Jesus", without taking a shit on the "crackpots" who don't agree. I really don't understand why this isn't as clear as a bell to anyone who is trying to be objective here. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

#4. The material removed was a description of an article by Hermann Detering in the Journal of Higher Criticism. Leave aside that the Journal of Higher Criticism is a pretty dodgy journal, why should Detering be included in this article? Is he an important writer on this subject?

Look at the link. Detering is establishing a date for Mark chapter 13, after the Bar Kochba war, that is the 130s. Late dating of the gospels has always been a key point of contention. important writer no, key piece of evidence yes. jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

#7. Remsburg has been discussed for years, and there has never been consensus to include him in the article. He's not an advocate of the Christ myth theory--he thought there was a historical Jesus. In addition, he's made no impact on serious scholarship about the historical Jesus. No reason to include him. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:29, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I am glad you finally produced some points.

- no idea what the problem is, or where this extensive discussion was.
- Most conservative scholars hold to the 2 source hypothesis, claiming Q didn't exist is actually the mischarectarisation by yourself. Unless you can provide sources to the effect that there is a consensus among Christian scholarship that Q didn't exist or Q material came from Matthew, the ip editor was 100% correct in removing it.
This was unexplained removal of content by TigerTails. I don't get the conspiracy side of it.
- An irrelevant fringe theory not related to the article topic was removed.
- repeating number 4 as 5 doesn't add anything to your list. As above.
- A.N. Wilson, who is not a scholar by any stretch of the imagination, is not a reliable source for the wide spectrum of debate as you claimed.
- Not a Christ mythicist, and the reference was supported by self-published sources. Removed per discussion, free from your false claims regarding "ganging up."
- Edit summary states: "Condensed the opening by deleting repetative information and irrelevant references per discussion."
- A blog review by a nobody was deleted.
- removed for reasons edit summary stated, ""slowly removing references that aren't from the reference list, as well as double up with further reading"
- removal of self-published conspiracy theory site

Jbolden, the onus is on you to argue the for the inclusion of material which was removed with reason. Many of your claims are either false, or simply objected to for personal reasons. The article is not about your personal choices, but verifiable information. --Ari (talk) 04:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that we're finally getting down to brass tacks.

1. Jbolden1517, you were the one that classed Richard Bauckham as a conservative Christian. If that's the case then the "Conservative Christian" position and the "Mainstream" overlap much more than the chart let on; hence the need to rename "mainstream" to "liberal".

2. Speaking as a representative of the vast conservative Christian conspiracy seeking to undermine this article, allow me to state that my co-conspirators and I quite often embrace the historical existence of Q and Matthew's and Luke's dependence on that source and Mark. The change was warrented.

3. Calling the comparison "hate speech" is nonsense; it relevant in that it demonstrats just how fringe some within the scholarly community see the Christ Myth theory. If you want to debate the merits of the negative comparisons appearing in the lead we should be discussing whether they run afoul of Wikipedia:UNDUE_WEIGHT, not some sort of vauge and false charge of "hate speech".

4. I don't care if the Journal of Higher Criticism is referenced meaningfully in the article. Sure, it's fringy, but so is the Christ Myth theory.

5. Hoffman's "line" isn't relevant to this article. Agnosticism about the character of the historical Jesus isn't agnosticism about the existence of the historical Jesus.

6. A. N. Wilson doesn't support the Christ-Myth nor is he a scholar, so why reference him? In fact, considering that he recently converted to Christianity I think including his works here would only serve to embarass the Christ Myth theory.

7. Remsburg probably should be mentioned in the article, only not as an important personality advocating the theory. Instead, he may warrent a brief mention in the "arguments" section considering how many mythers rely on his arguments from silence. Even so, what's the difference between "ganging up" in this context and merely demonstrating consensus?

8. I was the one who made this particular edit. It's quite a stretch to say my edit constitutes an "Elimination of what the proponents of the theory stand for" since the comparison to Adonis (et al.) and the prioritizing of the epistles were retained; I only moved those bits to be part of earlier sentences in the lead for the sake of better style and conciseness. As for Meads' views, they seem to fall outside the scope of this article.

9. I think that the "External Links" section could use some work. So we might agree here--if we can determine a meaningful criteria for inclusion that doesn't turn into a free-for-all.

10. I feel the "Further Reading" section could likewise use an over-haul. So same as above.

11. I'm hesitant to give Murdock too much space on this page. Considering her sore lack of relevant credentials and her lack of a book published by a serious publisher she's pretty marginal (compared against Wells, Price, and even Freke and Gandy). I'm afraid that if we include too much of her material the article will (1) seem like advertising and (2) make the Christ Myth seem even more ridiculous than it really is--despite jbolden1517's paranoia, I am trying to avoid this (see my comment on my demotion of Edwin Johnson).

Let's try to get some consensus on specific edits to the article; I really don't want an edit war that inevitably leads to mediation and then arbitration.Eugeneacurry (talk) 06:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to have time to get into lengthy discussions for the rest of the week. The point is that the edits had problems, huge problems. These should have been hashed out in advance of the edits, not after the fact. s. As 5 different people have indicated they lacked consensus at the time. You may not believe you created an environment of intimidation but I certainly experienced it the last few days. There is no question my editing has accompanied by threats. (What threats, exactly? Eugeneacurry (talk) 16:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)) So I'm not going to take the current article which is the product of that environment as a baseline and move forward from there.

You do however had valid reasons for wanting to make those changes. If those had been discussed at the time, I think progress could have been made. But they weren't discussed. They just happened and anyone who tried to prevent them was blocked / rollback much as what happened to me when I tried to to do a technical fix. You can see that in the 10 days not a single change from someone not hostile to the theory was accepted, they all reverted usually accompanied by insults or threats.

Where there was extensive discussion is the point #3. And that one multiple people rejected. I'm not going to take the lead on that because others can. However, I stand by my comment. The intent of the authors of those comments was to be offensive, they are possibly more offensive than they intended. But they read like incitement to me. I don't see much difference between "The Irish have nothing worth listening to" and "Niggers have nothing worth listening to". The are reliable sources who would make both of those comments but they aren't made in wikipedia's voice, ever.

Point (1) as I mentioned had extensive discussion in April. I'm not the only one that needs to be consulted if you are going to change that. Other editors should be notified. If there is an intention to change that I'd like to let them know get them here and then open up a thread. Do things the right way.

