Talk:Christ myth theory/Archive 32

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Let me guess: the main subject of an article on recent "scholarship" would be Richard Carrier?
— User:Joshua Jonathan

Well no.

Stephen Law holds that for Jesus—in the context of the contamination principle—we have no good independent evidence for the mundane claim that Jesus existed. Therefore the Gospels' inordinate amount of myth and fabulation about Jesus actually leave us in doubt whether he existed. Concurring with Law, Carrier writes, "The more fabulous the only tales we have of someone are, the more likely we doubt their historicity, unless we have some good mundane corroboration for them. Hence we doubt the existence of Hercules, Dionysus, Romulus, and so on" and "Jesus is one of the most mythified persons in human history."

Law's position is challenged by Robert G. Cavin and Carlos A. Colombetti who in collaboration, present four items of evidence. They also invoke a Bayesian 0.99 prior probability for mundane claims about a historical Jesus. Lataster notes the "incredible assumption" made by Cavin and Colombetti, such that "their 'bracketing' of the material in the sources makes the incredible assumption that the obviously mythical material should not at all make us sceptical about the rest" and further "Cavin and Colombia would be happy to proclaim the 0.00001% of a story's mundane claims as being almost certainly true, even if 99.99999% of the story consisted of supernatural fiction."

Rejecting Cavin & Colombetti's "resort to illogical Christian apologetics", Carrier writes, "Stripped down to its purest generalization, Law’s principle essentially argues that when instead we have evidence for a source’s unreliability, the probability of any mundane detail in the story being true doesn’t increase. It stays at 50/50 . . . . Until we get good independent evidence for it. Cavin & Colombetti present no logically valid or factually sound objection to this conclusion." Lataster writes:

All too often I see philosophers comment on biblical claims with an inadequate knowledge of the Bible, Judaism, Christianity, and religion in general. This can lead to scenarios . . . where too much credence — more than some Christian scholars of the Bible in some cases — is given to the sources. And all too often, I see biblical scholars make logical claims without the vitally important critical framework of the analytic philosopher. I believe that both are needed to answer questions of this sort. We need the knowledge and nuance of the specialist scholar of religion and the logical acuity of the analytic philosopher.

Scholars such as Hector Avalos and John Gager make the same sorts of criticism of the methods of their peers, as those leveled by Lataster against said peers—being scholars who really do seem to be operating within a bubble of logical and methodological flaws. Lataster further cites examples of these scholars appealing to “hermeneutics of charity” in which they insist that scholars should assume “traditions” found in the gospels should be accepted as authentic until someone points out clear reasons not to.

Another problem is the supernatural in the gospel narratives. It is not sufficient to remove the supernatural and then suspect the mundane remnant of having some probable historicity. Very often it is the supernatural that is the very point of the story; remove the supernatural and one has removed anything of interest. The supernatural is not the embellishment; it is the core of and the reason for the story.

The most problematic issue of historical Jesus scholarship is the extent to which Christian scholars—and many atheists—tend to assume that the gospels contain some historical core material or are derived from reports of historical events. Lataster writes, "Using the Gospels to argue for Jesus’ existence may be circular reasoning. Arguing from external sources would generally result in a much more convincing case."

A common objection is that “ahistoricists” or “mythicists” do not have an alternative explanation for Christian origins. However given Paul’s testimony that he hallucinated a Jesus constructed from the Jewish Scriptures, it only need be shown that the historicist doesn’t have real evidence that would make his purely human Jesus existing more probable than not." Lataster writes:

This is similar to the agnosticism over God’s existence. Those agnostics do not need to have evidence that God does not exist. They just need to be unconvinced by the lack of good evidence for God’s existence. In other words, my case for Historical Jesus agnosticism does not need to rely on good alternative hypotheses, though it certainly can be strengthened by them.

--2db (talk) 06:00, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Article split

This article should be split into two articles a) history of and b) modern arguments. The logical date to split is c. 1995:

  • Wells becomes a biblicist
  • Doherty publishes his work on the WWW
  • Price publishes Christ a Fiction, while not denying the the historicity of Jesus but warning "[V]irtually every detail of the story fits the mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over, no "secular," biographical data, so to speak, it becomes arbitrary to assert that there must have been a historical figure lying back of the myth."

--2db (talk) 21:32, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

No, it is not necessary to make an a additional article, which would probably be undue weight. Just don’t misuse sources of non-mythicists as the views of mythicists. It’s not terribly complicated. In particular, it would be especially dishonest to present Wells’ later non-mythicist views as a ‘modern argument’ of mythicism.—Jeffro77 (talk) 22:29, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Mythicism is a worldwide topic of massive popular discussion and interest, it would not be be undue weight to split the article. It would obviate the issue with Wells, who should not even be mentioned in the second article about modern arguments. It would also obviate the farce of appealing to 1975 scholarship as if it is current and relevant to modern peer reviewed arguments. --2db (talk) 23:05, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
There is no ‘appeal to 1975 scholarship’, nor is there any need for such. The article is full of sources for recent scholarly responses to mythicist claims. If you are deeply concerned about proper sourcing, go through the article and remove improper references to Wells’ later works, and where possible, provide relevant mythicist sources instead. If statements characterised as the views of mythicists cannot be properly sourced to mythicists, those statements should be removed. Also, the scholarly view of mythicists claims is such that scholars often don’t even bother mentioning them, generally considering the matter settled, or they might relegate it to a footnote, so the appeal to popularity also isn’t justified. (If you mean it’s ‘massively popular’ among the general public (a bit of an overstatement), that doesn’t change the scholarship or the general public’s ability to access the article.)—Jeffro77 (talk) 23:35, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
All the barnacles of pre-1990s criticism of mythicism should be removed from this article since, "the article is full of sources for recent scholarly responses to mythicist claims." After all this article is about mythicism, not the history of the criticism of mythicism. --2db (talk) 02:38, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
No. If there are redundant sources superseded by newer sources, just remove the older sources. If there are points made in older sources that are not covered by newer sources, leave them intact (unless they are being misused). The proposed split would seem to fall under trying to disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point, and sounds an awful lot like a POV fork.—Jeffro77 (talk) 02:53, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
"the article is full of sources for recent scholarly responses to mythicist claims." and "If there are points made in older sources that are not covered by newer sources" indicates that this article is indeed crufted with outdated criticism that that is not maintained by recent scholarly responses to mythicist claims. --2db (talk) 03:19, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
This is directly covered by my previous response above.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:23, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Let me guess: the main subject of an article on recent "scholarship" would be Richard Carrier? Who, as a 'peer-reviewed author', doesn't want to be associated with people who aren't in the scholarly fold; or compared with people who have retracted their fringe views, showing that even mythicists who follow logical arguments fall in line with mainstream scholarship? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:35, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

The logical date to split is c. 1995...
— User:2db

Carrier was a good boy atheist historicist back then and only became a dirty mythicist due to the 2008 financial collapse. LOL --2db (talk) 05:22, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Not appropriate for Talk pages.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:20, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Critics of the historicity of the Christ

"Christ myth" means that there has not yet been a "Christ" (or messiah), or that Jesus the man was not the "Christ", and this position is widely accepted by scholarship.
— User:Wdford

The "Christ myth theory" is not a fringe viewpoint. Virtually every biblical scholar who is not a devotee of the living Christ holds that the "Jesus the Christ" figure is a myth. WP should therefore have two articles "Christ myth theory" and "Jesus mythicism".

1835: David Strauss

It appeared to the author of the work … that it was time to substitute a new mode of considering the life of Jesus, in the place of the antiquated systems of supernaturalism and naturalism.… the recent attempts to recover, by the aid of a mystical philosophy, the supernatural! point of view held by our forefathers, betray themselves, by the exaggerating spirit in which they are conceived, to be final, desperate efforts to render the past present, the inconceivable conceivable. The new point of view, which must take the place of the above, is the mythical. [Strauss 1983, p. 21.]

"New Foe Of Religion Arises". Chicago Tribune. February 6, 1910.

[Arthur Drews] laid down his theories after the classic manner of old time university disputations. The gist of his position in large measure was like the mythical theory of David Strauss, which created a sensation fifty years ago. Strauss held there was verity in the historic Christ, but that the vast mass of miracle and supernatural wonders had been woven like wreaths around the head of Jesus. Drews goes further. He alleges there never was such a person as Jesus of Nazareth.

1842: Bruno Bauer

[W]hether Jesus is the historical Christ, we have answered by showing that everything that the historical Christ is, what is said of him, what we of him is know, belongs to the world of the imagination and indeed to the Christian imagination, thus also with a person who belongs to the real world has nothing to do with. [Bauer 1842, p. 3:308. "Die Frage, mit der sich unsere Zeit so viel beschäftigt hat ob nämlich Dieser, ob Jesus der historische Christus sey, haben wir damit beantwortet dass wir zeigten, dass Alles, was der historische Christus ist, was von ihm gesagt wird, was wir von ihm wissen, der Welt der Vorstellung und zwar der christlichen Vorstellung angehört, also auch mit einem Menschen, der der wirklichen Welt angehört Nichts zu thun hat. Die Frage ist damit beantwortet, dass sie für alle Zukunft gestrichen ist.]

1904: Albert Kalthoff

A Son of God, Lord of the World, born of a virgin, and rising again after death, and the son of a small builder with revolutionary notions, are two totally different beings. If one was the historical Jesus, the other certainly was not. [Kalthoff 1907, p. 28.]

1906: Albert Schweitzer

That the historic Jesus is something different from the Jesus Christ of the doctrine of the Two Natures seems to us now self-evident. We can, at the present day, scarcely imagine the long agony in which the historical view of the life of Jesus came to birth … Thus each successive epoch of theology found its own thoughts in Jesus; that was, indeed, the only way in which it could make Him live. But it was not only each epoch that found its reflection in Jesus; each individual created Him in accordance with his own character. There is no historical task which so reveals a man's true self as the writing of a Life of Jesus. [Schweitzer 1910, pp. 3–4.]

1909: John Remsburg

[T]he Christ is understood [as] the Jesus of the New Testament. The Jesus of the New Testament is the Christ of Christianity. The Jesus of the New Testament is a supernatural being. He is, like the Christ, a myth. He is the Christ myth. [Remsburg 1909, p. 9.]

1997: Robert M. Price

[I]n the case of Jesus Christ, where virtually every detail of the story fits the mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over, no "secular," biographical data, so to speak, it becomes arbitrary to assert that there must have been a historical figure lying back of the myth. [Price, Robert M. (1997). "Christ a Fiction". Internet Infidels.]

2021: John W. Loftus

The Jesus [Christ] pictured in the Gospels is a myth. If we must take the mythical tales at face value, then such a person found in the gospels never existed. So, the Jesus depicted in the Gospels never existed. If there was a real human being who was the basis for the Jesus character in the New Testament, he is dead now. [Loftus, John (26 July 2021). "My Talk at the GCRR e-Conference on the Historical Jesus". Debunking Christianity.]

Bibliography

--2db (talk) 19:02, 1 October 2021 (UTC) && update 02:54, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

WP guidelines state you cannot do your own survey when defining "fringe theories" or saying "virtually all scholars." If you could find a scholarly source that says something like "Christ myth theory is no longer a fringe theory," or "Christ myth theory is not supported by many scholars," that would be the most helpful to your case. I must say though, that would be difficult to find as the majority of scholars (even Price himself has) have stated Christ myth theory is fringe. EternallyNow (talk) 08:35, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
Arguably every modern biblical scholar who is not a devotee of the second-god called Lord Jesus Christ, holds that the living Christ and lord of the Christian community is a myth, and per said myth: historicists argue that Jesus b. Joseph/Pantera was a historical personage and biblicists argue that the literary protagonist (sc. Jesus) of the gospel series (a debated genre of "historical bios" v. "historical fiction") was inspired by a real historical person in the same manner as Popeye, Sherlock Holmes, Santa Claus, etc.. --2db (talk) 16:21, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
• Pattenden, Miles (19 January 2022). "Historians and the historicity of Jesus". ABC Religion & Ethics.

Professional historians of Christianity — including most of us working within the secular academy — tend to treat the question of whether Jesus existed or not as neither knowable nor particularly interesting. Rather, we focus without prejudice on other lines of investigation, such as how and when the range of characteristics and ideas attributed to him arose.

--2db (talk) 17:38, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

"Christ myth theory" as a popularised though misleading term for the view that Jesus did not exist as a historical figure at all, though incorrectly (and possibly deliberately) conflating the terms to dismiss the view that Jesus is not also 'divine'.
— User:Jeffro77

Clearly "Christ myth theory" is not always synonymous with Jesus ahistoricity being the most probable explanation for the origins of Christianity. --2db (talk) 21:45, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Why quote only part of what I said, without context, in a different section when the original section is on this Talk page?? The point is that the article does not need to exclusively use the term ‘Christ myth theory’.—Jeffro77 (talk) 21:59, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
The quoted sub-point supports my overall point here which is indeed not your overall point in the original context of the quote. The use of ‘Christ myth theory’ is problematic, see:
--2db (talk) 00:37, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
No, my full statement also addressed the broader issues with the term ‘Christ myth theory’.—Jeffro77 (talk) 05:17, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Misuse of Wells

Almost immediately an editor has sought to restore the mischaracterisation of Wells' later views as mythicist, despite this being explicitly against Wells' stated position, which has been quoted at this Talk page by both Ramos1990 (talk · contribs)[1] and 2db (talk · contribs)[2], and explicitly confirmed by Van Voorst. Ramos1990 and others have unequivocally stated that we must go by what sources say, yet editors are happy to ignore the direct sourced statements that show that Wells was not a mythicist from the mid-1990s onwards. If editors continue to want to misrepresent sources in this way, I'll take the matter to the nPOV Noticeboard. See also WP:IDHT.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:09, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

In particular, Joshua Jonathan (talk · contribs) has restored all of the misrepresentation of Wells, and added a further unsourced assertion in Wikipedia's voice that Wells departed "from a strict mythicist view", with a weaselly use of "strict" to continue to misrepresent Wells' later views.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:15, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

The article clearly states, multiple times, that Wells changed his views. Given the influnce of Wells, NPOV requires to mention both stances. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:26, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
You have (deliberately?) missed the point. I removed material that falsely characterised Wells' later works as mythicist. It is not sufficient to simply say Wells was no longer a mythicist, but still cite his material from 1996 onwards as the view of mythicists. It is a very blatant misuse of Wells as a source.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:30, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
You seem to misunderstand the article. Your statement (emphasis mine) I also saw no basis in the cited sources for describing Wells in his later works as a "minimal historicist", which seems to have been an editorialisation in Wikipedia's voice to dismiss Wells' later views. strikes me; I see no dismissal there, on the contrary. All of Wells views are relevant for this article, his earlier, and his later. And note that Wells, in his later works, argued for two separate traditions, which were fused; this still departs from mainstream scholarship, which has no doubt that Paul elaborated on an historical Jesus, using mythemes which had already been introduced by Jesus' earliest followers. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:43, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
And now you're trying to misrepresent what I said again. The misuse of "strict" dismisses Wells' later views as 'still a bit mythicist' rather than 'dismisses Well's views as irrelevant' as you are falsely implying about what I said. It is indeed a mainstream position that details about the historical Jesus were 'fused' with other mythical elements. And I still see no source for the use of the phrase "minimal historicist" in reference to Wells's later views.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:56, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
For example, in this edit, you added in that Wells' "changed his views in later works", but you are citing his later works for the view presented as the view of mythicists.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:04, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
I think you should be very carefull with your wording. Apart from a grammatical error - details about the historical Jesus were 'fused' with other mythical elements - what's mythical about the historical element? - "fused" suggests two separate strands of thought, or traditions. Previously you stated the view that the "historical Jesus was fused with another Jesus-tradition, namely the mythological Christ of Paul" is actually a mainstream view. That's definitely not what mainstream scholarship argues. It argues that the perception of Jesus has always been embedded in, and framed by, religious narratived and mythemes. It does not say that the mythological Christ was "another tradition." It seems to me that your thinking is too binary. You want to restrict the article to a treatment of 'strict mythicism'; that's not how it works. The topic is broader than that, and if you think that Wells' later position is misrepresented, you should improve the text - as also suggested by Ramos - instead of removing what you don't like. Reality is fuzzy. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:10, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Haha. You're telling me to be 'careful with my wording' at Talk, but you insist on presenting Wells' later works as the view of mythicists throughout the article en masse, along with the unsourced characterisation of Wells as a "minimal historicist". (And whilst I do sometimes make the occasional typo at Talk, I didn't make a grammatical error where you claimed.)
You can try to mince words all you like, but "The mainstream scholarly view is that the Pauline epistles and the gospels describe the "Christ of faith", presenting a religious narrative that replaced the historical Jesus who lived in 1st-century Roman Palestine". As such, it is indeed the mainstream view that Paul's 'Christ of faith' includes elements of myth. And it remains the case that Wells' later works are misrepresented in the article.
It is blatantly dishonest to claim I simply removed 'what I don't like'. The misuse of Wells' later works is strewn throughout the article, and I also previously indicated at Talk that the lazy conflation of various ideas as 'mythicist' even where they are consistent with mainstream scholarship is a significant problem. Therefore it would be best to remove the incorrect sourcing as a priority, and then add in correctly sourced statements that do not misrepresent Wells' later views, or otherwise provide alternative sources for those views.
It is quite disappointing that long-term editors of this article are at best complacent and at worst complicit in the misrepresentation of the subject.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:36, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

The difference between "fused" and "replaced" is lost on you? And no, it is not best to remove the incorrect sourcing as a priority. We only remove large amounts of text in cases of blatant vandalism. Try imcremental improvements, instead of continuously repeating your broad-stroke criticism. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:40, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

It is fallacious (false dichotomy) to claim that any distinction regarding exactly what parts of 'Paul's Jesus' are mythological is necessarily mythicism (even if other views are not mainstream but still present Jesus as a historical figure). There is also very little agreement in mainstream scholarship about the actual life of Jesus, with only broad agreement regarding his baptism and execution.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:22, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Also still waiting for a source for the classification of Wells' later views as a "minimal historicist".--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:26, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I can't follow what you're writing here. The dichotomy here is between "fused," as in Wells arguing for two independent traditons which were fused; and "replaced," as in Jesus'earliest followers adding theological explanations and elaborations to their experiences, and Paul elaborating on these earliest strands of thought and experience. NO mainstream scholar argues that 'te Christ of Paul' is completely independent from 'the historical Jesus'. Regarding "minimal historicist: that term is not being used in the article. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:12, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
No. The dichotomy is between characterising a) Wells' (later) views and b) mainstream views about how much of Paul's descriptions of Christ (i.e. the "Christ of faith", which is not the same concept as simply Jesus from a scholarly perspective) are based on myth, whereas both actually accept that Jesus was a historical figure. Claiming Wells viewed Jesus as "minimally historical" (despite the fact that there is broad mainstream consensus for only two events of Jesus' life) is the same as for the term "minimal historicist". Both terms have been used at Talk, unsourced, and the characterisation "minimally historical" is the same flaw and remains unsourced in the article.--Jeffro77 (talk) 13:17, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Additionally, my changes to the article explicitly retained Wells’ view about Paul’s Jesus being “fused” with other details about Jesus, so your claim is misdirection.—Jeffro77 (talk) 21:01, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Example

The following statement currently in the article falsely characterises Wells' later view as mythicism: "Wells argues that Paul's Jesus may have existed many decades, if not centuries, before." However, the source actually indicates that Wells thought Paul incorporated details from old traditions (without reference to any specific individual), not that Paul referred to 'a Jesus who lived long ago'. Instead, the source indicates that, in Wells' view, Paul thought the old traditions "without reference to times and places" (and therefore explicitly not 'one specific individual from a specific time long ago') that he incorporated were actually recent ("he need not have regarded their occurrences as anything like as remote in time as they in fact were"). Since it is known that Wells, in his later views, explicitly regarded 'Paul's Jesus' to be made up of mythologies that were "fused" with details about the actual historical Jesus―who Wells explicitly identified as a first-century Galilean preacher―Wells' thoughts about 'Paul's Jesus' should not be characterised as mythicism on the basis of the 2003 Wells source. As such, it should not be in a section about mythicism, though it may be suitable to incorporate in the section about Wells.--Jeffro77 (talk) 05:09, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Joshua Johnathan's comments above on "Given the influence of Wells, NPOV requires to mention both stances." Wells is a part of both worlds and the clarification provided already (later, early, etc) should be sufficient. Part of the hesitation for me is because Wells does hold on to most of his arguments from when he was mythicist even after 1996. He does not change most of his views he previously argued as a mythicist. And him believing that Jesus existed does not absolve him of his mythicist past, which is still in his writings from 1996 and up. The third mythicist view on the lead "Yet another view is that stories about Jesus may be based on someone who lived prior to the 1st century AD, whose life story was embellished with elements from myth and literature." seems to fit Wells quite well. Apparently some editors think that such a minimally historical view that Jesus is based on someone else is a mythicist view.Ramos1990 (talk) 06:06, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Even if we would stick to a dogmaticlly strict 'definition' to draw boundaries, those views would still be relevant, and included as "a related view is..." It's relevant, and even necessary, given WP:NPOV, to mention those views. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:17, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
PS: Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist p.247:

Wells contends, Paul understood Jesus to have been a supernatural being who lived in utter obscurity some 150 years or earlier.

