Ep 86: Debunking Jesus?

00:00The law of parsimony and Occam's razor just kind of tear to shreds all of the very complex,

00:09convoluted structures that you have to build upon other structures, upon other structures

00:14in order to make it all work.

00:16And it seems an awful lot more convenient to just say there was a dude, he died, tradition

00:22started circulating about him coming back to life, and then it took off from there.

00:27Like that is a far simpler solution to the problem.

00:31Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:37And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:38And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access

00:43to the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about

00:48the same.

00:49How are things, Dan?

00:50Oh, I'm doing better than you, R-Man.

00:52That's not hard to do right now, and you have a cold.

00:57I have.

00:58Yes, I have one.

00:59That is one to nothing.

01:01I win.

01:02It's like golf.

01:03You want a lower score?

01:04Yeah, a lower score is better.

01:05So I was like, can I just have one this time?

01:09No, at least I've got that going for me.

01:13Yeah.

01:14So sorry about that.

01:16Sorry.

01:17I'm making you record while you have a cold.

01:19I'm a very cruel taskmaster.

01:22Taskmaster.

01:23That's the one.

01:26What do we, what do we got on the, on the docket for today?

01:30We got a couple of fun, a couple of fun things.

01:34We got, who's that coming up at the end of the show?

01:36That's going to be, we're going to be talking about one Flavius Josephus.

01:41Alrighty.

01:42We're going to hit Flavius Town.

01:45Yeah, we're going to go to Flav, Flavius.

01:51You said, who's that in immediately the new girl theme song jumped into my head.

01:57I don't know the new girl.

02:00Oh gosh, yeah, this cold has me a little disoriented, but well, that'll happen.

02:07But before that, we're going to talk, I'm going to call it a histories, mysteries.

02:12Alright, and we're, we're going, we're going to dive into a commonly held out thing from,

02:21from the people on my side of the table, meaning a lot of atheists share this kind of thing

02:30around this time of year, it starts to crop up.

02:33And, and we're going to discuss the various saviors in the world and how completely and

02:41totally similar they all are and the many that, that predate Jesus and we're very obviously

02:49the inspiration for the fabrication of the story of Jesus.

02:53Jesus was a big old ripoff and we're going to prove it or not.

02:57So let's just dive into that.

02:59Let's do it.

03:00With histories, mysteries.

03:02Okay, so a lot, so many people's first exposure to this, my first exposure to this I will

03:13say to this, this concept came from the documentary made by documentary, the, the self and grand

03:22advertisement made by Bill Maher called religious, religious, right, pronounced, pronounced,

03:33okay, yeah, whatever.

03:34I don't, I don't know the original Greek or Hebrew, so I'm afraid I can't do anything

03:37with that.

03:38Yeah, but yes, religious, religious, that was the one that, that where I first encountered

03:43these claims and I will admit, believed them rather uncritically.

03:49So that's just like the scene where he's like, there's the Jesus like actor or something

03:56and he's like, he's that he's at some sort of Christian themed amusement park and he,

04:04okay, I feel, I feel less bad about him confronting an actor and he's Christian themed amusement

04:11park.

04:12Yes, it was, it was that dumb but, but yes, then he, he presents him with all of these

04:18things.

04:19This whole, this long list of, of people of gods who predated Jesus and who had eerily

04:27similar biographies or, or stories about them.

04:31Yes.

04:32But he didn't get that from nowhere.

04:33He didn't make that up.

04:35No, it was made up by somebody else.

04:39Somebody else did that.

04:40Right.

04:41Yeah.

04:42It was, it was also perpetuated by a movie that I watched in preparation or at least I watched

04:47the relevant part of in preparation for this episode and now I'm mad that I said, hey,

04:54check this out.

04:55You said, hey, check out Zeitgeist and I was like, oh, okay, I'll do that.

05:00And now I, now I have done that.

05:02That's minutes of my life.

05:03I can't get back.

05:05But even, even the guy that made Zeitgeist did not make this up, but we, why don't we

05:12start with the claim, do you want me to sort of outline sort of what I, what I witnessed

05:18in Zeitgeist?

05:19What was, what claims were made or, well, let me, let me to share where I first encountered

05:24this because this is some, and then, and then yeah, I'll, I'll have you outline the, because

05:28I have not watched the movie in, it's been a year and a half since I watched that section,

05:33segment of the movie and I was glad to pawn that off on you for, for this go around.

05:37But I, I was exposed to, I am exposed to this most frequently.

05:42Like it still happens all the time.

05:45From movie, a little clips from a gentleman named Jordan Maxwell, I honestly don't know

05:51his background, but he made a name for himself spreading a lot of conspiracy theories in like

05:58the 80s and, and into the 90s, particularly related to religion.

06:05And he was fond of confronting people and insisting that there were 16 major pre-Christian

06:13religions that all had a Messiah with the exact same story as Jesus.

06:19And he would say it the exact same way that they were a Messiah that came to earth, born

06:24in a manger with 12 disciples, died on a cross with a crown of thorns.

06:31Wow.

06:32And, and the first time I saw that it, he was on some television show being interviewed

06:37by some, a woman who was clearly a Bible believer.

06:41She's got a Bible there that she's flipping through.

06:44And he's like, did you not know this?

06:45This is history, ma'am.

06:47This is history and making her feel rather awkward and uncomfortable and she like doesn't

06:55know where to flip to in her Bible.

06:57Right.

06:58And literally none of that is true.

07:03And I have, I have had to point out that you cannot find any pre-Christian savior with

07:08any two of those features.

07:10And people have tried to prove like the, the first time I made a response to this, I posted

07:16it on YouTube.

07:17It wasn't even a minute long.

07:18It was like a YouTube short, it was like 40 seconds long.

07:21And I was just like, there is absolutely no primary text from the ancient world that demonstrates

07:27anybody had any two of these features.

07:29I feel like you just did a spoiler, but okay, we'll get there.

07:35But I had more views on that, that little short than like on any five videos combined

07:43on my YouTube channel, it had almost, had almost a million views on that thing.

07:48And then half as many comments from people telling me I was wrong and to go check out

07:54this book or that movie and it's like, I'm not asking for a book or a movie, I'm asking

07:58for a primary text.

08:01Yeah.

08:02A source, some source material.

08:03So why don't you go ahead and I don't recall exactly what the claim inside Geist is, but

08:08well, okay.

08:09So it's not quite as, as obviously stupid as your friend Jordan with the crown of Thor,

08:19with all of them having the same thing, but it's the same kind of idea, right?

08:23This idea that all of these gods prefigured the Jesus narrative, all of them were, so,

08:30but in different, slightly different ways.

08:32So specifically mentioned were Horace.

08:36Now, they, they launched into this in Zeitgeist talking about how the sun was God, okay?

08:44The pernicious thing about all of these things, about this kind of sort of conspiracy theorizing

08:51is that they will often have kernels of truth or have whole truths that they inject into

08:57things.

08:58Yeah.

08:59That are real, that then bolster up and support really bad claims that have no support.

09:06Yeah.

09:07So they start with the idea that like people worshiped the sun and, and, and what's, they're

09:14little moments that you can, that you can kind of catch them out as like, oh, they've, they've

09:18just pulled a rhetorical maneuver without explaining themselves or whatever.

09:22So they keep talking about the sun, and then they're talking about the sun is God, and

09:26then they taught, and then they just throw out the phrase God's son, and I was like, you,

09:33you made a leap and you did not explain where that leap came from.

09:36Yeah.

09:37Anyway, they go to Horace.

09:39This is the Egyptian God Horace claiming the claims are sun God of Egypt.

09:45Maybe that's true.

09:46That's a question to Horace at all.

09:48Close.

09:49Horace was the sky God, but there was a conflated version of Horace and Ra.

09:55And that was Ra Horakti.

09:58And that was the, a conflated sun God.

10:02That's right.

10:03Ra was a sun God.

10:04Right.

10:05Right.

10:06Right.

10:07Okay.

10:08So Ra Horakti is Horace's kind of, you know, team up to be the sun God with Ra.

10:13I feel like you're supporting the theory now.

10:15I guys, you agree was I guys, I'm, I'm, I'm putting it in the books.

10:19Okay.

10:20They claim Horace, sun God of Egypt.

10:22They use the word savior, which I, they don't explain why Horace is the savior of anything,

10:28but they make sure to throw that in there.

10:30Right.

10:31Uh, they claim that Horace was the, uh, was the nemesis of set.

10:36Horace was the light and the day set was the dark and the night.

10:41Horace wins the fight every morning.

10:42That wins the, the fight every evening.

10:46That's a very stupid concept, but okay, fine.

10:51So the ear of the claims about Horace, okay, born on December 25th of a virgin star in

10:57the east.

10:58Don't know what that means.

10:59Adored by three kings teacher at age 12, baptized and started a ministry at 30, baptized

11:06by Anup, uh, 12, oh, I've been auto corrected.

11:11I've, I've apparently written 12 decibels, but I think it means disciples.

11:16Probably.

11:17Yeah.

11:18Uh, and then known as the lamb of God, the truth, the light, crucified, resurrected three

11:24days after, uh, I'm going to guess that some of those slash all of those don't apply to

11:33Horace or like there's a way that you can sort of, if you squint and look sideways and

11:40like you're, you happen to be upside down and looking through a mirror, maybe some of

11:45those things, um, kind of apply.

11:47I don't know.

11:48Do you, do you know enough about Horace to be able to fuck with that stuff?

11:52Yeah.

11:53Yeah.

11:54So for the most part, none of it's accurate, but there are a couple of places and some

11:58of it's just, just totally, um, made up.

12:02There's absolutely nothing that supports it in any way, shape or form whatsoever.

12:06Um, but some of it has things like you said, you could squint at it and maybe get that.

12:11Like for instance, there is an inscription in a, in a tomb from 1500 BCE that shows Horace

12:18seated on a throne and there are 12 anthropomorphic figures before Horace lined up and each of

12:25them has a star.

12:26Yeah.

12:2712 disciples.

12:28Right.

12:29Each of them has a star over their head and these represent and each star represents an

12:33hour of the night, so it's the 12 hours of the nighttime.

12:37And so they're, they're basically just the anthropomorphized, um, celestial bodies that

12:43represent the 12 watches of the night or whatever, not disciples, certainly not apostles.

12:50I don't know if you've seen, uh, zeitgeist recently, but I believe you mean, instead

12:55of watchers of the night, you mean the 12 zodiacal signs.

12:59I'm pretty sure that's what you mean.

13:01Well, in, in this inscription, um, there's no relationship to the zodiac.

13:06That comes.

13:07How dare you sir.

13:08That comes from much later.

13:09Yeah.

13:10Well, and this is one of the things that you have to do with these kinds of conspiracy theories

13:11is you have to chronologically collapse everything and things that are separated by a thousand

13:17years.

13:18You got to just be like, man, at the same time, uh, you know, yeah, yeah, same time.

13:22And, you know, or, or, or, or you just insist that everyone has to think, no, no, no, that

13:27parts are metaphor, but this part's literal.

13:29Right.

13:30That's not literal.

13:31That means it's a metaphor.

13:32Oh, it's not working in your mind.

13:34You're not getting the figurativeness of it all.

13:37Yeah.

13:38And then there, there is a, um, in the temple of Amun at Luxor, there is a little triptych,

13:44a little, um, series of scenes and a bunch of texts associated with the, uh, birth of

13:52Amun office, uh, the third.

13:55So this, this king.

13:57Um, it's in the, this conspiracy theory, the three scenes are the enunciation, the conception,

14:08the birth and adoration of Horace, of course it's not Horace.

14:13It's this human king.

14:16And when you actually look at the text, the text is not describing, um, an enunciation.

14:21It's not a virgin birth.

14:22In fact, it is a graphically sexual, uh, conception, like little, it's talking about,

14:30um, the, the human woman, um, just marveling at the sexual prowess of the deity with whom

14:37she's doing, um, you know, the gods know what.

14:41And, uh, well, actually they describe it in graphic detail in the text, but, and then the,

14:47uh, the queen is pregnant and showing and these deities are using onc symbols to, um,

14:55it's kind of the, the, um, the installment.

14:58They're putting the divine soul of the king into the fetus and then the baby is born.

15:04So if you just entirely ignore the text that is explaining what these little vignettes

15:11are, and if you don't know Egyptian and don't care to look it up, of course you're going

15:16to ignore it.

15:17And, um, then you can just make up whatever you want about these things.

15:20And that's what, uh, is done in a lot of the texts that try to promote this, this idea

15:25that all of these things predate Jesus.

15:28Um, so yeah, it's again entirely made up and if you ignore the data, if you ignore what

15:35the scholarship all has for many years, uh, indicates, then you can just say, hey, if

15:41you squint at this enough, the lines blur and you can squish it into a shape that looks

15:46kind of like Jesus.

15:47And so, so it's like for every one thing that's kind of based loosely on a factoid,

15:55there are three or four things that are just thrown in there and entirely made up.

15:59But like you said, as long as you include enough things that sound factual or maybe

16:04even are to some degree factual, you can also squeeze in some utter falsehoods and people

16:10aren't going to notice.

16:12Right.

16:13Uh, well, you say that, but let me just tell you about Addis Afridgia because if you don't

16:18know anything, because I've Addis Afridgia, born of a virgin on December 25th, crucified,

16:27resurrected after three days, uh, uh, there you go.

16:32Krishna.

16:33Apparently.

16:34Yeah.

16:35Was born of a virgin Devaki star in the east.

16:40What does that mean?

16:41There's, there's always stars in the east performed miracles, resurrected boom, Dionysus

16:49born of a virgin December 25th, performed miracles, turned water into wine, king of kings, alpha

16:56and omega resurrected, Mithra of Persia, born of a virgin December 25th, 12 disciples, miracles

17:04dead for three days, resurrected.

17:07I think, um, it's funny.

17:10And then, and what's really funny is that like, he goes through all of those and then, and

17:16then is like, and there were more and just presents a list, right?

17:20Um, and that, you know, of course, does not want you to pause on that list or look into

17:26it at all.

17:27Bart Simpson is going to be one of them on there.

17:30Well, I did look at, I mean, so I wrote down a bunch of them there.

17:34I did pause.

17:35Um, oris of Egypt, I don't know who oris is, but Odin, I was like, okay, now we're getting

17:42into Odin, Zoroaster, uh, Salavana of Bermuda, bail, uh, Indra of Tibet, Bali of Afghanistan.

17:53And then I was like interested in this one.

17:55So I just Googled it and checked it out a little bit with Toba of the Billinganese.

18:01Um, so I was like, um, I would like to know more about Whitoba of the Billinganese.

18:09Um, and it turns out that literally everything about that is so wrong.

18:14It's absurd.

18:15Yeah.

18:16Like nobody now calls it Whitoba.

18:17It's, it's actually, uh, uh, generally, what were, what were the names?

18:22It was there, uh, Vit, Vitoba or Vit, uh, Vitale or Vitala and was not, uh, Billinganese

18:34or tellinganese, which is the other one that anyway, nothing about it, uh, including just

18:42the, the, the identification of this God was correct.

18:46Yeah.

18:47So interestingly, we know where all of these claims come from.

18:54Okay.

18:55Because like we said, this movie did not make them up.

18:59Um, and there are a couple of, uh, uh, a couple of texts that were published in the, at the

19:05end of the 20th century that's, uh, popularize these things.

19:10Um, were responsible for, uh, probably the Zeitgeist movie picking them up.

19:15One of them was a book called the Jesus mysteries was the original Jesus, a pagan God by, uh,

19:22Timothy freak and Peter Gandy.

19:24Um, and I didn't say word.

19:27I didn't say word.

19:28Um, it's just, it's just like a little on the nose.

19:33Freak family.

19:34Like, like if you're, if your name is freak, don't go into the conspiracy business going

19:38to go into like good science business, good, good data business.

19:43You just go against the grain a little freak economics.

19:46Yeah.

19:47Um, and then you had, uh, another book called the Christ conspiracy, the greatest story

19:51ever sold, uh, that was published under the name Acharya S, which is the, the nom de

19:57plume of, um, Dorothy Murdoch, um, who along with Jordan Maxwell, and I think I don't know

20:06about freak in Gandy, but I know that, um, Dorothy Murdoch and, and Jordan Maxwell have

20:11ever since passed away, um, but the none of these people have any training, uh, or any

20:17academic, um, background whatsoever and anything related to what they're talking about, but

20:22they kind of popularize this, but it all comes from a 19th century book by a gentleman named

20:28Kersey Graves, um, and we really don't know if, uh, if Mr. Graves had any academic background

20:35either, but in 1875, he published, uh, a book and get ready because, um, uh, you know, pre

20:4320th century book titles could carry on, uh, for a while, the, the world's 16 crucified

20:50saviors or Christianity before Christ containing new startling and extraordinary revelations

20:58in religious history, which disclosed the Oriental origin of all the doctrines, principles,

21:02precepts, and miracles of the Christian New Testament and furnishing a key for unlocking

21:07many of its sacred mysteries besides comprising the history of 16 heathen crucified gods.

21:14Mm.

21:15And this is where, um, the, the main 16 gods are Thulus of Egypt, Krishna of India, uh,

21:21right, Crete of Khaldia, Addis of Frigia, Tammuz of Syria, Hesse, or Eros, Bali of Arissa,

21:35Indra of Tibet, Yao of Nepal, Buddha of India, Mithra of Persia, Alsestos of Euripides, uh,

21:38Ketsukodal of Mexico, uh, are Vitoba of the Billingonnese Prometheus, or Aeschylus of

21:45the Caucasus and Quarinus of Rome.

21:48And then he actually lists dozens of others, which is where some of these other folks,

21:53um, particularly interested in Ketsukodal because, yeah, how do you know, Ketsukodal

22:00get to the authors of the New Testament in the first century CE and how did it get from

22:06like, clearly it all started in, you know, the regions around Egypt, uh, you know, India,

22:12whatever, the middle, you know, the Southeast, Southwest Asia and, and, and Northern Africa

22:20and stuff.

22:21How the hell did it get to Mexico?

22:24That seems, that seems pretty strong.

22:26It seems like we might be squinting at all of this stuff, uh, and, and, you know, this

22:31is part of, you see this in the anthropology of the 19th century with folks like Fraser

22:36and, um, and Tyler and others, where what they're doing is they're trying to, uh, distill

22:43everything down to, uh, a single kind of like, ur society.

