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.

Citations Specifying the Narrow Definition of the CMT

section is for references only
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I'm creating a new section for reference purposes. Can someone make it collapsible so it doesn't clutter up the rest of this page? (I forgot how to do it and I don't have time to look it up.) Defense of Biblical criticism was not helped by the revival at this time of the 'Christ-Myth' theory, suggesting that Jesus had never existed, a suggestion rebutted in England by the radical but independent F. C. Conybeare. William Horbury, "The New Testament", in Ernest Nicholson, A Century of Theological and Religious Studies in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) p. 55 Zindler depends on secondary works and writes with the aim of proving the Christ-Myth theory, namely, the theory that the Jesus of history never existed. John T. Townsend, "Christianity in Rabbinic Literature", in Isaac Kalimi & Peter J. Haas, Biblical Interpretation in Judaism and Christianity (New York: T. & T. Clark, 2006) p. 150 The radical solution was to deny the possibility of reliable knowledge of Jesus, and out of this developed the Christ myth theory, according to which Jesus never existed as a historical figure and the Christ of the Gospels was a social creation of a messianic community. William R. Farmer, "A Fresh Approach to Q", in Jacob Neusner, Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults, 4 (Leiden: Brill, 1975) p. 43 Negative as these [hyper-minimalist] conclusions appear, they must be strictly distinguished from the theories of the mythologists. According to the critics whom we may term minimalists, Jesus did live, but his biography is almost totally unknown to us. The mythologists, on the other hand, declare that he never existed, and that his history, or more exactly the legend about him, is due to the working of various tendencies and events, such as the prophetic interpretation of Old Testament texts, visions, ecstasy, or the projection of the conditions under which the first group of Christians lived into the story of their reputed founder. Maurice Goguel, "Recent French Discussion of the Historical Existence of Jesus Christ", Harvard Theological Review 19 (2), 1926, pp. 117–118 The Christ-Myth theory (that Jesus never lived) had a certain vogue at the beginning of this century but is not supported by contemporary scholarship. Alan Richardson, The Political Christ (London: SCM, 1973) p. 113 If this account of the matter is correct, one can also see why it is that the 'Christ-myth' theory, to the effect that there was no historical Jesus at all, has seemed so plausible to many... Hugo A. Meynell, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Bernard Lonergan (2nd ed.) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991) p. 166 [W]e have to explain the origin of Christianity, and in so doing we have to choose between two alternatives. One alternative is to say that it originated in a myth which was later dressed up as history. The other is to say that it originated with one historical individual who was later mythologized into a supernatural being. The theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ-myth theory, and the theory that he was an historical individual is called the historical Jesus theory. George Walsh, The Role of Religion in History (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1998) p. 58 The Jesus-was-a-myth school... argue[s] that there never was a Jesus of Nazareth, that he never existed. Clinton Bennett, In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images (New York: Continuum, 2001) p. 202 Though [Charles Guignebert] could not accept either the Christ myth theory, which held that no historical Jesus existed, or the Dutch Radical denial that Paul authored any of the epistles, Guignebert took both quite seriously. Robert M. Price, in Tom Flynn, The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2007) p. 372 As we have noted, some legendary-Jesus theorists argue that, while it is at least possible, if not likely, an actual historical person named Jesus existed, he is so shrouded in legendary material that we can know very little about him. Others (i.e, Christ myth theorists) argue that we have no good reason to believe there ever was an actual historical person behind the legend. Paul R Eddy & Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: a Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007) p. 165 Price uncritically embraces the dubious methods and results of the Jesus Seminar, adopts much of the (discredited) Christ-Myth theory from the nineteenth century (in which it was argued that Jesus never lived), and so on. Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006) p. 25 For as "extreme" a critic as Rudolf Bultmann, the existence of the historical Jesus is a necessity; and if historical criticism could successfully establish the "Christ-myth" theory, viz., that Jesus never really lived, Bultmann’s enture theological structure would be shaken. George Eldon Ladd, The New Testament and Criticism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967) p. 15 And a recent attempt to revive the Christ myth theory (that Jesus was simply invented as a peg on which to hang the myth of a Savior God), hardly merits serious consideration. Reginald H. Fuller & Pheme Perkins, Who Is This Christ?: Gospel Christology and Contemporary Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1983) p. 130 ...on the one hand, literal acceptance of everything in the New Testament as the veridical record of what happened, and, on the other, some form of Christ-myth theory which denies that there ever was a Jesus. But neither of these extreme positions stands up to scrutiny." John Macquarrie, The Scope of Demythologizing: Bultmann and His Critics (London: SCM, 1960) p. 93 But in contrast to the Christ-myth theories which proliferated at an earlier time, it would seem that today almost all reputable scholars do accept that Jesus existed and that the basic facts about him are well established. John Macquarrie, "The Humanity of Christ", in Theology, Vol. 74 (London: SPCK, 1971) p. 247 His published work on the Synoptic Problem had already contributed towards exploding the theory of the “Christ-myth”—that Jesus as a historical person never existed—by providing the two oldest records of His life to be genuine historical documents." George Seaver, Albert Schweitzer: The Man and His Mind (New York: Harper, 1955) p. 45 In Germany, England, Holland, America, and France, a group of scholars developed the hypothesis that Christ had never lived at all, the Christ-myth theory. Margaret Hope Bacon, Let This Life Speak: The Legacy of Henry Joel Cadbury‎ (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987) p. 22 There have even been learned and intelligent men who have denied that Jesus ever existed: the so-called "Christ-myth" theory. Donald MacKenzie MacKinnon, Objections to Christian Belief (London: Constable, 1963) p. 67 JESUS CHRIST, MYTH THEORY OF. The theory that Jesus Christ never existed. Bill Cooke, Dictionary Of Atheism, Skepticism, & Humanism (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005) p. 278

Mythicist arguments need to be summarized.

I find this page shockingly weak. Many of the entries seem to be biased toward the historicist position, and that is the least of its troubles. The actual points made by the mythicists are not summarized. For example, Richard Carrier does not just conclude that there was at most 1/3 chance of Jesus existing. He spent an entire book (Proving History) showing how all the arguments for historicity do not stand up to examination and logic. There are many specifics to his case that could be summarized here. He also presented a solid scientific approach to evaluating historical claims. In his next book (the one cited in the Wikipedia page), he then applied that method.

The criticism of the mythicists included on this page repeatedly centers around the opinion of the majority rather than what is confirmed by facts. For the few concrete criticisms, rebuttals from the mythicists are not included. I have not spent a lot of time looking at Biblical wiki pages, but it honestly shocks me to compare the quality of reportage on this page compared to, say, that on topics in physics.

Jojoblum (talk) 23:15, 15 November 2014 (UTC)Jo

Wikipedia does not give equal validity to positions that receive less academic support, which is determined by due weight from sources, rather than choosing one source and rejecting others. In other words, the conclusions of the majority trump the claims of the minority.

This is parallel to our article on Evolution: the majority in the field hold a particular position which we repeat, while we shuffle off the "alternative" to an article that's mostly criticism. To date, Carrier's work is the only peer-reviewed Mythicist work from an academic publisher, while there are plenty that (regardless of whether individual editors disagree or want to argue against it) take a Historicist position. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:37, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Deletion of "scholars in Europe" sentence from 3rd paragraph

The sentence currently reads: However, certain scholars, particularly in Europe, have recently made the case that while there are a number of plausible "Jesuses" that could have existed, there can be no certainty as to which Jesus was the historical Jesus, and that there should also be more scholarly research and debate on this topic.[14][15]

If it were correct, the sentence would belong better in the Historicity of Jesus article (where it is also found). However, the idea that Europe especially fosters varying views on Jesus is indefensible. A quick review (off the top of my head) brings up the cynic Jesus (Crossan, Mack), the Jewish Jesus (Meier), the revolutionary Jesus (Brandon), the healing Jesus (S. Davies). . . These scholars are all North American and one could easily go on. It has often been noted (on both sides of the Atlantic) that every scholar seemingly has his own "Jesus"--a bedeviling aspect of the field. From the citation, it appears that the original author of the sentence was overly swayed by a recent compilation book ("Is This Not the Carpenter") which has chapters primarily by European scholars. The sentence's final clause is also inane: "there should also be more scholarly research and debate on this topic." This is what New Testament scholars do all the time. Barring some cogent objection, I will delete the sentence.Renejs (talk) 18:16, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Support. I came to the talk page because of the very same sentence. There's no such thing as a 'European' perspective here, scholars everywhere almost unanimously reject the fringe theory that is the topic of this article. It does not have more (or less) scholarly support in Europe than elsewhere.Jeppiz (talk) 22:28, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

There is however a "Copenhagen school" which I believe is even notable in and of itself which seems to be among the primary supporters of the theory of the non-historicity of Jesus. I have found at least two articles on JSTOR which specifically relate to the Copenhagen school in the title. Also, there does seem to be some sort of more broad and I think maybe notable "German school" of history regarding this topic. While I agree the word "certain" probably does not belong here, I can see referencing maybe the two schools if content on them should ever be created. John Carter (talk) 22:34, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

The statement doesn't say that European scholars are more sympathetic to the CMT, it says (or rather suggests) that among those advocating a new examination of the evidence European scholars are prominent, which is not at all the same thing. I'm not sure that's true either, but if we're objecting to something let's make sure we do so for the right reasons, not out of some knee-jerk anti CMT sentiment. In any event, clearing up the wording might be an improvement. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:36, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

As John Carter says, there is a 'Copenhagen school', though its prominent spokesperson is American. If it's just the Copenhagen school we're referring to, we should say that, instead of a vague "European". Not sure what "knee-jerk anti CMT sentiment" Martijn Meijering is talking about and it does not appear to add to the discussion. The two problems with the sentence is (1) the term "European" which seems to be WP:OR and (2) portraying it as something new. The Copenhagen school has been around for many decades and always held the same views, while always been seen as fringe by others. In this article, I think mentioning the theories of the Copenhagen school is entirely appropriate, but we should not make it out to be a "European" view nor a "new" view when neither of those claims are correct.Jeppiz (talk) 22:50, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

The Copenhagen "School" is certainly notable enough, but I thought they were mainly concerned with OT studies, not NT studies. Martijn Meijering (talk) 23:21, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

At least one book of essays I recovered for either this or the Historicity of Jesus article was from the Copenhagen school and specifically dealt with the question of the historicity of Jesus or the possibility of his being some sort of myth. John Carter (talk) 23:35, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if we (and the paragraph) are discussing apples and oranges. This article is supposedly about the CMT. But the paragraph under discussion is not about that. It's about the "nearly universal consensus in historical-critical biblical scholarship", "a number of plausible 'Jesuses' that could have existed", and "The two main events agreed upon by most biblical scholars." The thing is, the CMT doesn't espouse any Jesus.