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:35, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
I don't have a problem citing Ehrman to say Ehrman interprets Wells' view that way, provided it is clearly attributed as Ehrman's view. Checking the source, Ehrman cites Wells' 1982 book The Historical Evidence for Jesus on page 102 (chapter 7, reference 18), and his 1986 book Did Jesus Exist? on page 104 (chapter 7, reference 22) for the claim that Wells said Jesus lived earlier (page numbers per online version here, link to citations page here), so this also is a misrepresentation of Wells' later views. It also does not justify misrepresenting Wells' 2003 statement, which does not support the claim that he said Jesus lived prior to the 1st century, as already explained. In his later views, Wells explicitly did not believe Jesus had lived "prior to the 1st century AD". He explicitly stated that he accepted that Jesus was a first-century preacher, but that ideas about that historical Jesus were, in Wells' view, mixed ("fused") with other ideas that Paul derived from older traditions.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:39, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Polish the lead paragraph

Thank you Joshua Jonathan. I have moved this important point to the first paragraph, so that the contrast is easier to see, and I added some extra sources. However this wording does explain the position much better than before. Wdford (talk) 17:59, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Other editors to comment

Arbitrary break #1

Distractions aside, the article still misrepresents Wells' later works as the views of mythicists, which is explicitly contrary to sources.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:58, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Start a proper WP:RFC, please, or start editing in an incremental way, but stop repeating yourself. You don't gain WP:CONSENSUS by merely repeating 'I'm right you're wrong'. From the article:
  • "Some moderate authors, most notably Wells, who changed his views in later works, have argued that there may have been a historical Jesus, but that this historical Jesus was fused with another Jesus-tradition, namely the mythological Christ of Paul."
  • "According to Wells in his later writings, a minimally historical Jesus existed, whose teachings were preserved in the Q document.[150] According to Wells, the gospels weave together two Jesus narratives, namely the Galilean preacher of the Q document, and Paul's mythical Jesus."
  • "In his later writings, Wells changed his mind and came to view Jesus as a minimally historical figure."
  • "Wells accepted the existence of a minimal historical Jesus, thereby effectively abandoning the "Nonexistence Hypothesis"."
  • ""When I first addressed these problems, more than thirty years ago, it seemed to me that, because the earliest Christian references to Jesus are so vague, the gospel Jesus could be no more than a mythical expansion and elaboration of this obscure figure. But from the mid-1990s I became persuaded that many of the gospel traditions are too specific in their references to time, place, and circumstances to have developed in such a short time from no other basis, and are better understood as traceable to the activity of a Galilean preacher of the early first century, the personage represented in Q (the inferred non-Markan source, not extant, common to Matthew and Luke; cf. above, p. 2), which may be even earlier than the Paulines. This is the position I have argued in my books of 1996, 1999, and 2004, although the titles of the first two of these—The Jesus Legend and The Jesus Myth—may mislead potential readers into supposing that I still denied the historicity of the gospel Jesus."
Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:12, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
It is not helpful to simply re-state that Wells changed his view. The problem is the misrepresentation of Wells' later views elsewhere in the article as mythicist views. It is entirely contradictory to say Wells changed his views while at the same time presenting his later works as the views of mythicists.
And it is also not simply the case that Wells' later works are being used in the article to depict some 'softer' form of mythicism. The lead presents three types of mythicism, none of which are Wells' later view.
  • "One view is that there was never a historical Jesus, only a mythological character who was later historicized in the gospels."
  • "Another view is that any evidence for the historical Jesus is so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing.""
  • "Yet another view is that stories about Jesus may be based on someone who lived prior to the 1st century AD, whose life story was embellished with elements from myth and literature."
Also, the sloppy ad hoc insertion of "who changed his views in later works" says nothing about how his views actually changed. And still no source for the characterisation of Wells viewing Jesus as "minimally historical")--Jeffro77 (talk) 12:35, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
I hear what both of you are saying. We all know that Wells changed his view on one point (added that quote in the article a while back), but if you continue the quote I quoted, which User:2db expanded, Wells still held other views that were not really mainstream. "This is the position I have argued in my books of 1996, 1999, and 2004, although the titles of the first two of these—The Jesus Legend and The Jesus Myth—may mislead potential readers into supposing that I still denied the historicity of the gospel Jesus. These titles were chosen because I regarded (and still do regard) the virgin birth, much in the Galilean ministry, the crucifixion around A.D. 30 under Pilate, and the resurrection as legendary. [Wells 2009, pp. 14–15.]
So Wells still denied lots of the Galilean ministry and crucifixion which are both deemed historical almost by universal assent by scholars (Dunn, Herzog, Dominic, Powell in lead). So he did change on one important point, but I see no source that says he was became a part of mainstream scholarship afterwards. Probably because he still was mostly denying everything else - even well accepted facts. So the lack of sourcing does not allow us to just claim him as part of general scholarship even after his change in view.
I think that you are right in mentioning Wells change in views, but that alone is not the whole story. The other side of the story is how his peers understood him. Because even his critics still mention him as a main source of mythicist views over and over (for example Ehrman, Casey, Van Voorst) post-his-change-in-view-on-historicity. In fact even Van Voorst, who acknowledges Wells change in historicity view explicitly, still associated him with the mythicits arguments as a representative of modern mythicist views see page 659-660. After all it is Wells biggest contribution to the legacy.
So I think a middle of the road solution for the time being could be to clean up Wells description to "later writings" or something like that to clarify his later views like User:Joshua Jonathan did.
I was thinking about removing Wells post 1996 from the "mythicists views" (like you had suggested somewhere), but the way other scholars understand him and constantly give him credit for being such a prominent individual on it make me hesitate. Even Robert Price, who is a mythcist generates such a strong association with the mythicists views when he says "G.A. Wells, like his predecessors advocating the Christ Myth theory, discounted the gospel story of an historical Jesus...implying that there was no Jesus tradition floating around in either oral or written form at the time Paul and Peter were writing letters". [2011 The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems p. 18-19] Ramos1990 (talk) 19:48, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Price's quote is from “The Quest of the Mythical Jesus” which first appeared on the Robert M. Price Myspace page and latter reproduced 2007 for the Jesus Project @jesusproject/articles/the_quest_of_the_mythical_jesus. --2db (talk) 20:25, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Ramos1990, if other sources discuss Wells' later views, cite (and properly attribute) those sources, and state their views of Wells' later views (ideally in the section about Wells). Misrepresentation of Wells' view should be removed, and your own interpretation of other sources is not a justification to cite Wells' later works as mythicist views, which misrepresents his own stated position. Additionally, citing mythicists, who might want to retain Wells as a proponent of mythicism to give the appearance of support for their own position, should be done with caution. (However, the quote you provided from Price is either discussing Wells' earlier works or misrepresenting Wells, because Wells later did accept the 'historical gospel Jesus'.)--Jeffro77 (talk) 23:56, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
It is his introduction in "The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems" (2011).Ramos1990 (talk) 21:01, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
It is a misrepresentation to say that because Wells didn’t agree with all elements of mainstream scholarship (which itself has much less consensus about Jesus than you imply) that his later views must necessarily still be ‘mythicism’. There is very little consensus among mainstream scholars about the details of Jesus’ ministry or the specific details surrounding his execution other than that he was executed. Deferring to a mythicist’s MySpace page and a web forum for support is quite poor justification for classification of Wells’ later views as mythicism. My changes to the article retained the details about how Wells’ later views differed from mainstream views in the section about Wells. If necessary, additional information could be provided in the section about Wells. None of this justifies the continued misrepresentation of Wells’ later views as mythicism throughout the article.—Jeffro77 (talk) 21:15, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
"The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems" (2011) is a book, not a myspace. The point is that Price formally published his views in that source. And he is one of the few mythicist scholars that actually has had an academic career in New Testament scholarship so it shows how an mythicist academic sees Wells.Ramos1990 (talk) 22:05, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
O…k… that part of my statement was obviously replying to the comment by 2db.—Jeffro77 (talk) 22:33, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
We are making good progress in sorting out the references to Wells, and I think we will get there soon enough.
However I am very concerned about the latest changes made to the article by Ramos1990, which appear to assert that mainstream scholarship agrees that the supernatural and miraculous aspects of the gospel stories are indeed historical. I know that some authors genuinely believe the gospel stories to be historical, but I have not seen any credible source claiming this to be the mainstream position. Does Ramos1990 really believe that mainstream scholarship agrees that the supernatural and miraculous aspects of the gospel stories are indeed historical? Wdford (talk) 21:30, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
The clause Ramos1990 removed does not assert that mainstream scholars do believe the supernatural elements about Jesus (though it could imply it). I’m not sure it’s essential to say it in that section. However, the article should state somewhere that it is a mainstream view that the supernatural aspects did not occur. (And Ramos1990 should not once again misrepresent my statement about a mainstream view as an assertion about mainstream consensus; there is no mainstream consensus about any supernatural claims about Jesus.)—Jeffro77 (talk) 21:51, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
How does a statement emerge from no statement? It does not. Not even sure how anyone can think in terms of black an white like that. Also This article is about Jesus historicity in terms of existence, not whether Jesus was divine. One is a historical question and the other is theological. This article focuses on the historical question only. So such things should no even be on the article at all. Also the claim is actually false because sources like "The Historical Jesus: Five Views" provide a sample of the wide range of views actually held by mainstream scholars. There are quite a few, not one! Some go all out and others do not but that is not the scope of the article and is irrelevant to the question of historicity.Ramos1990 (talk) 22:05, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Good - now we are getting somewhere.
This article is NOT about Jesus' historicity in terms of existence. This article is about the historicity of the Christ of the gospels in terms of existence. The clue is in the name. There really is a difference between a "Christ myth" and a "Jesus myth". However opponents of the CMT have gone to enormous lengths to twist the debate.
Compare Earl Doherty's actual definition, with the paraphrasing by Bart Ehrman. Doherty himself defines the CMT as "the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, …. and that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition." Ehrman openly accepts that the miracles and divinity and supernatural events etc are all myth, but then he chooses to focus on a separate issue – was there a real human preacher/healer who was nothing like the gospel Christ, but onto whose human existence the masses of myth were added? Ehrman then writes a dozen books claiming that "of course a historical Jesus existed", while openly admitting that much of what is in the gospel stories is not historical, and that the historical Jesus of his research does not resemble the Christ of the gospels.
However then come a host of wiki-editors fighting to obscure the profound overlap by focusing obsessively on the mythicists who don't accept any human at the root of the myths, and ignoring the many mythicists who do accept there may have been a human at the root of the myths - just not the divine Christ of the gospels. Some of these wiki-editors go so far as to assert that the issue of the supernatural events (ie the myths) "should not even be on the article at all." Why on earth should the discussion of the myth be excluded from the article about the myth?
Of course there are a wide range of views by scholars who consider themselves to be mainstream. This is now effectively acknowledging that there is no single "mainstream" view – just as there is no single "mythicists" view. Every scholar is entitled to their personal religious beliefs. However, is the acceptance of the historicity of the gospel supernatural events really the "mainstream scholarship view"? And if not, why is there such a massive drive to obscure this fact? Wdford (talk) 23:43, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
It would be naive, at best, to suggest the article need say nothing about theological claims about Jesus, because the article repeatedly uses the misleading term "Christ myth theory", including in the article title, which inherently implies that Jesus was 'divine'; therefore the article must be clear about its scope, including an honest representation of mainstream views. Also, I do hope the statement about "not one" 'mainstream view' is not directed at me, because I literally said immediately before your statement that it is a mainstream view that the supernatural events did not occur, not the mainstream view (though it is also not a view with wide mainstream support), and you also mischaracterised my statements in the same way on this page previously. --Jeffro77 (talk) 23:56, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Jeffro77, sorry it was not directed at you. I was just replying to the claim that it was the only one with a source.
Wdford, the sources pretty much clearly define Christ myth theory as being about the nonexistence of Jesus - it is is historical term that mythicits like Robert Price non-mythicits like Casey all agree upon and use that way. Its sounds like you may be reading "Christ" more literally than the way scholars understand it in "Christ myth theory". The article already has a claim about the diversity of views on theological claims on "Christ" in the lead. That is all that is needed because this article is not about the theological image of Christ. "Christ myth theory" is academically clearly understood about the existence of Jesus, per the sources. Here is a recent example on the history of the term "In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Constantin-François Volney, Charles François Dupuis, and Bruno Bauer all advocated for the theory that Jesus did not exist as a historical person. While their arguments failed to convince the academy, their questions have persisted and inspired a new movement within North America, which also argues that Jesus did not exist. Originally known as the ‘Christ Myth theory,’ this school of thought has more recently adopted the moniker ‘Jesus Myth theory’ or ‘mythicism’"." (p.311 Daniel Gullotta "On Richard Carrier's Doubts: A Response to Richard Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt". Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. 2017 p.311
Of course if Jesus did not exist, then what explains the phenomenon of Jesus is the stuff mythicist fill in the blank with. A good sample of the range of mythicist views is "Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist?" and you can see there that Jesus existence is the prominent question with many explanations as to how they see the stories of Jesus were invented, precisely because he did not exist. Out of this survey, none of these numerous mythicists accept there actually was a real Jesus by the way, so not sure how a mythicist who believes Jesus was real is to be expected. People are either inclined to existence or not.
Anyways, in the works of Casey and Ehrman, they both survey the wide views held by numerous mythicists and they summarize the diverse mythicist views there. Also Robert Price, a mythicist, on numerous occasions has summarized multiple mythicist accounts too. They all define it pretty consistently.
Since you mentioned Ehrman, the reason he can diss the theological Christ and still criticize mythicists is because he understands that the difference between "Christ" and "Christ myth theory". They are not the same, they are not equivalent and they are not talking about the same thing. Just like "Christian" and "Christian Science" are not the same thing. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:25, 6 February 2022 (UTC)Ramos1990 (talk) 01:03, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Since sources "clearly define Christ myth theory as being about the nonexistence of Jesus", obviously the article should therefore not present Wells' views from 1996 onwards as mythicist. And yet, his later works are still cited as 'mythicist views' throughout the article. The fact that there is no consensus in mainstream scholarship for supernatural claims about Jesus is also not present.--Jeffro77 (talk) 01:22, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

In the Price 2011 work quoted by Ramos1990, Price later goes on to describe the "Traditional myth theory" and then gives his reason for viewing an ahistorical Jesus at the origin of Christianity and it is not the same as the "Traditional myth theory" --2db (talk) 01:34, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

... neither of which applies to Wells' position from 1996 onwards.--Jeffro77 (talk) 01:40, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
True, and it also refutes the claim that "They all define it pretty consistently". --2db (talk) 01:53, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Not really, no. Your vague reference to Price didn't actually provide any information about the distinction. You only alluded to the fact that some kind of distinction exists, but nothing to demonstrate that either position refers to views beyond the scope of saying Jesus didn't exist. It's a bit like objecting to the statement that 'cats and dogs are animals' because cats aren't the same as dogs.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:01, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
On Wells, I think clarifying "early Wells" and "later Wells" views would be appropriate since it would distinguish his views by epoch, if any were impacted by his change in position. It seems he retained many of his previous views from prior to 1996 and critics apparently did not see any major differences in his particular views since he is cited in works on mythicism still. I think that if his views changed significnalt after leaving mythicism, critics would have noticed them.Ramos1990 (talk) 02:07, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
As previously stated, if critics say things about Wells' later views, cite those critics (but do so honestly, not misusing critics' citations of Wells' earlier works as was attempted at this Talk page today). Your interpretation of those critics―and even more so your assumptions about what they don't say―is not a justification for you (or other editors) characterising Wells' later views in a manner that contradicts his stated position. (And you have claimed that doing much less would constitute original research and synthesis.) If you happened to check my changes to the article that Joshua Jonathan reverted, you will also see that I also retained references to Wells' later works in the section about Wells.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:21, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary break #2

Regarding Since sources "clearly define Christ myth theory as being about the nonexistence of Jesus", the Wiki-article opens with Ehrman's statement "the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity." That includes Wells. Ehrman, Did Jesus exist p.241:

No one has been a more enduring spokesperson for a mythicist view of Christ than G.A. Wells. For over thity-five years Wells has insisted that the Christ of Christian tradition did not exist but was invented.

This is not mathematics or physics, or a Church dogma with exact boundaries; this is a Wiki-article aiming to give insight into a social phenomenon, namely (a stream of) fringe authors who mostly don't even agree among themselves. As such, Wells' later works can't be excluded; his change of view is relevant, yet still deviating from mainstream scholarship, and it still contains arguments against the mainstream scholarly view. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:11, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

As already shown, Wells' later views as given in the 2003 source do not say Jesus lived prior to the first century. He actually said that elements of 'Paul's Jesus', which Wells distinguishes from the first-century historical Jesus, may have included old traditions about other unknown people. Unless you can provide a source where Wells directly states that the historical Jesus lived prior to the first century, it is a misrepresentation of Wells' view. However, if notable critics interpret Wells that way, those critics can be cited.
Additionally, some editors here only seem to remember that there is not just one single "mainstream scholarly view" when convenient to their claims. A view that is not mainstream (including Wells' view of 'Paul's Jesus' as distinct from the historical Jesus) is not automatically mythicist, which, as stated before, is a false dichotomy.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:50, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
It is noteworthy that the quote from Ehrman above refers to "the Christ of Christian tradition", a concept that includes a lot more baggage than just 'the historical Jesus'. Checking the source, the next paragraph of the Ehrman source says, "Wells also disagrees with most other mythicists because he thinks that there really was a man Jesus." So whilst the Ehrman source could be used to say that Ehrman says Wells believed Jesus lived much earlier (though that isn't what Wells actually said, at least not in any source that has been provided here), it cannot be used to say that Wells' later view was that Jesus didn't exist. Ehrman's claim that "for Wells, Jesus ... was not the Galilean preacher and healer of the first century" directly contradicts Wells' stated position from 1996 onwards. Checking the citation in Ehrman's book (chapter 7, reference 18), he is citing Wells' The Historical Evidence for Jesus, published in 1982. Do I really need to check every source posted here for this kind of sloppy fact checking to advance your POV??--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:56, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Could you plese stick to the topic? This section is about the later Wells being included as a mythicist; you already started discusing Wells' later views on when Paul's Jesus lived in another sub-thread. I advised you before to suggest incremental changes; instead you're spamming this page with WP:WALLOFTEXT, critisizing the article as a whole, and pushing your personal interpretation of mythicism. See also WP:CANTHEARYOU. Ehrman characterizes all of Wells'writings as mythicism; you disagree. We summarize the sources, not the opinions of editors. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:23, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

(Actually, the subsection to which you later added your own breaks was originally offset from Misuse of Wells for editors other than you to offer their comments[3] after you kept putting your comments under the start of a separate idea.[4][5] But then you took over this one as well.[6])--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:11, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Misrepresentation of sources to advance the view that Wells' later views are 'mythicism' is very much 'on topic'. My response above directly relates to the citation of Ehrman in this section. I have directly shown that Ehrman cites Wells' earlier works for specific points, which you ignore. That is dishonest sourcing. It would be suitable to site Ehrman as saying overall that he considers the body of Wells' works to be mythicist (if he says that), but it is not appropriate to cite specific statements from Ehrman where is he is explicitly citing an earlier work.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:58, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
You're referring now to the discussion on Wells' ideas on a Jesus from a distant past, which you also discuss at a subsection in another thread. I quoted a statement from you from the current thread: Since sources "clearly define Christ myth theory as being about the nonexistence of Jesus". Next, I quoted Ehrman on Wells' work being mythicist. In response, you divert into the discussion of Wells' position on this distant Jesus. Ergo, you're discussing a subtopic in two different threads, and you're not responding to the fact that your understanding of what constitutes 'mythicism' is contradicted by Ehrman. As Ramos noted before, stick to the sources. And as I advice you: gather your discussions in handable threads and subthreads, and limit yourself to clear, distinguishable points. As you may have noticed, your attempts to change this article have had little impact, which may be related to the way you try to convince other ediors of your point of view, anbd to your lack of concrete proposals. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:20, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
No. What I was "referring now to" was that Ehrman is also taken out of context for the statement that Wells didn't believe in "the Christ of Christian tradition" (which includes theological claims) as used by Ehrman. I also noted that the claim that Wells continued to maintain the view that Jesus didn't exist at all (which obviously is not the same as saying Jesus lived 'much earlier') was also based on Ehrman's citation to Wells' 1982 book, and therefore cannot be used to claim that Ehrman said it was Wells' later view. (Ehrman's book is not intended as a chronological record of Wells' evolving views, it instead presents rebuttals to specific mythicist claims.)
I'm not sure what 'personal view of mythicism' you think I have, but it is irrelevant here. Honest sourcing I have some stronger feelings about though. You haven't provided any citation for the claim that Ehrman "characterizes all of Wells'writings as mythicism", but since I have no objection to citing Ehrman for such a statement, that also is irrelevant. However, Wells expressly states that from 1996 onwards, he wasn't a mythicist— not merely as an empty assertion but because he then expressly believed that Jesus was a first-century Galilean preacher. Wikipedia editors are not supposed to try to resolve the apparent contradiction, they just state both views. But Ehrman's view of Wells is not a justification for Wikipedia to characterise Wells' later works as mythicism. (Presumably Ramos1990 would agree that characterising Wells' later views as mythicism based on Ehrman's view of Wells would be synthesis.)--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:01, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

'Christ myth' confusion

I understand all of what has been written above. However my issue is that the ordinary reader would come to this "Christ myth" page to read about the myth of the Christ of the gospels. They are not conversant with academic history, or of what the "sources" academically clearly understood this title to mean. They have never heard of Ehrman or Gullotta. They will see on Wikipedia that "mainstream scholars" accept that "Jesus" was historical, and that people who claim he was a myth are "fringe", and they will be left with the impression that the Christ of the gospels was real – miracles and all.

This approach is blatantly misleading. It can easily be corrected, by adding one simple clear sentence to the lead, acknowledging that the "mainstream scholars" on the whole do NOT consider the parts about miracles and resurrections to be historical, and clarifying that the remaining debate is purely about the historical existence of a non-supernatural Jesus. And yet wiki-editors have fought for years to consistently prevent that simple admission of fact from being added.

BTW: Price in 2000 actually stated that "The historical Jesus has gotten lost behind the stained glass curtain of the Christ of dogma". That does not sound like Price is asserting the "nonexistence of Jesus" at all. Ditto Wells etc. Wdford (talk) 16:27, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

I think you are imposing your views and your own understanding of CMT when clearly the sources say otherwise. You are ignoring the sources and how they cover Wells, Price, and everyone else's views and still dismiss their views collectively. No source says they accept mythicists views. In fact there are so many more sources here calling such views fringe. Indeed Ehrman is pretty clear "the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity." The range covers his critique of views. Maurce covers the same people and width of views like Price, Wells, Doherty, etc. Robert Van Voorst does too.
No source interprets CMT like you are interpreting it. It is here that I have even heard such a distortion of an academic topic first. The point of references is so people can hover over the citaions and see where it comes from. They can look it up themselves with those refernces.Ramos1990 (talk) 22:18, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
The article should state somewhere that there is no mainstream consensus for supernatual/theological claims about Jesus. However, that isn't the purpose of this thread, and given that Joshua Jonathan got terribly flustered after I dared to mention two related details where Ehrman is misused as a source in the same thread, I can only imagine how he will feel about this tangent. Perhaps discussion about confusion that the article title might generate for readers could go in the #'Theory' section I started some time ago.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:01, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Price, Wells etc interpret CMT like I am reporting it. That's why I say you are cherry-picking sources. Wdford (talk) 22:19, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
No they do not. And actually since CMT is fringe, the consensus view takes precedent over the fringe views per WP:FRINGE. Holocaust deniers consider themselves historians, but mainstream scholars do not consider them historians at all. So the mainstream views takes precedent over the holocaust deniers.Ramos1990 (talk) 22:26, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
If Wells says he accepts the existence of a historical Jesus, then any "source" that contradicts him, is a liar. If Price says he accepts the existence of a historical Jesus, then any "source" that contradicts him, is a liar. Price is the best source for what Price accepts. Obviously. Other scholars may well disagree with what Price believes, but they cannot deny that he believes it. Wdford (talk) 23:00, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
See the section on Price to see his agnostic position, which likely causes confusion. Wells, on the other hand, admits that he himself has caused confusion in his later works because of the book titles "The Jesus Myth" and "The Jesus Legend" he chose after he switched views.Ramos1990 (talk) 23:45, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
The fact that Wells' titles cause confusion is even more reason to not misrepresent his later views as mythicism. Additionally, references to Ehrman (or others) where they refer to Wells as a mythicist but are citing his earlier works also cannot be used to say Wells' later views were mythicist. (In fact, Ehrman could say that 'every thought Wells had about anything ever is mythicism', and that still would not justify citing Wells' later works as mythicist, it would only be something we could cite as Ehrman's view.)
Joshua Jonathan suggests I make 'incremental changes', and I will give that a shot, but if he reverts those changes in favour of misrepresenting sources, then there is no net benefit.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:01, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

As I understand, Price still accepts a historical Jesus as possible, but not probable. Which is the same position as Carrier. And also the final position of Philip R. Davies as recounted by Lataster ISBN 978-1-83919-158-9

  • Price 2000, pp. 17, 85. "There may have been a Jesus on earth in the past, but the state of the evidence is so ambiguous that we can never be sure what this figure was like or, indeed, whether there was such a person. [...] 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 actually have been based on a historical Jesus the Nazorean." --2db (talk) 23:50, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
That sounds correct 2db. Price 2009 p.55 says "I will argue that it is quite likely there never was any historical Jesus." and proceeds to represent CMT in that collection.Ramos1990 (talk) 01:17, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Regarding references to Ehrman (or others) where they refer to Wells as a mythicist but are citing his earlier works also cannot be used to say Wells' later views were mythicist: Ehrman is WP:RS; we rely on what those sources regard to be mythiscism, not on your personal opinions. You're trying to force your own understanding of what constitutes "mythiscism" on this article. If you want to do so, propose this in a proper way, with sources. And then, still, Wells' later views are relevant.
If you only want to state that the later Wells is not mythicism, you're welcome to do so, with sources; but, as I've showed before, the article already mentions this several times.
Regarding I can only imagine how he will feel about this tangent: your imagination is off-track, given my response to Wdford. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:18, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
And once again he falsely claims I am 'pushing my opinion' for removing misuse of Wells' later views. It is a fact that I have removed misuse of sources. For example, Wells' statement that My view is that Paul knew next to nothing of the earthly life of Jesus, and did not have in mind any definite historical moment for his crucifixion. As we saw, holy Jews had been crucified alive in the first and second centuries B.C., but traditions about these events, and about the persecuted Teacher of Righteousness, could well have reached Paul without reference to times and places, and he need not have regarded their occurrences as anything like as remote in time as they in fact were does not support the claim that Wells believed "Paul's Jesus lived far earlier" at all. Wells here explicitly claims that 'Paul's Jesus' was based on "traditions" about crucifixions, not some long-dead individual, and Wells additionally says Paul "need not have regarded their occurrences as anything like as remote in time as they in fact were", that is, Paul thought the traditions were not as old as they really were. At the time, Wells explicitly believed that Jesus was a first-century Galilean preacher, which very obviously contradicts any claim that he simultaneously 'thought Jesus lived far earlier'. So, Joshua Jonathan, you are either dishonest or incompetent to properly assess sources.
Additionally, you either do not understand, or are too dishonest to acknowledge that citing Ehrman (in an honest manner would be nice too, respecting Ehrman's relevant citations) is not a justification for misusing Wells' later works. At no point did I say Ehrman is not a reliable source. But you still need to not cite him out of context, and definitely not cite someone else out of context based on Ehrman's separate statements.--Jeffro77 (talk) 12:24, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

If you think Wells is represented or quoted incorrectly, then correct those statements. If you think the definition of mythicism as applied incorrect, then propose using another definition, based on WP:RS. But beware of WP:TRUTH. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:49, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I did. The way to correct a complete misrepresentation that is not supported by the cited source is to remove the material. You reverted. Wells suggested that Paul based a character on an amalgam of stories, not any specific individual and without reference to any specific time period. The statement that "Jesus lived far earlier" is a complete misrepresentation of the source. The definitions of mythicism given in the article are fine - the view that Jesus didn't exist, it can't be known if he existed, or he lived long before the first century. None of which are consistent with Wells' explicitly stated view that from 1996 onwards, he accepted that Jesus was a first-century Galilean preacher. It is you who want to instead redefine mythicism as 'believed Jesus was a first-century Galilean preacher but thought Paul used details from older stories'.--Jeffro77 (talk) 13:06, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
He accuses me of trying to insert my own interpretation, then he literally changes the definition in the lead to fit his opinion. Wow.—Jeffro77 (talk) 13:29, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Ramos1990, do “the sources pretty much clearly define Christ myth theory as being about the nonexistence of Jesus”, or do you agree that Joshua Jonathan is right to shoehorn whatever he likes into the definition to suit his views?[7]—Jeffro77 (talk) 13:35, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
The need to stress the issue of the supernatural stories comes from the assertion that some sources do believe that the miracles and resurrection actually took place in history. The definition of "mainstream" therefore does NOT include the supernatural elements, because there is zero consensus on those parts of the stories. Sources like Ehrman and Vermes clearly believe those elements to be mythical, while sources such as Dunn seem to believe they really did happen. While mainstream writers happily misquote mythicists on what mythicists actually believe, it would be useful also to properly define what mainstreamers actually believe. Wdford (talk) 14:20, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
@Wdford: maybe your concerns regarding the supernatural stories etc. should be moved to a separate thread? We're discussing two issues now, in tbnis thread... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:02, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
It is entirely inappropriate to modify the definition of ‘Christ myth theory’ in the lead to incorporate your opinion, and the cited source, Wells, does not support the claim that the term Christ myth theory includes the view that other stories were mixed with stories about the historical Jesus. Your change to the definition contradicts the fact that mainstream scholars have no consensus … on the extent to which the gospels and the Pauline epistles replaced the historical human Jesus with a religious narrative of a supernatural "Christ of faith". As such, you are blatantly dishonest.—Jeffro77 (talk) 21:16, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

CMT-definitions

  • From the article:

"the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology", possessing no "substantial claims to historical fact".[1] Alternatively, in terms given by Bart Ehrman paraphrasing Earl Doherty, "the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."

  • Micah Issitt, Carlyn Main (2014), Hidden Religion: The Greatest Mysteries and Symbols of the World's Religious Beliefs, p.37:

The basic theory comes in two varieties, the strongest of which suggests that Jesus Christ never existed as a historical person but was an invention of early Christian writers to serve as a vehicle for Christian teachings. The more modeerate version of the theory holds that Christ did exist in Galilee during the early Christian period, but that stories of his life may be a composite of several different individuals.

References

  1. ^ Bromiley 1982, p. 1034.

To be expanded. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:25, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I should have known... Talk:Christ myth theory/definition. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 22:03, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

(reply moved back to correct location after dishonestly moved by Joshua Jonathan.) Issitt is a freelance author, not a biblical scholar. Issitt does not mention Paul’s “Christ of faith”, or Paul’s writings, or Paul.—Jeffro77 (talk) 20:46, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Academic references like the ABC-CLIO encyclopedia entry above provide excellent summaries of scholarly topics. They are usually spot on. It supplements the references already cited in the article (e.g. Casey, Van Voorst, Eddy, Ehrman, etc)Ramos1990 (talk) 03:35, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
The page Talk:Christ myth theory/definition does not provide any definition of Christ myth theory that would include Wells' later view that Jesus was a first-century Galilean preacher but that Paul's "Christ of faith" was mythical or that Paul's Jesus was 'woven'/'fused'/whatever verb you want to use with the gospel Jesus.--Jeffro77 (talk) 10:01, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
The definition provided in the "Hidden Religion" source fails to include the option where "JESUS (not Christ) did exist in Galilee during the early Christian period, but that stories of his life may be a composite of several different individuals, AND LOTS OF PIOUS LIES ABOUT SUPERNATURAL ACTIVITIES AND MIRACLES WERE LAYERED ONTO HIS STORY, AS WELL AS STORIES LIFTED FROM OLDER JEWISH PROPHECIES, AND VARIOUS PAGAN MYTHS." I'm also not sure which mythicist authors wrote about an "invention of early Christian writers to serve as a vehicle for Christian teachings". What did I miss? Wdford (talk) 14:46, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
Carrier asserts that celestial Jesus was cast in stories occurring on Earth for consumption by the Hoi polloi and that this was normal cf. Celestial Osiris for the same course of events and location. --2db (talk) 20:05, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
Pardon? Wdford (talk) 20:14, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Osiris presents the most apt theological parallel: as Plutarch explains in his treatise on the cult, in public stories Osiris was placed in history as a historical king subsequently deified, but in private exegesis these were explained as allegories for the actual truth of the matter, which was that each year Osiris descends and becomes incarnate and is slain not on earth, but in the lower heavens, and then rises from the dead and reascends to power in the upper heavens, having gained power over death by this cosmic ritual, which he then shares with his earthly devotees. In the earliest redaction we can reconstruct of the Ascension of Isaiah this appears to be exactly what was imagined to happen for Jesus, only once for all, not yearly.

--2db (talk) 00:40, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

This is an interpretation of Carrier, and a mythicist belief, but not the belief of all mythicists nor a definition of CMT. As such, it is irrelevant here.—Jeffro77 (talk) 02:54, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
Lataster ISBN:9789004408784 "interprets" Richard Carrier’s exhaustive (ca. 600 pages) case for mythicism in On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. Not distinguishing "all" mythicist arguments from "all" peer reviewed scholarly arguments is disingenuous. Per Meggitt 2019, p. 447. "It would be a rather thankless and dispiriting task to correct the egregious errors of . . . Kersey Graves or Acharya S, but it would be unfair for the contributions of Brodie, Price, Carrier and Wells to ‘be tarnished with the same brush or be condemned with guilt by association’; indeed such scholars are generally as critical of the failings of the excesses of fellow mythicists as any others." --2db (talk) 14:03, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

A precise CMT definition is not possible

[T]he CMT is not precise. There are many shades of grey...
— User:Wdford

The mythicism theory is not precise because the historicity theory is not precise due to the existence of two camps; the secular academy and the non-secular academy. A precise historicity theory would look very similar to Carrier 2014, p. 34. [NOW FORMATTED]:

[T]hree minimal facts on which historicity rests:

  1. An actual man at some point named Jesus acquired followers in life who continued as an identifiable movement after his death.
  2. This is the same Jesus who was claimed by some of his followers to have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities.
  3. This is the same Jesus some of whose followers soon began worshiping as a living god (or demigod).

but perhaps with modifications and caveats e.g.:

  • Per said man, He would in actual fact have been named Yeshu or Yeshua, as Jesus was the Latinised version of the name, which a historical Jesus would not have used.
  • Per said followers, ‘This is the movement which grew into what we now know as the Christian faith’. It is otherwise theoretically possible that there might have been some other movement of people following a Yeshua who was executed while meanwhile Christianity arose from a mythical Yeshua/Jesus.
  • etc.

Perhaps in a peer reviewed defense of the historicity theory published by a respected academic press this could be found? --2db (talk) 13:28, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Rejection of Paul's "Christ of faith" is not 'mythicism"

Arbitrary header #1

Rejection of Paul's "Christ of faith" is not 'mythicism" diff - that's a personal opinion. As noted several times before: You're trying to force your own understanding of what constitutes "mythiscism" on this article. If you want to do so, propose this in a proper way, with sources. And then, still, Wells' later views are relevant. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:14, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

And you’re still wrong. The fact is that it is a mainstream view that stories about Jesus incorporated details that were not about the historical figure, and there is very little mainstream consensus about the details of Jesus’ life.. In particular, it is a mainstream view that Paul’s “Christ of faith” is explicitly not based solely on the historical figure. The article directly states, The mainstream scholarly view is that the Pauline epistles and the gospels describe the "Christ of faith", presenting a religious narrative which replaced the historical Jesus.—Jeffro77 (talk) 20:34, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
I agree that The mainstream scholarly view is that the Pauline epistles and the gospels describe the "Christ of faith", presenting a religious narrative.... Historicists assert that the gospels are literary narratives featuring god-Jesus that contain biographical data for the historical personage Jesus b. Joseph/Pantera that can be extracted. For Biblicists, the gospels do not support any data extraction for a historical figure but a historical Jesus of some sort probably existed. --2db (talk) 21:13, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Jeffro, what makes you think that Wells description of Paul's Jesus as a supernatural being is a "rejection of Paul's "Christ of faith""? What do you even mean with this? What Wells argues is that Paul's Jesus was a supernatural being, Wisdom personified, with no roots at all in a real, historical person. In other words, Paul's Jesus was a myth. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 21:48, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
’Rejection’ in this context means ‘to not accept as true’. But you already know that and you’re just trying to misrepresent what I said. Again. It is an objective fact that Paul’s descriptions of Jesus include supernatural claims, and also a mainstream view that Paul’s “Christ of faith” includes details, including supernatural claims, that are not about the historical Jesus. Along with many mainstream sources, Wells did not accept (ergo, rejected) Paul’s supernatural claims about Jesus.—Jeffro77 (talk) 22:44, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
I really have a hard time trying to understand your way of thinking. You put strange emphasises. But your last sentence gives a clue: "Wells did not accept ... supernatural claims about Jesus." The point is 'Jesus': Wells did not accept a real Jesus as the root of Paul's Jesus. According to Wells, Paul's Jesus is entirely rooted in mythology. So, what you should say is: 'Wells did not accept any natural claims about a mythological character named Jesus'. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 23:03, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
" it is a mainstream view that Paul’s “Christ of faith” is explicitly not based solely on the historical figure." Quite an understatement. Is there anyone who still believes that Paul's Christ has a claim to historicity? Dimadick (talk) 23:29, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't see a reference in the article indicating that Wells, or his particular views, were deemed a part of general scholarship even after he changed his view that Jesus existed. It seems Jeffro is pushing his own understanding of how mainstream scholarship looks like and how he understands Christ myth theory to mean and how he understands Wells to be and trying to superglue them together by argument than with references. If a reference makes such a connection, where is it? Is there such an acknowledgemnt of this by a non-mythicist scholar? We can go on forever on making connections but if no reference makes the connection then what is there to talk about further than this?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.223.10.226 (talk) 23:55, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi, conveniently anonymous editor. I didn’t say Wells’ views are “part of general scholarship”. However, asserting that something must either be “general scholarship” or it is otherwise mythicism is a false dichotomy. Wells could have views that were neither mainstream nor mythicism. However, there is also no mainstream consensus regarding ‘Paul’s Jesus’ either (nor for most details about Jesus in the gospels other than his baptism and execution), and many sources reject the supernatural claims Paul made about Jesus, and the majority of what Paul says about Jesus are in that category, so your assertion is misleading anyway.
And since you’re so interested in proper sourcing, do you see any reference in the article that supports Joshua Jonathan’s redefinition of mythicism to include ‘accepting that Jesus was a first century Galilean preacher but not accepting what Paul says about Jesus’? (Hint: the Wells reference does not support the claim.) Someone else since modified the wording of his redefinition, but that alternative wording also is not supported by the source, and also misrepresents the (lack of) mainstream scholarly consensus by contrast.—Jeffro77 (talk) 03:56, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
I have removed the recent redefinition of mythicism that was inserted by Joshua Jonathan and subsequently altered by Ramos1990. The assertion that 'details were woven/fused/chosen verb together in the gospels' is necessarily 'mythicism' is not supported by citing Wells' later works, and it contradicts the fact that mainstream scholarship has no consensus regarding the degree to which Paul's works or the gospels "replaced"/weaved/fused/etc details about the historical Jesus with other details about the "Christ of faith". If restoring the claim that it is necessarily a mythicist view (despite the fact that there is no scholarly consensus regarding exactly the same elements), an appropriate source must be provided that unambiguously characterises that view as mythicism, such as Wells' earlier works, other explicitly mythicist works, or a scholar such as Ehrman.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:25, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
That's exactly what Wells says: that the gospels fused together Paul's mythical Jesus, and a Galilean preacher. According to Wells, these were two different 'characters': Paul's mythical Jesus is not the Galilean preacher. Wells 2009, p. 16 (emphasis mine):

What we have in the gospels is surely a fusion of two originally quite independent streams of tradition [...] the Galilean preacher of the early first century who had met with rejection, and the supernatural personage of the early epistles, [the Jesus of Paul] who sojourned briefly on Earth and then, rejected, returned to heaven—have been condensed into one. The [human] preacher has been given a [mythical] salvific death and resurrection, and these have been set not in an unspecified past (as in the early epistles) but in a historical context consonant with the Galilean preaching. The fusion of the two figures will have been facilitated by the fact that both owe quite a lot of their substance in the documents—to ideas very important in the Jewish Wisdom literature.

Arguing that Paul's Jesus is fully mythical is exactly that: mythicism. David Tacey (2015), Religion as Metaphor: Beyond Literal Belief, Transaction Publishers:

I do not doubt the existence of a real Jesus, but I adopt the view that the representation of this figure in the gospels is not historical but mythological. This has caused some to draw a distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of theology. We know little about the former, but I concur with Jung that "this Christ of St. Paul's would hardly have been possible without the historical Jesus.
My reading of Jesus is not to be confused with the tradition known as the "Christ Myth Theory."

Dodd, C. H. (1938) under the heading "Christ-myth Theory" History and the Gospel Manchester University Press pg 17:

Or alternatively, they seized on the reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name and arbitrarily attached the "Cult-myth" to him.

M. David Litwa (2019), How the Gospels Became History, Yale University Press:

...there is a vast difference between rejecting the historical nature of the gospels and denying Jesus' existence. One can say that the gospel stories of Jesus are "mythic" while at the same time believing that Jesus existed as a first-century Jew. One simply must acknowledge that the Jesus whom early Christians remembered and described in the gospels was already a figure creatively imagined by Christians as someone more than human - and in that sense mythicized.
But mythicists say more. Not only was Jesus constructed in particular ways by early Christians, he actually did not exist or - by exerting no influence - functionally did not exist.

Ehrman (2012):

In simpler terms, the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity.

Regarding this removal you don't improve the article by simply removing info; you improve it by correcting what you deem to be wrong, like this. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:15, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
You're insisting, based on Tacey's assessment of his own position, that 'accepting Paul's Jesus as historical but rejecting the gospel Jesus' is not mythicism, but that 'rejecting Paul's Jesus as historical but accepting the gospel Jesus' is mythicism. (It is actually the fact that Tacey recognises Jesus was historical that makes his view 'not mythicism', and not because of specifically which writings about Jesus that he considers to be true. And, of course, Tacey doesn't actually accept everything about 'Paul's Jesus', just as Wells doesn't accept everything about 'the gospel Jesus'.) Your conclusion, which is a synthesis of your opinion of the contrast between the two positions, is entirely arbitrary, based solely on wanting to classify all of Wells' later views as mythicism. But by that logic, accepting the gospel Jesus as historical is also a mythicist view. Back in reality, Wells' later accepted that Jesus was a first-century Galilean preacher, which is explicitly not mythicism.
Stop pretending there is some mainstream consensus about exactly what elements of Pauls' writings and the gospels are historical beyond the fact that Jesus was a preacher who was baptised by John the baptist and executed by the Romans. Also, the quote from Wells doesn't actually say that 'Paul's Jesus' was "fully mythical". It is a fact the vast majority of what Paul says about Jesus are supernatural claims for which there is no mainstream consensus, and it is those elements that the Wells quote directly addresses. If Wells' later view that 'Paul's Jesus is mythological but Jesus was historical' is so unambiguously a mythicist view, provide a source from Wells' earlier writings or from other mythicists, or from other mainstream scholars who directly describe that specific view as mythicism.--Jeffro77 (talk) 23:47, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
And no, Joshua Jonathan, it isn't appropriate to restore disputed content for which you have not provided sources that actually support the point.--Jeffro77 (talk) 04:22, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
Could you please try to stick to clear terminology? Your phrase "rejecting" is unclear and a value-judgment ('waarde-oordeel'), I don't know the exact English term). We're talking here about historicity; believers talk about "rejecting" (or accepting). Mainstream is: Paul's Jesus is largely mythological, but develop from treditins from the earliest ekklesia, which in turn developed from real events with a real teacher. Mythicism is: Paul's Christ is unrelated to a historical person, but was historicized in the gospels. Tacey: "I concur with Jung that "this Christ of St. Paul's would hardly have been possible without the historical Jesus." Wells: Paul's Christ is derived from the Wisdom-tradition, not from a real person.
As for procedure: you've been insisting now for weeks that there is only one, strict definition of mythicism, and that the article here should follow your understanding. Your opinion is not supported by sources, nor by any other editor here. I suggested several times that you could try to discuss the scope of this article by proposing a limited scope, following a proper procedure (like a RfC); so far, you've declined to do so. Instead, you keep pushingagainst WP:CONSENSUS, refusing to provide any source which supports your stance, despite several requests, and rejecting additional sources, including the one used as a definition at the start of this article. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:32, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
Don't be obtuse. I already explained to you that 'rejecting' in this context means 'not accepting as true'. In logic, if someone says they reject a premise, they aren't raising some complex theological quandary like you seem to want to misrepresent the term. Wells rejected the supernatural claims made by Paul as unhistorical (and many mainstream sources do the same.)
You still have not provided a source that unambiguously identifies the statement you keep restoring as 'a mythicist view'.
It was actually Ramos1990 who said at this Talk page that "the sources pretty much clearly define Christ myth theory as being about the nonexistence of Jesus",[8], so your claim that I keep insisting on "one, strict definition" is a lie.
You have been requested to provide a source that supports your view that it is necessarily a mythicist view to 'reject (i.e. not accept as historical) the details of 'Paul's Jesus' but accept that Jesus was an actual historical figure'. You have failed to support that claim. You say I need to provide a source to support the removal of text that is not supported by a source. That demand is asinine. If the view that 'Jesus existed but Paul's Jesus is unhistorical' is such a key part of mythicism, simply provide a source that isn't from Wells' later works.--Jeffro77 (talk) 04:49, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
It is quite dishonest to insert additional wording into the mainstream view that is not supported by the cited sources.[9] So now you should also provide a source with a direct quote supporting your claim that "mainstream scholarly consensus holds that Jesus was a historical figure who stood at the basis of Paul's beliefs".--Jeffro77 (talk) 05:05, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
You like to pretend I am objecting to some long held consensus on this point, but "or on a Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source, who was added to Paul's mythical Jesus in the gospels" is text adapted by you,[10][11][12][13] based on text first added to the lead by you[14] three days ago, directly associated with you trying make the article better reflect your opinions at Talk. And that was immediately after you accused me of trying to "push your personal view of what constitutes mythicism". And that was after you falsely said that my changed to one paragraph was 'breaking up the structure of the article'. Sheer hypocrisy.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:03, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

There is WP:NOCONSENSUS to remove Wells the way Jeffro has been constantly proposing for so many threads. Please refrain from further disruptions since this edit war has been going on for a while now. Time to WP:DROPTHESTICK after so many attempts. I myself removed some of the Well's references in the "mythicist views" sections because some of the points seemed redundant to try to meet Jeffro's concerns as much as possible. But I agree with Joshua Johnathan's general position, per the sources he has provided in this section and in the section below too, showing that there is a spectrum of views that mythicism may extend slightly into the view that Jesus did exist as an obscure preacher man but that Jesus exerted no influence (e.g. Ehrman, Litwa, Bromiley, Hidden Religion). Some of these even review Wells in their surveys of mythicists and others do too like Casey and Van Voorst and even Robert Price. So he is strongly attached to that tradition by these scholars.

Van Voorst 2003, which is a ABC-CLIO encyclopedia entry as well, [15] designates "..Wells and his predecessors.." or "..."Wells and others" in his numerous points on mythicist positions whilst also noting that Well's changed his mind on point #8. The fact that Van Voorst mentions him simultaneously this way means that Van Voorst strongly associates Wells within the spectrum of mythicism even if he is not longer a "traditional" mythicist.

He is not the only one. Per Bilde "The Originality of Jesus: A Critical Discussion and a Comparative Attempt" (2013), Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht p.60

However I begin with a few general observations concerning contemporary Jesus research as a whole. Looking first at the question of the historical existence of Jesus, the third period of international Jesus research does not differ from the first and the second period. Also today most active Jesus scholars are convinced that Jesus was a real historical being, who existed as a Palestinian-Jewish person in the beginning of the first century CE. With this conviction these scholars oppose a considerable number of scholars from Arthur Drews ((1911) 1924) over Danish Georg Brandes (1925) to G.A. Wells (1971, (1975) 1986, 1982, 1989, 1996, 1999, 2004, 2009), Alvar EllegArd (1992), Francesco Carotta (1999) 2005, Earl Doherty (1999) 2000), Freke - Gandy (1999) 2007, Robert M. Price (2000, 2003, 2007, 2010), and Hector Avalos (2007), who all argue that Jesus has never existed, but is a purely mythological "invention."

Wells is footnoted there and the foot note says

In his most recent works, 1996, 1999, 2004 and 2009, however, G.A. Wells has abandoned his original belief that Jesus never existed. Wells now joins the mainstream of international Jesus research in accepting the historical existence of Jesus and today Wells only differs from that mainstream in assuming that the canonical gospels are the result of a "fusion" between some historical traditions in Q about a Galilean preacher by the name of Jesus, and the testimony of the Pauline letters about a mythological, supra-natural Christ figure (cf. 2009,14 -15).

Lets take a break.Ramos1990 (talk) 05:27, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

It has been noted that you have removed some of the references to Wells since I initially pointed out the POV issues with this article, and that is appreciated. (If you review my original copyedit of the article, you will see I also did not remove all references to Wells' later works.) However, Joshua Jonathan has added points to the article during recent discussions that are not longstanding article content, in order to support his views at Talk that are not properly sourced, instead providing (at Talk) a synthesis based on his understanding of sources that do not specifically address the same points, and the points in the article are not properly sourced at all.
It is notable that the footnote directly states that "Wells now joins the mainstream", and the manner in which he diverges from the mainstream is not definitively mythicism. Though Wells unambiguously argued "that Jesus has never existed" in his earlier works, that challenge is clearly not intended regarding his later works. The manner in which Wells' later works might 'seem' to retain some aspects of mythicism (on matters for which there is not mainstream consensus anyway) could be adequately dealt with in the section about Wells.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:28, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Proposals

The lead now kind of gives equal weight to those views:

There are multiple strands of mythicism. One view is that there was never a historical Jesus, only a mythological character who was later historicized in the gospels.[q 1][18][19][20] Another view is that any evidence for the historical Jesus is so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing."[21][22][23] Yet another view is that stories about Jesus may be based on someone who lived prior to the 1st century AD, whose life story was embellished with elements from myth and literature,[24][need quotation to verify] or on a Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source, who was added to Paul's mythical Jesus in the gospels.[q 3]

The Christ myth theory#Christ myth theorists says

The most radical mythicists hold [...] Some other authors argue for the Jesus agnosticism viewpoint [...] Some moderate authors

We could adapt the lead to show this differences more starkly, something like

Various views regarding the history of Jesus, and the origins of Christianity, can be found among mythicists. The most common view is that there never was a historical Jesus, only a mythological character who was later historicized in the gospels.[q 1][18][19][20] Alternatively, some authors have argued that any evidence for the historical Jesus is so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing."[21][22][23] Yet another view, which comes close to the mainstream view in accepting an historical element, is that stories about Jesus may be based on someone who lived prior to the 1st century AD, whose life story was embellished with elements from myth and literature,[24][need quotation to verify] or on a Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source, who was added to Paul's mythical Jesus in the gospels.[q 3]

But, if I remember correctly, Wdford objected against such specifications. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:07, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

PS: this was my original description (minus a typo):

Three stances regarding the history of Jesus, and the origins of Christianity, can be found among mythicists. According to Wells, among others, there may have been an historical Jesus, who may have lived in a dimly remembered past, and was fused with the mythological Christ of Paul. According to Earl Doherty and Richard carrier, among others, there never was an historical Jesus, only a mythological character, who was historicised in the Gospels. According to Robert Price, among others, we cannot conclude if there was a historical Jesus. And if there was a historical Jesus, close to nothing can be known about him.

Note the nuance: not There are multiple strands of mythicism, but Three stances regarding the history of Jesus, and the origins of Christianity, can be found among mythicists. That's actually still a better formulation, I think; I've adapted my 'tentative proposal' accordingly. It does not 'reify' "mythicism" into a hard-boundary entity, but describes what's actually there: people theorizing about the historicity of Jesus.
And I'd put Wells front, because he's arguably the most important mythicist. But the sentence used there does not adequately reflect his positions, I think now. Regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:14, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Your suggested ‘more stark’ wording would definitely be a step in the right direction, though I would be prefer something like the following (obviously with sources that directly make the connection with mythicism):

The most common mythicist view regarding the history of Jesus and the origins of Christianity is that a historical Jesus never existed, and that a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. Alternatively, some authors have argued that any evidence for the historical Jesus is so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing." Another view is that stories about Jesus may be based on someone who lived prior to the 1st century AD, whose life story was embellished with elements from myth and literature. Closer to the mainstream view, the idea that details about an obscure Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source were added to Paul's mythical Jesus in the gospels has also been associated with mythicism.

Your text from 2019 is not good as it misrepresents Wells, who, as has been explained previously, did not refer to ‘Paul’s Jesus’ as ‘someone who lived in the remote past’, but who instead said Paul may have used details from old traditions without reference to any specific individual or time period.—Jeffro77 (talk) 08:28, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
The original text on the later Wells is indeed not good. I've corrected the text in the Christ myth theory#Views of Christ myth theorists diff. I think we should drop Ellegård altogether; compared to Wells, he's quite less significant. So that would leave only a short description of Wells' later position. It may seem WP:UNDUE to summarize the view of one author in the lead, but given his influence, and the relevance of his shift in views, this may be justified.
I prefer to keep the sentence "Various views regarding the history of Jesus, and the origins of Christianity, can be found among mythicists," but "The most common mythicist view" works too.

[Various views regarding the history of Jesus, and the origins of Christianity, can be found among mythicists.] The most common mythicist view regarding the history of Jesus and the origins of Christianity is that a historical Jesus never existed, and that a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. Alternatively, some authors have argued that any evidence for the historical Jesus is so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing." [Additionally/Notably/Closer to the mainstream view,] Wells in his later works argued that the gospels add details about an obscure Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source to Paul's mythical Jesus, leaving open the question "as to whether such a [mythical Jesus] had in fact existed."

So, now we wait for others to comment? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:41, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
At Jeffro, appreciate your acknowledgement of me trying to meet you half way. There are very few mentions of Wells in the "mythicist views" sections by now (only 5 times in only 2 "mythicist views" sections). There are 8 "mythicist view" sections by the way. I think that is a improvement. Yes the source clearly places Wells in the mythicist camp (even cites the later works on that claim along with other notable mythicists) but explains further in the footnote that it is only on the existence of Jesus that he aligns with mainstream scholars. After that he diverges from it, according to Bilde. Wells seems to be special case among critics since he has been a traditional mythicist and then became a historicist. I thought about that source because it just shows how complex Wells became. But his particular view post-1996 seems to be weird enough for even Bilde to take notice. It apparently left a grey area for scholars to consider him as a bit of an outcast with everyone else even then.
At Joshua Johnathan, I am thinking that your proposal with names of proponents of particular positions looks more adequate and shorter since it attributes the views instead reifying the positions. It does not make a judgment and leaves readers to gauge their views as is. The only thing, I think is that people may make a laundry list out of it and add other stuff from each author into each sentence. We could go by scholarly prominence like you have it or by prominence of position (this would make Wells the third one since most people and scholars understand CMT as denial, then agnosticism, then acceptance but with a different flavor).
At Jeffro, I know you may object to Wells, but given that he keeps on popping up in sources the least we could do is mention his diverse views and give him some justice to self represent no? How about

Various stances regarding the history of Jesus, and the origins of Christianity, can be found among mythicists. According to Earl Doherty and Richard carrier, among others, there never was an historical Jesus, only a mythological character, who was historicised in the Gospels. According to Robert Price, among others, any evidence for the historical Jesus is so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing." Additionally, Wells in his later works held a view that was closer to the mainstream view, but still associated with mythicism, in that an obscure Galilean preacher did actually exist per the Q-source, and was added to Paul's mythical Jesus in the gospels to create the composite of Jesus Christ.

Thoughts?Ramos1990 (talk) 09:29, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
I still don't agree with the "definition" that "Mythicism is about people theorising about the historicity of Jesus". The REAL "issue" of Mythicism is about the historicity of the gospel Christ, rather than any human who may or may not have perhaps provided a foundation for the theologians to build upon. More accurate would be to say "Mythicism has been defined by its opponents as being about people theorising about the historicity of Jesus" – especially seeing as many of those opponents also accept that the gospel stories are layered with myth and lies.
The view that "a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels" is certainly one view, but is it really the most common view? Has any objective authority done an audit on this? Do we count every blogger's view, or only "serious" mythicists? Or should we refrain from allocating weightings here unless we have objective evidence?
Can we also add that "the most common view" of the mainstream consensus is that the gospel Christ is indeed fiction, probably built up around a human Galilean preacher who was crucified for sedition?
Should we really try to "show the differences more starkly"? There is a lot of grey between these "main" views. Ellegård is similar to Wells but not the same. Doherty is partly similar to Carrier but also partly similar to Price. Wells is quite similar to Price in some respects. Some authors have changed some nuances of their hypotheses over time.
Similarly, I think we should avoid mentioning specific names in the lead. There are many different "strands" and nuances.
My proposed wording would be more like this:

Different mythicists hold varying views regarding the history of Jesus, and the origins of Christianity. One view is that no historical Jesus ever existed, and that a purely mythological character was historicized in the gospels. Alternatively, some authors hold that the gospels added mythical and literary details onto the life of an obscure historical individual, generally believed by mainstream sources to have been a Galilean preacher. A third view holds that the stories have been so obscured by myths and dogma that we could no longer be sure if there had ever been a real person at the root of the stories.