(Is there some wikipedia policy that stipulates before editting an article one has to track down and notify all the article's past editors? I didn't see you on this talk page in the last month or so; I don't think not notifying you personally was inappropriate. Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC))

WP:PRACTICAL specifies you need to consider how text came about when modifying it. The column headers were the result of a lengthy multiparty negotiation. If the current editors want to void that agreement those people need to be notified. Not notifying people you intended to do massive revisions is how you ended up in a situation where we have an article completely rejected as a baseline for edits. You were unaware of what would be challenged and why. I can't negotiate on all of their behalves I was just one editor in terms of column headers. My column headers were rejected and others put in their place. jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

For point (5): It absolutely is agnosticism about his existence. Those are mutually contradictory reconstructions. One of the ways of determing non existence is a lack of definitive form. These characterizations show the failures of mainstream reconstructions of Jesus and again are an argument for the theory. This article is about the Christ myth theory, If Hoffman is correct than Jesus meets the Russell's teapot criteria.

(It absolutely isn't agnosticism about his existence! Let's say one history book calls Abe Lincoln the "great emancipator" and portrays him as a great statesman and humanitarian. Then imagine another history book describes him as a devious manipulator, a social-climber, and a political disaster. Further imagine that a third history book notes these two positions and then calls for agnosticism regarding Lincoln's character. Would you say this third book is calling for agnosticism regarding Lincoln's very existence? Of course not. Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC))

I don't think you are addressing the degree of separation in your analogy. Assume we had 3 sources one who said he was the 16th president, another that said he died as an infant and a third that said he was a Brazilian lawyer who worked for the 16th president writing famous addresses. Yes I would say that calls existence into question. jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The diversity of your comparisons exceed the diversity of the comparisons noted by Hoffman. "In the past generation, the 'real' Jesus has been variously a magician (Smith), a Galilean rabbi (Chilton), a marginal Jew (Meier), a bastard (Schaberg), a cipher (Thiering), a Qumran dissident (Allegro et al.), a gnosticisng Jew (Koester), a dissdent Jew (Vermes) a happily married man and father of son (Spong), a bandit (Horsley) an enthusiastic (possibly Zealot?) opponent of the Temple cult (Sanders)." Leaving aside the fact that Thiering is seen as a crackpot by the relevant scholarship and that Allegro's theories regarding the origin of Christianity were abominated by the relevant scholarship with surprizing force, these possibilities aren't all that diverse. All the reconstructions mentioned allow that Jesus was a male Jew who reached adulthood, lived in first century Palestine, and had a broadly religious/otherworldly/social-change sort of orientation (Horsley's "bandit" was more of a populist rabble-rouser). Also, one can say that Jesus was a bastard or a happily married man and that he also was a dissident, or a gnosticizing Jew, or almost anything. Further, Jesus could have been "marginal" (in the sense of being poor and politically unimportant, the sense Meier uses) while still being a rabbi, or a magician. Again, the range of possibilities Hoffman lists don't really call Jesus' existence into question so the quote doesn't belong in this article, at least not as some stand alone personality. I'd be more inclined to accept his statement as a footnote in the "arguments" section.Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to show I'm not alone I'd like to point out a diff [25] on my talk page from just yesterday. Someone wanted to change an edit of mine from May 2007 and before doing so they wanted to notify me so I could comment. Make sure they had the background and purpose correct. jbolden1517 ^Talk 23:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

For point (6) He was included because he explicated the view of myth needed in the chart. In other words he provided the right evidence. If you and Ari want to replace this ref with another I'm not attached with Wilson, I'd just like an add / delete not just a delete.

For point (8), "Those who have proposed one form or another of the theory have documented the similarities between stories of Jesus and those of Krishna, Adonis, Osiris, Mithra, and a pre-Christian cult of Jesus (Joshua) within Judaism. Some authors attribute the beginning of Christianity to a historical founder who predates the time Jesus is said to have lived." That is the key contention. Jesus, of the gospels, is exclusively or primarily mythological. That can mean a variety of things. Non historicity is more an artifact of wikipedia than anything else.

(Non-historicity is not an "artifact of wikipedia than anything else"; it's the very definition of the Christ Myth. Recall Freke and Gandy's words from Laughing Jesus:"Now we are in a position to go further than Bultmann and conclude they [i.e. the gospels] can tell us nothing at all about an historical Jesus because no such man ever existed." You yourself even wrote that Murdock advocates complete non-historicity. Also, when Wells accepted some shadowy Galilean cynic behind Q, Robert Price stated, "Wells has now abandoned the pure Christ Myth theory." Futher, I've got a few future refs waiting in the wings published by the University of Toronto, Oxford University, and SCM that all define the phrase "Christ Myth theory" as the contention that Jesus simply never lived/existed.) Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I should mention I consider Bultmann, Joseph Campbell... to be on the border. But we both seem to agree Price is inside the border. Price has advanced the position that some elements of the jesus story may be historical. For example that John the Baptist ran a sect with: Cephas (Peter), Jesus, Simon Magus and XXX (can't remember 5th name and I'm at work); essentially the Sufi/Mandæan GRS Mead position. That is a historical Jesus in the most minimal sense. That is not non existence it is lacking meaningful historicity. Given your assessment of Price how you would respond? jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that if Price were convinced of the historicity of his minimal Jesus that would complicate his inclusion in this article. As it stands though, Price is not convinced. Instead Price seems to think that a historical Jesus probably didn't exist (Costa's review of one of Price's books indicates "Price places Jesus’ existence as a

possibility but not 'particularly probable.'"). In any event, the article as it currently stands clearly states that Price isn't a perfect fit for the theory: "Robert M. Price does not consider himself as a proponent of the theory". Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Point (9) and (10) OK good. If we restore the old one's I'd be happy to work out a compromise. I'd don't agree with the removals that occurred but I would agree there has been little consistency in how things got in.

