How Historians Know Jesus Did Not Exist

[Rhythmcs]

Chris Hitchens had a similar take on jesus. He figured he must have existed because the story is just so silly and embarassing and they didn't have to tie themselves into knots if they could just make things up. I suppose it seems like a solid rationale, but it isn't.

They had to twist themselves into knots because they were grafting different stories from different authors and different communities together, with warring details. Not because of some inconvenient life a real boy named jesus had. Case in point, we know nothing about that life. It's not in magic book at all. Supposing there really was some jesus, his life isn't the cause of any tensions in the nt.

[Rhythmcs]

 (Isn't a "Mythical Jesus" by definition not real??)

Mythical jesus is more real than historical jesus, lol.  Mythicism is the idea that the jesus narrative started out as a myth and later became considered to be a legend, rather than starting out as history, becoming legend, then being turned into myth. It's not about what's real. Both jesi are conceptually real. There is alot of evidence for the mythical jesus.

[jerry mcmasters]

 (Isn't a "Mythical Jesus" by definition not real??)

Mythical jesus is more real than historical jesus, lol.  Mythicism is the idea that the jesus narrative started out as a myth and later became considered to be a legend, rather than starting out as history, becoming legend, then being turned into myth.  It's not about what's real.  Both jesi are conceptually real.  There is alot of evidence for the mythical jesus.

Ah okay thanks.  I knew that but when I was typing my reply it totally didn't click in my mind.  I agree "Mythical Jesus" is a possibility but don't hold it higher than historical Jesus possibility.  But it's a valid possibility.

[pattylt]

It’s also possible that there were a few wandering preachers giving pithy stories in separate locations over several or more years. Some similarities became conglomerated into one person, called Jesus, and consolidated into the organic stories in the gospels. Enough differences remained that each gospel author managed to massage Jesus into their story and didn’t care that it didn’t fully mesh with other stories.

We will never know.

[Rahn127]

If you look up stories about the Beyonder from comic books, you can find stories from Marvel and DC and from Me.

I've written a book called Beyond Her which explains the origins of the Beyonder. I won't plug it much more beyond that but if interested you can always DM me for info.

My point being that you have several different fictional stories about nearly the same character from many different authors in Marvel and of course me and then an entirely different character from DC who also shares the name of Beyonder.

If in the future, someone decided to take pages from my story and pages from Marvel and DC, they could construct a single story from several different sources and then tell others that this person from this conglomerated story actually lived a very long time ago.

Then, if you get if enough followers to 'believe", you can start a religion.

[Rhythmcs]

Mythical jesus is more real than historical jesus, lol.  Mythicism is the idea that the jesus narrative started out as a myth and later became considered to be a legend, rather than starting out as history, becoming legend, then being turned into myth.  It's not about what's real.  Both jesi are conceptually real.  There is alot of evidence for the mythical jesus.

Ah okay thanks.  I knew that but when I was typing my reply it totally didn't click in my mind.  I agree "Mythical Jesus" is a possibility but don't hold it higher than historical Jesus possibility.  But it's a valid possibility.

Mythical jesus is not a possibility, it's mere reality.  That's the jesus we know about, that's the only jesus our sources record.  Whether there was ever a real man (or many real men) or not.. jesus is the mythical jesus, now.  The historical jesus is a possibility, a hypothesis, an attempt to explain the apparent fact, which is mythical jesus..in short - christ.

Historicism holds that the best explanation we have for the mythical jesus is a historic person.

Mythicism holds that myth is itself the best explanation for the mythical jesus. That things are, more or less...exactly as they seem.

[Paleophyte]

We will never know.

Never is a long time. I wonder what we'd get if we trained an AI to distinguish the difference between factual nuggets and fictitious additions using events that we know have been embellished. Then feed it the gospels and see what happens. OK, fine, we'd get several newer and more horrible religions and the robot apocalypse. Hi, have you heard of our Lord and Saviour SkyNet?

[Rhythmcs]

It would be useless. We know the stories have been embellished. We now the details in the stories are not the details of the historic jesus, assuming there were one. It would just give us alot of false positives - in context...reaffirming what we already knew. That magic book was an exersize in embellishment.