Wdford (talk) 10:30, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
@Wdford: less clear. Especially Alternatively, some authors hold that the gospels added mythical and literary details onto the life of an obscure historical individual, generally believed by mainstream sources to have been a Galilean preacher. is unprecise:
  • some authors hold that the gospels added mythical and literary details onto the life of an obscure historical individual - that's only Allegard; and Allegard is not the same as Wells, and less relevant.
  • generally believed by mainstream sources to have been a Galilean preacher. - the Galilean preacher is Wells' view, but the "generally believed" seems to turn mainstream scholarship into mythicism. I prefer Ramos1990's wording.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua Jonathan (talk • contribs)
Of the suggestions given, Joshua Jonathan's most recent suggestion is probably my preferred, though there are three issues. 1) the optional "Various views..." sentence is not needed when the varying views are already given an order of priority. 2) if Wells is to be mentioned by name in reference to his later views, it should be directly stated that he did then accept the historicity of Jesus, which may be distorted if he is identified only as "an obscure Galilean preacher" (the phrase should only be used if giving a broader view without specifying Wells' later works), so that sentence should instead be something like: "Closer to the mainstream view, Wells later accepted the historical Jesus as the Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source and suggested that details about him were added to Paul's mythical Jesus, leaving open the question "as to whether [Paul's Jesus] had in fact existed."" 3) this would be the first mention of Wells in the article, and it isn't the right way to introduce his relevance to the subject (especially only by surname), so for this version to be usable, there would need to be some other statement about Wells earlier in the lead.
The suggestion by Wdford seems to been too vague, and the suggestion by Ramos1990, too specific, for the lead paragraph.
Regarding Wdford's concerns that, "The REAL "issue" of Mythicism is about the historicity of the gospel Christ, rather than any human who may or may not have perhaps provided a foundation for the theologians to build upon"... yes, the poorly named subject does convey that issue, but despite the poor name, the subject is actually about questioning the historicity of Jesus. So this is not something we can change regarding the definition. However, it is also not necessary for the article to only refer to the subject as 'Christ myth' either, and there is no reason the article cannot also use the other available terms, such as "Jesus myth[icism]", which is in any case more recently growing in popularity:

Originally known as the ‘Christ Myth theory,’ this school of thought has more recently adopted the moniker ‘Jesus Myth theory’ or ‘mythicism’".

— Daniel Gullotta, "On Richard Carrier's Doubts: A Response to Richard Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt", p. 311. Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. 2017.
That's all I have time for right now without editing only on mobile.--Jeffro77 (talk) 11:44, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

That's quite a lot already :) @3, something like:

Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born," and was revived in the 1970s, when Wells argued for the non-historicity of Jesus, inspiring a new wave of alternate views on the origins of Christianity. The most common mythicist view ...

"a new wave of alternate views" is amendable, I think. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:00, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes. My wording is "imprecise". Deliberately so, because the CMT is not precise. There are many shades of grey, and the lead needs to try to encompass them all.
Allegard is not the only person who takes the view that the gospels added mythical and literary details onto the real life of some historical individual. Price leans the same way, and Wells came to that same view over time. But there is no need to mention specific names in the lead, as there is no space to explain all the nuances.
The "generally believed" DOES NOT turn mainstream scholarship into mythicism. There is zero mainstream consensus, but most mainstreamers accept a historical Jesus with layers of myth etc on top. And even for the few clergymen authors who claim the miracles etc were historical and that the gospel stories are literally true, they still accept that their Jesus was a Galilean preacher (among other things).
I am NOT suggesting that we actually change the definition of the CMT in the article, I am merely stating that we should accept that the situation is grey and fluid, and that we cannot define three stark definitions.
Wdford (talk) 12:02, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, I was inprecise; ar second reading, I understood your sentence. It's just that it may be too much for the lead; it's the kind of expanded info that belongs in the body. Regarding Allegard, he deviates from mainstream scholarship in arguing for a real person in a distant past. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:27, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
I am not suggesting that Allegard is mainstream (???)
Which sentence of my proposal might be too much for the lead please? My proposed paragraph is shorter than most?
Wdford (talk) 16:06, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
The sentence is very unclear:
  • Alternatively, some authors hold that the gospels added mythical and literary details onto the life of an obscure historical individual... - who's view is this? Allegard, as far as I can see. And what's the difference with the mainstream view, except for the phrase "obscure"?
  • ...generally believed by mainstream sources to have been a Galilean preacher - this is 'too much'. Which mainstream sources "generally" "believe" that this "obscure historical individual" was "a Galilean preacher"? It's Wells who argues that the sayings and some stories about an 'obscure Galilean preacher' were added to Paul's mythical Jesus. But from this sentence as a whole, I can't figure out in a clear who stated what, nor do I understand what the mainstream sources have got to do with it, if they are even correctly represented here.
But, reading back, you wrote Can we also add that "the most common view" of the mainstream consensus is that the gospel Christ is indeed fiction, probably built up around a human Galilean preacher who was crucified for sedition?. This is already covered in the lead:

In contrast, the mainstream scholarly consensus holds that Jesus was a historical figure who lived in 1st-century Roman Palestine, and that he was baptized and was crucified.[6][7][8][9] Beyond that, mainstream scholars have no consensus about the historicity of the other major details of the gospel stories, or on the extent to which the Pauline epistles and the gospels replaced the historical human Jesus with a religious narrative of a supernatural "Christ of faith".[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]

This section is about mythicists view, not mainstream views. NB: I don't think that mainstream scholars argue that the gospels are "fiction." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:48, 10 February 2022 (UTC) / update Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:46, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

New proposal

Given the previous comments, a new proposal:

Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born," and was revived in the 1970s, when Wells argued for the non-historicity of Jesus, inspiring a new wave of alternate views on the origins of Christianity. The [most common/core] mythicist view [regarding the history of Jesus and the origins of Christianity] is that a historical Jesus never existed, and that a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. Alternatively, some authors have argued that any evidence for the historical Jesus is so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing." Closer to the mainstream view, Wells later accepted the historical Jesus as the Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source and suggested that details about him were added to Paul's mythical Jesus, leaving open the question "as to whether [Paul's Jesus] had in fact existed."

This is how it would read in the lead. reading it, I suggest to stick to "most common," and drop the line "regarding the history of Jesus and the origins of Christianity." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:56, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

That text seems okay to me, with two minor comments: 1) the first references to Wells should be his full name. 2) “alternate” conveys repeatedly switching between two things, and “alternative views” would be preferred, or it could say “a range of new views” (“wave” also seems a little informal but not terribly).—Jeffro77 (talk) 21:16, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
It's interesting that you write: "I don't think that mainstream scholars argue that the gospels are "fiction."" What do you mean by that please? Certainly a number of mainstream scholars do hold that view. However Ramos1990 insists that there are many mainstream scholars accepting that the gospel stories of supernatural events are true – enough as to preclude us stating that the mainstream consensus excludes such a belief.
I would still avoid mentioning specific personalities in the lead, because the CMT is so broad, varied and nuanced. I would prefer the following:

Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born," and was revived in the 1970s. One mythicist view is that a historical Jesus never existed, and that a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. Alternatively, some authors have argued that any evidence for the historical Jesus is so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing." A different view holds that the historical Jesus was a Galilean preacher, some of whose details were added to a mythical Jesus by Paul.

Wdford (talk) 22:00, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
I see the appeal of your simpler version. However, it rebundles the view that “the historical Jesus was a Galilean preacher, some of whose details were added to a mythical Jesus by Paul” as a strictly mythicist view without acknowledging that the statement is largely consistent with mainstream views, only varying in the amount of Paul’s writings that are considered historical.
It is very definitely the case that accepting the miracles should not be portrayed as mainstream, which many mainstream sources do indeed regard as fiction. (To varying degrees, sources could say certain stories didn’t happen at all, or they could say the ‘miraculous’ aspects were either fictional or exaggerated).—Jeffro77 (talk) 22:44, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born," and was revived in the 1970s. One mythicist view is that a historical Jesus never existed, and that a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. Alternatively, some authors have argued that any evidence for the historical Jesus is so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing." A different view, which is close to the mainstream view, holds that the historical Jesus was a Galilean preacher, some of whose details were added to a mythical Jesus by Paul.

No problem with that. Wdford (talk) 22:50, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

We're getting closer. But this version gives 'equal weight' to various views, which is not the case: the first giew is the core, while the second is a nuanced variation. The third view is specifically Wells' later view, who in a sense left the first view. That fact is obfuscated. Instead of "most common/core," we could also write "in general" or "broadly" or something like that:

Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born," and was revived in the 1970s, when George Albert Wells argued for the non-historicity of Jesus, inspiring a [new wave of publications on/renewed interest in] the Christ myth theory. Mythicists broadly argue, with a number of variations and nuances, that Jesus never existed, and that a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. Alternatively, some authors have argued that any evidence for the historical Jesus is so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing." Closer to the mainstream view, Wells later accepted [the/an] historical Jesus as the Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source and suggested that details about him were added to Paul's mythical Jesus, leaving open the question "as to whether [Paul's Jesus] had in fact existed."

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:54, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Joshua Johnathan's wording and his suggestions (stick to "most common" and 'drop the origins of Christianity' clause, which I would frankly switch for something on Jesus because most of mythicism is in trying to explain who Jesus was rather than focusing about the origin of Christianity - they rarely delve into church history) along with Jeffro's amendments to it (change Wells to G.A. Wells and change to alternate view or something like that, but ignore the "new" since some of these views are not really new - Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews and others held very similar views to some proponents today). I see an appeal to simpler wording too, but it would oversimplify this complex theory and its history. And Wells in particular needs contextualization like Joshua Johanthan has done, since out of the all of those who participated in mythicism, he is the only one who holds this complex view (which aligns in one sense with all other scholars and diverges from it too, per Bilde's distinction). How about this wording:

Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born," and was revived in the 1970s, when G.A. Wells argued for the non-historicity of Jesus, inspiring a range of alternate views on who Jesus was. The most common mythicist view is that a historical Jesus never existed, and that a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. In a similar vein, some authors have argued for agnosticism on the matter in that the sources on Jesus are so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing." Alternatively, closer to the mainstream view on historicity, G.A Wells later accepted the historical Jesus as the Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source and suggested that details about him were added to Paul's mythical Jesus, leaving open the question "as to whether [Paul's Jesus] had in fact existed."

I think this flows better.Ramos1990 (talk) 05:19, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Nice too, and better flow. Just for consideration: how about "Mythicists broadly argue, with a number of variations and nuances,"? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:35, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Sure, I think that is more accurate of the diversity in mythicism too.Ramos1990 (talk) 05:43, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
That would be then:

Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born," and was revived in the 1970s, when G.A. Wells argued for the non-historicity of Jesus, inspiring a range of alternate views on who Jesus was. Mythicists broadly argue, with a number of variations and nuances, that a historical Jesus never existed, and that a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. In a similar vein, some authors have argued for agnosticism on the matter in that the sources on Jesus are so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing." Alternatively, closer to the mainstream view on historicity, G.A Wells later accepted the historical Jesus as the Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source and suggested that details about him were added to Paul's mythical Jesus, leaving open the question "as to whether [Paul's Jesus] had in fact existed."

PS: I thought I'd corrected myself here, but it was your edit; by mistake, or intentionally? Anyway, nice trick! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:22, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Lol. I was trying to change it up with blue text on my version since a lot of green word blocks were there. I wanted to stand out. No worries. Anyways, looks pretty polished to me. I agree with this wording and structure.Ramos1990 (talk) 07:32, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
These proposals are getting increasingly wordy. I argue for simplicity in the lead, so that readers can understand the topic without being drowned in a froth of complex detail. There is more than enough detail in the next 250Kb.
I am also not in favour of basing the topic around Wells. He was very important, but there are also many others .
I propose therefore the following:

Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born," and was revived in the 1970s. Mythicists broadly argue, with a number of variations and nuances, that a historical Jesus never existed as described in the gospel stories, and that a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. Some authors have argued that the sources on Jesus are so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing." A view closer to the mainstream view on historicity is that the historical Jesus was the Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source, and that details about him were added to Paul's mythical Jesus.

Wdford (talk) 08:57, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
This latest suggestion has some issues, one of which is quite significant and the other fairly minor. 1) The insertion of "as described in the gospel stories" should definitely be removed, as the core CMT view is that Jesus never existed, not merely that he didn't exist as portrayed in the gospels, which is quite ambiguous and has considerable overlap with various mainstream positions regarding the historicity of many of the details found in the gospels (also, "with a number of variations and nauances" seems unnecessary for a broad overview); therefore replace "Mythicists broadly argue, with a number of variations and nuances, that a historical Jesus never existed as described in the gospel stories" with "The most common mythicist view is that a historical Jesus never existed". 2) Repeating both "view" and "historical"/"historicity" in close proximity is quite awkward, therefore replace "view on historicity" with "position". Aside from those issues, your simplified version would be suitable in the lead as a concise summary of the main positions. These changes would give

Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born", and was revived in the 1970s. The most common mythicist view is that a historical Jesus never existed, and that a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. Some authors have argued that the sources on Jesus are so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing". A view closer to the mainstream position is that the historical Jesus was the Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source, and that details about him were added to Paul's mythical Jesus.

--Jeffro77 (talk) 10:51, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Also okay. Agree that as described in the gospel stories is confusing. Also agree with "most common," though "broadly argue" may be more accommodating for Wdford. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:20, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

"Broadly argue" or "broadly agree" would both suit me fine.
I don't see the problem with referring to Jesus as portrayed in the gospels. How could that be confusing? Which other Jesus could the CMT possibly be referring to? Jesus was apparently a common name at the time, so doubtless there were many historical Jesuses. The mythicists are not suggesting that there was no prophet or rabbi named Jesus ever, but specifically that the Jesus in the gospel stories was a fictitious character. Hence the word "Christ" in "Christ Myth Theory". This covers Doherty (worthy of the name) through Price (curtain of dogma) to Wells (merged with Paul's myth). Only the Carrier group are totally outside this description, and follow the "purely mythological character that was later historicized" approach. That's why I doubt that this Carrier position is the "most common" view.
The fact that the CMT "has considerable overlap with various mainstream positions regarding the historicity of many of the details found in the gospels" is self-evident, and has been noted by people like Ehrman etc. It is what it is. There is no justification for us to manufacture artificial daylight between the two. In fact, I have long argued that we should clarify openly and transparently the overlaps - and the real differences - and not disguise the true position.
Let's try a slightly different angle on this:

Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born", and was revived in the 1970s. Proponents broadly argue that a historical Jesus never existed as portrayed in the gospels. Some authors argue that a purely mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. Some authors have argued that the sources on Jesus are so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing". A view closer to the mainstream position is that the historical Jesus was the Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source, and that some details about him were added to Paul's mythical Jesus.

Wdford (talk) 12:58, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Almost all scholars argue that "a historical Jesus never existed as portrayed in the gospels"; the difference is that most Cmt's argue that there never was an historical Jesus at all. Christ myth theorists argue that Paul's Christ is a myth, historicized in the gospels. I find your summary confusing and unclear; I really have to think 'What are they writing here?' That's not a good sign.

I sit on the editorial board of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, ably edited by James Crossley and Anthony Le Donne. The editorial board is quite diverse (though could use a few more women) with Americans, Europeans, and even Australians. It also has people of many different religious affiliations, there are members who identify as Jewish, evangelical Christian, mainline Christian, agnostic, and atheist. We disagree on just about everything when it comes to Jesus and the sources pertaining to him. However, what we all agree on is that (1) Jesus existed and (2) people who deny his existence are cranks or bad-historians.

  • Tom Breen (2008), The Messiah Formerly Known as Jesus: Dispatches from the Intersection of Christianity and Pop Culture (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press) p. 138:

A school of thought popular with cranks on the Internet holds that Jesus didn’t actually exist.

If I understand what Earl Doherty is arguing, Neil, it is that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as an historical person, or, at least that historians, like myself, presume that he did and act on that fatally flawed presumption. I am not sure, as I said earlier, that one can persuade people that Jesus did exist as long as they are ready to explain the entire phenomenon of historical Jesus and earliest Christianity either as an evil trick or a holy parable. I had a friend in Ireland who did not believe that Americans had landed on the moon but that they had created the entire thing to bolster their cold-war image against the communists. I got nowhere with him. So I am not at all certain that I can prove that the historical Jesus existed against such an hypothesis and probably, to be honest, I am not even interested in trying.

  • Bart Ehrman (2007), interview with David V. Barrett, "The Gospel According to Bart", Fortean Times (221):

DVB: What about those writers like Acharya S (The Christ Conspiracy) and Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (The Jesus Mysteries), who say that Jesus never existed, and that Christianity was an invented religion, the Jewish equivalent of the Greek mystery religions?
BE: This is an old argument, even though it shows up every 10 years or so. This current craze that Christianity was a mystery religion like these other mystery religions-the people who are saying this are almost always people who know nothing about the mystery religions; they've read a few popular books, but they're not scholars of mystery religions. The reality is, we know very little about mystery religions-the whole point of mystery religions is that they're secret! So I think it's crazy to build on ignorance in order to make a claim like this. I think the evidence is just so overwhelming that Jesus existed, that it's silly to talk about him not existing. I don't know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is actually trained in the historical method, or anybody who is a biblical scholar who does this for a living, who gives any credence at all to any of this.

  • Bart Ehrman (2008), interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show:

I don't think there's any serious historian who doubts the existence of Jesus. There are a lot of people who want to write sensational books and make a lot of money who say Jesus didn't exist. But I don't know any serious scholar who doubts the existence of Jesus.

[p2] none of this literature is written by scholars trained in New Testament or early Christian studies teaching at the major, or even minor, accredited theological seminaries, divinity schools, universities, or colleges of North America or Europe (or anywhere else in the world). Of the thousands of scholars of early Christianity who do teach at such schools, none of them, to my knowledge, has any doubts that Jesus existed. (p.2)

  • Craig A. Evans, "Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology", Theological Studies 54, 1993, p. 8:

The scholarly mainstream, in contrast to Bauer and company, never doubted the existence of Jesus or his relevance for the founding of the Church.

  • Craig A. Evans, "The Shout of Death", in Troy A. Miller, Jesus, the Final Days: What Really Happened, Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009, p. 3:

No serious historian of any religious or nonreligious stripe doubts that Jesus of Nazareth really lived in the first century and was executed under the authority of Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea and Samaria. Though this may be common knowledge among scholars, the public may well not be aware of this.

  • W. Ward Gasque (2004), The Leading Religion Writer in Canada... Does He Know What He's Talking About?, George Mason University's History News Network:

If one were able to survey the members of the major learned societies dealing with antiquity, it would be difficult to find more than a handful who believe that Jesus of Nazareth did not walk the dusty roads of Palestine in the first three decades of the Common Era. Evidence for Jesus as a historical personage is incontrovertible.

  • Michael Grant (1995), Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (New York: Scribner) p. 200:

To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars'. In recent years 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus'—or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.

In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.[1]

  • Patrick Gray (2016), Varieties of Religious Invention, chapter 5, Jesus, Paul, and the birth of Christianity, Oxford University Press, p.114:

That Jesus did in fact walk the face of the earth in the first century is no longer seriously doubted even by those who believe that very little about his oife or death can be known with any certainty. [Note 4:] Although it remains a fringe phenomenon, familiarity with the Christ myth theory has become much more widespread among the general public with the advent of the Internet.

