Talk:Christ myth theory/Archive 9

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sentence removed from the lead

In [ this edit], I removed the following sentence from the lead:

"For writers who reject the orthodox Christian view, the main alternative is to ask whether the first Christians interpreted the life of a historical man through a mythical lens^[1], or whether the man himself was mostly fabricated."

Several problems here: "writers who reject the orthodox Christian view" seems to be equivalent to "writers who reject Jesus' historicity." But this is not an exclusively Christian viewpoint; most historians who study early Christianity, whether they are personally Christian, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, whatever, think that there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth. This could be fixed, I suppose, simply by saying "writers who reject Jesus' historicity".

The rest of the sentence is more problematic, though, because it expands the scope of the article to writers who think that there was a historical Jesus, but the New Testament is an elaboration on this historical core, or a "fabrication" based upon it, or whatever. And as I keep on saying, this is not how secondary sources describe the Christ myth theory--an essential characteristic is the rejection of Jesus' historicity. If this article includes writers who say that "the first Christians interpreted the life of a historical man through a mythical lens", it could potentially include writers like David Strauss, who accepted Jesus' historicity but saw the New Testament as a largely "mythical" creation of the early Christian community. More recent scholars who, in various ways, see "myth" as a major element in the New Testament include Rudolf Bultmann and Burton Mack; but neither man says there is no historical Jesus, and both devote some energy to finding the authentic historical elements in the NT, particularly the gospel accounts. They're doing something quite different than Bruno Bauer and the other folks covered in this article. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:08, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

You are talking the sentence in the opposite way it was intended. The goal was to name 3 groups

Orthodox Christian view (super natural stuff really happened)
Histocial view (there is some historical Jesus to whom myths were attached)
Mythological (there is a mythological being to whom earthly events were attached)

The goal was to exclude 1 and 2. OTOH I don't want to make it so strong that people who believe there is some history are excluded. Again Doherty believing in the history of Q3, would be an example author we both want to include that seems excluded by the current intro. I want something a bit weaker than you suggestion like "writers who reject Jesus' meaningful historicity, but that one doesn't seem to be clear enough.

As an aside we used to have an analogy of the historicity of Mickey Mouse (obviously fictional) but Mickey came from SteamBoat Willy who was based on a fictionalization of a real person. We want to include writers who believe that Jesus is as real as Mickey Mouse. jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:39, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

My guess is that the arguments about the definition are where to put the cut-off between 2 " Historical view (there is some historical Jesus to whom myths were attached)" and 3 " Mythological (there is a mythological being to whom earthly events were attached)". If, as I would, one includes among "earthly events", one or more historical figures that have changed the being's description, but only with respect to specific circumstances and not with respect to his main message, relationship to God, sacrifice, or supernatural acts, number 3 may be considered a respectable if not a mainstream view, possibly a real good null hypothesis. My guess is that many if not most "Christ myth" authors would have (had) no problem with that inclusion. Indeed, I would take people calling all these authors crackpots and worse more seriously if it turns out that the authors all adamantly exclude(d) that possibility. In this respect, Wells may have replied something useful to Van Voorst's silly "gotcha" (current footnote 68), based on Well's admittance that a historical figure may (via Q) have influenced the biblical description of Jesus to some degree. Afasmit (talk) 21:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The break between 2 "Historical view (there is some historical Jesus to whom myths were attached)" and 3 "Mythological (there is a mythological being to whom earthly events were attached)" has always been a problem with this article. Remsburg for instance firmly believed in a historical Jesus but held that so much existing and latter mythology had been added that nothing of the actually man could be found. Wells current position (going all the way back to Jesus Legend in 1996) is that the Gospel Jesus an composite character of two separate Jesus from two different centuries. As

I should again point out (as it was archived before I could comment) that some of the Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_21#Christ_myth_theory_definitions scholarly definitions of Christ Myth Theory do NOT agree with Akhilleus statement ""Christ myth theory" as the theory that there was no historical Jesus of Nazareth." In fact, only one (Jones) of the 11 definitions I reposted expressly stated this. Three (Farmer, Horbury, and Wiseman) define it as Jesus NEVER existed (eliminating theories of Jesus existing in an earlier century per the Robin Hood examples I have given previously) while the others say something slightly different. Bromiley expressly states story of rather than the person in his definition while Pike's definition could refer to the man or the story of the man. Dodd's is so vaguely worded that it could include a historical Jesus as he gives no time frame. Welsh's definition is an eluded middle that does not handle theories of a pre existing Christ Myth being linked to a later living 1st century preacher of the same name (ala Wells) very well.

Compounding matter is the fact that in four different places Price and Doherty refer to Wells current position as that of a Christ myth theorist (Price (1999) "Of Myth and Men A closer look at the originators of the major religions-what did they really say and do?" Free Inquiry magazine Winter, 1999/ 2000 Volume 20, Number 1), the back cover of Can we Trust the New Testament? and a this full review of Can we Trust the New Testament?) or current Jesus mythicist (Doherty, Earl (1999) Book And Article Reviews: The Case For The Jesus Myth: "Jesus — One Hundred Years Before Christ by Alvar Ellegard). All we have gotten in response to these points of two authors in four independent sources is a bunch of Ad hominem OR strawmen arguments with not one single reference that refers to Price or Wells provided to discount their classifications of Wells as a Christ Myth Theorist/ or current Jesus mythist. Nor has a resource linking all the varied definitions for Christ Myth theory together been provided either.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:07, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Bruce. Why not propose some wording? I'm sure Akhilleus would be fine with a definition that is more inclusive (so that Doherty and Wells actually do qualify) as long as it excludes or at least differentiates from mainstream theories. You never replied to my question about the intro from 2 years ago. Does that work for you? jbolden1517 ^Talk 23:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I DID propose some wording in the now archived Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_21#RfC:_How_is_Christ_myth_theory_defined.3F. So did Ludwigs2 and I also referred to a variant suggested elsewhere by Hiberniantears and Akhilleus rejected them all!.

Here they are again so you can see what was suggested without slugging through all the other stuff:

"The Christ myth theory (also known as the nonhistoricity hypothesis, Christ myth, or Jesus myth) is a set of academic and philosophical theories arguing against the idea that the depiction of Jesus in the New Testament is a historically accurate representation. Versions range from theories which postulate a historical individual whose life was embellished into the New Testament stories, to those which suggest that the Jesus of the bible was based on earlier historical figures, and even theories which argue that the Jesus of the Bible was a construct based on mythological personas."-Ludwigs2

"Christ Myth theory is a term which encompasses various debates concerning the existence and nature of, or the relationship between a historical Jesus and the concept of a Christ"-Hiberniantears

"The nonhistoricity hypothesis (sometimes also called the Christ myth theory, Christ myth, or Jesus myth)..."-BruceGrubb (we still had Christ myth in there at that point)

Ironically in this case I went with the narrower definition as I felt (and still feel) that the explicit non historicity hypothesis is a fringe theory BUT there is nothing that shows every reference to or even use of Christ Myth theory is a reference to the explicit non historicity hypothesis. I believe the source material read without interpretation shows enough variance in Christ Myth theory that any direct connection of all the variants with the explicit non historicity hypothesis is WP:SYN. Throw in the way Christ Myth is used and the problem compounds itself.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:57, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Those definitions sound like historicity of Jesus. No one outside the orthodox believes that the New Testament is a historically accurate representation. Those definitions would include liberal protestants, virtually every scholar... I have to say if you believe that the there was a Jesus who founded Christianity whose life was embellished you are rejecting the theory not advocating it. They are too broad, IMHO. The definition needs to be much narrower.

And we don't need every reference to agree. One of the advantages of the old title (Jesus myth hypothesis) was we made it up so it could mean what we wanted it to mean.

Making up things is an express no-no on Wikipedia. I only found one source in 1931 that expressly talked about the "Jesus myth" hypothesis. You can't build an article's title on one reference.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:18, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

As far as OR, let me pull a few sites at random

Amazon
Freke and Gandy's definition, "There are stunning similarities between the Pagan mystery religions and Christianity. Studying these leads to the conclusion that the Jesus story was a myth which was based on Pagan myths. It was an attempt to bring the Pagan mystery religion to the Jews. "
Tekton, "the "Jesus-myth" - the idea that Jesus did not even exist, much less conduct a ministry as described in the New Testament."
Michael Grant, who in Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels, "Christ-myth theory...to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus"

etc... They seem to all agree.

I think the RFC should have gone the distance. But I see his problem. Those allow essentially everyone in. jbolden1517 ^Talk 08:31, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I should mention that at times Akhilleus makes statements totally at odds with the source material. For example, take this 25 May 2008 statement by Akhilleus: "Again, the key point of the JMT is that it denies that Jesus was historical; in other words, the Jesus who was born sometime around 4 BCE and was crucified sometime in the 30s CE never existed as an actual person." Now compare that with what Wells says about the Q Jesus in Can We Trust the new Testament? pg 43: "This Galilean Jesus was not crucified and was not believed to have been resurrected after his death."

Despite this statement Akhilleus continues to fight against the four independent references by Price and Doherty that puts Wells in the Christ Myth Theorist/current Jesus mythist category when though Akhilleus own words of 25 May 2008 puts Wells in that category. Furthermore in that exact same comment Akhilleus later says "if you believe that the Jesus we see in the Gospels is based on a figure who lived ~100 BCE, you are simultaneously denying the historicity of Jesus (the one who got crucified in the 30s) and holding a euhemerist theory." which again is part of Wells position of Paul's Jesus being a first or perhaps even second century BCE person who was merged with a Galilean Jesus of the first century who was not crucified to form the Gospel Jesus.

AFAIK Akhilleus agrees Wells should be in the article. jbolden1517 ^Talk 08:31, 15 March 2009 (UTC)'

But Akhilleus keeps saying Wells is NO LONGER a Christ Myth theorist bases on a flawed definition and ONE reference from Van Voorst. Dodds and Walsh define Christ Myth theory other than 'Jesus never existed' which fits Wells current position. This is SUPPORTED by Price (who has published articles in Journal for the Study of the New Testament ("one of the leading academic journals in New Testament Studies"), Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith ("The peer-reviewed journal of the ASA"), Themelios ("international evangelical theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith"), Journal of Ecumenical Studies ("The premiere academic publication for interreligious scholarship since 1964"), Evangelical Quarterly, Journal of Psychology and Theology, Journal of Unification Studies, etc. Even questionable PRO historical Jesus source Strobel admits Robert Price is part of "a very small handful of legitimate scholars) and Doherty (called a scholar by BOTH Wells AND Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases (2008) pg 320) calling Wells a Christ Myth theorist and current Jesus myth supporter respectively well AFTER Jesus Legend (1996).

The references are:

"Christ-myth theorists like George A. Wells have argued that, if we ignore the Gospels, which were not yet written at the time of the Epistles of Paul, we can detect in the latter a prior, more transparently mythic concept of Jesus..." (Price, Robert M (!999) "Of Myth and Men A closer look at the originators of the major religions-what did they really say and do?" Free Inquiry magazine Winter, 1999/ 2000 Volume 20, Number 1)

"G.A Wells is the eminently worthy successor to radical 'Christ myth' theorists..." (Price (2002) back of Can we Trust the New Testament?

"In every volume Wells reiterates his case for a mythic Jesus, but this is hardly "vain repetition." [...] No, the chastened Wells admitted, there had indeed been a historical wisdom teacher named Jesus, some of whose sayings survive in the Gospels via Q. But this historical Jesus had nothing to do with the legendary savior Jesus whom Paul preached about." Price, Robert M (2005) ["Review of Can We Trust the New Testament?"]

"The year 1999 saw the publication of at least five books which concluded that the Gospel Jesus did not exist. One of these was the latest book (The Jesus Myth) by G. A. Wells, the current and longstanding doyen of modern Jesus mythicists." (Doherty, Earl (1999) Book And Article Reviews: The Case For The Jesus Myth: "Jesus — One Hundred Years Before Christ by Alvar Ellegard)

All Akhilleus can do is point to ONE reference to Van Voorst regarding Wells but doesn't matter because in Akhilleus little world Van Voorst reigns supreme (this is a poke as his comment that Price reigns supreme--well Akhilleus, Price has published in many peer review journals while even Van Voorst only comments about the books he has had published. What peer reviewed JOURNAL articles bear his name?). All must bow down to Van Voorst's opinion of where Wells currently is on the Christ Myth theory regardless of those that may otherwise even if Wells himself calls one a scholar (Doherty) which is supported INDEPENDENTLY and the other (Price) has publications in peer reviewed journals in the relevant field out the wazoo. I say crap to that.

Let's not forget that when challenged to produce the reference that expressly and directly that ALL the various definitions of Christ Myth theory means the same the exact same thing Akhilleus has failed to produce it. We still wait for something that ties the Jesus NEVER existed idea with the Jesus existed in an early time period with the story of Jesus issue. And we STILL wait for it.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:11, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest reading about the distinctive research methods of Philip M. Parker before you next cite Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases. EALacey (talk) 08:46, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

This proves what I have been saying all along and Malcolm Schosha later pointed out: what JMT or now Christ Myth Theory even means varies depending on what you consider an historical Jesus. If you hold that the historical Jesus must match the Gospels in every way than any other Jesus is not going to fit that. Ironically we know that even in Paul's time there was an issue of "Other Jesuses" with other teachings (Galatians 1:6 and 2 Corinthians 11:4) so the idea that the Gospel Jesus is one of these "Other Jesus" Paul warned about is not that off in left field.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Lets go with that definition. Break it out as a fully formed theory. Does this "gospel Jesus" (i.e. Jesus of Q) form a church? Who is in it (for example Peter)? etc.... jbolden1517 ^Talk 08:31, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

"I believe the source material read without interpretation shows enough variance in Christ Myth theory..." Well, that's funny, because I think the alleged "variance" only exists because BruceGrubb is tendentiously interpreting the source material--read it "without interpretation", especially with a basic knowledge of the way the study of the historical Jesus has developed over the 19th-20th centuries, and it's obvious that the usage of "Christ myth theory" consistently refers to the same set of ideas.

Bruce gives us another good example of tendentious interpretation above, when he quotes me and proceeds to "explain" what I meant. Let's not be stupid here: when I said "the key point of the JMT is that it denies that Jesus was historical; in other words, the Jesus who was born sometime around 4 BCE and was crucified sometime in the 30s CE never existed as an actual person", I was not saying that an author who says that there was a historical Jesus but he wasn't crucified is an advocate of the Christ myth theory. I don't think even Bruce believes I meant that (which is why his interpretation is tendentious). If you read the sentence "without interpretation", it's obvious that "born sometime around 4 BCE and was crucified sometime in the 30s CE" gives the timeframe of the historical Jesus. If you want to say that the Galilean preacher who inspired Christianity wasn't crucified, lived past the 30s CE, married Mary Magdalene, and had children, you still believe in a historical Jesus (obviously a non-standard one), and you don't believe in the Christ myth theory.

Anyway, I have explained before (at great length) why the proposals that Bruce quotes above aren't satisfactory. I won't repeat everything I've said, but my basic objection is that these definitions are too vague, and therefore too inclusive. Most reconstructions of the historical Jesus could be said to be "arguing against the idea that the depiction of Jesus in the New Testament is a historically accurate representation." For instance, the Jesus Seminar rejects many of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels as inauthentic, and says that Jesus didn't preach an apocalyptic eschatology--in other words, the historical Jesus was quite different than the figure we see in the Gospels. That could easily be understood as saying the Gospels aren't a "historically accurate representation."

In contrast, if we look at the secondary sources, they are very clear in saying that an essential characteristic of the Christ myth theory is that it says there was no historical Jesus. Just as an example, Clinton Bennett, In search of Jesus: insider and outsider images (2001) p. 202 says: "I turn now to the genre of writers who argue that there never was a Jesus of Nazareth, that he never existed. They also draw on early pagan critique, and suggest that all Paul did (he is often credited with Jesus' invention) was to create a composite character from pre-existing beliefs." Farmer (full cite in article) says: "The radical solution was to deny the possibility of reliable knowledge of Jesus, and out of this developed the Christ myth theory, according to which Jesus never existed as an historical figure and the Christ of the Gospels was a social creation of a messianic community." Each one of the sources that Bruce brings forth as a "problem" (Bromiley, Horbury, etc.) says essentially the same thing--that the theory says there was no historical Jesus of Nazareth, and that the Jesus we see in the New Testament is a mythical figure.

How should the article deal with Wells? Simply by following what reliable sources such as Van Voorst tell us. They tell us that Wells began by arguing there was no historical Jesus, an argument which he pursued in several books, including The Jesus of the Early Christians (1971) and The Historical Evidence for Jesus (1982). Starting with The Jesus Legend (1996), Wells changed his mind, and said that Q supplies documentation of the activities of a Galilean preacher of the early first century (that's the historical Jesus). Wells believes that the figure we find in the Pauline epistles is different than the preacher found in Q, and that the Gospels fuse the preacher of Q and the mythical figure of Paul into a single figure. If that's what Wells had argued all along, he wouldn't even belong in this article--it's his earlier work that establishes him as an advocate of the Christ myth theory. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:39, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

OK I'm ok with Afasmat is OK with "Jesus of the epistles is a mythological being to whom earthly events were later attached", or "The Jesus of earliest Christianity is a mythological being to whom earthly events were later attached". Doherty and Wells would agree with that. It separates off nicely from the more traditional theories that the Jesus movement started with an earthly messianic figure. I think Akhilleus main objective is to keep that separation clear enough so that "mainstream" historians don't end up included. I'm all for inclusion (I.E. I'd personally include Walter Braur's people) but we have to keep the Hyam Maccabee, E.P. Sanders, out. jbolden1517 ^Talk 01:17, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

As long as it's clear that an essential tenet of the theory is that there was no historical Jesus, it's fine. I think it's a good idea for the lead to make it clearer how this idea contrasts with mainstream positions--so some version of the removed sentence ought to go back in (it just needs to be clearer about the difference between #1, 2 and 3 from jbolden's post above). --Akhilleus (talk) 01:39, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

While Doherty and Wells agree to some degree on the "mythological being to whom earthly events were later attached" the key difference is that as Wells himself points out in Can We Trust The New Testament? pg 44-46 is that Doherty doesn't hold there is anything there with regards to a historical Jesus while as early as Jesus Legend Wells accepted there was something there. In fact, on page 50 Wells expressly states he stands against Doherty and Price regarding all post-Pauline material is mythical.

So Wells has Paul's Jesus a mythical possibly historical person of an earlier century being merged with the Q account of a historical Jesus to form a composite character known as the Gospel Jesus. Wells expressly states this several times and Doherty states that Wells was saying in Jesus Myth that the Gospel Jesus didn't exist while calling Wells as current Jesus mythist a point that still agrees with Wells stated position.

Before Akhilleus launches into his usually attack on Doherty I should point out Wells himself states "Some recent scholars (such as Freke and Gandy in their 1999 book, and Earl Doherty, whose book was also published in 1999) hold that the earliest Christian writers did not believe Jesus to have come to Earth as a man at all." pg 4 and on pg 235 says "Doherty, E. (historian and Classical scholar, Canada)" Then there is Price saying Wells is a successor to the extreme Christ Myth Theorists right on the back of Can We trust the New Testiment?

Never mind that Akhilleus still provides no proof, not one reference, that shows that the various Christ Myth theory do agree with each other as he contends. Again per WP:OR is not NOT my responsibility to prove the definitions are different but Akhilleus to prove they are similar: "Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by a reliable source. Material for which no reliable source can be found is considered original research. The only way you can show that your edit does not come under this category is to produce a reliable published source that contains that same material." The claim that "Christ myth theory (also known as the nonhistoricity hypothesis or Jesus myth)" is true has been challenged by at least two editors: myself and Cuñado. Akhilleus has not to date produced the required "reliable published source that contains that same material"--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:08, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

OK I'll do it.

Doherty freely speculates about Q. Q1 cynical philosopher. Q2 apocalyptic layer with an obsession with John the Baptist, Q3 "strings of a biography" (all from p 146-7). Now Doherty never assumes the cynical philosopher from Q1 was not a real person. Nor for example if Q2 were in fact the saying of John the Baptist, or a follower or a predecessor would that present a problem. His point is that Mark is a construction from the LXX he never makes that claim about Q. What he does claim though is that the epistles are complete unaware of any sayings of Jesus. i.e. the charge is not that the saying are fictional but that earliest Christianity did not attribute them to Jesus, and that this transition of attributing them to Jesus didn't happen until 130-180.

I don't see how that is substantially different from Wells at all. I do see how it is substantially different than Crossan who believes that earliest Christianity had a human founder. Both Wells and Doherty would say that Peter was an early leader in the Christian movement and he never took a piss on the mountains with his good buddy Jesus. Most importantly though Doherty and Wells identify themselves as being on the same team. Doherty uses the term "no-historical Jesus" for his team. He identifies himself with Vardis Fisher, with Acharya S, with Price....

If you were to use literature about the Jehovah's Witnesses they use terms like "Jehovah's Witness", "Witness", "Kingdom Hall", "True Christians" to identify themselves that doesn't mean they aren't part of the same organization. Witnesses differ on issues like whether normal churches are simply mistaken, or demonic, that doesn't mean that there isn't a group of people whom we can call Jehovah's Witnesses and write articles about. jbolden1517 ^Talk 11:11, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The difference is Wells believes the name of the cynical philosopher from Q1 was given as Jesus and that allowed Paul's Jesus and the Q1 Jesus be be merged into a composite character of the Gospel Jesus. So unlike Doherty Wells is currently saying that there is a historical 1st century Galilean would be messiah called Jesus behind the Gospels. Please note this puts Price's use of Christ Myth Theorist on the back of Can We Trust the new Testament? at odds with the way Farmer, Horbury, and Wiseman define the term Christ Myth theory (saying Jesus NEVER existed) but NOT at odds with the way Bromiley, Pike (vague), Dodd (vague), and Welsh define it. Akhilleus continues to ignore the fact this that this is part of the book as well as Price's two other comments and tries to blow off Price's continued connection of Wells current position with the Christ Myth Theory--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:24, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Bruce, OK I gotcha. So what in your opinion is Well's current theory of Christian origins? Assuming it traces Paul, if Paul has never heard of this messiah then Christianity evolves independent of Jesus for a substantial period of time. So Christianity has a mythical Jesus during Paul's time and later attach some earthly events to it. Which is what the current into asserts, so I assume there is a problem. So let me get more detailed.

How does this cynical philosopher from messianic candidate (i.e. all of Q is one person) get associated with the Christian God/Man? When is Mark written, by which community or is it a 3rd? I assume the communities merge when Mark get integrated with Q to form Luke and Matthew again by which community?

Why don't you describe Well's theory as you see it another section. Clearly the definition to be correct must include Wells. I've read and own Jesus legend but you are arguing this comes from a later work. jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:17, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Can we trust the New Testament? is partly viewable through google books as is Jesus Legend he make references back to chapter 6 of Jesus Legend so things haven't changed that much other than Wells making it clear that he feels Paul's Jesus and the Q Jesus are two separate people of two separate time periods who were fused together much later.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I rewrote the lead a little bit, by condensing the first two sentences into one: [1]. I think this is an improvement, because it emphasizes the idea of nonhistoricity right away, and nonhistoricity is the feature of these writers that's attracted the attention of secondary sources.

As I said above, I think a sentence that explains how the theory contrasts with other views on the historical Jesus would be a good addition to the lead. I might try to compose one later today if I have time.

BTW jbolden, I think your description of the Jehovah's Witnesses gets at what I was trying to say about the difference between the Christ myth theory and a scientific theory...there is a shared set of ideas (the most important one is the nonhistoricity of Jesus of Nazareth), but differences in (supposed) source materials, and when and how early Christianity develops...it's not a monolithic theory but rather a set of closely related theories. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:24, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

While it is less wordy it really doesn't make the split between non historicity and weak historicity (for lack of a better name) clear. Especially as the "earthly events were later attached." could be stories of a historical 1st century Galilean would be messiah called Jesus as Wells currently states. Remember Van Voorst stated "A final argument against the nonexistence hypothesis comes from Wells himself" regarding Jesus Myth AND Doherty (called a scholar by Wells) calls Wells a current Jesus Mythist while referring directly to Jesus Myth and Price calls Wells a successor to the extreme Christ Myth Theorists on the back of Can we Trust the new Testament? The more I look at it the more I tend toward Dbachmann's idea of the whole Christ Myth theory argument being WP:CFORK.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:56, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Akhilleus. OK I put it back with a separate point. I'm trying to get the epistles in there but two clear sentences is better than two muddled. If you are OK with it, I'll footnote and we will consider that at least the two of us are in agreement. If you want to try a rephrase go ahead. Then we have a definition. The epistle point is important because I think that difference in methodology is what ultimately drives the difference in results, emphasis and focus.

As far as the Jehovah's witnesses I agree. But certainly you see more diversity between Organic Chemists today, and we freely write about them in a conjoined fashion because they recognize each other as being part of the same intellectual movement. jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Pearson page 9

Hardyplants, I don't think the page 9 quote is the clearest we can come up with. I'm quoting though rather than paraphrasing since we (AFAIKT) are interpreting the quote in exactly the opposite way. I think the article would read better with a paraphrase but I don't want to get into an edit war and quoting the author's own words removes the interpretive aspects. jbolden1517 ^Talk 23:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality dispute

Do we actually have an active neutrality dispute? Can we delete that header? jbolden1517 ^Talk 23:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Darn right we have an active neutrality dispute. The definition for one. The way the references are handled for another, who is referenced in the article, the structure of the article, and on it goes. The article is improving but as far as NPOV is concerned it is still a train wreck.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:58, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we have an actual neutrality dispute. I think we have one editor who keeps on making the same complaint over and over again without making any headway. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:45, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually what we have is one editor who keeps pushing a definition for this article not supported by the material and we STILL have no seen that source that explicitly links the three terms together or shows that variant definitions are connected.--64.184.235.97 (talk) 23:22, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

after all this time, it still isn't clear what exactly the scope of this article is supposed to be. As far as I am concerned, the "dispute" we have here is on the article scope, not any of the particulars discussed on the page. The {{POV}} tag should therefore be replaced by a {{merge}} tag. --dab (𒁳) 13:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Dab here. The existing title, at least to me, makes it appear that there is only one theory involved. I believe that is false. Granted, the various ideas are related, but I don't think many people would say that all the ideas relate to the same theory. John Carter (talk) 13:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

John, I don't think I understand your comment. What theories do you think are involved here? --Akhilleus (talk) 13:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, while there does seem to be a dispute over the scope of the article, I think that the severity of the dispute is exaggerated by the histrionic nature of some of the discussion on the talk page. I doubt, for example, that anyone thinks the article should not include sections on Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, or George Albert Wells. But maybe I'm wrong. I've tried to indicate very clearly what I think the scope of the article is, who should be covered in it, and what secondary sources to use (see, e.g. Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_21#Secondary_sources). I haven't seen any clear and coherent proposals for a different form of the article, but maybe I've missed something in the 21 talk page archives... --Akhilleus (talk) 14:04, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

There seem to me to be at least two differentiated theories in the lead itself, which includes as its last sentence "Some authors attribute the beginning of Christianity to a historical founder who predates the time Jesus is said to have lived." This seems to me at least to be trying to shoehorn that theory in as a variation on the "Christ as myth" theory. As for alternate proposals, maybe we should consider not using the existing title. Something like Alternate views of the historicity of Jesus would be a better fit for the quote above, and might include within it a section regarding the "mythic" idea, and maybe even a link to a separate article by this name. John Carter (talk) 14:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. The sentence "Some authors attribute the beginning of Christianity to a historical founder who predates the time Jesus is said to have lived" refers to theories such as those of J. M. Robertson, who believed that if Christianity had a historical founder, it was Yeshu ben Pandera, who lived ca. 100 BCE. While this may seem like a different theory than simply saying Jesus of Nazareth never lived, in his day Robertson was seen as pursuing the same line of thought as William Benjamin Smith and Arthur Drews--an easy way to see this is by looking at Schweitzer, or F. C. Conybeare's The Historical Christ, or an investigation of the views of J.M. Robertson, A. Drews and W.B. Smith. Modern treatments (such as Van Voorst and Bennett) also treat Robertson, Drews, and Smith as proponents of similar theories. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:43, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Um, didn't you just say "theories such as those of J. M. Robertson..." Doesn't that in and of itself indicate that there are more than one theory? John Carter (talk) 21:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if I agree with the example. AFAIKT Robertson did not believe that. Chapter 9 for Pagan Christs he spends a whole chapter explicating the difference between a historic person to whom myths accreted and a purely fictional person. Mead is someone who fulfills your definition (and perhaps who you were thinking of). I think he is a very borderline case that so far we've avoided. jbolden1517 ^Talk 22:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

John Carter: No, I don't think so. It depends on how rigid a definition of "theory" you want to use, I suppose; but in the humanities, "theory" is used in an imprecise way. The topic of this article gets called a "theory" or a "hypothesis" or an "idea" depending on who you look at. The important thing is that secondary sources regard Robertson and Drews (as well as other guys) as doing essentially the same thing--arguing that there was no historical Jesus--the title of Conybeare's book is a simple way of indicating that. But Smith and Drews themselves regarded their ideas as similar, their contemporaries thought their ideas were similar, and modern writers who talk about Robertson and Drews group them together as proponents of the same theory (or hypothesis, or idea, or viewpoint). Obviously there are some differences between the two, but they are seen as essentially similar in saying that Christianity didn't begin with a historical Jesus of Nazareth. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

jbolden: I haven't read Pagan Christs (I think it's freely available on the internet, so I'll take a look), but S. J. Case, The Historicity of Jesus (1912) pp. 43-44 says that Robertson argues that Christianity's "'Jesus' may be a recollection of some vague figure such as Jesus ben Pandera of the Talmud, put to death for probably anti-Judaic teachings, and of whom the epistles of Paul preserve only the tradition of his crucifixion." Robertson assigns a more important role to a pre-Christian cult of Jesus/Joshua.

