Richard Carrier – 'Did Jesus Even Exist?'

I wanted to post and recommend viewing this great lecture by Richard Carrier. You can see his bio here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carrier

[video=youtube;WUYRoYl7i6U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUYRoYl7i6U[/video]

I'm just a short way into it now, but have been quite impressed with what he's been talking about so far. He's brought up "euhemerization," the placement of deities in the real world. He says it was a popular practice in the Mediterranean at the time Jesus came along and suggests that Jesus started out as a celestial figure, rather the way the angels Gabriel and Moroni, the "founders" of Islam and Mormonism, respectively, were. One need only read the epistles of Paul to see an example of the same sort of "divine revelation" happening in the formation of a religion that happened when Mohammad and Joseph Smith claimed to receive revelations from their respective angels.

He also talks about cargo cults, the religions that developed in the South Pacific during and after World War II in response to the introduction of Christian teachings and the presence of the US military and their bringing in of "cargo" in a manner that the natives simply did not understand. They combined these elements with preexisting spiritual ideas to craft these new religious cults around fictitious figures such as John Frum and Tom Navy. He goes on to mention that, fortunately, anthropologists were already on one of the islands where such a cult was developing, so that the creation of a new religion could be observed and documented, which is an opportunity that doesn't come along all that often!

Watch, listen and enjoy!

 

Well considering that Jesus was mentioned a couple of times outside of biblical literature, the roman historian who's name I forget is the big one, there obviously was a man named Jesus causing quite a stir.

Whether you can attribute that to His being the Son of God or not is up for personal opinion but yes, there was a guy named Jesus riding around on a donkey giving the Romans the middle finger.

 

the human tendency to attribute incomprehensibles to invisible agency is quite endearing, and one of our most primitive and base responses to the world. now that we understand it (thanks in no small part to the anthropologists mentioned in your post), we have the benefit and luxury of looking backwards with new intelligence. and it is a luxury, to be able to embrace our old selves, while acknowledging the residual primitive in ourselves.

 

Amen I know I enjoy analysing humanity in light of current scientific understanding of the human animal. I recognise different repeating types of mind and thought from one individual to another, as though there is a finite set of brain patterns that our genes construct, so that we get a finite set of personality "types" and associated characteristics both beneficial and detrimental, though many can be viewed as both depending on the point of view.

 

Your mistake is attributing God to a systematic development of the human species.

 

I think there is ample evidence of Yeshuah as a rabbi and possibly a healer. As for his divinity - not much evidence. Jesus was an invention by the early Christian Church.

 

Where?

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Not really.

 

Okay the evidence for Yeshuah is a bit anecdotal, it's in the Gospels and the rest of it. The evidence for Jesus can be found in the early Christian Church which basically made it all up.

 

The first time he's mentioned outside of the Bible is by the historian Josephus a good seventy years after his death.

 

The Gospels are clearly untrustworthy as a source, though. They have mutual disagreements and contain demonstrably false claims, all while making numerous supernatural claims that are, of course, entirely unrealistic by nature and unsubstantiated. Plus, pretty much none of what they claim can be confirmed or corroborated by non-Christian, contemporary sources.

Then there's what Richard Carrier discusses, the tendency that was popular in the time and area the gospels were written to "euhemerize" gods by placing them in a historical context in writing, which is quite possibly what the gospel narrative in fact is. This would be based on the notion of Jesus being a celestial being from the outset who was then later turned into a pseudo-historical figure. This phenomenon, as I mentioned earlier and as is discussed in the lecture, has been seen much more recently with the South Pacific cargo cults, where personalities were invented over the course of just thirty years and came to be treated as real, historical persons with Christlike characteristics.

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And those mentions are contested and thought to be forgeries.

 

That's actually incorrect. There is no contemporary, outside mention of Jesus. All recordings can be traced back to religious sources. The historians of Jesus' day recorded many events and personalities - but they did not mention Jesus. That doesn't mean He didn't exist - although my personal opinion is that He didn't - but it's not in His favor.

It's all okay one way or the other because religion is a matter of "faith," not historical record.

 

There is almost no evidence for horses in Palestine unless they belonged to Roman officers.. Jews all road donkeys.. Not much pasture available.

 

The word is slowly getting around that Jesus was created by an aristocratic Roman family in charge of Israel. They were tired of the constantly revolting Jews who were awaiting their warrior Messiah.

They created Jesus and spread his message of "render unto Caesar" and to turn the other cheek in order to quell the Jewish rebellions and to change their culture.

 

Although I disagree with Carrier, at least he is a true academic in this field. Most of the other Jesus Mythers are pulling from 18th century sources to draw religious comparisons that have no basis in history.

 

Seventy years after the death of Jesus Josephus himself was dead, while the first reference is a number of decades after Jesus death, it is clear that the story of Jesus was kicking around earlier than that.

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Which would have a been a terrible way to do it since the Jewish revolt occurred some 40 years after Jesus and continued again later in the 1st - 2nd century until Bar Kockba. But............

 

Those mentions occur a generation later and are third hand accounts describing the beliefs of early Christians.

 

In that same time period, the first century, the Jewish historian, Josephus, mentioned Jesus and that he said he was the messiah, and also mentions John the Baptist, too.

We also have the Jewish Talmud which specifically mentions Jesus and Mary and calls them fakes and liars and magician, and worse.
Why would the Jews "invent" a messiah they did not want???

 

He didn't say he was the messiah, some of that is in dispute. He said that some said he was the messiah. There were a lot of those types in that time period.

That is not quite true either. The Talmud has references to people with those names but they are not necessarily the Jesus that the Christians adopt as God.

 

Josephus was forged.

But what's this about the Talmud? I need specifics. Could be a misinterpretation of a text about someone else, could be something written too long after the Christ myth had started and been established to have any authority or trustworthiness in the matter.

Come out of the world of self-delusion and pay attention to all of the evidence at hand, quit letting faith blind you to all there is to see, and I think you'll agree that Christ started out as celestial voice just like many other deities and other such holy beings have done. It's certainly far more likely in light of the evidence than some literalist interpretation of (canonised) texts being accurate. Gods, angels, demons and other "spirits" exist only in the minds of men.

 

One of the reasons I don't buy into Carrier's explanations is that he almost always relies on an esoteric reading of Paul and he tends to ignore other early Christian sources. Though the gospels came later, I don't think you can just toss them to the side. There is a clear pattern in the gospels of a more human Jesus the further back you go and a more divine Jesus in the later sources. This is hard to mesh with Jesus Myth theory. Likewise, the gospels were written some time after Jesus was (theoretically) alive, and after the fall of Jerusalem. And yet the Jesus of those texts continuously predicts the end of the world will happen some time within the lifetime of his followers, in conjunction with the fall of Jerusalem. Christians have scrambled to explain the "end is coming soon" language in a variety of different ways ever since. Even Paul seemed to struggle with the continuously delayed apocalypse.

If you are going to create a mythical prophet from whole-cloth, then why create a failed prophet?

 

Yep. Jesus was much safer up in the clouds, where he apparently started out at, than he was as a pseudo-historical figure who is supposed to have walked around preaching in the middle of the Judeo-Christian Wars

People who interpret the gospels literally are being blockheads. It's blockheaded to take a clever story full of allegory and simply regard it as a record of real historical events, but that's what ended up happening as Christianity evolved throughout the Roman period and then the Middle Ages. Its use by Rome as an imperial religion probably had a great role to play in that.

 

The present Talmud was edited in the 17th century when the actual names were clearly written, because ther own Talmud was available to be used against the Jews during pogroms which took place.
Check it.

The Jews actually STOPPED directly criticizing Jesus and Mary in the 17th century, which scripture said they would so do:

Rev. 11:7 And when they, (the two olive trees, i.e.; the House of Jacob and the House of Judah: [Zech 4:11), shall have finished their testimony (in the 17th century, against their own messiah ben Joseph, and changed their written texts in the Talmud so as to remove the name of Jesus and their direct protests against him), the (seven headed) beast (of Western civilization) that (had) ascendeth out of the bottomless pit (in The Renaissance) shall make (secular) war against them, (these Jews of the diaspora), and shall overcome them (in 1942), and kill them (with gas and starvation and brutalities).

 

Hahahaaa,...
You didn't read the fact, that the Renaissance would come AFTER the 1000 year of Universal Christianity over all the Roman World.

The Renaissance was the revived seven headed beast which had disappeared during the 1000 year reign of Jesus during the Monastic Age.
The "Wars" you refer to were caused by the ancient beast, not Jesus.

 

Whether or not JC, or the Buddha for that matter existed, lies in if the people who followed the teachings of either one, transcended the illusion of the ego. If by following the teachings of either man, the kingdom was found within, or enlightenment took place, then it doesn't matter if those two existed or not. For what they taught is of the greatest value. But if what they taught actually worked, then one would have to think they both existed. That is, their proof of existence lies in whether the teachings were of value, and worked.

But if the teachings worked, the question of their existence has no importance whatsoever, only the teachings have importance. There have been accounts of various men from the Christian tradition experiencing cosmic consciousness, as well as within the Buddhist tradition, and hindu tradition.

The Buddhist have a good saying, which pertains to Christianity as well. And that is, if you meet either one on the road, to kill them. But the reason for that is the fact that its was the teachings that came from these men, and not the men themselves that yields salvation, enlightenment or what other name you want to hang on the experience Of course man turned both into idols to be worshipped, while not finding it worthy to follow what these men taught. So the conduit of the teachings became important, while its the teachings if followed, is what brings on the experience of selflessness. Man has this habit of deifying the teacher, clinging to that idol, created by thought, and that is when the killing generally starts. And what these men tried to teach has no value whatsoever. That is the irony involved. For we want someone to save us, an outside agency, when what saves people is in inner journey of discovery. I guess man is just lazy, and likes clinging to things, whether its a physical body or beliefs.

 

Of course, of course.

*pats head*