addressalign-toparrow-leftarrow-leftarrow-right-10x10arrow-rightbackbellblockcalendarcameraccwcheckchevron-downchevron-leftchevron-rightchevron-small-downchevron-small-leftchevron-small-rightchevron-small-upchevron-upcircle-with-checkcircle-with-crosscircle-with-pluscontroller-playcredit-cardcrossdots-three-verticaleditemptyheartexporteye-with-lineeyefacebookfolderfullheartglobe--smallglobegmailgooglegroupshelp-with-circleimageimagesinstagramFill 1languagelaunch-new-window--smalllight-bulblightning-boltlinklocation-pinlockm-swarmSearchmailmediummessagesminusmobilemoremuplabelShape 3 + Rectangle 1ShapeoutlookpersonJoin Group on CardStartprice-ribbonprintShapeShapeShapeShapeImported LayersImported LayersImported Layersshieldstar-shapestartickettrashtriangle-downtriangle-uptwitteruserwarningyahooyoutube

For Dave, re. mythicism

From: Eugene C.
Sent on: Tuesday, February 18, 2014, 10:46 AM
Hi Dave,

From both your emails and the brief time we interacted in person I get the impression that you're a nice guy. I enjoy your clever little sign-offs after your signatures, and your willingness to read through James Hannam's book with some other people is also impressive. So, since you're a nice guy, I feel particularly bad that you've been taken in by the "mythicist" crowd with their specious arguments and self-serving suspicion of the scholarly mainstream.

Now, in my experience, once a person starts buying-in to mythicism, it's rare that they step back from the brink. The silliness they've swallowed is just too much, and the potential embarrassment of admitting it was silliness is just too daunting to face. But, nevertheless, I have seen it done. Good people, suckered by bad mythicist arguments, do sometimes come to slowly realize that they've been fed a line and that the literally *unanimous* consensus of university-based scholarship on the question of Jesus's historicity isn't just brainwashed dogmatism.

In your case, you've recently put forward three independent statements--all of which I assume you picked up from mythicists--that are not only wrong but *obviously* wrong and easily demonstrated to be so: (1) the Sea of Galilee had "no waves, no storms," (2) the experts who make up the unanimous consensus of university-based scholarship regarding Jesus's historicity are hopelessly biased because their "jobs depend" on such a belief, and (3) "virgin birth was all the rage for gods and demi-gods back in [ancient times]. The Christians were simply incorporating myths common at the time" into Jesus's biography.

It's my hope that, once you've seen how the pseudo-scholars of the mythicists have misled you in these particulars, you'll come to reassess their broader credibility. So let's look at those mythicist claims now.

1. In point of fact, it is NOT the case that the Sea of Galilee has "no waves, no storms." Instead, the Sea of Galilee is "known for sudden, violent storms." [Craig A. Evans, Matthew, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 195.] These storms, because of the topography of the area, change the Sea of Galilee "from a peaceful lagoon into a high sea with waves soaring up over 7 feet." [John J. Rousseau and Rami Arav, Jesus and His World: An Archaeological and Cultural Dictionary (Fortress Press, 1995), p. 246.] John Durham, a professor of the Old Testament and the Hebrew language, experienced this first-hand, and he recounted his experience as follows: "I have been in such a storm on the Sea of Galilee in 1992. It came without warning, with a blue sky and the sun shining, and it threw waves over the top deck of a double-decked tourist boat. The Israeli dailies published pictures of the event, with reports of the damage it caused." [John I. Durham, The Biblical Rembrandt: Human Painter in a Landscape of Faith (Mercer University Press, 2004), p. 32.]

2. In point of fact, when it comes to a great many experts who make up the consensus-view that Jesus actually existed, it is NOT the case that their "jobs depend" on upholding such a view. Many New Testament specialists, classicists, and ancient historians teach at entirely secular universities. Further, many of these individuals have tenure. So, when it comes to these literally hundreds of scholars, their continued employment does not at all depend on affirming Jesus's historicity. By virtue of having tenure at a secular school, they are, professionally speaking, all but bullet-proof. A tenured professor at a secular school can believe and publically state pretty much ANYTHING and not be fired for it. Case in point: Arthur Butz. Dr. Butz is a professor at Northwestern University. He also happens to be a Holocaust denier. And while his university really, really wishes he would go away, they haven't fired him; they can't. If a tenured professor can be a Holocaust-denier without threatening his continued employment, surely he could be a mythicist (Revilo P. Oliver was both back in the 1950s). So that literally *no* university-based ancient historians, New Testament experts, and classicists are mythicists cannot be explained away with reference to the fear of losing their jobs. They simply follow the evidence where it leads.

