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More than a bit confusing

This article needs a lot of work. It is not that the material is wrong, rather the material is simply not right! For example, this statement: "Arguments used to support this theory emphasize the absence of extant reference to Jesus during his lifetime and the scarcity of non-Christian reference to him in the first century."

First, there is no footnote. Second, there is a distinction between a theory and a hypothesis. Third, there is a false logic. Because there was a lack of "extant reference" does not mean that Jesus was a mythical being. There were literally thousands of persons living at the time of Jesus who had nothing written about them, yet they were not mythical beings. I would go so far as to say that the majority of persons living at the time of Jesus has nothing written about them. Yet they were not mythical people, nor was the Roman Empire made up of mythical beings.

According to the sources, an "absence of extant reference" may be due to the following:

Not notable: Jesus may have existed, but not have been considered notable to the people of his time. Less than 5% of the reliable sources accept this position.

Persecution: Jesus could have been "real" and "notable" but he and his followers may have been persecuted and much of the extant material lost. This position is accepted by more than 85% of scholars. (Note it may not have been just the opponents of Jesus who had a motive to remove "extant material")

Mythical Christ: Some scholars say that the lack of "extant reference" was due to the fact that Jesus was a Mythical Being. Less than 5% of scholars support this position.

Jesus as Alien being: A recent popular belief is that Jesus was a spaceman from another planet. Although my Google search showed over a million hits, less than 5% of the "reliable" sources support this position.

The fringe: Then of course there is the fringe . . .

Don't me wrong

There is strong evidence that several myths about Jesus were in existence by the third century and that they were expanded and incorporated into Christian dogma by the Roman Emperor Constantine (to facilitate his rule of the Empire). Still, this article has a long,long way to go. - Ret.Prof (talk) 13:07, 4 September 2010 (UTC) Is there, now? NJMauthor (talk) 04:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you Prof, but I don't think we should spend time and energy trying to fix it here. Having sent a fair amount of time on this article already, I think we should merge it and then spend the energy putting things right in the merged article. Your "strong evidence" would be very welcome in the merged article. Wdford (talk) 17:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Wdford as trying to reconcile the vague, confusing, or contradictory material just produces a migraine. Strangely by Occam's razor the Jesus was a very minor person idea would explain why the external sources wrote so little about him so what reason do most of the scholars give to regecting such a reasonable position?--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:29, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Rejection of mythological parallels

Isn't this related to speculation that Pauline Christianity absorbed elements of various mystery religions? I believe I've read serious suggestions that the Eucharist was such an element. These accusations are very old and Justin Martyr found it necessary to defend Christianity against them. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:36, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

There are some theories like that, but read higher up the page (I do always advise people to read the talkpage) and you'll find that Bruce Grubb lays the alternatives out very well. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:11, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Alvar Ellegard in the lead

Why is this sentence:

Alvar Ellegård argues that theologians have failed to question Jesus's existence because of a lack of communication between them and other scholars, causing some of the basic assumptions of Christianity to remain insulated from general scholarly debate.

in the lead? CMT is a theory held by a tiny minority of Biblical scholars. Ellegard, a CMT advocate, argues that it is because of a lack of communication. Yet, other biblical scholars would argue it is because there is more than sufficient evidence. Furthermore, Ellegards' expertise is in the linguistics of English. Flash 19:20, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

OK. I agree that the content of this article, considering it is about a fringe theory, should reflect the views of that fringe theory. However, I think that the article should still, at least in the lead, indicate that it is about a fringe theory. Putting a fringe theory explanation of why a fringe theory is counted as a fringe theory by the majority of academia the majority of academia is to my eyes going a little far. This is particular true considering that it hasn't apparently received any explicit support within the CMT fringe advocates. While the content does I think maybe belong in the article, placing it before the majority opinion which rejects the theory is probably unwarranted. And, considering it is the apparently unsupported opinion of a single person, specialist or not, I think it could more reasonably be placed in a later section. John Carter (talk) 19:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the Christ Myth Theory is fringe but you also have people like Doherty defining it as being the Gospel Jesus didn't exist and vague or poorly worded definitions that can be read as implying it is more mainstream then it is. Take Bromiley's "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,..." for example. You can point to the American Tall Tales and Dime novels as examples of stories with people who really lived as a main character but that never really happened. The problem is saying a story of someone is not real is not the same as saying the person the story is about is not real. Also there is some indication that some of the old Greek or Norse hero stories could be mythologizing real people and real events. So this definition is more confusing then informative.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

• I continue to support the inclusion of the Ellegard point in the lead. It offers a meta perspective about the nature of the scholarly debate in this field. It may explain why the majority of scholars seem to support one viewpoint, and as this article is about the minority view, it's appropriate to include an observation about why it might be in the minority. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 18:55, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The introduction presents what the overwhelming consensus of the scholarly community is. Why do you feel need to present the argument of a CMT advocate, before saying what the consensus is? Doing so suggests to the reader that the overwhelming consensus is not credible.

Just state the facts. We don't need to present a CMT advocate excusing it. Flash 19:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

This article is about CMT, and there are precious few facts here, just opinions. If we cannot present the views of CMTers in this article, then where? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The article being on CMT is not an excuse for it being biased towards it. The statement you entered distorts the fact and begs the question of whether the consensus is credible. Flash 20:18, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Considering there isn't even consensus on just what the CMT even is (unless it is in reference to Drew's book of that name and even there things are wonky in places) there is already begging the question that there is some form of uniform CMT that every definition that we have seen can fit under. So far after some three years of waiting ever since I threw that gauntlet down we haven't seen anything even remote like--even from an unreliable source.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:25, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

It is very obvious that there is no "overwhelming consensus of the scholarly community," since the vast majority of sources used in all these article are presumed to be a representative sampling of the scholarly community. The vast majority of sources in these articles are Christian theologians or priests, and popular books. Noloop (talk) 20:17, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Flash, this article can't reflect religious views. It is purely about history and scholarship, and the ways in which the issue of Jesus has been approached. So a discussion of that approach is entirely appropriate for the lead. If you want to find another such meta comment from another scholar to balance it ( someone addressing Ellegard's point, for example, and if you read the paper you'll see there might be something from one of the other commentators), that would be fine. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:24, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about "religious views" nor did I suggest that it is not about history and scholarship. The statement, which excuses a statement of fact from a CMT perspective is POV. You don't see arguments excusing the fact that there are few first century sources relating to Jesus, do you? Yet you want the article to do it for the consensus statement. Flash 20:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

ReaverFlash, previous discussion on Ellergard, as promised previously. [1]. You have now been reverted by two people, recommend you pause for a moment and read previous thread. Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:33, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Flash, I don't know what you mean by excusing a statement of fact. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Excusing a statement of fact means someone explaining away a fact is so. For example, fact is there are few first century sources relating to Jesus. Excusing the fact would be presenting the argument, "People back then didn't record everything, and it is remarkable that we even have multiple sources, etc, etc." Flash 20:44, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Good point and one the Pro Historical Jesus people tend to use way too often. The fact of the matter we have only two known first century references to Jesus: Paul and Josephus. While tradition dates the Gospels to the first century no Church father extensively uses anything in them until well into the second century which leaves you concluding that they either didn't think referencing these accounts was important (a somewhat silly claim when you think about) or those accounts simply didn't exist at that time.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:45, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Flash, you have violated WP:3RR. PeaceLoveHarmony (talk) 20:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Flash, Brief summary of previous discussion as it seems you'd rather edit war than read it - we pooled every scrap of evidence we could find that there was once one (not two or more) living man who provided the basis for the accounts in the Gospels - even if he never did or said those things. We came up with pretty much nothing - there is no evidence. We examined the approach to other "legendary" religious and cultural leaders, Buddha, Confucious, guy who founded Taoism etc, and noted that scholars in both east and west were universal in their willingness to concede that there was no evidence that these individuals existed, and to explore the possibility that they were mythical figureheads. While (as you'll see from the discussion) there was not universal agreement to this approach, there was an acceptance that Ellergard had something to say that addressed this.Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:48, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

How is that relevant to what should be included in the article? I fail to see how what you said relates to the article. Flash 20:57, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

ReaverFlash, unless you read some of the archives, you won't actually have much idea what relates to this article, and why. A lot of discussion has gone on. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:57, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I've read the previous section on the sentence. The sentence was only added by SlimVirgin very recently. Flash 22:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually it was added on 1 August, after a very substantial debate the link to which I have provided you with once already, and has remained in the article despite the discussion on the development of the article continuing pretty much unabated from that point. There is no consensus to remove it. I suggest you stop, think, and come back with a really good case for removal that will sway us all and overturn the existing consensus. In this article, it can be done. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:22, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I've stated the reason why it should be removed. It distorts the fact and begs the question of whether the consensus position presented is not credible. Flash 22:27, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Have you actually bothered to read the thread that I gave you the link to? You would not think such a shallow statement would convince anyone if you had. Far from distorting the fact, it presents one of the foci of the matter at hand. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

You maintaining that I lied about reading a few paragraphs is extremely counter-productive. Furthermore you completely ignored my point, which is that the sentence begs the question of whether the consensus position is credible. Flash 23:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring is not a useful way to solve this problem.

That said, I don't support having the Ellegard sentence in the lead, and I don't think there was a good consensus for having it there—more like, people weren't willing to fight to get it out. Which is a kind of consensus, but not a good one. I do think that the material would be fine in the body of the article. In other words, I agree with what John Carter said above. And I'm really surprised to see that so many people here are willing to disregard the academic consensus that the gospels and other NT material provide evidence for the historical Jesus, and are so quick to label this a religious position. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:35, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

This article is about dissatisfaction with the so-called academic consensus. So, it is very natural for the reasons for that dissatisfaction to be presented in the lead. Also, if the sourcing in these Jesus articles is truly representative, then the consensus only exists among Christian academics.

On a related note, I 'd like to add the following to that paragraph: "Historian Joseph Hoffman questions whether there has been a "methodologically agnostic approach" to the historical existence of Jesus." [2] Please discuss with an open mind. thanks. Noloop (talk) 05:12, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I think this is a more interesting piece by Hoffmann—it's more recent, and concerns a project that might move forward, rather than the moribund Jesus Project. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:58, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

You just don't read anything that I say. Noloop (talk) 05:58, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

That's obviously not true. I read your proposal to insert that quote, I disagreed with it, and I provided a link that has material that I think is better. Instead of substantively responding, you made the post above and inserted the quote you like—which, you know, I've objected to before. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:27, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

You did not disagree with it. You said nothing about it at all. You produced a different source, which didn't clearly relate to the sentence that I wanted to add. If it did relate, I couldn't see how, and you didn't explain how. It certainly didn't seem to reject the text I wanted to add. The main comment you made about your source was that it was more interesting, which may be true, but doesn't mean it has anything to do with the text I wanted to add. Noloop (talk) 17:58, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The addition by Noloop is out of place in the intro, especial since Ellegard is stuck in there. Also the change to "Authors" is a pernicious choice of wording for the majority of scholars who are authorities in this area of study. Hardyplants (talk) 18:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The change from "scholars" to "authors" is worse than the Hoffmann sentence. I'm going to change that right now. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:29, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

You just don't read anything that I say. Also, the sentence you've composed is not helpful for the reader. What does it mean to say that something is not a "methodologically agnostic approach"? How does this sentence relate to the previous sentence about Ellegard and the following one that says that the theory is rejected by the academic mainstream? Further, is Hoffmann's view a widely shared one? --Akhilleus (talk) 18:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Both the Ellegard and Hoffman comments are on the topic of the reliability of the predominant research. Ellegard questions it because it is insular; Hoffman questions it because of religious bias. I don't know if the view is widely shared, which is why I didn't write "It is a widely shared view that..." It makes sense that it would be widely shared within the realm of Christ Myth theorists, which is what this article is about. We have a reliable source, who is significant within the topic of this article, saying something relevant to the topic of the article. If you think it is in the wrong place, move it to the right place. When you outright delete an idea while claiming it's merely in the wrong place, you are appear to making excuses to censor. Noloop (talk) 18:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Per WP:LEAD the lead should in essence be an outline of the content of the article. If the article's purpose is to explain the hows, whys and whens of the Jesus myth theory and its general reception then so should the lead. If Ellegard and his view is important to the jesus myth theory then he should be in the lead, regardless of whether his view is fringe or not, if it is fringe then the lead can say that too.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:15, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

proposed merger of this article

In case editors here are not watching Talk:Historicity of Jesus, there is a proposal there to merge the (newly retitled) Jesus myth theory article into a different one, perhaps to be titled existence of Jesus. See Talk:Historicity_of_Jesus#Merger--Christ_Myth_Theory_and_Historicity_of_Jesus, and comment if interested. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:57, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

We almost have a consensus there guys, your views are needed.-Civilizededucation^talk 15:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm in favour, but it all looks to have got a bit confusing. I am not sure where to !vote. --FormerIP (talk) 00:54, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

1. Do not merge: I am now convinced that this topic can stand on its own. - Ret.Prof (talk) 13:07, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
2. Merge: We have argued about the scope and purpose of this article for a long time, and many involved editors have now agreed that the problems would be better resolved by combining this material with other existing articles. We can always create a spin-off article later if it still seems appropriate at that time. Wdford (talk) 17:19, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
3. Merge: Per Wdford reasons. The literature is a mess at explaining this topic in a consistent manner anyhow.--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:23, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
4. Merge: Historicity of Jesus attempts to tackle the "did Jesus exist in anything like the form of the chap in the Gospels" question. Merging with this article has struck me as an obvious option for some time.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:46, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
5. Merge into Historicity of Jesus, whether or not that becomes Existence of Jesus. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:01, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
6. Do not merge: The uniqueness of the CMT will be lost if this article is merged. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:33, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
7. Don't merge. The CMT is notable on its own and should have its own article. I don't see anything worth keeping from historicity of Jesus anyway. Also, it's a bit confusing to have the "vote" on two different talk pages... --Akhilleus (talk) 02:05, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
8. Don't merge. The topic is extreme but has a few notable proponents, and historically was take more seriously before the 1940's. The topic may not be as clear as some would like but it has enough general interest to remain. The Historical Jesus article material should be merged into this one if any changes are made. Hardyplants (talk) 03:47, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
9. Don't merge. This topic is distinct, it should stand alone. Deep Purple Dreams (talk) 15:31, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
10. Do not merge. Merging would be an attempt to mimimalize information about this topic. This is a full fledged topic of its own, and one that certainly has gotten a lot of real world attention. DreamGuy (talk) 17:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Just as an aside (and I had to move this comment down from where I intended it, as it screwed up the numbering), a vote on the talk page that the article is suggested being merged with isn't really relevant to this page. It attracts different people, different biases and different agendas (frankly, the Historicity of Jesus page is a POV-pushing mess). When the proposal is to merge to an article, the discussion should be by the people who care about the topic being discussed for removal, not other people. DreamGuy (talk) 17:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I know that editors here are almost paranoid that others would want to dilute the content of this article. But this is not at all the case. You can see that many editors of this article have supported the idea of merger. The reasons for merger are very honorable and I would request that you may take a look at the discussion there and leave some comments. We had not notified the editors here about the merger discussion earlier because we were not sure of the response of the editors there. If we did not have much of a consensus there, it would look pointless to notify the editors here. Anyway, all I want to say is-- please take a look at the discussion so that your apprehensions may be allayed.-Civilizededucation^talk 14:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I detest bias as much as you do. Just look at my comments in the RFC there.-Civilizededucation^talk 14:50, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Quote on mainstream concensus

I've added a quote by N.T. Wright on consensus. The information is crucial to the article. Alternatively, another quote about consensus can be taken from the dozens of sources available:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bill_the_Cat_7/CMT_FAQ#FAQ_Question_.232

There is no reason to censor this information from the page. The lead has no other information on how the myth theory is viewed by the mainstream consensus, only an indirect reference that "most historians believe Jesus existed". Flash 12:45, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Bishop Wright is neither an authority nor a reliable witness on what mainstream consensus is. The same would hold for say, Richard Dawkins. Wright could be an authority on thinking among theologians, NT scholars or clergymen. Dawkins could be an authority on thinking among evolutionary biologists. But in evidence of a mainstream consensus on what is essentially a matter of history, you would need to find a citation by a notable historian. The fact that Wright doesn't know any historian who thinks there was no historical Jesus doesn't mean there aren't any. Maybe Wright simply doesn't know too many historians, we just can't tell.

Nevertheless I happen to believe Wright is right that most historians believe Jesus was a historical figure (as does Dawkins BTW). In any event I have no objection to the inclusion of the Wright quote, as long as it is presented as an opinion by a notable individual. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:03, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I've changed the quote to Graham Stanton's, this would avoid any conflict the source being a former bishop. Flash 14:07, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

The same general objection can be raised against Stanton since he was a professor of divinity. Again, I have no objection to inclusion of either quote, but it would be nice if we could find a notable historian who states there is a consensus among mainstream historians. In that case we could present the consensus as a fact (barring other reliable historians contradicting the consensus) instead of a (perhaps notable) opinion. It would be no objection if the historian in question were a Christian, but it would be even better (because more convincing) if s/he were a noted atheist. Of course, such a reliable source may not exist. Martijn Meijering (talk) 14:41, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

There is a quote by Price:

       * "New Testament criticism treated the Christ Myth Theory with universal disdain"

           Robert M. Price, The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-Four Formative Texts (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2006) p. 1179  Flash  14:48, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

And here's a couple more good quotes:

• [T]he view that there was no historical Jesus, that his earthly existence is a fiction of earliest Christianity—a fiction only later made concrete by setting his life in the first century—is today almost totally rejected.

G. A. Wells, The Historical Evidence for Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1988) p. 218

• It is customary today to dismiss with amused contempt the suggestion that Jesus never existed.

G. A. Wells, "The Historicity of Jesus," in Jesus and History and Myth, ed. R. Joseph Hoffman (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1986) p. 27

Using both would probably be best. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 14:53, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the quotes Bill, but these are not quite the kinds of quotes I was looking for. Price is a theologian and Wells was a professor of German. Their opinions may be notable, but they are not historians. In addition, they appear to limit themselves to addressing a consensus among NT scholars (Price) and theologians (Wells), something for which Stanton and Wright would also be reliable sources. I would concur with Noloop that this is essentially a "duh" observation, but probably notable enough to state.

I'd like to distinguish a number of things:

1 consensus among theologians / clerics / scholars of the NT and early Christianity

2 consensus among historians

3 consensus in general scholarship

4 historical existence of Jesus

I believe we have sufficiently established 1. I believe 2 is also true, but I have yet to see sufficient evidence of it. 3 would probably follow from 2 as scholars would probably defer to a consensus among historians on historical questions, but insufficient evidence has been presented for it so far. 4 is not for Wikipedia to decide, but for the record I will state that I believe Jesus was a historical figure, as that may help you judge potential bias on my part. In general I am agnostic, but the Bible looks like purely the work of man to me. Martijn Meijering (talk) 15:09, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

How do you distinguish between group 1 and group 2, and what do you mean by "general scholarship?" --Akhilleus (talk) 17:44, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Roughly speaking I would distinguish based on their education and their teaching positions. Those who are employed by a history faculty I would count as historians, those employed by faculties of theology as theologians. There is overlap of course. I would count Wells, Ellegard and Dawkins under group 3, but not group 2. Martijn Meijering (talk) 20:28, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

The Stanton comment is also over 20 years old (the 1st ed. of the book was published in 1989). One of the main objections to any and all quotes like this has already been given, and the only response has been the usual lawyering and word games. There is a context. The context makes it clear that almost all the people who study the existence of Jesus are Jesus worshippers and a majority are in the business of promoting Christianity. We know this simply because that describes the sourcing of these articles (and repeated requests for secular peer-reviewed sources have turned up little or nothing). If we can't source a claim mainly to "mainstream" sources, then we have no business claiming it is the consensus of the mainstream. A consensus, by definition, is easily documented.

The typical wikilawyering response to this is to argue that Christians can be in the mainstream. That is true, but not the point. The point is that "Christian scholars" is not the same as "mainstream scholars". The consensus of the mainstream doesn't need to be sourced mainly to members of one religion. Noloop (talk) 03:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

If "Christian scholars" (and again, this is a mischaracterization) are not the same as "mainstream scholars", and you think that the "Christian scholars" have non-mainstream opinions, you should be able to cite some mainstream sources that present a different picture. Otherwise, you're just blowing steam. Which is not what Wikipedia talk pages are for...

Martijn: fair enough, but why do you think it's important to differentiate between scholars who are part of a theology department and those in a history department? Do you think their methodology differs significantly, and, if so, do you have sources that say that? Or is there some other distinction? Also, what would you do with a scholar such as Paula Fredriksen, who is in the Department of Religion at Boston University, and has never taught in a theology faculty/department? --Akhilleus (talk) 04:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Unless she was trained as an ancient historian I wouldn't consider her one. The point isn't just or mainly that there might be Christian bias, but more one of credentials. The Wikipedia standards say that to establish a consensus among historians we need 1) a reliable source who 2) has to be a historian and 3) s/he has to state unequivocally that there is a consensus among historians. Religious beliefs are not important, although it will help convince skeptics if the person in question is agnostic or an atheist. Similarly, to establish a consensus among physicists a statement by a chemist isn't good enough. It doesn't mean the chemist cannot be an outstanding scholar and it doesn't mean s/he is biased. And here it matters even less whether the person is religious or not, since the topic is not related to religion. Martijn Meijering (talk) 10:09, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

As I said there is more involved here then simply ancient history and the more relevant field is historical anthropology (Ethnohistory) and no comment from anybody in that field regarding Jesus and the documents supporting his existence has been made.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:53, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Just FYI, Graham Stanton was a devout Christian who delivered sermons, as can be seen on this page: "This scholarly interest relates to his own Christian faith - Graham believed that 'in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God disclosed his purposes for his creation' (Gospel Truth?, 192); he believed (echoing 2 Cor 5) 'that in (or through) Christ crucified, God was reconciling the world to himself, no longer holding people's misdeeds against them. God has taken an initiative in love, forgiven our sins, reconciled us to himself, and thus transformed our lives. ' (500th anniversary sermon - notable for the appeal to P46 at 2 Cor 5.19!)"[3] So I don't see how his quote is any less problematic than a quote from a bishop. -PeaceLoveHarmony (talk) 04:00, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

And what exactly about the quote is problematic? Stanton writes: "nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed." Do you think he's wrong about this? Do you think his religious beliefs have made him overlook a substantial body of historians who don't think Jesus existed? (Remember, he's aware of G. A. Wells, and has commented on Wells' work, so it's not as if he doesn't know there are some people who think Jesus didn't exist.) If Graham is wrong about what the consensus is, do you have some sources that say otherwise? --Akhilleus (talk) 04:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say Christian scholars have non-mainstream opinions, nor did I say that mainstream scholars disagree with Chrsitian scholars. Nor did anybody say Stanton is wrong. You are lawyering. Noloop (talk) 16:54, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Akhilleus, the consensus among fashion designers, editors of fashion magazines, tv presenters of fashion programmes, retailers of fashion and Brix Smith-Start is that fashion is an essential part of Western culture, and fashion is a key component of modern society. Might you not want to see the opinion of wider sources on that assertion, even if you have a sneaking feeling that the fashionistas are probably right?Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:22, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

That's a good analogy. Particularly because there are not a lot of anti-fashion designers, programs, and retailers. So the non-fashion-designer opinion on the importance of fashion isn't consensus that fashion is unimportant. It isn't necessarily refutation, it's just lack of interest. Still, we wouldn't state the importance of fashion as a fact, and cite mainly fashion designers in support. Noloop (talk) 19:41, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Poor analogy. What makes up Western culture has more to do than simply one aspect of that culture - that is, fashion is but one element so the answer to your analogy is an obvious "yes". However, there are many other aspects of culture—for example, other than fashion there is, politics, philosophy, technology, the arts, etc. Therefore, we can expect a wide variety of sources to have multiple opinions and such opinions should be detailed in an article about Western culture. But here in this article, we are only talking about the mere existence of an historical human being, and when that is the question, there is only one answer the sole experts almost universally agree on; and that is the acceptance of the mere historicity of jesus. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 00:56, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

The analogy didn't specify articles on Western culture, so your objection is a strawman; it would apply to an article on the "mere" value of fashion. Noloop (talk) 02:07, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

She said "...fashion is an essential part of Western culture, and fashion is a key component of modern society...." That's a very general field of study (assuming such a field even exists), where scholars in other fields can, and do, add their expertise. This article, on the other hand, is talking about a very narrow aspect of ancient history, one in which no other field of study (biology, history of WWII, the American Civil War, physics, etc.) can add their expertise, for they have none which is applicable.

Virtually all scholars of the ancient world agree that Jesus historically existed, and you can't provide one reliable source that contradicts that scholarly consensus. That is, do you have a source that says that most scholars don't believe in the historicity of Jesus? All you seem to be saying is "...but, but, but...they're Christians!!" Personal biases and original research are not acceptable in Wiki articles, so your anti-Christian scholar protestations are meaningless. At any rate, that is why the analogy is a poor one. Try again. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 03:19, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Christianity is an essential part of Western culture and a key component of modern society. Please stop being tendentious. That's right, I am saying "...but...but...but they're Christians" because that does in fact suggest it is false that "virtually all scholars" agree. Do you want to claim that virtually all scholars are Christian theologians? Now stop being tendentious, stop being sarcastic, stop being rude. Make an effort to at least understand those who disagree with you; your continued strawman arguments show that you don't understand (or care about) the concerns you're trying to reject. Noloop (talk) 03:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

"Now stop being tendentious..." Well, yeah. Whether or not the sources are Christian, in your estimation, is really irrelevant for determining whether there's an academic consensus on Jesus' existence. When a reliable source, especially one written by an eminent scholar such as Stanton, makes a comment such as the one in question, it's good evidence that there is such a consensus; if Stanton is wrong, it should not be hard to demonstrate that with reliable sources that say there's not such a consensus. In other words, if you think that it's false that "virtually all scholars" agree, you should be able to support that with some sources that say the opposite.

Furthermore, it seems to be continually ignored that the sources used to establish this consensus are not all Christians. Graeme Clarke isn't a Christian. G.A. Wells isn't a Christian, and he says that "Today, most secular scholars accept Jesus as a historical, although unimpressive figure..."

@Elen: that's a funny analogy, but not a great parallel for the situation here. "fashion designers, editors of fashion magazines, tv presenters of fashion programmes, retailers of fashion," etc. aren't academics. You could easily find a historian, anthropologist, art historian, or sociologist to cite for the importance of fashion and clothing in terms of culture, art, commerce, etc. I doubt any Wikipedia article would need to say, however, that there is an overwhelming consensus that fashion is important, or an essential part of western culture, or whatever, because I don't think there are any articles about theories that fashion didn't exist, was created through a Roman conspiracy, or so forth.

