Talk:Christ myth theory/Archive 29

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A somewhat similar case: the Four Noble Truths as symbol and proposition

As an aside, but related: I've been working on the Four Noble Truths article for a couple of years. Not as attractive as the Christ Myth Theory, but there is a book by Carol Anderson, Pain and it's Ending, in which, combined with Bronkhorst and Schmithausen, a somewhat similar thesis is proposed, so to speak (I think).

Anderson argues that the four truths have both a symbolic and a propositional function. As a symbol, they represent the awakening of the Buddha. As a proposition, they function within the network or matrix of teachings, and refer to and represent the basic orientation of the Buddhist teachings, namely dukkha and release from dukkha, and the ending of the cycle of rebirth. The sutras contain several descriptions of the Buddha's path to awakening, in which he typically practices dhyana, "sees" the workings of rebirth and his own previous lifes, and then "sees" the four truths. With this, he is awakened and liberated. One little problem, though: the fourth truth refers to the eightfold path, which has to be traversed to be liberated. This path does not say that seeing the truths suffices for liberation... Augh, a logical inconsistency.

Several scholars have argued that the four truths are a later addition to those stories; that is, "it" didn't happen this way. Now, take Anderson's notion of symbolic function: the four truths are here not to be taken literally; they merely point to, and represent, the awakening of the Buddha. It seems to me that this also implies that he didn't discover his teachings at this sepcific moment; and that also implies that this whole story is exactly that: a story. That never happend in reality. A myth, so to speak.

Augh, again. A big empty hole at the heart of Buddhism. A story that is so skillfully crafted that we take it "for real," no matter how skeptical we are. The Buddha got enlightened; he woke up; he saw; that's why we call him the Buddha.

So, no enlightenment? No, that's not the point. It's not about "in reality"; it's about how our minds work, how we humans live in and create our own realities, which are real on their own. As in the Harry Potter scene at "King's Cross," after he has been defeated by Voldemort: "Is this only happening in my head then, professor? Is this not real?" To which Dumbledore answers: "Is it not real if it only happens in your head, Harry?" That's what "myth" implies, I think: not "real" for a naturalistic-tended mind; but just as real as a reality on its own. Don't underestimate the power of myths! All the best, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:19, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

I am quite disappointed that you associate "myth" as directly opposed to reality. Mythos is "conversation, narrative, speech, story, tale, and word". Whether the narrative is true or false is irrelevant to the Greek texts using it, and less important than passing on the narrative to other people. "David Wiles points that the traditional mythos of Ancient Greece, was primarily a part of its oral tradition. The Greeks of this era were a literate culture, but produced no sacred texts. There were no definitive or authoritative versions of myths recorded in texts and preserved forever in an unchanging form. Instead multiple variants of myths were in circulation. These variants were adapted into songs, dances, poetry, and visual art. Performers of myths could freely reshape their source material for a new work, adapting it to the needs of a new audience or in response to a new situation."

In the case of Gautama Buddha, the narrative is that a 6th-5th century BC ascetic managed to find Enlightenment, to overcome his own desire, hatred, and ignorance, and then chose to share his findings with the world. His personal beliefs or truths and what started the narrative are probably lost to us. For 27 centuries, as Buddhism spread and changed, different schools of thought had the opportunity to reshape the narrative to fit their own needs. To suggest their own truths and to define what is the correct path to Enlightenment. Are their teachings contradictory? Probably, but the narrative keeps shaping entire cultures. Myths have impact, which the personal experiences of most humans lack. Dimadick (talk) 21:05, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

No offense intended; I think we agree here. We're stuck with a limited notion of "reality," which fuels pointless discussions about "what really happened," meanwhile losing sight of what's relevant. I hope you noticed the quotation marks around "in reality." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:12, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

"Roman Palestine"

I was reading the lede and I noticed the geographic reference to "Roman Palestine". In Wikipedia, this term redirects to Syria Palaestina (135-390), the Roman province established by Hadrian.

Any particular reason that we do not mention Judea (Roman province) (6-135), the province established by Augustus and one of the settings of the New Testament? Dimadick (talk) 20:14, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Per the putative time period that Jesus was crucified 26 to 36. Jerusalem was part of Roman Provincia Iudaea or "Greater Judea" as it incorporated Samaria and Idumea into an expanded territory. Traditionally spelled Iudaea to distinguish it from the smaller region —Judea proper.

• Syria Palæstina was a Roman province between 135 and about 390. It was established by the merge of Roman Syria and Roman Judaea, shortly before or after the Bar Kokhba Revolt.
• In 311, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea wrote, History of the Martyrs in Palestine. As the "Father of Church History", Eusebius' use of the name Palestine influenced later generations of Christian writers.

The Judaic remnants of the former Hasmonean Kingdom were split into five districts of legal and religious councils known as Sanhedrin —based at Jerusalem, Jericho, Sepphoris (Galilee), Amathus (Perea) and Gadara (Perea—Al-Salt).

• Galilee and Perea were not part of Provincia Iudaea (at this time 26 to 36), but part of a Herodian Tetrarchy.

74.138.110.32 (talk) 21:16, 26 April 2017 (UTC) & 16:36, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Here we go again

First, I apologise in advance for the somewhat strong language that will follow. Years and years of polite discussing with the conspiracy theorists just lead to nothing, as they continue to target this page and to alter it as soon as discussion dies out, regardless of any policies.

So, here goes: the Christ myth theory is a pathetic conspiracy theory, nothing else. If you believe the conspiracy and take offence at this, it changes nothing. What really bothers me, though, is the enormous dishonesty of the sect of tin foil hats haunting this article. For years and years, we've been through the sources and Wikipedia policies. It serves absolutely no purpose, because the conspiracy theorists know that they are here with the WP:TRUTH. So what if all scholars and academia say the opposite - the conspiracy theorists know that the only reason is that scholars are corrupt and biased. And yes, that's precisely what the article currently says. While Wikipedia policies require us to present the majority view in any article, even articles on fringe theories like this one, here we have the polar opposite. Not only does the entire lead give the impression that this is a serious academic theory (it's not), now it even has an entire section 'explaining' that the only reason mainstream academia does not take this seriously is (and I quote from the article) "academic bias and secret agreements to ignore the Christ myth theory".

That's the new low we have reached here. Well guest what, it does not matter one bit what you believe! At Wikipedia, we report what mainstream academia says. If there are disagreements within mainstream academia then we report that as well. But when we have a case of mainstream academia versus a fringe minority consisting almost entirely of amateurs, then we do not give them equal weight (bad enough), and we certainly don't enter into speculations that all mainstream academia is biased.

As this has been going on for so many years, and it just goes on and on, I'm starting to feel we need to ask for a policy such as WP:MOSMAC. After years on endless discussions with fanatical Greek nationalists who kept changing the name of Macedonia, a policy was put in place that Wikipedia does use the name of Macedonia. As we don't appear to advance at all here, despite all the discussions, and every new conspiracy theorist arriving at this article seems even more fanatical that the previous ones, I think it would be time for a policy that declare that CMT is a rejected by mainstream academia, that we report that view, and that we not give undue weight to fringe conspiracy theorists. While all of those policies already exist, they are continuously ignored and violated here. Jeppiz (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Ehm, Jeppiz: where's that quote in the article? I can't find it... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:14, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

The reference to ""academic bias and secret agreements to ignore the Christ myth theory" was in the lead but Jeppiz took it out yesterday. Please identify specific passages in the article that you feel are not neutral Jeppiz so we can work on them and take that tag off the article. I dislike those tags just sitting on articles, to me they are like flashing signs to readers "Warning! Warning! this article is crap!"Smeat75 (talk) 21:29, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Jeppiz, in what way is CMT (generally speaking) a "conspiracy theory"? Academic CMT advocates such as Carrier and Price don't generally argue that there had been any conspiracy, but only that the early Christians were confused and mistaken about their beliefs. JerryRussell (talk) 22:00, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

From: Friday, April 14, 2017 at 1:02:00 am UTC - Vandalism by user Jiohdi

To: Tuesday, April 18, 2017 at 10:30:00 pm UTC - This new talk section by Jeppiz

Result: 4 days, 21 hours, 28 minutes and 0 seconds - 74.138.110.32 (talk) 22:43, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

One might even think Jeppiz seems to be proposing a conspiracy theory, imagining that the rest of the editors on this page are somehow responsible for Jiohdi's edit. JerryRussell (talk) 00:40, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

At Wikipedia, we present the major viewpoints, and the notable minor viewpoints. If an article is about such a minor viewpoint, we give an oversight of that minor viewpoint, and we give a balanced overview of the mainstream view on this minor viewpoint. If some relevant authors state that there is a conspiracy, then that may be noteworthy, and can be presented (summarily) as "According to..." etc. If a credible source explains why some relevant authors think or feel there is a conspiracy, that can be noted too. If a substantial portion of the population thinks or feels that there is a conspiracy, then that may be noteworthy too, as a sociological fact: why do they think or feel that? In concreto: why is there a growing interest in the Christ Myth Theory, and why is the emphasis in this popular interest on the idea that there is a conspiracy? Those are interesting, and relevant, questions. And yes, theorizing about Christ-as-myth, and speculating about a conspiracy against "The Truth" may be related, but should not rücksichtloss be lumped together, as if every Christ Myth Theorist is a conspirationalist. Those 19th century Dutch professors probably were decent people, respected professors who didn't need a conspiracy theory; their writings were published and dicussed. It's in the present-day blogosphere that some discern a conspiracy ('Illuminati! They did it!', the kids at my duaghter's school would yell), not all of those authors. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:51, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

PS: I totally agree, of course, with Jeppiz's revert of Jiohdi. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:52, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

PS: but I still don't see (emphasis mine) "an entire section 'explaining' that the only reason mainstream academia does not take this seriously is (and I quote from the article) "academic bias and secret agreements to ignore the Christ myth theory". What I do see, though, is a "Scholarly reception"-section which says that In modern scholarship, the Christ Myth Theory is a fringe theory, and finds virtually no support from scholars.; According to New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, most people who study the historical period of Jesus believe that he did exist, and do not write in support of the Christ myth theory., and Critics of the Christ myth theory question the competence of its supporters.. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:56, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the article is not as bad as all that, but I also think the lede needs to contain a bit about the level of acceptance in the opening paragraph. I mean, the fact that it's considered very fringe is a defining characteristic of the subject. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:18, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for all the comments! As already pointed out, I removed the worst POV-pushing that I commented upon (and have been rewared with several charming messages by the user even since [1]). That CMT has been called a "conspiracy theory" by leading academics is not hard to source. Noted Swedish historian Dick Harrison comes to mind as a historian (no religious connection) who has used explicitly the term "conspiracy theory" to refer to CMT. The main problem, though, and as ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants pointed out, is the absence of an early paragraph in the introduction, clearly making the academic viewpoint clear. Right now, a reader might think that CMT is a serious theory enjoying some level of academic acceptance, which of course isn't the case. Jeppiz (talk) 13:01, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I made an edit to to correct that. Since then, the lede has been seriously trimmed in what I believe to be a very helpful way. I really like the current setup, where the first paragraph defines the CMT and the second describes its scholarly acceptance. I might like to see just a bit (a single sentence) about how the CMT used to be taken more seriously, though we should be clear that it was never the consensus view. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:41, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

MjolnirPants, I think I was in the middle of editing the lede while you were commenting about it here. The extreme trim back to two paragraphs in the lede was an accident, that was live in the article for about two minutes -- although I also rather liked the effect. There's definitely some repetition and citation overkill that's crept into the lede.

Jeppiz, in discussing whether CMT is a conspiracy theory, or whether some historians might have referred to it as such: it's important to distinguish among the various forms of the theory, and its various advocates. Acharya's version is definitely a theory about conspiracy, and so is Joseph Atwill's. But Carrier and Price are careful to avoid conspiracy based formulations.

With MjolnirPants' edits to the lede, and my edits, are we ready to remove the NPOV maintenance tag? JerryRussell (talk) 16:50, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

JerryRussell, what do you think about taking the material that was absent from the lede in that short version, and putting it into an "introduction" or "overview" section at the top of the body? I think that would look good, and I've given it a shot. Let me know what you think.

And I agree that the tags can go. There might be little problems, but nothing that the regulars here can't handle. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:55, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

The two-paragraph lede and overview section looks very good to me. Joshua Jonathan and IP74 have put a lot of work into the long version of the lede, let's see what they think. JerryRussell (talk) 17:48, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I also think it's okay. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:52, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I concur, the two-paragraph lede and overview section looks good and has the benefit that a shorter lede will be easier to monitor for undue edits. - 74.138.110.32 (talk) 18:11, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I just have looked here after some time. Seeing the current discussion, I feel like adding my two cents, though I will not "fight" for anything. There are still claims in the article like that of Bart Ehrman comparing mythicists at least indirectly to six-day creationists. Such claims have obviously no scholarly basis (at least regarding Price, Carrier, Doherty, Brodie ...); there are no scholarly sources that would demonstrate validity of such comparisons, unless every quote from Ehrman is simply taken as being scholarly by definition. In my opinion, the much sober quotes like, e.g., these by Ph. Davies (at http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/dav368029.shtml) would be much more apt to represent a scholarly voice. They are now referred to as [82], in an inappropriate place of the article in my opinion. Btw, Davies also writes "Such a normal exercise should hardly generate controversy in most fields of ancient history, but of course New Testament studies is not a normal case ...". The sensitivity of the topic of this article is obvious (and is also very much demonstrated by many discussions among the wiki-editors) but this aspect is not really mentioned in the article. Of course, we can not mention this by ourselves but I think that Davies could serve as a sufficient source for such a remark. But as I say, I mean this as a casual comment that might inspire some regular editor; I will not change anything in the article myself. Best wishes Jelamkorj (talk) 16:14, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Quote from the article by Professor Philip Davies linked to by Jelamkorj "Am I inclined to accept that Jesus existed? Yes, I am."Smeat75 (talk) 01:36, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

@Jelamkorj, Actually, Ehrman is quite mild in his criticism of those who hold to the CMT (which includes Price, Carrier, et al). If you or anyone else is interested, I can post the VERY harsh criticisms made by many, many scholars across the whole spectrum of NT scholarship. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 13:39, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Possibly an even better quote: "But why care?" He continues: "...some peculiar literal-minded historicist brand of (largely Protestant) Christianity finds impossible the temptation to replace the icons of Orthodoxy or statues and images of Roman Catholicism with the One True Image of the Lord: the Jesus of History. The result: poor history and, dare I say, even poorer theology." JerryRussell (talk) 02:42, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Per Albert Schweitzer, "Modern Christianity must always reckon with the possibility of having to abandon the historical figure of Jesus" else it may get a ridiculous history and an even poorer theology. - 74.138.110.32 (talk) 01:58, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

"Angelomorphic Christology"

A sentence was added to the "research questions" section with the edit summary "Angelomorphic Christology"-

"Another question among scholars is the extent and significance of Jewish belief in a chief angel acting as a heavenly mediator during the Second Temple period."

I don't think that is a "question among scholars", it is an idea put forward by only one person, Richard Carrier, who has no academic position or any academic credibility. It is already referred to in the article at "Jewish celestial Jesus" - "According to Carrier, originally "Jesus was the name of a celestial being, subordinate to God." According to Carrier, "This 'Jesus' would most likely have been the same archangel identified by Philo of Alexandria as already extant in Jewish theology." Having the same thing near the start of the article and attributed to "scholars" rather than the single individual who says that is WP:UNDUE imo so I am removing it.Smeat75 (talk) 16:29, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Smeat75, do you think that the material would be suitable to include in the section about "Jewish Celestial Jesus"?

The connection between the Jewish belief in a chief angel, and early Christian beliefs about Jesus, has also been made by Margaret Barker in "The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God" (1992). She wrote: "Several writers of the first three Christian centuries show by their descriptions of the First and Second persons of the Trinity whence they derived these beliefs. El Elyon had become for them God the Father and Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, the Son, had been identified with Jesus." JerryRussell (talk) 17:44, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I have no objection to Barker's material being cited in that section.Smeat75 (talk) 18:38, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I'd intended the "Research questions" sections for a broad, general overview, to show that the CMTheorists are interested in the same basic questions, and to give a 'starting point', so to speak. Angelic theories may be too specific. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:45, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Note: the info was removed, and then re-inserted, but at the Christ myth theory#Similarities to Jewish celestial Jesus section. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:27, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Citation needed: scholarship - fringe - support

Per Requested a citation:

[55:59] >> CARRIER: With On the Historicity of Jesus my book which came out in 2014, is the first time anyone has published a book defending the non-existence of Jesus that has passed mainstream peer review within the field so it's the first peer-reviewed literature to argue this and so really it sets the clock—now like 2014—we could be decades from now before that really starts to impact people. Before that people were dismissing all arguments for the non-existence of Jesus as being outside the field as being fringe amateur and so on, even though it wasn't often. It was nonetheless not meeting their peer reviewed standard so they had a sort of excuse to not even review it and to dismiss it very lightly. [56:35 - Fama (Sep 28, 2016).]

While the CMT is WP:Fringe, The popular reception among seculars may not be ? - 74.138.110.32 (talk) 23:37, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Richard Carrier's advertisement for himself quoted above, trying to make a big deal out of the fact that his book underwent a form of peer review, does not change anything. Scathing review of Carrier's book by Christina Petterson of the University of Newcastle, Australia, in the academic journal Relegere- [2] - says his methodology is "tenuous", was "shocked" by the way he uses mathematics,and that he uses statistics in a way that seems designed "to intentionally confuse and obfuscate", statements in the book "reveal Carrier's ignorance of the field of New Testament studies and early Christianity", etc."Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception is a journal dedicated to the study of reception history, broadly conceived, in the fields of religion and biblical studies. Relegere is published online two times a year and is open-access. All articles undergo blind peer review". [3].Smeat75 (talk) 01:03, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

See Carrier's response here.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 02:47, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

And per the historicity of Jesus, Petterson has precious-little scholarly peer-reviewed material to work with—outside evangelical/fundamentalist works—other than [Case, Shirley Jackson (1928) [1912]. The Historicity of Jesus Christ: A Criticism of the Contention That Jesus Never Lived, a Statement of the Evidence for His Existence, an Estimate of His Relation to Christianity (2 ed.). University of Chicago Press. pp. 306 pages. 1st ed. 1912. 352 pages. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |trans_title=, |laydate=, |laysummary=, and |authormask= (help)]. Thus she concludes:

In sum, it is not that I disagree with some or all of his representations of the material; it is more [1.] the lack of insight into New Testament scholarship, [2.] the mathematics which replace careful argumentation, and above all, [3.] the evangelical commitment to truth —that I find so tremendously off-putting.

74.138.110.32 (talk) 18:11, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

In other words she has no qualifications to criticize Carrier, and wants to criticize Carrier for no reason.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 19:51, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Someone collected a long list of quotations of scholars indicating, in various ways, their view that CMT is mistaken.

Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Archive_27#Most_scholars_DO_agree.

The quote from Carrier above shows that he also recognizes that most scholars have rejected CMT, at least up until now.

