# Was Jesus Real or a Myth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 22, 2015, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360 "2015-02-22T18:39:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/81 "2015-02-24T14:17:37Z")
> [@SeekerofTruth](#): > > Jesus walking on water a story from the Odyssey by Homer; dying/rising, virgin birth, 12 disciples; turning water to wine; appearing to disciples after resurrection can all be found in earlier mythologies of Osirus/Horus, Mithras, Dionysius, Romulus, Hercules, Krishna and a dozen others. Earle Doherty (The Jesus Puzzle); Richard Carrier (The Historicity of Jesus) Robert Price (Deconstructing Jesus) and a hundred others have written extensively about the likelihood Jesus was a mythical character borrowed from a dozen other deities. My understanding of Mr. Doherty’s thinking is that he believes that Paul’s Christology derives from, and can only be understood in the context of, Platonism. From what little I know of his work, Doherty does _not_ present Paul’s Christ as being “borrowed from a dozen other deities,” and in no way does he trace Paul’s Christology back to any of the gods, demigods, or mythical heroes you mention: “Osirus/Horus, Mithras, Dionysius, Romulus, Hercules, Krishna and a dozen others.” If I’m wrong - which is certainly possible - please prove me wrong by providing exact quotes from Doherty’s own writings. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/82 "2015-02-24T15:05:02Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Equating those who practice or respect science with Hitler is _grossly_ offensive. Dear Pot: Yes, I am black. (SIGNED ) Kettle. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/83 "2015-02-24T15:20:14Z")
F Everyone’s I, here’s a brief summary of Carrier’s overall view, written by Carrier, published at the Bible and Interpretation website, a peer reviewed venue: [http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/2014/08/car388028.shtml](http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/2014/08/car388028.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/84 "2015-02-24T15:21:03Z")
> [@SeekerofTruth](#): > > The whole thing is so obviously contrived to > > 1. make people feel worthless > 2. need someone to save them from their worthlessness, thus > 3. need the church, and its powerful mediators i.e. priests bishops, reverends, etc to guide them through this morass to salvation, for a price of course, the tithe. > > I mean in the final analysis it always boils down to money, power and influence, doesn’t it? Surely there must be some door somewhere you can nail this to. If I were going to contrive something like this, I certainly wouldn’t contrive something like the Jesus found in the gospels, who was so critical of the religious authorities of his day who imposed religious burdens on people and sought to profit from religion. Now, what you’ve written sounds similar to Martin Luther’s criticism of the Catholic Church of his day; but he found his answer by going back to the Bible, and especially the writings of Paul. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/85 "2015-02-24T15:52:11Z")
> [@SeekerofTruth](#): > > I’ve been doing a LOT of reading about Jesus, man or myth lately. The evidence overwhelming supports the idea that Jesus at most was a simple completely human man who was a rabbi in a turbulent time when the Jews getting sick of being ruled by Rome; that he went around preaching apocalyptic theology about a new kingdom coming to earth with Israel as its capital that he would be the king of, being the direct heir of David; that Rome viewed all this talk of a new kingdom as being seditious because they believed Jesus was indirectly hinting that this new kingdom would usurp Roman rule and make him the king of the Jews and ultimately all the known world; that the Romans crucified Jesus under the direct order of Pontius Pilate to get rid of a troublemaker; that his apostles were so devastated that they began hallucinating visions of him returning from the dead. Dear Seeker (isn’t there a seeker born every minute? ;)) Re The historicist vs mythicist positions: If after all your reading you come to the conclusion that the “evidence overwhelming supports the idea that Jesus at most was a simple completely human man…”, then you haven’t read \*\*\*nearly \*\*\*enough yet! Instead, it seems to me that most of what you’ve read comes from the overwhelmingly _ **large** _ school of pro-historicist writers (Christian and non-Christian alike), but definitely \*\*not \*\*from the relatively small school of overwhelming \*\*\*evidence \*\*\*of non-historicity! The difference between the two are **enormous**. By far, the most compelling evidence in the issue is presented in astonishingly clear format by Canadian researcher Earl Doherty in his magnum opus: [_ **Jesus: Neither God nor Man** _](http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/newadvert.htm). Although not completely without flaws, it is particularly difficult to find any genuine faults in Doherty’s reasoning and evidence once you’ve read him thoroughly and carefully enough to understand all his arguments! Leading in the other category, of non-traditional yet simultaneously traditionally pro-historist writers is surely Bart Ehrman’s latest book on the subject: _Did Jesus Exist?_, in which he launches into an extremely derivative, repetitive, and sloppy attack on the ahistoricist arguments (few of which apply to Doherty), followed by an extremely derivative, repetitive, and sloppy defense of traditional Christian historicism. Now, I promise you I am quite an admirer of Ehrman’s other works, such as his _Forged: Writing in the Name of God— Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are_ and _Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why_. But _Did Jesus Exist?_ is a tragic failure and a betrayal and reversal of most of everything else he’s ever written! Anyway, continuing on with your OP, you write: > [@SeekerofTruth](#): > > At worst, alternate research demonstrates that there was never a figure called Jesus (in reality there were hundreds of Jesuses roaming the area at the time preaching that they were the Messiah) that the figure Jesus was a conglomeration of various myths and legendary figures that piled one on top of the other borrowed from many sources (fiction like the Odyssey, rumors, circulating stories of dying/rising gods, etc) that were finally compiled by a person we know as Mark roughly 50 years after Jesus’ supposed crucifixion and the other gospels followed from there, each building Jesus to a greater and greater divine figure. The above is fairly similar to my own and Doherty’s view expounded in _Jesus: Neither God nor Man_, but with one HUGE exception: neither of us gives much credence at all to the incredibly doubtful notion espoused by crank mythicists such as “Acharya S” and others relating to the whole “dying/rising gods” and/or “mystery religion” mythology being a major foundation of the Jesus myth! We both agree that Ehrman’s attacks on that notion are quite sound – even though Doherty’s earlier book, _The Jesus Puzzle_, gave a bit more credence to that view (which his new book repudiates). > [@SeekerofTruth](#): > > A third theory is a blending of these two theories: Jesus was a man who was crucified and over hundreds of years was built into a dying/rising god by church fathers whose sole intention was to win more and more converts and thus conglomerate their power as powerful heads of a new religion… This is closer to my own view, again except for the whole mystery religion & dying/rising god nonsense. To be more explicit, my view is that the official Jewish death penalty against a rebellious rabbi/teacher with a name like “Jeremias” (IIRC) of approx 100 BCE was the far more likely foundation of the Jesus myth (see, for example: _The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Christ_ by Michael O. Wise). I will go on at a later date, but for now I must depart… ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/86 "2015-02-24T15:53:12Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Now, what you’ve written sounds similar to Martin Luther’s criticism of the Catholic Church of his day; but he found his answer by going back to the Bible, and especially the writings of Paul. Which hasn’t prevented protestant ‘priests’ to claim special status in society and became even better at making people feel worthless and ashamed about anything. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/87 "2015-02-24T15:59:53Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Which hasn’t prevented protestant ‘priests’ to claim special status in society and became even better at making people feel worthless and ashamed about anything. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Read the Talmud–what it says about rabbis vis-a-vis the laity, and then compare that with what Jesus said about the rabbis. Somethin’, huh? ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/88 "2015-02-24T16:17:37Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Which hasn’t prevented protestant ‘priests’ to claim special status in society and became even better at making people feel worthless and ashamed about anything. Doesn’t mean Luther wasn’t right ;). Most of those Protestant ministers, of course, don’t identify as Lutheran either. They just like him because he allowed them to not be Catholic ;). ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/89 "2015-02-24T16:24:45Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > Doesn’t mean Luther wasn’t right ;). ). It means **Thudlow** is wrong. The answer isn’t in going back to the bible 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/90 "2015-02-24T16:29:17Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Dear Pot: Yes, I am black. (SIGNED ) Kettle. What? Good luck finding any posts where I compare religious people to Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/91 "2015-02-24T16:36:47Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > It means **Thudlow** is wrong. The answer isn’t in going back to the bible 😉 Well Luther’s was ;). ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/92 "2015-02-24T16:46:48Z")
> [@SeekerofTruth](#): > > For me, the main giveaway that Jesus was a myth is that when you consider that the first writing to come along, the authentic Pauline epistles, Paul gives absolutely no details of Jesus’ life before the supposed Last Supper, although he supposedly had extensive conversations with the apostles about Jesus’ life years before he wrote his first epistle 1st Thessolonians. All of Paul’s theology is his own, not Jesus’. So, in effect, Paul was the creator of Christianity, not Jesus. Jesus was merely a figurehead to hang Paul’s theology on. Yes, but if it is historically true that Saul persecuted christians, why would “Saul” turn into Paul and makeup stories about religion under the “figurehead” of Jesus? Simple self promotion??? ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/93 "2015-02-24T17:07:30Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Overall, I would say that there’s too much evidence of struggle within the early church, politics, murder, suppression, etc. to suggest that there was a linear path to the creation of the Jesus story. Are you familiar with the history of Scientology? ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/94 "2015-02-24T17:21:18Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > What? Good luck finding any posts where I compare religious people to Hitler. Let me put it this way: appeasement is appeasement, no matter how you dress it up. There are degrees of appeasement, of course; church authorities kowtowing to evolutionists and scuttling the Bible is not, I know, to a magnitude comparable with the acts of the lily-livered 1938 British government but I consider both to be inexcusable and reprehensible. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/95 "2015-02-24T17:24:49Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Let me put it this way: appeasement is appeasement, no matter how you dress it up. There are degrees of appeasement, of course; church authorities kowtowing to evolutionists and scuttling the Bible is not, I know, to a magnitude comparable with the acts of the lily-livered 1938 British government but I consider both to be inexcusable and reprehensible. :mad: What would you think of a [religious organization that sent a letter to Hitler showing support for the Nazi regime](http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/hitler-nazi.php)? ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/96 "2015-02-24T18:01:08Z")
> [@simster](#): > > What would you think of a [religious organization that sent a letter to Hitler showing support for the Nazi regime](http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/hitler-nazi.php)? I see the URL for a particularly odious organization in the composing box (where one composes a reply to a thread on the SDMB)… Americans in general were not hostile to the Nazi regime before, say, 1937. Nobody raised a fuss about Nazi salutes given at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Besides, the Witnesses are not hostile to governments per se, following the counsel in the 13th chapter of Romans. And Joseph Rutherford has not impressed me as a particularly tolerant person. (FWIW, he died in 1942.) In an Esperanto book I have is the adage, _“Al Dio plachu, sed sur diablon ne krachu.”_ (“Please God, but don’t spit on the Devil.”) Years ago I was up braided for a quotation by Brigham Young, condemning him. A Dopers who was a Mormon commented, "Brigham Young was not a prophet. " Well, I don’t consider Joseph Rutherford to be a prophet either. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/97 "2015-02-24T18:04:22Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > That’s not a question I raised, so I’m not sure what you’re addressing. > > The topic of the thread is whether Jesus existed. It would have been unnecessary for Paul to give a description of his interactions with the Jerusalem church, for him to have politicked with them, to explain why his teachings were valid, despite his tenuous connections to the church, etc. unless there was _another_ church that he didn’t create. His description of the events, while seeming like a single testimony, are in essence a double testimony since they treat matter-of-factly the existence of a secondary church in the 30-45 AD timeline. It would be very difficult for a mythical Jesus to have sprung up and separated into two churches already in such a short time, unless the myth was based on a real event. Unless the same unknown person started the myth in both churches ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/98 "2015-02-24T18:06:08Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > I see the URL for a particularly odious organization in the composing box (where one composes a reply to a thread on the SDMB)… > Americans in general were not hostile to the Nazi regime before, say, 1937. Nobody raised a fuss about Nazi salutes given at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. > Besides, the Witnesses are not hostile to governments per se, following the counsel in the 13th chapter of Romans. And Joseph Rutherford has not impressed me as a particularly tolerant person. (FWIW, he died in 1942.) > > In an Esperanto book I have is the adage, _“Al Dio plachu, sed sur diablon ne krachu.”_ (“Please God, but don’t spit on the Devil.”) > Years ago I was up braided for a quotation by Brigham Young, condemning him. A Dopers who was a Mormon commented, "Brigham Young was not a prophet. " > Well, I don’t consider Joseph Rutherford to be a prophet either. So, that the Watchtower Organization sent letters to Hitler in an effort to appease him - and to express support for the Nazi movement. Do you find that reprehensible and in-excusable? Or do you not? At to the link - I have no idea what you mean by url to an “odious org” - the site is a collection of data - you can easily verify it ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/99 "2015-02-24T18:08:05Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Biblically speaking, that’s not his role, and not his job, and not his mandate. God is not much into doing magic tricks, at least not since the ascension of Christ; he’s kind of big on, yanno, faith. And free will. If that means the number of Christians in the world decreases, so what? Biblically (and theologically), that’s not really a big deal. > . I guess that is the difference between _theo_logical and logical ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360/100 "2015-02-24T20:19:33Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > . . . church authorities kowtowing to evolutionists and scuttling the Bible is not . . . When exactly did that happen? What church? Cite please? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-real-or-a-myth/713360.md?page=6)