Best case there was a Jewish Rabbi with a small following and had an apocalyptic message that failed, but they built massive mythology around him anyway
Because if what was said about him that people don't understand. His Resurrection is explainable. It was the Eleusinian Mystery Ritual. Lazarus did it. Adam did it.
The problem with "I think there was a guy" historicism is this: "A guy who did what?" Walked on water? Raised the dead? As Neal points out at 6:30 at least 90% of what's written about Jesus certainly didn't happen or probably didn't happen. What exactly does that that leave? An apocalyptic preacher perhaps? Even the verses in Mark that describe his preaching are interspersed with clearly non-historical events. I actually think Dr. Price put it best when he said "If there was a historical Jesus, there isn't now" Meaning that any historical figure has become so obscured with myths and retellings that it is almost impossible to discern any original kernel.
I think a-theists make the mistake of the wrong default position - "there's no god so jesus must of just been some dude" it's seem clear that christianity was a mystery cult from the beginning. ie. no dude
From a historical scholarship point of view, the question is "How did Christianity start?" With that in mind, it's easy to answer "A guy who did what?" Preached. Built up a following who believed him to be the Messiah. Got crucified in Jerusalem. Left followers who still believed and claimed he rose from the dead. It's that tie to the original Christian movement that's important. If there was a real person who inspired it or if, as some mythicists think, they invented it out of old scriptural verses. (Rather than justifying it after the fact using those verses.)
@@thescoobymike not really. historicists think that the stories are based on a man. mythicist think that it was a mystery cult from christianity's inception ie. no dude. completely different understandings
Jesus's Crucifixion story also holds parallels with the Prometheus Crucifixion story. Prometheus: 1) was stretched out and hung on a rock 2) was stabbed in the right side (liver) by the beak of the Eagle/Roman Soldier) 3) was punished for his love of the people.
There are several art-pieces of Prometheus dating back between 300-700bc with Prometheus hanging arms outstretched, with a stab wound in his liver dripping.
@@Zxuma Great question. Dr. Dennis R. MacDonald was my intro to Literary Mimesis. Jason Reza Jorjani introduced me to Plato's connection to Christianity and western civilization. Through personal research you'll discover that there is nothing new under the sun; even the Greeks admit that everything they have, they owe to the Egyptians. Each society (specifically Greek, Roman) borrowed from the one preceding it.
I try to delineate between Jesus and Christ. If there was an historical Jesus, we know nothing about Him. As for the figure of Christ, He is entirely mythological. What I do believe is that if it is generally accepted that an historical Jesus never existed, New Testament scholars would become far less relevant to the rest of us. Follow the money...
Right: Professing non-existence is bad for view count, bad for subscription count, bad for "the algorithm", bad for online course enrollment. Given the absolute lack of compelling evidence either way, there is no incentive to promote the less remunerative alternative.
Notably, neither Neal nor Derek ever lay out any evidentiary argument that would lead a rational person to historicism. Derek always says "probably was a guy", but clearly he really means just "feels like there was a guy". An honest "viewership and online course sponsorship require that I say there was a guy" wouldn't go over so well.
People who believe in the historicity of Jesus don’t seem to realize that all they’re doing is trying to write their own gospel, that is, create a story based on what they think about Jesus, just like the early Christians did.
@@Justin_Beaver564you can't figure out what actually happened, though, because the source material you're basing it all on has been re-edited and re-written throughout the centuries so much that what you have left cannot be taken as authoritative or authentic. The content is so far removed from the original period it portrays, and the evidence from that same period refutes the story time and time again, without fail.... So yeah.... It s a myth that sprang up after the Jewish revolt against Rome, first launched by a small Judaic cult, likely an off shoot of the Essenes, that were the first Christians. Then, a certain Sha'ul (Paul) joins, takes the ideas and re engineers them for a gentile audience to make money, and to create a new Judaism he can personally be comfortable with and that new Judaism becomes the Christianity you know today.... And this only after so many cults joined in between the 1st and 3rd centuries, causing the Catholic church which is now taking shape to keep changing it's tenets and beliefs, up until the council of Nicaea and subsequent canonical councils, where the religion you claim you want the origins to was formed to completion. You do not want the truth, because everytime someone comes and tells it to you, you claim they're misreading the NT.... Which was written and finalized CENTURIES after the 30s C.E..... SO THERE IS NOTHING TO ACTUALLY GO BY
@@lexicornfell7361I mean it’s likely Jesus existed just cos outside sources confirm the crucifixion. Pontius pilot existed, romans confirmed this, Jesus was sentenced for execution, Jewish sources claim this. It’s just all the myths added in top are bs
Jesus said his return would be imminent - 2,000 years ago! Jesus told his disciples that they would not die before his second coming: "There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom". (Matthew 16:28) "Some of you standing here will not taste death until you see the Kingdom come with power." (Mark 9:1-20) "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand." (Mark 1:15)
Paul said his vision promised Jesus would "come" before the deadline. Paul never, anywhere in his authentic writings, says or hints at anything like a "return". Modern translators very often substitute "return" in English text. There is no record of an actual Jesus ever saying anything.
This proves that Jesus is Deuteronomy 18! And so for Paul, and everyone else who wrote the claims Verse 22: 'If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.'
@@eatfrenchtoast Despite not having formal training, their years of interviewing experts and producing hundreds of researched videos gives them more cred than most experts. Especially in the biblical scholar arena.
@@leandrofernandez7681 Btw, the letter J (like Y too) is only a modern variant of the letter I, which was already written like J in medieval texts, before it became common to distinguish different I sounds. Just like we have also changed Iupiter or Iulius Caesar to J today, J has no bearing on the question if they or some Iesus could have existed.
@paulsayah1685 Maybe just maybe sun worship is a clock and somewhat fallen version of Father Son and holy spirit worship you ever think about that hmm😂
@@superwormhalz2607 Maybe you're joking But solar deities are very ancient predating Judaism. Sun dials also predate Christianity , by at least 1500 years.
What were the specific names of those twelve Messiahs you suggest? And... do you have any actual academic works of a professional who actually supports this weird "Amalgam Jesus" thesis?
@@NathanBTQ did I say dozens? Maybe hundreds of failed messiahs! Crucifixion was the favored punishment of rebellion against the Roman. State. We have the numbers but few names, precisely because it was meant to mock and belittle.
@@familyshare3724 I. We do not know the exact number of Jews crucified by Rome. But something is sure: there were not "thousands" of Messiahs. The many Jews that were crucified by Rome died following a quite modest amount of Messianic pretenders and eschatological "Signs Prophets". II. Making a quick recap: the shepherd Astronges, Simon of Perea, Judas the Galilean, Judas' two sons, The Egyptian, The Samaritan, Theudas (nearly contemporaneus to Jesus), Simon Bar Giora, Eleazar the Temple Captain, Menahem the Prince of the Sicarii, John of Gizcala, Simon Bar Giora (First Jewish-Roman War), Lukuas Andreas (Kitos Rebellion)... and Bar Kokhba. That makes 15... not "thousands" of Messianic pretenders. III. You did not provided the requested academical reference of a scholar with the appropiate credentials that actually supports this weird "Amalgam Jesus" variety of Mythicism (spoiler: NO ONE does. Not even Carrier, lol). IV. So... What was your source, actually, from which you learned it in the first place? Aron-Ra? 😐
@@familyshare3724 Several points.. I. We do not know the exact number of Jews crucified by Rome. But something is sure: there were not "thousands" of Messiahs. The many Jews that were crucified by Rome died following a quite modest amount of Messianic pretenders and eschatological "Signs Prophets". II. Making a quick recap: the shepherd Astronges, Simon of Perea, Judas the Galilean, Judas' two sons, The Egyptian, The Samaritan, Theudas (nearly contemporaneus to Jesus), Simon Bar Giora, Eleazar the Temple Captain, Menahem the Prince of the Sicarii, John of Gizcala, Simon Bar Giora (First Jewish-Roman War), Lukuas Andreas (Kitos Rebellion)... and Bar Kokhba. That makes 15... not "thousands" of Messianic pretenders. III. You did not provided the requested academical reference of a scholar with the appropiate credentials that actually supports this weird "Amalgam Jesus" variety of Mythicism (spoiler: NO ONE does. Not even Carrier, lol). IV. So... What was your source, actually, from which you learned it in the first place? Aron-Ra? :v
I agree. The jesus story is a legend of the period of messianism that predated and helped cause the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus is an amalgam representing the tendency of people to claim being the Messiah and gathering followers with the added benefit of Jesus representing a renewal of Judea without the need for a Temple and it underlines capitulation to Rome, so as not to incite retribution by the state... So it's clearly the ancient equivalent of an popular adaptation of a historical event, in this case the fall of Jerusalem.
The only reason Christianity is here today is because people want to believe in the afterlife myth. When you add fear to an afterlife myth, you get people like Sergio.😅
@@BDnevernind yes but at that point you’re being hyper critical of a couple of people in Palestine 2000 years ago. Historically I’d say we chalk that up as a win. The only reason not to is apologetics against Christianity
Yet we can’t explain matter, consciousness, or anything like what it means to be a human. Bc arguing against something isn’t the same as finding the truth. Physical determinism is a myth too
@@tookie36 Truth can be subjective. Watch politics for 5 minutes that becomes clear. Hypothesis vs theory vs facts are how we believe. We are but advanced, primitive minds finding our way out of the animal darkness we were created from. Hallucinations become truth to believers. If our race wasn't prone to going crazy, it would make the concept of gods more believable.
@@crapton9002 truth is objective. Our perspective on the truth is pretty clearly subjective tho. Which is also why physicalism, matterialism, etc should be challenged just as much as theologies. Unfortunately when people go against Christianity they use that as a crutch to not analyze their own beliefs in which are taken for granted
@@tookie36 I wouldn't say your wrong. Christ is an ideal imo. I resist the man made side of that story as it's obviously perverted but the light the ideal shined was seriously needed. 1/2 the world's population has great need to worship something. I'm in the 1/2 that doesn't. It is man's authoritarian nature that shows it to be imagined as they are the only ones to enforce those laws which tells me everything about God. God is the excuse we need good or bad, to do things we think ourselves incapable of. I understand.
I read it. It definitely places Matthew, Luke, and John in the middle to late second century with stylometric evidence to back it. Paul is very elusive. I still don't know how scholars are placing a few of his letters so early.
Anybody inventing Paul and back-dating him to mid-first-century would have been unable to resist making him foresee the demolition of the Temple. Furthermore, Mark was written using Paul, as was 1 Clement. 1 Clement knows nothing of Judas (e.g. uses an idiom gospels tied inextricably to Judas about something unrelated, in an essay about betrayal), so was written without access to gospels, and has temple rites still being conducted, so was pre-war.
In the entire first century Jesus is not mentioned by a single historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher, or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, carving, sculpture, or monument and is never found in a single piece of private correspondence or official record. Jesus himself left no archaeological evidence of any kind, such as artifacts, tombs, dwellings, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts.
You do realize that "Jesus" is just the Anglicized version of an extremely common given name at that time, don't you? I surmise that there were a great many men carrying that name who were religious and ran into trouble with the Temple and Roman authorities. Why do you think that is some incredible thing?
@@KarlWhales Many of them existed. A philosopher type that existed around that time carrying that popular name who probably got into some problems. But they weren't special enough to be recognized or written about. So it's meaningless.
@@EvilChristianityBingo, that’s what blew my mind back. In scholarship, I thought that there would be numerous material/evidence for the jesus fella. Nope, there really isn’t. 😂 I’ve just accepted it’s a shame.
Christianity: God created himself so God can sacrifice himself to pay himself to forgive his creation. He couldn’t just be merciful and forgive God needed man to do a bigger sin “kill god” to forgive a sin of eating the apple.
After leaving fundamental Christianity, I try to make the distinction between jesus being historical and Bible Jesus. Was there a guy, a Jewish apocalyptic type guy thinking the world may end, sure. There were many people like that back then. But Bible jesus, the one born from a 12yr old, walked on water, fed thousands with fish/loaves, raised Lazarus from the dead and died and rose again…….. Yeah Bible jesus is 100% pure unmistakable mythology my friends.
That’s a fantastic take. Santos Bonnaci says the same thing. The savior in the book is you. The hero. Spirtual and intellectual enlightenment. The historical version if there was understood consciousness saved himself and gone goodbye!
@@TrisjensChronicles1203 Somebody of whom every single detail known was obviously made up, and who is not on record ever saying anything, is much more likely to be wholly made up. There have been zillions of Peter Parkers, many in New York, a few photographers, but none of them were imagined to be Spider-Man after they died.
Good take except the 12 yr old part. That's more than possible as it still occurs in today's world. It's the claim she was a virgin that's the mythical aspect.
Love this guys! Love the brainstorming and seeing the lights come on in your heads! Here's something to think about when it comes to ancient people 'seeing' the parallels: it was common in the Greco-Roman world for a person to belong to and support different religious traditions and attend meetings/services at different 'ecclesia' in different locations. It was the 'fashionable' thing to do, in part because for a long time, the Greeks and Romans were somewhat open to new religious traditions, which given the extent of the two empires, would bring in people from other faith traditions either as travelers or as prisoners and/or slaves. You also see some of this mixing of faith traditions in the writings of Paul, where he deals with whether it's ok for Xians to eat meat offered to an idol (how would the body of believers KNOW it was offered to an idol?), and when he tried to get the Corinthians to get a handle on the disruptive practice of speaking in tongues (must be an interpreter, each person speaks in turn, if no one understands/interprets what's said, the speaker sits quietly and speaks to himself and to God, etc.). Remember, Corinth is only about 45 miles from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi where the Oracles practiced giving their cryptic messages to people which were 'interpreted' by the priests for the people seeking a 'word of knowledge' from the oracle. The Greco-Roman world was ripe for a new religion and the emerging Jewish followers of this messianic apocalyptic religion mixed with people of other faith traditions in more Hellenized areas where these faith traditions began to merge and borrow tropes, memes, and ideas from each other.
In the entire first century Jesus is not mentioned by a single historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher, or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, carving, sculpture, or monument and is never found in a single piece of private correspondence or official record. Jesus himself left no archaeological evidence of any kind, such as artifacts, tombs, dwellings, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts.
I regard them as free thinkers. I have heard both strongly criticize Ehrman's out-of-hand denials of mythicism. Sure, they get Ehrman on their show to promote a course, that's mutually beneficial. But they both can think for themselves.
@@exoplanet11 Honestly being 50/50 on the matter as Neal says is basically the same as most mythicists, or maybe a few points off. Only compared to his earlier "true believer" status is he now not a mythicist. The issue is which you think better explains the evidence, not which you are certain of.
Guys have you noticed that Paul was writing in the 40s and there was already a church in Rome that was known “all over the world” and a bunch of competing preachers collecting money around the Roman Empire? This thing didn’t start with a Jesus in the 30s, it was earlier than that.
Yeah I think a lot of the early church history was intentionally scrubbed (there are some huge gaps in the timeline even if you assume that there was a Jesus), and given that this was thousands of years ago, we'll probably never know what really happened.
Paul was nowhere ever mentioned or known before Marcion in the 2nd century. Only a few years before him, Pliny, Suetonius and Tacitus alike didn't even know the name Jesus yet.
@@reinercelsus8299 1 Clement writing in the 60s knew Paul's letters, and 'Mark' mined them for dialog in his gospel. There would be no reason for elite Romans to have heard of Christianity.
@@Akio-fy7ep 1 Clement was not written in the 60s but most likely around either 100 or only 125. Pliny, Suetonius and Tacitus are the only early Roman sources before Marcion that did in fact mention Christians, but never a Jesus. 'Messiah' had already been translated to 'Christos' in BCE by the Septuaginta, so a 'Christ' didn't necessarily depend on a belief about Jesus. Any crazy Jew who believed to follow some 'Messiah' would have been a 'Christian' to Romans, no matter if he believed Judas of Galilee, John the Baptist, Simon Bar Kokhba or anybody else was his Messiah.
It is a bit weird to have about 5-6 different authors from the first second century talking about a ficticious person. The most reasonable explanation is that is all based in a historical person, for that reason it is considered a good source to say that the most pausible explanation is that existed.
@@davidgarciacinca5100 Your perspective and conclusion make no sense whatever considering that they cover a span of about 70 years, and no two agree on much of anything. Mark is the oldest and was 30 years after the fact, and if believed most accurate, and It is written in the first person. The other three in Classical Greek. They were all written anonymously, so who knows who wrote them or for what purpose.. For certain, there were not written for any Holy book of any sort, and were hand-picked and named by people with an agenda. Mathew, Luke and John appear to be plagiarized from Mark with additions that don't appear in that Gospel, like the Genealogy and resurrection. Solomon lays out the particulars in the Wisdom of Solomon, centuries before the alleged Jesus story, chapter and verse. The Old Testament is bullshit from start to finish, and the existence of David as a mighty conqueror is obviously bullshit. Jerusalem was a village when he was supposed to be the King of Israel. Jerusalem was in Judea,. Not Israel. I'm sure that whatever you think isn't going to be swayed by anything I say or anything factual, so It's a waste of your time and mine . .to continue.
@@davidgarciacinca5100 The OP doesn't actually understand what the Bible is. If you can use the OT to predict and validate NT events then the Bible absolutely CAN be used as a proof of itself! The prophetic significance and the continuity between OT and NT are completely lost to people who lack critical thinking abilities! Ironically those are the very same people insisting that they are the smartest person in every room they enter. They equate the Bible with a comic book, still play with action figures at ~35 and have three syllable vocabularies 😂 They are quite the parody of themselves!
@@davidgarciacinca5100 How many authors do we have for Superman? For Batman? For Spider-Man? For Paul Bunyan? The only plausible explanation for dozens (not just 5-6) of people writing uniformly fantastical, mutually contradictory stories about a cultic figure is that they liked making up fantastical stories he would figure in.
Right. He was one among many Magi mystics traveling around at the time. The story of Dionysus was co-opted onto Jesus because it was a political convenience for the Romans to consolidate the many, many cults in their empire. Essentially.
Bible scholar Bart D. Ehrman relates that he begins his introductory class on the New Testament by describing an important figure from the first century without first revealing he is talking about the stories attached to Apollonius of Tyana: Even before he was born, it was known that he would be someone special. A supernatural being informed his mother that the child she was to conceive would not be a mere mortal but would be divine. He was born miraculously, and he became an unusually precocious young man. As an adult he left home and went on an itinerant preaching ministry, urging his listeners to live, not for the material things of this world, but for what is spiritual. He gathered a number of disciples around him, who became convinced that his teachings were divinely inspired, in no small part because he himself was divine. He proved it to them by doing many miracles, healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead. But at the end of his life, he roused opposition, and his enemies delivered him over to the Roman authorities for judgment. Still, after he left this world, he returned to meet his followers in order to convince them that he was not really dead but lived on in the heavenly realm. Later some of his followers wrote books about him.
I 100% guarantee that the dude walking on water, turning it to wine and resurrecting from the dead IS A MYTH. Whether there was some revutionary named Yeshua who said to love your neighbor really isn't important at all.
And that’s the upper limit of an ‘a fortiori’ evaluation. A reasonable and more balanced estimate is 1 in 12,500, which means a 0.008% probability (page 882 of digital version). Carrier never mentions it unless asked specifically so that people don’t get too emotional. He always says “hey 1 in 3 is respectable odds” so that the other part doesn’t go in full defensive stance, but in reality he knows the probability is much lower. For whatever reason, people that are former hardcore Christians tend to defend the historical Jesus even if they are atheists. I’ve seen it plenty of times. So they are always looking for something, some apparent piece of evidence to support their claims, but always come short.
And Carrier is a minority. I've seen him debate Dr. Larry W. Hurtado years before the pandemic on blogs and Carrier made silly misinterpretations that Hurtado caught about the existence of Jesus in relation to the Gospels and the letters of Paul. Those were further examples back then when I noticed Carrier's deficiencies. Kipp Davies also takes Carrier to task and does an enough applaudable job. When I watch Carrier's recent videos with Dr. Dennis Ronald MacDonald (yes, that's his full name), I respect them more, but Carrier is still in the minority, since even Dr. MacDonald doesn't adhere to Carrier's full works. They have appeared here on this channel contrasting their views and Carrier is still in his little corner.
Mythicism even if false will always be more reasonable/plausible then Christianity I think there probably was a guy named Jesus preaching the end times and was crucified but that's where the non fiction ends and the fiction begins.
SENSATIONAL!!! headline. That the gospel stories were _crafted_ as just that - good (effective) storytelling - is one of those things that the evangelical/fundamentalist really do not like. Some Christians ("liberals") may have accepted that the stories are from the storytelling craft, but they still want to hold that only the retelling is crafted, not the heart of the story. Yet the gospels are indeed a kind of historical fiction.
There is technically more evidence that Harry Potter existed than Jesus … I can go to a place right now and find thousands of books that tell tales of his life from childhood to adulthood. 🤷♂️
@@cholst1 Yeah, and in the 1st Century CE, they knew who he was and who invented him 🤣 that’s my point so much time and insidious manipulation has passed that fact and fiction are indistinguishable.
Mythicism is fair, it may be right, may be wrong, but it's totally understandable. Jesus, if real, is a very mysterious person for us in modernity. The confirmable information about Jesus is very very vague.
The fact that multiple religions exist and all have the same claims about creator gods, being the right religion where all others are lies, and all require you to have faith, or just believe and not ask questions, should tell you none of them have the truth and that only gullible idiots could possibly believe this stuff. Besides those facts, it's very easy to disprove the existence of a GOD. The problem is, the beLIEvers are close-minded and don't care, and even if you could disprove it, they will still choose to believe, because being an adult and living in reality it just too hard for them.
True but we're all gullible idiots as small children and that's when the hooks of indoctrination really sink in it's like a vicious virus. Indoctrinated adults prey on the minds of children. Things accepted as small children and then reinforced by culture for the next 15 years or more is not an easy thing to uproot and shed off. And a lot of them are traumatized into belief adding a biochemical layer to the mind virus. As annoying as believers can get calling them idiots only creates another barrier for them to overcome.
Paul's goal was to garner support for the insurrection against the Romans which began in 46 AD led by two brothers, Jacob and Simon, in the Judea province. The revolt, mainly in the Galilee, began as sporadic insurgency until it climaxed in 48 AD when it was quickly put down by Roman authorities. Both Simon and Jacob were executed. He created the fiction of having witnessed the risen messiah. He wanted to show that the messiah had come as prophesied but was murdered by the Romans. This was to entice the Gentiles to aid in the Jews' rebellion against the Romans.
@@EvilChristianity I love it when people who don't think there's enough evidence for the historical Jesus propose theories that are far less supported.
If Tacitus & Josephus wrote about Heracles like a historical figure what separates Heracles from Jesus if we have accounts from the same authors Christian’s rely on for Jesus existence ?
AWESOME convo. Learning about the Mediterranean roots or influence or connections to Christianity is a big part of my healing from Catholic religious trauma. As such, conversations like this are invaluable.
Jesus was the first century version of David Koresh. Born to a teen mother and was socially outcast as a child who went full blown into religion and then began to believe they were in the Scriptures they were reading. Both were charismatic and got followers. Both ended up dead when they got in the crosshairs of the governing authorities.
@traingear9578Nobody had to teach me. I could read then. I knew that Preachers were con artists. One day my friend and I were walking behind a Church and the Pastor came out with a stick and told us to knock off the beautiful yellow flowers on acres of land because they were evil weeds. We just walked away. We knew that he was a creep. And he was trying to groom us.
Jesus died on the cross as God and man, he didn't die to satisfy some bloodlust of his father, when he died we all died with him, to be resurrected with him in a mystical entanglement, so that we can live a life free from the slavery of sin. When Jesus said, "My God my God, why have your forsaken me?" he was quoting psalms, which was literally the prophecy of him dying as he was dying, lol. So anyone who knew the scriptures would know they were being fulfilled in that moment.
@@themadpolymath3430 _"...he didn't die to satisfy some bloodlust of his father..."_ You mean the same guy who killed everyone on Earth except for eight? LOL
@@themadpolymath3430 _"...he didn't die to satisfy some bloodlust of his father..."_ Wait. Are you denying that the core tenet of Christianity is the literal worship of propitiatory human sacrifice? You know, that cross thing and John 3:16... Paul created Christianity in 48 AD and this is how he put it: "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all." (Romans 8:32) "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." (1 Corinthians 5:7) "God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement." (Romans 3:25) "God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us." (Romans 5:8) "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ." (Hebrews 10:10)
@@themadpolymath3430 _"So anyone who knew the scriptures would know they were being fulfilled in that moment."_ The Gospels were all written anonymously, after 70 AD, by non-witnesses to Jesus. They were tailored to match Jewish expectations of the messiah.
Jesus was probably one of the many names of that archangel. Keep an eye on Carrier’s blog, this month. He’s going to talk about one of the angel’s other names. 😉
I feel like it would be safe to say, historical jesus and mythical jesus are equally likely possibilities with equal amounts of evidence of both positions.
@@donaldclifford5763 Because John son of Zechariah (John the Baptist) was a real historical figure so his follows (The Mandaeans) account of Jesus is probably more accurate. Today they're a minority religion mostly in Iraq but their ancestors were Jews from the Jordan River area.
I would say that's completely wrong. Since there is not one single contemporaneous written accounts of Jesus's existence, since all the much later accounts contradict one another on a large number of important issues, and since there is no physical evidence of his existence, there's really no reason to believe in a historical Jesus. All the evidence points to a mythological Jesus. All his miracles plagiarized from earlier myths, etc.
Paul speaks of an ancient church. That suggests there was some type of following of a man from many years before Paul. That is why Jesus Ben Pendera is a good fit. Only he lived 100 years earlier and certainly wasn’t the Jesus of the bible.
@45:19 Neil read about a sacrificed kid boiled in milk. This actually appears in the second set of the 10 Commandments that tells you "not to boil a calf in its mother's milk". Interesting.
I love how this is two bros having a deep discussion about the gospels and their relationship to the first century world with several really good examples. I appreciate all the work you both do and for the many book recommendations.
You really should get Matthew Britt and Jaaron Wingo on your show to talk about their new book, "Christ Before Jesus." They used stylometric analysis to examine the NT. Now I had never heard of this before but it has been around for a few centuries, and is accepted in legal work. It involves studying different writing styles such as how often different common words are used. Before it used to require lots of work to do the analysis but computers have made it a breeze. (Rather than take my word or the two authors for this, you can read about it on Wikipedia. It is open source software so you can even run it for yourself, on NT material and any other writing to convince yourself it works.) What they found was most of the NT was written in the SECOND century, after the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132 CE, not right after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. They even found that only four of Paul's letters were written by the same author, of which two of the four were stitched together with works by other writers - that Paul (and Cephas/Peter, James, and John) were also made up. And for the most part, all of these were also SECOND century works. PS - I don't know enough to argue these points. Talk to the authors or read their book.
I already came to the same conclusion. Before Marcion or the Bar Kokba revolt, all of the Romans that ever mentioned so-called Christians didn't even know the name Jesus yet, nor any hint of already existing christian literature. The Septuaginta had already translated any use of "Messiah" to "Christos" in BCE, so "Christians" didn't even depend on a Jesus. Every crazy lunatic who believed Bar Kokhba was the Messiah would have been a Christian from a Roman point of view. The first "Christians" persecuted by the Romans were most likely zealots.
I heard them on Godless Engineer and decided to get their book. It costs almost nothing on Kindle. Two chapters finished; so far I am fairly impressed. I want to give these guys a chance. I like the way they write. They are not Biblical scholars, but they make some interesting points that I have not considered before. The late dating of the Gospels and Paul's letters is going to be difficult to pass muster. I can see them being early First Century, but middle?? I'm going to have to see some good evidence for that.
@@ardalla535 I most like the idea that using stylometrics to come up with information that is NOT arbitrary, like arguing if something would have been so embarrassing that it would pass the silly criterion of embarrassment. The authors almost begged other people to test the texts this way to see if others get the same results, just like in science the first thing after there is an announcement of some new evidence, others will try to falsify the results. Now assuming people can agree on what stylometrics give, there can and should be discussions about what the results actually mean. Chapters 8 and 9, the final two, are where Britt and Wingo give the results.
Personally I am waiting for the first peer-reviewed defence of historicity to be published before I can make an informed decision one way or the other.
Thousands of years from now the gospels of JK Rowling will be discovered in a place called a library and people will read about how young boy called Harry Potter finds out he is a wizard and goes about to save the world from a great evil. The people of that era will come to worship this boy as a god and start a world religion known as The Order of the Phoenix. And those people believe it must be true because the author of those gospels mention a real location called London.
@@magneteye Robin Hood...no, he was a character based upon a Scottish brave man who was hung by the English King of the days
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When the Greeks conquered Kemet which they called Egypt. They created a hybrid parental deity in order to combine Egyptian mythology with Greek mythology. So they combined the Egyptian God Thoth with the Greek God Hermes. They called him Hermes Trismegistus III. Who was known as… “The Thrice Great.” He was famous for triumphing over the season of death. Which is what the number 3 almost always symbolizes in World Mythology. Isn't this what the Flavian Dynasty did after conquering the Jews? Didn't they create a new hybrid form of Greco-Roman Judaism? To integrate Jewish mythology with Greco-Roman mythology? Calling him… “Jesus The Christ.” Who is also famous for triumphing over the season of death. As represented by… “The Trinity.” Isn't this a better explanation for the origins of Christianity rather than Harry Houdini magic? 💙
The epic movie King of Kings, traditionally aired on TV at Easter time, can be seen by believers and non-believers, as myth or history, with or without religious belief. The original version was an old Cecil B. De Mill classic, with music and subtitles, before actual sound films.
He wasn't a carpenter. That's a mistranslation. The word was tekton. It means craftsman or builder... he was basically a general contractor. Homes in that place during Josh Christ's lifetime were made from stone. His name was Josh, not Jesus. Yehoshua. Or Isho, or Yeshua. Or ya know Josh, the contractor turned rabbi turned cult leader/revolutionary.
Actually many people past and present claiming to be Jesus. But these were later than the mythical Jesus. So you can in that sense be a minimalist historicist.
44:09 agh… i really wish some in this community would study or incorporate the studies of African history into their analyses. You were so close! “Book of the Dead” is a poor translation. It is indeed better understood as the “Book of Coming Forth By Day!” So much of biblical “history” is in and around Africa and yet so little African history or people are ever considered in these discussions.
@@Justin_Beaver564 Jesus supposedly met with some real people. The problem is that it is only “supposedly”, nobody confirmed this outside the fictional books called gospels.
Месяц назад+3
Wasn't Paul secretly working for the Flavian Dynasty? Weren't all of the original Roman Catholic Saints' members of the Flavian Dynasty? Weren't all of the original symbols used by the earliest Christians identical to those of the Flavian Dynasty? And isn’t one of the earliest iconographic symbols for Christianity, located in a catacomb, under the city of Rome, which was owned by a Flavian Princess? Weren't all of the original Jesus cult texts produced under the oversight of the Flavian Dynasty? Didn't the Flavian Dynasty posses the only remaining copy of the Hebrew Tanakh other than the Greek Septuagint translation? Isn't there Flavian typology in the Gospels? Weren't the canonical texts all back dated like the historical fiction of Gone With The Wind? Wasn't Emperor Vespasian known as the Jewish Messiah? Wasn’t Pope Clement of Rome a Flavian? Wasn't Josephus a temple whore for the Flavian Dynasty? Weren't the Flavian’s, as well as Paul, descended from King Herod? There was no separation of Church and State in the Roman Empire. And Christianity is clearly a Greco-Roman hybrid form of Judaism created by the Flavian Dynasty. As an attempt to adapt, pacify, and integrate the rebellious and defiant Jews into the rest of the Greco-Roman Empire. Just like the Greeks created Hermes Trismegistus to integrate Egyptian mythology with Greek mythology.Then finally Neo-Flavian Constantine chose the Flavian family religion to be the official religion of the entire Roman Empire. In order to consolidate power in his fractured Empire. And then Eusebius edited and rewrote the history of the previous 3OO years. Destroying all contradictory evidence. It isn't history it is all simply Greco-Roman mythopoetic literature. Today it is known as Historical Fiction. “What profit hath not this fable of Christ brought us.” Pope Leo X 💙
Ehrman is fond of saying there were millions of people in the Roman Empire who were not attested by history. That's pretty obvious statement to make, right? But Jesus had followers who would have made sure that he was remembered, and some would have documented his existence. Going off to Jerusalem, being crucified, then appearing afterward is not something that happens to millions of ordinary people. Plenty of people would have noted that early on ... not just decades later. That doesn't make any sense. What were they doing in those decade before the Gospels were written? Fishing in the Sea of Galilee and mending their nets? Seriously?
They were, like Paul describes himself doing, going around preaching and trying to convert people. But most of the them didn't listen. And why would they? They didn't see Jesus die and rise from the dead. They've only got this crazy guy on the street ranting about it for evidence.
So it was written decades after the fact, by people who weren't there at the time. And the story is that he was buried, then arose and left the tomb. More likely of course, he hung on the cross for a few days until the birds had eaten most of the flesh and was then dumped in a mass grave. That was standard Roman practice.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 or he was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea and it was found empty. The apostles, who were there, wrote their accounts and were persecuted for their beliefs. The Pharisees I’m sure would have had any Jew that followed Jesus punished as well, and any records depicting him as something other than a scoundrel would be ignored or destroyed. It’s fascinating to me how you are so convinced of your ‘more than likely’ scenario, that you would argue against faith. You’re aware that you have no record of what took place, you just have assumptions based on what you believe did not occur. I’ll continue to believe Matthew, Mark, and John. I’ll put my faith in THE WORD, who was made flesh. Praise Jesus🙌🏽
@@jeffmacdonald9863 also, he was “buried” according to Jewish tradition. So, being placed in a tomb and being buried are two very different things. The verb ‘bury’ can be applied to both circumstances, but it’s very well known that Jesus was not placed into a hole in the ground and covered.
@@lewcy I'm uninterested in arguing against faith. If you're relying on faith for your claim, there's little further to say. I am interested in critical scholarship on the topic.
@leob3447 Matthew and John are named after their authors, who were apostles and eye witnesses. Mark and Luke were written by ‘close associates’, likely scribes of the apostles. You rely on information from people who were not eyewitnesses as well. Your sources were not alive until hundreds or thousands of years later. I believe the word of God and I use 2000+ years of Christianity as evidence. Isaiah 6:9-10 Isaiah 50:3-6 Isaiah 53:3
I don't believe Jesus existed at all because there is no evidence for him. An admixture of different men, plus some older legends and beliefs from other faiths is the closest estimate we can make for the Jesus character. If that makes me a mythicist, then so be it.
Like Paul reportedly implied: If Jesus did not exist, then we are all delusional for believing he did. That probably also means that a historical Jesus was some delusional guy walking around from village to village in Galilee, then marching off to Jerusalem thinking God would bring the the Kingdom of Heaven down from the sky.
@@ardalla535 Paul wouldn't know. He never met Jesus. Everything Paul wrote should be discarded.
Месяц назад+3
Doesn't the number 3 in world mythology always represent the same thing? Triumph over the season of death? Based on the sacred promise Mother Nature demonstrates to all who incarnate in her world. Winter is her season of death which lasts 3 months. And is always, always, always followed by the season of life. Known as Spring. Which is also 3 months long. And is the season of rebirth and reconstitution and resurrection. Also every month the moon dies for 3 days and then is reborn anew as a sacred new moon. This is why dying and rising gods are entombed for 3 days before they resurrect. This is why Hermes Trismegistus was known as... "The Thrice Great." As he was famous for triumping over the season of death. Just like Jesus The Christ. This is what the 3 Mithraic wise men represent. And this is all the Christian Trinity actually symbolizes. It isn't about the individual personas but rather the sacred underlying promise of the number 3. Which is what most parental deity religions are selling: Entrance into Studio 54 for only the best people.💙
Noted, but I’m sticking with what three represents as part of Greek mythology as in the three heads of the Cerberus. Past, present and future. The Roman’s applied it to Christianity in the form of the Trinity. God the past, Holy Ghost the present and Jesus the future. A Sarapis statue with his hand on the Cerberus was a clue. The Romans kept that concept when they created Jesus.
I believe the RUclips episodes of "Jesus in India" by Paul Wallis, sheds a lot of light on why the history of Jesus was kept silent and hidden. Amongst many other sources, Paul shares.
Yes, I too noticed the connection w/ that Roman rite and Deut. I guess we can credit ourselves for seeing something that got past these two Titans of youtube! But doesn't this suggest the Deuteronomy was written after such practices were introduced into Judea? It could not have been written after Roman times, could it? Perhaps 'the boiling a kid in milk' ritual was present among the Greeks and began in Judea after Alexander's conquest?
Jesus was not a historical figure LOL he was made up, he was concocted in the idea of him was stolen from other more ancient cultures and writings Jesus/Jeus/Zeus 😂
What convinced me was all of the I believe almost 19 prior crucifixion stories. All involving a mother figure a father figure and a son. The crucifixion is a recycled story and the best the Creator could come up with to save mankind his creation from sin? I always say if that was the salvation plan I hope there's a plan B
If he never existed, then why did the deciples die for Lord Jesus? Didn't they get tortured and killed aswell? Would you give up your life over a fictitious made up story? I'm pretty sure what happened to the deciples was recorded in history.
You would be wrong. None of the disciples are recorded in any early history outside of the Bible or other early Christian writings. For most, even church traditions of martyrdom can't be traced back into the 1st century. The earliest Biblical author, Paul, mentions "the 12", but only names Peter and John, along with James the brother of the Lord, if he counts as one of the 12.
A couple of PhD’s (Carrier and Lataster): “We wrote professional, peer-reviewed books about the historical existence of Jesus” “Both our books conclude most probably the guy didn’t exist”. A couple of amateurs on the internet: “We know better”
@@torreyintahoe that’s the thing, all those other legitimate scholars don’t have peer-reviewed books about the historicity of Jesus. They only have pop market books. Which is funny in a way, because they criticized Carrier when his argument wasn’t peer-reviewed. Now that it is, they pretend peer-review doesn’t matter and just continue with their classic ad-populum and ignore it. That doesn’t happen in other fields of study because if someone legitimately challenges the consensus, the consensus people have to address the argument. You can’t just ignore it and keep repeating the same refuted claims like nothing has happened.
@@mikemike2750 Many of them are peer reviewed published scholars. There are very good reasons to doubt mythicism. There are a lot of problems with it. The idea of at least investigating it has gained some traction though.
@@mikemike2750 I don't know if they're the only two or not but the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of scholars believe there was a historical Jesus.
It’s quite easy to create a character and his followers, his exploits and so on, when you are writing mythology set in a vacant Jerusalem post Temple destruction circa 70 CE. Backdate the story 40 years, create a Paul guy who in your fable is establishing churches all over Asia, who makes claims to substantiate Jesus’ resurrection at the mouths of over 500 witnesses! Very easy to do. Marcion was the real Paul, and Judas the Galilean was the real Jesus. As far as the evidence for Paul’s epistles being written pre 70, I WOULD LOVE TO SEE REAL EVIDENCE FOR THAT! There is none. Only thing that you have for witness to the actual date of those epistles comes from the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH! You gonna take their word for it? Even the books that we have from the Church fathers, are not viable points of proof for when those books really came about. Its all about money. Money motivates these RUclips creators to go along to get along. JESUS NEVER EXISTED
Sorry, but anybody back-dating fake letters from Paul would be unable to resist prophesying the demolition of the temple, and would have deployed 2nd-century theology conspicuously lacking in Paul. 2nd-century christians were far too unsophisticated to pull it off. In fact they did try to fake up Pauline letters, and flubbed badly.
@@rasunsoter you’re right. I think there was a writer called Paul, but he was not the founder of churches, these churches already existed and he was just writing theological treatises based on gnostic ideas. Catholics are a bunch of con men who appeared in the 2nd century and converted the myths of the first Christians into a historical lie.
So excited to hear this! I too have been all the labels. But as I study myths and history of that time for my “historical” fictional book rewriting the known Jesus myth and Mary Magdalene as the true christ……I have thot over the years this is the story of Inanna and Dumuzi adapted. Jesus is Dionysus. How can people NOT see this is just what was ALWAYS done back then : adapting the religious myths around them for their own purposes
Just found another interesting parallel- there was a human demi-god among the Greeks called Adonis, for which there was a popular festival mourning his death. They think Adonis may be partly inspired from the Hebrew word Adonai & a similar story & festival was practiced everywhere between Greece & Mesopotamia, albeit the characters under different names. Adonis was stuck between being the lover of both Aphrodite, the love goddess, & Persephone, the underworld goddess. Even worse, because Aphrodite & her Roman counterpart, Venus, had all these Middle Eastern connections, she also absorbed the Ishtar mythology explaining the morning & evening star that we now know as the planet Venus, in which it disappears under the horizon for three days in its transition between the two & was described as the goddess descending into the underworld & rising again unscathed. I think that also might be part of the reason why Satan takes on the name Lucifer- morning star. That level of interconnection with the Jesus story had to he nipped in the bud, hard.
@@MrChristianDT all gods that resurrected and/or went to the underworld and back are part of the mystery religions. They’re kind of similar, with different names and attributes but similar idea: a god who knows how to come back from the dead, therefore he/she can bring salvation from death. Dionysus/Bachus, Orpheus, Persephone, Venus, Jesus, etc. are examples.
I think the point about choosing sides in the mythicist debate is that the onus is on the historicists to prove that the Jesus known to the world through the canonical gospels was a flesh-and-blood being, like Julius Caesar. The mythicists don't have to prove anything, because they are asserting a negative in varying degrees: some are merely doubtful or skeptical, while others state it more strongly (Jesus was a non-historical person, just like Moses).
I use the term "Legendarist", that is there might have been someone upon whom the Jesus tale was based, but that tale became more and more legendary over time in the fashion of Alexander before him.
A very good and interesting conversation and I definitely think everything mentioned here as a possible connection is plausible. Though I think the most important part is to not just make cases on how it's plausible, but to flip the table and then steelman the argument why it might not be likely. I was waiting for that to happen and it never did. I think it's good to be on guard about parallelism since it can be so very tempting. It's very easy to think "how can this not have influenced that!". It's easy to forget that coincidences not only happen but are guaranteed to happen. Likewise things can develop very similarly but relatively independently of each other. For example the idea of some important figure dying and resurrection doesn't need any cultural root. That's a pretty deterministic idea from the general human condition of life death cycle. Likewise the idea of someone sacrificing a living being to help another is a pretty rudimentary idea. Could these ideas have flowed from the same sources or each other, sure, but it's important to remember that relatively simple ideas like that which are almost tied to the fundamental idea of the evolutionary idea of the cycle of life can be created without any source outside of just observing life itself. One good example of this is the pyramids in Egypt vs the Americas. That's a trap that ancient advanced civilization people fall into. When if you step back these are simply budlings based off of two very obvious concepts. 1) Mimicking the tallest natural structures we see around us, mountains! He look at that mountain, let's make a building like it. 2) Natural progressions based on the physics of the universe. Stacking blocks wider then narrower is the most obvious and simplest way to make taller buildings. No connection needed to exist for people to come up with these very basic naturalistic ideas on their own. Likewise in ancient history these days there's ideas of metallurgy evolving in parallel -possibly rather than one root source. We have many example of people coming up with the same ideas and concepts, some even fairly complex, without any real influence between them. Again the best example is Native American culture vs the rest of the world. Different in so many ways but also so very similar when it comes to the myths and traditions etc. The idea of human sacrifice for example was evolved independently amongst these two parts of the world, probably even similar themes like deities or the divine dying and resurrecting. That would be an interesting study/video in fact. Taking some of these themes that you suspect might have causation within the ancient Mediterranean and see how many of those can be correlated to Native American cultures that we know weren't directly influenced. This might be a sort of control like doing a placebo, if it doesn't have a stronger correlation and overlap than the Europe -> Americas overlap then it's hard to say it's directly influenced by each other.
You guys are exactly where you should be on this issue. I watched Bob Price debate Bart Ehrman on this. I came away from that debate fully disappointed as Kevin Sorbo, because i felt like the needle hadn't been moved in any direction.
Bro your channel is so bad ass man. Your video compiling all your interviews with the Bible scholars who left the faith is what jump started my deconstruction. It’s a scary place to be in but it’s also freeing. Thanks for all you do!
The Greek translations of the Gospels, do not state "crucifixion" ... it gives a generic term for being hung for execution. And there is scant evidence that Romans predominately used crucifixion. Moreover, other cultures including Hebrews used crucifixion as a means of execution. This is a lovely conversation but also shows how easy it is for folk to go off in speculation as if it were fact. What we see apologist do so often
Philo of Alexandria, born 20 years BEFORE Jesus and died 20 years AFTER Jesus, was a Jewish scholar that studied Judaism and is credited with coming up with the Trinity concept, he visited Jerusalem and wrote about the 'Messiah Craze' and made a list of the pretenders and Jesus Christ was never mentioned.
Can you point me to Philo's "list of the pretenders"? I can't find it. How does it compare with the various Messianic claimants Josephus mentions? Would this also mean that by the time of Philo's writing, not only was Jesus not known to him (presumably because he never existed), but also that Christians and their claims about Jesus were unknown to him? And wouldn't Christians have been the most likely and obvious way for him to heard about Jesus in the first place?
@@jeffmacdonald9863 I may have misspoken on him making a list, like Josephus did, but he did make notice of them and still no mentioned of Jesus or his miracles, google 'why was Philo of Alexandria silent on Jesus Christ'.
@@liberalinoklahoma1888 The simplest explanation is that he'd never heard of him. Why would he? Now, if he'd made an actual list of Messianic pretenders and Jesus wasn't there and it contained others of similar status to what we think Jesus likely really had at the time, then it would be a decent argument. But he didn't. He also doesn't mention Christians at all, which suggests he didn't even know there was a Jewish sect based on a new Messianic concept. Seems that would be at least as relevant to his theological interest in Messiahs as another minor Messianic claimant would be.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 Philo went to Jerusalem many times and it was his profession and supposedly all those miracles and Philo knew nothing of it?? Hard to swallow.
What do you think about the existence of Jesus?
I’m agnostic about the historicity of Jesus.
They made it up to harvest the energy of worship
Best case there was a Jewish Rabbi with a small following and had an apocalyptic message that failed, but they built massive mythology around him anyway
Because if what was said about him that people don't understand.
His Resurrection is explainable.
It was the Eleusinian Mystery Ritual.
Lazarus did it. Adam did it.
Council of Nicaea gave rise to it and it's been added to over the years. It's fake news.
All world religions should be treated as mythology.
100%
Materialism, physicalism, atheism, and agnosticism should be treated as mythology
@@tookie36 you know that makes absolutely no sense right?
@@tookie36 What mythological characters do any of them have?
@@travis1240Their point wasn't to make sense.
The problem with "I think there was a guy" historicism is this: "A guy who did what?" Walked on water? Raised the dead? As Neal points out at 6:30 at least 90% of what's written about Jesus certainly didn't happen or probably didn't happen. What exactly does that that leave? An apocalyptic preacher perhaps? Even the verses in Mark that describe his preaching are interspersed with clearly non-historical events.
I actually think Dr. Price put it best when he said "If there was a historical Jesus, there isn't now" Meaning that any historical figure has become so obscured with myths and retellings that it is almost impossible to discern any original kernel.
I think a-theists make the mistake of the wrong default position -
"there's no god so jesus must of just been some dude"
it's seem clear that christianity was a mystery cult from the beginning. ie. no dude
From a historical scholarship point of view, the question is "How did Christianity start?" With that in mind, it's easy to answer "A guy who did what?"
Preached. Built up a following who believed him to be the Messiah. Got crucified in Jerusalem. Left followers who still believed and claimed he rose from the dead.
It's that tie to the original Christian movement that's important. If there was a real person who inspired it or if, as some mythicists think, they invented it out of old scriptural verses. (Rather than justifying it after the fact using those verses.)
It seems that a lot of disagreement between mythicists and historicists comes down to semantics.
@@thescoobymike not really.
historicists think that the stories are based on a man. mythicist think that it was a mystery cult from christianity's inception ie. no dude.
completely different understandings
They didn't say how deep was the water, jejeje
No one knows where the tomb is but we have all four heads of John the Baptist.
LMAO🤩
Jesus's Crucifixion story also holds parallels with the Prometheus Crucifixion story. Prometheus: 1) was stretched out and hung on a rock 2) was stabbed in the right side (liver) by the beak of the Eagle/Roman Soldier) 3) was punished for his love of the people.
There are several art-pieces of Prometheus dating back between 300-700bc with Prometheus hanging arms outstretched, with a stab wound in his liver dripping.
The word means "foresight", it's the liver because they used to use the liver for divination
@@Macfromwales The events and details of Prometheus and Jesus are similar.
Why don’t they teach these things in high school?
@@Zxuma Great question. Dr. Dennis R. MacDonald was my intro to Literary Mimesis. Jason Reza Jorjani introduced me to Plato's connection to Christianity and western civilization. Through personal research you'll discover that there is nothing new under the sun; even the Greeks admit that everything they have, they owe to the Egyptians. Each society (specifically Greek, Roman) borrowed from the one preceding it.
I try to delineate between Jesus and Christ. If there was an historical Jesus, we know nothing about Him. As for the figure of Christ, He is entirely mythological. What I do believe is that if it is generally accepted that an historical Jesus never existed, New Testament scholars would become far less relevant to the rest of us. Follow the money...
Spot on
Right: Professing non-existence is bad for view count, bad for subscription count, bad for "the algorithm", bad for online course enrollment. Given the absolute lack of compelling evidence either way, there is no incentive to promote the less remunerative alternative.
@@Akio-fy7ep BOOM!
Notably, neither Neal nor Derek ever lay out any evidentiary argument that would lead a rational person to historicism. Derek always says "probably was a guy", but clearly he really means just "feels like there was a guy". An honest "viewership and online course sponsorship require that I say there was a guy" wouldn't go over so well.
@@Akio-fy7ep Spot on. Maybe there was a Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. I dunno, coulda been a guy, err, Reindeer named Rudolf. Lol
People who believe in the historicity of Jesus don’t seem to realize that all they’re doing is trying to write their own gospel, that is, create a story based on what they think about Jesus, just like the early Christians did.
No we're trying to piece together what really happened in classical antiquety
@@Justin_Beaver564 A bunch of people started a cult and made up a lot of stuff that didn’t really happen. That’s what really happened.
@@Justin_Beaver564you can't figure out what actually happened, though, because the source material you're basing it all on has been re-edited and re-written throughout the centuries so much that what you have left cannot be taken as authoritative or authentic. The content is so far removed from the original period it portrays, and the evidence from that same period refutes the story time and time again, without fail.... So yeah.... It s a myth that sprang up after the Jewish revolt against Rome, first launched by a small Judaic cult, likely an off shoot of the Essenes, that were the first Christians. Then, a certain Sha'ul (Paul) joins, takes the ideas and re engineers them for a gentile audience to make money, and to create a new Judaism he can personally be comfortable with and that new Judaism becomes the Christianity you know today.... And this only after so many cults joined in between the 1st and 3rd centuries, causing the Catholic church which is now taking shape to keep changing it's tenets and beliefs, up until the council of Nicaea and subsequent canonical councils, where the religion you claim you want the origins to was formed to completion.
You do not want the truth, because everytime someone comes and tells it to you, you claim they're misreading the NT.... Which was written and finalized CENTURIES after the 30s C.E..... SO THERE IS NOTHING TO ACTUALLY GO BY
@@lexicornfell7361I mean it’s likely Jesus existed just cos outside sources confirm the crucifixion. Pontius pilot existed, romans confirmed this, Jesus was sentenced for execution, Jewish sources claim this. It’s just all the myths added in top are bs
@@lexicornfell7361How is Christianity a cult, I do not see Christians blowing up buildings in the name of Jesus
If it walks like a duck, quacks like duck and looks like a duck it is mostly likely to be duck. Proud to be a mythicist.
