Ralph Ellis’s youtube comment:
I said that there was a historical Jesus 25 years ago. All you need to know is that Saul was Josephus, and from that it flows that Vespasian ordered the formation of Simple Judaism (Christianity).
From this it also follows that Jesus was the leader of the Jewish Revolt, which is why he was jailed with revolutionaries in Mk 15:7. But who was the leader of the Jewish Revolt? Well Josephus has deleted this monarchy from history, but if you look carefully you will see that the leader was King Izas Manu of Edessa and Judaea (King Jesus Em Manuel of Judaea).
DB Cisco’s youtube comment:
Dr. Price is one of the few people in the entire ‘Great Debate’ who is a real open-minded, critical historian. The vast majority (on all sides) are just pushing their own opinions and not out to find truth. It seems “Mythicisim” has become little more than various “religious cults”.
Greg Rhodes’ YouTube comment
*Dr. Price again shows us why he stands out in his field, and as a super guy in general…!!! He here is willing to listen, and possibly change some of his views if it is warranted…His total *honesty*…about his quest for truth for an historical Jesus, and Christian history shines far above so many other secular and fundamentalist biblical scholars who hide behind *the consensus * of the field..Many are afraid of losing funding, book deals, and even jobs and careers in many cases if they go against “The Consensus ” …Bob stands behind his work, and presents new and unorthodox Hypothesis for an historical Jesus, or Christian history and general …Again, hats off to Robert M. Price… ????
Pat Down’s YouTube comment
I hadn’t read this book because the idea it presents seems absurd to me. However, when I watched Price’s glowing recommendation on another vid, I thought maybe I was wrong. It was only 6 bucks at the Kindle Store, so now I have it and plan to start it as soon as I finish Doherty’s reply to Bart Ehrman.
???Vader’s YouTube comment
Hmmm, I’m 18 mins in and wondering why atwill is not there to defend himself? Was he invited? I love listen Listening to price, but at least atwill comes up with an explanation and a sound one, of the 4 different gospel endings of the empty tomb and all the different players involved. Also, he never said Josephus alone wrote both his works and the NT. He says he was in with the Roman writers as well. And Josephus prolly isn’t real. It IS a parody of the Dead Sea scroll community and the revolutionaries, Eisenman states basically the same. They weren’t writing to the Jews that were just defeated they wrote, as Josephus and the NT letters state, to the diaspora. They did not want them and other nations turning to Judaism as king izates and his mother did and help the cause, cause it certainly wasn’t over. Josephus states that was Rome’s biggest fear and he sent his copy of war of the jews to the Jews beyond the rivers. They wanted them to convert to their brand of peaceful messianic Judaism. The messiah came and the evil Jews killed him already and he told the Romans to destroy the temple
I’ll finish this and glad it’s being done, but disappointed atwill can’t be there.
Also I see Ralph Ellis is commenting here. He is another you should have on the program
garymazeffa
I agree . These guys were having belly laughs and ridiculing of Atwill along with misrepresenting him on his positions. Here’s the deal. Have Atwill back on and replay the portions of ridicule. We’ll see who gets the last laugh.
San Mcnellis
@MythVision Podcast we’ll see. Atwill can easily defend his material. Things written such as Sermon on Mount would be beneficial to a well run society. Did Jesus say them or more likely Roman social engineering?
Simon the Likeable
Have Mike Lawrence on as well as Ralph Ellis. The Mythicists from the other side of the pond have some very interesting ideas which should be made available to wider audiences.
bassreeves1965
These guys are laughing at Atwill, but everything that they said about Bernice, and everything else, Atwill said, they look like hypocrites, Atwill broke it first, and no revision on their part, is gonna change that!.
Fahy, himself replied
We’ll be doing an interview with Joe Atwill later this week. After over 30 years of working on this theory, we aren’t worried about who “broke it first.” It’s more important what the theory says than what the speed record was. We do respect Joe Atwill, but as two researchers who had been following our own track of evidence to the theory long before Atwill’s book was published, some of his approaches seemed odd to us, which is quite natural. There are many paths to the same conclusion — which only reinforces the conclusion. Hopefully, you’ll tune in and hear us all discuss this in greater depth.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Hi Steefen,
I am still reading CCh (65% based on Kindle counter). This is a simple, professional investigation and prosecution of historical evidence.