But in this situation the editors who think that there is no mainstream consensus, but only a "Christian" one, aren't going out to find other sources. Instead, we're getting claims that scholars who explicitly state that there is an overwhelming consensus are wrong, without any evidence to the contrary. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

There is clearly an academic consensus: a consensus among Christian academics. That's the context. The context matters. Nobody said all the sources are Christians. Elen didn't say it's impossible to find a historian to speak about the importance of fashion. The evidence to the contrary that you request is the article itself and this has been pointed out to you repeatedly. The vast majority of sources saying it's a fact Jesus existed are Christians. Either our sourcing represents the prevailing scholarship, in which case the academic consensus is mainly Christian, or our sourcing does not represent the prevailing scholarship, in which case the articles misrepresent the scholarship. Deal with it. Noloop (talk) 15:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Can you present a source suggesting that the religion of the historians who think Jesus existed is relevant to their conclusions? If not then you should write an article suggesting it and have it published in a history journal - not on wikipedia. We are here in wikipedia in order to summarise the scholarship - not to criticise it. The only criticism we can present is the one that is presented in scholarly reliable sources. If there is a scholarly reliable source that says that there is considerable difference between historians opinions about the issue of Jesus existence and that these difference correlate with their personal religious beliefs then present it. If there is no such source then we cannot include a statement about separate consensuses existing between christian and non-christian scholars. Deal with it.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:57, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

This basic point, which is derived from a core policy WP:NOR, has been repeated to Noloop too many times to count. Noloop is the poster-boy of WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT. Good luck.Griswaldo (talk) 17:07, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

A number of sources do suggest that the religion of the historians who think Jesus existed is relevant to their conclusions. For example: "[New Testament scholarship] pretends to be an academic discipline, but in fact resists the pursuit of a theoretical framework and the accompanying rules of argumentation necessary for coming to agreements about matters of data, method, explanation and replication of experiments or research projects…something else of importance must be driving the energies of the quest for reasons other than academic …the publication of books about the historical Jesus as well as the public discussion of them has assumed a purpose for the quest that is unreasonable and ill-conceived…to rectify and rejuvenate the Christian faith and self-understanding…the problem for the historian is that the Jesus of importance for the Christian faith is the Jesus portrayed in the Gospel story". - Mack, p34 and 38.

The problem doesn't appear to be exactly that there is a dispute between Christian academics and non-Christian academics, but that very few non-Christian academics pay attention to the topic or consider it a valid area for historical enquiry. --FormerIP (talk) 17:16, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that that is a prety good source that does frame the question of the historicity of Jesus as a question of differing goals of some religiously motivated historians and historians without such a motivation. The question is whether he also argues that a non-religiously motivated research would produce different results? If he does argue that then it seems to me that in this light it is relevant to include a mention that this has been suggested as a reason for the lack of acceptance of the non-existence hypothesis in the article.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:29, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Can you present a source suggesting that the religion of the historians who think Jesus existed is relevant to their conclusions?

We haven't heard from historians who think Jesus existed, let alone historians who say there is a consensus among historians. That's part of the problem. Martijn Meijering (talk) 18:49, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't agree that we haven't heard from historians. People in departments of religion, theology, or whatever who study the history of early Christianity are historians. Classical historians are also (by definition) historians, and there are at least two who have been cited in previous versions of this article—A. N. Sherwin-White and Michael Grant—who say that any ancient historian would agree that there is strong evidence that Jesus is historical. Graeme Clarke, who is quoted in the current version of the article, says the same thing. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:13, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning Sherwin-White. If we can find a quote in which he says there is a consensus among historians (and again: I suspect this is in fact true) that Jesus was probably a historical figure, then that would be great. I would prefer that to a quote from Stanton, who could also be quoted, but only if his words are represented accurately which they are not at the moment. If Sherwin-White only states the historicity of Jesus as his own opinion then that's not enough to establish consensus. Did Grant actually say there was a consensus? Is Graeme Clarke a classical historian or a classicist? Martijn Meijering (talk) 08:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

1. The objection I gave above isn't that "the religion of the historians who think Jesus existed is relevant to their conclusions." It's that "Christian scholars" isn't equivalent to "mainstream scholars" and we shouldn't hide the religious dominance in our sourcing from the reader.
2. Manus is essentially questioning the idea that people who worship X, and build their careers around promoting the worship of X, are biased about X. We need sources for that? It is a widely held view on Wikipedia, and I assume there's a policy about it somehwere.
3. "Furthermore, these scholars by and large believe in the Jesus they reconstruct. During what's called the "first quest" for the historical Jesus, in the early 20th century, Albert Schweitzer understood Jesus as an apocalyptic Jesus. In the latest quest, Sanders's Jesus is an eschatological prophet; Crossan's Jesus is a Mediterranean peasant cynic full of wit and critical of the Establishment; Borg's Jesus is a mystical genius; Wright's Jesus is an end-of-the-exile messianic prophet who believed he was God returning to Zion. We could go on, but we have made our point: Historical Jesus scholars reconstruct what Jesus was really like and orient their faith around that reconstruction."[4] Noloop (talk) 19:28, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I am questioning the assumption that religious people are not able to separate their beliefs from their scientific judgment, because that is a basically bigotted narrow minded assumption that doesn't lead anywhere because non-christian scholars also have viewpoints that could be assumed to color their judgments equally. For example how can we trust a fanatic atheist's judgment about Jesus' history, or a hindu? Scholars are scholars because they are expected to separate their personal preferences from their scientific judgment, if an author has been approved as a scholar by the scholarly community (by being allowed to publish in a peerreviewed journal) then he is a scholar and we can on;ly judge his scholar ship, not his personal beliefs (unless a reliable source sees them as relevant) - it is true that sometimes they are not, but that has to be carefully documented and published in reliable sources before we can use it in wikipedia. What you write about differently reconstructed Jesuses as being the result of the minds of their reconstructors is really interesting, but unless you have sources for it it is OR (that you probably could and should get published). Deal with it. ·Maunus·ƛ· 19:49, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's not start with the "bigot" nonsense again. Maybe a monumental distraction right now would suit your side of the argument, Manus, but please try to stick to being civil. We are dealing here with POV which appears to be held pretty much exclusively by Christians and which multiple sources indicate is theologically motivated. It's not at all bigoted to point either of those things out.--FormerIP (talk) 20:23, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, The best evidence for bigotry is name-calling. As for my supposed OR, I did not write what Manus is describing as my writing (hence the quotation marks around it, and the link at the end of it). The source is that hotbed of anti-Chrisitian bigotry, Christianity Today. Noloop (talk) 20:58, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

The source which goes on to say that "Historical Jesus scholars reconstruct Jesus in conscious contrast with the categories of the evangelists and the beliefs of the church. Wright is the most orthodox of the well-known historical Jesus scholars; I can count on one hand the number of historical Jesus scholars who hold orthodox beliefs. The inspiration for historical Jesus scholarship is that the Gospels overdid it..." In other words, scholars on the HJ reconstruct a Jesus who contrasts with the beliefs of organized Christianity. This doesn't square with Noloop's assertion that the careers of the sources cited in this article are oriented around promoting the worship of Jesus (which is not an assertion that should be readily granted, anyway). --Akhilleus (talk) 03:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it would probably be fair comment that "scholars on the HJ reconstruct a Jesus who contrasts with the beliefs of organized Christianity", but it deosn't follow from this that they have no Christian agenda. According to our sources, they are frequently motivated against atheism and docetism. So it is perfectly consistent with the assertion made, not only by Noloop, but by a number of reliable sources. --FormerIP (talk) 15:42, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The offending word is struck and replaced (even though it was certainly neither name calling or incivil as it was directed at a hypothetical argument and not an editor), maybe now you can adress my argument that religious viewpoints can be separated from scientific ones, and if they can't that falls back on non-christian religious viewpoints as well?·Maunus·ƛ· 01:11, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Is there some reason you're singling me out for these comments? Many editors have concenrs about the use of Christian sources. The majority of respondents to the RFC on Historicity of Jesus said it was proper to identify overtly Christian sources as such. Many have expressed a desire for more secular sourcing. I don't, actually, understand your objection. It doesn't seem to address what I've already said. Noloop (talk) 14:59, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

SIngling you out? That is in your mind I think, I have used the pronoun "you" in a conversation with you and others, but you is both plural and singular second person in the english language so I don't know why you'd see this as singling you (noloop) out.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Why not quote atheist scholar William Arnal (The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism, and the Construction of Contemporary Identity):

In fact, no one in mainstream New Testament scholarship denies that Jesus was a Jew. (p. 5)

In the case of critical scholarship on the New Testament, earliest Christianity, and especially the historical Jesus, things have been improving for the last thirty years or so. Beginning in the 1970s and continuing to the present, numerous studies have appeared which not only acknowledge his identity as a Jew, but which emphasize it, and make it central to their reconstructions…. Thus is it a normal feature of the recent works emphasizing Jesus' Judaism that they tend to normalize him, make him an understandable and more ordinary figure among his contemporaries, comparable to other Jewish figures from the same time and place. (p. 15-16)

Barrett Pashak (talk) 15:27, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I think you need to be clearer about why you are quoting this, Barrett. It may contain information that would be valuable to the article, but I am not sure how it is helpful to this discussion. --FormerIP (talk) 15:42, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Quoting an atheist on the scholarly consensus counters the objections above that the consensus relates exclusively to Christian scholars.Barrett Pashak (talk) 15:51, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I see. But I think you're missing the nub of the argument. It isn't about whether any scholarly concensus exists, it is about how the fact that it mainly exists amongst Christians who, according to some sources, have a religious agenda, should be presented in the article. --FormerIP (talk) 16:18, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, now you have a quotation by an atheist scholar that confirms and supports the consensus. Just saying.Barrett Pashak (talk) 16:21, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Arnal has often struck me as one of the better sources, however nothing in what you quote says anything about a consensus, to say nothing about a consensus among secular academics. Where did find the information that he is an atheist? Noloop (talk) 20:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps unexpectedly, the University of Regina’s new religious studies’ assistant professor, William Arnal, is a professed atheist.--URegina News

Is it not an affirmation of consensus to state that "no one in mainstream New Testament scholarship denies that Jesus was a Jew"?Barrett Pashak (talk) 22:20, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

It confirms a consensus among New Testament scholarship (sort of), but that's not the consensus we're discussing. (The context is also a little unclear. No classicist denies that Hercules was a Greek, but that doesn't mean all classicists believe Hercules existed.)

The context of the Arnal comment is notable, because it confirms that the religion of the scholar influences the opinion, in this field: "...scholarship on the historical Jesus uses the figure of Jesus as a screen or symbol on which to project contemporary cultural debates, and to employ the inherent authority of this Jesus-figure to advance one or another particular stance on these debates." (The context of the comment about the Judaic background of Jesus is the William Gibson movie.) Noloop (talk) 23:07, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

As for the Hercules parallel that you put forward, you have to look at the second quotation from Arnal that I provided, where he says, "[t]hus is it a normal feature of the recent works emphasizing Jesus' Judaism that they tend to normalize him, make him an understandable and more ordinary figure among his contemporaries, comparable to other Jewish figures from the same time and place." Oh, yeah, and its not William Gibson, but Mel Gibson.Barrett Pashak (talk) 02:11, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

These passages from Arnal aren't talking about how a scholar's religious persuasions influence his/her conclusion that Jesus exists; he's talking about how "contemporary cultural debates", such as identity politics, influence reconstructions of Jesus. To use Arnal as evidence that scholars are biased about Jesus' existence is to distort his argument; to use Arnal as evidence that scholars' reconstructions of the historical Jesus are inevitably biased by their religion is also distorting what he says, since he 1) explicitly says he's not concerned with the personal and individual motives of the scholars whose views he discusses (p. 39) and 2) he clearly thinks that there are good, critical approaches to the historical study of Jesus and 3) he speaks of recent scholarship on Jesus that emphasizes his Jewishness as being associated with a secularization of the field of New Testament studies (p. 44). --Akhilleus (talk) 03:10, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I'm not saying it isn't worth reading. --FormerIP (talk) 16:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Maunus: maybe now you can adress my argument that religious viewpoints can be separated from scientific ones, and if they can't that falls back on non-christian religious viewpoints as well?. I'm not sure I fully understand this line of argument, but I'll have a go. Religious viewpoints shouldn't be presented as scientific viewpoints (I'm assuming we can agree on that). Religiously motivated viewpoints also shouldn't be presented as scientific viewpoints. Religious viewpoints can be separated from sicentific ones, in the sense that the religious persuasion of an author can be taken as immaterial to the view they are expressing when there is an absense of any reason to think otherwise. But when sources are telling us that the religious view is not immaterial (eg Mack, which I quoted above, Beilby and Eddy (p33) "…it was a theological motivation that got this new quest up and running – namely the conviction that contemporary Christianity must not devolve into a new form of docetism"), then we are - I would say quite obviously - not entitled to treat the sources in question as if they were disinterested. --FormerIP (talk) 16:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I have already said that if there are reliable sources that suggest that the the reason a majority of scholars believe in the existence of jesus is because of their religious beliefs, then that is something we can include in the article. We agree on that point. Noloop wrote "Manus is essentially questioning the idea that people who worship X, and build their careers around promoting the worship of X, are biased about X. We need sources for that?" this suggests that scientists that believe in x are incapable of detaching their personal beliefs from their scientific conclusions. If we are to adopt that position then atheist or hinduist scholars also cannot be seen as neutral since they also hold religious beleifs that would colour their conclusions. Thatis why we can only base our statements on source explicitly claiming that the consensus is X, or that the reason consensus is X is that Y. We can not just assume that consensus X is determined by Y unless we have a good source for suggesting it.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

None of these sources that discuss theological motivations, etc., have discussed how this has made scholars biased on the question of Jesus' existence. At most, these sources tell us that religious motivations sometimes guide a scholar's reconstruction of what Jesus was like. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:10, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Why are quotes about consensus being censored?

It is clear from this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bill_the_Cat_7/CMT_FAQ#FAQ_Question_.232 that scholars overwhelmingly reject CMT. Yet any quote regarding this consensus is removed. The article simply mentions "most scholars believe Jesus exists". Flash 21:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Are you not reading anything that anyone else writes on this talkpage? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:42, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Whether or not he is, there is a problem here. Saying that most scholars believe Jesus was historical responds only implicitly to the CMT; there should be in the lead some sort of indication of the reception of the CMT itself. Some of the quotes from Wells and Price in a section above might be useful, rather than the quotes from Bill's FAQ. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:59, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed insofar as the text could be more accurate about how small a minority holds the view of complete "non-historicity". Presently the text says, in the fourth paragraph:

"The idea remains a minority one. Most scholars who study early Christianity believe the existence of Jesus is established by the documentary evidence of the New Testament and other early sources, although there is broad agreement, even from scholars belonging to mainstream churches, that the New Testament and other early Christian sources cannot be taken at face value as historical sources, but must be evaluated critically."[cited to 3 RSs]

Fact is, scholars who have made historicity a focal point of their research overwhelmingly hold a view that "Jesus of Nazareth" existed and that his followers believed he was the messiah. Part of the problem might be that there are several variations of what is meant by a "Jesus myth". Fair enough, it would seem. But as to his mere historicity, the view of scholars appears to be virtually unanimous, and therefore the text should reflect that non-historicity is the view of an extremely small minority of, well, essentially several outliers. And the text should also therefore reflect that the actual existence of such a person as Jesus of Nazareth is the accepted position of "the overwhelming majority" of scholars, or "nearly all" scholars (as the Stanton source says), or similar language to this effect. ... Kenosis (talk) 03:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Any attempt to try to push the wording to go beyond the objective reality of the situation and to stress supreme rejection of the theory is both major POV pushing and unencyclopedic. So apparently it's not enough for some people to state just the facts but they want the article to basically come right out and ridicule the theory. That's not how things are sone here. DreamGuy (talk) 17:52, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

DreamGuy, given the very substantial amount of attention the participants in this article have paid to researching the available reliable sources dealing with this topic and the closely related topic of historicity, I'd be interested to know a bit more specifically what aspects of the article "basically come right out and ridicule the theory", as you have just said. Or, if I may be direct here, are the participants just supposed to take the proponents of complete "non historicity at face value? without noting that they're quite verifiably in an extremely small minority among the RSs both religious and secular? Or do you dispute that the proponents of complete non-historicity (specifically that a person named Jesus [Yeshua] of Nazareth didn't exist) are in a very small minority among researchers who have thoroughly researched the historical evidence? Or do you have more RSs in support of the idea that there are more proponents of complete non-historicity than are currently on the table for discussion? Or, something else? Or, please correct me if you have some evidence that I've misstated or wrongly implied anything at all here. ... Kenosis (talk) 05:24, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

They are not in a small minority among secular scholars. They are in the minority among Christian scholars, which is, like, a "duh" fact. The fact that secular scholars have little to say on the matter is proven by these articles themselves, which could not exist in their current form if made to rely on secular sources. These articles represent the prevailing scholarship. The scholarship in these articles in predominantly Christian. Therefore, the prevailing scholarship is Christian. Noloop (talk) 16:57, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Speaking as an observer, I've gotten the same impression as Noloop has here. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:44, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I see several comments which dispute the sources already in the article, such as Graham Stanton:

Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically."

and GA Wells

"Today, most secular scholars accept Jesus as a historical, although unimpressive figure. They are aware that much that is said of him, and by him, in the New Testament is no longer taken at face value even by scholars within the mainstream churches, who either discount much of its material as inauthentic, or justify it by more novel interpretations."

I'd say again, what's needed here is evidence of some kind, in opposition to the statements of these RSs and others regarding the consensus of secular historians as to the existence of a person called Jesus of Nazareth whose followers believed he was the messiah. For example, in support of a contrary position it might be useful to put on the table one or more reliable source(s) who give evidence that Josephus had it wrong in his Antiquities, with secondary sources showing that there is a movement afoot among secular scholars casting doubt on the existence of such a person as Jesus of Nazareth. But some kind of evidence will be needed here, I should think, in support of the notion that there's a notable minority of scholarly proponents of non-historicity. So Noloop, or anyone here, if there exists such evidence of a notable minority rather than a WP:FRINGE, please, let's examine it and maybe try to put this ongoing speculative back-and-forth to rest in some kind of sustainable way for the article. ... Kenosis (talk) 18:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

You make a good point. There exist reliable sources who claim such a consensus. I personally believe these sources are wrong, though it is probably true for some of the mostly isolated islands of scholars who discuss with one another but not with those from other islands, but we'd need reliable sources before we could make such claims in the article. Nevertheless, reliable sources have been mentioned who dispute CMT is a fringe opinion, Ellegard, Dawkins, Wells. Since these are serious scholars (not necessarily prominent ones on this subject), doesn't that by itself constitute evidence that the CMT is not a fringe theory? Note that these sources do not deny it is a minority position. Martijn Meijering (talk) 18:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Mmeijeri, you said, "...doesn't that by itself constitute evidence that the CMT is not a fringe theory?" No, it doesn't, because whether or not something is a fringe theory is not determined by the proponents of the fringe theory. It is determined by the mainstream consensus. And that consensus puts the CMT clearly in the fringe category, which is something that even Wells acknowledges:

• [T]he view that there was no historical Jesus, that his earthly existence is a fiction of earliest Christianity—a fiction only later made concrete by setting his life in the first century—is today almost totally rejected.

G. A. Wells, The Historical Evidence for Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1988) p. 218

• It is customary today to dismiss with amused contempt the suggestion that Jesus never existed.

G. A. Wells, "The Historicity of Jesus," in Jesus and History and Myth, ed. R. Joseph Hoffman (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1986) p. 27

I think those two quotes pretty much sum it all up. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:17, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Can a theory be fringe if it is supported by serious scholars? Dawkins, Ellegard and Wells are not random internet cranks. Can it be fringe if it was seriously discussed by scholars who disagree with it, as in the case of Ellegard? It is obviously a minority position, but do you disagree that the fact that the sources in question are serious scholars trumps the fact that they themselves support it? What if, say, Stephen Hawking or a panel of physics Nobel laureates agreed with the CMT, would that still not remove fringe status? Martijn Meijering (talk) 20:32, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a theory can be fringe if it is supported by serious scholars. But that's not really the question we need to be asking. Rather, the question is: What does the scholarly consensus indicate? The answer is that it is indeed fringe. To say otherwise in a WP article is to engage in original research as well as failing to maintain a WP:NPOV, both of which are core WP policies. Also, your example about Hawking doesn't apply, since his field of study is not ancient history, so the answer is that it doesn't matter what physicists (or biologists, geologists, et. al.) have to say. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 00:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, Martijn Meijering. I happen to think the article as a whole already speaks to the issue in a reasonable way, quibble as we might. As noted in the article section on The Jesus Project, much of the difficulty lies in the wide confusion between the myth and the man.
..... As to the fourth paragraph of the lead, I still have the same quibble that the language doesn't reflect the strength of the consensus that an historical Jesus actually existed. W.r.t. Dawkins, Wells and Ellegard: Dawkins, in The God Delusion, makes a case debunking the mythology surrounding the man. Dawkins writes at p 122:

"It is even possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all, as has been done by, among others Professor G. A. Wells of the University of London in a number of books, including Did Jesus Exist? Although Jesus probably existed, ..."

Note also that Wells, although he's a published scholar, is not an historian but a professor of German language. In Jesus Myth (1999) Wells waters down his earlier assertion that Jesus never existed as a person in 1st century Judea, making clearer that his beef is with the myths set forth in the New Testament Gospels, in letters attributed to Paul and in various apocrypha. Also in 1999, Wells says in an article titled "Earliest Christianity":

"[T]he Galilean and the Cynic elements ... may contain a core of reminiscences of an itinerant Cynic-type Galilean preacher (who, however, is certainly not to be identified with the Jesus of the earliest Christian documents)."

Ellegard's argument is fair enough except for one little thing. If he alleges that theologians have inadequately questioned whether such a person as Jesus of Nazareth ever existed, where's all the peer-reviewed literature among secular historians making a case for this view? AFAIK there's no notable school of thought among historians arguing that there never was such a person who lived in first century Galilee whose increasingly influential followers, as Josphus relates, believed him to be the messiah. What I'd want to see is some indication by one or more RSs that such a developing school of historical thought actually exists, or some actual citations to such peer-reviewed literature among secular historians. Thus far I don't see it on the table for discussion here. ... Kenosis (talk) 20:26, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE is poorly defined, and does a poor job of distinguishing between the ideas of "minority" and "fringe." It generally uses terms like "significant" or "extreme" minority, which does nothing but shift the burden of specificity to the terms "significant" or "extreme." The usual example of fringe theories are denial of the moon landings and the Holocaust, the theory the Earth is flat, etc. Is anybody seriously comparing those situations to this one? Noloop (talk) 01:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there are indeed reliable sources who make those comparisons, as well as a comparison to the moon being made of green cheese. And yes, the CMT does fall into the category of fringe. More importantly, however, proponents of the CMT acknowledge the outright disdain the mainstream has for it. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 03:24, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Fact is, when all the sources say the same thing, and editors refuse to put it in the article, it is POV pushing. Flash 03:45, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yep, that's what it looks like to me too. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 04:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem is all the sources do not say the same thing. Heck they can't even agree on what CTM actually is and the list of supporters at times is a mess.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:17, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I think this debate is one of the reasons it's important to distinguish "Jesus myth theory" in the sense of disputing the historical existence of a fellow named Jesus of Nazareth (whose followers believed him the messiah, the previously prophesized "Christ", Greek "Christus", for the Hebrew "Moshiach"), and on the other hand "Christ myth theory" (CMT, to which some here have referred) in which the stories told by those followers appear to have gradually grown to increasingly mythical proportions over the course of several centuries of growth of the early Christian church. I recognize why the two are often used interchangeably, but for purposes of analyzing the strength of scholarly consensus about the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth the two need to be seen as separate issues. And if this article is to remain separate from Historicity of Jesus, I think a brief note about historicity needs to continue to be given in the lead, perhaps in a sentence separated from the current one which relates that most scholars agree the religious literature needs to be viewed critically rather than at face value. (This turns out to be the main beef of most of the credible CMT proponents today, not that there once existed a fellow named Jesus whose followers believed him the messiah, but that we lack independent historical evidence and/or adequately early manuscripts in support of various claims made in the religious literature--the myths so to speak).
..... The historical record, independently of Christian literature, unfortunately is today very heavily dependent on Josephus. Although there is some minor quibbling about wording in Josephus' work, his Antiquities of the Jews, which comes to us via several avenues independently of the once dominant Holy Roman Empire, appears to confirm that a fellow named Jesus of Nazareth actually lived and was executed in Judea, and whose followers believed him the messiah. AFAIK, no credible historian who has focused on researching this issue seriously disputes that somebody named Jesus of Nazareth existed. So, IMO, it might be useful to try to separate the two issues a little more explicitly than has been done in this article to date. ... Kenosis (talk) 13:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

But as you say "Jesus Myth" and "Christ Myth" are used interchangeably and when you have vague definitions and list of "supporters" that mix people that held Jesus was a pure myth and those that held was was a historical person (Schweitzer with regards to Drews and James George Frazer; Doherty, Price, Carrier, and Earl-Boyd regarding Wells from Jesus Legend (1996) on) trying to say they are different does a major crash and burn.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

BG, the issue of the-myth-versus-the-man, Jesus-vs-the-Christ, etc., or for that matter Jesus-the-myth-vs.-Jesus-the-man, is as I hope I already made clear enough, is fair enough. I made some comments here about this general issue, but as should be apparent already I really have asked only one question (framed as a request, immediately below--or heck, call it a demand for evidence if you or anyone else prefers), which was essentially that if you have a source from among modern historians which asserts that some guy named Jesus of Nazareth never existed and/or that followers of this hypothetical person named Jesus (or however you care to translate or transliterate the presently available historical record independently of the New Testament) did not believe he was the messiah, or that no such person ever existed in early 1st century CE, and/or that his followers made the whole story up and managed to bamboozle the Roman recordkeepers to believe that this guy was executed when if fact he was not, etc. etc., please put it up for discussion here. I asked the question and it's pretty directly asked directly below and nobody has offered anything thus far. The Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman historian Tacitus said there was such a person, and that that guy Jesus of Nazareth was executed and that his followers believed him the messiah. I apologize for being quite so direct, but in light of the available historical records as of now, in the of the early 21st century, what is it about this issue of "mere historicity" (that some guy named Jesus existed, was executed, and whose followers believed him the messiah) that is a problem here? ... Kenosis (talk) 04:34, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Quick follow-up and a minor self correction: I forget if it was Josephus or Tacitus, or both, but IIRC at least one of the independent historical references was to the followers of "Christus", not Jesus per se. Nonetheless we have extremely good reason to know to whom he was referring. I've never heard of a historian who disputes this issue either. ... Kenosis (talk) 16:05, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Several points. The famous Testimonium Flavianum is known to have been tampered with per Origen--the debate is how much tampering there has been and the best the supporters can come up with is a document the ninth century. By basic ethnological provenance this evidence would be so laughable if it was not so pathetically desperate. The second passage of Josephus is confusing and could also be read as an example of another Jesus Christ who rather than being crucified was made high priest.

