None, really. And what's amusingly desperate is that apologists will claim there are "4 independent gospels about Jesus," but Mark was first and the others basically were copying from it.
Yeah but as you said, Bart Ehrman purely from a historical and his Biblical scholarship perspective absolutely believes Jesus existed and was crucified.
And he's done extensive research on the matter. Spent his whole life on it in fact. Even became an atheist during his study.
But there's other potential reasons for that other than it's the most likely conclusion. It's the academic dogma you don't dare question. They seem to ignore contradictory evidence from my point of view. There's nothing extraordinary or implausible about Jesus really living as a normal guy, it just doesn't make as much sense given the evidence/lack thereof.
Hm. But even if it's granted that there was a historical person who roughly corresponds to the settings of the biblical character, if many or most of the anecdotes attributed to him were fabrications, then can he even still be said to have been that character? For example, there was a historical person named Dracula, but he wasn't Dracula; that character is fictional. Not only because vampires don't exist, like demigods don't, but because the character and his activities were expanded to the point of being unrecognizable as the person he was based on.
Well in this case you could take the miracles out and he would still be a historical figure who called to live humbly, be good people and worship God. He still would have been Jewish and still would have been crucified for his message.
I don't think that would be a radically different person like your Dracula example.
Not to accuse you of doing this, but you hear the common Christian apologist refrain: "The majority of scholars agree." Here is where that argument is flawed/fallacious: It's an appeal to authority and doesn't pay attention to the actual 'evidence' or 'situation'. In fact it's kind of a distraction from the actual evidence, a red herring. As I've mentioned, the consensus in academia is skewed because it is a dogma you don't question. Of course, in Christian circles they are usually required to sign statements of belief. Christian professors have been fired for questioning far less controversial dogma. And even amongst many secular scholars the threat of losing your job or having your career derailed and reputation smeared is very real. Apparently many secular scholars are more skeptical of Jesus' existence in private than they are in public. You have to realize that Christians need Jesus to exist. They have established a conclusion beforehand, whereas secular atheists don't really care one way or the other, it's just an intellectual pursuit of what's likely to be true. So Christian apologist "scholars" are entirely biased and untrustworthy on the subject.
So given that, here are a few quotes from secular 'Mythicist' historians talking about facts that can't be ignored if you want to assess the situation. This is probably why many secular scholars are more skeptical in private than in public...
"When we look at the gospels this looks very similar to other gods we have. For example, we have biographies of Romulus, kind of the gospels of Hercules, we have something very similar to the gospels written about Aesop. These are non-existent people and they have whole elaborate biographies written about them. We have a similar thing in the Old Testament. It's pretty widely agreed in mainstream scholarship today that Moses is a mythical person. Exodus and Deuteronomy are essentially gospels that were fictionally written about this guy. So when we see lots of literature like this where people were constantly inventing myths, stories, and biographies of non-existent people; when we look at something like the gospels that are full of supernatural and ridiculous events that look very similar to these things, we really can't tell that they are historical vs. mythical. In my book I don't argue that the gospels prove Jesus *didn't* exist, I just argue that they don't offer proof that he *did* because they look too much like the same thing we get for other non-existent deities."
-Dr. Richard Carrier
"I'll end just briefly talking about the parallel gods. It's very suspicious, I think, that you would have all around the Jews, every single other culture in the area, in the Roman Empire: the Persians, the Greeks, the Syrians, the Egyptians, even the Celts (through the Thracians), all of them adopted this idea of taking their religion and combining it with a dying and rising god cult. They all did this with non-existent gods, but they all claimed these gods existed in history, in time, and wrote stories about them. Zalmoxis is the Thracian version of it. Mithra is the Persian version, although he's not a dying and rising god, he does undergoe a passion. He goes through a struggle or suffering through which he acquires victory over death. We also have Osiris is plainly a dying and rising god . . . allegories for a cosmic death and resurrection . . . So here we have a direct parallel, we have a whole religion in which we have a dying and rising cult that pre-dates Christianity, that is immediately adjacent to Judea in Egypt where there is a major population of Jews . . . So it looks like what happened, is the Jews were surrounded by the dying and rising gods and these mystery cults that also had fictive brotherhoods just like Christianity, and basically tried to create a palatable Jewish version of this . . . So you can't point to differences that are relevant. What's relevant is they took the basic core idea of a mystery religion in which you gain salvation in the afterlife through baptism, which a lot of these involved. The idea of doing that by worshiping a son of god (or daughter of god in some cases) who was crucified, or killed and resurrected; this was so common around there and then suddenly for the Jews to actually get one is highly improbable that they just spontaneously thought of this on their own without any influence from all their neighbors around them, or from all the pilgrims . . . It's impossible that they didn't know about this . . . And yet all these other dying and rising gods, all these struggling and suffereing savior gods, all of them were non-existent people. So it would be an extraordinary claim to say that Jesus is the *only* one who actually was an historical person."
-Dr. Richard Carrier
"I tend to think what you had was a savior god perhaps adapted from one of the dying and rising deities well-known to Jews in this synchronistic milieu in which they had lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. Jesus may have been kind of an amalgam of Dionysus, Attus, Osiris, etc. all of them known to Jews for hundreds of years. Or he may simply have been the latest evolution of Yahweh or Jehovah himself who there is some evidence was understood as a dying and rising god way back there..."
The study of ancient Rome and Biblical history is likely dominated by Christians and associated believers, so to say "Most experts agree" is like saying nothing at all given their disqualifying level of bias. Scientists who determine a conclusion before they even observe evidence aren't good scientists, and in fact aren't doing science. Likewise Christians who have already made up their minds are not trustworthy sources, and in fact aren't doing history. The conflict of interest and cognitive dissonance should disqualify them.
Euhemerization - is actually a term illustrating the precedent for placing gods in history.
Imagine having to wear glasses all or most of your life.
Imagine being just visually able to read the tiny texts that said Jesus cured blind people.
Imagine then being told he will return again, but we don't know when.
One time Jesus will come back and I will see the light. Any minute now.
Then imagine talking to someone who had laser eye surgery and can see perfectly fine, or someone who has never suffered from any kind of visual impairment.
You could say something like "The Lord-ah cures the blind-ah!"
__________________ Sig by Nuke Nixon Last Edited by Blakemore on Jan 1st, 2000, at 00:00 AM
KMC Community Forums
Nov 21st, 2021 09:10 PM
Attachment: 
Attachment: 
Attachment: 
Kindness
