Talk:Christ myth theory/Archive 9

message: This page was getting really long and really confusing.  I've archived.  But there was a live discussion regarding the issue of the definition between Bruce and Akhilleus among others.  Both of them seem to understand clearly the argument.  I'm not sure which parts are live and needed.  Please add back what we want to keep live.  jbolden1517Talk 16:18, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like you switched from a cut-and-paste method of archiving to a page move version of archiving. I think it's a bad idea to switch methods this far into the page's history; there are definitely links to old revisions of the page in some posts that I've made. Otherwise I don't have a problem with the archiving--I don't think the discussions were going anywhere in particular, and a fresh start could help (although my pessimistic projection is that the page is going to be filled with the exact same disputes, with roughly the same wording, within a week or two). --Akhilleus (talk) 17:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have no preference as far as method.  You are an admin, you can undo that while I can't.  Do as thou will on that.  jbolden1517Talk 18:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: At this point I think a history merge would be required, and I don't know how to do that (nor do I wish to take time to learn). We can probably live with it. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:38, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Considering the RfC was still alive archiving it before it was done is not a good thing.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:13, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive 

message: Hardyplants, I don't think the page 9 quote is the clearest we can come up with.  I'm quoting though rather than paraphrasing since we (AFAIKT) are interpreting the quote in exactly the opposite way.  I think the article would read better with a paraphrase but I don't want to get into an edit war and quoting the author's own words removes the interpretive aspects.   jbolden1517Talk 23:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pearson page 9 

message: I think Tom Harpur should be mentioned. He explicitly cites Doherty as having made "what seems to me to be an incontrovertible case" (p. 224, according to Doherty here). He certainly recommends reading Robert Price and if one can believe Tektonics.org, he has said things like "To date there has been no incontrovertible evidence of an historical Jesus' existence. I recommend reading the seven books of British scholar G.A. Wells on this, and also the latest two by Robert Price, whose books deal specifically with this theme." 
As to more reliable source, this is maybe a good summary "During his research, Harpur discovered that the New Testament is wholly based on Egyptian mythology, that Jesus Christ never lived, and that – indeed – the text was always meant to be read allegorically. It was the founders of the Church who duped the world into taking a literal approach to the scriptures. And, according to Harpur, this was their fatal error – and the very reason Christianity is struggling today." 
The interesting thing about Harpur is, of course, that he believes the non-historical Jesus is the best thing that can happen to modern Christianity. This perspective is both notable and interesting. Vesal (talk) 21:49, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Harpur should be in the article no question.  Start a paragraph on him under "other writers" or a whole subsection if you have several paragraphs worth of material.  jbolden1517Talk 22:26, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said before Holding is a joke but Price and Doherty should be enough to include Harpur if we can find good material what he says.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:04, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christian perspective? 

message: This is a quote from Harry Buck's review of William Benjamin Smith's The Birth of the Gospel; the review appeared in The Journal of Bible and Religion 25 (1957) p. 358: "William Benjamin Smith (1850-1934) was the American exponent of the "Christ Myth School," which found its classic expression in Bruno Bauer (1809-1882). This modern docetism maintained that Christianity existed in an incipient form throughout the Graeco-Roman world prior to the dates ordinarily assigned to Jesus. Hence "the Christ" is a myth who never existed in the flesh, but is the creation of the primitive church. The gospels, therefore, contain no history at all because their central figure never existed."
This review by Bruce Metzger of a book by the Russian historian Robert Yur'evich Vipper dealing with the origins of Christianity; Metzger writes that "it is obvious that his orientation is totally within the orbit of the Christ-myth school that flourished in certain circles earlier this century. He quotes with approval A. Niemojewski's Gott Jesus (1910) and Wm. B. Smith's Ecce Deus (1910)." A footnote continues onto the following page and refers to the "Christ-myth school" once more: "Bruno Bauer, G. J. P. J. Boland, Arthur Drews (translated into Russian), E. Dujardin, S. A. Naber, Wm. B. Smith, van den Bergh van Eysinga, and other representatives of the now passe Christ-myth school."
Van A. Harvey, "D. F. Strauss' 'Life of Jesus' Revisited", Church History, 30 (1961), p. 200: "The next step is to ask, 'What makes one think that Jesus lived at all?' The negative answer to this question emerged quite naturally in the Christ-myth school of Drews, Robertson, Couchoud, and Brandes."
In all of these quotes, the subject of our article--the thought of Bauer, Drews, Smith, et al.--is described as a coherent "school" of thought. This is more evidence (not that it should be needed) that this article has a distinct topic which is referred to in relatively consistent terminology. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If anyone has access to the full text of "J. Reuben Clark: Selected Papers on Americanism and National Affairs‎" 1987 from 129 on that might help as the snippet talks about critics being split into four schools.  Published by University of California and later by Brigham Young University it should help show who belongs in what school of though or if there is any crossover.  "--we exclude the "Christ myth school," that a person in Judaism named Jesus of Nazareth never lived.--" by ironically James H. Charlesworth "Jesus and Archaeology‎" pg 675.  leave the fun issue where does this definition of Charlesworth's leave those say there was a Jesus but not a Nazareth (jokingly referred to as "Jesus of where?!?" by some critics of the minimalist position)  Further more there is nothing to suggest that little more than a handful of authors even use the term Christ Myth School and while there is some connection to non historical there is no connection between Christ Myth School and Christ Myth theory  or Jesus myth leaving us with needing a source the directly and expressly links these terms together which we are STILL waiting for.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  some more quotes 

message: I figured this would be gone by this morning.  Do you guys actually think Kolkey deserves an entire section? I've never heard of him but AFAIKT he doesn't meet our criteria.  I already gave  the welcome to Wikipedia and especially take a look at WP:COI warning so I'd rather not be the deleter.  jbolden1517Talk 13:26, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I was thinking the same thing about the atheism additions ;)  I removed both. Vesal (talk) 21:25, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jonathan Kolkey 

message: This article presents numerous arguments used by proponents of this theory.  The criticisms section, however, is basically people saying "Everybody around today disagrees".  I'd like to see some actual analysis of the claims put forth by the proponents, if there's any out there. Mbarbier (talk) 20:20, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You raise a good point.  Part of the problem is that we don't have a distilled version of what the main points of contention.   When this article debated the historicity issue we had a good counter but that material is all in the other article (which is a good think IMHO, this article is complicated enough without stuff that is general).  I'm trying to put together a Chart of differences and from there we could have a more clear cut "criticism" section.  As you can see from the chart Orthodox Christianity and mainstream scholarship have almost opposite points of contention.  The other thing is that there hasn't been that much analysis.  Scholars haven't engaged this, though lots of orthodox Christian apologists have and their criticisms are full of misinformation.  jbolden1517Talk 22:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the few things Akhilleus and I agree on is that the "criticism" section provides a WP:SYN view not held by any one author.  I find the Historicity_of_Jesus#Greco-Roman_sources for more NPOV than what we have here and with a little cleaning up we could simply refer back to that.  I would agree that given the list on Jesus and History we do have a bit of a problem with possible a WP:CFORK occuring.  There is a LOT of duplication of material between some of these articles.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:13, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

text: Well Thallas for one.  Many non historical supporters don't even mention Thallus and only a handful of historical Jesus supporters use him as he is pretty bad and smacks of the long discredited 'show ALL the Gospels are historical' train of Historical Jesus thought  The second passage of Josephus is another; not many authors bring up the 'Jesus, the son of Damneus' part if they even bother to mention it at all.  I do agree that they do form a list of usual suspects as demonstrated by Scott Oser's 1994 Historicity Of Jesus FAQ  Sadly Oser is not a scholar in this field so his FAQ is not citable by Wikipedia standards but it is one of the few to the point summations I know of.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:08, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism section inadequate 

message: I hate to say this, but I fear that nearly all citations may be subject to quote mining.  Esp citations backing up the assertation on the 3rd paragraph in the intro section are ALL guilty of quote mining.  All of these citations don't show where they gained the information, they just mention the author and an overbearing quote.  I find religion based articles often guilty of this, and this page is pretty affected by it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.189.143.20 (talk) 16:46, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: While I have issues with the very term Christ Myth theory due to the reliable source providing conflicting definitions I will have to say what is referenced in the beginning is reliable sourced.  The problem is that what they are in reference--an extreme view of the Christ Myth theory rather than the entire concept.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whats with ALL the unfounded footnotes? 

message: Regarding this quotation, "He did however believe that God would provide miracles to fulfil the military function of the messiah." : Evidence?  Cannot think of anything textual at all. Should be scrubbed, I think.  Tobermory (talk) 18:21, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Meier synthesis (vol 2) of "A marginal Jew". Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium Erhman, The Quest of the Historical Jesus.  But it does combine two ideas here military role and end of history. I'll think about a rephrase jbolden1517Talk 19:29, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Davidic messiah

message: On another note, I agree with Davigoli that the chart is problematic because it tries to categorize different positions too neatly. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  I throw in a disclaimer to say that.  I just want focus the general article on the generalities of the theories.  I figure the individual author articles can handle their specifics.  So for example Archarya's focus on Astro theology vs. Wells focus on wisdom literature should be mentioned here but focused on their own articles.  This article is already getting really long.  jbolden1517Talk 03:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Agreed.  The chart was mainly to make it clear there is an underlying unified theory.  There was a lot of concern about artificial synthesis even though the primary authors themselves agree their works supports each other.  I'd be thrilled to start converting the chart to prose.   jbolden1517Talk 03:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  It being Easter Sunday, I'm a bit busy with other things today to add to this discussion at the moment.  That being said, I'd really like to voice my opinion that the chart should stay IF it can be made to present accurate information rather than forced contrasts. For those new to a subject, having the differences between camps clearly set out in the chart is, I think, more help than harm. Tobermory (talk) 13:28, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  What to do with Chart

message: I was thinking this format might be useful for the argument section.  We could do one the other way explaining how mainstream side sees Christ myth:
* Christ is a mythical character
* ? How do you know
* The early christian literature speaks of him in terms of a dieing and rising savior god
* ? how do you know that wasn't because the historical apostles preached the importance of the resurrection?
* Because the literate makes no mention of a historical resurrection
....
Or something.  I think it captures how each side feels about the others arguments.  It might also be too apologetic?  What are your all thoughts?  jbolden1517Talk 18:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is these are strawman and not accurate representations of the views and are somewhat OR.--67.16.90.243 (talk) 14:47, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not a big fan of this graphic, either. It is somewhat OR. This article needs to contextualize how the ideas it talks about relate to the larger body of thought about the historical Jesus and the development of early Christianity, but this article isn't the place for the kind of broad overviews of all thought about early Christianity that are embodied in Christ_myth_theory#Chart and the graphic above. Another problem is that the article needs text, not pictures. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I fully agree with Akhilleus regarding the graphic.  Another thing I really don't like is it polarizes the whole Christ myth concept into two extremes with the middle ground being totally lost.  Christ myth can refer to the myth that grew up around the man (as Remsburg and a few others have used the term) or it can refer to the idea that the man himself is a myth (what this article tries to deal with).  Compounding matters is the fact that Weaver indicates that the early editions of Drews' book were more of a doubting Thomas position than the flat out denial the later editions were as described in Did Jesus really live : a reply to The Christ myth (1911).  As I said before we have to watch for a the excluded middle in this.--BruceGrubb (talk) 18:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graphic