I agree with John (above) in the sense that northern Europe, especially, has long been a bastion of the CMT. I write anecdotally now, but people have told me that the CMT is rampant in Scandinavia among commoners--and it has been so in Russia since their revolution. Thomas Thompson and Lemche (Copenhagen)--though their careers were formed in OT minimalism, are now taking interest in NT "minimalism" or (even) CMT. The minimalists are sympathetic--this includes Philip Davies in the U.K. However, these European minimalists don't seem to want the "mythicist" label (Thompson has strenuously objected to it).

Getting back to the article, though, I wonder if it's not best to just shorten the whole paragraph as follows: "Despite the nearly universal consensus agreement in historical-critical biblical scholarship that Jesus lived (see Historical Jesus),[7][8][9][10][11][12][13] this article is devoted to the Fringe theory that questions the existence of a historical Jesus." This doesn't get into the historicity issue of who believes in what Jesus, and where. It keeps the focus on the CMT which is a "fringe theory."Renejs (talk) 05:24, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Totally non-neutral, totally unacceptable. Martijn Meijering (talk) 09:44, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Totally factual, totally acceptable. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 17:49, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

I would object to the phrasing as proposed, both because it prejudicially casts judgment on the topic and seems to cast at least all potential theories which might be discussed permanently in the "fringe" category. It is certainly possible, I haven't checked, that a theory that virtually all information about the subject could at least be potentially based on mythic sources, or reflect the content of pre-existing myths, is other than fringe. I am far from sure that such a contention is a fringe theory. Also, regarding the supporters, like I said, there seems to be or at least have been a "German school" associated with Bruno Bauer and others which raised these questions in historical times. While they may not be current, understandably, considering they the founders were basically 19th century individuals, I am far from sure that the theories at that time were fringe theories, and implying otherwise might be problematic. John Carter (talk) 18:10, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, yes, the word "fringe" definitely has a pejorative overtone, but also a scientific basis (ultimately on statistical grounds). We're obviously divided. Maybe one of you wants to submit this page to the Wiki Noticeboard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard) for opinion. My main point, though, in editing this 3rd paragraph of the article is not the "fringe" aspect but to place focus of the page on the CMT--which is lost everywhere else.

If you look at the "Categories" at the bottom of the article, "Fringe theory", "Denialism", etc. are not there. So, maybe we should just keep it that way and leave "fringe" out.

But I suggest keeping the last sentence of par. 3 as it presently reads (about the baptism and Pilate). This in accordance with what the Wiki guidelines say: "Additionally, when the subject of an article is the minority viewpoint itself, the proper contextual relationship between minority and majority viewpoints must be clear" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fringe_theories).

So, after all this, the following paragraph results: "The two main events agreed upon by most biblical scholars are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.[16][17][18][19] Despite the near universal consensus agreement in historical-critical biblical scholarship that Jesus lived, however (see Historical Jesus),[7][8][9][10][11][12][13] this article is devoted to the theory that questions the existence of a historical Jesus."

How's that?Renejs (talk) 06:29, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Looks better to me, but I don't think it's an improvement over what we have. The lede and the article itself already make it abundantly clear that this view is held only by a tiny minority of scholars and is strongly opposed by the vast majority. If the concern is over the phrase "particularly in Europe", why not just delete that then? It might actually be true however, so maybe it would be better to add a "citation needed" tag. Martijn Meijering (talk) 09:26, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Martin, did you miss my comment above? (See first entry in this section). This sentence has problems. It is inaccurate and the last part is inane. It does not add "context" like the one on John the Baptist/Pilate or the sentence on "near universal consensus." It seems to me like a historicist intrusion into this article.Renejs (talk) 13:14, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

We have previously concluded that the main proponents of the CMT don't all agree on what the CMT is, and some of the major positions do accept that a real human might have been the basis for the Jesus stories, so we need to tread carefully here. While people like Carrier are much different to the mainstream, many other CMT views are so close to the mainstream that they are hardly distinguishable. I would suggest that we only change the middle sentence, to read "However other scholars state that while there are a number of plausible "Jesuses" that could have existed, there can be no certainty as to which Jesus was the historical Jesus." This is factually correct, neutral and simple, yes? Wdford (talk) 10:42, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

It's still not clear to me how that is an improvement. In fact, it leaves out the important point that a few scholars have called for a reexamination of the issue, so it looks like the opposite of an improvement to me. Martijn Meijering (talk) 11:32, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

While nnot disagreeing that some scholars have called for a reexamination of the issue, unfortunately, that isn't that necessarily significant. Erich von Daniken in his early books made a point of having his primary statement be something along "these issues require further study". It's a fairly obvious and easy attempt at hedging, insinuation and misdirection, and has fairly regularly been used as a support of weak arguments . While I am not disagreeing that the issue might merit further study, because pretty much everything merits further study, it would be helpful if we were to say that to say specifically what they think most worthy and demanding of further study. John Carter (talk) 18:03, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, von Däniken isn't regarded as a serious scholar, and in the case of the CMT we have several respectable sources saying the idea deserves more attention, so the cases aren't identical. Martijn Meijering (talk) 18:39, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Martijn and find your sentence confusing. Are not the "other scholars" the same ones who maintain "a nearly universal consensus"?Renejs (talk) 13:14, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

It is a denialist fringe theory, that is about as mainstream in historical Jesus studies as young-earth creationism is in mainstream biology. Wikipedia's tone regarding both should be the same.--TMD Talk Page. 11:37, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

1) You don't get to make that call, several reliable sources take it seriously and say it deserves more scrutiny, 2) HJ studies is not the only relevant field as regards the CMT and 3) the field of HJ studies itself has been criticised for a lack of impartiality and a lack of proper scholarly methodology, as have the overlapping but distinct wider fields of theology and religious studies, so they do not deserve the deference we give to a hard scientific discipline like biology. Martijn Meijering (talk) 11:54, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I side with Martijn here. It doesn't matter how mainstream or not the CMT is, because this article is devoted to (and needs to be focused on) the CMT. That is not negotiable. And that gets back to removing the sentence about views on different sorts of Jesus. Let's face it, there are lots of those views everywhere.Renejs (talk) 13:14, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it certainly IS a denialist fringe theory (see the reference section below). The fact that there are a few RS's that claim the CMT requires more scrutiny is irrelevant to its fringe status. Even proponents of the CMT recognize that (once again, see reference section below). Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 13:31, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I find your comment irrelevant (and wrong). Once again, Wiki has an article on CMT, and that's not negociable. Like it or not, we're here to talk about the CMT. It's not good enough to slap labels on it, like "denialist" and "fringe." Besides, the former label is untenable. If you're familiar with the voluminous writings of many mythicists you know that they don't just deny but often carefully reason things out--sometimes quite meticulously.Renejs (talk) 13:56, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Did you read any of the citations below? Even proponents of the CMT recognize its fringe status. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 14:15, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Bill the Cat 7 is absolutely right. Not only can we describe CMT as a fringe theory, we must do it under Wikipedia's policies. Of course we should have this article, and nobody is contesting that. However, Wikipedia's policies are very clear: articles on fringe theories can exist, but must make clear that the theory in question is a fringe theory. Even in Scandinavia which, as said above, is probably the place where CMT is most popular, actual historians (as opposed to laymen) disregard it completely. Commenting on it quite recently, Professor Dick Harrison dismissed CMT as nothing but a "conspiracy theory". We should have this article, and any article of this kind must make clear that it deals with a fringe theory. It goes for holocaust denial and creationism and it goes for CMT as well. The fact that a rare academic can be found to lend some support to any of these theories does not change anything (and that, again, is Wikipedia policy, not my opinion).Jeppiz (talk) 18:24, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Fringe is not the same as a minority view, even if it is held only by a tiny minority. Fringe is things like alien abductions etc. Harrison is an interesting find though, one of very few real historians who have commented on the issue, and I think we should cite his opinion. Nevertheless it remains his opinion, and several respectable sources disagree. We should therefore report the controversy, and not decide it for ourselves. We could add wording like "most scholars are dismissive of the CMT, some scathingly so. The historian Dick Harrison has dismissed the CMT as "nothing but a conspiracy theory". Others have recently have recently made the case that while there are a number of plausible "Jesuses" that could have existed, there can be no certainty as to which Jesus was the historical Jesus, and that there should also be more scholarly research and debate on this topic." Martijn Meijering (talk) 18:39, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Once again, however, I regret the repetition of the claim that more research needs to be done without some sort of indication as to what that research and debate should be about. Like I said before, in virtually every field of history, there are those who disagree with the academic consensus. In most of those cases, they tend to say "we're right, they're wrong" and imply something to the effect of "if they just agreed with us, ..." which in academic language often gets translated to "there needs to be more research and debate." It would help a lot if there were some indication as to what sort of information that research and debate should be about. In an extreme, fictitious, example, where, for instance, we have one surviving signature attributed to a person, which 90% of academia agrees looks valid but 10% who say the person or event signed about didn't happen, there will also be claims that "there needs to be more research (or discovery of data) and debate." Unfortunately, in that example, the only thing to debate is the signature which might be considered reasonable by those who examined it. It would help a lot if, instead of just saying the dissidents say there needs to be more research and debate, we were able to point toward specific extant evidence or topics which they say most merits research and debate. Otherwise, like with the fictitious signature example, it can come across as just people saying "I know I'm right, the evidence to support it just hasn't appeared yet," which, basically, is the sort of thing the Lone Gunmen and similar real people have said, and it often gets perceived in much the same way as their claims. John Carter (talk) 19:33, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

How should it be described? Let's see how the RS's have desribed it.

• With disdain
• Totally rejected
• Amused contempt
• Equated with the moon being made of green cheese
• Popular with cranks
• Olympian scorn
• Supported by non-respected scholars
• Calling it marginal would be an understatement; it doesn’t even appear on the map of contemporary New Testament scholarship.

