The Jesus myth Part I

[Bret Ripley]

From ancient stories there is a trend developed for defining a 'divine king' hero. Carrier calls this the Rank-Raglan hero-type. It is defined by these elements:

1. The hero's mother is a virgin.
2. His father is a king or the heir of a king.
3. The circumstances of his conception are unusual.
4. He is reputed to be the son of a god.
5. An attempt is made to kill him when he is a baby.
6. To escape which he is spirited away from those trying Old Testament kill him.
7. He is reared in a foreign country by one or more foster parents.
8. We are told nothing of his childhood.
9. On reaching manhood he returns to his future kingdom.
10. He is crowned, hailed or becomes king.
11. He reigns uneventfully (i.e., without wars or national catastrophe)
12. He prescribes laws.
13. He then loses favor with the gods or his subjects.
14. He is driven from the throne or city.
15. He meets with a mysterious death.
16. He dies atop a hill or high place.
17. His children, if any, do not succeed him.
18. His body turns up missing.
19. Yet he still has one or more holy sepulchres (in fact or fiction)
20. Before taking a throne or a wife, he battles and defeats a great adversary (such as a king, giant, dragon, or wild beast)
21. His parents are related to each other.
22. He marries a queen or princess related to his predecessor.

These are the top 15 on the list (scores in parentheses):

3. Jesus (20)

Not that it matters, but I'm having a helluva time getting Jesus up to 20 points. If I squint I may be able to get up to around 16 or 17, and even then I'm stretching a point or two by calling Joseph a "foster parent" and counting crucifixion as "mysterious." (I mean, what medical examiner worth her salt would just shrug after looking at the spear wound going up into the chest cavity? Even on television? Honestly.)

I feel a little like I'm asking for help with the Sunday crossword, but the items I'm having the most trouble with are ...

8. We are told nothing of his childhood. If we can ignore the non-canonical infancy narratives, I'd be good with 'almost nothing.'

9. On reaching manhood he returns to his future kingdom. He would have still been a child when the fam returned from Egypt during the rule of Herod Archelaus (who was shown the door in 6ce). Or can we count his "return" as being to Jerusalem?

11. He reigns uneventfully (i.e., without wars or national catastrophe) Cool. Over what shall we say he reigned, and what is the period of that reign?

20. Before taking a throne or a wife, he battles and defeats a great adversary (such as a king, giant, dragon, or wild beast). I'm thinking about counting the calming of the sea, taking into account its mythical connotations, but then we'll need a stand-in for "throne" or "wife." But even letting the sea count as a dragon seems like a copout: let's face it, Jesus was no Davy Crockett. Who, come to think of it, would score several points on this list.

22. He marries a queen or princess related to his predecessor. If we count this one, then I don't see how we can't count the silly infancy narratives which means we lose #8. Oh, dear. Maybe I'd best stick with Sudoku.

[huckelberry]

Bret, I can only count three, numbers one, five and six. I suppose you could try and force a few more but the fits are not good. I thought your earlier comment about somebody writing fanciful things about somebody not making the somebody themselves a fancy was a spot on comment.

[Kishkumen]

Not that it matters, but I'm having a helluva time getting Jesus up to 20 points. If I squint I may be able to get up to around 16 or 17, and even then I'm stretching a point or two by calling Joseph a "foster parent" and counting crucifixion as "mysterious." (I mean, what medical examiner worth her salt would just shrug after looking at the spear wound going up into the chest cavity? Even on television? Honestly.)

I feel a little like I'm asking for help with the Sunday crossword, but the items I'm having the most trouble with are ...

8. We are told nothing of his childhood. If we can ignore the non-canonical infancy narratives, I'd be good with 'almost nothing.'

9. On reaching manhood he returns to his future kingdom. He would have still been a child when the fam returned from Egypt during the rule of Herod Archelaus (who was shown the door in 6ce). Or can we count his "return" as being to Jerusalem?

11. He reigns uneventfully (i.e., without wars or national catastrophe) Cool. Over what shall we say he reigned, and what is the period of that reign?

20. Before taking a throne or a wife, he battles and defeats a great adversary (such as a king, giant, dragon, or wild beast). I'm thinking about counting the calming of the sea, taking into account its mythical connotations, but then we'll need a stand-in for "throne" or "wife." But even letting the sea count as a dragon seems like a copout: let's face it, Jesus was no Davy Crockett. Who, come to think of it, would score several points on this list.

22. He marries a queen or princess related to his predecessor. If we count this one, then I don't see how we can't count the silly infancy narratives which means we lose #8. Oh, dear. Maybe I'd best stick with Sudoku.

Nicely done, BR! Yes. This list has always been a pretty poor fit for Jesus. The situation is even more problematic for mythicists if you take Mark as the earliest gospel and most likely to reflect who Jesus was before some of the more mythological elements were added to his story.

[dastardly stem]

If a number of the criteria count as part of mundane human lives, then how are they probative of a figure's non-historicity?

The point is exactly backwards, I think, of what you are thinking. It just so happens that those on the list of mythical characters. Thus taking Jesus off the list, it is likely anyone who does appear on the list, ranked high, is going to be mythical. These criteria do not define non-historicity. They just happen to be common elements of characters who many think have non-historicity.

I really don't want to get too hung up on this, but I may keep trying here a bit. The point was raised, by drumdude that it is likely that Jesus was a real person. The divine hero criteria aren't suggesting the criteria somehow define someone as a non-historic figure. It could very well be any high ranking character was a real historic person. Jesus could have been, if the data supported such an assertion. But as one data point, since no other characters ranked on the list, have historicity, it is likely that anyone so ranked will too be lacking historicity. This is a prior probability consideration...not a likelihood after evaluation of the data.

That's the only point in consideration. There is plenty of information to get to.

But I would like to make a point clear, because it appears I've confused things. And it may just sound like i'm repeating myself, but I'll suffer that risk.

Jesus, or Joshua, was a common enough name in the early first century, it is so likely there was a jew named Jesus who lived and died and no one recorded anything about him, its silly not to accept that there was a Jesus (indeed we have many stories of other Jesus', one such was talked about by Josephus being Jesus ben Ananias. Some have taken him to be our Jesus, or the person so mythologized, without much success). And it's possible that Mark, when he added to the story, as far as we can tell, the notion that there really was a Jesus person who lived, thought he could apply it to any Jesus who someone else had heard of, fine. But I don't know what that gets us in terms of the question did Jesus live? Did someone live in the early first century? Yes. Of course. Did one of those who so lived, get named Joshua? Sure. But if there's agreement suggesting the stories told about Jesus are myth, for the most part--like he likely didn't heal a blind man by spitting on him, nor raise Lazarus from the dead, nor was born of a virgin, nor was resurrected, nor taught many odd parables. Then I'm not sure what would be the point of saying Jesus lived. I think minimally we'd have to see that there was a Jew named Jesus, who taught a revolutionizing form of religion amongst early Jews and gained a following, causing quite a stir. We'd need something to show that Paul, for instance, the earliest Christian writer, had someone other than a cosmic Jesus in mind. He doesn't speak of Jesus' teachings at all. He doesn't mention a life of Jesus. He doesn't say he knows anyone who knew a Jesus. All he knows is by revelation. On Paul, with perhaps some disputed odd and ambiguous passages, we have no Jesus having lived on earth. And we have no record of anyone like a Jesus before Paul. Not from Christian sources nor from non-Christian sources. It's really as if there was a religion that developed sometime, approximately in the early first century, wherein people believed in a cosmic Jesus, much like people believed in the many previous cosmic gods before, even dying and rising ones, and then quite soon after that period, someone, likely not named Mark, started the story that this cosmic character was at one time really a person on earth. That process had happened many times before.

If there were a Jesus who lived in the early first century who upset many people, even authorities for his out of this world teaching, we'd have to see something to show that is the case. If we assume there was a preaching Jesus who did not preach as the later gospels suggested but preached something of a Christian sort, gained a following, and that teaching continued with Peter then Paul, we'd have to see good evidence of that, I'd think. But we have nothing. We have nothing from Peter, and nothing from anyone before Paul. It's certainly possible there was a Jesus and everything that could be verifying evidence of him got destroyed. But that is simply an assumption. Just like it's an assumption to say there was likely a real Jesus and Peter then Paul carried out his teachings after he died.

I think it presents a tough question and a tough problem to deal with. But I think the data ends up in favor of the mythicist Jesus. But, granted, there's a long way to go to even get good consideration of that hypothesis. And we'll see. And I'd love to be shown how the position doesn't make the most sense, or where the arguments fail or are wrong.

[dastardly stem]

Hey Stem,

I saw your various comments that I believe came from Carrier (?) regarding the historicity of other figures v. Jesus. There are many such resources online that list the extant copies of written works referring related to various historical figures online. Some of them calculate how many such documents there are I used to use those years ago when the myth vs. historical topic was raised. Not on this board, though.

But yes, there's quite a lot of resources online with which to compare claims made by various author you are reading. You'll have to root through them to sort out which are reputable and which are not.

Thank you, Jersey.

[dastardly stem]

Just musing, here: I've not read any Carrier, but do I understand correctly that the argument is along the lines of "the more mythological elements attributed to a person, the less likely they are to have been historical"? If I'm wrong about that, I understand the following question is based on a strawman: if we accept Marcan priority and acknowledge that Mark omits several of the mythical elements present in subsequent accounts, aren't we left with the absurd conclusion that Jesus was more likely to be historical in c. 70ce than he was in (say) 120ce?

It seems to me that if I were to write a story about Richard Carrier raising the dead, that may tell you something about me but nothing at all about whether there is a historical Richard Carrier.

That's not the argument at all. The point regarding the more mythological elements attributed to a person is simply a point about setting a prior probability. If someone appears on that list its more likely they are mythologized then not, because those items on the list represent common elements in stories for those who already have been shown to be mythologized. It's a beginning point, not a post-evaluation ending point.

[dastardly stem]

The trouble I’m having with the ranking is that it doesn’t seem to focus on the right question. Wouldn’t we want to know the percentage of historical figures with high scores on the scale that represent real people? Maybe it’s addressed in the books.

But there weren't any historical figures who ranked on the scale above 50%. Even though we know some real people were mythologized after they died, I think Kish mentioned Alexander, for instance, he didn't make the top of the list.

The point of the list and the ranking is to help set a data point on a prior probability consideration. It's not meant to suggest the elements define a mythical person. It could be a real historic person could have made the list. It just so happens no confirmed cases of that had ever happened.

[Bret Ripley]

Bret, I can only count three, numbers one, five and six. I suppose you could try and force a few more but the fits are not good.

To be perfectly clear: I agree, huckelberry, and I indulged in a good deal of forcing to fluff up my count. I certainly wouldn't wish to defend the critical framework -- and I blush to use that term -- I used to try to get to 20.

[dastardly stem]

Not that it matters, but I'm having a helluva time getting Jesus up to 20 points. If I squint I may be able to get up to around 16 or 17, and even then I'm stretching a point or two by calling Joseph a "foster parent" and counting crucifixion as "mysterious." (I mean, what medical examiner worth her salt would just shrug after looking at the spear wound going up into the chest cavity? Even on television? Honestly.)

I get that. I mean the crucifxion isn't mysterious, what is mysterious is how the story applies to history. There are a lot of mysterious elements to it. Where did Jesus' body go? It appears Joseph of Arimathea came out of nowhere and feels like a mythical person....how could this have happened on passover? It seems like it was said afterward to place Jesus' sacrifice in place of passover.

I feel a little like I'm asking for help with the Sunday crossword, but the items I'm having the most trouble with are ...

8. We are told nothing of his childhood. If we can ignore the non-canonical infancy narratives, I'd be good with 'almost nothing.'

Great.

9. On reaching manhood he returns to his future kingdom. He would have still been a child when the fam returned from Egypt during the rule of Herod Archelaus (who was shown the door in 6ce). Or can we count his "return" as being to Jerusalem?

The return to Jerusalem would be the match here.

11. He reigns uneventfully (i.e., without wars or national catastrophe) Cool. Over what shall we say he reigned, and what is the period of that reign?

It's a good question. What was Jesus king of? What was his kingdom?

20. Before taking a throne or a wife, he battles and defeats a great adversary (such as a king, giant, dragon, or wild beast). I'm thinking about counting the calming of the sea, taking into account its mythical connotations, but then we'll need a stand-in for "throne" or "wife." But even letting the sea count as a dragon seems like a copout: let's face it, Jesus was no Davy Crockett. Who, come to think of it, would score several points on this list.

This would be his defeat of Satan after being tempted.

22. He marries a queen or princess related to his predecessor. If we count this one, then I don't see how we can't count the silly infancy narratives which means we lose #8. Oh, dear. Maybe I'd best stick with Sudoku.

This is where he comes up short.

Thanks, Bret. I certainly appreciate the consideration. It may be that Jesus shouldn't be ranked as high, although others contend he should be higher. The point is the list, even without him is a list of mythical figures. If he's on the list, even towards the bottom, he too then fits in the mythical figure motif. It doesn't mean he was mythical by the way. It would suggest he has common elements of others who were mythical figures, and yet later were also given stories as if they were real humans that lived at some point.

[dastardly stem]

Nicely done, BR! Yes. This list has always been a pretty poor fit for Jesus. The situation is even more problematic for mythicists if you take Mark as the earliest gospel and most likely to reflect who Jesus was before some of the more mythological elements were added to his story.

I'll get back to this. It's a good point. If you go strictly with Mark, I believe, Carrier suggests he'd have 14 elements on the list, which would still put him at the top. When he says 20, he's going with Matthew's account, which he gives reasoning for. As I said, I'll try and get back to that.