The ORIGINS of Christian Mythology | Drs Dennis MacDonald & Richard Miller

Hey family, tell me what your favorite part of this episode was?

Dennis MacDonald is giving a good explanation on the institutional inertia and downright pushback. He cited a German scholar telling one of his students not to use MacDonald's work because it was widely criticized, and the National Endowment for the Humanities only gives grants to institutions that engage in "old Biblical science." And may I bring up the fate of Thomas Brodie who was sacked from Dublin University and silenced by the Catholic Church because he spoke an inconvenient truth about the canonical NT Jesus. Meaning, the penny dropped that this Jesus never existed, which means the historical Jesus was almost an entirely different person whose identity got stolen. What it boils down to is that we will have to wait until Christianity has gone extinct or has shrunk to a teeny size before the field of study can move forward on the inconvenient truths in a meaningful way.

2:23 "What mattered most about their stories was not that they were true but that they were more satisfactory to the identity of these communities " <- Oddly enough that still applies today , to our social interactions and politics. Contemporary demagogues (e.g. Trump) are specialists at stories intended to reify identities.

Dr. MacDonald touched on this. Max Planck is credited with the observation "Science advances funeral by funeral."

Christianity is the only ancient myth where if you as a Biblical or NT scholar question the historicity of its founder and object of worship, you'll find yourself excluded from the circle of scholars. It happened to Thomas Brodie.

My favorite was the inconvenient truths... You can either learn to grow with the truths or you can close your mind

The fact that you all share a vision towards a better future? Thanks guys!

Sarapis was a created God for the purpose of bringing the Greeks and Egyptians closer together by establishing a common need. Two hundred years later the Romans and Jewish people were fighting and Then Jesus established a common need for them. Salvation. Jesus was a creation. The son of the guy that created Sarapis is the one who had the Septuagint written. The translation helped them to learn about the Jewish beliefs. It’s that simple.

Favorite part? The whole thing! I couldn't agree more with these two scholars.

Dennis talks about paradigm shifts, what bugs me is that there are royal libraries from Assyria and only a handful of scholars trained to translate them, while biblical scholars are in the thousands I would guess. There are all kinds of documentary treasures troves from around the world with very few working on them. Hopefully this biblical trance the so many ancient historians are under will eventually pass.

Religion is a social agenda and orthodoxy serves the social agenda.. One must understand the distinction between Mysticism and Mythology.

Wow, wow, wow, wow! How so very satisfying is this podcast??? It is very satisfying, yes, to see my thoughts transplanted to two very intelligent and affable men! It is gratifying to observe these gentlemen conversation with so much learning and empathy with the subjects they discuss. It is, indeed, very endearing and I must say that when I will see their names on the titles of your channel, you'll have a faithful watcher! Thank you, made my day!

Derrick, it’s shows like this where you really earn your patreon. 😊

I'm getting hooked on these guys! ❤😊

the room is not fit to do audio recording in, reverb is quite nasty. just don't use large empty spaces for that.

I think Christians are mostly okay with people saying the magic stuff never actually happened but when people start questioning the historicity of Jesus they be like "oh hell no!".

Dennis MacDonald and Richard Miller are the Copernicus and Einstein of Biblical studies. Let the paradigm shifts begin!

2:55 For the purpose of identifying your ingroup or outgroup, its actually a feature, not a bug, for your group's stories to be miraculous, counterintuitive, and not historical! Members of your group believe them, but others don't

More of this!

I will say that I have spoken to Christian scholars who consider Dr. McDonald and Dr. Miller's work dangerous here in the U.S. I was dissuaded from reading his work while attending a Biblical Studies PHD program at an evangelical institution. But I left the program and read his work and it is top notch. Although I am more Q skeptical than he is, but that's a different thing entirely...