Conclusion? Indisputably, it's fringe. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 19:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

That does not necessarily mean that the words "fringe theory" must be used exactly. While I agree that the theory seems to be only currently supported by a very small minority, and even acknowledge the possibility/probability of it being today, in at least some cases, a form of "conspiracy theory" as per the above, I am much less sure that it has always been a fringe theory, as I indicated above, and I think RECENTISM or similar might come into play there. Saying it is a theory which has been supported by only a small minority, and/or rejected by the possibly overwhelming majority, would probably be more informative and thus more useful to the reader than the specific phrase "fringe theory" itself. Pseudohistory might, conceivably, be more useful, if the word or its effective equivalent has been verifiably used in this case, which I don't know one way or another. John Carter (talk) 18:30, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't disagree that some, perhaps most, of the material written in support of the CMT qualifies as pseudohistory. However, the same is true of much of the stuff written on the historical Jesus, and we have reputable sources inside and outside biblical scholarship to that effect. In any event, in recent years the CMT has mostly been a phenomenon in the popular literature. Martijn Meijering (talk) 18:44, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment John Carter, I was unclear. I'm not saying we must or should use the exact words "fringe theory" (accurate though they would be), just that we must make sure a reader of this article understands that this article is a fringe theory, meaning a theory that virtually all experts find erroneous. That can certainly be done without using the word "fringe".Jeppiz (talk) 18:34, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Attempt #2 from the top. I started this talk section to address a sentence in the 3rd paragraph of the article, and plan to keep coming back to that until we actually get the job done--not necessarily my way, but in a way that some sort of consensus emerges on issues raised in the sentence. Hopefully, "fringe theory" won't hijack us again this time. . .

The sentence as it stands has lots of errors, and I'll mention just a few. First of all, the lack of certainty regarding which historical Jesus goes back a long time. It's not "recent." Secondly, that lack of certainty is not limited to "certain scholars" but is universal, as I already noted above in this discussion. Thirdly, I have to wonder what this sentence is doing in this article, an article which isn't about the variety of different proposed "Jesuses" but about non-belief in any historical Jesus at all.

The sentence would, in my opinion, read much more correctly if it were split into two, roughly as follows: "Scholars have long concluded that, while there are a number of plausible "Jesuses" that could have existed, there can be no certainty as to which was the historical Jesus. However, certain scholars, particularly in Europe, have recently questioned the very existence of a historical Jesus." This is now correct. Jesus mythicism is burgeoning in Northern Europe, Russia, and among the Dutch Radicals. A British New Testament scholar (the late Maurice Casey) wrote earlier this year: "One of the most remarkable features of public discussion of Jesus of Nazareth in the twenty-first century has been a massive upsurge in the view that this important historical figure did not even exist" ("Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?" 2014).

OK. I think the CMT sentence under discussion needs to reflect what Casey says. Remember, this isn't about "fringe theory." The proposed amendment above says simply: "However, certain scholars, particularly in Europe, have recently questioned the very existence of a historical Jesus." Is that simple statement too threatening for some of us?Renejs (talk) 01:42, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

My one real reservation is to the proposed first sentence of the proposed two sentences, as it is less than clear I think. "number of plausible Jesuses" is really less than clear language. I would think that maybe a more accurate and less possibly unintentionally leading statement might be something along the lines of the following, which is admittedly based on possibly flawed memory and error. But something along the lines of saying that the academic consensus is that Jesus was killed by crucifixion, and that's pretty much all they agree on, and that there are any number of possible theories as to what happened to make that happen, might be longer, but maybe a bit clearer. Also, the proposed first sentence seems to be to me anyway somewhat indicating that the following content would discuss the separate proposals as specific proposals, and I don't know that we want the article to do that. John Carter (talk) 18:01, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Citations Specifying that the CMT is Fringe

