The Jesus Myth Part III

[honorentheos]

I said if Carrier's mythicist argument doesn't work, if we can ignore it then the situation remains that the burden for a real life Jesus still needs to be resolved. So, no. Indeed, the point raised on the Linda problem is an interesting one, but it likely won't hit those who are feeling settled on our overall question.

Stem, there are multiple threads pointing out that when it comes to history from antiquity, resolving the question isn't an option. At best, one has to establish probabilities. You know that, obviously, when it comes to discussing Carrier's methodology and books. But it seems you don't apply that understanding when confronting the varied methods used to investigate the question. Whether its from reviewing the historical context and outside source that are silent on the figure in question but corroborate what the sources have to say about the setting and context, or the problems with making the Gospel of Mark step one rather than an internal step in a progression that represents the process of mythologizing while being closest to the time claimed to be when Jesus live, further demanding all of the gospels be enfolded into one narrative to maintain Carrier's attempt to assign Jesus to reference class, the result is the same. You dismiss it with little evidence of actually having followed the argument. That is problematic for the discussion given your assertions are lacking internal demonstration of addressing those issues as well. This all maintains the impression of your argument as being uninterested in the topic of a historical Jesus and choosing instead to maintain boundaries limiting the discussion to what I refer to as Sunday School Jesus.

How many figures in the reference class of Rank-Ranglan mythotypes have a narrative history showing a progression of their mythologizing? How many have a specific historic context within their narratives that align with the time period and narrow geographical-political environment where they were supposed to have lived? When one wishes to investigate King Arthur, for example, where does one start in outside sources not specifically describing the world of King Arthur but are instead works on the time and place of Camelot when one investigates the historical context where the stories fit?

Honor:

What stem is doing wrong with the Linda problem is pretending the myth-only postulate is Prob=A and not Prob=A+B.

It should be clear I m not pretending anything. That's not the case. Also, it just so happens everyone's agreed myth is prob=A. The result of Mark is a mythologized character. I haven't seen anyone dispute that.. there's no plus to that point.

Yes, there is. There are two in this thread and Res pointed them out. They are:

A) The Gospels and Epistles of Paul describe a mythological Jesus.
B1) There is a historical figure behind those myths.
B2) The Jesus myths do not describe a historical person but instead demonstrate an attempt to situate the mythological Jesus into a historical context.

A+B.

Keep in mind on this point I'm dropping the argument for mythicism as argued by Carrier and am strictly focusing on mark's gospel. Marks gospel gives us a myth. Based on Mark as preamble it simply is more likely Jesus is myth than Jesus is myth plus was a real person. That's simply how the conjunction dilemma works. Everyone wants the homunculous who's shouting in our heads to be right.

No, it's not. You keep ignoring the argument from history that situates the figure in the Gospel of Mark, mythologized as they are, into a historical context that one either accepts as evidence for their having been a historical person behind the myths or one demands we accept the author of Mark worked pretty hard to situate his myth making into a particular historical context.

You are pretending your argument is more simple than it is because it dismisses critical methodologies for investigating these kinds of questions.

It's pretty fundamental. The kind of fundamental issue that presents major red flags for taking the source that seriously. When that source is a lengthy book, it makes the investment in time seem like attack on someone's limited resources.

Admittedly I don't know what I did or what happened for honor to hold onto something from 10 years ago but I'm sure I did plenty wrong. I apologize and hope we can move on from that.

You didn't do anything wrong in that sense. It's just interesting to me that the "aw shucks" defender of the LDS faith is using the same "aw shucks, historical method is wrong about there being a historical Jesus" approach to this argument. I imagine this means you need time and to get away from the defense of a position to be able to actually take in the information being presented and digest it. That's cool. It just means the effort in this thread is working counter to any real productive end other than as a venue for laying out the debate. But after three threads one would think we've got that covered, no?

[dastardly stem]

Yes, there is. There are two in this thread and Res pointed them out. They are:

A) The Gospels and Epistles of Paul describe a mythological Jesus.
B1) There is a historical figure behind those myths.
B2) The Jesus myths do not describe a historical person but instead demonstrate an attempt to situate the mythological Jesus into a historical context.

A+B.