Tacitus talks about procurator Pontius Pilatus which is akin to talking about Secretary of Defense Henry Lewis Stimson; clearly he can't be taking this information from official sources which leaves the rumor mill and we know how unreliable that is.

Suetonius says "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus expelled them from Rome." regarding Emperor Claudius in c49 CE (Claudius 5.25.4). There are several things here. As demonstrated by "Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition." in "Life of Nero" of the same work (The Twelve Caesars c121 CE) Suetonius knew enough to distinguish Jews from Christians but this is also there the fiction of Nero laying a lyre while Rome burned came from so clearly Suetonius was writing propaganda as much as history. Also the tense implies that this "Chrestus" was alive and actively stirring up trouble which could NOT be the biblical Jesus. If the pro Historical side has to go for stuff like this as evidence one has to ask how weak is their case?--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

A fringe designation on Wikipedia is decided by Wikipedia editors and is unrelated to reliable sources. The Bishop of Durham, author of the "green cheese" quote is not an editor here and not a reliable source on the matter of Wikipedia's fringe guideline. (He's also no more reliable than the Pope on secular, scientific matters). Noloop (talk) 18:01, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

"AFAIK, no credible historian who has focused on researching this issue seriously disputes that somebody named Jesus of Nazareth existed." That is 1) irrelevant to the dispute, and 2) uninformed. Have you read 1) the history of this dispute, or 2) this article? Noloop (talk) 18:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

RE "irrelevant": I disagree. The point here has a whole lot to do with just how small a minority scholarly advocates of total non-historicity are today.
RE "uninformed": Actually, I haven't kept track of Talk here for a couple years, and don't intend to dig into the hellish archives. As to the article, I did notice immediately it's recently been significantly improved.
..... As to what I said in my comment above which you just quoted, note that I used the present tense word "disputes". Name one present-day historian that holds a position of complete non-historicity (that there was no Jesus of Nazareth)--just one. And I don't mean mathematicians, professors of German, philosophers whether degree qualified or of the armchair variety, etc., or historians from the 19th century. I don't see any present-day historian who stands professionally accountable to the modern community of historians who holds this position in their published work, but am always open to correction and if necessary, re-education ;-) I do recognize that Hoffmann has declared the entire enterprise flawed, but that's a methodological and sociological criticism, not a historical conclusion. Again, if you know of just one such modern historian who's advocating complete non-historicity, please help me out and name her or him. ... Kenosis (talk) 16:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Richard Carrier who has a MA, MPhil, and PhD in Ancient history. You did say to name one present day historian and like or not Carrier fits that bill. I trust we won't see the moving the goal post song and dance.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:40, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

We need to be careful about using Bishops of Durham as sources on the subject of Christianity. A previous Bishop of Durham has apparently denied that the virgin birth or the resurrection were historical events. Wdford (talk) 22:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why people are referring to the "Bishop of Durham" as if it's self-evident who this means. I'd guess most people outside the UK, and perhaps a fair amount of people within it, have no idea what this position is, and anyway, the author of the "green cheese" quote (which doesn't seem to appear in the current version of the article or this talk page) has a name: he's N. T. Wright. He is no longer the Bishop of Durham; he is now a Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. As for the links that Wdford gives just above, I'd say this is good evidence that you can't predict someone's going to hold a particular view just because they're a bishop... --Akhilleus (talk) 01:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

It looks like the reason "Bishop of Durham" is being used is because "bishop" = Christian = one who can't be trusted unless such a person is supported by an atheist in "secular, peer-reviewed journals" (whatever that means). Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 02:12, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

He stopped being the bishop a week ago, according to his wikipedia article. This is typical of the word-gaming and lawyering of a certain crowd of editors here. The point having to do with WP:FRINGE has now been abandoned for a new, petty argument over whether I should have used "Bishop of Durham" as an identifier. Noloop (talk) 06:06, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

The Bishop of Durham is a vey senior official in the Anglican Church, which is a branch of Christianity. All officials of Christian churches are by definition Christians, which generally implies a belief in the divinity of Jesus, his sacrifice and his resurrection. The bishop to whom I was referring was named David Jenkins, who served in the position from 1984 to 1994, and who has also been a professor and lecturer at universities such as Leeds and Oxford (thereby making him a “reliable source” as well). Sorry to rain on Bill’s little POV rant, but I used this example because clergy preach the tenets of their religion to the masses, seeking to save their souls with this information, and the bishop in this case essentially admitted that he had been preaching (for many years) something he himself didn’t believe in. When senior Christian clergy start admitting that they don’t believe the religious doctrines they preach (and apparently Jenkins is not alone in this), then the concept of “fringe” does indeed require a fresh evaluation. Jenkins once said, live on TV: “There is absolutely no certainty in the New Testament about anything of importance.” Wdford (talk) 07:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

What Jenkins said was that a virgin birth and a physical resurrection were not necessary adjuncts to salvation. Spong (bishop of New York??) has said similar things, as have a number of senior clergy or ex-clergy (eg Cupitt)) who were young in the 1960s. Their common view is that it is the gospel teachings that are significant, echoing the praxis school of theology which holds that it is by practically living the proactive teachings of the gospels (love thy neighbour, greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for his brother etc) that salvation comes and the Kingdom of G-d is achieved. This apparently modern belief is actually ancient, and is found in the wisdom literature of Ancient Egypt. The gospel account of the sorting of the sheep and the goats (which mirrors the Osirian Confession in the Book of the Dead, and is highlighted by a number of commentators to illustrate their thesis that the teachings of Jesus combined an element of Kemitic thinking), and the strictures of St James against those who utter blessings but do not relieve suffering, suggest that the earliest church may have held this view. Its return to prominence in the 1960s and 70s was a reaction to a christianity that was seen as becoming obsessed by rules and sex.Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:03, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

@Wdford, you didn't rain on my "rant". You simply confirmed my above conclusion (based on the actions of a one, or a few, Christians in positions of church authority - in this case, Bishop of Durham) that Christian scholars can't be trusted. At least you had the courage to admit it. By the way, the quote, "There is absolutely no certainty in the New Testament..." is meaningless, since there is no such thing as certainty (as in 100% sure of something) in anything regarding ancient history. It's all a matter of evidence and probabilities. And the probability that jesus existed as a historical figure according to virtually every scholar is about as close to, but less than, 100% as an ancient personage can get. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 00:54, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It would be easier to take those scholars seriously if the evidence compared to other figures wasn't so bad. Paul is the only known truly contemporaneous person to talk about Jesus and he seems to know nothing other than the merest basics about the man. Paul doesn't quote one parable doesn't note one miracle of a man that according to John preached for 3 years. In fact Romans 1:3 expressly denies the virgin birth: "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed (sperma) of David according to the flesh." (KJV). The key thing people who try to salvage this passage by saying it somehow refers to Mary forget is Paul before his conversion was a Roman not a Jew and so the passage must be read from a Roman not Jewish prospective. That Roman prospective, which survived clear into the 19th century, was that women were the soil in which a man plant his "seed" (women were said to be fertile or barren just like a farmer's plot of land). One is left with the impression that Paul was very ignorant of the Gospel account and that leaves one with two conclusions: Paul didn't think it was important (laughable when you think about it) or those accounts didn't exist when he wrote his letters.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:46, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

As I've said before BG, I love you man, but now you're just babbling. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 04:15, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually I am merely repeating what many have said before. "In Galatians 4:4 Paul notes that Jesus was "born of a woman, born under the law...," and in Romans 1:1-3, he refers to Jesus being "descended from David according to the flesh." These seem to imply that St. Paul viewed Jesus' conception as a very normal human conception and, accordingly, follows St. Matthew’s genealogical tracing of Jesus’ ancestry through St. Joseph." ([Evangelical Lutheran Church in America])

"The Virgin Mary’s journey into western mythology was gradual, she is never mentioned in all the writings of the Apostle Paul, the earliest creator of material that came to be included in the New Testament. Paul, who wrote between 49-64 A.D., had no interest in Jesus’ origins. His only references to Jesus’ family came when he said that Jesus was “born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4). He asserted that “according to the flesh,” Jesus was descended from the House of David (Romans 1:3). Paul also made reference to Jesus’ brother, a man named James. No divine origin here, no miraculous birth, no virgin mother." ([Arian Catholic Church])

"Paul, describing Jesus’ birth, says that “God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Galatians 4:4), using the word gune (woman) rather than parthenos (virgin). In Romans, Paul specifically states that Jesus came “from the seed of David, according to the flesh.” (1:3) Surely Paul, the Christian master of marketing, writing before even Mark, would have promoted Jesus’ virgin birth if it had been the case." ([Jesus Police])

So even pro Historical Jesus people admit that Paul expressly denies a virgin birth and yet many on this same side of the issue try to push the supernatural events as history and turn what should be a series argument into a joke. In The Jesus legend (where George Albert Wells accepted that there was a historical Q Jesus) Wells shows most of the problems with Thallus and yet even scholars like Van Voorst use him as evidence. Forgive the pun but why in the name of heaven would you do such a thing unless you are desperate for any supposed reference to Jesus or are trying to show all the Gospels are historical? Much the same question can be asked regarding Suetonius and Pliny the Younger--neither talks about Jesus and yet they are put forth as "evidence" as well. This is why the Christ Myth Theory gets such mileage--you don't need to be a scholar to see some of the supposed evidence is not what it is claimed to be and that raises the question of "why misrepresent it?" with the obvious answer being "because the Emperor has no clothes and we have throw as much up there to hide the fact."--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:25, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Jenkins also said that the NT cannot be relied upon for anything important (which is of obvious import re the "fringe" debate). My concern has always been – if we cannot trust the gospel record when it tells us that virgin births and resurrections took place, then can we trust the gospels as a reliable record on the rest of the teachings re salvation (or re anything else at all)? In which case, the praxis teachings are equally founded on clay.

The NT says that salvation comes from accepting the ransom sacrifice of Jesus, who takes the place of the Passover Lamb as an atonement of sins by virtue of being both Perfect and Sacrificed, and then defeating death. If he was not perfect and did not defeat death etc, then per the NT salvation is lost to us. In that case, what sort of Christianity has Jenkins actually preaching for the last four decades? Its all very well for senior clergy to say that the scriptures are "wrong" in places, such as re stoning homosexuals and squashing Women’s Lib, but who gets to decide which scriptures we dump and which we stick to in order to achieve salvation?

Spong was apparently the Episcopal Bishop of Newark, across the river.

I agree that much of Christian teaching is Egyptian (and Babylonian too, which apparently derives from the long sojourn of the Jewish religious elite in Babylon until the coming of Cyrus). OT stories such as Moses in the bulrushes, and Noah and the Flood, are proven to have had direct Babylonian origins.

My long-standing question since childhood has been – many religious works speak of separating the sheep and the goats. Which animal is considered to be good and which bad? Wdford (talk) 10:38, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

In the context of the Gospel text (Matt 25 v31 on, the sheep are good and the goats bad. This would be consistent with the Israelites having once been pastoralists herding sheep (eg the story of Jacob and Laban in Genesis 29), although as goats are acceptable as offerings to G-d (eg Leviticus 4 v 29 on), I am not sure why goats are considered bad. In ancient egypt, the sheep would have been bad, as sheep were considered unclean - they were eaten, but priests were forbidden from wearing wool or sheepskin, but the Osirian confession mentions neither sheep nor goats. Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:51, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

"I have lived upon truth, I have fed upon truth, I have performed the ordinances of men, and the things which gratify the gods. I have done that which the gods desire, I have given bread to the hungry man, and water to him that was thirsty. I have clothed the naked man. I have ferried people across the river in my own boat." [5] Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Interesting indeed. The desert nomads husband sheep and goats equally, and visually they are very difficult to tell apart. Once a group of desert sheep and goats intermingle, its quite a process to separate them, which alone might be the basis of the parable. However, goats are intelligent, self-sufficient and hardy, and they give milk as well as meat and wool, whereas sheep are stupid, suicidal and easily lead. Since we have now seen that the gospels are more myth than history, it could be that there is more to this allegory than meets the eye - perhaps the goats are those that question, and the sheep are those that accept whatever they are told without argument?

I have also seen an astrological theory that the Egyptians were down on sheep, because they (the Egyptians, not the sheep) were of the "Old Order" (i.e. worshippers of Taurus, hence the Apis Bull etc) while the "New Order" (Aries) was a threat to their established priesthood. Yet another theory holds that the Hyksos invaders were "sheep people" while the "true" Egyptians worshipped the Apis Bull, etc. Since we have learned that much Egyptian religion was carried over by the Exodus generation and imported into the "new" religion of Moses, and since Jesus is so closely linked with the Passover (which was originally an Exodus-related event, assuming it happened at all), maybe the fringe is more central to Christianity than was previously supposed? Wdford (talk) 12:11, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

The Aries/Taurus theory is New Age bunkum. Apart from anything else, the Egyptians didn't use the Babylonian zodiac. The theory relating to the Hyksos is relatively widely accepted. The Egyptians have two ram headed deities - Amum and Khnum - who go back to the Old Kingdom, but they got a definite down on sheep later. There was also a practical aspect - priests shaved the head and body, and wore only linen, which does not shed fibres (they could weave the most marvellous linen - it doesn't take hi-tech. Modern tv recreations which show ancient Egyptians swathed in yards of cotton cheesecloth really do no justice to ancient textiles). Wool, which was worn, sheds fibres, and it may be merely this that led it to be regarded as unclean.Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about the shedding fibres part, but considering they lived in a dusty desert, they are being a bit picky about a few fibres here and there. I think the linen was more a status symbol than a spiritual necessity, unless maybe linen has lice-repelling properties.

The Dendera Zodiac has constellations which resemble the Babylonian model, and although the existing Dendera Temple complex is only 2000 years old, it is merely the latest incarnation of a temple that was first built on that site in Old Kingdom times. Perhaps the decorations are copies of the originals as well?

Finally, I found another theory which includes Amun and Khnum etc - Amun & family were originally "Upper Egyptian" gods, while their "Lower Egyptian" counterparts were Ra and Ptah etc. The Apis Bull and the Serapeum etc were Lower Egyptian elements, which distinguished itself from Upper Egypt and the smelly Ram people all through history by having two separate crowns and by breaking away every chance they got - a bit like England vs Scotland, or the Yankees vs the Confederates in the USA, or Pakistan vs India, or Quebec vs everyone who can speak English.

Should we not have a proper article to discuss pagan mythology incorporated into Christian dogma - the stuff at Christian_mythology#Comparative_mythology doesn't really do this material justice, nor does Jesus_Christ_and_mythology, but if we merge the above with elements from Comparative_mythology and maybe a few others, we could build up a really interesting article. Any suggestions? Wdford (talk) 17:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty clear from this passage: "All of us like sheep..." Isaiah 53:6 (New American Standard Bible) -PeaceLoveHarmony (talk) 16:44, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

You speak for yourself :) I do not own a pair of welliesElen of the Roads (talk) 14:25, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

@Kenosis. Hi. I'v been sick lately, and didn't see this. Objecting to the characterization "mainstream consensus" doesn't require producing sources that directly oppose the alleged consensus. It requires producing evidence of a lack of certainty. We should lack certainty because certainty requires reliance on biased sources: priests, ministers, Christian theologians, and Christian presses like InterVaristy [6]. If there is a mainstream consensus about X, you can support articles on X primarily with secular, academic sources. We don't do that; maybe we can't do that, and we should alert the reader to that. This position doesn't imply that any particular Chrsitian source is unreliable. It implies that 1) "Christian scholars" is not equivalent to "mainstream scholars", 2) Christians (especially those with careers based on Jesus) are biased about the existence of Jesus. As for the request for reputable skeptics, I don't understand how you can have such a question after reading this article. Noloop (talk) 17:34, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Robert Eisenman

This is a rather extensive quote from p. 331 of "Who on Earth was Jesus?" by David Boulton, Winchester & Washington: O Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-84694-018-7:

If, indeed, Jesus really had this brother... Eisenman is good at suggesting, hinting, kite-flying, without irrevocably committing himself. Note, for example, the "let us assume that a Messianic leader known as 'Jesus' did exist in the early part of the first century in Palestine," quoted above from his Introduction. "Let us assume" plants the possibility that he didn't exist, that he was perhaps an amalgam of Jesuses, even a skillfully contrived fictional family member. Eisenman toys with the admittedly bewildering play of names in the literature; not only the various Marys (including Mary the sister of Mary) and Judases (Judas Iscariot, whom Eisenman thinks did not exist, Judas non-Iscariot, Judas the Galilean, Judas the Twin, etc.), but also the several Jesuses: Jesus the brother of James, Jesus Barabbas, Jesus ben Ananias, Jesus ben Gamala, the sorcerer Elymas bar-Jesus, and so on. Could our Jesus be a conflation of many Jesuses?

Would this be sufficient to indicate that Eisenman might be saying, clearly, without committing himself, that the Messiah Jesus is a myth? John Carter (talk) 17:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

No for the same reason we couldn't summarize the Michael Grant quote as possibly indicating that the Christ Myth theory might be a modern form of docetism--the wording is just so awkward that it is unclear just what is being said.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:01, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Question

I am a newcomer to this page with a question - I have scanned the above parts of the talk page but it didn't seem to have been mentioned: couldn't the article do a better job of showing that beliefs in Jesus as history and as myth are not necessarily incompatible? For example the view held by Thomas L. Thompson and by Robert Price (possible others that I am not familiar with) do not rule out the existence of a historical Jesus of Nazareth - they just maintain that it is the mythological figure as described in the Bible that is important for Christian religion, and that we have no non-mythological sources (mythological in the sense of deliberately working to establish a religious narrative) about the Jesus historical life. And couldn't this fact (that historicity and myth are not mutually exclusive) be an argument for including a mention that is less of a blunt rejection in the main article on Jesus Christ. ·Maunus·ƛ· 20:34, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I can well understand not reading through everything here. The Jesus myth theory as per the article here does include several variations on the possibility that there was a historical person upon whom the character of Jesus in the NT and elsewhere is at least in part based. There is also the reasonable question above regarding whether all the variations deserve the "blunt rejection", and that I think has been raised earlier. I too agree that the phrasing there could be changed, although given the complexity of the theory and its variations that might be a difficult task. John Carter (talk) 20:45, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I think my point is that I think both articles are set up in a somewhat "black or white" fashion which doesn't do justice to the complexities of the matter. For example the title here seems to indicate that there is a unified "Christ Myth Theory" that has been nearly universally rejected, which is nonsense and obfuscation because in fact there is just a continuum of degrees of beliefs in the the Bible's account of Jesus as literal historical truth, and there is no single united community of scholars that can accept or reject the differing views. Also the question of whether religious people are valid as sources is a wild goose chase as for example in Denmark it is not an uncommon thing even among priests to have beliefs similar to Price's and Thompsons. ·Maunus·ƛ· 21:00, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

And I and a few others agree with your first point about "black or white," and have done so repeatedly on this page. "Jesus myth theories" might well be a better usage. Speaking as a Christian, even a lot of Christians see the NT as containing "mythic" elements, which tend to be ignored here. Partially this is because right now this is effectively a sub-article/spin-off of Historicity of Jesus. That spin-off, and the way in which it was done, has also been questioned. John Carter (talk) 21:06, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I think we agree then - then I will just let my voice be heard here, and if there are other places where voicing my thoughts might do good then I'd like to know. Thanks for good responses to bad questions.·Maunus·ƛ· 21:12, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Of course there are views that the figure of Jesus in the NT is partially mythical and partially historical. Just like John Carter says above, the view that the NT contains mythic elements is widespread, and this should be covered at historical Jesus and Jesus, if it isn't already. But this article doesn't have to cover every way in which there's myth in the NT just because it has "myth" in the title. In some ways maybe it would be better if the article was called existence of Jesus or nonexistence hypothesis or something—that way it would be clear that it's not about every sense in which Jesus is mythical, but just about the particular idea that there was no historical Jesus. That said, if this article indicated that it's a common view to see the NT as a mix of myth and history, that might help flesh out the context of the views of Bauer/Drews/Wells et al. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:39, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

If this article is only about that idea then most of its content belongs somewhere else.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Which parts do you think belong elsewhere? --Akhilleus (talk) 02:44, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Neither Strauss, Russell, Wells, Ellegård, Thompson, Price or Joseph Hoffman espouse that view - they are essentially agnostics - or believers rather in "the legendary Jesus thesis" Bultmann and Mack and Funk also don't belong in this article then.·Maunus·ƛ· 03:00, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Strauss didn't advocate that view, but his treatment of myth in the NT was an essential step in making the ideas of Bauer et al. possible. Wells certainly said there was no historical Jesus in his work prior to 1996 or so, and Price, while it's hard to pin down exactly what he thinks, is certainly someone who writes about the CMT quite often. I haven't read Ellegard's book, but only this article in which he says that he thinks the figure of Jesus in Paul's letters is based upon the Essene Teacher of Righteousness, and that the Jesus figure in the Gospels is not historical. Ellegard says that he's developing ideas first put forward by Arthur Drews, Paul Couchaud, and G. A. Wells. So it seems to me that he does belong here. As for Russell, Thompson, Hoffmann, Bultmann, Mack, and Funk, I agree that they do not advocate this view, but Hoffmann at least has commented upon it, so in that sense he's useful as a source. I believe that Bultmann and Mack have also made comments about non-historicity arguments, though not extensive ones. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:19, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Carrier puts Thompson in the ahistorical category in his handout and Price expressly calls Ellegard with the early Wells a mythist so things are not that simple.

"Accordingly, though the Gospels are entirely fictional in their portrayal of Jesus as an itinerant preacher and wonderworker, accompanied by twelve disciples, Paul's Jesus was indeed a historical figure, namely, the Essene Teacher of Righteousness." ("Theologians as historians" by Allvar Ellegard Lunds Universitet)

"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. It is not difficult to pretend that Jesus never lived. The attempt to prove it, however, invariably produces the opposite conclusion." Out of my life and thought: an autobiography By Albert Schweitzer (pg 125; 1998 edition)

"While Frazer did not doubt that Jesus had lived, or claim that Christians had invented the Jesus myth, his work became a source book of ideand data for many who did. In fact, Schweitzer inclued Frazer in a list of scholars who 'contested the historical existence of Jesus...John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, James George Frazer, Arther Drews'(above cited; Bennett, Clinton (2001) In search of Jesus: insider and outsider images pg 205)

The comparison of Ellegard, Schweitzer, Price, and Bennett's comments only goes to show why things are a mess.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Akhilleus. If you have a good RS reference for saying that "it's a common view to see the NT as a mix of myth and history", then I would certainly add it in for context. I am aware of several authors who certainly have said the NT is partly myth, but who has said this is a "common" view please? Many thanks Wdford (talk) 06:28, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Tales of gods impregnating mortal women are generally regarded as myth. Also, walking on water, exorcism, resurrection, etc. The idea that the NT not partly myth is pseudoscience. Noloop (talk) 01:16, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The first part is myth but the walking on water, exorcism, resurrection, etc parts can be explained as imperfect interpretations of actually events.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I have seen authors who postulate that virgin births and impregnations by deities were actually quite common - they were usually the result of promiscuity, rape or incest, about which the maiden (and perhaps her family) were reluctant to be completely honest. If Jesus' father was a rapist, and Joseph was merely a kindly old man who gave refuge to some damaged goods and her bastard son, you can quite see why the Catholic Church would have tweaked the facts when they had a chance. On the other hand, the Egyptian kings (and perhaps other kings also) were regarded as living gods, and those gods really did impregnate lots of maidens. Who knows how many perverts there were running around rural Greece raping gullible sherpherd girls and claiming to be Almighty Zeus.

Some have claimed that the gospels incorporate imperfect translations of material that was written originally in Gnostic code, or even the codes of mystery schools of other nations, and that they have thus been completely misunderstood by later scribes (who then altered the material in an attempt to make sense of it according to their own limited knowledge of things). For example, I vaguely recall that the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes was a coded message that the preachers and teachers were the loaves and fishes, and these needed to be multiplied in order to "feed the masses" spiritual information, because Jesus could not address the huge crowd all by himself. Jesus himself is recorded as saying that the true meanings of his teachings are only intended to be understood by the inner circle, and that one should not cast pearls before swine - are the modern clergy and the historians part of the understanding classes, or are they swine?

Although many such authors have made assertions about mythology in the NT, I have not yet found an RS that says that "it's a common view to see the NT as a mix of myth and history". My question / request to Akhilleus was for an RS that says this is a common view, as the Christian POV pushers have thusfar fudged this important fact quite thoroughly. Wdford (talk) 10:39, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Please see also my comment two sections above submitted at 13:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC). The discussion there might be another useful perspective in the context of this section. ... Kenosis (talk) 13:19, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

@Wdford - that interpretation is surely Augustinian??? And while I have read several 'codex' theories for both the parables and the miracles, they all allege different meanings. However, there seems to be a reasonably consistent view among scholars of such things that the 'original' text for the synoptic gospels was just sayings and parables, and the sequence of events was interpolated (a shortish time) later (eg the earliest texts of Mark's gospels stop before the resurrection, and everyone seems to agree that the story of the woman taken in adultery first appears after the rest of the accounts have established themselves) - but after the first round of 'Pauline' letters. This would be fine if St Luke were a biographer finding and interviewing eyewitnesses, but is a mess if Ellegard is right, because it really does leave us with two Jesuses. Cracking fun.Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Although not too much fun if you are a fundamentalist Christian. While some people apparently call St Luke "the greatest historian", or purple praise of similar ilk, Luke contradicts Matthew in some fundamental aspects of the Nativity, and he contradicts the author of Acts (apparently himself) re who was king when the Conception took place. I have previously tried to include such material in the article Historicity of the canonical Gospels, but it was repeatedly reverted by a POV pusher. Therefore, if anybody has an RS that clearly says that "it's a common view to see the NT as a mix of myth and history", or words of similar import, I would be grateful. Wdford (talk) 16:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. In the course of a traditional "Nine lessons and nine carols" Advent service, all of the information on the timing of the Nativety from Matthew and Luke is read out together - and of course Herod, Augustus, Quirinus and the census don't all coincide. And, of course, the traditional way these days to fix the date of the Nativity is by Halley's Comet anyway, assuming that this was the 'star in the East'.Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Excellent point, although, according to our article on Halleys Comet, it appeared in 12BC and again in 66AD, so it would not have been anywhere near either Matthew's traditional dating nor Luke's dating - unless we accept 12BC under Herod and then redate and recalibrate quite a few things (e.g. Jesus was well into his 40's when he died etc). Wdford (talk) 18:31, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, in Against Heresies, Book 2 chapter 24 paragraph 5 Bishop Irenaeus c185 said the Gospel and Elders indicated that Jesus was in his late 40s if not early 50s when he died. The problem is Luke's date for the start of Jesus ministry (c28CE) and his approximate age (about 30) is also given which forces you to move the death rather than birth date.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:31, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I was asking about moving the birth date to accommodate Halleys Comet, not to accommodate the fairy-tales of the Elders. 66AD would be too late, as Jerusalem was destroyed too soon thereafter to give the rest of the NT time to happen, so it would have to be 12BC. This meshes with Herod, and can still mesh with Pilate, but this leaves Luke out on the sidewalk. Wdford (talk) 06:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Wdford, you just demonstrated one of the biggest problems on these talk pages--people read but they don't understand the implications of what is being said. If Bishop Irenaeus hadn't quoted Luke then you could move the birth date--a 47 year old Jesus in c36CE would put you at c12 BCE (there is no year zero) which would agree with Halley's Comet. The problem is he did mention so that option does a major crash and burn.

I should mention that Halley's Comet is only one theory regarding the Star of Bethlehem and not the one I have seen used the most. The one I have seen used the most is that the "star" was actually an Astrological event. Of course only Matthew mentions the star, the Magi, and Herod's slaughter of children and given his efforts to prove prophesies (some of which don't even exist) Occam's Razor would suggest throwing out Matthew and addressing the internal conflicts in Luke and yet supporter of Historical Jesus keep using what has to be the least reliable of the two birth accounts. No wonder CMT supporters tend to portray the pro historical Jesus side as a Kingdom of the Blind.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:23, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Well actually Bruce, the RS's hold that both nativity stories are BS, so I don't really stress over this. Its most likely that the author of Matthew made up the whole thing about the Star, as well as the Magi, the Massacre, the Flight to Egypt and possibly the entire gospel itself. Its very probable that "Matthew" himself never actually existed either. However, since Halley's Comet was mentioned, I gave some opinions for interest sake, based on that the RS's regard the nativity stories (among other things) as "fringe". Even if the core nativity story has some vague basis in fact (after all, Jesus must have been born somehow), I don't think Luke's version has any more credibility than Matthew's version, and so Irenaeus quoting Luke is as meaningless as Dubya quoting a CIA report about WMD. Not a big deal in itself, other than to indicate just how "fringy" the so-called "mainstream history" actually is.

PS: Be careful about using Occam's Razor. According to Occam's Razor, gravity is explained by the world being flat, thunderstorms are due to the gods getting angry and photography is witchcraft. The simplest explanation is seldom the correct explanation. Wdford (talk) 07:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how Occam's Razor applies to any of the above.

Observations of the Earth's shadow on the moon, ship masts as they sail off into the distance, and of and of monuments long distances away at the same time show that the Earth is a globe (6th century BC on for the West) so any theory of gravity would have to take those observations into account.

regarding Thunderstorms supernatural explanations are ad hoc and not science.

Photography is witchcraft (ie magic) is an example of Clarke's Law ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") not Occam's Razor.

Occam's Razor must be looked at in the context of system theory. In some respects this is what the CMT crowd was doing: what is more likely -- there was a man who did most of what the Bible said he did and yet every contemporary chronicler missed all these events or that he was originally a mythical person given the trappings of history possibly including some obscure teacher of the same name who stumbled around the Galilee for a while. Their position is that we are asked to believe that man who was considered so much a problem that the Jewish Leaders met on the eve of their holiest days to get rid of him and was made to suffer a punishment reserved for traitors and slaves for simple blasphemy was so obscure that Josephus at best make only a minor note regarding him. Efforts to show the Tanna natives that John Frum didn't exist in 1957 was a spectacular fail (The Pacific Islands: an encyclopedia Lal, Brij V.; Kate Fortune (2000) University of Hawaii Press Pg 303) and this was less then 27 years after John Frum has appeared to people in visions and about 17 years after a native taking that name was exiled from the island due to causing problems. Paul's epistles date from an early of 48 CE (Galatians) to a late of 150 CE (Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus) with 55-62 the general range so the idea that Jesus was in the mold of John Frum is not that off the wall. Yet we are told that such a thing is impossible when we have an example that is isn't right in front of us.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:21, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Bruce. A proper application of Occam's Razor requires that the explanation appropriately accommodates all known facts. As more facts are discovered, so the application of the Razor changes. In the case of the Jesus myth, almost all the facts are currently in dispute, and so the Razor is of little application. However, we can place some reliance on the following:

• Almost everything we know (or think we know) about Jesus of Nazareth derives from the gospels, and the gospels are known to be unreliable, full of errors, interpolations and fictions.
• Christianity was designed at a Roman strategic conference, with the objective of synthesizing a religion that could be used to draw together a multi-cultural empire.
• In order to be successful and competitive, the new Christian religion incorporated all the “attractive” elements of the existing religions in the Empire, including Egypt, Babylon, Judaism, Mithraism, Greek paganism and Roman paganism, with the added benefit that no personal effort or expense was required to achieve Paradise.
• Christianity holds that we are all born sinners, so we have a cast-iron excuse for sinning (the classic “society made me do it” defense beloved of American defense lawyers).
• The new religion also carefully avoided anything that could be tested in this life, so that adherents could only challenge them on non-delivery after they were dead, and even then a failure to achieve Paradise could be blamed on the adherent having had “insufficient faith”.
• Anything that goes wrong is blamed on the adherent themselves, and anything that looks like BS is “A Holy Mystery”, which will one day be revealed to those that believe sufficiently – a classic case of the emperor’s new clothes only being visible to the elite.
• The Romans chose a hero arbitrarily, settled on Jesus, and then built him up exactly as the Bush Administration built up Jessica Lynch.
• Those scrolls that supported the new paradigm were declared sacred, those that sort of supported it were edited and then declared sacred, and the rest were outlawed and burned (sometimes along with their owners).
• People want to believe in something, now matter how bizarre, as the John Frum example demonstrates.
• The Church and its princes grew enormously wealthy as a result of the blind faith of the illiterate, and maintained their advantage by torturing to death anybody who acquired a copy of the Bible to read for themselves.
• Over the millennia, many have come forward to declare that the Church version of the gospels is fraudulent, and these have been declared as heresies and their advocates murdered.

This explains all the known facts, and is supported by what evidence actually exists. However a billion people still believe (or at least continue to pretend to do so), like the billions who continue to smoke cigarettes despite ample scientific proof that they are poisoning themselves. Go figure. Wdford (talk) 09:58, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Jesus=nicotine? Is that the argument? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.190.2.142 (talk) 07:35, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Is there any actual proof that people were killed for simply possessing a bible (opposed to stealing from the church as before the printing press they were expensive)? Also if you really look at the charges of heresy you can find very earthly reasons behind them--elimination of debt being at the top of the list. With the coming of the Renaissance came the power of the secular state and that is when persecution stepped up. Interesting, this is when secular rulers promoted their own interpretation of scripture. For example, while the Roman Catholic Church was having fits over the vacuum implying a place where God wasn't the Anglican Church in England portrayed it was the earthy shadow of the place angels and souls resided and if they existed so did God who was represented by his earthly authority the King/Queen of England (who was and still is the head of the Anglican Church). So here you had exact opposite conclusions from the same piece of evidence.--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:38, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Bruce, you are losing me here - are you still arguing for Occam's Razor, or are you now agreeing with me that the Christian scriptures have been perverted over the millenia to support greed and the divine right to rule? Wdford (talk) 17:12, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Both really. You would be hard pressed to find any religious view of the world that hasn't been perverted to support certain groups over others. My point was that no active effort on the part of the powers that be was needed to form a Christianity that best suited their needs. Paul himself warned "For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him." (2 Corinthians 11:4, KJV) So even by 50 to 60 CE Christianity was already fragmenting into different sects with their own versions of Jesus and their own Gospels. By 331 CE it would have been a simple matter of picking the sect that best suited the needs of Constantine I and even there things didn't go as planned. Already existing differing theological views resulted in schisms before Rome fell and then the East–West Schism happened followed by the Protestant Reformation occurred for much the same reasons.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:01, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

@Bruce, Ireneus quoting Luke only proves that Ireneus had read Luke, not that Luke is in any way "true" (for a given value of true). Also (anecdotal) the low churchmen of my acquaintance were happier to accept Halley's comet and a move of the historical dates than they were to accept any kind of astrology (it being of course the work of the Divel).Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:47, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Wdford, I don't think this is quite what you're looking for, but Craig Evans, "Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology," Theological Studies 54 (1993) p. 5, says "The significance of Reimarus's work lies not in its skepticism, but in the fact that it was the first critical assessment of the life and teaching of Jesus which concluded that the true Jesus of history was very different from the Jesus portrayed in the Gospels, the Jesus in whom Christians have historically placed their faith. His critical assessment brought an important part of the contemporary philosophical discussion to bear directly upon gospel research. In the place of dogmatic orthodoxy (i.e. the historical Jesus = the Jesus of the Gospels, who is none other than the Christ of orthodox Christianity) there arose dogmatic skepticism (i.e. miracles cannot occur; all documents that describe miracles are therefore mythological)." Subsequent to Reimarus the task of historical research on Jesus was to strip away the miraculous/mythical content of the NT to get at the "real" Jesus. But the quote I gave you doesn't establish what the common view is right now... --Akhilleus (talk) 01:11, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

That was certainly the view of scholars on the Quest for the historical Jesus. I don't think it's consistent with the view of, say, Dr John Dickson, quoted above [7] as a reliable source for the view of those searching for the 'historical Jesus'. Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Help! This section has obviously encountered a timewarp :0 @Bruce Grubb re people being killed for possessing the Bible - yes indeedy. Read all about John Wycliffe or William Tyndale who were persecuted (Tyndale was executed, Wycliffe died naturally but was dug up and gibbeted years later) for distributing the Bible in English--Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:56, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Tyndale has always interested me. I tried to track down the Tyndale Bible once, without success. That would be a fun article to tackle with the aim of geting it to GA status. Noloop (talk) 16:05, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

You have to be careful saying that John Wycliffe or William Tyndale were killed for possessing a Bible. Wycliffe was attacking both the authority of the Pope and that of the English King which given his connection to a revolt against the king put his on the "men dangerous to the State and need to be eliminated" list. Declaring his Bible was a mistranslation and full of "heretical" comments was just a quick way to get rid of him. William Tyndale also attacked the Pope's authority during a time when the relations between Rome and England were rapidly deteriorating and so the old solution of "proclaim the troublemaker a heretic" was put forth. The Anglican-Protestant and later Enlightenment propaganda mills wasted little time in making these men martyrs who braved the tyranny of Roman Catholicism to bring the common people the Bible. In fact, that is what most of our view of the Middle Ages and Renaissance is--propaganda.--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Re. "Complete" acceptance

I have removed the word "complete" from the first sentence of the counter-arguments section since the phrase "never achieced complete acceptance" suggests that there has been substantial acceptance of CMT by Biblical scholars and Historians when in point of fact there has been virtually complete rejection of CMT by them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stormarm (talk • contribs) 05:45, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Lead

The article is 6,699 words long, which means it needs a lead of 3-4 paragraphs that summarize the article, per WP:LEAD. I've therefore restored the last consensus lead, because someone had removed most of it. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 06:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I still have issues with the lead in. Not only is it annoyingly vague but as I pointed out a long time ago the actual George Walsh reference states "The theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ myth history and the theory he was an historical individual is called the historical Jesus theory" has many problems. By the definition Walsh gives us a Jesus who lived c100 BCE would still be a "historical" Jesus and the introduction fails to explain how Euhemerism is not an example of a "mythological character". If we cannot make such a distinction then I say it is time to consider a reevaluation of the article via WP:CFORK--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

It's badly written. Print it, show it to people in your life that don't know about this topic, and see what their reaction is. All of the extra information is a tangle of random compromises. If you think it needs a more comprehensive intro, then I'd suggest you sort _what_ needs to go into the lead. Like bullet points. See if anyone has valuable objections (don't that or do this) and rewrite the first few paragraphs. The lead as it is now, reads like the product of fighting committee. Good luck. 96.33.159.130 (talk) 18:20, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Huh? I think the lede is pretty good, it gives a seemingly reasonable and neutral introduction to the topic. Martijn Meijering (talk) 19:31, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually the lead give a very flawed introduction to the topic as a look over Talk:Jesus_myth_theory/definition will show (where all of the things 96.33.159.130 has suggested have already been done! Ellegard, Mead, and perhaps Robertson all say the Gospel Jesus is a historialized myth based on the actions of a Jesus who lived c100 BC.

"Accordingly, though the Gospels are entirely fictional in their portrayal of Jesus as an itinerant preacher and wonderworker, accompanied by twelve disciples, Paul's Jesus was indeed a historical figure, namely, the Essene Teacher of Righteousness." (Theologians as historians Alvar Ellegård Scientific Communication Lunds Universitet pg 171-172)

The theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ myth history and the theory he was an historical individual is called the historical Jesus theory" George Walsh

The phrase Christ myth was and is used to describe things other than Drews' book the phrase "Christ myth theory" has similarlly taken on slightly different meanings sometimes encompassing ideas that are only tangential to Drews' original position:

• Jesus is an entirely fictional or mythological character created by the Early Christian community

• Jesus began as at a Myth with historical trappings possibly including "reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name" being being added later. (Walsh, George (1998) The Role of Religion in History Transaction Publishers pg 58)(one possible reading of Dodd, C.H. (1938) History and the Gospel under the heading Christ Myth Theory Manchester University Press pg 17)

• Jesus was historical but lived c100 BCE (Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, p. 65)

• The Christ Myth may be a form of modern docetism (Grant, Michael. Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Scribner, 1995; first published 1977, p. 199)

• The Gospel Jesus is in essence a composite character and therefore non historical by definition.(Price, Robert M. (2000) Deconstructing Jesus Prometheus Books, pg 85)

• Jesus Agnosticism: The Gospel story is so filled with myth and legend that nothing about it including the very existence of the Jesus described can be shown to be historical. (Eddy, Paul R. and Boyd, Gregory A. The Jesus Legend Baker Academic, 2007. pg 24-25)

• The Gospel Jesus didn't exist and GA Wells' Jesus Myth (1999) is an example of this. Doherty, Earl "Book And Article Reviews: The Case For The Jesus Myth: "Jesus — One Hundred Years Before Christ by Alvar Ellegard" review

• "This view (Christ Myth theory) 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..." (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J 1982 by Geoffrey W. Bromiley) There are six different ways myths are thought to come about: Scriptural, Historical, Allegorical, Astronomical, Physical, and explanation for natural phenomena with "All the theories which have been mentioned are true to a certain extent." (Bulfinch's Mythology, "Origin of Mythology" chapter)

To date NOTHING explaining these conflicting definitions has been found.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:02, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Robert Price is not a reliable source for the opinion of "mainstream church scholars"

I've deleted the clause "although mainstream church scholars agree that material about him in the New Testament should not be taken at face value". Robert Price is an atheist, why is he being used as a source for "mainstream church scholars"? Laker1988 (talk) 21:14, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

What makes you think Price is the source of the material you removed? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:29, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. The talk archives here give the source of the sentence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jesus_myth_theory/Archive_39

Do a "find" search for "face value". The article referenced Price, which I mistakenly took as the source. Apparently it was written by G.A. Wells, who is also an atheist. This is what came up:

Here's excerpts from the entry on "Jesus, historicity of" from The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (Prometheus 2007), written by G.A. Wells: Denying Jesus' historicity means asserting that Christianity is based on a founder figure who is wholly mythical. This was the position argued by Bruno Bauer in 1850 and later; he was supported at the turn of the century by Arthur Drews in Germany, William Benjamin Smith in America, and John M. Robertson in England, among other, in a fierce debate on the subject that was not without some impact even on Christian scholars. Thus in chapters added to the second German edition of his famous history of life-of-Jesus research, Albert Schweitzer allowed that Christianity must reckon with the possibility that it will have to surrender the historicity of Jesus altogether, and must have, in readiness for such a contingency, a metaphysical basis for its belief…by around 1920 nearly all scholars had come to regard the case against Jesus' historicity as totally discredited…Today, most secular scholars accept Jesus as a historical, although unimpressive figure. They are aware that much that is said of him, and by him, in the New Testament is no longer taken at face value even by scholars within the mainstream churches…However, from about 1960 an increasing number of skeptics have come forward with denials of Jesus' historicity. In my first books on Christian origins, I myself denied it, but in works published since 1995 I am not quite as radical…The more radical view that there was no historical Jesus at all is still vigorously defended by a few scholars, notably Earl Doherty and Robert M. Price. Laker1988 (talk) 21:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

The source(s) are in the footnote after the sentence or paragraph. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:00, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Which sources are you referring to? The sentence clearly came from the G.A. Wells written entry in the encyclopedia of unbelief, which is referenced in the sentence. Laker1988 (talk) 22:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Please see Stanton too, and many others. Almost no one argues that material about Jesus in the New Testament can be taken at face value. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

It may be right, it may be wrong, but there is absolutely no reliable source to substantiate it. I highly doubt that the Stanton source says the exact same thing as the encyclopedia of unbelief entry written by G.A. Wells. Laker1988 (talk) 22:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Stanton seems to say the same thing on p. 55 of the book cited, though Amazon is only letting me see half the sentence. But lots of other sources say it too, obviously. Read the first and second subsections of the second section, for example. Did you look for a source yourself? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:38, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Stanton and G.A. Wells are only cited once each in the sentence. It is extremely unlikely that Wells' statement is also repeated by Stanton, which is the source used for the previous clause. The talk page archives and this wikipedia page are the only hits I could find for the clause concerning mainstream church scholars. Laker1988 (talk) 22:51, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Both Stanton and Wells make similar points, as do others in the article (e.g. the sections I mentioned), and many other sources not mentioned in the article. Have you read the article, Laker? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

You did not mention any sections previously. Can you link me to a source or provide a quote? It is clear that the mainstream church scholars clause is cited by G.A. Wells; Stanton does not make the same statement. Stanton is used as a source for the previous clause in the sentence. Laker1988 (talk) 23:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

As I wrote above: "Read the first and second subsections of the second section ..." You will find a source there. Also see Stanton, p. 55. And Wells is a reliable source too. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

My apologies. I didn't know you were referencing sections of the article in that sentence. You said that you could see half the sentence on amazon. Could you give me a direct quote? Laker1988 (talk) 23:22, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

You'd be better off looking it up yourself, Laker, as it might let you see the whole thing. What's visible differs between countries. But please do read the article before editing it, because you'll find other sources in it that make the same or a similar point. It isn't a contentious point. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I can't even see page 55 of that book. You say that Stanton says the same thing, so providing an exact quote of what you saw will really help move the discussion along. Laker1988 (talk) 23:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with laker1988, if you are able to give a direct quote SlimVirgin, that would be interesting as well as beneficial for this discussion. Ulner (talk) 23:47, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

The Eddy/Paul/Boyd source you gave also does not support the sentence. Nowhere in the 4 pages cited (24-27) does it say anything about taking the Gospels at "face value" or anything about "mainstream church scholars". Laker1988 (talk) 01:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

The "face value" phrase is Wells's, but Eddy and Boyd make the same point in different words. Perhaps you could explain why you think it differs from Wells? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 04:09, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Boyd et al "An increasingly common view among New Testaments scholars today {...) is that historical research can indeed disclose a core of historical fact about Jesus. But they argue the Jesus we find at this historical core is significantly different from the legendary view presented in the New Testament." (pg 25)

The problem is this summation doesn't explain how the position of G. R. S. Mead and Ellegård doesn't fit in this and the one place where Ellegård is mentioned only addresses the larger "legendary-Jesus thesis" category. See Talk:Christ_myth_theory/definition#Getting_a_handle_on_the_various_definitions_.28again.29 for more details.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:26, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Mead and Marshall

Mead

I can't see why this keeps being added:

G. R. S. Mead (1863-1933), a member of the Theosophical Society, in his 1903 Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? book stated that Jesus was indeed a historical figure but the Talmud points to him being crucified c100 BCE meaning that the Gospel version was a mythical construct. Robert Price cites Mead as one of several examples of alternative traditions that place Jesus in a different time period than the Gospel account and stated "I am of the opinion that the varying dates are the residue of various attempts to anchor an original mythic or legendary Jesus in more or less recent history"

Mead didn't believe Jesus was a mythical figure. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 05:42, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Bruce, please don't keep restoring Mead without gaining consensus. It's a distortion of what Price says. Here is the only reference to Mead in that book, and it's a passing remark in a footnote. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:40, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

You are confusing the points of Jesus of Nazareth existing and a Jesus of an earlier time existing. Mead said "It has always been an unfailing source of astonishment to the historical investigator of Christian beginnings that there is not a single word from the pen of any pagan writer of the first century of our era which can in any fashion be referred to the marvelous story recounted by the Gospel writers. The very existence of Jesus seems unknown."

"As we said at the outset, most Christians, whether they be unlearned or learned, will not hesitate for one instant to answer the amazing question: Did Jesus live 100 B.C.? with an indignant No."

"However this may be, it is a fact that ever haunts the consciousness of the historian and gives it no peace, that the most careful research cannot discover a scrap of external evidence in the first century that witnesses to the existence of Jesus, much less to the stupendously marvellous physical doings which the Gospel writers relate of him."

"On the other hand, 1 have heard it suggested by one who holds to 100 B.C. as the correct date, that the genesis of the Gospel story, which criticism is endeavouring to recover in the form of the "common document," is to be traced to the sketch of an ideal life which was intended for purposes of propaganda, and which could be further explained to those who were ready for more definite instructions in the true nature of the Christ mystery."

Mead is clear saying the Gospel Jesus ie the Jesus of Nazareth is a fictional/mythical creation.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

You're engaged in original research, Bruce. Mead does not subscribe to the Jesus myth theory, and Price does not claim that. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:26, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

He is not. He clearly explained what Mead believed with quotes from Mead. Please explain what you think those quotes are talking about, and why they are irrelevant to the article. I think it's actually quite noble to shorten an article for the sake of coherency, but this feels like you're just removing things you find disagreeable. 96.33.134.105 (talk) 03:21, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Tom Harpur in "Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity?" on page 163 states "It's for this reason that Barnes was able to declare Jesus a mythical person, the product of the myth-making tendencies common to religious people of all ages, particularly the period of the early Roman Empire. He lists Bruno Bauer, Albert Kaltoff, Arthur Drews, JC Stendel, Emil Felden, Jensen, Lublinski, Bolland, Charles Virolleaud, Ryner Couchous, Gerald Massey, Emilio Bossi, Borg Brandes, John M. Robertson, G R S Mead, WIttaker, Edward Carpenter and W B Smith among the eminent scholars and critics who have contended that Jesus was not historical"

"Among the more eminent scholars and critics who have contended that Jesus was not an actual historical figure we mention Bruno Bauer, Kalthoff, Drews, Stendel, Felder, Deye, Jensen, Lublinski, Bolland, Van der Berg,virolleaud, Caouchoud Massey, Bossie, Niemojewski, Nandes, Roberseon, Mead, Whittaker, Capenter, and WB Smith. (Harry Elmer Barnes, The Twilight of Christianity (1929) pg 390-391)" (Jackson, John G. (1985) Christianity Before Christ pg 185)

There it is in two different references: Harry Elmer Barnes long before he got into that whole Holocaust denial nonsense putting G R S Mead in the same group as Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, John M. Robertson, and W B Smith. Deal with it.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:51, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

There's no point in adding material to the article, reverting when it's removed, then posting the sources later on talk. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 07:36, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes there is a point and the point is that there was no justification given for removing that referenced material in the first place. Are you saying that Harry Elmer Barnes is not a reliable source regarding this issue?--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:17, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know whether he's an RS, because I've not looked yet, but as you know you first added it to the article without that source, and reverted when it was removed. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 13:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Marshall

I also wonder why this keeps being added:

Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall writes that there are "two views of the historical Jesus which stand at the opposite ends of a spectrum of opinion about him." At one extreme is the view that Jesus never existed, and that the gospels describe an essentially fictional person. At the other extreme is the view that the gospels portray events exactly as they happened, and each event depicted in the New Testament is the literal truth.

It doesn't actually say anything. There is a spectrum, and it has two ends, as you'd expect. It doesn't expand on the Jesus myth theory.SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 11:07, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

As pointed out before I. Howard Marshall is needed to form a transition between George Walsh's excluded middle and Eddy-Boyd's spectrum as explained in Talk:Jesus_myth_theory/Archive_39#I_Howard_Marshall--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

No, he isn't needed for that. Why would a transition be needed? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:26, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I fully explained that in the link above. George Walsh classification puts ideas that are generally not consider CHrist Myth in that category and via versa. Take a look at Wells' current position where Paul is talking about a mystic Jesus (ie the myth was first) who is merged with a historical 1st century teacher of the same name. The idea that the myth started first and was merged with "reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name" was called "Christ Myth Theory" by C.H. Dodd in 1938 in a Manchester University Press book and that position has been called Christ Myth by Price, Carrier, Eddy-Boyd, and Stanton.--BruceGrubb (talk) 13:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Bruce, what you're saying here and adding to the article isn't making any sense to me. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 07:32, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If you're going to continue to cut away sections of his work that you don't like, you should really explain why. 75.131.242.99 (talk) 08:39, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Did you read what you restored? [8] It's barely coherent; not clearly related to this article; and as is often the case not in the source that he cites. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 08:45, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Frazer

While we are on this issue mind telling us which one of these is good?

