{"id":3015,"date":"2021-04-25T14:48:10","date_gmt":"2021-04-25T14:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/?p=3015"},"modified":"2021-04-25T14:48:12","modified_gmt":"2021-04-25T14:48:12","slug":"should-we-assume-jesus-was-historical-the-mythvision-carrier-mcdonald-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/?p=3015","title":{"rendered":"Should We Assume Jesus Was Historical? The Mythvision Carrier-McDonald Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dennis MacDonald and I have discussed the question of Jesus\u2019s historicity many times over the years. These are among the most important kinds of discussions to have, as MacDonald isn\u2019t a Christian apologist and actually agrees the Gospels are almost entirely mythographical and not works of history. So we can cut past most of the baloney and get right to brass tacks: what\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0can we say about a historical Jesus when all we have about him is mythology and theology? I have written about this before: in\u00a0Historicity News<\/a>, regarding MacDonald\u2019s brief discussion of the historicity question in his book\u00a0Two Shipwrecked Gospels<\/a><\/em>; and analyzing our first debate on the\u00a0PineCreek<\/a>\u00a0channel in\u00a0Is Jesus Wholly or Only Partly a Myth? The Carrier-MacDonald Exchange<\/a>. And now, recently, we engaged in a reprise on the\u00a0Mythvision<\/a>\u00a0channel in\u00a0Did Jesus Exist: Dr. Richard Carrier vs. Dr. Dennis R. MacDonald \u2013 Mythicist vs Historicist<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Richard Carrier, PhD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald maintains historicity in spite of his (unwarrantedly controversial) minimalist stance on the Gospels\u2014a stance that, IMO, is substantially correct; not only in his identification of Evangelical transvaluation of Greco-Roman literature<\/a>, but also his notion of the same with respect to the Greco-Jewish Septuagint<\/a>. I don\u2019t agree with every detail or instance of his claims in these regards, but I am sure he is right on the overall model of what the Gospel authors were doing: taking story models from both the Jewish scriptures and<\/em> pagan literature and \u201crewriting them\u201d into \u201cbetter\u201d stories about Jesus, with the intent of culturally replacing them. We both agree the Gospels are fundamentally mythical<\/em> texts (see my demonstration of this in Chapter 10 of On the Historicity of Jesus<\/a><\/em>). So how can MacDonald be so sure there even was a Jesus? What makes Jesus more arguably historical than any other mythical hero, from Moses to Osiris to Hercules? That\u2019s what we talked about, and our discussion ranged across both factual questions as well as methodological. All of it interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part One: Gnosticism?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

After I summarized my position, MacDonald launched the discussion with a question (near the end of minute 17): \u201cWhat [do] you understood to have happened, in the Pauline context, of what you call \u2018the revelatory Jesus\u2019 and [do] you find any support for that view in the Christian Gnostic texts?\u201d I more or less answered that I do not believe Gnosticism was ever really a thing (see Gnosticism Didn\u2019t Exist<\/a>), and I use none of their texts in my analysis in OHJ<\/em> because they are all late and derivative (even the Ascension of Isaiah<\/em>, should one even consider that \u201cGnostic\u201d in some sense, though in its earliest likely redaction a rare case of an actually independent text, barely featured in my probability calculations<\/a>); and that the \u201creligion\u201d of Christianity began when Peter (Cephas) had a vision or dream (or claimed to) in which an archangel appeared to him calling itself Jesus and expounding the gospel, after which more \u201capostles\u201d (eventually to include Paul) had the same revelation (or said they did) in order to claim their own leadership positions in the Church\u2014as those \u201csent by\u201d this celestial Lord Jesus (the meaning<\/a> of the word apostle<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald was stymied. I think he expected me to cite the Gnostics in support of my thesis, as they were less hostile to the idea of revelation as a source of knowledge than the Orthodoxists were (here using \u201cOrthodoxist\u201d only in the political, not the literal, sense, as I define it in OHJ<\/a><\/em>, p. 64). Because MacDonald wanted to point out that \u201cthose Gnostics,\u201d and he singled out the views represented in the early medieval manuscripts recovered at Nag Hammadi, \u201cdon\u2019t deny that Jesus was a historical person, but rather that it\u2019s like you said, that Jesus takes on a human form,\u201d like, wears a fake body, but still interacting in Earth history (he here seems to mean Docetism, not Gnosticism; though Docetism has a similar problem<\/a>). But as I had noted, all \u201cGnostic\u201d texts he could possibly mean are in fact late derivations from the canonical Gospels and teachings, and MacDonald quite agreed. So they are on the wrong side of \u201chistorical causality\u201d here: they are a product of the historicizing pedigree, not a predecessor to it. So they are of no use in reconstructing the origins of Christianity. Anything we find earlier<\/em> than that (from 1 Clement to the Ascension of Isaiah<\/em>) conspicuously lacks<\/em> any clear references to a historical Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, even the earliest polemics against<\/em> what MacDonald might mean (i.e. extant responses to texts we have no examples of because they were all destroyed, long before anything at Nag Hammadi was written) seem to indicate their opponents then<\/em> were denying<\/em> historicity (claiming Gospel stories of Jesus meeting people and doing things on Earth were mythical), not affirming it. See my analysis in Jesus from Outer Space<\/a><\/em> of Ignatius (and 2 Peter) as the earliest known examples of such attacks (pp. 160-63); attacks on sects of Christianity so early we have barely any other evidence of them but this (though I go more into 2 Peter elsewhere<\/a>; cf. OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Chapter 8.12).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald then cites (around minute 22) an old blog article by atheist historian of Christianity R. Joseph Hoffmann<\/a>, titled \u201cControversy, Mythicism, and the Historical Jesus\u201d<\/a> (2012), as somehow crediting to me a reliance on (or indeed even misinterpretation of!) so-called \u201cGnostic\u201d Gospels. But as I then noted, that was written two whole years before I even published my mythicist thesis\u2014and the same year but still before I published my methodological treatise, Proving History<\/a><\/em>\u2014so it can\u2019t in any way be responding to anything I actually said or wrote on this subject. It\u2019s the other way around: my peer reviewed books Proving History<\/a><\/em> and On the Historicity of Jesus<\/a><\/em> are the refutation<\/em> of articles like Hoffmann\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also noted to MacDonald that this is when Hoffmann had started going insane<\/a> and was writing delusional articles like this in which he attributed to me weird things I never said, citing books of mine that aren\u2019t about or even posit mythicism and don\u2019t discuss \u201cGnostic\u201d Gospels at all. Contrary to Hoffmann\u2019s dribbling insanity, Not the Impossible Faith<\/a><\/em> (the only book he cites as supposedly saying any of the things I didn\u2019t say) actually assumes Jesus existed<\/em>. That Bart Ehrman made the same weird mistake<\/a> in his book Did Jesus Exist?<\/a><\/em> tells me two things: (1) Ehrman also<\/em> never read Not the Impossible Faith<\/em> (and I have further evidence<\/a> confirming that) and (2) Ehrman must have instead read Hoffmann and only gullibly trusted that lunatic to correctly describe the contents of Not the Impossible Faith<\/em>\u2014rather than actually reading anything I actually wrote on the matter. Welcome to the world of historicity apologetics<\/a>. Even secular scholars are acting like this. There is a reason I had to write How to Successfully Argue Jesus Existed (or Anything Else in the World)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, around minute 24, MacDonald sidetracks into quoting Hoffmann accusing mythicists of \u201cnot understand[ing] the complexity of the literature and its context\u201d (which he provided no examples of, and which cannot apply to me, as any such defects would have been flagged by peer review and corrected), of being \u201cheavily influenced by conspiracy theories, that are even more incredible than the story they\u2019re trying to debunk\u201d (which he provided no examples of, and which cannot apply to me, as my peer reviewed thesis carefully rejects all conspiracy-style theories and relies on none: OHJ<\/a><\/em>, index, \u201cconspiracy theories\u201d\u2014yes, that\u2019s even in the index), and of \u201ctrying to merely be outrageous \u2026 which,\u201d MacDonald added as an aside (referring to me), \u201cyou have been accused of\u201d (which he again provided no examples of; MacDonald\u2019s accusation of my insincerity here was itself, ironically, insincere). But not a single one of these points has any relevance to my thesis and thus were all mere time-wasting non sequiturs in this discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Hoffmann\u2019s claim that \u201cthe idea that Jesus never existed requires the concoction of a myth more incredible than anything found in the Bible\u201d was simply never proved, here or anywhere, by Hoffmann or MacDonald, as I went on to point out. Indeed, Hoffmann\u2019s rant that MacDonald here repeated was solely about my book Not the Impossible Faith<\/em>, which contained no arguments for mythicism at all<\/em> (much less any of these that MacDonald references Hoffmann complaining about). That\u2019s how off the tracks of reality Hoffmann was by then. I\u2019m quite certain he was literally insane when he wrote that article. The only relevance all this could possibly have here, as I pointed out, is to bracket out the actual<\/em> conspiracy-mongering amateurs who try to push genuinely implausible mythicist theories. But as I\u2019m not one of them, this just wasted clock time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part Two: Q?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Around minute 23 MacDonald says he chose Hoffmann as a launching point because he\u2019s an atheist, thus showing \u201cthere\u2019s no necessary connection between\u201d atheism and mythicism, a conclusion with which I have long agreed<\/a> (it\u2019s even explicitly stated in my preface to OHJ<\/a><\/em>, xi-xiv). And Hoffmann also argues, in effect, that, as MacDonald puts it around minute 24, \u201cThe Gospels retain a stubborn historical view of Jesus,\u201d preserving \u201creliable information about his life and teachings\u201d that was not \u201cengulfed by any of the conditions under which they were composed.