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Jesus
Shattering the Christ-Myth


The Reliability of the Secular References to Jesus

J. P. Holding

You mean Robert Turkel?

Great....now we're going to get crap from the Turk-tonics website.

As I think about it, though, the good news in trolls posting this crap is
that it encourages people to check stuff out for themselves. That's what it
did for me; especially when somebody posted a link which took an opposite
view. I went from fundy xian to agnostic fairly quickly because of what I
learned in this ng. The trolls were part of the process.

On 21 May 2004 19:23:28 -0000,

Jesus
Shattering the Christ-Myth


The Reliability of the Secular References to Jesus

J. P. Holding


During a discussion of William Shakespeare, a student asked the old

The professor growled, "Young man, if Shakespeare did not write those

It is a sure sign of desperation: In disbelieving circles, one of the

At first glance, the "Jesus-myth" seems to be a stroke of genius: To

Does the "Jesus-myth" have any scholarly support? In this case, to simply

Oddly, there is no mention of these books in the pathetic article
posted above.

I wonder why?

Full reviews can be read at this link.
http://www.prometheusbooks.com/groups/group_2.html

(The) Incredible Shrinking Son of Man
A Church Divided
Against the Faith
Biblical Errancy
Biblical vs. Secular Ethics
Blind Faith
Deadly Blessings
Deconstructing Jesus
Gospel Fictions
Jesus After 2000 Years
Jesus in History and Myth
Jesus Outside the Gospels
Modern Spiritualities
More Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality
Mythology's Last Gods
Out of the Desert?
Paul
Phantoms of Divinity
Physician, Heal Thyself
Porphyry's Against The Christians
Self-Contradictions of the Bible
Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality
The Bad News Bible
The Christ
The Christ Myth
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth
The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy
The Gospel and the Church
The Gospel Time Bomb
The Great Deception
The Jesus Idea
The Mind of the Bible-Believer
The Mystery of the Kingdom of God
The Old Faith & The New
The Origins of Christianity
The Secret Gospels
The Supernatural, The Occult, and The Bible
The Test of Love
What is the Bible?
What the Bible Really Says

http://www.prometheusbooks.com/groups/group_2.html


No mention of this author?
The first one on the list.

Robert M. Price, Ph.D. (Selma, NC), is professor of biblical criticism
for the Center for Inquiry Institute, Johnnie Colemon Theological
Seminary, and Johnston Community College. He is also the author of
Deconstructing Jesus. Previously, Price taught New Testament courses
at Drew University and mythology at Montclair State University.


-------------------------------------------------------------------

Deconstructing Jesus
Robert M. Price
http://www.prometheusbooks.com/catalog/book_20.html
....
"... provocative and compelling ...." - Journal of Church and State

After more than a century of New Testament scholarship, it has become
clear that the Jesus of the gospels is a fictive amalgam, reflecting
the hopes and beliefs of the early Christian community and revealing
very little about the historical Jesus. Over the millennia since the
beginning of Christianity various congregations, from fundamentalist
to liberal, have tended to produce a Jesus figurehead that functions
as a symbolic cloak for their specific theological agendas.

Through extensive research and fresh textual insights Robert M. Price
paves the way for a new reconstruction of Christian origins. Moving
beyond the work of Burton L. Mack and John Dominic Crossan on Jesus
movements and Christ cults, which shows how the various Jesus figures
may have amalgamated into the patchwork savior of Christian faith,
Price takes an innovative approach. He links the work of F.C. Baur,
Walter Bauer, Helmut Koester, and James M. Robinson with that of early
Christ-myth theorists-two camps of biblical analysis that have never
communicated.

Arguing that perhaps Jesus never existed as a historical figure, Price
maintains an agnostic stance, while putting many puzzles and scholarly
debates in a new light.
He also incorporates neglected parallels from Islam, the Baha'i Faith,
and Buddhism. Deconstructing Jesus provides a valuable bridge between
New Testament scholarship and early freethinkers in a refreshing
cross-fertilization of perspectives.