"My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth" Frazer, Sir James George (1913) The golden bough: a study in magic and religion, Volume 9 pg 412

"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 (1931) Out of My Life and Thought page 125)--BruceGrubb (talk) 13:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Michael L. White and Luke

I think we have fudgey translations here. Richard Carrier in "The Date of the Nativity in Luke" (5th ed., 2006) points out that Luke does NOT say the John the Baptist and Jesus were conceived close in time to each other. Also a quick look at the actual Greek shows that βασιλεύς can mean leader of the people, prince, commander. and lord of the land as well as king and is used to refer to Antipas (Mark 6:14) who scholars like MD Smith (2000) in "Of Jesus and Quirinius" pg 286-287 and Catherine Upchurch in The Four Gospels: Catholic Personal Study Edition pg 19 clearly state NEVER held the title of king. We clear have some NPOV issues with this position and we need to clean it up.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

This issue has been pretty much beat to wikipedia death at Census of Quirinius. Plenty of refs there. And I quote:

Bible scholars have traditionally sought to reconcile these accounts; while most current scholars regard this as an error by the author of the Gospel of Luke, thus casting doubt on the Historical reliability of the Gospels.

75.15.203.255 (talk) 00:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

As Carrier points out the idea that Luke is mistaken has major problems--the slaughter of the children. "This would constitute the murder of 10% of the population of that territory [2.2], possibly several hundred children." Note that Matthew clearly states that Herod "slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under," (Matthew 2:16 KJV) so the standard excuse that Nazareth was a small town does not work. No one mentions this act by Herod.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Bruce, this is more original research. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 07:09, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Claiming WP:RS on points raised by Carrier does not make it so.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Acts mentions that Jesus and John were born close together - and some people suppose that Luke wrote Acts. I think that might be the cause of the confusion. Wdford (talk) 07:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Bruce, I didn't understand your response. This talk page is for discussion of material found in reliable sources, which means secondary sources—preferably academic sources—published by independent publishers. The point of the page is to discuss whether to add such material, and how to present it. The page is not for thrashing out the substantive issues, or for discussing sources that we can't use. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 12:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Sigh, WP:OR is when an Wikipedia editor makes claims. Richard Carrier AFAIK is not a Wikipedia editor on this topic but rather a MA, MPhil, and PhD in Ancient history ie a qualified expert. The stuff am bringing in simply rephrasing of his work. It is clear that neither you or Wford have actually read Carrier's piece otherwise you would know these quotes that support the points I raise:

"even Josephus, who otherwise refers to Archelaus as ethnarch, could still call him a king (Antiquities of the Jews 18.93)" [...] "at the only place in the New Testament where the name "Archelaus" is used (Matthew 2:22), he is said to have basileuei, "reigned," a term that does not entail but nevertheless implies a status of king (basileus), in contrast to other verbs of governing that could have been chosen." (The idea that the Herod the king may not mean Herod the Great)

"Three months before John is born, Gabriel announces to Mary only that she will conceive (1:31, 36), not that she already has. In fact, Luke never says when Mary conceives. Instead, John appears to have already passed most of his childhood by the time Jesus is born (1:80). Given Jewish law at the time (Mishnah, Abot 5.21), which held that a man becomes subject to religious duties on his thirteenth birthday (which would be John's "day of public appearance to Israel"; we see that day for Jesus in 2:42ff.) and other parallels between Jesus and John (cf. 1:80 and 2:40), it would be reasonable to assume that Luke has in mind that John was nearly twelve when Jesus was born (since "in those days" from vv. 2:1 picks up the "day" of the previous vv. 1:80). (footnote citation given here)

There are Richard Carrier's ideas not mine ergo this is NOT original research so stop claiming it is and show that you have at least read the material presented and have post 2006 reliable sources that challenge Carrier's interpretations.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

When I last checked, Carrier was not deemed an RS for this article because his material about it is self-published. This page is for discussing the content of source material that could be added to the article. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of Carrier's educational background, I have noted on more than one occasion that he is not considered a WP:RS for this article and several others on the New Testament, not only because he has no qualifications in the relevant fields (a generic "ancient history" PhD isn't considered sufficient for authoritative expert commentary on 1st century Jewish practices or Roman administration), but also because his work in this area is self-published and has not passed peer review. If he were really an "expert" in this field then we would expect to find his work published in authoritative peer reviewed journals and monographs. So all you have to do is search through the relevant scholarly literature for articles by WP:RS which cite Carrier as an authority on the relevant New Testament history.--Taiwan boi (talk) 02:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The flaw with this line of reasoning is the much the same can be said of at least one currently cited detractor of the Christ Myth theory: James H. Charlesworth. He has a degree in linguistics and no evidence has been presented to show he even has degrees in general anthropology, archeology, or history much less specializations closer to the subject matter. We can use Charlesworth but not Carrier? How does that make sense?--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

James H. Charlesworth isn't currently used as a source, but he's a professor specializing in this area, so he'd be an acceptable source. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Robert Price uses Richard Carrier as a source in The incredible shrinking Son of Man (Page 326), The pre-Nicene New Testament: fifty-four formative texts (Page 366), and The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave (pages 5, 6, 228, 238, 242, 260, 298, 299-306, 338, 342, 346-349, 438, and 450). If a man 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, and many other considers Richard Carrier enough of a scholar to use him as a reference I can't see how you or any other editor can claim that Carrier is not WP:RS.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:59, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Matthew 2:19-22 says that after Herod died, the angel told Joseph to return to Israel, but when they heard that “Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod”, they decided to relocate to Galilee instead. If Archelaus the son took over from his father King Herod, then King Herod the father could not have also been Archelaus the son. Carrier seems to have missed this verse.

Luke 1:5 says that John was conceived “In the time of Herod king of Judea”. Luke 1:26 says that “In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy”, Gabriel visited Mary in Nazareth. Luke 1:39-41 says that the pregnant Mary then rushed to visit the pregnant Elizabeth. Jesus was thus conceived when John was still in the womb. Carrier missed this also. Some expert.

Now that I look closely at Luke 1:39-41 I see that in fact it does NOT say explicitly that Mary was pregnant when Mary visted the pregnant Elizabeth (a surpirse to me). Elizabeth says "blessed is the child you will bear" (NIV) or "blessed the fruit of thy womb" (Young's Literal). It makes sense if Mary is pregnant as we always thought, but it is not stated. It may be correct that "Luke never says when Mary conceives". E4mmacro (talk) 03:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Despite narrating all the above in huge detail, complete with verbatim songs and dialogue, Luke 2 then says Joseph and Mary journeyed to Bethlehem while Mary was pregnant, because of the Census, although that only happened (if at all) ten years later. Unless Mary was pregnant for ten years, Luke 2 thus completely contradicts even Luke 1, never mind Matthew. Some historian. Wdford (talk) 07:12, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Wdford, you have reinforced the point that the text actually makes more sense if Mary was not pregnant when she visited Elizabeth. The end of Luke 1 follows John the Baptist into the desert and up to his "manifestation to Israel". Then in Chapter 2 Mary is pregnant, apparently 10 years or so after John's birth. I guess Luke could stand a few contradictions, but maybe Luke is saying Jesus is many years younger than John the Baptist.

Wdford, with all due respect did you even read Carrier before putting this out?

"Three months before John is born, Gabriel announces to Mary only that she will conceive (1:31, 36), not that she already has. In fact, Luke never says when Mary conceives. Instead, John appears to have already passed most of his childhood by the time Jesus is born (1:80). Given Jewish law at the time (Mishnah, Abot 5.21), which held that a man becomes subject to religious duties on his thirteenth birthday (which would be John's "day of public appearance to Israel"; we see that day for Jesus in 2:42ff.) and other parallels between Jesus and John (cf. 1:80 and 2:40), it would be reasonable to assume that Luke has in mind that John was nearly twelve when Jesus was born (since "in those days" from vv. 2:1 picks up the "day" of the previous vv. 1:80) [...] Still, we are not told how much time intervened between the annunciation and John's birth (1.22-24), but if we interpret Luke as describing a twelve-year interval, it is notable that he places the birth of John in exactly the same year that Matthew seems to place the birth of Jesus (6 B.C.)." (Richard Carrier)--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

a point sorely lacking

The entire article is based on the premise that Jesus has already been established as an actual historical character and these people are simply bring reasoned objections to this... but a story is simply a story UNTIL evidence establishes it as more, yes? I did not doubt the existence of Jesus for most of my life, simply because no one around me ever thought to question it and no one seemed to even think the thought. I literally stumbled across the idea by accident in a sense and likely could have gone the rest of my life without ever once even thinking that he did not exist. but once the idea was there... I simply realized that no one I met had EVER seriously questioned it... and simply believed he was real just like me... but we should see it backwards, we should see it that no one has ever established that Jesus was real to start with and ask those who claim he is more than a myth to provide the evidences... the whole article seems to ignore this point of view, likely for the same reasons... most people never question it... so the questioners must be wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jiohdi (talk • contribs) 02:26, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I simply realized that no one I met had EVER seriously questioned it.... You have never met anyone who seriously questioned it because virtually all scholars reject the JMT. Even those who promote this fringe theory acknowledge the near universal rejection. Just FYI. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 03:20, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

That there is a "virtually all" type consensus among biblical scholars is true. One may also note that virtually all NT scholars are christians, and employed in institutions with roots in religious beliefs, have neglected the issue of historicity of jesus due to theological interets, some admit that they are all biased, some say that lots of people are doing theology/christology and calling it historical, the field is so low standard that apologetics passes for scholarship, apologetics is being done in the name of scholarship, not following proper historiographic practices, have an unhealthy propensity for making consensus without basing it on some reasonable argument, etc. And all this is not from me, but from reliable sources.-Civilizededucation^talk 05:59, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that JMT can vary depending on the author. Walsh and Dodd's definitions are not the same as Price's whose version is not the same as Doherty's. It doesn't help that you have armchair researchers like Holding slapping the JMT label on people like Remsburg who did accept the idea that there was a 1st century preacher named Jesus but that the Gospel account was basically a fiction.--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:19, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

So the vast majority of scholars lack scholarly integrity? Really, CE? Perhaps you can add that into the article. I'd love to read these "reliable sources". Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:59, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Just how did you come to that Non sequitur (logic)? As I have shown with my own referenced FAQ (User:BruceGrubb/CMT_Material/FAQ) the Jesus (Christ) Myth Theory is all over the map in terms of definition and Boyd-Eddy tells us why--there is no set definition. They clearly state that the categories they uses are "admittedly over simplistic", "ideal-typical", and a "useful heuristic". Take a good hard look at the definitions of Walsh and Dodd where Jesus began as at a Myth with historical trappings possibly including "reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name" being being added later and compare that to Mead whose historical 100 BCE Jesus idea has also been called mythist--they don't match. Furthermore take a hard look at Wells' current theory there you have the stories of a Paul possibly mythcial Jesus being connected with the exploits of a historical first century teacher of the same name.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:14, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

BG, I wasn't responding to your response. I was tickled by CivilizedEducation implying that scholars who are Christian can't be trusted. But, at any rate, I have a FAQ also, stating the the CMT says that no historical Jesus existed. See here. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 03:33, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

But your FAQ doesn't address the real problems this article has--mine does.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:37, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

The main "problem" of this article is that it is currently written so as to obfuscate the fringe nature of the theory. And it does this by not acknowledging what even the proponents of the theory freely admit to. Even Price says, "New Testament criticism treated the Christ Myth Theory with universal disdain". So, let's face it, the CMT is fringe and not to note that in the article's lead is intellectually dishonest and is POV pushing. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 03:49, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually the article is written to accommodate the FACT that there is no one definition of CMT (JMT is not used that much) and some versions (such as the Gospel Jesus being a myth versions) are mainstream. Furthermore as shown by Remsburg you can have people who do hold there was a historical Jesus in the 1st century using the exact same arguments as the CMT group to show that the Gospel version is a myth and that the real man may have been lost.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

What about the apostles?

Saint Thomas came to the state of Kerala, India. Christians have existed in India since the time. Also, I think The St. Peter's Basilica, Rome is build over the tomb of Saint Peter. So if these two people are real, (I read about them mostly from Wikipedia itself) and they preached about Jesus, then we have eyewitness accounts.

Has no "scholar" thought about this?

192.203.57.28 (talk) 13:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC) Anik

The problem as explained in Talk:Christ_myth_theory/definition is the Christ Myth theory covers a lot of ground and WP:RS often provide conflicting definitions. Remember that one of the versions via WP:RS I provided was:

• Jesus started out as a myth with Historical trappings added later (Walsh) including an obscure historical teacher (Dodd)

Under that definition Wells' current position of a pre-existing mythical Jesus being mixed with the accounts of a later 1st century teacher also called Jesus would still qualify as Christ Myth theory and has been classified as such Price, Stanton, Carrier, Doherty, and Eddy-Boyd.

So you can Jesus starting out as myth, have Saint Thomas and Saint Peter know a actual Jesus, and still be talking about part of the Christ Myth theory per Walsh's and Dodd's definitions.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:48, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Title of this article: Jesus myth theory or Christ Myth theory

Looking over the literature the term "Christ Myth theory" appears more often then "Jesus myth theory" partly due to "The Christ Myth" being the English title of Drew book. A long time ago it was agreed to change the title of this article to "Christ Myth theory" but I missed the discussion on changing it back. Just what was the reasoning or was one given? Which do you think more accurately reflects the source material?--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

See Talk:Jesus_myth_theory/Archive_40#RfC_to_move_Christ_myth_theory_to_Jesus_myth_theory. Didn't you comment in that discussion? I'd prefer that the title be Christ myth theory on the grounds that this is what we see more often in academic literature, but I don't think the name is that big of a deal. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I forgot about that because it looked like there were more opposes then supports for the move but I might have miscounted as many people changed the original vote (Akhilleus went from neutral to oppose for example) and we have the insanely long talk afterwords.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:24, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I, too, don't think it's not that much of a big deal, but I prefer "Christ" simply because the name "Jesus" really doesn't carry the same shade of meaning. Is it "Jesus the Christ"— that is, Jesus the (so-called) Messiah— or "Jesus the baseball player". Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 02:01, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I might add that "Christ" better reflects the confusing nature of the subject matter. Google books only shows 27 books that use "Jesus Myth Theory" and "Jesus Myth" yields 2,680 while "Christ myth theory" coughs up 207 matches and "Christ myth" yields about 7,000 matches.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:11, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree. By the way, other than the number of Google hits, what is main reason for preferring "Jesus" to "Christ"? I can't think of any off the top of my head. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 23:39, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

You can go back to the archived discussion (which I linked above) and see why people preferred one to the other.

If you want to change the page's title, the way to do it is to go to WP:RM and follow the instructions there. It wouldn't be a good idea to change the title (not that anyone's proposed that yet) without getting substantial outside input. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree but if you really read some of the support didn't address the main reason for NOT changing it from Christ Myth theory to Jesus myth theory: the term "Christ Myth" comes from the title of Drews' book ie "Christ Myth by Drews Theory".

The problem this article has always had as I point out in User:BruceGrubb/CMT_Material/FAQ is just what is meant by either Jesus myth theory or Christ Myth theory is all over the freaking map. I. Howard Marshall tells us "(w)e shall land in considerable confusion if we embark on an inquiry about the historical Jesus if we do not pause to ask ourselves exactly what we are talking about" and yet many sources are not very clear about the non historical Jesus they are talking about being of Dr Who/King Lear or the King Arthur variety.

Compounding matter is there are few authors that actually explain what they mean by "fictional character"--composite character, fictionalized (ala Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter), or totally fiction (ala Dr. Who)--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:39, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

What Bruce said. This article covers every position from "there never ever was a single human being ever that could in any way have been said to be a guy called Jesus who came from Nazareth" to "OK, so there was this Jewish guy, but he didn't write any of this stuff". Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:55, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Sadly that is the shape the literature regrading the Jesus-Christ myth theory is in--there is no constant definition and some conflict with each other.

Take Walsh's (t)he theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ myth theory; the theory that he was a historical individual is called the historical Jesus theory" for example. At its most basic level Welsh is saying if Jesus the myth came first you are dealing with the Christ myth theory but if Jesus the man came first then you are dealing with a historical Jesus.

But where does that leave Mead and Ellegård with their c100 BC historical Jesus later mytholized into a more recent personage? Where does Walsh's definition leave Wells current position of mythical Paul Jesus merged with a later 1st century teacher to form the Gospel Jesus? By Walsh's particular definition Mead and Ellegård are NOT Christ Myther because Jesus the man came first but Wells' current position is Christ Myth because the myth came first. This is one of the many reasons why the article is such a mess--many of the positions presented create logical paradoxes.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:34, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, so where do we go from here? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:11, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Other then getting the name of the article back to Christ Myth theory and a rewording of the lead in I honestly don't know. If you really look at the "fictional or mythological character" definition we currently have it doesn't really tell the reader anything. For example, Shakespeare's Richard III is a fictional character but that doesn't mean there wasn't a real Richard III. Similarly mythological character per Bulfinch's Mythology could still refer to what Remsburg called historical myth.

The rewording I am thinking of is as follows:

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory and the nonexistence hypothesis) is the notion the Gospels are so filled with myth and legend that no meaningful historical information (including the very existence of Jesus of Nazareth) can be extracted from them. (Eddy and Boyd 2007, pp. 24–27) The term has been used to describe concepts such as the Gospel Jesus being an allegoric myth, a c100 BCE Jesus being made to seem more recent (Mead, Ellegård), the Gospel Jesus being a composite character (Price), and challenges to the over all accuracy of the Gospel account even while accepting the possible existence of a 1st century teacher named Jesus (Bennett, Wells).

This would allow us to move some of the detail information now in the lead in (which let's be honest is awkward as all get out) into the main body under "Context". It would kind of fix the awkward situation the article has with Wells current composite character theory according to him NOT being part of the Christ Myth theory but being labeled as such by several scholars.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:18, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

The "fictional or mythological character" definition is the clearest part of the lead and echoes closely what several reliable sources say about this topic. E.g. the entry on "Jesus, Historicity of" by George Albert Wells in the New Encyclopedia of Unbelief says "Denying Jesus' historicity means asserting that Christianity is based on a founder figure who is wholly mythical." Wells attributes this view to Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, William Benjamin Smith, John M. Robertson, Earl Doherty, and Robert Price; he also says that he himself held this view, but moved away from in in books published since 1995. Wells is obviously talking about the Christ myth theory (or Jesus myth theory, if you prefer), and I think everyone here would agree that he knows quite a bit about the topic.

I'm fine with moving some detail out of the lead into the body of the article, though. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:05, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I pointed out the problem with this particular quote by Wells in Talk:Christ myth theory/Archive 37#What is the real difference between Christ myth theory and 'Jesus existed but the Gospel Jesus is a myth-fiction' Idea? in that Wells clearly states "The more radical view that there was no historical Jesus at all is still vigorously defended by a few scholars notably Earl Doherty and Robert M Price" which is refuted by Robert M Price's own words in Deconstructing Jesus:

"I am not trying to say that there was a single origin of the Christian savior Jesus Christ, and that origin is pure myth; rather, I am saying that there may indeed have been such a myth, and that if so, it eventually flowed together with other Jesus images, some one of which may have been based on a historical Jesus the Nazorean. (pg 85) Boyd-Eddy confirms this stating Robert M Price "back(s) off this thesis slightly and argue(s) that we simply lack sufficient information to decided whether a historical Jesus existed" and references Deconstructing Jesus (pg 17).

Again clearly something is wonked here as Price is NOT holding that "no historical Jesus existed" which is Wells is claiming in The new encyclopedia of unbelief; both Price himself and Boyd-Eddy say Price holds to something entirely different. In fact, Price actually states in Jesus: Fact or Fiction? debate that "there are four senses in which Jesus Christ may be said to be a "fiction:"

1) "the central figure of the gospels is not based on any historical individual" (this would include a composite character formed out of two or more historical people aka Wells current position)

2) "the "historical Jesus" reconstructed by New Testament scholars is always a reflection of the individual scholars who reconstruct him" to the point "even if there was a historical Jesus lying back of the gospel Christ, he can never be recovered. If there ever was a historical Jesus, there isn't one any more."

3) "Jesus as the personal savior, with whom people claim, as I used to, to have a "personal relationship" is in the nature of the case a fiction, essentially a psychological projection, an "imaginary playmate.""

4) "Christ is a fiction in that Christ functions, in an unnoticed and equivocal way, as shorthand for a vast system of beliefs and institutions on whose behalf he is invoked."

NONE of these positions say there was not a flesh and blood man named Jesus who lived in the 1st century Galilee but rather the Gospel account is so full of myth, legend, and contradictions that there is no way to tell if you are looking at the account of ONE historical individual. Remember Dodd in 1938 states under the page heading Christ Myth theory "Alternatively, they seized on the report of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name and arbitrarily attached the "Cult-myth" to him." which when you get down to it is not that much different from Wells current position. The fact that Wells' Jesus Myth (1996) and Jesus Legend (1999) have been called example of the Christ Myth by Robert M Price, Richard Carrier, and Boyd Eddy don't help the idea that there is a set definition.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:24, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Trying out a new lead in to finally address the mess

I've decided to go with a new lead in to address the problems this article has had:

The Jesus myth theory (also known as the Christ myth theory and the nonexistence hypothesis) is a term that has been applied to several theories that at their heart have one relatively common concept: the New Testament account on the life of Jesus is so filled with myth and legend as well as internal contradictions and historical irregularities that at best no meaningful verification regarding Jesus of Nazareth (including his very existence) can be extracted from them.[1]

The exact meaning of the term is uncertain as it has been used to describe concepts such as Jesus originally being an allegoric myth to which historical details possibly including an actual obscure 1st century teacher of the same name were added to later[2], a c100 BCE Jesus being made to seem to be of the 1st century through legendary processes[3][4], the Gospel Jesus being a composite character formed out of both mythic and historical elements that may or may not include an actual 1st century teacher named Jesus[5], and has even applied to people who held that was indeed a 1st century teacher named Jesus but that the New Testament account tells us little to nothing about the man[6][7].

1 Eddy, Paul R. and Boyd, Gregory A. The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic, 2007, pp. 24–27.

2 Dodd, Charles Harold (1938) History and the gospel University of Chicago pg 17

3 a b Mead, G. R. S. The Talmum 100 Years B.C. Story of Jesus", "Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?", 1903.

4 (Ellegård, Alvar (2008) Theologians as historians Scientific Communication Lunds Universitet pg 171-172)

5 Price, Robert M. "Of Myth and Men", Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 20, Number 1, accessed August 2, 2010.

6 Bennett, Clinton (2001) In search of Jesus: insider and outsider images page 205

7 a b c Wells, G. A. "A Reply to J. P. Holding's 'Shattering' of My Views on Jesus and an Examination of the Early Pagan and Jewish References to Jesus", The Secular Web, 2000, accessed August 3, 2010.

This hopefully fixes the problems this article has had from the beginning by actually acknowledging the varies ways the term has been used including people who did or came to accept a 1st century Jesus who have been called Christ-Jesus Mythers (Remsburg, Frazer, and 1996+ Wells being some examples). --BruceGrubb (talk) 08:58, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Three pillars section

I suggest we merge this section with the previous one, since giving it its own section appears to give undue weight to one point of view. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:40, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Also the wording is a little awkward as Price in other papers says things that lead one to question about just what he means with "likely there never was any historical Jesus". If you go back to Deconstructing Jesus you will see Robert Price presenting Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cyrus, and King Arthur as examples of people who were nearly totally assimilated into the Mythic Hero Archetype and the only thing that separates them from Jesus is that there are some fragments of mundane information that does not fit the Mythic Hero Archetype cycle or they are so tightly woven into history that one cannot explain events without them. "The apparent links with Roman and Herodian figures is too loose, too doubtful for reasons I have already tried to explain. Thus it seems to me that Jesus must be categorized with other legendary founder figures including the Buddha, Krishna, and Lao-tzu. There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of being sure."--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:42, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Contemporary public response?

After balancing the "Contemporary public response" section I am now wondering if it really belongs in this article. IMHO it doesn't really add anything to the article especially given the huge range of what Jesus myth theory means in both the scholarly and layman world.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The Mythicist Position

Many of us would like to see the mythicist position worked into the article here.

Acharya S has created the first succinct, clearly explained comprehensive position for mythicists in her book, Christ in Egypt (2009):

The Mythicist Position:

"Mythicism represents the perspective that many gods, goddesses and other heroes and legendary figures said to possess extraordinary and/or supernatural attributes are not "real people" but are in fact mythological characters. Along with this view comes the recognition that many of these figures personify or symbolize natural phenomena, such as the sun, moon, stars, planets, constellations, etc., constituting what is called "astrotheology."

As a major example of the mythicist position, various biblical characters such as Adam and Eve, Satan, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, King David, Solomon & Jesus Christ, among other figures, in reality represent mythological characters along the same lines as the Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Indian, Greek, Roman and other godmen, who are all presently accepted as myths, rather than historical figures."

- Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection, page 11-12

"What is a Mythicist?" article

The Mythicist Position video

--Jose5643 16:25, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem is Acharya S is hardly a reliable source for the definition of "mythicist". Never mind that with all the other terms used in this article, "mythicist" also has different definitions. For example, Daniel T. Unterbrink in The Three Messiahs defines the term as 'denying the historicity of the Gospel Jesus'. As I have pointed out before there is a huge different between denying the historicity of a particular story and denying the historicity of the person within said story.

In fact, Remsburg made a very clear distinction between the man Jesus (Jesus of Nazareth) and the Gospel Jesus (Jesus of Bethlehem) saying the first "is a possible character and may have existed" while the second "is an impossible character and does not exist."

Acharya S' definition like Geoffrey William Bromiley's definition of Christ Myth Theory ("This viewstates 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,..." (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J Page 1034)) is totally useless because mythology has a range.

Take these examples from the Greek stories of gods and heroes Bromiley talked about:

1. Hades and Persephone is a myth of the primitive "science" story to explain the seasons
2. Eusebius in Preparation of the Gospel portrays Heracles as a flesh and blood person who was later deified (ie Euhemerism).
3. Trojan War: "Most scholars believed that Troy had never existed. One historian comments about amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann's search for Troy "When Schliemann began excavating at Hissarlik in 1870, probably about half of the scholars...would have said Homer's Troy was a figment of his imagination and that to seek its location...was folly" (The history puzzle: how we know what we know about the past By Susan Provost Beller pg 80).

All these are Greek myths but they are totally different in their level of "substantial claims to historical fact".

Remsburg effectively presented the "mythist" position back in 1909: all Freethinkers agreed that the Christ of the New Testament was a myth with the debate being whether there was an actual man behind that myth and how much of the myth was actual history. Acharya S doesn't really add anything to what Remsburg said 102 years ago and only serves to confuse things.

