What's the Straight Dope on "The God Who Wasn't There"?

Great Debates
21

What Paul believed. The movie claims that Paul never makes any mention of Jesus’ teachings, sayings, ministry, or basically anything that happened before his death. Now if they tried saying that Paul made little mention of these things, they might have a case. But a claim that Paul mentioned nothing about Jesus other than the death and resurrection is easily rebutted with a trip to the Bible. (Chapter 20 of Acts is one example that I happen to remember.)

So that brings us to the question, what did Paul actually believe? Now as far as I know, no scholar disputes the basic facts about Paul’s career. On the way to Damascus he converted to Christianity; he returned and joined the Christianity community in Jerusalem, which included the other Apostles; he undertook four missionary journeys to Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy; he wrote the letters that are credited to him; and his arrest and death are a matter of historical record. Further, however you feel about Paul, you generally have to agree that his writings make him appear intelligent, well-read, thoughtful, and thorough. Hence, if he went on multi-year missionary journeys, devoted his life to evangelizing, and endured multiple arrests, it’s a safe bet that he honestly believed the doctrine he was spreading. (I’m not making any claim about the truth of it here, just that Paul believed it honestly.)

So what was that doctrine? According to the movie, Paul never believed that Jesus Christ was a human being. According to reality, he did. He says so in the first chapter of Romans. Jesus Christ was the son of God, and was also “descended from David according to the flesh”. In Paul’s doctrine, Jesus Christ was a human being, with a body made of flesh, with a specific lineage, who lived and died on earth. There’s no reason to believe that Paul believed anything else. There is simply no basis for the claim that the movie makes on this topic. None.

Now what about the resurrection? The movie makes a further claim that Paul believed the Resurrection was not a physical event, but rather a spiritual one. This claim is not totally nutty; it can’t be debunked simply by going to the first paragraph in your Bible that Paul wrote. But it’s still outside the mainstream of Bible scholarship, and here’s why.

Paul was a Jew. Jews of that period believed in a bodily resurrection. This was supposed to occur at the end of time, when God would restore life to the bodies of all Jews. This was a big deal among the Jews at that time. They devoted considerable effort to gathering and carefully storing the bones of dead people, because they literally believed that God was going to reanimate those bones. There is no reason to believe that any of the Jews believed in a spiritual resurrection without the body. So when asked, “Why did Paul not specify that Jesus was resurrection in the body?” the answer is he didn’t need to. When I say that I ate bran flakes this morning, I don’t need to mention that I did so bodily rather than purely spiritually. There’s no need to clarify, because everyone knows what I mean.

22

Logically you would expect that a lot more is known about a powerful emperor than a wandering preacher with a small band of followers. I find it more instructive to compare the sources we have for the life of Jesus to other ancient figures known for their teachings. If you investigate Socrates, Thales of Miletos, or the Buddha, you’ll find that Jesus beats them hands down in terms of the number of sources and their proximity to the actual figure. Yet nobody questions the existence of those three or disputes that they said more or less what’s attributed to them.

23

Similarities between Jesus and various mythical figures. The basic idea goes like this: the story of Jesus, as told in the Gospels, is remarkably similar to the stories of various gods and mythical figures from Pagan religious systems. Since those Pagan myths existed long before the time of Christ, the only possibility is that the authors of the gospels cobbled together their material from a variety of pagan sources. Case closed.

This one is rather personal to me. I had been taught versions of this in school and believed it quite thoroughly, and it was central to my beliefs that Christians were totally nuts. Years later, when I studied this for myself, I was floored to learn that this idea has been shredded by real scholarship.

Here’s what the movie gives us. First a list of characteristics that Jesus supposedly shares with mythical figures. Then, in the background, a list of Pagan deities supposedly serving as source material for the gospels. This presentation conveniently avoids a critical question: which similarities are supposed to come from which figures? Without knowing that, the case is rather weak.

Let’s take a much closer look than the movie does, one claim at a time. Some are easier to debunk than others. For instance, Norse mythology is supposedly a source for some stories about Jesus. The only problem is that Norse mythology probably didn’t exist at that time. If it did, it was certainly unknown in early first century Palestine. The first Vikings didn’t reach the Mediterranean world until centuries later, so any copying must have gone from Christianity to Norsemen, not the other way around.

What about Adonis? The character originated somewhere in the Middle East and gradually began a Greek cult figure. Was the story of the resurrection copied from Adonis. Truthfully, the figure of Adonis is associated with rebirth after death. However, that’s the only similarity. The death of Adonis certainly has nothing at all in common with the death of Jesus; Adonis was gored by a wild boar sent by the goddess Aphrodite. Moreover, the themes of the Adonis myth have no relationship to the Gospels. The rebirth is supposed to symbolize the sprouting of plants in the springtime and his cult was associated with femininity, even though he was a male character. No real similarities to Jesus there.

What about Mithras? Here’s a case that seems to be the real killer. The mythology of Mithras existed before 1000 B.C., and the story has numerous precise similarities to that of Jesus. The only problem is that the theory is wrong. The Mithras myth simply didn’t have any of the factors that it’s supposed to have.
For instance, Mithras supposedly told his followers to eat bread and wine, which would become his body and blood. The only problem is that he never actually did so. Mithras supposedly resurrected from the dead on the third day after burial. Again, the problem is that he didn’t. Here’s an excellent article on the subject:

http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/mithra.html

If you look at the movie, they claim that tales such as the eucharist and the resurrection on the third day are present in Pagan mythology before Christ’s time. The Mithras mythos is the only possible justification for that claim, and it simply doesn’t stand up.

24

Actually, Acts is generally acknowledged to be the handiwork of Luke, not Paul. Nevertheless, I agree with your objection. Paul mentioned Jesus quite a bit, as a simple keyword search would reveal. (The objection that he did not write about the life of Christ is just petty, as it is irrelevant to the question of whether Jesus existed. Paul certainly treated him as someone who actually existed, and he clearly presupposed that his audience knew this.)

25

ITR Champion, why do you claim the Gnostic Gospels were written after Jesus? I rather thought Mary had a claim of being written during his lifetime?

Also, why do you say Mithras is the only possible justification? Horus seems to match as well.

26

Uh oh! I guess ITR’s battleship just got sunk.

Too bad there’s no tektonics article about Jesus/Horus. :frowning:
Hold on…

http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/osy.html

As for the antiquity of The Gospel of Mary, we have a 5th century text & the claim of feminist theologian Karen King of a first century origin. That’s about it.

27

Is that it? I seem to remember there being a bit more to it, thanks to literary analysis. Sadly, it was a while ago.

28

The OP’s video is well-made, but questioning the historicity of Jesus is pretty much on the lunatic fringe of the skeptics. ITR Champion, you are trying to debunk a position that pretty much no-one on this board holds.

I will take upon myself to try to give the skeptic concensus on the early Christian history. ITR, you might have better luck trying to debunk this. Skeptics, feel free to correct anything that I have here.

Around 783 A.U.C. (30 AD) a Jewish preacher named Joshua bar-Joseph or Joshua ha-Nazareth was active in what was then Roman Palestine. He preached a reform of the Jewish religion, with a focus on belief and intent rather than ritual. His followers proclaimed him Messiah, and Dick Cheney had him arrested as a suspected terrorist, tortured, and executed.

None of this is “extraordinary.” We know there were a lot of men called Joshua at that time and place, there were efforts of this kind to reform Judaism, several different Messiahs were proclaimed, and Cheney’s opinions on suspected terrorists are on record. The evidence that we have that all this happened is convincing.

Over the next 40 years, Joshua’s followers continued to believe and proselytize. They had much more success gaining converts among the pagans than among the Jews. They spread rapidly throughout the Mediterranean. They apparently believed that Joshua would shortly return from the dead and fulfill the Messianic role. Exactly what they believed about the meaning of “Messiah”, “Son of God”, and so on is impossible to determine.

Evidence that this occurs is very strong. We have non-Christian writers who note the cult appearing in Rome. We have excellent evidence that the cult was prosecuted in Rome around 820 A.U.C. (65 AD), which indicates that it had some existence, and it was appealing enough to recover from persecution.

Starting about 40 years after the death of Joshua, and continuing for about 150 years, the members felt it necessary to write down accounts of his life. To write these accounts, they drew on documents and oral traditions of the sayings of Joshua, some fragmentary memories of his family background, and memories of first, second, or third-hand accounts. They had no reliable histories, accounts of events from 70 years before, or reliable ways to date events. They spiced the stories up by inserting parallels to Jewish scripture and mythic tales common in the Mediterranean.

These accounts were not intended to be biographies but to be inspirational materials. The writers did not have a modern attitude towards history. Dating events, even events such as when someone was born, was much more casual and involved a lot of guesswork. Belief in an accurate birth-date for anyone, let alone someone dead for 40 years, requires an absolute ignorance of oral cultures.

Around about 325 AD, a council held at Nicea represented the first attempt to create an orthodoxy that would be agreed to by all of the members of what could now be called the Christian Religion. At this point a consensus was reached on the meaning of “Messiah” and “Son of God” and similar matters. Around 400 AD the contents of the Christian Bible was finalized.

Note that controversies about all of the points from the Nicene council and the contents of the Christian Bible have arisen regularly over the centuries, down to the present day.

29

The difference is this:
Alexander = Man
Jesus = GOD

Apparently, the GOD managed to walk the earth and no one thought it useful to chronicle that life while he was actually living it. Apparently, no one thought it important enough to write down that the GOD had visited until 40 years after the GOD was dead. But then given that the Jewish people don’t have their religious doctrines written down (oh, wait?!), I can understand that this little bands of former Jews wouldn’t think that writing something as miraculous as the GOD appearing on earth would seem that important. I guess it happened all the time back in the old days when gods roamed about the landscape willy nilly.
Frankly, I don’t know how anyone can dance around this tidbit, but then given the success of the cult of Christianity, who am I to say they weren’t wrong not to document the GOD’s life at the time.
GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD Emphasis on GOD

Or, it is much more likely as Reno Nevada suggests that he was just some rabble rouser who got the press he deserved at the time.

J. Jonah Jameson: “Parker, what’s this! Some pictures of a hippy wandering in the desert? Get outta here and get me pictures of Spiderman!”

30

God is dead? Do you write for Time?

31

Reno, except for the Dick Cheney bit, I don’t see much to quibble about there. To replace the Dick Cheney bit, we have some odd quibbling, because the Jews couldn’t have condemned him in that manner, and so on, but I’m sure you know that.

32

I don’t think the Christian myth is dependent on any one or even a few events or parts of documentation. In conversations I have had with religious scholars, even if I can convince them that one particular story or sermon was made out of whole cloth, there are so many others available that it doesn’t matter.

As far as Christian theology is concerned, it is largely an outgrowth of Paul’s teachings, and doesn’t rest on any biblical events to such a degree that the theology would fail if that event were found out to not be true.

As far as the video production, I find it to be a bit amateurish and embarassing. It looks like a long YouTube clip.

33

That’s hardly the only possibility (putting aside any divine interpretation). It wouldn’t surprise me at all if various myths, though similar, arose independently.

[ul][li]Sex = baby. So when a virgin has a baby, something special has happened.[/li][li]Death = permanent. So when death isn’t permanent, something special has happened[/ul][/li]Sex and death being pretty much universal, why couldn’t these basic variations have occured to different people at different times? Maybe the Gospel writers cribbed from existing legends, maybe they came up with the ideas independently and thought they were being original.

In any case, even if there are some aspects of the Jesus myth that have no direct analogue to earlier myths, so what?

34

I have to disagree with that. This subject has come up several times before, and we do have a considerable number of people who either endorse that position or are willing to give it credence. Not many, I’ll admit, but the fact that it keeps coming up is pretty significant.

35

Outside of generic OPs asking for the straight dope, I don’t recall ever seeing anyone particularly supporting mythicism in the replies. Certainly the valid claims of mythicists and the scarcity of real data are pointed out, but I wouldn’t call that supporting the arguments of mythicists. The invalid claims are shot down, and what data there is is explained.

ETA: And of course there’s nothing wrong with being a mythicist. I think it requires more skepticism than makes sense to hold this belief, but that’s not an awful thing.

36

Sage Rat, these people are indeed shot down, but that’s not the point. The point is that there are indeed people who endorse the claim that Jesus never existed, or variants thereof (“He probably never existed” and “It’s a theory that’s worth considering.”)

Do people point out how this theory doesn’t hold up? Certainly… but the theory does come up here every now and then.

37

I think that there should be more evidence of Jesus of Nazareth, all things considered. I think this points more to someone gathering evidence in a central location at some point. And maybe burning it, or something. Accidentally or on purpose. I’d say around Constantine, maybe.

38

Yesterday upon the stair, I saw a god who wasn’t there…

39

Yehudi of Nazareth?

40

I suspect that most records on every topic written about 2000 years ago are now non-existant. I don’t expect most written documentation we have today to survive until 4000.