David Fitzgerald, Author of Nailed, has a new trilogy out, Jesus: Mything in Action. A lot of people, including most atheists, aren’t overly willing to concede that christianity could have happened with some sort of actual Jesus somewhere in the mess. Most people have settled on “yes, there was, or might have been, a rabbi who wandered about preaching outside the box stuff, and it all blew up from there.” Fitzgerald argues that it’s more likely the case there was no outside the box rabbi at all. Valerie Tarico has an interview with him about Mything Jesus, and the difference between historicized mythology and mythologized history. Interesting reading!
Tarico: Walk us through how Christianity could have emerged if Jesus never existed.
Fitzgerald: There’s nothing implausible about Christianity beginning with a wandering teacher and his followers. And it’s no skin off my nose if there was – but that’s not what our evidence points to. The further we go back in Christian history, the more diverse it appears, and the less likely it began with a single founder. Instead there are abundant indications that its origins are tied to the pagan mystery faiths.
Not that Christianity is some cookie-cutter copy of the mystery faiths – it is a mystery faith; a uniquely Jewish version of this Hellenistic theology. When the Gospel of Mark is written generations later, the mystery faith savior of Paul, the book of Hebrews, and the earliest Christians becomes an allegorical figure built from pastiches from the Hebrew scriptures. Jesus doesn’t fulfill prophecy; Jesus is a collage constructed from prophecy and other writings. And his story grows by leaps and bounds in the second century.
As Bart Ehrman and other biblical scholars have demonstrated beyond a doubt, most of our New Testament books are forgeries. None are written by anyone who actually knew a Jesus. The only genuine books are seven of the letters attributed to Paul (though even these have been tampered with). And of course, Christian scriptures were edited and re-edited to suit the needs of different religious factions over centuries. We have no way of knowing how much has changed from the original writings; for the first 150-200 years, we have a blackout period with nothing but tiny fragments of New Testament texts until complete books begin to appear at the end of the second century. Our earliest complete New Testaments only go back to the 4th century; although they differ from each other – and from ours.
And of course Christianity continues to evolve and mutate for the next two millennia, a process still alive and well – a perfect textbook example of Darwinian evolution in action. Modern Christians would have a hard time recognizing their religion in the beliefs of their earliest spiritual ancestors. In fact, most Christians of today would be the heretics of 500 years ago. Please note that all these problems of evidence remain – whether there was a Jesus or not.
There are some (similar) arguments that mohammed never existed. Same sort of thing: lack of contemporary historical accounts. For someone so important and miraculous, the Romans sure didn’t notice his advent or departure. Tom Holland’s book on mohammed is pretty cool (and way better written than Ehrman) -- and there are so many similar magic men who were playing the messiah game at the time… I’ve always been very uncomfortable with the christian’s reliance on Josephus, especially since it looks suspiciously like Origen added a few jesus bits to Josephus.
I’ll probably have to read these, too! Reading about christianity is good exercise for my /eyerolling muscles.
Josephus has been debunked so many times, but that will never matter to those who need to believe. Yeah, I’m going to read these, too.
I enjoyed Nailed. I’ll read these.
Several people have now recommended these to me. I’ll probably get around to them at some point, but, to be honest, I’m more interested in what was mentioned in the last paragraph you quoted. The history of Christianity is fascinating and important regardless of the solution to the mythicism debate. Looking at Christianity from an anthropological perspective, the first thing you notice is that it really is the religion of Paul, not of Jesus.
The morphing of the religion over the history of the Church, especially in the early days as it lived together with pagan religions, is quite a story.
Of course, the same can be said of any major religion. The really interesting part of Jewish history, in my opinion, is the evolution from the ancient Semitic polytheism of monarchic period Yahwism into the Second Temple Judaism, well before the Rabbinic Judaism we are familiar with took hold. Early Christianity was an important part of the transition to Rabbinic Judaism, and many Christian stories from the Bible are bits of that process. Yet most Christians I talk to think Rabbinic Judaism had been around for thousands of years before Christianity.
Fitzgerald:
“…And of course Christianity continues to evolve and mutate for the next two millennia, a process still alive and well – a perfect textbook example of Darwinian evolution in action…”
Interesting. So presumably you agree that Christianity continues to demonstrate its fitness, and to modify itself appropriately so as to continue to suit its environmental niche.
Very interesting. I wouldn’t have expected this attitude from you.
scottbelyea:
You presume wrong. You may now return to scraping the bottom of your non-existent barrel.
…that’s completely beside the topic, which is whether its basic claim is true…?
BTW, ecological niches are to a large extent made by the organisms in them; they don’t exist as Platonic forms.
Cute: Amazon UK have Kindle editions of the first two volumes for 6.66 each (the price of the beast).
Moggie @ 8:
:D :D :D Gotta love that!
scottbelyea
Fitzgerald was telling a parable.
“A lot of people, including most atheists, aren’t overly willing to concede that christianity could have happened without some sort of actual Jesus somewhere in the mess.”
FTFY