section is for references only
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I'm creating a new section for reference purposes. Citations: [T]he view that there was no historical Jesus, that his earthly existence is a fiction of earliest Christianity—a fiction only later made concrete by setting his life in the first century—is today almost totally rejected. G. A. Wells, The Historical Evidence for Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1988) p. 218 It is customary today to dismiss with amused contempt the suggestion that Jesus never existed. G. A. Wells, "The Historicity of Jesus," in Jesus and History and Myth, ed. R. Joseph Hoffman (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1986) p. 27 "New Testament criticism treated the Christ Myth Theory with universal disdain" Robert M. Price, The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-Four Formative Texts (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2006) p. 1179 "Van Voorst is quite right in saying that 'mainstream scholarship today finds it unimportant' [to engage the Christ myth theory seriously]. Most of their comment (such as those quoted by Michael Grant) are limited to expressions of contempt." Earl Doherty, "Responses to Critiques of the Mythicist Case: Alleged Scholarly Refutations of Jesus Mythicism, Part Three", The Jesus Puzzle: Was There No Historical Jesus? Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher. Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (2nd ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) p. xxiii In the last analysis, the whole Christ-myth theorizing is a glaring example of obscurantism, if the sin of obscurantism consists in the acceptance of bare possibilities in place of actual probabilities, and of pure surmise in defiance of existing evidence. Those who have not entered far into the laborious inquiry may pretend that the historicity of Jesus is an open question. For me to adopt such a pretence would be sheer intellectual dishonesty. I know I must, as an honest man, reckon with Jesus as a factor in history... This dialectic process whereby the Christ-myth theory discredits itself rests on the simple fact that you cannot attempt to prove the theory without mishandling the evidence. Herbert George Wood, Christianity and the Nature of History (London: Cambridge University Press, 1934) pp. xxxiii & 54 The defectiveness of [the Christ myth theory's] treatment of the traditional evidence is perhaps not so patent in the case of the gospels as it is in the case of the Pauline epistles. Yet fundamentally it is the same. There is the same easy dismissal of all external testimony, the same disdain for the saner conclusions of modern criticism, the same inclination to attach most value to extremes of criticism, the same neglect of all the personal and natural features of the narrative, the same disposition to put skepticism forward in the garb of valid demonstration, and the same ever present predisposition against recognizing any evidence for Jesus' actual existence... The New Testament data are perfectly clear in their testimony to the reality of Jesus' earthly career and they come from a time when the possibility that the early framers of tradition should have been deceived upon this point is out of the question. Shirley Jackson Case, The Historicity Of Jesus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1912) pp. 76-77 & 269 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. W. Ward Gasque, "The Leading Religion Writer in Canada... Does He Know What He's Talking About?", George Mason University's History News Network, 2004 [The non-Christian references to Jesus from the first two centuries] render highly implausible any farfetched theories that even Jesus' very existence was a Christian invention. The fact that Jesus existed, that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate (for whatever reason) and that he had a band of followers who continued to support his cause, seems to be the part of the bedrock of historical tradition. If nothing else, the non-Christian evidence can provide us with certainty on that score. Christopher M. Tuckett, "Sources and Methods" in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus (London: Cambridge University Press, 2001) p. 124 [A]n attempt to show that Jesus never existed has been made in recent years by G. A. Wells, a Professor of German who has ventured into New Testament study and presents a case that the origins of Christianity can be explained without assuming that Jesus really lived. Earlier presentations of similar views at the turn of the century failed to make any impression on scholarly opinion, and it is certain that this latest presentation of the case will not fare any better. For of course the evidence is not confined to Tacitus; there are the New Testament documents themselves, nearly all of which must be dated in the first century, and behind which there lies a period of transmission of the story of Jesus which can be traced backwards to a date not far from that when Jesus is supposed to have lived. To explain the rise of this tradition without the hypothesis of Jesus is impossible. I. Howard Marshall, I Believe in the Historical Jesus (rev. ed.) (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2004) pp. 15–16 A phone call from the BBC’s flagship Today programme: would I go on air on Good Friday morning to debate with the aurthors of a new book, The Jesus Mysteries? The book claims (or so they told me) that everything in the Gospels reflects, because it was in fact borrowed from, much older pagan myths; that Jesus never existed; that the early church knew it was propagating a new version of an old myth, and that the developed church covered this up in the interests of its own power and control. The producer was friendly, and took my point when I said that this was like asking a professional astronomer to debate with the authors of a book claiming the moon was made of green cheese. N. T. Wright, "Jesus' Self Understanding", in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, Gerald O’Collins, The Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) p. 48 A school of thought popular with cranks on the Internet holds that Jesus didn’t actually exist. Tom Breen, The Messiah Formerly Known as Jesus: Dispatches from the Intersection of Christianity and Pop Culture (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008) p. 138 I feel that I ought almost to apologize to my readers for investigating at such length the hypothesis of a pre-Christian Jesus, son of a mythical Mary, and for exhibiting over so many pages its fantastic, baseless, and absurd character... We must [, according to Christ myth advocates,] perforce suppose that the Gospels were a covert tribute to the worth and value of Pagan mythology and religious dramas, to pagan art and statuary. If we adopt the mythico-symbolical method, they can have been nothing else. Its sponsors might surely condescend to explain the alchemy by which the ascertained rites and beliefs of early Christians were distilled from these antecedents. The effect and the cause are so entirely disparate, so devoid of any organic connection, that we would fain see the evolution worked out a little more clearly. At one end of it we have a hurly-burly of pagan myths, at the other an army of Christian apologists inveighing against everything pagan and martyred for doing so, all within a space of sixty or seventy years. I only hope the orthodox will be gratified to learn that their Scriptures are a thousandfold more wonderful and unique than they appeared to be when they were merely inspired by the Holy Spirit. For verbal inspiration is not, as regards its miraculous quality, in the same field with mythico-symbolism. Verily we have discovered a new literary genus, unexampled in the history of mankind, you rake together a thousand irrelevant thrums of mythology, picked up at random from every age, race, and clime; you get a "Christist" to throw them into a sack and shake them up; you open it, and out come the Gospels. In all the annals of the Bacon-Shakespeareans we have seen nothing like it. Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare,The Historical Christ, or an Investigation of the Views of J. M. Robertson, A. Drews and W. B. Smith (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Library, 2009/1914) pp. 42 & 95 Today only an eccentric would claim that Jesus never existed. Leander Keck, Who Is Jesus?: History in Perfect Tense (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2000) p. 13 While The Christ Myth alarmed many who were innocent of learning, it evoked only Olympian scorn from the historical establishment, who were confident that Jesus had existed... The Christ-myth theory, then, won little support from the historical specialists. In their judgement, it sought to demonstrate a perverse thesis, and it preceded by drawing the most far-fetched, even bizarre connection between mythologies of very diverse origin. The importance of the theory lay, not in its persuasiveness to the historians (since it had none), but in the fact that it invited theologians to renewed reflection on the questions of faith and history. Brian A. Gerrish, The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (London: T. & T. Clark, 2004) pp. 231 & 233 It is certain, however, that Jesus was arrested while in Jerusalem for the Passover, probably in the year 30, and that he was executed...it cannot be doubted that Peter was a personal disciple of Jesus... Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, 2 (2nd ed.) (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000) pp. 80 & 166 We do not need to take seriously those writers who occasionally claim that Jesus never existed at all, for we have clear evidence to the contrary from a number of Jewish, Latin, and Islamic sources. John Drane, "Introduction", in John Drane, The Great Sayings of Jesus: Proverbs, Parables and Prayers (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 1999) p. 23 By no means are we at the mercy of those who doubt or deny that Jesus ever lived. Rudolf Bultmann, "The Study of the Synoptic Gospels", Form Criticism: Two Essays on New Testament Research, Rudolf Bultmann & Karl Kundsin; translated by Frederick C. Grant (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962) p. 62 Of course the doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation. No sane person can doubt that Jesus stands as founder behind the historical movement whose first distinct stage is represented by the oldest Palestinian community. Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word (New York: Scribner, 1958) p. introduction It is the nature of historical work that we are always involved in probability judgments. Granted, some judgments are so probable as to be certain; for example, Jesus really existed and really was crucified, just as Julius Caeser really existed and was assassinated. Marcus Borg, "A Vision of the Christian Life", The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, Marcus Borg & N. T. Wright (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007) p. 236 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. Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (New York: Scribner, 1995) p. 200 I think that there are hardly any historians today, in fact I don't know of any historians today, who doubt the existence of Jesus... So I think that question can be put to rest. N. T. Wright, "The Self-Revelation of God in Human History: A Dialogue on Jesus with N. T. Wright", in Antony Flew & Roy Abraham Vargese, There is a God (New York: HarperOne, 2007) p. 188 Even the most critical historian can confidently assert that a Jew named Jesus worked as a teacher and wonder-worker in Palestine during the reign of Tiberius, was executed by crucifixion under the prefect Pontius Pilate, and continued to have followers after his death. Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus (San Francisco: Harper, 1996) p. 121 The historical reality both of Buddha and of Christ has sometimes been doubted or denied. It would be just as reasonable to question the historical existence of Alexander the Great and Charlemagne on account of the legends which have gathered round them... The attempt to explain history without the influence of great men may flatter the vanity of the vulgar, but it will find no favour with the philosophic historian. James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 7 (3rd ed.) (London: Macmillan, 1919) p. 311 We can be certain that Jesus really existed (despite a few highly motivated skeptics who refuse to be convinced), that he was a Jewish teacher in Galilee, and that he was crucified by the Roman government around 30 CE. Robert J. Miller, The Jesus Seminar and Its Critics (Santa Rosa: Polebridge, 1999) p. 38 [T]here is substantial evidence that a person by the name of Jesus once existed. Robert Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millenium (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997) p. 33 Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed—the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. Will Durant, Christ and Caesar, The Story of Civilization, 3 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972) p. 557 There are no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus’ life: when and where he lived, approximately when and where he died, and the sort of thing that he did during his public activity. E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Allen Lane, 1993) p. 10 There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more. Richard A. Burridge, Jesus Now and Then (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) p. 34 Although Wells has been probably the most able advocate of the nonhistoricity theory, he has not been persuasive and is now almost a lone voice for it. The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question... The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted. Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) pp. 14 & 16 No reputable scholar today questions that a Jew named Jesus son of Joseph lived; most readily admit that we now know a considerable amount about his actions and his basic teachings. James H. Charlesworth, "Preface", in James H. Charlesworth, Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) pp. xxi–xxv [Robert] Price thinks the evidence is so weak for the historical Jesus that we cannot know anything certain or meaningful about him. He is even willing to entertain the possibility that there never was a historical Jesus. Is the evidence of Jesus really that thin? Virtually no scholar trained in history will agree with Price's negative conclusions... In my view Price's work in the gospels is overpowered by a philosophical mindset that is at odds with historical research—of any kind... What we see in Price is what we have seen before: a flight from fundamentalism. Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008) p. 25 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, "Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology", Theological Studies 54, 1993, p. 8 There's no serious question for historians that Jesus actually lived. There’s real issues about whether he is really the way the Bible described him. There’s real issues about particular incidents in his life. But no serious ancient historian doubts that Jesus was a real person, really living in Galilee in the first century. Chris Forbes, interview with John Dickson, "Zeitgeist: Time to Discard the Christian Story?", Center for Public Christianity, 2009 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. Bart Ehrman, interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show, 2008 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? 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, interview with David V. Barrett, "The Gospel According to Bart", Fortean Times (221), 2007 Richard [Carrier] takes the extremist position that Jesus of Nazareth never even existed, that there was no such person in history. This is a position that is so extreme that to call it marginal would be an understatement; it doesn’t even appear on the map of contemporary New Testament scholarship. William Lane Craig, "Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?", debate with Richard Carrier, 2009 The alternative thesis... that within thirty years there had evolved such a coherent and consistent complex of traditions about a non-existent figure such as we have in the sources of the Gospels is just too implausible. It involves too many complex and speculative hypotheses, in contrast to the much simpler explanation that there was a Jesus who said and did more or less what the first three Gospels attribute to him. James D. G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985) p. 29 This is always the fatal flaw of the 'Jesus myth' thesis: the improbability of the total invention of a figure who had purportedly lived within the generation of the inventors, or the imposition of such an elaborate myth on some minor figure from Galilee. [Robert] Price is content with the explanation that it all began 'with a more or less vague savior myth.' Sad, really. James D. G. Dunn, "Response to Robert M. Price", in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy, The Historical Jesus: Five Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009) p. 98 Since the Enlightenment, the Gospel stories about the life of Jesus have been in doubt. Intellectuals then as now asked: 'What makes the stories of the New Testament any more historically probable than Aesop's fables or Grimm's fairy tales?' The critics can be answered satisfactorily...For all the rigor of the standard it sets, the criterion [of embarrassment] demonstrates that Jesus existed. Alan F. Segal, "Believe Only the Embarrassing", Slate, 2005 Some writers may toy with the fancy of a 'Christ-myth,' but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the 'Christ-myth' theories. F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (6th ed.) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) p. 123 Jesus is in no danger of suffering Catherine [of Alexandria]'s fate as an unhistorical myth... Dale Allison, The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009) p. 37 An examination of the claims for and against the historicity of Jesus thus reveals that the difficulties faced by those undertaking to prove that he is not historical, in the fields both of the history of religion and the history of doctrine, and not least in the interpretation of the earliest tradition are far more numerous and profound than those which face their opponents. Seen in their totality, they must be considered as having no possible solution. Added to this, all hypotheses which have so far been put forward to the effect that Jesus never lived are in the strangest opposition to each other, both in their method of working and their interpretation of the Gospel reports, and thus merely cancel each other out. Hence we must conclude that the supposition that Jesus did exist is exceedingly likely, whereas its converse is exceedingly unlikely. This does not mean that the latter will not be proposed again from time to time, just as the romantic view of the life of Jesus is also destined for immortality. It is even able to dress itself up with certain scholarly technique, and with a little skillful manipulation can have much influence on the mass of people. But as soon as it does more than engage in noisy polemics with 'theology' and hazards an attempt to produce real evidence, it immediately reveals itself to be an implausible hypothesis. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, translated by John Bowden et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) pp. 435–436 In fact, there is more evidence that Jesus of Nazareth certainly lived than for most famous figures of the ancient past. This evidence is of two kinds: internal and external, or, if you will, sacred and secular. In both cases, the total evidence is so overpowering, so absolute that only the shallowest of intellects would dare to deny Jesus' existence. And yet this pathetic denial is still parroted by 'the village atheist,' bloggers on the internet, or such organizations as the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Paul L. Maier, "Did Jesus Really Exist?", 4Truth.net, 2007 The very logic that tells us there was no Jesus is the same logic that pleads that there was no Holocaust. On such logic, history is no longer possible. It is no surprise then that there is no New Testament scholar drawing pay from a post who doubts the existence of Jesus. I know not one. His birth, life, and death in first-century Palestine have never been subject to serious question and, in all likelihood, never will be among those who are experts in the field. The existence of Jesus is a given. Nicholas Perrin, Lost in Transmission?: What We Can Know About the Words of Jesus (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007) p. 32 While we do not have the fullness of biographical detail and the wealth of firsthand accounts that are available for recent public figures, such as Winston Churchill or Mother Teresa, we nonetheless have much more data on Jesus than we do for such ancient figures as Alexander the Great... Along with the scholarly and popular works, there is a good deal of pseudoscholarship on Jesus that finds its way into print. During the last two centuries more than a hundred books and articles have denied the historical existence of Jesus. Today innumerable websites carry the same message... Most scholars regard the arguments for Jesus' non-existence as unworthy of any response—on a par with claims that the Jewish Holocaust never occurred or that the Apollo moon landing took place in a Hollywood studio. Michael James McClymond, Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) pp. 8 & 23–24 You know that you can try to minimize your biases, but you can't eliminate them. That's why you have to put certain checks and balances in place… Under this approach, we only consider facts that meet two criteria. First, there must be very strong historical evidence supporting them. And secondly, the evidence must be so strong that the vast majority of today's scholars on the subject—including skeptical ones—accept these as historical facts. You're never going to get everyone to agree. There are always people who deny the Holocaust or question whether Jesus ever existed, but they're on the fringe. Michael R. Licona, in Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007) p. 112 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. John Dominic Crossan, "Historical Jesus: Materials and Methodology", XTalk, 2000 A hundred and fifty years ago a fairly well respected scholar named Bruno Bauer maintained that the historical person Jesus never existed. Anyone who says that today—in the academic world at least—gets grouped with the skinheads who say there was no Holocaust and the scientific holdouts who want to believe the world is flat. Mark Allan Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998) p. 168 When they say that Christian beliefs about Jesus are derived from pagan mythology, I think you should laugh. Then look at them wide-eyed and with a big grin, and exclaim, 'Do you really believe that?' Act as though you've just met a flat earther or Roswell conspirator. William Lane Craig, "Question 90: Jesus and Pagan Mythology", Reasonable Faith, 2009 Finley: There are some people in the chat room disagreeing, of course, but they’re saying that there really isn’t any hardcore evidence, though, that… I mean… but there isn’t any… any evidence, really, that Jesus did exist except what people were saying about him. But… Ehrman: I think… I disagree with that. Finley: Really? Ehrman: I mean, what hardcore evidence is there that Julius Caesar existed? Finley: Well, this is… this is the same kind of argument that apologists use, by the way, for the existence of Jesus, by the way. They like to say the same thing you said just then about, well, what kind of evidence do you have for Jul… Ehrman: Well, I mean, it’s… but it’s just a typical… it’s just… It’s a historical point; I mean, how do you establish the historical existence of an individual from the past? Finley: I guess… I guess it depends on the claims… Right, it depends on the claims that people have made during that particular time about a particular person and their influence on society... Ehrman: It’s not just the claims. There are… One has to look at historical evidence. And if you… If you say that historical evidence doesn’t count, then I think you get into huge trouble. Because then, how do… I mean… then why not just deny the Holocaust? Bart Ehrman, interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show, 2008 The denial that Christ was crucified is like the denial of the Holocaust. For some it's simply too horrific to affirm. For others it's an elaborate conspiracy to coerce religious sympathy. But the deniers live in a historical dreamworld. John Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006) pp. 14-15 I just finished reading, The Historical Jesus: Five Views. The first view was given by Robert Price, a leading Jesus myth proponent… The title of Price’s chapter is 'Jesus at the Vanishing Point.' I am convinced that if Price's total skepticism were applied fairly and consistently to other figures in ancient history (Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, Cleopatra, Nero, etc.), they would all be reduced to 'the vanishing point.' Price's chapter is a perfect example of how someone can always, always find excuses to not believe something they don't want to believe, whether that be the existence of Jesus or the existence of the holocaust. Dennis Ingolfsland, "Five views of the historical Jesus", The Recliner Commentaries, 2009 The Jesus mythers will continue to advance their thesis and complain of being kept outside of the arena of serious academic discussion. They carry their signs, 'Jesus Never Existed!' 'They won’t listen to me!' and label those inside the arena as 'Anti-Intellectuals,' 'Fundamentalists,' 'Misguided Liberals,' and 'Flat-Earthers.' Doherty & Associates are baffled that all but a few naïve onlookers pass them by quickly, wagging their heads and rolling their eyes. They never see that they have a fellow picketer less than a hundred yards away, a distinguished looking man from Iran. He too is frustrated and carries a sign that says 'The Holocaust Never Happened!' Michael R. Licona, "Licona Replies to Doherty's Rebuttal", Answering Infidels, 2005 Frankly, I know of no ancient historian or biblical historian who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ - the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming. Graeme Clarke, quoted by John Dickson in "Facts and friction of Easter", The Sydney Morning Herald, March 21, 2008 An extreme instance of pseudo-history of this kind is the “explanation” of the whole story of Jesus as a myth. Emil Brunner, The Mediator: A Study of the Central Doctrine of the Christian Faith (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2002) p. 164 An extreme view along these lines is one which denies even the historical existence of Jesus Christ—a view which, one must admit, has not managed to establish itself among the educated, outside a little circle of amateurs and cranks, or to rise above the dignity of the Baconian theory of Shakespeare. Edwyn Robert Bevan, Hellenism And Christianity (2nd ed.) (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1930) p. 256 When all the evidence brought against Jesus' historicity is surveyed it is not found to contain any elements of strength. Shirley Jackson Case, "The Historicity of Jesus: An Estimate of the Negative Argument", The American Journal of Theology, 1911, 15 (1) It would be easy to show how much there enters of the conjectural, of superficial resemblances, of debatable interpretation into the systems of the Drews, the Robertsons, the W. B. Smiths, the Couchouds, or the Stahls... The historical reality of the personality of Jesus alone enables us to understand the birth and development of Christianity, which otherwise would remain an enigma, and in the proper sense of the word, a miracle. Maurice Goguel, Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History? (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1926) pp. 30 & 244 Anyone who talks about "reasonable faith" must say what he thinks about Jesus. And that would still be so even if, with one or two cranks, he believed that He never existed. John W. C. Wand, The Old Faith and the New Age‎ (London: Skeffington & Son, 1933) p. 31 That both in the case of the Christians, and in the case of those who worshipped Zagreus or Osiris or Attis, the Divine Being was believed to have died and returned to life, would be a depreciation of Christianity only if it could be shown that the Christian belief was derived from the pagan one. But that can be supposed only by cranks for whom historical evidence is nothing. Edwyn R. Bevan, in Thomas Samuel Kepler, Contemporary Thinking about Paul: An Anthology (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1950) p. 44 The pseudoscholarship of the early twentieth century calling in question the historical reality of Jesus was an ingenuous attempt to argue a preconceived position. Gerard Stephen Sloyan, The Crucifixion of Jesus: History, Myth, Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995) p. 9 Whatever else Jesus may or may not have done, he unquestionably* started the process that became Christianity… UNQUESTIONABLY: The proposition has been questioned, but the alternative explanations proposed—the theories of the “Christ myth school,” etc.—have been thoroughly discredited. Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician (New York: Harper & Row, 1978) pp. 5 & 166 One category of mythicists, like young-earth creationists, have no hesitation about offering their own explanation of who made up Christianity... Other mythicists, perhaps because they are aware that such a scenario makes little historical sense and yet have nothing better to offer in its place, resemble proponents of Intelligent Design who will say "the evidence points to this organism having been designed by an intelligence" and then insist that it would be inappropriate to discuss further who the designer might be or anything else other than the mere "fact" of design itself. They claim that the story of Jesus was invented, but do not ask the obvious historical questions of "when, where, and by whom" even though the stories are set in the authors' recent past and not in time immemorial, in which cases such questions obviously become meaningless... Thus far, I've only encountered two sorts of mythicism." James F. McGrath, "Intelligently-Designed Narratives: Mythicism as History-Stopper", Exploring Our Matrix, 2010 In the academic mind, there can be no more doubt whatsoever that Jesus existed than did Augustus and Tiberius, the emperors of his lifetime. Even if we assume for a moment that the accounts of non-biblical authors who mention him - Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger and others - had not survived, the outstanding quality of the Gospels, Paul's letters and other New Testament writings is more than good enough for the historian. Carsten Peter Thiede, Jesus, Man or Myth? (Oxford: Lion, 2005) p. 23 To describe Jesus' non-existence as "not widely supported" is an understatement. It would be akin to me saying, "It is possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, scientific case that the 1969 lunar landing never happened." There are fringe conspiracy theorists who believe such things - but no expert does. Likewise with the Jesus question: his non-existence is not regarded even as a possibility in historical scholarship. Dismissing him from the ancient record would amount to a wholesale abandonment of the historical method. John Dickson, Jesus: A Short Life (Oxford: Lion, 2008) 22-23. When Professor Wells advances such an explanation of the gospel stories [i.e. the Christ myth theory] he presents us with a piece of private mythology that I find incredible beyond anything in the gospels. Morton Smith, in R. Joseph Hoffman, Jesus in History and Myth (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1986) p. 48 Of course, there can be no toleration whatever of the idea that Jesus never existed and is only a concoction from these pagan stories about a god who was slain and rose again. Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (New York: Menorah, 1943) p. 107 Virtually all biblical scholars acknowledge that there is enough information from ancient non-Christian sources to give the lie to the myth (still, however, widely believed in popular circles and by some scholars in other fields--see esp. G. A. Wells) which claims that Jesus never existed. Craig L. Blomberg, "Gospels (Historical Reliability)", in Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight & I. Howard Marshall, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992) p. 292 In the 1910's a few scholars did argue that Jesus never existed and was simply the figment of speculative imagination. This denial of the historicity of Jesus does not commend itself to scholars, moderates or extremists, any more. ... The "Christ-myth" theories are not accepted or even discussed by scholars today. Samuel Sandmel, A Jewish Understanding of the New Testament‎ (New York: Ktav, 1974) p. 196 Dr. Wells was there [I.e. a symposium at the University of Michigan] and he presened his radical thesis that maybe Jesus never existed. Virtually nobody holds this position today. It was reported that Dr. Morton Smith of Columbia University, even though he is a skeptic himself, responded that Dr. Wells's view was "absurd". Gary Habermas, in Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?: The Resurrection Debate (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1989) p. 45 I.e. if we leave out of account the Christ-myth theories, which are hardly to be reckoned as within the range of serious criticism. Alexander Roper Vidler, The Modernist Movement in the Roman Church (London: Cambridge University Press, 1934) p. 253 Such Christ-myth theories are not now advanced by serious opponents of Christianity—they have long been exploded ..." Gilbert Cope, Symbolism in the Bible and the Church (London: SCM, 1959) p. 14 In the early years of this century, various theses were propounded which all assert that Jesus never lived, and that the story of Jesus is a myth or legend. These claims have long since been exposed as historical nonsense. There can be no reasonable doubt that Jesus of Nazareth lived in Palestine in the first three decades of our era, probably from 6-7 BC to 30 AD. That is a fact. Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1976) p. 65 There is, lastly, a group of writers who endeavor to prove that Jesus never lived--that the story of his life is made up by mingling myths of heathen gods, Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, etc. No real scholar regards the work of these men seriously. They lack the most elementary knowledge of historical research. Some of them are eminent scholars in other subjects, such as Assyriology and mathematics, but their writings about the life of Jesus have no more claim to be regarded as historical than Alice in Wonderland or the Adventures of Baron Munchausen. George Aaron Barton, Jesus of Nazareth: A Biography (New York: Macmillan, 1922) p. x The data we have are certainly adequate to confute the view that Jesus never lived, a view that no one holds in any case Charles E. Carlston, in Bruce Chilton & Craig A. Evans (eds.) Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (Leiden: Brill, 1998) p. 3 Although it is held by Marxist propaganda writers that Jesus never lived and that the Gospels are pure creations of the imagination, this is not the view of even the most radical Gospel critics. Bernard L. Ramm, An Evangelical Christology: Ecumenic and Historic (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1999) p. 159