I think we'll end up knowing the same way we always have. After the fact. The christian romans knew the pagan romans gods were bunk - and christianity carried that across the globe everywhere it went. Other peoples myths were....myths. Whatever post-christian society we turn into will be similarly certain, and it's only ever a matter of time. It's worth pointing out, especially in that context, that classical paganism's peak coincided with the search for the historical gods, then, too.

[Paleophyte]

Chris Hitchens had a similar take on jesus.  He figured he must have existed because the story is just so silly and embarassing and they didn't have to tie themselves into knots if they could just make things up.  I suppose it seems like a solid rationale, but it isn't.

They had to twist themselves into knots because they were grafting different stories from different authors and different communities together, with warring details.  Not because of some inconvenient life a real boy named jesus had.  Case in point, we know nothing about that life.  It's not in magic book at all.  Supposing there really was some jesus, his life isn't the cause of any tensions in the nt.

The fact that we don't know any of the hard facts about Jesus' life, date of birth or location, date of death or age, etc. is one of the most compelling arguments against any of the apostles having written any part of the Bible. These were immensely important events to Christianity but the facts surrounding them are utterly absent from the Bible, as if the authors hadn't been present and didn't know them.

Sure they've had to weld several different traditions together in the NT. The whole thing's an ugly political compromise cooked up over a couple of centuries of schism and heresy. The question is whether those traditions ever had a common historical root. If they didn't then I'd expect them to hiss and spit and diverge rapidly. That's what religions do. Exclusive monotheisms Don't Play Well With Others, so I have a hard time imagining them fusing. Holy war would be a more likely outcome. If you're making shit up there are easier ways.

Case in point: There are a couple of times in the NT where Jesus says to his followers, 'Dudes, some of you'll still be alive when I come back next!' If we accept that the Biblical accounts are being written after the deaths of the last apostles, then it makes no sense to include this clearly failed prophecy. Being a failed prophet is a pretty big kick in the balls for Jesus' Divinity. If you're making shit up then you don't write that in. That's only likely to be there because it was a part of the existing religious proto-scripture and couldn't be expunged tidily.

[Rhythmcs]

There's no "if you're making shit up". What we have is certainly made up shit..that;s not any point of contention between mythicism and historicism. That far, at least, both camps agree. As far as having a common historical root - sure. As literature, that root is messianic judaism and specifically the messianic judaism between 66 and 136 ce. The idea being that if there were a jesus, he and his followers were steeped in that.

I posit to you that there were all sorts of reasons to make that pitch to romans between 66 and 136. Yes, it was already there as a part of a literary (or oral) tradition..but that's not interchangeable with it ever having been said by some real boy or been based on the life of a historic person. Nor would cultists remove a piece even if they knew it was nonsense...they haven't taken acts out of magic book to this day. "This dead guy promised those hated other guys some shit" is not how it was taken by proto christians in rome. The criterion of embarassment or inconvenience here fails for a specific reason. They weren't embarrassed, they weren't inconvenienced.. They didn't hear it how you hear it to be so in the first place, assuming you/we shared such values with them..which we don't.

Movements have continued to make such failed prophecies to this day, very often in christs name - cramming their words and expectations into his mouth. It's apparently not the turnoff we might intuitively assume. That's part of what makes it work. To use the religious market analogy - that's what people want...you'd have to tie a fictitious person into knots to fit that mold just the same..and so they did, at least apparently...regardless of whether there were ever a real boy. They twisted each others fictional renditions too..you see..and not to fit some real boy who's factual detail was unknown even to them. To their respective ideological vehicles.

[Rhythmcs]

..at the bottom of it all that's kind of the rub. If the best explanation for the stories or their detail is some real boy, this is the historicsts position after all...then why..when we look into the specific explanations for the particular details of these stories..is the answer never the real man himself? Why is it always mistranslation or careless scribes or political craft or societal expectations? At what point can we just state that it sure as hell looks like a bunch of star wars and star trek nerds arguing over the fan fiction cannon? That other authors have told some story that makes it rough for your story is no different in principle or practice..and at no point will we find The Real Luke Skywalker, or The Real Captain Kirk from such consideration. No one's kicking out the tos or episode 4. Everyone is still trying to cash in. Their stories are still set in that universe. Early christianity has a serious problem with judaism on this count. Too many christians in the synagogues, we're told. Too many christians still worshipping pagan idols, too. I guess that last one still hasn't gone out of style.

[jerry mcmasters]

 
Ah okay thanks.  I knew that but when I was typing my reply it totally didn't click in my mind.  I agree "Mythical Jesus" is a possibility but don't hold it higher than historical Jesus possibility.  But it's a valid possibility.

 
Mythical jesus is not a possibility, it's mere reality.  That's the jesus we know about, that's the only jesus our sources record.  Whether there was ever a real man (or many real men) or not.. jesus is the mythical jesus, now.  The historical jesus is a possibility, a hypothesis, an attempt to explain the apparent fact, which is mythical jesus..in short - christ.
 
Historicism holds that the best explanation we have for the mythical jesus is a historic person.
 
Mythicism holds that myth is itself the best explanation for the mythical jesus.  That things are, more or less...exactly as they seem.

 
The search for the Historical Jesus really doesn’t have to be this complicated, esoteric, philosophical quest that can by (Rythmic’s) definition only end in failure.  It’s simple:  Historians of the ancient world, or, frankly, anyone interested in the NT, have always been curious about questions like:
 
“How much of the NT is based on an actual man wandering around the villages of Galilee in the early First Century?” or “Are any of the teachings or sermons attributed in the NT to Jesus actually from an actual First Century Galilean preacher.”  Or, as Min very convincingly argues,   “Is it more likely that there was NO person at all and the entire NT “Jesus” was an imaginary creation to fit the needs of [whatever]”  These are natural and obvious questions that should occur to any reader of the bible.
 
These are historical questions and historians, serious ones anyway, whether secular or religious, use the tools of historical inquiry (very inter-disciplinary; archeology, sociology, linguistics, etc.) to try to answer them.  They come up with different answers to these questions, such as: “Wow turns out a lot of the NT comes from this guy!” or it could be “Meh just a few interesting things from the Book of Mark (my belief)” or it could be, as Patti suggested “An amalgamation of these three guys we identified” or it could be “Pure Myth!” as you and Min believe.
 
Here's what they don’t do:  Make Pope-like proclamations like “Mythical jesus is not a possibility, it's mere reality.”  Because serious historians, especially those of ancient history, are very humble about what they can declare with complete confidence and they understand that more research or new discoveries might make them change their mind about their positions. 
 
Imagine a convention of Historians of the ancient world.  And you stand at the mic and pronounce “Mythical jesus is not a possibility, it's mere reality.”  You would be laughed at, or maybe that would be too rude, let’s say there would be an awkward silence.
 
Your question, “Is the best explanation we have for the mythical Jesus a historic person?” makes no sense. “Mythical Jesus” is a stand in for No Actual Historic Person Was Involved, so it rules out a historic person by definition.  Asking about Historical Jesus doesn’t have to be a wildly complicated or provocative thing, it’s really just trivial stuff.  Personally I would love to know for sure if there was a real Jesus who had family that was embarrassed by him and thought he was an idiot.  It’s the kind of gem that’s just too damn funny to be made up! 
 
Edit:  this post also applies to your last few posts replying to others on this topic.  They fly over my head like the Concord.  It just doesn’t need to be this complicated.

[pattylt]

One of the problems is that, until recently, all historians of the NT were Christians and thus, an actually historical person of course existed. Even now, the atheist NT scholars have devoted their entire careers to the assumption that a real man lies behind the NT (looking at you, Bart Ehrman). It doesn’t mean they’re wrong, just that the HJ bias is built into the scholarship. It also means that stepping outside that box affects their careers and their livelihood. Thus, the scholarly census will be a real man is in there somewhere.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the future…when a scholar isn’t struck down for looking at the evidence and concluding Jesus never existed in real life. Unless new evidence appears, it might not ever happen or…some scholars finally decide that is quite likely he’s a myth. Until then, it’s fun to speculate!

[jerry mcmasters]

One of the problems is that, until recently, all historians of the NT were Christians and thus, an actually historical person of course existed.  Even now, the atheist NT scholars have devoted their entire careers to the assumption that a real man lies behind the NT (looking at you, Bart Ehrman).  It doesn’t mean they’re wrong, just that the HJ bias is built into the scholarship.  It also means that stepping outside that box affects their careers and their livelihood. Thus, the scholarly census will be a real man is in there somewhere.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the future…when a scholar isn’t struck down for looking at the evidence and concluding Jesus never existed in real life.  Unless new evidence appears, it might not ever happen or…some scholars finally decide that is quite likely he’s a myth.  Until then, it’s fun to speculate!

I don’t know if that was the issue.  The History profession, like any, has standards so nobody is going to rise far in the academic field if their work allows the supernatural into it so for the last few hundred years the study of Ancient History at a serious level has resulted in simply whatever can be found using reality-based historical research.  Personal religious beliefs left at the door, if you will; not giving Christ a pass just because they're Christians.  And in that practical research, with source material of the Ancient World being scarce, the general idea was that if a source mentioned a person, generally that person was thought (context provided) to exist, unless countervailing evidence and good reason proved otherwise. (Not a miraculous Jesus, but a man-Jesus, not a god-Agustus, but a man-Agustus, etc.)
 
The idea that there just flat out was no Jesus, at all, in any form, and the whole thing is cut from whole cloth, is fairly new (1980s?  Min will know) and incredibly counter-intuitive.  Not wrong,  not untrue, but very very counter-intuitive and very unexpected!  I do agree that MJ belief currently may be a bit of a career-killer, partly for religious reasons and partly because it remains (to my knowledge, maybe it's gotten bigger now, idk) a bit of a fringe position and a bit unlikely.  HJ is the current orthodoxy, but maybe some big research finds (proof of very late dating of the gospels?) will move MJ to the forefront of the field.

[Rhythmcs]

The first people to suggest it were jesus supposed contemporaries in the ancient world. The idea has been explored under todays standards since 1800. It was the belief of gnostic christians until they were murdered. It's not new material.

HJ is the current orthodoxy..but it's an hj that, according to them, fits so well into mythicism that it only looks for all the world like he was mythical...and that outta give the hjers pause, but ofc it doesn't. The historical jesus is some guy who was baptized and crucified. That's it. That's all. He's not the speaker of wisdom. He's not the travelling con man. He's not the leader of devoted disciples. He's not a thorn in romes side. He's not the king of the jews. He didn't start a religion. He wasn't born anywhere in particular, nor was his crucifixion anywhere in particular. All that stuff is the legend or myth.

That hj didn't rise from the dead is a sideshow, he didn't do any of the shit in magic book, supernatural or not. Or, if we prefer..that's not a part of the consensus. That's why you'll always hear the phrase "the consensus of scholars" in such debates..and never the contents of that consensus. The contents look extremely bad for the contention. There's no jesus in the historical jesus, nevermind christ. That they cling to those two things is, imo, just far too hilariously convenient. They don't have any particular reason other than the maintenance of christian claims to assume even those those two things. It's just that..since hj isn't about any of the rest of it (again, according to them)..if you took those two things away...there's no reason left to call him jesus even though you already know your hypothetical person never was jesus to begin with.

Personally, I think that if we're gonna call anyone "the historical jesus" it's whoever the wisdom sayer was. However many there were. That's the only reason we're even having this convo today..but that guy didn't get baptized or crucified, and would predate the Real Boy who hypothetically did, and got credit for whatever those other people had to say - in that case.

[Minimalist]

I don't know why you're heading off in that direction, there is no confusion here.  We've only been talking (hundreds of pages on the other thread) about the quest for the Historical Jesus.  None of us atheists believe in a "Biblical Jesus" or in whatever "Mythical Jesus" is.  (Isn't a "Mythical Jesus" by definition not real??)

Sorry, Jerry...busy day and the one time I tried to reply I got interrupted by a phone call.

Anyway, I'm trying to define our terms without having to go all the way back down that rabbit hole you mentioned.  Fortunately, your last comment plays right into what I was going to say anyway.

In the mid 1750's a German named Reimarus secretly wrote a treatise which challenged the supernatural crap surrounding jesus.  He thought he was a mere man.  similarly, not too much later, Thomas Jefferson re-wrote the NT to remove all the miraculous nonsense from it in his quest to determine the actual teachings of the god boy.  What Reimarus set in motion was eventually to be called the Quest for the Historical Jesus...but that book was not written until 1906 by Albert Schweitzer.  While Reimarus and Jefferson among others were trying to cut jesus down to size there were other French and English scholars who saw nothing human in him at all.  Among these were Baron D'Holbach who in 1770 wrote "Ecce Homo" somewhat before Volney and De Puis.  The French Revolution which overthrew  thechurch as well as the nobility made it safe for people to finally express their frank opinions but it was Bruno Bauer who was the first actual theologian to call jesus mere myth in the mid 19th century.