\u201d That has of course long been MacDonald\u2019s thesis<\/em>, but I have refuted it multiple<\/a> times now<\/a>. It simply isn\u2019t true. There is no information in the Gospels about Jesus that we have any good reason to trust is authentic. And in this exchange, oddly, MacDonald did not even list any (see my discussion of his previous lists<\/a>). He decided to argue a different tack this time, something to the effect that \u201cQ existed; some of its contents cannot be explained but as history; ergo Jesus has some real history,\u201d albeit MacDonald admits, so little real history as to be of little comfort to historians who want to reconstruct a biography of the man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, I mentioned the argument MacDonald was alluding to, as it derives from Hoffmann as well, and I framed it as a kind of Argument from Real People<\/a>, e.g. \u201cpersons said to have named siblings and to have come from obscure towns usually existed, ergo Jesus probably existed,\u201d and pointed out the premise is simply false: \u201cif you pick any mythical person\u2014Osiris, Romulus, Dionysus, Moses\u2014they all have the same things written about them; they have named siblings, or they have weird towns they come from,\u201d or both, and so on. So \u201cthere\u2019s no valid argument\u201d here. Mythical people often have mythical siblings; that\u2019s normal, indeed particularly in Jewish myth-tradition. It therefore cannot be evidence someone existed. Likewise the obscurity of any town they might be said to come from; even if the town existed. Proculus, the witness to the glorious resurrection and gospel of Romulus, is said to have hailed from Alba Longa<\/a>, a real but rather obscure mountain town near Rome. Nevertheless Proculus almost certainly never existed: his name, a derivation of Latin words at the root of the English word \u201cproclamation,\u201d describes what he does in the myth, a dead giveaway for a made-up person. So this is simply a dead-end as arguments go. I really don\u2019t understand why any historian would keep attempting to use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any event, MacDonald breaks into his new Argument from Q around minute 30. \u201cAs you know,\u201d he reminds me (and the audience), \u201cI\u2019m a big believer in Q; and the Q document is extremely important,\u201d if it existed, \u201cbecause it rivals in time the authentic Pauline epistles,\u201d though he admits \u201cit\u2019s difficult to date some of this stuff,\u201d and all he can affirm really is that \u201cit certainly is independent\u201d of the Gospel of Mark, which forms half of the structure of all subsequent Gospels in the canon, the other half supposedly going back to this hypothesized \u201cQ\u201d document. Which he just admitted he can\u2019t even date with any certainty (in Two Shipwrecked Gospels<\/em> MacDonald argues it must predate Mark because he thinks Mark was aware of it, but his arguments on these points are highly conjectural; and \u201cbefore Mark\u201d does not entail \u201cin the time of Paul\u201d anyway, not least because we cannot fix a secure date for Mark either, only that it\u2019s at least a decade or more after Paul, who we do know wrote in the 50s). Everything after this point argues from suppositions and conjectures MacDonald reaches in his book Two Shipwrecked Gospels<\/em> about the specific content of Q that in my opinion are highly uncertain or even outright doubtful\u2014even if Q existed<\/em>. And I am fairly certain it did not<\/a>. (Dennis MacDonald and Mark Goodacre have since debated Q on the MythVision channel<\/a> as well, though I have not had time to view it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on MacDonald\u2019s conjectured reconstruction of the contents of Q, \u201cJesus is clearly nothing more than a mortal, who is selected at his baptism to be God\u2019s agent, primarily to be a new Moses\u201d and \u201cchange Jewish law, to make it more compassionate,\u201d so \u201chis primary opponents are not Gnostics\u201d (needless to say, IMO\u2014as Gnostics didn\u2019t exist) and \u201cthey\u2019re not Judaizers\u201d (obviously, as it is Q<\/em> that would be promoting<\/em> the Judaizing sect of Christianity, not opposing it) but \u201care simply Pharisees who load up legal burdens on people and make life unbearable,\u201d by which MacDonald must mean Shamaites<\/a>, a sect of and not simply the Pharisees. What he means by Q is principally Matthew; MacDonald conjectures we should add a few things from Luke, and a bit of Mark, maybe subtract some things Matthew adds to Mark, but the vast bulk of his or any Q is basically what Matthew added to Mark. But the character of Jesus in that \u201ctext\u201d espouses what are in most respects really the views of the Hillelites<\/a>, who were<\/em> also<\/em> Pharisees (OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Element 33, pp. 175-77); which is how we know this is all fiction: what Matthew depicts simply isn\u2019t how those conversations would actually have gone had they ever actually happened (Jesus from Outer Space<\/a><\/em>, pp. 129-31). Matthew\u2019s Jesus is<\/em> a Pharisee, not their opponent. He just represents the liberal (and generally predominating) wing of the Pharisee movement of the era (the very one that evolved into modern Rabbinicalism).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Matthew\/Q created a fake story, with a fake, ahistorical character, interacting with fake, ahistorical opponents, to espouse a particular point of view at the nexus of nascent (Petrine) Christianity (possibly descending from Essenism) and Hillellite Phariseeism, none of which making any sense in an early-first-century Palestinian context. To the contrary it is most definitely a fiction aimed at the Greco-Jewish Diaspora, e.g. as Dale Allison shows vis-a-vis the late invention of the Sermon on the Mount (more on which in a moment, but for my summary: OHJ<\/a><\/em>, pp. 465-72). A document that is manifest fiction, inventing a character who argues and interacts with the world in a manifestly fictional way, cannot be used<\/em> to support that character\u2019s historicity. This is the central, fatal problem with MacDonald\u2019s thesis here. It\u2019s self-refuting. Q (if it existed) cannot<\/em> evince the historicity of its central, made-up character, as they are just a mythical avatar for an ideology\u2014the ideology espoused by its authors. The character of Jesus is there just a puppet for someone else\u2019s point of view. Exactly as Moses was<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald didn\u2019t really have an answer to this, which I raised at various points throughout our discussion. His position thus doesn\u2019t really make much sense. Instead, he leaned on the non sequitur that this rules out a revelatory origin of the cult because \u201cthere\u2019s nothing in [MacDonald\u2019s idea of the] Q document to suggest that there was a revelation to anybody about Jesus as a pre-existent being.\u201d But that\u2019s also true of Mark. That\u2019s the point of these myths<\/em>. Just as I explain in OHJ<\/em> and JFOS<\/em>. This is what was done for every other revelatory savior:<\/em> the \u201crevelatory\u201d origin of their cult is erased or concealed and replaced with a tale about them once having been a historical person. This is what happened to Romulus (the \u201chistoricized\u201d avatar of the celestial Quirinus), as well as Osiris, Dionysus, Hercules, even Zeus; likewise (in relevant respects) John Frum and Tom Navy (OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Element 29, pp. 159-63). So it cannot follow<\/em> that doing the same to Jesus rules out a revelatory origin. This is simply how Euhemerization operated at that time (OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Element 45, p. 222; see Euhemerization Means Doing What Euhemerus Did<\/a>). So the absence of the original founding story of the cult in their myths is not relevant. Its absence from that myth was the point of the myth<\/em>. That is in fact what makes it a myth<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By analogy, the Pentateuch \u201ccompletely omits\u201d any mention of a bunch of rabbis making up all its Law codes and stories promoting them, and fabricating a Moses to have received them on a mountain from God, to act as a fictional mouthpiece and invented authority for them. That is in no way evidence against that being nevertheless in fact exactly what happened. That the made-up tales of Moses don\u2019t mention their being made-up is not evidence for the historicity of Moses. Nor can it be for Jesus. That\u2019s to completely misunderstand the entire concept of myth. Myths conceal and allegorize realities; they do not plainly state them. Thus when MacDonald says Jesus in his reconstruction of Q is actually \u201ccompared to Moses, to Ezekial and to Isaiah, all of whom [the author] and his readers would have assumed were historical characters,\u201d he misses the irony: Moses is a fictional character invented for exactly the same purpose and in exactly the same way as Jesus\u2014yet also believed by these same readers and writers to be historical. Thus that Jesus is the new Moses sooner argues Jesus is just as made-up as Moses, and in the same ways, and for the same reasons. Likewise, just as the mythical Aesop\u2019s biography was fabricated to emulate the historical Socrates (OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Element 46, pp. 222-25), the mythical Jesus\u2019s biography was fabricated to emulate historical prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel as well as<\/em> nonhistorical prophets like Moses and Elijah (or at least Moses; I\u2019m less certain Elijah is mythical, but the evidence for his historicity is not strong).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More pertinent is MacDonald\u2019s insistence that his reconstruction of \u201cQ\u201d does not mention anything \u201cabout salvation,\u201d that \u201cpeople believing in Jesus can be saved,\u201d but is solely concerned with worldly reforms to Jewish law. He is thus implying Q does not even derive from Paul\u2019s sect or evidently even Peter\u2019s, but some earlier<\/em> hypothetical Christian sect nowhere in evidence that had not yet even invented any of the pre-Pauline creeds (1 Corinthians 15<\/a>, Philippians 2<\/a>, Romans 1<\/a>)\u2014which means Q\u2019s content predates even Christianity<\/em> as we understand it (a conclusion MacDonald explicitly affirms around minute 35). This is about as wildly radical a thesis as one can propose; yet there is simply no evidence for it. Not only because MacDonald\u2019s reconstruction of Q is just a conjecture and not actual evidence<\/em>, making this a circular argument\u2014if all Q is are Matthew\u2019s additions to Mark, changed up by Luke, then MacDonald\u2019s thesis is dead in the water; that the Sermon on the Mount has been proved to be post-Pauline, for example, is fatal to MacDonald\u2019s theory here, so one has to circularly assume<\/em> Matthew\u2019s additions originated apart from expanding the skeleton of Mark\u2019s story in order to argue that they originated apart from expanding the skeleton of Mark\u2019s story\u2014but also because a Deuteronomy-inspired rumination on the gospel\u2019s implications for the Jewish Law (as MacDonald proposes this added material is), using the vehicle of a fictional Jesus as the new Moses, cannot even in principle be evidence its authors did not also<\/em> adopt the pre-Pauline salvation creeds and accept Jesus as their savior (the only form of Christianity there is any actual<\/em> evidence of). Just because they wrote a treatise on the Law does not mean they rejected the fundamental soteriological tenets defining Christianity. MacDonald\u2019s argument is thus a non sequitur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s all the worse that we have seen case after case of \u201crewriting\u201d an old story with a new character. The Letter of Eugnostos<\/a><\/em> becomes a speech from Jesus in the Sophia of Jesus Christ<\/a><\/em>; tales about Elijah become tales about Jesus<\/a>; sayings of Paul become sayings and parables of Jesus<\/a>; tales told of Greek heroes in Homer become tales told of Roman heroes in Virgil; Amphion and Zethus<\/a> are rewritten to be Romulus and Remus. We cannot know where the Deuteronomic material in Matthew came from or that it was even about a character named Jesus (much less the Christian\u2019s Jesus): inserting the name Jesus, having him<\/em> say and do that stuff, may be the Christian cooptation of a prior, purely Jewish wisdom writing that was never even written by or for Christians originally, or about anyone named Jesus. Of course I personally think this is all just Matthew, definitely a Jesus-saves-style Christian, making all this up about Jesus, attributing to Jesus all this \u201cMoses perfecting\u201d wisdom that is actually just the collated ideas of Matthew or his community (which then gets changed up and redacted by Luke). But if we are to suppose Matthew is somehow \u201cgetting this stuff\u201d from somewhere else, we have no way to know where or what changes Matthew made or what he added or left out<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, we cannot say that that source text was even Christian (such that the name \u201cJesus\u201d throughout was only added by Matthew, or was originally meant as the ancient Joshua and the historical context simply updated by Matthew). And we cannot say it omitted anything\u2014because we do not have it<\/em>. So we actually don\u2019t know that it didn\u2019t frame the salvific role of Jesus in much the same or similar ways as Mark had, or indeed that Mark\u2019s soteriological material didn\u2019t come from this very document<\/em>. MacDonald\u2019s attempt to exclude Markan material not fitting his thesis from his reconstruction of Q is fallaciously circular, as becomes obvious when you compare his thesis to the more obvious one Ockham\u2019s Razor leads us to: that everything Matthew adds to Mark was made up by Matthew<\/em>, and thus Luke\u2019s \u201csource\u201d for that material is, in fact, Matthew:<\/em> a text that fully incorporated Markan soteriology! It would be fallacious to argue Matthew \u201cmust have\u201d omitted that material because it\u2019s all in Mark; because we have Matthew: we know he didn\u2019t omit that material<\/em>. We thus cannot say anything differently about any hypothetical Q. Because as far as this point goes, there is no relevant difference between Matthew and Q\u2014other than that we have<\/em> Matthew, and thus can check the validity of our conjectures against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We thus can\u2019t even get MacDonald\u2019s convoluted, multiply-circular argument for historicity off the ground, much less flying. It is conjecture stacked atop conjecture backed by circular premises, all to end up with nothing more than a non sequitur. I\u2019m not impressed by this. When arguments for historicity have to get this obscure, elaborate, and tenuously built atop systems of unprovable conjectures and suppositions, we really should give up the business. No real person\u2019s existence needs such bizarre efforts to defend it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part Three: Paul?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPaul,\u201d MacDonald claims, \u201chas no obligation to say anything about the historical Jesus\u201d because he wants to push a singular innovation (about the now-celestial Jesus \u201cnewly\u201d deciding Gentiles can join the sect without<\/a> converting to Judaism). That\u2019s quite false; in fact, thoroughly indefensible. That lone innovation of Paul\u2019s in no way entails he would or even could avoid mentioning or discussing historical facts about Jesus. I\u2019ve quite conclusively refuted such assertions already in OHJ<\/a><\/em> (Chapter 11) so I hardly need revisit the matter. I show there that Paul repeatedly has need and opportunity to discuss and mention facts about the historical Jesus and what he said and did and how anyone knew any of it, not least to defend<\/em> his own novel positions against his opponents citing just such things against him, but even as well to support<\/em> his own teachings, which were not all the singular innovation he introduced\u2014Paul\u2019s letters are full of defending and explaining the same positions as the original Apostles, where referencing facts about Jesus, things Jesus said, and sources regarding them, would all be invaluable and unavoidable. It is thus very, very strange<\/em> that Paul never does this (nor 1 Clement or Hebrews or 1 Peter or James, all also plausibly Pauline-era writings that also<\/em> seem just as oddly to have no knowledge of a historical Jesus: OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Chapters 8.5, 11.3, and 11.5). And there is no avoiding the mathematical consequences of an oddity so unusual in our earliest source material. One simply has to face the arguments I have marshaled to this point in Chapter 11 of OHJ<\/em>. There can be no gainsaying them with mere hand-waving. That\u2019s apologetics, not history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald repeated this baseless and already-refuted assertion again in the second hour, around minute 26 there, insisting \u201cthere was no one in [Paul\u2019s] congregations, as far as we know, who was denying that Jesus was a human being\u201d and therefore \u201che had no reason to talk about the historical Jesus.\u201d That\u2019s a non sequitur. The reasons Paul would have to bring up facts about the life and deeds and speeches of Jesus are not \u201cto combat doubts that he existed\u201d (that is nowhere a rationale I ever mention in my extensive peer-reviewed discussion of this in Chapter 11 of On the Historicity of Jesus<\/a><\/em>). Just as the reasons Pliny, in his own letters, has to bring up facts about the life and deeds and speeches of his father (or any other teacher he admired) were never \u201cto combat doubts that he existed,\u201d and the reasons Cicero, in his own letters, has to bring up facts about the life and deeds and speeches of important statesmen and sages were never \u201cto combat doubts that they existed.\u201d If you want to see a long list of actual reasons to mention facts about Jesus in Paul\u2019s case, read my survey of them in OHJ<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I summarize in Jesus from Outer Space<\/a><\/em> (pp. 47-48):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All [the evidence historicists cite] from the Epistles [is] hopelessly vague and theological, not plain references to an earthly life of Jesus at all. Which is already by itself extremely strange. Why is this <\/em>all we have, and not numerous debates and discussions and questions about Jesus\u2019 ministry and trial and death or his miracles or parables or how he chose or affected or instructed the people who knew him? How has Paul never heard of the word \u201cdisciple\u201d or that anyone was Jesus\u2019 hand-picked representative in life? Why is he always weirdly vague; for instance, ascribing the death of Jesus to \u201carchons of this eon\u201d (1 Corinthians 2:6\u201310<\/a>), which he characterizes as spiritual rather than terrestrial forces (as he there says they would understand esoteric details of God\u2019s planned magical formulae), rather than to \u201cPontius Pilate\u201d or \u201cthe Romans\u201d or \u201cthe Jews\u201d? Why does he never say Jesus\u2019 death occurred \u201cin Jerusalem\u201d? How can Paul avoid in some 20,000 words ever making any <\/em>clear reference to Jesus being on Earth? How can every question, argument, or opposition he ever faced have avoided referencing things Jesus said or did in life? He never referenced them. He never had them cited against him. He is never asked about them. That\u2019s weird. And weird is just another word for improbable. Unless the only Jesus any Christians yet knew, was a revealed being, not an earthly minister.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Add to this all the direct<\/em> evidence that Paul had only ever heard of a revelatory Jesus (Romans 10:12-14<\/a> & 16:25-26<\/a>; Galatians 1:11-17<\/a> with 1 Corinthians 9:1<\/a> & 11:23-26<\/a> & 15:1-8<\/a>; etc.), and that\u2019s that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part Three: Josephus?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald then wants Josephus to have really mentioned Jesus. Of course, there is no logical case for such a conclusion. This really ought to be a dead argument by now. Those maintaining it only ever do so by literally ignoring all the recent scholarship dooming it<\/a>. To be fair, MacDonald has mostly given up on the primary Testimonium Flavianum. He admits Josephus did not write that paragraph about Jesus in his narrative of Pilate\u2019s atrocities, but maybe something else we can only speculate as to. But he continues to lean on the mere two words (\u201ccalled Christ\u201d) almost surely inserted<\/em> into Josephus\u2019s account of the execution of a certain James a \u201cbrother of Jesus\u201d shortly before the Jewish War. The evidence fairly strongly proves Josephus did not write those words; they were added by a scribe in the library of Origen in Caesarea sometime in the late third century (indeed that passage was unknown to Origen himself, despite his scouring the texts of Josephus for references to Jesus; Origen demonstrably confused his scroll of Hegesippus for a volume of Josephus). Josephus originally composed that story as about the brother of the high priest Jesus the son of Damneus, by way of explaining why and how that Jesus ascended to the office in the early 60s A.D. My peer reviewed case for that finding is reproduced in my book Hitler Homer Bible Christ<\/a><\/em> (and summarized in OHJ<\/a><\/em> Chapter 8.9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, MacDonald has not reviewed that case and thus has no counter. He just wants the passage to be authentic as we have it. He even uses ironically self-refuting arguments like that the passage as we have it assumes \u201cthe reader would already know who [this] Jesus is,\u201d which actually only a Christian interpolator would assume<\/em>. This is in fact one of the proofs of interpolation. We know how Josephus handles sectarian politics and unusual words and persons or obscure cross-references (we even have examples of his doing all three on even less obscure facts in this very same passage!); yet he does not do any such thing here, which is how we know he didn\u2019t write those two words. He makes no cross-reference; he gives no explanation. Instead his original story left or made it clear the Jesus he meant was the only other Jesus named in that paragraph: the priest Jesus ben Damneus. No further explanation was needed because it\u2019s right there in the same text<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is all sideshow however, as even if Josephus did write those two words here, we have no reason to believe he knew what they meant. As all Christians called themselves (and in fact genuinely believed themselves) to be the brothers of Jesus Christ, we cannot know if Josephus meant or understood \u201cbrother of Jesus\u201d here biologically or cultically<\/em>. If his source meant cultically, for example, he could easily assume biologically, and so we get a story of a Brother of the Lord being executed in the 60s. It is moot to ask about the \u201cothers\u201d Josephus mentions, for heterous<\/em> is an adjective<\/a> and as such we cannot claim to know whether or not Josephus meant it to reference \u201cbrothers\u201d or if Josephus\u2019s source even mentioned these \u201cothers\u201d also being Christian brethren<\/em> (or even in fact Christians; Josephus makes no mention of them even being associates of James). So there is no evidence here for a historical Jesus. We cannot reconstruct where Josephus got this information or what it actually said or meant; and we cannot depend on an unevidenced assumption that Josephus or his sources knew such esoteric distinctions as Christian soteriological kinship terminology. In short, we can affirm nothing from this evidence even if it were<\/em> authentic, because we cannot affirm things we do not know, just as we cannot ignore evidence (such as what Christians peculiarly called each other, and that the words \u201ccalled Christ\u201d cannot have come from Josephus), nor invent evidence (such as regarding what sources or esoteric knowledge Josephus may have had). And those words most certainly aren\u2019t even authentic. So here we have again a stack of conjectures on top of conjectures, all to reconstruct an item of evidence for a historical Jesus. Real people don\u2019t need such herculean efforts to prove they exist. And real evidence is not so surrounded with such abundant evidence of fabrication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, ignoring all the actual pertinent evidence here (I do not get the impression MacDonald has read my section on this in On the Historicity of Jesus<\/em>, or my article in the Journal of Early Christian Studies<\/em>; he certainly did not engage with or even mention any of their arguments in this discussion, and by his self-contradicting assertions seems not to know of them), MacDonald attempts a completely new, weird, esoteric argument from the underlying Greek of Josephus (somewhere around minute 35), which I have already covered in adequate detail in \u201cWhat Did Josephus Mean by That?\u201d A Case Study in the Relationship between Evidence and Probability<\/a>. I won\u2019t recreate any of that here, suffice to repeat its conclusion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald relies on a ton of unevidenced assumptions, far exceeding any mine relies on in turn. Indeed, many of MacDonald\u2019s assumptions are worse than unevidenced; many contradict<\/em> the evidence. Whereas none of the assumptions my theory requires are even unlikely; in fact all comport with or even have support in evidence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I show there how MacDonald\u2019s attempt to reinterpret the Greek of Josephus in a strange way, so as to get a \u201cChristian\u201d meaning of its events not actually stated in the text, is not logical and even refuted by the evidence. It just gets weirder that the way MacDonald uses his newly invented evidence-not-actually-in Josephus is to argue that this new version of what Josephus said supports and is supported by MacDonald\u2019s conjectures about Q (it actually doesn\u2019t) and therefore this somehow is evidence Jesus existed (it isn\u2019t; I can\u2019t even reconstruct by what logical syllogism MacDonald thinks<\/em> it is). MacDonald also says things here (in minute 36) I could make no sense of, like \u201cJesus is not a messiah\u201d (so why then does Josephus call him the messiah\u2014Christ\u2014if the Christians he is supposed to be talking about didn\u2019t?) and \u201cthere\u2019s no faith in Jesus because he\u2019s heavenly revealed or the son of God\u201d here (how can we claim to know that when Josephus doesn\u2019t opine on either, in fact does not discuss Christian beliefs at all?). MacDonald\u2019s reasoning here would not pass the peer review of any actual historians<\/em>. It just doesn\u2019t make logical sense, and follows no recognizable historical method.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part Four: Something or Other?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Between minute 37 and 38 MacDonald wraps the preceding commentary with \u201cSo that\u2019s the first argument.\u201d Which we just saw is too convoluted a series of conjectures (many of which contrary to the evidence) to even form an argument, making this one of the weirdest attempts to defend the historicity of Jesus I have ever encountered. \u201cThe second argument I want to make,\u201d he says, \u201chas to do with Mark.\u201d He agrees Mark \u201chas so heavily mythologized Jesus that there is hardly any historically reliable information left in Mark,\u201d or at least, such as \u201che couldn\u2019t have received from the Q document.\u201d Therefore, he says, \u201cI think Mark is relatively useless in establishing historical information,\u201d likewise \u201cthat the Gospel tradition including the Gospel of John is heavily indebted to Mark\u2019s narrative\u201d and thus provides nothing usable either. We\u2019re thus stuck with \u201ca historically corrupted, mythologized Jesus in the Gospel tradition at a very early stage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, MacDonald insists, \u201cyou almost need a historical Jesus to make the mythologizing of Jesus make sense,\u201d such as the subtitle of his book suggests: Mythologizing Jesus: From Jewish Teacher to Epic Hero<\/a><\/em>. I would call an emphasis on the \u201calmost\u201d here. And even that\u2019s being generous. We don\u2019t need such theories to explain any other heroic personage (from Romulus to Osiris, Dionysus to Hercules, Joseph to Moses, Aesop to John Frum). So why do we \u201cneed\u201d a real Jesus to explain the exact same thing happening to him? If they can be made up, so can he. That Jesus went from historical teacher to mythic hero is a hypothesis; and the mere existence of a hypothesis is not evidence for it being correct. Even that it\u2019s a plausible hypothesis is not evidence it\u2019s the most probable hypothesis. His hypothesis is included in the generous 1 in 3 chance I allow there to have actually been a historical Jesus after all. That\u2019s ample plausibility. It\u2019s still an improbability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going into minute 39 MacDonald tries to produce some sort of argument here the logic of which eludes me. Best I can do is quote his exact words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark is saying that Jesus is superior to Hector and Odyseus [for example]. Both of whom do not have divine parents. In both cases they\u2019re mortal. In both cases they die. And Mark is trying to say that Jesus is a mortal who rises. And there, Jesus\u2026is a Galilean. He gets baptized by John the Baptist. He\u2019s identified as the son of God. God works through him and he dies and God vindicates him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Okay. And why does this make Jesus any more historical than any other mythic hero about whom similar things are said? Jesus is even more concertedly made a superior Moses. A mortal without divine parents who does not rise from the dead either. Still not historical. Nor are Hector or Odyseus. Likewise Jesus is made to be a superior Elijah. Still not likely historical. Mark is not \u201cconverting\u201d a dead man into a risen hero\u2014Mark is reifying into mythical fiction the teachings of Paul (see Mark\u2019s Use of Paul\u2019s Epistles<\/a>). Mark was already a firm believer in the salvific resurrection of Jesus long before he started crafting myths about his worshiped Lord. He had no \u201cconverting\u201d to do of any mere mortal. He started with the divine cosmic savior. Just as the priests of the Osiris cult did. And he puts all of that behind symbolism and allegory. Just as the priests of the Osiris cult did. There is no evidence to be got here that Mark knows of any real historical man named Jesus, any more than the writers of the Pentateuch knew of a real Moses or the inventors of the Romulus myth knew a real Romulus or the contrivers of the \u201cbiography\u201d of Osiris as a historical pharaoh knew any real such person either. So I can fathom no argument here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At best I must surmise MacDonald intended what he had argued in his book (Two Shipwrecked Gospels<\/em>, as I analyzed before<\/a> and as we debated before<\/a>), some kind of Argument from Embarrassment<\/a>, wherein it is proposed to be improbable that a mythmaker would invent a detail like \u201cbaptized by John the Baptist\u201d (to the contrary, Mark\u2019s invention of that detail is so well-motivated we should in fact doubt it ever happened even if Jesus existed:<\/em> Proving History<\/a><\/em>, index, \u201cJohn the Baptist\u201d) or \u201cwas a Galilean\u201d (to the contrary, scripture required<\/em> that detail, per Isaiah 9:1-7<\/a>, as did MacDonald\u2019s own thesis that Mark needed a location to put his Odysseus and crew frequently to sea; indeed even a Nazareth origin was scripturally demanded and allegorically constructed as Matthew 2:23<\/a> lets slip; see Proving History<\/a><\/em>, index, \u201cNazareth\u201d). Jesus is the adopted son of God (and thus depicted being adopted by God as his son) because that\u2019s the Pauline theology Mark is allegorizing into a tale. And Jesus spends a spell as a mortal and dies, because that\u2019s the Pauline theology Mark is allegorizing into a tale. As is the reason Jesus rises from the dead (Mark\u2019s whole empty tomb narrative is mythology reifying the gospel: The Empty Tomb<\/a><\/em>, pp. 155-97). And Jesus is crafted after other mythical figures because he, like them, is mythical, and intended to replace them. There is simply no evidence here for historicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part Five: I Know a Guy?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Finally, in minute 39 onward MacDonald closes with a very brief third argument, having to do with \u201cthe Johannine tradition\u201d which he counts Papias a part of, though acknowledging I disagree with nearly everything MacDonald says about this. I side with the majority of scholars who date Papias no earlier than 130, and Papias plainly says he never personally met any<\/em> apostle<\/a>, much less \u201cthe Apostle John\u201d (he only hunted down by rumor what people thought they were saying or had said), and the evidence is actually not so great that Papias knew the letter now called 1 John or knew it as by anyone named John, and no evidence at all that he ever personally knew its author. I already refuted<\/a> all these bizarre assertions last time<\/a>. To rest any arguments on them entails another convoluted stack of implausible conjectures, which no historical person\u2019s existence should require.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this context MacDonald says at minute 40 that \u201cthe only trustworthy claim from any early Christian author to have known Jesus personally appears in the beginning of 1st John, where the elder identifies himself among \u2018multiple eyewitnesses\u2019,\u201d to wit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched\u2014this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our [or your] joy complete.<\/p>1 JOHN 1:1-4 (NIF)<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Most scholars agree these letters are forgeries, not actual letters by the Apostle John. Even most of the few scholars who don\u2019t<\/em> think they are forgeries, do so only because they conclude this passage isn\u2019t<\/em> referring to physically interacting with Jesus (see Bart Ehrman\u2019s excellent discussion in Forgery and Counterforgery<\/a><\/em>, pp. 419-25). These Epistles actually have no Apostle\u2019s name in the address\u2014that name was assigned them later\u2014the first says nothing about its author; the later ones<\/a> only cryptically call himself \u201cThe Elder.\u201d Not, take note, Apostle<\/em> (much less disciple). Nevertheless, there is no reason to believe any of this. It\u2019s obviously an anti-heretical fabrication in the vein of 2 Peter<\/a>, invented to \u201crefute\u201d anyone who denied the historical veracity of the Gospels, loosely based on the elaborate fabrications in the Gospel of John (OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Chapter 10.7; just as the Long Ending of Mark was loosely based on Matthew, Luke, and John to \u201cfix\u201d a dissatisfying lack of evidence for the resurrection in Mark\u2019s original draft: HHBC<\/a><\/em>, Chapter 16).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As MacDonald can adduce no evidence 1 John isn\u2019t just such a forgery, as nearly every other non-fundamentalist expert agrees it is, we cannot use it as evidence for historicity. It simply doesn\u2019t pass muster. Its author didn\u2019t even tell us their name. And no one who could know if it were authentic vouches for it; no one even mentions it until almost a century after Jesus would have died. And no one who was an adult in the 30s could plausibly have been alive when this letter was most likely written anyway, which is around 100 or later (as it post-dates the Gospel John who post-dates the Gospel Luke who can\u2019t have written before the early 90s), and befittingly, there is no evidence any such person lived even beyond the 70s (OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Element 22, pp. 148-52).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st John is therefore actually evidence against<\/em> historicity, if it is evidence of anything. At best, one could say it is evidence of nothing, because we cannot establish the authenticity of anything in the letter; but its suspect nature is more than sufficient to leave us not at \u201cat best\u201d but at \u201cat worst.\u201d Because it\u2019s so obviously (like 2 Peter and for the same reasons) a fabrication to denounce doubters<\/em> of the historicity of the Gospels, who were in fact (this letter says<\/a>) also Christians<\/em>. Which proves two unsavory facts for MacDonald: (1) there were Christian doubters of historicity (thus mythicism was a live sectarian option then, and yet all their<\/em> writings were destroyed; all we have are fabricated polemics against them like this: see OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Chapters 7.7 & 8.12, and my discussion of 2 Peter<\/a> and the modern confusion over so-called Docetism<\/a>); and (2) there was no real<\/em> evidence anyone could cite against them\u2014no real witnesses to consult or testify, nor anything written by them even. That\u2019s why the author of 1 John had to make up a vague, derivative, anonymous, late-contrived epistle instead. That does not bode well for any defender of historicity today. And it bodes well ill against MacDonald\u2019s attempt to gullibly assert this faked evidence is real. (MacDonald also still seems inclined to gullibly believe the obviously fabricated evidence in the Gospel of John; per OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Chapter 10.7, I can adduce no logical reason for anyone to do that, least of all someone who agrees John is a wanton fabricator<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part Six: What Is Myth For?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Around minute 51 MacDonald shifted into a difficult-to-grasp argument having to do with some weird assumption that I think the Gospels were written to \u201cprove historicity\u201d and his trying to argue they were written to prove other things instead, \u201ctherefore\u201d Jesus existed. This is another non sequitur. This \u201ctherefore\u201d in no way logically follows from those premises; the purpose of the Gospels can be to sell ideology with<\/em> a fictional Jesus. The premises are also false, making this a straw man. I have actually always argued the very thing he is. He really needs to sit down and carefully read On the Historicity of Jesus<\/a><\/em> to get a correct sense of what I have actually argued, so he doesn\u2019t waste time arguing against positions I have never espoused and do not require (he could try starting with the primer, Jesus from Outer Space<\/a><\/em>, but really he needs to read the peer reviewed academic monograph\u2014although there is a complete concordance to where everything is expanded on in OHJ<\/a><\/em> at the back of JFOS<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one invented the biographies of Romulus or Osiris or Aesop to \u201cprove\u201d they were historical. They just wrote myths as if they were historical\u2014because that was the fad in mythology during the Hellenistic and Roman periods (see Elements 40 and 44 in Chapter 5 of OHJ<\/a><\/em>). This is how people preferred to package their teachings and message and ideology: creating a fake biography in which the invented hero does and says all the things they need them to do and say to \u201creify\u201d those teachings and ideas in quasi-historical tales that allegorically<\/em> teach and represent what is needed. This has nothing to do with proving historicity. It has to do with creating<\/em> historicity as a vehicle for selling a package of ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At its inception historicity would not even be a required belief of the insider. As Mark invents Jesus saying<\/a>, only outsiders<\/em> were meant to take his stories literally; insiders would be told the symbolic meaning of those stories, which is the real<\/em> teaching, concealed within a fake \u201chistorical\u201d tale (the way ancient scripture was often read, which is precisely the way new scripture would be written: OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Element 14, pp. 114-24). Gradually over time the effort to sell the outsider on this by increasing efforts to conceal that truth in a more convincing veneer (Matthew, Luke) leads to some starting to believe (or deliberately sell) that historicity as essential to the creed (see How Did Christianity Switch to a Historical Jesus?<\/a>). For instance, per the Noll thesis I discuss in OHJ<\/em>, this always happens in religions, as a political move to maintain control and authority by pushing out revelatory apostles and fabricating a pedigree to \u201creal\u201d apostles; but we needn\u2019t assume that was the reason, though it is an evident and good one, as there were ample reasons in antiquity to start insisting myths were histories (I give examples from Pagan and Jewish culture as well as Christian in Establishing the Biblical Literalism of Early Christians<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is only by the time of the final redaction of John (as John has been edited and added to by multiple redactors and we only have the final edition) that we see a deliberately and explicitly stated effort to \u201cprove historicity\u201d\u2014not only in such ways as the reification of Luke\u2019s Parable of Lazarus into a real Lazarus (see OHJ<\/a><\/em>, index, \u201cLazarus\u201d) to \u201crefute\u201d Luke\u2019s message that we should believe without evidence by inventing \u201creal evidence\u201d that should convince us to believe, but also in even more obvious (indeed, peculiarly literal<\/em>) ways, such as simply outright saying it: \u201cThe man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe<\/a>,\u201d \u201cHe saw and believed<\/a>,\u201d \u201cUnless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe<\/a>,\u201d \u201cPut your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe<\/a>,\u201d \u201cBecause you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed<\/a>,\u201d \u201cJesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name<\/a>.