Talk:Christ myth theory

To Do List: Source Verification and Revisions

Use this section to report false, misquoted, and misrepresented citations, and to explain subsequent revisions.

Who does these bloody ratings?

How in the world has this dreadfully written page about a non-topic received a "B-class" rating? The Enoch Powell entry, one of the best-written and most thoroughly researched on Wikipedia, has been given a "C." As always, clear to any clear-headed person that almost everything on Wikipedia is decided by a small group of obsessed persons who are not in any conventional sense well-educated.Stealstrash (talk) 07:57, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Ratings are given whenever an assessment is made. They are not re-rated unless someone takes the trouble to look at them again. Often there are years between ratings. Many articles that have not been stubs for years are still rated as such. Maybe the Powell article deserved that rating when it was given. If you think there are problems with this system I'd agree with you, but putting a note here wont help. You should raise it at relevant policy pages. If this is just an excuse to make a dig at this article, it's a pointless way to do so. It is certainly noty a non-topic. If you think it is poorly written why don't you point to specific problems? As it is, your contribution is something nothing. Paul B (talk) 13:41, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Enoch Powell is rated B class by most of the WikiProjects it belongs to. It's only WikiProject UK Politics that rates it C. They also rate it top importance for their project, which is barmy. (Top importance should be reserved for a handful of articles like Politics of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Scottish Parliament). So you should have a word with them and ask them to re-rate it.Itsmejudith (talk) 15:29, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

"Scottish Parliament": (guffaws).Stealstrash (talk) 23:38, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I would rate this article around B- and C+. "B" qualifies as "Readers are not left wanting, although the content may not be complete enough to satisfy a serious student or researcher." C is listed as "The article is substantial, but is still missing important content...". The article has substantial organizational issues and is missing important elements of the discussion. However, I disagree with Stealstrash that this is a "non-topic". The flurry around Bart Ehrman's April 2012 book on the subject shows that is is a live subject!! Also the Enoch Powell article received it's C rating 3 years ago in 2009 (unfortunately the declaraion on the Talk page does not give an exact date right off). The article may have significantly improved since then, not to mention this one may have deteriorated since being given its B rating (which I have not checked the date of). Declarations of ratings certainly need to carry a time-stamp!!!--WickerGuy (talk) 00:40, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the topic certainly meets WP:NOTE. Regarding "Readers are not left wanting", does that include that what the reader obtained was correct? This article is overflowing with errors - just loaded with them. History2007 (talk) 20:25, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Just a note that since my comment above, the errors mentioned have been corrected in the first few sections of the article, excluding the history section. History2007 (talk) 15:07, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

"Modern scholarship" or "Christian theologians"

I changed "Modern scholarship has generally dismissed these analogies as without formal basis, and a form of parallelomania laden with historical errors." to "Christian theologians dismiss these analogies as without formal basis, and claim they are a form of parallelomania laden with historical errors."

Someone reverted this change. However, all of the references that are provided for this statement are from works by Christian theologians. "Modern scholarship" is a broad term that could be misinterpreted to represent a much larger cohort of academia than is justified by the sources.

Let's make this article NPOV by providing a more specific descriptor for these sources that more accurately represents their credentials. Why would we want to obfuscate this information? It is not a slander to call someone a "Christian theologian" and it should not impugn their credibility. PeaceLoveHarmony (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Paula Fredriksen is not a Christian. History2007 (talk) 20:26, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

It's not slander, but it is none-too-subtle POV, since the edit implies that theologians think this because of their Christian belief, dissociating them from "objective" scholars. So, it is not creating NPOV, but rather POV. Criticism of mythicist parallels to Osiris, Horus, Baldur and indeed the whole concept of "dying and rising" gods can be found pervasively in modern literature - including in general encyclopedias of religion. I guess the sentence might be criticised for being a little too sweeping, since it is widely accepted that pre-Christian Greek ideas influenced the development of Christology. Paul B (talk) 20:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree on the first part completely and on the second part (Christlogy) to some extent. I would point out that as a branch of theology, Christlogy was developed too late to impact the mythical Christ issues as such. History2007 (talk) 21:10, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The sentence as such is not about mythicism (though obviously the article is). The sentence is about alleged parallels between the Christian concept of Jesus and other divinities. My point was that existing ideas about the nature of the divine in the human can be linked to early Christology. Paul B (talk) 11:33, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, existing concepts do have roots in Christological development. On that point we also agree. History2007 (talk) 13:38, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with History2007. I simply can't believe how often someone wants to make the edit PLH is suggesting. I've been watching this page for a few years and there has been at least 4-5 attempts. Very frustrating. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:00, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

