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Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

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DWill

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Re: Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

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I wonder whether other mythicists might just concede this one. It would seem to be a smart move, and it wouldn't be fatal to their case. It wasn't until the 1800s, after all, that anyone thought to examine the historical accuracy of the Bible, and doing so changed forever how we view its reliability. Claiming that Jesus himself is an unreliable fiction is a further step. (You're welcome.)

Docetism isn't the out that you and others seem to think it is. It refers to a belief about the nature of Jesus, that he appeared to be of the flesh as he lived on earth, but was really pure spirit. There is nowhere a statement that a figure people called Jesus and interacted with had never existed. You have to use the name "Jesus" and pronouns for him just to say what docetism was.

For Marcion, a docetist, Jesus was supremely important, since Marcion divorced his Christianity from any link to the Old Testament or that god.

I do not see anything in what you've said about this, Robert, that can be called valid evidence that the existence of Jesus was ever disputed until fairly recent times.
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DWill

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Re: Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

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One of the main contentions of mythicists is that Paul's saying quite little about the life and teaching of Jesus indicates that he isn't talking a real person at all, but a spiritual vision. Well, he certainly mentions this vision a lot--over 200 times writing "Jesus," not to mention more mentions of "Christ" and "the Lord." He at several places makes a special point of Jesus' mortality, his in-the-flesh presence, and this makes it even harder to accept that Paul doesn't have in mind a historical person.

But no question, it is odd that in all of his preachings to his flocks, Paul doesn't resort to more examples and teachings from the person who founded the religion Paul is championing. How to account for this, while at the same time maintaining that Paul is clearly talking about a person?

On this matter I found the reasoning in the Irreducible Complexity blog to be pretty tight, and the writer's got me leaning in his favor.

https://irrco.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/paul-on-jesus/
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Re: Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

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ant wrote:I'm not quite half way through professor Ehrman's new book. It is a good read so far and I encourage anyone interested in the topic to purchase a copy of it.

Here is a related article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-eh ... 49544.html

Short of mythicist's desire to obtain Christ's birth certificate, they will never believe otherwise. :P

Yes, "Jesus" (The Greek Tranliteration of his actual Hebrew name, which was Yeshu'a) did exist, but just like the existence of God, you either believe He exists or you don't. I find it pointless to argue a position either way, when the other is simply not going to be inclined to agree.

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Robert Tulip

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Re: Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

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Here is my review, written in 2012 at http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/vie ... 829#p25829

In Did Jesus Exist?, author Bart Ehrman uses interest in the work of Acharya S as his prime shibboleth, his test for whether anyone can be taken seriously. Erhman introduces Acharya as a mythicist who does “not offer anything resembling scholarship in support of their view and instead presents the unsuspecting reading public with sensationalist claims that are so extravagant, so wrongheaded and so poorly substantiated that it is no wonder that scholars do not take them seriously.” (p33) He says her first book The Christ Conspiracy is “filled with so many factual errors and outlandish assertions that it is hard to believe that the author is serious.”

Ehrman is completely wrong in this assessment, which is backfiring on him badly. His prime exhibit of an ‘outlandish assertion’ is Murdock’s claim which he summarizes as saying that “Christianity started out as an astrotheological religion in which Jesus was transformed into a historical Jew… The Bible itself is an astrotheological text with hidden meanings that need to be unpacked by understanding their astrological symbolism.” (p35) In peremptory disposal of this argument, Ehrman says “there are no astrological phenomena associated with Jesus in any of our earliest traditions.”

To my reading, this basic error regarding astrotheology is the most interesting piece of cultural politics in Ehrman’s highly political book. Not only is astrology very much central to the ancient manufacture of the Christ myth, but the continued suppression of discussion of this manufacture remains a major failing in the coherence of Christian theology, and therefore a key weakness in Christian epistemology and ethics.

Having announced his crusade against astrology, Ehrman goes on to clumsily attack Acharya’s scholarship by suggesting that various debatable claims are settled, and that criticism of this orthodoxy is not permitted. On top of this highly aggressive error, he uses his inquisitorial mistakes to declare that Acharya should not be read, implying the need for some new holy index of forbidden books. For a writer aiming for an intelligent audience, this unexpected Spanish Inquisition is a big overplay by Ehrman.

