Talk:Christ myth theory/Archive 21

This article was nominated for deletion on 30 July 2006. The result of the discussion was Keep.

Archives
Archive 1: To March 26, 2006, Archive 2: To April 30, 2006. Archive 3: Material removed by SOPHIA & Wesley (April 29, 2006), and comments. Archive 4: To May 31, 2006. Archive 5: Material removed by AJA, May 1, 2006, and comments. Archive 6: Lots of material Archive 7: Jan-May 2007, conversations leading up to the split

scope!

please! who keeps sneaking the historicity discussion back in? The topic of this article is mythography, not quibbles about historicity. We have a full article, historicity of Jesus, dedicated to the question. The topic of this article is comparative mythography, which I dare say is complicated enough. Why is it so difficult to recognize that these are two completely separate issues? Serious study of "Jesus as a myth" (other than fringy conspiracy theories) will grant with a shrug that there was historically a wandering rabbi Yeshua (4 BC - AD 34 or so) who got himself crucified by the Romans and initiated an eccentric eschatological cult among his followers. It will simply argue that this is nowhere as interesting as the mythological cargo that accreted to the movement over the following millennium. What this article should study is these (1st to 20th century) accretions, not silly bickering about historicity and authorship of the gospel, we really have historicity of Jesus for that. dab (𒁳) 11:42, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this approach is that it there really are two possibilities:

1. A person got mythological "cargo" attached to them
2. A belief developed that at some point in the past a mythological being had actually acted in history

This article started as a discussion of those scholars who consider Jesus a purely mythological being. That's why for example I linked the mythicist page here comfortably. You are redefining the purpose of the page. Perhaps a "comparative mythography" which has a Golden Bough type slant makes sense.

Say for example that we were trying to write an article about the comparative mythography of Mickey Mouse as contrasted with Bugs Bunny yet millions believed that Mickey Mouse was a real historical personage in a way entirely different than Bugs Bunny. We'd have to address those points. jbolden1517^Talk 14:21, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

yes, I realize this is a problem. Hence the "split" suggestion. "Jesus as myth" is ambiguous. It might mean, in the popular meaning of "myth", "Jesus is 'only' a myth", or, in the mythologist or academic meaning of "myth" it might mean, "let's look at the mythemes surrounding Jesus". I feel strongly that the latter deserves a detailed discussion, and I also feel that this discussion is more interesting. The "Jesus-myth" popular literature is basically a product of a hazy understanding of the nature of myth. It exists, it should be covered, but it should not interfere with a serious coverage of "Jesus mythography".

Mickey Mouse is not a good simile, since any claim of a historical Mickey Mouse would be ridiculous. Consider, rather, King Arthur. There can be very little doubt that King Arthur is ultimately based on one or several Dark Age British warlords. And yet what makes King Arthur King Arthur is the accretion of High Medieval legend; if you go back to the historical nucleus, you'll just have a 5th century warlord like any other. And yet it would be completely mistaken to argue that "King Arthur is a myth, hence he cannot be historical", because a myth is something that grows out of history. Yet, it is conceivable that some people hold a quasi-religious belief that Arthur was indeed the "once and future king" that drove the Saxons from this green and pleasant land in the 460s. It is simliar with Jesus. Most secular historians will conclude that if you go back to the historical Jesus, you'll have a wandering rabbi like so many others who got caught up in the "Iudea resistance movement", and it was only the somewhat crazy propaganda of the 1st and 2nd century that merged him with Neoplatonic mysticism and ultimately turned him into "Jesus Christ" as we know him. Add midrash and various folk traditions and you get the classic "dead-and-risen god" myth we are looking at now. But this is completely different from saying "he is purely mythical".

So, how shall we proceed? I do agree that there may well be a separate article called Jesus-myth or Jesus-Myth theory or similar that argues the non-historicity of Jesus based on the exposition of mythemes treated in an article Jesus Christ as myth or mythological aspects of Jesus Christ. My point is that it is only one of several possible conclusions based on the mythographical approach, and exposition of the mythological parallels shold not be unduly conflated with claims of non-historicity. Incidentially, I propose a move of this page to Jesus Christ as myth, because the "Christ" part is essential to the myth. You could even say that "Jesus" stands for the historical bits, and "Christ" for the mythical bits, and that "Jesus Christ" can only be fully understood by studying both. "Jesus-myth" otoh, I agree, is flavoured with the fringy "he's only a myth" proponents. dab (𒁳) 09:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I certainly agree the first view deserves discussion. It absolutely is the way the mainstream phrases things. I also happen to think there is a lot to say on that issue of myth accretion. If you agree with this decomposition I can rewrite the introduction to present the article in this framework (perhaps eventually splitting pieces off, since I agree that's likely). BTW I understand completely the secular myth accretion view (EP Sandars, Myers, Jesus Seminar... ) which is all essentially Bultmann, I acknowledge that Bultmann's demythologizing program worked and in 2006 people still do speak of the real historical Mickey Mouse (Jesus) behind the legend.