We have enough problems with the definition of Christ-Jesus myth theory--we don't need start another freaking log pile with "mythist".--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:54, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Just one minor correction if I may be so bold. From what little I know about Acharya S, I suspect that you're right about her not being a reliable source for a general definition of "mythicist". However, I take slight issue with a further claim that you made. If I understand you correctly, you claimed that Bromiley's definition of Christ Myth Theory ("This viewstates that the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology...") is "totally useless" because a "piece of mythology" may or may not contain historical fact. Now, strictly speaking, all that matters for Wikipedia's purposes is what reliable sources say. So if (speaking counterfactually) most of the reliable sources defined the "Jesus myth theory" as "the view that Jesus is a piece of mythology", then Wikipedia would have to use that definition, however "useless" it might be for historiographical purposes. (How such a situation would actually play out is a complicated question. Presumably the Jesus myth theory article would start with the definition ("the view that Jesus is a piece of mythology") and then give a break-down of what each scholar means by "a piece of mythology". Of course, that's already neither here nor there for our purposes.) Please note: I'm not trying to pick a fight with you. I happen to (tentatively) agree with you regarding the inappropriateness of including a discussion of "the mythicist position" while citing Acharya S, so this current comment has no practical import as far as this article is concerned. I just wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page regarding Wikipedia policy. Thx. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 21:37, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually I explained way back in Talk:Jesus_myth_theory/Archive_22#Bromiley exactly why Bromiley is totally useless. In a nutshell it is useless because ti doesn't makes itself clear as to where on the range of mythology it falls. Much later on I clarified the problem with Bromiley: One can easily point to American Tall Tales and Dime novel as examples of stories of people who really existed but were "possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes". That Bromiley, in the very sentence right after Lucian's criticism regarding the Jesus story being being a pale imitation of Apollonius of Tyana, goes into the idea how the death and resurrection story is similar to those of Attis, Adonis, Ositis, and Mithras certainly doesn't help in clarifying just what point he is making. Apollonius was supposedly flesh and blood while Attis, Adonis, Ositis, and Mithras were not. That is why Bromiley is useless--it fails the primary function of a definition--to clearly define something.

In fact it dovetails very well into the point I Howard Marshall made: "We shall land in considerable confusion if we embark on an inquiry about the historical Jesus if we do not pause to ask ourselves exactly what we are talking about." Far too many scholars are unclear as to what they mean.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:55, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

BruceGrubb: "The problem is Acharya S is hardly a reliable source for the definition of "mythicist"."

That is just another ad hom tossed at Acharya S from those with biases. Scholars who've actually read her work speak quite highly of it. For example:

Biblical scholar Dr. Robert M. Price wrote a review of her book Christ in Egypt saying:

"I find myself in full agreement with Acharya S/D.M. Murdock"

"I find it undeniable that many of the epic heroes and ancient patriarchs and matriarchs of the Old Testament were personified stars, planets, and constellations..."

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/reviews/murdock_christ_egypt.htm

Your extreme biases against Acharya S tells us far more about your own credibility than hers. Is she or anyone else not allowed have the mythicist position as a world view? Who are you to tell anyone what they can or cannot accept? You should read the links before commenting out of ignorance. You're obviously not qualified to comment on this issue as your biases ruin your credibility here. All you have to offer here is a hand-waving dismissal without investigation.

"Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance." — Albert Einstein

The fact remains that the mythicist position created by Achayra S is the only one in existence. There has never been such a clear succinct comprehensive position for mythicists until now. There are clear definitions for god beleivers = theist, non-beleivers = atheist, non-committal = agnostic and a view that supernatural events to added to a historical characters biography = evemerist position. However, there exists no such thing for mythicists. It's time there is.

"Remsburg effectively presented the "mythist" position back in 1909:Acharya S doesn't really add anything to what Remsburg said 102 years ago and only serves to confuse things."

That's clearly false. The confusion is yours from where I stand, possibly due to biased reasons. Remburg only addresses Jesus. Acharya's mythicist position is a comprehensive position that encompasses all religion, including Christianity. That's why it's called the mythicist position.

"Remsburg made a very clear distinction between the man Jesus (Jesus of Nazareth) and the Gospel Jesus"

Acharya S does that in her book discussing the evemerist position on page 11 before getting to the mythicist position.

Claiming that we cannot have a mythicist position recognized because "mythology has a range" is what's useless here. She offers a "range" not covered here at all, astrotheology.

A. "Mythicism represents the perspective that many gods, goddesses and other heroes and legendary figures said to possess extraordinary and/or supernatural attributes are not "real people" but are in fact mythological characters."

What's so difficult to understand there? It's pretty axiomatic.

B. "Along with this view comes the recognition that many of these figures personify or symbolize natural phenomena, such as the sun, moon, stars, planets, constellations, etc., constituting what is called "astrotheology."

This part provides a simple and logical explanation of what these ancient myths reflect.

C. "As a major example of the mythicist position, various biblical characters such as Adam and Eve, Satan, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, King David, Solomon & Jesus Christ, among other figures, in reality represent mythological characters along the same lines as the Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Indian, Greek, Roman and other godmen, who are all presently accepted as myths, rather than historical figures."

Here she provides examples of figures believed to be historical but who may be mythical.

In her article, What is a Mythicist? http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/mythicist.html

She gives a definition for mythicist:

"a person who views various figures of antiquity, including both pagan gods and major biblical characters, as mythical."

It's really not that difficult, nor does it need all manner of incomprehensible argumentation as you've provided here. Let's get back to basics here: Defining mythicism as it relates to religion and providing a clear summary of the mythicist position. Acharya S has done precisely that.

Whether you agree with the mythicist position or not is irrelevant (not everyone is an atheist either but the definition still exists) many people do and that's why it should be included in this article and other related articles because it is a legitimate position. --Jose5643 18:26, 9 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jose5643 (talk • contribs)

Actually Robert Price states "I find myself in full agreement with Acharya S/D.M. Murdock: “we assert that Christianity constitutes Gnosticism historicized and Judaized, likewise representing a synthesis of Egyptian, Jewish and Greek religion and mythology, among others [including Buddhism, via King Asoka’s missionaries] from around the ‘known world’” (p. 278). “Christianity is largely the product of Egyptian religion being Judaized and historicized’ (p. 482)..

Seen in context the passage you quoted takes on a very different meaning. Price in the past has used historicized to refer to the idea that a flesh and blood 1st century Jesus may have been one of the parts that went into making the Gospel Jesus.

Saying 'people view figures of antiquity as mythical' doesn't tell you anything as it doesn't say mythical in which sense. Let's use to modern myths to show the problem: Christopher Columbus sailing west to prove the Earth was round and George Washington chopping down the cherry tree.

Christopher Columbus sailing west to prove the Earth was round is what Remsburg called a historical myth falling in the "lightly colored and the narrative essentially true" end of the spectrum of that category. The mythical part is not the event itself but the reason the event happened.

George Washington chopping down and the cherry tree is a philosophical myth-- it talks about an even that never happened but involves a historical person.

Go back to 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. Some believe that Jesus, a real person, was the germ of this Christ whom subsequent generations gradually evolved; others contend that the man Jesus, as well as the Christ, is wholly a creation of the human imagination."

"Not all mythicists agree with each other about what they view as the correct explanation of the origin of Christianity and of the Jesus myth. (...) The mythicist denies the supernatural aspect of Jesus. He may also deny the "great moral teacher" aspect of Jesus. Some mythicists would also try to deny that even an ordinary man (a traveling magician, perhaps) existed and served as a basis for the myth that predated him and grew around him. Other mythicists would claim that whether a meare man named Jesus ever existed at the time then the Christian era began is an impossible thing to either prove of disprove today" (Stein, Gordon (1989) An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism ISBN 978-087975256 pg 182 9)

Stein then starts talking about mythicists by stating Dupuis and Volney as the first of any note and then mentions Davis F Stauss and Ernsest Renan regarding their nonsupernatual accounts of Jesus. This is followed by John Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, Arthur Drews, Paul Couchoud, L Gordon Rylands, Edouard Dujarind, and ends with G A Wells with Archibald Robertson's Jesus: Myth or History mentioned as a critique.

Here is an very interesting quote from Archibald Robertson's book regarding John Robertson:

Robertson is prepared to concede the possibility of an historical Jesus perhaps more than one having contributed something to the Gospel story. "A teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named teachers called Messiahs " (of whom many are on record) may have uttered some of the sayings in the Gospels.

1 The Jesus of the Talmud, who was stoned and hanged over a century before the traditional date of the crucifixion, may really have existed and have contributed something to the tradition.

2 An historical Jesus may have "preached a political doctrine subversive of the Roman rule, and . . . thereby met his death " ; and Christian writers concerned to conciliate the Romans may have suppressed the facts.

3 Or a Galilean faith-healer with a local reputation may have been slain as a human sacrifice at some time of social tumult ; and his story may have got mixed up with the myth.

4 The myth theory is not concerned to deny such a possibility. What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded.

No serious modern scholar would deny the Gospel Jesus is a myth--the debate is where on the historical-philosophical scale he falls.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Additionally we kicked the whole WP:RS issue around back in Talk:Jesus_myth_theory/Archive_18#Acharya_S and several other places and found there were far better sources.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:04, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Question

I moved this topic from the article to this talk page where it belongs. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 07:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

---

Bauer "preferred a mythical Jesus based on the philosopher Seneca to one who had been a Jew."[35]

To say that he "preferred" is an assumption. Bauer arrived at this assertion because that is where his research took him.

Philo was an Alexandrian Jew. Was Bauer partial to Jews living on the African continent, but an anti-semite at the same time?

This section is missing Fredrick Engel's theory concerning the author of the Gospels. He argues that not only did Philo influence the Gospels but he was the author of them. Extremoz (talk) 06:13, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

---

Based on what Talk:Jesus_myth_theory/Archive_1#Marx_Reference says this article had something about Engel but it was felt it didn't belong. We had a long talk about the whole was Bauer anti-semitic thing a while ago which much of it hinging on his use of "aryan"--BruceGrubb (talk) 13:04, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Someone said it would be appropriate to include Engel's views if he has published anything substantial on the subject. Here is an online version of Engel's On the History of Early Christianity http://atheism.about.com/library/marxism/bl_EngelsEarlyChrist.htm It's quite well known to most Marxists and socialists. How it could be overlooked here is puzzling to me. Here is Engel's views on Bruno Bauer http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1882/05/bauer.htm. Engel's presents a solid argument claiming that it was the very Philo himself, the Greek Stoic Alexandrian Jew who wrote the Gospels. They were of mix of Jewish mysticism and Greek Stoic ideals.

Bauer was a very disciplined historian. For anyone to claim he was antisemitic is a result of their own interpretation and bias. Many people throw the word "antisemitism" around to forclose dissent, censure debate and prevent relevant facts to come to light. Bauer could equally be accused of being an antigentile couldn't he? He wasn't anymore antijewish than he was anti Buddist or Christian or Confusionist. Many denominations of Christians, Jews and Muslims and even athiests in the levant and Arabian Penninsula and in Malta are considered semitic. So I have trouble with the word "antisemitic" It's an empty signifier. I won't get political here but I will say that there is a very powerful zionist lobby that scans and censures anything that can be interpreted as antisemitic (anti Israel) Now Bruno Bauer is yet another of their victims. I nominate the line that indicates he is an antisemite be removed. It's clearly self motivated Extremoz (talk) 04:10, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

As I said before Engels was not "overlooked" but got minimized back then the article was being POVed into the pure myth part of the Christ myth theory. In fact, the Talk:Jesus myth theory/Sandbox had "Academics in the USSR continued to promote the theory throughout the state's early history, and although the theory was never discarded, it came to be replaced by the explanation offered by Engels in his 1895 essay, "On the Early History of Christianity." The existence of Jesus was accepted, but the mythological aspects of the narrative were stressed, as was the debt owed to the Jews, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. (Thrower 1983, pp. 425 ff.)" as far back as April 2010 at the latest.

Now the article is back on something resembling an even NPOV keel it is perhaps time to go back through the talk archives and reevaluate the material that got nuked from orbit.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:27, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

"Unless Engels actually published something reasonably scholarly on it, the relevance of mentioning Engels is outweighed by its prejudical effect and does not really belong in there. Stephen C. Carlson 02:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)" Although I don't quite understand this sentence, it was the reason I referenced Engel's published "scholarly" works above. Upon further consideration it might not be appropriate after all to include his views here. Although he gives praise to Bauer, he diminished the relevance the mythical elements of David Strauss' theories in order to discuss what he felt was much more important: the fact that Christianity was and is a form of class control and submission to the ruling classes. Extremoz (talk) 08:42, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Is this a place to reiterate mainstream New Testament scholarship?

"Nearly all historians involved with historical Jesus research, whether Christian or not, maintain his existence can be established using documentary and other evidence, although they differ on the degree to which material about him in the New Testament should be taken at face value.[12"

This is an article about radical scholarship. The above line and reference is from mainstream New Testament Scholarship, undoubtedly to some degree influenced by organized religious dogma. It's relativist tone has no place here. Do we need to be reminded that there are many that have come to the conclusion that Jesus existed in an alternative article representing dissenting, divergent views away from mainstream biblical historians? I would remove it but the powerful elitist interests behind most of Wikipedia will just reinsert it.Extremoz (talk) 00:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Strictly speaking this article is NOT about radical scholarship as demonstrated by the huge range of reliable sourced definitions provided. Remember that in 1931 Schweitzer stated "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." even though some 18 years previously James George Frazer expressly stated "My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth".

"What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded." (Robertson, Archibald (1946) Jesus: Myth Or History) This fits very well under Eddy and Boyd's third category with Robert Funk and Crossan which is in the mainstream as far as the "taught as reported" part is concerned.

There are no "powerful elitist interests" here other then editors providing solid reliable sourced evidence that the Jesus-Christ Myth theory is more than its opponents want to admit and that the historical myth part of it is in really mainstream. The quote serves to acknowledge that the more extreme pure myth part of the Jesus-Christ Myth theory is not accepted.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:17, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Surely if the Jesus myth theory is so ridiculous, they can explain to us why it is so ridiculous, rather than repeating ad nauseum that everyone thinks it is? IMHO, the pretend certainty about the ridiculousness of the theorem followed by a paucity of actual evidence backing their beliefs up betrays their insecurity about the concept. Most people who go into New Testament studies today are Christians, they are not neutral parties and they shouldn't be treated as such. 65.0.98.195 (talk) 01:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Source comparison to other historical (?) figures

"we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned…"

I've seen this and similar references in other places, simply pointing out that there is often a lack of positive affirmation that people who allegedly lived a long time ago, did in fact exist. This seems valid, however for the sake of clarity and perspective I feel it would be an improvement on the article to provide some examples of people whose existence is documented on a similar or weaker level as that of Jesus. I'm very much a layman on the topic and have no such examples myself, so this is more of a request or a suggestion than anything else. Laanders (talk) 00:56, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree because most of the times I have seen this the argument is a clear strawman. The three figures I have seen presented most often are Alexander the Great, Socrates, and Augustus Caesar. In contrast with Jesus all three of these people had known contemporaries (ie non-anonymous sources produced during their lifetimes) write about them.

Socrates has Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes and while the works of Ptolemy, Nearchus, Aristobulus, and Onesicritus have not survived some of the the coins, mosaics, and statues made during Alexander the Great's lifetime have. The comparison with Augustus Caesar is even more insane as not only do you have coins and statues but writings from Roman Senate and Augustus Caesar himself--neither of which exist for Jesus.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:53, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I would like to point out that this particular "quote" by Michael Grant involved him quoting two other authors of dubious merit: R. Dunkerley, Beyond the Gospels (Penguin 1957), p12; O. Betz, What do we know about Jesus? (SCM, 1968). SCM's own web page says "SCM Press - buy religious books online" and "SCM Canterbury Press - buy religious books online; Religious Book Publishers". The quotes were removed back in 2010 with the consensus as far back as 2008 being that since Michael Grant was only quoting two other authors who had provided no evidence for their conclusions and therefore the quotes were using Grant to show WP:RS that in reality didn't exist (Talk:Jesus_myth_theory/Archive_12).

"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." (abstract) and "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." (main text body) (Fischer, Roland (1994) "On The Story-Telling Imperative That We Have In Mind" Anthropology of Consciousness American Anthropological Association Volume 5. Issue 4. December 1994 Pg 16 - 18). To date the Fischer article is the only peer reviewed Anthropology journal article presented that makes a clear and direct comment on the quality of the evidence for the historical Jesus and it stated right in the abstract "there is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived".--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Schweitzer's characterization of Frazer

I removed one instance of this, as there were two, and the redundancy seemed unnecessary. But I am confused about this bit:
Despite Sir James George Frazer stating "My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth" in volume 9 of The golden bough in 1913, [22] Schweitzer continued to group him with John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, and Arthur Drews in subsequent printings of his The Quest of the Historical Jesus and repeated this classification in his 1931 autobiography Out of My Life and Thought with the statement "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." [23][24]

Why is Schweitzer's incorrect assessment of Frazer worthy of mention in this article? If there were some material in the article covering Frazer's influence on others in terms of the reality of an historical Jesus, or some description of a controversy surrounding this characterization relevant to the subject, I could see having this, but we seem to have it just to say that Schweitzer said this, but he was wrong. Can someone explain the value of including this paragraph? --Nuujinn (talk) 23:02, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Nuujinn, this was pointed out long ago in the archives and your continued effort to try and remove relevant (and in this case REFERENCED) points that disprove your partial view of what OR is it not doing to work so stop it.--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

With respect, that's not even an attempt at an answer to my question. Why is it relevant? This isn't an OR issue at all, it's a question of due weight--if Frazer isn't discussed in the article, what purpose is there to having Schweitzer's incorrect assessment of him? --Nuujinn (talk) 23:11, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Mmeijeri asked why it you said it was redundant and you haven't provided information regarding your claim. Schweitzer is considered one of the big names in the whole Jesus myth theory debate so the fact he put a person who expressly stated "My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth" in with those who held different views raises the question of just how was Schweitzer defining Jesus myth theory and shuts down the whole "Jesus didn't exist" definition nonsense the article suffered through for over two years. Never mind the conflict itself is reference in Bennet. IMHO the only reason you are here is that this was one of the examples of non OR conflicts and you cannot stand that fact. It won't work so stop wasting our time.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:09, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I missed Mmeijeri's reversion. It's redundant because both block say pretty much exactly the same thing, and I'm not sure why it needs to be said in the first place, much less twice. It stands out like a sore thumb since there's no discussion of Frazer in the article. And I want to make sure that I understand exactly what you're saying--it seems to me that you're saying that Frazer is mentioned because Schweitzer, who is an important figure in regard to the subject, lists him as one who supported the notion that Jesus was a mythical rather than historical figure, even through Frazer himself stated he assumed an historical Jesus in his work, and that error '...raises the question of just how was Schweitzer defining Jesus myth theory and shuts down the whole "Jesus didn't exist" definition nonsense'. Is that a fair summary? And is there any other reason Frazer is mentioned? --Nuujinn (talk) 08:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

As I said the answers to your question is in the talk page archive but your "Jesus was a mythical rather than historical figure" comment shows you don't really understand the meaning of "mythical" which is why there is a myth section in this article. Being mythical doesn't exclude being a historical figure. This is better explained in the Context section (which is where Schweitzer's classification of Frazer first appears)

Take the mythical George Armstrong Custers portrayed in the movies They Died with Their Boots On and Little Big Man--the first a courageous soldier going down again hordes of marauding savages and the second a glory seeking egomaniac leading his men to certain slaughter. Those are examples of what Remsburg called historical myths (The event may be but slightly colored and the narrative essentially true, or it may be distorted and numberless legends attached until but a small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially false.") so while the George Armstrong Custer in either of those films is mythical there is no denying there is a historical George Armstrong Custer behind them.

I. Howard Marshall's classification of "historical Jesus" shows the other problem with Schweitzer's classification of Frazer--just what did Schweitzer mean by "contested the historical existence of Jesus". Was the inclusion of Frazer a slip up or was it intentional perhaps showing that Schweitzer was referring to 'Gospels accounts give a reasonable account of historical events' Marshall would decades refer to? We don't know what Schweitzer meant so all we can do is give his actual words on the matter and let the reader decide.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:25, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

BG, you're confusing my question with a comment, and I would suggest that you use caution in claims about what I do and do not understand about Myth and History. I don't have a position on whether "Jesus was a mythical rather than historical figure". I'm trying to understand what you said--is it accurate to say that in your opinion Frazer is mentioned because Schweitzer, who is an important figure in regard to the subject, lists him as one who supported the notion that Jesus was a mythical rather than historical figure, even through Frazer himself stated he assumed an historical Jesus in his work, and that error '...raises the question of just how was Schweitzer defining Jesus myth theory and shuts down the whole "Jesus didn't exist" definition nonsense'? If it is not, could you please clarify what you meant?

In regard to the archives, I haven't found what I'm asking about yet. I think you're making this more complicated than it need be at this point. I'm not critical of the lede, I just do not see any reason for the characterization of Frazer by Schweitzer to be in the article, given that Frazer is not elsewhere discussed. Are "contested the historical existence of Jesus" Schweitzer's words? --Nuujinn (talk) 12:42, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Looking for Frazer will produced 28 hits in the archives. Given that the "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." was two reference (Schweitzer himself from his Out of my life and thought: an autobiography and Bennett) I have to wonder WHY are you asking if the "contested the historical existence of Jesus" are Schweitzer's words as the answer is right there in the article or did you miss the fact that Out of my life and thought is an autobiography of Schweitzer?--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:00, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

This is obscure minutiae and hardly enlightens the present-day reader. The section needs to be rewritten so it isn't in bullet-point form. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:20, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

It is NOT obscure minutiae as one of the major problems of this article had for over two years was that editors would use sources like Schweitzer's to determine who was a "Christ Myth theorist" (see Talk:Jesus_myth_theory/Archive_19#Remsberg for part of that nonsense).

The fact Schweitzer even after 18 years continued to group a man who expressly stated "My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth" in with the likes of William Benjamin Smith and Arthur Drews shuts this down for editors that believe "Jesus-Christ Myth theory" = Jesus didn't exist.

I should mention that in Deconstructing Jesus pg 207 Price notes that many of Frazer's contemporaries were putting him in the Jesus myth theory school.

Furthermore, Frazer was far more prominent in the article then he is now ([9] shows how he tied into Drews and IIRC we even had a section on him in the article at one time) but it was editors using lists of "Christ Myth theorists" that resulted in much of the information regarding him getting nuked from orbit because of "he wasn't a Christ Myth theorist" garbage. Joseph Campbell's comments were similarly nuked from orbit by editors using these lists so presenting Schweitzer's use of Frazer limits future editors from engaging in that nonsense.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:46, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, so this makes a bit of sense now. BruceGrubb, about the quote, I had to ask because the quote has two citations, one from Benett and one from Schweitzer's autobiography. Google can be capricious in terms of previews, I did not have access to that page of the autobiography. Please, I do think you're making this more complicated than it need be.

The problem currently is, as I see it:

• We have a quote from Frazer, from a note to the second edition of the Golden Bough, about his perception of the reception of his work. He's reliable for that, but since the reception of his work is not discussed in the article, it has no relevance.
• We have a quote from Schweitzer, not from his works, but rather from his autobiography, about his intentions while writing his book. He's reliable for that, but his intentions are not really relevant to the subject.
• From what BruceGrubb says, I am assuming that Bennett talks about this in some way, but I don't have access to Bennett.

But I've gotten Schweitzer's Quest, and he doesn't treat Frazer directly in terms of the Jesus Myth--on pages 382-3, he references Frazer's influence on Drew and Smith, and talks about Frazer's treatment of vegetation gods and their annual rebirth, and the origins of Purim and parallels between that story and the one of Jesus. There's also a note on 529, in which Schweitzer praise's Frazer's work. So I see no treatment in Schweitzer of Frazer showing Frazer's views on the Jesus Myth. Putting on my deconstructionist hat, the stuff we have in the article about Schweitzer view of Frazer is thin stuff wrapped about an absence. The diff above doesn't really show treatment of Frazer's work, nor that Frazer was once prominent in the article, but rather suggests that Frazer's work informed the work of others who used it in relation to the subject of the Jesus Myth. This is certainly plausible--it's been 25 years since I read the Golden Bough, but it was and remains in some measure a primary work on mythic forms in literature. Anyone westerner talking about myth in the early 20th century would likely draw on Frazer. Now, if we could work up a section about how Frazer influenced others who wrote about the Jesus Myth, and we could add to that good material about writings that countered those arguments, or, if we could work up a section showing that Frazer was somehow a center of controversy relative to the Jesus Myth, then Schweitzer's characterization of Frazer might be useful and relevant, but that is not the case now.

Also, I am concerned about the notion that we have material placed in an article with the purpose of blocking other editors--WP is not a game of chess. And I tend to agree with Itsmejudith, this level of detail isn't helpful. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:27, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

You forgot to mention that pages 382-3 are in "The Most Recent Disputing of the Historicity Of Jesus" chapter of Quest which would imply Frazer was one of those Disputing of the Historicity Of Jesus and this interpretation is confirmed by no less than Schweitzer himself in his 1931 autobiography: "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."

So Schweitzer talks about Frazer in a chapter regarding the Most Recent Disputing of the Historicity Of Jesus and some 18 years later directly states that Frazer is one of those who contested the historical existence of Jesus. Seems cut and dry how Schweitzer viewed Frazer.

"While Frazer did not doubt that Jesus had lived, or claim that Christians had invented the Jesus myth, his work became a source book of ideas and data for many who did. In fact, Schweitzer includes Frazer in a list of scholars who 'contested the historical existence of Jesus . . . John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, James George Frazer, Arthur Drews'" (Bennett 2001)

It's not blocking future editors showing that Schweitzer put Frazer in with Robertson, Smith, and Drews--it shows whatever Schweitzer meant by "contested the historical existence of Jesus" in 1931 it included a man who stated "My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth" in 1913. If you say that Schweitzer is arguing against the Christ Myth theory then you have to deal with Frazer's view--its a package deal per NPOV.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:57, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not interested in the history of this article. I still think it is minutiae. We shouldn't be using Schweitzer or Frazer directly anyway; they belong to the history of scholarship not to present-day scholarship. Schweitzer was obviously a massively important figure, highly respected especially by Protestants. If he mischaracterised Frazer that is a minor slip-up in his thought that we have no need to dwell on. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:51, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

This article is not just about modern day scholarship and besides as now noted there is something similar occurring with Wells from Jesus Myth (1999) on.--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:15, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

.