So in fact the ideas go hand in hand but what is conspicuously missing is an serious scholarly effort to retain the BJ.  It is as if the church and its protestant co-morons realized the game was up and concentrated on retaining the loyalties of what they had rather than try to defend the indefensible.  How does one defend "miracles" when science is all the rage?

I'll pause for questions here.

[jerry mcmasters]

The first people to suggest it were jesus supposed contemporaries in the ancient world.

That there was no Jesus at all?  Not even a faker that was just a human?  Source?
[/quote]

[jerry mcmasters]

I don't know why you're heading off in that direction, there is no confusion here.  We've only been talking (hundreds of pages on the other thread) about the quest for the Historical Jesus.  None of us atheists believe in a "Biblical Jesus" or in whatever "Mythical Jesus" is.  (Isn't a "Mythical Jesus" by definition not real??)

Sorry, Jerry...busy day and the one time I tried to reply I got interrupted by a phone call.

Anyway, I'm trying to define our terms without having to go all the way back down that rabbit hole you mentioned.  Fortunately, your last comment plays right into what I was going to say anyway.

In the mid 1750's a German named Reimarus secretly wrote a treatise which challenged the supernatural crap surrounding jesus.  He thought he was a mere man.  similarly, not too much later, Thomas Jefferson re-wrote the NT to remove all the miraculous nonsense from it in his quest to determine the actual teachings of the god boy.  What Reimarus set in motion was eventually to be called the Quest for the Historical Jesus...but that book was not written until 1906 by Albert Schweitzer.  While Reimarus and Jefferson among others were trying to cut jesus down to size there were other French and English scholars who saw nothing human in him at all.  Among these were Baron D'Holbach who in 1770 wrote "Ecce Homo" somewhat before Volney and De Puis.  The French Revolution which overthrew  thechurch as well as the nobility made it safe for people to finally express their frank opinions but it was Bruno Bauer who was the first actual theologian to call jesus mere myth in the mid 19th century.

So in fact the ideas go hand in hand but what is conspicuously missing is an serious scholarly effort to retain the BJ.  It is as if the church and its protestant co-morons realized the game was up and concentrated on retaining the loyalties of what they had rather than try to defend the indefensible.  How does one defend "miracles" when science is all the rage?

I'll pause for questions here.

Thanks!  My question is:  "Rythmics said the first people to suggest J is a total myth were jesus' supposed contemporaries in the ancient world, so he's probably full of shit, right?"

[jerry mcmasters]

 The historical jesus is some guy who was baptized and crucified.  That's it.  That's all. 

That's all that's needed to end this discussion.  It's very binary, HJ was or wasn't, period.  As a mere issue of historical curiosity, people wonder and try to tease out from the evidence if there was a dude there at all or not and how much or how little the HJ matches the NT.  But you're admitting the existence of HJ.

[Rhythmcs]

No, Jerry, lol. I'm telling you that that is all that's contained in "the consensus of scholars". Every other detail of jesus-the-man in the new testament is disputed by the same scholars. Whenever you think about whomever you imagine the hj was, understand that the consensus of scholars is that he wasn't that, whatever you're thinking of. That's the only interesting thing about the hypothetical man, imo.

[Rhythmcs]

Thanks!  My question is:  "Rythmics said the first people to suggest J is a total myth were jesus' supposed contemporaries in the ancient world, so he's probably full of shit, right?"

Justin Martyr came up with idea of diabolical mimicry for this very reason.

[Minimalist]

Sorry, Jerry...busy day and the one time I tried to reply I got interrupted by a phone call.

Anyway, I'm trying to define our terms without having to go all the way back down that rabbit hole you mentioned.  Fortunately, your last comment plays right into what I was going to say anyway.

In the mid 1750's a German named Reimarus secretly wrote a treatise which challenged the supernatural crap surrounding jesus.  He thought he was a mere man.  similarly, not too much later, Thomas Jefferson re-wrote the NT to remove all the miraculous nonsense from it in his quest to determine the actual teachings of the god boy.  What Reimarus set in motion was eventually to be called the Quest for the Historical Jesus...but that book was not written until 1906 by Albert Schweitzer.  While Reimarus and Jefferson among others were trying to cut jesus down to size there were other French and English scholars who saw nothing human in him at all.  Among these were Baron D'Holbach who in 1770 wrote "Ecce Homo" somewhat before Volney and De Puis.  The French Revolution which overthrew  thechurch as well as the nobility made it safe for people to finally express their frank opinions but it was Bruno Bauer who was the first actual theologian to call jesus mere myth in the mid 19th century.

So in fact the ideas go hand in hand but what is conspicuously missing is an serious scholarly effort to retain the BJ.  It is as if the church and its protestant co-morons realized the game was up and concentrated on retaining the loyalties of what they had rather than try to defend the indefensible.  How does one defend "miracles" when science is all the rage?

I'll pause for questions here.

Thanks!  My question is:  "Rythmics said the first people to suggest J is a total myth were jesus' supposed contemporaries in the ancient world, so he's probably full of shit, right?"

That's actually a very difficult question because, IF he existed, WHEN they claim he existed, then no one writing at the time seems to have even heard of the fuck.  As I have said we do not have a single piece of primary evidence ( defined as evidence produced by contemporaries or the subject himself ) that indicates any such person in the early first century CE.  So I would have to ask Rythmics to define his terms.  What is a 'supposed contemporary?"

Right now it is the classic "absence of evidence" position.  Lacking anything to the contrary absence of evidence IS evidence of absence unless and until such evidence is produced.

[Rhythmcs]

I don't think it is. We can give the nuts the exact dates they want. It's obvious that by the first time anyone starts writing apologetics this is an item they'd been forced to give some thought to. It would keep coming up for centuries. The only time that the idea hasn't been entertained in western thought is when the christians could kill you for it.

[Minimalist]

Shit, man.  They can't even give us the exact dates they want because they can't agree among themselves.  There are only two nativity gospels and one (Matty) claims that Herod the Great was involved - and Herod died in 6-4 BCE and the other (Luke) claims it was when Publius Sulpicius Quirinius was made Imperial Legate ( Governor ) of Syria in 6 C.E.  As for when the bastard was allegedly crucified it happened when Pontius Pilate was Prefect of Judaea which was any time between 26 and 36/7 BCE.  One would think there would be some agreement on a point of such importance, but, alas....not so.

Nor is there agreement on the length of his supposed ministry.

https://progressivechristianity.org/reso...ree-years/

The short answer is, nothing’s changed. Depending on which gospel you read, Jesus’ ministry was both one year long and three years long.

With no physical or archaeological evidence to fill us in on the details of Jesus’ life, the one thing we have to go on are the gospels – and even the so-called “synoptic gospels” don’t agree with each other on order of events and details. But as for the duration of Jesus’ ministry, the “synoptics” (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) share a timeline that includes only one Passover observance, suggesting a ministry of one year.  John’s gospel, with a completely different (and some would say narcissistic) Jesus, different message, and different priorities, has also created a completely different timeline. Making mention of at least three annual Passover feasts (John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55-57), John super-sizes Jesus’ ministry into three years. Earnest apologists have tried to consolidate all four narratives into one “harmony” of the gospels, but to no avail. The accounts are just too different.

There is more disagreement among the fools.  Fraudsters concocted a "report" written by Pilate to Tiberius  (The Anaphora Pilati) about what a holy guy this jesus fucker was.  Okay - Tiberius matches up with the eventual story but there is also a report allegedly by Pilate addressed to the Emperor Claudius.  Claudius was emperor between 41 and 54 CE.  Eusebius, the noted Church Liar, states that Pilate was either executed by Caligula or told to kill himself.  Who the fuck knows?  But clearly whoever wrote that silly report didn't know and had placed this jesus guy somewhat later in history.

I mean seriously, if they can't get their story straight why is it our responsibility to fix it for them?

[jerry mcmasters]

No, Jerry, lol.  I'm telling you that that is all that's contained in "the consensus of scholars".  Every other detail of jesus-the-man in the new testament is disputed by the same scholars.  Whenever you think about whomever you imagine the hj was, understand that the consensus of scholars is that he wasn't that, whatever you're thinking of.  That's the only interesting thing about the hypothetical man, imo.

Disagreement among scholars is also common in, oh, pretty much every other historically controversial issue ever.  You already admitted HJ existed, so just let it go.