Via email this past week you have told me that you truly don't understand why I suspect that you are insincere in claiming not to comprehend my argument. You volunteered to allow me to exceed the 500-word limit in this response, if necessary to explain the mythicist case. I accept your offer.
PROBABILITY VS. CERTAINTY
When approaching the case for a mythical Christ, it is important to understand that it is a case, at least as I see it, that is built on increasing probability. As a rational person examines each factor relevant to a subject such as Jesus' historicity, he or she often faces a choice: What conclusion is most likely to be true? The rational person considers all factors and draws the most sensible conclusion from them--no matter which position that conclusion tends to support. If an overwhelming number of these reasonably considered conclusions have landed on one side of the argument, the rational person defaults to this side and awaits a compelling argument from the other side.
In contrast, a fully indoctrinated member of a religious group does not consider evidence in this manner. An indoctrinated member of a religion takes the approach that the core assumptions of the religion are certainly true, and any argument against them must compete with presumed absolute certainty.
For example: A Scientologist already knows that the core premises of Scientology are true. If you challenge a Scientologist to demonstrate that auditing actually works, the Scientologist will demand that you prove it doesn't--and set the bar at an impossible height. The Scientologist is already certain that auditing works, so he or she does not feel the need to examine the cases pro and con and evaluate the evidence according to what is most probable. Compared to certainty, probability means little.
Here is the same paragraph with Christian terms: A Christian already knows that the core premises of Christianity are true. If you challenge a Christian to demonstrate that prayer actually works, the Christian will demand that you prove it doesn't--and set the bar at an impossible height. The Christian is already certain that prayer works, so he or she does not feel the need to examine the cases pro and con and evaluate the evidence according to what is most probable. Compared to certainty, probability means little.
The Scientologist and the Christian, when confronted by challenges to the core dogmas of their religions, defensively and irrationally respond by raising the bar. They win the argument ahead of time by demanding that all challenges compete with certainty.
RAISING THE BAR
In your response to the case for a fictional Christ, centuri0n, you have exhibited this behavior.
For example, what you ask for in your Question #4 sounds a lot like the method used to demonstrate a slam-dunk case of plagiarism.
And I think I have realized a key misunderstanding on your part, or at least a misunderstanding you are pretending to have: When I say a story is similar to or derives from another story, you incorrectly hear that I am saying that the story blatantly plagiarizes the other story.
But these are three different concepts:
2. derives from
3. blatantly plagiarizes
To avoid dealing with the first two categories, it appears to me that you are pretending that only the third category exists or is relevant to the Jesus story. Your premise, which raises the bar to impossible heights, seems to be that unless the New Testament has a Xerox-copy similarity to a previous piece of literature, the Jesus story must be a factual historical account.
This position is, of course, undeserving of serious consideration. For the non-indoctrinated, a Xerox-like similarity to previous literature is hardly necessary to doubt the claims of a religious cult.
WHAT IS ENOUGH TO AROUSE SUSPICION?
For the disinterested nonbeliever, it is clearly enough to arouse suspicion that the Jesus story is similar to prior god stories. From looking at the long history of dying and rising gods, we can see that Jesus is a relative newcomer to the genre. If people have been driven to tell stories of dying and rising gods for millennia--and clearly they have--we're faced with this choice when evaluating a newcomer to the genre:
1. This new version of the dying and rising god is most probably a fiction like all the others appear to be.
2. This new version of the dying and rising god is real, and his resemblance to the fictional prior gods is coincidental or supernaturally inspired.
Choice #1 is the reasonable choice. The non-indoctrinated would determine that it is more likely to be true. Choice #2 is known as special pleading.
Understand that Choice #1 is the reasonable choice even if there can be no "genetic" relationship established between the new dying and rising god and any prior god. It is enough that societies have been shown to want to tell this kind of story over and over for us to assume that when this kind of story comes up in any society it is a likely manifestation of an urge to tell this timeless tale. Also, we don't have to have a complete understanding of where this apparent psychological need comes from to see that if a story was fiction in all the prior contexts, it's a likely fiction in the latest version. It is probably made up.
And people, especially religious fanatics, will make stuff up.
This is probably the most irrationally denied component of the mythicist case. So brace yourself for a shocking claim:
RELIGIOUS FANATICS WILL MAKE STUFF UP
The rational observer will not approach the issue of a mythical Christ with a prejudice for or against the early Christians. The early Christians should be considered generally to have the same motivations and tendencies of any other religious cult. All things being equal, they are no more honest or less honest than other religious fanatics operating under similar pressures.
And, the fact is, religious fanatics have been known to make stuff up. This doesn't mean they always do, but it must be considered a reasonable possibility, especially with regard to claims that a) help the religion, and b) are not corroborated by outside sources.
That Luke is written in a style that suggests "history" means little. If you disagree, Joseph Smith has a factual account of his experiences with the angel Moroni that he would like you to read. That's "history," too.
We know that religious fanatics will make stuff up. This is not a prejudice. A prejudice would be: "Everything religious fanatics say is always untrue." Or: "Religious fanatics make stuff up, except for my religious fanatics."
But "religious fanatics will make stuff up," expressed as a possibility to be seriously considered, is a reasonable position.
And if one cannot accept this obvious truth, frankly one is not equipped to reach sound conclusions with regard to the history of any religion. Joseph Smith did not discover gold plates just because Joseph Smith said so. And the author of Luke is not necessarily writing history just because the gospel bearing that name says so.
WHERE SHOULD THE BAR BE PLACED?
A disinterested, rational observer would approach the question of whether any person at all existed from this perspective: What is the evidence that he did exist?
However, it is important not to place the bar too high on proving Jesus' existence. Because the claim that a man existed is not extraordinary, the evidence for his existence does not have to be extraordinary.
The following claim is ordinary (in that it is stripped of claims about supernatural powers): "A wandering minister named Jesus, believed to be the Messiah by his many devotees, caused a near-riot at Passover in Jerusalem and was put to death by Romans at the instigation of Jewish leaders." A remarkable man, obviously. But it's an ordinary claim, requiring merely ordinary evidence.
So let's go looking, in chronological order, for that ordinary evidence.
BEFORE THE FIRST CENTURY
Before we get to the beginning of the first century, we should establish a few things we know about the period immediately preceding it. We know that in the Roman Empire, there were several popular "salvation cults," sometimes known as "the mysteries." They shared many common attributes, such as sacred meals and baptisms in which the initiate could be "reborn." Each god offered a pathway to eternal life. Mithra was an intermediary between the world of evil and the world of good, and his heroic actions in that intermediate realm were the ticket to a pleasant afterlife. Attis' suffering by castration guaranteed passage to paradise for his followers.
The theology of these cults had roots back to the Greek God Dionysos. The cults were in existence in some form before the first century, they were widespread, and they were known. The preexistence of these popular mystery religions is not important at this point in the timeline, but it will be when Paul shows up.
A LONG SILENCE
We're on a hunt for ordinary evidence for this man: "A wandering minister named Jesus, believed to be the Messiah by his many devotees, caused a near-riot at Passover in Jerusalem and was put to death by Romans at the instigation of Jewish leaders."
Let's head to the first third of the first century. Some records of this man's remarkable life from the time he is supposed to have lived would do quite nicely as some ordinary evidence. But there are no such records, whether pro-Jesus or anti-Jesus. None.
A book written by the Great Teacher himself (who should have been capable of and motivated to write it) would also be useful. But, inexplicably, Jesus apparently did not write this book.
Documents written by his disciples, who apparently believed that he was the son of God, would also be both expected and valuable. But of 12 disciples, exactly none apparently wrote their own accounts of the Messiah they personally knew.
In fact, apparently nobody who actually knew Jesus--or physically encountered him at all--ever wrote down a single thing about him.
So, when we go looking for the very ordinary, unremarkable evidence that should be there if the human Jesus described in the gospels actually lived, we find instead a notable absence of that kind of evidence.
(Christian leaders, by their own behavior, betray their understandable fear of this absence of evidence. In my own research, I have noted that the vast majority of those who identify as Christians falsely believe that the gospels were written by actual disciples of Jesus. A sin of omission by Christian leaders, most of whom know better, keeps this widespread false belief alive.)
So here we are, several years after the supposed death of Jesus, and we still have not run across the first piece of evidence to indicate his existence.
Does this in itself mean he didn't exist? No. But what is significant is the nature of the first Jesus we do encounter:
THE FIRST JESUS
As we continue chronologically, trying to discover where Jesus first appears, we do finally encounter him around the middle of the first century. But the Jesus we encounter is not a historical Jesus. Instead, we encounter a familiar mythological character.
Paul's Jesus does not go walking around Palestine taking the actions contained in what will much later become the story of Jesus. Paul's Christ Jesus is in the tradition of dying and rising savior gods who "exist" only in a spiritual realm. Like Mithra, Christ Jesus dwells between the evil world (this one) and Heaven. Like Attis, Christ Jesus' suffering is the key to salvation.
This is a new salvation cult, to be sure. Christ Jesus is not simply a renamed Mithra. But those narrative elements that will most distinguish Jesus from the savior gods of his type (i.e., the Earth-bound details contained in the eventual gospel stories) are apparently not yet part of Christian tradition.
That doesn't mean that Paul doesn't know about a historical Jesus. But a rational person would once again weigh probability. For example, consider the following two statements:
1. Paul knew about the Jesus described in the gospels but manages to write 80,000 words without exposing this knowledge.
2. Paul writes 80,000 words without mentioning the gospel stories because be doesn't know the gospel stories.
Without the presumed certainty of a historical Jesus, one of these statements is more probable than the other.
TAKE A SNAPSHOT
An exercise: If we stop at this point in the timeline and imagine that no more records of Christianity ever surfaced, what conclusions would we draw about Jesus? If all we have is Paul's writing, it's pretty clear that it would look like yet another dying and rising savior god, this one called "Christ Jesus," was improvised into existence by desperate religious fanatics. We certainly wouldn't have many clues that would point us toward a real, human Jesus who lived in a certain time and place on Earth.
If all we possessed was the evidence up to this point in the timeline, we would most likely believe that Pauline Christianity was a Jewish cult with a made-up ("revealed") mythical savior, not a cult that emerged from a human who recently lived.
It isn't just that third-party verification of this human remains absent. Even the cult members themselves do not betray an awareness of the idea of a historical Jesus.
But Christianity didn't stay this way. Time did indeed march on...
ENTER THE HISTORICAL CHRIST
At least four decades after his supposed death, the gospel Christ makes his entrance on the scene. Up to now, Christians have been doing a lot of talking, but they haven't been talking about a human Jesus who interacts with historical figures and is placed in a certain setting.
But now they are. The entrance of the new Jesus is somewhat awkward--he's not born in the first gospel, then he's born in different years in Luke and Matthew, for example--but enter he does.
For proponents of the historical Christ, the timing here is a troublesome factor. Why did Christian tradition appear to have one Jesus for so long, only then to "discover" that Jesus isn't just a typical dying and rising god but was actually a real person who did real things?
However, this development also cries out for an explanation on the other side. If Jesus didn't exist, where did these new stories come from?
First, let us recall: Religious fanatics will make stuff up. That's always possible. And in this case, it's even probable. Because we're dealing with people--Jews--who already had an accepted, open tradition of making stuff up.
It's called "midrash."
It isn't unusual that a religion under these circumstances would develop allegorical literature that turned into history with subsequent revisions. And the pattern conforms to what we would expect: The first gospel is allegorical and incomplete, then later writings display more confidence that they are recording history (as their authors probably believed they were). If one is to claim this pattern is unusual, one must deny virtually the entire category of story known as legend.
So, again a rational person faces a choice, which could be presented as follows:
1. The gospel stories developed like legends out of midrash, turning the originally mythical Christ into a "historical" figure over time.
2. The gospels represent true history that was remembered late, and remembered with greater accuracy as more time passed.
For someone not indoctrinated in Christianity, uncontrolled by a mandate to believe that the gospels are divinely true, one of these statements is more probable than the other.
THE VERY LATE EVIDENCE
As we proceed down the timeline, we now come across the kind of evidence that is usually cited first by proponents of a historical Jesus--the mentions of Jesus by non-Christian sources.
By this time, certain events have already happened, the order and timing of which are entirely consistent with the development of a legend: Christianity came into existence, the gospels became part of the tradition, then the gospels became considered accurate histories.
And only then, lo and behold, do historians refer to Jesus. It should go without saying that the timing here doesn't do great things for the case for a historical Jesus. Christianity has by now authored its own history. Historians such as Josephus and Tacitus say nothing more than we would expect if they, in passing, related what they had been told about Jesus by Christians. And neither of those historians makes a project out of their slim mentions of Jesus--there's no reason to expect that either performed a serious investigation to verify any claims.
Which is more probable:
1. Josephus and Tacitus never seriously investigated the gospel origins and only passed on a brief synopsis that any observer would have related at that point in history.
2. Josephus and Tacitus performed serious investigations of the gospel origins only to mention Jesus in passing.
Again, reason will lead to a different evaluation of these statements than faith.
THE EARLY CHURCH ADMITS DECEIT
By the time the legend gets established as history, nothing else in Christianity cries out for explanation from the mythicist side. Once Jesus was believed to be historical, members of the cult acted accordingly.
Even on the off chance that back then evidence arose to question the veracity of the gospels, we can have relative confidence that church leaders would suppress or destroy it.
Historical accuracy was most certainly not the first priority for the early church. Church father Eusebius probably puts it best in his own words: "We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity."
If the legend was false, how was it maintained as dogma? Just ask Eusebius. It was useful. It didn't matter whether it was true or false. That's pretty obvious.
HOW TO DENY THE OBVIOUS
Now that we have toured the mythicist case a bit, let's get back to your implicit claim that if a work does not show signs akin to plagiarism then it was not copied. You seem not to understand how such an argument represents the "raising the bar" fallacy.
I will now demonstrate to you how I could use your "raising the bar" technique to deny that a work I was involved with that did copy from previously existing material really didn't copy from previously existing material.
In 1992, the newspaper Weekly World News reported that a "Bat Child" was found in a cave. In subsequent stories, the Weekly World News exclusively reported about this freakish "Bat Boy" and his escapes from government laboratories and the like.In 1997, Keythe Farley, Laurence O'Keefe and I wrote a stage play called Bat Boy: The Musical that told the tragic life story of a half-bat/half-boy who was found in a West Virginia cave and then raised as a human by a family in a small town. In our version of the tale, Bat Boy is despised by the residents of the town, who eventually attempt to kill him. I won't spoil the ending for you, but I will reveal that in the West End production of the show Bat Boy rose up to the heavens while the cast praised him in song.
Our story derives from: The Weekly World News, the book of Exodus, Oedipus Rex, the New Testament and Othello. And by "derives from," I mean we sometimes had those works open on our laps as we wrote the script.
There can be no doubt that Bat Boy: The Musical derives from the sources I cite. Without those prior sources, the story of Bat Boy would not be what it is in our play. But I would defy anyone to print passages from the Bat Boy script side-by-side with passages from the works we used as inspiration. It would be impossible to prove outright plagiarism. That simply isn't the kind of aping we did.
Now, if we wanted to, Keythe, Larry and I could defend ourselves even against accusations that we copied the Weekly World News itself. We could draw one distinction after another between our Bat Boy and the tabloid Bat Boy. Our Bat Boy is named "Edgar," while the WWN never gives its Bat Boy a name. Our Bat Boy is raised by a family in a small town, while this never happens to the WWN Bat Boy. Our Bat Boy is half-bat, half-human, while the WWN Bat Boy is from a race of aliens who live in the center of the Earth (don't ask). Our Bat Boy's story is told in the style of a musical narrative, while the other Bat Boy's story is told in the style of a news story...
This list could go on and on, much as you certainly could go on and on finding legitimate differences between Jesus and prior gods of his type. But would that mean that our Bat Boy didn't copy the WWN Bat Boy? Just because we could go on for days listing those elements of our Bat Boy that differ from the WWN version?
Of course not. We would be engaging in that old fallacy, "raising the bar." We would be implicitly making the argument that our Bat Boy could only be derivative if he precisely copied the earlier Bat Boy. And any reasonable observer would see through that in a heartbeat. (Including a judge, no doubt. That's why we licensed our use of Bat Boy from the WWN.)
We may have copied Bat Boy in "the broadest terms," to use your phrase, but we still copied him.
CONCLUSION
I have made a great many points in this long post, and given your argument techniques in previous questions, I can imagine I have given you a lot of fodder to misrepresent what I have stated and challenge me to defend those misrepresentations.
In my experience, commitment to an irrational belief system greatly increases the odds that a debater will throw these kinds of stones in my path. It makes sense in a certain way. If eternal life is at stake, the immorality of even Eusebius-like behavior seems trivial in comparison. I don't believe that if I lose this argument, I could be putting souls in danger. But if I did, I'd probably cross some otherwise noxious lines to defend the faith.
With that in mind, I will summarize what my above points are in a (possibly vain) attempt to forestall yet another misrepresentation of my claims.
1. I do not claim there is a Xerox-like similarity between the gospels and any previously existing literature.
2. I do claim that demanding this kind of evidence is simply a distraction from relevant points of argument.
3. I do claim that setting the bar in the appropriate place (on both sides of the question) is necessary for an honest and productive discussion.
4. I do claim that the bar for being suspicious of the Jesus story's authenticity is that it is similar to prior stories of dying and rising gods.
5. I do not claim that this similarity alone makes the complete case against a historical Jesus--it only increases the probability that Jesus is fictional.
6. I do claim that if the Jesus story is true, there should be some evidence from his lifetime and just after that is not present.
7. I do not claim that this absence of evidence alone makes the case--it only increases the probability that Jesus is fictional.
8. I do claim that Paul's and the early Christians' apparent ignorance of the bulk of the Jesus narrative is legitimate grounds for being further suspicious of the eventual Jesus story's authenticity.
9. I do not claim that this factor alone makes the case--it only increases the probability that Jesus is fictional.
10. I do claim that the late arrival of the first alleged biography of Jesus, and the even later arrival of significant updates to that biography, are legitimate grounds for being even further suspicious of the Jesus story's authenticity.
11. I do not claim that this late-arrival factor alone makes the case--it only increases the probability that Jesus is fictional.
12. I do claim that the Jesus story's strong conformity to a "hero pattern" that the writers of stories of gods and heroes have been driven to use since long before Jesus is grounds to believe that it is more likely that the Jesus story is a product similar to those previous products than that it is an authentic historical (or supernatural) coincidence.
13. I do not claim that this factor alone makes the case--it only increases the probability that Jesus is fictional.
14. I do claim that midrash can partially explain the creation of the gospels.
15. I do not claim that this factor alone makes the case--it only increases the probability that the gospels are fictional.
I should mention that the above essay merely skims some conclusions that I have reached in my own research. This essay is by no means a comprehensive representation of the mythicist case, nor is The God Who Wasn't There, which is merely an introduction to the case. Earl Doherty, Robert M. Price, Richard Carrier and others (none of whom I speak for here) have made the case and various facets of it more comprehensively and far better than I can. I would encourage readers of the DebateBlog to experience these works directly, especially if you fear them.
This is centuri0n, aka Frank Turk, who has been an internet apologist for about 10 years and has never really gained anything for himself through it but a handful of friends and a lot of ill-will. Most people, honestly, do not like to argue with him because he doesn't know how to let it go. He's a blogger of some minor note, and he's a "calvinist".
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