Flann 5 wrote:I'm a bit confused about your view here. If you say that he (Jesus) started out as a teacher or messenger,then he must have been a real historical person.
No. This is a very common mistake among people defending historicity. They think that if someone is a teacher, or is made of flesh, or born of a woman, or whatever, then they must have lived on Earth. It's very straightforward: In his epistles, which are the earliest Christian sources we have, Paul cites a lot of things he learned from Jesus. But he is very clear that he learned all these things through
visions of Jesus. Historicists, of course, maintain that Jesus had also previously teached on Earth. But we find no traces of this in Paul's epistles. Historicists believe that
first Jesus taught on Earth,
then through visions. I believe he
first (was believed to have) taught through visions, and never taught anything on Earth.
Flann 5 wrote:How do you know the gospels were never intended as history,doesn't Luke's prologue to his gospel and Acts clearly contradict this?
As for the introduction to 'Luke', not really. It's not an uncommon storytelling technique to preface works of fiction with similar introductions. As for Acts, quite the contrary, it does not fit in with the Gospels and seems to be a very different kind of document.
Flann 5 wrote:
Christianity is obviously theistic with a supernatural God intervening in history with real historical people involved such as Pilate,Herod, Annas and Caiphas,John the Baptist and apostles like Peter,James,John and of course Jesus himself.
The stories of Sherlock Holmes also intervene in history, involving real historical people. As do many, many other fictional stories. The Gospels are a type of fable which is intervowen into recent history. Just like it is today quite popular to write stories set in the last century or so.
Flann 5 wrote:
According to the writers Jesus and these others were real historical people in real places and at real times and they are presented as real events albeit there are miracles recorded but that is entirely consistent with their supernatural theistic worldview.
We have no idea who these writers were. I obviously disagree that these authors claimed that Jesus etc were real historical people. I think that upon a dispassionate reading, it is clear that they are intended to be allegorical through and through. We see this in many ways:
1. The composition of the stories do not follow an externally forced narrative (ie reporting something that really happened) but are built around elements of symmetry, reversed expectations, and other such motifs that are typical for allegorical fiction but really don't happen in real life.
2. The people featured in the stories do not act like actual people, but rather as storytelling props. For instance, the disciples immediately leave their former lives to follow Jesus without almost any persuasion, they then continue to act flabbergasted when Jesus performs miracles they have already seen before, they ask stupid questions that make no sense other than as a way to bring the story forward, etc.
3. The massive differences between the Gospels are very, very hard to explain if the writers were supposed to have believed that the stories were true. Why, in that case, did they not make any attempt to reconcile the differences, or even acknowledge them? On the other hand, if they were intended as allegorical fiction, there is no problem. "Matthew" read "Mark" and liked it, but thought some things could be improved. "Luke" read these and wanted to do some more changes and additions. The many authors of apocryphal Gospels did the same, but their works were ultimately not considered worthy.
Flann 5 wrote:
The writer of the gospel of John claims to have been an eyewitness and that his testimony is true. So I don't see that they intended any other understanding of their writings.
And yet, most scholars (historicists, mind you) agree that John is the
least historically reliable of the Gospels, and do
not believe that the author was an eyewitness. Again, it is not uncommon for works of fiction to contain similar statements. To be very clear, I'm sure the author of "John" honestly believed to be writing great truths, although in an allegorical form.
Flann 5 wrote:
What accredited historians argue for a non historical mythical Christ?
I have only found two: Carrier and a Swedish historian called Per Mikael Nilsson. But I have found zero who argue in an historical work, such as a book, academical journal or similar, that Jesus was historical. I would really love to read someone who does, but I have searched for many years and not found any. Michael Grant was not an accredited historian but a self-described 'freelancer' who nevertheless published a large number of popular books on history, but his book on Jesus uses no other sources than the Gospels and are really just his private reflections (nothing wrong with that of course).
Flann 5 wrote:
Do scholars of Tacitus or Josephus agree with Carrier and the mythicists?
That really depends on the issue at hand, but generally Carrier agrees with those scholars, not the other way around. Carrier's argument relies on no interpretation of these documents that is not widely accepted among scholars. On the other hand, such scholars (when they are historians) have, to my knowledge, rarely voiced any opinion on the historicity of Jesus.