• Sir James George Frazer's views became the basis of so many later authors that doubted Jesus existed and the entire story was a fiction created by Christians that he himself was presented to have such views.<:ref>Bennett, Clinton (2001) In search of Jesus: insider and outsider images page 205</ref> For example, Schweitzer described Frazer's views in the "Most Recent Disputing of the Historicity Of Jesus" chapter of his The Quest of the Historical Jesus which he clarified in his 1931 autobiography Out of My Life and Thought with the statement "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"<:ref>Schweitzer (1931) Out of My Life and Thought page 125</ref> even through Frazer had stated in volume 9 of The golden bough in 1913 that "My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth"<:ref>Frazer, Sir James George (1913) The golden bough: a study in magic and religion, Volume 9 pg 412</ref>

This is contorted; it is massively irrelevant; and it is extensive quotation of one primary source on another. I condur with the majority that it does not belong here as it stands; if a later author on the Jesus myth claims Frazer as a source, say so there (and there quote Frazer's denial).

It is, however, nice to see that we mention David Strauss. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:44, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Bennett and Price are primary sources?! Say WHAT?!--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:27, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not speaking for others, but as I seen it, both Schweitzer autobiography and the quote from Frazer are primary sources--the quotes from them explaining their intentions and assumptions are clearly primary material, even if repeated elsewhere. Bennett I regard as a secondary source, and woud be useful if we had some material placing Frazer's work in historical context, but we don't have that, at least not yet. Regarding "If you say that Schweitzer is arguing against the Christ Myth theory then you have to deal with Frazer's view--its a package deal per NPOV", no, that's simply not correct as NPOV does not require use to correct inaccuracies in sources. Schweitzer is arguing against the Jesus Myth theory, and whether or not his take on Frazer is accurate, he doesn't treat Frazer in terms of the subject of this article directly, but rather those influenced by him, and in the context of this article in its current state, I think it is minutiae relative to the subject. Arguing that it is not because of actions taken by other editors seems illogical to me. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:22, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Why do we need to enumerate the people who opposed the Jesus myth thoery at all?

It's a theological and historical theory; it's a minority view. Once that is clear (and it is clear), we can take it for granted that the majority opposed it, with more or less vehemence; we need no more list its opponents than Miaphysitism lists the Chalcedonian branches of Christianity and their differences from the Church of the East. Everyone who isn't a Miaphysite disagreed with them; so here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The title of the section in question is Definitions of the theory and its purpose is to show that there is no one Jesus myth theory and that some definitions conflict with each other. As far as being a minority view that all depends on where on the Historical to Philosophical range of the Jesus myth theory you are talking about. J. M. Robertson's version for instance was arguing against a "personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded". The taught as reported in the Gospels has already been thrown out by the mainstream and depending on how literal you take the "in the circumstances there recorded" that is in serious trouble in the mainstream as well.

This is not to say the extremists like Joseph Wheless who see mammoth conspiracies by the Early Church or the latest revival of the long discredited sun deity arguments are mainstream but then again neither are those views of the historical Jesus that say every event in the Gospel is historical...including the three hour eclipse (the only reason anybody uses Thallus) and many of the local dead went for a little walk (Matthew 27:52-53)--insert your own Dawn of the Dead joke here.--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:58, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, are there sources that directly treat the various definitions of Jesus myth theory or compares and contrasts various Jesus myth theories? I haven't looked at the rest of the sources, but Bennett's statements in regard to Frazer's influence and Schweitzer's view of him do not directly address a definition of the subject. And I do not believe our purpose should be to "show that there is no one Jesus myth theory and that some definitions conflict with each other." If reliables sources say that, by all means let's use them, but to juxtapose various definitions with the intent to show that they conflict seems to me to violate NOR. --Nuujinn (talk) 19:13, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The article already says there are various forms; nor do Schweitzer's remarks on Frazer show that there are. If Mr. Grubb wishes to write a paper on this subject, there are many places to do so; we can even link to the result. But it does not belong here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually by expressly putting Frazer in with John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, and Arthur Drews Schweitzer leave one with two possibilities--either Schweitzer was misunderstanding Frazer or Schweitzer was using "contested the historical existence of Jesus" to mean something other than "saying Jesus didn't exist". The thing is we don't know which is true--while Schweitzer would provide a new intro for each new edition there were no major revisions to Quest from 1913 on. The only thing we as editors is present the evidence as NPOV as it possible and let the reader decide.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:40, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Edits and reversions

I trimmed the quotes out and recast the statements, BG put it back, I reverted. I won't revert again, as I don't want an edit war. What do others think? Feel free to revert me if my actions were inappropriate. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I will. Articles do not have owners. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:10, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Talking about reverting... there was a perfectly reasonable version of this article back in February, say this version, but now Bruce's campaign to dispute the existence of a coherent definition of Christ myth theory has taken a whole life of its own. I would almost suggest restoring the lead and the context section to the February versions. Vesal (talk) 21:03, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The current lede is a mess, and I think the one from february is much cleaner. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:51, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The February 2011 lead ("The Jesus myth theory (also known as the Christ myth theory and the nonexistence hypothesis) is the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was not an historical person, but is a fictional or mythological character created by the early Christian community.") was itself a mess as it didn't really explain anything and more importantly was an inaccurate piece of SYN and POV ignoring the contradictions now listed in the current lead.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

BG, one problem is that all of that material in the lede weighs it down--it is too much detail for a lede section, which is supposed to be a summary of the article. --Nuujinn (talk) 17:07, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Nuujinn, you harped on this over on Talk:Conspiracy theory and as I mentioned there under WP:LEAD is WP:LEADCITE which expressly states "The lead must conform to verifiability and other policies. The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and quotations, should be supported by an inline citation" and later on directly states "there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads."

IT DOES NOT MATTER IF IT "WEIGHT DOWN THE LEAD" but if what the lead says is verifiability and given the way editors in the past were quick to challenge the lead without even going to the main body the lead needs to stay as it is so the body of the article can be better fleshed out. Go and READ WP:NPOV before wasting any more of our time.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:03, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

BG, please don't shout. Please refrain from characterizes my actions with words such as "harp", and please do not accuse me of wasting your time--if you think my actions are inappropriate, you are welcome to bring that up on my talk page or in whatever noticeboard you feel is appropriate. I have no problem with citations being in the lede. The lede is too long and too detailed, that's the problem. From MOS:LEAD The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects. The lede here doesn't really do that. My suggestion is to move the penultimate and antipenultimate paragraphs, and drop the last paragraph altogether (since it does not treat the subject directly). --Nuujinn (talk) 11:01, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

The lead of MOS:LEAD itself ALSO states: "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies." This explain HOW a lead "serves as an introduction to the article" something you seem to be missing.

The first paragraph (The Jesus myth theory (also known...) defines the topic

The second (The term does not have an exact and agreed-upon meaning,...) establishes context (there are the two I added)

The rest was already there and I left it in because the main body needed to be fleshed out before we even began on the whole "explain why the topic is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies" part because we have to get more material before we could even answer those questions.

Not all leads are going to be simple. The Rorschach test is another article that has a involved lead.--BruceGrubb (talk) 13:22, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Bleech. That one should be chopped after the first paragraph, the rest is not a concise overview and could be accurately summarized in 2-3 sentences. From the above I cannot tell if you support or oppose my suggestion, as I was not talking about moving the first two paragraphs. I think they are too wordy, but they serve the function. The last three do not. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:27, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

A modest proposal

I've read through (most of) the extremely long discussion above. I understand Nuujinn's OR concerns and the concerns that the article goes into too much detail on certain points. However, BruceGrubb's basic point — that "Jesus myth theory" cannot simply be defined as "the theory that Jesus never existed" (whatever that exactly means; after all, in a sense it's trivially true that "Jesus" existed: undoubtedly there were some people named Yeshua in first-century Palestine) — is quite reasonable.

I think that the solution to this dispute is quite simple: take WP:SYN very seriously. If a scholar, in describing his theory, uses the phrase "Jesus myth theory", "Christ myth theory", or some variation thereof, then the theory can be described here. If scholar A describes scholar B's theory as a version of the "Jesus myth theory", then we can describe B's theory here, mentioning that A classifies it as a version of the Jesus myth theory. For example, did Constantin-François Volney use the phrase "Jesus myth theory" or "Christ myth theory" in describing his theory? Does any published work use such a phrase in describing Volney's theory, or claim that Volney contributed to the development of the Jesus myth theory? If not, then Volney does not belong here, even if his theory challenges the historicity of Jesus.

This approach would (obviously) avoid OR concerns, and it would probably trim down the excess detail a lot. At the same time, it would free us from having to come up with a blanket definition of "Jesus myth theory" for the article: instead, we would simply bow to sources. Scholars who do not deny Jesus's historicity, but who use the phrase "Jesus myth theory" in describing their work, would belong here just as much as anyone else.

What do people think? --Phatius McBluff (talk) 16:13, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that sounds fine. I would suggest that sources using the term "Christ Myth" or "Jesus Myth" or "Myth of Jesus" should also be considered, since the phrase "Jesus Myth Theory" seems artificial. Does that make sense? --Nuujinn (talk) 17:06, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Ugh, I suggest you both read Talk:Jesus_myth_theory/Archive_40#RfC_to_move_Christ_myth_theory_to_Jesus_myth_theory and Talk:Jesus myth theory/definition and look at why I repeatedly said that trying to use "Christ Myth" or "Jesus Myth" was a monumentally BAD IDEA. I would also like to mention no every source uses any of the terms--Schweitzer for example only use Christ myth to refer to Drews book.

I and many other editors felt there was a lot of SYN and POV in the article and tried to clean up the mess as best we could. Do I like the lead I wrote? No, but given the disjointed state of the material it is likely the best NPOV lead we are going to get for the article.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:30, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I looked at the archived RFC and a number of related discussions for this article. Bruce, it looks like our perspectives aren't really that different: we both think that the article is (and perhaps inevitably is) a mish-mash of borderline OR. After all, as you point out, there is no common definition, and different people use different terminology (e.g. "Christ myth" vs "Jesus myth"); put these two facts together, and we get the result that we don't even have scholarly support for claiming that "Christ myth theory" and "Jesus myth theory" are synonymous. That is not in question. What's in question is what we're going to do now.

As far as I can tell, there are three possible courses of action that are arguably consistent with policy:

1. Have separate articles for "Jesus myth", "Christ myth", "Jesus myth theory", "Jesus myth hypothesis", etc. In each article, discuss only those theories that call themselves, or that are called by other scholars, by the article's name. Although a logical possibility, this first option is not, as far as I can tell, a practical possibility: no one would put up with having separate Wikipedia articles for "Jesus myth" and "Christ myth".
2. Merge this article with Historicity of Jesus. In principle, I favor this third option the most, given the problems with names like "Jesus myth theory" that BruceGrubb has pointed out. Nonetheless, I anticipate that we would not be able to gain consensus for this second option.
3. Recognize that "Christ myth", "Jesus myth", etc. are not synonyms in any meaningful sense, but still treat this article as a place to discuss all theories that call themselves, or have been called by others, "Christ myth", "Jesus myth", etc. Clearly state, in the lead, which terms ("Christ myth", "Jesus myth"...) we have (arbitrarily) decided to cover in this article. Does Schweitzer use the phrase "Christ myth" only with reference to Drews? Okay, then Drews is the only scholar whom we will discuss in this article when citing Schweitzer.

In case it was unclear, I favor the third option. Is there a fourth option that I'm missing? Please keep in mind, all I'm concerned with is that we follow policy and that the article is user-friendly. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 20:05, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm game for #3. But I think we should recognize that as an encyclopedia, we should keep to an overview. In cases where we do have or could have an article on a particular viewpoint, such as The Quest of the Historical Jesus, we should be brief. If we are overcome by numbers of views, we can break those out as a list. My personal take is that The Quest of the Historical Jesus is best seen as an historical primary source for this article, for example, and rely on more recents scholars for interpretation of Drews (as those will have the advantage of building upon the work of others). --Nuujinn (talk) 20:52, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem with #3 would be it would make for an even more disjointed article with constant arguments (see the archive of those we had in the past) about what should go into the thing. The closest thing we have to a relatively complete modern history of the Christ myth theory is in Bennett and that is in the context of a more general Quest for the historical Jesus and some additional material in The Historical Jesus: Five Views but it is clear that there are issue regarding just what the the Christ myth theory even is.

Bennett add some interesting twists to this article: "Celsus thought that almost the entire Jesus story was myth." (page 173) and "I will suggest, though, that aspects of Celsus', Reimarus' and Strauss' work on Jesus anticipated the arguments of the Jesus-was-a-myth school." (pg 190) Ok is "Jesus-was-a-myth school" the same as Jesus Myth theory and if not how on earth are they different?!?

I should clarify that the only places Schweitzer uses the phrase "Christ myth" is when he refers to the title of Drews' book as at no time does Schweitzer use it to refer to a concept. As I said many years ago qhen you can show that Bromiley (1982) has a definition that doesn't match up with Dodd (1938) and neither matches up with Farmer, (1975), Jones (1983) or Horbury (2003) though Rembsburg's definition (1903) does match up to Bromiley's to some degree you have a problem.

I and several editors felt that option #2 (merging this with either Quest for the historical Jesus or Historicity of Jesus) was the bast way to clean this mess up and every time that idea died a miserable twitching death.

Back when there was an FAQ being suggested for this article I wrote my own (User:BruceGrubb/CMT_Material/FAQ) as I felt the one being presented was way to POV but never did anything with it as the consensus was that the idea for any FAQ was felt to be more harm then good. I'm bringing my FAQ up now because I still feel it best sums up the problems this article has and why they likely occur.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Bruce, I'm a bit confused by your opposition to #3. #3 seems to be basically what we have now with the current version, with the difference that the current version (a) doesn't give a complete list of the terms ("Christ myth", "Jesus myth theory", "Jesus myth hypothesis", etc.) that are being subsumed under the title "Jesus myth theory" and (b) discusses a number of scholars who are not explicitly identified in published works as supporters of the "Jesus myth hypothesis", "Jesus myth theory", etc. In other words, the current version just looks like #3 with WP:OR and WP:Verify issues. Given your (grudging) acceptance of the current version, I don't understand why you wouldn't accept #3. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 14:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Because nearly all of the definitions are so vague or unclear as to be useless and would serve to confuse what is already a muddled mess. Take "Jesus is not historical" for example. Which Jesus and 'not historical' in what way? Shakespeare's Richard III is not historical but that doesn't mean that there wasn't a real Richard III.

Then you have things like Bromley that defined Christ Myth theory as regarding the story of Jesus but you can have non historical or mythical stories of historical people.

The biggest problem with nearly all the material is people both supporters and critics are not clear on what they are arguing about.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:52, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I think we're talking past each other. #3 would not involve providing an explicit, arbitrary list of definitions. That would be a disaster for precisely the reasons that you describe. Rather, #3 would involve providing an explicit, arbitrary list of terms ("Christ myth theory", "Jesus myth hypothesis", "Mythical Jesus", etc.) and then discussing only those scholars whom reliable sources describe in those terms. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 22:38, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah now I understand though I think setting this page up as a cross between article and disambiguation page (like Jesus and history) would work even better as some versions of these terms already have pages under different names--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:47, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Merge Option 2 is best - Histoicity is the same subject. Grantmidnight (talk) 12:24, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I and several editors would agree with you but the previous attempts have been go nowhere disasters so we are left with trying to form something sane and NPOV with this article.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:41, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, if Grantmidnight also favors #2, then maybe we can try again to get consensus for a merge. If you're tired of trying, Bruce, then maybe another one of us can spearhead the effort. If we fail, then we fail. Big deal. Nuujinn, if we were to propose #2 as a serious option, would you support it? --Phatius McBluff (talk) 14:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

While I would like to see a merger I am also realistic that odds are that this article would soon reappear and all the current work to correct the old POV nonsense would have to done again. This topic is just too hot button not to have its own article but the source material is such a botched up mess that POV and OR is always going to be a problem. The best thing would be to try and keep this article but go back to the title Christ Myth Theory and see if we can find RS that tell us the name comes from Drews' book and work our way through the variants that came after Drews.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:42, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I would support a merger, fwiw. Let's give a try and see what happens. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:18, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, Bruce, it looks like the rest of us are (perhaps foolishly) ready to try to get consensus for a merger. If you're disgusted with the prospects and want to sit this one out, then feel free. If we fail, then we fail. If we succeed but then this article is re-created, then we won't have to rebuild this article from scratch: the records of previous versions of this article are stored, so we aren't losing any information.

Who wants to formally propose the merger? I've been on Wikipedia for a while, but I'm not quite clear about the procedure. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 22:38, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I've done it a few times, but I think first we need to work out a rationale for the merger, listing what advantages the merger would yield. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:14, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

From what I have read at Help:Merging we need more than just a list of advantages but one is quite clear--the lack of a single, clear definition of Christ myth theory makes this article a SYN, OR, POV fest.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:47, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Semi-disambig page proposal

"I think setting this page up as a cross between article and disambiguation page (like Jesus and history) would work even better as some versions of these terms already have pages under different names" --BruceGrubb

In the section above, BruceGrubb suggested turning this article into a cross between an article and a disambiguation page. What do people think, and how should we go about it? In particular, I'm interested in figuring out how we can do it without simply duplicating Jesus and history. Which exact articles would a Jesus myth theory disambig page link to? --Phatius McBluff (talk) 16:54, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, one approach could be to make this into a summary style article (since that's kind of what that cross would look like) and break down the various subthreads into different articles. For example, we could point to The_Golden_Bough#Subject_matter.

But it struck me this morning that the key problem is the title of the article, since there really isn't a cohesive theories or even theories. What we really have are a number of authors who are talking about Jesus or Christ as a mythic figure, some of whom deny an historical Jesus, and some of whom do not. I have not read through the archives, but would it help to consider renaming the article to something like "Jesus as a mythical figure"? --Nuujinn (talk) 22:08, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Naming the article "Jesus as a mythical figure" is inadvisable, as it would easily get confused with WP's already-existing article titled Jesus Christ in comparative mythology. However, unlike Historicity of Jesus, Jesus Christ in comparative mythology is definitely not a candidate for merging with this article, since Jesus Christ in comparative mythology specifically focuses on trans-cultural mythological themes that the Christ story shares with other myths. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 03:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Would the be more or less confusing than the pair Historicity of Jesus and Historical Jesus? --Nuujinn (talk) 09:17, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

If you closely look at Jesus and history you will notice the similarities between Historicity of Jesus, Quest for the historical Jesus (not to be confused with Schweitzer's The Quest of the Historical Jesus), and this article. Do we really need three article discussing variants of what is in essence the same topic?--BruceGrubb (talk) 13:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

No, if we can get the merger through. If we can't, we should look at alternatives. The current name is very awkward. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Something just occurred to me. Turning this article into a disambig page would work only if WP had a bunch of separate articles with titles like Jesus myth (book), Jesus myth theory (film), Christ myth (anthropology). In the absence of such articles, what would go into the disambig page? --Phatius McBluff (talk) 02:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

In the section above, Bruce said that "some versions of these terms [i.e. "Jesus myth", "Christ myth", etc.] already have pages under different names". However, do we know that those pages are really talking about subjects which reliable sources refer to as "Jesus myth", "Christ myth", etc.? That makes all the difference if what we're trying to avoid is OR and POV issues. After all, we don't want to include things in the disambig page based on our own POV about what could be called "Jesus myth" or "Christ myth". --Phatius McBluff (talk) 02:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

So a number of us are now on board to try a merger. At the very least, we need a list of the advantages that the merger would provide. Before we go ahead with that proposal, let's figure out how exactly we're going to word it.

Here are some possible pro-merger arguments to start us off:

• The theories that are called "Jesus myth", "Christ myth", etc. are all concerned with Jesus's historicity. Hence, as long as Historicity of Jesus is reasonably thorough and comprehensive, an article on Jesus myth theory is redundant.
• There are two main arguments for having a separate article on Jesus myth theory:

1. "Jesus myth theory" refers to the striking (and hence article-worthy) claim that Jesus never existed.
2. Some scholars do use the expressions "Jesus myth", "Christ myth", etc., making Jesus myth theory notable.

The problem with the first argument is that it is false. Some scholars who apply labels like "Christ myth" to themselves do not claim that Jesus never existed.

The problem with the second argument is that, for it to work, we would have to at least know that "Jesus myth", "Christ myth", "Mythical Jesus", etc. are all synonyms. However tempting it may be to think they are synonyms, to assume that they are would violate WP:OR and specifically WP:SYN. Since scholars do not agree on a definition of any one of those terms ("Jesus myth", "Christ myth", etc.), it is clearly meaningless to ask whether the terms are synonymous.

What do people think of these pro-merger arguments, and can you think of more? --Phatius McBluff (talk) 17:14, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Myth has four or five senses, which may overlap but are distinct:

• Tale of the gods and heroes.
• Traditional story with aetiological function
• Widely believed, but false, story
• Exaggerated or reverential story ("Alexander myth", of the Alexander Romance and its off-shoots)
• Idealization

"Christ myth" can be used in all of those senses, and for various meanings; it could be used by Robert Ingersoll, in the third sense, by a Church historian, in the second, and by C.S. Lewis, in the first. This is not a well-defined subject. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:10, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

• support This is obviously one half of the "historicity" article, and merging them would do much to obviate the incessant edit warring over whether any particular usage of the phrase means the same thing, if nothing else. The current title has always struck me as contrived. Mangoe (talk) 19:23, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support I fully agree with Mangoe. I would point that even the "Jesus never existed" statement is full of ambiguity--the Robin Hood and King Arthur we know never existed either as they are highly mythologized composite characters but that doesn't mean there isn't a historical foundation to them. Drews himself stated that even if one insists there was a historical Jesus "we know nothing of this Jesus. Even in the representations of historical theology he is scarcely more than the shadow of a shadow." In other words even the authors that do claim "Jesus never existed" may be actually saying "Jesus of the Gospels never existed" which is way different from saying there wasn't Jesus who preached in the 1st century.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:43, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
• Question, did this article start as a fork of Historicity of Jesus? Also would point out that a reliable source which denies Jesus as man ever existed, period, is still grist for the mill as an datum relevant to the Historicity of Jesus. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:56, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if it did start that way. But I think the merger could really be a breath of fresh air. Drews is at the centre, he is the one writer who really did propose a clear "Jesus was not a historic individual but was a composite of myths".For a long time after that everyone who wrote about the historicity of Jesus defined their position by reference to Drews. But that was a long time ago and no-one any longer wants to be confined within the question "Jesus, historical figure or myth". All this can be covered in the Historicity article. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:12, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

If you go through the archives the WP:CFork issue was brought up in 2007( Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_8) (back in 2007) showed a concern about this being a POV fork by Jim62sch. Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_9 have even more concerns with ThAtSo flat out calling this article a WP:CFORK. In Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_21 User:Dbachmann again raised this issue (2009) and I agreed with him in Feb of that year asking "why does so much of the material on BOTH sides of this issue have problems? As I said elsewhere Creationism and New Chronology get better treatment than this and they are even more off the wall." By Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_22 User:Dbachmann seems to be to the point where nuking the article from orbit seemed to be a good idea. Hans Adler in Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_24 brought up the WP:CFORK issue again, in Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_28 Ttiotsw brought up WP:COATRACK concerns, and then User:SlimVirgin came on board in Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_30 with with their WP:CFORK concerns. As you can see this has been a long discussed problem.--BruceGrubb (talk) 13:28, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• Not sure, but probably oppose - my gut feeling tells me this isn't a good idea. Historicity of Jesus seems related to Historical Jesus which is an academic mainstream concept of scholars who all accept that somewhere at the root of things there was a man from Nazareth who had some followers who thought he was a Messiah. As far as I know there are no scholars with academic tenure at any university in the world who think otherwise. Wheras what is here on Jesus myth theory is basically a collection of historical curios, influential in the 18th-19thC and WP:Fringe views now, but WP:notable enough in terms of the study of 18thC higher criticism or fringe views for these individuals to have their own article. We wouldn't try merging Moon landing conspiracy into Moon landings simply because Moon landing conspiracy gets a lot of fruitcake and anon IP traffic. If it's hassle then go for permanent low level page protection, but don't bring this page's problems into Historicity of Jesus or (which isn't being pre-proposed) historical Jesus. That's my gut feeling. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:17, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe a better lede-dab or dabhat Historicity of Jesus and Historical Jesus might be a better solution? In ictu oculi (talk) 04:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

"I know there are no scholars with academic tenure at any university in the world who think otherwise."? May I introduce you to Robert M. Price, Peter Worsley, Richard Dawkins. I would also point out that as demonstrated by Steve Bitterman formally of Southwestern Community College professors have been fired for just saying that Adam and Eve are myths so there is a lot of pressure to toe the line with regards to the historicity of Jesus.

I would point out that comparing the Moon landing conspiracy nonsense to the Jesus Myth theory is a typical strawman argument by apologists and is quickly countered by a modern example of how many Jesus Myth theorists think the story formed--the John Frum cargo cult. Peter Worsley flat out stated in "The trumpet shall sound: a study of cargo cults in Melanesia" (1968) which was quoted and sited in the University of Wollongong Thesis collection "Belief in Christ is no more or less rational than belief in John Frum". Dawkins went further in the God Delusion: "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 (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." (pg 202) (...) "Second is the speed with which the origination process covers its tracks. 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." (God Delution Chapter 5. In fact, as documented in al, Brij V.; Kate Fortune (2000) The Pacific Islands: an encyclopedia; University of Hawaii Press; ISBN: 978-0824822651; Pg 303 where was an active attempt in 1957 to prove John Frum didn't exist and it failed totally.

Just as the mythical 1930s literate American GI John Frum replaced the illiterate 1940 native who used that name as far as the cult is concerned in the space of one generation (ie 20 years) it is quite reasonable that the Gospel Jesus replaced the Jesus Paul knew especially given the uncertainty of when the canonal Gospels as we know them came into being. This is ignoring the 40 plus non canon gospels that floating around in the 2nd through 4th centuries. Even Paul acknowledged there was a problem with noncanonal material in Galatians 1:6 (c46 to c54 CE) and that could be just 10 years after the Gospel Jesus supposedly died.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:32, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Support, to be clear. Nothing Bruce Grubb says makes a case for why this needs a stand-alone article. Worsley is writing on Melanesia not on Jesus; the quote above is about rationality and religion, not making a case about Jesus. Dawkins is just an atheist. Price is the only one who is propounding a mythical Jesus argument; his biography summarises his scholarship and it can be mentioned in Historicity of Jesus. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

To be fair, Bruce is in fact in favor of a merge. His remarks about Dawkins, Price, cargo cults, etc. were in response to In ictu's claim that no tenured professor says Jesus didn't exist. It's In ictu oculi, not Bruce, who says that they want this to be a stand-alone article. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 14:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Bruce, I said "university", jctseminary.org is not "a university", any muppet can get a job teaching online from a US seminary.

Now definitely oppose - In any case I have to say there's nothing in the above exchange to make me think that loading the fringe of fringe into Historicity of Jesus is a good idea. The way these two articles are the moment, one Historicity of Jesus has serious material of the sort that informs the "did a man from Nazareth ever exist?" end of the historical Jesus study, wheras the other, Jesus myth theory, has what it has. You can't accomodate G. R. S. Mead and Tacitus in the same article; two completely different subjects. All it will acheive is wrecking Historicity of Jesus by turning it back into an IP playground. My two cents ;). In ictu oculi (talk) 01:31, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

In ictu, you don't really seem to be providing an argument for keeping the pages separate; instead, you seem to be providing an argument for simply deleting Jesus myth theory. If Jesus myth theory is indeed "the fringe of the fringe", as you call it, and if the reasons given by me, Pmanderson, Bruce, etc. for not having Jesus myth theory as a separate article are sound, then the logical course of action would simply be to delete Jesus myth theory (perhaps after picking through it for bits that could be salvaged for other articles)

I hesitate to propose this idea, since we would need a very strong justification for doing a delete (as opposed to a proper merge). However, could we do a straw poll? How many people would support deleting Jesus myth theory? (Keep in mind that content could still be salvaged for other articles and that the title could be redirected to a still-existing article.) I currently oppose the idea, but all the arguments given so far, when taken together, seem to push in that direction. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 01:54, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• oppose since the resulting article would be too long and since the topic is notable enough to deserve its own page. We would also have to merge the Historical Jesus article with the historicity article if we did decide to merge. I would suggest a change of this article's name to "Christ Myth theory" however. Similarly, "historical Jesus research" might be a better name for the other article. Martijn Meijering (talk) 02:01, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Phatius, you've struck through, which I wonder suggests you know that another article would just spring up if this was deleted. Besides, WP:Fringe can still be WP:notable if the article is about the WP:Fringe. It's evident that this extreme position was notable in the 18th and 19th C, just as it fills a need in some peoples' lives today. However note that Google Scholar suggests that the title should possibly be hyphenated "Christ-myth theory". In ictu oculi (talk) 02:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem with the Christ Myth theory and WP:Fringe is that the term "Christ Myth" has been used to described what Remsburg called historical myth towards the "small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially false" spectrum which even Eddy-Boyd admits is becoming mainstream. As I said before the philosophical myth is only part of the Christ Myth theory.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

But In ictu, the suspicion that it's fringe isn't the problem. The problem is that there simply is no identifiable, cohesive field or theory which goes under the name "Jesus myth theory" or "Christ myth theory". As a result, this article is an inevitable "SYN, OR, POV fest", as Bruce put it in an earlier talkpage section. Pointing out that fringe subjects can deserve their own articles does nothing to alleviate the concerns that motivated the merge proposal. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 16:04, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps if I reiterated these several definitions I have found over the years and have provided a link to it might make what we are dealing with clearer:

• Jesus is an entirely fictional or mythological character created by the Early Christian community

• Jesus began as at a Myth with historical trappings possibly including "reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name" being being added later. (Walsh, George (1998) The Role of Religion in History Transaction Publishers pg 58)(one possible reading of Dodd, C.H. (1938) History and the Gospel under the heading Christ Myth Theory; Manchester University Press pg 17)

• Jesus was historical but lived c100 BCE (Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, p. 65)

• The Christ Myth may be a form of modern docetism (Grant, Michael. Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Scribner, 1995; first published 1977, p. 199)

• The Gospel Jesus is in essence a composite character and therefore non historical by definition. (Price, Robert M. (2000) Deconstructing Jesus Prometheus Books, pg 85)

• The Gospel Jesus didn't exist and GA Wells' Jesus Myth (1999) is an example of this. Doherty, Earl "Book And Article Reviews: The Case For The Jesus Myth: "Jesus — One Hundred Years Before Christ by Alvar Ellegard" review

• Jesus Agnosticism: The Gospel story is so filled with myth and legend that nothing about it including the very existence of the Jesus described can be shown to be historical. (Eddy, Paul R. and Boyd, Gregory A. The Jesus Legend Baker Academic, 2007. pg 24-25)

• "This view (Christ Myth theory) 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..." (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J 1982 by Geoffrey W. Bromiley) The problem with this definition makes no distinction between historic myth (like the Trojan War) and philosophical myth (like Hades and Persephone). More over, Eusebius in Preparation of the Gospel portrayed Heracles as a flesh and blood person who was later deified ie Euhemerism and in 1919 "Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics" pg 646 said "Osiris, Attis, Adonis were men. They died as men; they rose as gods"

As seen by this referenced sample the very definition of what Christ Myth theory even is is a disjointed mess. If we take Bromiley's definition literally then part of the Christ Myth theory is mainstream in the way the story of the Trojan War is mainstream. No historian today doubts there was a Trojan War but the details of that war have been effectively lost and the same is now being said about Jesus. Remember that Robertson's version 'denies that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded. That leaves a LOT of leeway including modern mainstream views regarding Jesus in the 1st century.

Remsburg make a clear distinction between the Jesus of history (Jesus of Nazareth) and the Jesus of the Gospel (Jesus of Bethlehem) as did Thomas Paine in his "Concerning The Character of Jesus Christ, And His History" chapter of Age of Reason (1795). It is clear when you go back and actually read the material that many Christ Myth theorist are actually arguing against Jesus of Bethlehem and not Jesus of Nazareth and that is the problem.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:37, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

The third one seems inappropriate, as dating Jesus as an historical figure at 100 BCE does treat him as a myth.

I think you may be splitting hairs with those definitions, but I haven't read them, so I'm not certain. Let me play lumper to your splitter for a moment. Each of those definitions takes a different slant on the issue of "Jesus as Myth". Some say that Jesus the person is mythical, some that he's partially historic and partially mythical, but all discuss mythical aspects of Jesus. Some emphasize Jesus as the figure in the Gospel, or as the Christ, or as a Person, but all three are associated with Jesus. We're an encyclopedia. We can go into detail, even extreme detail, but we don't have to--a short article pointing to others sources of detailed information has value, too. I would suggest that is not our job to tease out subtleties such as the problem of Bromiley's definition failing to distinguish historical and philosophical myth, or to put Jesus as a mythical figure (partial or entire) in the context of Cargo Cult or Moon Landing conspiracy (and I am not suggesting that anyone is arguing that we should have any of that in the article, but rather that focussing on that level of detail may cloud our vision of what the article could be and is not now). In this case, simple may be better. Many times, it seems to me, articles on controversial topics suffer as one editor adds a bit that presents one POV, and another editor adds a bit to balance that view out, and someone else tilts it a bit this way with a new bit, and so on, until the article is a giant creaking tower of amalgamated details.

That being said, I completely agree that there's no sourcing for any cohesive definition for that term, and I think what that demonstrates the title "Jesus Myth Theory" is a bad choice. So I would like to start a different but parallel line of discussion. --Nuujinn (talk) 09:20, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

This goes back to the meaning of "myth" which IMHO is at the heart of the problem--the very meaning of the term varies wildly and many times it is difficult if not impossible to separate myth from legend. I should point out that the "Jesus was historical but lived c100 BCE" example above uses also Walsh's definition: "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" The c100 BCE date originally came the Talmud but later the Dead Sea Scrolls were being presented as supporting evidence. I should point out the comparisons between the Christ Myth theory and Cargo Cult or Moon Landing conspiracy have been made.by some fo the sources that have been presented over the years.--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:35, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

What is the desired topic?

We are not transcription monkeys. We do need to follow sources, but I'm convinced at this point that the title is a big part of the problem. Leaving aside for the moment what that title should be, and let us assume that this article did not yet exist, what is it we want to write about here? Do we want to write about, for example, the history/chronology of views of Jesus as a mythical figure. This would pick up on Itsmejudith's point about Drews having been at one time the center of discussion, and BruceGrubb's point about current debates on the topic, and might be structured as History_of_evolutionary_thought. Or do we want to write about the variety of views of Jesus as a mythic figure? If so, we could trim this article down to a summary style, and move the more important bits here to various articles, such as the historical Jesus, historicity of Jesus, or stand alone articles. Or we could take as a topic that many theories of the origins of the story of Jesus emphasize myth, and build an article around that. What do the rest of you think the topic should be, as if we had not yet put bit to bit? --Nuujinn (talk) 09:20, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

This is kind of what I meant about setting this page up as a cross between article and disambiguation page (like Jesus and history) would work even better as some versions of these terms already have pages under different names. For example, the first book Wells admits to there be a historical Jesus behind Q is called Jesus myth and is also the title of a 1971 "Jesus is historical" book by Andrew M. Greeley Furthermore, the phrase "Jesus myth" like "Christ Myth" use in reference to the myth that grew up around a historical Jesus as well as Gospel Jesus never existed as a human being. Burton Mack uses the term "Jesus myth" to refer to the myth that grew up around Jesus ((2003)The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy Page 110)

The reality is that the Christ Myth theory is enough of a hot button idea that there needs to be a page addressing the fact that there is no one "Christ Myth theory" and directing viewers to the appropriate page of the particular variant they are interested in. I have put together a proto version of the layout at User:BruceGrubb/Christ_Myth_theory if anyone wants to take a look.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:43, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I do not like the disambiguation, and would prefer Nujinn's last option, but you really need to shift emphasis away from whether some historical Jesus existed towards how belief in Christ emerged. The myth theorists have held varying positions on the historicity question, and some admit a historical figure may influenced the Christ myth, but the essential assertion of the myth theorists is that the emergence of Christianity is better explained in mythical terms than in reference to the earthly life and crucifixion of a historical person. So while the range of views on the historicity is indeed blurry, distinguishing a historical Jesus theory from a mythical Jesus theory really is straight-forward: a historical Jesus theory aims to explain the emergence of belief in Christ as a result of the life and death of a reconstructed historical person; a mythical Jesus theory explains the emergence of belief in Christ predominantly as the result of cultural, social, or spiritual developments, rather than the earthly events that historical Jesus theorists are concerned with. This article should focus on the myth-theoretical accounts of the emergence of Christianity. Vesal (talk) 12:38, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

This is a great idea but I see one problem with it--the lack of any RS that clearly make this distinction. Too many sources either are vague to be useless or go the 'debunk the Jesus didn't exist' route.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:15, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but Vesal's point is well taken, and to the extent that sources do not make the distinction, we need not either. If this article is to be about the mythic aspects or Jesus as myth, the historical issues are not part of the subject of the article and fall away. We have articles focussing on the historical aspects, this one should not. If a source discusses mythical aspect of Jesus or Christ, and it's appropriate per DUE and other policies, we should seek to represent what that source says about those aspects, and mention historical aspects only as they directly pertain to the those aspects. We need not go into detail regarding how a myth theory is contested--if we need to say anything about that at all, we can simply say it is contested by notable authority X. --Nuujinn (talk) 17:25, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

If we go with Vesal's and Nuujinn's idea, be careful that we aren't simply reproducing material in Jesus Christ and comparative mythology. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 18:55, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Returning to the merge idea for a moment perhaps Jesus Christ and comparative mythology and this article are among the two that should be merged. One of the ideas central to any version of the Christ myth theory is that many of the major events in the Gospel account either echo or are variants of earlier mythical stories.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:07, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't mind the merge, but I wonder how much weight you can give to these authors in the main articles. So if we want to preserve all the material here, we should try to shift emphasis in the lead and definitions. We need a more coherent definition, a definition that does justice to all proponents without capturing the likes of Bultmann. There are sources for this kind of approach, such as Dodd and Walsh, but one has to generalize slightly. What these sources establish clearly, though, is that myth theory is about the emergence of Christianity:

• Walsh is particularly clear. Even if you doubt the historicity of Jesus, he says, "nevertheless, we have to explain the origin of Christianity, and in so doing we have to choose between two alternatives." (He then uses an unfortunate chronological language to distinguish historical Jesus theories from mythical theories.)
• I almost plagiarized Dodd's formulation in my first post: "Religions, again, have emerged out of the confluence of various currents of thought and spiritual life, without the decisive intervention of any historical teacher or leader. Their foundation is in ideas, not in events. Attempts have indeed been made in recent times to represent Christianity as a religion of this last type." He then continues to elaborate on how myth theoretical accounts may vary on the degree of historicity behind the myth.

I think there are sufficient RS support for an approach that defines myth theory in terms of a historical theory about the emergence of Christianity, but the precise formulations, such as Walsh's, are somewhat problematic, so let's say even less about the myth theorist's position on historicity in the initial definition and leave it to each author to clarify their precise stance on historicity. Vesal (talk) 20:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem with this idea is Walsh is one of the few that actually does provide such clarification with Remsburg and Marshall being the two we know so far that actually point out that historicity itself has a range. As I said in the proposed article-disambiguation page: The confusion regarding the meaning of the term can seen in the lack of clarification of three terms: myth (including mythicist), historical, and fictional.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:16, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

This is true, but we have three choices:

1. Define it as non-historicity, following most secondary sources, and pretend there is no problem or confusion. (The approach taken a few years ago.)
2. Define it as non-historicity, and then show how that many proponents do not completely deny historicity. (The current approach.)
3. Define it as a theory on how belief in Christ emerged, based on those (few) sources that have a clue, and clarify stances on historicity for each author later.

It's good to see that the article has moved beyond the first approach, but the problem with the second option is that the confusion is not readily attributable to secondary sources. The existence of this confusion is in many ways something you are demonstrating based on primary sources, and I have a big problem with that, but in the large scale of things, I don't have enough problems with it to continue arguing. After all, this is a huge improvement over option one. Vesal (talk) 19:46, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Why do we only have three choices? As for secondary sources the problem there is there are so few of them and they are as confusing as the primary sources.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:52, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The desired topic is the title "Christ-myth theory" isn't it? Again, what is the reason for the determination to merge this article? The article as it stands corresponds well to the frame of reference in Google Scholar, as per the following reference to Drews.

Jesus, Myth, and History: Troeltsch's Stand in the" Christ-Myth" Debate BA Gerrish - The Journal of Religion, 1975 - JSTOR ... The Christ-myth theory, then, won little support from the historical specialists. In their judgement, it sought to demonstrate a perverse thesis, and it proceeded by drawing the most far-fetched, even bizarre connections between mythologies of very diverse origin"

Can someone please explain clearly and concisely why must the views of Drews, Mead and so on be merged into more mainstream scholarly topics? The article as it stands is self-standing, already long, and consistent with academic usage of "Christ Myth". In ictu oculi (talk) 04:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

They would not be discussed, I would hope most people above understand that "merge" is effectively equivalent to delete. Vesal (talk) 19:52, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Part of the reason for a merger is that article is a mess and many editors in the past considered the whole thing a POV of Historicity of Jesus something I had to reluctantly agree with once I actually read through much of the literature.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:52, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Mmm, well on Vesal's point I can understand wanting to delete Drews, Mead etc. from a serious article on modern study of the comparative mythological elements in the NT, or indeed any other chunk of Second Temple Hellenistic literature. But to delete (by merge) Drews, Mead etc from Wikipedia entirely seems to run counter to WP:notable, they are notable in 19C context. Bruce on your point you may be right that the article has a messy edge, but merge/delete into the mainstream article won't de-mess. But that's just one editor's opinion. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:00, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, if we are going to keep this article how about we streamline the lead down to what I have in User:BruceGrubb/Christ_Myth_theory? That condenses the first two paragraphs into a series of far more readable bullet points and then we and figure out what else from the current lead we want to keep.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:48, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Bruce, for me that probably seems sensible, but I have probably already said enough for just one editor, particularly one who is only marginally watching this topic. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:29, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I've gone with the rewrite for the first two paragraphs leaving the rest as is and am thinking about restructuring the Meaning of "myth" and "mythicist" section into a sources of confusion section as per User:BruceGrubb/Christ_Myth_theory.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:07, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I restored an earlier version, as I am very uncomfortable with a bullet list as part of the lede. I am also not sure how you're using the sources, do you have a source for these various categories, or are they your own construction? --Nuujinn (talk) 16:48, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Since each one of those categories has a reference and this lead is just a restructuring of what we already have why are you asking this question? Nuujinn, you have admitted that you haven't read some of the material used as references and this comment raises concerns you have not read the material you are challenging.

"The main result at which the author arrives is that the Jesus of the canonical Gospels is a largely humanised form of a pre-Christian cult-god of that name, and that all those parts of the Synoptics which are of any religious significance find their best explanation on that theory. It may be remarked, however, that even if it were in the highest degree probable that there was a pre-Christian deity worshipped in Palestine and called Jeshua or Jeshu, it would still be possible that there was a great teacher and healer bearing the same name, who was confounded with that supposed deity." (The Hibbert Journal REVIEWS-The Christ Myth). This is only a part of a contemporary review of Drews' work and this is just one of the 12 (twelve) references in what you are challenging.

Again lead of MOS:LEAD itself states: "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies." The revised lead addressed the first two in a better format then the other while touching on the final one leaving 'establish context' and 'explaining notable' to be fleshed out.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

As I have said, I'm not happy with the prior version either, and we talking about how to restructure this mess. I have not read all of the sources, but I have read some of them, and I'm concerned that these definitions are being constructed and arranged in an arbitrary manner. And it is BRD, not BRR. --Nuujinn (talk) 17:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The material is not "arranged in an arbitrary manner" but in a rough order of weight something you would have known IF YOU HAD READ THE MATERIAL. The reality is just what the term means varies and that is going to always be a problem with this article.--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:19, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

BruceGrubb, please don't shout. You do not know how many of the sources I have read, and my concern is that while it is true that the term varies in applied meaning, the structure of your new lede appears to construct rigid categories for usages that are not expressed directly in the sources I have read. Bullet style is also very poor stylistically. In my opinion, this change is a definite step backwards, and not helpful to the ongoing discussion. I also would like to remind you that you do not own this article. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Rigid categories? Hardly, these are just the sources that actually explained just what they were talking about. Others like Schweitzer, Bromiley, and Grant are either confusing, vague to the point of uselessness, or take on one of the many possible definitions. As for bullet style given how well people were reading the same information in paragraph form I proposed the idea and In ictu oculi thought it was a sensible one.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Alright, for the benefit of myself and Nuujinn, can you quote from any of these source to show us on what grounds you classify the position "there was indeed a 1st century teacher named Jesus but that the New Testament accounts tell us little to nothing about the man" as myth theory? To be clear, I am not looking for some deductive argument based on characterizations of Frazer or Wells as myth theorists. To avoid synthesis, can you provide a quotation from a source that directly and explicitly backs up this characterization? Vesal (talk) 11:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok the wording there could have better and I have reworked it to better reflect what is being presented by the the sources: pre-existing Christ Myth + historical 1st century Jesus = composite Gospel Jesus.--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Amazing

Amazing how discussions on this page keep repeating themselves incessantly. Merging is a bad idea--as several editors have pointed out above, none of the material discussed in this article merits discussion in articles devoted to mainstream views about the historical Jesus (well, maybe an article focused on mainstream views could devote a short paragraph to non-historical theories, but not more than that).

The topic of this article are the views espoused by Bauer, Drews, Robertson, Smith, and Wells, who had in common the idea that there was no historical Jesus (i.e. that the character depicted in the canonical Gospels was not based on a real Jesus of Nazareth). There are scholarly sources that treat the subject in exactly this way; the editors here are, I am almost certain, far less familiar with scholarship on the historical Jesus than scholars such as Robert Van Voorst (just to name one source), so we shouldn't be inventing ad hoc definitions here. Just follow what the (good) sources say; they're quite clear, the confusion of certain editors notwithstanding.

Also, bullet points are hideous style, and have no place in the lede of an article. Especially when they're minor variants on a single core idea: that there was no historical Jesus of Nazareth. (N.b., not everything that writers refer to as a "christ myth" needs to be covered in this article. This is an encyclopedia article about a topic--the idea that there was no historical Jesus--not a dictionary entry on a phrase "christ myth" or "jesus myth".) --Akhilleus (talk) 03:28, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Haven't read the article yet, but this abstract gives another example of a scholarly source that treats non-historical Jesus theories as a distinct topic. And note, this abstract doesn't mention "christ myth" or "jesus myth"--a good indication that we're dealing with a topic, not a phrase. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:49, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Akhilleus, you have in the past claimed this with such statements as "Since Schweitzer, Drews, Case, Goguel, Van Voorst, Bennett, and Weaver all present this as a coherent position, and largely name the same people as its proponents (see, e.g. this), I'm having real trouble seeing how you can say this is original research." (12 February 2009) even after I pointed out on 22:42, 23 December 2008 "Frazer did not doubt that Jesus had lived, or claim that Christians had invented the Jesus myth," and yet Bennett also notes that Schweitzer lists Frazer as a doubter of a historical Jesus a point I repeated on 6 January 2009. "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. It is not difficult to pretend that Jesus never lived. The attempt to prove it, however, invariably produces the opposite conclusion." (Out of my life and thought: an autobiographypg 125; 1998 edition)

Furthermore as I pointed out via Archabold "(John M.) Robertson is prepared to concede the possibility of an historical Jesus perhaps more than one having contributed something to the Gospel story. "A teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named teachers called Messiahs " (of whom many are on record) may have uttered some of the sayings in the Gospels. (...) 2 An historical Jesus may have "preached a political doctrine subversive of the Roman rule, and . . . thereby met his death " ; and Christian writers concerned to conciliate the Romans may have suppressed the facts. 3 Or a Galilean faith-healer with a local reputation may have been slain as a human sacrifice at some time of social tumult ; and his story may have got mixed up with the myth. 4 ''The myth theory is not concerned to deny such a possibility. What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded. This claim of there being any kind of consistency seems to be a repeat of the WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT issues I saw over two years ago.

Finally after reading the contents of this nonsense of an article I have to ask "what of John Frum?" The comparison of Jesus to Haile Selassie I is the most insane I have seen in a long while but then Think is a Philosophy journal and so can ignore things that would cause an historical anthropologist to fall out of their chair in shock. While a blog many people point out the obvious flaws in this article. This article seems to be the modern day equivalent of how many angels can dance on the head of pin and is not useful for anything.

Compare this to Against the Historical Plausibility of the Empty Tomb Story and the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus: A Response to N.T. Wright Volume: 3, Issue: 2, Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers, Pages: 171-186 which is logical and actually makes sense.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT applies to your response pretty well. You've been raising Schweitzer's opinion of Frazer for years now. It is an unimportant point. A plausible explanation of what happened is that Schweitzer read the Golden Bough and inferred that because Frazer found a pattern underlying myths from all over the world that was strikingly similar to Jesus' death, Frazer was implying that Jesus' story wasn't history, but myth. I don't know if Schweitzer thought that, but certainly others did. Frazer's affirmation of the historicity of Jesus was almost certainly in response to the controversy generated his treatment of Jesus in earlier editions of the Golden Bough (you can consult Eric Csapo's Theories of Mythology (2005) pp. 42-43 on this).

But Schweitzer's opinion of Frazer simply has no relevance to what I said in the post that you quote (which was this edit). Some context: another editor alleged that it was original research to say that there was a coherent Jesus myth theory. I responded that it couldn't be original research, since "Schweitzer, Drews, Case, Goguel, Van Voorst, Bennett, and Weaver all present this as a coherent position"—that is, each one of these writers, who are experts in the study of the historical Jesus, wrote about the "Jesus never existed" idea as a distinct and coherent topic within historical Jesus studies, and they largely named the same people as its proponents (the very same people who get the most attention in the history section of this article). Other writers such as G.A. Wells, R. Joseph Hoffmann, and Robert Price recognize the "Jesus never existed" idea as a coherent school of thought. Maybe Schweitzer made a mistake about Frazer, but so what? The point is, Schweitzer treats non-historical theories as a group in Quest of the Historical Jesus, and in this, as in many other matters in historical Jesus scholarship, other scholars follow his lead. We can too, by treating non-historical theories as a distinct topic worthy of an article.

Oh, so, J.M. Robertson thought that the lives of some historical individuals (including some guys named Jesus) might have been used as a partial basis for the Gospel Jesus. This probably applies to some of the other writers covered in this article, too. Guess what? J.M. Robertson, and others, are still not talking about a figure that mainstream scholarship would recognize as a historical Jesus. The difference is pointed out in the quotes you provide—the historical Jesus is at the center of the Gospels and his activity is an essential part of the founding of Christianity. But Robertson's Jesus or Jesuses are incidental additions who might have gotten mixed up with a preexisting myth. The preexisting myth (which Robertson picked up from Drews) is the essential part. This is why Robertson is simply labelled a proponent of the "Christ myth" theory by such writers as Beilby and Eddy in Jesus: Five Views, pp. 17-18. (Note that Beilby/Eddy define the "Christ myth" theory as the idea that "Jesus never was an actual person in history" just a few sentences before mentioning Robertson.)

And so you disagree with Standing's article. So what? You're missing the point again, which is: this article, which appears in an academic journal devoted to philosophy, recognizes the "Jesus never existed" argument as a distinct and coherent topic. This recognition is independent of whether the article has a convincing argument. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:55, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Philosophy can argue things like 'what is the sound of one hand clapping'-that doesn't mean that there is a 'what is the sound of one hand clapping' argument as a distinct and coherent topic.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:32, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

That's just one article, but the key point of Akhilleus' lengthy and well-argued post is that most secondary sources handle this topic as a coherent whole. You are obsessed with faithfully representing each primary source, and that's admittedly a very good thing, but it is just as important that the structure and treatment of a topic on Wikipedia broadly resemble its treatment in the secondary literature. Vesal (talk) 12:49, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the secondary sources are as much a mess as the primary sources and we have to address NPOV. I would remind you that the majority of secondary sources put Wells Jesus Legend and Jesus Myth in the Christ Myth category with the only rebuttal a primary source. In fact one of the sources talk about an old Christ myth school and you have people like Doherty and Carrier going the Gospel Jesus didn't exist route which is different from saying there wasn't a flesh and blood man in the 1st century named Jesus who preached some philosophy. As I said a long time ago the one field this article desperately needs, historical anthropology, is at best represented by Carrier and his efforts are somewhat primitive.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:37, 23 October 2011 (UTC)