Something to think about on Easter Sunday...

Thanks for the link. Very interesting.

If you're interested in this type of thing, I would recommend The Messianic Legacy and Holy Blood, Holy Grail, both by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. I honestly can't remember which of the two books discusses the crucifixion story, but they do a pretty good deconstruction.

Ach - don't go for those peices of tripe. They take a 20th century hoax, and create an elaborate story that takes many things out of context, as well as just seem to make some things up (if I need to, I can try to find the link to a website that does a pretty thorough debunking of a lot of their "scholarship"). For better work, I'd recommend Bart Ehrman, who has written many books (his latest is God's Problem), Robert M Price who is both entertaining and speculative (The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, Jesus is Dead, others), Earl Doherty who puts forward the mythicist position (which is actually a few hundred years old, I discovered to my surprise) in The Jesus Puzzle. The Empty Tomb (with Price as a co-editor, IIRC) also gives some interesting material on the Resurrection tale. I have a bit of that on my computer, as well as some of the podcasts that they have done (all in mp3 format). Anyone interested can send me an email and I can see about posting them to my site if people want to do a bit more learning.

Off topic for this post, Brian, are you going to do any posting on the newest "Walking with Dinosaurs" stuff that is coming out today? Just curious to see what your opinion is.

Thanks for the recommendations, everyone. I've read Misquoting Jesus, but not much other than that, so I'll definitely have to check out a few more books.

Badger; Could you be more specific in your criticisms? I'm not sure exactly what you're objecting to. I don't agree with everything that was said in the interview, but I think the speaker made some good points about what we can and can't know about the crucifixion and resurrection narratives. I checked out some of the titles you mentioned, but from what I understand the group that says Jesus never lived at all doesn't have much support among scholars, so I'm equally wary of books like Jesus is Dead and The Jesus Puzzle for that reason. Admittedly I have to learn more, but I am also skeptical of those who suggest that there was never a historical Jesus at all.

As for the new Walking With Dinosaurs, I don't have television and can't watch. I'd blog it if I could, but I don't think I'm going to see it unless it's in reruns or through a new DVD version.

I think Badger was referring to the books mentioned by Anne-Marie. I don't know about The Messianic Legacy, but I would be skeptical about anything by Baigent/Leigh. Holy Blood, Holy Grail is of course the book that originated the conspiracy theory that inspired the Da Vinci Code and its ripoffs. I would be interested in the website that debunks their claims. So far, I've only heard that the Prieur� documents are hoaxes, Plantard was a fraud who made up his noble titles etc., but I'd like to know more details.
As for Jesus himself, I think that he actually existed, but many of the things in the New Testament have been written to fit the Old Testament prophecies (e. g. the birth in Bethlehem) and there are remarkable parallels to some stories from eastern religions, such as those about Mithras and Krishna.

Just wanted to agree with the above comments, I definitely didn't "buy" all of Leigh and Baigent's suggested scenarios, it is almost all based on speculation and tenuous evidence, but I did find it interesting to read their theories.

Sorry - first the easy stuff - the "new" or "updated" walking with dinosaurs seemed to be the same stuff with just minor changes. I'd hoped for something new, but it looked like a lot of the same (not that that is bad, just disappointing).

Do you mean my objections to Bagaint and Leigh? I am trying to find where I read a thorough debunking of their points (I am specifically referring to the priest in S France, whose source of income was clearly selling masses, an easy thing to discover, as his books and other records exist and are available). I can't find the one I want, but came across this (http://priory-of-sion.com/) - there are many links, but I can't verify everything.

As for the mythicist position, I am aware that most scholars do not support it, but I do not think most have looked into it, and I suspect that taking such a position would require a big break (after all, it would put you on the fringe). The idea that a relgion had to have a real founder is quite common, even if, when you read all the stories that developed over time, you really can't get to anything concrete, although you can always find what you are looking for. The Jesus Seminar praticipants were ridiculed by many people for attempting to do just that, find what they could decide were "original" sayings. That said, unless you want to argue that Krishna, Mithras, Osiris, Attis, Tammuz/Dumazi and the rest have historical roots, then the idea has to be taken seriously. Many scholars from the 1700s on up have seriously considered it, but it fell out of favor in the (I'd guess, the dates are unclear to me) the early-to-mid 20th century, especially when American Freethought was being suppressed (who remembers Ingersoll being taught in school?).

I agree that Price and some of the others are speculative, but I think we are learning more, especially about the mythologies of the region and the mystery cults in general, that lend credence to some of the arguments. Only time will tell. Of course, this will be met with much resistance, even if the evidence says it is more reasonable - look at how long we (as a people) have known that the "born of a virgin" idea came from a misreading of the Greek translation of the Hebrew. This has been known for hundreds of years, but who talks about it (and more importantly, how many people have actually been told of it, and looked into it themselves). I find the arguments being made in favor of a historical Yeshua start off with the assumption that there was one, without even looking at that question. I started out with the assumption that there had to be a real person, even if this person is someone who got so twisted out of shape that we will never know what he was like, but the more I read, the more I couldn't mesh all the different hypothesis with what we did know (or suspected, rather, since we know so little). I found the arguments for a mythical savior, even perhaps a Yeshua who lived something like 100 BCE (still trying to track that down), as the basis. Too much of the gospels are indicative of fiction. So, I am currently leaning towards the mythicist position, but am awaiting more evidence and reading on my own.

Ok - I reread what was said and I have to say I didn't have much time to post, so I logged the interview for a "read later" - my criticisms were more with Baigent and Leigh, and I wanted to bring up some books in support of the mythicist position. I have read criticisms (from all sides) on Crossan, and in general I don't think he goes far enough. As I said, I think he suffers the same assumptions as others, and starts with a historical Yeshua (the Stanford lecture on the Historical Jesus, through iTunes, suffers the same). I prefer to start out questioning those assumptions as well. What evidence do we have that a historical person even existed. IIRC, this whole idea of there being humans as the basis of myths actually started back in ancient Greece, and this could have helped (along with other factors) in setting up the "my god was a real person, yours wasn't" development in later Christianity. Some articles on the historicity (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/christianity/historicity…) - go up one link to Christianity to get some on the Jesus Seminar.

Frak - all that said, and I have tons more, developed over time, and I have papers I need to be grading - I will read the interview and try to reply here, or I can send an email, or if I get the chance put it on my own minor blog, although I have been terrible about that - let me know what works. I am currently going though my paper files, and I will try to put the papers and books together for people to read and make up their own mind. Also, if you go to my site, look for - "books" I think - and there are most of the ones I have read, so you can see if there is anything interesting (if nothing else, you might get an idea of where I am coming from).

Now, if only my friends in person were willing to listen and discuss things like this. This is fun. I'll check back later when I have time.

I'm going to check the Priory of Sion website out, thanks!
When referring to the parallels with other religions, I didn't mean this as evidence that Jesus existed, rather that early Christianity was probably influenced by myths from other traditions, which apparently contributed to some of the stories about Jesus.
I also haven't seen any really good evidence for a historical Jesus, and it's obvious that I haven't read as much about the subject as you have, so I can't relly tell which side has the better arguments. I was just thinking that "someone must have got it started" (as I now realize, it wasn't necessarily a single person), although this of course doesn't imply that anything in the New Testament is true, and if so, which parts of it.