At Wikipedia, it's not our job to determine who is right or wrong in an academic controversy. It is our job to recognize when a viewpoint is held by only a minority, and to present the minority view appropriately according to NPOV and due weight guidelines. JerryRussell (talk) 20:23, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Academic bias and secret agreements

I add ""academic bias and secret agreements to ignore the Christ myth theory"." to the article, not because I know it to be true that scholars are biased and signing secret agreements, but because mythasists are making this claim. you can find several youtube videos where this claim is explicitly stated as researched and documented. You can also find people like Price and Carrier stating that they were biased until something changed their attitude towards just looking into it.Jiohdi (talk) 13:42, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Hello Jiohdi, I hope you won't mind that I moved your comment to a new section, so that people can easily find it. I would be interested in seeing those youtube videos, if you could post a link here. We aren't normally able to use youtube videos as sources, but there might be clues about where to find these same claims in print. And depending on notability and qualifications of the researchers, it might be appropriate to discuss this somewhere in the article. Maybe not in the lede, though. JerryRussell (talk) 20:00, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Fama, Ben (Sep 28, 2016). "Reality Trip (Podcast, Episode 040) - Featuring Dr. Richard Carrier". (Closed Captioning via YouTube){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)

[50:21] >> FAMA: And I think the reason why I bring it up to, because I know there's a lot of debate and I know you debate a lot of people about it, about you know, the validity of it and I feel like you're up against a lot of people maybe you can describe a little bit about what religious scholars and other people debate why are they insistent that there probably was a Jesus and why is that you know in relation to you saying that there probably isn't what's what's challenge there. >> CARRIER: Yeah it's the difference is like I said, if this is any other religion I wouldn't have this problem but the thing is Christianity is so entrenched in our culture that it's dangerous ~ it's still dangerous to go this far against it certainly like a third of biblical scholars at least somewhere around a third of biblical scholars are actually employed by institutions that contractually obligate them to believe in historicity, if they were even to suggest that it was possible that Jesus didn't exist they could get fired we actually have evidence of scholars denying the historicity of much less relevant important things in the Jesus story getting fired so if you were to go all the way to Jesus, then that would just doom you and we have examples of Thomas Brodie for example was essentially quietly shuffled off to retirement for declaring that Jesus didn't exist so there's intense pressure to not admit and certain ~ not even, not only admit that it's possible Jesus didn't exist, but to not even admit that it's a plausible theory because if you could do that, it does to much damage to the religion and to much offends their employers and to much offends their funding sources and so on. Then you have the secular scholars you have some of the more liberal Christian scholars who wouldn't care so much and I've even talked to some of them, some of them who won't go public with their own agnosticism when they're actually agnostic about the historicity of Jesus but won't say so in public, for a lot of the same reasons where they fear the backlash, they fear that they're gonna be ridiculed, they fear that they're gonna lose grant money, they fear that it might affect their department even if you're a secular scholar at a secular school oftentimes a lot of the money that comes into that is still coming from religious people either religious institutions religious donors who are supporting biblical studies because they want to learn stuff about the religion, they want to further their religion, they're not supporting it because they're atheists right there's not a lot of atheists money in biblical studies so even secular scholars have this tremendous pressure to convince the public or even themselves that we really need to marginalize the idea that Jesus didn't exist because this is a threat to our incomes as a threat to our way of life essentially On top of that I think there's institutional inertia I think there's this tendency to assume that what they've been taught has to be true and everything else is ridiculous and they only allow like small changes around the corners of this and even then they argue intensely about them but really fundamental change that's, that's really dangerous and very much opposed and the classic example of this is that outside historicity which is the so-called Q hypothesis, the Q hypothesis was formed in the early 20th century to explain how it was that we know Matthew and Luke copied Mark so we know that because they copy passages verbatim from Mark but there are also passages in Luke and Matthew that aren't Mark that are identical between Luke and Matthew so how do you explain that well the obvious explanation would be that Luke is copying them from Matthew but someone came up with another explanation which is there's this Q this hypothetical document that this other gospel that's been lost and that's what ~ just like Mark but they were using that Luke and Matthew were independently using ~that ah~ that document and they call it Q it's for "Quelle" which is German for source so it's just the generic term the source document the source whatever it was and so this Q hypothesis was very popular for a while until certain scholars started to go wait a minute this actually doesn't make a lot of sense and they started pointing out a lot of evidence that goes against the Q hypothesis and pointing out that all the evidence for the Q hypothesis is invalid it's logically invalid and their arguments are really really freaking good if you look at ~ well Mark Goodacre is the most popular defender of this now there have been many others, you know, Goulder and various other scholars have written on this and when you look at their arguments, it's like why is this not the mainstream view it doesn't make any sense that they're clearly right but there's this institutional inertia pushing against it that Q hypothesis has been so popular and it's so entrenched in the field and a lot of scholars have built their careers out of hypotheses that assume the existence of Q so they're actually dependent on the existence of Q so there's this tremendous resistance to even the idea ~ that's like, Oh that there's no Q is ridiculous we can't accept that possibility. Now that's starting to change it's been decades of pressure finally I think as younger scholars enter the field they start to realize, Aw this Q hypothesis is ridiculous I'm not buying it and so then you have more and more people at least being Q agnostics and more people just rejecting Q altogether but it's probably going to be decades more before it really takes over the field as a mainstream view there's this kind of intense resistance and the same thing happened with the "Patriarchs" in the 70s when Thomas Thompson started pointing out evidence that Moses and Abraham and stuff were all fictional that they were ~ these are myths, that they could not possibly have existed there was intense resistance like to the point of even trying to get him fired, trying to prevent him from ever getting a job, getting him kicked out of conferences it's actually an infamous story within the field of biblical studies to a lot of people's shame and embarrassment, of course now it's the mainstream view ~ the mainstream view, certainly among non fundamentalist scholars is that yeah Thomas Thompson was right Moses and Abraham and so on that's all mythology it didn't actually happen but it took decades to convince people even though the evidence was pretty clear it took decades to push against institutional inertia long enough for things to change and that maybe ~with with jes~ with historicity of Jesus my book which came out in 2014 is the first time anyone has published a book defending the non-existence of Jesus that has passed mainstream peer review within the field so it's the first peer-reviewed literature to argue this and so really it sets the clock now like 2014 we could be decades from now before that really starts to impact people before that people were dismissing all arguments for the non-existence of Jesus as being outside the field as being fringe amateur and so on even though it wasn't often it was nonetheless not meeting their peer reviewed standard so they had to sort of excuse to not even review it and to dismiss it very lightly. Now they can only dismiss it in a very illogical way they basically have to say that I'm going to refuse to read the peer-reviewed literature of my own field and insist that this possibly has to be with has to be ridiculous can't possibly be true even though I've not read it, even though I've not written a critique of it and that you see again and again and again that happened with me and the Craig Evans debate recently, I blogged about this, people can check the blog on that at richardcarrier.info and the Craig Evans debate was a classic example of it that the book has been out for two years and he had a copy of the book, I made sure he had a copy the book many months before the debate and we got up there to do the debate and It was very clear throughout the debate that he had never even read my book he was completely unprepared for my presentation he had no idea what my theory was or what my evidence was for it and this astonishes me and it really represents what I'm talking about this institutional inertia there's this intense desire to not even entertain the possibility that it could be true and to sort of convince themselves that they can rationally deny it from the armchair without even looking at the evidence without even considering it and I think that's a fundamental problem in the field and it might take decades to get past it. [57:45]

74.138.110.32 (talk) 23:40, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

This Carrier interview is definitely talking about institutional bias. I don't see anything about secret agreements, though. I think he's simply giving his own description of the fact that there is a mainstream consensus that historical Jesus did exist. The consensus is a circular reinforcing pattern, with money and prestige flowing to scholars who endorse and support the historicity of Jesus, and all of that scholarly research and opinion encouraging the flow of money and prestige. I don't see this as a conspiracy theory. And as Carrier notes, the enterprise has a lot of inertia, and it takes a lot of time for things to change. It's very possible that the historicists are right, that Carrier is wrong, and that the field never will change. Only time will tell. Here at Wikipedia, we can't predict the future. We only report what all the various theories say, in proportion to their prominence in the field. JerryRussell (talk) 04:31, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Per [Richard Carrier (26 April 2017). "Why Do We Still Believe in Q?". richardcarrier.info.]:

"Christians like Q because it allows them to claim there were traditions earlier than Mark (even though the Q hypothesis entails nothing of the kind; even if Q existed, there is exactly zero evidence that it predated Mark). And they like it because the alternative entails Luke and Matthew are bald-faced liars..."

"Non-Christians like it because it allows them to build careers out of guessing what was in Q, who wrote it, why, what their agenda was..."

74.138.110.32 (talk) 04:07, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Per [Tarico, Valerie (3 May 2017). "Fabricating Jesus — An Interview with Former Minister David Chumney". ValerieTarico.com.] While not making an institutional criticism, Chumney opines:

[Per Robert M. Price and Bart Ehrman] First, let me say that I have tremendous respect for both men and have learned a great deal from each. Second, I have no qualms about challenging either man’s position when he assumes facts not in evidence or he labels as probable what is merely plausible. For example, Ehrman admits that the story known as the cleansing of the Temple is “completely implausible” given the vast dimensions of the area involved, but insists nonetheless that “Jesus may well have caused a small disturbance” (Did Jesus Exist, 326). I suspect that if he had written something like that in a graduate school term paper, his professor would probably have given him a C-. [...] If Price would concede that there probably was a historical Jesus, he would undoubtedly have the stronger case. A scholar who defended that position could get a teaching post in any public university.

Per the example of Ehrman's historicity of Jesus noted above, IMO this is part of the circular reinforcing pattern, with money and prestige flowing to scholars who endorse and support the historicity of Jesus, and all of that scholarly research and opinion encouraging the flow of money and prestige. 74.138.110.32 (talk) 20:52, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, reversed. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:55, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Oh, the irony: the thesis that Christ is a myth (meaning the Christ of faith and tale about gods/supernatural, respectively) would count on virtually unanimous assent from Bible scholars. However, the "Christ myth theory" is not content with Christ being a myth, but says that Jesus would be a myth, too. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:08, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Per [Lataster, Raphael (2013). "Is There a Christian Agenda Behind Religious Studies Departments?". www.raphaellataster.com. Retrieved 6 June 2017.]:

Hector Avalos argues that even many non-Christian scholars are influenced by the political power, and finances, of pro-Christian organisations (Avalos 2007). Avalos claims that positive attitudes towards the Bible, Christianity, and religion in general, is often seen as necessary in order to keep these academic disciplines relevant, and funded.

74.138.106.1 (talk) 11:23, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

A fundamentalist wrote "Bible scholars and higher critics sow the seeds of unbelief; deceit and apostasy follow them wherever they go." If the Inquisition were still active, you would see burnings of Bible scholars. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:41, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

David Chumney (May 27, 2017). "A Review of David Fitzgerald's Jesus: Mything in Action". Debunking Christianity. Retrieved 7 June 2017. [Fitzgerald has identified that] arguments advanced in support of the mythicist position rely on negative [scholarly] findings of historical Jesus research concerning which there has been broad consensus for over one hundred years. As Fitzgerald observes, "The final conclusion reached by mythicists may be controversial, [but] not the evidence cited and the methodology employed to get there" (38). So, it is unfair to suggest that mythicists have taken a stance entirely outside the mainstream of historical Jesus research.

And for the many, many, many "Bible scholars" to be subjected to the "Inquisition", see Carrier's sources in the PDF Bibliography for On the Historicity of Jesus (2014). - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 01:41, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Bible scholars (starting with Hermann Samuel Reimarus, David Friedrich Strauss, Ernest Renan, Julius Wellhausen and followed by Michael Coogan and Bart Ehrman) have been routinely called Antichrist, Satanic or apostates by true believers (although Ehrman pleads no contest to the apostasy charge). Accepting JEDP is still seen by many Christians as a token of apostasy, since it would be "liberal attack on the Bible". Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:37, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Per Robert M. Price:

It is obvious from even a surface reading of the Old Testament that Israelites worshipped a pantheon of divinities even under the roof of Solomon’s temple: Yahweh, Asherah, Zedek, Shalman, Shahar, Nehushtan, etc. The Deuteronomic and Priestly redactors would have us think that the people who worshipped other gods than Yahweh were syncretists, picking the forbidden fruits of Canaanite pantheons; but modern research has shown that these redactors were only reshaping the past in accord with their own theological preferences: in their view Israel and Judah should always have been monotheistic, so in retrospect, they are believed to have known that standard, albeit constantly falling away from it. Likewise, our picture of Judaism in New Testament times has until very recently been under the control of Rabbinical apologetics. It was in the interest of the Jewish faction prevailing after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans to appeal, as a credential, to an imaginary past in which their own ideological for(e)bears constituted the mainstream, the basic stock, of a unified Judaism.

"Price references"

Expecting modern Bible scholars to promote the "Radical Criticism" that the first five books of the Bible, called the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), were not written completely by Moses may be a case of Captain Obvious.

However, I would certainly like to know if a scholar does not hold some form of the Documentary hypothesis, Supplementary hypothesis or Fragmentary hypothesis as they likely can be ruled out of the CMT debate as Christian believers too biased to consider, per Lataster (12 November 2015). Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists. ISBN 978-1-5148-1442-0. - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 03:34, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

First Christian communities

Joshua Jonathan wrote: Within a few years after the proposed death of Jesus in ca. 33 CE, a large number of proto-Christian communities seem to have been in existence. In the article, the source is given as Price 2003, with no page reference. I can't find where Price said that, and also I question whether it's true. From the entire first century, the only archaeological evidence of Christian communities that I know of, would be the catacombs of Flavia Domatilla in Rome. Whereas in Palestine, outside the New Testament, the evidence indicates that there were sects of Nazoreans, Zealots, and maybe Mandaeans, none of whom could be considered Christian. JerryRussell (talk) 22:14, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

• "Over 40 churches were established by 100" ref. Early Christianity §Spread_of_Christianity & Christianity in the 1st century §Spread of Christianity
• Stark, Rodney (1996). The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. Princeton University Press. p. 6. ISBN 0-691-02749-8. Given our starting number, if Christianity grew at the rate of 40 percent per decade, there would have been 7,530 Christians in the year 100, followed by 217,795 Christians in the year 200.

74.138.110.32 (talk) 23:34, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

IP74, look at the sources given for those articles about the spread of Christianity in the 1st century. One of them, "Geography of Religion", says 40 churches by 100 AD. That would be consistent with New Testament claims, but not any archaeology I'm aware of, or any other sources aside from the NT. Besides, 100AD is a long time after Christ's death allegedly 33 AD. Another source given is "A Concise History of the Catholic Church", which clearly bases its conclusions on the New Testament. That Stark estimate is a computation based on the number of Christians at the time of Constantine, projected backwards with uniform growth rate. I don't believe any CMT theorist would take any of this seriously. JerryRussell (talk) 00:32, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

@JerryRussell: fair point. My point is that Paul preached for (to?) proto-Christian which already existed. It may also have been Mack who wrote this; I'll have to look it up. Meanwhile, I've changed it into Within a few years after the proposed death of Jesus in ca. 33 CE, already before Paul started preaching, a number of proto-Christian communities seem to have been in existence. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:33, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Carrier, Richard (11 August 2016). "Dating the Corinthian Creed - Richard Carrier". Richard Carrier Blogs. Retrieved 12 August 2016. [The Corinthian creed (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)] distinguishes Christianity from any other sect of Judaism. So it's the only thing Peter (Cephas) and the other pillars (James and John) could have been preaching before Paul joined the religion. And Paul joined it within years of its founding (internal evidence in Paul's letters places his conversion before 37 A.D., and he attests in Galatians 1 that he was preaching the Corinthian creed immediately thereupon: OHJ, pp. 139, 516, 536, 558). {{cite web}}: External link in |quote= (help) - 74.138.110.32 (talk) 05:22, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

There we are again too: "according to the scriptures" ;) Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:06, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Apparently my statement above about "No CMT Theorist" was just another example of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. If we can't give Price as the source for the claim that Christian communities were cropping up within a few years after 33AD, then at least we can cite Carrier. As per "according to the scriptures." JerryRussell (talk) 14:44, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Carrier is a mythicist, but I agree that he's reliable for this. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:09, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Per "according to the scriptures", elaboration may be required as to how this may relate to Paul's possible sources:

• Development of the Hebrew Bible canon
• Intertestamental period
• Dead Sea Scrolls
• Pesher
• Exegesis
• Jewish commentaries on the Bible
• Deuterocanonical books
• Jewish mysticism
• Merkabah mysticism
• Targum
• Septuagint

Per Angels in Judaism §Second Temple period texts - The Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical apocrypha, pseudepigrapha and the Book of Enoch are Second Temple period texts which have not been considered authoritative in Judaism. 74.138.110.32 (talk) 19:29, 20 April 2017 (UTC) & 01:40, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Not true: they were considered authoritative in Second Temple Judaism. Judaism has changed over the centuries, as have all religions.PiCo (talk) 07:17, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

As I understand, per Carrier et al.:

1. Philo is a synthesizer of new Judaic theological content for Hellenized Jews. Whether or not it became inculcated is irrelevant —rather it is a “Proof of Concept”.
2. The extent of Paul's sources when he states "according to the scriptures" is indeterminate, nor is it definitively known how Paul may of been interpreting said sources per Pesher/Midrash Exegesis, Second Temple period texts, Jewish mysticism, Jewish angelic hierarchy, etc. - 74.138.110.32 (talk) 00:03, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Per ["Philo of Alexandria - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy". www.iep.utm.edu. Retrieved 27 April 2017. Citing Entries {{cite web}}: External link in |quote= (help)]:

h. The Angel of the Lord, Revealer of God

Philo describes the Logos as the revealer of God symbolized in the Scripture (Gen. 31:13; 16:8; etc) by an angel of the Lord (Somn. 1.228-239; Cher. 1-3). The Logos is the first-born and the eldest and chief of the angels.

i. Multi-Named Archetype

Philo's Logos has many names (Conf. 146). Philo identifies his Logos with Wisdom of Proverbs 8:22 (Ebr. 31). Moreover, Moses, according to Philo called this Wisdom "Beginning," "Image," "Sight of God." And his personal wisdom is an imitation of the archetypal Divine Wisdom. All terrestrial wisdom and virtue are but copies and representations of the heavenly Logos (LA 1.43, 45-46).

Per [Doherty, Earl (30 July 2012). "Bart Ehrman vs. Earl Doherty. Part 29 of Earl Doherty's Response to Bart Ehrman's Case Against Mythicism". Vridar.]:

[Per Philo] His thought-world resided within the Hebrew scriptures, but he brought some very non-Jewish principles to their interpretation, principles which permeated the air of the time. There is scarcely a stronger Middle Platonist in this era than Philo, who in his own mind was thoroughly a Jew.

Paul may not have been the saturated Platonist that Philo was, and his dependence on the scriptures is undeniable, but his christology contains some very un-Jewish ideas. Was the concept of eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ related to Jewish tradition? —Not that I’ve heard of. How about the concept of the believer entering into joint carnality with the body of Christ? —No connection there with Second Temple Judaism that I know. Dying with Christ through baptism? —That was hardly right up the Jewish traditional alley.

Per [David Chumney (April 26, 2017). "Jesus Eclipsed: Part 3". www.debunking-christianity.com. David Chumney, over three posts on John Loftus's Debunking Christianity site (part 1, part 2, part 3). {{cite web}}: External link in |quote= (help)], Chumney writes that per "according to the scriptures":

The earliest formulation of this belief is found in the letters of Paul, where he tells readers that the death and resurrection of Jesus took place “in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3-4). As Robert Miller has shown, “The belief that Jesus fulfilled scripture…goes back as far as anything historians can trace in early Christianity” (Helping Jesus Fulfill Scripture, 1).

74.138.110.32 (talk) 00:56, 27 April 2017 (UTC) & 01:07, 2 May 2017 (UTC) & 23:50, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

A spiritual Revealer Son who saves by bestowing knowledge of God

Separately from Carrier, Doherty asserts that the following second century figures:

• Theophilus of Antioch
• Athenagoras of Athens
• Minucius Felix
• early Tatian

Evidence no sacrificial Son of any sort, nor an incarnated one. And they only knew a Celestial Christ/Lord more akin to the Logos of Philo. Doherty contends that Paul's minority cult also worshipped this same Celestial Christ/Lord, but with an additional incarnation & sacrificial feature —thus becoming the Jesus of Paul.

A majority of early Christians worshipping a Celestial Christ/Lord more akin to the Logos of Philo accounts for the peculiarity of Gnosticism and the The Shepherd of Hermas. —Ref. Doherty, Earl (11 May 2012). "10. Earl Doherty's Response to Bart Ehrman's Case Against Mythicism: Listening to the Sounds of Silence". Vridar. Retrieved 27 May 2017. - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 06:18, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

"Minicius Felix" probably stands for Marcus Minucius Felix, a Roman writer of Berber origin. Felix's only extant work is a dialogue called Octavius. Perhaps too small a sample to get a clear understanding of his views? Dimadick (talk) 09:44, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Per the Octavius (dialogue) by Marcus Minucius Felix, Doherty notes three false and slanderous attacks made against the Christian belief of Minucius Felix:

• A religion of lust and fornication. They reverence the head of an ass . . . even the genitals of their priests.
• Some say that the objects of their worship include a man who suffered death as a criminal.
• During initiations they slay and dismember an infant and drink its blood . . . at their ritual feasts they indulge in shameless copulation.

Per Doherty, it is peculiar that the allegation of criminal execution on Earth is considered by Minucius Felix to be just as ridiculous as the other allegations. —Ref. "JESUS PUZZLE: Preamble - Century of Apologists". www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net. Retrieved 31 May 2017. - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 17:15, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Per [Boyarin, Daniel (24 November 2010). Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 119. ISBN 0-8122-0384-4.]:

While in general I find Hurtado’s argument [of no specific evidence of direct worship] bracing and important, his exclusive reliance on only one criterion, worship, to determine the divine nature of a given intermediary seems to me overly narrow and rigid. There may be no gainsaying his demonstration, I think, that worship in the incarnate Logos is a novum, a “mutation,” as he styles it, introduced by Jesus people, but the belief in an intermediary, a deuteros theos, and even perhaps binitarian worship was common to them and other Jews.

—Ref. Godfrey, Neil (3 July 2014). "The Pre-Christian Jewish Logos". Vridar. Retrieved 7 June 2017.

Per [Lataster, Raphael (4 January 2017). "Review Essay: Bart Ehrman and the Elusive Historical Jesus". Literature & Aesthetics. 26 (1): 184. ISSN 2200-0437.]:

Unfortunately for the historicist, there is not a single piece of evidence, pre-New Testament, for the mundane Historical Jesus. This is not the case with the Celestial Messiah, who some pre-Christian Jews did honour, as even Ehrman now acknowledges.

74.138.106.1 (talk) 21:28, 7 June 2017 (UTC) & 01:19, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

A wide range of beliefs and ideas in early Christianity

Per [Ehrman, Bart (Feb 14, 2013). "Incarnation Christology, Angels, and Paul". The Bart Ehrman Blog.]:

I have argued that different Christians in the early decades of the Christian movement maintained that Jesus had been exalted to a divine status at some point of his existence – at his resurrection, at his baptism, at his birth. I have called this a christology from below, or an “exaltation” christology; it is sometimes called a low christology because it understands Jesus to have started out as a human (down here with us) and to have been raised to a divine status. In this view he was not God from eternity past or a pre-existent being. He was a human being who was taken up to the level of divinity at some point (or, in the case of the Virgin Birth, that he came into existence at a point in time as a person who was partially human partially divine).

But there was another kind of Christology which was also very early – earlier, in fact, than our earliest surviving Christian writer, Paul. This is the view that Jesus was a pre-existent divine being who became a human, did the Father’s will on earth, and then was taken back up into heaven whence he had originally come. If the other view is an “exaltation” Christology, I’ll call this one an “incarnation” Christology. The term “incarnation” literally means something like “being made flesh.” The idea is that a spiritual divine being (however “divine” is understood – more on this later) becomes a human being as a part of the divine plan of salvation. This is a view that can be considered a Christology “from above” (since the divine being comes from heaven to earth in bodily form) and is more commonly thought of as a “high” Christology, since in it Christ starts out up there, way up there, in fact, with God.

—Ref. Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press. pp. 125, 225. ISBN 978-0-19-518249-1. [Most Gnostics claimed] that Christ was a divine emissary from above, totally spirit, and that he entered the man Jesus temporarily [...] Gnostics were saying that Jesus literally died "apart from God," in that the divine element within him had left him.

Per [Lataster, Raphael (4 January 2017). "Review Essay: Bart Ehrman and the Elusive Historical Jesus". Literature & Aesthetics. 26 (1): 186. ISSN 2200-0437.]:

Ehrman’s solution [of low (adoptionist) Christology] is that different Christianities developed differently and at different times; an opinion he shares with the mythicists.

Per [Noll, Kurt. "Investigating Earliest Christianity without Jesus (Chapter 13) - Is This Not the Carpenter?". Cambridge Core. Retrieved 12 June 2017.]:

My thesis is that any quest for a historical Jesus is irrelevant to an understanding of the earliest social movements that evolved into the religion now called Christianity. This is the case even if a historical Jesus existed and made an effort to found a movement of some kind. [...] Jesus was functionally irrelevant to the earliest stages of what contemporary researchers call the Jesus movement, or the Christ cult, or the Jesus-confessing communities (and that I will call early Christianity).

74.138.106.1 (talk) 11:30, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

IP 74, please see WP:TPG "The purpose of an article's talk page ....is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or WikiProject. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject....Do not use the talk page as a forum or soapbox for discussing the topic"Smeat75 (talk) 13:43, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Argument from hearsay

The main article is clearly written by gullible believers rather than skeptics. Quote: "The seven undisputed Pauline epistles considered by scholarly consensus to be genuine epistles are generally dated to 50–60 AD". We have no manuscripts from that date but only from centuries later (with many contradictions between them as Bart Ehrman shows, with the earliest copies having the most contradictions) so while we can accept some of the manuscripts attributed to Paul were written by the same person, we cannot know the date they were written or who wrote them.

Paul is missing from important places in history (http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/paul.htm) and the Saul story is obviously fake as the Romans were very tolerant of the many religions in their Empire and there were few, IF ANY christians about at the time, so christians would not have been persecuted.

It became necessary for christian forgers like Suetonius to put lies into the works of Josephus to try and claim Jesus existed (again, we do not have early original manuscripts but only from centuries later) as despite the article's claim, people have always doubted Jesus existed as they increasingly do now. Probably the fact that christians imprisoned, tortured and murdered non believers had something to do with an open lack of skeptical claims about Jesus.

Bible aside, there is no TRUSTWORTHY evidence Jesus existed from contemporary writers (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2776194/Jesus-never-existed-Writer-finds-no-mention-Christ-126-historical-texts-says-mythical-character.html) The stories are not dated, not eye witness as in personal accounts, and do not match up with history. In bible stories, the writers seem to be omnipresent and have perfect memories. Had the stories of Jesus been of an ordinary human being, it might be argued that he could have existed, but to claim that an IMPOSSIBLE magical being existed without hard evidence is not valid. It is like claiming that Superman really exists because there are comics about him.(5.8.186.99 (talk) 04:12, 14 July 2017 (UTC))

"christian forgers like Suetonius" hahaha. You clearly lack knowledge of this subject. Please also note that blogs such as jesusneverexisted.com are not WP:RS and neither is the Daily Mail [4].Smeat75 (talk) 04:48, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

"the writers seem to be omnipresent and have perfect memories"

You mean they are omniscient narrators? "A story in this narrative mode is presented by a narrator with an overarching point of view, seeing and knowing everything that happens within the world of the story, including what each of the characters is thinking and feeling."

Plausible enough description, with at least some passages of the Gospels. Remember the Agony in the Garden episode? Jesus is alone, his three apostles are asleep, and we get a description of his "overwhelming sadness and anguish". Hod did the Gospel writers know about this sadness? Dimadick (talk) 09:10, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Such issues as "how did the Gospel writers know" what Jesus felt while alone are matters for the Historical reliability of the Gospels article, not this one, which is about the fringe theory that there was never such as person as Jesus at all. Also "bear in mind that article talk pages exist solely to discuss how to improve articles; they are not for general discussion about the subject of the article".WP:NOTFORUM Smeat75 (talk) 13:15, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Edward van der Kaaij

I think this pastor, with his book The Uncomfortable Truth of Christianity should be added to the proponents. The reference can be

http://nltimes.nl/2015/02/08/jesus-didnt-exist-myth-says-banned-pastor/

If somebody agrees, please do it, I do not feel so comfortable as a non-native English speaker. Thank you.Jelamkorj (talk) 21:11, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

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"According to mythicists, the Gospels are not eye-witness accounts"

The idea that the gospels are not eye-witness accounts is just about universal among New Testament scholars. Can anyone find any respectable contemporary (i.e., not dead and not evangelical) authorities who think otherwise?PiCo (talk) 22:16, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

—Ref. Godfrey, Neil (10 May 2010). "Dating Mark early". Vridar. [Per the Gospel of Mark] Maurice Casey (Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel) and James Crossley (The Date of Mark's Gospel) [...] date this gospel to within ten years of the supposed death of Jesus. – 74.138.106.1 (talk) 22:51, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

(Just for future readers, the ref isn't so much Niel Godfrey and Vridar as Maurice Casey and James Crossley). Thanks for that. I'd forgotten about Casey and the recent push for redating the gospels early. That's very much a reaction to the Myth Theory, which isn't to say it's invalid, but it's recent. There's also NT Wright - any more? Anyway, it doesn't change the essential point that these are all arguing against the consensus which dates Mark 65-75 AD and makes it the first of the gospels - none of them by eyewitnesses, M and L dependent on Mark and Q, John on its own sources. Not quite a complete consensus, obviously :). PiCo (talk) 06:54, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

PiCo is right. Attributing such view to the CMT theorists is like attributing the invention of the light bulb to Immanuel Velikovsky. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:04, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I amended the subsection "Dating and Authorship" under the section "The Gospels" to reflect this. PiCo (talk) 12:15, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

"Fringe theory" label

The second paragraph of the lead begins like this:

In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory not supported by any tenured specialists in biblical criticism or cognate disciplines. The Christ myth theory contradicts the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many mythical or legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the biography of a historical Jesus who did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine...

In recent edits, User:Jthorn1965 removed the first sentence, with a comment: "The use of the fringe theory is pejorative in nature and adds nothing to the discussion." This was reverted by User:MjolnirPants. There are also references to the Fallacy of appeal to authority, but this I think is irrelevant. The first sentence basically duplicates the second, plus a rather POV invitation to an argument about exactly what a "tenured specialist" is. The article fringe theory essentially gives two elements of meaning to this expression: basically it means "not mainstream", and it is often used pejoratively, "roughly synonymous with pseudo-scholarship". If there is a case for including the "Fringe theory" label, it should be on the first meaning, but this is exactly what the second sentence says already. So I propose that the first sentence should indeed be removed, but invite arguments as to its value. Imaginatorium (talk) 03:28, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

...a rather POV invitation to an argument about exactly what a "tenured specialist" is.

1. It's not POV to state a fact. That the CMT is a fringe theory is a fact.
2. A tenured specialist is a scholar who specializes in the study of Jesus and who has tenure. There's no debating what that is, because it's a descriptive term.

...and it is often used pejoratively...

It's not a pejorative in and of itself, it's simply seen as a pejorative label by those who hold fringe beliefs, and sometimes by those who study fringe beliefs. There's nothing inherently insulting or dismissing about it. No-one is insulting or dismissing Lee Smolin when they refer to Loop quantum gravity as a fringe theory, for example.

...but this is exactly what the second sentence says already.

There are fringe theories that do not contradict the mainstream consensus, so you are incorrect about this being a duplication. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:32, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

"The article fringe theory essentially gives two elements of meaning to this expression: basically it means "not mainstream", [and] "roughly synonymous with pseudo-scholarship". CMT is both those things. Thos who hold to the theory would naturally regard this as pejorative, but it's also factual.PiCo (talk) 11:51, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

• Comment As PiCo already said, CMT is an almost "perfect" example of both those meanings. It is most certainly "not mainstream" and it is almost entirely "pseudo-scholarship". Most of the proponents, even though mentioned in this article, are amateurs without any relevant academic qualifications. Jeppiz (talk) 12:39, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

The little academic support it has received has, itself, frequently referred to it as a "fringe" theory. See Price and Carrier, for example. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:27, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Price and Carrier would certainly agree that their position is not "mainstream". But they would not agree to the "pseudoscholarship" label. JerryRussell (talk) 20:13, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I didn't say "pseudoscholarship". ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:28, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

MPants at work, no you didn't say 'pseudoscholarship', but Jeppiz and PiCo did. JerryRussell (talk) 16:31, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

• Comment This has been discussed so many times and is still very perplexing because many scholars question whether Jesus existed. I still don't understand the difference between this article and Historicity of Jesus Raquel Baranow (talk) 20:38, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

• Comment How many scholars who teach at accredited institutions question Jesus' existence? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 12:08, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't think any scholars at all question whether Jesus existed. Richard Carrier, for example, isn't a scholar, he's a popular author and media personality. Like you I wonder why we have these two articles, but I'm told this one is about a specific theory, and the other is about the value of the primary documents relating to the life of Jesus. PiCo (talk) 12:05, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

If "many scholars" question whether Jesus existed, it's strange that the CMT proponents never can name them. Instead, they always give a number of amateurs (and just to be clear, being a scholar in an unrelated field such as linguistics, accounting, aerodynamics etc. still means one is an amateur here. "Scholar" is not a term we can use to claim expertise in any field. Believe me, I tried and my wife would have none of it.) Jeppiz (talk) 12:10, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

There are many "Myths" in the Gospels, such as walking on water, raising the dead (these are metaphors). To call this a "fringe theory" implies "if you don't believe in the miracles, you're stupid, only idiots (non-scholars) believe the Christ Myth". It's like saying, many priests, ministers don't believe the Christ Myth because they have a vested interest. I know many scholars who believe Joseph Smith, Mormonism (look at the faculty at Brigham Young University). Look at WP:FRINGE The Christ Myth Theory is NOT fringe! Many smart people question whether Jesus existed or performed miracles. Raquel Baranow (talk) 13:54, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Demythologization theory should not be conflated with the WP:Christ_myth_theory article—the radical skepticism of the historical Jesus (as derived from the New Testament) and the assertion that Christianity did not originate from him. – 74.138.106.1 (talk) 18:43, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Raquel Baranow, Wikipedia is not a forum. Whether you believe in CMT, and what you consider it to be, is irrelevant. All your comment above shows, to be perfectly honest, is that you don't understand the question we're discussing here. You seem to think the only options are believing in everything the gospels say or believing in CMT. Again, all that says is that you don't grasp the question. Most critical scholars believe the person Jesus, an uneducated Aramaic-speaking Jewish preacher, existed. Please be advised that further attempts to treat this as a forum could be seen as disruptive. Jeppiz (talk) 20:06, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Jeppiz, aren't your comments above deriding CMT as "pseudo-scholarship", also disruptive grandstanding? While you say that most proponents are 'amateurs', haven't we already agreed that writers such as Price and Carrier have relevant academic standing, and that the article is based on works of such authors? JerryRussell (talk) 16:31, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

No it's not disruptive editing. The CMT is pure crap and that's putting it lightly. (It may be time for me to again post an abundant list of what reliable sources say about the CMT. It's quite harsh as some editors here will remember.) Also, this article is NOT based on the works of "such authors", both of which do not teach at any accredited institution. It is based on the opinions of various individuals over the years, and that includes many "amateurs". Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 17:04, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Bill the Cat 7, I agree that most tenured faculty say that CMT is without merit. But your statement CMT is pure crap and that's putting it lightly seems to represent your own opinion. The article is based on the work of authors with academic credentials in the field of biblical scholarshi . Other popular authors are briefly referred to with links, and their opinions put into perspective with respect to the major sources used as the basis of the article. This was worked out as a compromise some time ago, I'm not sure to what extent recent additions conform with this. JerryRussell (talk) 17:26, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

By way of an answer to Raquel Baranow's original question, here's my explanation of why we have both this article and Historicity of Jesus. It's basically a result of editor interpretations of the WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE policies. The HOJ article is an exposition of the mainstream view that Jesus did exist, and it gives the evidence for this. Because CMT is a minority view, it gets only a short section in HOJ as per due weight. The CMT article is a secondary article, devoted to the viewpoints and activities of the advocates for this minority "fringe" view. "Fringe" as I'm sure you're aware, is a technical term at Wikipedia and not necessarily considered a pejorative here. JerryRussell (talk) 17:46, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Given that the topic of this article falls under WP:Fringe policy (non-perjoritve), the primary content of this article is a WP:NPOV presentation of the significant viewpoints held by CMT proponents (and those noted as such). - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 18:56, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

"Modern proponents"

It seems to me this section should focus more on what the various people say. I'd like to go through it and do that. PiCo (talk) 09:29, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Presumably as an example of the sort of material PiCo intends to remove from the article, he deleted the following information about Wells: British theologian Kenneth Grayston advised Christians to acknowledge the difficulties raised by Wells. I would have thought that this was important material to retain, as a secondary source evaluation of the significance of Wells's work. Or at least that we should keep the footnote, even if the text is to be deleted as undue. JerryRussell (talk) 15:41, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

References

Wells, George Albert (1975). Did Jesus Exist?. Prometheus Books, Publishers. pp. 2, 224, n. 183. ISBN 978-1-61592-380-9. In my earlier book, The Jesus of the Early Christians (which I shall call JEC), my purpose was to show the difficulties and problems which arise when the gospels are interpreted as historical records, and how Christianity could have arisen even had there been no historical Jesus. Some theological reviewers (e.g. Professors Grayston and Simon, 183 and 372) admitted that I had stated serious 'difficulties' to which a satisfactory solution has not yet been found. (183 Grayston, K. (Prof. of NT, Bristol), review of JEC in Methodist Recorder, 16 December, 1971.) - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 17:51, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Every mainstream study which has examined the methods for Jesus historicity has concluded they are fallacious

• Chris Keith and Anthony LeDonne (eds.), Jesus, History and the Demise of Authenticity (New York: T. & T. Clark, 2012)

• Dale Allison, 'The Historians' Jesus and the Church', in Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage (ed. Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Richard Hays; Grand Rapids, Ml: William B. Eerdmans, 2008), pp. 79-95

• Hector Avalos, The End of Biblical Studies (Amherst. NY: Prometheus Books, 2007), pp. 185-217

• Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Louisville. KY: John Knox Press, 2002)

• Stanley Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000VictoriaGrayson^Talk 17:51, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

You are totally misrepresenting your sources. First of all, the sources listed here are not the only studies that have ever been published on the subject of the historical Jesus. The notion that they are is absurd. Second of all, none of these source deal with the question of 'historicity"; they are all dealing with the question of what the historical Jesus was like. None of your sources cited here even come remotely close to arguing favor of the Christ Myth theory. In fact, all of these sources, except for Avalos, accept that most of the criteria used to determine aspects of the life of the historical Jesus are helpful and constructive; they only criticize certain, specific methods of reconstruction, particularly those associated with the Third Quest of the Historical Jesus. Avalos is the only one who reaches the conclusion that all of the criteria are flawed.

The first two sources on your list are largely criticizing historical Jesus scholarship for being too Reductionist. In other words, they argue that some researchers have been too dismissive towards some portions of the gospels. These sources are written partly in response to the humiliating catastrophe known as the Jesus Seminar, whose methods and conclusions have been criticized by numerous other authorities for being arbitrary and absurd. Your third source--Avalos-- is essentially just a nihilistic diatribe arguing that we can never hope to learn anything for certain about ancient history as a whole (including, I might add, even about secular figures; he uses Julius Caesar as an example.) Even Avalos, however, does not conclude that Jesus never existed; instead he merely argues that we cannot possibly know anything about his life for certain. Your fourth source only criticizes the criterion of dissimilarity, arguing that the criterion is too restrictive (i.e. too Reductionist) because it only accepts material that is dissimilar from the views of early Christians. Theissen and Winter therefore argue that any material which could plausibly fit into the context of first century Judaism and first century Christianity must therefore be accepted as genuine. Your final source--Porter--merely criticizes some of the more outdated criteria based on linguistics and argues that three new criteria based on Greek language and its context, textual variance, and aspects of Greek discourse are more helpful for determining the true personality of the historical Jesus.

As I have previously stated at Talk:Historicity of Jesus, criticizing the specific methods used by some scholars to attempt to determine what the historical Jesus was like is not at all the same thing as arguing that Jesus himself never even existed at all. Let me use an anology to demonstrate: imagine there are a whole bunch of biographers who write books about Charles Darwin portraying him as a romanticized heroic genius incapable of any fault for anything. I criticize those biographers, saying that their portrayal of Charles Darwin is inaccurate and based on what they themselves would like for him to have been rather than the man he actually was. Does that mean that I do not believe Charles Darwin was a real person? No. Of course not. It just means that I think his biographers are biased and are using flawed methods. It is the same thing here. None of these authors are arguing in favor of the Christ Myth theory. In fact, for most of them, they are only criticizing very specific criteria while accepting all the other criteria as methodologically sound. Ironically, in fact, over half of these sources are criticizing the criteria for being too strict rather than too loose. --Katolophyromai (talk) 06:01, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Per [Carrier, Richard C. (3 April 2012). Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus. Prometheus Books. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-61614-560-6.]:

Quote — Carrier (2012) p. 11.

[A]ttempts to ascertain the “real” historical Jesus have ended in confusion and failure. The latest attempt to cobble together a method for teasing out the truth involved developing a set of criteria. But it has since been demonstrated that all those criteria, as well as the whole method of their employment, are fatally flawed. Every expert who has seriously examined the issue has already come to this conclusion. In the words of Gerd Theissen, “There are no reliable criteria for separating authentic from inauthentic Jesus tradition.”2 Stanley Porter agrees.3 Dale Allison likewise concludes, “these criteria have not led to any uniformity of result, or any more uniformity than would have been the case had we never heard of them,” hence “the criteria themselves are seriously defective” and “cannot do what is claimed for them.”4 Even Porter's attempt to develop new criteria has been shot down by unveiling all the same problems.5 And Porter had to agree.6 The growing consensus now is that this entire quest for criteria has failed.7 The entire field of Jesus studies has thus been left without any valid method. Page 11 References — Carrier (2012) p. 293f, n. 2-7 2. Quoted in Stanley Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), p. 115. 3. Ibid., pp. 116-17. See also Stanley Porter′s summary critique in James Charlesworth and Petr Pokorný, eds., Jesus Research: An International Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 16-35. 4. Dale Allison, “The Historians’ Jesus and the Church,” in Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage, eds. Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Richard B. Hays (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2008), pp. 79-95 (quoting p. 79). His conclusion has only become stronger after a decade of critical research: compare Dale Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), pp. 1-77. 5. Hector Avalos, The End of Biblical Studies (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007), pp. 203-209; Michael Bird, “The Criterion of Greek Language and Context: A Response to Stanley E. Porter,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 4, no. 1 (2006): pp. 55-67. 6. Stanley Porter, “The Criterion of Greek Language and Its Context: A Further Response,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 4, no. 1 (2006): 69-74 (in response to Bird, cited in the previous note). Porter concludes his new criteria only establish the possibility of historicity, but that's of no use if you want to know what actually is historical. And there's more wrong with his new criteria than even Porter concedes (as I‘ll show in chapter 5). 7. See Dale Allison, “The Historians’ Jesus and the Church” and The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2009); Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria, trans. M. Eugene Boring (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2002); Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne, eds., Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity (T & T Clark, 2002); and Porter, Criteria for Authenticity. Similar doubts can be found almost anywhere the criteria have ever been critically discussed, e.g., M. D. Hooker, “Christology and Methodology,” New Testament Studies 17 (1970): pp. 480-87; John Gager, “The Gospels and Jesus: Some Doubts about Method,” Journal of Religion 54, no. 3 (July 1974): 244-72; Eugene Boring, “The Beatitudes in Q and Thomas as a Test Case,” Semeia 44 (1988): 9-44; John Meier, “Criteria: How Do We Decide What Comes from Jesus?” A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), pp. 167-95; Christopher Tuckett, “Sources and Methods,” in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, ed. Markus Bockmuehl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 121-37; H. W. Shin, Textual Criticism and the Synoptic Problem in Historical Jesus Research: The Search for Valid Criteria (Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2004), pp. 135-220, pp. 320-34; Eric Eve, “Meier, Miracle, and Multiple Attestation,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 3, no. 1 (2005): 23-45; William John Lyons, “The Hermeneutics of Fictional Black and Factual Red: The Markan Simon of Cyrene and the Quest for the Historical Jesus,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 4. no. 2 (June 2006): 139-54 (cf. 150-51. n. 51) and “A Prophet Is Rejected in His Home Town (Mark 6.4 and Parallels): A Study in the Methodological (In) Consistency of the Jesus Seminar.” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 6. no. 1 (March 2008): 59-84; and Rafael Rodriguez. “Authenticating Criteria: The Use and Misuse of a Critical Method.” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 7, no. 2 (2009): 152-67. The discussion of the same criteria in the Jesus Seminar’s manual on method, edited by Bernard Brandon Scott, Finding the Historical Jesus: Rules of Evidence (Santa Rosa. CA: Polebridge. 2008), is almost wholly uncritical and entirely unresponsive to any of the literature above.