As for Mead, BruceGrubb has vociferously argued that he belongs in this article. I have actually seen a modern scholar mention Mead as an example of someone who denied the historicity of Jesus, but I can't remember who. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

In Pagan Christs, Robertson mentions Jesus ben Pandira on p. 186 and p. 238. On p. 238 he says: "If then Paul's Jesus, as is conceivable, be merely a nominal memory of the slain Jesus ben Pandira of the Talmud (about 100 BC), Paul himself may belong to an earlier period than that traditionally assigned to him." So it doesn't look like Jesus ben Pandira is an important part of Robertson's ideas, but he does mention him as a potential source of the New Testament figure of Jesus. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Well first off, Wow is 1903 edition different than the 1966! Hawton cut off about 60% of the book and edited sentences. I'd say they are coauthors in the 1966 edition. Thank you for pointing that out!

Anyway, I read the quote in question as more of an Modus tollens refutation of people who subscribe to Mead's theory (as we are calling it according to both Mead and Robinson it wasn't his theory in 1900) Nowhere in there does he assert that he actually believes in ben Padira as more than just a name (see your p186 reference). The book spends chapters on things like Mithric origins. But it is interesting he mentions it.

As for Mead, IMHO:

The book is available online [2]
The topic is covered well in the article Yeshu
The arguments regarding Jesus ben Pandera are Jewish contextual not historic in nature. We have to assume different background and interests to discuss this intelligently.
This could be a slippery slope where Morton Smith (Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God?) gets in. I have some concerns about the one, but Smith unquestionably belongs in the mainstream article.
None of the modern authors cite Jesus ben Pandera

So barring a strong argument, I would suggest we add Yeshu as an external link with a 1/2 sentence or so of explanation. But this is just initial thought I haven't considered the matter deeply, if Bruce wants to open up a section on talk to discuss Jesus ben Pandera and make a positive case I think that would appropriate. jbolden1517 ^Talk 00:59, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Jbolden1517, I'm not exactly sure what you mean you mean by "None of the modern authors cite Jesus ben Pandera" as a quick search through google books for Jesus ben (Pandera|Pantera) produced 628 hits and using Jesus ben (Pandera|Pantera) Christ Myth reduced that to 55 hits including books by authors like Robert E. Van Voorst, Acharya S, and Tom Harpur who mention Jesus ben (Pandera|Pantera) in some shape, way, or form.--67.16.81.134 (talk) 06:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Voorst isn't a mythicist. Tom Harpur and Arharya S doesn't believe in the incarnation. So I'm a bit lost. jbolden1517 ^Talk 07:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Removing the source of quote

Hardyplants --

The passage you keep saying does not agree with Pearson, is directly form Pearson. You wanted to include a paraphrase from page 9 all I did was directly quoting him. You've removed the reference to him because you claimed the quote didn't agree with his view. That is you are essentially arguing that Pearson word for word quote doesn't agree with your paraphrase and therefore Pearson is wrong about his own views. I would gather that is not your intent. Will you please explain your intent and address the issue rather than just making mass changes? I'll let what you have sit for a bit, but as of these last series of edits we have a block of text written by Pearson with no reference to where it come from, which is plagiarism IMHO. (link for reference). jbolden1517 ^Talk 11:32, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I restored the reference that was inadvertently removed...I have no problem with the quote as in now stands, but your first change was off. Pearson makes no direct connection between early Christianity and Gnosticism in the 1st century.Hardyplants (talk) 11:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

OK good. Now about the last paragraph.

It starts with Birger A. Pearson states that gnosticism borrowed Jesus from Christianity to acquire Christian converts. Pearson says "Christian Gnosticism...attached its self to the emergent Christian sect and appropriated for its self the figure of Jesus Christ."[80] which is just the paraphrase of the large block quote that started this whole thing. Do you think we need both the quote and the paraphrase of the quote?

Yes, because it seems you have missed the entire point of his argument...that early gnosis teaching borrowed Jewish religious texts and altered them to teach a type of gnosis and they borrowed a significant figure also and glued on their teaching to it, as if it was the true orgin of the teaching...In the same way AFTER Jesus, the Christianized form of gnosis teaching (though not other forms) borrowed Jesus, making him the origin of their myth. That is why he says "later "Christianized" Sethian Gnostics could then equate Seth with Jesus Christ, and regard the latter as an incarnation or avatar of the former." The Christian version and understanding of Jesus came first and the Gnostics took Jesus and altered him to fit their veiws later. Hardyplants (talk) 21:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The direct quote doesn't say anything quite that strong. It certainly doesn't say "after Jesus". If you could find one quote where Pearson asserts historicity like that then that would disprove the whole connection with the Bauer school. Give me a quote that says that directly and we can drop Pearson from the section.

"appropriated for its self" is very clear, that is why it belongs. A large part of his book covers why he rejects Gnosticism interpretations of parts of the epistles that have been claimed by others to have gnostic readings, he says they have their origin in typical Jewish wisdom literature and readings. Hardyplants (talk) 15:29, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Well yeah, I would agree. Now I assume you agree the Jewish wisdom literature pre-existed any orthodox Christianity. If so you have:

Sacrificial Judiasm -> Hellenistic Judaism -> Jewish gnosticism.

This is contrasted with the orthodox view:

Sacrificial Judaism -> Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees -> Orthodox Christianity -> Gnosticism -> Gnostic Judaism.

So far do you agree that Pearson see things this way, then that defends Braur:

Sacrificial Judiasm -> Hellenistic Judaism -> Jewish gnosticism -> Christian gnosticism -> orthodox Christianity

jbolden1517 ^Talk 22:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Turner covers the Sethians in detail, the fully worked example and it isn't that clear cut. They are essentially Christian by 100 BCE, though at that point most of Jesus' characterists are with Sophia. The article itself can't just assume that mid 1st century is "after Jesus". I'm going to include Turner's timeline, to make it clear. jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The first know Gnostic texts are from the middle of the secound century, and the date of a fully developed Gnosticism is not attested to earlier than this, he grants that it may have had its origins in the first century but the evidence is lacking. [83] You actually are attributing Wilson to Pearson he is describing Wilson's position. I think the summary (p 181-2) where the talks he gives his own differentiation between proto-Gnosticism, gnosticizing and 2nd century gnosticism may be closer to what you are looking for.

Did you read foot note 5. I should maybe make it more clear in the ref. Hardyplants (talk) 21:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Footnote 5? jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The rest of the paragraph isn't Pearson. We can discuss more, but there is no claim that Ferguson is a member of the W Bauer school, if we want to say that Bauer's whole school of though is rejected by some scholars in another paragraph I'm fine with that, but constructing it the way we are we have Ferguson being a member of Bauer's school which is false. King is a much more interesting case but lets handle the easy stuff first. jbolden1517 ^Talk 12:31, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

You brought up W Bauer in the section, so it seemed fair to deal with his argument in regards to Gnostic influences on Christin development in the same section. Hardyplants (talk) 21:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

You are quoting a critic of the entire Bauer school here and having wikipedia's voice make a flat assertion of fact. Remember this is an article about writers not about "history". I'd want to break this out with something like "critics of the Bauer school assert..." jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

We can move it up to a different section and then I can flesh out the arguments better too. Is there a Bauer school now that still maintains that what he said was correct? The only ones that I know that believe this (some Christ mythers maybe), are those come into this field and start with him and do not know more current "research" . Hardyplants (talk)

A school doesn't mean so much "correct" as "following in his path". Since we are debating Pearson I won't use him... but Turner, or Pagels are clearly following (IMHO) in the "Orthodoxy came from heresy". they are rejecting the preexistence of an orthodox church from which the heretics spawned. jbolden1517 ^Talk 22:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

POV dispute tags removed

I noticed that the tag was removed. Is there any dispute here? If not the tag should go. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 21:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this was a POV-dispute. There are some minor issues with defining the subject to include all people that have been labeled Christ-Myth theorists. I'm not sure how things are progressing, but here is my proposal:

The Christ myth theory is the contention that the Jesus of earliest Christianity is a mythological being to whom earthly events were later attached. This is either based on the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical person (known as the nonhistoricity hypothesis or Jesus myth), or was so radically different from the Jesus of early Christianity that such a person could not have been the origin of the myth. Proponents of the theory trace ...

This should now cover all positions that I'm comfortable distinguishing from the historical Jesus set of views. This may be giving a single author, Wells, far too much weight, but it is all inclusive and I don't think it is that obfuscating. What do people think? Vesal (talk) 17:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I think if we need to include this stuff for Wells this is in the right direction. I'd be very cautious about "from the Jesus of early Christianity" since that doesn't objectively mean much. I could live with the Jesus worshiped in early Christianity. As for Wells, I'm still looking for some clarity [3] that he in his later works is claiming anything outside of what is standard. jbolden1517 ^Talk 19:07, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with jbolden1517 as "from the Jesus of early Christianity" could go back before 4 BCE if you hold that some form of 'pro-Christianity' existed in the 1st century BCE. I also don't see how such a definition would really differ from Ludwigs2's or Hiberniantears's above.

As for well "claiming anything outside of what is standard" that is right there on pg 43 of Can We Trust the New Testament?: "This Galilean Jesus was not crucified and was not believed to have been resurrected after his death. The dying and rising Christ — devoid of time and place — of the early epistles is a quite different figure and must have a different origin." The standard is that Paul's Jesus and the Gospel Jesus are one and the same person while Wells is saying the Gospel Jesus is a composite character of Paul's Jesus and the Q Jesus with Q being written down sometime between 40 and 70 CE. (pg 43). By saying the Gospel Jesus is a composite character of two other people called Jesus from two different centuries Wells is effectively saying that Jesus is non historical which is slightly different than saying Jesus didn't exist at all.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, he is saying something different than saying Jesus didn't exist at all. This is why Van Voorst says that Wells has changed his position, and that he is no longer an advocate of what he calls the "nonexistence hypothesis". I think I've already made it clear that lead should not be altered to take into account Wells' position in his later works.

jbolden, this essay by Wells says that he started saying Q provided evidence of a historical Jesus starting in The Jesus Legend. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Akhilleus. OK good link. That is pretty definitely an assertion of the historicity of Jesus but not he Jesus of early Christianity. In other words he seems to be asserting that there is a miracle worker Jesus but that the early Christians just expropriated the material. I reread the materials on Q in Jesus Legend and he asserts there were multiple Christianities and that the cynic stuff may have been a Christianity. I'm going to try a slight rephrasing of the into. jbolden1517 ^Talk 16:30, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

jbolden, sorry to be so insistent on this point, but I reverted your change. For reasons I've already explained, I don't think the lead should be altered to incorporate Wells' more recent views--if he now says that there is a historical Jesus, then he has moved away from the subject of this article, which is the contention that there was no historical Jesus! I think it's fine if the body of the article explains that Wells has shifted his views (and the article currently does this), but we shouldn't change the definition in the lead: our secondary sources are quite clear that the Christ myth theory is the argument that there was no historical Jesus. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:50, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

No reason to be sorry, this is tricky to get right. What I was saying above with Jesus Legend (1996) is that AFAIKT Wells hasn't changed his view. That is Wells asserted even then that Jesus may have existed and that there may have been a Christianity which believed in him as a miracle worker. The focus of the book though is on how Paul doesn't view him that way and is unaware of that view. Robertson and Doherty have essentially the same focus. That's why I think we need to shade just a tiny bit. He agrees in that chapter with Burton Mack (and Doherty for that matter) that Q as it exists is a complication of multiple people.

My feeling is we "obvious" yes people. I'm trying to throw in enough of a shading to keep those people in the circle while excluding Burton Mack.

In some sense, I'm wondering if the real issue isn't one of focus rather than historicity. A theory of Jesus/ origin of Christianity based on the epistles rather than the gospels. It may turn out that is really the core difference. jbolden1517 ^Talk 21:53, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

________

EXCEPT it doesn't explain why Doherty (called a scholar by Wells) called Wells a current Jesus Mythist while referring directly to Jesus Myth nor Price calls Wells a "successor to the extreme Christ Myth Theorists" on the back of Can we Trust the new Testament? which is AFTER the book Van Voorst makes such a big deal over nor . The reality is Van Voorst claims one thing ONE time and Doherty and Price say the exact opposite a total of FOUR times. Never mind that Van Voorst is a Professor at Western Theological Seminary which has strong connections to the Reformed Church in America. In short, Van Voorst school's very existence depends on there being a historical Jesus; also Van Voorst is going into areas of historical anthropology (Ethohistory) for which he has NO formal education in as his defense of Thallus even after admitting its problems shows.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I know it seems like a mouse chasing its tail but the conflict between Van Voorst on the one hand and Price AND Doherty on the other as far as Wells is a problem.--BruceGrubb (talk) 13:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Doherty may be called by a scholar by Wells, but does he hold an academic position? Does he have an advanced degrees in religion, theology, history, or a related subject? Heck, can you even show that he has a B.A. in one of these fields? In short, why should we think that Doherty's book reviews and essays, self-published on his website, are a reliable source?

As for Price, we've been over this already. He's a "professor" at an unaccredited theological seminary. There's already been a thread on this talk page where a number of people agreed that Price wasn't a "serious author". So I'm not really too concerned what Price did or didn't say about Wells. However, you might want to contemplate the meaning of "successor to the extreme Christ Myth Theorists"--but even before that, contemplate whether you really want to base arguments on blurbs you find on the back cover of books. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:46, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Since Wells AND Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases (2008) pg 320 BOTH call Doherty a scholar should that be enough unless you have references of equal standing who says Doherty is not. As for Price let's not forget was a part of the Jesus Seminar and is a fellow of Westar Fellows (The Fellows of the Westar Institute include scholars with advanced degrees in biblical studies, religion or related fields and, by special invitation only, published authors who are recognized authorities in the field of religion.) while Van Voorst was part of neither.

Then you have Robert M Price's insane list of Theological Publications with article in Journals such as Journal for the Study of the New Testament ("one of the leading academic journals in New Testament Studies"), Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith ("The peer-reviewed journal of the ASA"), Themelios ("international evangelical theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith"), Journal of Ecumenical Studies ("The premiere academic publication for interreligious scholarship since 1964"), Evangelical Quarterly, Journal of Psychology and Theology, Journal of Unification Studies, and I think everyone should get the point. By contrast even Van Voorst's page at Western Theological Seminary only talks about the books he has published and when you look at these books you get things like Eerdmans (whose quality has been questioned numerous times by different editors over the last two year) and Abingdon Press ("publishing arm of the United Methodist Publishing House"). Even the somewhat questionable PRO historical Jesus source Strobel admits "Only a very small handful of legitimate scholars, such as the skeptic Robert Price...

So far all we have had is a bunch of smoke and mirrors worthy of a stage magician to try and ignore that Price and Doherty use Christ Myth Theory and Jesus mythist to describe Wells AFTER Jesus Legend showing the definition of Christ Myth Theory beingregarding non historical Jesus is flawed. Price has published in multiple PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS while trying to find if van Voorst has done likewise is like pulling teeth. Akhilleus, you are going to have to come up with some other arguments as this one is dodo as Price has peer reviewed journals backing his credentials while all Van Voorst seems to have is he is a professor in a university who department depends on there being a historical Jesus and publishes books through questionable publishers.--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:23, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Bruce, I can't believe you still make this about Price. You want to emphasize this as "Only a very small handful of legitimate scholars, such as the skeptic Robert Price". You have to be rather desparate to include Price under "legitimate scholars", I guess this really means that there isn't anyone else. That's the very definition of WP:FRINGE. Yes, Price and his opinion deserve WP:DUE mention on Wikipedia, but the Robert M. Price article will be absolutely sufficient. There is no need to pretend that Price's fringy views have the more general status of a "theory". [comment split , original continued below at first comment in Article Split]

WHAT DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND ABOUT PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS?!! Price has far more credibility by getting articles in such publications than Van Voorst does.--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

what did you not understand about "the Robert M. Price article will be absolutely sufficient"? Nobody disputes Price has some notability, or his article would be up for deletion. If you would like to discuss Price's more eccentric ideas, pray go and edit Robert M. Price. --dab (𒁳) 12:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

AND PRICE CALLS WELLS A CHRIST MYTH THEORIST AT LEAST TWICE (1999/2000 and 2002) DESPITE WELLS ACCEPTING A JESUS IN THE 1ST CENTURY AD BACK IN 1996. THIS IS SUPPORTED BY ANOTHER AUTHOR WHO WELLS HIMSELF AND ONE OTHER SOURCE CALLS A SCHOLAR WHO CALLS A WELLS A CURRENT JESUS MYTH SUPPORTER. Face it there is nothing other that OR song and dance that can challenge Price's classification of Wells current position as a Christ Myth theorist. Sorry my when it is this freaking clear people need to get a clue.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you need to stop shouting, and maybe take a few deep breaths. Whatever your precious Price has been saying about anything, go and discuss it at his article. If you can convince people that it is in any way interesting what Price thinks about Wells, go and add it to Wells' article as well. What we have here is a split off historicity of Jesus, as it were historicity of Jesus (various fringe views, especially Price). I don't know why you keep going on about Price when I am questioning this article's justification. I am not questioning the justification of Price's article, so please stop defending it.

From your posting history, I cannot help the impression that you take some kind of personal interest in the status of the theory, to the effect that you think it "should" get more credit than it currently does. If this is true, you should excuse yourself from editing, because you would seem to suffer from a WP:COI. --dab (𒁳) 12:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The only interest I have in the theory is that it reflect what the reliable source material says and that source material doesn't suggest anything even resembling a coherent view of what the Christ Myth theory even is (and even less regarding Christ Myth). The definitions of Christ Myth theoryare all over the place as demonstrated by how those of Dodd, Pike, and Bromiley are at odds with those given by Farmer, Horbury, and Wiseman. How do we do a split when even the very meaning Christ Myth theory varys from author to author with some including historicity of Jesus and the usage of the more general Christ Myth is even more of a train wreck?

I mean look at how some of the source is being argued. Schweitzer stated "I especially wanted to explain late Jewish eschatology more thoroughly and to discuss the works of John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, James George Frazer, Arthur Drews, and others, who contested the historical existence of Jesus." (Out of My Life and Thought, 1931 page 125) in direct conflict with what Schweitzer supposedly said in a 1913 rewrite of The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1905) put out in 2000 by John Bowden though a publisher directly connected with a church yet we are told that we have to take the 1913 (?) claim over the 1931 one. SAY WHAT?! Does this make ANY degree of sense?! If anything we should be taking Schweitzer's LATER statement not his earlier one.

What Price AND Doherty say about Wells is totally relevant to THIS article because it totally destroys the claim that Christ Myth theory only deals with the idea the man Jesus didn't exist as a historical person. Please note that the definitions of Bromiley, Dodd, Pike, and Welsh ALSO agree with what Price and Doherty thanks to how those four define the term. In short we don't have a one trick pony but Price AND Doherty AND Bromiley AND Dodd AND Pike AND Welsh; ie SIX DIFFERENT AUTHORS whose definition of Christ Myth theory does NOT totally fit the Jesus didn't exist as a historical person position. And we are STILL waiting for that reliable source that ties all these different versions together.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:32, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Article Split

Come on. This has been going on for years. It isn't going to get any better, we have probed the depths of this by now. This "Christ myth" thing is an idiosyncratic hobby-horse of some individuals at the academic fringe. It may be worth a footnote at historicity of Jesus, but not more. For pity's sake lets finally nuke this article and reduce its content to the couple of margin notes that is their due. --dab (𒁳) 07:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Dab this seems like a bit of a rant. This "idiosyncratic hobby-horse" is rather popular and heavily believed.

On Amazon's list of Jesus sellers you see some devotional stuff, Marcus Borg, Jefferson (!) and then Acharya S at 34 right above N.T. Wright at 35. Acharya's book was published a decade ago. At 74 you hit Harpur's Pagan Christ, at 78 Freke and Gandy who shows up again at 91 with their 2nd book, Meier shows up only once at 80.

Or to take another example the atheist book list

Zinder (4), Wells (8), Carpenter (19),

And on their "Jesus" reading list (which only has 28 items): Price, Wells (several times), Doherty, Drews, Ellegard, Freke. There is a ton of popular literature on this topic.

Most atheist websites link off to The God Who Wasn't There.

And as one of the people who split this off a year ago, you know this is far better than it was then. This article is getting better, it is making progress and frankly it deserves to be covered. Any topic getting a book a year or more deserves a wikipedia article. jbolden1517 ^Talk 08:51, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

"rather popular and heavily believed"? what on earth are you talking about. We are agreed that only a tiny handful of people gives this any credibility.

I don't buy that at all. I'd say the number is the hundreds of thousands and possibly millions. Now if you mean scholars I'm still not so sure. Lots of scholars would be willing to say that there is no definitive evidence of Jesus' existence. The reason we are having so much trouble above getting the definition right is that we want to keep this article separate from mainstream literature when the real differences are issues of style and focus.

Do you want to propse this is an "internet meme" or something, or are we agreed that this is a topic of biblical scholarship and historical criticism?

I think it is both. Biblical scholarship is a popular topic in America. It sells books. I know a lot about biblical scholarship and nothing about Gita scholarship because the bible/Christianity effects my day to day life while the Gita does not; even though Jesus and Krishna are essentially interchangeable. I don't think I'm alone in that.

I frankly do not care about "amazon reading lists". We have discussed this topic for years, we have all relevant literature collected right here, and you give me "atheist web sites".

If atheists claim this is part of their philosophy/religion then it part of their religion. So yeah I do think the how atheists view this topic is very important. Groups get to define their own theology.

Please. This article is a blatant WP:CFORK, never mind how "good" it is. It isn't to be split because it is "bad" but because it is a content fork.

A content fork of what? It is a subarticle from Historicity, as it is marked on Historicity. See POV_fork#Article_spinouts_-_.22Summary_style.22_articles

As for the "atheism" category, it would be nice if the exceedingly long article text would at least make passing reference to atheism once if it is to remain so categorized.

It used to right in the introduction. I'm going to argue to put that back in. It got taken out because it was seen as not NPOV at the time. I think the crowd now is substantially more rational.

As it stands, it remains a complete mystery what this is supposed to have to do with atheism. What sort of atheist would believe that proving that Jesus did or did not live has any bearing whatsoever on the question of the existence of God?

Quite a few of them. For western atheists the "opposition party" is Christianity. Disproving that Christianity and disproving Christ delegitimizes the political positions of Christians. It is part of what is called "new atheism" (~~which amazingly wikipedia doesn't have an article on. I might have to fix that): nation magazine al mohler wired magazine al mohler lecture, etc....~~

Which, last time I checked, was what atheism was about, a-theos as in "no-God".

No that is the etymology it is not the definition. For example I freely use the word "disaster" (lit... an unfavorable position of a planet or star) to mean really bad stuff without believing in astrology.

This article has suffered enough from the implicit misconception that it is about proving or disproving atheism. --dab (𒁳) 12:20, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I never said it was about proving atheism. But.... were this theory verified it would disprove Christianity. This is inherently an atheist apologetic and has always been seen by its proponents in that light. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, the main problem is what Christ Myth theory and especially Christ Myth means varies depending on what the author is talking about.

Under Christ Myth theory we have:

there was no Jesus in any way, shape, or form in the 1st century CE (Farmer, Horbury, and Wiseman)

ANY deviation from the Gospel account (Bromiley's "story of")

The idea of Jesus starting out as a myth regardless of connection to any historical person (Walsh)

Pre existing mythology connected with a historical person who may or may not have lived in the 1st century CE (Dodd, Pike, Wells per Price and Doherty)

The Gospel Jesus has had so much added that nothing discernible about the actual man remains (The He might as well not existed tack).

As for Christ Myth that is even broader. I have to agree with Dbachmann in that there is nothing uniform in the reliable sources as to what Christ Myth theory and especially Christ Myth even are.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

indeed. this is why the article should be split, because each of your bullets is already exhaustively treated elsewhere on Wikipedia. --dab (𒁳) 12:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I think this discussion is at risk of confusing separate issues. One is how best to organise Wikipedia content. I have previously argued that this article should explain the ideas of specific writers (Bauer, Robertson, etc.), with minimal generalisation. Compared to that, we would lose no information by moving the explanations to the articles about those writers, so I think Dbachmann's proposal is very sensible. It would minimise duplication of content, and would avoid the need for arguments about the relative attention to give individual figures.

However, we still have to provide the reader with information about how a writer like J. M. Robertson fits into the context of New Testament studies, even if we don't discuss him on the same page as half a dozen other people. If the relevant secondary literature treats him as forming a recognisable school of thought along with Drews and Smith (and I haven't found any that doesn't), then it would be inappropriate for us to align him with some other group based on his ideas about an obscure pre-Christian Jesus. The limited inconsistencies that have been highlighted on this talk page – as far as I can see, Wells is the only individual who has really been characterised inconsistently in relevant secondary sources – are no greater than the difficulties involved in defining who counts as a "structuralist" or a "conservative". Yet we have detailed articles on structuralism and conservatism; if we don't have one on the hypothesis of a non-historical Jesus, that should be because of its relative insignificance, not because the topic doesn't exist. EALacey (talk) 22:25, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

But I think we still have a muddy topic here. "Non-historical Jesus" has meant many things to many authors, and is an incredibly vague term (which Jesus are we talking about - the one in the gospels? Do you think that the virgin birth and the resurrection are historical events? If you wish only to exclude "supernatural" events but leave the rest of the gospel narrative intact, on what basis are you doing this?); however, many seemed convinced this article should cover only those authors who think that Jesus had no basis in a historical figure of any kind. Again I'm fine with that, but along the way we must be extra careful to emphasize what is and what is not on the line in this theory. Disproving or marginalizing this theory does not validate the supernatural claims of the Bible, which some of the quotes (from Van Voorst et al) seem to imply. Use of the term "non-historical Jesus" is problematic and needs qualifications. --davigoli (talk) 23:37, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem with this idea is the same with with Christ Myth and Christ Myth Theory --if the term is not constantly used claiming it is is effectively engaging in WP:SYN. Bromiley presented Lucian, Bertrand Russell and P. Graham as some examples of lines of thought leading to the Christ myth theory; to suggest that Lucian (of the 2nd century CE) and Bertrand Russell held that Jesus NEVER existed is totally insanity and even Bromiley states that Russell leaves the question of Jesus of Nazareth himself existing open.

So why is Bromiley using using Lucian and Bertrand Russell when there are so many others who expressly challenged the existence of a historical Jesus (He make no mention of Drew at all)? Occam's razor suggest that Bromiley's definition is simply anything other than the Gospel account is Christ Myth Theory which shoots down the idea that the term only deals with the man not existing.--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:17, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Dbachmann. This article is clearly the result of attempted pet ownership by [[User:Akhilleus]. The sooner we move these clearly disparate pieces to more relevant articles and delete this originally researched titled page, the better. TAway (talk) 19:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. --davigoli (talk) 20:51, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Dreamguy and Malcolm Schosha have claimed the same thing over the years and as reluctant as I am to take such a extreme position I am slowly going there. The way Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_11#Jesus_myth_hypothesis and Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_21#RfC:_How_is_Christ_myth_theory_defined.3F were handled (the first done behind the back of everyone at the talk page and only though a eagle eyed editor did we even know about it and the second archived just when it was actually succeeding in bringing badly needed new blood and before the month that RfCs are supposed to be up was over) tend toward a view that Akhilleus is trying to own this article. Only after Cuñado removed "Christ Myth" did Akhilleus stop trying to defend its inclusion in the article's lead in and you will note that he will NOT address this fact nor supply the reference that shows Christ myth theory, nonhistoricity hypothesis, and Jesus myth are always synonymous with each other.

I certainly was NOT impressed by Akhilleus early efforts to defend a "quote" (and I use the term very loosely) by Grant that had been argued by other editors like Phyesalis, E4mmacro, Sophia, and ^^James^^ to be thrown out with Phyesalis saying 22:45, 12 December 2007 "Eerdmans has a known reputation for being a conservative, if not reactionary, evangelical press. Grant's book is a reprint of a popular title from the seventies." (I at least tried to prove this with my research rather than just simply claiming it.) and it set my current perception of his research skills. His insane claim that "I've already said, aside from Holding, no secondary source I've been able to find even mentions Remsberg, let alone makes him an important figure in the history of this idea." which I tore apart with only a minute of searching through google books Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_19#Remsberg reinforced this view. I found secondary sources mentioning Remsburg even with the wrong spelling all over the place and some were even referring to The Christ.