BTW Mickey Mouse was quite deliberate. I have no problem believing that there was a real King Arthur that the legends are based on and the article you want to write would far better fit Arthur. What I think is completely lacking from the mainstream view is any explanation of the documentary record we actually have. The first century record is not describing a rabbi it is describing a supernatural being, merged with the very word of god, that preexisted the universe and engaged in activities which transformed the very nature of reality. The second century record has a person running around performing petty miracles and teaching a semi-Jewish version of cynical philosophy. The second century guy may very well have been based on some collection of actual people (I personally think Q2 is all the teachings of John the Baptist and I do believe he is real). But so what? Those guys were never worshipped at all, and as far as I can tell had no meaningful influence at any point in history. There was a SteamBoat Bill Jr that Steamboat Willie was based on. But I don't speak of the "the real historical Mickey Mouse". SteamBoat Bill Jr. was a minor historical character who Buster Keyton liked enough that 1920's audiences were familiar with him so Walt Disney could ..... He isn't spoken of as the real Mickey Mouse.

So no I don't want to go for Sander's Jesus of history vs. Christ of legend because it assumes the 2nd POV. IMHO I think the issue of one of phrasing much more than one of disagreeing on the facts and what is needed is

1. An agreement that what is being disagreed with is terminology
2. A way of writing about it that doesn't sound like an essay.

jbolden1517^Talk 10:30, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

• alright -- I have attempted the split now. For better or worse Jesus-myth is now the article where we discuss the hypothesis that Jesus is a fiction or forgery of Gnostic mythology. Jesus Christ as myth discusses comparative mythology. We can argue about titling, but I really believe these are topics that require separate articles, each featuring a summary section of the other.
• your 2nd century "petty miracle worker" is indeed a good summary of the (early) accretion process and certainly does have a place here.
• your reference to the 1st century account of "a supernatural being, merged with the very word of god" may need to be unravelled between John (not-quite 1st century) and the synopticists, but it is certainly the core doctrine of the sect after Pentecoste. But it certainly also includes a lot of petty miracles, what with Luke's nativity, cursing of a fig tree or turning water into wine. Historical Jesus needs to return to a contemporary understanding of this mythology, unclouded by later Christian dogma. Lapide argues that what you get is very much a rabbi, your typical Hasidean "holy man", perfectly dedicated to orthodox Jewish law; his 'cult' not very different from contemporary, very much alive figures like Vissarion or Sathya Sai Baba: you can see in these cases that a whole mythology can spring up around a charismatic leader before he is even dead. The leader is "real" (historical), but the mythology (as mythology) is just as real. And just because a few dozen million people(!) believe from first hand experience(!) that Sathya Sai Baba can work miracles doesn't make it a fact to put in history books. dab (𒁳) 11:58, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

OK I'm agreeing with the idea and the style of the split. I think that makes sense. It also allows both articles to be more naturally written because they can take an "in universe" view. So the myth article can assume there was a real person accumulating myths not a fictional person accumulating an incarnation (and just mention the other view) Conversely the mythic article can discuss the various people's positions without all the disclaimers. So (assuming everyone else agrees) good so far. Now the next issue I have is regarding who gets what. My feeling is this article started as a discussion of Doherty Wells... it has 3 years of history on that topic. For example here is the article at the end of 2005. You can see where the focus is. All other things being equal I don't think its a good idea to break continuity. I'd go for a flip of sorts from your division. The Sanders stuff goes in "historical Jesus" the mythical accretion stuff goes in a new article and this article remains focused on discussion of the belief that Jesus is fictional. Alternately we do a page move (to preserve history) of this existing page to something like "Jesus Christ (modern Docetism. I'd like broad input on this one from anybody watching this page. I think we need a consensus before we act this abruptly. Finally on the point of which view is actually correct I'm going to fork that off jbolden1517^Talk 13:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC) jbolden1517^Talk 13:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure I follow you now. If I understand correclty, you are mainly talking about edit history now, i.e. which of the two articles gets to keep the longer edit history. This is a problem at every split. I agree you could argue I should have done the move to Jesus Christ as myth by copy-paste, and the move to Jesus-myth hypothesis by move button, not vice versa. I admit I didn't ponder much about this, since infallibly one article will get a truncated history. As long as we can agree on the page content, I don't think the question of where to keep the deeper edit history matters very much. Also, I do not consider this a pov fork. We do not have one page that assumes a historical Jesus, and one that doesn't. This page considers mythological parallels, and is agnostic about (not interested in) the question of historicity. The Jesus-myth hypothesis is all about historicity, and should refer to this page for a detailed discussion of comparative mythology. dab (𒁳) 07:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

