Search Results for: vridar not a mythicist blog

Vridar, not a mythicist blog, but a blog for Christian origins and the nature of the early evidence

Updated  an hour after initial posting. There is no historical inquiry comparable to: “Did Julius Caesar exist?” That ought to tell us something about the nature of mainstream historical investigations — and also something about the evidence for a historical figure of Jesus as an originator of the Christian religion. I have posted far more … Continue reading “Vridar, not a mythicist blog, but a blog for Christian origins and the nature of the early evidence”

“Another Mythicist Discussion” Revisited

Responses to some points made in a larger argument for the historicity of Jesus, Another Jesus Mythicism Discussion (I posted then soon deleted much of what follows about three weeks ago. My initial post was couched in a misunderstanding about the background to the original post.) I did return to the original site to continue … Continue reading ““Another Mythicist Discussion” Revisited”

Fundamentalists Don’t Become Mythicists

Not as a rule. Look at the Who’s Who Page in the right-hand column here and you will see that only a minority of mythicist authors or sympathizers come from a fundamentalist background. If you want to put fundamentalist Christians on some sort of ideological continuum then their polar opposite would be liberal Christian. In … Continue reading “Fundamentalists Don’t Become Mythicists”

“Nothing in what [mythicists] write is authoritative or trustworthy”

Quite some years ago I sat listening to a sabbath sermon by a Worldwide Church of God minister in which he made some very misleading assertions about the history of U.S. foreign policy. I approached him afterwards to point out what I had learned in an undergraduate course on the history of the United States. … Continue reading ““Nothing in what [mythicists] write is authoritative or trustworthy””

Answering James McGrath’s Questions for Mythicists

Recently James McGrath has addressed a point I have regularly made about a key difference between the canonical gospels and historical and biographical narratives by ancient authors: the latter generally attempt to assure readers of the validity of their accounts by mentioning their sources; the former generally do not. McGrath has put an anachronistic slant … Continue reading “Answering James McGrath’s Questions for Mythicists”

The Tone of a Mythicist-Agnostic Debate

Some of us may be interested in a somewhat objective attempt to measure the tone of the discussion on the question of Mythicist-Agnosticism as raised on the Religion Prof’s blogsite: Current Debate Jesus Agnosticism/Mythicism – Raphael Lataster and James McGrath The measure is from a text analysis program, the LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). … Continue reading “The Tone of a Mythicist-Agnostic Debate”

Looking for Communist Christ Mythicist Publications

One blogger is looking for old communist-era publications explaining Jesus as a mythical figure. I have had a similar interest in the sorts of things that were said about Jesus and Christian origins in the Soviet Union. I know Engels wrote something and that Drews impressed Lenin enough for him to propagate his views throughout … Continue reading “Looking for Communist Christ Mythicist Publications”

Justin Martyr Answers a Second Century Jesus Christ Mythicist

We return here to the question of the Testimonium Flavianum, the passage about Jesus found in our copies of Antiquities of the Jews by the first century Jewish historian Josephus. Not many years back Earl Doherty wrote for this blog: Trypho Finally, there is the question of what is meant by Trypho’s remark in Justin’s … Continue reading “Justin Martyr Answers a Second Century Jesus Christ Mythicist”

18 Vridar Posts on the Gospel of Luke’s Emmaus Road / Cleopas Narrative

After Tim’s recent post Unclear Origins and Etymology of Kleopas and noticing readers’ interest related to the subject I thought some of us might be interested in a complete list of Vridar posts on the Emmaus Road narrative. Here they are, all 18 of them, annotated. When did Peter first see the resurrected Jesus? 2007-09-16 The Emmaus … Continue reading “18 Vridar Posts on the Gospel of Luke’s Emmaus Road / Cleopas Narrative”

Mythicist Papers: Resources for the Study of Christian Origins – Update

This blog is now entering ‘sleep’ mode… — that’s the heading for René Salm’s final post at least for a while. René explains his decision to retire from posting and publishing his research into Christian origins. Fortunately his blog with its many resources will remain online for some time yet. I think René’s strongest contribution to … Continue reading “Mythicist Papers: Resources for the Study of Christian Origins – Update”

Three Mythicist Novels

We have novels about Jesus or about people in his generation and now we also have novels that embrace mythicist arguments. So if you would like to learn key mythicist arguments without a poring through academic style articles and books or even if you are just interested in seeing what others make of the possibilities … Continue reading “Three Mythicist Novels”

Follow up questions to my post on not seeing myself as a “Jesus mythicist”

Posting here a few more of my responses to questions that were raised on the BC&H forum about my stance on the Jesus mythicism question. (The first post in this series is Why I don’t see myself as a Christ Mythicist) On making reasonable assumptions and seeing where they take us Is it reasonable to assume … Continue reading “Follow up questions to my post on not seeing myself as a “Jesus mythicist””

Skeptical of Mythicism, Fine; But Scholarly Carelessness, Not So Fine

Back in June I noticed the following blog post by a certain professor of New Testament studies and “progressive Christian” but being overseas and away from my little library I was unable to check the details and respond at the time….. Skeptical of Mythicism The post begins with a quotation of a Facebook post by … Continue reading “Skeptical of Mythicism, Fine; But Scholarly Carelessness, Not So Fine”

Why do professional scholars blog this sort of vacuous nonsense?

A number of biblical scholars appear to be afflicted with something akin to the Red Scare or the Yellow Menace of the old Cold War days. They don’t need to know much about communism to know that it’s bad and evil and a threat to everything decent and that it appeals mostly to benighted minds in … Continue reading “Why do professional scholars blog this sort of vacuous nonsense?”