Oh for the record even after I supplied proof that I had read the entire relevant passage Attitudes to the Evidence Akhilleus was still making (the then disproved) claim that I had not ever read the relevant passage of Grant months later.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:36, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, I share the reservations of EALacey; even if detailed explanations of each author's viewpoint are at their individual articles, some explanation of why Bauer et al. are considered to form a connected line of thought is necessary--and this article is the best place to do it. As dab notes, in the context of an article like historical Jesus the people covered here don't warrant much space. This article, though, could be much shorter than it is--a number of people have agreed that the "arguments" section is undesirable, for instance. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:04, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Jesus is important enough in our culture to deserve in-depth articles on the different scholarly views. Rather than getting rid of this one, I would like to read articles on apocalyptic Jesus, which is the mainstream view, and sapiental Jesus, which is the dominant challenging view and seems to have consensus in North American scholarship. This current article is about a fringe view, but it was historically important, wasn't it? Vesal (talk) 22:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Important enough to be treated as a distinct subject by some scholarly works on the quest of the historical Jesus, and therefore a notable topic on its own; not important enough to get much space in the main articles about the historical Jesus et al. By the way, realized eschatology might be similar to what you're thinking of as sapiential Jesus; but you're right that Jesus supplies enough material for many different articles. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Avoiding synthesis

It seems to me the problem with a split is that:

1) The arguments for historicity pro/con (which used to be in the article and probably will end up being here) are common to the authors. They all for example have to address Josephus, they all have to address tie in with dying and rising saviors.... If we split we still need some sort of common place to put all this stuff.

2) The historical evolution to be discussed. The 20th century authors are coming from a tradition. How did reading of other culture's myths lead to a belief that Christianity was mythic in the same sense.

3) The relationship between the modern authors and their relationships with majority scholarship. Harpur, Freke, Doherty, Wells all have essentially the same counter responses.

And I can't see how we don't end up having to reproduce this on a dozen author's sites if we just chop this article into pieces. Having these arguments in one place is enough work, having them scattered throughout the encyclopedia seems excessive.

Why don't the difference advocates like Bruce start a comparison section to the article that highlights the differences and similarities between the authors? For example we can Wells with dual Jesus, Doherty with Q being anonymous and say Acharya S with the Q section being representations of the Sun. What seems to be driving this split is a few places where generalization currently exists, primarily the intro. What I would suggest is that perhaps we follow a model of other places that have the same sorts of problems Factions in the Republican Party (United States) would be an example. jbolden1517 ^Talk 16:49, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if there's going to be an article at all, it's not going to be on the cut-and-dried, "this is all fringe territory" terms that some editors have proposed for the article. The general concept - that the figure of Jesus as generally understood by modern Christians is largely composed of mythical elements with origins before the 1st century CE - is a very mainstream one, and cleanly delineating where that mainstream view ends and the more radical claims of "nonexistence" begins is a rather fine line and a difficult task, since the "radicals" such as Doherty, Freke, Acharya S, etc. use many of the same arguments as supporting arguments for their case. Additionally, it appears that some authors (Wells, others?) fall somewhere in between (the view that there probably was a historical Jesus, but little can be known about him, would appear to be far less radical than the assertion that he cannot have existed). In fact, if this article is to attempt to shut out establishment authors like Burton Mack (who takes this view, that Jesus is a composite mythological figure layered on the basis of an obscure historical person), on what basis are we doing that? We'll have to have some clear criterion for including, on the one hand, Wells, while excluding, on the other, Mack. At the very least, the article needs to reflect this messy state of affairs; a "fringe" label would appear at first glance to apply to the mainstream supporting arguments in addition to the more outlandish claims. Most of the talk page thrashing around that's been going on for months now has to do with the difficulty of drawing a clean line defining a "Christ myth theory" that excludes authors seen as authoritative. We'd like to be able to find a reliable source (or preferably two or three sources) that gives us a good, consistent definition, but since that source appears not to exist, we should be careful to avoid drawing these lines with too much confidence. --davigoli (talk) 18:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

As I've said many, many times, this article needs to be written based on what reliable secondary sources say about the topic; those sources treat the writing of Bauer, Drews, Robertson, Smith, and the early writing of Wells as a coherent school of thought about the historical Jesus--and the common factor that links them all is the idea that there was no historical Jesus. There are authoritative sources that give a consistent definition for the topic; if people would go forth and read them, rather than paying attention to tendentious readings given on this talk page, we'd all be better off.

And davigoli, there is a clear criterion for saying that the more recent work of Wells is not the subject of this article, and that the work of Burton Mack is not the subject of this article. The line is absolutely clear: whether or not the author argues that there was no historical Jesus. Easy as pie. Here's three quotes from authoritative sources.

Van Voorst (1999) p. 6: "Until recently, the mainstream of New Testament scholarship has not had a large influence on research into Jesus in sources outside the New Testament. However, one long-running and often noisy side current has had such an influence. This is the controversial question, Did Jesus really exist? Some readers may be surprised or shocked that many books and essays--by my count, over one hundred--in the past two hundred years have fervently denied the very existence of Jesus. Contemporary New Testament scholars have typicall viewed their arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely. Thus, students of the New Testament are often unfamiliar with them. In this section, as a special follow-up to our sketch of the history of research, we will examine briefly the history and significance of the theory that Jesus never existed." (A footnote after "ignore them completely" mentions Case 1912, Drews 1926, Goguel 1926 and 1933, and Wood 1938 as treatments of the history of this problem--note that Wood is one of the quotes BruceGrubb claims is ambiguous.)

Weaver (1999) p. 45: "The debate over the historicity of Jesus became intense in the first decade of the twentieth century and spread from Germany into Holland, England, and America. It peaked around 1910 with a public conference in the Zoological Gardens in Berlin and began to taper off thereafter. It was, in face, an acrimonious debate, with historical and theological issues intertwined, and it was also apparent that the liberals had brought the matter, to their regret apparently, upon themselves. Of course, it is also true that this questioning of the very existence of Jesus as a historical figure was not really new, having gone back as far at least as the eighteenth-century Frenchmen Charles François Dupuis and Constantin François Volney, and wound its way down through Bruno Bauer and Albert Kalthoff, as Schweitzer had originally described and, in his greatly expanded second edition, had more extensively discussed." (Weaver's chronological scope is the first half of the 20th century, so he doesn't mention Wells at all.)

Bennett (2001) p. 202 (under the heading "The Jesus-was-a-myth school"): "I turn now to the genre of writers who argue that there never was a Jesus of Nazareth, that he never existed. They also draw on early pagan critique, and suggest that all Paul did (he is often credited with Jesus' invention) was to create a composite character from pre-existing beliefs."

And has been posted before on this talk page, the authors I just mentioned (Van Voorst, Weaver, and Bennett), as well as other scholars who write on this topic (Schweitzer, Case, Goguel), consistently name Bauer, Drews, Smith, and Robertson as proponents of a non-historical Jesus, as well as other figures like Albert Kalthoff and G. A. Wells. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:36, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

as for the "problems" with the split,

1) The arguments for historicity pro/con ... If we split we still need some sort of common place to put all this stuff.
- indeed. That place is historicity of Jesus.
2) The historical evolution to be discussed.
- as, for example, at quest for the historical Jesus?
3) The relationship between the modern authors and their relationships with majority scholarship all have essentially the same counter responses.
- again, I suppose, the responses presented at historicity of Jesus.

I never said these points shouldn't be discussed. All I am saying is, we don't need three separate articles discussing them independently of one another. --dab (𒁳) 19:54, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

OK I'm pretty sure quest won't be a problem. I'm not so sure about historicity. This is going to make their article a heck of a lot more complex. But if they are willing to merge it appears to me:

You have a viable proposal
You have majority support

We'll see what they say. jbolden1517 ^Talk 20:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why this subject should get more than a sentence or two in any of these articles. Merging is going to make a lot of this content disappear. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I never said Wood even defined what Christ myth theory was only that he used it in reference to Bertrand Russel some one who does NOT say Jesus never existed. Also this is Wood in 1955 so what he said in 1938 some 18 years previously don't mean squado as it is possible that (gasp) WOOD CHANGED HIS MIND! Just as Schweitzer did between 1905 and 1931 with regard to the work of James George Frazer being in the SAME "contested the historical existence of Jesus" category as John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, and Arthur Drews.

Of course this is typical Akhilleus. The idea that Schweitzer's supposed 1913 rewrite caries more weight than his own words in 1931 and Wood in 1938 carries more weight than Wood some 18 years later (assuming they are the same Wood. Akhilleus' track record with finding things is not exactly stellar as shown by him having to be told where Grant actually got his quote from, his non performance on Remsburg, me finding the one article that actually mentions "Jesus myth" hypothesis, and his inability to produce even one source that directly and explicitly links ALL the varies uses of 'Christ Myth Theory together) is insane. And we STILL wait for that reference that ties all these difference versions of the Christ Myth theory together.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Christian perspective?

I think Tom Harpur should be mentioned. He explicitly cites Doherty as having made "what seems to me to be an incontrovertible case" (p. 224, according to Doherty here). He certainly recommends reading Robert Price and if one can believe Tektonics.org, he has said things like "To date there has been no incontrovertible evidence of an historical Jesus' existence. I recommend reading the seven books of British scholar G.A. Wells on this, and also the latest two by Robert Price, whose books deal specifically with this theme."

As to more reliable source, this is maybe a good summary "During his research, Harpur discovered that the New Testament is wholly based on Egyptian mythology, that Jesus Christ never lived, and that – indeed – the text was always meant to be read allegorically. It was the founders of the Church who duped the world into taking a literal approach to the scriptures. And, according to Harpur, this was their fatal error – and the very reason Christianity is struggling today."

The interesting thing about Harpur is, of course, that he believes the non-historical Jesus is the best thing that can happen to modern Christianity. This perspective is both notable and interesting. Vesal (talk) 21:49, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Harpur should be in the article no question. Start a paragraph on him under "other writers" or a whole subsection if you have several paragraphs worth of material. jbolden1517 ^Talk 22:26, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

As I said before Holding is a joke but Price and Doherty should be enough to include Harpur if we can find good material what he says.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:04, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Bromiley

Since BruceGrubb has brought Bromiley's entry in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, I'd like to urge everyone to read the entry at Google Books using the link Bruce helpfully provided. The entry in question is "Jesus Christ", and the relevant section is short--just the first page of the entry. It begins with a consideration of "doubts that have been cast on the historical life of Jesus", which have "taken many forms." (Incidentally, Bromiley is the editor of this volume, but it's not at all clear to me that the entry is by him--I'm going to continue saying "Bromiley" simply to have the convenience of an author's name.)

The first example of the "doubts that have been case on the historical life of Jesus" is the Christ myth theory. He begins: "Over the last two hundred years or so, some skeptics have sought to explain the NT witness to Jesus and the rise of Christianity in terms of the Christ-myth theory." Obviously, then, Bromiley regards the theory as a relatively recent phenomenon beginning in the 18th century. So when he mentions Lucian (ca. 125-180 CE), he doesn't mean that Lucian was a proponent of the theory, unless he was somehow under the impression that the 2nd century and the 18th century were the same time period.

Bruce's contention that by saying "This view states that the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology..." Bromiley differentiates between the story of Jesus and the person of Jesus is wrong. Some attention to context might help--the Christ-myth theory is brought forward as one of the "doubts that have been cast on the historical life of Jesus", and in fact the heading of the section is "Did Jesus ever live?" so Bromiley is clearly talking about a theory that the person never lived. Even without the introduction, it should be clear to an attentive reader that if one believes "the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology, possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes," one thinks that Jesus is as real as Apollo, Freya, or Amphiaraus--i.e., one thinks that he didn't really live.

Continuing on, Bromiley talks about parallels to dying-rising gods like Attis, Osiris, etc., and notes that "...there is hardly a reputable scholar today who supports the legitimacy of these so-called parallels (G. A. Wells, The Jesus of the Early Christians [1971], being a solitary exception...)" In this book, Wells argued there was no historical Jesus, so it is again clear that Bromiley is talking about the line of thought of Bauer, Drews, etc. The fourth paragraph ends by mentioning F.C. Conybeare, The Historical Christ (1914) and Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins--Conybeare's book was a refutation of the ideas of John M. Robertson in particular, but also dealt with Drews and similar writers of the day, so there should be no doubt that when Bromiley says "This view states that the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology..." he's talking about the view of Bauer, Drews, Robertson, Smith, the early Wells, et al.

After this, Bromiley mentions Bertrand Russell, who "leaves open the question of whether there was such a figure as Jesus of Nazareth as the Gospels portray Him"; Graham is an example of someone who shares the same view. But this is a different example of the "doubts that have been cast upon the historical life of Jesus," and in the paragraph that mentions Russell and Graham, Bromiley no longer uses the phrase "Christ-myth"; he's already dispatched with it in the previous paragraph, and referred the reader to sources (Conybeare/Bruce) where more information about it can be found.

I see no evidence that Bromiley's definition conflicts with the one used in the article; he refers to Wells as a supporter of the theory, and by his reference to Conybeare we can see that he thinks of Robertson, Drews, etc. as supporters of the theory. On the other hand, Bromiley does not refer to Lucian, Russell, or Graham as supporters of the Christ-myth idea. Bromiley's definition of the Christ-myth theory is consistent with Van Voorst's "nonexistence hypothesis", Bennett's "Jesus-was-a-myth school", and Weaver's treatment of theories of a nonhistorical Jesus, and so should be considered one of the reliable sources with a consistent definition that davigoli was asking for above. Bromiley (or whoever is actually the author of the "Jesus Christ" entry) is less useful for us than Bennett/Van Voorst/Weaver because he doesn't give a history of the idea nor does he name specific proponents other than Wells, but is still consistent with their treatments. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's pick Bromiley apart. The first paragraph of the related material tells us about the Christ Myth theory, second tells us what it is (using story of), third line talks about the supposed parallels, and the fourth uses Apollonius of Tyana while using Lucian as an example, and the final sentence gives us the examples of Attis, Adonis, Osiris and Mithras.

The next paragraph mentions ONE work by Wells and two counterpoints to his arguments. The paragraph after that starts "These examples of the Christ-myth idea..." please note the plural. The paragraph after that talks has the lead in Bertrand Russel leave the question open and the very next sentance says "This negative attitude is shared by P. Graham, The Jesus Hoax (1974)"

NOWHERE in any of this are any of the greats (Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, J. M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, etc) of the non historical concept mentioned. What we get instead is, in order, are Lucian, Wells, and Bertrand Russel. Hardly a cross section of the non historical idea. Besides the publisher here is Hendrickson Publishers ("For two decades we've been providing premium scholarly publications to the academic biblical studies community and quality books and products to the Church") and does not address the problems with the definitions given by Dodd, Pike, or Welsh nor Wood's "toying with" regarding Bertrand Russel to the Christ Myth theory. Nevermind we are STILL waiting for that reference that ties how Farmer, Horbury, and Wiseman use the term Christ Myth Theory to those of Bromiley, Pike , Dodd, and Welsh. All we have gotten is a bunch of OR song and dance ("Even with well-sourced material, however, if you use it out of context or to advance a position that is not directly and explicitly supported by the source used, you as an editor are engaging in original research") Like it or not Bromiley uses Lucian in a paragraph that by the introductory sentence should be be dealing with the Christ Myth Theory. If Bromiley wanted to shift gears as Akhilleus claims why didn't Bromiley start a new paragraph?! Remember directly and explicitly. We can only use what Bromiley himself states on how Bromiley meant to use Christ Myth Theory and anything that "directly and explicitly" refers to Bromiley. NOTHING ELSE!--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:52, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Another thing Akhilleus happily ignores is basic English syntax; really look at the term Christ Myth Theory and you see Christ Myth being used as an adjective to Theory. As I have shown before how Christ Myth is used by scholars and non scholars alike is all over the map; it has been used for non historical as well as historical position. The vague (and therefore broad) definitions of Dodd and Pike and Walsh's started out as a myth can all apply to historial Jesus.

"As for the story of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, Mark took the basic ideas from the Christ myth but dared to imagine how the crucifixion and of the Christ might look if played out as a historical even in Jerusalem, something the Christ myth resisted. [...] Ever after, Christians would imagine Mark's fiction as history and allow this erasure of the time as a wink in the mind of Israel's God." (Mack, Burton L. (1996) Who wrote the New Testament? pg 152) Then you have Wood in 1955 (making what he said in 1938 irrelevant) staying Mack "toyed with the Christ Myth Theory which just adds to the mess.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

some more quotes

This is a quote from Harry Buck's review of William Benjamin Smith's The Birth of the Gospel; the review appeared in The Journal of Bible and Religion 25 (1957) p. 358: "William Benjamin Smith (1850-1934) was the American exponent of the "Christ Myth School," which found its classic expression in Bruno Bauer (1809-1882). This modern docetism maintained that Christianity existed in an incipient form throughout the Graeco-Roman world prior to the dates ordinarily assigned to Jesus. Hence "the Christ" is a myth who never existed in the flesh, but is the creation of the primitive church. The gospels, therefore, contain no history at all because their central figure never existed."

This review by Bruce Metzger of a book by the Russian historian Robert Yur'evich Vipper dealing with the origins of Christianity; Metzger writes that "it is obvious that his orientation is totally within the orbit of the Christ-myth school that flourished in certain circles earlier this century. He quotes with approval A. Niemojewski's Gott Jesus (1910) and Wm. B. Smith's Ecce Deus (1910)." A footnote continues onto the following page and refers to the "Christ-myth school" once more: "Bruno Bauer, G. J. P. J. Boland, Arthur Drews (translated into Russian), E. Dujardin, S. A. Naber, Wm. B. Smith, van den Bergh van Eysinga, and other representatives of the now passe Christ-myth school."

Van A. Harvey, "D. F. Strauss' 'Life of Jesus' Revisited", Church History, 30 (1961), p. 200: "The next step is to ask, 'What makes one think that Jesus lived at all?' The negative answer to this question emerged quite naturally in the Christ-myth school of Drews, Robertson, Couchoud, and Brandes."

In all of these quotes, the subject of our article--the thought of Bauer, Drews, Smith, et al.--is described as a coherent "school" of thought. This is more evidence (not that it should be needed) that this article has a distinct topic which is referred to in relatively consistent terminology. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

If anyone has access to the full text of "J. Reuben Clark: Selected Papers on Americanism and National Affairs‎" 1987 from 129 on that might help as the snippet talks about critics being split into four schools. Published by University of California and later by Brigham Young University it should help show who belongs in what school of though or if there is any crossover. "--we exclude the "Christ myth school," that a person in Judaism named Jesus of Nazareth never lived.--" by ironically James H. Charlesworth "Jesus and Archaeology‎" pg 675. leave the fun issue where does this definition of Charlesworth's leave those say there was a Jesus but not a Nazareth (jokingly referred to as "Jesus of where?!?" by some critics of the minimalist position) Further more there is nothing to suggest that little more than a handful of authors even use the term Christ Myth School and while there is some connection to non historical there is no connection between Christ Myth School and Christ Myth theory or Jesus myth leaving us with needing a source the directly and expressly links these terms together which we are STILL waiting for.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Another possibility

Let's try and present this "what these authors have in common" using a table. I think this discussion is missing the forest for the trees (or really kinda one tree). Feel free to edit this table add your own rows, etc...

"The following is true of most of the writers in every class, though some differ at some points"

Orthodox Christianity	Mainstream Scholarship	Christ Myth theory
Gospels are a historical record written by or based on Jesus' followers	Gospels are later works based on materials written by or based on Jesus' followers	Gospels are works composed theologically containing little or anything that occurred in an earthly sense
Jesus was both man and God incarnate	Jesus was a man who came to be seen as God	Jesus was a God who came to be seen as a man
The book of Acts is an accurate record of early Christian development	The book of Acts is propaganda but the basic story of the Jerusalem church spreading out under Paul is correct	The book of Acts is almost entirely fiction, Christianity came out of Alexandria
The first Christians practiced the "Judaism" of the old testament in Palestine	The first Christians practiced were Pharisees or Essene in Palestine	Christianity emerged from Hellenistic Judaism most likely in Alexandria
Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy spirit.	Jesus was likely born of Mary, the virgin birth was a later add on to cover up illegitimacy.	Jesus was associated with savior God's who are frequently have unusual births, so he was born of a virgin
Jesus is the Logos of God through whom all things were made.	Jesus was a normal human being, who had no part in the creation of the universe	Jesus is the Logos of Yahweh, and the Logos was the mechanism certain Hellenistic Jews attributed to the creation.
Jesus rose in the 3rd day after his crucifixion in fulfillment of the scriptures.	Jesus died on the cross but his followers continued to have spiritual experiences and saw his resurrection as being fulfilled. He may also have believed during his life he would rise.	Jesus is a creation of scriptures and thus fulfills them. Further his broader type (corn god) dies and rises again.
Jesus would not fulfill the military mission during his life but, He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.	Jesus did not see the messiah as having a military role and reinterpreted these passages spiritually. He did however believe that God would provide miracles to fulfill the military function of the messiah.	Salvation was understood in a non material sense by Jewish Gnosticism and this carried through to early Christianity. When later the title messiah was applied apocalyptic literature featuring Jesus (for example Revelations) was created.
Non canonical works are generally 2nd and 3rd century written by heretics under the influence of Satan.	Non canonical works are generally 2nd and 3rd century written by heretics under the influence of Hellenism. They should not be treated as informative of anything other than alternate fringe views.	Non canonical works represent different strands of Christianity and give us insights into the multiplicity of forms of early Christianity. They are authentic and should be given weight in the study of early Christianity.
Supporters are generally conservative Christians	Supporters are generally liberal Christians	Supporters are generally atheists
Provides support for conservative social policy	Provides support for liberal economic policy	Provides support for secular social and economic policy
Evolved: Sacrificial Judaism -> Palestinian Judaism -> Jewish Christianity -> Orthodox Christianity -> Christian Heresies	Evolved: Sacrificial Judaism -> Palestinian Judaism -> Jewish Christianity -> Mixture of Christianities -> Orthodox Christianity.	Evolved: Sacrificial Judaism -> Hellenistic Judaism -> Jewish Gnosticism -> Christian Gnosticism -> Orthodox Christianity.
Comparative mythological elements are historic fact. The existence of pre-existing myth is the result of demonic imitation or divine foreshadowing.	Myths of all types were added on to embellish Jesus' biography.	Hellenistic Judaism was a synthetic religion and had absorbed myths of all types, hence Jesus biography was constructed from myths of all types

jbolden1517 ^Talk 13:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

thank you for this useful contribution. Although I do not agree with each entry in your table, it succeeds in dispelling the false dichotomy between the leftmost and the rightmost column.

In particular, I would reject your [2nd and 3rd from bottom rows] as misguided. Others also go beyond the mark, such as attributing to "mainstream scholarship" the position that "Jesus was likely born of Mary, the virgin birth was a later add on to cover up illegitimacy". Otoh the distinction " Jesus was both man and God incarnate / Jesus was a man who came to be seen as God / Jesus was a God who came to be seen as a man" imho sums up the issues brilliantly :) --dab (𒁳) 15:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much, jbolden, for the work you put into this table.

However, I'm afraid that for the most part it sets up a false dichotomy between mainstream scholarship and "Christ-myth theory". I see no reason to marginalize or reject most of the supporting claims wrapped up in the Christ-myth theory, as many of them (such as the hellenistic influence, or the Alexandria influence) are mainstream as well, and this table implies that they are not. There is no doubt, for example, that Philo of Alexandria, who was read by Origen, Justin Martyr, and other early church leaders, had a profound influence on the early theology of the church and the final canonization of the New Testament. Also, the influence of Hellenistic mystery religions on the gospel miracles (virgin birth, resurrection, and so on) is not especially controversial in mainstream scholarship, and is by no means unique to the Christ-myth theory. There is much more overlap here between your Christ-Myth and Mainstream columns than it would appear. I would merge several cells here and strike a few of them altogether.

What's more, this downplays the very real weaknesses of the claims of the Christ-mythers. The emphasis should not be on their supporting claims, which only provide circumstantial support, but on the leap from "mythologized man" to "pure myth". --davigoli (talk) 16:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad you like the table. I don't think any of them dispute there is Hellenistic influence. The church has always seen Philo as a scholar who prefigured Christianity:

We recognize, it is true, the traces of the cosmic origin of the Divine intermediaries; the angels are material intermediaries as well as spiritual, and Philo accepts the belief in the power of the heavenly bodies as an inferior degree of wisdom. Nevertheless he did his best to suppress every material intermediary betweenman and God. This is quite evident in the celebrated theory of the Logos of God. This Logos, which according to the Stoics is the bond between the different parts of the world, and according to the Heracliteans the source of the cosmic oppositions, is regarded by Philo as the Divine word which reveals God to the soul and calms the passions (see LOGOS). It is finally from this point of view of the interior life that Philo transforms the moral conception of the Greeks which he knew mainly in the most popular forms (cynical diatribes); he discovers in them the idea of the moral conscience accepted though but slightly developed by philosophers up to that time. A very interesting point of view is the consideration of the various moral systems of the Greeks, not simply as true or false, but as so many indications of the soul's progress or recoil at different stages. (from catholic encylopedia).

The difference in the two camps as I see it is the question on whether early Christianity was being Hellenized. Luke/Acts tells a story of a Christianity gradually expanding and moving from a Palestinian cult to a global religion. By in large mainstream scholarship accepts that is what happened. Christ Myth asserts that Christianity was born in Hellenism there was never any period where it was Aramaic.

Sacrificial Judaism -> Hellenistic Judaism -> Jewish Gnosticism -> Christianity Gnosticism -> Orthdox Christianity. I added a line to the table which contrasts this.

And I don't disagree that a lot of Christ Mythers are saying is very mainstream. They just go slightly further than their colleagues. Most people have no problem believing that perhaps that there might have been an accretion of "strong men stories" that made up Heracles(Hercules), that some of those stories might very have been based on something that actually happened without them having to say they believe in the historicity of Heracles. IMHO this is the direction mainstream bible scholarship is going. The orthodox Christian story has been collapsing for several centuries. Liberal Christianity, including its intellectual arm, is a way station.

Christianity pays for bible scholarship. There is no work comparable to NIGTC for any other book in any other language, Dante is probably second and he trails by miles. Or a text as intricate on varitions as the NA27 by United Bible Societies. The level of scholarship that exists, exists only because of Christianity. Mainstream scholarship can't run too far ahead of liberal Christianity. jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec w/jbolden) Thanks for the table. I agree w/Dbachmann that the distinction "Jesus was both man and God incarnate / Jesus was a man who came to be seen as God / Jesus was a God who came to be seen as a man" is a good summation. Davigoli is right, though, that a lot of mainstream scholarship acknowledges deep Hellenistic influence on early Christianity, and there are also many mainstream scholars who say that "Non canonical works represent different strands of Christianity and give us insights into the multiplicity of forms of early Christianity. They are authentic and should be given weight in the study of early Christianity"--Elaine Pagels, for one. Nevertheless I think your table is useful in crystallizing the issues under discussion, so thank you for the work you put into it.

I think, though, that the scale of the disagreement here may be exaggerated. We have an article that covers some writers who believed, as jbolden puts it, that "Jesus was a God who came to be seen as a man"--starting with Volney and Dupuis, continuing to Bruno Bauer, then Drews/Smith/Robertson (plus others), and then Wells, Doherty, Freke/Gandy, Price, Acharya S (and Harpur, if he's added). Obviously, some people want to nuke the entire article, but if we continue to have it, aren't these the figures it should cover? I haven't seen anyone suggest that these people don't belong in the article; aside from Remsberg, I haven't seen any suggestions that the article is missing anyone major; and I haven't seen anyone suggest a clear vision for an alternative form of the article.

BTW, jbolden, I was writing my comment just as you made your last edit, but I would suggest that classical texts have a body of commentary that is comparable to NIGTC. Look at the number of commentaries on the Iliad, for example. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well if everybody likes this line and agrees to it, maybe we have consensus to how the first line should read? I'd love to see this argument about the definition die so we can move onto the rest of the article (Bruce?). As for Pagels, well you know I'd put her (and all of Walter Braur's people) on the right column not the middle. She has spent a lifetime teaching modern Americans how to read 1st and 2nd century literature like 2nd century gnostics would. She has a gnostic oriented evolution of gospels with John as a response to Thomas. For exactly the reason that she would agree with most everything on this list, I'd put her in the 3rd column. Interestingly she is a liberal Episcopalian, but seems to see church as mainly social. So one of the very few examples of one not openly hostile to Christianity. But I agree that is controversial.

As for Illiad stuff, I'd agree Cambridge is fantastic. I don't think it is NIGTC, it is more comparable to something link Cornerstone. To have an NIGTC you need thousands of years or commentaries. jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:38, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I still think the first sentence should read as it does now, because the idea that Jesus isn't historical is what links all of these people together. A modified version of "Jesus was both man and God incarnate / Jesus was a man who came to be seen as God / Jesus was a God who came to be seen as a man" could be the second sentence, or somewhere further down in the lead--this is the sentence that tells the reader how the Christ myth theory differs from biblical literalism and mainstream scholarship.

Incidentally, I don't like calling the left-hand column "Orthodox Christianity", because a bunch of people who would agree with the propositions in that column are not Orthodox--"biblical literalism" or "traditional Christian belief" or something else might work. Of course, there are mainline Protestants--I don't know how many--who would agree that the Resurrection is a metaphor rather than a historical event, who wouldn't buy into the literal truth of the virgin birth, etc.--so the title "Mainstream scholarship" is perhaps not inclusive enough, there are plenty of non-scholars who would agree with those propositions.

As for Pagels, she might agree with a bunch of the stuff in your third column, but I have never seen a shred of evidence that she thinks that there wasn't a historical Jesus.

BTW, there are thousands of years of commentaries on the Iliad--the commentary tradition on Homer is older than the New Testament, and ancient Greek commentary was probably an inspiration for ancient biblical commentary. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Pagels would fit most of the criteria on the right column, indeed, but doesn't pursue the "Jesus never existed" line. Indeed, as the Gnostic gospels make clear, Jesus is to be understood as a mythic figure who is an archetype of human ego-death and union with the divine (Sophia) which is basically a retelling of the Horus-Isis myth. The Valentinian take on things is quite clearly pure myth. Now, for Pagels, the key thing is the exegesis on this myth, not whether a man named Jesus lived - by the time of the earliest gospels, "Jesus Christ" as myth towered over whatever man who lived anyway and channeled his forebears from the mystery religions, so his existence or nonexistence as a man is probably irrelevant to her exegesis, and not of interest to her. For the Christ-mythers (as portrayed in our current article), on the other hand, the key is the non-existence of Jesus, not his mythic qualities. My interest is to see that dismissing the non-existence claim doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. --davigoli (talk) 19:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

In fact, let me draw that again: a fourth column needs to be added that distinguishes between scholars like Pagels and the more extreme "Jesus never existed" camp. Again, we need to be careful to not lump them together, since one group represents a trend within mainstream scholarship, while the other represents largely non-academic pop writing. --davigoli (talk) 19:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

If you want to start adding columns for trends within mainstream scholarship, I suspect we could generate a pretty big table. It's a big field with lots of disagreements. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:33, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

(reply to Davigoli) I agree with your description of Pagels. The point I would emphasize though is that she is operating in a framework where either Jesus didn't exist or had little influence. The Catholic church / Orthodox Christianity either didn't exist or was not the majority religion. She is working on details not the big picture. Scholarship aims to be a dispassionate analysis of the evidence. Now presuppositions alter how one analyzes the evidence and people of good faith can disagree about how to weight various pieces of evidence but scholars in general are looking at details and slowly advancing the cause based on their underlying assumptions. On the other hand there are big picture thinkers. They are advancing major theories based on the evidence.

By and large the writers we talk about in this article Bruno Braur, Drews, Doherty, Acharya S... are acting in this capacity. So for example: Earl Doherty is to Elaine Pagels as Wayne Grudem is to William D. Mounce or Rudolf Bultmann is to E.P. Sanders. They are doing different kinds of work. That's why I was denying dab's earlier claim that is just about biblical scholarship. This is a full fledged religious dispute with scholars, apologists, popular writers... all involved.

And in many ways the lines are much blurrier with scholars than they are with the big picture thinkers. Take Schmithals, who proved that Gnosticism preexisted in Corinth before Paul got there. Clearly that proves a major element of the Mythicist case, but..... He explicitly identifies with the 2nd column (liberal Christianity). So I wouldn't draw the line at scholars vs. non scholars but rather at apologists vs. apologists. Where evidence from scholars either supports or doesn't these various camps. Acharya is the best example, it is not that she is a bad scholar, she really isn't doing scholarship at all. jbolden1517 ^Talk 21:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

(reply to Davigoli) While I love the chart I think it over simplifies things as there is a gradation from Gospel Jesus was Historical to there was no Jesus what so ever; I think we can say both extremes are a little much and are definitely fringe. ironically Remsburg's statement "To understand the origin and nature of Christ and Christianity it is necessary to know something of the religious systems and doctrines from which they were evolved. The following, some in a large and others in but a small degree, contributed to mold this supposed divine incarnation and inspire this supposed revelation: Nature or Sex Worship. Solar Worship. Astral Worship. Worship of the Elements and Forces of Nature. Worship of Animals and Plants. Fetichism. Polytheism. Monotheism. The Mediatorial Idea The Messianic Idea The Logos. The Perfect Man. " covers about every variant imaginable.

The main issue with the Christ Myth theory term is despite all the handwaving and claims it is simply NOT consistent. Of the many sources we have produced that actually define the term (rather than simply list authors) only three (Farmer, Horbury, and Wiseman) directly state that Christ Myth theory says Jesus never existed.

Bromiley says story of and presents the totally bizarre collection of in order, Lucian, Wells, and Bertrand Russel (why not Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, J. M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, and then Wells? They would be far better examples of a true non historical position). Then Bromiley leads off with the poorest example known: Thallus (what a 4th century author claimed a 3rd century author said about a 2nd century source).

Dodd's "Or alternatively, they seized on the reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name and arbitrarily attached the "Cult-myth" to him." with no time frame could be describing the theories of Mead and Ellegard or just as easily Wells current position as well as Mack, Burton L. (1996) above.

Pike's "The theory that Jesus Christ was not a historical character, and that the Gospel records of his life are mainly, if not entirely, of mythological origin." is insanely vague. Does he mean the Gospel Jesus or the man Jesus? Wells and Mack could fit this definition.

Walsh's "The theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ-myth theory..." could included a historical Jesus per the Mack example I have given above. it also fits Wells current quasi mythical Paul Jesus+historical Q Jesus=Gospel Jesus position.

Wood in 1955 (making what he said in 1938 irrelevant) saying "When Bertrand Russell and Lowes Dickinson toyed with the Christ-myth theory and alternatively suggested that, even if Christ were a historic person, the gospels give us no reliable information about him, they were not representing the direction and outcome of historical inquiry into Christian origins." just confuses things. if the Christ-myth theory is a an either/or than how do you toy with it?! Never mind the "the gospels give us no reliable information" could fit within Pike's and Dodd's definitions but are excluded by those of Farmer, Horbury, and Wiseman.

Then you have the mess of Wells current position being called Jesus myth by Doherty (called by BOTH Wells AND Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases (2008) pg 320 as scholar) and Christ Myth theorist by Price (who fits the "work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications" requirement under Self-published sources with the PEER REVIEWED Journals he has published in which are listed above and even the pro historical Jesus Strobel calls Price a "reliable scholar" ) three different time all after Jesus Myth (1996) and one on the very back of Can we Trust the New Testament?"

The lists are problematic as shown by the case of Schweitzer who put Frazer in the same category as John M Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, and Arthur Drews in 1931 when he said supposedly something the exact opposite in 1906.

Simply put without a reliable source that directly and expressly states these definitions are the same, saying they are the same is WP:SYN. All we can do with the various authors regarding the definition of Christ Myth Theory is use what they "directly and expressly'" tell us not what we think they may say. If they use terms whose "direct and expressly" reading results in a contradiction we CANNOT try to shoehorn them together without a reference that backs that up that reading. THAT has been the biggest problem with the article from the get go--a lack of CLEAR and CONSISTENT definitions that directly and expressly tells us what Christ Myth Theory means and no source to link or even explain the conflicts that direct reading of the definitions we have results in.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

So where are we, then? The debate between BruceGrubb and Akhilleus is as old as time itself. I don't think either one is going to convince the other, and following this debate I find them both persuasive to an extent, but no sure where that leads the article. It seems that Akhilleus is satisfied that reliable sources give a sufficiently consistent definition of the term "Christ-myth"; Bruce either rejects Akhilleus' sources (imho, Van Voorst is indeed suspect on this topic) or seems them as insufficient. We have ourselves in a situation between, on the one hand, editors who see the CMH defined as a fringe theory and fairly cleanly contained within non-scholarly writers, and on the other, editors who see a much messier situation in which the CMH is not so easily defined.

We must all acknowledge the relative uniqueness of religion articles as scholarly subjects; Wikipedia's normal guidelines may not be absolutely reliable in this circumstance, since there is immense institutional bias not only against asking the existence question, but more importantly, in labeling your opponents as "crackpots" and claiming a greater victory for orthodoxy (little-"o" orthodoxy) than is warranted. It is convenient for Van Voorst to avoid addressing the huge Hellenistic influence and mystery-religion elements in early Christianity by addressing those arguments as though they were put forth by crackpot Jesus deniers. Classic strawman. And so, the "reliable sources" claim victory over this strawman and cannot be counted on to give an unbiased assessment of the scholarship. On the other hand, the CMH folks (Price, Doherty, Acharya S) see themselves undermining the church in "disproving" the supposed foundation of Christianity, on an equally misguided mission.

Lost in the tussle are objectivity, which is why it's so difficult to get an actual unbiased reliable source on it: this topic is radioactive, and most truly legitimate scholars - who would take a less dismissive tone than Van Voorst and a less bloodthirsty one than Freke - don't go near it, preferring to instead get real work done.

Furthermore, the word "myth" as noted already is too ambiguous, and real scholars, wherever they appear, would define it before use; anyone who's throwing it around casually cannot be relied upon. Note wikipedia's own guidelines: "In its academic sense, the word myth means "a traditional story", especially one that is held as sacred or important in a specific culture. Unless otherwise noted, the words mythology and myth are here used in this sense, with no implication as to the factuality or historicity of the events related within the story."

So, we're dealing with a subject with lots of crackpots all over the place, but the subject itself is more complex than that, and my feeling is that this article needs to navigate carefully in this terrain, which is tangled up in both controversy and real scholarship. —Preceding unsigned comment added by davigoli (talk • contribs)

A quibble here, davigoli--"Akhilleus is satisfied that reliable sources give a sufficiently consistent definition of the term 'Christ-myth'" is not quite accurate. I'm satisfied that reliable sources give us a consistent picture of a coherent school of thought, propounded by Bauer, Drews, the early Wells, et al. What the theory is called differs, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a coherent topic. BruceGrubb seems to focus mostly on terminology, but it seems that even he agrees that the "nonexistence hypothesis" is a coherent and notable topic.

As for the "institutional bias" you find in the sources, it really doesn't matter. Wikipedia's mission is to reflect what mainstream, reliable sources say. If they're biased, then Wikipedia must replicate their bias. And sure, "myth" can be a slippery term--but that's a matter that the article can explain, defining what each author means by "non-historical", "mythical", etc. etc.... --Akhilleus (talk) 02:57, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Akhilleus is right regarding my position on the "non historical" position; my issue has always been on Christ Myth and Christ Myth theory being presented as supposed synonyms to that position. In fact my early suggestion (rejected by Akhilleus) was to rework the lead in to "The nonhistoricity hypothesis (sometimes also called the Christ myth theory, Christ myth, or Jesus myth)...". Note how much NARROWER this is than the versions given by Ludwigs2 and Hiberniantears. The "also known" in the current lead in implies a synonymism between nonhistoricity, Christ Myth and Christ Myth theory that simple doesn't exist in the source material.

However, the non historical school does have a few headaches. The first is the few extremists who say that any version of Jesus who doesn't follow the Gospels in lockstep is "non historical". Bromiley with his use of story of; selection of Lucian, Wells, and Bertrand Russel rather than Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, J. M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, and then Wells; and use of Thallus (Richard Carrier shows the MANY problems with Thallus) shows that Bromiley is very much in the 'must follow the Gospel' mindset. The second and more hazy issue is the difference between the Gospel Jesus being called non historical (how Doherty carefully presents Wells' Jesus Myth) and there not being a Jesus at all in the 1st century. Finally there is the 'Gospel Jesus has been mytholized so much that he might have as well not existed' line of thought.

As I said before "J. Reuben Clark: Selected Papers on Americanism and National Affairs‎" 1987 from 129 on looks like the best way to help clean up this mess. The snippets indicate it breaks the critics into four schools including Christ Myth school and given it was published by both University of California and Brigham Young University it would be better than anything we have had so far.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:07, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

First off I'm glad the chart seems to well regarded. Originally I meant it more to move the conversation forward. That is there is a real substantial difference between the people in columns 2 and 3. But maybe using this as the effective definition might be a good way to go. It educates and simplifies at the same time. I think we all agree the people in this article are much closer to column 3 than column 2. I wrote this in about an hour, if I clean it up a bit we could see how it works in the article. Any objections or comment?

As far as the definition... Bruce, I don't think the definition is really very fuzzy here, "does Paul believe he is talking about a guy who died a generation ago" everyone of our authors (including Wells) would say no. And that is better than the situation in many other wikipedia articles like Republican Party (United States), Eccentricity (behavior), Sexual addiction, Middle Ages all of which have fuzzy definitions. Compiling a list of definitions (like you did above) might be really helpful. Sort of like what you did above. Then we can load these into Wiktionary (OED) style and link off to that. That way we can just list out 40 possible definitions with sources, acknowledging that we are choosing from a menagerie. I offered this diff as a possible solution, you didn't comment if that address the problem.

Yes, there will be edge cases. G. R. S. Mead is an edge case. Burton Mack is possibly an edge case. I don't happen to think Wells is an edge case at all, since he self identifies with the mythicist school which means the burden of proof becomes much higher to exclude him.

Akhilleus, as far as Orthodox I meant it in the sense of Orthodoxy not the denomination. I've linked Orthodox Christianity to First seven Ecumenical Councils. I probably won't be on much today after this. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:10, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

So, then, the main continuing source of controversy remains the title of the article. We have a well-understood topic (the non-historicity thesis) as well as edge cases, since I think we can agree that the boundary between the main thesis and mainstream scholarship is not cleanly delineated, and as jbolden says, there will be edge cases. Regardless, we can all agree that certain authors definitely belong; treating just that field of authors (we will always dispute over the edge cases), we need to settle on a good title that sums up their common ideas with enough precision to avoid terminological ambiguity (I personally would rather strongly request we avoid the use of the term "myth" altogether since it is so ambiguous), while still drawing from reliable sources. It appears clear that reliable sources do not use a single term with enough consistency to be able to choose a single term that satisfies all editors. So, how do we avoid both synthesis (taking a term introduced by an author in reference to certain writers and applying it to other writers who may not fit the original definition, as we have with "Christ-myth") and original research (inventing a term not found in any sources)? This is the hard problem here. Do we have an inventory of all terms that are used in all sources, along with some context? Someone with a more extensive bibliography than mine might be able to help out here; or, if such a list already exists in the archives, it would be handy to unearth it. --davigoli (talk) 19:07, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

jbolden1517, I didn't comment on your this diff for the simple reason Akhilleus eliminated only 4 hours after you put it in and never really saw it. Now I have seen doesn't really improve things as Wells being put in the Christ myth Theorist/Jesus Myth category by two different scholars in four different quotes. Looking back on what I said previously regarding Wells I found this as well:

"Far from being a radical, Wells is simply mainline scholarship taken to its ultimate limit, engaged in dialogue with his critics, and with copious references to topical writings. He accepts much that is normative in NT historical scholarship, and but for his "radical" view that Jesus is a composite figure, could easily be mistaken for another conservative apologist drone, grinding out defenses of the position that Paul's companion Luke authored Acts, or that the Tomb was really empty. Wells is the last in a long line of men like Robinson, Loisy, and Drews, scholars who trod the mainstream paths to show where the mainstream had gone wrong." (Turton, Michael (May 16, 2003) "The Jesus Myth and Deconstructing Jesus: A review of The Jesus Myth by G. A. Wells and Deconstructing Jesus by Robert Price" (sadly a blog and somewhat useless but it shows a possible problem with layman classification.)

"Clearly seeking to provoke controversy, Wells (The Jesus Legend: What's in a Name?) contends that the accounts of Jesus in the canonical Gospels contradict not only one another but also the earliest Christian documents, which never present Jesus as an itinerant preacher, a miracle worker, born of a virgin or executed under Pilate. [...] The author also examines the letters of Paul and contends that Paul bases his portrait of Jesus on the Jewish figure of Wisdom, who sought acceptance on earth but was rejected and returned to heaven. In a detailed and convincing fashion, Wells argues that the Gospel stories of Jesus are myths composed to satisfy the religious longings of the Gospel writers' audiences." (Publishers Weekly 1998)

"Because Wells wishes us to think that Paul knew almost nothing about the historical Jesus, and to have imagined that he had lived, unknown, in a different century!" D. M. Ohara "Dan O'Hara" review at Amazon.com). (a 'blog' review and also useless but again it mean you have to go to the source material and see what is going on.)

I have read a copy of Well's book and it clear from the summation he gives on page 244 in Jesus Myth that he has gone to something along the lines of Mead with regard to Paul's Jesus who is is later merged with the historical Q Jesus to form the Gospel Jesus composite character. Your ""does Paul believe he is talking about a guy who died a generation ago" everyone of our authors (including Wells) would say no." comment is confusing as a generation is only 20 years. The Gospel Jesus would have had to died no later than 36 CE making 56 CE a generation later and Paul supposedly was writing up all the way to c64 CE.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:55, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

So, Bruce, what do you propose? What conclusion are we to draw here, and where does that take this article? --davigoli (talk) 01:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The only conclusion we can draw from this mess is the same one Remsburg came to over a century ago: "While all Freethinkers are agreed that the Christ of the New Testament is a myth they are not, as we have seen, and perhaps never will be, fully agreed as to the nature of this myth. Some believe that he is a historical myth; others that he is a pure myth. Some believe that Jesus, a real person, was the germ of this Christ whom subsequent generations gradually evolved; others contend that the man Jesus, as well as the Christ, is wholly a creation of the human imagination."

A long time ago I had this from Remsburg in this article:

"The conceptions regarding the nature and character of Christ, and the value of the Christian Scriptures as historical evidence, are many, chief of which are the following

1. Orthodox Christians believe that Christ is a historical character, supernatural and divine; and that the New Testament narratives, which purport to give a record of his life and teachings, contain nothing but infallible truth.

2. Conservative Rationalists, like Renan, and the Unitarians, believe that Jesus of Nazareth is a historical character and that these narratives, eliminating the supernatural elements, which they regard as myths, give a fairly authentic account of his life.

3. Many radical Freethinkers believe that Christ is a myth, of which Jesus of Nazareth is the basis, but that these narratives are so legendary and contradictory as to be almost if not wholly, unworthy of credit.

4. Other Freethinkers believe that Jesus Christ is a pure myth -- that he never had an existence, except as a Messianic idea, or an imaginary solar deity."--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

As for the title of this article I would say Non historical hypothesis is our best bet. It has the least amount of ambiguity and what there is regarding any oddball definitions (ie any Jesus that doesn't follow the Gospel is non historical) can be dealt with per WP:FRINGE.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:51, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

lists

Davigoli, there have been several lists of sources given on this talk page at various points, but none of them are comprehensive. You can look at

Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_21#Christ_myth_theory_definitions
A quote from a review of Jesus the Christ: Historical or Mythical? A Reply to Professor Drews' Die Christusmythe. Note that Bruce initially brought this source up, and claimed that it showed a "definition for Christ Myth theory outside of the 'nonhistoricity hypothesis'"--it doesn't.
Alan Richardson, Christian Apologetics

But I'm sure there's more stuff in the archives. It's pretty repetitive, though... --Akhilleus (talk) 00:18, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I guess it's worth saying that the most comprehensive treatments of the argument that Jesus was non-historical don't use the same terminology. Van Voorst uses "nonexistence hypothesis", Bennett uses "the Jesus-was-a-myth school", Weaver doesn't have a set term but treats Drews et al. in a chapter entitled "the nonhistorical Jesus", and uses such phrases as "Arthur Drews, who would become the most notorious spokesman for the deniers of Jesus historicity..." (p. 49). Schweitzer refers to "the theory that Jesus is a mythical figure" and "the debate about the existence or non-existence of Jesus", neither of which is a suitable article title. Case (1911), a book length treatment (not the same as the 1911 work cited in our article), doesn't have a single term; Conybeare (1914), a book-length treatment available here, doesn't seem to have a single term, nor does the book-length treatment of Goguel (1926).

However, the article needs a title. When a distinct term is used to refer to the ideas of Bauer, Drews, et al., we find the term "Christ-myth theory" used often, with or without hyphen. Other phrases are used, such as Christ myth school, "Christ-myth" debate, "Jesus-myth", etc. But "Christ myth theory" is the most common one I've found. Even BruceGrubb has to agree that many instances of this term refer to the idea of a non-historical Jesus. I contend that every single example of the term "Christ-myth theory" that's been brought to this talk page refers to the idea of a non-historical Jesus. But even if some of the uses of this phrase refer to a different idea, if the majority of the uses refer to the theory of Bauer, Drews, et al., it's a suitable title for this article.

BTW, I wanted to quote a bit from Herbert G. Wood, Belief and Unbelief since 1850, since it's one of the sources Bruce keeps bringing up as an example of a use of "Christ myth theory" that doesn't agree with the definition in our article. This is from pages 121-2: "By exaggerating the possibilities of myth in the gospel-traditions, Strauss opened the door to the Christ-myth theorists, but his book was so ponderous, so negative and so obviously dominated by Hegel's philosophy that it failed to capture the support of historical scholars or the interest of educated readers. George Eliot was thoroughly bored by it, and only her strong sense of duty made her complete it. As Professor C. C. McCown observes, Strauss together with the Christ-myth school from Bruno Bauer to Arthur Drews, and indeed together with the tendentious criticism of Ferdinand C. Baur of Tübingen, belongs to a false start in critical inquiry, led by philosophy instead of historical science." Wood here clearly groups Bauer and Drews together as "Christ-myth theorists", and differentiates them from David Strauss and Ferdinand C. Baur. This is the same "Christ myth theory" that our article discusses. Hopefully, Bruce will now stop claiming that Wood contradicts our definition, but I'm not going to hold my breath. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Here's a quote from C. C. McCown (mentioned in Wood's quote in my last post), The Promise of His Coming: A Historical Interpretation and Revolution of the Idea of the Second Advent (Macmillan, 1921), pp. 159-160: "The modern scholar counters by making a Jesus after his own heart, and we have nothing left upon which we may depend. The reductio ad absurdum of this method of writing history is found in the 'Christ-myth theory' of Drews, Smith and Robertson." Obviously, this use of "Christ-myth theory" refers to the subject of this article. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:15, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Akhilleus, if you are going to claim insane things like "Note that Bruce initially brought this source up, and claimed that it showed a "definition for Christ Myth theory outside of the 'nonhistoricity hypothesis'"--it doesn't." at least make sure what you claim is supported by reality. My exact words were "On a side note if anyone has the complete text of Christian Apologetics‎ by Alan Richardson 1955 pg 105 and J.R. Arkroyd (1922), “The Christ Myth Theory,” Review & Expositor 19 : 182-187 seeing some relevant quotes would better flesh out what is going on with the term."

So one, I did NOT provide a quote as you claim, two, I did NOT say either of these sources said anything one way or the other, and finally, I all but directly said I did NOT have quotes and that if some ELSE could quote the material perhaps we would better help in determining what was going on with the term. Your reply did NOT provide ANY quotes but you now demonstratively questionable summation method.

You just shot your credibility in the foot with a Thompson machine gun. How are we to trust ANYTHING you say from here on in?--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:33, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Bruce, your exact quote, when you were bringing up the review in the Princeton Theological Review, was: "DIgging around some more I found some more reliable source material that shows other definition for Christ Myth theory outside of the "nonhistoricity hypothesis" used in the lead in: The Princeton Theological Review‎ (1914) by Princeton Theological Seminary p 512-513." That's what I quoted above, also. You can find what you wrote in this diff. I don't think it's a good idea to tell people about shooting themselves in the foot. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:12, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Given the way you have read stuff in the past here is the actual quote I was referring to in Princeton Theological Seminary: "The mythical theory is indeed the direct outcome--although parenthood may not be be acknowledged--of that quest of the historical Jesus which has sought to within or behind the Gospels a peasant-prophet reduced to the dimensions of mere humanity. I should mention that on page 513 that it is noted that Dr. Thorburn used the Talmud of as proof "that the Jews of the generation immediately succeeding Jesus acknowledged the actual birth, and, therefore, so far, historical character (sic) of the Founder of Christianity". Dr Thorburn is using the VERY SAME DOCUMENT AS PROOF OF A HISTORIAL JESUS THAT MEAD USES TO SHOW JESUS IS NONHISTORIAL. Ergo the definition of Christ Myth Theory Dr Thorburn uses does not jive with Dodd or your own.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:49, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

What you've written is absolute nonsense. I've quoted a source that explicitly uses the term "Christ myth theory" in regard to the ideas of Bauer and Drews and you still insist that its definition differs from the one used in the article. This is pure tendentiousness. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:50, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

We are STILL waiting for the source that directly and expressly connects non historical with BOTH Christ Myth Theory and Jesus Myth while explaining the slight differences in the Christ Myth Theory definitions we have found (The Christ Myth claim bought the farm a while ago). Been waiting for at least two months now. When are we going to see it?--67.16.87.247 (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

You know, if removing "Jesus myth" from the lead sentence will make you stop making the same post over and over again, I'm all for it. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why there would be a problem with Jesus myth as it quite literally would refer to the man Jesus being considered a myth. Christ Myth Theory on the other hand is a total botch up not only with literal reading (Christ as in the story or Christ as in the man?) but also with regard to the authors who bother to even expressly and directly state what it means.

We are STILL waiting for that source that ties all the differences in the Christ Myth Theory definitions we have found together or at least explain why Welch's definition doesn't exactly match Farmer's whose definition doesn't exactly match what Dodd and Pike say, and why the blazes Bromiley used story of and instead of using such clear non historical author like Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, J. M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith and Wells pre 1996 instead used Lucian, Wells, and Bertrand Russel. Why even mention Lucian and Bertrand Russel with respect to the Christ Myth Theory if you define is a Jesus never existed as Farmer does? Then you still have the Wells-Price-Doherty mess regarding if Wells Jesus Legend (1996) and later position as Christ Myth Theorist.

So far all that has been produced to the contrary is ONE quote from Van Voorst while I have produced FOUR by two authors one of whom (Doherty) Wells and Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases (2008) pg 320 both call a scholar and the other (Price) has enough "work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications" (unless you have some delusion that all of Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith, Themelios, and Journal of Ecumenical Studies are unreliable or somehow are not in the relevant field) to qualify per the Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Self-published_sources guidelines. Even the somewhat questionable PRO historical Jesus source Strobel admitting that Price belongs to "a very small handful of legitimate scholars".--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:54, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

So, what are you saying, Bruce? That "Christ-Myth theory" is a bad title, and not used consistently by our sources? I would agree that it is horrible coinage, since both "Christ" and "Myth" are ambiguous terms and are being used in unconventional ways in this article ("Christ" = "Messiah", so implies the resurrection and other elements of the gospels widely accepted as myth). I would prefer to have neither "Christ" nor "myth" in the title. But before changing it, I would like to have a reasonable alternative title, something that fits better while also being supported by sources. You've sold me on the poor choice of "Christ-Myth Theory". Do you have an alternative to propose? Can we now concentrate on coming up with a better solution, rather than rehashing the problems with the current title? --davigoli (talk) 03:58, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Davigoli, both you and Bruce seem to be assuming that "Christ" and "Jesus" ought to be consistently used in certain ways: "Christ" meaning the figure of the Gospels, "Jesus" meaning the historical man. Is this an accurate statement of what you think these words ought to mean? Do you think "Christ" and "Jesus" are actually used consistently in this fashion? --Akhilleus (talk) 05:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Here's a new question. If this article gets moved to a new title (something which I don't support), what happens to the space occupied by Christ myth theory? Is it just a redirect to the new title, or does some new "Christ myth theory" take its place? --Akhilleus (talk) 04:07, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Well it used to be "Jesus myth hypothesis". Interesting we are talking about going back. I'm still neutral. jbolden1517 ^Talk 06:50, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Personally I would say go with nonhistoricity hypothesis as the main title for this article and have a Christ myth (disambiguation) to deal with the other stuff. I do agree that "Christ" and "Jesus" should be consistently used in certain ways. Problem is they are not used correctly even among scholars.

Remember that Christ is a title meaning Messiah and NOT a name. It strikes me as totally bizarre that while no historian in his right mind would talk about Alexander Great, William Conqueror, Ivan Terrible, etc you have scholars on both sides talking about Jesus Messiah (Christ). Even Vlad Tepes is translated as Vlad the Impaler not Vlad Impaler.

This misuse of the term has created the illusion that Jesus Christ was the man's name; it wasn't. His names would have been Jesus the Messiah (Christ), Jesus ben Joseph, or Jesus of Nazareth, or perhaps even Jesus of Bethlehem.

So when you have scholars (like Mack) and non scholars (like Remsburg) who use Christ in the correct manner (meaning Messiah) and talk about Christ myth they are in fact talking about the Messiah myth So you have Christ Myth Theory meaning Messiah myth theory for some (Dodd and Pike and a maybe for Welsh) and Jesus myth theory for others (Farmer, etc) with all the fun variations of the term myth talked about by Remsburg and JW Rogerson thrown in for good measure to give a nice confusing as all get out mess. I think only the term culture in my own fields of anthropology and archeology is more messed up than the term 'Christ Myth is in the literature.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:50, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, Bruce, so you don't think that scholars consistently differentiate between "Christ" and "Jesus". Doesn't this mean the difference that you see between a "Christ myth" and a "Jesus myth" is your own terminology, based on what you think "Christ" and "Jesus" ought to mean, rather than a distinction made by scholars themselves? --Akhilleus (talk) 18:27, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, Akhilleus if you are going to play that game wouldn't you admit that since Christ Myth can be demonstrated to used in different manner then the idea that Christ Myth Theory is always clearly and consistently defined is YOUR own terminology? The door swing both ways. Besides use google and do a define:Jesus and compare the resuts to defined:Christ or if you don't trust that use dictionary.reference.com. Does Christ ALWAYS mean Jesus the man? If not then again saying Christ Myth Theory is always clearly and consistently used in a certain manner is YOUR pathological science claim as clear the definitions we have found do not totally match up. And we are STILL waiting for that reference that explains all the difference to the definitions Christ Myth Theory we have found or even one that exlains why Price and Doherty were calling Wells a "Christ Myth Theorist" and Current Jesus Myth supporter years after Jesus Legend (1996). All we have gotten is ONE reference from Van Voorst and trying to have it challange FOUR. Hasn't anyone ELSE (other than that joke Holding) written explessly about Wells' postion since Jesus Legend?--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:49, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

That's not an answer to the question I asked. To recap: you've already said that scholars don't maintain a consistent distinction between "Jesus" and "Christ"--in your words, "they are not used correctly even among scholars." Thus, your distinction between a "Christ myth" and a "Jesus myth" is your own invention, rather than terminology you've found in reliable sources.

To respond to your questions: yes, in each source that's come up, "Christ myth theory" is used consistently to denote the ideas of Bauer, Drews, etc. that there was no historical Jesus. It's not my terminology, it's what sources like Bromiley, Horbury, Farmer, etc. say. Wood, whom I quoted above in this section, says that Bauer and Drews were advocates of the Christ myth theory; McCown, whom I also quoted, says that Drews, Smith, and Robertson were proponents. Gerrish, who's cited in the article, presents Drews as the chief exponent of the Christ-myth theory in the early 20th century; Jones also says that Drews was a supporter of the Christ-myth theory. Thorburn, whom I quoted here, also refers to the ideas of Drews as the "Christ-myth theory". It doesn't matter whether "Christ" consistently denotes a historical man, is a title bestowed upon a historical man, or something else; what matters is how reliable sources use the term "Christ myth theory"--and it is consistently used to denote the ideas of Bauer, Drews, et al.

I've already told you what I think about Price and Doherty as sources. They don't have any weight in comparison to Van Voorst. Take it to WP:RSN if you want--I'm sure the people there will echo what you've already been told on this talk page, that Price doesn't qualify as a serious writer. Doherty doesn't even have the benefit of being a professor at an unaccredited seminary.

Now, a new point: it seems that we have reached agreement that the ideas of Bauer, Drews, et al. are a coherent and notable topic, and warrant an article of their own. What we're arguing about is the proper title for the article. Wikipedia provides guidance for this problem; the basic policy is found at Wikipedia:Naming conventions. The core of the naming policy is: use the most easily recognizable name. As that page says, "Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject." Verifiable reliable sources in English call the topic of this article the "Christ myth theory"--not always, but there are many examples of this topic being called the "Christ myth theory". Obviously, other terms can be used (including "Christ-myth school" and "Christ-myth debate")--but these are less common, and therefore less recognizable. If, for a moment, we grant Bruce the argument that "Christ myth theory" is sometimes used to denote a different theory than this article covers, it doesn't matter--because the name by which the topic of this article is usually called is still "Christ myth theory". If, by some chance, we can determine that "Christ myth theory" is used to refer to a different set of ideas put forth by a different set of theorists, then there ought to be a Christ myth theory (disambiguation). But this page is clearly the topic which "Christ myth theory" usually denotes. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:20, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

We are STILL waiting for that reliable source that explains the clear differences between the various author definitions or expressly and directly states "Christ myth theory" as used by the various authors is the exactly same thing. If you think you have such a good case for this why don't YOU go to WP:RSN

McCown is using scare quotes for his "Christ Myth Theory" term and given the book does have italics this must mean he is using them in a manner other than for emphasis like non-acceptance of terminology (i provided the reliable reference of this the last time you brought up this type of nonsense with regard to a quote from Wells). The Thorburn quote again uses scare quotes possibly for the same reason.

Your example from Jones says "The Christ myth theory also received a boost..." NOT as you claim that Drews was a Christ myth theorist. Furthermore Jones goes into the Christ myth debate beginning on page 204. Please note that Jone's definition Christ myth here is totally at odds witht eh way Mack and Remsburg use the term. Walter Marshall Horton in the 2007 edition of Contemporary English Theology - An American Interpretation‎ says "...Schweitzer's Quest of the Historical Jesus (in its English translation), and Professor Drew's exposition of the "Christ-Myth" theory all appeared within..." pg 40 Please note that even Horton uses scare quotes for the term Christ-Myth even through the book allowed italics but not when he talks about the Christ Myth hypothesis being excepted by those who felt the Mythic Christ was enough regardless if Jesus ever lived.

So you vaulted counter examples don't say what you claim they say and we STILL wait for that source that expressly and directly states that Dodd, Walsh, and Pike are saying the exact same thing as Farmer and the others.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:17, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

While we are at it since I have proven that Christ myth does vary why does it still direct here? We need a Christ myth (disambiguation) page. THAT you cannot claim otherwise as I have Mack on my side as well as Remsburg and dozens of others for THAT argument.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:00, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

What are you even saying, Bruce? You think that when McCown says "The reductio ad absurdum of this method of writing history is found in the 'Christ-myth theory' of Drews, Smith and Robertson", the scare quotes mean that he is not saying that Drews, Smith, and Robertson are advocates of the Christ myth theory? When Horton says "...Professor Drew's exposition of the "Christ-Myth" theory..." the scare quotes' mean that Horton doesn't think Drews was an advocate of the ideas discussed in our article, but of some other theory entirely?

You actually think that when Jones says "The Christ-myth theory also received a boost during 1920 by the publication of Drews's book Das Markus-Evangelium, which Loisy reviewed in RHLR." he doesn't mean that Drews was a Christ-myth theorist? You think that on page 206 of Jones' book, when he goes into detail on the "Christ-myth debate" in France, and discusses the book that Maurice Goguel wrote in response to Couchoud, a book called Jésus de Nazareth: Mythe ou Historire? (translated into English as Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History?), he means a different "Christ myth debate" than the one our article discusses? Obviously, each one of these sources is explicitly connecting the "Christ-myth" theory (or debate) to Drews; it's only through a ridiculous degree of tendentiousness that you can make any claim of inconsistency or ambiguity. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:51, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

And none of this explains how "The theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ- myth theory, and the theory that he was an historical individual is called the historical Jesus theory." (Walsh, George (1998) "The Role of Religion in History" Transaction Publishers pg 58) matches "The radical solution was to deny the possibility of reliable knowledge of Jesus, and out of this developed the Christ myth theory, according to which Jesus never existed as an historical figure and the Christ of the Gospels was a social creation of a messianic community." (Farmer, William R. 1975 "A Fresh Approach to Q," Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults (Vol 2), eds. Jacob Neusner, Morton Smith Brill, 1975) p. 43.

Wells current two Jesus with Paul's a quasi mythic person from a previous century being merged with the Q accounts of a 1st century Jesus to produce the Gospel Jesus fits Walsh's definition as is INDEPENDENTLY PROVEN via Price and Doherty and therefore NOT WP:OR. To date no reference connecting Walsh's definition of Christ- myth theory to any of the others had been produced.

Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion makes a direct connection between thr cargo cults in general and Jesus on pgs 202-203: "Unlike the cult of Jesus, the origins of which are not reliably attested, we can see the whole course of events laid out before our eyes before our eyes (and even here, as we shall see, some details are now lost). It is fascinating to guess that the cult of Christianity almost certainly began in very much the same way, and spread initially at the same high speed." A little later Dawkins on page states "John Frum, if he existed at all, did so within living memory. Yet, even for so recent a possibility, it is not certain whether he lived at all."

Today even with our 'prove it to me' culture, you would be hard pressed to find anything that expressly states that John From didn't exist. Assuming the cult still exists some 1,800 years from now, think of where would someone looking of the historical John Frum would start--he would start with the religion's stories and go looking for an 1930 American GI and NEVER find him. The John Frum of the religion is a myth. If there are any records of the 1940 native that called himself John Frum the religion addressed him by the 1960s as either inspired by or a false John Frum. As for Akhilleus' claim the UK being open about religion: "As recently as 1922 in Britain, John William Gott was sentenced to nine months' hard labour for blasphemy: he compared Jesus to a clown" pg 288.--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:34, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Walsh and Farmer are talking about the same Christ myth theory. That's self-evident from simply reading what they say. Both say that the Christ myth theory is the idea that there was no historical Jesus--obviously, that's what Walsh's "The theory that Jesus was originally a myth" means, especially when he contrasts it with the idea that Jesus was a historical individual. If one bothers to read the context from which this quote is drawn, what Walsh means is even more obvious--the previous few sentences are "Nevertheless, we have to explain the origin of Christianity, and in so doing we have to choose between two alternatives. One alternative is to say that it originated in a myth which was later dressed up as history. The other is to say that it originated with one historical individual who was later mythologized into a supernatural being." That's the same contrast as "Jesus was a man who came to be seen as God" versus "Jesus was a God who came to be seen as a man" made on jbolden's chart.

Farmer's quote has the advantage of saying a teensy bit about how the Gospel Christ came about: not from the career of a historical person, but as the creation of a community of believers. But his definition doesn't conflict with Walsh's, and both Farmer and Walsh say that the Christ myth theory is the idea that there was no historical Jesus.

Since you don't have a source that says Wells fits Walsh's definition, what you're saying is that your interpretation of Wells fits your interpretation of Walsh. That's OR. It also happens to be wrong. The John Frum stuff is irrelevant to the topic we're supposedly discussing in this section, which is what to call the article.

You haven't responded to what I said about McCown, Horton, and Jones, so shall we assume that you agree that they call the topic of this article the Christ myth theory (or "Christ-myth" theory)? --Akhilleus (talk) 23:33, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

"Walsh and Farmer are talking about the same Christ myth theory." As I said when I first produced it Walsh's position is problematic because it is an excluded middle position which creates all kinds of problems. System theory has long shown us that things rarely are so cut and dry; there are dozens of historical threads weaving in and through historical events. The old Great Man hypothesis that has been a main linchpin in the whole Historical Jesus position has given away to the Great Moment hypothesis.

Furthermore as I pointed out long ago never means NEVER; not in the first century CE and not in the first or second century BCE. Dodd doesn't give a time frame to his "Or alternatively, they seized on the reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name and arbitrarily attached the "Cult-myth" to him." statement so your claim that it expressly and directly ties into this mess doesn't wash. Dodd's definition certainly would fit Wells current position with the Q Jesus being the "obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name" and Paul's Jesus being the "Cult-myth".--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:37, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

This is non-responsive gibberish. I asked a direct question about McCown, Horton, and Jones, and you haven't answered it, and this business about "never means NEVER" is something that you've posted about 500 times, and I've given you the same answer each time. As I said, the topic we're supposedly discussion in this section is what to call the article; instead of talking about that, you're going off about "system theory" and John Frum. So, to repeat: I've provided several quotes that expressly call the ideas of Bauer, Drews, et al. the "Christ myth theory" (or 'Christ-myth' theory if you want to get excited about quotation marks). Since this is the name by which verifiable secondary sources call the topic of this article, that's what the article title should be. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

So you admit that you cannot produced the reference that ties all the different definitions and that all you have is OR song and dance. I have stated THREE times how to fix this article's lead in and you have ignored them each time. You have also ignored the FACT you tried to defend Christ Myth with the same gusto you are doing with Christ Myth Theory--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:14, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so you really have nothing to say re: McCown, Horton, and Jones. I'm ignoring your demand for a "reference that ties all the different definitions" because it's unnecessary. I've ignored your proposals to "fix this article's lead" because there's nothing to fix. "Christ myth" really ought to be one of the alternative names listed in the lead, because it is sometimes used (without a subsequent "theory", "hypothesis", "debate", etc.) to refer to the ideas discussed in this article. --Akhilleus (talk) 12:14, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The lead is fine. The idea of splitting the article is I think a bad idea. dougweller (talk) 19:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Chart

I've started a page to create a version of this with references and cleaned up. User:Jbolden1517/CM/Chart jbolden1517 ^Talk 15:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks good though I would debate with the "Jesus was likely born of Mary, the virgin birth was a later add on to cover up illegitimacy." idea for Mainstream Scholarship as I don't think there is anything resembling a consensus on exactly how or even why the virgin birth got included.

I would also say that the "Supporters are generally conservative Christians, Supporters are generally liberal Christians, Supporters are generally atheists" line has no relevance to the issue, is Ad hominem, and is not supported by the reliable sources.

A prefect counter example can be found on youtube where Fighting Atheist holds Jesus DID exist while Deist JohnLArmstrong holds that Jesus Never Existed. Besides if Hayyim ben Yehoshua in his Refuting Missionaries paper is to be believed "In the Far East where the major religions are Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism and Confucianism, Jesus is considered to be just another character in Western religious mythology, on a par with Thor, Zeus and Osiris. Most Hindus do not believe in Jesus, but those who do consider him to be one of the many avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu."

A quick search produces this chart that has nonreligious at 16% but at best only half would be considered Atheist. In fact, the U.S. Center for World Mission puts that number even lower at only 2.5%. By comparison Buddhism, "Chinese Traditional", and Hinduism compose about 25%. I don't know how reliable this is but it does gives a possible insight to how Historicity as we use it operates in Hinduism.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:39, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Good point about avatar of Vishnu. You caught me on western bias. Hindus who believe in the Christ myth probably outnumber all other groups combined.

Would you be OK with:

Majority of authors are conservative Christians / Majority of authors are liberal Christians / Majority of authors are Atheist
Beliefs originated in conservative Christian community / came from liberal Christianity / came from atheism

In terms of the virgin birth I checked Meier he has Joseph was already dead. OK so it is all over the place. Any suggestion for what I should but in that box? jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:37, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Again there is nothing to suggest that atheism has anything to do with the non historicity hypothesis. This goes back to the confusion I talked above between Jesus the man and the concept of Christ; the two are so mixed together that people forget they are two different things. [Bruce]

There is actually quite a bit. Every author in this article (AFAIK) is an atheist. Where these ideas get talked about the most is in terms of atheism. Conversely the "mainstream position" is basically liberal early 20th century Christianity. Jesus is a really nice guy running around preaching socialism and communism and loose social ties. And needless to say the Orthodox position is unquestionably associated with conservative Christianity. Again look at how many Jesus myth books are on the atheist book list (Zinder (4), Wells (8), Carpenter (19)), and the Jesus reading list (which only has 28 items): Price, Wells (several times), Doherty, Drews, Ellegard, Freke. Then finally why is this article in project atheism? jbolden1517 ^Talk 04:45, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

[Continuation of Bruce's post]] Sometimes the non historicity hypothesis is presented as a null hypothesis to the historicity of Jesus ie let's assume Jesus didn't exist and see if we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt he actually did. This is where according to these particular non historicity hypothesis supporters you start having problems with the supposed source material (Gospels and non christian sources). The stuff incontestability Paul's gives us no temporal clues as to when the Jesus he talks about existed, we have no idea when the Gospels were written or how they may have evolved into the forms we know today, and all the Non christian supporting the idea has problems. Worst yet we now have the example of John Frum as proof that the original non historicity hypothesis supporters were not totally off the beam.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:11, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think they are wrong. But once you start asserting the existence of all powerful entities, capable of intervening in human affairs and then compound that by saying men's reason is corrupted away from god as a result of the fall it gets hard to evaluate any evidence. You have to presuppose something different from Christianity to even be able to analyze the evidence they way these authors do. jbolden1517 ^Talk 04:45, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I would be careful of using anyone's list. Richard Dawkins is on the atheist book list as well and so is Brown's The Da Vinci Code so you have non fiction and fiction thrown together into a big pile. As I said before there is the messiah, man, myth mentality regarding Jesus and within the man category you have lunatic, trickster, or exaggerated to play with. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any books that portray Jesus as a delusional nutter aka a 1st century Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Hong Xiuquan, a handful of obscure stuff I cannot even remember the title of that had Jesus as a conman who faked his own death, and one really bizarre film.

The film I remember was in late 60s style and involved a Roman official investigating the reports of some would be Christ being alive after his crucifixion. After a potion that simulates death is demonstrated on a crucifixion victim he goes undercover and tried to find this man by using sayings attributed to him. By the end of the film the Roman official is being mistaken for the man he is looking for. When he makes his final report still in disguise he is for some reason offered the chance to 'die like a Roman' and simply stands there as one of his former comrades (and I think good friend) runs him through with his sword. As I said it was a really bizarre little film and I saw it only once.

With this kind of selection is it anyone wonder the atheists would have a lot of non historical hypothesis books?--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:57, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the section on beliefs, I think the origin formulation is better, e.g., beliefs originated in traditional Christianity / came from 20th century liberal Christianity / stated with the Freethinkers of 19th century atheism. Nowadays, if I can think of any approach dominating the mainstream, it would be methodological naturalism. At least, that's what they claim. Vesal (talk) 10:50, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. Were the Freethinkers of the 19th century truly atheist or where they called that because they argued on basis knowledge and reason throwing out the supernatural in the process? Even today I see Deism confused with either Christianity (with regards to the Founding Fathers) or atheism. Newton's clockwork universe was effectively Deist in nature--God wound the spring and that was about it.--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:16, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I changed it to traditional/liberal/FreeThinkers. Can anyone toss a ref in there for the FreeThinkers? jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:00, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Jonathan Kolkey

I figured this would be gone by this morning. Do you guys actually think Kolkey deserves an entire section? I've never heard of him but AFAIKT he doesn't meet our criteria. I already gave History Biographer (talk · contribs) the welcome to Wikipedia and especially take a look at WP:COI warning so I'd rather not be the deleter. jbolden1517 ^Talk 13:26, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing about the atheism additions ;) I removed both. Vesal (talk) 21:25, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

"From Jesus to Christ" versus "From Christ to Jesus"

Everybody seem to agree with the following: "The Christ myth theory is the contention that Jesus of earliest Christianity is a mythological being to whom earthly events were later attached." It is only non-historicity as a central part of myth-theory that is under dispute. There was a lot of support for the "Jesus was a man who came to be seen as God" versus "Jesus was a God who came to be seen as a man" being the key distinction. Are there any concrete proposals along those lines? Also, are there any sources that have made this observation, sources identifying this distinction as the crucial aspect of myth theory? Otherwise, in spite of the fabulous table above, we are doomed to keep the lead simple and focus on non-historicity. Vesal (talk) 22:27, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

If this article is about the ideas of Bruno Bauer, Drews, Robertson, Smith, Wells, et al., then it's about the idea that there was no historical Jesus. That's what links these people together. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:47, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but what is a "historical Jesus"? When we talk about a historical Jesus, how important is the continuity from this Jesus to the person early Christians came to see as the risen Lord. If this continuity is important, and it is a crucial aspect of mainstream HJ theories, then Wells' recent position is still a myth-theoretic one, so I have no idea what Van Voort is on about saying that Wells now believes in a historical Jesus. Wells seems to grant the existence of some Jesus the plumber living in the first century and perhaps told about in Q, but Jesus the carpenter, which came to be seen as God, is still non-historical in Wells' current view. Maybe the lead should define what it means for Jesus of Nazareth, aka Jesus Christ, to have existed as a historical person. Vesal (talk) 11:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's that hard to know what "historical Jesus" means. Perhaps something that needs to be kept in mind is that the Christ myth theory is a reaction to the liberal Protestant quest of the historical Jesus, which attempted to reconstruct the life of the human being behind the New Testament accounts. The Christ myth theory says that the quest is looking for a mirage--that the New Testament tells us nothing about the life of a historical, early first century CE Galilean preacher. That guy, they say, never lived--he wasn't real. He didn't exist.

Wells thinks that an early first century CE Galilean preacher's career is documented in Q, and that details from Q were incorporated into the Gospels. To quote him: "Some elements in the ministry of the gospel Jesus are arguably traceable to the activities of a Galilean preacher of the early first century, whose career (embellished and somewhat distorted) is documented in what is known as Q (an abbreviation for 'Quelle', German for 'source'). Q supplied the gospels of Matthew and Luke with much of their material concerning Jesus' Galilean ministry." In other words, Wells accepts a historical Jesus, and thinks that some details of this Jesus' career are found in the Gospels, but maintains a non-standard picture of Christian origins (in particular, he thinks that Paul's Jesus is entirely mythical/non-historical).

I agree with you that the lead should specify what it means for Jesus to be historical, since this seems to be a point of potential confusion. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:08, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah but doesn't "Paul's Jesus is entirely mythical" fit Welsh's "The theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ-myth theory" definition since nearly everyone agrees the epistles attributed to Paul in general predate the canonal Gospels? Better yet with Walsh's definition where does the idea of a 1sh century preacher called Jesus inspired by Paul's mythical Jesus fit? That is the problem with excluded middle definitions like Welsh's--they create all kinds of logic headaches.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:29, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The Galilean preacher whose career is documented in Q precedes the Pauline epistles. So no. --Akhilleus (talk) 12:26, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick point, in terms of the core 7 we don't know that. Assuming the theory, Paul could be around 100 BCE. Once we lose the gospels/Acts we lose any ability to place a date on Paul. jbolden1517 ^Talk 13:40, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

We're talking about Wells' version of the theory, and he dates Paul's letters to the 50s (which is the standard dating). Wells accepts a fairly standard picture of Q, and says that the Galilean preacher that is depicted in Q preceded Paul. This can be seen in Wells' essay linked above, although I'm sure he goes into more detail in Jesus Myth and Jesus Legend. So we can say that Wells believes that the historical Galilean preacher precedes the fully mythical Christ of the epistles, and the two figures are merged in the Gospels. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:05, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Right, but if Wells sees Paul's Jesus as a myth that borrowed elements from the historical Galilean preacher, is that really a historical Jesus theory? Wells, in contrast to Burton Mack, seems to insist on these figures not being linked, but surely this link is crucially important if we are to talk about the historical man behind the central figure of Christianity. I would therefore conclude that this article could safely say that the Christ myth theory is the same as the non-historicity thesis, because the real complications seems to lie in how one defines non-historicity, i.e., what one really means when saying "Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical person". I this light, Van Voorst clearly has every right to say Wells accepts a historical Jesus, but there are just as good reasons to say Wells is still a myth-theorist. The point is that (whatever you call the theory) the non-historicity claim is not entirely unambiguous. Vesal (talk) 23:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Akhilleus is again reading things into statements that simply are not there. Htere are what Wells REALLY says in the above linked article:

"The most striking feature of the early documents is that they do not set Jesus' life in a specific historical situation. There is no Galilean ministry, no teaching, no parables, no miracles, no Passion in Jerusalem, no indication of time, place or attendant circumstances at all. Instead, Jesus figures as a basically supernatural personage obscurely on Earth as a man at some unspecified period in the past," emptied" then, as Paul puts it, of all his supernatural powers (Phil. 2:6-11) [...]

"The dying and rising Christ of the early epistles is a quite different figure, and must have a different origin. He may have been to some extent modelled on gods of pagan mystery religions who died and were resurrected, but he clearly owes much more to a particular early-Christian interpretation of Jewish Wisdom traditions."[...]

"The Galilean preacher of Q has been given a salvivic death and resurrection, and these have been set not in an unspecified past (as in the Pauline and other early letters), but in a historical context consonant with the date of the Galilean preaching." [...]

"In the gospels, the two Jesus figures -- the human preacher of Q and the supernatural personage of the early epistles who sojourned briefly on Earth as a man, and then, rejected, returned to heaven -- have been fused into one. The Galilean preacher of Q has been given a salvivic death and resurrection, and these have been set not in an unspecified past (as in the Pauline and other early letters), but in a historical context consonant with the date of the Galilean preaching."

So again as with so many claims made in the past this article does not say what Akhilleus claims it does. Wells expressly states in Jesus Myth that Paul's Jesus is an earlier Jesus is predating the Q Jesus.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:29, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The Jesus legend xxiii expressly states that of the writings we know to be Paul's "There is no suggestion that he was a near-contemporary who died at Jerusalem under Pilate." [...] "My argument was that Paul was concerned to stress how utterly Jesus — in his view a supernatural being (not a god) who had existed before the creation of world--had humbled himself in condescending to take on human form and thereby to be born as an ordinary Jew." pg 11.

Since via the Wells article Akhilleus has AGAIN brought the joke that is Holding into this I decided to look at Holding's ramblings again (besides I needed a good chuckle). In the preface to Shattering the Christ Myth some guy named James Hannam states "The Jesus Legend (1986) postulated that Jesus lived in 100 BC,..." pg xvi. Well that is certianly not going to be aneough so let's wee what wells says in Can We Trust the New Testiment?: "If, then, Paul did not regard the earthly Jesus as recently deceased, Alvar Ellegard may be right in suggesting, in his 1999 book that the earliest Christian ideas about him were to some extend shape by imprecise knowledge about the Teacher of Righteousness who figures in the Dead Sea Scrolls written about 100 BC..." pg 8. THIS FITS DODD'S DEFINITION OF Christ Myth Theory TO A 'T' BUT NOT FARMER'S. Face it, Akhilleus you cannot PROVE that Christ Myth Theory has a consistent definition as you have still have NOT produced that reference that matches up the different definitions. Given that Dodd's definition (Manchester University Press) "Or alternatively, they seized on the reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name and arbitrarily attached the "Cult-myth" to him." fits what Wells himself is saying on page 8 of Can We Trust the New Testiment? I don't see how you are going to salvage this.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:08, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The symmetry of the saying is attractive, but I don't think it encapsulates the theory; for one, "Jesus was a God who came to be seen as a man" implies only that Hellenistic/Egyptian mythic elements predated the man and were either (as mainstream scholarship sees it) projected on the biography of the historical Jesus or (in the case of the nonexistence theory) were attributed to a fictional individual; on the other hand, "Jesus was a man who came to be seen as God" implies that the mythical elements were de novo inventions of the early church, which isn't the case. --davigoli (talk) 02:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Adding to the confusion is Wells' two Jesus position with Paul's Jesus being a timeless figure from a previous century and the Q Jesus being a historical person which two scholars (one called such by Wells himself as well as in an independent source and the other with peer reviewed journal articles coming out the wazoo) put into the Christ Myth Theory/Jesus Myth camp. By Walsh and Dodd (and supported by Doherty and Price) Wells' current position fits under Christ Myth Theory but not under the term as Farmer, Horbury, and Wiseman define it. Worse Doherty is careful enough to say Gospel Jesus never existed which as a composite character he by definition couldn't.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:03, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Another problem is Schweitzer stated "I especially wanted to explain late Jewish eschatology more thoroughly and to discuss the works of John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, James George Frazer, Arthur Drews, and others, who contested the historical existence of Jesus." (Out of My Life and Thought, 1931 page 125) But as Bennett in In search of Jesus points out "Frazer did not doubt that Jesus had lived, or claim that Christians had invented the Jesus myth" so why is Schweitzer expressly putting Frazer in the same class as John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, and Arthur Drews?

Digging around I found a curious discrepancy regarding The Quest for the Historical Jesus by Bowden. The historical Jesus By Gerd Theissen, Annette Merz (ironically published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers) states on page 5 that "Schweitzer added a new preface to the fifth edition of 1951, which appeared in English in 1953." This totally contradicts the lead in to the Bowden edition which on page Page xxxv has "Preface to the sixth edition (1950). Making things worse isThe Sayings Gospel Q By James McConkey Robinson, Christoph Heil, Jozef Verheyden (also by Augsburg Fortress Publishers) that on page 286 states the sixth edition was published in 1951 and a seventh two volume version was printed in 1966.

As I said before one is very tempted to make sarcastic comments about Schweitzer and H. G. Wells but let's be blunt: HOW IN HEAVEN'S NAME (bad pun) CAN YOU HAVE A PREFACE TO A SIXTH EDITION IN 1950 WHEN EITHER THE FIFTH SUPPOSEDLY DIDN'T COME OUT UNTIL 1951 OR THE SIXTH SUPPOSEDLY CAME OUT IN 1951?!? Better yet why is a preface to a later edition doing with what is effectively the second edition? Why not translate the two volume 1966 (seventh edition) version as that would have been Schweitzer's final word on the topic (being published after his death in 1965)? The whole thing stinks to high heaven (another bad bun) of spin doctoring, and one has to wonder where the Q&A department of Bowden's publisher was.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:14, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The catalogue of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek confirms that the sixth edition was published in 1951. Prefaces to books are dated by composition, which is necessarily in advance of publication date and frequently in the previous calendar year. And Denis Nineham's foreword to the Fortress edition explains (p. xiii), "The version now offered is based on the ninth German edition published in 1984, but Schweitzer made no changes of any significance after the appearance of the second edition, so even the latest strand in what follows dates from 1913." BruceGrubb's final sentence above reads to me like an allegation that someone involved with the edition was guilty of scholarly misconduct; I suggest that BruceGrubb either clarify that this wasn't his intention or withdraw the remark. EALacey (talk) 08:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't it strike you as strange that Schweitzer would make new editions with "no changes of any significance after the appearance of the second edition" and just stop dead at 1912? Especially as in his own biography in 1931 Schweitzer expressly states his reasons to do the 1913 rewrite all the while putting Frazer in the same boat as John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, James George Frazer, and Arthur Drews. John M. Robertson certainly didn't stop with Pagan Christs (1903), nor Drew with The Christ Myth (1910), and William Benjamin Smith's last book on the matter was published in 1954 long after Smith died. If Schweitzer was so out of the loop that he had little to no idea what these people were doing after 1913 why did he even bother having new editions (as opposed to 2nd or whatever printings)? Also all this doesn't explain why the 1966 edition was split into two volumes. Printing is all about cost and printing two volumes of a book that had been one volume up to then makes little sense as it would cost more. Something just doesn't look right.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:37, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Davigoli that position goes beyond the mainstream because it asserts this was the Jesus of earliest Christianity. that is there must have been Christians with a belief in a divine Jesus that did not believe in an incarnation. That's wholely inconsistent with a human founder. jbolden1517 ^Talk 04:19, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going that far; all I'm saying is mainstream scholarship sees that Greek religious elements (sacrifice-resurrection, virgin birth, bread-and-wine ritual, etc.) were grafted onto the underlying biography of Jesus; the Greek elements predated Christianity and the earliest Christians, who were instead influenced by the Greek milieu of first-century Palestine. Not saying that Christianity predated Jesus, just that key (non-Old Testament) elements of it did. That's all. --davigoli (talk) 07:58, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

That's my point. All 3 columns (among the knowledgeable) agree on the Jesus Christ in comparative mythology. That stuff is non controversial and very mainstream. Which is why I supported the split of these two articles 2 years ago. Where the disagreement comes in is how the myths accreted. I added a new final line to the chart (above). Which I think points to the difference. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:35, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Very true. Looked at User:Jbolden1517/backups/Jesus-myth hypothesis and I like some parts of it but others (like the Arguments against the Jesus myth part) have problems. No matter what happens we need to keep the hsitory this article provided because if you don't know how you got there you don't really know anything.--BruceGrubb (talk) 05:41, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I changed "myths were added on to fill holes in Jesus' biography" to "myths were added on to embellish Jesus' biography", since the syncretism was not merely to fill in the gaps but also to establish a broader mythic narrative (the resurrection and the virgin birth were more than just "filling holes"). Otherwise, yeah, looks good. --davigoli (talk) 19:31, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I like the history. I kept the backup when this article and the other were under AFD for "content forking". I won the AFD but the environment was so poisonous progress was impossible. jbolden1517 ^Talk 13:22, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Criticism section inadequate

This article presents numerous arguments used by proponents of this theory. The criticisms section, however, is basically people saying "Everybody around today disagrees". I'd like to see some actual analysis of the claims put forth by the proponents, if there's any out there. Mbarbier (talk) 20:20, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

You raise a good point. Part of the problem is that we don't have a distilled version of what the main points of contention. When this article debated the historicity issue we had a good counter but that material is all in the other article (which is a good think IMHO, this article is complicated enough without stuff that is general). I'm trying to put together a Chart of differences and from there we could have a more clear cut "criticism" section. As you can see from the chart Orthodox Christianity and mainstream scholarship have almost opposite points of contention. The other thing is that there hasn't been that much analysis. Scholars haven't engaged this, though lots of orthodox Christian apologists have and their criticisms are full of misinformation. jbolden1517 ^Talk 22:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

One of the few things Akhilleus and I agree on is that the "criticism" section provides a WP:SYN view not held by any one author. I find the Historicity_of_Jesus#Greco-Roman_sources for more NPOV than what we have here and with a little cleaning up we could simply refer back to that. I would agree that given the list on Jesus and History we do have a bit of a problem with possible a WP:CFORK occuring. There is a LOT of duplication of material between some of these articles.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:13, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

What in the criticism section isn't common to all the authors? It addresses the basic point that mainstream scholars consider the notion that Christianity did not originate with a Jerusalem cult refuted, and the mythicists arguing that they don't see any refutation. I don't see synthesis nor do I see anything inaccurate.

I would like to expand it to address arguments like the argument from silence, since silence is key to many of the authors. I think in general this article has too much focus on biography, i.e. with Doherty (I don't want to get into Wells but I think it is the same) one show one can believe in the historicity of pieces of the gospel without believing that it had anything to do with early Christianity. jbolden1517 ^Talk 15:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Well Thallas for one. Many non historical supporters don't even mention Thallus and only a handful of historical Jesus supporters use him as he is pretty bad and smacks of the long discredited 'show ALL the Gospels are historical' train of Historical Jesus thought The second passage of Josephus is another; not many authors bring up the 'Jesus, the son of Damneus' part if they even bother to mention it at all. I do agree that they do form a list of usual suspects as demonstrated by Scott Oser's 1994 Historicity Of Jesus FAQ Sadly Oser is not a scholar in this field so his FAQ is not citable by Wikipedia standards but it is one of the few to the point summations I know of.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:08, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

None of the references connect the three terms

Sigh, WP:SYN expressly states "Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to reach conclusion C. This would be a synthesis of published material that advances a new position, and that constitutes original research." NONE of the sources provided in the lead in connect all three terms together as is impled by the reference.

In fact Weaver, Walter P. (1999) The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900-1950 uses Jesus Myth in talking about Drews' hypthotehtical pre-Christian Jesus cult rather than it being Drews' idea of an non historical Jesus. (pg 51) Even more interestingly, Weaver soft plays Drews' position: "In the first and second editions of his work Drew noted that his puropse was to show that everything about the historical Jesus has a mythical character and thus it was not necssarary to presuppose that a historical figure ever existed." pg 50. Further along Weaver says "A second part of the book took up the Christian Jesus. The Jesus myth had been in existence a very long time in one form or another, but it was only in the appearance of the tentmaker of Tarsus, Paul, that Jesus community sepearated from Judaism took root." pg 52

Going over Bennett in google books a search for the terms Jesus myth and Christ myth does NOT produce any results on page 202 while there are hits elsewhere in the book so we may have different edition problem. Bennet does flip flop a bit between the terms Jesus-was-a-myth school and Jesus myth while saying "Celsus thought that almost the entire Jesus story was myth." (page 173) and "I will suggest, though, that aspects of Celsus', Reimarus' and Strauss' work on Jesus anticipated the arguments of the Jesus-was-a-myth school." (pg 190) which is to say the least annoying.

Another problem is his structure is confusing at best. Following Bauer with Frazer, Jung, and Cambell is puzzling to say the least. Throwing in Schweitzer's Out of My Life and Thought, 1931 page 125 comment putting Frazer in the same catagory with John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, James George Frazer, and Arthur Drews certainly doesn't help. The off comment of "His The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) advanced the theory that a single myth stands behind the stories of Krishna, Buddha, Apollonius of Tyana, Jesus and other hero stories." regarding Campbell shows that Bennett is more portraying a history than trying to define anything.

Where does the idea of a historical Jesus being plugged into a preexisting hero myth type leave the definitions Christ Myth theory Welsh or Dodd give us? Just go with non historial as that is at least consistent.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:20, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Bruce, you seem to be convinced that we need a source that uses the terms "Christ myth theory", "nonhistoricity hypothesis", and "Jesus myth" together to refer to the topic of this article in order to justify the presence of these terms in the first sentence. That's silly. It's obvious that many sources use the term "Christ myth theory" to refer to the topic of this article; that's been demonstrated at length, and many of the sources that use the term "Christ myth theory" refer to Bauer, Drews, etc. specifically as proponents of the theory. "Nonhistoricity hypothesis" should be "nonexistence hypothesis", which is the title of Van Voorst's article in Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. "Jesus myth" is clearly used to refer to this theory, as a simple Google search demonstrates. Christ myth really ought to be in there as well. Since each one of these terms is used to refer to the article's subject, they should be included in the first sentence, as WP:LEAD tells us.

The rest of your post seems to be a complaint that Weaver and Bennett don't use "Jesus myth" or "Christ myth" to refer to the idea that there was no historical Jesus. Right. So what? Nothing claims that they did. If you're confused by the citations at the end of the first sentence, perhaps you should realize that they're at the end of the sentence because they're supporting the sentence as a whole; each one is there to show that these sources regard the idea that Jesus was non-historical as a discrete and coherent topic.

Anyway, if you're so convinced that there's an OR problem here I recommend that you go to the no original research noticeboard and see what input you get there. You've already been told (not just by me) that the lead is fine by the editors here. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Come on Akhilleus, Christ Myth has been demonstrated to be all over the map in terms of definition so claiming it has any kind of uniformity is totally off the wall. I might remind you that you have presented Weaver and Bennett as supporting your statement of "Nothing claims that they did" rings a little hollow.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:40, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're saying in your last post. "Christ myth" can indeed mean many things. So what? "Christ myth theory" is the phrase we've been talking about. Weaver and Bennett don't use "Christ myth theory", and I've pointed out before that they don't use this term. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:47, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

"Also known as" ie synonym of. Once you prove that different people use a term differently then you have proved that the "also known as" claim is totally bogus. It is like saying ' Dr Joseph Bell also known as the real life Sherlock Holmes...' While Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did say Dr Joseph Bell inspired his creation and the papers of the day did portray Joseph Bell as a real life Sherlock Holmes you can really only say that 'Dr Joseph Bell sometimes called a real life Sherlock Holmes...' as Bells is not uniformly known as such. When you can show that the way Christ Myth and Christ Myth Theory DO vary then trying to say they equate to another more specific term is ridiculous. The fact of the matter is the definitions ' do NOT match and no amount of hemming and hawing is going to change that fact. I have put this at Wikipedia:No_original_research/noticeboard#Christ_Myth_Theory_definition--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Bruce, you seem to think that "also known as" means that there must be an exact equivalence; I don't think that's true. However, your post seems to suggest that you'd accept "sometimes known as" in the lead, to the effect of "The Christ myth theory (sometimes known as the nonexistence hypothesis or Jesus myth)"--if that would work, let's make the change. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have already EXPRESSLY STATED several times how the lead in could be before the term Christ myth was removed: "The nonhistoricity hypothesis (sometimes also called the Christ myth theory, Christ myth, or Jesus myth)...". Nonhistoricity hypothesis is the only thing that these sources are even remotely consistant regarding.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:00, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Great, I changed it to "sometimes". Are we done with this now? --Akhilleus (talk) 11:51, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

We're finally getting there but I still say having nonhistoricity hypothesis is a better title for this. Nonexistence hypothesis can be read as a narrower term and I think we could lose a lot with it. It is one thing to say the Gospel Jesus didn't exist (as Wells has and continues to say) and quite a different one to say Jesus ben Joseph of Nazareth (perhaps Bethlehem) didn't exist (which Wells stopped claiming in Jesus Legend).

Given the variance in Christ myth that term should be directed to Jesus as myth or perhaps the entire Jesus and history page be reworked so Christ myth and Jesus Myth direct there rather than here. The redirection set up IMHO as it stands is a mess.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Whats with ALL the unfounded footnotes?

I hate to say this, but I fear that nearly all citations may be subject to quote mining. Esp citations backing up the assertation on the 3rd paragraph in the intro section are ALL guilty of quote mining. All of these citations don't show where they gained the information, they just mention the author and an overbearing quote. I find religion based articles often guilty of this, and this page is pretty affected by it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.189.143.20 (talk) 16:46, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

You referred to the quotes in "the 3rd paragraph in the intro section"; there are only two references listed in that paragraph so I'll assume you mean the 4th paragraph. Every single reference given includes not only the author's name but also the source from which the quote was drawn. I simply do not understand your complaint. Eugeneacurry (talk) 16:55, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

While I have issues with the very term Christ Myth theory due to the reliable source providing conflicting definitions I will have to say what is referenced in the beginning is reliable sourced. The problem is that what they are in reference--an extreme view of the Christ Myth theory rather than the entire concept.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Argument from silence

The main problem I have seen with Argument from silence idea is the tendency to assume that the canonal Gospels are completely accurate historical documents. Some people even go as far as to include all the supernatural stuff (three hours of darkness, all the dead being raised, etc) happened and then ask why didn't anyone note this down at the time?

Not that the counterarguments often presented are any better. Argument from silence is often presented as a logic fallacy but then you see it used to counter ideaa like the Sphinx being 2,000 years older than it is thought to be. The main contention is where is the evidence for the culture that supposedly built the Sphinx if it is that old and yet when the exact same criteria is applied to Jesus it suddenly is dismissed as "Argument from silence"? Something just not right with that kind of thinking.

Another problem with refutation attempts of "Argument from silence" is the tendency to strawman the idea by referring to people like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar or Nero. It gets really silly when comparisons to Queen Elisabeth I, Shakespeare, or Eisenhower are made. Most of the people presented have good solid contemporaneous evidence (statues, coins, mosaics, and in the case of Julius Caesar letter to, from, and about him) showing they existed. Better comparisons as Joseph Campbell did in Hero with Thousand Faces would be Apollonius of Tyana, Buddha, and Krishna whose contemporary evidence is in as bad or even worst shape than that of Jesus.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

By argument for silence in the to-do list (which I assume is what you are responding to), I meant something like Robertson or Doherty's top 200 (link to top 20). The early Christian writer's silence on aspects of Jesus' biography, where you would otherwise expect elements of the biography to appear. I can change the name in the to-do list.

What we are covering now is things like contemporary writers. What influences the Christ myth crowd it seems to me, is the lack of biography in early Christian writings. In other words during the 1st century and for most writers in the 2nd, Jesus is spoken of like a mythological being not a historical being. jbolden1517 ^Talk 13:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

There was something like this back when we had a section on John Remsburg who was removed because few scholars make reference to his list or to his ideas on the Christ myth in general. I reworked the relevant parts and put them on the page on John Remsburg and provided it below so you can see the problems it had with regards to this article:

"In recent years a list of names from the "Silence of Contemporary Writers" chapter of The Christ (often called the Remsburg/Remsberg list) has appeared in a handful of self published books regarding the nonhistoricity hypothesis by authors such as James Patrick Holding*, Hilton Hotema*, and Jawara D. King*, as well as appearing in some 200 blog posts on the nonhistoricity hypothesis.

However at best The Christ along with The Bible and Six Historic Americans is regarded as an important freethought book* rather than a major contribution to the Christ Myth hypothesis."

= a reference is provided for this.

To date I have not found anyone who would qualify under Wikipedia:Reliable sources who even make a passing reference to the Remsburg|Remsberg list. I have found others than those listed above but they also have the problem of not being scholars and being self published:

Norman, Asher (2007); Ashley Tellis Twenty-six reasons why Jews don't believe in Jesus Black White and Read Publishing pg 182

O'Hair, Madalyn Murray (1969) What on earth is an atheist! American Atheist Press, Austin, Texas Page 246--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Title of this article

I would say that of the four terms we currently have (Christ myth theory, Christ myth, Jesus myth, and nonexistence hypothesis) nonexistence hypothesis is is the best title for this article as it is the most descriptive of the position. The others have problems in terms of being less clear:

Jesus Myth

We are starting to get some feedback loops here. Toit, Morné Du (2008) Blind Faith Lulu on pg 159 uses a definition that a cross reference to Icon Group International's Aware: Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases reveals to have partly come from Wikipedia. Worse unlike Icon, Toit doesn't tell us this. This makes his later "The term "Jesus myth" actually covers a broad range of ideas, but fundamentally, the all have in common is the basis that the story of the Gospels portrays a figure that never actually lived." suspect.

Both Weaver and Mack use this term regarding Jesus Christ in comparative mythology rather than in reference to the ideas presented by Drew or the others. That Wells in a book called Jesus Myth accepts the Q Jesus as historical doesn't help nor does Doherty stating that Wells is still saying a Gospel Jesus didn't exist.

Christ myth

This term is a full blow mess. Sure, it is the English transitional of Drews' book but it is also used to talk about the story that grew up around an historical Jewish preacher named Jesus. Nothing even resembling a consistent definition here.

Christ myth Theory

Has much the same problem as Christ myth only to a smaller degree. Boils down to four versions:

there was no Jesus in any way, shape, or form in the 1st century CE (Farmer, Horbury, and Wiseman)

ANY deviation from the Gospel account (Bromiley's "story of")

The idea of Jesus starting out as a myth regardless of connection to any historical person (Walsh)

Pre existing mythology connected with a historical person who may or may not have lived in the 1st century CE (Dodd, Pike, Wells per Price and Doherty, Farmer read a different way)

Of course we have to ask where the concept of the nonexistence hypothesis as Null hypothesis fits into all this.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:38, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Please read WP:NAME. Christ myth theory is the most commonly used name for the subject of this article. In contrast, "nonexistence hypothesis" is used by one person (Van Voorst) who writes about this. Wikipedia readers are much more likely to be looking for "Christ myth theory" (or "Christ myth" or "Jesus myth") than "nonexistence hypothesis".

Of course, Bruce's contention that there are "four versions" of "Christ myth theory" is wrong. --Akhilleus (talk) 11:50, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd be opposed to non existence. Most of the authors we discuss don't assert full non existence. What they assert is non dependence and the lack of a meaningful historiography. To use a line from the 2007 version which IMHO explained the difference well, The analogy being made here is that Steamboat Willie was the first widely distributed Mickey Mouse feature and it was based on the Buster Keaton movie Steamboat Bill Jr. which while fictional was not mythical. Finding historical persons who were the basis for Steamboat Bill Jr. would not be equivalent to finding the "historical Mickey Mouse" This case really works well since 0 people believe in a historical Mickey Mouse, yet we can clearly see real historical references in Steamboat Willie. I see 3 of the 4 definitions you gave above (good list) as being the same, they all deny the "meaningful historicity" of Jesus. Obviously the Bromley one is an entirely different definition.

Earl Doherty is a super clear case: believes that Q1 might be based on a historic person (a cynic philosopher in Galilee) and Q2 is based on a historic person (John the Baptist). Any title which would seem to exclude Doherty is too strong. Non existence hypothesis then at least verbally describes a position which few if any of these authors hold. I haven't read everyone on your list but, Acharya S and a few of the 19th century authors come to mind. Did the Peter of the Pauline epistles know Jesus? If the author's answer is yes, then they go under mainstream scholarship is they answer no they belong here.

And I think you are overstating the case to argue that Wells in Jesus Myth sees Jesus as historical. Again he is quite clear that the connection between Paul and Q is just that both utilize ideas from wisdom literature. Someone who argues that Pauline Christianity developed without a historical founder is asserting not denying that Paul views his Jesus as a myth not a recently deceased person. And this is the distinction between Mack and Wells that IMHO is really critical.

I hate to go back to the lead sentence but "The Christ myth theory is the assertion that Christianity developed with a historic core" seems to me to unite 3 of the 4 definitions nicely. As far as Christ myth vs. Christ myth theory vs. Jesus myth; I'm neutral. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:17, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem which shows Akhilleus' claim my contention is "wrong" is itself incorrect is that Horbury and Wiseman expressly state that the Christ Myth Theory is Jesus NEVER existed while Dodd and Pike give vague definitions which are by their nature very open to interpretation. Bromiley definition with its "story of" and use of Lucian, Wells, and Bertrand Russell is also problematic. As far as "overstating the case to argue that Wells in Jesus Myth sees Jesus as historical" that is NOT me but rather Van Voorst which is totally at odds with the way Price (with more published scholarly papers then you can shake a stick at) uses Christ Myth theorist for Wells' current theory and Doherty (already used 13 times as a reference in the article as I write this) uses the term Jesus myth theorist in direct reference to Jesus Myth. Trying to say Doherty is not a good reference for Wells' position at this stage of the game would at best be POV pushing and at worst hypocrocy and statement PROVES that the term Jesus Myth does vary.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:58, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

If you agree that non existence hypothesis excludes most of the writers we want to talk about (and AFAICT we have consensus on who they are) then why would we want to use it? Forget the secondary literature. Of your 4 definitions would you be willing to accept a definition that includes 1,2 and 4? We can write an intro pretty easily like "The Christ myth theory describes a theory that Christianity originated with a fully mythical Jesus and no historical founder. Many of the writers believe that some of the gospel legends have some vague historical connections but these were irrelevant to the evolution of Christianity". It is only definition (2) that is problematic. The other 3 IMHO are all saying the same thing (see chart). jbolden1517 ^Talk 21:12, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Look, Bruce is absolutely wrong about Bromiley. He doesn't say anything even remotely like the Christ myth theory is any deviation from the gospel account. All of the sources Bruce brings up here are saying the same thing--that the Christ myth theory is the idea that there was no historical Jesus, and the figure we see in the New Testament is a creation of the early Christians. It's essential that the lead start by saying that the Christ myth theory is the idea that there was no historical Jesus--that's what links all of these authors together. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:45, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

OK good, that's gets us down to the 3 definitions which I believe are true. Would you have any objection to weakening like I indicated above, or what I have in the chart. Many of the writers don't object to vague connections, similar to the analogy of some vague connections between historical people and Mickey Mouse. jbolden1517 ^Talk 00:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Again the problem with "Christ myth" and "Jesus myth" is that, while they are the best supported by sources, the terms they are composed of themselves have definitions contradictory (or orthogonal) to how they are used in this article, such that a person who otherwise knows nothing about the content of the article might suppose that the article treats an entirely different topic than the one it does. "Christ" is a Greek term meaning "anointed", "messiah" which is a mythological mantle, and suggesting that the theory is about the mythical nature of the "Christ" attributes gets it wrong. Likewise, "myth" is a weak and vague term. I think we should not be squeamish about rejecting sources' terminology when it is ambiguous or potentially conflicts with other established uses of the terms in question. In that sense, it is not about OR - it's about having to make a hard choice between one RS's definition and another's. "Nonexistence hypothesis" has a poorer ring to it but is unfortunately the best option at our disposal. --davigoli (talk) 01:53, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

There's a policy that deals with how Wikipedia articles are named: WP:NAME. It specifies that we use the most common name in English. That's "Christ myth theory". --Akhilleus (talk) 02:27, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Close, but not exactly. Here's what WP:NAME has to say (emphasis mine):

Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
This is justified by the following principle:

The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists.
Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject.

I believe that in the present case "Christ Myth Theory" has a sufficient degree of ambiguity and specialized (unique, non-general) use of common terms ("Christ" and "Myth") to make it a weak candidate for the title. --davigoli (talk) 04:22, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Look again at the part that says "Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject." We have those sources. They call the subject of this article the Christ myth theory far more often than they call it the "nonexistence hypothesis". --Akhilleus (talk) 05:20, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, if you read farther down in WP:NAME, you find: "Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, title an article using the most common name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article." So again, the principle is to use the most common name in English. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:30, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing that proves the many uses of Christ myth theory are similar and everything points to them being different. I raised this very issue on the Wikipedia:No_original_research/noticeboard#Christ_Myth_Theory_definition under Christ Myth Theory definition and so Akhilleus you are going to have to PROVE your claim that they are identical. Since Akhilleus' previous claim of "Since Schweitzer, Drews, Case, Goguel, Van Voorst, Bennett, and Weaver all present this as a coherent position has been disproven he has to provide that reverence that directory and expressly states that Pike, Dodd, Price, and all the others use the exact same definition or he is doing original research. IT IS THAT SIMPLE.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:26, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

(remove indent)Another issue regarding Christ myth theory/Jesus myth/nonexistence hypothesis that complicates matter is that sometime they are used in regards of the Gospel Jesus rather than Jesus of Nazareth not existing. While this may look like hair splitting there is a difference. Wells is saying the Gospel Jesus is a composite character that came out of the merging of the stories of Paul's 100 BE (or whenever) Jesus and the very fragmentary records of a 1st century historical Jesus. By definition a composite character didn't exist as they are actually composed of two or more people. The Paul Revere of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" is a case in point. Longfellow's Paul Revere is actually a composite of the Paul Revere, Jospeh Adams, Samuel Prescott and several other riders whose names have been lost to history. Saying Longfellow's Paul Revere didn't exist or is non historical is way different from saying there wasn't a Paul Revere. The same is true of saying Mason Locke Weems' stories about George Washington are non historical. This is the key problem with the term--sometimes it is not clear if they are talking about Gospel Jesus or Jesus of Nazareth not existing.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:47, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

First off not everyone has to provide identical definitions for us to write an article. How many definitions do you think are out there for Republican Party or Civil War? And Wells does think that the Jesus of Paul is a "mythological being to whom earthly events were later attached". He like many of them thinks that Jesus of Q may have some pieces of historical existence. The intro does describe Wells' position fine. I'm not thrilled with "Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical person" myself because it is too vague. I'll throw a line in about Q into the chart with fact tags. jbolden1517 ^Talk 12:03, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Bad examples as the article you linked to is actually called Republican Party (United States) article; the actual Republican Party article is a (disambiguation) article exactly because it CAN have so many meanings. The article Civil War you linked "is about the definition of the specific type of war" not a particular Civil War and even it has a Civil war (disambiguation) link thanks to differences in definition. If anything these prove my case rather than disprove it.--BruceGrubb (talk) 13:38, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, fortunately we have disambiguating qualifiers for "Republican Party". Furthermore, it's a household term that people already associate with something specific (depending on nationality). The problem with "Christ myth" is that it's a) not a household term, so people who don't know what it is will probably try to guess its meaning from its constituent words; and b) that those constituent words are being used in a counterintuitive way - that is, "Christ" as a term typically refers to the Gospel Jesus which is precisely not what this article is about. --davigoli (talk) 19:59, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Davigoli, you are I are on the same page here. Before it was archived I was saying we needed a Christ myth (disambiguation) page for or that Christ Myth be directed to the Jesus and history page rather than here exactly for this reason. Burton Mack and John Remsburg both use Christ Myth in reference to the Gospel account rather than to the actual man while others use it to refer to the man rather than the Gospel account.

The problem goes back to the fact is that the canon Gospel account is the main detailed record we have of of the supposed life of Jesus bar Joseph. The more of that account you call into question the less you have to work with to finding a historical Jesus bar Joseph. Throw enough of it out and you get what I like to call the "minimalist Jesus" where Jesus is reduced to a 1st century nobody, who came from some small village that few people had even heard of, who preached some philosophy, was executed by the Romans, and whose inspired followers exaggerated what few stories there were throwing in other stories they heard as they went along until we get the the 50 some Gospels of the 3rd century of which 4 are declared canonal and true and the rest heretical nonsense in the 4th century.

The problem with that view as armchair skeptics are quick to point out is you have thrown out so much that the man might have as well not existed at all.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Chart (resolved issues)

Heading for Orthodox

Changed "Orthodox Christianity" to "Traditional Christianity", for two reasons : a) Potential confusion, this being a capitalised title, between "Orthodox" and "orthodox". b) Even if (as we seem to here) we take the RC church as being indicative of 'orthodoxy', many of the beliefs listed are matters of traditional belief rather than dogma / articles of faith. They are believed according to RC Church tradition, but also by a wider audience than those of just the RC communion (which takes a uniquely strong line as to the authority of Church tradition). 80.254.74.16 (talk) 15:54, 10 April 2009 (UTC) (being Tobermory (talk) 10:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC))

I've lower cased orthodox, due to the potential confusion. "traditional Christianity" is too vague, that could mean Catholic, Latin Rite Catholic, any sect not formed in the last 100 years... jbolden1517 ^Talk 04:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Still have a problem with "orthodox", even lowered. 'orthodox' implies that an alternative belief would be UNorthodox, but there are items in that column (2,3,5,10,11,12?) that are not required as articles of faith by just about all mainstream groups (RC Church being a general exception due to its unique view of the divinely revealed nature of Church tradition) that nevertheless hold them as informal traditional beliefs. I proposed "Traditional" precisely because it IS more vague, and better fits the column's contents. I have there changed this to "Mainstream" for now. Acceptable compromise? Tobermory (talk) 11:20, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I would disagree they aren't required in orthodoxy. #2,4 A core claim of the Catholic church and the conservative Protestant churches is Apostolic Succession at least for the first several centuries. That's why modern conservative Christians can argue that non trinitarians aren't even Christians or that gnostic beliefs are "heretical" because they can assert the legitimacy of the first 7 (generally) ecumenical councils. #5 is asserting the legitimacy of the Old Testament as a Christian book, a rejection of the doctrines of Marcion. You are right though the table contains opinions that are common to groups intermixed with those that are intrinsic to those groups. I don't have a problem with throwing a sentence like that into the lead for the chart to make that explicit. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I could go for Traditional/Orthodox/Conservative Christianity. jbolden1517 ^Talk 20:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

"Mainstream" is nonsense. The word "Mainstream" has a meaning: it implies majority, or at least majority of academics. The views under "mainstream" are neither. There is no rational basis for using the term "mainsteam." The very use of the word pushes an unsubstantiatable POV. Pudge (talk) 06:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

The title links to Historical Jesus which is our main article on their work. I would also suggestion Fundamentalist modernist controversy starting from the Briggs Affair on, Higher criticism, Textual criticism. Also the conservative article makes no claim that these views aren't the mainstream Biblical_hermeneutics#Christian_biblical_hermeneutics. Just start googling on the term "mainstream biblical scholarship" and you will find the views of the middle column represented. jbolden1517 ^Talk 13:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

And Historical Jesus is not mainstream either. Far from it. I've been studying it for a long time -- you may be familiar with "Jesus Under Fire," a book criticizing The Jesus Seminar; when it was published, I was in college, and two of my professors (Wilkins and Moreland) edited it, and I interviewed both of them on the subject -- and I've never seen a shred of evidence that this viewpoint represents any majority view except in liberal circles. If you have such evidence, cite it. Further, you DID admit that this is liberal scholarship. Either actually cite evidence that it is mainstream -- other than CLAIMS that it is, because you of course know that this does not constitute evidence -- or change it. Pudge (talk) 02:00, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

The book you mention is from Zondervan, an evangelical Christian publishing house, which represents the left column not the middle column. It is an apologetic written by 10 evangelicals regarding the Jesus seminar defending the orthodox view. It doesn't address the topic directly and clearly misrepresents the Jesus seminar.

Yes, and The Jesus Seminar is a liberal non-mainstream group. And no, it in no way misrepresents the Jesus Seminar. However, that you think so explains why you're violating NPOV. Pudge (talk) 07:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I gave you a 1/2 dozen sites above, if you want some more take a look at who is listed under Quest_for_the_historical_Jesus#Contemporary_scholarship. That article shows that "mainstream scholarship" is in the Albert Schweitzer Rudolf Bultmann Martin Dibelius mold not conservative Christian. Which is why those positions get 2 different columns on the chart. If you don't agree with who is mainstream on Historical Jesus then take it up there. This is subarticle about a niche group of scholars, you want to debate the main articles on the topic and argue that N.T. Wright, or Karl Barth or whomever you are arguing for is the mainstream you should debate them on their talk pages. This article is a subarticle of Historicity of Jesus and thus we follows their lead, they don't follow ours. I have yet to hear a single person on this forum agree with you that conservative Christian depictions represent the mainstream. jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:48, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow. I ask you for evidence to back up your claim that this is mainstream, and you respond, in essence, "I don't have to show that it is." Actually, yes, Wikipedia guidelines require you to cite it. Either do so, or fix it. It's broken. Pudge (talk) 07:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you miss the point, Pudge. If you want it fixed start with the flagship articles Historicity of Jesus et al.; this is a sideline article that will always defer to the precedent set in those articles; if you think that precedent is mistaken, take it up there. --davigoli (talk) 04:05, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

"Conservative" works for me too. Changed it. Tobermory (talk) 18:12, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

But "mainstream" is still incorrect. It's not mainstream at all, it's very far to the left. jbolden is POV-pushing by falsely asserting it's mainstream, in order to try to give it credence. Pudge (talk) 07:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

JBolden is not POV-pushing anything. He's following the terminology in use on this page for years now. Please take this up at Historicity of Jesus and see how far you get. Oh, and bring sources. --davigoli (talk) 04:07, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

creation of universe

As an aside, "Jesus was a normal human being, who had no part in the creation of the universe" under the 'mainstream scholarship' heading ought not be there. That is a position of faith in the same way that "Jesus is the Logos of God through whom all things were made" is a position of faith. Scholarship cannot possibly comment on that, because neither position can possibly be tested for historical accuracy. Instead of asserting "Jesus was a normal human being, who had no part in the creation of the universe", this ought to be changed to something akin to, "Jesus acquired his divine attributes through synthesis with Greek philosophical thought" (or something similarly factual). Just because a scholar makes an assertion, does not mean that assertion is scholarly. 80.254.74.16 (talk) 16:02, 10 April 2009 (UTC) (being Tobermory (talk) 10:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC))

As for the creation of the universe, you need a counter site. Something like a mainstream scholars asserting a belief in divine creation through the logos who became flesh in the person of Jesus or a secondary source saying this is this is a mainstream scholarly viewpoint. And all 3 columns are scholarly just in very different ways. jbolden1517 ^Talk 04:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

My other change was not (to quote you) stating "mainstream scholars asserting a belief in divine creation". That again would be a position of faith, not a position of testable historical fact, and therefore has no place in a "mainstream scholarship" column (even if it is a faith position expressed by individual scholars, it remains a position based not in fact - it is wholly untestable either way -, but faith). But what is universally accepted by mainstream scholarship is that the language and ideas of Greek philosophy - to include terms such as logos - were borrowed by early Christianity to describe teh doctrine of, and give academic rigour / acceptability to, the fledgeling movement. I could provide any number of 'mainstream' references in support of such an assertion. Thoughts? Tobermory (talk) 11:20, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

As for your example of logos, the point about mainstream scholarship is that it does take a faith position. The very last row the chart does that make explicit that the scholarship schools started with: Conservative Christians vs. Liberal Christians vs. Atheist. All 3 are coming from positions of "faith" in how they weigh the data. The right column asserts that Yahweh is no more real than Zeus, the middle often does believe in a God that has revealed himself to man through the person and acts of Jesus but rejects a great deal of the supernaturalism of the early Christian community and the left fully embraces a belief that Jesus was involved in supernatural events.

As for your specific about how ideas about a logos got into Christianity actually that's a major point of debate between the 3 and within mainstream scholarship. We don't have great articles on this but Signs Gospel has some of what Bultmann argued for in Das Evangelium des Johannes (his study of the book of John). The logos material came in later to christianity, after 100. Other mainstream scholars have these ideas among the god fearers that Paul was drawing on so it comes in around 50. What I've never seen a mainstream scholar assert is that these ideas were part of Jesus' message about himself. For example did Thomas actual use "theos" in reference to Jesus directl (john 20:28) the columns answer: yes/no/there was no Jesus nor a Thomas but yes. That's the key point.

I'm totally cool with a rephrasing but their attitudes towards the divinity of Christ is a very important for understanding the Christ Myth theory. Mainstream scholarship write about Jesus the way scholars would write about other figures from the Roman empire while Christ Mythers write about Jesus the way you would write about other Gods in the Roman empire. That's the main point that needs to be captured. Christ Mythers aren't denying Jesus' divinity they are denying his humanity.jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:14, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Something needs to change with the layout of the chart, then, as I read it to be Traditional Christianity vs Mainstream (academic) Scholarship vs Christ Myth theory. To be honest, I really do think that is what this chart should be showing even if it doesn't at the moment (for Liberal Christianity is definitely not the same as mainstream (albeit Christian) scholarship : the former takes a faith position sympathetic to the academic studies of the latter - and indeed this is what is behind our logos/divine creation misunderstanding, I think. There is no place modern academic study of historical matters for a priori faith-based assumptions). I'd suggest the final line is brought up to be the first line as it is essential for understanding the content of columns (I'll do that right now).

So to be concise, I believed the central column to be stating an academic position. And therefore this central column cannot possibly assert matters of faith, but of testable fact. I suggested removal of a faith position, and replaced it with something testable. Perhaps before going further we ought agree on what, exactly, this chart is trying to compare! :) Tobermory (talk) 16:56, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree here strongly, but I do think we've found the root problem. All 3 columns think they are doing scholarship and the other two are asserting things based on faith. The orthodox see the "mainstream scholars" as ignore mounds and mounds of evidence and church tradition and pulling their theories almost out of thin air, to make Jesus conform better with Liberal Christianity. The Christ Myth people constantly assert that "mainstream Scholarship" is done by members of liberal Christian churches, and their theology biases their weighing of the evidence. Liberal Christianity embraces "mainstream scholarship", atheism embraces "Christ Myth" and history of religions scholarship, orthodox Christianity embraces conservative / orthodox research. So no I don't see the middle column as being qualitatively any different than the other 2. To assert that the middle column has some unique claim to scholarship, is IMHO not being NPOV. I think wikipedia can assert that all 3 do scholarship they just start out with very different presuppositions. jbolden1517 ^Talk 20:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Addendum take a look at Liberal_Christianity#Liberal_Christian_theologians_and_authors and see how many of the big names in mainstream scholarship are there. jbolden1517 ^Talk 20:35, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for admitting that this is not mainstream scholarship, but liberal scholarship. Now please change the headings in the chart to be more accurate. Pudge (talk) 07:16, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Partly with you on this, Pudge. But its the chart that needs to change a bit, not the headings, imo. Much of it is accurate as it is now, simply because liberal Christian scholarship is all about rooting and harmonising Christian belief in the modern academic method. The difference is that modern academia deals in facts (rather, probabilities) while the liberal movement additionally (NOT exclusively) applies these conclusions to faith-positions. On an historical (factual) topic, there is a huge overlap. There reamin a couple of faith-positions in the chart, though. I'm going to take my reply to jb's to his talk page, as it brings up issues not directly relevant to this article. Tobermory (talk) 13:44, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

~~See your talk page in about 30mins, jb.~~(another time ...!) Writing something there now. Regarding your list: There is an overlap between liberal Christian scholarship, and (mainstream) modern academic scholarship. An individual scholar can be in both categories at the same time. They are not equivalent but they need not conflict. There is no reason why personal faith should affect modern academic endeavours; but when it does, you tend to be dealing with an atheist or a conservative. There is also no reason why modern academic endeavours should affect personal faith; but when it does, you're almost certainly dealing with a liberal. And this is why the centre column should show the mainstream academic position, rather than the derived liberal position: to be a contrast against the two faith positions. Not NPOV? Well only insofar as I'm arguing scientific method is preferable (when interested in actual events, rather than justifying a faith that needs no human justification) to preconceived conclusions :) Tobermory (talk) 13:44, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Tob -- Tried a slight rephrase compromise. Tell me if you think that is OK. jbolden1517 ^Talk 19:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

"Jesus is spoken of". But by whom? This is only going to get solved, I think, if we decide on this column as representing liberal or academic first. I'm happy either way on that (with a preference for academic), but it must be consistent and explained. Tobermory (talk) 13:44, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

(outdenting) I was waiting for the note on my talk page to respond but this fine I don't mind talking about the article here. I agree with you an explanation is needed. I throw up a first version. jbolden1517 ^Talk 16:29, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

A good job done :)

Tobermory (talk) 18:05, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Explicit essene/pharisee identification

Regarding this quotation, "The first Christians were Pharisees or Essenes in Palestine" : Although referenced, these are two explicit identifications amongst several theories. In reality, we're dealing with a religious continuum with certain named factions. Making a specific identification with an explicit group, whilst useful from an academic perspective as a model to stimulate further discussion of similarities and differences, is likely to always be inaccurate in fact, (especially here as our knowledge is far from complete about what these factions themselves actually believed). I really think we should tell it as it is, rather than choosing two specific model candidates when the majority of scholarship would be hesitant to make an exclusive identification with either camp (whilst recognising shared features). I believe this should be reworded to, "The first Christians were a group with similarities to Pharisees and Essenes in Palestine", or similar (NB got caught in edit conflicts here ... feel free to split this again, but I didnt want to lose changes made on my version on account of a split) Tobermory (talk) 12:45, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I understand about the edit issue, that's why I stopped. Wikipedia isn't designed for real time dialogue. I basically agree with your point here. But many scholars do in fact identify early Christians with one of these 2 groups. Moreover I'm not exactly sure what you are asserting here. Are you arguing that there was some class of Jews like the Pharisees that were not in fact Pharisees or like the Essenes that were not in fact Essenes or that there were hybrid groups ..... Can you be a bit more specific with what your claiming the theory is? But again the main point is to contrast:

mainstream scholarship which talks about the Jewish sects of the 1st century
Christ Myth which talks about the Jewish sects of the 1st century but identifies the early Christians with entirely different sects.
orthodoxy which talks about "Judaism" in terms of God's revelations through the prophets and doesn't speak in terms of sects.

That's what the chart is trying to capture. I'll rephrase the chart as above jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Agree 100% to your three bullets, and that is the distinction the chart needs to show. My point was that the box for mainstream scholarship should, however, reflect the doubt involved in identification: it should be absolutely clear that firm identification is not possible. So, add to the first bullet a shred of doubt ... :)

"Are you arguing that there was some class of Jews like the Pharisees that were not in fact Pharisees or like the Essenes that were not in fact Essenes or that there were hybrid groups" - Yes to all of it! Palestine was an angry melting-pot of all sorts of religious influences, and differing opinions. We have the names to a bunch of factions. And eg. in the case of the Essenes especially, what we know for certain is very, very little: our sources are problematic and sometimes contradictory (some of them - eg. potential Mishnah references - didn't really know, or care, about what they meant by the terms themselves!), so any argument using these sources is already based on assumptions. And that there can be two main camps in this debate shows that there are problems with both models. While academic identifications will be made, they are but models to be used as a starting point, upon which further arguments can be advanced. No scholar is going to say "Early Christians were, as all the evidence indicates, wayward Pharasees/Essenes/whatever", because there are problems with all positions, and a single definitive statement like that is simplistic. It all depends how the pieces of evidence are weighed up. Tobermory (talk) 17:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Happy with your latest version. Tobermory (talk) 18:11, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Rephrase to 1st article paragraph

JBolden, you need to read up on your Elaine Pagels, Bart Ehrman, and Joseph Campbell, at least. Gnosticism is absolutely considered legitimate, and even quite an important influence on early Christianity. --davigoli (talk) 20:44, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I might point out, however, that in terms of Biblical scholarship appreciation for Gnosticism is relatively recent, as the Nag Hammadi texts were first made widely available in the mid-1970s; before that time, almost everything that was known about the Gnostics was from second-hand reports from the likes of Iraneus, who considered them heretics. That's why a general negative disposition about them persisted for a long time. --davigoli (talk) 20:56, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I cite Pagels in this very block (currently footnote #51). Campbell I think essentially is a Christ myther. Erhman I would be happy to use but I know him mainly from his NA27 stuff not his gnosticism stuff. jbolden1517 ^Talk 21:12, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Campbell is a wildcard; where do you put this position? "Zoroaster, the Buddha, and Christ seem to have been historical characters. ... But whether fictional or historical, the names and figures of the great and little heroes of the world act irresistibly as magnets to those floating filaments of myth that are everywhere in the air. [Citing Prof. Charles Guignebert]: 'Jesus the Nazarene disappeared and gave place to the glorified Christ.' It could not have been otherwise. ... Through such a process history is lost; but history also is made". (Campbell: Occidental Mythology, p. 347) I think given the current strict definition in use in the article, he would not be a Jesus-Myther, but in all respects but the most strict he regards the historical figure of Jesus to be so unimportant that he might as well not have existed. --davigoli (talk) 21:36, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment. I put it right into the 2007 definition "Jesus is not meaningfully historical". There may be some historical basis but it has little to do with the myth. The key is not really Campbell's attitude towards Jesus' historiography but rather the the fact he is part of the "history of religions" movement who sees Christian myth as being qualitatively little different than Greek, Egyptian, Assyrian... myth. Myth for him is myth. He doesn't spend years agonizing about whether there are still any remaining elements of the historical Osiris which can be recovered. jbolden1517 ^Talk 01:15, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore I think the chart in general is somewhat problematic; remember the ONLY thing that cleanly distinguishes the Jesus Myth school from mainstream scholarship is the contention that there was no historical Jesus. That's it. That's the only thing. All the rest of the stuff in that chart can and has been proposed and held by mainstream scholars - so I'm suspicious that the chart may give the misleading impression that a lot of this mainstream stuff is actually fringe. For example, Joseph Campbell is either a mythicist or he's not - and based on past discussion, the editors have concluded that he isn't. Yet he would most definitely agree with statements like "Jesus was associated with savior gods, who are frequently ascribed unusual births in mythology" and "Jesus is a creation of scriptures and thus fulfills them. Resurrection is an integral component of a life-death-rebirth deity.". I think the chart actually muddies this issue by trying to categorize things too aggressively. --davigoli (talk) 01:17, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

The claim of no historical Jesus doesn't work that cleanly. That's what Bruce has been saying for 5 months. Most everybody we think of as being in the "Christ myth" school do believe in the possibility of some historical basis. That's why I keep pushing Jesus as the founder of Christianity as the "clean definition". That does IMHO work. jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:01, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Bruce has been saying that for longer than 5 months. And he's wrong. The people whom scholarly secondary sources tell us are part of the "Christ myth" school deny the existence of a historical Jesus. Jbolden, you seem to be most interested in people like Doherty, Freke/Gandy, Acharya S--more recent authors. For all I know these folks may allow that a 1st century CE Jesus of Nazareth had some role in the founding of Christianity. But that's not what Bauer/Drews/Robertson/Smith were doing--and those are the people that scholarly sources talk about as being the "Christ myth" school--Doherty and Freke/Gandy are not even a blip on the radar in scholarly sources, and Acharya S is barely noticed. Scholarly sources are very clear in making historicity/non-historicity a firm dividing line. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Simply claiming I'm wrong doesn't cut it. To date Akhilleus has failed to produced ANY reference that prove his contention that the uses of Christ Myth Theory are describing the same thing. You will notice that once I challenged it in Wikipedia:No_original_research/noticeboard#Christ_Myth_Theory_definition he couldn't back off from his original position fast enough. He did this same kind of song and dance with a quote from Grant (actually it was Grant quoting two other authors we didn't know from Adam) for months. The fact that that quote is no longer used in the article PROVES that it was as the majority of editors contented essentially useless.

The fact of the matter is few scholars use the term "Christ Myth School" constantly either. In his Jesus Legend (1996) the preface by Hoffmann talks about "the old Christ Myth School" implying of course that there is a new Christ Myth School. Hoffmann goes on talking about Wells being "the most contemporary defender of non-historicity thesis" pg xii and yet in "Can We Trust the New Testament?" on pg 50 Well himself expressly states that he had abandoned the Jesus is entirely mythical position in Jesus Legend going to the Paul's Jesus psudo-mythical 1st possibly 2nd century BCE would be messiah called Jesus + historical Q Jesus = non historical (by definition) Gospel Jesus. This is backed up by statement by Price, Doherty, AND R. Jusoeph Hoffmann (Westminster College Oxford) in FIVE difference sources two of them differently in the books involved. The more I dig the more Akhilleus' claim falls apart like a cheap suit.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

This is an interesting issue that the theory has evolved somewhat, and I agree with you it has. The 20th century was a watershed in bible reconstruction. It is hard to read the bible the same way after Rudolf Bultmann as people did before. It may turn out that he has changed how humanity reads the bible as greatly as Saint Jerome we will have to wait a few centuries to see. But it is almost impossible for modern writers not to see the layers. The early Christ Myth authors talked about how these might exist the modern ones make this front and center. They aim to describe the mechanism and discuss the history by which people came to believe the events described in the gospels actually happened. The early authors worked in terms of analogies the modern ones in terms of specific document histories.

I also see the problem that the secondary sources over simplify the issue greatly mainly because they don't want to deal with it in depth. I want to buy In search of Jesus By Clinton Bennett because he does deal with the range (though none of them really in depth). And there is no question you know the secondary literature better than I do. That being said... when I read the 19th century / turn of the century stuff the focus of evidence is always on Paul and the other writings, not on the gospels. The mainstream writers tend to view epistles as a questionable source about Jesus, the myth people agree with the orthodox Christians that the epistles are a primary source. I don't see anywhere near the focus on the gospels from the early writers that the article implies. Both the mythers and the orthodox assert that we do have a good written record for how early Christians viewed Jesus in the various theological works they wrote and thus focus on the epistles in their analysis. Bruno Braur mainly attacks the historicity of Mark, and really is attacking the apologists. That Jesus cannot be lifted from the supernaturalist world of the gospels. Which is why I push for "meaning historical" rather than "historical". Because I don't think they deny everything even going back 150 years. jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:36, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Jbolden, I agree with you that views of Christian origins have changed dramatically over the 20th century. The publication of Nag Hammadi and the Dead Sea Scrolls means that a lot of theories from the 19th/early 20th century now seem obsolete. But Bauer/Drews/etc., working with the data they had available, really were saying that there was no historical Jesus, in response to liberal protestant attempts to reconstruct a human Jesus of Nazareth from the Gospel accounts. If Doherty, Freke/Gandy, Acharya S are saying something different, fine. If you want to add something to the lead that says "Recent proponents of a mythical origin of Christianity such as Earl Doherty allow that there may have been a historical Jesus of Nazareth who contributed to the origin of Christianity, but the epistles and Gospels largely chronicle a mythical, non-historical Jesus," that's fine, as long as this accurately represents what more recent proponents are saying. But the secondary sources are clear that Bauer/Drews/et al. say that there was no historical Jesus of Nazareth. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:49, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Cool! I actually can say something much weaker (which IMHO also applies to the 19th century guys) but compromise accepted. Lets agree on the wording and then I'll include: Recent proponents of a mythical origin of Christianity such as G.A. Wells and Earl Doherty allow that some gospel material may have been drawn from a historical preacher or preachers. But they hold that these preachers were not in any sense "the founder of Christianity" rather that Christianity emerged organically from Hellenistic Judaism, the epistles and Gospels largely chronicle a mythical, non-historical Jesus. Is that acceptable? jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

While I like it and it agrees with the vague definitions of Dodd and Pike, and possibly Bromiley, and the statements of Price, R Joseph Hoffmann, and Doherty it has problems with Horbury, Jones, and Wiseman who all expresslly state that the Christ Myth Theory is that Jesus NEVER existed. We again hit the problem Akhilleus refuses to accept and that is the PROOF that various definitions of Christ Myth Theory don't match (he has failed to produce a reference that shows all the various definitions we have found DO match). Heck, Hoffmann shows that even the term non-historical may vary (I really don't want to open that can of worms). Furthermore at least one of the references Akhilleus himself has presented (Weaver) puts Drews in a totally different light:

"In the preface to the first and second edition of his work Drews noted that his purpose was to show that everything about the historical Jesus had a mythical character and thus it was not necessary to presuppose that a historical figure ever existed." (Weaver (1999) The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900-1950 pg 50) That doesn't read like saying that Drews was originally saying Jesus didn't exist but more along the lines of what Tom Harpur is currently saying. Did Drews change his mind in later editions? Is Drews position being misrepresented? What exactly is going on here?--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:39, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Well if I have Bruce and Akhilleus to agree that's progress I'll put it in. :-) As an aside I do agree with you that Drews also held this position, it is my contention that with a few exceptions this has always been the contention of everyone in the CM school (that is the 20th century stuff is unneeded). Acharya who IMHO does the best survey of the 19th century literature and she contends that the definition of the distinction (which she takes from Massey) is "It was human history that accreted around the divinity, and not the human being that became divine" (CC p 20). And she is working from primarily older sources. As an aside in terms of modern sources, she is (I think everyone would agree) at the absolute extreme of the Christ Myth school. But even she agrees that a lot of the Q preaching material is common to 1st century preachers. So yes I don't think there is anything modern about this definition. But I don't have a strong opinion about the secondary literature which is where the stronger definition is coming from. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:03, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Chart heading (and other bits)

Intro Paragraph and Biblical Scholars

A good job done :) My only criticism with that paragraph is it seems to consider "biblical scholars" (as per that list) as the only branch of mainstream scholarship that has anything to say on the historicity of a Jesus figure. Palestinian archaeology (preferably secular rather than the explicitly 60s/70s biblical efforts. eg. Magness is a name people will recognise for her rejection of that Jesus tomb discovery) is important. More so, scholars of the Jewish textual and cultural context (eg. Collins, Vanderkam, Vermes), and of external cultures (eg. Pearson). Liberal Christianity focuses on the biblical, but also interprets evidence from the whole range of these disciplines. Will tinker with it a bit Tobermory (talk) 18:05, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Cool glad we agree on the intro. I think the into material is a definite improvement. Now onto the change. In theory I'm OK with it, but we have to be careful. We run into a bit of a problem though if you broaden to other disciplines. The issue of the Christ Myth theory being fringe starts getting very murky. Christ Myth came out of history of religions so in disciplines like anthropology you see a lot more support for key ideas of the Christ Myth theory. Statements like "scholars reject the notion that early Christian discussions of Jesus are qualitatively different than those of Horus" cease to be true in that absolute sense. To even your example, Pearson is quoting extensively on Freke. I happen to think Walter Braur schol (Pearson, Pagels, Turner...) is for all practical purpose in the right column not the middle. Pearson's "The Emergence of the Christian Religion" basically argues that the belief in a non mythical deity for scholars came from the fact that Christianity's claims to legitimacy hang on its historicity. And remember we are talking about a guy who spent a lifetime proving that Christian Gnosticism emerged from Jewish Gnosticism not from Orthodox Christianity (see the historical steps), confirming Walter Braur's main contentention. So the issue is once you broaden out beyond biblical scholarship we no longer have a clear mainstream / Christ myth dichotomy. Turner is the worse of the 3, he has basically reconstructed something that is almost indistinguishable from Christianity (a suffering servant who had become incarnate and then died horribly as predicted by the scriptures, who is worshipped via. eucharist and baptism...) emerging prior to any input from Christianity and then themselves seeing their religion and proto-catholic christianity as essentially the same (just using different words). Pagels I assume you are familiar with.

So go ahead and add or propose wording but be aware of the landmines. jbolden1517 ^Talk 19:43, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Made some changes, but I think I've stepped on a few! I'm not sure its necessary to mention the Liberals in the intro (they don't now feature in a column, afterall), but I'm going to the explanation in the 'origins' row of the chart. Oh, and you don't want to know my views of Pagels: she is somewhere out there keeping the likes of Thiering company .... Tobermory (talk) 21:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

you made about 15 changes. I made one major alteration and 1 grammar fix, good job on your changes! The major change is that we shouldn't be presenting apologetics for the mainstream position in this article where it doesn't conflict directly with Christ Myth. I felt it was off topic and not direct at the key point, the comparison. Feel free to pick another word for skeptical.

In terms of Pagels have you ever read her early 2 books: The Gnostic Paul and Gnostic Exegesis of John? You might like those better, she's just describing how the gnostics read various texts. Also her translation work is excellent. I get where you are coming from on her more popular literature, but I see that more at this point as a Christian reformer foremost though we obviously disagree on her scholarship.

jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:30, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Heresies?

Regarding this quotation, "Non canonical works are generally 2nd and 3rd century written by heretics under the influence of Hellenism. They should not be treated as informative of anything other than alternate fringe views.". Minor quibbles here: calling heresies "fringe views" implies heresies were minor movements. In some cases they certainly were not (eg. Arianism). Also, it is absolutely wrong to suggest non-canonical works can tell us nothing useful of mainstream early Christianity. Take, for example, the Gospel of Thomas (non-canonical, unorthodox doctrinal outlook, yet shared tradition with the canonical gospels) and The Shepherd of Hermas (non-canonical, but broadly orthodox and often quoted in early orthodox writings). Will reword accordingly. Tobermory (talk) 13:21, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I changed "non canonical" to Gnostic. You certainly are right that non canonical is much too vague. I was aiming for a word to capture "rejected works (not rejected from the canon) and seen as heretical" and that was bad phrasing. I may switch too something else but I'll agree non canonical is bad. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Definitely prefer "non-canonical" to "Gnostic", as Gnostic is a designation of a spectrum of doctrines that can be applied to much - but not all - of the surviving texts. It's really not an easy problem to solve in one word: anything that might be used is either inaccurate or perjorative. How about this rephrase? "2nd and 3rd century non-canonical works often contain heretical leanings. However they can still provide useful information on the context for, and influences on, the development of early Christianity." Tobermory (talk) 14:35, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

What pejoritive ones can you suggest? Pejorative may not be a problem. Go ahead and brainstorm. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Well a standard historical term for extra-canonical works in both OT and NT is "Apocrypha" ("hidden" knowledge, from Gk, cf eg 4Ezra14 wrt OT additions). The historical usage of this term when applied to these works is quite complex and inconsistent: cf Rufinius/Jerome/Cyril of Jerusalem. Sometimes the term is used where we would term something "pseudepigraphical" (Jerome - 'apocrypha are not written by those to whom they are ascribed' and to be avoided, and yet elsewhere he sees some of them as valuable edifying literature). In a modern sense, something that is apocryphal to one group might very well be holy writ to another, and the term has the scope to cause offence. But even a modern fundamentalist Christian would see some value - but no authority - in some of these extra-scriptural works. I suppose at least there is an article on NT apocrypha on Wiki, so it would be reasonable to use it here with a link. But it also doesn't cover some of the beliefs of more 'distant' heresies, like Manichaeism that nevertheless had some effect on the formation (or at least the emphasis) of mainstream Christian doctrine. Better to be simple and stick with "non-canonical" (define 'canon' ... heh) , than technical and run into problems with "apocryphal" ? Undecided and rambling! Tobermory (talk) 16:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

But no I want to avoid the terms 2nd and 3rd century. Dating of gospel material is very different between these groups. They don't agree on what came when at all, they don't even agree on the order of dependency. I'll pick an example. The orthodox would assert that Luke was an early work written by a single individual and the Gospel of the Lord came it. Mainstream scholarship has the GoL coming from Canonical Luke or L2. Christ Mythers often have GoL being L2 and canonical Luke coming from it. jbolden1517 ^Talk 14:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Instead of c2/c3 (were there before I got to the article, anyway), why specify at all ? From a traditional standpoint its generally the canonical books that are the earliest, and the rest are later imitations or falsities. That would make the second column read, "Non-canonical works often contain heretical leanings. However they can still provide useful information on the context for, and influences on, the development of early Christianity". Incidentally, the Iranaeus referenced in support of the first column certainly did not mean to say that all religious writings other than those of the Canon are works of Satan; not even the most rabid fundamentalist would seriously argue that! We'd be better citing a more nuanced view (Bernard? Anselm? will dig something out from the monastic tradition, as this concept is central to Christian learning): basically, anything that contradicts the teaching from canon of scripture may be said to be the work of Satan (cf Polycarp on the Antichrist), but anything else may be of spiritual value to the individual according to its merits Tobermory (talk) 16:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

What about just focusing on early non canonical gospels? That limits the scope enough to get rid of stuff like shepherd or hermes and didache. The relative importance of these works is a key point of comparison. Mainstream scholarship pays very little attention while Christ Myth considers extremely important. Mainstream scholarly works very very rarely choose things "events" from Jesus life that occur in non canonical literature. This is showing up in "alternative minority" vs. fringe. I see no evidence that mainstream scholarship sees the views of the gnostics as legitimate views. jbolden1517 ^Talk 19:55, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

"Mainstream scholarship pays very little attention" - Mainstream academic scholarship pays significant attention to all writings, but its aims are different. They are of less interest to liberal scholarship because - even if they provide context - they are not particularly relevant when forming faith-positions. What must be clear in the comparison is how these texts are seen to relate to a historical Jesus (as per article title). It is not disputed by anyone that very little of this entire body of literature holds any clearly historical information about a Jesus figure (as opposed to the beliefs of early Christian sects). When narrowed down to early gospels in the context of an historical Jesus, academic scholarship is dealing with potential historically accurate material (or, at the least, a dual literary tradition from a potentially common accurate? source): eg. the Gospel of Thomas contains sayings of Jesus, some of which share parallels in canonical gospels. Tobermory (talk) 15:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

"I see no evidence that mainstream scholarship sees the views of the gnostics as legitimate views". I don't understand that sentence. Gnostics had views, and these views are known through interpretations of their surviving texts. Academic scholarship does not judge the legitimacy of faith, and is only interested in the content of those views. Tobermory (talk) 15:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

What I mean is that mainstream scholarship / liberal Christianity believe that the gnostics were factual wrong about Jesus. What they hold are views like: Mary Magdaline was not his most beloved disciple who received secret teachings, and Peter did better represent his views. Jesus did have a material body, did really did eat food, go to the bathroom. Jesus did not preach against the creator God and his creation. There is no connection between Jesus and Sophia. etc.... jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

My suggested text would be :

1) Con : Non-canonical writings have no spiritual authority, and any contradictions to the Canon are errors. Where there is common ground, they may be of spiritual value to individuals. Whether or not non-canonical writings contain shreds of historical accuracy is irrelevant to Christian Faith.

2) Aca : Non-canonical texts were written by many disparate minority/regional sects, at a generally later date than the canonical texts. For this reason they are less interested in a historical figure than religious matters defining the author's particular beliefs. Some contain useful data for comparative purposes, and all help place the development of early Christianity into a wider philosophical context.

3) Myth : The very diversity of writings indicates that early Christianity did not begin with a historical figure (like Jesus), but adapted beliefs of other religions. The NT canon was chosen because it can be interpreted to be internally consistent, rather than because it is historically accurate.

Further to this, I think a line needs adding in the chart explaining the motive for this whole investigation differs for each of the groups. Tobermory (talk) 15:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

(outdenting) On the plus side I worked in a version of the academic. Wow I hate to be this argumentative, but the other two I disagree with.

I'm not sure conservatives Protestants see "spiritual value" in any of them. Catholics do, but don't really mean much by that. The Catholic right tends to see value in these documents in so far as the church endorses them. As for, "Whether or not non-canonical writings contain shreds of historical accuracy is irrelevant to Christian Faith" I disagree strongly. Conservatives even more so than liberals believe that Christianity is a historical faith dependent on historical truth. Proving the correctness of a non canonical gospel would in their opinion disprove Christianity, it would simply be a false religion.

Your statement of the myth position is incorrect in a few regards:

They do not believe the diversity of writings indicates that Christianity did not begin with a historical figure. They hold that is evident from the canonical writings.
What they do believe is that the diversity of writings helps reconstruct what their actual views were and how they evolved.
"The NT canon was chosen because it can be interpreted to be internally consistent"
1. in general the Christ myth theory doesn't take positions on 4th century Christianity. The disagreement with mainstream scholarship ends at or before the late 2nd century.
2. They would make claims about how the books of the NT canon were constructed and popularized (for example the Luke vs. GoL we discussed). In general though they see popularization as having proceeded from a power grab i.e. they agree with the 2nd century Gnostics about the proto-catholics.
3. Finally they don't see the NT canon as remotely consistent except in that it supports the institutional church.

jbolden1517 ^Talk 17:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm far from knowledgable about the Christ-myth position. I'm happy to take your word for it over what and how they try to argue in their corner.

I can speak with a bit more knowledge on the "conservative" side of things, though. First, by "spiritual value" I meant being of value to the individual in their relationship with God, rather than having any salvific value (ie. the sufficiency of Scripture). The "spiritual" could be argued as more 'protestant' than Catholic insofar as the general protestant position focuses upon the individual's internal relationship (knowledge in support of faith), rather than the corporate. The position of moderate protestants is to reject only the authority of non-scriptural works (unless they are in support of an interpretation of scripture or good practice. cf. the massive use of the Church Fathers by all Reformation moderates).

If we take this back pre-reformation, we see a similar attitude in the (Western, and inherently conservative) monastic tradition, which encouraged study of anything and everything to further this relationship. Go back further, and we see early Christianity taking the bits of which it approved (eg. philosophical language (on christology, godhead, providence and will, etc), ethics (esp. Stoicism, some devotional texts)). And where they didn't approve, it caused a point of debate with non-Christians and the need for Christianity to refine its language and doctrine in response to these external movements. Thus the benchmark of usefulness has always been suitability for purpose and orthodoxy to the canon, and not canonicity itself (and even there then there are rare exceptions, eg. Tertullian's use and defence of Enoch). Tobermory (talk) 19:42, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Let me point out here this is the problem with "non canonical". The original intent was about "heretical" or "rejected" early christian writings. I certainly don't include Clement. What do you think about going back to the original wording or some combination except using "rejected/heretical early christian writings"? jbolden1517 ^Talk 20:17, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Happy to go with "rejected as heretical". I think both components are required, though. Changing now, and will see how it looks Tobermory (talk) 21:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

You have misunderstood what I wrote regarding the importance of historical accuracy though (my fault for not being more clear). Obviously, it matters to the Christian that Jesus existed, as indeed it matters that the scriptural account is factually accurate (within bounds of accepted interpretation). What does not matter, though, is proving the detail. Faith is the key, and Scripture is its own witness. Tobermory (talk) 19:42, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I wrote, "Whether or not non-canonical writings contain shreds of historical accuracy is irrelevant to Christian Faith", intending definite emphasis on the "non-canonical". The protestant position is the sufficiency of scripture (the catholic position - with complications - would include, 'as interpreted through the magisterium and traditions of the Church') - details outside scripture are not required for the salvation of the believer. So I do stand by bullets 1/2 ... but they need more than a bit of a reword Tobermory (talk) 19:42, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I would agree there but we are getting closer. It is conservatives not liberals that focus on apologetics. I would agree that conservatives (as you move further to the right especially) tend to focus on presuppositional rather than evidential apologetics; i.e. Christianity is an all or nothing proposition to them. For them the issue of inerrancy is undecided, even one false statement in scripture would overturn a major doctrine. Maybe that is what you are looking for? jbolden1517 ^Talk 20:17, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Am ok with the reword of my second bullet, with one minor point : "however they do not contain historically reliable information abut Jesus himself.". The big exception being the Gospel of Thomas which overlaps with the canonical gospels in some sayings and parables without clearly using them as a source. This could potentially be an echo (reliable echo?) of an historical figure, and the fact that there IS an overlap without it sharing a literary source is seen as an indication of their possible accuracy. Rewording (and doing that previous change I didnt get aroudn to about an hour ago!). Tobermory (talk) 19:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

(awaiting change for response)

The problem is that saying and parable overlap is NOT "historically reliable information about Jesus himself". Those sayings could have just as easily come from the Teacher of Wisdom in the 2nd century BCE or the 100 BCE Jesus especially as the range for the dating of this Gospels ranges from 60 CE to 140 CE effectivley the same range given to the canonal Gospels. Historically reliable information would be a temporal marker to refer to and in that regard the Gospel of Thomas has nothing. As one scholar on A&E's Who Wrote the Bible? said "Jesus is a talking head. It is the living Jesus as scripture"--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:34, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Davidic messiah

Regarding this quotation, "He did however believe that God would provide miracles to fulfil the military function of the messiah." : Evidence? Cannot think of anything textual at all. Should be scrubbed, I think. Tobermory (talk) 18:21, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Meier synthesis (vol 2) of "A marginal Jew". Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium Erhman, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. But it does combine two ideas here military role and end of history. I'll think about a rephrase jbolden1517 ^Talk 19:29, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

What to do with Chart

On another note, I agree with Davigoli that the chart is problematic because it tries to categorize different positions too neatly. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I throw in a disclaimer to say that. I just want focus the general article on the generalities of the theories. I figure the individual author articles can handle their specifics. So for example Archarya's focus on Astro theology vs. Wells focus on wisdom literature should be mentioned here but focused on their own articles. This article is already getting really long. jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

There's an additional stylistic problem--the chart is trying to explain graphically things that really ought to be explained in prose. Readers aren't coming to an article like this to be confronted with a multipage chart as the first section. They're coming here to read an explanation of ideas in connected prose. Charts should supplement body text, not replace it. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The chart was mainly to make it clear there is an underlying unified theory. There was a lot of concern about artificial synthesis even though the primary authors themselves agree their works supports each other. I'd be thrilled to start converting the chart to prose. jbolden1517 ^Talk 03:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

It being Easter Sunday, I'm a bit busy with other things today to add to this discussion at the moment. That being said, I'd really like to voice my opinion that the chart should stay IF it can be made to present accurate information rather than forced contrasts. For those new to a subject, having the differences between camps clearly set out in the chart is, I think, more help than harm. Tobermory (talk) 13:28, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Graphic

I was thinking this format might be useful for the argument section. We could do one the other way explaining how mainstream side sees Christ myth:

Christ is a mythical character
? How do you know
The early christian literature speaks of him in terms of a dieing and rising savior god
? how do you know that wasn't because the historical apostles preached the importance of the resurrection?
Because the literate makes no mention of a historical resurrection

....

Or something. I think it captures how each side feels about the others arguments. It might also be too apologetic? What are your all thoughts? jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is these are strawman and not accurate representations of the views and are somewhat OR.--67.16.90.243 (talk) 14:47, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of this graphic, either. It is somewhat OR. This article needs to contextualize how the ideas it talks about relate to the larger body of thought about the historical Jesus and the development of early Christianity, but this article isn't the place for the kind of broad overviews of all thought about early Christianity that are embodied in Christ_myth_theory#Chart and the graphic above. Another problem is that the article needs text, not pictures. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I fully agree with Akhilleus regarding the graphic. Another thing I really don't like is it polarizes the whole Christ myth concept into two extremes with the middle ground being totally lost. Christ myth can refer to the myth that grew up around the man (as Remsburg and a few others have used the term) or it can refer to the idea that the man himself is a myth (what this article tries to deal with). Compounding matters is the fact that Weaver indicates that the early editions of Drews' book were more of a doubting Thomas position than the flat out denial the later editions were as described in Did Jesus really live : a reply to The Christ myth (1911). As I said before we have to watch for a the excluded middle in this.--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Tacitus / Chrestianos

Giendone and 87 can you explain what is going on with the Tacitus / Chrestianos a little more clearly. I think you are perhaps not drawing the conclusion and revert waring isn't helping. Is the idea that the latest ultra violet proves, shows .... the the Tacitus ref is a forgery? As written the debate isn't clear.

And more generally for everyone, should we just mention this and link off to Tacitus on Christ and let the experts on this ref cover it in detail? I don't know why we should have extended coverage and not just a one-two sentence mention. jbolden1517 ^Talk 20:12, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Roger's edit at Tactitus on Christ is I think a bit ORish, we shouldn't comment on rather something is correct or not, I may contact him. Dougweller (talk) 20:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Which editor is Roger?
I was actually asking something more basic. How is the e/i dispute tied to the Christ myth issue?

jbolden1517 ^Talk 21:04, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Roger Pearse who added the Oskar Augustsson edit to the ToC article. Too many talk page edits today, I lost track. This may tie in with Journal of Higher Criticism where Augustsson's article is to be published, take a look at its website. Dougweller (talk) 21:10, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

OK I've read the paper (I think I read it earlier when it was being added to other work) and I'm still having trouble seeing what this has to do with Christ myth. Maybe I'm being incredible dense but how does Chrestianos vs. Christianos change anything? Is the idea that Taitan was writing about the "Chrestians" which caused the fire not the Christians? That seems a bit far fetched? Or is this evidence for the whole Isu Chrestos issue, which is very very relevant but then we need to explain the importance (and bring new authors). I'd like to know what is being argued in the bigger picture. jbolden1517 ^Talk 01:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

As would I. I was only interested in the sourcing issue. Seeing that Francesco Carotta was involved in the Augustsson's paper may be a clue. Dougweller (talk) 04:53, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Christos (anointed) is monarchical, Chrestos (holy oracle?) is religious. That moves it further away from Caesar. jbolden1517 ^Talk 06:43, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

True, ignore me. It was far to early to be editing/awake. Dougweller (talk) 08:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The connection to the Christ myth could be that if Tacitus spoke of Chrestians ("the good") he could also have been speaking of Chrestus (good, useful), and then not about Christus ("anointed"). Still, the user taking away the article is apparently having a personal vendetta towards the author of the article, and is to be blocked and/or ignored, to say the least. Perhaps the article does not fit in this context. It does indeed not say that Tacitus is a forgery, and nowhere in it is Carotta's Caesar theory showing in any way. It is used at Jesusneverexisted.com, so I guessed it could be relevant. In any case it certainly does not seem like a hoax of any kind./Giendone (talk) 00:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Roger Pearse is by the way head of The Tertullian Project./Giendone (talk) 00:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I've raised this at [4]. I don't think 'hoax' comes into this. I believe the articles the Journal publishes are frequently relevant to this article, but is this particular one? Certainly since Rao only says 'hypothesis' it's a huge jump to 'conclusive' or any such implication, and I don't see how Augustsson is a reliable source. I'm not sure what his field is -- from one page I found on the web, it may be law, but he's no expert on this. Dougweller (talk) 11:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The Journal of Higher Criticism does not employ peer review. Its editor, Robert M. Price, is a "professor" at an unaccredited theological seminary. Articles in this journal are not good sources for this article. --Akhilleus (talk) 12:08, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Akhilleus, I still have some questions about the specific Taitan content but I have to disagree with you regarding JHC with regard to this article. Price is editor in chief; Doherty, Eisenman and Detering are authors. It unquestionably is an RS for this article. The people we are writing about have created a journal to discuss their ideas, this article discusses their ideas. Articles in the journal are being peer reviewed within this subgroup. I can't see any reason to argue this journal doesn't represent mythicist positions. You could argue that its conclusions shouldn't be stated in wikipedia's voice but I wouldn't go beyond that. jbolden1517 ^Talk 13:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

That is definitely not peer review as commonly understood. Don't you see that a UFO journal could claim their journal was peer reviewed using the same logic? Dougweller (talk) 16:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Also just because something is peer reviewed doesn't mean it may be relevant. For example, Anthropology of Consciousness is peer reviewed by any reasonable standard and is published through the American Anthropological Association. The abstract for Fischer, Roland (1994) "On The Story-Telling Imperative That We Have In Mind" Anthropology of Consciousness. Dec 1994, Vol. 5, No. 4: 16 states "There is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived, to give an example, and Christianity is based on narrative fiction of high literary and cathartic quality. On the other hand Christianity is concerned with the narration of things that actually take place in human life." and in the main body there is this: "It is not possible to compare the above with what we have, namely, that there is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived."

However it was argued that since this was seemed outside the Journal's range of expertise that it was not relevant and so wasn't allowed in this article.--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:26, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Bruce, I'd be open to reopening that debate. I think that quote should be in the article. jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

That article appeared in a journal that seems to be peer reviewed. It meets the guidelines of a reliable source. That doesn't mean it's good, or that it should be used; and there's no sign that Bruce has read the article beyond what's freely available on the web, or understood the article; if he had, he would understand that the article doesn't say what he thinks it says. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

You have to realize Akhilleus in the past has claimed that despite having published many articles in relevant peer journals that Price is somehow not a reliable source simply because he doesn't currently work for an accredited institution. He also argued for months on a "quote" by Grant which was actually Grant quoting two other authors who statements could not be proven and who published in questionable publishers (Penguin and SCM). Despite SCM's own web site's meta tag saying "Religious Book Publishers. Buy books now using our secure online ordering" Akhilleus tried to bluff his way through it by simply quoting the web page rather than presenting any independent academic source that called SCM scholarly. The quote finally disappeared and despite his very long claim it was valid Akhilleus has not put it back in.

Another time Akhilleus stated "Unless this business about Santa Claus, John Frum, etc. is brought up by a JMH theorist..." when he had previously commented on an article called Christ a Fiction (1997) whose first line states "I remember a particular Superboy comic book in which the Boy of Steel somehow discovers that in the future, he is thought to be as mythical as Peter Pan and Santa Claus." showing that his reading of articles and properly remembering their contents is not to be trusted.--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

(reply Doug) I agree with your analogy but disagree with your conclusion. (I don't know much about UFO religions so please be generous regarding my attempt to work with your analogy). Let's assume that we had a dedicated subpage on Reptilian humanoids focused on how they control the world and David Icke and John Lash along with others formed a peer reviewed journal Journal of Lizards. Yeah I'd say that would constitute an extremely reliable source regarding the details of the reptilian conspiracy to control the planet's political system. Where else is wikipedia going to get that information? There are mentions on the BBC example but by and large they are biographical.

Peer reviewed means that people in the field have reviewed it, that the article doesn't represent the author's individual opinion. It doesn't mean that the field is legitimate. Lots of journals are peer reviewed and nonsense. For example the Australian Journal of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine (AJACM). WP:NPOV means that wikipedia has no position on whether there is a reptilian conspiracy or not. WP:Undue means that on most articles wikipedia's position should be not to mention that POV since it is rejected by 99.99% of the population. But on articles focused on aliens... yeah such a journal can't have undue weight, it is the main topic. So for example I certainly wouldn't want to treat Journal of Lizards on the George W Bush page, but on other lizard conspiracy related pages like The Last Sucker yes I would.

Hope that makes my position clear. I consider JHC to much much higher quality than David Icke's stuff, but the analogy allowed me to focus on the basic principle. jbolden1517 ^Talk 18:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

"Peer reviewed means that people in the field have reviewed it" -- well, what's the field here, exactly? Is it Christ myth theory studies? The JHC claims to be about higher criticism--essentially, a mode of analysis of the text of the Bible. So if this journal is reviewed by people in the field, it should be experts in biblical studies--the kinds of people who do peer review for the Journal of Biblical Studies, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, etc. Do you think those journals are sending articles to Earl Doherty for review?

Something that you seem to be saying, jbolden, is that articles from the JHC can be used for this article because they're good sources for the Christ myth theory. Maybe some articles from the JHC would be appropriate here, because they provide important information about the views of advocates of the theory; but this does not mean that the journal qualifies as a reliable source by Wikipedia's definition. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah that's what I'm saying. This article is about a group of writers and JHC is a reliable source about those writers. The article is quite clear that the RS in biblical studies disagree with these writers. As an aside though I would say the field here is not biblical studies it is anthropology and history. Christ myth proponents are not lower criticism experts. One of their key ideas is that religious ideas should be studied the same way economic or scientific or other sorts of ideas are studied and not put in a special category. jbolden1517 ^Talk 12:23, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

This goes back to something I said over two years ago: this subject needs some historical anthropological (Ethnology) experts to comment on it. But when simply stating Adam and Eve are fictional can get you fired from your teaching job what professor is going to take on the Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels didn't exist chestnut? I should point out that the whole "Christ myth theory" theory has effectively broken into two camps: those who flat out state Jesus never existed in any shape or form and those who say if you use a null hypothesis approach you can't show that the Jesus of the Gospels existed.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is a difference for an atheist, Russell's teapot. jbolden1517 ^Talk 01:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Russell's teapot, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and The Dragon in My Garage are all based on good scientific principle. True they can be abused as in the case of the Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories, New Chronology (Fomenko) but that is because these ideas fail Ockham's razor.--67.16.81.134 (talk) 09:24, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

BruceGrubb makes clear time and time again that this isn't about Roman era historiography, but about US sociology. You may get fired if you say "Adam and Eve are a story" if you work at Southwestern Community College in Red Oak, Iowa, but some of the world's countries do have a working academia, you know. The Christ-myth-theory is a non-issue in Biblical scholarship. It may or may not be an issue in the US culture wars of atheists vs. bible thumpers. If you want to write about US culture wars, please write about US culture wars and don't coatrack about alleged academic "disputes". I am also dismayed at seeing jbolden1517 still seems to imply that this is about atheism. Why the hell should an atheist be bothered by the possibility that some religion was founded based on some historical teacher? Does an atheist need to assume that all Egyptian pharaos are "mythical" because they were deified? The endless circular debate on this talkpage is really an insult to anyone's intelligence. --dab (𒁳) 11:44, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Dab, the Christian claim is not nor has it ever been that Jesus was primarily a teacher. What atheists are addressing is whether Christianity was founded by a supernatural being who could transfigure matter, raise people from the dead, float on air.... And yes that is an issue for atheism. The existence of such a being would be fairly strong evidence for theism. As for biblical scholarship there is little question this theory is rejected by biblical scholarship. Not as much in fields like anthropology.

As for Pharos being deified. I don't know of any Pharos for whom the claim was made that they preexisted the universe, and were coequal to the highest creator God. jbolden1517 ^Talk 02:55, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Jbolden, have you forgotten the middle column of your chart? Since the 19th century at least, there have been many Christians who are happy to think of Jesus primarily as a teacher, with no divinity and no ability to raise people from the dead. This approach to Jesus was common among German liberal Protestants, and along with the application of a critical-historical method to Biblical texts, it led to the Quest of the historical Jesus; one of the outgrowths of this was the Christ myth theory, which originated as a response to liberal Protestant attempts to construct a biography of Jesus.

So if you're saying that atheists are concerned about Jesus because his superpowers prove theism, you're essentially conceding dab's point. Biblical literalists point to the miracles of Jesus as proof that God is real; the atheists respond that Jesus never existed, so the miracles didn't either, and therefore God doesn't exist. Meanwhile, serious scholars ignore literalists and atheists alike, and try to figure out what the NT can tell us about the career of a human being, Jesus of Nazareth; or try to figure out what the texts tell us about the formation of the early Church, etc. (N.b. in this paragraph "atheists" should be in quotes throughout, because it should be obvious that one can be an atheist and still think that the Gospels give us valuable information about a historical Jesus.) --Akhilleus (talk) 04:25, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

It more than just a US sociology. Blasphemy laws are still on the books in many countries and new ones are being passed under the guise of hate speech. The really annoying thing is supposedly there was a case regarding this very issue to be brought before European Court of Human Rights in 2006. Reported as being Cascioli v. Italy Case #14910/06 I can't find anything about what happened with it. Does anyone here know?--67.16.89.114 (talk) 18:04, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

and this is relevant to the historicity of Jesus question how? The Wikimedia servers are under Florida law, and this article, and indeed the Piss Christ article do not seem to be causing legal problems. The problem with the Christ myth is that it is crappy scholarship and not that it violates any sort of law. Fortunately, there is no law against crappy scholarship, or we would have had to take this article offline a long time ago--dab (𒁳) 09:54, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

There were several points here that you clearly missed.

1) The Blasphemy laws are more related to any scholar who might question the historicity of Jesus as a nice tool to shut them up than anything that directly effects Wikimedia.

2) England had blasphemy laws that could have stifled any truly fair examination of the material by Oxford and Cambridge even if you ignored the possible conflict of interest issue of them being part of original group that put the Authoritative King James Bible together, have publishing rights to this day going all the way back to 1602 via the Crown with the King or Queen being the head of the Anglican Church. Expecting an unbiased view regarding Jesus is unlikely given all this as it would be from Pontificia Università Lateranense.

3) Cascioli challenged the existence of Jesus and was effectively suing the Roman Catholic church for fraud. The Italian court threw the thing out but Cascioli supposedly appealed the thing to the European Court of Human Rights. So Cascioli v. Italy Case #14910/06 could have put the whole of the historicity of Jesus claims on trail.

4) as far as individual state laws in the US regarding Blasphemy those were struck down by Joseph Burstyn, Inc v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952)--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:16, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Sigh, jbolden1517, I do not think you are paying attention. What Akhilleus said. Indeed, "the Christian claim is not nor has it ever been that Jesus was primarily a teacher", but the Christian claim is that he was also a teacher. The primary claim, Son of God, resurrected Savior, etc., is the mythological part. The existence of the Christ myth is not disputed by the Jesus myth theory. The part that is disputed here is precisely that Jesus was also a teacher. Now atheists may have problems dealing with the myth part, but I see no reason whatsoever why an atheist should have a problem with a 1st century wandering rabbi. If your atheism is going to fold up and collapse because history has seen founders of religious traditions, you can start chanting the Hare Krishna mantra right away, because while you will be able to wave your hands about the historicity of 1st century teachers, you will find it difficult to dispute the historicity of Prabhupada (1896-1977). Atheist criticism of the Christ myth is irrelevant to this article. Take it to Criticism of Christianity or similar. The entire topic addressed here is the question of "was Jesus (also) a historical teacher". Yes, this question is supremely irrelevant to any debate of atheism vs. Christianity. Which is why I said it is sad that this talkpage is full of precisely that debate. --dab (𒁳) 09:48, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Akh and Dab --

You both are making the same point, so I figured I reply 1x. Price, Doherty, Wells, Mead, Leidner, etc... do not disagree that there may have been some 1st century Rabbi wondering around that some gospel materials go back to. As far as I can tell none of them hold the completely non-historical position. The intro to the article is exactly correct, "Proponents of a mythical origin of Christianity allow that some gospel material may have been drawn from a historical preacher or preachers, but they hold that these preachers were not in any sense "the founder of Christianity"; rather they contend that Christianity emerged organically from Hellenistic Judaism, the epistles and Gospels largely chronicle a mythical non-historical Jesus." Dab you remember the historical Mickey Mouse example. The fact that there is some material about late 19th century steamboat operators that made it into the early Mickey Mouse legends does make him a historical figure.

Who founded Christianity and how was it founded is the important part of the Christ myth and where they really differ. Is every last ounce of the gospels fictional is not a key component. Part of the confusion maybe is that it is unclear what a historical person means when we talk about people that are almost entirely myth. Is Mickey Mouse historical? There is discussion of Osris as a possible early pre-Pharoh does that make him historical? To use Paul's analogy: Is Heracles historical if it turned out there was some strong guy 3000 years ago on whom the legends were based.

But going back to the main argument. Christ Mythers are not exclusively biblical critics. They all make heavy use of comparative religion. That is while they make use of biblical criticism but they draw their conclusions mostly from outside the bible. And so yeah I think it is inappropriate to consider this article to be solely about biblical criticism. What is the correct methodology (i.e. lower or higher criticism to use dated language) is a point of dispute between the liberals and the mythers. jbolden1517 ^Talk 00:57, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

jbolden1517, has hit on one of the major problems regarding the whole Christ myth theory and again I have to point the problem is with the source material. I put the guts of the problem in Wikipedia:No_original_research/noticeboard/Archive_7#Christ_Myth_Theory_definition and finally stated that unless a reference could be found that connected all the different versions together that claiming they all said the exact same thing was OR. No such reference to date has been produced.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

^ See Historical Jesus for details

[1] See Historical Jesus for details

[1]