Point (11) Murdock has probably sold more books than all ofter advocates of this theory combined. She has written thousands of pages on it. She is to the best of my knowledge the only living major proponent of the classic view that Jesus was entirely mythical and that there is no historical basis for any of the Q material at all. She deserves to be expanded. Stop focusing on whether the theory meets academic criteria or not. It doesn't even claim to be an academic theory. It acts like fringe science and behaves like fringe science. None of the authors, with the possible exception of Price even have academic pretensions. jbolden1517 ^Talk

(Do you have book sales statistics for the authors, or are you just guessing? If you have the stats then I think that should certainly affect the article.) Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

An educated guess. Lets take Amazon. Christ Conspiracy spent a decade with an Amazon sales rank in the 8000-10,000 range. About a dozen copies / week sold. This year it has slipped down to 18,000 I gather since she has been publishing so much which would be around 5 copies / week. Price, Doherty, etc... are around 100,000 which means less than 200 copies sold. Some of them, like Doherty spiked at around 2 copies per week earlier in the decade. But Murdock has about a 1/2 dozen other books at 30,000ish all generating another 2 copies per week each. Those numbers are just from Amazon. Lets do google Acharya S 928,000 hits D.M. Murdock 832,000 (likely some overlap but...) Earl Doherty 134,000 Robert Price (you need to use quotes) 218,000 G.A. Wells 30,700 jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

That's not how Google works, Jbolden. Searching Acharya S brings up every page that contains the word Acharya and S. Both Acharya and S are common. You'd need to quote the name in the search (~75,300) - however, with "Acharya S" we also have numerous problems. One of them being the inclusion of many articles and citations of an widely published individual scientist named "S. Acharya". D.M. Murdock in quotes gives around 30,000 many of which are also found when searching "Acharya S." G.A. Wells - around 65,000 but we also get irrelevant results like this [26]. Doherty ~58,000; Robert M. Price ~ 47,000. The Google numbers are really meaningless.

The only guy people would have heard of outside of the internet would probably be G.A. Wells. He has been around for a long time, and he has been mentioned in works (e.g. Jesus the Evidence Dunn) in response to an interview he had on a show by the same/similar name. Critiques of the modern position are generally a response to Wells' early work (e.g. Van Voorst). Wells is the example given by Dawkins in the God Delusion, etc. Price would probably follow, the other two being essentially unheard of. --Ari (talk) 02:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, your Amazon statistics don't match up with mine. The Christ Conspiracy is at "42,338" on Amazon, a far cry from your reporting of "18,000". --Ari (talk) 02:52, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah that is interesting. The number came from the debate on deletion a few weeks ago. Amazon sales rank has a historical component so shouldn't change nearly that fast. I'd agree with the change. If the number is changing that fast than Amazon has adjusted the algorithm and the sales estimates based on sales rank no longer hold. I'm should mention though since you and I are speaking about her, Christ Conspiracy is published by Adventures Unlimited, a publisher that has been around over 50 years. It is not "self published". She owns Stellar House and most of her books are published by them. But while Adventures Unlimited is not the most reputable publisher in the world they have published thousands of books she has had nothing to do with over the years.

As for google and quotes OK I'll do the comparison with Wells quoting...

"The Christ Conspiracy" Acharya -- 11,800
Wells "The Jesus Legend " -- 2100

As for him being the one with the most mainstream academic respectability, agreed. My disagreement is on popular appeal. As an aside I've written Murdock and asked for sales figures, I'll see what she says. jbolden1517 ^Talk 12:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

She came back with, not knowing but over 50k. Certainly not bad for most books on this topic, though less than I would have thought. jbolden1517 ^Talk 23:06, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so there are no reliable sources to indicate that she is the most popular Christ mythicist. Even if we put popularity aside, if she hasn't made any significant advancements to the theory, there is no reason to expand her section. --Ari (talk) 13:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

She is an RS on her own book sales. Most of the people you are quoting sold far fewer than her. Certainly the idea she is a minor player is off the wall. Doherty did not sell 2 million copies of Christ myth. Neither did Bruno Bauer. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Your personal undocumented correspondence is not a reliable or verifiable source. I have no doubt that she is writing/redacting and self publishing a lot of books. Her notability for dedicating a large chunk of the article to her has to come from something more. Has she made notable advancements or developed the theory in a new way, etc. --Ari (talk) 01:23, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not trying to get the 50k+ number into the article it is for the talk page, it doesn't have to be an RS for this page. And if you don't deny she has sold a lot of books then your issue is with Eugeneacurry, that was precisely what he was denying. In terms of advancement, she re-popularized the 19th century version of the theory, and is today the leading modern proponent of the classical view. She has synthesized the 19th century writers into a cohesive whole. And she has advanced the theory of Astrolatry. He books constitute the single best reference for most aspects of the theory. So yes she deserves a role. But it seems you all want to cut everyone, Doherty, Freke, Acharya.... It really isn't particular to her now is it? jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:15, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

For point (2):

Rejection of Q by right wing

Here are a few examples:

Your buddy John Piper, '"The answer I want to give to these questions this morning in the few minutes we have left is this. You get a copy of the four gospels—the first four books of the New Testament. And you sit down in a quiet place alone and you begin to listen to the testimony of these four witnesses, and through them listen to the testimony of Jesus as it comes through." [27]
James M. Arlandson "'Personally, after research on the authorship of the Gospel of Matthew, I have reached the conclusion that the evidence for the Apostle Matthew’s authorship is stronger than the evidence against it. The early church was unanimous that Matthew wrote the Gospel (and the fathers go beyond Papias’ comments, for any scholar who may be reading this article). It seems odd that the church fathers would claim a somewhat obscure disciple as the author, unless they believed the tradition handed down to them that says he wrote the Gospel." ['http://bible.org/seriespage/authoritative-testimony-matthew’s-gospel]
Foreward to Matthew in the ESV, NLT, NIV, HCSB....
This is in addition to almost all the church fathers none of whom supported Q, and that column was "traditional christianity" it says nothing about scholarship.

Re: John Piper, where does he reject Q? Everyone admits that the gospels are four witnesses without rejecting Q. In his dissertation, Piper spends a good number of pages on Jesus' teachings in Q. So, even if Piper did away with Q - which there seems to be no evidence of him doing - there is no consensus statement regarding the issue.

No idea who Arladson is, but I don't see him doing away with Q, nor do I see him making any statement that Christians reject Q.

Where do the forward of the ESV, NLT, NIV and HCSB tell us that Christians don't believe in Q?