He wrongly argues that Acharya is misinformed about the dating of the Gospels and the canon, and ignores her point that modern views of the New Testament as an early unchanging source are just wrong. Earlier writers such as Justin did not have access to the New Testament as later settled, a process that took some time, and the canon even remained in dispute at the Reformation, so Acharya’s comments on these topics are perfectly legitimate. Ehrman ignores Acharya's point about why the original texts do not survive, namely that they probably contained text that was not convenient for the church. Instead, he nitpicks that “there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that they… were destroyed after [Nicaea in 325AD]” because “they were probably simply used so much they wore out.” This threadbare argument simply ignores the entire observation that the origin of the church is very murky, and the leaders probably had good reason to destroy earlier texts to advance their institutional control. Surely early texts would have been preserved if the church had actually venerated them?

More question-begging nitpicking follows: Ehrman suggests “Acharya has evidently never read the writings of Paul. As we will see, he does quote sayings of Jesus.” But does Paul actually attribute those sayings to Jesus, other than the highly contentious and mythological "Lord's Supper"? That is what is at issue, and what Ehrman ignores. Ehrman’s basic mistake about Acharya’s description of a statue in the Vatican has been abundantly displayed as he has eaten crow over his sloppy error. Finally, from his bullet point list of reasons to ignore Acharya, he finds one small real mistake about dating of the life of Augustine. If these are the best mistakes Ehrman can come up with he really is clutching at straws. Certainly these debatable questions are flimsy foundations for the fatwa Ehrman builds upon them.

What is the real agenda here? As Ehrman explains, it is Acharya’s defence of astrotheology that he finds most heretical. As I share Acharya’s views on astrotheology, I feel that despite his calumny, Ehrman has done us a service by opening up public debate on whether in fact Christianity makes most sense as a carnalized cosmic myth in which astrology is central.

Acharya describes Jesus Christ as the Avatar of the Age of Pisces. This in itself is enough to cause mainstream theologians to go into apoplectic spasms and start preparing their new Index of forbidden books. The problem here is that the Christian mainstream has a strong emotional attachment to the idea of supernatural intervention, and a hostility to research that provides natural explanations for supernatural myths. Discussion of zodiac ages and precession of the equinox is a primary example of this irrational syndrome within mainstream theology.

Zodiac ages are simply observable scientific periods that provide the long term structure for terrestrial time, caused by the wobble of earth’s axis. They provide the long term framework of time for much ancient mythology, including the Bible. But for the Ehrmans of this world, any talk of the zodiac is irrational astrology, and must be condemned as New Age.

So Acharya’s sin in the Gospel according to Saint Bart is that her writings are New Age. For Ehrman it seems this is enough for his inquisition. He ignores the simple scientific fact that the equinox is reaching the end of the sign of Pisces and the beginning of the sign of Aquarius, so that our planet will soon shift from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius, just as it shifted from the Age of Aries to the Age of Pisces at the time of Christ, crossing the first fish in 21 AD. He also ignores how this knowledge was a central impetus in the manufacture of the Christ myth.

The shift from the Age of Aries to the Age of Pisces corresponds precisely to the idea of Jesus Christ as the alpha and omega. Ancient astrology saw this moment as a shift between two Great Years, or cycles of twelve ages, from the last age of the previous Great Year to the first age of the new Great Year. So the founding description of Jesus Christ as alpha and omega is pure astrology. Ehrman is profoundly ignorant if he disputes this observation.

Further, the New Testament embeds this vision of zodiac ages in the miracle that occurs most frequently in its writings. The loaves and fishes, appearing six times in total in the New Testament, are the signs of Virgo (the bread) and Pisces (the fishes) which have occupied the equinox axis from the time of Christ until now. The miraculous abundance from nothing is simply a parable about cosmic attunement for a New Age. Ehrman might like to ponder why Jesus lambasts the disciples for their failure to understand this miracle in Mark 8. It is because the miracle is primarily an astronomical allegory.

The original authors of the Christ Myth must have encountered intense popular resistance to understanding the incarnation of Christ as primarily spiritual and cosmic. It seems the historical fiction resonated so much more easily. That is how myths arise – people hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest. Even today, the literal historical myth of Jesus Christ has widespread popular resonance, such that authors like Bart Ehrman feel that a slapdash condemnation of scholarly analysis in this field is sufficient to address it.

Acharya S is in fact a scholar, much as Ehrman may wish to deny and exclude her scholarship. This whole debate is about cultural politics of paradigm change. A new paradigm, seeing Christ as a cosmic myth, is gradually emerging. The old literal paradigm has shifted from its default position of ignoring new work to ridiculing it. What we are finding is that the ridicule is backfiring, because astrotheology is scholarly, rigorous and accurate, and can readily refute all the simplistic arguments presented by Ehrman. Thanks Bart for bringing the debate into the public domain.
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Re: Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

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DWill wrote:For Marcion, a docetist, Jesus was supremely important
where did you get the idea Marcion was a docetist from?
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Re: Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

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People as Ehrman would have us believe that every sect of Christianity had some kind of censor or guardian to keep astromythology out when it could hardly have worked that way. Common sense would tell us that sects would form where--if there was no astromythology before--astromythology would become the focus. This is generally because a priesthood wants to cash in on the new religion and so use it to enshrine the ancient concepts that humans have always worshiped under one guise or other.

Ehrman wrote an absolutely brilliant book once called "The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture" (OCS) where he basically belies the claims he makes in DJE. In OCS, he does a masterful job of showing how Christianity started off as an adoptionist religion. That is, Jesus was originally regarded as an ordinary human being who, upon his baptism, was adopted by God as his son rather than Jesus being the pre-existent son of God.

He points out in OSC how the various gospel manuscripts changed over the centuries to where the adoptionist statements were blurred out. He deduced that there were two types of adoptionist creeds:

-Where Jesus was adopted by god at his baptism. Let's call this b-adoptionism.
-Where Jesus was adopted by god after his death. Let's called this d-adoptionism.

Right after the baptism, Jesus sees the heavens part, a dove descend and a voice speaks saying, "Thou art my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." Ehrman mentions an early Lukan manuscript where God instead says, "Thou art my beloved, today I have begotten thee" showing that Jesus was only adopted as God's son at that moment and was not pre-existent. The miraculous birth stories were added later. Ehrman further believed that all later copies of the gospel manuscripts were edited specifically to remove b-adoptionist statements.

He points out all the overt d-adoptionist statements found strewn throughout Acts. Hebrews is clearly an d-adoptionist writing even stating Jesus was made high priest upon his death along with such statements "Thou art my beloved son, today I have begotten thee." Ehrman deduced that the scribes were actively removing all b-adoptionist statements but left the d-adoptionist statements intact because it was less prevalent in that day whereas b-adoptionism was a more serious rival.

So why not just do away with the NT writings altogether and make new ones instead of this clumsy revision? Because people were used to it and so subtle changes were employed rather throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Yet, in DJE, Ehrman expects people to just simply accept an entirely new creed with no familiarity. The ONLY way they would accept it is that it had to jibe in some way with the religions with which they were familiar and only LATER move away from that--pretty much the reverse process. The ONLY way there is no astromythology in Christianity is if there is none in any of the forerunners of the religion and this is patently absurd or where did celestial bodies as Mars, Venus, Saturn, Sol, Luna, etc. get their names?
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Re: Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

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I challenged Ehrman to a debate and I got "crickets." His concepts are so faulty. His ideology is beyond porous!

He practices dualistic thinking of trying to accept scripture and prove it wrong, but when he doesn't like what scripture says he tries to prove it wrong -by just finding ways to reject it without any real proof.

He has been disproven that his support that some 500,000 characters of the bible is erroneous! Well the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that he is 99.7% wrong. All are eliminated but 40 possible lines of scripture.

He is a carpet bagger who draws on the emotions of those who want to disbelieve.

but other than that he is a nice guy.

Bring the guy on! He only wants to debate when he has a stacked deck!
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Re: Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

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Ehrman is a product of his environment. Smart enough to know not to believe but emotionally unable to let go of it. He can prove everything in the NT is wrong but yet cannot accept the idea that Christianity is essentially a fraud. He knows it is but he can't accept it. In other words, he's an American.
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Re: Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

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brother bob wrote:I challenged Ehrman to a debate and I got "crickets."
Oh Lordy, what other luminaries have you challenged to a debate? :lol: The Pope? :omfg:

By the way, Ehrman has a new book coming out shortly. Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior by Bart D. Ehrman. Due out 3/1/16

By the way # 2, Ehrman is involved in quite a few of The Great Courses.
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Re: Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

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DB Roy wrote:Ehrman is a product of his environment. Smart enough to know not to believe but emotionally unable to let go of it. He can prove everything in the NT is wrong but yet cannot accept the idea that Christianity is essentially a fraud. He knows it is but he can't accept it. In other words, he's an American.
Even though I kind of like that quote, it doesn't make much sense since Ehrman is openly agnostic towards the existence of Gods.
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