References

  1. ^ Michael Grant (2004), Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels, ISBN 1898799881 page 200
Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:06, 11 February 2022 (UTC)


Oh come now. Line by line:
  • Almost all scholars argue that "a historical Jesus never existed as portrayed in the gospels" – Yes I agree – including CMT scholars.
  • The difference is that most Cmt's argue that there never was an historical Jesus at all - Yes I basically agree, although I'm not totally sure about the word "most". This "difference" has been clearly explained already in paragraphs one and two of the lead.
  • Christ myth theorists argue that Paul's Christ is a myth, historicized in the gospels – Yes I totally agree.
  • I find your summary confusing and unclear – WHY? My summary is almost exactly what Jeffro77 offered above, and you responded with "Also okay." All I added was the clause "as portrayed in the gospels" – how could that possibly confuse anybody?
It seems that both mainstreamers and mythicists agree that the miracles etc are fiction. It would help a lot if we could state that clearly in the lead, and not hide it away behind "scholars have no consensus about the supernatural details".
It seems the real difference is only that mainstreamers say: "Jesus was born, baptized and crucified, and then lots of fiction got added", whereas mythicists are split basically between "it's all total fiction" and "maybe there was a real human underneath it all but there is too much fiction to be sure about baptised and crucified." This mainstream info is already in the lead. We just have to summarise the mythicists view fairly, and without fudging it to hide the fact that mainstreamers also agree that the miracles etc are fiction.
Wdford (talk) 21:19, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Wdford, it seems you have missed the point of the problem. Put simply, it’s “as”. The problem with saying ‘as portrayed in the gospels’ suggests, very incorrectly, that it is only CMT proponents who say that the portrayal of Jesus in the gospels is not completely historical—I really don’t think this is the message you are trying to convey. Now, if you left out the word “as”, and just identified “the Jesus portrayed in the gospels”, that same problem wouldn’t exist, though you’re still then leaving out Jesus as portrayed in the rest of the NT, which is mostly supernatural claims that very obviously are also rejected by CMT proponents (and much of mainstream scholarship). All that said, it simply isn’t necessary for this paragraph to identify that the Jesus being discussed is the one associated with Christianity, and there is no confusion that CMT might otherwise be saying ‘no person was ever called Jesus (Yeshua)’. The context of just which Jesus is being considered is already clear from the article context.—Jeffro77 (talk) 21:48, 11 February 2022 (UTC)


I would never have guessed that this was the concern. I'm not sure that very many readers would understand this either. How about we resolve the entire problem simply and honestly, like this:

Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born", and was revived in the 1970s. Some proponents argue that a purely mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. Some proponents have argued that the sources on Jesus are so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing". A view closer to the mainstream position is that the historical Jesus was the Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source, and that some details about him were added to Paul's mythical Jesus.
Both mainstream scholarship and the proponents of the Christ myth theory hold that the portrayal of Jesus Christ in the Bible is not completely historical, that "the Jesus proclaimed by preachers and theologians today had no existence, and that particular Jesus is (or those particular Jesus are) a myth." However, mainstream scholars have consensus that a non-supernatural Jesus was a historical figure who lived in 1st-century Roman Palestine, and that he was baptized and was crucified. Views that "the historical Jesus did not exist" are rejected as fringe theories by virtually all scholars of antiquity.

How about that? Honest, accurate, clear, simple, unambiguous and informative. Wdford (talk) 22:23, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

The article already has a paragraph about mainstream views prior to the one being discussed.—Jeffro77 (talk) 23:50, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
I concur with Jeffro and Joshua Jonathan's general comments and also on the disagreement with the "a historical Jesus never existed as portrayed in the gospels" clause because mythcist denial of Jesus also denies the existence of Jesus in Islam and Jesus in Jewish history - both of which also acknowledge basic historicity of Jesus. I think that Jeffro's latest wording with Joshua Johnathn's accommodation of it is good to go on the lead. That makes 3 editors in favor of that wording.
I also agree with Jeffro that we already have a paragraph about the mainstream views prior. The latest proposal by Wdford is very confusing and partly false. The "no consensus" is most accurate because it is certainly not true that mainstream scholars are in unison like Wdford keeps on thinking. In fact the sources state the opposite, for example "The Historical Jesus: Five Views" edited by James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy. IVP Academic. 2009
"Contrary to previous times, virtually everyone in the field today acknowledges that Jesus was considered by his contemporaries to be an exorcist and a worker of miracles. However, when it comes to historical assessment of the miracles tradition itself, the consensus quickly shatters. Some, following in the footsteps of Bultmann, embrace an explicit methodological naturalism such that the very idea of a miracle is ruled out a priori. Others defend the logical possibility of miracle at the theoretical level, but, in practice, retain a functional methodological naturalism, maintaining that we could never be in possession of the type and/or amount of evidence that would justify a historical judgment in favor of the occurrence of a miracle. Still others, suspicious that an uncompromising methodological naturalism most likely reflects an unwarranted metaphysical naturalism, find such a priori skepticism unwarranted and either remain open to, or even explicitly defend, the historicity of miracles within the Jesus tradition."
And the quote from Ehrman "the Jesus proclaimed by preachers and theologians today had no existence, and that particular Jesus is (or those particular Jesus are) a myth." is him summarizing Albert Schweitzer's view in p. 13 of Did Jesus Exist?, not himself. P. 14 is where Ehrman explains his own view which he states that only "some views of Jesus could loosely be labeled as myths" in the sense of "imaginative creations" like mythiicts use the term. He does not say most or all views of Jesus are seen this way. Also Ehrman in Did Jesus Exist? addresses miracles in p.315 and there he cites his earlier work "Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium" p.193-197 for his views on miracles and how he sees the limitations of a historian as unable to confirm or deny them. Theological neutrality is his actual position as a "historian", not outright denialism. He also acknowledges that many historians do believe miracles happen. In Jesus Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium p. 196-197 he says:
"I should emphasize that historians do not have to deny the possibility of miracles or deny that miracles have actually happened in the past. Many historians, for example, committed Christians and observant Jews and practicing Muslims, believe that they have in fact happened. When they think or say this, however, they do so not in the capacity of the historian, but in the capacity of the believer. In the present discussion, I am not taking the position of the believer, nor am I saying that one should or should not take such a position. I am taking the position of the historian, who on the basis of a limited number of problematic sources has to determine to the best of his or her ability what the historical Jesus actually did. As a result, when reconstructing Jesus' activities, I will not be able to affirm or deny the miracles that he is reported to have done."
In the same pages, he says "This is not a problem for only one kind of historian — for atheists or agnostics or Buddhists or Roman Catholics or Baptists or Jews or Muslims; it is a problem for all historians of every stripe."
On top of that Mike Bird's 2017 "A Peer Reviewed Journal Takes Down Richard Carrier’s Jesus Mythicism" comments (from Joshua Johnathan's drop down) reinforce the multiplicity of views among mainstream scholars:
"I sit on the editorial board of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, ably edited by James Crossley and Anthony Le Donne. The editorial board is quite diverse (though could use a few more women) with Americans, Europeans, and even Australians. It also has people of many different religious affiliations, there are members who identify as Jewish, evangelical Christian, mainline Christian, agnostic, and atheist. We disagree on just about everything when it comes to Jesus and the sources pertaining to him. However, what we all agree on is that (1) Jesus existed and (2) people who deny his existence are cranks or bad-historians."
So yeah, there is no consensus among scholars except on very few points. Other sources say essentially the same thing. There is nothing hidden from the readers.Ramos1990 (talk) 03:38, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
My proposal was actually to summarise the "mainstream mentions" in the lead into a single new paragraph, not to duplicate them.
Some mythicists deny the existence of Jesus in Islam and in Jewish history, not all of them. However that is incidental to this topic, because Islam and Judaism do not regard the historical Jesus as the divine Christ.
So as we can now all see, there are editors who are determined to protect the POV that the miracles (and resurrection) were real historical events. I would have thought that belief in supernatural events was also fringe, but it seems not. If Ehrman cannot find hard evidence to refute the believers who believe in miracles, then miracles are automatically part of acceptable mainstream scholarship, and are allowed to dilute a consensus. Believing that supernatural characters were real is apparently acceptable mainstream scholarship , but believing that supernatural characters were not real is fringe. And there's the problem. Wdford (talk) 09:16, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
Mythicists don't divide their views by Christianity, Islam, Judaism. The deny Jesus existed irrespective of worldview. He never walked the earth.
Not even sure how you can think so black and white on the range of scholarly views, when the sources say shades of gray - even Ehrman. The "Hidden Religion" encyclopedia says "The more miraculous elements of Christ's story are not demonstrable through historical reconstruction and are therefore the subject of personal belief and philosophical debate." Such a debate about supernatural elements goes beyond the limited scope of history (e.g. views on God or lack thereof become the major players in that debate). You may need to rethink your POV on scholarship and come to terms that they are indeed diverse and not proto-mythicists or even anti-supernaturalists by default or even fundamentalists either. Maurice Casey does say that mythicists often mistake New Testament scholarship with Christian fundamentalism. Hope that is not the case here. Perhaps you have beef with Ehrman... Why not contact him instead? I know he makes mistakes and mythicist writers have pointed out his faults in numerous writings, but he is the one saying they are fringe, not the other way around.Ramos1990 (talk) 16:55, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Comparison

Line Present lead Proposal Comment
1 There are multiple strands of mythicism. Mythicism "goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born", and was revived in the 1970s. Agreed by all
2 One view is that there was never a historical Jesus, only a mythological character who was later historicized in the gospels. The most common mythicist view is that a historical Jesus never existed, and that a mythological character was later historicized in the gospels. Almost similar, except for "most common." Wdford objects against "most common," preferring "Proponents broadly argue," and wants to ament "never existed" with "as described in the gospels."
3 Another view is that any evidence for the historical Jesus is so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing." Some authors have argued that the sources on Jesus are so obscured by myths and dogma that "we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing". Almost similar; agreed.
4 Yet another view is that stories about Jesus may be based on someone who lived prior to the 1st century AD, whose life story was embellished with elements from myth and literature,[24][need quotation to verify] or on a Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source, who was added to Paul's mythical Jesus in the gospels.[q 3] A view closer to the mainstream position is that the historical Jesus was the Galilean preacher preserved in the Q-source, and that details about him were added to Paul's mythical Jesus. Corrected; agreed by all

I suggest that we use "Proponents broadly argue," to reach a compromise. Since "as described in the gospels" (for the mythicist view) is not used in the present lead, and there are strong objections to add that phrase, I think we shouldn't add that.. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:35, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

If the phrase "as described in the gospels" were included, then of course "most common" wouldn't belong because it would no longer be presenting a view unique to mythicism. But that isn't the purpose of the statement. It is certainly the case that the article should clearly indicate the lack of consensus in mainstream scholarship, but that isn't the purpose of this paragraph.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:47, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
So, would "broadly" also be acceptable to you, to reach an agreement? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:00, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
It's not as accurate, but no strong objection to use the phrasing with "broadly" instead.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:20, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
"Most common" is wrong because half the "main" mythicist scholars hold a different view (i.e. competent scholars, excluding the bloggers and the astral travelers etc).
Perhaps we could use "proponents" instead of "authors"?
Ehrman makes a clear distinction between scholarship and belief. The fact that invisible objects cannot be proved to not exist, does not automatically make them real. Obviously Christian clergymen have strong beliefs on this topic.
All editors here, except one, agree that belief in miracles is fringe.
Wdford (talk) 09:35, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
No problem with "proponents" rather than "authors".--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:42, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
I am ok with broadly and proponents.Ramos1990 (talk) 17:10, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Agreement

Okay, then I thrust we've got an agreement. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:17, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

I've editd the lead accirdingly diff, and added the text to Talk:Christ myth theory/definition#Present definition in Wiki-article, with a link to the discussion. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:20, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Great job on the edits for this. They look good! Thanks for taking the time.Ramos1990 (talk) 04:27, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
Yes, thanks for making the changes. I have updated the subsections under #Article balance to reflect that most of the concerns have been dealt with.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:26, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Question

Like some people here, I've been following this article for years. I haven't contributed anything to it in a very long time, and I don't plan to any time soon (life issues). However, I'm very curious about how far along the article is before it can be submitted for "good article" status. Thank you. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 15:23, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Oh my. I'd never submit it for GA-review; the topic is inherently flawed. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:34, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
I suspected someone would say that. :) Never mind. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 23:20, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Article balance

There are quite a few significant POV issues in the article body. Various statements characterised as 'mythicist' are actually wholly or largely consistent with the mainstream consensus. A significant portion of the article conflates hard-line mythicist views with other supposedly 'moderate' views, using Wikipedia's voice to distort the line between scholarly and mythicist views.

In the subsections below red text indicates statements in the article about mythicists and green text indicates the mainstream view or statements responding to mythicists.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Reliability of Paul and the gospels

Whereas the scholarly consensus is that little is known about the life of the historical Jesus except that Jesus was baptized, and that he was crucified, the article instead sets an inconsistent standard for 'mythicist' views:

  • they argue that early Christianity had syncretistic and mythological origins, as reflected in both the Pauline epistles and the gospels, with Jesus being a celestial being who was concretized in the Gospels.
  • Some moderate authors, most notably Wells, have argued that there may have been a historical Jesus, but that this historical Jesus was fused with another Jesus-tradition, namely the mythological Christ of Paul.
  • According to Wells, a minimally historical Jesus existed, whose teachings were preserved in the Q document. According to Wells, the Gospels weave together two Jesus narratives, namely this Galilean preacher of the Q document, and Paul's mythical Jesus.
  • According to Doherty, the Jesus of Paul was a divine Son of God, existing in a spiritual realm where he was crucified and resurrected. This mythological Jesus was based on exegesis of the Old Testament and mystical visions of a risen Jesus.
  • In his early work, including Did Jesus Exist? (1975), Wells argued that because the Gospels were written decades after Jesus's death by Christians who were theologically motivated but had no personal knowledge of him, a rational person should believe the gospels only if they are independently confirmed. In The Jesus Myth (1999) and later works, Wells argues that two Jesus narratives fused into one, namely Paul's mythical Jesus, and a minimally historical Jesus from a Galilean preaching tradition, whose teachings were preserved in the Q document, a hypothetical common source for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
  • According to Doherty, the nucleus of this historicised Jesus of the Gospels can be found in the Jesus-movement which wrote the Q source. Eventually, Q's Jesus and Paul's Christ were combined in the Gospel of Mark by a predominantly gentile community. In time, the gospel-narrative of this embodiment of Wisdom became interpreted as the literal history of the life of Jesus.
  • In Deconstructing Jesus, Price claims that the Jesus Christ of the New Testament is a "composite figure", out of which a broad variety of historical Jesuses can be reconstructed, any one of which may have been the real Jesus, but not all of them together. According to Price, various Jesus images flowed together at the origin of Christianity, some of them possibly based on myth, some of them possibly based on a historical "Jesus the Nazorean", and that the historical Jesus has become obscured behind the dogma. Price admits that there may have been a real Jesus figure, but it is no longer possible to be sure.
  • "The essays collected in this volume have a modest purpose. Neither establishing the historicity of a historical Jesus nor possessing an adequate warrant for dismissing it, our purpose is to clarify our engagement with critical historical and exegetical methods."

The article states clearly that mainstream scholars to varying degrees also question the reliability of Paul's writings and/or the gospels, which they say describe the Christ of faith, presenting a religious narrative which replaced the historical Jesus who did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine and that the historical Jesus was not like the Jesus preached and proclaimed today; they also recognise that in Paul's writings, Jesus is indeed presented as a 'celestial being' (though having been human); and they also recognise that the gospels were produced later with little agreement about their veracity. all material on Jesus has been handed down by the emerging Church. it is not possible "to construct (from the available data) a Jesus who will be the real Jesus". The Pauline creeds contain elements of a Christ myth and its cultus.

The article also claims that In his later writings, G.A Wells changed his mind and came to view Jesus as a minimally historical figure though Wells' view was consistently that Jesus likely existed but that most of what is in the Bible about him is not reliable. (I have struck out a previous statement about Wells from when I had not yet properly considered the various sources beyond the misrepresentations present in the article. Wells did indeed explicitly change his view, and that fact is distorted in the article by the continued misuse of his later works. However, the phrase "minimally historical" is misused, apparently to discredit Wells' later works regarding 'Christ' as a myth rather than 'Jesus' as a myth.)--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

This issue is still not resolved, with continued misuse of Wells' views from 1996 onwards presented as 'mythicist' views.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

The article has been substantially improved regarding this issue, with less reliance of Wells' later works characterised as mythicist views, and with a clearer indication of the lack of mainstream consensus indicated in the lead. (Two questionable references to Wells' later works, one with a quotation request, remain in the article.)--Jeffro77 (talk) 04:14, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Paul's references to Jesus

  • Wells, a "minimal mythicist", criticized the infrequency of the reference to Jesus in the Pauline letters and has said there is no information in them about Jesus' parents, place of birth, teachings, trial nor crucifixion.
  • Wells says that the Pauline epistles do not make reference to Jesus' sayings, or only in a vague and general sense.

But those statements are consistent with the fact that modern biblical scholarship notes that "Paul has relatively little to say on the biographical information of Jesus"--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

This issue is still not resolved, and relies entirely on unsuitable use of Wells' later works when he was no longer a mythicist. The phrase "minimal mythicist" is also inappropriate here for the same reason.--— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffro77 (talk • contribs) This issue has been resolved.--Jeffro77 (talk) 04:18, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Development of early Christianity

The possibility that early Christianity was significantly influenced by non-Jewish beliefs is characterised as 'mythicist' though it is not actually relevant to whether there was a historical Jesus. (It is actually entirely unsurprising that early Christianity would be influenced by Greek and Roman ideas, just as earlier Jewish belief was influenced by Babylonian, Persian and Greek concepts.)

  • early Christianity was widely diverse and syncretistic, sharing common philosophical and religious ideas with other religions of the time. It arose in the Greco-Roman world of the first and second century AD, synthesizing Greek Stoicism and Neoplatonism with Jewish Old Testament writings and the exegetical methods of Philo, creating the mythological figure of Jesus.
  • Doherty notes that, with the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Greek culture and language spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean world, influencing the already existing cultures there. The Roman conquest of this area added to the cultural diversity, but also to a sense of alienation and pessimism. A rich diversity of religious and philosophical ideas was available and Judaism was held in high regard by non-Jews for its monotheistic ideas and its high moral standards. Yet monotheism was also offered by Greek philosophy, especially Platonism, with its high God and the intermediary Logos. According to Doherty, "Out of this rich soil of ideas arose Christianity, a product of both Jewish and Greek philosophy", echoing Bruno Bauer, who argued that Christianity was a synthesis of Stoicism, Greek Neoplatonism, and Jewish thought.
  • Robert Price notes that Christianity started among Hellenized Jews, who mixed allegorical interpretations of Jewish traditions with Jewish Gnostic, Zoroastrian, and mystery cult elements. Some myth proponents note that some stories in the New Testament seem to try to reinforce Old Testament prophecies and repeat stories about figures like Elijah, Elisha, Moses and Joshua in order to appeal to Jewish converts. Price notes that almost all the Gospel-stories have parallels in Old Testamentical and other traditions, concluding that the Gospels are no independent sources for a historical Jesus, but "legend and myth, fiction and redaction".
  • According to Doherty, the rapid growth of early Christian communities and the great variety of ideas cannot be explained by a single missionary effort, but points to parallel developments, which arose at various places and competed for support. Paul's arguments against rival apostles also point to this diversity.
  • According to Carrier, the genuine Pauline epistles show that the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul believed in a visionary or dream Jesus, based on a pesher of Septuagint verses Zechariah 6 and 3, Daniel 9 and Isaiah 52–53. Carrier notes that there is little if any concrete information about Christ's earthly life in the Pauline epistles, even though Jesus is mentioned over three hundred times.