Multiple Jesuses argument

OK, I have seen this topic introduced on this talk page and the Historicity of Jesus talk page, and still don't really know what it is about.

Is there now some proposal that there were multiple Jesuses whose story somehow got merged into one story? If so, exactly which independent reliable sources put forward this theory, and what exactly are the details of it? John Carter (talk) 18:22, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think any scholar believes there were multiple historical Jesuses in the flesh. What the phrase "a number of plausible Jesuses" (3rd par. 2nd sentence) refers to is the multiplicity of scholarly views regarding his basic nature. As I mentioned in the previous section, we have Jesus the militant revolutionary (Brandon), the cynic (Crossan, Mack), the Jew (Meier, Vermes, Sanders), the quasi-Buddhist (Borg), the healer (S. Davies), Jesus the humble king (N. T. Wright) etc. And those are all North American scholars. But the disagreement over the basic character of Jesus is universal, not restricted to Europe, so the words "particularly in Europe" should be removed, IMO. Also, the variety of views is not recent but goes back a long time. So, the word "recently" should be removed from the sentence.

I suspect the original author of the sentence meant to say something like this: that "certain scholars, particularly in Europe, have recently questioned the very existence of a historical Jesus." It's the existence of the historical Jesus which is (or should be) the focus of this article. That's the amendment I suggest. Even this proposed amendment is not absolutely true, because recently a number of American scholars have endorsed the CMT: Tom Harpur (Canada), Robt. Price, and R. Carrier (with Ph.D's). They augment the European scholars (G. Wells, Brodie, Ellegard, probably several minimalists and the Copenhagen school, etc.) The CMT actually goes back a long time in Europe (to Dupuis, B. Bauer, etc. See http://www.mythicistpapers.com/timeline-of-jesus-mythicism/).

So, I'd now propose the rewrite as follows: Scholars have long concluded that, while there are a number of plausible "Jesuses" that could have existed, there can be no certainty as to which was the historical Jesus. However, certain scholars have questioned the very existence of a historical Jesus.

It's not that I find this sentence all that important. It's just that I want to improve the article and this is where I've started. That's all. But I don't like making unilateral changes without consensus. Hence, talking it out here first... ;-)Renejs (talk) 16:15, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I believe Robert Price considers an "amalgamated Jesus" a serious possibility. Specifically, I've heard him mention the theory that the narrative of the triumphal entry is based on a historical story about Simon bar Giora. Another of these merged historical figures may have been the Essene Teacher of Righteousness, as Ellegard believed. The Teacher himself may also be a composite of several historical characters. I'm not aware of anyone who specifically endorses the amalgamation theory as a probability rather than just a possibility. Martijn Meijering (talk) 17:23, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Would you include the "amalgamation" in the CMT? I mean, would this also fit into "Jesus mythicism"?Renejs (talk) 19:19, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I guess to me the line to cross would be if a specific form of amalgamation is in and of itself supported as an theory independent of other theories by perhaps more than one individual. We wouldn't want to violate WP:SYNTH by declaring things similar on our own, and it wouldn't be particularly useful to have a separate section indicating the variant ideas Martin indicates above, particularly if those are only elements of an individual scholar's broader thought on the matter. John Carter (talk) 20:07, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I've added a couple of citations to the Robert Price section of this article in clarification of his position. Price indeed sees Jesus as an amalgamation, but holds out the possibility that one of those threads may be authentic. He writes about his view in the "Euhemerism" section of his 2000 book, "Deconstructing Jesus." In fact, on p. 250 he tends to the view that an original prophet underlay the Christian religion--but that prophet had nothing to do with "Jesus of Nazareth." Personally, I agree with this. This view has also been termed "semi-mythicism" (http://www.mythicistpapers.com/2012/11/14/what-is-mythicism/).Renejs (talk) 00:10, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

It should be noted that an amalgamation does NOT seem to fit Carrier's Minimal Mythical Jesus though it would qualify as not being a "historical Jesus in any pertinent sense". But note that if you compare Carrier's Minimal Mythical Jesus with his Minimal Historical Jesus there is a gap between the two. So while Carrier classified G. A. Wells' Jesus Legend as ahistoricitical it does NOT fit his criteria for Minimal Mythical Jesus and therefore not CMT as Carrier defines it.--216.223.234.97 (talk) 07:46, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Grant's views in 1977 are no longer true

The paragraph citing Robert Grant from 1977 is an obvious place where the CMT article needs *updating.* Grant's views have long been superseded, particularly his flat-out wrong assertion that "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus." This statement may (arguably) have been correct in 1977, but it is certainly not correct today. Given the more recent accession of Harpur, Brodie, Price, and Carrier (all Ph.D.'s in the field) to the CMT thesis, Grant's assertion is undeniably false--that is, "untenable." Wikipedia does not disseminate incorrect information. If someone wishes to defend Grant's 1977 view in 2014/15 please justify "why." Because it is now false, this old view must be deleted.     I am willing to live with Martijn's latest version of the paragraph. However, if someone's reversion retains this particularly false assertion of Grant, then I think we'll have legitimate questions regarding NPOV, objectivity, and will need an Administrator's opinion on what is true and what is false. This doesn't have anything to do with what is mentioned in the preceding section. It has to do with disseminating provably false information in the article.Renejs (talk) 00:30, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to echo what John Carter said. We do not endorse Grant's view, either then or now, we merely report it. This is a fundamental Wikipedia policy that often surprises outsiders. We do not state the WP:TRUTH, we report what reliable sources have to say about it. This is necessary because Wikipedia is a) an encyclopedia and therefore doesn't publish original research and b) is edited by a group of both experts and non-experts, open to all. From your posting history, it appears that your edits have been mostly confined to areas related to the CMT and your book. This is what Wikipedia policy calls a single purpose account, which is allowed but discouraged. The reason it is discouraged is because it is easy for the goals of an SPA (generally advocacy) to conflict with those of Wikipedia. I think you will do all of us, yourself included, a favour if you read up on the relevant policies. Right now you are violating policy by engaging in edit warring, you have several times reinstated controversal edits over the objections of other editors. The recommended procedure is called Bold, Revert, Discuss. You made a Bold edit, which is fine, someone else Reverted it, which is also fine, and now we need to Discuss it first on this Talk page and try to reach a consensus. Unless and until you obtain a new consensus the status quo should remain. These are longstanding policies and breaking them is likely to lead to a swift block. If you revert your most recent reinsertion and stop edit-warring, I think you'll find people will be willing to work with you to address your concerns. I for one will certainly do so. I think we got off to a bad start, but I suspect that's mainly because you are insufficiently familiar with the relevant policies, and people are objecting both to your edits and your frankly rather flagrant if perhaps unwitting violations of longstanding policies. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:03, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't have to be deleted. History of most topics is relevant to our articles. While it might be required to say that he said that in 1977, and that it could be used at least to source a statement regarding the then-current and previous status of the field. Also, regretably, the simple holding of Ph.D.'s does not in and of itself make someone a "serious" scholar. Lots of people have Ph.D.'s, even in their own fields, and are still counted as being less than serious. Rupert Sheldrake's theories of plants come to mind here. The real question here probably relates to something that would probably be best addressed, and possibly only addressed, by input of others. While saying nothing against any of the individuals involved, I don't know that the precise distinction between "fringe" and "minority" theories has ever been conclusively worked out here. Having some clear idea as to where to draw the line, particularly in application of policies and guidelines, might be useful. It also might never actually get done, and I tend to think personally the latter is more likely than the former, but requesting clarification on that point might be useful for this topic and maybe at least a few others as well. Also, for claims to be counted "provably" false, there really must be some sort of absolute "proof", and I hope no one takes it the wrong way if I say that the simple publication of something by people with doctorates in their fields "proves" that they are "serious" is logically problematic. John Carter (talk) 00:46, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

If Grant's view is demonstrably obsolete, then it should not be included in the article. But, Renejs, I think the onus is on you here to do the demonstrating. Could you please provide quotes from the scholars you mention which show that they "postulate the non-historicity of Jesus"? Could you also provide evidence that they are "serious scholars"? I don't think the benchmark needs to be particularly high, but John is correct that having a PhD is not enough in itself. Where have they been published? What posts have they held? How has their work been received? Price, for example, can be counted as a serious scholar, but I'm not sure it has ever been his position that Jesus did not exist. I could be wrong. Please show me that I am. Formerip (talk) 01:20, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

OK.

FormerIP: "If Grant's view is demonstrably obsolete, then it should not be included in the article."

Renejs: You said it.  ;-)

FormerIP: "But, Renejs, I think the onus is on you here to do the demonstrating."

I don't see why the onus should be on me. But no problem. . .

FormerIP: Could you please provide quotes from the scholars you mention which show that they "postulate the non-historicity of Jesus"?

Renejs: Why not just read the Harpur section of the CMT article--right there? It reads: "According to Harpur, in the second or third centuries, the early church created the fictional impression of a literal and historic Jesus and then used forgery and violence to cover up the evidence. Having come to see the scriptures as symbolic allegory of a cosmic truth rather than as inconsistent history, Harpur concludes he has a greater internal connection with the spirit of Christ" (reference citation). If you doubt this is truly Harpur's position, I'm not the person you need to debate. :-) As for Thomas Brodie, he has written regarding Jesus that "He never existed" ("Beyond the Quest of the Historical Jesus", pp. 36, 41, and 198), and: "This shadowed living beauty that we call Jesus Christ is not a specific human being" (ibid. p. 218).

FormerIP: Could you also provide evidence that they are "serious scholars"?

Huh? You want proof that Harpur (Ph.D, former prof of New Testament, best selling Canadian relgious author) is a "serious scholar"? This is too funny. But, OK again. . . Please check the Tom Harpur page. You'll read that "From 1964 to 1971, Harpur was an assistant professor and then a full professor of New Testament and New Testament Greek at Wycliffe, and from 1984 to 1987 he was part-time lecturer on the Theology and Praxis of Mass Media course at the Toronto School of Theology in the University of Toronto." Then in the Journalism section of that article you'll read: "Harpur has also written a number of books on religion and theology, ten of which became Canadian bestsellers and two of which were made into TV series for VisionTV. For a time he had his own TV show, Harpur's Heaven and Hell, and has hosted a variety of radio and television programs on the topic of religion, particularly on VisionTV. He has, over the years, been a frequent commentator on religious news events for most of the Canadian networks, especially CBC. In 1996 his bestseller Life After Death about near-death experiences was turned into a 10-episode TV series hosted by Harpur himself. Harpur's 2004 book The Pagan Christ was named the Canadian non-fiction bestseller of the year by the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail." So, yes, I think we can agree that Harpur is a "serious scholar." As for Fr. Thomas Brodie, you could start by reading what's in the CMT article right above the section we're debating. I provide it here: "Irish Dominican priest and theologian Thomas L. Brodie (born 1943) earned his PhD at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome in 1988. He taught Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament in the United States, South Africa and Ireland, and is a co-founder and former director of the Dominican Biblical Institute in Limerick. His bibliography includes scholarly works on subjects such as the Gospel of John, Genesis and the Elijah and Elisha narratives, and his publishers have included Oxford University Press and Sheffield Phoenix Press." For more info, you might read his page (which could use some editing. . . ). Brodie's written about 25 books on the New Testament, and for decades was famous for spending 12+ hours a day at his desk. If he's not a "serious" scholar, then who *is,* pray tell?

FormerIP: "I don't think the benchmark needs to be particularly high, but John is correct that having a PhD is not enough in itself. Where have they been published? What posts have they held? How has their work been received?"

Right. Please see the above. . . ;-)

FormerIP: Price, for example, can be counted as a serious scholar, but I'm not sure it has ever been his position that Jesus did not exist.

Glad to hear you calling Price a "serious scholar," since he has two doctorates. The first sentence of the CMT Price section reads: "American New Testament scholar Robert McNair Price (born 1954) questions the historicity of Jesus in a series of books. . ." He's identified himself as a "Jesus mythicist" at least since the year 2000. So, yes, it has (for a long time) been his position that "Jesus did not exist."Renejs (talk) 03:48, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I really find the absolute reliance on doctorates as being an indicator of someone being "serious" amusing, but believe that the question as to whether something is "serious" as opposed to controversial or sensationalist or something else is a real one. Carl Sagan was notoriously advocating for years the global cooling position, even though at the time the idea had little if any support beyond himself and a few marginal advocates. Also, it really is more than a bit excessive to reproduce comments made earlier in the thread to respond to them, and, honestly, just more or less takes up unnecessary space.And, regrettably, your rather obvious jump to conclusions regarding Price at the end of your comment above is not supported by the evidence. Questioning the historicity of something is not even remotely the same as actively saying something did not exist, and it is honestly hard for me to think anyone would say otherwise. Also, I think it is incumbent on you to perhaps more clearly acquaint yourself with some of our guidelines and policies, particularly including WP:SYNTH (regarding your conclusion about Price), WP:BURDEN (which indicates that the burden is one someone wishing to make changes, not anyone else), and, possibly, any of our other content policies and guidelines with which you may be less than familiar. John Carter (talk) 15:53, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Carter: Questioning the historicity of something is not even remotely the same as actively saying something did not exist, and it is honestly hard for me to think anyone would say otherwise.

Renejs: Maybe I'm too dense to understand this sentence. Would you mind explaining it, and how it weighs on the Grant matter which is the topic of this section?

Carter: Also, I think it is incumbent on you to perhaps more clearly acquaint yourself with some of our guidelines and policies, particularly including WP:SYNTH (regarding your conclusion about Price)

Renejs: You're tossing red herrings my way. It was Martijn Meijering who brought up Price! (Please check it out above before throwing further unconsidered accusations my way). Of course, this is a TALK page and I have the right to respond to what Martijn says--and anyone else--without being crucified. And I'm starting to feel like I'm being unfairly ganged up on here because I'm promoting an unpopular position.Renejs (talk) 20:18, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

There is a difference between "questioning" and "asserting", which I thought even most children would be able to understand, although, apparently, you are not. And it is frankly laughable to say that asking you to abide by policies and guidelines is inappapropriate. Once again, I very strongly suggest that you familiarize yourself with our policies and guidelines, including those I have linked to, as well as WP:AGF, WP:DE, WP:TE, and WP:IDHT. I regret to say that there is absolutely nothing in the above comment which gives me any reason to believe that you are familiar with them in any way, unfortunately. John Carter (talk) 20:34, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Here's a second redirection for you, John: the topic of this section is "Grant's views in 1977 are no longer true"--not my (or anyone else's) Wiki familiarization. . .

Are you, T.M. Drew, the Cat 7, or anybody here actually claiming that Grant's 1977 statement of "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus" is true more than 35 years later? After Harpur, Brodie, Price, and Carrier have ALL declared publicly for the Jesus myth position? Is anyone of you really claiming THAT? John Carter? Martijn? Drew? Cat 7?

Are any of you really claiming that NOT A SINGLE ONE of those four is a "serious scholar"? Just checking to see where you're coming from. . . Because if you keep reverting, you'll eventually have to put put up the beef. I'm willing to sit back and watch you demonstrate that TODAY "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus." Go ahead. . . ;-) I don't think the Wiki administrators want YOU reverting material if you don't have the beef. And the beef is this: 4 serious scholars have now publicly stated that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a person of flesh and blood. That means that Grant's statement of 1977 is NO LONGER TRUE. Simple. Hey, there are a lot more points to tackle in this article. I suggest we move on. . .Renejs (talk) 00:09, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

You are free to move on, in which case the article will stay as it is, without your changes. If you continue your edit-warring that is likely to lead to swift sanctions. The way to improve the article is through building consensus on the Talk page, and using conflict resolution procedures if necessary. Martijn Meijering (talk) 20:37, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

I am claiming that no scholar has seriously suggested the Christ Myth theory since the early 20th century. Price and Carrier are regarded as fringe theorists, and do not teach at any university. Again, the Christ Myth theory is about as mainstream as young earth creationism is in biology. Of course one can list defenders of it, but any attempt to suggest its plausibility gives undue weight to it.--TMD Talk Page. 04:50, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Several serious scholars have suggested it, or consider it a serious possibility: Ellegard, Wells (although he no longer subscribes to this view), Brodie, Dawkins and a few others. It is notable that none of these are historians, and perhaps notable that none of them are theologians or scholars of religion, but all of them are serious scholars. In that sense Grant's statement is false, but that doesn't matter since we do not state he is right, we merely state that that was his view, which is definitely correct. Note that comparing subjects of marginal academic respectability like theology and/or religious studies to a hard science like evolutionary biology is unjustified. The former do not deserve the deference we accord the latter. Martijn Meijering (talk) 20:34, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

I disagree completely with any assertion that theology deserves any less deference than sciences like chemistry.--TMD Talk Page. 03:57, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I refer you to our article on Theology and specifically the sections Theology and religious studies and Critics of theology as an academic discipline. In addition, the subfield of historical Jesus research has been criticised severely for lack of impartiality and lack of methodological soundness by respected scholars both inside and outside the field. The field of historical Jesus studies arose from attempts to develop a Christology that was acceptable to a post Enlightenment society, which is a religious or ecclesiastical motivation, not a scientific one. The institutions at which it is studied retain strong institutional and financial links to various churches to this day. In my own home town of Leiden, home of the oldest university in the Netherlands, the faculty of Theology has ceased to exist. It was closed down after the newly merged Protestant Church in the Netherlands moved its ministerial training institute to the University of Amsterdam (or maybe the VU University Amsterdam, I'm not sure). After more than 500 years you can no longer study theology in Leiden. All that time it was the link with the church that propped it up. Such a discipline cannot be thought of as being on the same level as a hard science like chemistry. Martijn Meijering (talk) 19:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Renejs has asked me to comment here, but I'll be brief and a bit blunt. The main issue seems to be, I'm afraid, that Renejs is not aware of WP:OR. It's not for any of us to say that Grant or anyone else is obsolete. For the record, contemporary scholars make pretty much the same claims. Ehrman says that "virtually" no serious scholar believe in CMT, which is a modification of Grant. I'm also a bit worried that Martijn Meijering continues to beat the same dead horse over and over again by insisting on people like Ellegård (not Ellegard). Ellegård is not a serious scholar in this field, we have been through this time and time again Martijn Meijering and it's quite frankly starting to look like a severe case of refusing to WP:HEAR. It's all the more surprising as Martijn Meijering is in many ways an exemplary and careful user. Some basic Wikipedia rules:

• Even in articles dealing with fringe theories like this article, the article should make it clear that the topic is fringe.
  
• It's not for Wikipedia editors to name themselves experts and start drawing conclusions not found in sources.
  
• An "serious scholar" in a field is a person who holds a PhD in that field, with peer-reviewed publications. It should be obvious (but apparently it isn't) that a professor with a PhD in Japanese history is a good source for Japanese history but that his PhD in Japanese history does not make him an expert on everything under the sun, he's no more an expert of nuclear fusion than any other person. Same thing here, having a PhD in an unrelated field does not make a person an expert on the historicity of Jesus.Jeppiz (talk) 23:36, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

You seem to have a nasty habit of wikilawyering. I hear you all right, I simply disagree with you and your opinion is not normative. Your personal opinion of Ellegard (I don't feel like typing diacritics everytime) doesn't trump that of the editors of scholarly journals, nor does your anecdotal evidence about what Swedish and Danish scholars think. I think your edits are coloured by a - no doubt unconscious - bias. The reason I bring Ellegard up is because of the claim that no serious scholar at all has proposed this, when in reality it's very few who have. It's notable that he isn't a historian, and I've said so many times, so there is no reason to remind me of that, or to pretend I'm not aware of it. I don't believe Ellegard was an authority on the historicity of Jesus, but he certainly was a serious (indeed distinguished) scholar, and his work on the CMT was discussed in scholarly journals. He doesn't seem to have persuaded many other serious scholars, but that is beside the point. I have no desire to overemphasise Ellegard or the CMT, I'm just annoyed by a constant bias against it, smearing the name of serious scholars and persistent inclination to be overly reverential towards a small group of North American scholars from an increasingly marginal discipline, as if they represented the voice of science. I've also never said the CMT was a widely held opinion, I have stated many times that it has very little scholarly support and is often dismissed in scathing terms. And for the record, I am not now nor have I ever been a believer of the CMT. And pray tell, what "field" concerns itself with the CMT? As for beating a dead horse, why don't you tell that to Bill the Cat, whose only contributions here seem to be saying "fringe!" and copy pasting a long list of scholars who oppose the CMT, something that no one here denies. Martijn Meijering (talk) 00:18, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

For the record, I agree with you on René's WP:OR, as was probably already clear from my earlier comments. Martijn Meijering (talk) 00:20, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

