Did Jesus Exist or Not?

myth Vision yeah mythicist Vision like yeah you know why you believe that because everybody believes that but I've got the the real knowledge the level of skepticism that they have is so over the top that Paul didn't even exist welcome back to mythvision podcast I'm your host Derek Lambert Dr joshu bone welcome back thank you thank you good to be here I'm always excited to have you here last time we were in your house and we did a ton of them um maybe get a lot this time who knows come on somebody Hallelujah so we have a question from a patreon fan before we get to your question you've got courses coming out on MVP and you have several books go in the description support him if you don't know who he is at the end of the video if you like what you hear and you want to know a lot more you can access his insights and the work he's done in many ways so check it out Mike Jonas thank you for your support does Josh Bowen believe and I'm giving you verbatim how they wrote it okay in a historical Jesus armman or does he lean lead towards the mythicist argument carrier and why the uh the the terrible question the one that I that I always fear getting um primarily because it's so hotly contested uh online and uh really I think I hate to say it this way cuz like there are lots of people uh that I know that are in like the mythicist camp that I love dearly um were tremendously great friends but I so one I'm not a new testament scholar right so this in in this sort of capacity uh it wouldn't be beneficial to the audience and it certainly wouldn't be wise for me to make sort of definitive statements about that because it's going to be seen as like from a position of author Authority that being said uh if I don't know about a particular topic and I don't have the training in it I do what I think all of us should probably do and that is rely on the consensus of subject matter experts in the field um and so maybe that's something that we can talk about a little bit Yeah so yes to answer the question like I would default to what is it the consensus Scholars say about this because although I have like you know my masters of theology was you know I had six years of coin Greek and so I've translated through Hebrews and I've translated through Romans and blah blah blah like uh I did that under like fundamentalist Evangelical training so uh that there's a there's a whole area of New Testament studies from a historical critical standpoint that I just don't have exposure to right and uh so it just wouldn't be intellectually honest or fair to those Scholars like Bartman that that that know this stuff very very very well uh for me to even attempt the answer so uh I will defer to them and the reason that I think that's important to talk about at least a little bit is that and we talked about this uh when when Dr Kip Davis was here is that people people like I think and not just in like this mythicism this is just in general this is a thing um people like to feel like they can gain their own mastery of a particular topic and I think that's great right I think that's admirable that people put in as much time as they can and as much effort as they can because look not everybody has the luxury has the opportunity to be as like as fortunate as me to have had the the time and the the money uh through my you know like I I I went in the Air Force and so I had the GI Bill and then I I put in extra money I was able to get extra money back out um you know circumstances in life allowed me to be able to dedicate 15 years of my life to grad school not everybody gets that opportunity I'm very very fortunate um and because people don't always get that opportunity but they still want to feel like they can get a Mastery of a particular topic um it often leads to this realization or maybe they don't realize it um [Music] that you've got this whole group of Scholars uh that are saying things like you know the uh the conquest is is not a historically reliable thing right the Nar the conquest narrative or something even more basic um like you know the flood you know the worldwide flood this is not something that happened in history right and because they want to have that Mastery themselves but they aren't able to go get phds in like geology or you know something like uh ancient Eastern studies where you can go back into the third millennium when the flood's supposed to have taken place and say well look we have an unbroken historical record here and we have can form documents to just go right on through um they they don't have that opportunity and so what do you do you either have to say all right well I'm just going to defer to the people have dedicated their lives to this topic and all agree on this thing or I'm going to say well they they must have some alterior motive or they're not honestly looking at the data or they have a bias or whatever it is that you say because um that's the only way that I think you can move forward in this uh in in holding a position like that and obviously I think that's dangerous right because I've I'm on this side in this uh area of expertise that I have and I see people all the time for example something that uh um you know something that uh people watching probably won't have any problem with agreeing with me on is Ancient Aliens right there's a guy by the name of Zachariah siten I'd never heard of him until I got out of grad school and got online and all of a sudden