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Why I don't believe in the Historicity of Jesus || Frustrated Atheist Segment - Godless Engineer

phxbillcee 10 July 20
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Personally, I think that Joshua of Nazareth, an itinerant Jewish rabbi probably existed, though he was clearly later mythologized by the Christian church six ways from Sunday. The argument in the video is the much discredited Mythicist fringe group that believes in the conspiracy theory that not only Christianity, but the historical Jesus himself was made up by the Roman Flavian dynasty. The Mythicists are famous, or infamous, for arguments from silence, arguments of convenience, selective literary interpretations of documents, and the ignoring of historical criterion of evidence. They are also famous, or infamous, for misrepresenting the arguments of historicists. The so-called "historicist Aramaic criterion or whatever" was, of course, presented incorrectly, which is why it was so easy to discredit. That so-called "argument of embarrassment" was so funny I laughed. Never heard of that one before.
There is a historicist book called, Did Jesus Exists by Bart D. Ehrman, that pokes a hundred holes in the Mythicist arguments. They love to ignore this book for obvious reasons.

I'm very ambivalent about the claim. Ther may have been an actual Yeshua at that approximate time (or it could be the melding of a number of 'wanna-be' Messiah's), but any solid proof is lacking, which leaves the mythicists with a big opening to make their arguments. Historicists have to reach as much as the mythisists to make their arguments as there is a lack of contemporary corroboration (especially on some of the wilder claims: eclipse/darkness, earthquake, walking dead). We do know that the books or gospels that did make it into the finished bible were cherry-picked & likely altered a good deal.

@phxbillcee Agree, but to be clear historical scholars do not argue for the miraculous claims such as the walking dead, resurrection, etc. That is a religious belief, not historical scholarship. Historians just argue for the probable existence of Yeshua based on established criteria of evidence. Indeed, the Jesus of the Gospels through later mythologizing could have become a mixture of several false messiahs. BTW, ever hear of Apollonius? If things had worked out a little differently all the Christians today could have been Apollonians. The problem is that not all so-called historicists are really historical scholars, but religious bible scholars masquerading as historical scholars. "Historicist" is supposed to refer to an adherent of historicism, not bible scholars, per se, let alone religious bible scholars who have a pre-existing bias.

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