Tag: Albert McIlHenny

The Embarrassment of Mythicist Milwaukee

Exactly how embarrassing is Jesus Mythicism? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday on Facebook my friend Tyler Vela tagged me in a thread that was started by the group Mythicist Milwaukee (MM). Now if you’re not familiar with the term mythicist, a mythicist refers to someone who says that Jesus never existed. They’re not saying there was a Jesus but He never claimed to be divine or that He never rose from the dead. No. They’re out there saying that there never was a historical Jesus. The whole idea is a myth. Now how many scholars in NT and classics teaching at an accredited university hold to this position? None. It’s a joke in academic circles. You might as well tell a geology convention that the Earth is flat, but alas. MM is in the position of having to defend a ludicrous position and sadly marrying it to atheism.

You see, a few days ago I made this meme along the lines of Be like Bill:

BelikeBillHistoricalJesus

Now I’m not saying be like Bill in his atheism of course, but be like Bill in that you can at least recognize the evidence points to a historical Jesus. As it would be, just a few days later came the incident with Tyler Vela and normally, I wouldn’t bother, but I decided to respond. What happened? I wrote out a short response but one with substance to make my case as did Albert Mcilhenny who I have interviewed before on this topic. So we both make our responses and what happens?

Deleted! MM just didn’t want to deal with us and so they blocked us from commenting. Now perhaps some of you are thinking I’m being paranoid and making it up. No. I am not. I am not because they themselves said that’s what they did.

MMSmotestrolls

Of course, this didn’t stop them from putting up a link to the debate I had with Ken Humphreys that’s on YouTube and saying how they loved the comments section on this (After they had banned us!) Yes. Of course. In other words, we went on YouTube and saw that there are a bunch of people that agree with us and they are typing what we think as well.

well-isnt-that-special-300x211

To make the movement even more ludicrous, they also have a link up to a birther challenge for Jesus. Now of course, we could all understand wanting evidence for the historical Jesus, of which there is plenty, but what is not understood is making the standards so unreasonable that no one from ancient history hardly would pass the cut. That is exactly what has been done. You can see that challenge here.

So what are the criteria of their challenge?

A.) A contemporary 1st century person who has been proven to be historical, that lived between the years of 6 B.C.E. – 36 C.E., who was a first-hand eye-witness, who actually saw, met, spoke to, and knew jesus personally.

B.) Provide this person’s original and authentic: secular, non-christian, non-religious, unbiased, non-bible, non-gospel, and non-scripture writing, that is directly about jesus, with references/citations to prove that this person actually wrote the work in question. The writing has to be independently and Scientifically radiocarbon dated between the years of 6 B.C.E. – 53 C.E. Additional religious or christian writings that can’t be used: papyri, uncials, minuscules, lectionaries, didache, apocrypha, gnostic, catechism, and pseudepigrapha.

It’s a wonder why no one has done this. Well no, it isn’t. It’s because this would eliminate the existence of 99.99999% of people who existed in the ancient world and whose existence we have zero doubts about, and yet this is considered some way to do history. If the Jesus Birther Movement is so convinced, let them instead of just punting to Richard Carrier, present this to historians in a peer-reviewed process to see how well it will work.

At this some of you might be wondering about my statement about marrying this to their atheism. Alas, I am not making it up. I do not think atheism is a true position, but there are great thinkers who do come to that conclusion and that is a position held by many in the academy. Such is not the same with mythicism. So how does MM marry mythicism to their atheism? Look at the meme they shared with the challenge.

Jesusbirtherchallenge

Note the “claimed” atheists with the implication that an atheist could not believe in a historical Jesus. Well they certainly could and not only that, they certainly should. Why? Because while the existence of Jesus has religious overtones, it is not at its heart a religious question. It is a historical question. What that means can be religious, but if you look at history, then the case is that Jesus existed. An atheist could use most of the arguments I use against Jesus mythicism. It’s just so sad that MM will call someone’s atheism into question for not supporting mythicism.

To all of this I say if you are an atheist, okay. I disagree with you, but please have some sense enough to not be a mythicist. If someone thinks young-earth creationism (And I am not a YEC) is a crazy position, there are more ph.d.’s in related fields that hold to YEC than there are to mythicism. The reason is that is just where the evidence leads. Atheists that are mythicists are just serving to dumb down atheistic thinking and weaken their stance.

Ironically then, I consider people like Richard Carrier and MM to be gifts to the church. We should thank God every day that these people are doing what they’re doing to atheism. It can easily be argued that mythicism is a conspiracy theory for atheists. I could not sum this up better than what Bart Ehrman himself said.