74.138.106.1 (talk) 15:47, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Bayesian Analysis

—Refs.

• Carrier, Richard C. (3 April 2012). "Contents". Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus. Prometheus Books. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-61614-560-6.
  • Preface
  • 1. The Problem
  • 2. The Basics
  • 3. Introducing Bayes's theorem
  • 4. Bayesian Analysis of Historical Methods
  • 5. Bayesian Analysis of Historicity Criteria
  • 6. The Hard Stuff
  • Appendix
  • Common Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Index
• HTML Bibliography for Proving History (2012)

• Richard Carrier (6 July 2017). "What Is Bayes' Theorem & How Do You Use It?". Richard Carrier Blog.
• Widowfield, Tim (22 November 2016). "What's the Difference Between Frequentism and Bayesianism? (Part 1)". Vridar.
• Widowfield, Tim (6 December 2016). "What's the Difference Between Frequentism and Bayesianism? (Part 2)". Vridar.

• Vridar Category Archives: Carrier: Proving history

74.138.106.1 (talk) 17:07, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

From Carrier's "Proving History": "Jesus originated as ... a cosmic being who never walked the Earth (and probably never existed at all)." Apparently Mr Carrier believes in the possibility of cosmic characters who do exist so long as they don't walk the Earth - cosmic spacemen :) PiCo (talk) 01:33, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Carrier is certain that Paul certainly thought that Jesus existed as a human—very briefly and not on Earth:

What we can know is that Paul certainly thought that Jesus existed. he had a clear knowledge of important aspects of Jesus’s life — a completely human life, in which he was born as a Jew to a Jewish woman and became a minister to the Jews before they rejected him, leading to his death. He knew some of Jesus’s teachings. And he knew how Jesus died, by crucifixion. For whatever reason, that was the most important aspect of Jesus’s life: his death. And Paul could scarcely have thought that Jesus died if he hadn’t lived [as a human—very briefly and not on Earth]. [Ehrman (2012), p. 140]

—Ref. Carrier, Richard (23 September 2017). "Kristi Winters on the Historical Jesus: Part 1". Richard Carrier Blogs. Winters' first argument is that Jesus must have existed, because Paul talks about Jesus as if he existed. - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 02:24, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

And this: "the only version of mythicism that has passed peer review, holds that Paul and the earliest Christians believed Jesus did indeed exist…in outer space." The man's mad. PiCo (talk) 03:13, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Carrier's position seems coherent enough to me. He says that Paul and the early Christians saw Jesus Christ as a heavenly or celestial being. Today we call that realm "outer space". Carrier says: Paul believed Jesus existed. In the same sense Satan and Gabriel existed. But Satan and Gabriel don’t really exist. And as to the specific claim from PiCo that The man's mad, I had been complaining earlier that BLP ought to apply to talk pages. By golly, it already does, see WP:BLPTALK. Pop-psychological diagnoses of a person's mental health condition, without any sourced factual basis, are violations of BLP. JerryRussell (talk) 16:44, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

The idea that Paul and the earlier Jewish Christian community saw Christ as a celestial being is mainstream. "Celestial" means that they saw him in heaven, seated at the right hand of God - and they really did see him, in visions. The Paul of Acts is a bit unreliable - Paul didn't write it - but in his letters he describes what he experienced, and it was a vision in heaven, which he visited. But Carrier is wrong when he says that Paul believed Jesus existed in the same sense that Satan and Gabriel existed. It was Christ who existed in that sense, not Jesus. Paul explicitly says that Jesus was a man "born of woman", not a celestial being. Anyway, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to care about WIkipedia. :) PiCo (talk) 01:27, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

New article section: Prima facie evidence of historicity from the epistles

1 Thessalonians 2:14-16

• Jews killed Jesus

Galatians 1:19

• Meets James, “a brother of the Lord”

Galatians 4:4-5

• “Born of a woman”

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

• The ”Last Supper”

1 Corinthians 15:3-8

• Jesus dying and being buried; people see Jesus

Romans 1:1-4

• Jesus “seed of David”

The mythicist position should probably be enumerated in the article for each of these items. - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 04:59, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

I doubt if there's any single unified mythicist position. But...

From Robert Price, 'The Amazing Colossal Apostle'--

1 Thessalonians 2:14-16: "From 2:15 it is at least clear that our author is no Jew... reeks of typical Hellenistic anti-Semitism." (p. 491)

Galatians 1:18-20: Price says that this is an interpolation. He notes that Tertullian's "Against Marcion" does not mention the passage. (p. 415). On p. 411, Price argues that this entire epistle is written by Marcion or his followers.

Galatians 4:4-5: "A Catholic gloss intended to refute the Marcionite belief that Jesus descended fully grown from Heaven." (p. 426)

1 Corinthians: On p. 299, Price says that this entire epistle addresses 2nd century Christian gnosticism, so he questions whether any of it is genuinely written by Paul. On p. 340, Price says that 1 Corinthians 11:22 connects to 11:33, and everything in between is a late insertion. On p. 360, he says that 15:3 through 15:11 are also interpolated, and he cites several other scholars who agree.

Romans 1:1-4: Price says it's a Catholic anti-Marcionite interpolation. The phrase "seed of David" is in verse 3. Here, Price claims that the consensus is with him: "All commentators recognize that verses 3 and 4 are foreign material" (p. 254) JerryRussell (talk) 17:19, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

IP74 introduced this material into the article, and I reverted it. Reasons: (1) We can't talk about views of Wells and Carrier until we do the research to find out exactly what they said. (2) Tabular presentation is discouraged, the material should be written into a narrative. JerryRussell (talk) 23:06, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Regarding Price, the article already says: Price argues that passages such as Galatians 1:18-20, Galatians 4:4 and 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 are late Catholic interpolations and that 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 was unlikely to have been written by a Jewish person. Which seems like a pretty good narrative summary. The article also has broadly applicable remarks about Wells and Carrier and their views. JerryRussell (talk) 21:01, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Here is the proposed rough version:

• Old revision of 10 October 2017 CMT § Mythicists' view § New: Prima facie evidence of historicity from the epistles

I have no preference. - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 21:35, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

G. A. Wells. "Earliest Christianity". infidels.org. [Doherty] holds that Paul speaks of Jesus 'in exclusively mythological terms'. I have never -- in spite of what some of my critics have alleged -- subscribed to such a view: for Paul does, after all, call Jesus a descendant of David (Rom. 1:3), born of a woman under the (Jewish) law (Gal.4:4), who lived as a servant to the circumcision (Rom. 15:8) and was crucified on a tree (Gal.3:13) and buried (I Cor. 15:4). - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 03:22, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

What belongs in this article?

When I read this article, it reminds me of this quote:

Did Christ exist? Is the life story of the founder of Christianity the product of human sorrow, imagination, and hope—a myth comparable to the legends of Krishna, Osiris, Attis, Adonis, Dionysus, and Mithras? Early in the eighteenth century the circle of Bolingbroke, shocking even Voltaire, privately discussed the possibility that Jesus had never lived. Volney propounded the same doubt in his Ruins of Empire in 1791. Napoleon, meeting the German scholar Wieland in 1808, asked him no petty question of politics or war, but did he believe in the historicity of Christ? -- Will Durant, Caesar and Christ: A History of Roman Civilization and of Christianity from their Beginnings to A.D. 325, The Story of Civilization: Part III (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1944), 553.

So Durant's kind of thinking does not belong in this article? Raquel Baranow (talk) 03:22, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Per The Story of Civilization § III. Caesar and Christ (1944):

• Durant, Will; Durant, Ariel (1944). "XXVI -- Jesus -- 4 B.C.-A.D. 30". Caesar and Christ, a history of Roman civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to A.D. 325. Vol. The Story of Civilization III. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 553. ISBN 978-1-4516-4760-0. footnotes p.697

In the footnotes, are there any scholars cited that should be included in this article ? - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 05:54, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

The quote from Will Durant is exactly what this article should cover, but there's a problem: Jesus and Christ aren't exactly the same. Christ is a divine being, whereas Jesus was a man. So Durant has it slightly wrong when he asks "Did Christ exist?" Of course he exists, you can read about him, even experience him. What Durant really meant was, "Did Jesus exist?" Most scholars, maybe all, would say yes. Then perhaps Durant should have asked, "Was Jesus, who was a man, also the Christ, who is divine?" The answer again is yes - if early Christians said Jesus was Christ, then he was.
The really interesting question is, What did the human Jesus think? It's quite possible he thought he was indeed the messiah - after all, someone had to be. He may have thought he was the "one like a son of man" foretold in Daniel and other, non-canonical, works - he was, after all, a Jew in an age that believed in the coming of the Kingdom of God, and the Son of Man was going to rule that kingdom. And he may have engineered his own execution, believing it was necessary to bring on the Kingdom. And his followers may have believed it too. In which case they could well have seen him, post-crucifixion, in heaven seated on the right hand of God, as Paul describes.
The real problem for those who deny the first step in this chain of possibilities - that Jesus existed as a man - is that they then have to explain the arrival in the consciousness of his followers of the Christ, the divine being. I wouldn't rely on Durant, by the way, he's a bit old. PiCo (talk) 05:08, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

PiCo wrote: The real problem for those who deny the first step in this chain of possibilities - that Jesus existed as a man - is that they then have to explain the arrival in the consciousness of his followers of the Christ, the divine being. I agree that this is a problem for mythicists such as Price and Carrier. But the folks known as "Roman Origins" theorists have an answer, which is that Christianity is a syncretism of Judaism with the Roman imperial cult. And as such, they say that the Jesus of the New Testament is a literary conflation of Judaic messianic and revolutionary figures such as Judas of Galilee, Jesus son of Sapphias, Joshua ben Gamla, Izates bar Monobaz and Justus of Tiberias. But, Biblical Jesus is not portrayed as a Jewish zealot, but rather he has the heart of a Roman stoic philosopher. And, the life of Biblical Jesus includes abundant typological references to Roman emperors including Julius Caesar, Augustus, Vespasian and Titus. This viewpoint is generally traced back to Bruno Bauer although recent authors have taken it much farther. Notable recent proponents whose views are covered in existing Wikipedia articles include Kenneth Atchity, Francesco Carotta, and Joseph Atwill. Also see Daniel Unterbrink 1, James Valiant 2 and our friend from the Exodus talk page, Ralph Ellis Jesus, King of Edessa at academia.edu. Strangely, mythicist authors such as Carrier and Price view these authors as a particularly erroneous and virulent type of mythicist, whose views must be stamped out at all costs. But they aren't mythicists at all. They don't say that Jesus never existed. They say that the historical Jesus was Judas of Galilee, or Julius Caesar, or King Agbar Manu V, or all of them and more rolled into one. I'm puzzled as to whether they belong on this page, or not. JerryRussell (talk) 19:03, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

They do not.Smeat75 (talk) 23:29, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

• "The main result at which the author [Arthur Drews (1910)] arrives is that the Jesus of the canonical Gospels is a largely humanised form of a pre-Christian cult-god of that name ...[and it is also] possible that there was a great teacher and healer bearing the same name [Jesus], who was confounded with that supposed deity." [Cheyne, T. K. (1911).]
• "The myth theory as stated by J. M. Robertson [1910] does not exclude the possibility of an historical Jesus." [Robertson, Archibald (1946).]
• "We know next to nothing about this Jesus. He is not the founder of anything that we can recognize as Christianity." [Robertson, Archibald (1946).]
• "Many (including the present writer) are content to infer ...that probably some Jew named Jesus adopted the Persian belief [see Avesta] in the end of the world [...] They feel that the question of historicity has little importance [...] the very scanty biographical details even as given in the Gospels [see Mark] do not justify the claim of a "unique personality,"..." [McCabe, Joseph (1948).]
• "Yes, it is possible [there is a historical founder of Christianity], perhaps just a tad more likely than that there was a historical Moses, about as likely as there having been a historical Apollonius of Tyana. But it becomes almost arbitrary to think so. [Price, Robert M. (1999).]
• "The Q material—whether or not it suffices as evidence of Jesus's historicity—refers to a [human] personage..." [Wells, George Albert (2004).]
• "If we trace Christianity back to Jesus ben Pandera or an Essene Teacher of Righteousness in the first century BCE, we still have a historical Jesus." [Price (2011).]

74.138.106.1 (talk) 18:53, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Both of the following positions have been described as a variant of Mythicism:

1. Historicity Agnostic: The historical evidence is too patchy, too minimal and too ideologically tainted to be able to reach any conclusions about the Jesus figure of the Gospels. Thus asserting anything further than his existence is going beyond what the evidence allows. The most we can say is — “we do not know”.
2. Ahistoricity Agnostic: We should not assume things to exist unless we have sufficient evidence to reach that conclusion. Thus in the absence of sufficient evidence, we should assume there was no historical Jesus.

Ehrman (2012), pp. 19, 348, n. 10. "Other writers who are often placed in the mythicist camp present a slightly different view, namely, that there was indeed a historical Jesus but that he was not the founder of Christianity, a religion rooted in the mythical Christ-figure invented by its original adherents. This view was represented in midcentury by Archibald Robinson, who thought that even though there was a Jesus, “we know next to nothing about this Jesus.” (A. Robertson, Jesus: Myth or History?, 107.)"

Per Paul-Louis Couchoud:

It is not enough to declare 'We know nothing about Jesus, except that he existed'. On the contrary [contra J. M. Robertson et al.], we must boldly assert that 'We do not know anything about him, not even whether he existed'. In historical research, only the strictest accuracy permits us to say anything more. ["L'énigme de Jésus", In Mercure de France (1923).]

74.138.106.1 (talk) 23:35, 9 October 2017 (UTC) && 22:04, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

New article section: The Conflation of Jesus and Christ

A new section should be added to the CMT article to explain the disparate mythicist views on some given historical Jesus (or the historical personage(s) the gospel figure was modeled upon).

• Present Carrier's minimal historical Jesus criteria and explain that not all mythicists use that criteria. e.g. Kenneth Atchity, Carotta, Atwill, Unterbrink, etc..
• Present the "chicken or the egg causality dilemma", i.e. some mythicists hold that Christ was first originated and then was later conflated with some putative Jesus/Joshua figure(s), while others reverse this order.

74.138.106.1 (talk) 17:47, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

This article is about the fringe theory that there was never such a person as Jesus at all. " Kenneth Atchity, Carotta, Atwill" put forward an even wackier idea that Jesus was really a Roman emperor and Unterbrink I think says that Jesus was an earlier Jewish prophet, or something. They do not belong in this article.Smeat75 (talk) 23:32, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

As Smeat75 says, people like Carotta, Atwill, Unterbrink do not belong in any article except articles on themselves. They are tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists withouteven a shred of credibility, and nobody takes them serious. Atchity is a novel writer, like Dan Brown. They have the freedom to write what they like in novels, but that's not to be confused with reality. People like Price and Carrier are actual scholars, taking a (fringe) minority position. It's a shame for them, serious scholars as they are, that this article lumps them together with wacky conspiracy theorists. Jeppiz (talk) 22:12, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Proof

There is no proof at all that the gospels are in any substantial fashion inaccurate. In fact, it is clear that they contain the words of a real man/God. Aqualungsbrother (talk) 00:19, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

This talk page is for discussing how to improve the article. See the notice at the top of the page. If you have a specific suggestion (or even a question) about the content, then please say so. I'm not sure whether what you said is technically relevant to this article; the term "Christ Myth" doesn't mean what I suspect you're thinking it does. However, there are several other articles, such as Biblical literalism which might be more pertinent.

While avoiding indulging in using the talk page as a forum Aqualungsbrother, I'll quickly address what you said. I highly encourage you to read any of the leading textual scholars today. You might have a better informed set of criteria to work with when making such a claim.

While it might surprise the layman, these same scholars are taught quite extensively in almost all seminaries throughout the world, in nearly every denomination.

As far as your second statement, that's a religious belief, and I have no comment. Quinto Simmaco (talk) 16:08, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

FAQ, again

I saw the specific archive relating to this from 2010. I'm wondering, considering that the vast majority of this talk page is spent explaining why certain descriptors are used per policy or guideline, whether it's a relevant conversation to bring up again. Without burying the lede (no pun intended), the "fringe theory" label and categorisation is what I specifically had in mind. This seems to come up fairly often, usually brought up by proponents of the theory or new editors unfamiliar with WP:FRINGE. To be fair, I'm sure there are even veteran editors who aren't necessarily familiar with it, but are probably familiar enough with NPOV to not have the same questions.

I don't see how it could hurt. It would certainly cut down the amount of time you all spend addressing it, at least.

Quinto Simmaco (talk) 16:18, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

—Ref. Talk:Christ myth theory/FAQ discussions (c.2010‎)

74.138.106.1 (talk) 20:16, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Edits by 74.138.106.1

This user is using this article to push fringe theories. 139.99.130.220 (talk) 20:17, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard § Christ myth theory

Given that the topic of this article falls under WP:Fringe policy (non-perjoritve), the primary content of this article is a WP:NPOV presentation of the significant viewpoints held by CMT proponents (and those noted as such). - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 20:58, 16 November 2017 (UTC) && 23:13, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

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Points of intersection between mythicists and scholars who do not make the same conclusion

Quotes: scholars who do not make the same conclusion as mythicists

"[Per mythicism] there’s no physical evidence or archaeological evidence that Jesus existed—which is absolutely true. There are no writings from Jesus—absolutely true. There are no Roman sources from Jesus’ day that mention Jesus—again, true.", Inventing Jesus: An Interview with Bart Ehrman (2012). "No Greek or Roman author from the first-century mentions Jesus. [...] we do not have a single reference to Jesus by anyone—pagan, Jew, or Christian—who was a contemporary eyewitness [...] the Gospels of the New Testament are not eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus. [...] The Gospel writers—anonymous Greek-speaking Christians living thirty-five to sixty-five years after the traditional date of Jesus’s death—were simply writing down episodes that they had heard from the life of Jesus.", Ehrman (2012), pp. 43, 46, 49, 72. "I did indeed find [C. A.] Gieschen’s argument that Paul understood Jesus as an angel prior to becoming human extremely provocative and convincing. His arguments are supported and advanced in a very interesting discussion of Susan R. Garrett in her book. No Ordinary Angel.", Ehrman (2014). "I think, that worship in the incarnate Logos is a novum, a “mutation,” ...introduced by Jesus people, but the belief in an intermediary, a deuteros theos, and even perhaps binitarian worship was common to them [Jesus people] and other Jews.", Boyarin (2010). "Paul cannot be considered a reliable witness to either the teachings, the life, or the historical existence of Jesus.", Lüdemann (2010). "In the light of Paul’s complete disregard for the “historical” Jesus, moreover, it is unimaginable that he would assert a biological relationship between James and “the Lord.”, Hoffmann (2009). "The essentials of the message Paul preaches are not coming from those who were with Jesus, whom Paul sarcastically calls the “so-called pillars of the church,” adding “what they are means nothing to me” (Galatians 2:6), but from voices, visions, and revelations that Paul is “hearing” and “seeing.” For some that is a strong foundation. For many, including most historians, such “traditions” cannot be taken as reliable historical testimony.", Tabor (2012). "Whether Jesus himself existed as a historical figure or not, the gospels that tell of him are unquestionably mythic texts. ...Investigations into the historical Jesus require, by contrast, that the gospels be used as historical sources, and in fact the main difference between “conservative” and “liberal” scholarship revolves around how much legendary accretion is stripped away in order to arrive at the “historical core,” not whether there is any historical core to be found at all. In seeking to find the real, historical person behind these narratives, we are using these texts as sources for a figure that they themselves show no interest in at all. Just as the myths and legends about Herakles are simply not about a historical person, so also the gospels are not about the historical Jesus.", Arnal (2015).

Carrier, Richard (14 October 2017). "Jonathan Tweet and the Jesus Debate". Richard Carrier Blogs. Retrieved 18 November 2017. I am currently the world's leading expert on the specific, hyper-narrow question of the arguments for and against the historicity of Jesus. [...] Every historian in this field [of early Christianity] is more knowledgeable than me on something, if not indeed most things, that aren't directly on the question of historicity. Indeed even most of what I base my own case on, comes from the greater expertise of other published authors, on other hyper-narrow questions that are not directly about that single question [of the arguments for and against the historicity of Jesus]...

—Ref. Carrier's sources noted in the PDF Bibliography for On the Historicity of Jesus (2014). - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 00:45, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

IP74, please do not use this talk page as a forum for promoting "mythicism". I find that ludicrous self-promotion by Carrier particularly objectionable. Talk pages should be strictly limited to discussion of improvements to the article.Smeat75 (talk) 00:55, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

• Per the proposed new content: Revision as of 19:16, 16 November 2017

This information is given in support of the fact that while not reaching the same conclusion, nevertheless some mythicists and some scholars do agree on some issues (i.e. there are points of intersection between mythicists and scholars), which should be noted in the CMT article.