\u201d See Chapter 10.7 of OHJ<\/a><\/em> for more evidence and examples of the redactional repurposing of the Gospel of John as a \u201cproof of historicity\u201d text; it may well have originally been as allegorical as the other Gospels before that final version, but regardless, the version now in the canon has completely flipped the script of Mark 4:9-13<\/a>. And it is after this point that all the historicizing details (Pilate, Mary, etc.) became essential even to the creed<\/em> (a creed that previously lacked them), by which Christians who did not assert those as fact were deliberately shunned as agents of Satan (How Did Christianity Switch to a Historical Jesus?<\/a> and Establishing the Biblical Literalism of Early Christians<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even after that point, the myths continued to serve (and continued to be invented!) to serve all the same purposes they originally had as well<\/em>, which was not to \u201cprove historicity,\u201d but to teach ideology, through stories and speeches. Establishing historicity was always just one side-aim now added to that majority aim. As I wrote in Proving History<\/em> (pp. 155-56):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Jesus had enemies who slandered him, that Jesus went to parties with sinners to save them, that Jesus\u2019 family rejected him, and so on, all face the same problems of self-contradiction (had they been a problem, they would have been removed or altered long before Mark even wrote), ignorance (we don\u2019t really know whether these stories were embarrassing to the communities who told them at the time they were first told), and self-defeat (any reason to preserve them if true can be just as much reason to fabricate them, and in every case we can easily construct plausible motives for their invention, which often make even more sense than the stories being true).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

These tales gave missionaries \u201cstories to tell\u201d to explain how they<\/em> are being \u201cslandered,\u201d or how real family should be abandoned for the new fictive kin group they were selling, or why they attend \u201cparties with sinners to save them,\u201d and so on. Because Jesus did; at which the missionary can break into their sermon on \u201chere is why.\u201d The Gospels are thus like a minstrel\u2019s lead sheet: starting points for sermons, on this or that idea, whatever point the missionary wants or needs to sell an audience on. Every mythic pericope in every Gospel serves some point<\/em>, teaches some lesson, as did all mythology in the ancient world\u2014Jewish, Christian, or Pagan. It was not all cultivated to some singular purpose like \u201cproving historicity.\u201d That wasn\u2019t the point of myth (OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Chapter 10.3). In fact, once you are using myth to \u201cprove historicity\u201d you have shifted the entire aim and purpose; you are now fabricating history<\/em>. The two can operate together (John\u2019s tales teach doctrines through the same allegorical and parabolic methods as ever at the same time as<\/em> they sell that myth as historical fact; as sometimes acknowledged by more honest Christians of the era like Origen: Elements 13 and 14 in Chapter 4 of OHJ<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that the Gospel authors did what all myths do, invent stories to sell ideas (and only much later added \u201cproving historicity\u201d to that list of ideas), is in no way evidence for the historicity of Jesus. A fictional Jesus suited that purpose just as well\u2014if not better (it\u2019s easier, after all, to invent myths about a non-existent man than a real one: see OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Chapter 6.7). As MacDonald well knows: he agrees almost every story told of Jesus is fake, and thus a fake Jesus is being routinely recruited to sell whatever ideas the author wants. So if 99% of these stories are fake, why are we assuming the other 1% aren\u2019t? We have no reason to. It\u2019s as likely all fake. Now, this does not prove mythicism. The Gospels can be 100% fiction and still Jesus existed. All this does is remove the Gospels as evidence. It does not, by itself, argue against there being a real Jesus. Which is the actual conclusion of my chapter on the Gospels in On the Historicity of Jesus<\/a><\/em>: \u201cthe Gospels have no effect on the probability that Jesus existed, neither to raise or lower it\u201d (p. 507). The only exception has to do with how extensively they mythologize Jesus (OHJ<\/em>, Chapter 6), because that rarely happens to real people, but routinely happens to mythical ones. But that requires attending to the actual argument<\/a><\/em>. And MacDonald never brought that argument up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part Seven: Logic?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

That actually gets us to the methodological issue MacDonald continued to stumble over throughout our discussion: how the logic of probability works. He often relied on the fallacy of possibiliter ergo probabiliter<\/em>, \u201cit\u2019s possible that [x], therefore it\u2019s probable that [x].\u201d That\u2019s a non sequitur. That something is possible in no way entails it is therefore even likely, much less most likely. He then confused this with the argument in modal logic that the proposition \u201c[x] is impossible\u201d can<\/em> be refuted by proving merely that \u201c[x] is possible.\u201d You do not have to prove [x] probable when all you need do<\/em> is prove [x] possible. I find historians\u2014and especially apologists\u2014get these confused so frequently as to be indicative of an epistemic pathology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such as when MacDonald said my list of alternative explanations for a story appearing in the Gospels, \u201cThat\u2019s not evidence and it\u2019s not even argument. It\u2019s speculation.\u201d No. It\u2019s an argument: if you cannot prove those alternative explanations unlikely, you cannot conclude your explanation is likely<\/em>. This argument cannot be dismissed by saying those alternatives are speculative. All theories are speculative, including his. MacDonald was speculating too. Hence my point: you can\u2019t just \u201cassume\u201d your speculation is the more probable. You have to prove that. And you cannot prove that without proving alternatives less likely. You thus can\u2019t argue for a theory, an explanation of some piece of evidence, in isolation; you have to take seriously alternative explanations of that same evidence, because you have to show they are unlikely\u2014otherwise you cannot claim they are. And if you cannot claim they are unlikely<\/em>, you cannot claim your theory is likely<\/em>. That\u2019s simply how logic works. (See my Advice on Probabilistic Reasoning<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the same confusion as mistaking an argument that we do not know whether [x] is true or not, as an argument that [x] is false. Historians\u2014and especially apologists\u2014confuse those two all the time as well. When I prove with evidence (not just \u201cspeculate\u201d) that the Gospels are chock full of made-up tales, and conclude that therefore other tales in the Gospels cannot be known to be true either, I am not\u2014not<\/em>\u2014arguing that those other tales are therefore false. I am only arguing that we do not know they are true. And therefore we cannot use them as evidence<\/em>. And that means either way<\/em>, pro or con. Even at best they are as likely to be true as false; therefore they have no value. We can prove nothing with them. To assume they are true is insupportable speculation; to assume they are false is insupportable speculation. That\u2019s simply how logic works. The only proper response to such an argument is to prove the story you want to be true is probably true<\/em>. Which requires proving the alternative (here, that it is a fiction constructed to sell an idea, built out of literary tropes and scriptural cues) is probably false<\/em>. Because if that explanation is not \u201cprobably\u201d false, your explanation cannot claim to be \u201cprobably\u201d true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald never did seem to understand my attempts to explain this in our discussion. My case for mythicism is built on two sets of arguments: one in which I prove propositions probably true<\/em>, which decrease the probability Jesus existed; the other in which I prove propositions are as probable<\/em> as myth as they are as fact, which eliminates those propositions as evidence either way (they neither can increase nor decrease the probability Jesus existed). MacDonald mistook the latter as trying to prove Jesus didn\u2019t exist with speculations; to the contrary, I only proved the evidence he is citing is no more effective<\/em> at proving Jesus existed than that he didn\u2019t, because MacDonald fails to rule out plausible alternatives that are elsewhere well-evidenced, and therefore in any other given case are as reasonably likely as not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence as I said after an hour in, at minute 1:04: \u201cThat\u2019s my point actually. You\u2019re doing the same thing,\u201d i.e. speculating, \u201cbut you\u2019re just assuming\u201d some factoid or saying (like the Sermon on the Mount, a prominent component of MacDonald\u2019s Q) \u201ccomes from Jesus\u201d whereas \u201call I\u2019m saying is\u201d that in order \u201cto tell the difference between these two theories, where these teachings come from,\u201d we have to find evidence that one is more likely than the other or else we cannot claim either<\/em>. So, either that factoid or saying was invented to a purpose later\u2014as Dale Allison has proved for the Sermon on the Mount (OHJ<\/a><\/em>, index, \u201cSermon on the Mount\u201d) and as I was arguing for Jesus\u2019s supposed teaching about taxes (which clearly more likely originated with Paul)\u2014or<\/em> came from a real Jesus. But if we don\u2019t know either way, then we cannot use that factoid or saying. At all. It is not evidence for historicity or against. It simply isn\u2019t usable as evidence. Period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I said regarding Mark\u2019s invention of a pithy tale having Jesus say something about taxes that reinforces the teaching of Paul, \u201cI think what Mark is doing is specifically responding, he\u2019s building a story that responds to arguments against Paul, by reifying Paul\u2019s story and having Jesus say a pithy saying about it,\u201d a saying that was unknown to Paul, even though it would have powerfully reinforced his argument in Romans 13, and thus clearly it was invented by Mark, not Jesus. \u201cSo my point is that we have two competing explanations for this evidence,\u201d the pithy tale in Mark, \u201cso what we need is [other] evidence<\/em> that favors one over the other, and we don\u2019t have that<\/em>.