A Christian Response by Stephen J. Bedard
I was watching this interview with mythicists Robert Price on the MythVision Podcast. There is much I could comment on in this video. I could talk about the problems with the “Dying and Rising” gods or claims about the New Testament teaching an angelic Christ. But what actually stood out for me was the comments … Read More “What It Would Take to Convince Some Jesus Mythicists” »
The question of whether Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical person may seem like a modern provocation, often associated today with internet debates or popular skepticism. In reality, doubts about Jesus’ historicity emerged relatively late and within specific philosophical and ideological contexts. For most of Christian history—and even among early critics of Christianity—the existence of Jesus himself … Read More “When Was the Historical Existence of Jesus First Questioned?” »
Dates, Theology, and Differences from the Canonical Gospels When modern readers think of “the Gospels,” they typically mean the four canonical texts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Yet the first two centuries of Christianity saw the circulation of a much wider body of gospel literature. Some of these writings preserve early traditions about Jesus; … Read More “The Five Earliest Non-Canonical Gospels” »
The 19th century witnessed a significant transformation in how scholars approached the life and person of Jesus. Known as the “Quest for the Historical Jesus,” this intellectual and theological movement sought to distinguish the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth from the theological Christ of faith. Rather than simply accepting traditional church doctrines or Gospel accounts at face value, scholars … Read More “The Quest for the Historical Jesus in the 19th Century” »
Bayes’ Theorem, a mathematical formula used to update probabilities based on new evidence, has increasingly been applied in historical analysis to assess the likelihood of past events. By quantifying historical probabilities, historians and scholars can provide a more rigorous evaluation of events where direct evidence is scarce. However, while the method offers significant benefits, it … Read More “The Usefulness of Bayes’ Theorem for Determining the Historicity of Events” »
One of the key issues for those who argue that Jesus was not a historical figure is the identity of James. Not James, the brother of John and the son of Zebedee, but the James that is referred to as the brother of the Lord. Traditionally this has been understood as being James, the actual … Read More “Responding to Richard Carrier and “the Brother of the Lord”” »
The Gospel of Mark is our earliest reference to the detail of the tomb of Jesus being empty. Does that mean that Mark invented the empty tomb? Richard Carrier thinks so. Being the first to mention something does not make one the inventor of a concept. The earliest textual reference that we have of “Pharisee” … Read More “Did Mark Invent the Empty Tomb?” »
In this post, I continue to look at the Religions Wiki that deals with the Jesus Myth, this time specifically the section Epistles genuinely written by Paul. I am not really going to deal with the claim that Paul only wrote seven of the epistles. I find this is often used for shock value toward … Read More “The Jesus Myth and the Apostle Paul” »
I have been looking at the Religions Wiki article on the Jesus Myth. They tackle one of the most difficult issues for the JMT right at the beginning. They acknowledge: Previously, mythicism has been criticized for not explaining the origin of Christianity. They attempt to show a believable origin for the Jesus Myth. This is … Read More “Why Did the Myth of Jesus Arise?” »
The Religions Wiki has an interesting article called Jesus began as a myth and was later historicized that I think I will write a number of posts on. The first part is a section called Minimal facts. When Christian apologists hear “minimal facts”, they probably think of the method that some use to try and … Read More “The Minimal Facts of the Jesus Myth Theory” »