Quotes: mythicists who agree with points made by "scholars who do not make the same conclusion"

Since around 1970 an alternative explanation of the New Testament and related texts has been emerging. Researchers are recognizing precise ways in which New Testament texts are explained as depending not on oral tradition but on older literature, especially older scripture. [...] The dependence of the gospels on the Old Testament and on other extant texts is incomparably clearer and more verifiable than its dependence on any oral tradition — as seen, for instance, in the thorough dependence of Jesus’ call to disciples (Lk. 9:57-62) on Elijah’s call (1 Kgs 19). The sources supply not only a framework but a critical mass which pervades the later text. Brodie, Thomas L. (2012). "epilogue: Bart D. Ehrman's 'Did Jesus Exist?'". Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery. Sheffield Phoenix Press. p. 229. ISBN 978-1-907534-58-4. For the scriptural roots of all four Gospels and Acts (and in greater detail), see Robert M. Price, “New Testament Narrative as Old Testament Midrash,” in Encyclopedia of Midrash: Biblical Interpretation in Formative Judaism, ed. Jacob Neusner and Alan J. Avery Peck (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 1:534-73. Besides [John Dominic] Crossan, [Randel] Helms, the Millers [Dale and Patricia] and [Thomas L.] Brodie, I owe a great debt to the work of John Bowman, The Gospel of Mark: The New Christian Jewish Passover Haggadah, Studia Post-Biblica 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1965); J. Duncan M. Derrett, The Making of Mark: The Scriptural Bases of the Earliest Gospel, vols. 1 and 2 (Shipston-on-Stour, U.K.: P. Drinkwater, 1985); Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative, The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures 1977-1978 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979); Wolfgang Roth, Hebrew Gospel: Cracking the Code of Mark (Oak Park, Ill.: Meyer-Stone Books, 1988); and Rikki E. Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2, Reihe 88 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997). Price, Robert M. (4 February 2010). "Jesus at the Vanishing Point". In James K. Beilby, Paul Rhodes Eddy (ed.). The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity Press. p. 68, n.39. ISBN 978-0-8308-7853-6.

74.138.106.1 (talk) 12:06, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

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Named footnotes and references

I've tried to clean-up the clutter of named footnotes; it worked to a certain extent, but now there are five error-warnings in the notes-section. I'm trying to find out why; I'll continue later. Meanwhile, if anyone's got an idea, please try. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:07, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
The problem seems to be with the six notes which were first in the top half of the notes-section; this revision does not contain the warnings. They probably need the <ref group=web name=X> notation.Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:14, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Nope, that doesn't solve it either. See this version. As far as I remember, references within references don't work; nice problem to fix for some technical-minded editors. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:52, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Fringe theory

This article begins by saying this is a fringe theory--then it goes on to give nearly equal representation to both sides. This fails to meet Wiki requirements on what is due based on what has been stated about the theory. I would like to add more into the traditional view sections to beef things up a bit and thereby have the article more representative of modern scholarship--if anyone objects, please say so and we will find consensus--because I am already doing research for this. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:15, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

The main topic is the pov of CM-theorists, not the historicity of Jesus nor his meaning in Christianity. I expect readers to come here to get to know more about this, not to get details from traditional theology. The extensive Carrier-quotes are undue, but the info you just added is also quite detailed, I think (in concreto, O'Stout), and could 'get a Carrier' as well: turn part of it into footnotes. Ask yourself: is the info you'd like to add from authors who respond to the CMT, or is it your selection from the traditional view on Jesus and Paul? If the latter is the case, then you're not writing about CMT as presented by relevant authors, but sort of creating your own work on CMT. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:59, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Ehm... How mainstream is Stephen O. Stout? The "Man Christ Jesus": The Humanity of Jesus in the Teaching of the Apostle Paul:

Does the Apostle Paul have any use for the person of Jesus presented in the Gospels? Critical scholarship thinks not, but this book argues that Paul not only mentions more than seventy specific details of the historical Jesus, but he also commends the character of Jesus and echoes His teachings repeatedly in his letters and sermons-in full agreement with the Gospel accounts.

Three citations in Google scholar; that's not much for a publication from 2011. Given his departure from "critical scholarship," Stout may not be the best representative of "mainstream scholarship." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:38, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Yay! Someone answered! Hello! Thank you so much for responding--and so reasonably. Thank you for not just reverting--which I am sure was a temptation--but let me see if I can talk you into continuing to hold off on that. Let me begin by attempting to establish what I think we agree upon. First, I agree this is an article about a certain point of view, nevertheless, I think we both agree it still has to remain neutral. That is often a difficult and somewhat fine line to walk, I know, especially with controversial subjects, and I agree this has, overall, done a fine job.

Second, you say you expect readers to come here in order to know more about this subject. I agree with that too. But that must-- surely-- include something about why it is still considered fringe by mainstream scholars even though this idea has been around since the second century. Why isn't it more accepted? should be indirectly addressed or those people to whom you refer will read this and go away with only partial information and a false impression.

I am totally with you on the proper goal--simply inform the reader--perhaps defining what that involves in the details are what we will focus on here.

BTW, I note there is no discussion of gnosticism here. Is there some reason? They were the original "Christ was not a human" advocates.

I am not doing original work though I understand that is important to check. The books--or the chapters within certain works--are specifically about Paul's view of the historical Jesus.

Stout is most definitely mainstream. This is just his first book. That particular quote sounds a little combative doesn't it? But I have other references for each of his points--which was a nice handy concise list--so I can multi-reference them, and I will, I just have to go back and add them--after after...  :-) Stout is more mainstream than G.A.Wells. Wells did eventually become mainstream about the existence of the historical Jesus but he remained on the edge concerning Paul. I say this with confidence having read up on who fits where in books like: The Originality of Jesus: A Critical Discussion and a Comparative Attempt, by Per Bilde. Beginning on page 58 and going to page 68, he names, in chapter two, historical Jesus scholars (which discussion includes Paul) from 1970-2012 as splitting into three schools: the traditional, the eschatological, and the liberal. On that bellcurve, the mainstream--the majority--are traditional. Wells was liberal, and among those who argued against an historical Jesus in his early works. N.T.Wright is mainstream. I am working on one of his books on Paul and the historical Jesus right now. He is probably the world's premiere Pauline scholar, and he says what Stout says.

At any rate, surely there is not disagreement over what the mainstream majority view is, right? Just how much of it to include? CM is not even a minority view, it is fringe, so I am thinking that following the rules for similar articles --like Intelligent Design maybe--is important in order to do a full, accurate job representative of the breadth of modern scholarship on this subject. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:46, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello Jenhawk777. You say above "this idea has been around since the second century" but as the article states "The beginnings of the formal denial of the existence of Jesus can be traced to late 18th-century France." The Christ myth theory, as it is defined in this article, is the idea that there was never such a person as Jesus at all and that idea did indeed originate in late 18th century France.

You also say "BTW, I note there is no discussion of gnosticism here. Is there some reason? They were the original "Christ was not a human" advocates." The Christ myth theory, as presented in popular books and on websites a lot today, is not that "Christ was not a human" but that he never existed at all. Some gnostics did say that Christ only appeared to be human but was actually pure spirit but gnostics did not say he never existed at all, so discussion of gnosticism does not belong in this article.Smeat75 (talk) 23:09, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Then the article is internally contradictory since it plainly says: "According to modern proponents of the Christ myth theory, Christianity started with the belief in a new deity called Jesus,[3][4] "a spiritual, mythical figure",[75] who was derived from Jewish writings,[30][31] which shows Greek influences and similarities with Pagan saviour deities. Elements of the Christ myth and its cultus can be found in the Pauline epistles,[76][77][78] see the Christ hymn of Philippians 2:6–11.[26] This new deity was fleshed out in the Gospels—which added a narrative framework and Cynic-like teachings—and eventually came to be perceived as a historical biography.[4] According to George Albert Wells et al., these sayings may come from a real person, of whom close to nothing can be known.[79][80][81][82] However, for such a person to be considered "the historical Jesus in any pertinent sense", Carrier contends such a person must comply with his definition of a minimal historical Jesus." Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:41, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Carrier, the "rock star" of Christ mythers today, says that there was a Jewish belief in an angel called Jesus who only existed in heaven and then somebody made up the idea that this angel was on earth in human form (the Gospels). It is really a simple idea which I have long felt this article makes needlessly complicated. "Jesus Did Not Exist... was published November 12, 2015, with foreword and afterword by Richard Carrier". That's really all there is to it.Smeat75 (talk) 00:00, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I am familiar with Carrier's work. It is a simple idea, I agree. It's just not a new idea. It is pretty much the exact same core idea that gnostics had in the second century: Jesus was never a human man: he never lived. That's it. It is simple. There are other details that come and go around that core concept but "formal" or not, the roots of this go back long before the 18th century. I'm sure the author of that section was perfectly on target about a more formal form of it coming about in the 1700's, it's just that I was surprised at the absence of gnosticism because "Jesus never lived as a physical human being" was around long before Carrier.

I have been looking at other articles on controversial fringe topics for examples of how those articles are structured and written. Intelligent Design Since Intelligent Design is also fringe, I was interested in seeing what proportion that article had included on what "mainstream" thought actually is. Once you're past the history--every section contains a "mainstream" rebuttal of ID's assertions. I am not talking content here, I am just talking structure. The structure of this article contains a back and forth presentation of both views. Once you get past the opening, it's a good solid article that covers the topic without ever losing sight of what the scholarly consensus actually is.

This one is also a controversial topic--sort of semi-fringe: Kalam cosmological argument The fourth line is "Since Craig's original publication, the Kalam cosmological argument has elicited public debate ..." That not only recognizes the controversy right up front, it gives a nice hook for building a full two thirds of the body of the article around that debate. It acknowledges and includes both sides effectively.

Religious violence Religion and violence is one of the best written most consistently neutral and well researched up-to-date Wiki pages I have ever read. It too is a highly debated topic and it deals with that by presenting all arguments to a representative degree.

So many of these controversial articles involve religion, and when dealing with such touchy, controversial subjects, including discussion of that very controversy--why there is one, what the other side says, etc. --is absolutely necessary for a good quality page on the topic. Fringe theories says it best of course: "The prominence of fringe views needs to be put into perspective relative to the views of the entire encompassing field;"

In other words, Christ myth needs more controversy--if you get what I am saying here. It needs to include the debate. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:52, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Jenhawk; thank you for your appreciation; appreciated! I rewrote my original post, but let me kind of rewrite it here: there's a third point of view, namely the agnostic/atheistic pov, which says that any believe in a Godly Jesus deviates from a naturalistic way of thinking, and therefore also is kind of fringe. Not a new idea either; in Montaillou reports of scepticism on the resurrection of Jesus can be found. This relates to your request for an 'objections-section': there is a difference between fringe theories in sciences like physics and biology, and "fringe theories" in a scholarly tradition like theology. For many, theology is not science; so, how can there be "fringe theories" in a field which is not a science? At best, there can be authors who deviate from mainstream beliefs, or from mainstream critical textual studies. But those critical approaches are a part, nota bene, of the CMT.
I think that the article is quite outspoken about the mainstream views on Jesus and Paul. Adding theories from authors who depart from the mainstream critical view on Paul (see the blurb of the book by Stout) is not helpfull in this regard; at best, it can be noted that there are (Evangelical?) authors who depart from this mainstream in the opposite direction. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:16, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Wow, that's some fancy footwork! The change you made to Stout as "contrary to critical scholarship" is incorrect. Please reference mainstream scholars who state the view of Paul as believing in a historical Jesus is not the majority/mainstream view. Yes there are some scholars who support that view--absolutely--but not N.T.Wright the world's premiere Pauline scholar, or Sanders, or Hengel, or Köstenburger, or others that do form the majority view. If you were right in that claim concerning Stout's views, then saying this is a fringe view would be wrong--and it isn't wrong. It can't be both things--a fringe view but also something the majority of mainstream scholars agree with. That defies definition. Here on Wiki Fringe theory "A fringe theory is an idea or viewpoint which differs from the accepted scholarship in its field." It's either fringe or the majority agree with it--one or the other. But this reinforces my point. This article has created a false balance just as this response does.

There absolutely is a difference in fringe theories in science and religion, and philosophy, and history and everything else. That difference does not mean they don't exist anywhere else but science. Everything distributes on a bell-curve, it's unavoidable, and in every bell some things are at the extremes. It doesn't prove it might not one day become the mainstream view--but then by definition it will no longer be at the fringes.

The agnostic/atheistic point of view is 3-6% of the population in this country and about the same worldwide while the theistic view is anywhere between 70% to 90% depending on country. Calling belief itself fringe is a truly masterful reinterpretation of facts though, I have to give you that. There are a few biblical scholars who are atheists or agnostic, but that percentage is even lower than the population percentage. I didn't look for those since this article already contains their views. But that is all completely beside the point and inapplicable to the discussion of this article. It doesn't matter what you or I or anyone else thinks about that. It matters what the sources say pertinent to this article.

The three google references you offer on Stout's book are not to the same book I reference. I am removing the section on Stout as you wrote it. I will bring it back with all the additional references that support his view as mainstream in modern scholarship when I can put it in as a whole unit rather than piece-mealing it in order to prevent an edit war. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:46, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The "Man Christ Jesus", salespromo (emphasis mine):

Does the Apostle Paul have any use for the person of Jesus presented in the Gospels? Critical scholarship thinks not, but this book argues that Paul not only mentions more than seventy specific details of the historical Jesus, but he also commends the character of Jesus and echoes His teachings repeatedly in his letters and sermons-in full agreement with the Gospel accounts.

Apparently, that's what the publisher hinself writes. I suggest you first use the talkpage to validate the relevance of this source; Stout himself is not helpfull in this respect. Stout p.xi:

Stephen Stout, in the present revised version of his doctoral thesis, builds on Wenham's important contribution and yet significantly goes beyond it.

Page xiii:

... fellow evangelicals

Page xiii:

Additional research in Pauline studies revealed a growing trend among popular critical scholars to divorce Paul from Jesus

page xiv:

Chapter 3 includes a study of the "Man Christ Jesus" in Paul's letters, challenging the assertion of critical scholarship that Paul was a mythmaker who turned the simple Galilean peasant preacher into a divine being.

Page 64:

It is declared a fait accompli of critical scholarship that the apostle Paul has "very little to say on the life of Jesus" and has meager or no interest in the historical life of Jesus.

It seems to me that Stout himself contradicts your presentation of Stout as representative of 'the' mainistream theological view on Paul; on the contrary, he confirms in almost the exact same words what the Wiki-article says:

Modern biblical scholarship also notes that Paul has relatively little to say on the biographical information of Jesus.

So, the article does not say that maintream scholarship does not say that Paul did not believe in a historical Jesus; it says that 'Paul has relatively little to say on the biographical information of Jesus'. A doctoral thesis, from an evangelical, who goes against the trend in critical studies, and has been referred to only three times, does not seem to be the best source to contradict mainstream views on Paul; let alone to present such a minority view as being representative of the majority view. Apart from that, there's still no need to start a polemic against the CMT digging up sources which seem to contradict the CMT, yet don't mention it. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:55, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Stout himself is clearly trying to sell books. The apostle Paul did have little to say about Jesus, no one disputes that surely--it's just how that is interpreted is the debate. That was one of the quotes you removed. It is dealt with in one of two ways and one of them is the CM approach and the other is Stout's and Wright's and so on. But look, let's not argue over one author. I will let him go. I don't know if Stout is evangelical or not, this is my first encounter with him, I have no commitment to him, I just thought his content was concise and applicable. If we can stop arguing over him, would you agree the article needs to convey the fringe nature of this view better? Without your personal feelings on CM--just on how the article is represented. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:11, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Keeping Barnett's quote is good. Thank you. See--we can cooperate. I will dump Stout and find more like Barnett and Hengel and Wright. Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:05, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I think that the article is already quite explicit about the fringe-nature of the CMT:

The Christ myth theory is a fringe theory supported by few tenured or emeritus specialists in biblical criticism or cognate disciplines; it contradicts the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the biography of a historical Jesus who did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine.

And

In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory and finds virtually no support from scholars.

References

What more could you possibly add to this, except WP:UNDUE elaborations of mainstream points of view? Keep it concise, which it already is.Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 03:43, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

PS: regarding atheism in the USA, see Way More Americans May Be Atheists Than We Thought. In the Netherlands, only about 16% believes in God, while 25% is explicitly atheistic. See Voor het eerst meer ongelovigen dan gelovigen in Nederland. And 49% doesn't belong to any denomination. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:35, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Okay good, we agree it's fringe theory. That's a good starting point. I am also completely in support of WP:UNDUE and am actually attempting to comply with those policies in what seems to me to be a more consistent manner. You ask, "What more could you possibly add to this, except WP:UNDUE elaborations of mainstream points of view?" I think more mainstream is due than is presently in the article. And the article you refer to explains why I think that.

WP:UNDUE says: "Undue weight can be given in several ways, including but not limited to depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements. In articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space. However, these pages should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant" and "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint." "...minority views may require much more extensive description of the majority view to avoid misleading the reader."

"Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity." And that is exactly what this article does.

Yes, Europe is more atheistic than America, and America is becoming more so, however, while I have already stated that is irrelevant to this article one way or the other, your personal views and opinions are apparent in this article, it does seem to be affecting your neutrality, and it may be contributing to your unwillingness to allow representative balance in this article. Stating it's a fringe theory up front--then failing to include sufficient content to support that view--is the problem here. What this article has is good, but it needs to communicate that the two views are not equally valid. It does not do that right now. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:27, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Given that the topic of this article falls under WP:Fringe policy (non-perjoritve), the primary content of this article is a WP:NPOV presentation of the significant viewpoints held by myth proponents.

• The viewpoints of myth proponents are disparate and without a clear majority consensus amongst them, thus this article presents several. This article should still make appropriate reference to the mainstream majority viewpoint wherever relevant. For instance, articles on historical views such as Flat Earth, may briefly state the modern mainstream position, and then go on to discuss the history of the idea in great detail, neutrally presenting the history of a now-discredited belief.
• Some aspects of WP:Fringe policy may not be germane in regards to an article about a fringe topic (but would be in a normal article where fringe content is being added). - 74.138.111.159 (talk) 06:51, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE:

Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views [...] In articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space. However, these pages should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant and must not represent content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view. In addition, the majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader can understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding aspects of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained. How much detail is required depends on the subject. For instance, articles on historical views such as Flat Earth, with few or no modern proponents, may briefly state the modern position, and then go on to discuss the history of the idea in great detail, neutrally presenting the history of a now-discredited belief. Other minority views may require much more extensive description of the majority view to avoid misleading the reader. See fringe theories guideline and the NPOV FAQ.

This article is dedicated to a minority view. It makes "appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint," including links to the relevant Wikipedia-articles. It explains "the majority view [...] in sufficient detail," so "the reader can understand how the minority view differs from it." It also identifies "controversies regarding aspects of the minority view."

That being said, there is a difference between treating critics of the CMT in more detail, and elaborating mainstream theology which contradicts the CMT, yet does not refer to the CMT. That might be WP:OR (remember, Stout represents a minority view himself) and/or WP:SOAPBOX (for evangelical, or other Christian, views). See also WP:TRUTH. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:00, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

NB: don't forget that this article mentions actually three points of view, namely "orthodox Christian theology," mainstream scholarship, and the CMT:

While orthodox Christian theology and dogmas view Jesus as the incarnation of God/Christ on earth, mainstream scholarship views Jesus as a real person who was subsequently deified. [Arnal-note] Mythicists take yet another approach

Arnal-note:Arnal, William E. (2015). The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism and the Construction of Contemporary Identity. Routledge. pp. 75ff. ISBN 978-1-317-32440-9. "Whether Jesus himself existed as a historical figure or not, the gospels that tell of him are unquestionably mythic texts. ...Investigations into the historical Jesus require, by contrast, that the gospels be used as historical sources, and in fact the main difference between “conservative” and “liberal” scholarship revolves around how much legendary accretion is stripped away in order to arrive at the “historical core,”...

Your beef may not be with the mythicists, but with critical scholarship. We can expand the info from critical scholarship, of course, but why would we? It wouldn't make the orthodox cause more credible, would it? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:24, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

There is an obvious asymmetry between this case and that of (say) alternative medicine, where the "fringe theory" is faith-based: here it is the majority view that is faith-based. That does not make it wrong, but it does load the argument differently. To be honest, in most cases "fringe theory" is a euphemism for "crackpot nonsense", but the Christ myth theory is certainly not such; in terms of validity, I think it is precisely as valid as the mainstream view. After all, the argument against CMT (anything Carrier says, for example) inevitably starts with "No serious Bible scholar doubts the historicity of Jesus", but goes very quiet when it comes to producing actual evidence. AFAICS, the independent historical evidence consists of a about three short paragraphs in Roman history books (Josephus et al), written a century after the event, and not actually very convincing. None of this makes CMT true, but it is a very weak counterargument.

I think the fact that this is a minority view should be reflected by a compact article, giving the outlines of the CMT view. It certainly does not need to recite over and over again the fact that billions(?) of people Believe the opposite. Notice that strictly speaking this has almost nothing to do with atheism, which would have no problem whatsoever with the historical Jesus, and naturally adopts a neutral viewpoint. Imaginatorium (talk) 07:16, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

it is the majority view that is faith-based - this is absolutely incorrect. Anyone who knows anything at all about ancient history will be aware that there is noting unusual in any way about knowing about all sorts of people from antiquity from a single passing reference in one of the pitifully few works of history from antiquity that survive that may have been written a hundred years or more after that person's death. The striking thing about Jesus, to anyone who has studied classical history, is not how little evidence there is that there was such a person, but how much. That is why you have people such as "Graeme Clarke, Emeritus Professor of Classical Ancient History and Archaeology at Australian National University' saying things like "I know of no ancient historian ... who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ—the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming". (quoted in article). the independent historical evidence consists of a about three short paragraphs in Roman history books (Josephus et al), written a century after the event, and not actually very convincing - there is not a single classical historian, not one, who looks at a passage in Tacitus and thinks or says "Hmm, Tacitus says this person did such and such a thing but this is the only place this person is mentioned and I don't think that is convincing evidence that this person ever existed". It just doesn't work that way."three short paragraphs in Roman history books" is three times as much evidence for a person's existence than we have for hundreds of personages from antiquity. I think the fact that this is a minority view should be reflected by a compact article - I would agree that the article is too long and unnecessarily complicated for what is a simple idea - there was never such a person as Jesus. They made it all up. Accepting that there was a real person that the Jesus stories are based on is nothing, but nothing, to do with faith. It is a matter of historical fact.Smeat75 (talk) 10:13, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

@Smeat75: regarding (emphasis mine)

"I know of no ancient historian ... who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ—the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming".

