Wow, I'm surprised at how poor the evidence for the existence of this Jesus/Yashua guy is. It's pretty clear the only reason mainstream historians still believe in him is because of the influence of fanatical christians.
>>18722502Why is that suprising he was a nobody back when he was alive?
Carrier has two weak points in his argument:1. His interpretation that James, the Brother of Jesus, means that James is a follower of Jesus, not his real brother2. That Paul's sparse mentions of Jesus' biography actually happened in some supernatural realm in the heavens, not on earth, which I didn't find convincing at all.
>>18722514>was a nobody back when he was alive>"We know that he was alive BECAUSE the evidence for him is poor"That's not how it works, anon.
>>18722502this is atheist's most retarded point, why among pagan greek/romans and jews shitting on christianity and jesus they smeared jesus' name and questioned who is father was BUT NEVER EVER BROUGHT UP "HE DOESN'T EXIST".Like I get baiters posting this shit but there's genuinely retards who believe this slop, flat earthers and tartarians who say literally everything is a faked forgery conspiracy are less retarded btw
>>18722521Nice strawman
>>18722520Why do you think 1 is weak? Even the gospels don't say anything about this James the brother of Jesus. It's just speculation that he was a biological brother.>which I didn't find convincing at all.Why not?
>>18722502What do you mean by "mainstream historians"? If you mean a professional network of majority Christian and zionist scholars colluding to call themselves mainstream and anyone who actually adheres to the scientific method "radical", "minimalist" or "ultra-sceptic", then you're right on the money.Regarding the historicity of Jesus there isnt any reliable proof. If we take the gospels at face value or at least as containing a grain of truth, Jesus was a prole, possibly a prole who led some kind of rebellion in Jerusalem. Jerusalem held zero importance to Rome. It held far less importance than Gall, Britannia, Germania Superior, Tyre, Gaza etc. There was zero reason to write stuff down about some blip in Jerusalem, except for the local authorities.Were such reports kept, either in Rome or Jerusalem or elsewhere, they all fell into Christian hands between 3-400 CE at which point Christians gained absolute control of the Roman state apparatus. Was there then records relating to Jesus we can infer they were destroyed by the Christians themselves and the only conceivable reason would be that they did not conform to the Nicaean dogma that was established in ~400CE.So all that survives are about three short mentions - one by Josephus who was a jew himself, and a couple of others by Roman historians working long after the fact. Of course the writing of those Roman historians passed through the hands of numerous Christian scribes and were copied multiple times so the oldest surviving manuscripts are many hundred years after the fact. And those mentions are strongly indicative of having mentioned originally Jews rather than Christians (e.g. Nero persecuting Christians makes zero sense, while him persecuting Jews makes perfect sense considering what preceded and succeeded that episode)So in summary, if Jesus existed, we know literally nothing about who he was or what he did.
>>18722526> Even the gospels don't say anything about this James the brother of Jesus.Mark 6:3: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him."It is speculation by Carrier that Mark's James and James the Brother of Jesus Paul knows personally AREN'T the same person. There is no evidence he can name other than his argument hinges on him not being the same James.>Why not?I just don't think Paul writes about Jesus' biography like other ancient writers wrote about happenings in a otherworldly realm. If you read the Hebrew Bible, Homer, or Lucian of Samosata, you are never in doubt if something is supposed to be happening on earth or in heaven or the underworld. Paul seems to know the 12 apostles in some way, which doesn't make sense if they are mythological or also heavenly beings.Ancients who claimed to meet deities or daemons or nymphs aren't that casual about it.He says Jesus was crucified, which is a weird claim about a divine beings, which are immortal.He says Jesus was born 'under the law' which I think can only mean: He was born under the"juristiction" of either Jewish local customs and rules and/or Roman law. A divine being isn't born as a citizen/tribesman of a people or a state.
>>18722543>AREN'T the same person.I mean, they're two different James in two completely different texts. Everything about this character which isn't explicitly explained is speculation. There are also many guys called James in the NT. They can't all be the same.>which doesn't make sense if they are mythological or also heavenly beings.Carrier doesn't assume that "the twelve" (Paul only uses this term once) are mythological.>I just don't think Paul writes about Jesus' biography like other ancient writers wrote about happenings in a otherworldly realm.He doesn't write about Jesus' biography at all. He never even met Jesus except through a hallucination. He doesn't even name his mother. He also says Jesus was the rock which made water for Moses in the desert. That's strange way to talk about some historical guy.>He says Jesus was crucified, which is a weird claim about a divine beingsIt's not weird at all. There are lots of examples of immortal deities suffering/dying and then rising. Carrier gives examples of this - Osiris, Inanna, some others I can't remember.
>>18722520>Carrier has two weak points in his argument:>1. His interpretation that James, the Brother of Jesus, means that James is a follower of Jesus, not his real brother>2. That Paul's sparse mentions of Jesus' biography actually happened in some supernatural realm in the heavens, not on earth, which I didn't find convincing at all.It's quite speculative, obviously. Not more speculative than canonical Christian dogma. There's not much proof for either. What we can say with certainty is that in Paul there is extremely few biographical details about Jesus. He was born of a woman. He was from the line of David, he had brothers, one of them was "James", he had a circle including Peter/Cephas, James and John, and some kind of group called "the Twelve". He had a final meal. He was handed over. He was executed. He was buried.That's it.Then after Pauls letters but before gospels we get the existence of his mother Mary.Then, in the gospels, we get pretty much all the information we associate with Jesus. But there is no firm attestation of the synoptic gospels until Irenaeus, in 180CE. So for 99% of all information about who Jesus was supposed to have been, there is no firm evidence it existed before 180CE. Thus, realistically, we cant say anything about the historical Jesus, if he existed.
>>18722568>Carrier doesn't assume that "the twelve" (Paul only uses this term once) are mythological.The claim doesn't make sense though, who are the twelve then, they are followers of Jesus... who didn't exist, did they have a similar vision like Paul? That's just, again, speculation on Carrier's part.Which parts of Jesus' biography were in the heavens and which weren't? Apparently him having 12 guys following around didn't happen in the heavens? How does that make sense? Maybe he addresses this, but I can't remember.>He doesn't write about Jesus' biography at all.With biography I mean: Everything about the person Jesus Paul mentions. He says he was born, he died a certain way, he has certain ancestry, he was buried. If you take all about Jesus by Paul his biography would be: There was a guy called Jesus born under Jewish laws with Jewish noble ancestry (Seed of David), he had followers (he was religious teacher of some kind), we get some quotes by the guy (even if they are second-hand accounts), he was murdered by crucifiction in a conspiracy of some kind, he was buried afterwards, Paul knows several followers of Jesus personally.That is more biographical information about a guy than we have from many Roman tombstones of people.>It's not weird at all.It's very weird in Jewish "mythology". This is not a knockout criteria, it's just a highly unusual claim for any religious figure, yes there are examples, but Gods dying in the cosmic realm are very rare in antiquity. It's not that rare for a charismatic preacher to be executed because he pisses of local government highly concerned with the very fragile political situation in a region on the brink of large-scale rebellion though. John the Baptist is the perfect case here.
>>18722502Whether the historical Jesus existed or not Jesus is still a figura to mainstream judaism as a jewish shaman figura and is still a figure to the internal history that judaism has about itself and therefore the figura of Jesus exists through Judaism whether or not the historical Jesus existed the figura exists as long as the history of Judaism and the history of the Mind still exists
>>18722806>The claim doesn't make sense though, who are the twelve then, they are followers of JesusAt the point when Paul is writing, the 12 is obviously the 12. That's all we know. Projecting something else unto them that isnt there in Pauls text is what doesnt make sense.Speculatively "the 12" could mean the 12 tribes of Israel, Els council of 12 Gods (the Elohim). Twelve was a divine number in base-60 cultures such as mesopotamia, so it was a pretty common number to throw around.
>>18722806>who are the twelve thenPaul doesn't give any information on them other than what he says in 1 Corinthians 15, so one can only speculate. Paul doesn't mention Jesus being a preacher or having disciples anywhere in his letters. The stories of Jesus doing tricks and going on boat trips around Jerusalem with his 12 buddies is only in the gospels, not Paul.>did they have a similar vision like Paul?Something like that. According to 1 Corinthians 15, where he mentions them, he says that Jesus first appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then to some others and finally to Paul. Paul admits that Jesus appeared to Cephas first and then to the twelve. So, Cephas was probably the founder of the original Jerusalem church and the twelve were some senior members perhaps.So how did Paul (and others) know about Jesus? He says he's getting the information through scripture (not any eyewitnesses). You can look at 1 Corinthians 15:>For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the ScripturesOr Galatians 1>For I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached was not devised by man. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.So according to Paul, his only source for the "biography" of Jesus is the scriptures and revelation, not any disciples of a preaching Jesus. It seems that Paul and others (like Cephas and the twelve) are looking at scriptures and inventing the character of Jesus through Pesher readings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesher), calling it "revelation".>It's very weird in Jewish "mythology". Jewish writings at that time had all sorts of crazy things going on in the heavens. This is quite tame.
>>18722502 It doesn't really make sense for Jesus to not have been a real person who was at least a minor cult leader. The timeline is too short the mythicism to really make sense and the "Paul made it all up" often flirts with unfalsifiability.
>>18723051>Paul made it all upNot what Carrier argues. Read his book.
>>18722524Pagans also believed in Hercules, does that mean Hercules existed?
>>18722502>SocratesWe have writings by contemporaries, most notably his student Plato.>PlatoWe have a multitude of writings by him as well as writings by contemporaries.>AristotleWe have a multitude of writings by him as well as writings by contemporaries.>Alexander the GreatWe have archeological evidence for his campaigns, coins, as well as writings by contemporaries. In addition, there is a Babylonian Astronomical Diary that records his death>Julius CaesarWe have archeological evidence for his campaigns, coins, as well as writings by contemporaries. In addition, we also have a few works written by Caesar himself.>Jesus ChristAll we have for him are 4 anonymous writings by people who weren’t even from Judea (otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten basic geographic details wrong) and the letters of a man who doesn’t even mention his earthly ministry.
>>18723058It's an oversimplification but I'm not gonna write a counter-book to refute it. Jesus being a historical person is the easiest and simplest explanation.
>>18722524Because the non existence of Jesus does not make Christianity more retarded than it is. They did believe that Jesus was the son of Pantera so according to your own hypocritical logic Jesus was not how he is described in the Bible.
>>18723068It's not a simplification. It's a downright fallacious misrepresentation. You should read his book before attempting to refute it.
>It's not X, it's Y
>>18722524It isn't a specifically atheist point. Christianity can be wrong with or without a historical Jesus. Conceivably certain forms of Christianity could even be right without a historical Jesus, if the early Christians did in fact believe in a Jesus who wasn't killed on earth, a view that some of the Cathars seem to have pulled from somewhere, for example.
>>18723094It's not an LLM linguistic tic, it's a commonly used syntactic template.
>>18722502Ever heard of the Bible? Enjoy that burn pit, you fully deserve it.
Bump