3. In point of fact, it is NOT the case that virgin-birth stories are common in ancient pagan mythology. This is a particularly common trope within the skeptical community; it's a sort of atheist's urban legend. But it is entirely false. Since I've already discussed this specific issue on this board, I'll just quote myself... quoting myself, and Bart Ehrman:
A while back I published a critical review article of Michael Shermer's book The Believing Brain. In that review I said the following...
 
"Shermer resorts to a dubious mainstay of atheist activism: positing a multitude of virgin births and resurrections in ancient mythology. Shermer declares that “Virgin birth myths… spring up throughout time and geography.”[42] As evidence, he cites Dionysus, Perseus, Buddha, Attis, Krishna, Horus, Mercury, Romulus, and Jesus. But unfortunately for Shermer’s wider credibility, none of these men really qualify except for Jesus—the very one that Dr. Shermer is obviously trying to trivialize.
 
"Dionysus’s mother had sex with Zeus to get pregnant, and ultimately died from enduring Zeus’s god-like “potency.”[43] Perseus’s mother had sex with a shape-shifting Zeus in the form of gold.[44] Buddha’s mother had been happily married before conceiving her son and thus offers no reason to think that she was a virgin at the critical moment.[45] Attis was conceived when his mother was inseminated by the dismembered penis of a monster named Agdistis.[46] Krishna was the eighth son of the married Princess Devaki, so again, no.[47] Horus’s mother was impregnated through sexual intercourse with her formerly-dismembered-but-then-reassembled Frankenstein monster of a husband, Osiris.[48] Mercury’s mother, Maia, had sex with Jupiter.[49] And Romulus’s mother, Silvia, was forcibly raped by Mars.[50]
 
"As Howard W. Clark (a professor of Classics at UC Santa Barbara) writes, 'although Greek mythology has examples of strange but divine impregnations (Danae by Zeus in a shower of gold, Leda by Zeus disguised as a swan, Alcmena by Zeus impersonating her husband) and unusual births (Dionysus from Zeus’s thigh, Athena from his head), all the women had sexual relations of a sort.'[51]
 
"Thus, as Raymond Brown (a scholar who taught at Columbia University’s Union Theological Seminary) concluded: '[While N]on-Jewish parallels [to Jesus’s virginal conception] have been found in the figures of world religions…, in Greco-Roman mythology, in the births of the Pharaohs…, and in the marvelous births of emperors and philosophers… these ‘parallels’ consistently involve a type of hieros gamos where a divine male, in human or other form, impregnates a woman, either through normal sexual intercourse or through some substitute form of penetration. They are not really similar to the non-sexual virginal conception that is at the core of the infancy narratives [concerning Jesus], a conception where there is no male deity or element to impregnate Mary.'[52]"
Sources:
42.   Shermer, Believing Brain, 173.
43.   Richard S. Caldwell, The Origin of the Gods (Oxford University Press: 1989),[masked].
44.   William Hansen, Classical Mythology (Oxford University Press: 2004), 261.
45.   Carl Olson, Original Buddhist Sources (Rutgers University Press: 2005), 27.
46.   Robert E. Bell, Women of Classical Mythology (Oxford University Press: 1993), 15.
47.   Anna Libera Dallapiccola, Hindu Myths (University of Texas Press: 2003), 36.
48.   Dimitri Meeks and Christine Favard-Meeks, Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods (Cornell University Press: 1996), 237.
49.   Carole Newlands, Playing with Time: Ovid and the Fasti (Cornell University Press: 1995), 83.
50.   Helen Morales, Classical Mythology (Oxford University Press: 2007), 86.
51.   Howard Clark, The Gospel of Matthew and Its Readers (Indiana University Press: 2003), 6.
52.   Raymond Brown, The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (Paulist Press: 1971), 62.
And, if one would prefer the testimony of a well-known skeptical scholar, one that cannot reasonably be accused of bending the truth so as to bolster the claims of Christianity, here is Bart Ehrman, agreeing... "Take the idea that divine men in the ancient pagan world were thought to be born of virigins [sic].   It’s not true.   What is true is that remarkable men – demigods, emperors, powerful figures of all kinds – were often thought to have been miraculously born.  But it was not because their mothers did not have sex—which is what the early Christians said about Jesus and his mother.  On the contrary, the mothers of these pagan divine men certainly did have sex.  In fact, they had sex with a god to conceive their miraculous children.   One might say they had divine sex."
So there we are, Dave; your three claims, debunked.

Now, like I said, you seem like a nice guy. And you seem pretty sharp too, given our interaction at my first presentation to the P&P group. So I'm really hoping that you'll be able to face this squarely and admit (at least to yourself) that you've blundered here. And if it really is the case, as I suspect, that mythicist authors fed you the misinformation I've corrected above, I hope you'll reconsider both the scholarly acumen and the intellectual integrity of the Mythicists involved.

If they've misled you on these points, what else might they have lied to you about?

Sincerely,

Eugene 

From: David <[address removed]>
To: [address removed]
Sent: Sunday, February 16,[masked]:08 PM
Subject: Re: [Provocateurs] resurrection story

Virgin birth was all the rage for gods and demi-gods back in those times. The Christians were simply incorporating myths common at the time. If there wasn't an actual man Jesus, then it is moot anyway.
DaveN

From: Christopher <[address removed]>
To: [address removed]
Sent: Sunday, February 16,[masked]:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Provocateurs] resurrection story

"So it is highly unlikely that Matthew or Luke made up the story of Jesus begin virgin-born to "fulfill" non-existent prophecies."

It is my understanding that the idea of a virgin birth is based on a mistaken understanding of a Hebrew term in Isaiah 7.14.  The Hebrew text used a term that meant something like "unmarried young woman," which has nothing to do with sexual activity.  Matthew translated this word with the Greek term parthenos, which does in fact denote virginity. Thus the virgin birth belief.  So no, Matthew didn't "make it up."  Contrary to your claim, he thought he was precisely using OT prophecy in telling the story of the Nativity of Jesus.  And essentially he was.
 
Christopher M. Riels
1332 Crosswinds Court Apt. 2
Lawrence, KS 66046
Telephone: (785)[masked]

From: Eugene Curry <[address removed]>
To: [address removed]
Sent: Sunday, February 16,[masked]:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Provocateurs] resurrection story

Hi Chris,

You're right that the New Testament authors are eager to connect Jesus's life, death, and resurrection to passages in the Old Testament. But one needs to be careful here. In a number of points, it seems that the Old Testament passages put forward as prophecies fulfilled by Jesus were not originally understood by the Jewish people as prophecies concerning the messiah.

As a result, in at least some cases, it is highly unlikely that the early Christian community began with the Old Testament, massaged Jesus's biography to make it fit, and then claimed Jesus fulfilled a prophecy. Rather, it seems that at certain critical junctures the early Christian community began with Jesus's biography, massaged the Old Testament to fit, and then claimed that Jesus fulfilled prophecy.

This is most dramatically the case with the virgin-birth stories in Matthew and Luke. The Old Testament never really claimed that the messiah would be born of a virgin, and Jews looking for the advent of the messiah in Jesus's day didn't at all expect the messiah to be born of a virgin. So it is highly unlikely that Matthew or Luke made up the story of Jesus begin virgin-born to "fulfill" non-existent prophecies.

More germane to the topic at hand, though, is the matter of Jesus's crucifixion and subsequent resurrection. As with the virgin birth, 1st century Judaism had no concept of a messiah that would be executed by the very pagan powers they expected him to overthrow. A fortiori, the Jews had no notion of a messiah who not only died ignobly at the hands of Israel's enemies but was then raised to new life in the course of on-going history. As such, it's highly unlikely that the early Christian community massaged Jesus's biography to fulfill non-existent messianic expectations. Rather, it's more likely that something actually happened regarding Jesus (i.e. the crucifixion and then the resurrection), and the early Christians were so amazed by it that they then busily set about looking for analogues in the Old Testament to make sense of the events.

It doesn't always seem this way to us today because we tend to read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus's experiences as recorded in the New Testament. In other words, we read it anachronistically. But what I've sketched out above is, apart from the mythicist crackpots and, I think, one serious scholar, the consensus view among experts.

Sincerely,

Eugene


From: Christopher <[address removed]>
To: [address removed]
Sent: Sunday, February 16,[masked]:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Provocateurs] resurrection story

In my remarks below, I failed to mention the obviously important point that the Resurrection itself seems to be based on a "fulfillment" claim.  In Acts 2, most starkly in v. 24 ("But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power") Peter, as depicted by Luke, represents the Resurrection of Jesus as a fulfillment of Psalm [masked]: 

I keep the Lord always before me;
   because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. 

Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
   my body also rests secure. 
For you do not give me up to Sheol,
   or let your faithful one see the Pit.) 

(Bible quotations:  New Revised Standard Version; taken from bible.oremus.org.)


 
Christopher M. Riels
1332 Crosswinds Court Apt. 2
Lawrence, KS 66046
Telephone: (785)[masked]

From: eric <[address removed]>
To: [address removed]
Sent: Sunday, February 16,[masked]:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Provocateurs] resurrection story

Christopher, I basically agree with what you have written below.  The "suffering servant" song in Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is particularly intriguing, but a full discussion of the song would  be much too long for an email.  The identity of the servant has been debated for centuries among rabbis and scholars.

Eric

On 2/15/2014 6:43 PM, Christopher wrote:
Just one vague point about the Resurrection in general:  If the event did not occur, the  passages claiming it did were not "made up."  Repeatedly, the NT authors in general and the gospel authors in particular, interpret Jesus's life and actions as fulfillment of prophecies from the Hebrew Scriptures.  This does not mean that they deliberately fabricated the divine character of Jesus by simply appropriating passages of the "OT" in order to create narratives that they knew to be fictional. Instead, as it has long seemed to me, they sincerely and whole-heartedly believed that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah: as a result, they believed that he must have done and experienced the things that the long-awaited Messiah, on their interpretation of the OT, would do and experience.  Thus, they filled in the blanks in their knowledge of Jesus's life and death by modeling him and his experiences on what they believed the OT said about him.  Probably the single most famous instance is the Christian interpretation of Jesus as the crucified "suffering servant" of Isaiah 53, who "was wounded for our transgressions" and on whom "the Lord has laid. . . the iniquity of us all."  In a verse from Psalm 24, "not one of [his bones] was broken; accordingly, the soldiers at his cross did not have to break Jesus's legs when they took him down from the cross.  Probably the most humorous example is Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey; or, in Mark's account, two donkeys (which must have been strange to see as well as hard to do.  (Matthew's two donkeys come from his misreading of a literary device at Zechariah 9:9.)     
 
Christopher M. Riels
1332 Crosswinds Court Apt. 2
Lawrence, KS 66046
Telephone: (785)[masked]




--
Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by Christopher ([address removed]) from Provocateurs and Peacemakers.
To learn more about Christopher, visit his/her member profile
To report this message or block the sender, please click here
Set my mailing list to email me As they are sent | In one daily email | Don't send me mailing list messages

Meetup, POB 4668 #37895 NY NY USA 10163 | [address removed]





--
Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by eric ([address removed]) from Provocateurs and Peacemakers.
To learn more about eric , visit his/her member profile
To report this message or block the sender, please click here
Set my mailing list to email me As they are sent | In one daily email | Don't send me mailing list messages

Meetup, POB 4668 #37895 NY NY USA 10163 | [address removed]






--
Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by Christopher ([address removed]) from Provocateurs and Peacemakers.
To learn more about Christopher, visit his/her member profile
To report this message or block the sender, please click here
Set my mailing list to email me As they are sent | In one daily email | Don't send me mailing list messages

Meetup, POB 4668 #37895 NY NY USA 10163 | [address removed]






--
Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by Eugene Curry ([address removed]) from Provocateurs and Peacemakers.
To learn more about Eugene Curry, visit his/her member profile
To report this message or block the sender, please click here
Set my mailing list to email me As they are sent | In one daily email | Don't send me mailing list messages

Meetup, POB 4668 #37895 NY NY USA 10163 | [address removed]






--
Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by Christopher ([address removed]) from Provocateurs and Peacemakers.
To learn more about Christopher, visit his/her member profile
To report this message or block the sender, please click here
Set my mailing list to email me As they are sent | In one daily email | Don't send me mailing list messages

Meetup, POB 4668 #37895 NY NY USA 10163 | [address removed]






--
Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by David ([address removed]) from Provocateurs and Peacemakers.
To learn more about David, visit his/her member profile
To report this message or block the sender, please click here
Set my mailing list to email me As they are sent | In one daily email | Don't send me mailing list messages

Meetup, POB 4668 #37895 NY NY USA 10163 | [address removed]


Lenexa, KS

Founded Dec 6, 2009

Organizers:

Fred Heeren, David, Elyse, John Millam, Kent Canady, Kris Scott, Paul, Sandy and 3 more…
Contact

People in this
group are also in: