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- How Much Skepticism Is Warranted?
- The Mythical View of Jesus
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- As we close out our discussion of the questions posed about the historical Jesus, we dive in to the current theory that Jesus never existed at all. This is called the "mythicist" argument, and it is the main subject that Bart Ehrman takes on in our reading from today from his book, Did Jesus Exist?
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- As you read Ehrman's chapter, take note of the basic mythicist argument. Why is it that some people think Jesus never existed, and the religion is thus based on a myth? Even for those mythicists who think there was an historical man, they believe that the religion of Christianity is built less on him than on religious ideas popular in antiquity. What were some of these ideas? Our goal today is to explore their central arguments and what they reveal about the problems with our evidence, so that as we dive into our evidence in the next few weeks, we have some sense of the issues in play.
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- Assigned Readings
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| Secondary: |
Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperCollins, 2012) 11-34; online class
prep |
| Lecture Slides: |
Class 3a (pdf) |
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- Further Reading
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- Bauer, Bruno. Christ and the Caesars: The Origin of Christianity from Romanized Greek Culture. Charleston, South Carolina: A. Davidonis, 1998; German original, 1877.
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- Carrier, Richard. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014.
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- Doherty, Earl. Jesus: Neither God Nor Man: The Case for a Mythical Jesus. Ottawa: Age of Reason, 2009.
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- Drews, Arthur. The Christ Myth, trans. from the 3d ed. by C. Celisle Burns. Chicago: Open Court, 1911; original 1909.
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- Dupuis, Charles-François. The Origin of All Religious Worship. New York: Garland, 1984; French original 1795.
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- Price, Robert. The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems. Parsippany, New Jersey: American Atheist Press, 2011.
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- --------. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? Amhest, New York: Prometheus, 2003.
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- Robertson, John M . Christianity and Mythology, 2d rev. ed. London: Watts & Co., 1936; original 1900.
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- Robinson, Archibald. Jesus: Myth or History? Charleston, South Carolina: Nabu, 2011.
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- Thompson, Thomas L. The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
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- Volney, Constantin François. The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires: and the Law of Nature. Online, Project Gutenberg, EBook #1397 (produced Donald Lainson and David Widger; 2013), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1397/1397-h/1397-h.htm#link2HCH0001, accessed 14 April 2015.
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- Wells, George A. Did Jesus Exist? Buffalo: Prometheus, 1975.
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- --------. The Historical Evidence for Jesus. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus, 1982.
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- --------. The Jesus Legend. Chicago: Open Court, 1996.
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- Links
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- G. A. Wells, "Earliest Christianity" - A short summary of Wells' mythicist position, hosted on TheSecularWeb. Originally published in The New Humanist 114:3 (1999) 13-18.
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- Sources
- Image: Screen shot of Brandon Vogt's blog, Richard Carrier, "Defending Mythicism: A New Approach to Christian Origins," Strange Notions: The Digital Areopagus—Reason. Faith. Dialogue (Brandon Vogt;n.d.), blogpost online, http://www.strangenotions.com/defending-mythicism/,
accessed 14 April 2015.
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