How does one spell frustrating? W-i-k-i-.... ? But that is how it goes... History2007 (talk) 22:10, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

One problem (out of the many) with PeaceLoveHarmony's post is that "Christian Theologians" are scholars. Theology is an academic discipline, and has been for hundreds of years. Of course, another problem is that not everyone who studies early Christianity is a theologian—in the US, most scholars writing about early Christianity in a college or university will be in departments of Religion/Religious Studies, not Theology. Never mind that the name of the department in which one teaches and researches is not necessarily reflective of one's approach to the subject, nor that one can be in a theology department studying Christianity without professing belief in Christianity...

To put it another way, PCL's argument seems to be that "these sources are all Christians, so they're biased, so Wikipedia has to raise a red flag to the reader." That's pretty silly, isn't it? --Akhilleus (talk) 04:37, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree. There shades of Wikipedia:I just don't like it there, of course. History2007 (talk) 12:21, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Beeing a "Christian theologian" gives you hardly more credit in the field of history science than anybody else, therefor it should be made clear that this "majority of scolars" include many religious people (christians), who's main concern obviously is to defend their religious faith rather than finding the true historical facts. Which of course exclude them from being an objective source in this case. I am of the opinion that claiming the title "scolar" you must have a some academic backgound in the subject matter i.e. in the science of researching historical facts. DaNorse (talk) 06:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Leading New Testament scholars these days include agnostics like Bart Ehrman, Jews such as Paula Fredriksen (there are many others), and liberal Christians who reject the classical understanding of Jesus such as Marcus Borg. Also, please learn to spell. It's "scHolar" and "backgRound".--WickerGuy (talk) 07:10, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Srroy, but I dindnt konw that tihs was a dsicusssion abuot splling... Good point! :-/ DaNorse (talk) 12:18, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and of course Geza Vermes, etc.... History2007 (talk) 10:37, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Those are just 4 persons, and I get a feeling they constitute some kind of exceptions. At least Bart Ehrman has a special background in this matter. I still contend that most of the so-called "majority" consist of believers, whose main concern are to defend their faith, and should be disqualified in an encyclopedic article about historicals facts, alternatively they should be flagged for what their true colors are. DaNorse (talk) 12:18, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe all of them have "special" backgrounds. I can't find the reference right now, but I believe it was Jacob Neusner who has stated that virtually all scholars of Christian origins have intense current or former personal commitments to either Judaism or Christianity, or words to that effect. Bart Ehrman is a former fundamentalist, and not just a fundamentalist, a fundamentalist apologist. In addition, his life's work would be without value if it turned out there hadn't been a historical Jesus. Such self-selection by scholars clearly carries a potential for bias, and that has been acknowledged by scholars both inside and outside biblical scholarship, as mentioned in the article. Nevertheless they are still scholars, and the article can refer to them as such.

As for academic credibility of theology specifically, it has none whatever, but you have to be careful to distinguish between theology and religious studies, even though there are clear organisational and historical links between the two and there's always the risk of bias. Do note that even where the overlap is apparent, it doesn't by itself disqualify the source in question.

As far as I'm concerned, the present article strikes a good balance. It fairly refers to scholars who have studied the matter (almost, but not totally exclusively biblical scholars) as scholars, but it also mentions the criticism of their historical professionalism as well as the risk of bias, with mention of opinions both inside and outside biblical scholarship. On some other pages there appears to have been a deliberate campaign to withhold from the reader the fact that the scholars have almost exclusively been biblical scholars, most of them with strong current or former personal commitments to a religion. That is wrong, but I don't see that here.

In short, I believe you make some good points, but it seems to me that the present article already deals with them in a fair and balanced manner. Your proposed changes seem to me to increase bias, not to decrease it. Martijn Meijering (talk) 18:30, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Look, from what I have seen, most people who argue your point have not really done much research on the topic and do not know which scholars support or deny things. You may have, and if so, please provide a list of 7 scholars (I mean real scholars who teach at real academic institutions with real campuses, not self published accountants/attorneys, etc.) who argue that Jesus did not exist. I think in doing so, you will either succeed, provide a list and reduce my level of ignorance, or as you search and search will learn enough about the subject to understand that you will not find such a list. To make it easier, I will provide an analysis of the typical lists that floats on the internet in a subsection below. And please note that if the door to self-published authors is opened, then the flood gates will open with people like Kermit Zarley who have taken a swing at the issues (pun intended) but are no scholars. So those types of golfer/attorney/film-maker/etc. can not be relied upon. There are really less than a handful of scholars who argue non-existence. But if you do have 7 scholars who argue that, please provide a list just for my education. Thank you in advance. History2007 (talk) 13:49, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Analysis of the suggested list of books about the existence of Jesus

This is a list of books typically presented on the internet as the supporters of Christ myth theory. So we can see how many "academics and scholars" there are here:

• Harold Leidner, 2000, The Fabrication of the Christ Myth. Leidner was a patent attorney (NY University Law school 1939) and amateur scholar. He was an attorney, not a scholar and wrote as an amateur outside the field of law.

• Robert M. Price: Deconstructing Jesus. 2003. Price is a biblical scholar, has training in the field and denies the existence of Jesus. However, he acknowledges (The Historical Jesus: Five Views ISBN 028106329X page 61) that hardly any scholars agree with his perspective on this issue.

• Hal Childs, 2000, The Myth of the Historical Jesus and the Evolution of Consciousness Childs is a psychoterapist (not a scholar in the field) but does not deny the existence of Jesus. His perspective is shared by a number of scholars who support the existence of Jesus, e.g. John Dominic Crossan who also said: "those who write biographies of Jesus often do autobiography, but think they are doing biography". Child's perspective is unrelated to the existence question.

• Dennis MacDonald, 2000, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. MacDonald is a scholar, but does not deny the existence of Jesus as a person, he just argues that the Gospel of Mark was influenced by Homeric elements. He also thinks the Book of Acts includes Homeric trends, but that is unrelated to the existence question.

• Burton L. Mack The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy. Social formation of myth making. Mack is a scholar who specifically supports the theory that Jesus existed as a traveling sage. Mack was a member of the Jesus seminar, believes that Jesus existed, but holds that his death was accidental and not due to his challenge to Jewish authority.

• Luigi Cascioli, 2001, The Fable of Christ. Indicting the Papacy for profiteering from a fraud! Cascioli was a "land surveyor" who worked for the Italian army. His book was self-published. His claim to fame was that in 2002 he sued the Church for inventing Jesus, but in 2005 his case was rejected. He was no scholar.

• Israel Finkelstein, Neil Silberman, 2002, The Bible Unearthed Finkelstein and a Silberman are archaeologists, but they do not deny the existence of Jesus. Their work is centered on archaeological themes and mostly addresses the Old Testament. Hardly anyone lists these two people as Jesus myth theorists.

• Frank Zindler, 2003, The Jesus the Jews Never Knew. Zindler (who seems to have been a biologist at some point) does not seem to have had any scholarly training or taught at any university on this topic. What he writes on the topic is all self-taught, not scholarly.

• Daniel Unterbrink, 2004, Judas the Galilean. Unterbrink is an accountant, and his book is self-published by iUniverse.

• Tom Harpur, 2005, The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light. Harpur (who is a follower of Gerald Massey) argues that Egyptian myths influenced Judaism and Christianity, but he does not deny the existence of Jesus. Harpur's theory is that Jesus of Nazareth existed but mythical stories from Egypt were later added to the gospel narratives about him.

