Talk:Christ myth theory

Things to do

• Go through each section and make the sources' views as clear as possible (succinctly), so that readers aren't forced to read other pages to understand what we're saying, as far as possible.
• Make sure the sources' views are explained correctly.
• Make sure the writing is as tight as possible to keep the length under control.
• Provide another view of Allegro's work, as that section may currently be unfair.
• Fix the Bauer, Marx, Engels, Drews issue.
• Look into the extent to which other Enlightenment philosophers addressed this.
• Brief summary-style section on penalties over the centuries for dissent, if one can be written without SYN violations.
• Strengthen the counter-arguments section.

RfC to move Christ myth theory to Jesus myth theory

This article is about the theory that Jesus did not exist as an historical being. Should it be moved from Christ myth theory to Jesus myth theory? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 05:13, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Comments

• Support move. The article was called Jesus myth hypothesis until February 2009 when Akhilleus moved it to Christ myth theory without much discussion; see here. The current title is a little misleading, because it doesn't make immediately clear that we're discussing the historiography of the person, unrelated to the Christian belief in his divinity. Calling it "Jesus myth theory" would make the title more consistent with the rest in the series of articles about the historiography of Jesus: Historical Jesus, Historicity of Jesus, and so on. Both titles are well-represented on Google.

The hits for each are:

• "Christ myth": Google (38,900), Google Books (7,730), Google Scholar (651)
• "Christ myth theory": Google (25,200), Google Books (247), Google Scholar (46)
• "Christ myth hypothesis": Google (59), Google Books (12), Google Scholar (1)
  
  

• "Jesus myth": Google (48,000), Google Books (2,990), Google Scholar (242)
• "Jesus myth theory": Google (56,900), Google Books (16), Google Scholar (1)
• "Jesus myth hypothesis": Google (63,400), Google Books (2), Google Scholar (3)

SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 05:14, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support' Oppose', preferring instead Jesus hoax as most scientifically accurate. Noloop (talk) 05:22, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Just kidding. I'm neutral. Noloop (talk) 16:55, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Changed my mind again, preferring leadership in accuracy over popular misinformation. Noloop (talk) 17:01, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. Is there a general policy on how to handle it, when the most common name is widely regarded as a misnomer? I think even GA Wells chafed at the term. Ellegard's theory is that there was a historical figure who is the basis for the NT figure. The name is clearly misleading, yet common. The situation doesn't seem like it would be rare on Wikipedia, so I wonder if there's precedent. Noloop (talk) 16:59, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose for now. In Google scholar "Jesus-myth theory" gets 1 hit, compared to 46 for the current title. In Google books we have another ratio favoring the current title - 24 v. 263. It was also my impression that early works espousing the theory that are notable used this term.Griswaldo (talk) 05:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose move If you go back through the archives you will see that I could find only one reference to Jesus myth hypothesis (Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_20) and that was to "Jesus myth" hypothesis (Turner, J.E. (1931) Revelation of Deity Macmillan company (Original from the University of California, originally from University of Liverpool) and as I pointed out back then what he is arguing is confusing as all get out. "Christ Myth Theory" seems to have the largest number of reference and most of the time is in reference to Drews books with in English is titled "Christ Myth" So "Christ Myth Theory" more accurately means "Christ Myth by Drews Theory". THis is all ignoring the fact the first book Wells admits to there be a historical Jesus behind Q is called Jesus myth as well as Jesus myth being the title of a 1971 "Jesus is historical" book by Andrew M. Greeley Furthermore, the phrase "Jesus myth" is like "Christ Myth" use in reference to the myth that grew up around a historical Jesus as well as Jesus never existed as a human being. IIRC, Burton Mack uses "Jesus myth" in this manner. IMHO you're just moving the punching bag and making things worse.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:11, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Please, in the name of sanity do not get read of "theory". The article is enough of a train wreck with "I see Christ Myth used this way" or "I see Jesus Myth used this way" coming up from time to time without opening the freaking flood gates. On the merging issue I think that Quest for the historical Jesus would be the more logical choice.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:35, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• (EC) CMT doesn't describe what this article is about, since Christ means "anointed one" or whatever (basically supernatural). But, COMMON may mandate it, since JMT doesn't seem to be how people refer to it. There may be no good name. It really should be merged into "Historicity of Jesus", but I don't think that's going to happen. Barring that, we should name it as a spin out of that article. What name, I don't know. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:09, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I was asked to take a second look after SV added those stats above. If "Jesus myth hypothesis" really is the COMMON name, then go with that (other than merging). One has to be careful with interpreting google searches, of course. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Actually, it's complicated. I think Google Books is probably the best of the various searches, and it recommends "Christ myth". So, that's my final vote until I change my mind. "Jesus myth" is my second choice. It's much more accurate, but much less COMMON, and I think COMMON is more important that accuracy. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:34, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Get rid of "theory". It's not helpful. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:36, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support Because Jesus is being discussed as a historical person, not as "Christ" which is more related to belief rather than history.Civilizededucation (talk) 07:20, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Both titles are acceptable, no compelling reason for change. Google results suggest "Christ myth" being more commonly used in academic literature, no doubt because of the wording of one of the foundational books proposing the theory. The apparently contrary results on Google web may well be due to the effect of Wikipedia's own (former) choice being mirrored in many places. Retain "theory" as part of the title. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:39, 5 August 2010 (UTC)`
• Weak Oppose I changed my "oppose" to "weak" given the comments, although in this case I still think Google Books hits are more diagnostic than plain Google hits. Also, it seems to me that this theory calls attention to the crucifiction and resurrection and other (e.g. virgin birth) unnatural elements that are precisely what make Jesus "christ" and not just plain Jesus. Also, speaking personally, while I understand that many have used this theory to argue against the existence of any historical Jesus, it is my sense (and I admit I may be mistaken) that some (including many historians) have used this theory to argue that while a man named Jesus may have preached love and was believed to be a charismatic healer in the Galilee, what is myth is the claim that he was a god born of a virgin who was killed and resurrected, and that this myth was built of out of parts of other Hellenistic/ANE myths (e.g. Mithra), so the theory really is about the "christ" part more than the "Jesus" part. regardless of the number of opposes and supports, the key thing I think is that the article clearly and accurately explain the diverse views.Slrubenstein | Talk 09:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
• Neutral I moved the article to its current title and I think that its the best choice based on the use of "Christ myth theory" in scholarly sources, but "Jesus myth theory" is also used in scholarly sources and pretty widely on the web. Honestly, I don't think it makes much difference either way. Arguments based on a distinction in meaning between "Christ" and "Jesus" don't strike me as compelling, because while these words mean different things to some people, you can find plenty of folks who use the two interchangeably. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:11, 5 August 2010 (UTC) Changed my "vote", see below. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:08, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Ok, I'm changing to oppose, because of the arguments I'm seeing about why "Christ" is used in the title. It's not used as an honorific; it's used because "Christ myth theory" has been the most common way to refer to the theory that there was no historical Jesus. This is probably because of the popularity of Die Christusmythe (The Christ-Myth), a 1912 book by Arthur Drews, which argued that there was no historical Jesus. This is a basic application of WP:NAME. And yes, I can see that "Jesus myth theory" gets more hits on a plain google search, but like Slrubenstein below, I consider the Google Books/Scholar results more important. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:13, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support Actually I would prefer Jesus Christ Legend Myth Hypothesis Theory, since that would get the most Google hits as long as you don't use quotes. (Sorry, just trying to inject some levity into a very serious debate.) PeaceLoveHarmony (talk) 18:13, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Will it merge back into Historicity of Jesus. Because there is only a tiny part of this about the idea that Christ (the anointed one) is a myth (spiritual, heroic or legendary story not intended to have a historical basis). Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:54, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support move to Jesus myth hypothesis. The use of the word "Christ" probably unintentionally emphasizes the Christological aspects, rather than the historical aspects. Personally, I think the article could be perhaps split into two articles, one about the theories that Jesus is completely mythical, the other that he was either "real" or that there is a "real" person buried in the depth of all the material later added, which also implies that something can be known about the original "base" person, but that is another matter. John Carter (talk) 15:36, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. The article is vitiated by Recentism, and appears to exist to showcase particular modern books by various hands, most with no independent knowledge of the subject, pitched to a broader public readership. Compare how the unoriginal views by a Swedish student of English literature, Alvar Ellegård, developed in his retirement, are given major explication while the distinguished biblical scholar Thomas L. Thompson's work gets a bare mention. Idem for Earl Doherty, who's not noteworthy. As with the Shakespeare Authorship Question's earlier drafts, one gets a strong focus on authors in the last 20 years,(must take up almost half the article by the looks of it) whose books, on examination, prove to merely recycle in a popular presentation the theories and their details written a century ago. The frequency of the 'Christ myth' term may reflect this bias towards recent usage. In the good old days, in Protestant theological colleges, it didn't really matter if Jesus/Christ existed. From Martin Kähler through to the disciples of Rudolf Bultmann, this was considered not really material to being a Christian, any more than, for a Freudian, it mattered whether Oedipus or Moses were historically real (the myth was existentially, phenomenologically or psychologically real). What mattered, in hermeneutics, was the meaning of the myths we live by, an approach which suspended the rather simplistic idea that something was believable if empirically verifiable.
• Support, as per Slim, and John Carter, if only because the word 'Jesus' is an historical name, whereas the epithet 'Christos' refers intrinsically to a theology or myth, (unless it was, as it must have been, maliciously misheard by Greek ears attuned to a more uncomfortable meaning (daft). 'Christ' is already instinct with mytho-theological significance, whereas Yeshua/Jesus isn't. Call it my POV prejudice that I hear 'the Christ myth' as meaning, whatever usage, scholarly or popular is, that Jesus was not the messiah. I don't hear it as meaning an historical Jesus is to be discounted as a myth. Nishidani (talk) 16:29, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support move to Jesus myth theory. Fine with Christ myth theory as well, but I don't like Jesus myth hypothesis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ^^James^^ (talk • contribs) 20:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose change per BG and Future Perfect. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
• Strong support. Sorry, we're not all Christians here, and sad little attempts at slipping in honorifics like "Christ" instead of the figure's name, "Jesus", are about as acceptable as slipping in honorifics on Wikipedia articles every time we mention Allah, Vishnu or any other deity of a living religion. There is no other justification possible for a move from "Jesus" to "Christ". Take it somewhere else. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:32, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support In my view this article is a POV fork of Historicity of Jesus, and therefore should be merged into it. But while it is separate, the title should be free of religious terminology or adjectives, just like we don't add "the merciful" to mentions of Allah, despite the fact that it's extremely common among the followers of Islam. This article is supposed to focus on a scientific/historical issue, not a religious one, and therefore should use the alleged given name of the person whose historicity is being questioned. Crum375 (talk) 00:50, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
• Comment: It's hard to believe that academics have been so sloppy in their terminology not to recognize that Christ-myth and Jesus-myth are two completely different questions: plenty of people accept the historicity of Jesus without accepting his identity as Christ--this is what "Christ-myth" really implies. Still, scholarly preference is an acceptable basis for choosing the title. I'd think as long as there's a redirect in place for the term that doesn't get chosen, it's probably 6 of one.... Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:03, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• Not sure it matters: Although I understand and appreciate the reason for wanting to move (as I pointed out above, the "Christ myth" theory has very little to do with the historicity of Jesus), there's already a redirect in place from "Jesus myth" and "Jesus myth theory"; so anyone searching for those terms will be led here anyway. Having both names in the lede is fine for the time being, and the current title seems to follow the course of current scholarship.... Aristophanes68 (talk) 17:18, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support move to Jesus myth theory. ^{şṗøʀĸşṗøʀĸ: τᴀʟĸ} 06:55, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Even if it's a misnomer, we don't use our opinions on that to decide an article title. WP:NAME gives us the guidelines we should follow and when we don't we too often get into arguments like this with the accompanying mud-slinging. Dougweller (talk) 07:29, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment The word Myth is confusing. It has different meanings in academia as opposed to common use. The same is true of Theory. I thought the article would be about how the stories about Jesus changed and grew, and what might be known to be embellishments. A clearer title for the article, given its contents, might be Disbelief in a Historical Jesus. Or something along those lines. Dingo1729 (talk) 20:15, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Per Slim Virgin, "Jesus..." would be clearer. --FormerIP (talk) 20:41, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• Weak oppose I'm not sure there is any particular name that is clearly more common. Just doing some poking around Google it seems that authors tend to more commonly use the word Christ instead of Jesus when assigning a name to this hypothesis. Granted I think Jesus is slightly more accurate, but accuracy of a title is a secondary criteria for Wikipedia. --Mcorazao (talk) 20:57, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support. As per arguments made above. Student7 (talk) 23:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
• RfC response "Jesus" has the edge, according to google, so I support that. Possible compromise: Jesus Christ myth theory. Figureofnine (talk) 15:40, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Jesus makes it clear that what is involved is doubt that the human being existed rather than whether that human being was "the Christ".Dejvid (talk) 18:12, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

(first comment copied from above)

• Weak Oppose I changed my "oppose" to "weak" given the comments, although in this case I still think Google Books hits are more diagnostic than plain Google hits. Also, it seems to me that this theory calls attention to the crucifiction and resurrection and other (e.g. virgin birth) unnatural elements that are precisely what make Jesus "christ" and not just plain Jesus. Also, speaking personally, while I understand that many have used this theory to argue against the existence of any historical Jesus, it is my sense (and I admit I may be mistaken) that some (including many historians) have used this theory to argue that while a man named Jesus may have preached love and was believed to be a charismatic healer in the Galilee, what is myth is the claim that he was a god born of a virgin who was killed and resurrected, and that this myth was built of out of parts of other Hellenistic/ANE myths (e.g. Mithra), so the theory really is about the "christ" part more than the "Jesus" part. regardless of the number of opposes and supports, the key thing I think is that the article clearly and accurately explain the diverse views.Slrubenstein | Talk 09:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually Slrubenstein, what you are running into is the phrase "Christ Myth" being used in a different manner. Remsburg used "Christ Myth" the way you are described in The Christ (1909) saying while there was a 1st century teacher named Jesus the Gospels give us little if any insight to this man. Also Mead and Ellegard with their c100 BC historical Jesuses throw a monkey wrench in the "Jesus didn't exist as a historical person" definitions of Christ Myth Theory as they have been called mythists.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:55, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

SLR, this is a good example of why Christ myth theory is a misleading title. The theory is not about the supernatural aspects being myth (everyone agrees with that, except the fundamentalist category). The theory is that Jesus did not exist as an historical figure. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 10:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually that is one definition largely based on Drews work, there are are others:

• Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist as an historical figure (to allow Mead and Ellegard with their historical c100 BC Jesuses to fall under the Christ Myth banner. Used by Price)
• Jesus began as at a Myth (Walsh)
• The Gospels are to mythologized that all trace of a historical person, if there was ever one was to begin with, has been lost. (Jesus agnosticism-used by Boyd-Eddy)
• The Gospel Jesus never existed (Doherty's and Holding's definitions)

As you can see from this just what the Christ myth theory is is somewhat of a mess.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:52, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• In my comment I am thinking of Price and people like him. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:30, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Except your definition covers what Boyd-Eddy called the "legendary-Jesus thesis" which covers far more than most of what most of the material that actually bothers to define "Christ Myth theory" does.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:38, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I've been very slowly trying to read about this topic for the last few months so I can edit this article—and it has been slow because essentially I have little interest in the issue, but somehow got attached to it only after it ended up twice at FAC with some very strong language in it, and so my reading has been ponderous—but what is becoming every day clearer is twofold: (a) this article is a POV fork of Historicity of Jesus; and (b) that the Christ myth theory is that we're not in a position to say that Jesus existed, and we ought to stop being so certain about it. That's it.

You can build onto that basic plank that he was really a mythical trace of the Teacher of Righteousness, or that he was really a metaphor for the dying of winter and the coming of spring, or that he was really a dream of Paul's about people who were about to arrive in spaceships. You can also build onto it various conspiracy theories about the greatest lie ever told and how church fathers have deliberately hidden this or hidden that. This article used to focus on the wilder aspects, and still does more than it should, in order to discredit the theory and call it crazy fringe. But the fact remains that the essence of the article is who throughout the ages has argued—and sometimes argued quite sensibly—that there isn't enough evidence to indicate that Jesus existed. That should be in Historicity of Jesus, but if it has to be here it makes more sense to call it the Jesus myth theory, or just the Jesus myth, so that we cut out the religious aspect entirely. There is enough use of all these terms, so we can freely choose which one to use ourselves. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:20, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

If you got that just from reading the article the talk pages on this article are even worse. Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_8 (back in 2007) showed a concern about this being a POV fork by Jim62sch. Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_9 have even more concerns with ThAtSo flat out calling this article a WP:CFORK. In Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_21 User:Dbachmann again raised this issue (2009) and I agreed with him in Feb of that year asking "why does so much of the material on BOTH sides of this issue have problems? As I said elsewhere Creationism and New Chronology get better treatment than this and they are even more off the wall." By Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_22 User:Dbachmann seems to be to the point where nuking the article from orbit seemed to be a good idea. Hans Adler in Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_24 brought up the WP:CFORK issue again, in Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_28 Ttiotsw brought up WP:COATRACK concerns, and then you came on board in Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_30 with your WP:CFORK concerns. The article has improved much since then but as I pointed out in Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_21 many of the problems with this article is in the literature itself. When people bother to actually define it you get conflicting definitions that keep turning this into the monkey house of the week.--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:46, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Price is the only person mentioned in the introduction who has a PhD. that is relevant, and his "Christ myth theory" is just as I described it, the theory that Christ si a literary figure based on mythic elements circulating at the time of his composition. I think this is a fringe theory among historians, but it is not a "crank" theory meant to discredit any skeptics. If, as Slim Virgin claims, the CMT is basically, "we're not in a position to say that Jesus existed, and we ought to stop being so certain about it. That's it," then I would suggest that ALL of the major historians who argue for a historical Jesus would agree with this. The fact is, we cannot be certain that Alexander the Great existed. I am not saying this to discredit skeptics; my point is that ANY sensible historian will be clear that most of what we know about the past is a reconstruction. Frankly, what is more dangerous is when we are dealing with people we can be confident existed (say, Henry the VIII) and with little skepticism reconstruct his biography based on the sources available. In the case of Jesus, I think all historians, including Christian ones, will say that there is no historical proof Jesus existed, but that of people we believe existed two thousand years ago, they think it is likely he was real. Most historians of Jesus are not arguing that Jesus existed. They are arguing that if Jesus existed, "x yz" is a muchmore realistic portrait of his life and acts, to the extent we can say anything at all about them, than what most people think.

In this discussion as well as the AN/I discussion it is increasingly clear to me that two very different debates are getting mixed up at these articles. One is a debate largely between Christians and former Christians over whether Jesus existed. Since both groups seem to think Jesus was a God, to say he existed = to say God exists and to say he did not exist = to say God does not exist. This is a debate that is very important to lots of people but that Jews and other non-Christians can at best find amusing and more likely perplexing. But it is an important debate and it includes theologians and their critics.

The other is a debate among historians that is really about analyzing the Gospels the same way historians analyze many ancient texts that are clearly compounds of multiple views written at different times by people who did not make the same distinctions we do to today. Whit parts of the Gospel fit with what we know of the first half of the first century? Which parts fit with a period when Pharisees and Christians were competing for leadership of the Jews? Which parts really make sense if they were written after Christianity broke with judaism? These are the questions real historians debate, they are all questins over how to analyze old texts. Then they can write a book that basically begins, "If Jesus existed, then this is a more realistic portrait of him than what you think, and this is how things he may have said and may have done mean things you didn't think of, because you are not a first century jew like Jesus was" That is almost all historians writing about Jesus (including Christian ones).

I think NPOV means putting views in their context and a debate between people of faith and people who are anti-religion is a different ball-game than debates among historians; these are different contexts, and views get distorted when you try to take view that is forwarded in one context and put into the other context. Hitchens and Dawkins are not having the same conversation that Crossan and Ehrman are having. BBC or PPS or CBC could even put them in the same studio and try to get them to talk to one another and they will spend most of their time talking past one another because two of them are intent on answering one set of questions and two are intent on answering a different set of questions. This is the kind of situation in Wikipedia that really requires a fork if we are to explain things properly to our readers. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:05, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Wholehearted agreement with Slrubenstein above. I would only add that the main reason "Christians" give for the lack of earlier historical documentation of Jesus is that the early Christian movement honestly believed that the world would end any day now, and, like later millenarist movements, there wasn't a lot of reason to start on something that would take several months to complete when the possible writer didn't believe that there was any good reason to think that the world would still exist in several months. Other later millenarist movements have learned from the mistake of the early Christians, and published earlier, but even they have often told members to not enroll in college, for instance, because the world may well have ended before they get their degrees. John Carter (talk) 15:54, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what Slrubenstein is saying. First, I've argued elsewhere that in the interests of NPOV the debate needs to be opened up to all academics, not the hothouse (and usually the Christian hothouse) of biblical scholarship. Secondly, the sources are questioning whether Jesus existed. There aren't lots of ways to do this. They are saying: "We think a good case can be made for Jesus's non-existence; we don't think a good case can be made that he did exist." No one says this about Alexander the Great. Arguments about "oh, but it has to be placed in context," and "they're not really saying what they seem to be saying" are, in WP's terms, OR, and in other terms look like an attempt to undermine their point. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 16:30, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

"in the interests of NPOV the debate needs to be opened up to all academics" - Why? Where does NPOV require this? Do you really mean "all academics?" An electrical engineer? A molecular chemist? A geologist? Would you include the views of a Bible scholar ... or an English professor ... or a French medieval historian ... in an article on Physics or Astronomy if they have published there own views on the big bang or quantum mechanics? Would you include the views on evolution, held by an expert on the history of English syntax, in the article on Evolution? I bet none of the editors active at those articles would let you unless you have real compelling evidence that these authors had independently established their scholarly credibility in physics, astronomy, or biology. I think you are fetishizing "academia." Just because someone has a PhD - even say in French medieval history (and I just narrowed it down to history) - does not mean someone that person's opinion about 1st century Roman occupied Judea is any more reliable than that of my plumber or electrician, or the taxi driver I used earlier today. A PhD is proof that one can do doctoral elevel research on a specific subject, not that one is suddenly an oracle on everything.

"Arguments about "they're not really saying what they seem to be saying" are, in WP's terms, OR." Yes, I agree, which is why I never said that. "Arguments about "oh, but it has to be placed in context,"" is not OR, in fact, it is essential to represnting a view accurately and is part of our policies. I honestly do not see how you could oppose this criteria. It seems inconsistent. Aren't you appealing to this criteria when you characterize Bible scholars as residing in a "Christian hothouse?" Many of these bible scholars are not Christian. Some are Christian and actually argue that Jesus never existed (like Price). Some ar Christian and argue determinedly against Christian dogma and orthodoxy. Some happen to be Christian and also happen just to be good, serious historians. They view themselves as historians, and they view their views as those of historians, and other historians view them as historians too.

Look, you can say it simply does not matter whether one is an academic; a non-academic has as much expertise as an academic. In some cases (especially several journalists) I would agree with you, but in most cases I would not. Or you could say that someone with academic training in a particular field is a reliable source in that field, an approach that actually sometimes turns out to be wrong but in general I endorse. But to say that an academic who has a PhD on a subject is not an expert on that subject, and an academic who does not have a PhD on a subject is an expert on that subject, is really byond me. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:25, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I would bring a wide range of intellectualls into articles about physics if physicists were doing something that affected the rest of the world, where the issues were too dangerous to be left to a handful of academics speaking in tongues. You and I have had this discussion before, about the importance of the public intellectual. Have you read anything about the history of dissent in this area, and I mean the recent history: people ridiculed, unable to get their PhD theses accepted, unable to find teaching posts? And we saw it here in earlier versions: compared by biblical scholars to Holocaust deniers.

Jesus is a multi-trillion-dollar industry, and we can't allow special-interest groups to frame these articles. We include them, yes, and we make clear what the majority view is, but we don't let them take over. Other academics have spoken out about the the lack of scholarly rigor, rightly or wrongly, and because we're not an academic journal and we have a neutral policy, we include their views. I'm not arguing in favour of vox pop, but I want to include what educated people with no dog in the fight are saying.

I asked you elsewhere whether you'd support an article about Scientology being framed by historians who were committed Scientologists. You said no, but I didn't entirely understand your reasoning. That they're not open? Well, nor is anything really. To educate yourself in biblical scholarship, to the level we keep being told is required (knowledge of Greek, Aramaic, for example), is expensive, as is proceeding through Scientology levels. But take another example, a church that is very open about its history: Mormonism. Do you support WP articles about Joseph Smith being framed entirely by Mormon scholars? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 18:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I would not support WP articles about Joseph Smith framed entirely by scholars who are working for the mormon Church. I would laso hope for work by hisotirans and sociologists, but I would expect them to be historians of religion and sociologists of religion. If some of these happened to be Mormons I would ask whether their work is motivated by theological questions or historical questions? I would exclude (or narrowly use0 the former, and would include the latter without prejudice. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:42, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, one additional point: I'm not of course arguing that people with a PhD in one area are ipso facto experts in others. I'm arguing that doing a humanities PhD teaches you how to read and interpret texts, and when you then devote many years of study to an area, it's a little galling to be told no, sorry, your PhD from many decades ago was completed in the wrong faculty. G.A. Wells has been writing books about Jesus since 1975, but it's still apparently not good enough, because he originally specialized in German literature. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 18:49, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The criterion for whether somebody is an expert in a field is whether his peers accept him as an expert in the field. The relevant field here, if we want to set theology apart, is History. It doesn't matter whether somebody formally has a degree in history – they may well have become reputable experts over time through other channels. But it also doesn't matter whether somebody has "devoted many years of study" to an area and written books about it. Anybody can do that, and still remain a crackpot. The only reliable criterion for us to decide whether somebody is an expert worth taking seriously in a field is whether their academic environment treats them as such. And this is where peer review and all the related processes of quality control come in. Do the authors you speak about publish in peer-reviewed historians' journals? Do they get invited to historians' conferences? Do they get invited to write chapters for historians' encyclopedias? Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:23, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

There are literary critics who have written on the Bible - Harold Bloom for example. I consider his works to be potentially reliable, but I would still want to know how they were received by other scholars. My sense is that other scholars found them insightful although addressing a limited range of issues or having limited value. I would hold the same stnadards to any other scholar Slrubenstein | Talk 20:42, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The issue where religious scholars (scholars of religion with religious beliefs) differ from the rest of academia is the strong ideological component. Physicists aren't born into families who adore E=mc2. They're not sent to E=mc2 schools where E=mc2 becomes the centre of their lives. They don't seek E=mc2-adoring spouses and raise their children as E=mc2 worshippers. They don't believe that the adoration of E=mc2 will give them eternal life.

If physicists were raised in this way, might it not be the case that they would not be the most reliable sources on special relativity? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:34, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you concede the possibility that biblical scholars with religious beliefs may not be the best group to ask when examining whether Jesus existed?

No. I concede the possibility that any scholar may not be a good source; we need to see what standing the scholars' work has amng other experts in the field. This is a major headache wt the continual stream of ArbCom and AN/I and mediation efforts involving Race and intelligence. Some people say Rushton, a PhD in psychology teaching at an accredited university, is an authority on race and intelligence. Others say that the specific views he expresses are fringe and not considered respectable by other scientists. As for making any judgments about groups of scholars, I refuse to discriminate against any scholar based on race, creed, color or national origin. I think NPOV requires us to distinguish between mainstream, majority, minority and fringe views; I think we need to do this relative to something else (relative to the general public or relative to other experts) and beyond this I think w have to identify the view by looking at the text (the book or article) first and look at the "contextual" information about the author only after we have determined what view is expressed by the words of the text. Slrubenstein | Talk 02:49, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

You're quite right on that. But a policy wonk will always win out if she or he wishes to stop a G.A. Wells from being considered R.S., since the rules can be read that way. Somewhere in the humongous backpages of WP:RS, I tried, precisely, to make the same point by compiling a major list of, from memory, 16 frontranking scholars in various fields over the 20th century who, though qualified technically in one discipline, make groundbreaking studies in another for which they lacked the appropriate formal credentials. It ran from Joseph Needham(biochemistry), one of the greatest sinologists of all time, and Claude Lévi-Strauss(law and philosophy) to Michael Ventris (architecture), etc. The argument had no impact, and the rule of relevant qualification still impedes outside Phds and their work from being cited on many topics. Someone should raise this at the appropriate policy forum.Nishidani (talk) 19:00, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

One of the things that concerns me about this is that there is nothing in policy anywhere that implies this level of specialization is required. People have somehow assumed it. The sourcing policy has been kept fairly broad; see WP:SOURCES, which is the policy. The guidelines are supposed to be consistent with it. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:43, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The men you mentioned have all been recognized as making major contributions to their fields. If Wells' work had had the same impact in New Testament studies, there would be every reason to cite him in the same way that we cite any New Testament scholar. But Wells' work, when it is noticed at all by New Testament scholars, is treated as a curiosity. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:15, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

But we don't have to follow suit. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:43, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, this of course depends on what you mean by "follow suit." This article needs to give a full and fair exposition of Wells' views. But it also needs to note that Wells' views, especially the ones he put forward in his earlier work, are not mainstream. In an article like historical Jesus or similar, Wells' views, again, should not be treated as mainstream, and should receive far less weight than those of recognized experts in the field. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:49, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Those three all worked in fields that were in an inchoate state of conceptual and material development. Try to do that in a field that has a centuries' old history of consolidated thinking, in a field where, underneath the austere sobriety of analysis, deep emotional and fideistic commitments exist, forming something of a systemic bias on certain topics, and one will realize that conditions are different. Mind you, I haven't read G.A. Wells, so I am not thinking of him, but of the principle SV enunciated. Suffice a retrospective glance at the subject to appreciate the difference. It took centuries for the obvious to emerge, i.e., that Jesus was born, and died, a Jew, and why that obvious fact could not be faced was that a systemic bias, if not anti-Semitic (which it often was), then certainly highly defensive of Christianity's break existed, in great scholars consciously prepossessed by a sense there was a heuristic need to ride close shotgun on the boundaries with the contiguous faith in order to reaffirm the ostensible or vaunted uniqueness (and soi-disant superiority) of their own Christianity, which happened to be the doctrinal underpinning of the societies in which they lived and worked and had their beans.It has its reflex in the uneasiness some Jewish people have in classifying Jesus as a Jew. He should be ranked as such on the relevant wiki page (Jews), but he never will be. Perhaps they have a point, since his existence cannot be proved beyond doubt any more than Moses' or Abraham's (aside from our much admired and very present administrator by that name) can.Nishidani (talk) 19:25, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The bottom line is, NPOV requires that we include all significant views. I am sure we all agree that in some areas, what is significant is relative to what larger audience or community the paerson is a part of. Wells can be significant to a popular audience and should be included on those groungs; Meier is significant to a scholarly audience and should be included in those grounds. I am not really concerned with a litmust test for who we include as a source or not. My concern is with th disingenuous way that a host of reliable academic sources are being mislabeled as forwarding Christian points of view. I think we start down a slippery slope when we try to label a person rather than a particular book or article, as we cannot read minds but we can read books and articles. I think Nishidani has not been following this discussion - I have made it plain that someon can become a very well-respected historian of Jesus without having a PhD in history. Nishidani mentions Levi-Strauss and puts law and philosophy as his qualifications, but this misconstrues the history of anthropology; anthropology became established as an academic disipline rather late and the founding fathers in anthropology all had PhDs in other fields. Levi Strauss established himslef as an anthropologist by taking it upon himself to master all the skills and knowledge other emerging anthropologists considered essential, and by demonstrating this to other anthropologists. This is more analogous to Ehrman or Meier, who have doctorates in theology but who are not theologians and who do not publish on theology but who have additionally trained in history, publish history, and are acknowledged by other historians to be historians. This is not however analogous to Wells who is not acknowledged as a historian of 1st century Roman occupied Judea by other historians.

The issue here is not whom we include but how we identify their POV. Normally, we identify a POV because the text itself makes the POV plain. otherwise, we look for reliable secondary sources that say that x isrepresenting a particular POV. If notable historians took Wells seriously as a historian of the time and place he writes about, I would have no problem characterizing his POV as that of a historian of the time and place, regardless of his degree. So far I have not seen any reliabl secondary sources saying that Meier's work as a historian is biased by his Christianity, or that Ehrman's earlier work (before he left Christianty furthers a Christian POV. On the contrary, his earlier work is granted the same respect and significance as his later work.

I have been calling attention to degrees only because Noloop and others were misusing information about people's degrees in order to assign POV. They were misusing it because they are ignorant of how higher education is organized, or because knowing how HE is organized they are bigoted. In any event I wanted to make sure people understand how HE is organized. I do think having a PhD in a particular area does signify a certain level of expertise; gaining employment teaching that material is further evidence. It does not mean tht someone cannot also achieve expertise in a different field, but we would need evidence thatwhat they have written is accepteed (in this case) as expressing a historian's POV and is a significant view among historians of that time and place. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:57, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment While it is part of the Historicity of Jesus spectrum there is enough to show that it is regarded a quasi separate category--the problem keep being that there is not a uniform clean constancy about just what the bounties between it and the minimalist position are. This mess sort of reminds me of the chaotic mess old AD&D alignments were--you had clear descriptions of the extremes there too but where the exact boundaries between any two were was anyone's guess.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:21, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• There is no clean boundary between the Christ myth position and other minimalist positions, because they amount to the same thing depending on which words you stress. The search for a clean boundary is fruitless. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:27, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• You are saying what I have been saying for years on these talk pages (see talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_12#removed_sentence_from_lead regarding the range of the definition)--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:49, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

(first comment copied from above)

• Oppose Ok, I'm changing to oppose, because of the arguments I'm seeing about why "Christ" is used in the title. It's not used as an honorific; it's used because "Christ myth theory" has been the most common way to refer to the theory that there was no historical Jesus. This is probably because of the popularity of Die Christusmythe (The Christ-Myth), a 1912 book by Arthur Drews, which argued that there was no historical Jesus. This is a basic application of WP:NAME. And yes, I can see that "Jesus myth theory" gets more hits on a plain google search, but like Slrubenstein below, I consider the Google Books/Scholar results more important. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:13, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Note that Akhilleus is the user who moved the article from the original "Jesus myth theory" to "Christ myth theory". Obviously, Christ is an honorific, whether you want to dance around it or not, and the fact that "you're changing to oppose, because of the arguments I'm seeing about why "Christ" is used in the title" says it all. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it says that I don't like the poor arguments that other users are making. Such as the assumption that "Christ" is an honorific—I doubt Arthur Drews intended it that way, somehow. Neither, I think, does Robert M. Price (although, to be fair, he is a practicing Christian). --Akhilleus (talk) 03:38, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

And for the record, the move was from the original Jesus myth hypothesis to the current title of Christ myth theory, as SlimVirgin correctly noted above. And, as I've said all along, I moved it to this title because this is the name this theory is given most often in scholarship (that is, when it's actually given a name at all). --Akhilleus (talk) 03:49, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

If the crux of your response is my failure to point out that you swapped "hypothesis" for "theory", well, you've certainly got me there, Mr. Akhilleus! As for the actual topic, we're discussing your move, not the usage of Drews or Price, who I couldn't give two figs about for the purpose of the article title. Let's be clear; your odd preference for "Christ" over "Jesus" in this context welcomes votes such as mine and Crum375's, and your spite-vote in response hardly cools the flames. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:28, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

My "odd preference" is for "Christ myth theory" vs. "Jesus myth theory", not "Christ" vs. "Jesus". This preference is based precisely on the usage of Drews, Price, and the secondary scholarship that uses "Christ myth theory" more often than any other name, including "Jesus myth theory", for the idea that Jesus didn't exist. If Drews had named his book Die Jesusmythe, this article would probably be called Jesus myth theory right now. But the fact that he didn't suggests that the firm distinction you see between the meaning of "Jesus" and "Christ" is not one that's always observed. Again, this is a straightforward application of WP:NAME—what is the topic of the article usually called by other sources? --Akhilleus (talk) 04:45, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Therein lies the problem, Akhilleus. Despite the vast amount of literature out there, and despite that SlimVirgin's yield of hits have shown exactly how solidly founded and, for that matter, despite how obviously the usage the potentially mythical "Jesus" over the completely mythical "Christ" is here, you're still fighting for the honorific, hiding behind the smokescreen of your chosen book titles. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:59, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

As often as we don't see eye to eye to on a lot of things Akhilleus and I agree on the title of this should be "Christ Myth theory" as the work that really got the topic noticed was Drews' book which in English was titled Christ Myth. I too argued that Christ Myth was a bad choice Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_22#lists for much the same reason but the reality is when most people talk about this they are talking of Drews. Much like Darwin is incorrectly called "The theory of evolution" when in reality it should be "Regarding a mechanism for Evolution"--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

(first comment copied from above)

• Oppose Even if it's a misnomer, we don't use our opinions on that to decide an article title. WP:NAME gives us the guidelines we should follow and when we don't we too often get into arguments like this with the accompanying mud-slinging. Dougweller (talk) 07:29, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• The issue here is that WP:NAME offers no guidance for this case. Both names are used. Jesus myth theory gets over twice as many Google hits, and that's despite WP having spread Christ myth theory. But the latter gets significantly more Google Books hits, so it depends which you want to place more emphasis on. In a situation where both names are well represented, we can decide for ourselves which makes more sense.SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 07:41, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• Be very leery of Google hits especially the web search. You are getting blog, old versions of this pages, etc that mess up the numbers.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• The page was called Jesus myth hypothesis before it was moved in 2009, and has never been called Jesus myth theory that I can see, so WP isn't messing up Google hits with that title. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:12, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• Ah but Google doesn't took for tittles but that text appearing anywhere in the page. Here is the first sentence of this page exactly as it appeared in December 31, 2008:

"The Jesus myth hypothesis (also referred to as the Jesus myth theory, the Jesus myth, or the Christ myth) covers a broad range of ideas all of which question the historical existence of Jesus."

Since "Jesus myth theory" as well as "Jesus myth hypothesis" appears in the above Google presents any page with that text as a hit. In fact, searching for "Jesus myth theory" brings up the current version of this page: The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory and the nonexistence hypothesis) is the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was not a historical person, ..." As I said be very leery of Google hits especially the web search.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

But that applies to Christ myth theory too, so it evens itself out. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 06:05, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, since "Christ myth theory" was not part of the Jesus myth hypothesis definition it doesn't even itself out.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Lead in problems, again

Looking at the lead in trying to figure out to better reword it I noticed the beginning sentence uses Walsh (and only Walsh) as the source. As I said before the Walsh definition has loads of problems:

• 1) it is an excluded middle
• 2) it conflicts with other more notable and-or reliable sources (Remsburg, Barker, Marshall, Boyd-Eddy)
• 3) it creates definition problems--Wells' current position becomes Christ Myth while Mead and similar positions (Jesus lived c100 BCE) become historical Jesus

In this case there is the additional problem of Welsh doesn't support everything in the sentence. Here is another attempt to get this on track:

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory and the nonexistence hypothesis) is part of the historical Jesus spectrum(Marshall, Ian Howard. I Believe in the Historical Jesus. Regent College Publishing, 2004, p. 24.)(Eddy, Paul R. and Boyd, Gregory A. The Jesus Legend. Baker Academic, 2007. pg 24-25). The term "Christ Myth theory" or one of its synonyms has been used describe the idea:

• Jesus was an entirely fictional or mythological character created by the Early Christian community
• Jesus started out as a myth with Historical trappings added later(Walsh)
• Jesus was historical but lived c100 BCE(Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, p. 65)
• The Gospel Jesus is in essence a composite character and therefore non historical by definition.(Price, Robert M. (2000) Deconstructing Jesus Prometheus Books, pg 85)
• There is not enough to show Jesus existed (Jesus Agnosticism)(Eddy, Paul R. and Boyd, Gregory A. The Jesus Legend. Baker Academic, 2007. pg 24-25)
• The Gospel Jesus didn't exist (Doherty)

Yes, I know it is not pretty but enough is enough; there simply is not any one definition for "Christ Myth theory" and the insane instance there is is IMHO just POV pushing. Oh, sorry about the reference formatting but I it looked fine in preview and then went to garbage with the actual post.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:06, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Is this your suggestion for the lead? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 05:35, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Essentially, yes it is. It address all the variants that we have sources for. It touches on potentially confusing and conflicting statements for Drews as in on page 230 and 232 in Old Protestantism and the New By Brian Gerrish without trying to shoehorn things into any one definition. Since via several sources have been presented that Jesus of Nazareth is the Jesus of the Gospels, "The Gospels do not record the history of an actual man, but convey the Jesus myth in quasi-historical form." would apply to a composite character Jesus as presented by Price or current Wells as well as a pure myth Jesus. Composite characters by definition are not historical ergo a composite character Gospel Jesus describe a single man who never existed either. QED.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:42, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it would confuse more than it would clarify. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 06:44, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The material itself is confusing; it is much like the term "culture" in my field--until you see it in context you have no freaking idea what it really means. As I have shown before the few sources that actually define "Christ Myth Theory" are either vague to the point of telling you nothing really usable or give conflicting definitions. As I said way back what "Christ Myth Theory" means should by NPOV not be a game of pick that source, trying to mix the varies definitions together into some WP:SYN Frankenstein's monster, or ignore those definitions that may cause headaches. My newest attempt at a lead is to be as honest to what we have as is possible.

Let me flat out ask you, just how can we relay the complexity of this topic without confusing the blazes out of the reader?--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:13, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

If that is the proposed lead, word for word, sorry, no way. Way too confusing, although an A for effort. I acknowledge that there is a very real question to be addressed here. Whether the article should be split into multiple articles, discussing each of the types of proposals separately, with this made, as it were, a dab page, is I think still a bit of a valid question. But perhaps saying something in the lead about how the term has been applied to a variety of theories which do not necessarily cohere very well, and perhaps describing the various options outlined above in separate sections of the article might work, or maybe have the first section of the article go into the various forms the theory has taken. I think we all acknowledge the topic is confusing, the question is how to make it less so. John Carter (talk) 19:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the A for effort at least. This was (and still is) a rough draft and was intended to be about as "See Spot. See Spot run." as I could get with the material--in essence a skeleton to try and flesh out. As bad as my version is IMHO it is light years ahead of what we currently have; so any ideas on how to make it easier to understand?--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:46, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Here is another rewrite prototype:

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory and the nonexistence hypothesis) is part of the historical Jesus spectrum(Marshall, Ian Howard. I Believe in the Historical Jesus. Regent College Publishing, 2004, p. 24.)(Eddy, Paul R. and Boyd, Gregory A. The Jesus Legend. Baker Academic, 2007. pg 24-25). The term is generally used in reference to the theory proposed by Arthur Drews in his 1910 book Die Christusmythe (The Christ Myth) which said there was nothing in the Gospel account that could not be explained via mythology eliminating the need for a historical Jesus (Weaver, Walter P. (1999) The Historical Jesus in the Twentieth Century, 1900-1950. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity. ISBN 1-56338-280-6 pg 50) and also said if any insisted there had to be a real person behind the story that we knew nothing about that Jesus. (Drews (1910) Burns translation via Internet archive pg 19)

Because the phrase Christ myth was and is used to describe things other than Drews' book the phrase "Christ myth theory" similarly takes on slightly different meanings sometimes encompassing issues at best only tangential to Drews' original position (yes, I know this somewhat OR but the literature is a mess here):

• Jesus was an entirely fictional or mythological character created by the Early Christian community (we have dozens of references for this)
• Jesus started out as a myth with historical trappings added later (Walsh)
• Jesus was historical but lived c100 BCE (Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, p. 65)
• The Gospel Jesus is in essence a composite character and therefore non historical by definition.(Price, Robert M. (2000) Deconstructing Jesus Prometheus Books, pg 85)
• There is not enough to show Jesus existed (Jesus Agnosticism)(Eddy, Paul R. and Boyd, Gregory A. The Jesus Legend. Baker Academic, 2007. pg 24-25)
• The Gospel Jesus didn't exist (Doherty)

(Third paragraph explaining direction and scope of this article would go here)

The first paragraph explain why the thing is generally called the Christ Myth theory as well as using Weaver and Drews himself to present just what Drews was arguing. The second paragraph deals with "The Mess" and the final paragraph would set the scope and direction of the article. Remember this is a rough draft to try and deal with as many problems this thing has had over the years and likely doesn't have the best wording in the world but IMHO it is better than what we currently have.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:09, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the second paragraph could be replaced with a statement to the effect that the theory has taken a number of forms, all of which share the common belief that the Jesus described in the canonical Christian sources was not real. Then turn the bullet points into numbered sections like (1), with the sources included as footnotes at the end of the numbered sections? John Carter (talk) 19:04, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

If we have dozens of references that say the Christ myth theory is the position that Jesus was an entirely fictional or mythological character created by the early Christian community, why are we trying to change the lead sentence, which is probably the clearest thing in the entire article? We know that the majority of sources that use the phrase "Christ myth theory" define it this way, and the sources that talk about the line of thought espoused by Bauer-Drews-Wells say that these men argued that there was no historical Jesus. So let's not muddy things up unnecessarily.

The bullet points that Bruce has above all share the idea that there was no historical Jesus. (1) "Jesus was an entirely fictional or mythological character created by the Early Christian community"—obvious enough. (2) "Jesus started out as a myth with historical trappings added later"—well, all this means is that Jesus was a mythological character created by the Christians, and as time went by, they tried to make him look more historical. Doesn't conflict with #1, and I thought this was a position adopted by some of the people discussed in this article—for instance, Paul conceives of Jesus as entirely a supernatural, spiritual being, and it's only in the Gospels that there are attempts to make him a person who appeared in a definite time and place. (3) "Jesus was historical but lived c100 BCE"—this isn't the historical Jesus, this is a different guy. On any standard reconstruction the historical Jesus lives in the first third of the 1st century CE (unless you think he outlived the crucifixion or something). Note that in the reference Bruce gives, p. 65 of Price's contribution to The Historical Jesus: Five Views, Price names both "the early G. A. Wells" and Alvar Ellegard as authors who hold this view. Wells has clearly stated that in his early work he denied that there was a historical Jesus, so this position is clearly not in conflict with the idea that there was no historical Jesus. The basic idea is "the New Testament is not based on the life of the historical Jesus, but a different person who lived in a much earlier time." (4) "The Gospel Jesus is in essence a composite character and therefore non historical by definition." Ok, well, this doesn't conflict with the idea that there was no historical Jesus either, does it? The source Bruce gives for this view is Robert M. Price, so this point blends in with (5) There is not enough to show Jesus existed (Jesus Agnosticism), of which Price is an example. I don't think this fully represents what Boyd/Eddy are saying, because they lump this in with the non-historical position of Bauer, Drews, and Wells—the difference with Price is that he says it's more likely that there was no historical Jesus; he is, in other words, still very much in the CMT camp, but he's using the language of probability rather than certainty. (6) the gospel Jesus didn't exist. Bruce gives Doherty as a source for this, but unless I've misunderstood what Doherty has written on his website about his advocacy of "the non-existence of an historical Jesus of Nazareth", his position is not best summed up as "the gospel Jesus didn't exist." Rather, it's, well, "Jesus was an entirely fictional or mythological character..." And sure, there's probably more to what Doherty says, but he shares common ground with the other authors covered in this article, in that they all argue that the historical Jesus didn't exist (or, if you want, that it's more likely than not that he didn't exist).

Just to be clear, I think that the lead, and perhaps many sections of the article, don't do a great job of explaining the CMT to the reader. Bruce has raised some matters that need to be more clearly covered in the article. But the bullet points in his post above don't provide support for altering the basic definition of the article.

Also, we have so many sources that say that Drews argued there was no historical Jesus (even Weaver, whom Bruce mentions, said that "Drews would become the most notorious spokesman for the deniers of Jesus' historicity" (p. 49), that we shouldn't soften this characterization based on an editor's reading of Drews himself. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The bullet points to not "share the idea that there was no historical Jesus":

• (2) "Jesus started out as a myth with historical trappings added later" (Walsh)

Those historical trappings could have come from real world events including those involving some 1st century teach whose name may or may not have been Jesus.

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

"the theory that he was an historical individual is called the historical Jesus theory" (Walsh) A Jesus who lived c100 BCE would still be a historical individual in the same way a Robin Hood that lived 1327-1377 would be historical.

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

Composite characters can include historical people even if they themselves are nonhistorial. The composite character argument allows for the possible inclusion of a historic 1st century prophet most of whose true historical actions have been lost.

• (5) There is not enough to show Jesus existed (Jesus Agnosticism)

Boyd Eddy quite clear say that Price is among the "'would back off on this thesis (ie Christ Myth Theory) slightly" so even Boyd-Eddy admit that Price is not in the Jesus never existed camp.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:33, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(2) If you take this sentence in isolation, without looking at the other things the source (Walsh) says, I suppose this is a possible interpretation. But Walsh says nothing about the "historical trappings added later" coming from a 1st century figure. What he says is: "The overwhelming majority of scholars hold that Jesus did exist and that we can know at least a few things about him. A tiny, unconvinced minority hold that he never existed and that therefore there is nothing to know about him except that he is the central character of the myth. Some of the reasons for this difference of opinion lie in the ideological premises of the scholars who study the documents, but others seem not to be so motivated…The vast majority of non-Christian scholars hold that Jesus really existed, but a very few professedly Christian scholars have expressed doubt or disbelief about his existence…" (pp. 57-58). In other words, Walsh is contrasting a theory of Jesus' non-existence, held by a "tiny, unconvinced minority," with the opinion of the majority of scholars, who hold that he existed. In other words, Walsh is talking about the same thing as #1.

(3) This is just repetition. I'll repeat myself too: a historical figure who lived ca. 100 BCE is not the historical Jesus, he's some other guy. Again, G. A. Wells is described as holding something like this view in his early work, and Wells has made it plain that in his early work he denied that there was a historical Jesus. Another author mentioned in our article who believed that the Gospels draw upon the life of an earlier historical figure is John M. Robertson, whom many sources describe as someone who said there was no historical Jesus.

(4) Does Price say that he thinks a historical 1st century figure contributed to the NT portrait of Jesus?

(5) Boyd-Eddy still include Price in the same category as Bauer, Drews, and Wells. "backing off slightly" is still slightly. Never mind that Wells has characterized Price as someone who has argued that Jesus never existed... --Akhilleus (talk) 15:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(2) and (3) "My present position is that in the case of Jesus, we simply do not know for certain anything about his biography, not even that he existed." (sic Walsh pg 58) Even Walsh admitted that the evidence for Jesus was poor. Not knowing anything certain about his biography includes when he lived.

(4) "I am not trying to say that there was a single origin of the Christian savior Jesus Christ, and that origin is pure myth; rather, I am saying that there may indeed have been such a myth, and that if so, it eventually flowed together with other Jesus images, some one of which may have been based on a historical Jesus the Nazorean. (Price Deconstructing Jesus pg 85) provided before by me (see Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_37)

(5) Boyd Eddy says that Price could be part of this group not that he is. This is ignoring the fact Boyd Eddy admits these categories are "admittedly overly simplistic", "ideal-typical in nature" and were "offered merely as a useful heuristic" ie these categorizes are not set in stone as you seem to think.

As seen in The historical Jesus in context By Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison, John Dominic Crossan Princeton University Press pg 3 even the spectrum itself has different definitions going from positivism to skepticism in this case.--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

You're placing far too much emphasis on what Eddy/Boyd say about their ideal-typical categories. They're still happy to use the categories throughout their book, and in his 2009 book G. A. Wells has looked at Eddy/Boyd's categories and said that he doesn't belong in their category 1, he actually belongs in category 2. That is, the categories make distinctions that both Eddy/Boyd and Wells make use of. Furthermore, in the introduction to The Historical Jesus: Five Views, edited by Eddy and James Beilby, Price is called "one of the most provocative Christ-myth theorists writing today", so Eddy, at least, seems happy to use the category in a different work.

You're also placing too much emphasis on Eddy/Boyd in general. This is only one of the sources we have about the CMT, and as you've acknowledged many times, the majority of our sources support the idea that the CMT is the idea that Jesus was a fictional or mythical character created by the early Christians.

Something that this discussion has pointed out is that we could add the idea that for many (most?) proponents of the CMT, early Christianity started out with the idea of a purely mythical character, as seen in the Pauline epistles, but the figure was gradually historicized, so that in the Gospels he's given a definite historical setting in the early 1st century. This is something that Price mentions in Deconstructing Jesus (p. 228): "One may suspect that another reason for the eventual triumph of the 'adoptionistic,' evolutionary theory of christological origins is that it was at least not as disturbing as an even more radical view, the pure Christ-Myth theory: that there had never been a historical Jesus at the root of the full-blown mythical Christology. According to the Christ-Myth theorists, Jesus had first been regarded in the manner of an ancient Olympian god; he had supposedly once visited the earth and died and been raised from the dead, like Hercules and Asclepios. The imagined incarnation, death, and resurrection would have occurred in the hazy zone of mythic time…It was only subsequently, says the Christ-Myth theory, that the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus was rendered historical, datable, a piece of recent worldly history. Christianity, then would have begun with a 'high' Christology, but with no historical grounding (hence one might call it 'docetic'), whereas the 'adoptionistic' theory of mainstream scholars holds that Christians first held a 'low' Christology, placing Jesus on our level, not God's, only later yielding to a process of mythification of the historical man Jesus of Nazareth. The choice is between a historical Jesus mythicized and a mythic Jesus historicized." That's quite similar to Walsh's statement that Christianity originated in a "myth that was later dressed up as history." On p. 250 Price attributes this view to Drews and Wells, so it's not clear to me why anyone would think this somehow undermines the definition of the CMT.

On your reference to the Levine/Allison/Crossan volume, I think I'm missing your point. Of course there's a spectrum of views about the historical Jesus; there really ought to be more articles about individual positions—each of Eddy/Boyd's categories might merit an article, for instance, and there could be many more. One of the problems with discussion on this page is it underrates just how much reconstructions of the historical Jesus differ from one another—in this subfield of scholarship, the disagreement is over what the historical Jesus was like, not whether he existed. There is increasing skepticism about whether anything much can be known about the historical Jesus due to the nature of the sources, but this is quite different than wondering if he actually existed. The "skepticism" mentioned by Levine has to do with the historicity of the events described in the Gospels, not the existence of the man himself. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

"Jesus parable"

I've got a question about this edit by SlimVirgin. Adding "mythic-Jesus thesis" is good, since this is a phrase used to describe the idea that there was no historical Jesus, but I'm less certain about "Jesus parable". Can anyone give some examples of this phrase being used to describe the idea of Jesus' non-existence? Normally, it seems to refer to a particular type of story told by Jesus in the NT. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:42, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's in the article in the Definition section. John Dominic Crossan prefers to call it the Jesus parable, for the reasons explained in that section. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 04:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. But does anyone use this term as an equivalent to the CMT except Crossan? Unless there are other examples, I don't think it's going to be much help to readers, and in fact it might be confusing, since parable usually means something pretty different. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:16, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

There is much that is confusing here.--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Robert Eisenman

In his 1997 book about James, the above-named author is described by some sources as being evasive about whether Jesus ever existed or whether he was a creation of James, and I think one source specifically states that he does indicate that Jesus was artificial. Would that deserve mention in the article? John Carter (talk) 17:18, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

He definitely is evasive. I wouldn't be in a position to write it without a fair bit of reading, but I'd certainly support it being added if we could source it carefully. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 18:10, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I have a copy, and I think John had one also, so sourcing would be no problem, except for the fact that it is best not to quote or cite directly from his book. Almost invariably, as we known from the Ebionism page, this leads most editors who favour his inclusion into gross WP:OR violations, give the labyrinthine subtleties of his primarily philological style of argument. His thesis strongly implies that the historical Jesus is irrecoverable, and that what we know of Jesus is an elaborate overwrite drawing heavily on contemporary oral memories of James, his 'brother', but in conclusion, at least in this first volume, his language suggests Jesus may have existed ('individuals like James, John the Baptist, and presumably Jesus (if he was anything like them),' (1997) 2002 p.962. But Eisenman can only be handled via what we are told in secondary sources authored by competent specialists in that field.Nishidani (talk) 19:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. That was what I meant about sourcing it carefully. We can certainly use him as a primary source to augment secondary sources, but for anything unclear—and that is a lot of it, so far as I can tell—we'll need another source to explain what he was saying. My brief glance at it sees him saying it doesn't matter whether Jesus existed, and that we can't know whether he did, but what is interesting is the myth. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:19, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

'Myth' is the problem there, since he is, exceptionally, someone who appears to think we are dealing not with a myth stricto sensu, but the transposition of a set of narratives from one certainbly attested person to that of another, about whom almost nothing can be known. And this was essentially a Pauline overwrite. I'll look through it to see if he uses that word, but his primary concern is with the transpositional syntax of the hypothetical overwrite, and rewrite he has hypothesized.Nishidani (talk) 19:28, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

What he says here goes to the heart of the sourcing issues we've been discussing:

Readers are encouraged to make judgements for themselves and, where possible, to go to the primary sources directly and not rely on secondhand presentations. ... All too often, a docile public has been easily dominated by a religious or scholarly hierarchy claiming to know more or to have seen more. In religious matters, given the place of scholarly elites in upholding religious ones, this has been the case more often than not. Therefore, almost everything in this book ... will occur outside the traditional or received order. Only a knowledgeable and enlightened public can change this state of affairs.(p.xxxv)

SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

One of the most remarkable examples of a man of extraordinary learning, pitching his argument to the wider reading public over the head of specialists, (populism) while presenting his work in such an intricate manner that only a specialist can work out what he is saying, and the average, even wellinformed reader can probably not make head or tail of it. It is, in itself a form of anti-Gospel evangelism, (his cultural and political, almost programmatic POV is alluded to by the triad of dedicatees, by the way), and like the Gospel evidence, his evidence can never be verified, and his scholarship, like the NT narrative, achieves ironic parity with it as a just-so story, or counterfactual. But this is of course irrelevant to our problem. Just a personal note.Nishidani (talk) 19:52, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The position that Jesus probably existed in some form, but is unknowable, seems to be very common in secular academia. Increasingly, I see it in the Christian community as well. Consider, for example, a recent article in that hotbed of atheist bigotry, Christianity Today:"The Jesus We'll Never Know Why scholarly attempts to discover the 'real' Jesus have failed." [1]. The need to add qualifiers like "in some form" to the statement "Jesus existed" begs the "define Jesus" question and leads back into Christ myth theory. Ellegard says Jesus is based on an actual historical figure. Why is his theory part of CMT camp rather than the reconstruction camp? The main problem with this debate is the insistence on authoritative answers where only probabilistic ones exist. Noloop (talk) 20:10, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

In response to Nishidani, not all of the confusing aspects are necessarily due to Eisenman. Did you notice the dedication to Michael Baigent, who "assisted" in some of the more complex statements of ideas? John Carter (talk) 20:18, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes John, but in my copy (Acknowledgement page) he only speaks of Baigent being a 'bastion of support'. I don't think guilt by association is fair. In any case, Slim's citation can surely be used to support a passage that explicitly raises the question of bias that Noloop complained of, without however (in so far as I have read this and other threads) providing RS secondary source evidence, as editors have repeatedly requested. I have considerable regard for Eisenman's work. It is a form of fiction but like de Lillo or Pynchon's novels, which influenced him, as much as did Barbara Thiering, fiction often gets to the pith of a problem that the austere praetorians of consensual scholarship (which is a myth, since most of ancient history is vexed by hermeneutic battles) miss, because the historical method denies them the liberty of re-imagining the evidence, and the gaps between its itsy bitsy tales. But Wiki loves, with good reason, its myth of consensus, be it in scholarship (a fiction in many seminal areas of history) or in forums.Nishidani (talk) 20:50, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

In response to Noloop, Ellegard is included by the terms of the definition of this page, as well as those of the Historicity of Jesus page. Because we are not supposed to duplicate material on multiple pages, he fits on the most directly relevant page, this one. I guess. And, yes, several Christians have stated, rather clearly, that there is comparatively little, if any, chance of us ever finding reliable direct contemporaneous evidence regarding the existence of Jesus the man, and, on that basis, conclude, in a way, that Jesus is, ultimately, unknowable. However, most Christians would state that simply because there is no hard evidence to believe that he existed does not mean that he did not exist. As per other comments on this page, there are a lot of figures of history, sometimes even more recent history, who have little if any contemporaneous documentation to support their existence. If the sources we have are reliable, though, even if they are after the fact, they can still be used. This seems to be one of those cases. John Carter (talk) 21:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I know why Ellegard is described here more than in Historicity of Jesus--he is conventionally classified as CMT guy. I meant, why isn't his Teacher of Righteousness considered the historical Jesus? It's just a matter of degree. Once it is conceded that there is virtually nothing that can be known about the historical Jesus, suddenly you have to concede that the actual historical person might not be very much like the New Testament figure at all. Noloop (talk) 06:59, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there any other ancient figure—with no contemporaneous sources, no extant writings or other work, and almost no sources even in the same century—about whom scholars express certainty that s/he existed and insult people who question it? Forgive my ignorance if there's a comparable figure, but I can't think of one. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:17, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You've defined the terms in a way that prejudices the argument., esp. by adding 'about whom scholars --insult people who question it.' Most scholars engaged in biblical scholarship don't spend their time insulting disbelievers, learned or otherwise. Nishidani (talk) 21:50, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You may be surprised at the extent to which they do. Take a look at the last paragraph of an earlier lead of this article and look at the references from 1 to 55. Look at the current section on the theory in Historicity of Jesus, where I think the Bishop of Durham is saying it's like discussing whether the moon is made of green cheese, or words to that effect. It's not me prejudicing the argument; that really is the state of affairs. Can you think of anything comparable? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:31, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

No intent to accuse you of 'prejudicing the argument' at all. I've had months working the Shakespeare Authorhip Question where (a) most mainstream scholars ignore the enormous literature doubting the 'Stratford' man was Shakespeare but (b) those few mainstream scholars, several of the highest authority, are on record as dismissing this as raving lunatic nonsense, out of exasperation at the way poor scholars or outside generalists, or writers, capture the public imagination while scanting the technical rigours of formal scholarship and its methodological caution. Despite these outbursts, it is fair to say, most scholars don't write about the challenge to their Kuhnian paradigm. This is both bad, and thoroughly understandable, in a positive and negative sense. I should add that by 'scholars' here I mean not professors of theology with a grounding in biblical scholarship and hermeneutics, which covers many of the examples in your link, but scholars who actually have contributed original ideas to resolve the cruxes, philological, textual and historical to any field. I don't generally read the former. Unless a scholar is thoroughly grounded in the appropriate languages and textual history, they are not worth reading, since they haven't the basic means of assessing the evidence, and understanding the interpretative cruxes. Nishidani (talk) 10:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

No, because, in part, there are no really directly comparable subjects which are of such importance to the Western world, which is where most of us English speakers live. To my knowledge, however, there are no other figures of anywhere near the same level of historic importance whose existence has been seriously questioned, and, on that basis, there will be nowhere near as many parties either seeking to challenge their existence or responding in knee-jerk condemnation of them. But I do wonder how this discussion really relates to WP:TPG. John Carter (talk) 22:37, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I understand what SlimVirgin is talking about as I tangentially talked bout the same issue in Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_34#Some_input_regarding_the_RFC.. As I pointed out there, Heliocentrism and plate tectonics were examples of theories the establishment claimed were "refuted" and "dead"; as James Burke said in The Day the Universe Changed science has to have a model or structure to even begin to ask questions and that very structure limits what questions you can ask.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:52, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

And there is also the question about how many other historical figures without contemporary evidence have their existence questioned in the first place. There are quite a few who lack evidence, but so far as I know very few have their existence actively challenged. But I think Gautama Buddha is one figure who lacks writings or directive contemporary evidence. The fact that this discussion regarding Jesus has been going round and round for a few hundred years, and, for all the "discussion," nothing has been resolved, is another factor. "Beating on a dead horse," however much it might in this case produce hot selling popular literature, is still beating on a dead horse. John Carter (talk) 22:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I was going to raise him, and Laozi (Laotze), Confucius, Zhuangzi (Chuang tzu) in China, Zoroaster in Persia, Pārśva and Mahāvīra the founders of Jainism in India, almost all the figures in the Pentateuch, from Abraham to Moses to David and Solomon etc., not to speak of early Roman history which is narrated for centuries though Georges Dumézil argued that the keynote of early Roman historiography consisted of the consisted of the transformation of local figures of myth into national secular figures, whom we now take to be 'real' etc. Both the Buddha and Confucius are particularly interesting because Jains, and several historians, on strong grounds, argue that much of his 'life' is moulded from the more certain historical data on his older contemporary Mahāvīra, and with Confucius, good arguments are made that the revered religious teacher we know as Confucius (孔子) is wholly legendary, and what little may be taken, from the earliest strata, as historical actually refers to a warrior noble known as K’ŏng Qīu (孔丘). One can do an Eisenman on many of these figures, and get the same result. I haven't checked the wiki articles to see whether the actual historical work on the mythic construction of all of these figures is represented, but if anyone doubts it, I'll provide the details.

There are two things that strike one in reading this debate. (a) The confusion of high profile popular works pitched to a public by ex-religious scholars, or atheists, with that of the dryasdust inframural scholarship on the Gospels, Ist century Palestine and its history, and textual analysis done by most professional scholars. The controversy is well known, but not accepted, even by most secularists within that field, because it applies standards of scepticism which would generally make all ancient history a mess (b) we are discussing this within the post-Enlghtenment Western tradition of critical scholarship, which has, as is its duty, deconstructed the massive overlays and mystery-mongering of the fideistic world of tradition, whereas this kind of critical muckraking is not yet part of the public imagination, (scholarly controversy tipping over into widespread public debate about a revered figure of national belief). That this controversy has had moments of polemical intensity in Western public discourse, with scholarly backing, in the West uniquely around Jesus does not mean that Jesus, as Slimv suggested, constitutes a distinctive exception. It simply means Western scholarship's relation to the wider public is far further down the road towards thorough secularism than is the case elsewhere, where state power, popular tradition and orthodoxies still have not sorted out their differences with what cutting edge analysis, in the ivory tower, has to say (see, to cite but one example I have recently edited on, what happened to Wendy Doniger when her brilliant book on Hinduism was published). There is no evidence for the contract of Abraham with Ephron the Hittite at Hebron, it is pure myth, but that myth is taken to be the historical warrant for the resettlement of that city, there being a total disconnect between what the best scholars of Judaism know, and what religious orthodoxy and national-popular attitudes affirm. Examples are infinite. Radical scepticism with historical sources can play havoc, as we see with the century-old scepticism that Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the poetry and theatrical works associated with him. Some very serious people have espoused this. Nishidani (talk) 09:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Can you give an example of the radical skepticism with historical sources you've seen with Jesus, though? I'm seeing quite the opposite in most of the scholarly works I've been advised to read for this, where the usual thing is a nod in the direction of the obvious questions, then moving swiftly on. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 14:23, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to be late. This is the Assumption, in Italy, and once is obliged by native rites to eat and drink most of the afternoon. Well, I'll get hit with TLDR if I get into too many details and examples, so, without referring you to the actual detailed studies that tear apart, textual layer by textual layer, the traditions in each ancient account and the accretions that have encrusted these ostensibly historical figures, I'll provide you with just two synthetic judgements by specialists, for two of the Chinese examples, Zhuangzi and Confucius, the ostensible founders of Taoism and Confucianism, deeply revered even today as real figures. (The ostensibly earlier Laozi as a constructed figure, and once thought much earlier than Zhuangzi, is far more well known to be invented).

Regarding the identity of the original person named Chuang, there is no reliable historical data at all. At the end of the twentieth century, virtually all scholars continued to accept the idea that there was a “historical” Chuang, who lived at about the same time as Mencius. Whether scholars at the end of this century will still accept that notion is quite another thing.’Russell Kirkland, Taoism: the enduring tradition, Routledge, 2004 p.34(Kirkland actually in that book makes a parallel with Jesus.

Today, it is possible to read the Analects (Lúnyŭ:論語) and ignore the issue of who Confucius was and whether he ever existed. Indeed, for some purposes, this might be the best approach to the text. (p.134) ‘To be sure, few would disagree with the statement that at the end of the sixth century B.C.E., a man named K’ŏng Qīu (孔丘) lived in China and that his ideas and words were transcribed by those who studied with him. Some of these transcriptions probably survive today, but what makes the enterprise of “knowing” Confiucus so puzzling is that unambiguous standards according to which one can definitely cull out his authentic words disappeared long ago. Although K’ŏng Qīu was not mythical, Confucius-a Latinized name(d.sic) used here to denote persons that come to mind when the name K’ŏng Qīu is invoked- most certainly is.’Mark Czikzentmihaly, ‘Confucius and the Analects in the Hàn,’ in Bryan William Van Norden (ed.) Confucius and the Analects: New Essays,, OUP 2002 pp.134-162, p.134

There are quite a few key figures of early Greek thought who, though believed for millenia to be historical, are now know to be congested images patched up from myths. Orpheus, Pythagoras, Aristeas of Proconnesus, Abaris, and Epimenides, to name but a few (Walter Burkert, Lore and science in ancient Pythagoreanism, Harvard University Press, 1972p.109 writes:'one is tempted to say that there is not a single detail in the life of Pythagoras that stands uncontradicted'. Wonderful, pathmaking book by the way. Highly recommended.)Nishidani (talk) 15:20, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

'a nod in the direction of the obvious questions, then moving swiftly on'

Yes, because the 'obvious questions' cannot be resolved within the terms of accepted historical methodology. Slim, this is the technical objection that explains why most scholars 'nod' in the direction and then turn to their textual and hermeneutic struggles with the conflicting materials on Jesus. A Bart Ehrman, James Robinson or Geza Vermes feels constraints to work weighing the usual probabilities allowed by the material we have, rather than to succumb to the temptation to go beyond what we have. Put it this way, you cannot prove Jesus did not exist, anymore than prove he did exist. But one can legitimately assume that it is more probable, as an hypothesis, that some historical figure like him did exist, since within two generations of his death, both canonical tradition and secular historical sources assume this. (with Zhuangzi, Siddharta Buddha, etc., the sources were written centuries afterwards). Nearly all historical writing for the past preceding Gutenburg is assumptional like this. If you look at the 'Secret History' (Ανέκδοτα ή Απόκρυφη Ιστορία) of Procopius, it is written exactly in the same style as his reliable Wars of Justinian. But, as I learned several decades ago, in a wonderful seminar, much of the pornographic anecdotes about Theodora and Justinian, and Belisarius and his wife, can be deconstructed asliterary constructions based on topoi from earlier classical literature. Most of the speeches in Thucydides are pure artefacts of his imagination, etc. Not for that reason do historians proceed to dismiss these literary exercises as devoid of historical elements, but everything remains contentious and hypothetical. The seekers after certainties with their pyrrhonism can be read as fighting against a complacent cover-up. They can also be read, and usually are, as wounded bulls charging, with vindictive relish, at the toreador of a religion that tormented them earlier. They seek certainty, like their antagonists. Nishidani (talk) 15:46, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Largely agree with the above. The question, most neutrally phrased, would be, to my eyes, "Can anyone think of any other figures who are included in the top 3 of The 100 most influential figures in history whose existence has been questioned, fairly, based on lack of directly contemporary evidence, and who are the subject of now seemingly regular popular books alleging an almost infinite variety of sometimes truly strange speculations, none of which have any more directly contemporary evidence than the existence theory?" I think the answer would be "No." I cannot cannot understand how anyone could be surprised that a bishop of a Christian church is critical of a view that the central figure in the history and theology of his church never existed, particularly when none of those views have any substantive evidence to support them. The fact that now such books seem to surface almost every year or two would be an additional irritant. And, yes, there is the more or less pre-existing explanation of the lack of contemporary sources, which is fairly obvious to most scholars of early Christianity, which none of these exposes seem to understand. It runs something like this:

1) There is no evidence that many, maybe most, of the early Apostles knew how to read. Certainly, it is, I think, broadly agreed that Saint Peter could not. That being the case, those individuals in particular would have no particular rush to see things in writing.

2) According to several sources regarding the early Church, its critics regularly described the membership as, well, "hicks." This is, more or less, consistent with the standard theories of religions of this type, and with the various examples provided in the book Religions of the Oppressed, which indicates that most such religions arise among individuals who did not benefit by changes in their societies. By and large, such people are those who are less able to change, and that tendency is more common among those with the least education.

3) Given the structure of the very early Church, the various apostles went over a broad area to preach the message. One very unreliable myth places Saint Philip in Ireland, but it is about the only myth of Saint Philip's later activities we know of, so it is generally assumed that at least he may have gone there, and another, rather more widely accepted story, has Saint Thomas dying in Bengal. There is a very real question that, even if they had written documents with them describing the life of Jesus, whether they would have done any good in those environments. Factually, these apostles would have not necessarily have had any reason for written texts.

4) There is the almost universally accepted fact that the Apostles almost certainly basically expected the world to end in their own lifetimes. That being the case, taking away some valuable time from preaching and somewhat wasting it on leaving writings for descendants they honestly think were never going to exist anyway is not necessarily the most logical thing they could have done.

5) The writings which are currently seen as being most likely written by Saint Paul are, in general, letters to groups who were already Christians who were deviating seriously from "the way". By this time, a lot of the apostles who had originally evangelized them might have been incommunicado, or dead. Under such circumstances, letters, often accompanied by preachers not among the 12, would be an effective means of communication. And, of course, it really would be only at about that time that it probably occur to people that having something in writing might be a good idea, because, despite their earlier certainty, the world was damnably refusing to end as it was supposed to. The fact that the Pastoral Epistles, which describe the organization of the church along, basically, a Jewish model, seem to have been written about 100 years after the death of Jesus is another indicator that this group was not thinking in the long term.

6) Lastly, there is the very real fact of destruction of documents. If I remember correctly, in Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman refers to a biblical scholar of the 20th century who found that the place which had a large number of valuable early Christian documents which the owner couldn't read was giving some of them out to be used in fireworks. I don't think anyone knows how long that had been going on, but there is very good evidence that historical documents were not held in the same high esteem for most of history that they enjoy today. That being the case, yeah, I would expect most documents to have been destroyed, and be really grateful that we have even a few that weren't. But there is an almost required acknowledgement that a lot of documents have been destroyed, and we have no idea what was in them. John Carter (talk) 16:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

There is the almost universally accepted fact that the Apostles almost certainly basically expected the world to end in their own lifetimes.

This is essentially the Marcan as co-Urquelle for Matthew and Luke theory, since this is what you get in Mark. I don't think the Q document reconstruction by Robinson and others would accept that, and many other things, John. Whether this becomes consensual or not remains to seen, probably not in my time. As to bonfires, I'm not familiar with that work by Ehrman, but surely the reference is to Tischendorf's visit to St Catherine's on Mount Sinai in 1844, where he came across the monks with a basket of leaves ripped from a vellum manuscript which they used for lighting fires? He managed in anycase to save the Codex Sinaiticus. The early church, once it had established its canonical version, by about 180 CE., routed out, burnt, and ordered to be destroyed all alternative versions of the past. The crucial Nag Hammadi coptic manuscripts survived that holocaust, hence their seminal importance for alternative reconstructions.Nishidani (talk) 17:18, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

N, I agree with you about the parts of it I'm familiar with, but your argument really doesn't account for the extraordinary rudeness of some of the biblical scholars toward anyone who disagrees with them, reflected in the behaviour of some editors who feel that if the sources are ridiculing other sources, we ought to do the same. That's something I've never seen before, not to this extent, and I think not to any extent. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 18:19, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

(Multiple e-c's later) Part of the problem is that most of these "disagreeing" parties have little if any clear credentials on the subject, but still think their beliefs, which often include ideas which have been dismissed, sometimes for centuries, are valid, and demand that they be taken seriously by the specialists. I have seen some really really pointed comments about Halton Arp, Erich von Daniken, and a few other dissident scientists, but these comments tend not to get noticed by the general subject, because they are about abstruse subjects. And most biblical scholars are to some extent Judeo-Christians by nature, Price being an obvious possible exception. So, taking into account that these "challengers" are, as often as not, speaking about a subject they don't know that well, are putting forward ideas which have little if any evidenciary support, and in some cases getting more face-time and media attention than other, more "qualified" and reputable authors, yeah, I can understand why. I remember some comments about von Daniken in particular which were about as dismissive. And, of course, a bishop will challenge any unsubstantiated theory which contradicts his belief. Read some of the church fathers and you'll see a number of comments about people they disagree with which go well beyond just "rude".

In direct response to Nishidani, I'm not sure I agree about the Mark as source, because I think he probably picked and chose his material as much as others. And a lot of theories say Q may have been originally oral, maybe each individual's memory of the stories they shared before the dispersal of apostles, which some of the illiterates, like Peter, may well have been able to remember. About the "burn order", I regret the loss of historical documents as much as, maybe more, than a lot of others, but we have to deal with the evidence we got, whether for good or ill. I would love to see some of the original materials about Simon Magus and the like, but we can't always get what we want. John Carter (talk) 18:40, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Robert M. Price has two PhDs in the subject, and yet is still ridiculed. Some (only some) of the sources are very disrespectful, and editors were even posting links to funny pictures of him on the talk page and laughing. One was added to the article. And yet he's more qualified than any of the editors criticizing him, and than many of the other sources. I haven't seen anything like this in any other area of scholarship that I can think of, not to this degree. Just to respond briefly to N's point before: we're not talking learned diatribes, but childishness. One scholar begins a response to Price with "Gosh! So there are still serious scholars who ..." etc, punctuated with comments like "Sad, really." If they think they're being persuasive, they're having quite the opposite effect. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Take a look at J. R. Cole's 1980 "Cult Archaeology and Unscientific Method and Theory" in Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory. Vol. 3. Michael B. Schiffer, editor, New York: Academic Press, Inc. for an example of how someone argues against a popular point without resorting to the kind of insanity we have seen on this topic. Ironically of the nine categories that existed for Cult Archaeology only Disdain, Indifference, Silver lining, Frustration, Millenarianism, and Intimidation seem to be on display with regards to the Christ Myth Theory. Relativism, Open mindedness and Positivism seem to be have never been on the table and sadly it is the last two that should be on the table.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:12, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Is this not an infra-American polemic? Of someone within the ranks who breaks lockstep, and is reviled as a heretic? Reminds me of what happened to figures like Alfred Loisy whose work, when I quoted it as a boy to a Domenican priest several decades ago ago caused him a minor convulsive frown, and occasioned my immediate dismissal as a lost case. Perhaps I am just used to this ostracism. It recurs quite often, and was frequent in the past. But I live in a different world, and in Europe the religious intelligentzia seems far more comfortable in discussing this without conniptions.Nishidani (talk) 20:15, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think you're right. It's why I've been at pains to make sure Wikipedia discusses the other views without the same sense of contempt, because it does feel as though we're caught in the middle of some religious battle, with believers and heretics. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Slim Have you ever read A.E. Housman's introduction to his edition of Manilius's Astronomicon, or his review essays, or Hugh Trevor-Roper's collected works? Surely the latter. You're severely tempting me to draw up a list of scholars of the first water who habitually use or used violent language against their colleagues, or adversaries, and it would be very long. In Japanese studies, Roy Andrew Miller was a distinguished exponent of what is a genre with deep and respectable roots, the learned diatribe. Mind you, as a matter of discretion, I would summarily exclude from any such article, polemical assaults on the theory by theologians who are true believers and who use that kind of language, and try to restrict the criticism to scholars who are thoroughly versed in Semitic languages and textual studies. That distinction is very important, since Biblical scholars can be divided up into the majority (the boys) and a minority (the men), as with any discipline. The men are those who have a comfortable mastery of the specific historical and linguistic issues that must be decisive in any debate on the historicity of Christ. The others do not, but as often as not, have not got beyond Koine Greek, and are more familiar with a hermeneutics which, unlike Bultmann's school, is theological and assumes far too much. Most of the crucial data for such an argument hinge on quite complex philological analyses, and that is where the real ball-game is played out. Eisenman, though he is a wild card, counts as one of them, a dissident voice in a minoritarian major league battle conducted by men.Nishidani (talk) 18:46, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Housman was exceptionally fractious, even for an age in which scholars regularly vented their spleen upon others. (His diatribes make for enjoyable reading, though.) Scholars are generally more polite, even touchy-feely, these days, which to my mind makes open disdain quite striking. In this case, it's been argued that Price's inclusion in The Historical Jesus: Five Views is an indication of his acceptance by the scholarly community; but if his fellow contributors severely criticize his arguments and show disdain for them, that should be taken as an indication that Price's arguments are not accepted.

Nishidani, I'm inclined to agree with you that philological arguments should be where the real ball-game is played out, but most of the literature I've read by CMT proponents draws very little on philology. Eisenman sounds like an exception in this regard. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Clearly Price knows the history of the subject, and is erudite. It's just my personal bias, but I only read 'controversial' stuff on these topics if the scholar does something groundbreaking, or idol-smashing with a technically efficient hammer, as Eisenman did (though I'm not persuaded, since, again the theory is unverifiable, unless future sands yield up corroborative proof). Price is rehearsing, very efficiently, arguments one is familiar with, and it seems to me, since you can't prove or disprove anything here (scientific criteria for veracity don't apply to history, because the evidential record is profoundly lacunose), that these polemics are sociological phenomena, lacking any technical interest or originality for the historian of ideas, that repeat themselves, reflecting periods of stress between secularism and faith, and I'm not surprised this is perhaps a big thing in certain American circles, given the rampant politicized fundamentalism in vogue there. Classicists like Paul Veyne, a very great scholar (though one or two of his later books earned occasional critical raps over the knuckles), tend instinctively to recall quite vividly the historical background for these theories. It has all be argued before, and got nowhere. But it is also true that there are a large number of scholars who are more comfortable with vituperative dismissal, a sign they can't handle the technical issues, than with close criticism, esp. when their beliefs are engaged. Veyne was not one of them.Nishidani (talk) 09:12, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Paul Veyne

I thought editors here might be interested in the following quote from Paul Veyne,Did the Greeks believe in their myths? (Chicago, 1988, trans. Paula Wissing), p. 106 [2]: "He was close, as a matter of fact, to a type of crank that historians who study the past two centuries sometimes encounter: anticlericals who deny the historicity of Christ (which irritates me, atheist that I am) and addled brains who deny the existence of Socrates, Joan of Arc, Shakespeare, or Molière, get excited about Atlantis, or discover monuments erected by extraterrestrials on Easter Island." Veyne, as he says, is an atheist; he is also a classicst, and though he specializes in ancient Rome, the book I've quoted from is one that's influential in the study of Greek mythology. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Akhilleus, I've asked this many times before, but can I ask again that you stop all the ad hominem arguments against sources, whether coming from you or other sources? It is getting to be extremely tiresome, and if you think it's persuasive, it's really having the opposite effect. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Akhilleus has made no ad hominem argument. Akhilleus is quoting from a source. The fact that this disdain exists for Christ Mythers amongst those who deal professionally with ancient history is not Akhilleus' fault. As Veyne's quote suggests the same disdain exists for those who doubt that the Stratford man wrote Shakespeare's plays, or that Socrates existed. Such disdain is, like it or not, rather telling of the acceptance these theories have in mainstream academics. I'm unsure of the basis for your argument against accurately reflecting this aspect of the issue.Griswaldo (talk) 00:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm sorry, I don't really understand why you're saying this. Veyne is an eminent classicist; he is a source from outside the world of biblical scholarship, and a book published (in translation) by the University of Chicago Press is one that should be considered a high quality source. So, this is an indication of how classicists view the idea that there was no historical Jesus. You've already found one indication of this, by Graeme Clarke (though he's no longer quoted in the lead, I guess); Veyne is another. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:00, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

No matter what I post nowadays, you tell me you don't understand what I'm saying, but I think it's pretty clear. Sources that educate us would be great. Sources telling us that, in that person's opinion, other people are Holocaust deniers, flat-earthers, cranks, insane, addled, gosh, wow, and sad really, aren't helpful. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, I disagree with you on this. Veyne says in the plainest fashion possible that people who deny Christ's historicity are cranks. He's not just some bozo: he's an eminent classicist, and one whose work on mythology is influential. What you seem to be saying, and I hope I've misunderstood, is that you don't think his opinion is useful because it's not polite enough. But why should that be a requirement? The value of Veyne's opinion (which, by the way, I encountered because Robert M. Price refers to it in Deconstructing Jesus) is that it shows an eminent classicist rejecting the CMT out of hand as a fringe theory. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a preposterous source. It's a personal essay, with a passing reference to Jesus that doesn't even get a whole sentence to itself. It's a clause, parenthetically expressing a contemptuous opinion, and that's it. To suggest that as a source for a factual statement in this encyclopedia is absurd. Noloop (talk) 01:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree it's a passing mention, but it's not in a "personal essay." (Perhaps you are being misled by the word "essay" in the subittle?) This is a widely cited and influential book on Greek myth; it's sometimes used in university level courses on mythology. And, sorry to say, I'm not that surprised that when I provided a classicist who not only thinks that there was a historical Jesus, but treats it as a basic fact, that you would find a way to deny the value of the source. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:53, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

A quick search of Wilson Web shows this book reviewed in, History and Theory, Journal of the History of Ideas, Man, Partisan Review, International Philosophical Quarterly, Canadian Journal of History, and Arts Magazine. I'm sure there are many other reviews as well. Hardly a personal essay.Griswaldo (talk) 02:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

We were told during my very first philosophy lecture as an undergraduate that it's always easy to pick holes in people's work and insult them, but that the important and difficult thing is to find value in it and move forward with that. Perhaps we could bear that in mind here? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I was "misled" by the fact that the author called it an "essay" into thinking it was an essay. More to the point, our subject here doesn't even get a whole sentence in that "source." Noloop (talk) 19:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, in the future when you decide to call a source "preposterous" you might consider reading more than the subtitle. Regards.Griswaldo (talk) 19:56, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with SlimVirgin in that the quote by Veyne is ad hominem and will also add that it is Non sequitur (logic) as well as a clear Straw man. Comparing "anticlericals who deny the historicity of Christ" to "addle brains who deny the existence of Socrates, Joan of Arc, Shakespeare, or Moliere pure Non sequitur (logic); those people all have good truly contemporary evidence for their exist while Jesus doesn't. The "get excited about Atlantis" quip make even less sense as until the final acceptance of Plate Tectonics by the scientific community...some three centuries after it had been first suggested was considered possible; The wave that destroyed Atlantis By Harvey Lilley BBC Timewatch April 20, 2007 shows that not all ideas regarding Atlantis are off in the ozone.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I could provide you with a large list of articles in the area I once edited, where I tried to apply precisely that principle, only to be consistently overruled by authoritative editors and administrators who insisted on pasting in sections cluttered with dismissive quotes from outside scholars (with nowhere Veyne's standing) or second-rate diatribe merchants, because the RS rules allowed it. An example, which is a disgrace, is Israel Shahak. And the muck stuck. Wiki is full of systemic bias, very much like the world, and the in-house rules provide no way to cope with it.Nishidani (talk) 08:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

If you're looking for substantive criticism of the CMT, Veyne is of course not the answer. We have such substantive critique, but it gets rejected out of hand by some editors here as the work of theologians and people who are devoted to promoting Christianity. For instance, there's The Historicity of Jesus by Shirley Jackson Case, originally published in 1912 by the University of Chicago, as it turns out. This particular book isn't cited in the article, though an article by Case is. Case's work was influential in creating the impression in the early part of the 20th century that the arguments of Drews, Smith, Robertson, et al. had been definitively refuted.

If you want an example of someone finding value in the work of CMT proponents, Schweitzer is one place to look. He has lots of praise for some aspects of Bruno Bauer's work, for example.

However, something that gets continually questioned on this page is whether the CMT is fringe, whether it has mainstream acceptance, whether Wells and Price are experts on early Christianity, etc. etc. Veyne is one of many sources that establish that this theory is not mainstream. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that many of the exact same arguments are used by Jesus didn't exist as a flesh and blood man and the extreme minimalist crowd. The only real difference between them is where they fall on the "was there anything there?" issue--that is it. That is a very questionable foundation to build an entire article on.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

In all honesty, it's fairly hard to find substantive criticism of the CMT because the CMT itself isn't substantive. In the end, it all boils down to: "Everything that was ever written by people who came into contact with this person was completely faked, including third-party uninvolved sources who were reporting on Jesus." I know that's a bit of an oversimplification, but it's kind of an absurd theory when you think about it. I doubt you can find a lot of substantive criticism about how the earth is flat, for example. Either way, this cite does go to the issue of whether CMT is a fringe theory (which it clearly seems to be.) Deep Purple Dreams (talk) 21:58, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually that is not what the CMT boils down to. It really boils down to: "the Gospel account is so mythological that nothing included that the man described within can be shown to be historical." As for those "third-party uninvolved sources" the Historicity Of Jesus FAQ (1994) by Scott Oser goes over them.

Josephus--Testimonium Flavianum known to have been tampered with and no church father seems to refer to it until the 4th century even if they reference Josephus in other matters. The second passage is thought to be authentic but has syntax problems making it unclear if the Jesus brother of James refereed to became high priest or not. Also Oser neglects the fact that back in the 1900s Historical Jesus supporters were using Hegesippus to present a c69 CE date for the death of James the Just... Josephus indicates a c64 CE death date--a full half decade difference. Even if both passages were entirely genuine in Josephus' eyes this Jesus was just another would be savior who didn't amount to beans--otherwise he would have devoted more space to him.

Tacitus--Written in c116 this at best tells us only what the Christians believed. As early as 1950 it had been suggested that the word was originally "Chrestianos" not "Christianos" and we now have proof that is likely the case. This along with the use of procurator rather than prefect indicates Tacitus was at best repeating hearsay and not checking anything. This is akin to saying papers talking about the John Frum cult prove that John Frum existed.

Pliny the Younger--only confirms that Christians existed c100 CE. Gives not a single detail as to the Christ the Christians revered.

Suetonius--"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome". Since in his Life of Nero Suetonius clearly knew the difference between Jews and Christians, used Chrestus rather than Christus, and implied that this "Chrestus" was instigating these disturbances (ie was alive) this likely has no reference to Jesus and only wishful (or should that be desperate) thinking makes it a reference to Jesus.

Thallus--Why anyone would even use this is beyond me. Supposedly the Histories referenced as the source material went only to the 167th Olympiad which would be only to 109 BCE. What we do have is Syncellus of the 9th century quoting Julius Africanus of the 2nd century who in turn refers to Thallus. So to get things to fit (see Suetonius above) the 167th Olympiad is fudged into the 207th Olympiad or 217th Olympiad. Things just go down hill from there.

And that is the best "third-party uninvolved sources" the supporters of a historical Jesus can point to. Josephus, the best of the "usual suspects", wrote his account c94 CE or nearly six decades after the events--more than enough time for the urban legend mill to crank out a ton of "grain".--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

How is arguing the merits of the theory a useful project for the talk page? john k (talk) 02:32, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I stated that I was oversimplifying it a bit, but only to get across the absurdity of the theory to illustrate why cites like Veyne are important. Deep Purple Dreams (talk) 03:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

John K, because it show just flawed the argument of those those who attack the CMT can be. The Veyne cite is as I have demonstrated is flawed on Non sequitur (logic) grounds and uses obvious strawmen; it is hard to take it seriously and seems more an example of throw any theory out there in the hope something anything sticks. Take the following from Schweitzer in the 1906 version of The Quest of the Historical Jesus and note how out of context it could be read to imply the exact opposite of what Schweitzer intended (this is regards to reconstructions of Jesus and not in regards to the man's existence):

"There is nothing more negative than the result of the critical study of the Life of Jesus. The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb."--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Dumping self-published Usenet FAQs onto this page isn't much help in improving the article. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:37, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Mind explaining just what that has to do with what you are replying to?--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:34, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not useful to dump self-published, non-expert views on ancient documents onto this page. First, because there's a tremendous amount of genuine scholarship published on these sources; second, because discussion of those sources is at historicity of Jesus or the individual articles devoted to those sources (e.g. Josephus on Jesus); third, because talk pages are not for general discussion of the article's subject, but for discussion of how to improve the article. Oh, by the way, the Schweitzer quote you posted above is quite nice, but doesn't really pertain to this article, does it? Could fit in at historical Jesus or Quest of the historical Jesus, if it's not there already. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:37, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Considering these very same points have raised elsewhere your comments still don't make sense. Also my comments were related to Deep Purple Dreams' misunderstanding of the CMT entirely being in the Joseph Wheless mold.

Of the usual suspects Josephus is the one that has been the one constantly called a forgery and when Remsburg presented back in 1909 this he cited Rev. Dr. Giles, of the Established Church of England and Rev. S. Baring-Gould, (Lost and Hostile Gospels) as only two people who point this out.

Even The historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide 1998 By Gerd Theissen, Annette Merz Augsburg Fortress Publishers pg 83 admits Tacitus is not that good. The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount 1911 By Gerald Friedlander G.Routledge & Sons, Bloch Pub. is even harsher with Tacitus.

"To these witnesses is sometimes, though rarely, added a fourth, Suetonius, a Roman historian who, like Tacitus and Pliny, wrote in the second century. In his Life of Nero, Suetonius says "The Christians, a race of men of a new and villainous superstition, were punished." In his Life of Claudius, he says: "He [Claudius] drove the Jews, who at the instigation of Chrestus were constantly rioting, out of Rome." Of course no candid Christian will contend that Christ was inciting Jewish riots at Rome fifteen years after he was crucified at Jerusalem." (Remsburg 1909)

I guess all those must be "self-published Usenet FAQs" too even though the Usenet didn't even exist in 1909 or 1911.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:40, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

It's still a blob of useless decontextualized data, full of misleading simplifications and outright errors, outdated sources and I fail to see the point of posting it here. FAQs that quote sources reflecting opinions dating back over a century are guides to historical positions, not to contemporary arguments.Nishidani (talk) 09:35, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Oser's FAQ largely comes from Michael Martin (philosopher)'s "The Case Against Christianity" (1991). All I was showing with Friedlander and Remsburg was the information Oser presented has been presented before going back over 80 years (ie predating the internet). As for the "misleading simplifications and outright errors, outdated sources": "we do not know whether Thallus actually mentioned Jesus' crucifixion, or whether this was Africanus' interpretation of a period of darkness which Thallus had not specifically linked with Jesus." (France, R.T. The Evidence for Jesus 1986, p. 24) Is R T France recent enough for you?--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Not really. Virtually everything we think we know in ancient history, in the sense of knowing something to be a 'fact', is a theoretical, or, as Veyne would say, a retrodictive construction, based on a close assaying of probabilities, nothing more. Every element from Suetonius, Pliny the Younger and Tacitus has a long history of contentious exposition, in isolation, and taken together. FAQs don't tell you that, as they do not tell you that an historian, in analysing the evidence of three (or even four if one includes Josephus) sources, will keep in mind the strong probabilities that all three knew each other, were present roughly contemporaneously in the same quarter (north and south) of Asia Minor, and dealt with the same phenomenon, i.e., Christians, who were active in that area, etc. To cite one, in summary fashion, and reductively, then another, then another, is not how the historical imagination works. That's why FAQ sheets are anodynic fools' caps.Nishidani (talk) 12:42, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Any yet when you try to show that complexity people complain that "it is too complicated." When you get down to the basics the "third-party uninvolved sources" often presented all have problems and the two best (Josephus and Tacitus) even if they were totally genuine are so late that even they can be explained through what we would call urban legend. Comments like Paul Veyne's with badly thought out comparisons certainly don't help the pro historical Jesus side.--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:40, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Who cares what people think? We write from sources written by scholars who are comfortable with, delight in, complexity. I don't think you will find many specialists in Tacitus, as opposed to generalists, who doubt the genuineness of Annals.15.44. Everything from style, hostility and the survival of the manuscript through Christian scribal transmission which would have found his contextual description repugnant, argues for its genuineness, as does the fact that he, unlike many ancient historians, worked from official archives. 'Urban legends' were not grist for his mill, except perhaps in part in his treatment of Tiberius. The fact, again, that Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius belonged to the elite, friends, and all members of a circle of that elite with formal administrative experience in Christianizing areas of Asia Minor, is what historians call strong circumstantial evidence to corroborate a general thesis. To reply to your earlier query. R. T. Frank is patently a poor witness on this since his thesis is based on a premise that real knowledge of Jesus must be based on the internal analysis of the Gospels and not on pagan sources. In this his method is diametrically opposed, incidentally, to that of a great historian like Paul Veyne, who thought pagan witness, precisely because it was beyond the 'pale' was owed more credibility than Christian sources. He summarily discounts, against the overwhelming majority of Tacitus specialists (check their doyen, Ronald Syme's, Tacitus, Clarendon Press, Oxford vol.2 (1958) pp.468-9), strong secular evidence virtually contemporary with the one of the Gospel writers (John) because he wishes to argue that only the Gospels themselves can provide us with authentic historical knowledge. In doing that, he violates a major canon of historiography (and linguistics). One trusts the specialists on technical questions, not outsiders, and evaluating this, to cite but one example, requires technical expertise that the sceptics listed do not have. Frank's judgement is 'theological', not historical. Nishidani (talk) 16:36, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

This reads like some of the stuff you might get out of McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict which looks good until you examine the information he is presenting.

The fact is Pliny the Younger only confirms the existence of Christians and they believed in a Christ--that is it. The logic there is akin to saying since the John Frum cargo cult exists then there must have been a John Frum.

Suetonius is so vague that it is useless, Tacitus seems to be doing the kind of silliness seen in American Shogun where B-52's are mentioned in regards to MacArthur's overseeing of Japan--one big problem--the B-52 didn't even exist as prototype until 1952 over a year after MacArthur left Japan and didn't enter into actual service until 1955. Tacitus should produce the kind of 'huh?' that talking about Secretary of the Army Robert Porter Patterson would to any scholar of US history but they use it anyhow.

I have no idea who this R. T. Frank guy is; I am referring to R. T. France as in the country between Spain and Germany.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:19, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for noting the slip. The rest of your remarks show you don't understand how history, or at least ancient history, is written. Nishidani (talk) 22:25, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Alexander the Great, Apollonius etc

In my view, using Paul Veyne's quote will make it look like that is a typical refutation of CMT. Since it looks exactly like Veyne's throw-away dismissal has no thought behind it, it might make CMT look better than they thought to some. E4mmacro (talk) 08:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

We had that with the comparison with the holocaust denial nonsense. Even comparison with Julius Caesar is not fair as the later being a head of state in the late Classical period would have mountains of contemporary evidence showing he existed. Even Alexander the Great had known (but now largely lost) written contemporary material about him and there are contemporary mosaics and coins depicting him--again far more than is for Jesus. Why not comparisons with Apollonius of Tyana or Sun Tzu? In fact, both of these would make far better comparisons with Jesus than most of the others I have seen.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:03, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Sima Qian, Sun Tzu's biographer, lived several centuries after him, if he existed. Apollonius of Tyana doesn't fit either, since Paul writes within a decade, and Mark within 40 years of the assumed crucifixion, within living memory, whereas Apollonius's biographer is writing at least 120 years after Apollonius's death, when all contemporary witnesses, if he did exist, were no longer alive. You seem to ignore that major metropolitan figures are well-covered in antiquity, as one would expect, while events and people on the periphery are not. To compare Caesar and Alexander with marginal figures (from a contemporary imperial perspective) from the backblocks, where little was reported, and only that which concerned security and state administration, is to make a false comparison. Ancient history is written as reported, which means, as Veyne and many others emphasize, we known very little of what happened, and that little is skewed to the interests of literate empires. Any major history of Greece and Rome, covering the first four centuries, will name numerous figures recorded by extant sources several centuries later. The Christ of popular imaginings, the Christ of pious theology and hermeneutics, all these are demonstrable fictions, though of deep analytical interest. The historical Jesus, i.e., the basic figure we try to sift out from the huge mother-lode of lore, legend, and theology, by combing both the internal method, and external witnesses, is a historical probability, assumptional certainly, but so are hundreds of other major figures we habitually treat as major historical agents in antiquity. Try applying the same methods of austere, pyrrhic scepticism here to the wiki page account of Hillel the Elder, particularly against these words in the lead of our article

so far as is known, Jesus (Hillel the Elder) did not write anything, nor did anyone who had personal knowledge of him. There is no archeological evidence of his existence. There are no contemporaneous accounts of his life or death: no eyewitness accounts, or any other kind of first-hand record. All the accounts of Jesus come from decades or centuries later

and you get the same result. In short, the theory treats 'Jesus' as a singularity, whereas, mutatis mutandis, if you suspend the normal methods and hermeneutics of pure historiography, he is no such thing, since a large number of revered religious figures and near contemporaries are known, and accepted as historical figures, despite their being known from sources written centuries after their death. Nishidani (talk) 19:21, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Apollonius of Tyana had works written about him shortly after his death but not of those works have survived. In the case of Sun Tzu you supposedly hold his actual thoughts (Art of War) in your hands--something not true of Jesus. As for Paul he give no definitive temporal markers showing that the Jesus he is talking about is a recent person. Mark's dating is tradition and could be no more historical than Columbus sailing west to prove the world was round. As Price points out using Irenaeus and his 50+ year old Jesus as an example that there was something really wonky about the Jesus timeline as late as c180 CE. About the only good thing about Irenaeus is his showing that the majority of the Gospels existed around this time.--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:39, 20 August 2010 (UTC

• If you are referring to Damis of Ninevah, we only know of that, a rumour, through the often unreliable source that is Philostratus's life, and a few Byzantine echoes. Many authorities challenge its existence. The same goes for the letters by Apollonius Hadrian is said to have collected.Nishidani (talk) 21:44, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
• 'supposedly hold'. Yes but you don't, demonstrably, since Sima Qian, his late biographer, says he served with He Lu (闔閭), which puts him around 500, yet 'Sun Tzu' mentions in that text the crossbow, which only begins to be mentioned 150 years afterwards. The conflicts internal to that text are numerous. He mentions armies that are vast arrays at a time when no local warlord or prince could muster more than a few thousand. It's all like the Bible's battles. etc.
• Paul gives no definitive temporal markers. He talks of Christ 'crucified', and that choice of language and reference is echoed in pagan writers, such as Tacitus (at least Tacitus' s Latin supplicio adfectus strongly lends itself to that, under Pontius Pilate).
• In sum, I don't think you understand what historical method consists in. It is not taking evidence piece by piece, discussing each item separately. No one does that. The historical method consists of taking all of the evidence, and all analyses of each item in the congeries of evidence, and weighing each piece against the others, in order to come up with a synthesis of likelihood. You rarely have truth in history, you have, as Thucycides argues, likelihood as often as not. I'd have no problems with proof Christ didn't exist, personally. What I find odd, as a pagan, watching Christians, ex-Christians, and atheists battling this out, is that their arguments do not employ generic historical reasoning, but invent specific protocols to prove or disprove something that cannot be proved either way. Historians are less uncomfortable with the fact that all our knowledge of the past is, as here, approximate, based on probabilities.Nishidani (talk) 22:10, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

The followers of Spartacus were crucified so that in itself is not a temporal marker. Also as pointed out by other scholars crucifixion was reserved for crimes against Rome and slaves and but the Gospel account portrays Jesus being tried for blasphemy a crime Rome could have cared less about. As pointed out by others the whole crucifixion account has problems from medical and social political standpoints--death by crucifixion took days not hours and a common aftermath was to leave the body up for the scavengers. So why the exceptions in this particular case and since it was so unusual why no noting by contemporary sources?

With regards to the Historical method as pointed out by Charlton in his 1981 "Archaeology, Ethnohistory, and Ethnology: Interpretive Interfaces" Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory. Vol. 4 pg 153 quoting Hawkins (1964) "Historical accounts are in no sense empirical data" and yet we seem to see a lot of this.

Robert L. Schuyler (1977) "The Spoken Word, the Written Word, Observered Behavior and Preserved Behavior; the Contexts Available to the Archaeologist" in Historical Archaeology: A Guide to Substantive and Theoretical Contributions Vol 10, No. 2 pg 347-360 gave views on how the problems that archaeological, documentary, oral, and enthographical data required the changing of methodology to suit what each was able to tell you eticly and emicly. Don't seem to see much of that here either.

When researching the Native American epidemics during the contact period I was struck by how 'left hand doesn't not know what right is doing' the literature was with things like disease methodology and ethnographic evaluation of documents out to lunch. I get much the same feeling regarding ethnohistory reading through the historical Jesus material. There are many claims that would fall under historical anthropology regarding what the Jews and Romans would have done but the historical method seems ill-suited to formulating enthohistoric theories. Some of it reads like modern mind in the ancient world with little to no consideration of the different mindset of the time.--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:20, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

This is seriously ridiculous. Wikipedia is not an internet forum. If Bruce Grubb wants to debate the evidence for Jesus's historical existence, this is not the place to do it. At least Noloop generally confines his tendentiousness to actually arguing about what should be in the article. john k (talk) 03:52, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

The point you seem to have missed is back when we had an arguments section ([[3]]) all the above was in the article so this is about information the article once had that has gotten lost in the successive edits. We have next to nothing about what the various authors for the Christ Myth theory said about these third party sources--did they dismiss them as forgeries out of hand, did they point out other interpretations that made their support less viable, or a mixture of these.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:41, 21 August 2010 (UTC)