Yet, scholars have also argued that Paul was a "mythmaker", who gave his own divergent interpretation of the meaning of Jesus, building a bridge between the Jewish and Hellenistic world, thereby creating the faith that became Christianity. According to New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, a number of early Christianities existed in the first century CE, from which developed various Christian traditions and denominations, including proto-orthodoxy. According to theologian James D. G. Dunn, four types of early Christianity can be discerned: Jewish Christianity, Hellenistic Christianity, Apocalyptic Christianity, and early Catholicism. According to Philip Davies, the Jesus of the New Testament is indeed "composed of stock motifs (and mythic types) drawn from all over the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world".--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The presentation of this issue is not entirely neutral in the article, though it does not misrepresent Wells and the contrasts given are probably acceptable.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:28, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

False dichotomy

Various statements in the article present misleading black-and-white thinking wherein suggesting that the gospels were influenced by anything other than narratives of the historical Jesus are necessarily at odds with mainstream scholarship:

  • mythicists argue that although the Gospels seem to present a historical framework, they are not historical records, but theological writings, myth or legendary fiction resembling the Hero archetype. They impose "a fictitious historical narrative" on a "mythical cosmic savior figure", weaving together various pseudo-historical Jesus traditions, though there may have been a real historical person, of whom close to nothing can be known.
  • According to Robert Price, the Gospels "smack of fictional composition", arguing that the Gospels are a type of legendary fiction and that the story of Jesus portrayed in the Gospels fits the mythic hero archetype. The mythic hero archetype is present in many cultures who often have miraculous conceptions or virgin births heralded by wise men and marked by a star, are tempted by or fight evil forces, die on a hill, appear after death and then ascend to heaven. Some myth proponents suggest that some parts of the New Testament were meant to appeal to Gentiles as familiar allegories rather than history.
  • Wells "regard[s] this Jewish Wisdom literature as of great importance for the earliest Christian ideas about Jesus".
  • In his later contribution "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" to The Historical Jesus: Five Views (2009), Price concludes that the gospel story is a "tapestry of Scripture quotes from the Old Testament."
  • He also argued that the story of Jesus was based on the crucifixion of the Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
  • According to Thompson, "questions of understanding and interpreting biblical texts" are more relevant than "questions about the historical existence of individuals such as ... Jesus". In his view, Jesus existence is based more on theological necessity than historical evidence. He believes that most theologians accept that large parts of the Gospels are not to be taken at face value, while also treating the historicity of Jesus as not an open question. In his 2007 book The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David, Thompson argues that the Biblical accounts of both King David and Jesus of Nazareth are not historical accounts, but are mythical in nature and based on Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek and Roman literature. Those accounts are based on the Messiah mytheme, a king anointed by God to restore the Divine order at Earth.

However, it is entirely compatible with the existence of a historical Jesus for both Paul's writings and the gospels to also draw on other sources or themes. Among contemporary scholars, there is consensus that the gospels are a type of ancient biography, a genre which was concerned with providing examples for readers to emulate while preserving and promoting the subject's reputation and memory, as well as including propaganda and kerygma (preaching) in their works. Ehrman notes that the gospels are based on oral sources, which played a decisive role in attracting new converts. Christian theologians have cited the mythic hero archetype as a defense of Christian teaching while completely affirming a historical Jesus. the gospel accounts of Jesus' life may be biased and unreliable in many respects. Most of the themes, epithets, and expectations formulated in the New Testamentical literature have Jewish origins and are elaborations of these themes. The article, attempting to assert that the characterisation of Jesus was not based on 'gentile' influences, acknowledges that elements are instead derived from earlier Jewish literature: According to James Waddell, Paul's conception of Jesus as a heavenly figure was influenced by the Book of Enoch and its conception of the Messiah.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

This issue is not yet resolved, though it could be acceptable apart from the misuse of Wells' later works regarding other sources that influenced the development of Jesus as presented in the Bible.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:36, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

This issue has been sufficiently resolved.--Jeffro77 (talk) 04:22, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Weasel words

Supposedly 'mythicist' dating of Paul's writings is characterised using weasel words:

  • most mythicists argue that the Pauline epistles are older than the gospels

Rather than this being something that mythicists "argue", The mainstream view is that the seven undisputed Pauline epistles considered by scholarly consensus to be genuine epistles are generally dated to AD 50–60 and are the earliest surviving Christian texts that include information about Jesus. The First Epistle to the Corinthians contains one of the earliest Christian creeds expressing belief in the risen Jesus (53-54 CE), namely 1 Corinthians 15:3–41

'Mythicist' characterisation of the Testimonium Flavianum is also treated with weasel words though it is viewed similarly in mainstream scholarship:

  • Myth proponents argue that the Testimonium Flavianum may have been a partial interpolation or forgery by Christian apologist Eusebius in the 4th century or by others.

Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, … The general scholarly view is that while the longer passage in book 18, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, is most likely not authentic in its entirety, it originally consisted of an authentic nucleus, which was then subject to Christian interpolation or forgery.

  • Some myth proponents note that some stories in the New Testament seem to try to reinforce Old Testament prophecies and repeat stories about figures like Elijah, Elisha, Moses and Joshua in order to appeal to Jewish converts.

It is not merely the view of 'mythicists' that various elements of the gospels 'seem to' "reinforce Old Testament prophecies", it is inherently required for the genre of 'Messianic prophecy'.

There are also some instances of terms such as 'claim' where a more neutral word should be used.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Resolved, tentatively.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:43, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Double-standard for 'argument from silence'

The article employs a double-standard regarding the 'argument from silence':

  • Paul's epistles lack detailed biographical information … there is a complete absence of any detailed biographical information such as might be expected if Jesus had been a contemporary of Paul, nor do they cite any sayings from Jesus, the so-called argument from silence
  • Myth proponents claim there is significance in the lack of surviving historic records about Jesus of Nazareth from any non-Jewish author until the second century, adding that Jesus left no writings or other archaeological evidence. Using the argument from silence, they note that Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria did not mention Jesus when he wrote about the cruelty of Pontius Pilate around 40 AD.
  • The "argument of silence" is to be rejected, because "it is wrong to suppose that what is unmentioned or undetailed did not exist."

But the article says it is notable that "the mystery cults are never mentioned by Paul or by any other Christian author of the first hundred years of the Church," despite the fact that it would be contrary to their purpose to mention them even if they did draw on them. Also Van Voorst employs argument from silence, Wells cannot explain why "no pagans and Jews who opposed Christianity denied Jesus' historicity or even questioned it".--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

There probably isn't much that can be done about this, unless there are sources that rebut Ehrman's and Van Voorst's own arguments from silence.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:46, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Vagueness

  • Yet another view is that there may have been a historical Jesus who lived in a dimly remembered past, and who was merged with mythical and literary figures in the Gospels.

The phrase 'dimly remembered past' in the lead should be replaced with something more specific, such as 'before the first century'.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Resolved, at least currently.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:47, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

At a quick glance: the article gives an overview of the mythicists pov('s) and arguments; even if there are arguments that are also being used by mainstream scholarship, it still is an overview of the arguments of mythicists. Mainstream scholarship arrives at other conclusions than the mythicists. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:14, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

As has been pointed out many times already - mainstream scholarship actually shares with the mythicists the core conclusion that the Gospel Christ is a work of fiction. The only differences between mainstream scholarship and the mythicists revolve around what percentage of the gospel story is potentially historical fact. Mainstream scholarship holds that all the supernatural bits of the gospel story are not historical fact, but that most of the mundane details are probably fairly historical. The mythicists (on average) hold that most of the mundane, non-supernatural bits of the gospel story are probably also pretty doubtful. If the article would just reflect this reality, honestly and transparently, then this dissention would evaporate. However there has long been a determined effort to carefully word all these Jesus articles such as to allow the impression that mainstream scholarship supports the historicity of the Gospel stories. Wdford (talk) 12:37, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
The way the article is presented, it doesn’t simply indicate that mainstream scholarship ‘reaches different conclusions’. Some of the conclusions of mainstream scholarship are in fact the same conclusions as those of what the article describes as ‘moderate’ mythicists. I have already provided examples above of how essentially the same views and conclusions are characterised differently to make more of the mythicists’ views appear contrary to scholarship than is actually the case. (And obviously that does not include the more extreme mythicists views that no historical Jesus existed at all).—Jeffro77 (talk) 14:11, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
I agree. The question now is how to fix this? See e.g. this link to Alvar Ellegard [16]. How do we go about amending the wording to accurately reflect the true level of overlap? Wdford (talk) 15:24, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
To fix this... there is a quite obvious first step... much of the 'overlap' constitutes mainstream views that are separately presented as the views of 'mythicists' but that actually cite Wells' works from 1996 onwards, when he was explicitly not a mythicist (confirmed by Van Voorst). If such statements cannot be sourced instead to Wells' works from prior to 1996 or to other actual mythicists, they should be removed entirely.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:33, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Mythicists do not live in a vaccum. They borrow from some scholars whom they favor for their thesis that Jesus did not exist or is mythological. However it is important to note that the scholars they use or select do not use the same point to arrive at a mythicist conclusion. Mythicits will agree with mainstream scholars on basic information that is found in the texts, for instance that there is little biographical information on Jesus in Paul's writings. That is universally understood by all scholars. However, mythicists take that information and ignore the nuances of mainstream scholars which argue that none of that implies that Jesus was only conceived as a celestial being.

Mythicists do not come up with completely new scholarship. They merely distort mcuh of the schaolrship that is out there and come up with odd conclusions because of their misinterpretation and distortion. The fact that critical scholars like Bart Ehrman wrote a whole book detailing the differences between his liberal interpretation of the evidences and how mythicists misinterpret the evidence should show how mythicists deviate from mainstream scholarship.

Why not read what Ehrman observed as the basis for what the differences are? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.223.10.226 (talk) 16:48, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

  • Comment Jeffro77, personally I would agree with virtually everything you say, so I don't dispute it. At the same time, parts of it very much comes across as your interpretation various mythicists' views, and that risks venturing into original research. Again, that doesn't mean you're wrong, but if we have a source X saying Y, then we cannot insert Z instead based on our opinions. I write this as your lengthy arguments above are mainly based on how you think things stand, but rather weak on sources to support it. So please remember we are bound to report what reliable sources say. Of course that doesn't mean we should have errors in the article, and if you identify passages that go against what sources say, they should of course be modified. But once again, the article must be based on what sources say, not on how any of us interpret said sources. Jeppiz (talk) 16:55, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
The core problem with the article is kind of illustrated by the IP editor above, though unwittingly. There is some ‘poisoning the well’ of the term ‘mythicist’, and the article conflates the views of hardcore mythicists with other views that are actually consistent with mainstream views but do not phrase things as Christians might like. For example, Thomson is not a mythicists at all but instead says whether Jesus existed is separate to other analysis, and other than Ehrman’s accusation that Thomson is a ‘mythicist’ and Thomson’s response, other statements of Thomson’s views have been misused in the article. There are similar issues with Wells.
Additionally, there is the inherent POV of preferring the awfully erroneous term ‘Christ myth theory’ which isn’t a ‘theory’, and it really is the mainstream view that ‘Christ’ (not ‘Jesus’) is actually a myth. The article consistently refers (disparagingly) to the ‘Christ’ myth throughout the article though other terms exists, giving implicit preference to views that endorse Christ as ‘divine’, without sufficiently indicating that the mainstream view is that the existence of the real Jesus with what is actually known and agreed about him by scholars is actually relatively mundane.—Jeffro77 (talk) 21:45, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
Ehrman actually wrote: "The Jesus proclaimed by preachers and theologians today had no existence. That particular Jesus is (or those particular Jesus are) a myth. But there was a historical Jesus, who was very much a man of his time."[1]
This is very similar to the definition of Doherty, who described "the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction, and that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition." Ehrman differs from Doherty really only on the last clause, namely that "no single identifiable person" underlay it all.
Can we add this to the lead? If Ehrman is good enough to cite for defining the CMT, of which he is not a proponent, then surely he is good enough for definiing the mainstream view as well? Wdford (talk) 22:33, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
A summary of Ehrman’s statement should be in the lead and the full quote should be in a suitable place in the body. In general, the lead should summarise article content and isn’t the place for extended quotes.—Jeffro77 (talk) 23:55, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
Ehrman's comment on that is not the mainstream view. That is clearly his own view on that. Clearly the scholars who are Christian, which are the majority of scholars on Christian topics clearly would disagree with that. But that statement is already cited in the lead in the last sentence either way - with numerous other citations which show the diversity of understandings of Christ in mainstream scholarship. "The The Historical Jesus : Five Views" provides a wide range of views that are held on that. So technically there is no one view on that. There are multiple.
Touching on the other parts of the discussion, yes I agree with some of the comments above that we should stick to the sources per wikipedia policy. They are the guide and they are the content of the article. It seems that we are moving away into WP:FORUM and engaging with original research or even synthesis and pushing in interpretations that are not in sources. The sources clearly define Christ myth theory and they address it consistently (e.g Robert Price, Gullotta, Van Voorst, Ehrman, Casey, etc). Casey, Van Voorst, Ehrman, and others make arguments how mythicts diverge from mainstream views (which are diverse, but not to the point of mythicist level of denialism). This is why they make surveys about what mythicist arguments look like, how mythicists operate and what they are aiming to achieve. Robert Price himself, a godfather of mythicism, summarizes it pretty consistently too and provides an overview of typical myhtiicts arguments and positions in many of the sources here. None of these sources or authors argue that if a mythicist overlaps with mainstream scholarship, it is some sort of validation that they are mainstream, or close to being mainstream. The sources themselves, which is the policy on wikipedia, are what make the delineation that they are not mainstream.
The red and green quotes from the article itself above, are not stand alone sentences, they are properly cited with sources too (sometimes multiple sources). I don't see any issues if the sources make such claims. No matter if they overlap, contradict, or not to some degree, we are not here to WP:SYNTHESIS sources. It is what it is.
It would just as odd as saying that since Intelligent design does agree with evolutionary theory on numerous points, that somehow it is absorbed into evolutionary theory views and is thus mainstream with it. There are numerous agreements between holocaust deniers and holocaust historians, but they differ on major and important ones and that makes the differences between fringe and mainstream. Keep in mind that mainstream scholarship in religious matters tends to be theologically neutral as a matter of practice. So you will always get mundane, neutral, middle ground assessments of Muhammad, Buddha, and any other religious figure.Ramos1990 (talk) 00:20, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
It isn’t the case that the article must only refer to the subject as ‘Christ myth theory’, and it is the case that there is cherry picking involved in the article presentation, and that the views of so-called ‘moderate mythicists’ are misrepresented in the article. None of that falls into WP:FORUM.—Jeffro77 (talk)
"Moderate mythicist" is not a term in any source. That is wikieditor terminology at this point. If you are talking about Wells, then his views can be clarified with proper sourcing. His views did evolve and he eventually became a minimal historicist. For example, he stated "When I first addressed these problems, more than thirty years ago, it seemed to me that, because the earliest Christian references to Jesus are so vague, the gospel Jesus could be no more than a mythical expansion and elaboration of this obscure figure. But from the mid-1990s I became persuaded that many of the gospel traditions are too specific in their references to time, place, and circumstances to have developed in such a short time from no other basis, and are better understood as traceable to the activity of a Galilean preacher of the early first century, the personage represented in Q (the inferred non-Markan source, not extant, common to Matthew and Luke; cf. above, p. 2), which may be even earlier than the Paulines. This is the position I have argued in my books of 1996, 1999, and 2004, although the titles of the first two of these-The Jesus Legend and The Jesus Myth-may mislead potential readers into supposing that I still denied the historicity of the gospel Jesus." (Cutting Jesus Down to Size (2009) p.14)Ramos1990 (talk) 01:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

It is a misrepresentation of what I have said to suggest, essentially, 'well it's what the sources say so we have no choice'. The problem is one of presentation. The article presents more of a contrast between mythicist and mainstream views than is actually the case. It then says that 'mythicist views are wrong' (though I have cleaned up some of the most egregious wording), 'poisoning the well' about everything 'mythicists' say even where elements are actually a mainstream view.

Where there is overlap between mythicist and mainstream views, a more balanced presentation would present a single passage about what is agreed (rather than providing two separate pieces with the mythicist view characterised more negatively but really expressing the same views), and then state their varying conclusions. For example, the view that the "historical Jesus was fused with another Jesus-tradition, namely the mythological Christ of Paul" is actually a mainstream view.

Where there is no actual disagreement in a particular element, it should either be removed altogether or at the very least greatly condensed. For example, the supposedly 'mythicist view' that "the Testimonium Flavianum may have been a partial interpolation or forgery by Christian apologist Eusebius in the 4th century or by others" is in fact a mainstream scholarly view.

Other POV issues include the implicit characterisation of certain conclusions as uniquely or inherently 'mythicist', though they are not actually pertinent to whether a source also believes in a historical Jesus, For example, "Some mythicists, though, have questioned the early dating of the epistles". (Additionally, the use of "some" for two completely incompatible views of 'mythicists' in that paragraph is far too ambiguous, especially if there is actually one predominantly favoured view.)

The views of Wells' later works and of Thompson also should not be expressed as mythicist, except in very direct quoted statements by specified authors, and if a rebuttal exists from the 'accused' author, that should also be included (as is currently provided for Ehrman's views of Thompson and the latter's response).--Jeffro77 (talk) 03:24, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

What you keep on proposing is original research or even synthesis of sources - constantly sounds like you want to make wikieditor judgements of the quality of the arguments the sources make and make judgments of how they relate to each other. This is synthesis and original research. Are you an authority on this topic? No and me neither. Wikieditors do not determine what is common ground or what is not between these views. The sources have to make those distinctions or arguments themselves - if they even do - not us. The current format works very well because there is a place to place views by mainstream scholars (there may be more than one view) and a place to place mythicist views (there may be more than one). The contrasting does not poison the well at all. It shows the views in a raw fashion for readers to see since each has their own space on a particular issue. The whole section does show significant differences in views between both camps - especially the conclusions. Keep in mind that mythicists have been heavily criticized for +200 years and are fringe, so one would not expect sources to give charitable treatment to their views or be welcoming.
When you say "historical Jesus was fused with another Jesus-tradition, namely the mythological Christ of Paul" is the mainstream view, it is incorrect. There are multiple views ranging from the Christian views, Jewish views, Muslims views, and Secular views. See for example The Historical Jesus: Five Views presents a small sample of the different views available. There are wide range of views on this and of course most scholars do not call Paul's conception of Christ a "myth" either.
In the Josephus Testimonium stuff section shows significant differences between mythicists views and mainstream views. Bart Ehrman states "Mythicists have argued, however, that the entire passage was made up by a Christian author and inserted into the writings of Josephus." (Did Jesus Exist? p. 61). He states that the other passage on Jesus in Josephus (Antiq. 20) is also seen as a complete invention too (p.59). He cites examples like Doherty and Wells on this too. Indeed even Carrier and Price, who are cited in that section in the article believe that both Jesus references are complete fabrication and not original from Josephus and that most scholars are mistaken for not seeing that. So clarification would probably be good there - based on what the sources actually do state.
Readers can make their own interpretation of both groups and they can determine for themselves if there is a difference or not between the mythicist camp and the mainstream camps - keep in mind that mythicists differentiate themselves form the rest of the scholars so it is them making themselves stand out. It is not for us a wikieditors to say what is common and what is not common between them, if the sources do not claim so.

Ramos1990 (talk) 09:48, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

You are incorrect on various points. For example, you claim that I say ""historical Jesus was fused with another Jesus-tradition, namely the mythological Christ of Paul" is the mainstream view" whereas I correctly stated that it is a mainstream view (though it is indeed a widely agreed position), which is not the same as mainstream consensus. You also made a similar error earlier in this thread when you referred to a view of Ehrman not being the mainstream view. Your comments about other statements from Josephus where there are divergent views is also misdirection from where the common view is misrepresented. It therefore seems that you are happy with various POV issues as they currently stand. It is also not necessary or appropriate to add every 'criticism' of any particular view simply because such criticism exists. It remains the case there are considerable POV issues in this article. I have pointed out the problem, but there are not enough editors discussing the issue, and you seem to prefer the status quo for your own reasons. I will therefore wait for other editors to comment.--Jeffro77 (talk) 10:24, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
There is more criticism available than support for mythicits views - which may be why mythicists often feel there is a POV issue here (usually it s only them that feel this way, not all the rest of the editors). In reality its is the academic sources that are being very critical of mythicism. And presenting those abundant sources in this article is not POV per wikipedia policy. We are bound by sources and what they state, that is the policy. I have always said that there are numerous views in mainstream scholarship, not one, as that is well established by the sources in the article. However, you and others keep on pushing only one "christ myth" view and tend to want to weasel word the article as if mythicism is close to being mainstream by association rather than by actual sources. And also ignoring the criticisms laid out by the actual sources - whether right or wrong. There are numerous points of agreement between holocaust deniers and holocaust historians, but they differ on major and important ones and that makes the differences between fringe and mainstream.
It constantly sounds like you are trying to debate the merits of mythicism (how true it is) rather than complying with wikipedia policy on sources and avoiding original research/syntheisis. Ramos1990 (talk) 11:00, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Ah… so now you’re trying to falsely imply that I am a ‘mythicist’. You claim that you have “always said that there are numerous views in mainstream scholarship”, yet you contradicted that supposed position when you falsely claimed that I said something was “the mainstream view”. I will continue to wait for input from more honest and less biased editors.—Jeffro77 (talk) 11:34, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
No just stating the common situation that occurs here. Mythicists generally get offended more than the rest here. Your views are your own - whatever they are - and mine mine. When I say I always said there are numerous views in mainstream scholarship, that is not talking about you, it is about the field - the broad spectrum of views in scholarship that of course exist. I never isolated one view or pushed for only one view in this discussion precisely because there are multiple and even provided a source ("The The Historical Jesus : Five Views") a few times too. Apologies if there was a misunderstanding.Ramos1990 (talk) 11:57, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jeffro77: any concrete proposal? Your critique is too broad, and I have to agree with Ramos1990. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:26, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I have pointed out that there are various specific POV issues and I have offered some suggestions about how presentation could be improved (and grouping consistent views in a single paragraph as I suggested is neither ‘synthesis’ nor ‘original research’ as falsely claimed). It is also entirely disingenuous to suggest that editors can't assess whether two ideas are consistent, and if that really were the case, it would be impossible to have any paragraph in any article contain any statements that are attributed to more than one source. I will leave it for broader discussion at this point, particularly since I have been falsely accused of bias, including blatantly false claims about what I supposedly said is “the mainstream view”, along with other implications. I have already done some copy editing to improve some of the more straightforward issues with the article.Jeffro77 (talk) 12:34, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
At the least, I will wait for other editors to show good faith by providing quotes at Talk where requested in the article comments/quotation request templates, and fixing the mischaracterisation of Wells’ more recent views (specifically, mid-90s onwards) as ‘mythicist’.—Jeffro77 (talk) 12:57, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

When I have more time I will remove the more obvious examples of misuse of Wells' works from 1996 onwards. If editors believe those references to Wells' later works should not be removed, i.e. they believe that those works are still 'mythicist' despite the fact that Wells explicitly wasn't from at least 1996 onwards (such that up until Wells' death in 2017 this was also a violation of WP:BLP rules), confirmed by Van Voorst, clear justification needs to be provided. Alternatively, editors will need to provide other sources to support those points that are misusing Wells' later works. It is not sufficient to highlight points by Wells that indicate that Christianity had other influences in addition to the historical Jesus, as this is also well recognised in mainstream scholarship.--Jeffro77 (talk) 10:04, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I have removed references to Wells' later works that were falsely characterised as the views of mythicists. If anyone wishes to restore any of the points removed, you must provide an appropriate source, citing either Wells' works prior to 1996, or a different explicitly mythicist author. It is not sufficient to provide a mainstream source that happens to state a view that is common to mainstream sources and mythicists. I also saw no basis in the cited sources for describing Wells in his later works as a "minimal historicist", which seems to have been an editorialisation in Wikipedia's voice to dismiss Wells' later views. If terms such as "minimal historicist" or "minimally historical" are used, please quote the phrase and provide the specific source, especially if the term is used to describe the views of a specific person.--Jeffro77 (talk) 05:47, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone here have an actual background in ancient history? Wdford erroneously uses the word "fiction", writing that "mainstream scholarship actually shares with the mythicists the core conclusion that the Gospel Christ is a work of fiction." No, "mainstream scholarship" does not view the gospels as works of "fiction". Fiction is what Stephen King and Dan Brown write - invented characters, invented plots, written purposefully for entertainment consumption. The gospel narratives fall under a genre of writing that incorporates a mixture of historical events, mythology, theology, politics and philosophy - common in ancient narrative, and not at all fiction. Whoever wrote those gospels actually believed what they were writing.

Of course there is no overlap between mythicist arguments and what mainstream scholars believe. If I had to imagine one point of agreement, probably most secular scholars (that is, scholars not employed by conservative Christian colleges) would agree that miracles, faith healings and resurrections are all well outside the purview of historical analysis. It is probably true that people believed that Jesus had healing powers, but to establish the historical reality of those encounters as described in the gospels is virtually impossible.

But that's not what mythicists are saying. They are claiming that there was no historical Jesus at all, and that he was some sort of celestial space deity who was never believed to have had an earthly presence until centuries later. And when that becomes untenable, they resort to a totally contrived, ad hoc theory of an 'Amalgam Jesus' (that the Jesus in the gospels was a combination of multiple first century preachers and not a single individual) - for which there is no evidence. Sometimes they will agree that Jesus existed, but claim that if we had a time machine we wouldn't be able to pick this person out among all the other Jesus people back then (and thus he may as well have been an amalgam..or something like that). Actually we'd have a pretty good idea of who this person was: He was the one from Nazareth, who preached around the backwaters of Galilee; we even know who ordered his execution. New Age types like Acharya S, on the other hand, say Jesus was the latest iteration of a pagan sun god.

Actually, most of the New Testament describes pretty mundane, unextraordinary happenings rather than miracles, wonderworks and resurrections. About 90% of the gospels say stuff like "Jesus went to this town, then Jesus went here, and Jesus said this, then Jesus said that." The scholarly consensus is that these narratives speak about memories of an actual individual who actually lived and had an actual ministry on planet earth. So let's not insist there's any agreement between this consensus and "Sun God Jesus", "Space Jesus", "Amalgam Jesus", and "Time Machine Jesus" - all things mythicists have claimed, and all things mainstream scholars reject. In fact most professional scholars point and laugh at mythicists, and otherwise don't spend very much time thinking about this.Jonathan f1 (talk) 20:08, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Whether various details in the gospels are 'mundane' is not the benchmark for whether they are historical, and there is very little mainstream consensus for most of the details in the gospels. (For example, some of the 'mundane' details are allusions to Old Testament writings and are intended as 'fulfilments' of 'messianic prophecies', providing a motive for details that are otherwise 'mundane', though it is not especially impressive when the writers had access to the older writings.) The article does not state or imply that there is any mainstream agreement with the extreme views in your last paragraph. Aside from that, you do not seem to be suggesting any meaningful change to the article.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:48, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
There's consensus that he lived, that he was from Nazareth, that he was baptized, that he was an apocalyptic preacher who attracted a following, that he was executed as a political enemy, and that his followers came to believe he was the Messiah -- things that all mythicists deny, not just the extreme ones. I don't know what you mean by "most of the details", but your remarks here and elsewhere on this page suggest you don't have much experience analyzing ancient historical sources. Ancient people viewed the divine as an extension of the natural world - ancient texts abound with stories of miraculous births, resurrections, healings and miracles. That most mainstream historians assign a very low probability to supernatural stories in ancient texts (ie, regard them as ahistorical, mythology, not real etc) is no big insight. Jonathan f1 (talk) 09:50, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
It's not clear why you've decided to come back three months later to say that a few basic facts about Jesus (which make up a very small amount of the content of the gospels, which naturally contrasts with my fairly plain use of the phrase "most of the details") are generally agreed upon, and then attempt to insult me by irrelevantly questioning my understanding of the subject. The fact remains that there is indeed very little consensus even for many of the 'mundane' gospel stories about Jesus. You still don't seem to be suggesting any meaningful change to the article. Rather than just trash-talking about the supposed inadequacies of other editors, were you trying to suggest some change to article content?--Jeffro77 (talk) 10:15, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Bart Ehrman (2012), Did Jesus Exist? Page 15

Definitions

• Carrier 2014, p. 34. [NOW FORMATTED].

[T]hree minimal facts on which historicity rests:

  1. An actual man at some point named Jesus acquired followers in life who continued as an identifiable movement after his death.
  2. This is the same Jesus who was claimed by some of his followers to have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities.
  3. This is the same Jesus some of whose followers soon began worshiping as a living god (or demigod).

• Loftus, John W. (2021). "Preface". In Loftus; Price (eds.). Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist?. HYPATIA Press. ISBN 978-1-83919-158-9.

All biblicists need for someone to exist is for a literary figure to be based on a real historical person. So Jesus existed too! It doesn’t really matter if Olive Oyl, or Dr. Watson existed, or Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. These additional literary characters are not relevant to the “historically certain” fact that Popeye, Sherlock Holmes, and Santa Claus were based on historically attested figures. So likewise, it doesn’t really matter if Lazarus or Judas Iscariot or Joseph of Arimathea existed. These additional literary characters are not relevant to the “historically certain” fact that Jesus existed.

• Lataster, Raphael (2019). Questioning the historicity of Jesus : why a philosophical analysis elucidates the historical discourse. Leiden. pp. 2f. ISBN 978-9004397934.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

[We should] use the term ‘ahistoricists’ to encompass both the ardent ‘mythicists’ and the less certain ‘agnostics’.

--2db (talk) 03:13, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Viewpoint: Jesus as a "minimally historical figure" v. "biblicist's historical figure"

"minimally historical figure" and "biblicist's historical figure" are synonymous. --2db (talk) 13:25, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Viewpoints

[F]rom the mid-1990s I became persuaded that many of the gospel traditions are too specific in their references to time, place, and circumstances to have developed in such a short time from no other basis, and are better understood as traceable to the activity of a Galilean preacher of the early first century … This is the position I have argued in my books of 1996, 1999, and 2004, although the titles of the first two of these—The Jesus Legend and The Jesus Myth—may mislead potential readers into supposing that I still denied the historicity of the gospel Jesus. These titles were chosen because I regarded (and still do regard) the virgin birth, much in the Galilean ministry, the crucifixion around A.D. 30 under Pilate, and the resurrection as legendary. [Wells 2009, pp. 14–15.]

• Wells, George Albert (2009). Cutting Jesus Down to Size: What Higher Criticism Has Achieved and Where It Leaves Christianity. Open Court. ISBN 978-0-8126-9656-1.

--2db (talk) 03:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The gospels support a rounded figure and a historical Jesus certainly existed
The gospels do not support a rounded figure but a historical Jesus of some sort probably existed
The gospels do not support a Jesus figure and a position of agnosticism is held on the historicity of Jesus
Jesus is probably ahistorical
Bart Ehrman – American New Testament professor and writer
George Albert Wells – English Professor of German and writer
Raphael Lataster – Australian credentialed teacher of religious studies and writer
Richard Carrier – American credentialed historian and writer

The final viewpoint of G. A. Wells is that of the "biblicist", not the "historicist".
As is

R. Joseph Hoffmann – American theologian and writer

I no longer believe it is possible to answer the 'historicity question'. … Whether the New Testament runs from Christ to Jesus or Jesus to Christ is not a question we can answer. [Hoffmann, R. Joseph (2009). "Threnody: Rethinking the Thinking behind The Jesus Project". Archived from the original on 9 October 2009. The Bible and Interpretation]

--2db (talk) 04:34, 28 January 2022 (UTC) && 21:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Title

Can we please change the title to "Jesus myth theory"? I feel like the title of the article as it currently stands is conflating - accidentally, I am sure - any belief that Jesus was not really the Savior with fringe beliefs about who he was or was not. 2601:5C7:8300:EF70:A94F:7BB9:C3E1:4C70 (talk) 02:02, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

"Jesus myth theory" and "Christ myth theory" are not the same thing. That is because "Jesus the human" and "Jesus the incarnated supernatural deity" are not the same thing. Wdford (talk) 10:11, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
I fail to see any valid argument for changingng it, or an alternative suggested. Slatersteven (talk) 10:13, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
This was voted on recently twice and the consensus was not to change the article name again [17] and [18]. This has been voted on so may times here and it always remains do not change the article title. The theory was called Christ Myth Theory historically and still is called that today in current literature including by mythicists themselves [19]. Mythicists doubt both that Jesus was real and that Christ is also a mythical being, if anything. Mainstream scholars those who do not think Jesus was the Christ or that Christ was made up from numerous sources do not consider themselves mythicists, do not call themselves mythicists and do not agree or adhere to the CMT. Jewish scholars for example do not adhere to CMT and never call themselves as such or associate with CMT. CMT is understood differently in academia than what the editor here thinks it means.Ramos1990 (talk) 18:34, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Robert M. Price has argued that he would prefer the position to be called ‘New Testament Minimalism’, stressing, as he sees it, the continuity with an approach found in the Hebrew Bible scholarship of Thomas L. Thompson, Philip R. Davies and others. See Price, R. M., ‘Introduction: Surprised by Myth’, Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth (ed. Zindler, F. R. and Price, R. M.; Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 2013) xvii–xxxv.

What has been branded “minimalism” by its critics is actually a methodology, an approach to the evidence: primary, secondary, archaeological, biblical. Minimalism is in fact the conclusion derived from following that methodology. In short, this methodology is the study of a region or era by applying normative methods to the primary archaeological evidence and only then interpreting biblical literature in the light of that primary evidence. The alternative “maximalism”, in short, reverses this process and starts with the assumption of the historicity of the biblical narrative (post demythologization), and then interprets the archaeological evidence through that narrative.

The “minimalism”/“maximalism” viewpoints is an example of a complete reversal of the consensus over a twenty-year-plus time period. Many of the attacks made against “minimalism” then are similarly made now against "mythicism".

Per Thompson,

The proper question [of the historicity of Jesus] is rather a largely literary question than an historical one. Until we have texts, which bear evidence of his historicity, we can not do much more with that issue. We can and must, however, ask what the texts mean—as well as ask what they mean if they are not historical (a minimalist question).

The original meaning of "Christ mythicist", was someone who like David Strauss asserted that the historicity of second-god was false. But in the modern era, it has now evolved to mean someone who believes in the literal truth of the myth of second-god as set out in the epistles and gospels of the New Testament. A similar example would be "unicorn mythicist", being someone that asserts that the existence of unicorns is true.

The historicity of second-god was held to be true under pain of death for much of the earlier history of the Christian world and during much of the latter it would likely affect ones career prospects to assert that it was not true.

That the historicity of second-god is false; is now the majority opinion of most secular scholars, yet there is a quixotic passion among some to continue using the term "Christ myth theory".

Arguably the Jesus ahistoricity theory should be the antithesis of the Jesus historicity theory. But no historicity defense (peer reviewed; published in a respected academic press; etc.) enumerating the historicity theory and defense is currently available.

In current mainstream secular and non-secular (i.e. devotees of Jesus) scholarship on the question of the historicity of Jesus:

  • A historical Jesus is a possible solution.
  • A mythical Jesus (perhaps even as a "Noble Lie") is a possible solution.

But

  • A fictional Jesus is irrational and not a possible solution.

--2db (talk) 16:20, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Title and beginning content contradiction

this article is about Christ myth theory, however it begins by refuting the theory before it even tries to explain what the theory is. which is biased and poisoning the well fallacy. when people come to this article they wanna what the theory is, they don't wanna read through paragraphs after paragraphs of why its refuted before they even know what it is. in short this article does a terrible job of explaining what its about and is not neutral.

my suggestion is that the content of this article should be reordered as such

Synopsis:

short explanation of the theory(it can include the fact that its a fringe theory)-> longer explanation of the theory -> criticism and scholarly Conesus.

Rest of the articles:

it should begin with a short history of the theory but it opens with refutations and opposing views . (which is again poisoning the well) Shahabb1 (talk) 06:17, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, you have a point. Next step is trying to improve it yourself. My suggestion is to start simple and don't try to change the world in one edit. Why not focus on improving the English - this is an encyclopedia, not a text chat. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:37, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
No, in fact, Shahabb1 does not have a point. The very first paragraph explains what the theory is:
The Christ myth theory, also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, or the Jesus ahistoricity theory, is the view that "the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology", possessing no "substantial claims to historical fact". Alternatively, in terms given by Bart Ehrman paraphrasing Earl Doherty, "the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."
It explains the theory right out of the gate, even going so far as to quote a preeminent scholar on the subject as they describe it.
The next paragraph gives the consensus of modern scholarship. The next gives an overview of the history of the theory. The next presents the arguments for the theory. The final paragraph then outlines the level of support the theory has and gives a truly short and vague summary of the arguments against it.
There is more text devoted to presenting the arguments for the theory than against the theory (77 words) than to refuting it (14 words). That's five and half times more words devoted to arguments for the theory than against it.
To say that the article attempts to refute it before it's explained is blatantly and obviously false. To suggest that the lead is biased against the subject is ridiculous in the extreme. If anything, given the scholarly weight the theory has, the lead section of this article goes too far in the other direction. Happy (Slap me) 13:11, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
The first sentence of the lead should not quote one person, authoritative or not: that is not the purpose of the lead paragraph, which is to supply an overview of detail in the body. That alone illustrates why a tidy up of the layout would be useful. The concept is not so closely linked to just one person. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:14, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
The first sentence of the lead should not quote one person, authoritative or not I disagree, and there is no policy that supports this argument, in any event. Happy (Slap me) 21:36, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Alternative viable hypothesis

Whittaker in 1904 proposed that the religion arose around AD70 as an unintended consequence of the Roman Jewish War. Why is this thesis not discussed in this article? 1.127.106.8 (talk) 19:49, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Why is the burden to disprove?

Why is this article only about attempts to depict Jesus of the Christian Bible as impossible to identify with an actual person? It is perfectly legitimate and must be common simply to be unimpressed and uncompelled by any of the testimony that has been offered to suggest that Jesus was a real person. The whole framing of this question of Jesus’s historicity here on Wikipedia seems to deny this and to discourage people who would hold and like to feel at liberty to share such a view. - OB — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.39.231 (talk) 05:59, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Because that's the topic of the CMT. And this article, and related ones, clearly state that "the mainstream scholarly consensus holds that Jesus was a historical figure who lived in 1st-century Roman Palestine." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:38, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
This is an appeal to authority (or courtier's reply). The mainstream scholarly consensus doesn't change the fact that the burden of proof relies on people making unfalsifiable claims (Russell's teapot). 177.241.38.182 (talk) 23:52, 2 February 2023 (UTC)


That’s the procedural reason, but it appears to me the procedure has led to an inequitable and unfortunate result.
Maybe a fix could involve adding a “skeptical perspective” section to the historicity article. That a scholar describes themself as agnostic or atheistic does not imply their scholarship approached the historicity/realness question skeptically. They likely approached it as a gig of a kind they love and have the skills to do. Hundreds of millions of people care hugely about the question, so people with an interest and talent for ancient history and writings in esoteric languages will see publishing such an investigation as worthwhile for themselves. For billions of others though, such ancient sources and such historical knowledge as exist don’t call for even a fraction of that much thought and effort as the scholars found to be worth their while. Maybe it’s interesting to some of us to read their reports, but nowhere near a basis to believe the Jesus of the New Testament corresponds to someone real. - OB

Moses? What about Moses and Exodus

Seems like it would go hand in hand with this topic of religious ahistoricity as well. 67.8.169.171 (talk) 22:17, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi IP, while I completely agree with you, this is a very focused article. There are articles written at a broader level of abstraction that might be more what you're looking for, such as Historicity of the Bible. That said, if you would like to propose some text or the like, you are obviously welcome to do so. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:40, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Lataster's academic book (with a foreword by James Crossley)

The Brill 2019 book "Questioning the Historicity of Jesus" is only indirectly mentioned in the text, and in particular it is missing in the paragraph on Raphael Lataster, as well as in Printed sources. It would be nice if somebody can improve this situation. (I apologize for not trying to struggle with this myself.) 185.250.14.249 (talk) 12:52, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

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