If that's the case I'm going to move history to the other one. Agreed? jbolden1517^Talk 09:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

if you like. I take it you want to move things around so that the current titling remains unchanged, but the 2005 history will be that of Jesus-myth hypothesis? I've no problem with that. dab (𒁳) 11:26, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

In THREE DAYS, without consensus from any number of editors, someone takes it upon themselves to screw up these articles? Who gave you permission? Did you maybe think to look back in the edits to see if a couple of us are around to discuss this travesty???? I cannot believe this BS. Orangemarlin 06:21, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I've stated my concerns back in February [1], and the article remained plastered with merge and cleanup tags since then. I've cleaned it up. Glad to be of service. No content was lost (except some unsourced claims, I think), but we have untangled the discussion of mythology, and that of "forgery". The article kept falling prey to the naive idea that "myth" means "unhistorical". It kept implying that "mythical Jesus" is a position somehow opposed to Christianity, a patently false claim, as is well referenced in Jesus Christ as myth now, there are notable positions within Christianity that embrace the Christ narrative as myth. You are now free to make whatever point you like regarding "fake Jesus" theories without descending into comparative mythology, or you can make any point you like regarding comparative mythology without constant conflation with "fake Jesus" conspiracy theories. Two topics, two articles. dab (𒁳) 07:24, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Post move discussion

Surely the input from grown-ups with full time jobs is valued at Wikipedia? In which case why has such a drastic change been made in such a short space of time? Will the people who did this please undo the mess, read the Christian Mythology page and explain why they have not expanded that article rather than mess with this one. I agree this article needs work but everytime we start we get all the bagage from the "It's all true and you're morons" brigade and we spend weeks going round in circles (I do AGF but see the archives for the number of times we have been called loonies for not accepting the bible version as completely plausible). This is not concensus - it's railroading. Sophia 13:17, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sophia, good to see you back here. OK lets get started. If you read from the above the article had a deep structural flaw. It is very difficult and confusing to present Jesus mythical material simultaneously from the 2 POVs:

• A person got mythological "cargo" attached to them
• A belief developed that at some point in the past a mythological being had actually acted in history

No one (AFAIK) here is arguing for the biblical view or religious view at all. However it is possible to discuss mythological aspects of Jesus without addressing historicity at all. Thus we have 2 pages:

1. focuses on mainstream mythological aspects. That is stay within mainstream scholarship (Golden Bough type stuff)
2. focus on the Doherty / Wells camp. This may also begin to develop in a neoplatonic / gnostic direction

As for Christian Mythology that article by and large address mythology that developed within a Christian context (like Dante) it doesn't address the topic of either article that occurred within a Roman pre Christian context. Anyway you all had stopped discussing anything during the month of May. If you want to come back I'd love input. I want to write an article with real depth on Doherty, Wells, Docetism etc... Finally cut the "grown up" crap. I'm likely older than you. jbolden1517^Talk 13:40, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Jesus Christ as myth is a subsection of Christian Mythology - read the intro of that page. The problem with this split is that this subject is not that clean and easy to divide - most theories are an amalgamation of of threads. Some dispute the total historicity and others say it is irrelevant as it's impossible to prove Jesus didn't exist. Anyway I don't have time for this as I have a major project to complete. I think this split is a POV based mistake (unintentionally I'm sure but the net result is the same) which I do not agree with but do not have time to argue. Sophia 14:01, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

"Jesus Christ as myth is a subsection of Christian Mythology - read the intro of that page." No it isn't, nor - from a quick glance - has it been for months. Don't you think you should check before making such assertions? I'm agnostic about the move, but it's not POV in any meaningful sense. Paul B 14:09, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

"Christian mythology can also be taken to refer to the entire mythos surrounding the Christian religion, including interpretations of the various narratives of both the Old and New Testaments." - taken from the Christian Mythology article intro. Since the only details we have of Jesus' life come from the early Chrsitan writings, the writings of Paul and the New Testament, and some of the proposed mythological aspects are identified as OT prophecy fulfilments I struggle to see how this should be separate article. I did check. Sophia 14:17, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no such subsection as you wrongly claimed there was. The passage you quote makes no reference at all to Jesus, but is nothing more than a vague generality about the Bible as a whole, so I'm not sure what you are trying to suggest. You may as well claim that there should be no separate articles debating the mythological aspects of the Book of Esther, Tobit or Book of Daniel. Paul B 14:38, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

We are talking at cross purposes as my post was not particularly clear (although a GF reading of it may have helped). I am arguing that it should be a subsection as it deals with the mythology of a man regarded as Christ. Also the names of the articles themselves are POV - why does this one have "hypothesis" tacked on it and the other doesn't? Why do we need to create an article to avoid having to discuss the historicity aspects of Jesus when these are often discussed within the mythological theories.? To split them between "does think he existed" and "doesn't think he existed" is going to be difficult and arbitrary and I can see no advantage of doing it. It also smacks of OR as I have always seen these theories treated as a whole. Sophia 15:01, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I have always seen these theories treated as a whole That's actually the first real objection of substance so I'll address it. So my question is by whom?

Mainstream scholarship (life of Jesus) asserts that Jesus was some combination of: preacher, teacher, guru, anti roman activist, Pharisee, Essene ... running around the 1st century who very quickly had stronger and stronger claims of divinity made about him. The Jesus myth people like Wells, to Doherty to Acharya S argue that nothing particularly interesting actually happened in 1st century palestine, that the claims of divinity predate any person. That is not a minor difference, and for this reason their works are treated as simply outside the mainstream and their scholarship is by and large rejected. People who do work on gnosticism and neoplatonism (like Pagels) dance around the issue of the incarnation not really taking a position. So who is treating their works as a unified whole? jbolden1517^Talk 15:32, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

what does it even mean to say that "the claims of divinity predate any person"? Of course they do, they're in Isaiah etc. The historical guru-activist filled the Messiah's boots, but the boots were there way before him. I mean, even a Biblical literalist would agree to that, that's the whole point of fulfilling a prophecy. The Jesus myth people need to claim that there never even was such a guru-activist: even the guru-activist part is made up. That's difficult to believe, since we happen to know of a whole bunch of similar guru-activists, and if they had decided they needed one at some point in AD 50, there is no reason why they should not have picked one of those rather than rolling their own fictitious one. I fail to see how the splitting off of Jesus Christ as myth can be construed as "POV". All it does is isolate material pertinent to both this article and Christian mythology in its own sub-article. Where is the "mess"? We have cleaned up a long-standing, and long-tagged, conflation of issues. You have now your own dedicated article for treating theories that argue "there is myth in the narrative, hence it cannot be historical". That there is myth in the gospel is completely undisputed, and I see no reason to conflate discussion of undisputed fact with an idiosyncratic interpretation of the facts. Even Justin Martyr in the 2nd century could see the myth of Dionysus and Christ are practically identical, for chrissake. But, not wholly unexpectedly, that fact did not inspire him to formulate a "Jesus myth" theory. dab (𒁳) 16:12, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Its not helpful to respond to several people making opposite points at the same time. Anyway the issue of myth is a very simple question. When Paul is talking about dead to adam and reborn in Jesus Christ is he thinking of someone who still has smelly shoes lieing in Mary's closet, along with some of his carpenter tools? Does Peter actually remember the time Jesus cut his hand on a fishing net? Did Jesus and Matthew have conversations about the right way to deduct all those loaves of bread and fishes his annual tax form? That's what the mainstream position is essentially arguing. jbolden1517^Talk 16:38, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

that's right. we have three positions, (a) "true myth", (b) historical nucleus plus myth accretion, and (c) complete forgery or daydream. If you like, (a) is the "pious fringe" and (c) the "sceptical fringe" (the Jesus-mythers) of a sliding scale of (b), and mainstream opinion is somewhere in mid-(b). We can certainly have an article about (c) in particular, but it will not do to pretend that (c) is in fact the same as the premise to all of (a), (b) and (c). dab (𒁳) 16:42, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

(edit clash) Pagels dances around the edges because a definitive "did or didn't exist" is not relevant or possible to prove. So where would Pagels fit in your scheme? John Allegro was also somewhat ambivalent as to the existence of "Jesus" (as opposed to a teacher of righteousness) living at that time, as again, you cannot prove a negative so where will he go?. Where will Thompson sit? As to nothing interesting happening then, Allegro in particular points to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem as a powerful driver for a much need Messiah. The common thread is that some or all aspects of Jesus as recounted in the Christian writings are mythological. "Some" is accepted as mainstream and "all" is considered the lunatic fringe. The acceptance of the ones in between depends on who is offended by them. Some links [2][3][4] that do lump them together but I haven't got time for any more at the moment - sorry.

Also at the moment we have an article that opens with an OR analogy which is scary if that is the standard to which this article will be reworked. I have argued for a long time that the obsession with the black and white stance on the historical Jesus is a Christian POV as it is an easy point to dispute - you cannot prove Jesus did not exist - hence the ambivalence of pagels/allegro/thompson etc. Not quite sure what you are driving at with the "now you have your own dedicated article" - smacks of "go off and play somewhere else". Sophia 16:53, 26 May 2007 (UTC)