22:50And they want to try to account for all the different societies of the world by suggesting

22:54they all share certain features.

22:56And so for instance, uh, Tyler, uh, no, Fraser has the dying and rising gods motif, this idea

23:03that, um, the societies of, of the world have these traditions about gods that die and

23:10rise, uh, in a cycle and, and so everything gets classified into that.

23:17And this is also the time period that things like monotheism are also being used as these

23:22buckets.

23:24And it's like, all right, you either go into the monotheism or the polytheism bucket line

23:28up everybody, I'm going to decide which one you're in and it's, it's a way to just divide

23:34up the, the society's, um, trans historically, uh, trans nationally to just try to, uh, show

23:43that we can reduce everything down to single theories.

23:47Uh, and so, you know, you've got this idea that, oh, all of these gods, they're all the

23:52same template.

23:54It's just somebody, somehow this, this template was just making its way around the world and

23:58everybody was just like, oh, we'll make our God just like this other God and the Egyptians

24:02dress them up as Horace and so and so dress them up in different, it's basically the

24:07same guy, but with different clothes on.

24:10Yeah.

24:11And what's, and what's bizarre is with the idea of, of Jesus, uh, being based on one of

24:16these templates, there's a lot in the, in the tradition of Jesus that is pretty idiosyncratic.

24:22And so you have to kind of generalize, like you, you call them all messiahs.

24:26It's like Messiah is a Hebrew word that describes a specific anointed one and it's not like,

24:36Oh, well that person over there was a deity and they helped their people.

24:42That's a Messiah.

24:43Yeah.

24:44You're, you're general over generalizing quite a bit there by, uh, but trying to use that

24:47title, but here's something that, uh, that graves, uh, claims in one of his, uh, one part

24:53of his book where he's talking about how Jesus is all related to these deities.

24:57These have all received divine honors, have nearly all been worshiped as gods or sons

25:01of gods were mostly incarnated as Christ's saviors, messiahs or mediators.

25:11Not a few of them were reputedly born of virgins, some of them filling a character almost identical

25:15with that ascribed to by the Christians, Bible to Jesus Christ.

25:19Many of them like him are reported to have been crucified and all of them taken together

25:23furnish a prototype in parallel for nearly every important incident and wonder inciting

25:29miracle doctrine and precept recorded in the New Testament of the Christians savior.

25:36And there's not, there's absolutely zero documentation to support any of these claims

25:41anywhere in the book.

25:43And then as that and therein lies a bit of a problem therein lies the rub.

25:49Yes.

25:50Um, they cannot find a text, uh, or iconography or anything that demonstrates any of these

25:58claims.

25:59I pointed out with a, with Horace, they're like, well, maybe it's this, this, um, you

26:02know, a little series of drawings over there.

26:04Nope.

26:05The text says it has nothing to do with that.

26:07Oh, well, maybe it's, uh, this drawing of Horace with 12 stars and standing in front

26:11of them, nope, has nothing to do with, with disciples.

26:15I have tried for years to get people to identify primary texts that support any of these claims.

26:21And, and the, the reason I do this is because I know there are none, right, because I have

26:27looked, I looked for a long time before I ever responded to any of these claims.

26:31No such texts exist and we're not talking, we're talking about like, like something

26:37inscribed on a wall or like something like chiseled into a steely or something like

26:42that.

26:43Yeah.

26:44Anything, any contemporary to the time that would, that would bear any shed, any light

26:49on any of this.

26:50Yeah.

26:51And this is where, like when we get into Dionysus and stuff like that, people are like, oh,

26:54Dionysus's tradition has this, that and the other.

26:57And that's, and that's very Christian.

26:58It's like, well, if you look at this, there are the things that are most similar to Jesus

27:04are things that pop up in the Dionysus tradition from after the time of Jesus.

27:11And that's not to say that it influenced the Dionysus tradition.

27:14It's just to say that's not an inspiration for the Jesus tradition.

27:18Right.

27:19And there, there's an argument.

27:20And Jesus could have been an inspiration for some of the Dionysian tradition.

27:24That could, that's possible, but it's also, but it's also like, you know, if, for example,

27:29we take the example that was used in zeitgeist, that Dionysus also turned water into wine,

27:35don't know if that was ever part of the actual Dionysus myth.

27:39But if it, even if it was, wine was a big part of everybody's life in both places.

27:45Yeah.

27:46It's totally possible for the same miracle to have, to have, for, for storytellers to

27:52have come up with the same idea in different parts of the world.

27:56It's not that impossible to, like coincidence does not prove anything.

28:02Yeah.

28:03And, and there's certainly, like, it wouldn't shock me at all.

28:06It wouldn't surprise me at all if the gospel of John is kind of, you know, riffing a little

28:13bit on Dionysus in, in relation to Jesus as the vine and, and the relation of Jesus to

28:19wine.

28:20Like that wouldn't surprise me at all.

28:21But guess what?

28:22John is being written at the end of the first century CE.

28:24John is not inventing the Jesus tradition.

28:26The tradition is already in circulation.

28:30John is just adding some rhetorical flourish.

28:33Like the, the turning water into wine, that's one story from one chapter of one gospel.

28:40And that is not the Jesus tradition.

28:43But, and I've looked in the, and the two things I have found regarding Dionysus that come closest

28:48to turning water into wine, there's a tradition about him.

28:52He, he likes the look of some nymph that comes and drinks at this stream every day.

28:57And, you know, he's, he decides that he's going to replace the water with wine.

29:03And so it doesn't say turned water into wine.

29:06It says he replaced the water with wine of the stream so the nymph became drunk.

29:10So he was able to have his way with her.

29:13The other tradition is the notion that there was a tradition associated with a temple dedicated

29:18to Dionysus where they would put empty, empty vases in the temple.

29:22And then when they come, came back the next morning on the day of a certain festival,

29:27the vases would be filled with wine.

29:29So that's, that's the closest that proves it.

29:33I don't know what you're talking about.

29:34Suddenly we've proven that Dionysus and Jesus are absolutely ripping each other off.

29:40Both born on December 25th.

29:42Um, and, and that's the one that, that comes up the most, particularly like in a, what

29:47is it, the 14th of November right now?

29:49This comes out probably last week in November.

29:54Once we get into December, you're going to have all this December 25th crap.

29:58And none of it is accurate.

30:00None of these deities has ever associated with December 25th in any wave shape or form

30:05whatsoever.

30:06That's another thing that I mean, Jesus did.

30:09Well, they have associated Jesus with that to say, but that's, that's toward the beginning

30:16of the third century CE.

30:18So like the Jesus tradition is not only well underway, it is already deeply embedded in

30:25a lot of these societies by that time period.

30:27We should talk about why December 25th was, is so integral or, or, or so important to

30:36this line of thinking.

30:37Yeah.

30:38Because what zeitgeist at least is, is aiming at what they are going toward.

30:43They end up arriving at, which is that the reason each of these things are significant

30:49is that all of this is just astrology myth.

30:55Yeah.

30:56And so they're saying that like December 25th is when it was thought is when they, the

31:03ancient thought, the, the equinox, not the equinox, the, what's the winter summer one?

31:12Winter solstice.

31:13Solstice, the winter solstice.

31:14So they, they thought that it was the 25th.

31:16It was the 21st, but they thought it was the 25th or whatever.

31:19And so, and, and that's when the sun dies.

31:23And then three days later, the sun is reborn because it starts, the days start to get longer

31:29again.

31:30Yeah. And then they, they make the claim that, that the star in the east was serious, which

31:36is one of the brightest stars in the sky.

31:38And then that on December 25th, serious aligns with Orion's belt, which were known as the

31:47three kings.

31:48I've never heard them refer referred to as a three.

31:51How does one star align with another star?

31:54Well, they just say form a line.

31:56That's all.

31:57They all, they all turn in and they don't move in relation to each other.

32:02No, no planets do, but not the stars.

32:06But yes, they kind of form a vague line.

32:08That's kind of true.

32:09Okay.

32:10And, and around December 25th, they, that line, you could be said, if you look at it in the

32:17east to point to the vague area where the sun rises in the morning.

32:25And therefore the three kings follow the star to the birth of the sun, suns, you spell it

32:35either way.

32:36The sun.

32:37The S on.

32:38The S on.

32:39Yeah.

32:40Yeah.

32:41Blah, blah, blah.

32:42You know, and I did.

32:43It's funny because I did reach out to a friend of mine who's a, who's an astronomer and, and

32:49just said, Hey, will you just check this for me?

32:50It was like, yeah, it's basically kind of mostly true, but, but also like, it's true all of

32:58the time.

32:59Yeah.

33:00And like, why, why does it matter?

33:02Like it wouldn't have been particularly useful at one, you know, the year one or whatever.

33:11Yeah.

33:12And there's, you'll frequently see included in those claims that the Southern Cross, the

33:17constellation known as the Southern Cross is a part of it.

33:20Right.

33:21Because that, how else, because that explains his crucifixion died on a cross, right?

33:26Except the Southern Cross was not visible.

33:28Right.

33:29In that part of the world, 2000 years ago, right, it was something that was because of

33:35the procession of the equinoxes, it was below the horizon for that part of the world for

33:41centuries.

33:42And so, yeah, the, it's, it's some silliness and the traditions like the three wise men,

33:51Matthew says nothing about three wise men.

33:54Matthew just says the Maggie, the, and, yeah, we, and we did show up.

33:59Their team wise men.

34:00Yeah.

34:01We did a whole thing about it.

34:02Go check last year.

34:03Yeah.

34:04These are later traditions that develop.

34:05So they're not, they're not picking up on these to develop the, the account, the account

34:11later on becomes these traditions, and yeah, the, the, the winter solstice thing is silly

34:19because the solstice is the 22nd, sometimes, you know, with a little bit of wiggle room.

34:26The 25th was actually the, the observed celebration of the solstice in the Roman Empire for a

34:32time.

34:33Sure.

34:34It was not an ancient Egypt.

34:36And the notion that the sun stopped and like held still for three days and then started

34:40going.

34:41That's nonsense.

34:42It is, you know, it has a, it's lowest point.

34:47And then the next day it's moving the other direction.

34:50It is not just holding still.

34:51It's not like, all right, I got a, I got to rest for a minute.

34:54And then I'm an ancient who studied this had ways of figuring that out.

34:58Yeah.

34:59Yeah.

35:00They knew.

35:01Yeah.

35:02And so the 25th is actually as best we can tell and, and there's still debate about when

35:08this originates, but the identification of December 25th as the day of Jesus birth seems

35:14to come down to a calculation that was made based on the tradition regarding the date

35:20of his conception.

35:23So we, and we see this first in Hippolytus around 210 CE.

35:28This is the first time we have a good case to make that somebody's actually arguing this.

35:33But the idea is March 25th was thought to be the date of Jesus's death.

35:41That is, that was may have been the, the celebration of the Passover that aligns in the gospel

35:51stories with Jesus's crucifixion in the ancient world.

35:55They had a tradition of aligning a big important figure or a divine figure's death with the

36:02day of their birth.

36:03And so this, this was just a tradition was like, we don't know when he was born.

36:06We're just going to line it up with when he died.

36:09And for whatever reason, when it came to the Jesus tradition, they lined it up with when

36:13he was thought to be conceived.

36:15This is the enunciation.

36:17So, and, and still there are Christian traditions that celebrate the enunciation on March 25th.

36:22So if Jesus was conceived on March 25th and you just estimate that gestation takes nine

36:29months, you count nine months from March 25th, you get December 25th.

36:34Well.

36:35And so the idea was, oh, that's when Jesus died.

36:38That's when Jesus was conceived, December 25th must have been when Jesus was born.

36:42And its proximity to the winter solstice when the sun starts going the other direction was

36:49not lost on them.

36:50The significance of that of celestial phenomena was not lost on them.

36:54They obviously thought that was significant, but it wasn't the inspiration for it.

36:59It was just a cherry on top.

37:02And so that's probably where the date December 25th comes from.

37:05It certainly does not have anything to do with like soul and victus, because the temple

37:11to soul and victus that was dedicated in Rome on December 25th was not dedicated until

37:17like two seventy four to seventy three or two seventy four CE.

37:22So a good 60 to 70 years after these calculations were first made.

37:28So like Mithra has nothing to do with December 25th.

37:32None of the other deities have anything to do with 20, the 25th soul and victus does,

37:36but we have no evidence of it until decades after the initial calculation, which is based

37:41on, you know, this assumption that he must have died on the same day that he was conceived.

37:46Well, all right.

37:48So there you have it friends.

37:51If you are trying to dismantle Christianity, this is not the way to go.

37:58I think they're easier ways to do that.

38:03All right, there's that.

38:07Let's move on to our, to our next thing, which is a who's that now?

38:20The reason that I wanted to do this is our who's that is that this guy is conspicuously

38:26not mentioned in zeitgeist.

38:30Now zeitgeist, the movie does sudden does have a moment where it's like, and why do

38:36no historians contemporary to the Jesus time discuss, mention Jesus?

38:44There's a list of all of these historians from that era and none of them mentioned Jesus.

38:51And there was, and I looked at that list and I paused again and I read through them all

38:55and I went, wait a minute, we're missing somebody.

38:59Why, I mean, who were some of the historians that were on that list?

39:03I don't remember the list.

39:04I don't know.

39:05I didn't write them down or anything.

39:08But I did notice was just that the one guy that I know should have been on the list wasn't.

39:15And that is one Flavius, Flava Flavius, Josephus.

39:21Talk to me about Josephus.

39:23Who was he?

39:24Where'd he come?

39:25We've mentioned him before, but let's just, let's just sort of give a give the broad strokes

39:30on.

39:31Yeah.

39:32So Josephus was likely born around 37 CE.

39:36So a handful of years after Jesus was probably crucified, born to a priestly father and an

39:43aristocratic mother.

39:44He was pretty well off in this priestly family, family, Flavio family.

39:51But he was a Jewish family, correct?

39:55Yes.

39:57So priestly as well.

39:59So he was actually a leader of the resistance against the Roman siege.

40:07So when the Romans began to came into Judea and Galilee and everything, he was a general

40:14who helped the Jewish people defend against the Romans.

40:18He was in the Galilee.

40:19In fact, when you go up to, there's a cliff overlooking the western half of the Sea of

40:25Galilee.

40:26Up there, a lot of tours will take you up there.

40:30There are some caves near that cliffside that Josephus helped people hide out in when

40:37the Romans were coming.

40:39You know, where they debated what have the Romans ever done for us.

40:45Consider that foreshadowing everybody, people hiding from the Romans rather than triumphantly

40:51fighting them.

40:52And then he ends up getting captured and decides that he's basically going to use a, he reads

41:05a prophecy in Jewish literature to say that the spasian was going to become emperor.

41:14So he's caught and he's kind of like, "Hey, guess what?

41:17I know you.

41:18You're a visiting spasian, right?"

41:19These, these scriptures or these, this literature prophesies that you're going to become the

41:25emperor and the spasian likes the cut of that jib.

41:28So take some on as, as an enslaved person, a servant and then the spasian does become

41:35emperor.

41:36You've got to love it when you, if you're Josephus, that's a good moment for you.

41:40Yeah.

41:41So in 69 CE, the spasian becomes emperor and he grants Josephus his freedom and at this,

41:49and this is when Josephus takes on the emperor's family name of Flavius.

41:54And so Flavius Josephus identifies him as a kind of an honorary member of that family.

42:02And then he, he fully defects and he becomes a Roman citizen and decides he's going to

42:06write histories.

42:08So he writes a history called the, the Jewish war, somewhere around 75 CE and then writes

42:16antiquities of the Jews or Judean antiquities.

42:19And that's later, that's around 90, mid-90s CE.

42:23And these are written for a Greco-Roman audience and the point is kind of to defend Judaism

42:32against charges of all kinds of different things, blasphemy and all this kind of stuff.

42:38And try to make the case that the Jewish folks are, you know, following their traditions,

42:44they're following their laws, they're faithful people and they have good reason to be doing

42:48all this stuff.

42:50But obviously he was seen as, as a, a traitor to an awful lot of Jewish folks, which is

42:56why his works were never, weren't really preserved within any Jewish streams of tradition.

43:01It was mainly Christians who preserved his works.

43:04But yeah, he wrote, he also wrote a handful of other stuffs.

43:08He wrote a life, which is kind of a biography about himself.

43:12But yeah, he is, and he is our main historical source for virtually anything that happened

43:20in or around Judea or Galilee in the early to mid or even late first century CE, because

43:29we have no other historians that are covering that region in that time period.

43:35The closest we get is Philo, who is a philosopher and to some degree a diplomat who has literature

43:44that he's writing from just before the time that Josephus starts writing, where he talks

43:50about an embassy to Rome and talks about what's going on in different parts of the Jewish

43:56world, but primarily focused on Alexandria in Egypt.

44:00But Josephus was there, he was watching all of this go down.

44:05And so he is an eyewitness account to a lot of what went on in the late 60s CE in Jerusalem,

44:12in Judea, in Galilee.

44:14And so it was a wonderful source.

44:15And yeah, our reconstruction of the, the siege of Jerusalem and the Romans destroying the

44:22temple and the things that happened after that, as well as most of the things that led up

44:27to that, including the different procurators like Pilate and others and the history of

44:35Herod the Great and his family, pretty much everything we know either comes from Josephus

44:42or is extrapolated and deferred based on Josephus.

44:46So okay.

44:47Yeah.

44:48If you want, if you want a historian who's covering that time period, Josephus is all

44:51you have.

44:52He's the only, he's the only game in town.

44:55Yeah.

44:56Now you won't expect a, a formerly Jewish now Roman citizen defending the Jewish sort

45:07of tribe to be, to care all that much about Christian traditions.

45:13So mention of Jesus would be significant, it seems to me, it would, it seems like that

45:19would be a thing.

45:21And he, his, his book does it theoretically, and I'm going to, we'll get to why I say

45:28theoretically, twice, twice, yep, the, there's one mention of him and his brother.

45:37So this is in, that's not, that's not the big one, but, but it's in Judean Antiquities

45:43Book 20, chapter nine, where he refers to the execution, the unjust execution of James.

45:51And he identifies this James as the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.

45:58And the idea there being that, yeah, there was this dude, Jesus, people called him the

46:02anointed one.

46:03Yeah.

46:04Um, so it's not endorsing that, that label, but just saying by the way, cause he mentions

46:09like 20 different people named Jesus, or he's so, so, so he's got, he's got to differentiate

46:16which one this is.

46:17Yeah.

46:18And so he's like, yeah, that one, the one I, they, they called the anointed one, those,

46:21those doofuses.

46:23Um, now you say doofuses, but let's go to book 18, chapter three, in which what is apparently

46:32known as the testimonium Flavianum is located.

46:38So this is the other mentioned, and this one is, is a significantly expanded, uh, mention

46:43of Jesus.

46:44Um, I'll go ahead and read the testimonium Flavianum as it has traditionally been preserved.

46:50Okay.

46:51And it, and this is probably, uh, this is going to be whose translation is this going

46:55to be?

46:57It's probably whisked in translation, which is awful.

47:00But, um, I'll go ahead and read it.

47:01About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man.

47:07For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as except

47:11the truth gladly.

47:13He went over many Jews and many of the Greeks.

47:16He was the Christ and when upon the accusation of the principal men among us, pilot had condemned

47:22him to a cross.

47:24Those who had first come to love him did not cease.

47:27He appeared to them, spending a third day restored to life for the prophets of God had

47:31foretold these things in a thousand other marvels about him.

47:36And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

47:44So that's my dramatic reading of a testimonium Flavianum.

47:48That, that is a far cry from Jesus who was called Christ.

47:54Yes.

47:55That is a, that is a very different feel and quite surprising coming from someone who did

48:03not follow Christianity himself.

48:06That would be, that would be a shocking thing to read from a non-Christian.

48:11Yeah.

48:12Yeah.

48:13It doesn't make a ton of sense that this came from, uh, from Josephus who was elsewhere

48:17is just like, you know, that guy.

48:20Um, so pretty much everybody agrees.

48:23This is definitely not authentic, definitely not entirely authentic.

48:28It may be in part authentic, it may, there may be a core, maybe something similar to what

48:32was mentioned in reference to James, but then it got, um, you know, elaborated on it.

48:37It accreted a bunch of additional stuff, uh, or it could just be entirely a Christian

48:42forgery.

48:43Um, and the, the scholarly consensus these days, if you ask most scholars and I've talked

48:49to, uh, Martin Goodman was my Jewish history professor at, uh, at the University of Oxford.

48:54He's, uh, when it comes to the history of Judaism in the first century CE, he's the game

49:01in town.

49:02Um, and he agrees that, uh, it's probably, uh, there was probably a core to that tradition

49:08that just got added onto by Christians who were, who were transmitting the text.

49:13So the consensus view is that it originates in some authentic reference to Jesus on Josephus'

49:21part.

49:22That was then elaborated on and added to by later Christian transcribers of the text.

49:27Although there are those who, who want to make the case that, uh, it is entirely a forgery

49:32and, uh, and I know of some folks who have publications forthcoming that, that are trying

49:37to make an even stronger case for that now.

49:39So, um, so that could be changing.

49:42We'll see.

49:43But right now, most folks think that Josephus referenced Jesus, maybe reference that pilot

49:47crucified him, uh, maybe didn't, uh, but, uh, whatever the case, the testimony and Flaviano

49:54as it exists right now is, is definitely not original.

49:57Why?

49:58Why?

49:59I mean, this may actually seem obvious to a lot of people, but what, what would you guess

50:04is the reason why someone would insert this into a history text?

50:11Um, this is, that's a question that a lot of people have asked just because, uh, like

50:16the notion that Jesus wasn't around or didn't exist wasn't really something that was taken

50:22seriously, uh, over a thousand years ago.

50:25So there, it seems like a silly reason to add this into their, however, at the same time,

50:32like I mentioned, Jewish folks are not transmitting, uh, Josephus's texts as primarily Christians

50:38and primarily because Josephus, not only provides a good history and background for the things

50:44that are in the New Testament, but provides, um, a, a, a non-biblical, non-Christian witness

50:52to, uh, Jesus's existence also references John the Baptist.

50:56So, um, other things from the New Testament are in there as well.

51:00And so it just sounds like as somebody saw an opportunity to, um, enhance the praise that

51:08they saw somebody heaping on Jesus, cause if Josephus was like, yeah, this clown that

51:13thought he was the, uh, the Messiah went and got himself crucified.

51:18What a doofus, uh, they, they might have been like, ow, and they might have been like, I'm

51:24in a, I'm going to just fix this a little bit.

51:26So it doesn't sound like Josephus is being in such a jerk.

51:31That's an interesting, I guess that's true.

51:33That's possible that Josephus was unflattering and someone decided, and since it was transmitted

51:40primarily by Christians, they could control the transmission of it.

51:44And they decided that, uh, it, it was going to be not only flattering, but a full-throated

51:50endorsement of his, of his, uh, of his, uh, of his Christness.

51:55Yeah.

51:56And, and one of the issues with this, one of the most frustrating parts about this is

51:59that we don't have, uh, any Greek manuscripts from before, I think the 11th century, I think

52:05is our earliest manuscript of Josephus.

52:08So these are things that were written in the first century between 75 and maybe 95 CE and

52:13the closest we get in terms of, uh, Greek manuscripts is a thousand years later.

52:20We have some Latin manuscripts of portions of it that go back to like the sixth century,

52:28but none of them attest to the testimonium.

52:31Um, and we do have in, in like a Syriac and Arabic manuscripts, we have slightly different

52:39versions of the testimonium that are pared down a little bit, sound a little more like

52:43what it might have been like originally, but there are an awful lot of folks who will argue

52:48that those are, are later, um, that these are, these are just different, um, interpolations.

52:55So it got interpolated once and then other people expanded on it in different ways.

52:59So, uh, unfortunately it's not something that we can know for sure, but, uh, when it comes

53:04to trying to reconstruct the history of what's going on here and, and, and the groups that

53:08were in play, the, uh, you know, the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the Essenes and the

53:14Zealots and, and the others, uh, like Josephus is our main source for all of that.

53:19So just trying to understand even the background, the backdrop of the New Testament and the history

53:24of this period, Josephus, as you said, is the only game in town.

53:30It's such an interesting thing.

53:31I, I think, yeah, I mean, so a name that has come up a few times as I was researching

53:39both of these things, researching the, uh, you know, the, the big claims, the 16 crucified

53:47saviors and then also Josephus, you start to find all of the say, a bunch of names, um,

53:54of people who are, and you said this word earlier, mythicists, uh, um, talk briefly about

54:02what the mythicist idea is and, uh, and, and is there any like respectable, uh, support

54:11for it or, you know, what, what's, what's the, the state of mythicism within, uh, the,

54:17the current academia?

54:19So there are, there are some scholars who, um, who would call themselves mythicists who

54:25have training that is tangentially relevant.

54:28I think the, uh, the only scholar who's actually got training related to the New Testament,

54:34um, who would call themselves a, a mythicist is, uh, price.

54:42And I am trying to, um, remember his first name, Robert Price.

54:47I think it's the only one who, who actually works within the study of Christianity.

54:51Richard Carrier is another who has, uh, a PhD, I believe in history.

54:57Uh, so primarily works in, in Greek and Roman sources.

55:00If I recall correctly, he's an ancient history.

55:03Yeah.

55:04Um, who is probably the most prolific and the most vociferous, uh, mythicist.

55:09But the idea is basically that there was never a historical Jesus and that what we have in

55:13the New Testament is a tradition that was fabricated, that was created based on some

55:20of these earlier deities, whether Dionysus or Mithra or Addis or Tamus or Osiris or

55:27Horace or whatever, that's, uh, everything that we have from Paul to the gospels and

55:34everything else was just fabricated.

55:37Uh, and, and there are a bunch of different theories about how and why.

55:41So there's no one single mythicist, uh, theory.

55:44It's a collection of theories that is grounded on the same idea that there was no historical

55:50Jesus.

55:51Um, and that is rejected by, apart from Robert Price and maybe one or two other, uh, scholars

55:58actually working in the study of the New Testament in early Christianity.

56:03That is rejected by literally everybody else.

56:06Uh, so it is in terms of, uh, popularity, it is about as unpopular as a theory can get

56:12among among the actual subject matter experts on that particular topic.

56:18Um, but, and this is something that I've said, folks have said, well, there are, there are

56:24a bunch of scholars who, who would agree with the mythicist position and, and they'll rattle

56:29off a bunch of scholars who have said things very similar to what I've said and I would

56:32not in any way, shape or form whatsoever identify as a mythicist or say that, that my position

56:38is at all aligned with mythicism.

56:40Um, and what I would say is that when it comes to the existence of a historical Jesus,

56:45we cannot know for sure all that we can do, which is all that we can do with the overwhelming

56:49majority of scholarship related to interpretation related to authorship related to historicity.

56:56The best we can do is way probabilities and decide what makes the best sense of the available

57:02data.

57:03And right now I would say the, uh, the overwhelming majority of scholars agree that it is more

57:11likely that a historical Jesus existed.

57:14Now some people will say it's a lot more likely, uh, will say, you know, we can be certain.

57:20I, I am probably just underneath that threshold.

57:24I think I, I would say it is a lot more likely.

57:27I don't think we can be certain, which means that I leave open the possibility, maybe even

57:33the plausibility that there was no historical Jesus, but I would, I would reject identification

57:40as a mythicist because I still think it is incredibly unlikely.

57:45Well, I mean, it's funny because even if you reject the, uh, the obvious interpolation

57:51of, of the Flavius Testimonious, whatever it is, uh, the other part where, where Josephus

58:01mentions Jesus in passing as the brother of another guy who got killed.

58:07Like it's thin, but it's there.

58:12Yeah.

58:13You know what I mean?

58:14Like that's, that's enough to just, to just say like it's, it, it would be, I think you'd

58:19be hard pressed to not at least understand that there was a dude who like all, I mean,

58:28even if you reject so much of what the, you know, what the New Testament says about this

58:33guy, it seems really, really hard to say there was no guy.

58:40Yeah.

58:41You know what I mean?

58:42In one of the things it means is that you have to be able to account for all of the different

58:49rather idiosyncratic ways that the tradition has come together because this is, this is

58:53one of the things that historical Jesus research tries to do.

58:56Why does this account, like contradict this account?

59:00And why do these people seem to be a little embarrassed about this over here, but not

59:03over here.

59:04And, and if it is all made up, then you've got to account for the complexity and the,

59:11the chronological distance between these, the things that are going on within the text

59:16that are just not easy to, to account for.

59:20And so, um, there's a concept in, uh, I, I'm pretty sure it's Richard Carrier who came

59:25up with this.

59:27But he's arguing that, um, he has argued, I believe that, uh, Paul understood Jesus to

59:34or thought of Jesus as a, um, kind of a mythical creation that he wasn't actually a human born

59:42of a, of a human mother and, uh, was just this, uh, kind of theme that was based on the idea

59:49of the seed of David and people were like, well, okay, where did the seed of David come

59:54from? Then if he was not born of a, of a human and, and he concocts this notion of a cosmic

60:01sperm bank where God preserved some of David's semen.

60:07So that's, uh, this mythical, uh, non-human, uh, creation could be called the seed of David.

60:16And, um, so like the, the law of parsimony and, uh, Occam's razor just kind of tear to shreds,

60:24all of the very complex convoluted, um, kind of, uh, structures that you have to build

60:32upon other structures upon other structures in order to make it all work.

60:36And it seems an awful lot more convenient to just say there was a dude, he died, tradition

60:42started circulating about him coming back to life. And then it took off from there. Like

60:47that is a far simpler solution to the problem.

60:51All right. Well, we're going to leave it at that, uh, though you and I are going to go

60:57on and have more fun discussion, uh, for our patrons over on patreon.com. If, if you,

61:04dear friend, dear listener, dear viewer at home would like to join that conversation,

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61:25you'll be able to get the afterparty. Otherwise at the $5 month level, you can get an early

61:31and ad free version of every episode of the show. Uh, thanks so much to all of you for

61:38tuning in. If you'd like to reach us, you can do so at contact@dataoverdogmapod.com and

61:45we'll see you again next week. Bye everybody.

61:51Data Over Dogma is a member of the airwave media podcast network. It is a production of

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