Amen! No pun intended. Well, maybe intended just a little! 😂
what walks like a duck, though? i can imitate a duck if thats what you mean
Unless that the duck it's a Android or Perry the Platypus disguised as a duck
MrCyclist read this Bible passage surely Chris Evans will be vanish in the
future 2 Kings 1 verse 10
( KJV )
Unless it's a chicken is disguise
Jesus promised he would return before the end of his generation but he never did. I would call that a missed appointment.
Jesus said his return would be imminent - 2,000 years ago!
Jesus told his disciples that they would not die before his second coming:
"There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom".
(Matthew 16:28)
"Some of you standing here will not taste death until you see the Kingdom come with power."
(Mark 9:1-20)
"The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand."
(Mark 1:15)
Paul said his vision promised Jesus would "come" before the deadline. Paul never, anywhere in his authentic writings, says or hints at anything like a "return". Modern translators very often substitute "return" in English text. There is no record of an actual Jesus ever saying anything.
Preterite.
This proves that Jesus is Deuteronomy 18! And so for Paul, and everyone else who wrote the claims
Verse 22: 'If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.'
@@smexyplayer6376 That about covers everything. Kind of like all this it known and all that is unknown.
I wish they would not emphasize that Mythicism was only Carrier's idea. There's a whole history going back to the 19th century.
Carrier is the highest living scholar on the subject and writes and speaks about it publicly,
Can't expect too much from a couple dude bros. They're doing good for untrained podcasters.
@@ardalla535 Is there someone else that makes a compelling argument? Being sincere not snarky.
@@eatfrenchtoast Despite not having formal training, their years of interviewing experts and producing hundreds of researched videos gives them more cred than most experts. Especially in the biblical scholar arena.
@@Foundations0 Raphael Lataster PhD.
I don't think you need these clickbait titles anymore to get attention, you're big enough as a channel
Ya I agree
That's right!
Who cares?!
Did you actually watch the whole video? How is this clickbait?
The part that kills me is that you got historical proof about the Roman emperors even the Greek leaders, but there is no historical proof about Jesus😂
do you have any?
Josephus wrote about the historicity of the person of Jesus
@@emuseu2235 did he? how’s that proof of anything? and btw, the letter J didn’t come into existence until the 16th century.
@@leandrofernandez7681 Btw, the letter J (like Y too) is only a modern variant of the letter I, which was already written like J in medieval texts, before it became common to distinguish different I sounds. Just like we have also changed Iupiter or Iulius Caesar to J today, J has no bearing on the question if they or some Iesus could have existed.
@@emuseu2235yes, Josephus gives us his real name: Judas the Galilean
This should be illegal!
No! Vote Blue!
This is all sun worship the 12 signs of the zodiac, the age of Pisces started on 1 ad. 12 tribes, 12 disciples, 12 stones on breastplate. Sun = son
Burning a flag is worse. Or something like that.
@paulsayah1685 Maybe just maybe sun worship is a clock and somewhat fallen version of Father Son and holy spirit worship you ever think about that hmm😂
@@superwormhalz2607
Maybe you're joking
But solar deities are very ancient predating Judaism.
Sun dials also predate Christianity , by at least 1500 years.
There is no meaningful difference between 99% myth and 100% myth. Myth is myth. And more likely based on a dozen failed messiahs than one.
What were the specific names of those twelve Messiahs you suggest?
And... do you have any actual academic works of a professional who actually supports this weird "Amalgam Jesus" thesis?
@@NathanBTQ did I say dozens? Maybe hundreds of failed messiahs! Crucifixion was the favored punishment of rebellion against the Roman. State. We have the numbers but few names, precisely because it was meant to mock and belittle.
@@familyshare3724 I. We do not know the exact number of Jews crucified by Rome. But something is sure: there were not "thousands" of Messiahs. The many Jews that were crucified by Rome died following a quite modest amount of Messianic pretenders and eschatological "Signs Prophets".
II. Making a quick recap: the shepherd Astronges, Simon of Perea, Judas the Galilean, Judas' two sons, The Egyptian, The Samaritan, Theudas (nearly contemporaneus to Jesus), Simon Bar Giora, Eleazar the Temple Captain, Menahem the Prince of the Sicarii, John of Gizcala, Simon Bar Giora (First Jewish-Roman War), Lukuas Andreas (Kitos Rebellion)... and Bar Kokhba. That makes 15... not "thousands" of Messianic pretenders.
III. You did not provided the requested academical reference of a scholar with the appropiate credentials that actually supports this weird "Amalgam Jesus" variety of Mythicism (spoiler: NO ONE does. Not even Carrier, lol).
IV. So... What was your source, actually, from which you learned it in the first place? Aron-Ra?
😐
@@familyshare3724 Several points..
I. We do not know the exact number of Jews crucified by Rome. But something is sure: there were not "thousands" of Messiahs. The many Jews that were crucified by Rome died following a quite modest amount of Messianic pretenders and eschatological "Signs Prophets".
II. Making a quick recap: the shepherd Astronges, Simon of Perea, Judas the Galilean, Judas' two sons, The Egyptian, The Samaritan, Theudas (nearly contemporaneus to Jesus), Simon Bar Giora, Eleazar the Temple Captain, Menahem the Prince of the Sicarii, John of Gizcala, Simon Bar Giora (First Jewish-Roman War), Lukuas Andreas (Kitos Rebellion)... and Bar Kokhba. That makes 15... not "thousands" of Messianic pretenders.
III. You did not provided the requested academical reference of a scholar with the appropiate credentials that actually supports this weird "Amalgam Jesus" variety of Mythicism (spoiler: NO ONE does. Not even Carrier, lol).
IV. So... What was your source, actually, from which you learned it in the first place? Aron-Ra?
:v
I agree. The jesus story is a legend of the period of messianism that predated and helped cause the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus is an amalgam representing the tendency of people to claim being the Messiah and gathering followers with the added benefit of Jesus representing a renewal of Judea without the need for a Temple and it underlines capitulation to Rome, so as not to incite retribution by the state... So it's clearly the ancient equivalent of an popular adaptation of a historical event, in this case the fall of Jerusalem.
The only reason Christianity is here today is because people want to believe in the afterlife myth. When you add fear to an afterlife myth, you get people like Sergio.😅
Christianity survived and thrived because of Constantine and the Roman Empire.
Does anyone has a proof that even his disciples existed? I haven’t seen.
And what the rest of them doing? Why didn't most of them "write" a gospel or anything at all. What were there 12 apostles for?
Paul talks of Peter James and John. Even Richard Carrier believes these were real people
@@tookie36But obviously there is no evidence that they were disciples. If Paul had ever called them that clearly, this debate would be over.
@@BDnevernind yes but at that point you’re being hyper critical of a couple of people in Palestine 2000 years ago. Historically I’d say we chalk that up as a win. The only reason not to is apologetics against Christianity
@@tookie36
_"Paul talks of Peter James and John."_
Paul created the Jesus fiction in 48 AD.
The supernatural exists in our minds. If we approched religion the same as science, we wouldn't have religion.
Bingo, our minds made it real. That’s why many have bought into it.
Yet we can’t explain matter, consciousness, or anything like what it means to be a human. Bc arguing against something isn’t the same as finding the truth. Physical determinism is a myth too
@@tookie36 Truth can be subjective. Watch politics for 5 minutes that becomes clear. Hypothesis vs theory vs facts are how we believe.
We are but advanced, primitive minds finding our way out of the animal darkness we were created from. Hallucinations become truth to believers. If our race wasn't prone to going crazy, it would make the concept of gods more believable.
@@crapton9002 truth is objective. Our perspective on the truth is pretty clearly subjective tho. Which is also why physicalism, matterialism, etc should be challenged just as much as theologies. Unfortunately when people go against Christianity they use that as a crutch to not analyze their own beliefs in which are taken for granted
@@tookie36 I wouldn't say your wrong. Christ is an ideal imo. I resist the man made side of that story as it's obviously perverted but the light the ideal shined was seriously needed.
1/2 the world's population has great need to worship something. I'm in the 1/2 that doesn't.
It is man's authoritarian nature that shows it to be imagined as they are the only ones to enforce those laws which tells me everything about God.
God is the excuse we need good or bad, to do things we think ourselves incapable of. I understand.
Wait till you get to the book "Christ before Jesus" I think it makes a logical case that "Paul" as one person never existed.
I read it. It definitely places Matthew, Luke, and John in the middle to late second century with stylometric evidence to back it. Paul is very elusive. I still don't know how scholars are placing a few of his letters so early.
@@Josh.Mangelson I am halfway through. I think it was a battle reference.
Anybody inventing Paul and back-dating him to mid-first-century would have been unable to resist making him foresee the demolition of the Temple. Furthermore, Mark was written using Paul, as was 1 Clement. 1 Clement knows nothing of Judas (e.g. uses an idiom gospels tied inextricably to Judas about something unrelated, in an essay about betrayal), so was written without access to gospels, and has temple rites still being conducted, so was pre-war.
@@Akio-fy7ep they only back date pat of it.
@@Josh.Mangelsonthe gospels were written anonymously...
If somebody can give any prove of Jesus existence that would change things. Until there, I think it is just a myth.
In the entire first century Jesus is not mentioned by a single historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher, or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, carving, sculpture, or monument and is never found in a single piece of private correspondence or official record.
Jesus himself left no archaeological evidence of any kind, such as artifacts, tombs, dwellings, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts.
You do realize that "Jesus" is just the Anglicized version of an extremely common given name at that time, don't you? I surmise that there were a great many men carrying that name who were religious and ran into trouble with the Temple and Roman authorities. Why do you think that is some incredible thing?
He existed, he just wasn’t particularly special.
@@KarlWhales Many of them existed. A philosopher type that existed around that time carrying that popular name who probably got into some problems. But they weren't special enough to be recognized or written about. So it's meaningless.
@@EvilChristianityBingo, that’s what blew my mind back. In scholarship, I thought that there would be numerous material/evidence for the jesus fella. Nope, there really isn’t. 😂
I’ve just accepted it’s a shame.
Christianity: God created himself so God can sacrifice himself to pay himself to forgive his creation. He couldn’t just be merciful and forgive
God needed man to do a bigger sin “kill god” to forgive a sin of eating the apple.
After leaving fundamental Christianity, I try to make the distinction between jesus being historical and Bible Jesus.
Was there a guy, a Jewish apocalyptic type guy thinking the world may end, sure. There were many people like that back then.
But Bible jesus, the one born from a 12yr old, walked on water, fed thousands with fish/loaves, raised Lazarus from the dead and died and rose again…….. Yeah Bible jesus is 100% pure unmistakable mythology my friends.
This is where I’m at
That’s a fantastic take. Santos Bonnaci says the same thing. The savior in the book is you. The hero. Spirtual and intellectual enlightenment. The historical version if there was understood consciousness saved himself and gone goodbye!
@@jasonrosenbaum3210 I’ve always heard of him, I gotta check out his content.
@@TrisjensChronicles1203 Somebody of whom every single detail known was obviously made up, and who is not on record ever saying anything, is much more likely to be wholly made up. There have been zillions of Peter Parkers, many in New York, a few photographers, but none of them were imagined to be Spider-Man after they died.
Good take except the 12 yr old part. That's more than possible as it still occurs in today's world. It's the claim she was a virgin that's the mythical aspect.
If it walks like a duck, 🦆 quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it must be a Jesus 🤣
Love this guys! Love the brainstorming and seeing the lights come on in your heads!
Here's something to think about when it comes to ancient people 'seeing' the parallels: it was common in the Greco-Roman world for a person to belong to and support different religious traditions and attend meetings/services at different 'ecclesia' in different locations. It was the 'fashionable' thing to do, in part because for a long time, the Greeks and Romans were somewhat open to new religious traditions, which given the extent of the two empires, would bring in people from other faith traditions either as travelers or as prisoners and/or slaves.
You also see some of this mixing of faith traditions in the writings of Paul, where he deals with whether it's ok for Xians to eat meat offered to an idol (how would the body of believers KNOW it was offered to an idol?), and when he tried to get the Corinthians to get a handle on the disruptive practice of speaking in tongues (must be an interpreter, each person speaks in turn, if no one understands/interprets what's said, the speaker sits quietly and speaks to himself and to God, etc.). Remember, Corinth is only about 45 miles from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi where the Oracles practiced giving their cryptic messages to people which were 'interpreted' by the priests for the people seeking a 'word of knowledge' from the oracle.
The Greco-Roman world was ripe for a new religion and the emerging Jewish followers of this messianic apocalyptic religion mixed with people of other faith traditions in more Hellenized areas where these faith traditions began to merge and borrow tropes, memes, and ideas from each other.
I am *agnostic* about the historicity of Jesus.
yep insufficient evidence to draw reasonable conclusions.
In the entire first century Jesus is not mentioned by a single historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher, or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, carving, sculpture, or monument and is never found in a single piece of private correspondence or official record.
Jesus himself left no archaeological evidence of any kind, such as artifacts, tombs, dwellings, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts.
I'm not. The evidence supporting mythicism is overwhelming.
@@EvilChristianity Like 99% of the world. Why would you expect anything else?
@@jeffmacdonald9863
_"Why would you expect anything else?"_
Because he was purported to be god.