So, you haven't actually brought up any consensus statement that Christians reject Q.--Ari (talk) 12:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Craig Blomberg, a well respect evangelical scholar states: ""Q", the sayings source on which Matthew and Luke apparently drew, was probably composed by at least A.D. 50..."; (Blomberg, "Where do we start studying Jesus?"). --Ari (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

These aren't online so I have to type, ESV introduction to Matthew, "The best answer [to the synoptic problem] seems to be that [Matthew] agreed with [Mark] and wanted to show that the apostolic testimony to Christ was not divided". jbolden1517 ^Talk 12:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

What has that sentence got to do with Q? The most common solution to the synoptic problem regarding Matthew is literary dependence on (1) Mark and (2) Q. Matthew's dependence on Mark doesn't exclude dependence on Q. --Ari (talk) 14:20, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It indicates there is a real Matthew who is really an apostle, apostolic testimony. That means the material came from "Jesus" in a first hand sense, not from a collection called Q which only much latter got worked into gospels by people who did not know Jesus. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Not going to play a semantics game here, especially when your interpretation is mutually exclusive to the ESV claim that Matthew used Mark. More importantly, however, you are yet to present any consensus statement about this - and the various sources you originally cited do not make this claim. Furthermore, we know of many others - from scholars to fellow editors - who do not fit into the category you are trying to force here. --Ari (talk) 14:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

bolden1517, you seem to minsunderstand the current Four Document Hypothesis. According to the theory the synoptic gospels are based on four distinct sources: Mark, "Q", "M", and "L". Among conservatives you'll find a greater number of people willing to either attribute some of "M" indirectly to an apostle named Matthew (see Bauckham) or attribute "Q" itself to such a disciple (e.g. F. F. Bruce), but the basic framework of the Four Document hypothesis is broadly accepted by both the wider scholarly mainstream and the conservative Christian academics within it.(e.g. Gary Habermas who teaches at the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University).Eugeneacurry (talk) 14:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) There are a variety of different positions on the synoptic problem out there, and even the majority who accept the two-source hypothesis are all over the map about what Q signifies. There's a persistent problem across all our articles on the issue that, since acceptance of the most radically anti-orthodox positions are by nature liberal-to-secularist, rejection of those positions is to be identified with radical Protestant conservatism. It just isn't so. I suspect that if you polled Anglican priests, for instance, you would find that the most typical view supports the two-source theory and accepts the legitimacy of the Q material as representing the words of Jesus.

Eugeneacurry. We are definitely hitting a point where lack of threading on wikipedia talk pages is going to be a problem. Anyway, I happen to like the Four Document hypothesis, I happen to believe in personally. That being the case I have yet to have met a conservative Christian who asserts that Matthew (the apostle) is the author of M but not the author of Matthew. It is not unreasonable perspective from the standpoint of mainstream scholarship. It has the nice feature of making the church fathers not out to be complete liars about Matthew, while at the same time dealing in a sensible way with the textual evidence. But the fact I haven't heard to advanced by anyone much less by the number of people I would expect to hear it from makes me think this is a compromise position the short I'd expect out of Dallas Theological Seminary; not something I'd consider to be a traditional position. Would you expect a Piper or a MacArthur to endorse this? jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, you were the one who classed Bauckham as a conservative Christian, and he makes this sort of an arguement in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. (And, as I said earlier, F. F. Bruce argues that "Q" was written by Matthew in The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? on the basis of Papias' writtings.) As for MacArthur, he simply denies the very existence of the Synoptic Problem. I wasn't able to find anything from Piper on this particular subject but he's said that he's written that he supported biblical criticism: "[O]ne can make one’s starting point the unity and infallibility of Scripture and thus, on the basis of this presupposition, rule out the use of criticism, which is unnecessary and inappropriate when one is obviously sure that one is dealing only with infallible revelation. Or one can renounce this sort of epistemological fiat, which we deny to every other religion and to ourselves in every other area of life, and instead let our espousal of the total trustworthiness of the Bible stand or fall with the critical demonstration of its unity and truth. For myself the latter alternative offers the only way that accords with the revelation of God in and through real history and, therefore, against Maier and with Stuhlmacher I vote 'yes' for a humble and open criticism, without which I have no way of knowing whether any historical claims are true or not." Eugeneacurry (talk) 16:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the current passage in this article, it suffers first of all in that most of the references don't work (and the Dougherty reference is malformed). But it also slips from recounting things that are generally agreed (acceptance of the two-source hypothesis) into presenting arguments that may belong only to the radical skeptics or to a larger but still non-majority party (the Mosaic parallels), and then proceeds to draw a conclusion (the likelihood of a pre-Jesus actual source) which I could all but guarantee is not widely held. It's all extremely problematic since the references are unfindable and therefore unverifiable. Mangoe (talk) 15:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It's unclear to me why this article needs detailed coverage of mainstream positions on the synoptic problem, two-source hypothesis, or Q. What Christ myth theorists think about those things is potentially relevant, but what Anglican priests or conservative Christians believe belongs in a different article. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Which means we should be reconsidering the inclusion of the chart...? --Ari (talk) 15:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, a consistent issue across all these articles is misrepresentation of "opponents", and it's a particular problem with the more radical liberals. (The more radical conservatives aren't taken seriously in scholarship and thus aren't given a voice.) If it isn't relevant what Anglican priests or conservative Christians believe as far as this article is concerned, then we have to deny the Christ-mythers a voice in this article as to their claims about what Christians hold. I don't think we can make that stick, so we then have to make it clear that their characterizations of believers and of less radical scholarship are just their views, with the implication of possible/likely inaccuracy that this clarity implies. Mangoe (talk) 15:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It's possible to do that without constructing a highly misleading chart. The article should point out where the Christ-myth writers differ from the mainstream (and pointing out when they make erroneous claims about the mainstream), but this is not the place to lay out a grand vision of what Christians and/or scholars of every stripe believe. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm coming around to that view. Putting a table here on non-myther views is proving to be an opportunity for content-forking. Mangoe (talk) 18:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Mangoe, a very reasonable position and one I've always supported. The article should discuss how Christ mythers view the mainstream not "the truth" about the mainstream. Then wikipedia's voice can indicate that for the right/mainstream/encyclopedic position please go to article ABC. The effect of the edits that has occurred has been to deny the Christ mythers any voice. jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know that we are here to give them a forum. Mangoe (talk) 18:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No we are not. WP policy makes it clear that all fringe theories should be described in the context of mainstream views. Of course that does not mean that the articles should be mainly about te mainstream - that would defeat the point - it means that they should always explain how normative scholarsip views any given non-mainstream view. So it should certainly say "how Christ mythers view the mainstream", but it should also say what the mainstream thinks about that (mis)representation. Paul B (talk) 01:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to summarise the discussion on this point, there was no consensus statement about Christians rejecting Q. In fact, that many Christians accept the Q hypothesis was demonstrated. Evidently, it was justified for the anon user to adjust the table accordingly. --Ari (talk) 13:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No it was not. The issues is not whether Christians accept Q. Christians are in the middle column as much as the left most column. The question is whether traditional Christianity accepts Q. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

discussion at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard--suggestions for a way forward

