User talk:Jbolden1517/CM/Chart

Copied from JM

Chart

I've started a page to create a version of this with references and cleaned up. User:Jbolden1517/CM/Chart jbolden1517^Talk 15:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks good though I would debate with the "Jesus was likely born of Mary, the virgin birth was a later add on to cover up illegitimacy." idea for Mainstream Scholarship as I don't think there is anything resembling a consensus on exactly how or even why the virgin birth got included.

I would also say that the "Supporters are generally conservative Christians, Supporters are generally liberal Christians, Supporters are generally atheists" line has no relevance to the issue, is Ad hominem, and is not supported by the reliable sources.

A prefect counter example can be found on youtube where Fighting Atheist holds Jesus DID exist while Deist JohnLArmstrong holds that Jesus Never Existed. Besides if Hayyim ben Yehoshua in his Refuting Missionaries paper is to be believed "In the Far East where the major religions are Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism and Confucianism, Jesus is considered to be just another character in Western religious mythology, on a par with Thor, Zeus and Osiris. Most Hindus do not believe in Jesus, but those who do consider him to be one of the many avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu."

A quick search produces this chart that has nonreligious at 16% but at best only half would be considered Atheist. In fact, the U.S. Center for World Mission puts that number even lower at only 2.5%. By comparison Buddhism, "Chinese Traditional", and Hinduism compose about 25%. I don't know how reliable this is but it does gives a possible insight to how Historicity as we use it operates in Hinduism.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:39, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Good point about avatar of Vishnu. You caught me on western bias. Hindus who believe in the Christ myth probably outnumber all other groups combined.

Would you be OK with:

• Majority of authors are conservative Christians / Majority of authors are liberal Christians / Majority of authors are Atheist
• Beliefs originated in conservative Christian community / came from liberal Christianity / came from atheism

In terms of the virgin birth I checked Meier he has Joseph was already dead. OK so it is all over the place. Any suggestion for what I should but in that box? jbolden1517^Talk 02:37, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Intro

Incomplete thought

In hoping to end the never ending, intro debate one of the comments I think deserves to get pulled out "the Christ myth theory is a reaction to the liberal Protestant quest of the historical Jesus, which attempted to reconstruct the life of the human being behind the New Testament accounts. The Christ myth theory says that the quest is looking for a mirage--that the New Testament tells us nothing about the life of a historical, early first century CE Galilean preacher. That guy, they say, never lived--he wasn't real. He didn't exist."

OK too strong but the basic idea of defining Christ myth theory as a reaction makes sense. What about something like ""the Christ myth theory is a reaction to the liberal Protestant quest of the historical Jesus, which attempted to reconstruct the life of the human being behind the gospel accounts. The Christ myth theory says that the quest is looking for a mirage -- that the New Testament tells us nothing about the life of a historical, early first century CE Galilean preacher. That guy, they say, never lived--he wasn't real. He didn't exist."

Possible box

While Doherty and Wells agree to some degree on the "mythological being to whom earthly events were later attached" the key difference is that as Wells himself points out in Can We Trust The New Testament? pg 44-46 is that Doherty doesn't hold there is anything there with regards to a historical Jesus while as early as Jesus Legend Wells accepted there was something there. In fact, on page 50 Wells expressly states he stands against Doherty and Price regarding all post-Pauline material is mythical.

So Wells has Paul's Jesus a mythical possibly historical person of an earlier century being merged with the Q account of a historical Jesus to form a composite character known as the Gospel Jesus. Wells expressly states this several times and Doherty states that Wells was saying in Jesus Myth that the Gospel Jesus didn't exist while calling Wells as current Jesus mythist a point that still agrees with Wells stated position.