How sad these 2 became followers of Kipp and Ehrman.
I think Ehrman access was largely contingent on toning down the mythicism. Ehrman doesn't appear here until Derek "leans there was a guy".
I regard them as free thinkers. I have heard both strongly criticize Ehrman's out-of-hand denials of mythicism. Sure, they get Ehrman on their show to promote a course, that's mutually beneficial. But they both can think for themselves.
@@exoplanet11 Honestly being 50/50 on the matter as Neal says is basically the same as most mythicists, or maybe a few points off. Only compared to his earlier "true believer" status is he now not a mythicist. The issue is which you think better explains the evidence, not which you are certain of.
They quite literally criticize Ehrman for saying mythicism is crazy in this video.
Being friends with and agreeing with some of their points does not make them followers.
The sadness might be in your biased view
Guys have you noticed that Paul was writing in the 40s and there was already a church in Rome that was known “all over the world” and a bunch of competing preachers collecting money around the Roman Empire? This thing didn’t start with a Jesus in the 30s, it was earlier than that.
Yeah I think a lot of the early church history was intentionally scrubbed (there are some huge gaps in the timeline even if you assume that there was a Jesus), and given that this was thousands of years ago, we'll probably never know what really happened.
I think this is way more possible than nearly anyone considers.
Paul was nowhere ever mentioned or known before Marcion in the 2nd century. Only a few years before him, Pliny, Suetonius and Tacitus alike didn't even know the name Jesus yet.
@@reinercelsus8299 1 Clement writing in the 60s knew Paul's letters, and 'Mark' mined them for dialog in his gospel. There would be no reason for elite Romans to have heard of Christianity.
@@Akio-fy7ep 1 Clement was not written in the 60s but most likely around either 100 or only 125. Pliny, Suetonius and Tacitus are the only early Roman sources before Marcion that did in fact mention Christians, but never a Jesus. 'Messiah' had already been translated to 'Christos' in BCE by the Septuaginta, so a 'Christ' didn't necessarily depend on a belief about Jesus. Any crazy Jew who believed to follow some 'Messiah' would have been a 'Christian' to Romans, no matter if he believed Judas of Galilee, John the Baptist, Simon Bar Kokhba or anybody else was his Messiah.
People who say he did and use the Bible as proof are two bricks short of a load.
I can prove superman exists too. I got a comic book!!!
It is a bit weird to have about 5-6 different authors from the first second century talking about a ficticious person. The most reasonable explanation is that is all based in a historical person, for that reason it is considered a good source to say that the most pausible explanation is that existed.
@@davidgarciacinca5100 Your perspective and conclusion make no sense whatever considering that they cover a span of about 70 years, and no two agree on much of anything. Mark is the oldest and was 30 years after the fact, and if believed most accurate, and It is written in the first person. The other three in Classical Greek. They were all written anonymously, so who knows who wrote them or for what purpose.. For certain, there were not written for any Holy book of any sort, and were hand-picked and named by people with an agenda. Mathew, Luke and John appear to be plagiarized from Mark with additions that don't appear in that Gospel, like the Genealogy and resurrection. Solomon lays out the particulars in the Wisdom of Solomon, centuries before the alleged Jesus story, chapter and verse. The Old Testament is bullshit from start to finish, and the existence of David as a mighty conqueror is obviously bullshit. Jerusalem was a village when he was supposed to be the King of Israel. Jerusalem was in Judea,. Not Israel. I'm sure that whatever you think isn't going to be swayed by anything I say or anything factual, so It's a waste of your time and mine . .to continue.
@@davidgarciacinca5100 The OP doesn't actually understand what the Bible is. If you can use the OT to predict and validate NT events then the Bible absolutely CAN be used as a proof of itself! The prophetic significance and the continuity between OT and NT are completely lost to people who lack critical thinking abilities! Ironically those are the very same people insisting that they are the smartest person in every room they enter. They equate the Bible with a comic book, still play with action figures at ~35 and have three syllable vocabularies 😂 They are quite the parody of themselves!
@@davidgarciacinca5100 How many authors do we have for Superman? For Batman? For Spider-Man? For Paul Bunyan? The only plausible explanation for dozens (not just 5-6) of people writing uniformly fantastical, mutually contradictory stories about a cultic figure is that they liked making up fantastical stories he would figure in.
Right. He was one among many Magi mystics traveling around at the time. The story of Dionysus was co-opted onto Jesus because it was a political convenience for the Romans to consolidate the many, many cults in their empire. Essentially.
Bible scholar Bart D. Ehrman relates that he begins his introductory class on the New Testament by describing an important figure from the first century without first revealing he is talking about the stories attached to Apollonius of Tyana:
Even before he was born, it was known that he would be someone special. A supernatural being informed his mother that the child she was to conceive would not be a mere mortal but would be divine. He was born miraculously, and he became an unusually precocious young man. As an adult he left home and went on an itinerant preaching ministry, urging his listeners to live, not for the material things of this world, but for what is spiritual. He gathered a number of disciples around him, who became convinced that his teachings were divinely inspired, in no small part because he himself was divine. He proved it to them by doing many miracles, healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead. But at the end of his life, he roused opposition, and his enemies delivered him over to the Roman authorities for judgment. Still, after he left this world, he returned to meet his followers in order to convince them that he was not really dead but lived on in the heavenly realm. Later some of his followers wrote books about him.
I 100% guarantee that the dude walking on water, turning it to wine and resurrecting from the dead IS A MYTH. Whether there was some revutionary named Yeshua who said to love your neighbor really isn't important at all.
Richard Carrier says 33% chance Jesus was historical figure
And that’s the upper limit of an ‘a fortiori’ evaluation.
A reasonable and more balanced estimate is 1 in 12,500, which means a 0.008% probability (page 882 of digital version).
Carrier never mentions it unless asked specifically so that people don’t get too emotional.
He always says “hey 1 in 3 is respectable odds” so that the other part doesn’t go in full defensive stance, but in reality he knows the probability is much lower.
For whatever reason, people that are former hardcore Christians tend to defend the historical Jesus even if they are atheists. I’ve seen it plenty of times. So they are always looking for something, some apparent piece of evidence to support their claims, but always come short.
And Carrier is a minority. I've seen him debate Dr. Larry W. Hurtado years before the pandemic on blogs and Carrier made silly misinterpretations that Hurtado caught about the existence of Jesus in relation to the Gospels and the letters of Paul. Those were further examples back then when I noticed Carrier's deficiencies. Kipp Davies also takes Carrier to task and does an enough applaudable job. When I watch Carrier's recent videos with Dr. Dennis Ronald MacDonald (yes, that's his full name), I respect them more, but Carrier is still in the minority, since even Dr. MacDonald doesn't adhere to Carrier's full works. They have appeared here on this channel contrasting their views and Carrier is still in his little corner.
Mythicism even if false will always be more reasonable/plausible then Christianity I think there probably was a guy named Jesus preaching the end times and was crucified but that's where the non fiction ends and the fiction begins.
SENSATIONAL!!! headline. That the gospel stories were _crafted_ as just that - good (effective) storytelling - is one of those things that the evangelical/fundamentalist really do not like. Some Christians ("liberals") may have accepted that the stories are from the storytelling craft, but they still want to hold that only the retelling is crafted, not the heart of the story. Yet the gospels are indeed a kind of historical fiction.
Joseph Atwill explains the first stage of christianity with the Jesus stories very very well.
There is technically more evidence that Harry Potter existed than Jesus … I can go to a place right now and find thousands of books that tell tales of his life from childhood to adulthood. 🤷♂️
Not to mention the video evidence! 🙂
@@nerfzombie6242 Irrefutable evidence indeed good sir! 😆
Facts 😂😂😂
Well, not really - since we know exactly when and by who he was invented. But a good snark nonetheless.
@@cholst1 Yeah, and in the 1st Century CE, they knew who he was and who invented him 🤣 that’s my point so much time and insidious manipulation has passed that fact and fiction are indistinguishable.
Mythicism is fair, it may be right, may be wrong, but it's totally understandable. Jesus, if real, is a very mysterious person for us in modernity. The confirmable information about Jesus is very very vague.
Nonexistent, in fact. But with loads of near-contemporary forgeries, so there was none even at that time, a lack then recognized and worried over.
The fact that multiple religions exist and all have the same claims about creator gods, being the right religion where all others are lies, and all require you to have faith, or just believe and not ask questions, should tell you none of them have the truth and that only gullible idiots could possibly believe this stuff. Besides those facts, it's very easy to disprove the existence of a GOD. The problem is, the beLIEvers are close-minded and don't care, and even if you could disprove it, they will still choose to believe, because being an adult and living in reality it just too hard for them.
Bingo💯
True but we're all gullible idiots as small children and that's when the hooks of indoctrination really sink in it's like a vicious virus.
Indoctrinated adults prey on
the minds of children.
Things accepted as small children and then reinforced by culture for the next 15 years or more is not an easy thing to uproot and shed off. And a lot of them are traumatized into belief adding a biochemical layer
to the mind virus.
As annoying as believers can get calling them idiots only creates another barrier for them to overcome.
The best explanation is that Paul believed in an abstract god, an “unknown god”, and his followers started to slowly create a myth for this god.
Paul's goal was to garner support for the insurrection against the Romans which began in 46 AD led by two brothers, Jacob and Simon, in the Judea province. The revolt, mainly in the Galilee, began as sporadic insurgency until it climaxed in 48 AD when it was quickly put down by Roman authorities. Both Simon and Jacob were executed.
He created the fiction of having witnessed the risen messiah. He wanted to show that the messiah had come as prophesied but was murdered by the Romans. This was to entice the Gentiles to aid in the Jews' rebellion against the Romans.
@@EvilChristianity I love it when people who don't think there's enough evidence for the historical Jesus propose theories that are far less supported.
@@jeffmacdonald9863
Suggested reading: The Jesus Hoax: How St. Paul's Cabal Fooled the World for Two Thousand Years (David Skrbina)
@@jeffmacdonald9863
Suggested reading: The Jesus Hoax: How St. Paul's Cabal Fooled the World for Two Thousand Years
@@jeffmacdonald9863
RUclips won't allow the title, but I suggest reading the book on this topic by David Skrbina.
It doesn’t matter if Jesus is myth or not, it’s all a man made religion.
If Tacitus & Josephus wrote about Heracles like a historical figure what separates Heracles from Jesus if we have accounts from the same authors Christian’s rely on for Jesus existence ?
Actually Hercules is sampson
@@colleenshermer2017 how if Hercules is older
So you are saying that Nero was a mythogical character? That who Tacitus was talking about Nero, and Jesus was merely an after thought.
@@justcallmebrian793 where in that paragraph did I say Nero was a mythical person
Love the video format and editting, great discussion too. Nicely done lads!
AWESOME convo. Learning about the Mediterranean roots or influence or connections to Christianity is a big part of my healing from Catholic religious trauma. As such, conversations like this are invaluable.
Jesus was the first century version of David Koresh. Born to a teen mother and was socially outcast as a child who went full blown into religion and then began to believe they were in the Scriptures they were reading. Both were charismatic and got followers. Both ended up dead when they got in the crosshairs of the governing authorities.
How was he socially outcasted ?
Oh well random internet commenter has it figured out.
When I was 4 years old and heard about a talking snake I didn't believe any of it. And I thought Jesus was gay.
@traingear9578Nobody had to teach me. I could read then. I knew that Preachers were con artists. One day my friend and I were walking behind a Church and the Pastor came out with a stick and told us to knock off the beautiful yellow flowers on acres of land because they were evil weeds. We just walked away. We knew that he was a creep. And he was trying to groom us.
@traingear9578so it's symbology? How is that so much different than mythology.
@traingear9578 At the time, any story about the loss of immortality had to have a snake in it. The snake symbolized immortality by shedding its skin.
@traingear9578 Not his fault. Blame God.
@@Akio-fy7ep Primitive pre-modern mentality.
“God killed His son so we can gain eternal life”
- deadbeat dad logic
They worship a father who used one of his sons to perform a human sacrifice with.
Jesus died on the cross as God and man, he didn't die to satisfy some bloodlust of his father, when he died we all died with him, to be resurrected with him in a mystical entanglement, so that we can live a life free from the slavery of sin.
When Jesus said, "My God my God, why have your forsaken me?" he was quoting psalms, which was literally the prophecy of him dying as he was dying, lol. So anyone who knew the scriptures would know they were being fulfilled in that moment.
@@themadpolymath3430
_"...he didn't die to satisfy some bloodlust of his father..."_
You mean the same guy who killed everyone on Earth except for eight?
LOL
@@themadpolymath3430
_"...he didn't die to satisfy some bloodlust of his father..."_
Wait. Are you denying that the core tenet of Christianity is the literal worship of propitiatory human sacrifice? You know, that cross thing and John 3:16...
Paul created Christianity in 48 AD and this is how he put it:
"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all."
(Romans 8:32)
"Christ our passover is sacrificed for us."
(1 Corinthians 5:7)
"God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement."
(Romans 3:25)
"God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us."
(Romans 5:8)
"We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ."