---------------------------------------------------------

(The) Incredible Shrinking Son of Man
How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?
Robert M. Price
....
For more than a century scholars have been examining the Gospels and
other traditions about the life of Jesus to determine their historical
accuracy. Although the results of these scholarly efforts are
sometimes controversial, the consensus among researchers today is that
the four Evangelists' accounts cannot be taken at face value. In fact,
a team of more than 100 scholars called the Jesus Seminar has come to
the conclusion that on average only about 18 percent of the four
Gospels is historically accurate.

An active member of the Jesus Seminar, Dr. Robert M. Price presents
the fruits of this important historical research in this fascinating
discussion of early Christianity. As the title suggests, Price is none
too optimistic about the reliability of the Gospel tradition as a
source of accurate historical information about the life of Jesus.
Indeed, he feels that his colleagues in the Jesus Seminar are much too
optimistic in their estimate of authentic material in the Gospels.
After an introduction to the historical-critical method for
nonspecialists and a critique of the methods used by the Jesus
Seminar, Price systematically discusses the narrative and teaching
materials in the Gospel, clearly presenting what is known and not
known about all of the major episodes of Jesus' life. He also examines
the parables for authenticity as well as Jesus' teachings about the
Kingdom of God, repentance, prayer, possessions and poverty, the
Atonement, and many other features of the Gospels.

Written for the general reading public in a lively and accessible
style, Dr. Price's highly informative discussion will be of interest
to anyone who has wondered about the origins of Christianity.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

And on the subject of the one author that was mentioned.


Did Jesus Exist?
G.A. Wells
....
Professor Wells argues that there was no historical Jesus, and in thus
arguing he deals with the many recent writers who have interpreted the
historical Jesus as some kind of political figure in the struggle
against Rome, and calls in evidence the many contemporary theologians
who agree with some of his arguments about early Christianity. The
question at issue is what all the evidence adds up to. Does it
establish that Jesus did or did not exist? Professor Wells concludes
that the latter is the more likely hypothesis.

This challenge to received thinking by both Christians and
non-Christians is supported by much documentary evidence, and
Professor Wells carefully examines all the relevant problems and
answers all the relevant questions. He deliberately avoids polemic and
speculation, and sticks so far as possible to the known facts and to
rational inferences from the facts.

-------

The Historical Evidence for Jesus
G.A. Wells
....
In this thoroughly researched study, G.A. Wells has squarely faced the
question of whether a man named Jesus lived, preached, healed, and
died in Palestine during the early years of the first century of the
Christian era - or indeed, at any time.

Building on the biblical studies of Christian theologians, Dr. Wells
soberly demonstrates that we have no reliable eyewitnesses to the
events depicted in the New Testament. He publicizes a fact known to
theological scholars but little-known in the average Christian
congregation: that the order of books of the New Testament is not an
accurate chronological arrangement. Indeed, Paul, who never saw Jesus,
wrote his epistles to early Christian congregations before the Gospels
of Matthew, Mark, and John were written.

It may come as a great surprise to Christians and other monotheists,
to agnostics, atheists, and humanists alike, that "the earliest
references to the historical Jesus are so vague that it is not
necessary to hold that he ever existed; the rise of Christianity can,
from the undoubtedly historical antecedents, be explained quite well
without him; and reasons can be given to show why, from about A.D. 80
or 90, Christians began to suppose that he had lived in Palestine
about fifty years earlier."

The Historical Evidence for Jesus is not a frontal attack on
Christians per se; rather it is an easily understood but scholarly
examination of the evidence for many long-accepted notions about the
"biography" of the man called Jesus. This book takes up and quotes
extensively from the Epistles and the Gospels of the New Testament,
thus letting the evidence speak for itself in words familiar to every
Bible reader. For example, Wells closely compares what Paul said about
Jesus with what the author of Matthew, who lived later, wrote of him.
Then he explains why these discrepancies apparently exist. Startling
indeed is his proof that "earlier writers sometimes make statements
which positively exclude the idea that Jesus worked miracles,
delivered certain teachings, or suffered under Pilate."

There is also interesting material on the topics of Jesus' supposed
family, the so-called Shroud of Turin, and the myth-making that even
today surrounds the figure of Jesus. Dr. Wells does not, however,
attempt to demolish belief in God or the ethical precepts held by
Christians. His presentation is always fair and couched in moderate
tones.