\u201d So my argument was not<\/em> simply \u201cmy explanation is more probable than yours.\u201d My argument was \u201cthat we have possibilities that are equally good,\u201d equally likely on what scant evidence we currently have, and we have no way to tell which is the more likely. Therefore this datum cannot be used to argue either side here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald confusingly tried to get around this by arguing a minute later:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, No, No. Those are different questions. Those are two different comments. Methodologically, it\u2019s one thing to say, \u201cWe don\u2019t have evidence.\u201d It\u2019s another to say, \u201cWe have different interpretations of evidence.\u201d And I think there is evidence, in some cases where you think [there isn\u2019t].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Except he never presented any such evidence. That there was an elaborate mechanism transmitting oral lore from Jesus\u2019s lips to Mark\u2019s ears that then spilled onto his page, which somehow completely bypassed the knowledge of Paul and appears to be responding to critics of Paul\u2019s argument for paying taxes as if by time travel, is a speculation without any evidence. There is no evidence any such mechanism existed, or any such oral lore, or that any of it went back to Jesus. Thus my alternative mechanism is no less likely. I don\u2019t need to present any more evidence for it because it is already equally plausible (in fact, unlike \u201ca chain of oral lore from Jesus to Mark,\u201d my mechanism is well attested as what Mark does extensively throughout his Gospel), and MacDonald\u2019s alternative is just as un-evidenced (if not, as I just noted, more so). Our two competing speculations are thus at best equally likely on our mutual background knowledge (as MacDonald well admits such mechanisms for inventing stories about Jesus existed and explain most of the content of the Gospels already). And that\u2019s that. He has no more evidence to offer that his explanation caused the story in Mark than mine did. We\u2019re done here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald then tried to say something about \u201cplausibility,\u201d but since like most historians he has not immersed himself in the actual logic and language of probability, he wasn\u2019t able to articulate just what the word \u201cplausible\u201d means and why. It is in fact a mathematical word, it says something about probability. In particular, the word \u201cplausible\u201d means \u201cprobable enough to consider but not as yet probable enough to conclude.\u201d Otherwise we\u2019d say \u201cit\u2019s probable\u201d or \u201cit\u2019s most probable,\u201d and not \u201cit\u2019s plausible.\u201d Thus \u201cplausible\u201d is an English word historians deploy to signify when they are not certain something is the case but that it is nevertheless a reasonable possibility, in effect something we cannot rule out (such as by proving it is so improbable, so unlikely, that it is no longer reasonable to even consider it\u2014that it can be excluded \u201cby reasonable doubt\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word \u201cplausible\u201d can also refer to prior probabilities (a probability of a thing prior to considering specific evidence for or against it). As for example when one might say upon hearing someone saw an alien spaceship that it\u2019s \u201cplausible\u201d to assume, before even inquiring further, that they didn\u2019t really, because the prior<\/em> probabilities of alternative explanations of what they saw are so much higher. But even that prior probability can be overcome by a sufficient amount of particular evidence (such as was made available to the public as depicted in the film The Day the Earth Stood Still<\/a><\/em>). Either way, \u201cplausible\u201d is a reference to a probability distinct from<\/em> (less than) the probability of something being so high we can conclude it\u2019s the case. But as such, \u201cplausibility\u201d is still just a reference to a probability. And it therefore requires evidence. I go into more on this point in A Case Study in the Relationship between Evidence and Probability<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald was thus wrong when he said \u201cplausibility has to do with the likelihood that one interpretation has priority over another.\u201d Incorrect. In colloquial English that would be the word \u201cprobable\u201d not the word \u201cplausible.\u201d When we say \u201cit is probable that\u201d we mean (usually) it is more likely than alternative \u201cinterpretations\u201d (to use MacDonald\u2019s word; I prefer \u201cexplanations\u201d). But when we say \u201cit is plausible that\u201d we mean (usually) that there are other explanations (other \u201cinterpretations\u201d) that could be true, and that ours has a fair chance to compete with them (if it didn\u2019t, it wouldn\u2019t be \u201cplausible\u201d). The word \u201cplausible\u201d in ordinary, common discourse, especially in historical discourse, therefore does not mean the same thing as \u201cmost likely\u201d but means, to the contrary, \u201cnot necessarily most likely but likely enough to consider; a thing we can\u2019t rule out.\u201d It can often refer to less probable theories that nevertheless have enough probability still yet to be true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, I think Jesus existing could have as much as a 1 in 3 odds, therefore I say it is plausible<\/em> that Jesus existed, but nevertheless improbable, as in, \u201cless probable.\u201d But not so improbable as to rule out; not so improbable as to say a historical Jesus is implausible<\/em>\u2014in the way that, for example, the historicity of the scene imagined in John 20:24-29<\/a> is implausible. That\u2019s<\/em> an implausible Jesus, and thus surely a made-up Jesus; whereas the Jesus depicted in Mark 12:13-17<\/a> (where Jesus is depicted giving a pithy answer to a difficult question about Imperial taxes) is a plausible Jesus. That may well be something that really happened. I adduced evidence in our discussion that it likely didn\u2019t (though only by a margin); and MacDonald adduced no evidence it likely did (he just dismissed my evidence, on a basis of no evidence in turn). But my evidence was not sufficient to render MacDonald\u2019s \u201cinterpretation\u201d of Mark\u2019s story unlikely enough to conclude it\u2019s false; it was only sufficient to render its probability not high enough<\/em> to conclude it\u2019s true. Those are not the same thing<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And even plausibility, which by definition falls short of calling something \u201cprobable\u201d in the sense of \u201cmost likely,\u201d requires evidence to establish. It cannot come from subjective feelings. It must be based in objective realities. If you cannot adduce what objective facts establish your conclusion of plausibility (or even of probability), then you have no reason to trust your \u201cfeelings.\u201d You should be deeply skeptical of your intuition at that point; not<\/em> obsessively married to it. Hence as I said in our discussion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[All] probabilities have to be based on evidence, right? So you have to have some sort of evidence-based reason for assigning a different probability to one thing versus another. So plausibility would be based on \u2018is that plausible in context\u2019 and then \u2026 your evidence would be the context. [Such as evidence from the broader culture of the time that] \u2018that\u2019s something someone would say\u2019, or something like that. There\u2019s always some sort of evidence that is undergirding the probabilities, that is supporting the probabilities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think MacDonald understood this. I noticed in this discussion that he is sometimes immune to evidence and logic once he has reached some sort of emotional dependency on a conclusion. \u201cI\u2019m not willing to grant ground on Josephus,\u201d he said, \u201cI think that my reading is the correct one\u201d (referring to his bizarre claim about the vocabulary in Josephus\u2019s passage about the execution of James). His reading there is quite objectively, empirically, provably<\/a> not<\/em> the correct one. He simply chooses to ignore the big pile of evidence against his view, and instead stacks up a bunch of speculations absent any evidence instead<\/em>, and then treats<\/em> that as a stack of evidence, and then concludes he must be right. This is absolutely not how historians should behave. This kind of epistemic travesty has to stop. Alas, it is peculiarly rampant in Jesus studies, even among its more secular and liberal experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part Eight: Method<\/strong>?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This problem goes beyond even that example. There comes a point late in our discussion, when MacDonald tries to re-defend his strange claims about Josephus\u2019s account of the execution of James, where he exhibits what I find is a common failure among Jesus historians to employ actual historical methods in reaching their conclusions, acting instead more like apologists. The frequent practices of \u201capologetic method\u201d in their field having evidently rubbed off on them and continuing to govern their mind even when they have given up the usual Christian apologetical agendas, they keep applying the same specious techniques to defending other theories instead, not evidently having been told those methods are invalid and should be abandoned, not repurposed. It is thus a major problem in the field of Jesus studies that almost no one in it has ever actually been trained as a historian. Their degrees are usually in literary or textual criticism (and that usually only of the Bible), or worse, divinity or theology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, it is embarrassingly ironic that Bart Ehrman tried to claim<\/a> I was unqualified<\/a> to discuss this subject, a question in ancient history, because I merely have a Ph.D. in<\/em> ancient history (including majors in Greco-Roman religion and historiography)\u2014while he has no degree in history of any kind whatever<\/em>. He only studied English at Wheaton, and theology and textual criticism at Princeton Theological Seminary. Taking a few history classes does not constitute graduate level training as a historian. But this is the attitude common in Jesus studies. Dennis MacDonald at least has a Ph.D. from Harvard in New Testament, and thus is more qualified than Ehrman can claim; but even that degree consists mostly of what historians in other fields would call a degree in literature. Which is why MacDonald is so superb at literary studies. But this can produce a skills deficiency in historical<\/em> methodology, relative to people who complete doctorates in history<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Case in point. In minute 1:41, MacDonald says, \u201cFirst of all,\u201d for his story about a James executed during the accession of the Prefect Albinus, \u201cJosephus doesn\u2019t need a source; in this part of what he\u2019s writing in the Antiquities<\/em> he\u2019s in Jerusalem, so he can be an eyewitness and a reporter without having a source in front of him.