Be an atheist if you wish, but do not add being foolish to it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 6/13/2015: Albert Mcilhenny

What’s coming up this Saturday on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Jesus mythicism is a virus that’s practically spreading across the internet. Note it isn’t doing so in the academy. There, the idea is pretty much a laughing stock. You wouldn’t know that from being on the internet where a huge number of atheists hold to this idea that Jesus never even existed and think it’s just an obvious truth. A few scholars like Maurice Casey and Bart Ehrman have taken the time to write against this, but for the most part, they haven’t. Fortunately, there is someone, though not a scholar, who has taken the time to write an in-depth series on mythicism that is still in the works. That’s my friend Albert Mcilhenny.

Albert Mcilhenny

According to his bio:

Albert McIlhenny is a retired IT support technician with a BA in Mathematics from Temple University. He worked in the Information Technology field both in network support and in teaching classes to prepare for Microsoft and Cisco examinations. He became a Christian in 1992 and soon began using his lifelong interest in history, logical skills, and ability to process large volumes of information in a short period of time in his study of the history and development of the Christian faith. His interest in the subject of Jesus mythicism goes back to a chance encounter with a conspiracy theorist shortly after becoming a Christian. He is currently in the process of writing a series of e-books titled A Christian Response to Jesus Mythicism that critiques all aspects of this movement.

I also wish to add to this bio that he blogs regularly at Labarum.net.

One of the biggest mistakes Albert would say he’s made is in seeing the material that was used in the film Zeitgeist before it became extremely popular. He saw the material and thought that surely no one would take it that seriously. As it turns out, he could not have been more wrong. A lot of people did and that has sparked mythicism being a growing movement on the internet, but does it really have anything to it?

In reality, it doesn’t. Mcilhenny in his writings has traced the movement even going as far back as centuries ago when Jesus mythicism wasn’t even on the radar to see what kind of thinking led to getting us to the state where Jesus mythicism would be popular. Mythicism meanwhile resides largely in the realm of conspiracy theorists and in fact he would affirm that if you are going ot be a mythicist, you eventually have to be a conspiracy theorist.

As many of you know, I thoroughly enjoy talking about the bankruptcies of mythicism and exposing it for what it is. I hands down have to say that Albert’s series on the topic is just incredible and thoroughly in-depth and there can be no doubt that he has done his homework on this area. If you are wanting to debate mythicists, then this series is a must read and each one can be read in a relatively short time. This episode will also be a must to listen to. Please be tuning in!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Neither New Nor Strange

What do I think of Albert McIlHenny’s book on Jesus Mythicism? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Albert McIlHenny is a friend of mine who has been writing a series of short Ebooks on Jesus mythicism and this, Neither New Nor Strange, is the first one I know of that went to Amazon first. If you missed the chance to get it free on the first day, you missed a treat. I’ve read all the others and frankly, they’re some of the best material I’ve read on the subject. Those who want to see a sampling of his material are invited to go to his website at Labarum. McIlhenny goes through the subject material step by step at a meticulous level in order to make sure his readers don’t miss anything.

This book is no exception, and yet it is quite short compared to many others in the series. Why is that? It’s frankly because of the mythicists themselves. Mythicists as a whole tend to avoid real research and just quote one another regularly instead of seeing what the real scholars have to say. Had they gone back and actually checked the original sources for these quotes, many times they would have seen the errors of their ways. There were a number of times a reader would think all McIlhenny needed to do was just show the original context of the quote and no commentary was really needed.

The book goes through the most important ones. It starts with Eusebius and if anyone is made to be the villain in church history, it’s Constantine. Right behind him would be his fan Eusebius. Of course, McIlhenny does not say that these were perfect men. Saying that does not mean that we make everything they do to be evil and showing they had some nefarious plot in mind, which could include not just knowing that Jesus was a myth supposedly, but also being people who are willing to encourage lying. McIlhenny takes it all on and removes and doubt whatsoever that the mythicists just don’t know what they’re talking about.

Another important figure is Justin Martyr, who is usually seen as trying to explain away parallels that supposedly existed between Jesus and pagan religion. McIlhenny points out that Justin is in fact not doing that. No one has come to Justin and said “Don’t you see Christianity is a copy of pagan religions?” and then he’s trying to explain that. Instead, he’s writing to the emperor who is condemning Christians for their beliefs. What Justin is doing is saying “Isn’t this similar to this other thing you believe?” He doesn’t think there are exact parallels, but he does hold that there are some ideas that can be said to be similar. Justin’s explanation was that the devil knew the prophecies and tried to fulfill them in advance. Do I buy Justin’s argument? No. The argument he made is really irrelevant however. What’s relevant is why he was making it. It was not to explain away parallels as if he was on the defensive. Justin is taking charge and writing to the emperor. The emperor did not ask Justin to write to him.

There are other fathers covered but in the end, the point is still the same. Mythicism just relies on bad history. If you want to be an atheist, be an atheist. You’re wrong, but that’s another matter. Just don’t go to a completely ridiculous position like mythicism. Mythicism should be seen as right on par with thinking that the Earth is flat or that the holocaust never happened. Atheists today should scorn their fellow atheists who go the mythicist route. Instead, they too often celebrate them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters