_Here’s a ministry idea. Someone with a YouTube account ought to read this on video. Do a rant in your own inimitable tone. Make sure you cite the author because when it goes viral he’ll be wanting royalties. I didn’t write this. This is from a guy named Vinnie, who obviously has some kind of gift. Don’t ask me what it is though.
Just a note for people who don’t get this. I constantly get responses to my Real Jesus video series from young postmodernist atheists who insist there is no proof that Jesus ever existed. I know that makes no sense, but welcome to the 21st century. If you do get it, then you agree with me that this guy Vinnie is brilliant._
Mythicism in 27 to 30 A.D.
Yes, mythicists go back to the first century where they were constantly arguing with Jesus about whether or not he existed. Nothing he could do would prove his existence to them. They asserted and reasserted that he did not exist.
One guy who was a real “Freke” traveled to Australia and came back and told Jesus triumphantly “No one has ever heard of you in Australia. Ergo, you do not exist.”
Many of Jesus friends (maybe even 500 of them!) testified that this man was in fact Jesus of Nazareth to them but the mythicists accused the men of fabrication and mass hallucination. They were stubborn and unrelenting and would not give up their hyper-skepticism.
Men and women came claiming to be Jesus’ family but the mythicists argued that their testimony was invalid unless backed by a scientifically controlled and carefully conducted DNA testing.
Jesus invited the mythicists over to his house one night for supper and when he was done entertaining them he tried one last time to prove his existence to them. But not even the wine they drank loosened them from their hyper-skepticism. Led by their leader “Doherticus ben Earl” they dogmatically asserted that unless he could show them a valid driver’s license with his picture on it they would not accept his existence.
Since he had no clue what a driver’s license was he was silenced and his opponents assumed victory and taunted him with drunken slurs like, “Na na na na na. You don’t exist. Na na na na na.”
Mythicism in 30 to 70 A.D.
Many who who knew Jesus of Nazareth and followed him during his lifetime believed he was an actual person and they found him to be a great teacher and they continued to follow him after his death and carried on his message.
But the mythicists kept arguing against his existence. They now asserted that the Christians invented the story and they accused them of being Christians! “Because you are followers of this man you are clearly biased and nothing that you say he said or did can be considered as evidence. What could a follower of Jesus tell us about Jesus?” they retorted.
One day during this time period some Gentile converts interpreted something they heard attributed to Jesus to mean that shellfish and pork were now clean. But this only fueled the debate as popular mythicist “Petros ben Gandy” used this material to argue against the historicity of Jesus’ existence. He stated, “I lived next door to Jesus and ate with him often. He never declared shellfish and pork clean. You or whoever you heard this from are clearly making this material up just as you make up these claims that Jesus was a real person. He could never provide us with a valid picture I.D. and I doubt you can do any better!”
Jesus’ brother James become quite popular and continued to argue that his brother was a real person during this time period, but he could never provide the mythicists with their required evidence of a DNA test as he knew not what a DNA test was.
Mythicism from 71 to 95 A.D.
Jesus’ original followers were all dead and the mythicists ran rampant during this time period. Anything anyone said about Jesus was considered hearsay because no one was actually there to witness it. The mythicist’s mythicist-children now demanded primary-contemporary source data. Anything less than that would not even be considered!
One Christian brought forth some documents that contained a lot of material on Jesus. He said these documents should constitute evidence for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. Much material inside them was embarrassing and there wasn’t really any valid reason to think that all stuff was woven from whole cloth (let along the really embarrassing stuff like Baptism by JBap) but the mythicists were not swayed. At first they weren’t sure how to treat them and they argued that no one ever heard of these documents and they have no name on them so they must not exist. Christians then decided to name them and the mythicists changed their argument. Many of them now speculated that these documents were late second century documents that wouldn’t be written for another 100 plus years. This position became central to the mythicist case. It was canonical you could say. “Do you really expect us mythicists in the year 83 A.D. to accept these 2nd century documents that won’t even be written for about another 100 years as evidence? What do you take us for? Idiots?” That quickly became their standard response.
Mythicism from 96 to 2000+ A.D.
Nothing has changed and Jesus is now sitting in heaven laughing in heaven at the sight of this nonsense.