\u201d There are two reasons this is not sound reasoning. First, historians should not make assertions without checking them. So, is it true Josephus was at that time in Jerusalem? Do we really know that? And how do we know that? Second, historians must draw these kinds of inferences from the study of an author\u2019s usual practice. In other words, based on the way Josephus writes generally, if Josephus were there, is this how he would relate the account? These are the kinds of questions historians are trained to ask\u2014and answer\u2014before making or relying on such assertions (at least with such confidence). If this wasn\u2019t drilled into you during your graduate studies, you won\u2019t be as inclined to proceed in this way; and if you weren\u2019t trained in how to answer these kinds of questions in reliable ways, you might not do so well at it even if you attempt it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In point of fact when this execution of James happened, which is year 62<\/a>, Josephus might not have been in Jerusalem: he might have been in Rome on embassy to Nero<\/a>. Josephus says \u201cI was born\u2026in the first year of the reign of Caius Caesar,\u201d i.e. Caligula, which means after March of 37<\/a>, so when he says he visited Nero \u201cin the twenty-sixth year of my age\u201d he could mean between March 62 and 63\u2014and he might even mean he turned 25, beginning his 26th year, during<\/em> his journey or embassy, so his departure for Rome could have been well before March of 62\u2014so we can\u2019t establish the James execution took place earlier than that embassy. Likewise, Journeys to Rome and back would each have taken several months, and upon his return Josephus says the Jews were already preparing for war, so his time away would appear to have been over a year. And finally, Josephus usually tells us when he is the witness to the events he relates. As he does not do so here, we cannot assume he was present for any of it. In short, there is no evidence he was there, and even some indications he wasn\u2019t there. So this statement does not hold up. Sure, one can \u201cconjecture\u201d he \u201ccould\u201d have been there; but there is no evidence he was, and some (albeit inconclusive) evidence he wasn\u2019t; and what we\u2019d often have if he was there (like a discussion of his personal knowledge), isn\u2019t in the text. Historical method is unequivocal here: you cannot affirm what you do not know; and you should not affirm what the evidence suggests might even be false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same point in our discussion, MacDonald claims \u201cin the Acts of the Apostles we have a reference to James the Lord\u2019s brother,\u201d and cites Josephus-expert Steve Mason in support. Mason really is a historian. But in fact Mason\u2019s analysis on this point is wholly contrary to all facts, evidence, and logic\u2014contradictions plainly verifiable even by an amateur\u2014indeed his analysis is itself even more bizarre than MacDonald\u2019s attempt to rely on it. For MacDonald, unlike Mason, is a fully-qualified expert in New Testament literature<\/em> and thus should well know Acts makes no mention of any brother of Jesus named James, and only relates the death of a completely different James, in a completely different way, by a completely different authority, with a completely different purpose and outcome, in a completely different year (see Mason on Josephus on James<\/a>; Acts refers to a James being beheaded<\/em> by the political<\/em> authorities two decades earlier<\/a> than the James Josephus describes being stoned<\/em> by the religious<\/em> authorities). In no possible way are these accounts related<\/em>. In fact, as I\u2019ve pointed out before (indeed under peer review), the author of Acts\u2019 ignorance of the story produced in Josephus is nearly conclusive evidence against Josephus ever having connected it with Christ\u2014those two words cannot have been in the text when the author of Acts read the Antiquities<\/em>. If they had been, that story would very probably be <\/em>in Acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These two assertions by MacDonald thus seem a lot like rationalizations invented ad hoc<\/em> to try and rescue his strange theories. We need to treat these kinds of claims as historical questions requiring proper methodological and empirical inquiry, not as convenient excuses we can make up on the fly to defend some idea we happen to be committed to. That\u2019s apologetic<\/em> methodology, not historical<\/em> methodology (see The Difference Between a Historian and an Apologist<\/a>). Yet here MacDonald appears to be acting more like an apologist and less like a historian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Near the close of our duscussion, right before the two hour mark, our host asks Dr. MacDonald, \u201cWhat is your probability on historicity? Is it still 80 to 20 like you said in the original debate?\u201d (referring to our discussion on the PineCreek show<\/a>). MacDonald now says, \u201cNo, it\u2019s probably like 92 to 8 probability; but historians are not going to commit themselves to a 100 percent,\u201d and he concedes, \u201cI have to be open to things I don\u2019t understand, but for me the evidence is compelling that there was a historical Jesus, who very early on, in various ways was mythologized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But notice MacDonald presented no actual evidence of that in this discussion, much less compelling evidence. He offered fancy systems of speculation about Josephus, that are provably false, and don\u2019t even logically argue for historicity anyway. He offered false premises and unevidenced assumptions (about my not-actual-dependence on \u201cGnosticism,\u201d for example, or regarding the value of historical facts about Jesus to the rhetoric of Paul). He leans on gullibility (1 John is authentic? Really?), a gullibility rejected by pretty much all other scholars on record who aren\u2019t fundamentalists\u2014hardly anyone offers any good reason anymore to believe 1 John isn\u2019t a second century fake. And he never really responds to the actual peer-reviewed theory of non-historicity actually on the table, or any of the evidence for it. He offers instead strange, idiosyncratic ideas about \u201cQ\u201d and how it supposedly somehow (though no actually logical \u201chow\u201d is presented) evinces a real Jesus rather than just another mythical one built out of all the same mythical tropes for all the same general reasons. Contrast this shadow-puppet-theatre of a case with how we prove the historicity of literally every other actual historical person<\/a> (for an all-in-one survey of examples, see Chapter 5 of Jesus from Outer Space<\/a><\/em>). Why does Jesus need this weird, convoluted, speculation-stacked method of desperately maintaining he existed, when no other real person does<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evasiveness of cases like this is the most telling to me. Around minute 1:27 MacDonald complains that \u201cwe don\u2019t have anybody in the early church who was arguing that Jesus was not a human being.\u201d This reveals his inexplicable refusal to actually examine the thesis he is responding to. Like most historicity apologists, secular and devout, he just won\u2019t listen to or read what I am actually<\/em> arguing. So how can he produce any informed response to it? Why does everyone defending historicity act like this<\/a>? It cannot be for sound reasons, as they would all agree, were this a debate on anything else, that such behavior is unacceptable and can never produce a sound defense of anything. They would all agree such behavior is more indicative of emotional rationalization, motivated reasoning<\/a>, a resistance<\/em> to empirical and rational historical reasoning rather than a pursuit of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact of the matter is that my thesis is that all Christians, from day one, believed Jesus was<\/em> \u201ca human being.\u201d Paul outright says this multiple times<\/a>. But what he says is that Jesus only became human for a brief time to accomplish a single, specific, cosmic task<\/a>. The question is therefore not<\/em> whether Jesus was believed to ever have been a mortal human man (indeed, even a Davidic Jew); the only pertinent question, the question my entire book On the Historicity of Jesus<\/em> explores, is where that happened<\/em>. Was it on Earth, witnessed by \u201cdisciples\u201d? Or was it in Satan\u2019s realm, only revealed later to \u201capostles\u201d? (For a concise summary see Jesus from Outer Space<\/a><\/em>.) MacDonald is thus simply not even addressing my thesis. Nor does he know about all the vast evidence I collect proving not just the probability of my thesis, but its contextual plausibility<\/em> as well. Nothing about my proposal is \u201cweird\u201d or \u201cunprecedented\u201d in the actual<\/em> context<\/em> of Christianity\u2019s origin (I empirically prove this across two whole chapters, through forty-eight enumerated Elements of fact: OHJ<\/a><\/em>, Chapters 4 and 5).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When will historians respond to my actual theory? When will they allow themselves to be aware of (and thus able finally to discuss) the extensive evidence I have documented for it? What are they running from? Why are they hiding from all this? Why do they refuse to even look at it? What motivates such unreasonable, unhistorical behavior? I am perplexed. But whatever the reason, it can have nothing to do with a valid historical methodology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dennis MacDonald and I have discussed the question of Jesus\u2019s historicity many times over the years. These are among the most important kinds of discussions to have, as MacDonald isn\u2019t a Christian apologist and actually agrees the Gospels are almost entirely mythographical and not works of history. So we can cut past most of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[293,86,359,138],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3017,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3015\/revisions\/3017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}