"Christ" is per definition a faith-based claim, not a historical fact. As a rhetorical argument: there are many Jewish and Islamic historians; their faith does not regard Jesus to be a/the Messias, so they probaby won't say that Jesus was the Christ. As Paul and Boyd notice, Josephus didn't write "the Christ," but "called Christ." That being said, the majority view (among scholars) seems to be that there was a historical person, who was baptized an crucified; and most Christians regard this person to be the Messias. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:31, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

"Christ" is per definition a faith-based claim - Clarke is just using the common name there, just as if you refer to Antiochus IV Epiphanes you are not endorsing the idea that that Hellenistic king was "God made manifest" (Ephiphanes).Smeat75 (talk) 01:42, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Okay, first Joshua Jonathan. It makes "appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint," but there is not a single reference to the mainstream response--which was forceful--listed in the 18th-19th century section, or in the early twentieth century, or in modern proponents--which really should be modern views and include them all. There is virtually no mainstream view included in this article from the Gospels section on down. That looks like about 80% of the article. This leads any reader to the conclusion Imaginatorium has erroneously reached: that the argument "goes very quiet when it comes to producing actual evidence" and "the independent historical evidence consists of about three short paragraphs in Roman history books (Josephus et al), written a century after the event, and not actually very convincing. None of this makes CMT true, but it is a very weak counterargument." He has actually proven my point. That's exactly what this article conveys through omission.

Now, Imaginatorium. Both the CM and the traditional view of the historical Jesus can be considered faith based. Assuming any response to CM is "faith" while CM isn't seems to be part of the problem here. That assumption has led to a failure to include the appropriate amount and kind of response that has allowed this article to become non-neutral and non-representative. The "independent historical evidence" for CM is much weaker than the traditional view but this article doesn't include any of the recent historical or archaeological work that's been done. You reference Josephus, yet Alice Whealey's work is not included in this article. Where the CM view is based on Paul and the gospels, the mainstream view of those should be included with appropriate representation of what the arguments actually say and who said them and why. Where this asserts Hellenization and Greek mystery religions as an explanation, a discussion of the counterarguments with appropriate references from scholars like Edwin M. Yamauchi should be mentioned as well. For heaven's sakes, Massey is in this article as though he were a legitimate scholar recognized by real Egyptologists! With no counter of any kind!

There have been discussions of the assertions of mythicists, based solely on analysis of the basis and probability of those assertions, as long as there have been assertions from mythicists, and what those said are nowhere to be found in this article. That's misleading.

You have concluded there is only a weak counterargument because that's how this article presents it, thereby proving my point. This article has a point of view. You have stated it quite well.

And thank you, I agree this has nothing to do with atheism. It really has nothing to do with anything but whether or not this article accurately reflects the real cross section of views on this topic. Since many of those views are simply omitted, I don't see how anyone can argue anything but no, it doesn't. That should be fixed. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:19, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I realise I did not use enough care in wording. (And my impression of the debate is from watching various presentations and debates, not just from reading this article.) When I said "faith-based", this is not really accurate. I suppose I should say something like "influenced by faith". I'm sure there are people free of faith who have come to the conclusion on rational grounds that Jesus was a historical figure; but they are a tiny fraction compared with the people for whom their faith means that they already Know the answer. People who Know the answer cannot be relied on to make rational judgements on matters which might give a different answer. What percentage of the scholars deemed eligible by the ridiculous Footnote 1 are Believers? What percentage of the institutions housing these scholars are ones which require a profession of belief from their academics? Whatever the percentage is, the temptation is to produce a Gish gallop of hundreds of scholars who opine this and that, but most of whose views can be disregarded by any rational person. Meanwhile, there is no-one (surely!) for whom their faith compels them to Believe in the non-historicity of Jesus. (Not to say there are not also people who find such a conclusion congenial, and argue dishonestly for it.)

Anyway, about the article: I think it would be better if there was an article on the Historicity of Jesus which gave majority space to the majority opinion and minority space to the minority opinion, but for various WPreasons this is not likely to happen. Meanwhile, this is an article on the minority opinion, so I think it could well be kept as short as possible, and of course if Carrier makes a claim for which there is an empirical refutation, it should be included. But there should be no attempt at "balance", if you think that means showing Carrier is obviously wrong, because of... just another list of scholars.

I think it would be productive to discuss the structure of the article, and hammer out a better plan. Perhaps an introductory section should be much more general, in putting this into historical context. (Who were the gnostics? Were they really ancient Jesus-mythicists? If so this should surely be mentioned.) I think aiming to reduce rambling prose and superfluous footnotes etc would be a step in the right direction. Imaginatorium (talk) 19:55, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Who were the gnostics? Were they really ancient Jesus-mythicists? If so this should surely be mentioned. No. Gnostics were not ancient Jesus-mythicists. They did not say Jesus never existed and all of the stories about him are sheer invention, they said he was not a human being, even though he appeared to be one, he was pure spirit in human form. I am opposed to any discussion of gnosticism in this article.I think aiming to reduce rambling prose and superfluous footnotes etc would be a step in the right direction. Agree.Smeat75 (talk) 10:37, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Per WP:WEIGHT :

...articles on historical views such as Flat Earth, with few or no modern proponents, may briefly state the modern position, and then go on to discuss the history of the idea in great detail...

If there can be an article dedicated to the historical views of Flat Earth, then there can also be an article dedicated to the historical views of Christ Myth. - 74.138.111.159 (talk) 23:09, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Please note I have not at any time disputed the validity of this article's existence. Let's get that strawman out of the way. Let us please also dispense with the highly biased discussion of people of faith being incapable of anything but bias as well. It's a prejudice and an offensive attitude and it's not even pertinent. Let's please put an end to that from here on out and stick to what is in the article and how it measures up to Wiki standards.

Isn't there already an article on the historicity of Jesus? If not then there should be--but it should not be this one. This article has a valid place on Wikipedia, and I don't support changing that. If that is what is being discussed. All views should be represented on an encyclopedia. It's what we do here.

There is also nothing wrong with the structure of the article in my opinion. There is nothing wrong with its representation of the CM theory. It does a very thorough and careful presentation of mythicist arguments. Please note--I have not requested that a single word be removed from this article--not even Massey. Because I believe it is well written, clear--and though not at all concise--I like it and think it is mostly a good article. I don't see anything wrong with the introductory section as it stands. It presents the CM view with clarity and in this article I find it appropriate. The problem I have is that there is nothing representing the mainstream view in the rest of the article--80% of the body. And what that produces is neither neutral nor balanced and as a result, the article is misleading as to what the views on this theory actually are.

Yes gnosticism can be loosely seen as a progenitor in the manner we trace things to Plato and Aristotle and so on. Gnostics were the first to say "Jesus was never a real human man". Mention of them is only worth a line or two but it probably should be here in the history--at least that they existed and that the claim was being made that far back.

I am 100% in consensus with completely eliminating the rambling footnotes. It's my opinion rambling footnotes are generally used in an attempt to by-pass consensus. It's a way to get your viewpoint in the article without actually having to reach consensus to actually get it in the article. It's cheating. And it's done a lot here. You have my vote to remove them.

It would be completely productive to hammer out a plan. Absolutely. That is a suggestion that can genuinely move us forward. Thank you. It is my suggestion that some counterpoints in the body would be sufficient--nothing that's already here needs changing. Really. It's a good article. I have no problem with what's in it--I only have a problem with what isn't. So let me fix that one issue.

I'll tell you what. I will copy what I think needs additions, I will make changes that are representative of alternate views, and I will do it all in my sandbox only. When it's together, I will contact you here and you both can access my sandbox, read the changes, request changes to the changes, criticize, have input -- all before I put anything into the article. Jonathon didn't like Stout so I got rid of him; I am responsive to the concerns of others. I will go so far as to promise nothing will happen on this article unless and until we have consensus. If you will agree the article could in fact use some balancing, there is no reason why we can't do that in a way that satisfies everyone. I will even do my best to keep it concise--(though in all fairness, this article is anything but concise). How does that sound? It will require you accept the inclusion of things you disagree with. Can you?

You like Carrier that's clear. A lot of people do. But if you were going to write an article on him for Wiki, you would have to include his detractors as well as his supporters--and they would have to be proportionally representative of how many think whatever--right? This is not an article on Carrier, but that contrasting information should still be here in truncated form, and it's not--not in any form. That absence speaks. I am cooperative, but I am also insistent that Wiki measure up to its own standards. If you agree to my bend-over-backwards proposal, it will be incumbent upon you to be as unbiased as you claim you are in response. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:41, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Historicity of Jesus, Historical Jesus, Quest for the historical Jesus, Portraits of the historical Jesus, Jesus in comparative mythology; and Richard Carrier. That's five articles on the historicity of Jesus, not to mention the Jesus-sidebar that I just added, which contains links to ca. 40 articles. Quite a lot, for a person of which scholars state that we can only be certain that he was baptized and crucified. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:14, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

That's sufficient surely--it doesn't need this one too. Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:51, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Massey is in this article as though he were a legitimate scholar recognized by real Egyptologists! With no counter of any kind!
— User:Jenhawk777

Who were the gnostics? Were they really ancient Jesus-mythicists? If so this should surely be mentioned.
— User:Imaginatorium

I am opposed to any discussion of gnosticism in this article.
— User:Smeat75

If there can be an article dedicated to the historical views of Flat Earth, then there can also be an article dedicated to the historical views of Christ Myth.
— User:74.138.111.159

• This article is not dedicated to the historical views of Christ Myth.

Many issues would be simplified if a new article was created as Historical views of Christ Myth and then moving the historical viewpoint content in this article to the new article. - 74.138.111.159 (talk) 01:11, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Okay, I will do that. But it won't improve this article. This reads like a blog from a mythicist. Not Wiki standards in my book. Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:54, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Done. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:09, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Now--do you think you can talk them into sharing? [History of Christ myth]Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:16, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Dating and authorship

I take issue with this particular section 'None of the authors were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus, nor did they receive their information directly from eyewitnesses.' Is it really appropriate to write one person's opinion as undisputed fact when scholars such as J.Warner Wallace argue against this exact point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vazra379 (talk • contribs) 14:30, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Sources, please. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:44, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

From [:Historical reliability of the Gospels]: "Most scholars believe that Mark was written by a second-generation Christian, around or shortly after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple in year 70.[76][77][78]"— Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua Jonathan (talk • contribs) 13:52, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

" J. Warner Wallace is an American homicide detective and Christian apologist. Wallace is a Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview and an Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Biola University in La Mirada, California" -so this is far from a mainstream source.Smeat75 (talk) 14:12, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

I've removed the failed verification tag. The source is this book, and it certainly does appear in the cite, on page 7:

"The consensus of contemporary scholars is that the Gospel writers were not eyewitnesses, and probably did not receive their materials directly from eyewitnesses."

I've also filled out the citation to make it easier to verify in the future. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:05, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:42, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

@Vazra379, Joshua Jonathan, MPants at work, and Smeat75: There is actually not such a consensus amongst bible scholars. "John's Gospel as Witness: The Development of the Early Christian Language of Faith" By Alexander S. Jensen discusses the original proponent of the "no eyewitnesses" view --Bultmann--and the greatest theologian of the twentieth century, Karl Barth and their life long theological debate. "It is rather a commonplace to say that for the largest part of the twentieth century, the debate between Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann dominated the hermeneutical discussion in theology. This debate, however, together with the discussion of Bultmann's 'demythologisation'-program has never really come to a conclusion."

N.T.Wright: "Myths of the kind Bultmann envisaged (quasi-folk tales articulating the world-view of a people) characteristically take a long time to develop ... the first generation of Christianity is simply too short a time to allow for such a process. [Bultmann's hypothesis] is "far too complex to be credible." as quoted by Gregory Boyd, page 175, isbn# 978-1-60899-953-8.

"Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective" By Francis Watson says on page 351,"For Bultmann it is the needs of the early church that generate the [gospel] tradition, and genuine recollection is preserved only incidentally... In consequence of this astonishingly one-sided yet influential account, eye-witness recollection and communal tradition are often seen as mutually exclusive ... Yet there is no need for any such choice... According to Martin Dibelius, the evangelists collected and connected independent units of tradition that already possessed a formal form." According to Richard Bauckham, the 'formal forms' of these traditions were "originated and formulated by eye-witnesses."

Any mention of this subject these days should include Bauckham as well as the extra-biblical research and recent archaeological discoveries concerning orality-literacy. But like so much of this article, this relevant information is simply missing. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:10, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I've added Bauckham; thanks. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:19, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

New article: History of Christ myth

Rough draft @ User:Jenhawk777/History of Christ myth. 74.138.111.159 (talk) 05:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, what's the point of this proposed new article? Is the idea to remove all the historical proponents of the Christ myth from this one? And it starts off with inaccurate discussion of gnosticism and docetism. "Different gnostics believed different things about the death and resurrection of Jesus. But some were people, whom we know as docetists, [who] believed that the death and suffering of Jesus were things that only appeared to happen, or if they happened, didn't really happen to the core of Jesus' spiritual reality."[5]. They said Jesus only appeared to be a human being but was actually an angel in human form, not that he never came to earth at all and all the NT stories about him are untrue. Also Celsus certainly was not a gnostic.Smeat75 (talk) 09:38, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't see the point either. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:14, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Ditto. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 12:52, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

The History of Christ myth article would contain the following content:

1. Relevant historical content about the Christ Myth.
2. Relevant historical content that is not about the historical Jesus.
3. Relevant historical content about people who assert that Christ Myth is derived from an ahistorical Jesus.

74.138.111.159 (talk) 14:10, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

In this article you have: According to Carrier, the genuine Pauline epistles show that the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul believed in a visionary or dream Jesus, ...Carrier further argues that according to Paul (Philippians 2.7), Christ "came 'in the likeness of men' (homoiomati anthropon) and was found 'in a form like a man' ...that he was only sent 'in the likeness of sinful flesh' ... This is a doctrine of a preexistent being assuming a human body, but not being fully transformed into a man, just looking like one".

Gnostics believed Jesus was a celestial spiritual being who was good, and since they believed matter was evil, they did not believe he was a real human man--he just appeared to be one. He did not bleed and die as a human would have if crucified because he never lived as a human. He was therefore never physically resurrected. There were varieties of gnosticism with lots of additional details that certainly have nothing to do with Christ myth, but its core teaching was "Jesus never lived". Please explain to me how it is not legitimate to include this as the embryonic idea "Jesus never lived."

Having a second article would resolve some of the conflict here. There has been little responsiveness of any kind, and no real cooperation, on dealing with the concerns presented here. There is a possessiveness of this article and no attempt to directly address the issues. A connected article would alleviate some of that, perhaps prevent the need for arbitration. That is--if--you sent some of the material to it and helped work on building that one too. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Thats not exactly right. Carrier says Peter and Paul believed Jesus had a human body. But that information was only known by dreams and the LXX. For example Adam also had a human body. But that info comes from scripture, not real life.VictoriaGrayson (talk) 18:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

-reply to Jenhawk777 above at 16:32 -Yes, you can make a case that Paul was a gnostic as Elaine Pagels has done but that does not mean that gnostics were believers in the Christ myth. They were not. (gnostics) "did not believe (Jesus) was a real human man--he just appeared to be one" - which is exactly what I have typed onto this talk page several times now. And that is nothing at all to do with the Christ myth, which says there never was a person, or being, or entity, or thing as Jesus at all, not in any shape or form."(Gnostics said that Jesus)"did not bleed and die as a human would have if crucified" -here again that is nothing to do with the Christ myth, which says that Jesus did not bleed and die because there never was any such thing as Jesus and the crucifixion did not happen anyway and neither did anything else in the NT, it is all made up. Gnosticism or docetism and the CM theory are two totally different ideas that have nothing to do with each other at all. Bringing gnosticsm into an article on the CM would be WP:SYNTH and original research, which is not allowed here. It did make me laugh, by the way, to see Celsus quoted as a supporter of the Christ myth on that draft page. Celsus did not say Jesus did not exist, he said Jesus was a wicked sorcerer and the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier.Smeat75 (talk) 19:19, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

All right, it looks a lot like splitting hairs from my point of view, but you clearly feel very strongly so I will simply acquiesce. I will give in on the gnosticism. I wish I thought that would get me something in return--that someone would demonstrate some willingness to meet me part way on this. I tried adding material, I offered my sandbox and cooperation, I have now offered a sub-article, and so far no give of any kind. Does anyone at all see what's wrong with that? Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:22, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Logos- c.q. proto-Gnosticism-section

This edit added a Logos-section to the overview of Cmt-arguments:

* Christianity originated from a Jewish sect in a milieu where some Jews practised a form of proto-gnosticism — seeking salvation by revealed gnosis — via a mediator between God and humans, i.e. an intermediary variously known as one like a son of man, the divine logos, etc.. And that from the cultus of Paul, a divergent form of this salvation theology was later promoted for non-Jews.

References

Yet, there is not a separate section on proto-Gnosticism; it's part of the section on the Greco-Roman world, so I've moved this info downwards to the Logos- subsection, and mentioned "proto-Gnosticism" in the overview. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:17, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

That'll work. Jenhawk777 (talk) 15:07, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Methodology for the two facts of Jesus' life

So, how come mainstream scholarship states that "[these] two facts [of baptism and crucifixion] in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent (Dunn)"? As a twist: how come most of the narrative of Jesus is dismissed by mainstream scholarship? What are the "the methodology and presuppositions of historicity proponents" of which Cmt's are "often critical"? Something about these methodologies should be added. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:23, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Notice the subtle difference between (emphasis mine)

the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the accounts of a historical Jesus

and

the mainstream historical view, which is that the gospels include many legendary elements which are religious elaborations added to the accounts of a historical Jesus

The first quote is a criticism of the Cmt, referring to mainstream scholarship, stressing the point that there has been a historical Jesus; the second is a representation of mainstream scholarship, stressing the point that most of the Biblical accounts of Jesus are not regarded by mainstream scholarship to be historical facts. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:22, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

So, how come mainstream scholarship states that "[these] two facts [of baptism and crucifixion] in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent (Dunn)"? Paul says he met Jesus' brother, James (Galatians 1:19). " Josephus scholar Louis H. Feldman has stated that "few have doubted the genuineness" of Josephus' reference to Jesus in Antiquities 20, 9, 1,"the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" (from Historicity of Jesus). Both Paul and Josephus say independently that Jesus had a brother named James. Therefore this is as close to hard fact as you can get in ancient history and as Bart Ehrman has said "That is pretty darn good evidence that Jesus existed. If he did not exist he would not have had a brother."[6]. On the baptism, also from Historicity of Jesus article, it says "The criterion of embarrassment is also used to argue in favor of the historicity of the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist as it is a story which the early Christian Church would have never wanted to invent. Based on this criterion, given that John baptised for the remission of sins, and Jesus was viewed as without sin, the invention of this story would have served no purpose, and would have been an embarrassment given that it positioned John above Jesus." On the crucifixion, this article quotes John Dominic Crossan -"That [Jesus] was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus [...] agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact." That's really all there is to it. I would point out that "almost universal assent" is not the same thing as "consensus". There is so much evidence that Jesus existed and was crucified that historians mostly do not bother to refute the Christ Myth theory, they just snort with derision at the idea and dismiss it as silly.Smeat75 (talk) 02:09, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I believe you're mistaken on there being consensus on only two points about Jesus. The textbook A. J. Köstenberger et al wrote: "The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament" says on page 470-471, "In the last quarter of the twentieth century, a paradigm shift in the interpretation of Paul's letters occurred ... since E.P.Sanders in 1977 in "Paul and Palestinian Judaism" ...Sander's portrayal of ancient Judaism has become so widely accepted it has become the consensus view." What is that view? It is not one thing--but it includes a list of things that can be known about the historical Jesus.

In 1985 Sanders continued his landmark work in "Jesus and Judaism" saying there are 8 things that can be discerned about the historical Jesus: his Baptism, that he was a Galilean itinerant preacher who was reputed to do healings and other 'miracles', he called disciples and spoke of there being 12, that he confined his activity to Israel, that he engaged in controversy over the Temple, that he was crucified outside of Jerusalem by the Romans, that those disciples continued as a movement after his death.

In his 1993 work, "The Historical figure of Jesus" he added 6 more: that Jesus was likely born in 4-6 BC under Herod the Great (the Gregorian calendar is wrong), Jesus grew up in Nazareth, Jesus taught in small villages and towns and seemed to avoid cities, Jesus ate a final meal with his disciples, he was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities apparently at the instigation of the high priest, his disciples abandoned him at his death, later believed they saw him and thereafter believed Jesus would return.

In 1996, N.T.Wright added 6 more things that can be known about the historical person of Jesus: Jesus spoke Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek, his message was a summoning to repentance, he used parables to teach about the kingdom of God, he used cures and 'miracles' to provide provenance for his message and his claims of who he was, he was inclusive, sharing a table with both Torah-observant Jews and "sinners".

C.A.Evans in "Authenticating the activities of Jesus" in his study concluded 3 more items could be added to Wright's and Sanders' lists: it was the public who declared Jesus a prophet, the Romans crucified him as "King of the Jews" and within three months of his death his followers were preaching in Jerusalem that he was Messiah ruling from Heaven.

Paul Barnett asserts nine more. Consensus varies on what can be known about the historical Jesus but I am tired of typing on this now because it is not what this article is about. As to "legendary elements"--I say the same. Let's keep the focus on the article and its content.

Does this mean you do not accept the offer I extended in my response to Imaginatorium above? Please read what I wrote to him and respond. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:42, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Kostenberger et al. (second edition), preface: a critical approach toward the Bible is wrong, because "scripture is the product inspiration"... Your choice of sources seems to reflect personal beliefs which are different from a critical reading of the primay sources. But it's interesting, and I'll look-up 470-471 too; thanks. All the best, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:46, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Right... Köstenberger et al. write that since the Reformation Protestant scholars "have viewed Paul's letters as a polemic against Jewish legalism", but since Sanders "many scholars concluded that such legalism did not exist in first century Judaism." As Köstenberger et al. write, this is about Second Temple Judaism, not about the question how much can be derived from paul about a historical Jesus. See also E. P. Sanders and New Perspective on Paul. Anyway, let there be some more points of agreement, but that's not the point here: most of the events and sayings attributed to Jesus are rejected by mainstream scholarship; why? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:00, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I've added Sanders to the note on Jesus' biography. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:16, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Okay--here's part of the problem with this comment and this article--only the part of the statement that agrees with your a priori position is presented. That preface goes on to say: "..to be equipped the student must be diligent... that diligence involves a thorough acquaintance with the historical, literary and theological aspects of the NT ... we can gain much by paying careful attention to the historical...". It doesn't say "a critical approach toward the Bible is wrong". Köstenberger is considered a relevant enough scholar, Wiki has a page on him. That should be sufficient to use him. It's easy enough to reference Sanders and Wright without the Köstenberger quote since all I used from him directly was "this represents consensus". Yes Sanders' view is about Jesus being Jewish--which impacts evidence he was an historical figure and does in fact include that list. That is the only aspect of Sanders' view that is on topic here. We keep straying off topic into your opinion on this subject rather than sticking to the article itself. I didn't. That's all.

Please tell me you understand belief does not automatically make academics incapable of objectivity any more than atheists who have also made a determination of their opinion are necessarily incapable of objectivity just because they have an opinion. Having an opinion doesn't automatically have to close us off from understanding the complexity of any question. But really, your personal opinions of their views--or what mine might be--are not relevant. I would appreciate a cease and desist on all comments concerning personal beliefs one way or the other.

If we start eliminating every source in this field written by believers, that will eliminate about 98% of the scholars in it--and will then --in no way-- reflect consensus in the field. Shall we turn around and exclude all the sources that begin from any position or just the one you disagree with? That is a kind of special pleading that has no place in a wiki-article.

One way to cope with this is to identify authors as 'evangelical' or whatever--but that will of necessity have to include sources you have already referenced--things like academic reviews of Carrier's work are largely unavailable because it is not considered academic quality work by the majority. If position in the field disqualifies some, that should be an even-handed standard applied to all.

This is not a personal blog. This is a wiki article that should sum up the sources --all the sources that represent the consensus view--and that's all it should do. Please address my comments on the absence of balancing material in 80% of the article. Let's make a plan on how to address those issues. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:43, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

This is a book on methodology. Quote: "Despite the frequent claim of legendary-Jesus theorists that the skeptical position on the burden-of-proof question is a necessary element of truly critical scholarship...there are as a matter of fact many solid, critical, NT scholars who do not adopt it. Indeed a wide range of scholars have argued the opposite..." Page 366, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Gospels By Paul Rhodes Eddy, Gregory A. Boyd.

"...recent findings in orality-literacy studies must be factored into any discussion in historical critical research into the gospels"--same page--but completely missing from this article. Any methodology that only includes one point of view is not wiki-worthy. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:09, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Per [Carrier, Richard C. (3 April 2012). Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus. Prometheus Books. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-61614-560-6.]:

Quote — Carrier (2012) p. 11.

[A]ttempts to ascertain the “real” historical Jesus have ended in confusion and failure. The latest attempt to cobble together a method for teasing out the truth involved developing a set of criteria. But it has since been demonstrated that all those criteria, as well as the whole method of their employment, are fatally flawed. Every expert who has seriously examined the issue has already come to this conclusion. In the words of Gerd Theissen, “There are no reliable criteria for separating authentic from inauthentic Jesus tradition.”2 Stanley Porter agrees.3 Dale Allison likewise concludes, “these criteria have not led to any uniformity of result, or any more uniformity than would have been the case had we never heard of them,” hence “the criteria themselves are seriously defective” and “cannot do what is claimed for them.”4 Even Porter's attempt to develop new criteria has been shot down by unveiling all the same problems.5 And Porter had to agree.6 The growing consensus now is that this entire quest for criteria has failed.7 The entire field of Jesus studies has thus been left without any valid method. Page 11 References — Carrier (2012) p. 293f, n. 2-7 2. Quoted in Stanley Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), p. 115. 3. Ibid., pp. 116-17. See also Stanley Porter′s summary critique in James Charlesworth and Petr Pokorný, eds., Jesus Research: An International Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 16-35. 4. Dale Allison, “The Historians’ Jesus and the Church,” in Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage, eds. Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Richard B. Hays (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2008), pp. 79-95 (quoting p. 79). His conclusion has only become stronger after a decade of critical research: compare Dale Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), pp. 1-77. 5. Hector Avalos, The End of Biblical Studies (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007), pp. 203-209; Michael Bird, “The Criterion of Greek Language and Context: A Response to Stanley E. Porter,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 4, no. 1 (2006): pp. 55-67. 6. Stanley Porter, “The Criterion of Greek Language and Its Context: A Further Response,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 4, no. 1 (2006): 69-74 (in response to Bird, cited in the previous note). Porter concludes his new criteria only establish the possibility of historicity, but that's of no use if you want to know what actually is historical. And there's more wrong with his new criteria than even Porter concedes (as I‘ll show in chapter 5). 7. See Dale Allison, “The Historians’ Jesus and the Church” and The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2009); Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria, trans. M. Eugene Boring (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2002); Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne, eds., Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity (T & T Clark, 2002); and Porter, Criteria for Authenticity. Similar doubts can be found almost anywhere the criteria have ever been critically discussed, e.g., M. D. Hooker, “Christology and Methodology,” New Testament Studies 17 (1970): pp. 480-87; John Gager, “The Gospels and Jesus: Some Doubts about Method,” Journal of Religion 54, no. 3 (July 1974): 244-72; Eugene Boring, “The Beatitudes in Q and Thomas as a Test Case,” Semeia 44 (1988): 9-44; John Meier, “Criteria: How Do We Decide What Comes from Jesus?” A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), pp. 167-95; Christopher Tuckett, “Sources and Methods,” in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, ed. Markus Bockmuehl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 121-37; H. W. Shin, Textual Criticism and the Synoptic Problem in Historical Jesus Research: The Search for Valid Criteria (Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2004), pp. 135-220, pp. 320-34; Eric Eve, “Meier, Miracle, and Multiple Attestation,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 3, no. 1 (2005): 23-45; William John Lyons, “The Hermeneutics of Fictional Black and Factual Red: The Markan Simon of Cyrene and the Quest for the Historical Jesus,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 4. no. 2 (June 2006): 139-54 (cf. 150-51. n. 51) and “A Prophet Is Rejected in His Home Town (Mark 6.4 and Parallels): A Study in the Methodological (In) Consistency of the Jesus Seminar.” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 6. no. 1 (March 2008): 59-84; and Rafael Rodriguez. “Authenticating Criteria: The Use and Misuse of a Critical Method.” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 7, no. 2 (2009): 152-67. The discussion of the same criteria in the Jesus Seminar’s manual on method, edited by Bernard Brandon Scott, Finding the Historical Jesus: Rules of Evidence (Santa Rosa. CA: Polebridge. 2008), is almost wholly uncritical and entirely unresponsive to any of the literature above.

Gullotta, Daniel N. (2017). "On Richard Carrier's Doubts: A Response to Richard Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt". Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. 15 (2–3): 310–346. doi:10.1163/17455197-01502009. [Richard Carrier's methodological complaints represent a long and ongoing trend which other scholars have addressed.] Many of Carrier's concerns and criticisms have been longed noted and echoed by other historical Jesus scholars. See Chris Keith, 'The Narratives of the Gospels and the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Current Debates, Prior Debates, and the Goal of Historical Jesus Research', Journal for the Study of the New Testament 38.4 (2016), pp. 426–455; Jonathan Bernier, The Quest for the Historical Jesus after the Demise of Authenticity: Towards a Critical Realist Philosophy of History in Jesus Studies (London: T&T Clark, 2016); James G. Crossley, Jesus and the Chaos of History: Redirecting the Life of the Historical Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); James H. Charlesworth and Brian Rhea (eds.), Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions (Grand Rapids: Williams B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014); Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne (eds.), Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity (New York: T&T Clark, 2012); Rafael Rodriguez, Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance and Text (London: T&T Clark, 2010); James H. Charlesworth and Petr Pokorný (eds.), Jesus Research: An International Perspective (Grand Rapids: Williams B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009); Anthony Le Donne, The Historiographical Jesus: Memory, Typology, and the Son of David (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009); Rafael Rodríguez, 'Authenticating Criteria: The Use and Misuse of a Critical Method', Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 7.2 (2009), pp. 152–167; Bernard Brandon Scott (ed.), Finding the Historical Jesus: Rules of Evidence (Santa Rosa: Polebridge Press, 2008); Stanley E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (London: T&T Clark, 2004); Hyeon Woo Shin, Textual Criticism and the Synoptic Problem in Historical Jesus Research (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2004); Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2002). - 74.138.111.159 (talk) 16:02, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd

Sorry to bother you all again. The correct Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times seems to be page 189. Eddy & Boyd do mention "Jesus son of Damneus." I've made some corrections, and changed

Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd note that Josephus mentions several people named Jesus, and speculate that when Josephus called James the "brother" of Jesus of Nazareth in the Antiquities, he was referring to another Jesus when read in context.

into

Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd, who are critical of Christ Myth theorists, note that Josephus "mentions twenty-one other people with the name Jesus," and argue that when Josephus called James the "brother" of Jesus of Nazareth in the Antiquities, he did so to distinguish him "from the other persons named 'Jesus' he had already mentioned."

Quite a difference, isn't it? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:04, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

The phrase "speculate that when Josephus called" was inserted here, but was a copy-edit of an already existing text. Things seesm yo have gotten mixed-up here. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:12, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Feldman and Hata address--and refute--this convincingly. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:46, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Do you refer to; Feldman, Louis Harry; Hata, Gōhei (1987). Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity. Brill. p. 56. ISBN 90-04-08554-8. - 74.138.111.159 (talk) 01:46, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I do. It contains Zvi Baras' article in chapter 16 on Origen and the martyrdom of James. Baras is hard over that the Testimonium was altered which is why I like to use him. On page 341 he says, "Josephus reference here to "Jesus called the Messiah" is considered authentic by most scholars." I also use Alice Whealey who reflects Feldman's view that some of the Testimonium is authentic, and this one: Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1937–1980) By Louis H. Feldman. Starting on page 705 Feldman lists 4 scholars who regard the larger passage in Antiquities as completely genuine, 6 who regard it as mostly genuine; 20 who accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations; and 13 who regard it as being totally an interpolation. As to discussion of the different Jesuses, Unterbrink who is also a proponent of full interpolation, and has no respect of any kind for the traditional view still says in his book "The Three Messiahs: The Historical Judas the Galilean, the Revelatory Christ Jesus and the mythical Jesus of Nazareth" in chapter five under "the Mythicist interpretation" all the many reasons this reassigning of names is absurd and the reference to James remains the "strongest pieces of evidence against the mythicist view." Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:07, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

See also:

• Allen, Nicholas P. L. (2015). Clarifying the Scope of Pre-5th Century C.E. Christian Interpolation in Josephus’ Antiquitates Judaicae (c. 94 C.E.). PhD diss., North-West University. Available online @ http://dspace.nwu.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10394/14213/Allen_NPL.pdf
• Allen, Nicholas P. L. (26 June 2017). "Josephus on James the Just? A re-evaluation of 20.9.1". Journal of Early Christian History. 7 (1): 1–27. doi:10.1080/2222582X.2017.1317008. - 74.138.111.159 (talk) 12:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Well you can add him to the count of those who support total interpolation and make it 14 if you want. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:46, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Carrier (10 February 2017), Independent Scholar, Columbus, Ohio. Jesus among the Historians: How the Manuscripts of Josephus Changed Over Time and What They Originally Said: A Survey of Recent Scholarship @ https://www.richardcarrier.info/testimonium.pdf?x23333

Presented at the 2017 Regional Meeting -- Midwest Region Society of Biblical Literature, Middle West Branch of the American Oriental Society -- American Schools of Oriental Research—Midwest -- Saint Mary’s College – Notre Dame, Indiana @ https://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/Meetings/2017MidwestRegionProgram-final.pdf

• Recent scholarship challenges the validity of older scholarship and consensus, cf. Carrier (15 February 2017). "Josephus on Jesus? Why You Can't Cite Opinions Before 2014". Richard Carrier Blogs. - 74.138.111.159 (talk) 17:29, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

He kind of has to say that since it's older established scholarship that won't give him the time of day. The point here is that it doesn't matter what you personally think of Carrier or if agree with any of his beliefs or not. We are not about "truth" here. Blog if that's your goal. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:10, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Allen, Nicholas P. L. (26 June 2017). "Josephus on James the Just? A re-evaluation of 20.9.1". Journal of Early Christian History. 7 (1): 1–27. doi:10.1080/2222582X.2017.1317008.
• Whealey, Alice (2016). "The Testimonium Flavianum". In Chapman, Honora Howell; Rodgers, Zuleika (ed.). A Companion to Josephus. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 345–355. ISBN 978-1-4443-3533-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
• Hopper, Paul (2014). "A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii:63.". In Fludernik, Monika; Jacob, Daniel (ed.). Linguistics and Literary Studies / Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft: Interfaces, Encounters, Transfers / Begegnungen, Interferenzen und Kooperationen. De Gruyter. pp. 147–169. ISBN 978-3-11-037068-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
• Olson, Ken (2013). "A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum". In Johnson, Aaron P.; Schott, Jeremy M. (ed.). Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations. Center for Hellenic Studies. pp. 97–114. ISBN 978-0-674-07329-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
• Feldman, Louis (2012). "On the Authenticity of the 'Testimonium Flavianum' Attributed to Josephus". In Carlebach, Elisheva; Schacter, Jacob J. (ed.). New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations. Brill. pp. 13–30. ISBN 90-04-22117-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

Per Olson, Ken (13 August 2013). "The Testimonium Flavianum, Eusebius, and Consensus (Guest Post)". The Jesus Blog. :

The theory of Eusebian authorship has been criticized by James Carleton Paget (2001) and dismissed by Alice Whealey (2007), but has now also been advocated by Louis Feldman. In his 2012 review article on the Testimonium, Feldman comes to the conclusion that Eusebius is likely to be the author of the extant text: “In conclusion, there is reason to think that a Christian such as Eusebius would have sought to portray Josephus as more favorably disposed toward Jesus and may well have interpolated such a statement as that which is found in the Testimonium Flavianum.” (p. 28). More recently, I’ve published another paper, “A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum, ” in which I’ve tried to bring out more clearly what the text means in the context of Eusebius work and what his purpose was in writing it.

74.138.111.159 (talk) 23:34, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

What exactly do Feldman and Hata "address and refute"? What does "this" refer to? Eddy and Boyd's note that Josephus "mentions twenty-one other people with the name Jesus," or their argument that when Josephus called James the "brother" of Jesus of Nazareth in the Antiquities, he did so to distinguish him "from the other persons named 'Jesus' he had already mentioned.? Or do you refer to (the questions on) the authenticity of this text "Jesus called the Messiah"? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:22, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

NB: it's not Feldman and Hata who wrote that part, but Feldman alone. Please try to be more precise. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:27, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Tags added to article

Jenhawk777 has added two tags to this article: :neutrality disputed" and "unbalanced". WP:WTRMT says "Maintenance templates are not meant to be in articles permanently. Any user without a conflict of interest may remove a maintenance template in any of the following circumstances:...Some neutrality-related templates, such as ... (the neutral POV tag) (associated with the neutral point of view policy), strongly recommend that the tagging editor initiate a discussion (generally on the article's talk page), to support the placement of the tag. If the tagging editor failed to do so, or the discussion is dormant, the template can be removed." Jenhawk777 has not opened a discussion on the talk page on why those tags were added so they could be removed within policy immediately. I know the editor has expressed dissatisfaction about many aspects of this article but maintenance tags are not intended to indicate to readers "Someone thinks this article is crap" but to be an invitation to any editor who is able to come to the talk page and help to resolve the issue. An editor new to the article cannot be expected to open the articles's edit history, look to see who placed the tags there and then read through many comments on a long talk page to try to work out what the issues are. So Jenhawk777 needs to open a section on this talk page and indicate clearly what the perceived neutrality issues are and what steps can be taken to remove the NPOV tag. I will not take the tag off the article immediately and give Jenhawk777 a chance to do that but the section needs to be added soon or I will remove the tag. We do not need two tags added which say more or less the same thing (see Wikipedia:Tag bombing) so I am taking off the "unbalanced" one right away.Smeat75 (talk) 02:02, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Agree. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:57, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

My comment here that I had added those tags qualifies as initiating a discussion even though it wasn't necessary to initiate a discussion that has been ongoing for some time and has never gone dormant. Do not remove the tag without addressing the concerns that have been discussed and discussed. That would be disingenuous and not a demonstration of good faith and cause for further action.

Please stop misquoting me. I have not "expressed dissatisfaction about many aspects of this article". I have expressed dissatisfaction about one issue: the absence of majority response throughout most of the article. It doesn't even need to be much--one paragraph of actual response for the multiple claims made in each section. If you don't like that idea, offer another one--offer something! A few generalized quotes don't create parity. Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:13, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

OK I guess we will take I have expressed dissatisfaction about one issue: the absence of majority response throughout most of the article as the reason why you added the tag and this section as opening a discussion on the issue. Now you need to come up with specific suggestions, not general objections, as to what steps can be taken to arrive at consensus so that tag can be removed. Telling other editors "make me an offer" isn't really satisfactory.Smeat75 (talk) 13:17, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

That was a specific suggestion: one paragraph of actual response for the multiple claims made in each section. It's right there above where you say all I have done is say 'make me an offer'. Jenhawk777 (talk) 15:06, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, start writing. But beware of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:54, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

New sections

I've added some new sections, which need to be expanded, to see if this is helpfull. Please feel free to object. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, I so, so appreciate the motivation behind this. I can't tell you how much I admire and respect your willingness to make such an accommodation. And while I think your heart is in the right place, (balance, neutrality, parity, etc.) I am finding it hard to see how these particular additions will actually improve the article. It isn't a religious point of view that is needed--in my thinking--it's just that scholarly discussion representing what the majority of the mainstream says in more detail in a few places. The mainstream does include many who have religious views--and they should not be excluded because of that--because the mainstream also includes many who don't and that creates parity. Christians shouldn't be excluded because they are Christian--but neither should they have special placement of their own. Does that make sense to you? I don't really think we should stray in the other direction in an effort to correct straying in the first direction. If you follow my meaning in that awkward sentence.

The best idea that has been put forward so far is splitting this article into two with history in its own article. That would solve the problem of the length of this one; being shorter would make part of the issue of undue weight and notability go away. The part of the article before the history section has most of what 'alternate views' are in the article, so by itself, it has some amount of balance and parity already--maybe beef up the "mainstream view" under "Overview" a very small amount, add in a truncated overview of history, move the history and add a link to the second article, and let's work together on building a second article that covers the history even more thoroughly than you already have. That would pretty much fix everything I think. History is extensive enough it is making this article too long, but it's interesting material, and I think it should be in an article. Just--maybe--not this one. Would you even consider that? Writing a second article? I can delete what I have and you can start it yourself if you like--whatever you want, I will do my best to accommodate. I just ask we keep wiki-goals and standards in mind.

I do appreciate what you are trying to do here, and please see that I don't mean to be uncooperative, but no special treatment for anyone is my view. But thank you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

This article was recommended to me as a "good article" whose approach would be good to follow. Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship I've been reading it, and I agree it is really well written and well structured. It has good parity. So far I have noted that the history section is relatively short--especially compared to the history in Cmt--and while the 'objections section' is likewise short, it is specific--and not the only mention of the objections. My guess is this section is short because it only includes things not stated elsewhere. This author includes a sentence or two on the "objections" anywhere it can be legitimately included--so the mainstream view is throughout the article. This fringe theory still takes up the majority of the article--as it should--but the mainstream view is represented sufficiently someone with no background could figure out a little of why this is fringe and not mainstream and see them both in a reasonably accurate perspective. We could be this good! Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:40, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

The comparison with Shakespeare is a meme? See A Historical Introduction to the Christ Myth. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:21, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

It was just a comparison of style. I have been trying to get consensus before editing in an effort to avoid conflicts and reverts and possible edit warring. That's worked well huh? I know you don't work for me. I will just start editing as you suggest. So I guess that's not just a no on the second article, that's a Hell no, huh? It was a good idea though. Jenhawk777 (talk) 15:02, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

"Christians shouldn't be excluded because they are Christian-"

I think that violates one of Wikipedia's policies on sourcing: Wikipedia:Identifying and using independent sources. "

• "An independent source is a source that has no vested interest in a given Wikipedia topic and therefore is commonly expected to cover the topic from a disinterested perspective. Independent sources have editorial independence (advertisers do not dictate content) and no conflicts of interest (there is no potential for personal, financial, or political gain to be made from the existence of the publication)."
• "Interest in a topic becomes vested when the source (the author, the publisher, etc.) develops any financial or legal relationship to the topic. An interest in this sense may be either positive or negative. An example of a positive interest is writing about yourself, your family, or a product that is made or sold by your company or employer; an example of a negative interest is owning or working for a company that represents a competing product's article. These conflicts of interest make Wikipedia editors suspect that sources from these people will give more importance to advancing their own interests (personal, financial, legal, etc.) in the topic than to advancing knowledge about the topic. Sources by involved family members, employees, and officers of organizations are not independent."
• "Articles that don't reference independent sources should be tagged with , and if no substantive coverage in independent reliable secondary sources can be identified then the article should be nominated for deletion. If the article's content is strictly promotional, it should even be made a candidate for speedy deletion under criterion WP:CSD G11."

Christians are not third-party sources on topics relevant to Christianity. Using them as "reliable" sources is like using Ufologists on topics relevant to Ufology. Dimadick (talk) 08:00, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

You cannot ban Christians per se from being used as sources for Christianity any more than you could ban Jewish sources on Judaism, Hindu sources on Hinduism, Muslim sources on Islam, etc. Since this is an article about history the best thing is to use historians as sources whatever their religion. It has been a frequent objection on these historical Jesus articles for years that Christians are biased on the subject but luckily the leading authority in the field today is Bart Ehrman, who is not a Christian and has written extensively on the matter.Smeat75 (talk) 11:52, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Lead

This was not ecaxtly an improvement:

• Relevant info was removed

it deviates from the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many legendary elements these are religious elaborations added to the accounts of a historical Jesus who did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine, and was baptized and crucified.

• This is partly relevant, but not in the article:

According to Bart Ehrman, there is no single Christ-myth theory.

The reference you gave there, <ref name="Ehrman"/>, was also not in the article:

• This is incorrect:

What unites them all is the view that Jesus, as a historical person within human history, did not exist.

The article says that mythicists take different stances:

Some mythicists hold—in terms given by Price—the Jesus agnosticism viewpoint,[25][quote 30] while others go further and hold the Jesus atheism viewpoint.[26][quote 31][27] Some scholars have made the case that there are a number of plausible Jesuses that could have existed, but that there can be no certainty as to which Jesus was the historical Jesus.[28][29][30] Others have said that Jesus may have lived far earlier, in a dimly remembered remote past.[31] A number of writers adduce various arguments to show that Christianity has syncretistic or mythical roots. As such, the historical Jesus should not be regarded as the founder of the religion, even if he did exist.[32][33][quote 32]

And "Jesus [...] did not exist" is a doublure of what's already in the lead.

• This is not in the article, and de facto a repetiton of the statement that the Cmt is a fringe-theory:

Those who uphold a historical Jesus are called "historicists". Christians in general, some agnostics and atheists such as Ehrman, and the majority of Jewish scholars are historicists.

It's also not relevant for the lead how people who believe in the historical existence of Jesus are being called; the topic of this article is the Cmt, not their opponents. It's WP:UNDUE, and betrays your wish to show that the Cmt is wrong. Relevant info here would be: "proponents of the Cmt are called Christ myth theorists."

• This is incorrect:

A formalized form of Christ myth began circa 1700

The article says

The beginnings of the formal denial of the existence of Jesus can be traced to late 18th-century France

References

Let me remind you that you started editing this article with adding an WP:UNDUE amount of info from Stout, presenting him as reprresentative of mainstream scholarship, while he declaredly deviates from mainstream views. Now you add new info to the lead which is not in the article, add irrelevant info, add incorrect dates, and remove info from the lead which is in the article. I think you have to do better than this; otherwise, your edits, let alone your talkpage-comments, consume too much precious time from your fellow-editors without significantly improving this article. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:50, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan:

What is the point of rehashing Stout when I removed him? Your assertions of irrelevant info, incorrect dates, is wrong. What is taking unnecessary time is continued opposition to change from a sense of ownership of this article. [7]

* Relevant info was removed

it deviates from the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many legendary elements these are religious elaborations added to the accounts of a historical Jesus who did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine, and was baptized and crucified.

This inclusion of Christian theology is unnecessary and slightly misleading since it focuses solely on one group. It does not make reference to the agnostic, atheist, Jewish or Islamic views--which I was putting in while being instantly reverted. One group should not be singled out for opposition. This is not neutral. How is one Christian view more relevant than anyone else's? How is the detail of this relevant since this is not an article on the opposing views?

* This is partly relevant, but not in the article:

According to Bart Ehrman, there is no single Christ-myth theory.

Since defining Cm is here in the lead, Bart Ehrman's quote on diverse theories, or some approximation, is absolutely necessary. It's a misrepresentation to ::present Cm as though it is one unified view.

* This is incorrect:

What unites them all is the view that Jesus, as a historical person within human history, did not exist.

The article says that mythicists take different stances. And "Jesus [...] did not exist" is a doublure of what's already in the lead.

How is it incorrect? That is the idea all the differing theories have in common. It has been said to me more than once in the previous talk on this particularly in the ::discussion of gnosticism. "It's a simple idea: Jesus never lived." Have you chnaged your mind?

This is a necessary restatement after removal of the other statement.

:* This is not in the article, and de facto a repetiton of the statement that the Cmt is a fringe-theory:

Those who uphold a historical Jesus are called "historicists". Christians in general, some agnostics and atheists such as Ehrman, and the majority of Jewish scholars are historicists.

It's also not relevant for the lead how people who believe in the historical existence of Jesus are being called; the topic of this article is the Cmt, not their opponents.

Then why do you make reference to it? "it deviates from the mainstream historical view, which is ..." I was restating what you had in a broader more neutral--less antagonistic--manner.

How can it be a repetition of something not in the article?

:* And this is incorrect:

A formalized form of Christ myth began circa 1700

The article says "The beginnings of the formal denial of the existence of Jesus can be traced to late 18th-century France".

Those say the same thing--the eighteenth century is the 1700s.

I am about to move on and change "While orthodox Christian theology and dogma'ss" as well, so we might as well argue that out here. This is a mistaken use of the terms ::"Orthodox" and "dogmas". Orthodox describes certain church denominations within Christianity, and is otherwise undefined, and dogma has a specific meaning within biblical criticism as well as a formal teaching set by a church and is something almost universally inapplicable to Protestantism. Used as generalities they are meaningless.

I should do what will make this article less problematic. I did in fact give you the opportunity to do this in my sandbox and approve changes before I made them. You did not agree. You said I should just get on with editing. So I am following your recommendation. Make these necessary changes yourself or I will, of necessity, reinstall mine.

References

Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:52, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• This inclusion of Christian theology is unnecessary and slightly misleading since it focuses solely on one group - it's the mainstream view; see WP:NPOV;
• "no single Christ-myth theory" - no, it's not a main point;
• "What unites them all" - see my quoyte and comment aboce: it's not what the article says, and it's a repetition;
• "Histoticists" - where does the article use the term "historicists," except for the notes? It's simply undue;
• "circa 1700" is not the same as "the 1700s" or "late 18th-century";
• Orthodoxy: "Orthodoxy (from Greek ορθοδοξία, orthodoxía – "right opinion")[1] is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion."
• I did in fact give you the opportunity to do this in my sandbox and approve changes before I made them. You did not agree. - I didn't even bother to do so; you can edit here, and discuss your edits when to turn out to be problematic;
• Make these necessary changes yourself or I will, of necessity, reinstall mine - it's up to you to make the edits you deem necessary; you'll see responses here. If you think you can simply reinstall problematic edits, you're wrong.

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:16, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea what Jenhawk means by calling the mainstream historical view "Christian theology". Sorry, umm, what? This article is about a question of history, did Jesus exist, it doesn't need Christian views Jewish views, Muslim views or atheist views as history is the same whatever your religion or lack of it.Smeat75 (talk) 20:34, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Are you saying this "the gospels include many legendary elements these are religious elaborations added to the accounts of a historical Jesus who did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine, and was baptized and crucified" is not Christian theology?!? Those other than Christians have views of history. Neither the Jews the agnostics the atheists or the Muslims think what is stated here. This is not a mainstream view anywhere but in Christianity. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:19, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Inserted reply - Yes, I am saying that is not Christian theology. It is the mainstream historical view, not a religious one. I am finding this conversation surreal.Smeat75 (talk) 21:33, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Please support with sources that this is what agnostics, atheists, Jews and Muslims believe. If you look, you will find the Muslims do not believe in the crucifixion. Others hold a variety of views on the gospels. This is theology. It has no place here. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:45, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

This isn't about religion at all. It is about history. His - to -ry! I feel like I am struggling to communicate in a foreign language. Religious views have nothing to do with it.Smeat75 (talk) 22:10, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

How about this? Let's meet part way--take out the reference to the gospels and the baptism and crucifixion and leave in the rest. That removes the theological elements and what's left does represent the mainstream view.Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:54, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

If no single theory is an accurate reflection of reality--as Ehrman shows--and you fail to mention that and present it as though it is one view--see section titled "Mythicist view"--that is intentionally misleading. It's a wrong fact and a wrong approach. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:24, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I am happy to change happy to glad and accommodate your wording of the date. However, one of the earliest works on this theory was "The Three Imposters" anonymously written in the very late seventeenth century. Hume was 1757. It's not incorrect. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:31, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

If you use this generalized definition of orthodoxy you will need to define it in the other views as well. It is completely wrong to assume "orthodoxy" applies to everyone equally. It does not. What is orthodox in Judaism? This opens a can of accuracy worms. If you don't use those specific terms the can stays closed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jenhawk777 (talk • contribs) 23:40, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777, give it a rest. Smeat75 has been very patient and your attempt to insert your POV has become tedious. Seriously, take a few weeks off from this article. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 00:18, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Agree with Bill the Cat 7. Nevertheless, some replies:

• "Mainstream historical view" links to Historical Jesus:

The term "historical Jesus" refers to attempts to "reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth by critical historical methods", in "contrast to Christological definitions ('the dogmatic Christ') and other Christian accounts of Jesus ('the Christ of faith')." It also considers the historical and cultural context in which Jesus lived.

Why would you want to take out the reference to the gospels and the baptism and crucifixion and leave in the rest? You seem to have a problem with the mainstream, critical historical view on Jesus.

• "single theory" - we can start a separate dicussion about what exactly is a "theory"; you have a point that there are several proposals, but "theory" accurately points to the common assumption in Cmt(s) that Jesus was not a historical person, c.q. so little is known about him that, as a historical person, that he is irrelevant to the real core of Christianity, namely its mythology. Nevertheless, I've added a sentence to the lead; otherwise, I don't see your point.
• Dating: the WP:LEAD summarizes the article; the article says late 18th century. Regarding "The Three Imposters," I suppose you refer to the Treatise of the Three Impostors, which origins lay in the 10th century as Islamic propaganda (Traktaat van de drie bedriegers), and in turn refers to two different concrete books, namely De imposturis religionum (first part, on Christianity, before 1598; second part 1753), and Traité sur les trois imposteurs ("early eighteenth century"):

The document purported to be a text handed down from generation to generation detailing how the three major figures of Biblical religion: Muhammad, Jesus, and Moses were in fact misrepresenting what had happened to them.

As far as I can see, the Traité does not present Jesus as a mythological person, but as an impostor:

Jezus Christus, die zowel op de hoogte was van de leerspreuken als van de wetenschap van de Egyptenaren, bracht die mening in omloop. Hij vond dat die wel in zijn kraam te pas kwam. Hij bedacht hoe beroemd Mozes was geworden, hoewel hij alleen maar het bevel over een volk van onwetenden voerde, en nam zich voor om op die basis voort te bouwen en kreeg voor elkaar dat een aantal idioten hem volgden, die hij wijsmaakte dat de Heilige geest zijn vader was, en dat zijn moeder een maagd was.

So, this text does not support what you are stating, not is it in the Wiki-article. And Hume also isn't in the article.

• The section on "Traditional Christian views" refers to "Orthodox Christian theology"; no idea what you mean with "the other views." But again, you seem to have a problem with the fact that the mainstream historical view does not support traditional Christian views. Anyway, I've changed "Orthodox" into "traditional," and removed a link; in addition, I've added a link to Christian fundamentalism to the hatnote:

Christian fundamentalism began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and American Protestants as a reaction to theological liberalism and cultural modernism. Fundamentalists argued that 19th-century modernist theologians had misinterpreted or rejected certain doctrines, especially biblical inerrancy, that they viewed as the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

References

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:34, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Why would you want to take out the reference to the gospels and the baptism and crucifixion and leave in the rest? I can't understand that either. It literally makes no sense. Jenhawk has insisted over and over that I have expressed dissatisfaction about one issue: the absence of majority response throughout most of the article. It doesn't even need to be much--one paragraph of actual response for the multiple claims made in each section all they want is one paragraph of actual response for the multiple claims made in each section and then they immediately start trying to re-write the lead and seem not to understand that what they call "Christian theology" and is clearly marked as the mainstream historical view is a summation of the mainstream view of historians.Smeat75 (talk) 12:05, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I have removed the changes to the lead that were made yesterday: "A number of varying proposals have been made. The formal denial of the existence of Jesus began in late 18th century France, and continued in the 19th century. Interest lagged slightly in the 1930s until the 1970s and gained popular interest in the early twenty-first due to the expansion of the internet." It is not necessary to go into the history of the idea right at the beginning of the article in my opinion. Major changes to the lead should be discussed on this talk page and consensus achieved before they are made.Smeat75 (talk) 13:27, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Well done. I agree with your lead and your point. And you're right, I did not stick to the self-imposed limitations. I should have discussed the lead here, but I am not feeling as though talk has accomplished much, so I figured we could argue afterwards. I do understand this is marked as mainstream history, I just don't think it actually is. But I will back off on this. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:19, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Joshua Jonathan, "you seem to have a problem with the fact that the mainstream historical view does not support traditional Christian views." My problem is the opposite. But since there is clearly a consensus to keep it, whether I think it is too Christian and not enough actual mainstream or not, I will drop it.Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:29, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

"Roman Palestine"

Potentially confusing. The setting for Jesus' activities is typically the Roman province of Judea (6–135 CE). "Roman Palestine" may instead refer to the successor province of Syria Palaestina (135-390), which was created by Hadrian's administrative reforms. Dimadick (talk) 08:10, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Book length footnotes on this article

74.138.106.1 is adding voluminous footnotes all the way through the article, a lot of them with long quotes from Richard Carrier, I haven't read them all as they make my eyes glaze over. I have never seen an article with so many long quotes in footnotes. Do others think this is a good thing?Smeat75 (talk) 16:19, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Take a look at Bible and violence. They are there as well. When someone won't let go of a disagreement they lost by consensus--this is often their only recourse to still get their views into the article somewhere. Kind of like cheating huh? Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:17, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

I've noticed it as well. I planned on waiting until they stopped, then taking a look at them as a whole to see if there's an agenda being pushed, or too much detail being added. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:58, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I planned on waiting until they stopped - there doesn't seem to be a reason to think that is going to be any time soon. Some of the footnotes have footnotes! Seems over the top to me.Smeat75 (talk) 17:14, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Maybe you're right. I'll look into it tonight when I have more time (I'm at work now) to dig through the sources and the article text and make comparisons. It's going to take a bit to sort through it all. If you want to get started in the meantime, I'll be happy to provide input on any specific issues you might find. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:19, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I have never seen an article with so many long quotes in footnotes.
— User:Smeat75

I have never seen a more contentious article than this one, requiring the absolute maximum in many long quotes in footnotes to clarify the disparate viewpoints held by mythicists. - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 00:04, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Some of these "notes" are more like little essays such as The central Christology of Paul conveys the notion of Christ's pre-existence and the identification of Christ as Kyrios. The Pauline epistles use Kyrios to identify Jesus almost 230 times, and express the theme that the true mark of a Christian is the confession of Jesus as the true Lord. Paul viewed the superiority of the Christian revelation over all other divine manifestations as a consequence of the fact that Christ is the Son of God. The Pauline epistles also advanced the "cosmic Christology" later developed in the fourth gospel, elaborating the cosmic implications of Jesus' existence as the Son of God (see Christology §Apostolic Christology). Some scholars see Paul's writings as an amplification and explanation of the teachings of Jesus. Other scholars perceive that some teachings of Jesus in Paul's writings are different from the teachings found in the canonical gospels (see Pauline Christianity). In a similar fashion, per Paul’s usage of the term Khristós, some scholars see this as an example of Messiah language in ancient Judaism (Novenson, 2012), while others contend that Paul’s usage of the term Khristós is idiosyncratic (see Messiah in Judaism) - note 5. There is one reference to a source here "Novenson, 2012" but that is only in relation to some scholars see this as an example of Messiah language in ancient Judaism. Where does the rest of it come from? It seems to be accurate as far as I can tell but is that really what footnotes are for? User:MPants at work says he plans on "taking a look at them as a whole to see if there's an agenda being pushed, or too much detail being added." I believe the answer is "yes" to both those questions. Having all this verbiage in notes would make it quite difficult for anyone else to edit the body of the article, if they wanted to do that, apart from anything else. I haven't read through all of them, there is only so much of this kind of thing that I can take at a time, but I believe the agenda being pushed is the ideas of Richard Carrier. For instance The concept of the "Mythic Hero" as an archetype was first developed by Lord Raglan in 1936. It is a set of 22 common traits that he said were shared by many heroes in various cultures, myths and religions throughout history and around the world. Raglan argued that the higher the score, the more likely the figure's biography is mythical. Raglan did not categorically deny the historicity of the Heroes he looked at, rather it was their common biographies he considered as nonhistorical (see Rank-Raglan mythotype) is straight out of Carrier's book "On the Historicity of Jesus" ( which I have not read, but I have read numerous blog posts, including Carrier's, about it, and reviews). Many many quotes from Carrier and references to his theories. Which maybe is OK since this is the Christ myth theory and Carrier is the leading "mythicist" of today, but my feeling is that these notes need to be severely pruned. I will not do anything about it right now however and see if others agree.Smeat75 (talk) 01:35, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

In regards to section "Notes", some are indeed "little essays", derived from germane Wikipedia articles or cited refs, e.g. the Paul note is content from WP articles Christology§Apostolic_Christology, Pauline_Christianity and also Novenson (2012). I regard this as a convenience factor for a non-expert reader to get up to date on a related topic's WP:BLUE salient points without having to read through the entire linked-to-article and also refs like Novenson (2012) can be cited more robustly if needed. And yes sometimes footnotes are used as a succinct summaries of topics, irregardless of typical WP footnote usage.

Having all this verbiage in notes would make it quite difficult for anyone else to edit the body of the article, if they wanted to do that, apart from anything else.
— User:Smeat75

Per sections "Article Lede" and "Overview" this is a moot point since there is no ref. or notes content in these sections (they have been moved to section "Notes", "References"). Other footnote content can also be moved out of the the body of the article. - 74.138.106.1 (talk) 02:57, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

The potential problem with all of that is the assumption that this much detail is WP:DUE. If it is, then that's all fine and good. If not, we'll deal with that and figure out what to do. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:27, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

{{ref|group=qoute}} for the quotes which are now contained in the references, as a starter. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:29, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Never mind; I took a note look at the notes and references; what a nightmare. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:50, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

For the most part, the notes are non-sequitors and the quotes (especially in the article intro) are entirely unnecessary and make the text very hard to read. Almost everywhere the notes and quotes appear in the article, they would be better-served as (1) a simple reference or (2) nothing at all.Magic1million (talk) 22:45, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• Do you refer to to the "Footnotes/Endnotes", "inline text", or both?
• The Bible and violence article has been compared to this one per "Footnotes/Endnotes"

74.138.111.159 (talk) 01:41, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

The inline notes and quotes. Although they are the product of obvious care and effort, they are excessively detailed (beyond what is seen in the Bible and Violence article) and serve to make this read less like an article in an encyclopedia and more like an academic text. Often, they present the kind of information that would be an interesting footnote in a book, but for an encyclopedia, I think it's too much. I think many can be cut as outside the bounds of the "Christ myth theory" (see e.g. the note pertaining to heresy, which provides an interesting aside that, even so, does not really belong on this article). If nothing else, from a pure readability standpoint, the citations in the form of the words "quote" and "note" really break up the text and make this harder to read than if they were ordinary references. Perhaps, if the inline quotes and notes are not removed, they could at least be reformatted. Magic1million (talk) 20:33, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

This talk section topic is "Book length footnotes on this article". Please start a new talk section per "inline quotes" as WP policy on "Footnotes/Endnotes" is different from "inline quotes". – 74.138.111.159 (talk) 21:12, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

the note pertaining to heresy, which provides an interesting aside that, even so, does not really belong on this article
— User:Magic1million

I regard this as a convenience factor for a non-expert reader to get up to date on a related topic's salient points without having to read through the entire linked-to-article. - 74.138.111.159 (talk) 21:24, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

I think this same rationale could be used to justify almost any note. If it's important to CMT, I think it would be better to simply have the same content in the body of the article. Magic1million (talk) 00:20, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

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74.138.111.159 (talk) 02:56, 10 April 2018 (UTC)