Academia can’t see the forest for the trees.
That was truth in the past – Walter Bauer, Thomas L Thomson.
Best regards from Warsaw
Najlepszego
Reader
Question for James Stevens Valliant: if Christianity was the result of Romans co-opting Judaism and melding it into a pro-Roman institution in which Titus (and the imperial office) was cast as the messianic Son of Man… then from whence did the “Rome as antagonist” persecutorial motif derive in Acts, the Pastoral epistles, and the Patristic writings from the 2nd & 3rd centuries?
Also, why then is Pliny the Younger (the emperor’s chief legal officer and prosecutor) bringing charges against Christians? And why/how is he ignorant of Christians and their beliefs if this was an institution created by the Roman imperial institution?
Author
The reality of Jewish-Christian, i.e., the Jewish rebels’, persecution provides the tradition of early Christian persecution, and other Christians were eager to get the sympathy, cache and credit for that.
Even Josephus was impressed with the rebels’ religious zeal.
Paul may have himself been executed by the Romans if his mission had become violently counterproductive, making his death an easy way to quell a mob.
Furthermore, once Domitian started persecuting Christians within his own family, even Flavian Christianity became risky, as well.
Finally, by the time of Trajan, it served the interests of no emperor any longer, and was too easily confused with the rebel ideology for most Romans’ comfort. Note however that even Trajan ordered Christians NOT be hunted down.
Reader
Your explanation is sensible and seems contextually plausible. But I also have a couple more follow up thoughts…
1. You remarked that “Paul may have himself been executed by the Romans if his mission had become violently counterproductive…”
Well, what immediately comes to mind here is Romans 13:1-7 in which Paul is especially conciliatory toward Roman authorities (outright labeling Roman government as a benevolent actor of God’s will). Paul explicitly exhorts the church in Rome to honor and be willfully subservient toward Roman governance. This sentiment from Paul seems to be at stark odds with the notion that he promoted a violent or threatening type of Christian ethos. If anything, Paul’s rhetoric in that passage seems to align with the pro-Roman theme. Thoughts?
2. Both Pliny and Trajan appeared to be in agreement in their view that the beliefs of Christians were harmless, but their unlawful organizing was something that required action. And yes, I did take note that Trajan counseled Pliny to refrain from actively pursuing Christians.
This, combined with Pliny’s unfamiliarity and general lack of awareness of Christians, really calls into question the genuineness of early martyrdom accounts such as the purported letters and martyrdom of Ignatius (which would have coincided with the time that Trajan was emperor and when Pliny was on Trajan’s imperial magistrate tribunal –i.e., prior to Pliny’s letter to Trajan concerning Christians).
So, it would seem that the entire Ignatian corpus is spurious since the purported persecution of Ignatius by Romans (who supposedly sent Ignatius before the imperial court and the emperor himself before he was fed to the lions simply for confessing Christian faith) is historically anachronistic.
Indeed, Paul’s beliefs are so pro-Roman as to suggest he was working for their interests. His treatment by Roman officials as described in the admittedly dubious Acts further suggests that. But,
he would not be the first double agent to be sacrificed for greater ends.
Their ignorance and even confusion about Christians is shared by other Romans of the period and is hardly surprising. After Domitian’s purge, any continued cult might have been seen as threatening just in its vague connection to the rebels.
It’s done. Truly I tell you it is a brilliant book. The most difficult challenge for NT society, contradicted with all ‘serious’ theories developed by scholars.
It is a challenge for Crossan, Ludemann, Ehrman, Price, Carrier, for all of them.
An absolute winner of the beauty contest.
Presented evidence and interpretation are for me the most PROBABLE scenario of the past I have ever read. Is it true? I don’t know, but it is a great achievement.
Steefen
There is a similarity between the iconography of the Flavians and Early Christianity.
Not only are the canonical gospels written during the reign of the Flavians but Early Christianity carry the Flavian brand.
I want to see if I affirm this resolution.
There are three chapters in Part I: Dolphin and Anchor.
There are four chapters in Part II: Jews and Christians at the Flavian Court.
There is a conclusion.
Let’s read and review a book.
godspell wrote:
“History is not all dry facts and figures–if it was, nobody but historians would know any. We do have to reach deeper to get at the truth, which is not the same thing as the facts. We have to give something of ourselves”.
[Fernando]: The facts are not dry or wet. They are simply facts.
The same must be said of the figures, of the data. The figures may be true or false, but not dry or wet.
Forgive my question “godspell”, but I would like you to explain to me what you understand when you affirm that “We do have to reach deeper to get at the truth, which is not the same thing as the facts.”
In many respects, history is a science that requires the use of methodological naturalism and other elements and tools of the epistemology of natural sciences (or in colloquial language, “hard sciences”). Therefore, we have to define the truth in history when an assumption, a hypothesis, a belief corresponds to reality, which can only be done through sufficiently documented, analyzed and checked facts.
It is true that in many cases, especially a few hundred years ago when there were not the means we have today to keep track of what happened as accurately as possible, it is an extremely difficult task to establish the correspondence between the facts known at that moment. and the reality But that does not prevent us from continuing to investigate until we get all the possible information to be able to reconstruct reality from the facts. That is why the truth in the science of history is likely to change before the discovery of new evidence.
It will be argued that the study of the so-called social and psychological reality of human beings who are in these events is necessary to know the complete and deep truth. I disagree with that assumption. Inquiring about subjective issues of the protagonists of the story, which must also be done through the subjectivity of those who study these aspects, is not historiography but falls within the so-called historical novel. There is no way to see if there is correspondence between a subjective affirmation of a historian about emotional and cognitive and highly subjective states of the mind of historical figures, with reality, that is, with the mental states that occurred in those subjects at that time we try to analyze. Therefore, we return to the beginning: the only way to define the truth is the correspondence of the facts with the reality. Everything else is assumptions, hypotheses, opinions, beliefs, etc., which may be true or false. Ignoramus et ignorabimus.
I do not mean by this to say that there is an objective truth in the subject of history available to the investigators. But between total subjectivity and absolute truth is the intersubjectivity of the majority consensus of experts. That intersubjectivity of the consensus as mayority as possible of the experts is what advances both the natural sciences and those of history.
I agree the facts are the facts.
But even in modern history, there are disputed facts, and there are different interpretations of the same facts. This is ancient history. We have far fewer facts, and they are often much more in dispute.
There is a danger in thinking history is all about facts. History is always, to some extent, an interpretation of the past, and those interpretations can and do change over time. What we thought we knew a while ago isn’t what we know now. What we think we know now won’t be what we know a hundred years from now. Some things remain fairly consistent, and revisionist theories may turn out to be passing fads, but don’t fall for the idea that history is science. It makes use of science, but history is part of the humanities. It’s a dark art, much more analog than digital, because it’s about people. If you like your history to be entirely fact-based, try natural history–or better still, geology. (And there are always changes going on there as well.)
There is no record from Jesus’ time (and I don’t just mean about Jesus) that can’t be contested in some way. There is considerable dispute over events that happened last weekend. Some facts are drier than others. Some are pretty damned wet.
And you need to work harder on editing. That’s an opinion, of course. 😉
Henryk Sienkewicz was a Polish ‘historical’ writer, Nobel Prize Winner for “Quo Vadis”. He wrote a Trilogy, known to any Polish in the world, full of historical persons but fictional in 95%. To lift up the hearts.
Jesus resume is a myth. This is a point of view of all critical scholars today and in the past. Maybe his resume is true in 5%, maybe in 18%. No hard evidence available. Only personal interpretations resulting a dozen different theories about who really was a historical Jesus.
First critical theory of the first critical scholar was a Jesus as a failed political messiah. Done by Reimarus, published after his death for safety reason.
This is a point of view presented in Creating Christ.
Jesus resume was sanitized by romanized Jews for political purposes. Existence or non existence? There is no such question. And who cares?
“The New Testament is anti-Semitic, not incidentally, not implicitly, but fundamentally and thematically. Anti-Semitism is its purpose. From its very origins, the New Testament is quite literally “anti-Semitism.” The “New Testament” is a rebuttal to the “Old Testament” written at a time of holy war between the Jews and Romans.” (from “Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity” by James S. Valliant, C. W. Fahy)
“In the Gospels, Jesus condemns the things that brought Jews into conflict with the Romans even as he expresses themes of hope, peace, charity, eternal salvation, joy, universal brotherhood, and the proclamation of world peace to the whole of the human race. All of these are distinctly Roman goals that they were actively disseminating far and wide at the time, as evidenced in their coinage. Indeed, Jesus personified all the social virtues that were the very currency of Roman imperialism in the wake of the calamitous Jewish War.” (from “Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity” by James S. Valliant, C. W. Fahy)
Jarek said
Jesus resume is a myth. This is a point of view of all critical scholars today and in the past. Maybe his resume is true in 5%, maybe in 18%. No hard evidence available. Only personal interpretations resulting a dozen different theories about who really was a historical Jesus.
