Historical Jesus or Mythical Jesus? Using 'Did Jesus Exist' by Prof. Bart Ehrman

Announcing a new book series, this time based off Professor Bart Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist. Instead of reviewing the book chapter by chapter, I will draw on it to construct a novel argument that treats the historical Jesus position and the mythical Jesus position as competing theories and evaluate them on their ability to account for and explain the writings about Jesus, christologies and heresies from the first and second centuries CE. I conclude, based on extensive examination of the available evidence, that the theory that best accounts for our evidence is the historical Jesus theory.

Links to relevant videos featuring Prof. Bart Ehrman

Historical contexts of the 1st century CE
Bart Ehrman Discusses the Apocalypticist

Jesus and the Historian

How Jesus Became God - UCC Part 1 of 3

How Jesus Became God - UCC Part 2 of 3

How Jesus Became God - UCC Part 3 of 3

Did Jesus Exist? Interview by Guy Raz

My subscribers are awesome - you're awesome too so you should subscribe as well!

My YouTube Facebook page

[conferencereport]

Looking forward to following this series. Will get hold of Ehrman's book in preparation.

Best wishes

Fred

[tommcdonald]

This should be a blast. I'm intrigued by what I've read and seen of the Jesus myth notion and know that some academic mythicists (who otherwise think quite highly of Ehrman's work, even when they disagree with it) see this book as not up to his usual standards. I'll be curious what you think.

Also, I have come to strongly suspect that, whatever the facts behind the historicity of Jesus, the *real* Jesus is almost, if not entirely, lost to us. From that POV his historicity is almost beside the point in terms of the Great(ish) Debate/Squabble. I'll be fascinated to see how the discussion of these videos develops.

[STSgerman]

Kristi, after you have done the book review, will you be looking at Richard Carriers book (or talk to him) advancing the argument for a mythical Jesus later?
p.s: I am looking forward to this series

[pwaern]

Looking forward to it. I think your approach to this is the right one. The mythicist theory sounds much like a conspiracy theory to me and a good way to expose it is, as you say, to try to align the theories with the facts and see which theory is most credible.

[davidrenton]

Looking forward to this. Always like an open-minded approach to an historical take on the supernatural.

[uncleanunicorn]

But which mythical Jesus hypothesis are you going to discuss? There are many possible Mythicist theories, just as there are many potential – and contradictory historicist scenarios. Disproving one mythicist hypothesis does not establish the existence of Jesus, anymore than with the reverse. It just means one hypothesis is wrong.

[Slothd]

This seems interesting. I'm looking forward to it.

[akl]

Should be interesting. Bart Ehrman has made a remarkable contribution in getting me to believe Jesus was a myth. I'm sure he would not be pleased to learn that. Although I don't have strong feelings either way. I consider Paul to be the real founder of christianity and whether he got a few ideas from someone else or not is not terribly important to me.

One small request. I think it would be better to refer to him as "Jesus" rather than chist. Starting by calling him "the anointed one" sort of implies that you have already made conclusions about him.

[Based_Papa]

Sargon just disagreed with you. Do you find that triggering?

[drkmwinters]

To those mythical Jesus proponents who are already typing stock answers that assume if you can dismiss a piece of evidence then Jesus must have been a myth, that is not what this series will be about. Also, if you think that dismissing evidence for X means you have to conclude Y, please explain how that is any different from a creationist asserting if evidence for evolution is dismissed you have to believe god created the universe. It seems to be the identical thought process to me.

[mattc]

1. Why do this project?

You are a social scientist and atheist. This project is outside of your normal scope of operations. So why do it?

2. How does this project advance your career?

This kind of project does not seem to advance your career all that much. It's just one more piece of a puzzle. Why not work on something big?

3. How does this project help the rest of us?

Will your new method of evaluation help us all that much? Or perhaps it will be an incremental advance?

4. What would happen to you if you came up with the wrong answer?

I guess the only wrong answer is that Jesus was really sent by God? What would happen to you if you came up with that answer? I'm guessing that would not be a good thing for you personally.

[Leinad]

Ahhh! A new environment! I'm scared!

[bgbbft]

Do historians publish in peer reviewed journals? We can throw around claims about what the "majority of historians profess" but I'm more interested in what the literature says they can demonstrate.

I'll be starting from a soft position of "Jesus was probably made up by some heretic Jews that thought mystery cults were cool, first put into writing by Paul, then later elaborated upon by anonymous authors." I look forward to being convinced otherwise.

[godlessengineer]

first of all Kristy .... it's not random neck beards in their moms basement that doubt the historicity of Jesus there are plenty of scholars that deny the existence of a historical Jesus.

those that are teaching and agree he existed have signed agreements that say they have to agree with that.

[chrisuitbrabant]

can i just get a poll in this community?

how many people here believe in a Western civilization Gender pay gap?