• Francesco Carotta 2005, Jesus Was Caesar. Carotta does not deny the existence of Jesus, on the other hand he thinks Jesus existed but was Julius Caesar: a very unusual theory, but it does not deny the existence of Jesus.

• Joseph Atwill, 2005, Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus It is not clear who Joseph Atwill is. He seems to have written one paper on the Dead Sea Scrolls with Eisenman, but he does not seem to have any scholarly background, apart from having studied Greek and Latin as a youth in Japan, according to a review website. No trace of his having been a scholar of any kind.

• Michel Onfray Traité d'athéologie (2007 In Defence of Atheism): Onfray, has a PhD in philosophy and was a high school teacher. He is critical of all religions including Judaism and Islam and thinks Christian doctrine was invented by Paul. Rather than focusing on the existence of Jesus his work deals with how religious doctrines were created and how they impact western philosophy.

• Kenneth Humphreys, 2005, Jesus Never Existed. I can find no evidence anywhere that Humphreys is a scholar of any type, and where he was educated. He just seems to run his own website, and his book is published by Historical Review Press, which is Anthony Hancock (publisher), whose specialty is Holocaust denial books. A really WP:Fringe item.

• Jay Raskin, 2006, The Evolution of Christs and Christianities Raskin has a PhD in philosophy, and has taught some philosophy and film making courses at various colleges. His book is self-published by Xlibris - "nonselective" in accepting manuscripts according to their Wikipedia page. Raskin is better known as a film-maker than a historian or philosopher and his movies have titles such as I married a Vampire. He is no scholar.

• Thomas L. Thompson, 2006, The Messiah Myth. Thompson is a scholar and a denier of the existence of Jesus. He is one of the very few scholars who still deny existence.

• Jan Irvin, Andrew Rutajit, 2006, Astrotheology and Shamanism From what I can find neither of these people are scholars and they seem to have a theory that religions are based on the use of narcotics: a pure WP:Fringe idea that seems to have been advocated by John Allegro as well. This is not scholarship, and these are not scholars.

• Roger Viklund, 2008. Den Jesus som aldrig funnits (The Jesus who never existed). Viklund is an amateur who self-published his book in Swedish and just has his own website. Not a scholar at all.

I think for the sake of completeness, we should add a few other writers mentioned on various websites and Wikipages, they are:

• Richard Carrier Not the Impossible Faith and Sense and Goodness without God. He has a PhD in history, but has no academic position and his books are self published by LuLu and Authorhouse. He runs his own website and may seen as a scholar or not, depending on perspective. Not clear what he does for a living.

• D. M. Murdock (Acharya S) The Gospel According to Acharya S is a self-published author and her web site says she has a B.A. degree. There is no claim or record of her ever having had an academic position and she is not a scholar by any measure.

• Earl Doherty Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus is a self-published author. He has a B.A. but no advanced degrees and is not a scholar.

• Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy The Jesus Mysteries . Freke has a B.A. degree and Gandy an M.A. Neither has a PhD or had an academic position. Freke teaches experiential seminars. Neither is a scholar.

• Christopher Hitchens God Is Not Great.. He had a B.A. degree, no advanced degrees and was a general writer not a scholar.

So really there is one solid academic scholar here namely Thompson and then Price who can be called a non-academic scholar - given that he only teaches online courses on the subject (around $50 per course) at an online website with no campus. Note that G. A. Wells has softened his position of non-existence and now accepts the likely existence of a preacher mentioned in the Q source, although holding that the gospel narratives of his life/miracles are fiction. But just Thompson and Price do not make a long list. There are probably 1 or 2 more people with PhDs who deny existence (say Carrier, but who has no academic post) yet it is quite clear from this list that most of those mentioned are either amateurs or are scholars such as Mack who actually support existence. Most of these people are attorney/accountant/etc./etc. types and not scholars. The funniest one however was suggesting Raskin as a scholar. I did get a chuckle out of that one. But anyway, the results speak for themselves. History2007 (talk) 13:49, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Just for the sake of completeness, I did another search to confirm the situation above, and it seems that the existence debate is really over within academia and only the non-scholarly types are still discussing it. The funniest item I found was this challenge a year ago for Dickson to eat a page of his Bible. I did another search and it seems that based on this ABC news item in Australia as of now no one has found a professor of ancient history or classics at a university who denies existence. And there are plenty of professors out there; many of them non-Christian. The exact challenge seems to be to find "a full professor of Classics, Ancient History or New Testament in any accredited university in the world who thinks Jesus never lived". And no one seems to have found such a professor. So the debate seems to be over within academia. Else we can all call John Dickson and get him to eat a page after all. History2007 (talk) 15:43, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

There is yet one more scholar, namely Thomas L. Brodie, who in a recent 2012 book has argued that the coherence of 1 Kings 16:29 - 2 Kings 13:25 indicates that the Elijah and Elisha stories are a model for the gospels, and a mythical Jesus. Brodie is a scholar in the field, so now there is Price, Thompson and Brodie. His arguments are very different from the others, but this does not dramatically change the balance of scholarship yet, unless several other scholars follow him in the next few years, so only time will tell. As for Dickson eating a page, he does not have to yet, for just as the book came out Brodie either resigned or was fired from his position, depending on which story you believe. History2007 (talk) 20:34, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Editorialising

An anonymous IP has been adding editorialising material to the article. This is against policy and it needs to stop. It is perfectly OK to add dissenting opinions, with attribution, it is OK to quote notable sources arguing with the sources, but it is not OK for a WP editor to argue with the sources. If the editor feels the present section about bias is itself biased, he or she is most welcome to share their concerns so we can see if we can find a way to deal with them. That's what talk pages are for. Martijn Meijering (talk) 20:11, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Alas that will be the trend all over Wikipedia as the number of IPs increases and new users come in. Look on WP:FTN to see the utter chaos there, across the board from self-healing by pressing your head to free energy, etc. I just reverted him too. Eventually will need permanent semi-protection - or we will need to get the IPs to press their own heads... History2007 (talk) 20:40, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Anyway, IP seems to have stopped now, once pointed to WP:3R but let me note that there may be more of them all over the place in the next 2 months because WMF seems to have started a charm offensive in Jan 2013 with coordinated Op-ed pieces in major newspapers, TV appearances etc. and more and more IPs may just show up and do interesting things. History2007 (talk) 21:33, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Clue me in - what's a WMF? (World Midwifery Federation? Wee Munchkins Foundation?). ANd more seriously, the article needs to distinguish between the idea of a fictional Jesus (one who never existed) and a mythical Jesus (one around whom myths have grown). On analogy with legends, King Arthur may be entirely fictional (never was a 5th century British king, someone made it all up), or there may have been such a king but no Round Table, Guinevere, or promised return to aid his people at a future hour of peril (the legendary part). When legends deal with gods they're called myths, otherwise the same thing.

WMF = WikiMedia Foundation. Many myths do not involve Gods. Like it of not, Jesus Myth is the term standardly used to refer to the idea that Jesus never existed. See WP:NAME. Paul B (talk) 00:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Biased article

I frequently see "biased article" banners, and I read the article but can't find the bias. This article put me in mind of a sermon delivered by a true believer - I felt that the author was not presenting facts, but instead was presenting an argument that Jesus was a historical figure.

I feel that at the least, this article should be flagged until it can be rewritten. It might well be better to delete it until it can be rewritten in a neutral tone. Simicich (talk) 08:38, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

You can add such a tag unilaterally. I don't understand why you believe the article is biased, it merely reports attributed opinions as opinions. Martijn Meijering (talk) 11:11, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I am no expert on the subject, but in my opinion the article is reasonably balanced in content but quite poorly structured (which can perhaps give an additional inaccurate impression of the bias) - it deals with the some of the theories, their refutations and arguments for the historicity of Jesus first and only then gives a reasonable details on the history and development of the subject, arguments of its proponents and various approaches to the theory in the "History of the concept" section. In my opinion, the article would be more useful and read better if the "History of the concept" section is inserted either between "Context and background" and "Myth theories and responses" or after the "Myth theories and responses" section.-87.249.145.69 (talk) 19:58, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

The way it happened is that the history section has not been cleaned up. It is full of semi-sourced and less than accurate items - still hanging at the end there. If and when it is cleaned up, some integration may make sense. But the other side of the coin is that the article is not about History of Christ myth theory, just as Physics and Geology are not about the History of physics and the History of geology, but refer to them.