I posted about the disputes here at Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Christ_myth_theory in the hopes of getting some additional voices involved. (I also did so at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Christianity, and if anyone has suggestions about additional Wikiprojects or noticeboards to post at, that would be great.) There were some suggestions there that I thought were worth considering. First, two users suggested that the lead needs to be written as a summary of the article, with inline citations in the article's body rather than the lead; also, it was suggested that the comparisons w/Holocaust denial should be in the body text rather than the lead of the article. Personally, I think there might be a lot less conflict on this article if the lead simply said something like "the theory is virtually without adherents in the scholarly community" and the comparisons with Holocaust denial/fake moon landings/etc. were in the "Scholarly reception" section. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been trying to follow this discussion for the last few days, but I'm at a loss as to why, exactly, there is a problem with the current lead. It's a short, neat summary of the Christ Myth Theory (CMT) as "fringe". Can someone summarize why the current lead is unacceptable?

Unless I'm missing something (which is certainly possible), I think the current lead is fine, especially since CMT has been identified as fringe. Personally, I think every fringe article should indicate that the theory is fringe, since I think a lot of people don't get past the lead; especially in long articles. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 01:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

That's basically my position on the matter: Since Wikipedia is online and not print, many people just skim the lead to get an idea of what an article's subject is all about. Considering this I's prefer to keep the negative comparisons in the opening section. In deference to some of the objections voiced here, though, I'm fine with resequencing the comparisons so holocaust denial is second or third so undiscerning readers don't assume a comparison between the Christ myth theory and anti-semitism is being made. Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Or not mentioned at all: it is unnecessary to establish the lack of academic consensus for the theory and is essentially a smear tactic by Christians to try to lump together those who doubt the existence of a man two thousand years ago because of the lack of eyewitness accounts, silence of contemporary historians and similarities with other mythical figures with anti-semites and Nazis who pretend to believe the Holocaust didn't happen less than seventy years ago, those who believe men didn't go to the moon forty years ago and flat-earthers.Haldraper (talk) 19:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

For the thousandeth time, the negative comparisons are not just "some smear tactic by Christians", no matter what the recently blocked and slighty vindictive Haldraper says. Both Crossan and Ehrman are included in the refs for the comparisons and neither are Christians. Eugeneacurry (talk) 19:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Surely you are not suggesting that it is a serious comparison and not a smear? ^^James^^ (talk) 22:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I certainly am suggesting that the comparisons are serious and not merely a smear. The quote that appears in the Perrin reference especially so. Perrin's book includes a lengthy section on the mere historicity of Jesus inspired by a student objection at a presentation at Northwestern University. Perrin attempts to demonstrate that the methodological and epistemic deconstructionism that lies behind the Christ Myth is very similar in nature to the methodological and epistemic deconstructionism that lies behind Holocaust denial. This is the point of these comparisons--not that Christ Mythers are evil, or anti-Semitic, or stupid, but that they are utilizing a sort of systematic skepticism that undermines all historical analysis and which is often employed by other, more sinister doubters. Eugeneacurry (talk) 22:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

While not directly related to the argument here, I think Perrin is a pretty good example of how shoddy the mainsteam scholarship really is. I love how Papias quoted by Irenaeus quoted by Eusebius is taken at face value. Talking about begging the question. We know Irenaeus believes in a historical Jesus whom had died 150 years before and is fighting hard for "authentic gospels" to be standardized. Its like using a Dick Cheney assessment of Obama without qualification. The second point is a dishonest argument where he confuses "believed in Jesus" with "believed in jesus as an earthly teacher'. Christ mythers do not deny there were large numbers of people in the first century who worshipped a supernatural being called Jesus, they agree people believed in him. And Freke and Gandy deal with this quite explicitly. jbolden1517 ^Talk 23:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC) jbolden1517 ^Talk 23:04, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Haldraper said, "...it is unnecessary to establish the lack of academic consensus for the theory...." Sir, you are incorrect. See Reporting on the levels of acceptance, where among other things it says,

Articles which cover controversial, disputed, or discounted ideas in detail should document (with reliable sources) the current level of their acceptance among the relevant academic community.

Haldraper then goes on to say, "...and is essentially a smear tactic by Christians....". This is starting to sound like the basis for another fringe theory, or conspiracy theory, article (not to mention the implied paranoia and/or anti-Christian bigotry). And as far as to the claims of a lack of eyewitness accounts and the so-called "silence of contemporary historians", I can only respond in the same way that someone who insists that the earth is flat: just look. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 23:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The point I'm making Bill is that "The Christ-Myth theory is essentially without supporters in modern academic circles, biblical scholars and historians being highly dismissive of it, viewing it as pseudo-scholarship" is more than sufficient to establish its academic standing. To add the comments of a - mainly Christian - minority on it being akin to Holocaust denial, thinking the moon landings were faked or the earth flat constitutes WP:UNDUE WEIGHT in the lead section.

Eyewitness accounts? Contemporary historians? I would be happy if you could point out either or both to me.Haldraper (talk) 09:15, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I honestly think that the comparison to Holocaust denial, etc., is a necessary comparison because it establishes quite clearly and quickly to an average reader how bizarre the theory is. Regarding eyewitness accounts and contemporary historians...like I said, just look. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 10:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I remain convinced that the only way forward will be a conscientious merger of this derailed article into historicity of Jesus, simply because this article is in essence a WP:CFORK, discussing exactly the same topic as historicity of Jesus, but from the point of view of poorly qualified authors and cranks. This will require strict enforcement of policies and ignoring the fringe pov-pushers. I really wonder for how many more years people will want to go in circles on this talkpage before admitting this. --dab (𒁳) 09:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

After some three years of being Don Quixote regarding this article and trying to find anything that ties the various definition for Christ myth theory into one nice little package I have to agree that this article is in essence a WP:CFORK though I would argue that the forking is more of Quest for the historical Jesus than of historicity of Jesus.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:44, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The original article (I think 2002) which was essentially similar is Tired light (NB: the article predates the new software so the history is not complete, you have to go to the old wikipedia for the full history). Given that Wales worked personally on this article, it meets policy. Notice the basic structure. It describes the original problem the theory was meant to address, describes the theory, describes the evidence, indicates why mainstream science rejects the theory. It is not a content fork of Hubble's law because one article is in the mainstream and the other one is not. And that is exactly what this article should do:

indicate the problem that Christ myth was meant to address (i.e. the implausibility of the gospel story and the the strong parallels with other mythological persons)
indicate the solution (that Jesus is a mythological person and the gospel stories, in a broad sense, never happened)
Since this theory has stayed active to the current day describe the refinements.
Indicate why mainstream scholarship rejects this theory (they believe that a layer of myth accreted onto a historical core and that the gospel stories by and large did happen), based on evidence of embarrassment.