Please state the hard evidence proving the Jesus resume is a myth.
Jarek said
“The New Testament is anti-Semitic, not incidentally, not implicitly, but fundamentally and thematically. Anti-Semitism is its purpose. From its very origins, the New Testament is quite literally “anti-Semitism.” The “New Testament” is a rebuttal to the “Old Testament” written at a time of holy war between the Jews and Romans.” (from “Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity” by James S. Valliant, C. W. Fahy)
It is remarkable how in one breath you speak of “hard evidence,” and in the very next you are quoting anti-factual nonsense with approval. The works comprising the “New Testament” were not even compiled into a single work until the latter part of the Second Century — a century after the war between the Jews and Romans.
This idea that they were written as some type of unitary project to rebut the “Old Testament” is utterly bonkers and totally anti-historical. (By use of the term “Old Testament,” I can only imagine you are referring to the 5 books of the Torah, 13 books of the Nevi’im, and 4 books of hymns and wisdom, identified by Josephus as sacred texts at the time of the Jewish Revolt.)
Let’s take the earliest works which found their way into the compiled “New Testament”: the authentic Pauline epistles. On what possible basis can the claim be made that the authentic Pauline corpus was composed as a rebuttal to the Torah, Nevi’im and books of hymns and wisdom?? In what way are First Thessalonians, Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon and Romans composed in a manner that would resemble scripture for First and Second Century Jews?
If you simply (and merely) meant that the Pauline corpus was intended as a polemic against First Century orthodox Judaism, then why would an ordinary, devout First Century Jew abandon the teachings of his scriptures and adopt the teachings of some random contemporary writing for what appears to be a gentile audience?
For any number of very obvious reasons, this makes no sense at all.
Jarek said
“In the Gospels, Jesus condemns the things that brought Jews into conflict with the Romans even as he expresses themes of hope, peace, charity, eternal salvation, joy, universal brotherhood, and the proclamation of world peace to the whole of the human race. All of these are distinctly Roman goals that they were actively disseminating far and wide at the time, as evidenced in their coinage. Indeed, Jesus personified all the social virtues that were the very currency of Roman imperialism in the wake of the calamitous Jewish War.” (from “Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity” by James S. Valliant, C. W. Fahy)
So, hope, peace, charity, eternal salvation, joy, universal brotherhood, and world peace were themes of the late First Century Roman Empire? Is this meant as comedy?
Upon taking the throne, Vespasian spent the 70s engaging in a series of military campaigns in Egypt, Gaul and Germania. He began construction of the Colosseum for gladiatorial games, which was completed by Titus, who also revived the Imperial Cult. Both Vespasian and Titus enthusiastically supported gladiatorial combat. Domitian, the longest serving Flavian emperor, mounted vast campaigns of conquest in Britannia and the Carpathian Mountains, and conducted a mass purge of rivals in the mid 90s.
Through this period, the scope of slavery within the Empire increased significantly.
Jarek
Jesus resume is a myth. This is a point of view of all critical scholars today and in the past. Maybe his resume is true in 5%, maybe in 18%
Steefen
Mark doesn’t have the Beatitudes and Mark does not have The Our Father Prayer.
Jesus’s resume includes giving a sermon on beatitudes and teaching people to pray the Our Father prayer; or, does it not include these?
Stefeen,
The question is “What Jesus Really Said and Did?”
And the answer of modern critical scholars is that from 5% to 18 % of attributed dids and sayings are genuine. Each time is a different part because they developed a dozen theories about who was a historical Jesus.
From Bart we have a small comment to 18% chosen by Jesus Seminar. He said that 18% is ok but different 18%
For Crossan, for Ludemann, for Ehrman Jesus resume is artificial in more then 80%.
The oldest critical theory stlill on the table of serious scholarship is Jesus as a failed revolutionary.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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