Come to think of it, the idea of making the long history section a separate article, and having a Main link here further upfront does make sense. Readers of the article on geology do not necessarily want to know about the "history of geology", some of the ideas therein being way too old; they want to know what geology is. But I think the section on "Historical Jesus research and the problem of bias" should stay here. History2007 (talk) 20:33, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

As I wrote earlier, I am no expert on the subject, but reading of the article gave me an impression, that the historical background of the theory and description of its gradual development is very important (if not central) to the proper encyclopedical description of the theory itself - in sections previous to the "History of the concept" various issues are quite often dealt with in the chronological order too; but the "History of the concept" which would give broader insight into the history of the thinking on the subject, and what it is all about, reads almost as a postcript to the article.

I don't think the comparison to the article on Geology is entirely appropriate here - in my opinion the text should preferably be written as a article on a specific (disputed, controversial/or obsolete one) theory on the given field of study, i.e. description of the theory and its development first and only then evaluation of arguments for and against it. More appropriate example here, in my opinion, would be perhaps the comparison either to the Neptunism or Plutonism articles. --87.249.145.69 (talk) 21:23, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Are there still people who argue for Neptunism? Even 2 scholars? Are there 15 self-published books on Neptunism selling on Amazon now? History2007 (talk) 22:10, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

My point is that rather than duplicating the article on Historicity of Jesus which deals with the historical facts (i.e. How it was/What we know about it/What are the prevailing views in the scholarly community) the article on Christ myth theory should rather be focused, well, on describing of the Christ myth theory and what its position in the scholarly community is.--87.249.145.69 (talk) 19:16, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

A description of its position in the scholarly community is pretty brief in fact: very few people support it. There is, however, a long analysis of the myth arguments that will be published soon, a book by Maurice Casey that takes each myth point and discusses it. I have not seen it, but it is expected very soon, I read somewhere. That may be a good source after all. History2007 (talk) 19:33, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps this article should mostly be the history of the Christ myth theory. As far as modern scholarship is concerned, the history of the Christ myth theory is probably more notable than the theory itself. De Guerre (talk) 04:08, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

If an article is "about the history of subject X" then it should be called "History of subject X". That was why I suggested making the history a page unto itself, and the modern items by themselves for they are really different items. History2007 (talk) 09:18, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Definition of mythicism - scope of article

The lead defines mythicism as "... an umbrella term that applies to a range of arguments that in one way or another question the existence of Jesus of Nazareth or the essential elements of his life as described in the Christian gospels."

There are four sources given and I'm sure they're accurately referenced.

My problem is, however, that the second part of this defines rules as "mythicism" a whole host of valid scholarly investigation into the nature and accuracy of the gospels. By this definition, anyone who asks, for example, whether Jesus might perhaps have been born in Nazareth instead of Bethlehem, is propagating the view that Jesus is mythical. That would be nonsensical. For this reason the article has grown to huge proportions and struggles to grapple with the subject of real mythicism, which is simply the idea that there never was a Jesus of Nazareth. I think the definition needs to be narrowed. PiCo (talk) 10:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

As usual, you do have logical and valid points. But I am not sure if we can have a two valued determination here, and may have to use fuzzy set membership. The long and short of it is this:

• Within academia, the "existence debate" is over. Hardly any academics even debate non-existence any more. The only people debating it are the "amateur brigade".

• But there are those who say that "a preacher" existed, but 99.99% of what is said about him is untrue, or that he lived 100 years before Pontius Pilate, or that Jesus was Julius Caesar!.

G. A. Wells is a case in point. He is still considered a "myth theorist" , and indeed the standard bearer for myth theory. But he no longer denies existence after the Q source arguments were presented to him. So the situation is this:

• Those like Wells who say that Jesus existed but 99% of the stories about him are untrue are considered "myth theorists".

• Those like Paula Fredriksen or Bart Ehrman who think 40%-60% of the gospel stories may be real are called "scholars".

• Those like William Lane Craig who think the gospels are 95% accurate are called "apologists".

So we really have a continuum of doubt to belief with each scholar getting a number in the range 0 to 100 for how mythical or apologetic they are. And also note that the founder of the field David Strauss did no deny existence. So denial is really one end of the spectrum. Now what number X (say 88% disbelief) makes someone a myth theorist? I am not sure, but anywhere in the 85% to 99% range may be reasonable. History2007 (talk) 16:05, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm still not convinced, but don't care enough to argue. But you might like this description of how a myth would treat one central point of the gospel story, the crucifixion (bear in mind that in the gospels, Jesus simply dies, like any mortal man - a mythic hero would do it differently): "A mythic savior or celestial hero would defy death on Golgotha, smite his enemies and rise laughing into the heavens..." PiCo (talk) 06:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is one of the criteria various scholars use for arguing that the crucifixion story was not invented, for followers usually don't like to invent embarrassing stories about their all powerful leader and as you said a "superman ending" in Calvary could have also been written as an alternative script. In fact Basilides wrote such a script, i.e. that Simon of Cyrene substituted Jesus at the last minute through some magical act, and Jesus took the form of Simon, and laughed at the crucifixion, but hardly anyone wanted buy that script. So, as you said, a gospel script that includes the Transfiguration could have also included a superman escape from crucifixion. But anyway, different scholars use different criteria and this item usually gets added to the other criteria about the crucifixion. History2007 (talk) 11:55, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Article title

The Title of this article needs to be "Jesus Myth Theory". Christ myth theory is biased and confusing. There is much debate on whether Jesus was Christ or not, Islam for example has him as a prophet, but not a Christ figure and that is just the tip of an iceberg. The entire article is about the historicity of Jesus. Whether he was historical and whether he was god in Jewish dude form are 2 different questions. He would have to be historical to be god in Jewish dude form, so the "Jesus Myth Theory" should be the title because it is the widest scope claim being discussed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Twainstheman (talk • contribs) 03:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

It may have even been Jesus myth theory at some point, but changed somehow - can not remember. History2007 (talk) 10:26, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

It was "Jesus myth" for years, then there was a long debate and it was changed to "Christ myth". That was in the Bruce Grubb Era. I always preferred 'Jesus myth' for the reasons given by Twainstheman. Paul B (talk) 11:14, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Well said, and "BGE" may need be be added to WP:ERA now. History2007 (talk) 14:15, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Not to point to fine a point on it, but it has been "Jesus myth" for only about a couple of years. For most of the time, however, it has been "Christ myth" and that is simply because that is how the vast majority of the literature refer to it. So for that reason, it should remain "Christ myth" IMHO. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 13:07, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

It makes no difference to me, but whoever wants to do a search based on WP:COMMONNAME can do it. History2007 (talk) 14:14, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

It started life as Jesus-Myth in 2005. That what it was called when I first fatally wandered over here. Then it was changed to Jesus as myth in 2006. The following year it became Jesus myth hypothesis (there was a big 'hypothesis; versus 'theory' debate, oh yea). Then it became Christ myth theory in 2009. So it's actually been variations on "Jesus" myth for about half its lifespan. Paul B (talk) 11:59, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I have not done a search to see what the COMMONNAME is, and I have no preference on the issue. But if you feel like doing a search you can settle it that way, for that is teh applicable guideline that will end debate. History2007 (talk) 14:08, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The arguments for and against various titles were thrashed out in Talk:Jesus_myth_theory/Archive_40#RfC_to_move_Christ_myth_theory_to_Jesus_myth_theory and Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_42#Proposal:_rename_article_as_Christ_myth_theory section so unless something new can be added I say stick with Christ Myth theory.216.31.124.226 (talk) 05:37, 13 February 2013 (UTC)