Simple structure, no content, no great complex dilemma.... Just treat this theory like any other fringe material and not try to win an apologetic argument. jbolden1517 ^Talk 12:03, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

That 2002 version seems to have been totally wiped as the April 23, 2005 edit by BonfireBuddhist (listed as the first edit) only shows this: "The Myth of Jesus Christ is the esoteric belief that a literal and historical Jesus did not exist but instead portrays abstract, symbolic, and metaphorical allusion of a higher knowledge, awareness and consciousness which is not readily apparent to one who adheres to the perception of reality as defined by the five senses. In this, perception is a hindrance to esoteric enlightenment." It gives the impression that from that version this convoluted mess begun. If you have the text of the original 2002 version I think we would all like to see how it compares to the current version.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I must agree with Bruce that Quest for the historical Jesus and historicity of Jesus are already cforks of one another. Add to that Historicity of the Gospels and historical Jesus as extremely similar in scope and we have this article here as fifth cfork of a topic that is certainly notable, but notable for one article (we only do one article per topic, no matter how many names it is known by, remember?). People with energy to invest in fixing this would do well to break off negotiations at this point and sit down and do the editorial job: collect the material of these five articles in a Wikipedia:Workpage. Summarize it in a single article. Then arrange any left-over material of sufficient notability in a clean WP:SS structure of sub-articles with well defined scopes. This is a lot of work, but it is also the way to make progress. Bickering over fringe authors and whether or not it is suitable to cite unfavorable comparisons made by their critics doesn't lead us anywhere because it focusses on the fringe authors instead of the topic as a whole. --dab (𒁳) 16:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I would be willing to support an AFD at this point if you both nominate. This article as it stands now is a CFORK and unless there is some intention of changing that deletion is probably the best course. jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:54, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The Christ Myth theory certainly merits it's own article. Many denialist and otherwise revisionist theories have their own articles (e.g. Holocaust denial, moon landing skepticism, and even esoteric matters like the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare) and considering this theory's history and modern advocacy I don't see why it should be denied an independant existence. Eugeneacurry (talk) 17:56, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The CMT article should be separate from other articles, for the reasons mentioned by Eugeneacurry. (As a side note, merging all of the above-mentioned articles would result in a huge, unmanageable article.) Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:35, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Eugeneacurry, this is not the point. Of course there must be an article about the position

skeptical of the historicity of Jesus. That article is historicity of Jesus. To say we need "Christ myth", "Historical Jesus", "Historicity of the Gospels" and "Quest for the historical Jesus" on top of that is like demanding that beyond Moon landing conspiracy theories we also need articles on the "historicity of the moon landing", "quest for the historical of the moon landing", "historical moon landing" and "historicity of the Apollo 11 mission". This is clearly a ridiculous suggestion, but it is nevertheless the situation you are defending for the "Jesus" articles. Regarding "huge, unmanageable article", of course by "merging" I don't mean concatenation, I mean careful compilation of the relevant bits, to the exclusion of the irrelevant and repetitive ones. This is an editorial job, and it is our job if we consider ourselves "Wikipedia editors" rather than the "Wikipedia Jesus discussion club". --dab (𒁳) 09:30, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. There is an article on the Holocaust, Holocaust research, Holocaust denial, and even criticism of Holocaust denial. Likewise, there are articles on William Shakespeare, the Shakespeare authorship question, and the specific Oxfordian theory. It seems to me that it's entirely appropriate that Wikipedia have separate articles on Jesus, the quest for the historical Jesus, and the Christ myth theory. If anything I think that historicity of Jesus and the Quest for the historical Jesus should be merged, not this article. Eugeneacurry (talk) 15:31, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry, Eugeneacurry, but it appears you are playing at WP:POINT deliberately. In any case I cannot pursue a debate at such an infernal intellectual level.

thanks for Godwining this with the Holocaust. Way to go.
the relation of the Holocaust article to the Holocaust denial one is not that of "Jesus myth" to "historicity of Jesus", it is that of "Jesus" to "Jesus myth". I never suggested merging this with the main Jesus article.
criticism of Holocaust denial is a typical WP:SS spin-off and as such exactly what I suggested for this topic, if you bother to actually read the suggestions you decide you disagree with.
you say you feel the current situation is "entirely appropriate", but you completely fail to address the point, namely, how are the scopes of these articles delineated as different from one another. Each article needs a scope that is clearly unique. It is useless to say you think something is "appropriate" if you are unable to argue why you think that.

Anyway, I'll leave you to go around in circles a few more time and I'll return to this talkpage next year or so to suggest once again that, seeing you have come nowhere, it might be a good idea to actually take WP:CFORK seriously. --dab (𒁳) 14:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

How am I violating WP:POINT? Is citing parallels between different clusters of wiki articles on a talk page "disrupting" Wikipedia to make a point? I don't see how that's the case. The article you cite itself comes to my defense here. I'm merely pointing out that other subjects on Wikipedia often have several articles detailing different aspects of a larger conceptual cluster. If you think referring to the Holocaust cluster is in terribly bad taste then consider the Shakespeare example. Wikipedia has an article on Shakespeare, it also has an article on arguments over whether Shakespeare really was Shakespeare, and then it has an article on one particular theory which denies that Shakespeare really was Shakespeare. All I am saying is that it seems perfectly reasonable the the Jesus-y articles have similar specificity: an article on Jesus, an article on the critical reconstructions of who Jesus really was, and an article on one particular theory denying Jesus' existence. This is what I meant when I wrote that if any articles are going to be merged it should be the Quest for the historical Jesus and historicity of Jesus, not the Christ Myth theory. Eugeneacurry (talk) 17:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Re:criticism of Holocaust denial is a typical WP:SS spin-off and as such exactly what I suggested for this topic - I think you are on to something here. A spin off such as Criticism of the Christ myth theory is a good idea. That might resolve many problems, and would help keep this article focused on the Christ myth theory itself. ^^James^^ (talk) 18:41, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

James I don't know if there would be consensus for such an approach and it seems like the classisical "don't fork an article into pro and con" but in terms of dispute resolution I think it would be excellent. If a few more people agree then lets do it. I think it is suboptimal but at this point virtually anything (including deletion) is better than what has happened. jbolden1517 ^Talk 19:01, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't like this suggestion. The point of including "criticism" in this article is to show that the theory is not accepted by the scholarly establishment. It's not an interesting topic in its own right. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:07, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Pop Culture

I'd like to see more emphasis on the Christ myth theory as a popular subject. Yes it is notable in terms of academia, but it is also notable in terms of popular culture. ^^James^^ (talk) 02:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Exactly it hasn't been primarily an academic theory in generations. It should not be covered like an academic theory and there should not be an overemphasis on academic responses to it. The corresponding academic theory is the new school not the Christ myth. jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:35, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Any such emphasis would be better placed (as examples) here or here or here. Actually, it might be best to simply create a separate article. It belongs in this article only as much as the ideas of Creationism belong in the article on Evolution. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 05:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Pop culture material might be worthwile as a subsection of the article, perhaps at the end of the History section, detailing the Christ Myth hypothesis' appearence in things like Zeitgeist and Religulous. But such references should be minor and the notion that "there should not be an overemphasis on academic responses" is a transparent attempt to avoid the "outting" of the theory as crackpot nonsense. jbolden1517, if you want to deal with the Christ Myth as a predominately pop-culture phenomenon, do it at UrbanDictionary.com, not in an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Eugeneacurry (talk) 06:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

This is an "in popular culture" article. "Jesus myth" is a term for "the question of the historicity of Jesus in popular culture". The entire problem this article has is that it isn't labelled as "in popular culture" explicitly, which opens a door for confusion-mongers of the ilk of Eugeneacurry. Eugeneacurry, if you want to discuss the academic question, go to the historicity of Jesus article. This article is about pop culture reception of that debate. If this article is not to be merged, it should at least be finally renamed to something containing "in popular culture" to save us the trouble to establishing the poing painfully to every new Jesus-myther showing up on this talkpage.

The suggestion of if you want to deal with the Christ Myth as a predominately pop-culture phenomenon, do it at UrbanDictionary.com, not in an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. is almost too much bs to honour with a comment, perhaps Eugeneacurry should venture to take a look at the depths of our Category:Popular culture. --dab (𒁳) 14:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree completely. This theory (as the comments above show) has no impact on scholarship, where it does have impact is at the popular level. Moreover wikipedia had excellent coverage of Battlestar galactica long before it had excellent coverage of almost anything else. jbolden1517 ^Talk 15:04, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

An example of the Christ myth in popular culture that I think should be included: The Pagan Christ, a CBC Documentry based on Tom Harpurs work. ^^James^^ (talk) 20:17, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The ninth

We are a day away from the article opening up again, and we don't have a baseline established. I'm glad that the kinds of conversation that should have happened regarding the lead are happening, above. But there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 changes where this sort of discussion hasn't happened. We have had multiple editors indicate that the current version was not a consensus version. WP:Consensus outlines a process for editing which involves editing and then moving back towards the "previous consensus" if there is no agreement. Unfortunately in this case we have lost the consensus version somewhere in November-December. We need to figure out what the appropriate baseline for this article would be. And then allow conversation like the one above to result in a compromise which everyone can live with. But what I would suggest to people is they pick a date.

I know the versions until mid August had consensus [28]. The issues with the lead starting developing in September, which is before the date I was suggesting for the breakdown in communication. It is possible that I underestimated the duration of the communication collapse. Worse case scenario we revert back than far and then aggressively role non controversial changes in. If possible I would like to avoid reverting back than far. So I'd like to hear from the other editors (other than the 3 who were active in the push) in what date they would find acceptable. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:06, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Work on what we have. Numerous edits have been discussed and accepted - including many general fixes. On what makes consensus, the policy notes that "Someone makes a change to a page (any page other than a talk page), then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to leave it as it is, or change it." Just because you were absent for these discussions and accepted changes does not take away from what occurred. Similarly, no legitimate objections to the previous edits have been made to justify any mass reversion. In fact, Wp:consensus makes no mention of such a policy you seem to be pushing as well as noting that consensus changes. In essence, individual issues get dealt with individually, as those objecting to individual issues themselves have made clear. --Ari (talk) 14:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There is no justification for rolling back the edits to any date. You don't get to set yourself up as the arbiter of consensus, or decide when a communication breakdown occurred. I've been editing this article for years now, and I don't think there has ever been a good consensus for any form of the article.

The "baseline" we should use for the article is the version that exists right now. You want to have a discussion about changes to the article--we're having it right now. Any reversion to an earlier version is edit warring. (And I notice there's nothing on the graphic above that says "massive rollback", is there?) --Akhilleus (talk) 14:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)No, some editors have had issues with some of the content in the current version.

I'm not setting myself up as the arbiter. 5 people indicated that these edits did not have consensus at the time they were made and they reject the current version. Heck the major focus of their concern is an issue I've indicated I don't even want to take the lead on. jbolden1517 ^Talk 15:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

A consensus was achieved with this article in many regards, mass reverting over 220 edits to an old alleged consensus doesn't just make no sense, but it goes against wp:consensus. It also seems that a friendly reminder of wp:own is in order. --Ari (talk) 15:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

When was this consensus achieved? Outside of you three who has agreed to these edits. I see nothing but a history of over a month of strong rejection. At in enjoys even less of a consensus now. Further your arguments that these were discussed at the time have been disproven by the discussion finally occurring on the lead and the items I listed above which were never discussed. I find it odd the only people who responded to this thread were the 3 people asked not to respond since they were part of the hijacking. jbolden1517 ^Talk 01:22, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia definition of consensus, consensus was met. I outlined this briefly in my original response above. Your personal reformulation isn't just in breach of the policy, but your constant insistence that consensus couldn't have been reached in your absence is an example of ownership. While on the topic of wp:own - you have no right to accuse other editors of "hijacking" or excluding their discussion. Do you really have to be remind that Wikipedia isn't about Jbolden's personal and subjective pov vision for the falsifiable article. --Ari (talk) 01:31, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Like most of your accusations that one is easily falsifiabie. Just 4 days ago one of your party suggested changing something from a negotiated consensus (a real consensus where people had actually negotiated) and I had indicated that he needed to bring back or at least notify the original parties prior to a change, even though I had disagreed with the version in the current article. [29] I have consistently objected to the wholesale mass changes without any consensus regardless of my personal opinion of whether the changes were good or bad. I believe in wikipedia consensus, and your edits never had it; as 5 editors have attested. jbolden1517 ^Talk 01:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Your paranoia about me being part of a "party" (Ministry of Intelligence?) got old long ago, stop grouping editors in such a nonsensical way - as we all make individual contributions as individual editors. On consensus, your definition of consensus is not the Wikipedia definition of consensus. Your definition of consensus is your subjective ownwership and not adhering to a neutral point of view. On dealing with consensus, both myself and Akhilleus have noted that you are not adhering to the policy by demanding mass reverts. The policy (and diagram) state that when a new consensus is reached - whether it be through discussion or acceptance of the numerous edits - this consensus stays, or if disagreed with later finds a compromise. Consensus changes, and consensus doesn't need to wait for editors who disappear to come back and demand we remove everything.

On wp:consensus:

Consensus is not immutable. Past decisions are open to challenge and are not binding, and one must realize that such changes are often reasonable. Thus, "according to consensus" and "violates consensus" is not a valid rationale for accepting or rejecting other forms of proposal or action.
This [consensus] can happen through discussion, editing, or more often, a combination of the two.
If other editors accept your changes, then this silent acceptance is, itself, sufficient proof that your changes have consensus at this time. Consensus does not require either that you get prior "permission" to make changes or that the acceptance of your changes afterwards be formally documented. Edits that are neither changed nor removed are always presumed to have consensus until someone actually challenges them.

Some examples provided on wp:ownership:

"Unless it is wrong or has errors, please do not make such changes or comments without my/his approval."
"Get consensus before you make such huge changes."
"I haven't had time to confirm what you wrote. I have other obligations besides wikipedia, you know."
"You didn't have consensus because I was offline."

--Ari (talk) 02:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

And when have I asserted any of those things? The problem you have is 5 editors who were here at the time rejected your edits. Your problem is not me. jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:31, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

None of those "5 editors" are threatening to roll back the article to the version of a month ago. What it looks like is that you didn't particpate for awhile, came back, didn't like what you saw, and proceeded to have a hissy fit (complete with edit warring) instead of rational discussion. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Well it may look like that to you, but it is not the case. I saw intimidation asked other editors if they had been subjected to it, and they agreed they had. They were the ones raped not I. As for rational discussion I've raised multiple points, that have not been addressed. jbolden1517 ^Talk 12:51, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

"raped"? I think you've completely lost perspective on this, Jbolden, if you're going to compare what happens on a website to sexual violence. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

With comparisons like this you'd think jbolden1517 would find the comparisons in the article noncontroversial. Eugeneacurry (talk) 14:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Another point that really ought to be made here: if Jbolden has a problem with the current form of the article, and it is not possible to achieve resolution through discussion on the talk page, the next step is dispute resolution. Not misguided claims of "no consensus!", not threatening rolling back the article to a previous version, and definitely not edit warring. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree to dispute resolution. The only question is which version constitutes the baseline, i'm rejecting the idea that you 3 get to set a baseline that 5 editors have rejected. jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The current (protected) version is the baseline. Since you're fond of rejecting things, I'm going to reject the idea that 5 editors have rejected all the edits of the last month. So there's no consensus that there's no consensus for the edits of the last month. Simple, right? --Akhilleus (talk) 02:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

To repeat above "some editors have had issues with some of the content in the current version." There is no "consensus" against the over 220 consensus edits since the date you wish to rollback to, that is your wishful thinking. These disagreeing editors have even point it out. Did you miss my constant links to wp:consensus and even copying out relevant sections for you? --Ari (talk) 02:55, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I understand that has been your claim for a week now. The claim of those editors has been, "The changes between Dec 5th and January 2nd did not have consensus and my full approval to move foreword. I reject them." That has nothing to do with current state but rather the campaign of intimidation you all engaged in, to ram those changes through. jbolden1517 ^Talk 12:48, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No, that has not been the claim of the editors. Editors whose names appear under that have even stated that that is not what they mean. No one needs the written consent of Jbolden1517 to make changes. To expect this, is asserting ownership of an article, and is in clear violation of consensus building. Read wp:consensus already, it would make talking to a brick wall far easier. Finally, cut the ridiculous conspiracy rubbish regarding a "campaign of intimidation" already, it has gone beyond a joke. It really is time for you to grow up.

Just to summarise the progress - there is no reason to revert 220 edits because you were away. Consensus was reached on these edits and we have a new version of the article to deal with. --Ari (talk) 13:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

"If other editors accept your changes, then this silent acceptance is, itself, sufficient proof that your changes have consensus at this time. Consensus does not require either that you get prior "permission" to make changes or that the acceptance of your changes afterwards be formally documented." (WP:Consensus) --Ari (talk) 13:09, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

OK then we'll be editing under Ari's rule that any change to an article regardless of how many editors object regardless of how long it sits creates a new consensus and regardless of whether it overturns lengthly discussions that had happened previous to the edit. Be careful what you wish for. As for the policy it is if they accept your changes, they didn't. I certainly didn't. But that's OK Ari's rule is fine. If you happen to be away for a minute someone else edits you don't object then it forms a new consensus and we move on from there. jbolden1517 ^Talk 13:12, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The changes were not objected to, and the controversial changes that were later objected to will be dealt with on the current version of the page. We follow wp:consensus. If you want to brand it "Ari's Rule" then great. I prefer it to your invention of reverting edits you refuse to discuss - that isn't anywhere in the policy.

Try contrasting your opinion on what we should be doing, to what wp:consensus suggest - "Past decisions are open to challenge and are not binding, and one must realize that such changes are often reasonable. Thus, "according to consensus" and "violates consensus" is not a valid rationale for accepting or rejecting other forms of proposal or action." --Ari (talk) 13:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)