If I am "nasty Wikilawyering", it may be because of constant violations of rules. It does get a bit repetitive to have to repeat the same thing over and over again. My opinion is not normative, true enough. But as your opinion seems to be that any person with a PhD is an expert on any subject there is, no matter how unrelated to their area of expertise, the onus is very much on you to back up that rather un-orthodox view. Would you care to cite the Wikipedia policy you feel support that view? To the best of my knowledge (and I may be wrong, feel free to correct me), Ellegård never published anything in any ranked scholarly journal nor was his research any discussed in any ranked scholarly journal. An unranked Swedish journal gave Ellegård some space, but followed it up by statements from a number of people, anyone in a field even close to CMT commenting in that journal rejected Ellegård's hypothesis, and in the more than 20 years that have passed, nothing more has been heard of Ellegård or his idea in any scholarly context. This is beyond just fringe, it's well into raving conspiracy theories. Even "serious scholars" can go totally wrong when dabbing in areas they don't know.Jeppiz (talk) 08:54, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Serious scholars can certainly go wrong in areas outside their expertise. Indeed they can also go totally wrong in their own fields. It's not my view that anyone with a PhD is an expert on everything, nor even a reliable source on his own field. So we agree so far. It is also not my view that Ellegard was right, I merely object to the dismissive characterisation of people like Ellegard as not being serious scholars. If you actually read his theory, I think you'll see it is a serious contribution to the subject. A serious scholar proposed a radical thesis, and ended up not convincing other scholars. It happens all the time, it doesn't mean he wasn't a serious scholar or that his thesis was not a serious piece of scholarly work. It just didn't convince any people. Tough luck for Ellegard. The thing that makes it notable is that it caused a stir in Sweden, getting a lot of publicity in the popular press and a limited amount of attention in scholarly publications. Another thing that makes it notable is that Ellegard is one of very few serious CMT proponents (lots of cranks though). This makes it notable in the context of this page, the page on the Historicity of Jesus, and perhaps a few others, but not on pages about NT scholarship in general. There is no suggestion that Ellegard is a prominent NT scholar, or even a NT scholar at all. I'm not sufficiently familiar with journal ranking systems to say anything about the rankings of the publications in question, but I see no reason not to regard them as serious publications. If you want to disqualify them, I'd like to see some evidence and some Wikipedia policy that supports your position. You can't just invent your own criteria to dismiss people who say things you don't like (like Ellegard) or which might embarrass you or NT scholarship (like Akenson or Gary Habermas, each in their radically different ways). Anyway, my point is that we should report the controversy as it is, and not add pejorative qualifications of our own. As it happens, the controversy is very lop-sided already, so I don't understand why anyone still wants to pile on criticism. Saying the CMT has very little scholarly support and is routinely dismissed in scathing terms by serious scholars is fair and objective. Saying no serious scholar has proposed it is partisan sniping. That's all I'm saying. Do you disagree with that? Martijn Meijering (talk) 10:50, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

We agree on a number of things. I also think saying "no serious scholar" is wrong, and has never suggested it. While I think Price, for instance, is fringe (in the meaning "tiny minority", nothing pejorative), I think he's a serious scholar. I also agree we should not add pejorative qualifications on our own, but please keep in mind we should add no qualifications whatsoever. By calling Ellegård a "serious scholar", you add such a qualification. What is more, every reader who reads it will of course think that Ellegård was a serious scholar of the field in question, which isn't the case. "Serious scholar" isn't a title. My academic record is comparable to Ellegård's, but that does not make me an expert on this field nor on any other field outside my area of competence. The same applies to Ellegård and to any other scholar. Pointing out that somebody is a "serious scholar" in a field completely unrelated to their scholarship is misleading. Can I also say, as a Swede, that I'm a bit surprised by your claim that Ellegård caused a stir in Sweden and got lots of publicity in Swedish media. Even though I read the four major Swedish newspapers daily and have done so for close to 30 years, in addition to watching the Swedish news, I had never even heard of Ellegård before you dug him up. That's not to say there cannot have been an article sometimes, but the "stir" and "lot of publicity in the popular press" would seem to be your own additions, just like the "serious scholar" epithet.Jeppiz (talk) 12:18, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, thank you for that clarification. I agree we shouldn't explicitly bestow the epithet serious scholar on Ellegard. Just as we shouldn't engage in partisan sniping, we shouldn't engage in handing out praise either. I merely meant we shouldn't say that no serious scholar has proposed the CMT. It appears we agree more than I thought! We could, and perhaps should, state that several scholars have dismissed the CMT as mainly the work of unserious scholars.

I take note of your report that Ellegard isn't all that well-known in Sweden. My stir comment was based on something I read, not my own interpretation, but I don't recall exactly where. I could try to dig it up, but I don't think it matters all that much. In any event, these were just talk page comments, I'm not proposing we add the word stir to the article itself, just explaining why I believe Ellegard's inclusion in the article is justified. Martijn Meijering (talk) 12:37, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Interesting discussion, and I seem to detect some movement. With surprise I find both Martijn and Jeppiz in agreement with me on the specific issue at hand: that Grant's "no serious scholar" statement is "wrong." In fact, that's ALL I'm saying here. Because Grant's 1977 statement is now wrong, it has no place in this 2015 article. I feel no choice but to continue to revert to the accepted limit of 3x per day until we either hash this out or resort to arbitration on this issue which is very clear to me.Renejs (talk) 18:29, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

You think you have no choice to revert? You are engaging in blatant edit-warring which is *forbidden* by Wikipedia policy. Specifically you have broken the three revert rule, which makes you liable to a direct block by any administrator. You are relying on the good will of editors here not to seek immediate action, and run the risk of an administrator acting of his own accord. If you want to prevent this, you should immediately self-revert and state your commitment to abide by the rules. It may not be enough to avoid a block, but it's the best course of action open to you now. Martijn Meijering (talk) 19:21, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I am a very irregular reader of this page. Now I just feel like adding a remark, surely not planning to fight here for anything personally. I always felt that closing this article with this quote by Grant from 1977 is very inappropriate, already from a simple view of chronology. I fully understand people like Renejs who try to make the article more sensible (at least) in this respect.

I can add that as a wikipedia reader I would think that Grant had himself carefully explored the arguments of so called mythicists (until his time, which is almost forty years ago) and had demonstrated that their authors violate the standard scholarly methods or so ... But this impression seems misleading, as I judge from the below quote by Doherty (which I take from http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/CritiquesRefut1.htm).

Before giving the quote, I stress that I certainly do not suggest that the wiki-article should contain this quote by Doherty; I just stress that if somebody thinks that the quote by Grant belongs in the article, then (s)he should give enough context so that the reader is not mislead.

But the conviction continues that this work of refutation has long since been completed and scarcely needs revisiting.

A typical example is historian Michael Grant, who in Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels (1977), devotes a few paragraphs to the question in an Appendix. There [p.200], he says:

“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.”

One will note that Grant’s statement about answering and annihilating, and the remark about serious scholars, are in quotes, and are in fact the opinions of previous writers. Clearly, Grant himself has not undertaken his own ‘answer’ to mythicists. Are those quoted writers themselves scholars who have undertaken such a task? In fact, they are not. One referenced writer, Rodney Dunkerley, in his Beyond the Gospels (1957, p.12), devotes a single paragraph to the “fantastic notion” that Jesus did not actually live; its exponents, he says, “have again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars,” but since he declares it “impossible to summarize those scholars’ case here,” he is not the source of Grant’s conviction. Nor can that be Oskar Betz, from whose What Do We Know About Jesus? (1968, p.9) Grant takes his second quote. Betz claims that since Wilhelm Bousset published an essay in 1904 exposing the ‘Christ myth’ as “a phantom,” “no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus.” This ignores many serious presentations of that very idea since Bousset, and evidently relies on defining “serious” as excluding anyone who would dare to undertake such a misguided task.

I wish good luck to all editors who try to give this article an impartial and sensible form.Jelamkorj (talk) 19:03, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

See section 5 above for an abundant list of quotes specifying in no uncertain terms that the CMT is fringe. Some of the quotes are, in fact, from mythicists themselves. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 19:17, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Of course, this has nothing to do with the discussion here, namely, Grant's 1977 statement that "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus." Please get beyond the "fringe" issue, Cat (which is an entirely different matter!) and focus on the specific statement under contention in this talk section.Renejs (talk) 21:29, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Are you aware that you have now officially made 4 reverts, which is breaking the 3RR? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

One additional comment, seeing Bill the Cat's remark. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_theory) defines "A fringe theory is an idea or viewpoint held by a small group of supporters.... The term is commonly used in a narrower sense as a pejorative that is roughly synonymous with pseudo-scholarship. Precise definitions ... are difficult to construct ..." The article about CMT should surely make clear that it is a fringe theory in the sense that it is held by a small group of supporters. But it seems to me that some editors think that the article should also make an impression that any instance of the works that argue that CMT seems to fit best to the historical evidence we have (which includes the works of Price, Brodie, Carrier) should be taken in the above narrower sense. At least this is my impression when seeing that some people defend the idea that the article should close with a quote by Grant. Renejs has just touched on the obvious: Grant's comment (who, in fact, quotes somebody else) is simply obsolete.Jelamkorj (talk) 22:08, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, ending with Grant is not ideal, and a concluding paragraph could be good. The real problem right now, though, is the two SPAs who revert anything that doesn't suit them based solely on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The latest edit war is a case in point. Even though we have a large number of sources for calling this fringe theory that (or even 'conspiracy theory' as some harsher historians call it), the SPAs keep edit-warring and insist oon this talk page to continue to edit-war.Jeppiz (talk) 22:28, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Continued POV-pushing and edit-warring

Unfortunately Renejs and Gekritzl continue their relentless edit-warring and POV-pushing. Renejs at least has the decency to discuss, but is a dedicated WP:SPA who is on Wikipedia only to push their POV about CMT and even states openly they will continue to edit war regardless of consensus. Gekritzl is a disruptive user altogether who never engages in any discussion, but is relentless in edit-warring against consensus combined with active WP:CANVASSing [1], [2], [3], [4], showing beyond any doubt that the user is WP:NOTHERE to discuss and cooperate with others, but only to push their own POV by any means. This is really getting quite tiresome. If the two users cannot start to work with other users and insist on continuing to edit war to push their "truth" regardless of what most other users and the sources say, their is no way to move the article forward.Jeppiz (talk) 23:01, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

@Jeppiz: He might also have a Conflict of Interest. I read on his talk page that he appears to be Rene Salm (or something like that). @Mmeijeri: has warned him about that. Unfortunately, Rene has deleted his talk page and recreated it, so we'll need an Admin to look this up to determine if indeed there is a COI. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 23:14, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

What is POV about citing authors and using one's judgement to edit an article in good faith? "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." - from Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view. Tell me you have never used your own judgement in editing. You don't own that page, although it seems you would like to. There is almost zero evidence for this Jesus of Nazareth person outside of the Bible claims. And there are well over 100 authors who agree that Christ ACTUAL theory is fringe - nobody wrote of him outside of the Bible until 150 years after his supposed birth. But you know that.Geĸrίtzl (talk) 23:22, 2 January 2015 (UTC)