people are like what do you think about zachar s what do you think about Ancient Aliens and Su and Sumerian and all this stuff and I'm like what are you talking about we just had an alien literally just come by the window hear it just now right he was he was his name was anky actually it's weird um really weird but he he flew by in his moo if you know what that is you know if you know you know um but uh you know the the problem here is that when you read Zachariah sit's book as an a serologist as someone who wrote their dissertation on a dialect of Sumerian you realize instantly this guy doesn't know what he's talking about right but if you don't have that expertise the the book can sound the 12th Planet can sound very very convincing and so what I see online uh is people saying well I've I've read this book and yeah all the things that you're talking about like the Epic of gilgames or that particular I piece of iconography or whatever I've dealt with it all CU it's here in my book it's in me book um and the problem is that yeah I know it is you don't know what I know because I've been afforded the opportunity to spend three years studying all this foundational material learning Sumerian learning Acadian learning ugaritic learning Hebrew learning Greek you know learning aramic blah blah all this stuff and then on top of that spending 3 years doing coursework in archaeology and going through the history cycle of Mesopotamian uh civilizations and and Egyptian civilization and Sir Palestine history all this stuff like it's it's it's something that people generally don't get the opportunity to do and for I was very very fortunate that I could and so because of that on this side I know what it looks like for people to take a very very Fringe position and hold it up against the complete consensus in this case of subject matter experts and say you guys are all wrong you're part of the Illuminati you know you're you've got this cons it's this conspiracy theory stuff and and again I'm not saying that that's what's going on with mythicism I'm trying to say a sort of extreme example here but I will chime in when when you get your example out because there yeah I I just it's a bit nuanced but the point is that I see this online not only in these extreme examples like Ancient Aliens but also with other Christian apologists because Christian apologists as smart as they are right several of them when they leave their area of some expertise and they and they're covering topics that cover a wide range of fields of various Fields I like I don't have expertise in like astronomy I don't have expertise in biology so when they talk about Evolution I'm like look I don't know I don't know all about Evolution right right but guess what I'm going to say what do evolutionary biologists say they're all saying the same that evolution is a thing so I'm going to say yep evolution is a thing anyone who says that evolution by natural processes or natural selection um isn't a thing your ears should raise up you should be like what's the what's the alter what's the motivation here what you do what are you doing Jonathan mcache what are you doing you know uh for those who want to try and bring in some other explanation than what we're finding is like the main position I'm curious to know and what makes me feel comfortable doing that U aside from all the other things that I've mentioned is that when it's sort of like a a radar sweep right when a radar antenna sweeps back and forth all when the radar is sweeping all out here on these other topics like Evolution and astronomy and philosophy and stuff I don't I don't know anything about it but I'm just all right I'm going with consensus of Scholars consensus of subject matter experts because when that radar pans into my area of expertise I go oh my God you don't know what you're talking about right and they say it with the same enthusiasm they say it with the the same appearance of uh expertise but I know they don't have it because this is my area I know the data you're talking about and you're not commanding it and you're making mistakes that are fundamental uh and and and so if you're doing it here chances are you're doing it over here particularly if everybody else is saying you're wrong about that that has a subject you know the subject matter expertise in that so so just kind of back on the mythicism because I love that you avoided it because it's not your expertise it's what I do it's what you do it's not my expertise you know because for years now I've engaged and I sat at the feet of several mythicist scholars phds in the field one Robert price as you well know I pretty much heard everything he has to say Under the Sun about mythicism and then um also Richard carrier who has his PhD has written a big volume on this with several books on the topic and he has to engage a lot of this stuff as well so as someone who's interviewed and doesn't buy the mythis position I have my reasons um I understand the temptation of thinking I mean I don't rule it out as it's not possible but then again what does that mean by possible or what makes the most sense to me what I'm getting from you and I want to try and use an example Zachariah siten right there's like unanimous across the board I can you name a single a serologist who thinks that guy was correct no okay now is this guy was Zacharias siten educated in this language that you're aware of no not that I'm aware of not that you're aware of maybe and and I'll say if he was boy did he hide it well okay so maybe he's a bad example to use cuz there are people who are educated but then they come up with a position that is like whoa let's use Lydia McGrew and Tim McGrew they have a undesigned coincidence thing and they've got a few apologists that love echoing their work I've got a scholar who's going to be responding to her book stay tuned trust me it's going to be good but anyway she takes a position that not even Christian Scholars that are out there Mike Lona Gary habermass all them they look at her and go what so you already know like the consensus of critical New Testament Scholars would look and go uhuh do huh right I'm not equating Richard and them I'm saying a consensus argument here that if you approach this field serologist a Hebrew Bible whatever it is you really should look and see why a consensus has a position and what I hear in the communities online is conspiracy theories in a way some might be true I'll give you an example this is why it's very muddy it's very difficult to just nail this down and go oh that was it simple mythicist are just wrong a lot of Scholars who do their work have to sign confessional statements so you have this Mass Field of New Testament Scholars that show up at s or they're they're confessional they they sign statements of faith and a lot of times they would be fired if they go against that right so mythicist will throw this up online mythicist and others will say hey how can you even trust a consensus a filled when they're literally having to sign confessions this is a a problem that I find from non mythicist Scholars Like Richard C Miller who says when a field is like you're trying to you know find a way to balance your conversations about what the truth is and what what is the truth of what happened in history with people who have to sign these confessions you're in this little pickle here because there's a lot of that but the other part is looking at the consensus of nonc confessional Christian or non-confessional Scholars that aren't even Maybe Christian at all that do come to this conclusion yeah there was a guy so what right and that's that tends to be the consensus in the field yeah is it yeah there was probably a guy most likely there was a guy so what um if you take this question as so serious and important that you need to answer you need to have a position on um sure I am not as impressed with the question as I once was personally because I think the guy's been so legended and mythologized and fictionalized in the gospels and the narratives that I don't I don't think we are is we pining as hell is that the donkey you know we don't know for sure what we're dealing with but I definitely think that what makes the most sense is with a guy so when I approach the New Testament now I'm not just like what does the consensus say even though that's a very important thing now that I've come to this conclusion based on my research and my studying and looking at arguments from various Scholars um but it's weird that I was mythicist I had every reason to go that route most my audience was probably mythicist and I came over because of certain arguments that re I really had to mow over so I it's like imagine inspiring philosophy deconverting like that's not a good example because his Channel's huge but what would happen to his his monetary value what would happen to his brand he had to take a switch and people mock the channel sometimes and go myth Vision yeah mythicist Vision like you know and you're not a mythicist how dare you what a shame you have the name and you know you see what I'm saying so I took a position it wasn't the consensus that did it it's just interesting hearing from a scholar like you who thinks it matters that we should consider that and it's wild that I've come to conclusion now that I go oh I see now why even the non-Christian critical Scholars think there was probably a guy there and and some thing to point out I think here is that I don't think anybody is suggesting certainly neither of us are suggesting that anybody that does take any any scholar that does take uh like a mythicist position um is just like wrong everywhere like nobody's making that suggestion like I I think Richard carrier uh we did uh a stream together and I thought he was just absolutely brilliant right um and and watching him in many of the videos uh that that that again on that radar sort of sweep across what I know I think my God like it's that's spot on right I I I really enjoy a lot of and same with Robert price right right like I I think that I've done streams with him and I think that so much of what he said was just spot on right's he's obviously very very brilliant it's just in this area I would say okay well I I like I don't know the inner workings of New Testament scholarship in that I don't know and it's a question that I've had myself right like okay Old Testament scholarship in uh in my department the Hebrew Bible section of my department at Hopkins like uh and even egyptologist archaist like a lot of these people identified as Christian right but it just it didn't it didn't have any weight at all in their scholarship and I think it's different because it's a lot easier if you're looking at the Hebrew Bible to come up with ways to to sort of go yeah okay like we can we can understand prophecy differently we can understand you know these things that more fundamentalist Believers would would have greater problems with it's easier to sort of deal with that but when you come to the new testament which is sort of like at the heart of Christianity and you're having to think like okay if I'm a Christian and I don't think Jesus raised from the dead like can I still be a Christian I certainly think that you can I just think it becomes different but I think that I don't know how that affects New Testament Scholars on the whole and I don't know if the majority of New Testament Scholars fall into this Evangelical camp or something akin to it or confessional I don't know I haven't seen any of the data so I I just don't know so that's why I'm leery again of even commenting on that yeah I just put it this way just mythicism and then I want to end on on Paul to get you to voice your opinion on this because it's so sensitive of a subject that it RS up communities online as you know you think he existed oh yeah I'm going to make 12 videos showing you why you're not or whatever who whoever maybe my point is when I'm looking I I interview several Scholars I hunt for mythicist Scholars right like I've done this in the past give me mythis a Scholars there was a Catholic guy who thought Jesus didn't exist there was another guy who's actually ear Dy who is behind Richard carrier's thesis he doesn't do interviews so I've tried to contact but he's not a PhD he's not a new testament scholar like that he's very bright though but he's not A's not a new testament scholar I tried contacting him let me tell you there's like a handful on planet Earth and I that's it but I can go endlessly finding Scholars and they would all say yeah we think there was a guy so getting off of Jesus for a point to get to Paul a lot of people who are meist of Jesus probably think Paul existed especially if they're of Dr carrier's brand carrier himself would probably laugh at the idea that Paul did not exist or think come on that's ridiculous like how would you think that Paul didn't exist we have very good reasons he has letters in his name this this that but there are many mythicist who run with that and go are you kidding me prove give me his bones show me he actually existed the level of skepticism that they have is so over the top that Paul didn't even exist and so you go to the mainstream consensus and you ask did Paul exist name me a single New Testament scholar that exists today that is a Dutch radical or something else that thinks Paul was invented you don't get it but there's people running around on the internet saying Paul didn't exist yeah yeah I mean again I think a lot of this comes back to um unfortunately there is this I don't know to stand out like a contrarian in a way you know I was a midax dispensationalist when I was a Christian and you might say what in the world is a Mida dispensationalist uh I'll tell you no I'll tell you no uh so you know there's a there's a view just very briefly so that you can see uh the lengths to which this you know the depths to which this goes um there is a a view that the church the body of Christ where we are today in Christian theology was something that was a mystery so you read through the Apostle Paul like Ephesians 3 and he's like it's a mystery you know uh this dispensation of the grace of God just given to me you word and and and this is something that is you know the prophets didn't know about it and so it's that's the reason it explains why upon the stoning of Steven um from their point of view that that's when the Holy Spirit turns they've rejected the holy spirit because they've rejected step and now uh the god reaches down and saves the Le leader of the Rebellion the Apostle Paul Saul um and makes him the Apostle of the Gentiles ushering in the dispensation of Grace and that opens up this period of time that can go indefinitely and at the moment that the Rapture takes place the timeline the prophetic timeline closes back up and now that the clock starts ticking again we get the seven-year tribulation period Then the millennial Reign and so on well I mean that's a pretty radical position because you have Acts 2 dispensationalists which is the you know the the church started with the coming of the holy spirit in Acts chapter 2 right but at any rate the point is that the group that I was in we were always looking for the next thing that only a few people believed and we would grab on to that because there's a certain Pride that comes with being able to say you think that it started in Acts chapter 2 yeah you know why you believe that cuz everybody believes that but I've got the the real knowledge and I'm not suggesting like I'm not suggesting that's why mythicism exists or that's not my point but when I think about this like extreme step about Paul I think some of that may play in is this idea of like it's it's it it some of it comes down to like a pride thing maybe again I don't I don't know because I don't know anybody like that but I I wonder if that factors in because it seems to resonate with me in the way that I was um the fewer people that believed what I believed the better right because it became you know like only the initiated really know what's going on thank you thank you

Channel: MythVision Podcast

Views: 33,708

Keywords: Mythvision, MythVision Podcast, Jesus, Mythicism, New Testament, Joshua Bowen

Id: 7oqKMn5-eFA

Length: 23min 36sec (1416 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 27 2024