The homunculus is squealing in your ear, I see. Saying the story is a myth does not suggest there is a historical person or not. It's a straight statement about probability. Is it more probable that Jesus is myth (notice in that statement there is nothing about whether he is a historical person or not). Or is it more probable Jesus is myth and is a historical person.

You keep, apparently, wanting the second statement to be more likely or just as likely as the first all because you continue to want to suggest the first really is saying the myth suggests something about whether Jesus is historical or not. You are trying to change my whole point, for some odd reason. It was my point you've confused and are trying to change.

I get you want to evaluate something other than what I've said, but that's not really dealing with the point of my reference to the conjunction dilemma.

No, it's not. You keep ignoring the argument from history that situates the figure in the Gospel of Mark, mythologized as they are, into a historical context that one either accepts as evidence for their having been a historical person behind the myths or one demands we accept the author of Mark worked pretty hard to situate his myth making into a particular historical context.

This particular point you're raising here has absolutely nothing to do with the Linda problem I raised. You're doing exactly as Gould suggests by appeasing the homunculus and exclaiming "read the description", as if reading the description gives us reason to think your conjunction is more probable.

No, the whole point is its more probable that Jesus is myth, given Mark, then it is to say Jesus is myth and was a historical person. I know. I can hear you say again, but you're ignoring the the argument from history that situates the figure in Mark intoa historical context. But in so doing you are simply doing as Gould and Pinker caution against...your homunculus has tricked you.

You are pretending your argument is more simple than it is because it dismisses critical methodologies for investigating these kinds of questions.

I'm certainly not pretending anything. I made a specific point when I raised the Linda problem. I've been responding to what seemed to be the misunderstanding on that particular point.

You didn't do anything wrong in that sense. It's just interesting to me that the "aw shucks" defender of the LDS faith is using the same "aw shucks, historical method is wrong about there being a historical Jesus" approach to this argument. I imagine this means you need time and to get away from the defense of a position to be able to actually take in the information being presented and digest it. That's cool. It just means the effort in this thread is working counter to any real productive end other than as a venue for laying out the debate. But after three threads one would think we've got that covered, no?

I'm sure it'll make no difference in the long run, for me to give you some advice, but it'd have been much better if you gave up your thing from 10 years ago a long time ago. It seems like your judgment from then is clouding things. And perhaps we're getting too condescending here.

[honorentheos]

Yes, there is. There are two in this thread and Res pointed them out. They are:

A) The Gospels and Epistles of Paul describe a mythological Jesus.
B1) There is a historical figure behind those myths.
B2) The Jesus myths do not describe a historical person but instead demonstrate an attempt to situate the mythological Jesus into a historical context.

A+B.

The homunculus is squealing in your ear, I see. Saying the story is a myth does not suggest there is a historical person or not. It's a straight statement about probability. Is it more probable that Jesus is myth (notice in that statement there is nothing about whether he is a historical person or not). Or is it more probable Jesus is myth and is a historical person.

You keep, apparently, wanting the second statement to be more likely or just as likely as the first all because you continue to want to suggest the first really is saying the myth suggests something about whether Jesus is historical or not. You are trying to change my whole point, for some odd reason. It was my point you've confused and are trying to change.

I get you want to evaluate something other than what I've said, but that's not really dealing with the point of my reference to the conjunction dilemma.

In the Linda problem the issue is due to people mistakenly thinking that if Linda is more probably a feminist, then even though it seems unlikely that she is a bank teller, if she is a bank teller it's more likely that she's a feminist one. The problem captures this by presenting the respondent with both separately and then combined. There is no objective answer, the problem is just intended to identify how logical a person is being and where the flaws in their thinking enter in. The logical argument that A = She is a feminist, and B = She is a bank teller have their own probability given by the respondents who then stumble logically because one's intuition is to assume her being a feminist is so probable it influences their prior assumption about her being a bank teller.

"Linda's probably not a bank teller. But if she is one, she's probably a feminist bank teller."

When presented logically, and the statements are reduced to variables, people more readily recognize the probability of statement A being true does not make statement B more likely to be true when they are added together.

Your continued issue is two fold. First, you keep assuming that statement A on which we all agree is, "Jesus is a myth." You are quite alone in that belief. The statement A with which we agree is, "The Jesus presented in the gospels is a myth." That's Sunday School Jesus. The historical Jesus, who is also present in the gospel in part and to varying degrees depending on author and manipulation of the text, is not Sunday School Jesus.

Mark can be both myth and contain valuable information on the historical Jesus. How do we filter that out? By using historical investigative methods. We have three threads on that.

And that brings us to the second statement being added to statement A. I think it is more probable that there was a historical Jesus. This is based on the nature of the evidence. Does it matter that this person is not the Jesus of the gospels who died, was resurrected, brought back people from the grave, and performed miracles? In a sense yes and in a sense no. It matters in that it affects how I view the value of the gospels, and I don't look to them for timeless truths regarding how to live, what happens after we die, or even if the events described in the gospels should be taken at face value. But in the other sense, no, it doesn't matter for similar reasons. My life is only marginally affected by this question because, as we've agreed, the Jesus in the gospels is mythical.

Your second statement you've assigned probability to, but seem in denial of the fact, is asking how probable it is that the authors of the sources on Jesus that we have made the effort to fabricate a contextualized Jesus in the correct time and geo-political environment for the claimed life of Jesus. From the perspective of historical investigation in antiquity, that's very unlikely. Again, see almost everything Symmachus shared in the first thread and much of the arguments put forward by Kishkumen across the many threads.

So among the many statements one could make regarding the information shared in the numerous threads we have three that are directly related to your invoking the LInda problem. They are as follows:

A: "The Jesus presented in the gospels is a myth."
B: "There was a historical Jesus."
C: "The authors of the sources on Jesus that we have made the effort to fabricate a contextualized Jesus in the correct time and geo-political environment for the claimed life of Jesus."

No one in this thread is disputing the "A" statement as presented is highly probable. "The Jesus presented in the gospels is a myth." But all parties in the thread have rated the probability of other statements quite differently. But whether you acknowledge it or not, you are rating the probability of all three in your interactions here.

To me, statement A is highly probable. Statement B is marginally probable, and statement C is very unlikely. Combining them, A+B remains marginally probable. Statement A+C remains very unlikely.

It appears to me that you are rating these statements as follows. A is highly probable. B is highly unlikely. C is "sure, whatever". When you combine them, your opinion of how highly likely statement A is to be true obliterates any potential for B to have any probability while C is elevated to necessarily becoming more probably true than not in order to maintain the probability of A.

In otherwords, Linda may not have made the effort to fabricate a contextualized Jesus in the correct time and geo-political environment for the claimed life of Jesus. But if she did, it was in an effort to present a mythical Jesus in the gospels.

[dastardly stem]

In the Linda problem the issue is due to people mistakenly thinking that if Linda is more probably a feminist, then even though it seems unlikely that she is a bank teller, if she is a bank teller it's more likely that she's a feminist one. The problem captures this by presenting the respondent with both separately and then combined. There is no objective answer, the problem is just intended to identify how logical a person is being and where the flaws in their thinking enter in. The logical argument that A = She is a feminist, and B = She is a bank teller have their own probability given by the respondents who then stumble logically because one's intuition is to assume her being a feminist is so probable it influences their prior assumption about her being a bank teller.

"Linda's probably not a bank teller. But if she is one, she's probably a feminist bank teller."

When presented logically, and the statements are reduced to variables, people more readily recognize the probability of statement A being true does not make statement B more likely to be true when they are added together.

Your continued issue is two fold. First, you keep assuming that statement A on which we all agree is, "Jesus is a myth." You are quite alone in that belief. The statement A with which we agree is, "The Jesus presented in the gospels is a myth." That's Sunday School Jesus. The historical Jesus, who is also present in the gospel in part and to varying degrees depending on author and manipulation of the text, is not Sunday School Jesus.

Mark can be both myth and contain valuable information on the historical Jesus. How do we filter that out? By using historical investigative methods. We have three threads on that.

And that brings us to the second statement being added to statement A. I think it is more probable that there was a historical Jesus.

And that alone is the issue I'm raising here. I've explained that a number of times. Yes you have a conjunction that lessens the probability. Gald we agree so far.

This is based on the nature of the evidence. Does it matter that this person is not the Jesus of the gospels who died, was resurrected, brought back people from the grave, and performed miracles? In a sense yes and in a sense no. It matters in that it affects how I view the value of the gospels, and I don't look to them for timeless truths regarding how to live, what happens after we die, or even if the events described in the gospels should be taken at face value. But in the other sense, no, it doesn't matter for similar reasons. My life is only marginally affected by this question because, as we've agreed, the Jesus in the gospels is mythical.

Your second statement you've assigned probability to, but seem in denial of the fact, is asking how probable it is that the authors of the sources on Jesus that we have made the effort to fabricate a contextualized Jesus in the correct time and geo-political environment for the claimed life of Jesus.

That Damned homunculus won't leave you. No, my point here has been clear and simple. The statements are:

Is Jesus myth

Or

Is Jesus myth and a historical person.

You keep thinking myth has something to do with the question of whether Jesus is a historical person. That's the conjunction you add and I don't. Remember on this point I'm dropping the myth only argument for a very specific reason you haven't caught onto. I mean at all. You keep dancing around trying to force something onto the point I raised all because you missed the point I raised.

From the perspective of historical investigation in antiquity, that's very unlikely. Again, see almost everything Symmachus shared in the first thread and much of the arguments put forward by Kishkumen across the many threads.

Damned homunculus has you trapped.

So among the many statements one could make regarding the information shared in the numerous threads we have three that are directly related to your invoking the LInda problem. They are as follows:

A: "The Jesus presented in the gospels is a myth."
B: "There was a historical Jesus."
C: "The authors of the sources on Jesus that we have made the effort to fabricate a contextualized Jesus in the correct time and geo-political environment for the claimed life of Jesus."

No one in this thread is disputing the "A" statement as presented is highly probable. "The Jesus presented in the gospels is a myth." But all parties in the thread have rated the probability of other statements quite differently. But whether you acknowledge it or not, you are rating the probability of all three in your interactions here.

To me, statement A is highly probable. Statement B is marginally probable, and statement C is unlikely. Combining them, A+B remains marginally probable. Statement A+C remains unlikely.

It appears to me that you are rating these statements as follows. A is highly probable. B is highly unlikely. C is probable. When you combine them, your opinion of how highly likely statement A is to be true obliterates any potential for B to have any probability while C is elevated to necessarily becoming more probably true in order to maintain the probability of A.

In otherwords, Linda may not have made the effort to fabricate a contextualized Jesus in the correct time and geo-political environment for the claimed life of Jesus. But if she did, it was in an effort to present a mythical Jesus in the gospels.

IT'S certainly good to see you get the Linda problem when applied to Linda. When I set aside the mythicist argument that Carrier employs and point out your conjunction, you run around in all sorts of circles to try and argue something else about how Carrier's argument is also a conjunction. Bro, I've already acknowledged that. And yet you can't help but repeat the pleas of your homunculus--"but its more likely that Jesus really lived....I mean it must be."

No, it's clearly more likely Jesus is a myth than Jesus is a myth plus a historical person.

My guess is you'll wish to repeat your contention about its more likely Jesus is a myth and historic than Jesus is myth and not historic, but you're arguing a straw man. I've already acknowledged that which you're arguing and you have continually misrepresented the point I've raised.

Don't get me wrong, this has been enjoyable. I like the exercise in logic. I also get you're really settled on the question for mythicism. Earlier you predicted that in 10 years I'll somehow grasp what appears to be your illogical, but I'm feeling interested to watch this all unfold. I'm guessing more and more will drop all the assumptions and admit the arguments are poor, the evidence is virtually nil and we have very little reason to accept your proposition. And yes, that is without even arguing gor the conjunction that Carrier's argument works.

[honorentheos]

In the Linda problem the issue is due to people mistakenly thinking that if Linda is more probably a feminist, then even though it seems unlikely that she is a bank teller, if she is a bank teller it's more likely that she's a feminist one. The problem captures this by presenting the respondent with both separately and then combined. There is no objective answer, the problem is just intended to identify how logical a person is being and where the flaws in their thinking enter in. The logical argument that A = She is a feminist, and B = She is a bank teller have their own probability given by the respondents who then stumble logically because one's intuition is to assume her being a feminist is so probable it influences their prior assumption about her being a bank teller.

"Linda's probably not a bank teller. But if she is one, she's probably a feminist bank teller."

When presented logically, and the statements are reduced to variables, people more readily recognize the probability of statement A being true does not make statement B more likely to be true when they are added together.

Your continued issue is two fold. First, you keep assuming that statement A on which we all agree is, "Jesus is a myth." You are quite alone in that belief. The statement A with which we agree is, "The Jesus presented in the gospels is a myth." That's Sunday School Jesus. The historical Jesus, who is also present in the gospel in part and to varying degrees depending on author and manipulation of the text, is not Sunday School Jesus.

Mark can be both myth and contain valuable information on the historical Jesus. How do we filter that out? By using historical investigative methods. We have three threads on that.

And that brings us to the second statement being added to statement A. I think it is more probable that there was a historical Jesus.

And that alone is the issue I'm raising here. I've explained that a number of times...

...That Damned homunculus won't leave you. No, my point here has been clear and simple. The statements are:

Is Jesus myth

Or

Is Jesus myth and a historical person.

You keep thinking myth has something to do with the question of whether Jesus is a historical person. That's the conjunction you add and I don't. Remember on this point I'm dropping the myth only argument for a very specific reason you haven't caught onto. I mean at all. You keep dancing around trying to force something onto the point I raised all because you missed the point I raised.

The argument you raise is that it is more probable that Jesus is purely mythological with no meaningful historical figure at its center. To make that claim, you have to account for the important historical contextual information in the accounts. And you have done so in this thread multiple times. The most explicit example was here:

If someone was going to write up a myth, a couple generations late, and yet that someone wanted to make it appears at least plausible that the myth really happened, then of course that someone is going to add details about a real historical person or legend. John the Baptist is a perfect fit for the myth. For the very reasons you mention here: "John the Baptist placed themselves in stark opposition to these corrupted ruling elites who left Judah to perish under the heel of Rome. John ends up being executed for being so outspoken..."

Remember Mark is writing his mythologized version of Jesus after the destruction. After stories are created based on the history. This simply does not, in any way, as I see it, evidence a real Jesus. It speaks simply to Mark writing into his account a story about a known historic figure who, likewise, was said to preach the type of thing Mark wanted a mythologized character to preach. Again on this, we're using the claim (Mark) as the evidence for the claim. It grows circular on such a position.

You've made parallel arguments throughout the thread. Other examples, but by no means an exhaustive account, include:

Sure, actual otherwise verified people were mythologized. But, it's also true that non historical people were included in myth. It feels like a bit of a wash to suggest everyone who concludes Jesus didn't likely exist are being daft because some mythologized characters have other reason to think they were historical, if there were also characters that are today not considered historical, but also had mythical tales written about them.

On history how where do we learn that Jesus lived?

Why starting in Mark's gospel of his life, of course.

How do we verify that Jesus lived, given that Mark's gospel is a mythologized account?

We squint at Mark's gospel real hard and look for clues that maybe he lived.

So the evidence that Jesus lived is found in the claim that a magical god-man lived? How do we verify the claims of Mark?

We assume it was based off of oral traditions passed to Mark because someone believed in something called christianity before Mark. Paul tells us that.

I'm still seeing a real lack of reason when it comes to the arguments for historicity.

This is your statement that the conjunction, "The Jesus presented in the gospels is a myth and the authors of the sources on Jesus that we have made the effort to fabricate a contextualized Jesus in the correct time and geo-political environment for the claimed life of Jesus." is more probable than the conjunction, "The Jesus presented in the gospels is a myth and there was a historical Jesus."

You may claim that you are merely arguing for A and others are arguing for a conjunction, but that's not the case. You are ignoring or rejecting the use of historical context in examining the question of historicity. That's a choice you are making, presumably because your preferred source Richard Carrier also does so. That's one of the major red flag issues with Carrier when he gets cited and defended.

And that's really what seems to be why the discussion always stalls out and feels entrenched. Historical context matters. An author inserting verisimilitude into myth-making of an otherwise fictional account is remarkable. It's unlikely to occur based on what we observe. When the trained historians engage the topic on these threads, there's a reason this becomes the focal point and issue. It seems you dismiss it so casually you sincerely believe you aren't making a statement of probability regarding its presence in the texts.

""Aw, shucks, history ain't nothin'. Pep pep."

[honorentheos]

To further make the point that this is a lingering problem from very early on, here are a few more quotes from the older thread:

If someone created a myth about another person, they could very well include, even without trying real hard, some elements evidencing some level of accuracy about the time in place in question. If I create a story about an Agbittle, as being a god, and say he was executed by Hitler, I could easily include, without much focused effort, many elements that some people centuries later might recognize as fitting into the context of Hitler's Germany. But I'm far removed from Hitler's Germany in time and space.

Because you're not an inhabitant of the ancient Mediterranean and don't think the way people in ancient Mediterranean cultures thought. It's your lack of awareness of the historical context coming through again. (I don't claim to be an expert by any means, but I have some idea of how big the gulf is between ancient cultures and modern ones, and I'm willing to listen to people who understand those cultures better than I do.)

The way people invent a story in one culture will not be the same that people invent it in another, so if we are claiming it was invented in culture X, the manner of its invention should match what we know of story invention in that culture. The process of inventing a story has to happen within certain acceptable parameters in order to establish a threshold of plausibility for that story. Those parameters and that threshold of plausibility are culturally specific. For example, if somebody today were going to invent a story set in antiquity, they would know that, in order to establish its plausibility, they would have to get the historical context right. If there were anachronisms, that would be a sign that it was made up and it would lose its plausibility. This is why I can't accept the Book of Mormon. But for many early readers of that book, the horizon of plausibility was very different, and for modern Mormons it's different still (basically, you just have to feel good about it while reading it).

Story invention in antiquity also had thresholds of plausibility that any story-inventor had to meet. Lack of anachronisms was not one of them. For one thing, the conception of massive cultural change over time is not something that existed as it does for us, and history was viewed cyclically rather than linearly, so anachronism did not pose problems and thus did not diminish plausibility. As a result, modern historians can detect when a story might be invented in an otherwise sober text from antiquity because they can track the anachronisms (Ammianus Marcellinus's Gallic excursus is a great example). We should therefore expect a made up story to contain a host of anachronisms, but the gospels contain very few and these are not wild anachronisms (which actually helps us date them relative to each other and relative to other events). Adding accurate historical details would not help meet the threshold of plausibility, since anachronism was irrelevant.

And you keep quoting Symmachus with the time element included. His whole argument relied on the difference between first and second century. I know Kish and you think we can take it to mean if someone in the first century wrote myth it wouldn't include accuracies as well as the gospels do. But it's a point I have to move on from. I don't think there's much substance to the point.

This is stem taking a position on statement C in our more accurate use of the Linda Problem that forms the conjunctive dismissal of historical evidence and historical methodology as improbable, even if historical methodologies may otherwise be safe when applied to other subjects other than that of the historical Jesus.

Pep. Pep.

[Res Ipsa]

Stem, I’m still seeing equivocation. To test, what do you mean when you say “Jesus is myth.”

[Kishkumen]

Where is there a Jesus who is all myth and no real person? At what point was Jesus ever presented as someone who never lived a human existence?

[dastardly stem]

Honor, you are insisting that when I say I'm dropping the Carrier mythisicit argument at this point (to make a different point) and then present the conjunction dilemma, that I must go back and infuse Carrier's mythicist argument back in. That's just silly. I've explained myself enough and it appears you'll insist an illogical move must be made anyway. Sounds like we've exhausted that to me.

I do want to add, I very much agree that Carrier's argument remains largely untouched by posters here. And am not convinced as you are that the matter is settled. But since we've been over a few things and it hasn't gotten very far. I'm happy with what's been said. I'd say, let's leave it all in the Context inwhich it played out.

Res ipsa:

Stem, I’m still seeing equivocation. To test, what do you mean when you say “Jesus is myth.”

Simply that. Nothing more or less. Are you asking what myth means?

But you've made the accusation I'd like to see what your compliant is. Here's the position I've posited yet again:

Given the story in Mark:

Is it more likely Jesus is myth

Or

Jesus is myth plus a real person?

This is fairly simple and once one is aware of the Linda problem it's a pretty easy answer. How is there possibly any equivocation in that?

Kishkumen:

Where is there a Jesus who is all myth and no real person? At what point was Jesus ever presented as someone who never lived a human existence?

That's not really part of this. Mark presents a myth, everyone agrees. Whether one really wants to say something like "well, Mark says this Jesus really lived" doesn't really play. That's called the homunculus screaming" re-read the description--marks claiming he really lived."

It's simply true that a conjunction is less likely than the base claim.

[Res Ipsa]

It looks like there is equivocation in the use of the word “myth.” In number 1, what is the precise meaning of “myth?”