(Hebrews 10:10)
@@themadpolymath3430
_"So anyone who knew the scriptures would know they were being fulfilled in that moment."_
The Gospels were all written anonymously, after 70 AD, by non-witnesses to Jesus.
They were tailored to match Jewish expectations of the messiah.
There was an archangel named Jesus that was attended about, which eventually became the Jesus we “know”
Jesus was probably one of the many names of that archangel. Keep an eye on Carrier’s blog, this month. He’s going to talk about one of the angel’s other names. 😉
Even as a child I never understood why what I had was a religion but what everyone believed was a myth.
I feel like it would be safe to say, historical jesus and mythical jesus are equally likely possibilities with equal amounts of evidence of both positions.
Where's the historical evidence?
@@donaldclifford5763 The Mandaeans account of Jesus is probably more accurate than the Christian or Islamic one
@@Justin_Beaver564 How so?
@@donaldclifford5763 Because John son of Zechariah (John the Baptist) was a real historical figure so his follows (The Mandaeans) account of Jesus is probably more accurate. Today they're a minority religion mostly in Iraq but their ancestors were Jews from the Jordan River area.
I would say that's completely wrong. Since there is not one single contemporaneous written accounts of Jesus's existence, since all the much later accounts contradict one another on a large number of important issues, and since there is no physical evidence of his existence, there's really no reason to believe in a historical Jesus. All the evidence points to a mythological Jesus. All his miracles plagiarized from earlier myths, etc.
So cool seeing these two titans of RUclips together. I hope everyone sees how y’all built this community up. We are Mythvision!
This would make an awesome podcast series. Would love to listen to more of these conversations between Derek and Neal.
These two nobodies clearly never read the Bible and want to have a conversation on something they misinterpreted entirely
"Titans"...😂🤣🤣😂
@@will4618exactly.. tho its amusing to watch them talk on and on about stuff they clearly don’t understand even the slightest bit.
Paul speaks of an ancient church. That suggests there was some type of following of a man from many years before Paul. That is why Jesus Ben Pendera is a good fit. Only he lived 100 years earlier and certainly wasn’t the Jesus of the bible.
@45:19 Neil read about a sacrificed kid boiled in milk. This actually appears in the second set of the 10 Commandments that tells you "not to boil a calf in its mother's milk". Interesting.
I love how this is two bros having a deep discussion about the gospels and their relationship to the first century world with several really good examples. I appreciate all the work you both do and for the many book recommendations.
You really should get Matthew Britt and Jaaron Wingo on your show to talk about their new book, "Christ Before Jesus." They used stylometric analysis to examine the NT. Now I had never heard of this before but it has been around for a few centuries, and is accepted in legal work. It involves studying different writing styles such as how often different common words are used. Before it used to require lots of work to do the analysis but computers have made it a breeze. (Rather than take my word or the two authors for this, you can read about it on Wikipedia. It is open source software so you can even run it for yourself, on NT material and any other writing to convince yourself it works.)
What they found was most of the NT was written in the SECOND century, after the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132 CE, not right after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. They even found that only four of Paul's letters were written by the same author, of which two of the four were stitched together with works by other writers - that Paul (and Cephas/Peter, James, and John) were also made up. And for the most part, all of these were also SECOND century works.
PS - I don't know enough to argue these points. Talk to the authors or read their book.
I already came to the same conclusion. Before Marcion or the Bar Kokba revolt, all of the Romans that ever mentioned so-called Christians didn't even know the name Jesus yet, nor any hint of already existing christian literature. The Septuaginta had already translated any use of "Messiah" to "Christos" in BCE, so "Christians" didn't even depend on a Jesus. Every crazy lunatic who believed Bar Kokhba was the Messiah would have been a Christian from a Roman point of view. The first "Christians" persecuted by the Romans were most likely zealots.
I heard them on Godless Engineer and decided to get their book. It costs almost nothing on Kindle. Two chapters finished; so far I am fairly impressed. I want to give these guys a chance. I like the way they write. They are not Biblical scholars, but they make some interesting points that I have not considered before. The late dating of the Gospels and Paul's letters is going to be difficult to pass muster. I can see them being early First Century, but middle?? I'm going to have to see some good evidence for that.
@@ardalla535 I most like the idea that using stylometrics to come up with information that is NOT arbitrary, like arguing if something would have been so embarrassing that it would pass the silly criterion of embarrassment. The authors almost begged other people to test the texts this way to see if others get the same results, just like in science the first thing after there is an announcement of some new evidence, others will try to falsify the results.
Now assuming people can agree on what stylometrics give, there can and should be discussions about what the results actually mean. Chapters 8 and 9, the final two, are where Britt and Wingo give the results.
Great, thanks for sharing the new info 👍
Personally I am waiting for the first peer-reviewed defence of historicity to be published before I can make an informed decision one way or the other.
Actually mythicism is a pretty good peer review of historicity.
@@donaldclifford5763 How so ?
@@donaldclifford5763 How so ?
@@donaldclifford5763 How so ?
@@donaldclifford5763 How so ?
Carrier is vindicated
Original mythicists didn't intend it literally. These were memes for a more primitive pre-modern mentality.
Thousands of years from now the gospels of JK Rowling will be discovered in a place called a library and people will read about how young boy called Harry Potter finds out he is a wizard and goes about to save the world from a great evil. The people of that era will come to worship this boy as a god and start a world religion known as The Order of the Phoenix. And those people believe it must be true because the author of those gospels mention a real location called London.
I enjoy seeing these two talk so much. Their love of the subject is overflowing. They both inform each other and challenge each other.
Did Robin Hood exist? Or King Arthur? And depending on if they did or didn’t - how does that impact your life today?
Robin Hood, yes. King Arthur, probably not.
@@magneteye okay so how does knowing that good Robin Hood of the green wood actually existed impact on your life today?
@@magneteye Robin Hood...no, he was a character based upon a Scottish brave man who was hung by the English King of the days
When the Greeks conquered Kemet which they called Egypt. They created a hybrid parental deity in order to combine Egyptian mythology with Greek mythology. So they combined the Egyptian God Thoth with the Greek God Hermes. They called him Hermes Trismegistus III. Who was known as… “The Thrice Great.” He was famous for triumphing over the season of death. Which is what the number 3 almost always symbolizes in World Mythology. Isn't this what the Flavian Dynasty did after conquering the Jews? Didn't they create a new hybrid form of Greco-Roman Judaism? To integrate Jewish mythology with Greco-Roman mythology? Calling him… “Jesus The Christ.” Who is also famous for triumphing over the season of death. As represented by… “The Trinity.” Isn't this a better explanation for the origins of Christianity rather than Harry Houdini magic? 💙
Historical people in the context of narrative fiction? Once again, four words: Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter...
Of course, it all ties together because Cain was the first vampire. I saw it in the documentary He Never Died.
@@matane2465 You have made my day!
The epic movie King of Kings, traditionally aired on TV at Easter time, can be seen by believers and non-believers, as myth or history, with or without religious belief. The original version was an old Cecil B. De Mill classic, with music and subtitles, before actual sound films.
@@donaldclifford5763 It's propaganda.
@@afwalker1921 Really? For who?
Remember that the earthly father of Jesus was a carpenter, a craftsman, but demiurge literally means crafter.
So the story goes.
He wasn't a carpenter. That's a mistranslation. The word was tekton. It means craftsman or builder... he was basically a general contractor. Homes in that place during Josh Christ's lifetime were made from stone. His name was Josh, not Jesus. Yehoshua. Or Isho, or Yeshua. Or ya know Josh, the contractor turned rabbi turned cult leader/revolutionary.
Actually many people past and present claiming to be Jesus. But these were later than the mythical Jesus. So you can in that sense be a minimalist historicist.
44:09 agh… i really wish some in this community would study or incorporate the studies of African history into their analyses. You were so close! “Book of the Dead” is a poor translation. It is indeed better understood as the “Book of Coming Forth By Day!” So much of biblical “history” is in and around Africa and yet so little African history or people are ever considered in these discussions.
Where’s the evidence for a historical Jesus?
@@Nkosi766 there is none, only “traditions” as the Catholic Church says.
@@coliv2 great stories
@@Nkosi766 Original mythicists didn't intend it literally. These were memes for a more primitive pre-modern mentality.
John the Baptist
@@Justin_Beaver564 Jesus supposedly met with some real people. The problem is that it is only “supposedly”, nobody confirmed this outside the fictional books called gospels.
Wasn't Paul secretly working for the Flavian Dynasty? Weren't all of the original Roman Catholic Saints' members of the Flavian Dynasty? Weren't all of the original symbols used by the earliest Christians identical to those of the Flavian Dynasty? And isn’t one of the earliest iconographic symbols for Christianity, located in a catacomb, under the city of Rome, which was owned by a Flavian Princess?
Weren't all of the original Jesus cult texts produced under the oversight of the Flavian Dynasty? Didn't the Flavian Dynasty posses the only remaining copy of the Hebrew Tanakh other than the Greek Septuagint translation? Isn't there Flavian typology in the Gospels? Weren't the canonical texts all back dated like the historical fiction of Gone With The Wind? Wasn't Emperor Vespasian known as the Jewish Messiah? Wasn’t Pope Clement of Rome a Flavian? Wasn't Josephus a temple whore for the Flavian Dynasty? Weren't the Flavian’s, as well as Paul, descended from King Herod?
There was no separation of Church and State in the Roman Empire. And Christianity is clearly a Greco-Roman hybrid form of Judaism created by the Flavian Dynasty. As an attempt to adapt, pacify, and integrate the rebellious and defiant Jews into the rest of the Greco-Roman Empire. Just like the Greeks created Hermes Trismegistus to integrate Egyptian mythology with Greek mythology.Then finally Neo-Flavian Constantine chose the Flavian family religion to be the official religion of the entire Roman Empire. In order to consolidate power in his fractured Empire. And then Eusebius edited and rewrote the history of the previous 3OO years. Destroying all contradictory evidence. It isn't history it is all simply Greco-Roman mythopoetic literature. Today it is known as Historical Fiction.
“What profit hath not this fable of Christ brought us.”
Pope Leo X 💙
Ehrman is fond of saying there were millions of people in the Roman Empire who were not attested by history. That's pretty obvious statement to make, right? But Jesus had followers who would have made sure that he was remembered, and some would have documented his existence. Going off to Jerusalem, being crucified, then appearing afterward is not something that happens to millions of ordinary people. Plenty of people would have noted that early on ... not just decades later. That doesn't make any sense. What were they doing in those decade before the Gospels were written? Fishing in the Sea of Galilee and mending their nets? Seriously?
They were, like Paul describes himself doing, going around preaching and trying to convert people. But most of the them didn't listen.
And why would they? They didn't see Jesus die and rise from the dead. They've only got this crazy guy on the street ranting about it for evidence.
Excellent discussion!!! It always brings me joy to see the “boys” in the same room! 💯💗
Jesus wasn’t buried. His tomb was found empty. That’s the evidence of his followers claim.
That’s THE WHOLE POINT.
So it was written decades after the fact, by people who weren't there at the time.
And the story is that he was buried, then arose and left the tomb.
More likely of course, he hung on the cross for a few days until the birds had eaten most of the flesh and was then dumped in a mass grave. That was standard Roman practice.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 or he was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea and it was found empty. The apostles, who were there, wrote their accounts and were persecuted for their beliefs. The Pharisees I’m sure would have had any Jew that followed Jesus punished as well, and any records depicting him as something other than a scoundrel would be ignored or destroyed.
It’s fascinating to me how you are so convinced of your ‘more than likely’ scenario, that you would argue against faith. You’re aware that you have no record of what took place, you just have assumptions based on what you believe did not occur.
I’ll continue to believe Matthew, Mark, and John. I’ll put my faith in THE WORD, who was made flesh. Praise Jesus🙌🏽
@@jeffmacdonald9863 also, he was “buried” according to Jewish tradition. So, being placed in a tomb and being buried are two very different things. The verb ‘bury’ can be applied to both circumstances, but it’s very well known that Jesus was not placed into a hole in the ground and covered.
@@lewcy I'm uninterested in arguing against faith. If you're relying on faith for your claim, there's little further to say.
I am interested in critical scholarship on the topic.
@leob3447 Matthew and John are named after their authors, who were apostles and eye witnesses. Mark and Luke were written by ‘close associates’, likely scribes of the apostles.
You rely on information from people who were not eyewitnesses as well. Your sources were not alive until hundreds or thousands of years later.
I believe the word of God and I use 2000+ years of Christianity as evidence.
Isaiah 6:9-10 Isaiah 50:3-6 Isaiah 53:3
I don't believe Jesus existed at all because there is no evidence for him. An admixture of different men, plus some older legends and beliefs from other faiths is the closest estimate we can make for the Jesus character. If that makes me a mythicist, then so be it.
Like Paul reportedly implied: If Jesus did not exist, then we are all delusional for believing he did. That probably also means that a historical Jesus was some delusional guy walking around from village to village in Galilee, then marching off to Jerusalem thinking God would bring the the Kingdom of Heaven down from the sky.
@@ardalla535 Paul wouldn't know. He never met Jesus. Everything Paul wrote should be discarded.
Doesn't the number 3 in world mythology always represent the same thing? Triumph over the season of death? Based on the sacred promise Mother Nature demonstrates to all who incarnate in her world. Winter is her season of death which lasts 3 months. And is always, always, always followed by the season of life. Known as Spring. Which is also 3 months long. And is the season of rebirth and reconstitution and resurrection. Also every month the moon dies for 3 days and then is reborn anew as a sacred new moon. This is why dying and rising gods are entombed for 3 days before they resurrect. This is why Hermes Trismegistus was known as... "The Thrice Great." As he was famous for triumping over the season of death. Just like Jesus The Christ. This is what the 3 Mithraic wise men represent. And this is all the Christian Trinity actually symbolizes. It isn't about the individual personas but rather the sacred underlying promise of the number 3. Which is what most parental deity religions are selling: Entrance into Studio 54 for only the best people.💙
Noted, but I’m sticking with what three represents as part of Greek mythology as in the three heads of the Cerberus. Past, present and future. The Roman’s applied it to Christianity in the form of the Trinity. God the past, Holy Ghost the present and Jesus the future. A Sarapis statue with his hand on the Cerberus was a clue. The Romans kept that concept when they created Jesus.
I believe the RUclips episodes of "Jesus in India" by Paul Wallis, sheds a lot of light on why the history of Jesus was kept silent and hidden. Amongst many other sources, Paul shares.
My two favorite people right now, you guys have changed my life 🙏🏻🙌🏻
Mythology should be illegal to be a religion
Why? Freedom of religion.
46:00 interesting that Deuteronomy just happens to have a law AGAINST boiling a kid in its mothers milk if I remember correctly...
Yes, I too noticed the connection w/ that Roman rite and Deut. I guess we can credit ourselves for seeing something that got past these two Titans of youtube! But doesn't this suggest the Deuteronomy was written after such practices were introduced into Judea? It could not have been written after Roman times, could it? Perhaps 'the boiling a kid in milk' ritual was present among the Greeks and began in Judea after Alexander's conquest?
Jesus was not a historical figure LOL he was made up, he was concocted in the idea of him was stolen from other more ancient cultures and writings Jesus/Jeus/Zeus 😂
What convinced me was all of the I believe almost 19 prior crucifixion stories. All involving a mother figure a father figure and a son. The crucifixion is a recycled story and the best the Creator could come up with to save mankind his creation from sin? I always say if that was the salvation plan I hope there's a plan B
Could you make a list of those "19 prior crucifixion stories"???
As a deist I appreciate all the work that these guys do.
Christian?
If he never existed, then why did the deciples die for Lord Jesus? Didn't they get tortured and killed aswell? Would you give up your life over a fictitious made up story? I'm pretty sure what happened to the deciples was recorded in history.
You would be wrong. None of the disciples are recorded in any early history outside of the Bible or other early Christian writings. For most, even church traditions of martyrdom can't be traced back into the 1st century.
The earliest Biblical author, Paul, mentions "the 12", but only names Peter and John, along with James the brother of the Lord, if he counts as one of the 12.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 I believe in Lord Jesus because of PERSONAL experiences that prove to ME that he is real.
The disciples left no writings. All of the Gospels were written by 3rd hand account at or further removed from the account of Jesus.
No myth. "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except thru me."
A couple of PhD’s (Carrier and Lataster):
“We wrote professional, peer-reviewed books about the historical existence of Jesus” “Both our books conclude most probably the guy didn’t exist”.
A couple of amateurs on the internet:
“We know better”
It's not the amateurs who matter it's all the other legitimate scholars.
@@torreyintahoe that’s the thing, all those other legitimate scholars don’t have peer-reviewed books about the historicity of Jesus. They only have pop market books.
Which is funny in a way, because they criticized Carrier when his argument wasn’t peer-reviewed. Now that it is, they pretend peer-review doesn’t matter and just continue with their classic ad-populum and ignore it.
That doesn’t happen in other fields of study because if someone legitimately challenges the consensus, the consensus people have to address the argument. You can’t just ignore it and keep repeating the same refuted claims like nothing has happened.
@@mikemike2750 Many of them are peer reviewed published scholars. There are very good reasons to doubt mythicism. There are a lot of problems with it. The idea of at least investigating it has gained some traction though.
@@torreyintahoe not in the specific topic in question. There are no other pr books on that. Just those two.
@@mikemike2750 I don't know if they're the only two or not but the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of scholars believe there was a historical Jesus.
I’m a Mormon and I love listening to these guys. They know a ton. I would love to come on one of their shows.
Jerusalem is like a disneyland. all faked for the tourists. The hats are almost the same... just minus the mouse ears.
WTF are y'all talking about? The moon is absolutely made of cheese. It has holes in it and everything!
Cheese is a dairy product. Right?
It’s quite easy to create a character and his followers, his exploits and so on, when you are writing mythology set in a vacant Jerusalem post Temple destruction circa 70 CE. Backdate the story 40 years, create a Paul guy who in your fable is establishing churches all over Asia, who makes claims to substantiate Jesus’ resurrection at the mouths of over 500 witnesses! Very easy to do. Marcion was the real Paul, and Judas the Galilean was the real Jesus.
As far as the evidence for Paul’s epistles being written pre 70, I WOULD LOVE TO SEE REAL EVIDENCE FOR THAT!
There is none. Only thing that you have for witness to the actual date of those epistles comes from the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH! You gonna take their word for it? Even the books that we have from the Church fathers, are not viable points of proof for when those books really came about.
Its all about money. Money motivates these RUclips creators to go along to get along.
JESUS NEVER EXISTED
Sorry, but anybody back-dating fake letters from Paul would be unable to resist prophesying the demolition of the temple, and would have deployed 2nd-century theology conspicuously lacking in Paul. 2nd-century christians were far too unsophisticated to pull it off. In fact they did try to fake up Pauline letters, and flubbed badly.
@@rasunsoter you’re right. I think there was a writer called Paul, but he was not the founder of churches, these churches already existed and he was just writing theological treatises based on gnostic ideas. Catholics are a bunch of con men who appeared in the 2nd century and converted the myths of the first Christians into a historical lie.
Jesus is a story from a story from another story. If they can get enough people to believe the story, it becomes real.
Look up the Pisos.
@@colleenshermer2017 I already know about Calpurnius Piso
The Supernatural is an arbitrary invalid concept.
Original mythicists didn't intend it literally. These were memes for a more primitive pre-modern mentality.
So excited to hear this! I too have been all the labels. But as I study myths and history of that time for my “historical” fictional book rewriting the known Jesus myth and Mary Magdalene as the true christ……I have thot over the years this is the story of Inanna and Dumuzi adapted. Jesus is Dionysus. How can people NOT see this is just what was ALWAYS done back then : adapting the religious myths around them for their own purposes
Just found another interesting parallel- there was a human demi-god among the Greeks called Adonis, for which there was a popular festival mourning his death. They think Adonis may be partly inspired from the Hebrew word Adonai & a similar story & festival was practiced everywhere between Greece & Mesopotamia, albeit the characters under different names. Adonis was stuck between being the lover of both Aphrodite, the love goddess, & Persephone, the underworld goddess. Even worse, because Aphrodite & her Roman counterpart, Venus, had all these Middle Eastern connections, she also absorbed the Ishtar mythology explaining the morning & evening star that we now know as the planet Venus, in which it disappears under the horizon for three days in its transition between the two & was described as the goddess descending into the underworld & rising again unscathed. I think that also might be part of the reason why Satan takes on the name Lucifer- morning star. That level of interconnection with the Jesus story had to he nipped in the bud, hard.
@@MrChristianDT all gods that resurrected and/or went to the underworld and back are part of the mystery religions. They’re kind of similar, with different names and attributes but similar idea: a god who knows how to come back from the dead, therefore he/she can bring salvation from death. Dionysus/Bachus, Orpheus, Persephone, Venus, Jesus, etc. are examples.
I think the point about choosing sides in the mythicist debate is that the onus is on the historicists to prove that the Jesus known to the world through the canonical gospels was a flesh-and-blood being, like Julius Caesar. The mythicists don't have to prove anything, because they are asserting a negative in varying degrees: some are merely doubtful or skeptical, while others state it more strongly (Jesus was a non-historical person, just like Moses).
We Are MythVision‼️
I always enjoy these videos, and I'm not knowledgeable enough to really comment on the subject matter, but wow, I love that house and the interior!
I use the term "Legendarist", that is there might have been someone upon whom the Jesus tale was based, but that tale became more and more legendary over time in the fashion of Alexander before him.
Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.
The mythical Christ.
I am a huge fan of both R Carrier and Neal. It would be awesome to see them both rekindle their professional relationship!
Jesus is the face of God. Coming soon to A planet near you🕊️
A very good and interesting conversation and I definitely think everything mentioned here as a possible connection is plausible. Though I think the most important part is to not just make cases on how it's plausible, but to flip the table and then steelman the argument why it might not be likely. I was waiting for that to happen and it never did.
I think it's good to be on guard about parallelism since it can be so very tempting. It's very easy to think "how can this not have influenced that!". It's easy to forget that coincidences not only happen but are guaranteed to happen. Likewise things can develop very similarly but relatively independently of each other. For example the idea of some important figure dying and resurrection doesn't need any cultural root. That's a pretty deterministic idea from the general human condition of life death cycle. Likewise the idea of someone sacrificing a living being to help another is a pretty rudimentary idea. Could these ideas have flowed from the same sources or each other, sure, but it's important to remember that relatively simple ideas like that which are almost tied to the fundamental idea of the evolutionary idea of the cycle of life can be created without any source outside of just observing life itself.
One good example of this is the pyramids in Egypt vs the Americas. That's a trap that ancient advanced civilization people fall into. When if you step back these are simply budlings based off of two very obvious concepts.
1) Mimicking the tallest natural structures we see around us, mountains! He look at that mountain, let's make a building like it.
2) Natural progressions based on the physics of the universe. Stacking blocks wider then narrower is the most obvious and simplest way to make taller buildings.
No connection needed to exist for people to come up with these very basic naturalistic ideas on their own. Likewise in ancient history these days there's ideas of metallurgy evolving in parallel -possibly rather than one root source. We have many example of people coming up with the same ideas and concepts, some even fairly complex, without any real influence between them. Again the best example is Native American culture vs the rest of the world. Different in so many ways but also so very similar when it comes to the myths and traditions etc. The idea of human sacrifice for example was evolved independently amongst these two parts of the world, probably even similar themes like deities or the divine dying and resurrecting.
That would be an interesting study/video in fact. Taking some of these themes that you suspect might have causation within the ancient Mediterranean and see how many of those can be correlated to Native American cultures that we know weren't directly influenced. This might be a sort of control like doing a placebo, if it doesn't have a stronger correlation and overlap than the Europe -> Americas overlap then it's hard to say it's directly influenced by each other.
You guys are exactly where you should be on this issue.
I watched Bob Price debate Bart Ehrman on this. I came away from that debate fully disappointed as Kevin Sorbo, because i felt like the needle hadn't been moved in any direction.
Bro your channel is so bad ass man. Your video compiling all your interviews with the Bible scholars who left the faith is what jump started my deconstruction. It’s a scary place to be in but it’s also freeing. Thanks for all you do!
This is why I have always been agnostic.
Religion, early man's attempt to explain the world around them, all made up to alleviate our fears.
The Greek translations of the Gospels, do not state "crucifixion" ... it gives a generic term for being hung for execution. And there is scant evidence that Romans predominately used crucifixion. Moreover, other cultures including Hebrews used crucifixion as a means of execution.
This is a lovely conversation but also shows how easy it is for folk to go off in speculation as if it were fact.
What we see apologist do so often
Philo of Alexandria, born 20 years BEFORE Jesus and died 20 years AFTER Jesus, was a Jewish scholar that studied Judaism and is credited with coming up with the Trinity concept, he visited Jerusalem and wrote about the 'Messiah Craze' and made a list of the pretenders and Jesus Christ was never mentioned.
Can you point me to Philo's "list of the pretenders"? I can't find it.
How does it compare with the various Messianic claimants Josephus mentions?
Would this also mean that by the time of Philo's writing, not only was Jesus not known to him (presumably because he never existed), but also that Christians and their claims about Jesus were unknown to him? And wouldn't Christians have been the most likely and obvious way for him to heard about Jesus in the first place?
@@jeffmacdonald9863 I may have misspoken on him making a list, like Josephus did, but he did make notice of them and still no mentioned of Jesus or his miracles, google 'why was Philo of Alexandria silent on Jesus Christ'.
@@liberalinoklahoma1888 The simplest explanation is that he'd never heard of him. Why would he?
Now, if he'd made an actual list of Messianic pretenders and Jesus wasn't there and it contained others of similar status to what we think Jesus likely really had at the time, then it would be a decent argument. But he didn't.
He also doesn't mention Christians at all, which suggests he didn't even know there was a Jewish sect based on a new Messianic concept. Seems that would be at least as relevant to his theological interest in Messiahs as another minor Messianic claimant would be.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 Philo went to Jerusalem many times and it was his profession and supposedly all those miracles and Philo knew nothing of it??
Hard to swallow.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 Like a basketball expert that has never heard of Michael Jordan even though he covered the Bulls in the 90s, that believable.
Man you guys are fired up. I’m loving this! ❤❤❤ 18:20