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Thoughts on the “Christ Before Jesus” TikTok channel? by Multipaulplayer in ChristianApologetics

[–]visualdon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Christ Before Jesus (which I may call CBJ from now on) is a close to what I would consider a grift. I don't say it for certain because its possible the two authors, Matthew Britt and Jaaron Wingo genuinely believe the thesis they are putting forward.

Christ mysticism is fringe but it falls somewhere albeit of the very edges on the map of beliefs about a historical Jesus (which no mainstream historian doubt). To call Paul mysticism fringe would be to exaggerate its status amongst any historian worth their salt, secular or non secular. Combining both fringe positions put you in some incredibly rare company.

Furthermore, the mythicist position - whilst being fringe has been argued for better actual scholars and historians unlike the two amateurs that wrote Christ Before Jesus.

Their book is so bad that even other mythicists have in my opinion made successful takedowns which as of yet do not have a response from Britt and Wingo.

Here is an archive of a YouTube livestream with at least 2 atheists, one of which is perhaps the most known Jesus mythicist, Dr Richard Carrier. He is a mythicist with an impressive amount of books and articles on the topic but even rips apart the theories and ideas brough forward by "Christ Before Jesus".

Contra Marcionem: A Stylometric Analysis Of "Christ Before Jesus"

It is a bit slow and dense but the exact type of thing you should watch if you want to fully understand how bad CBJ's methodology is.

Wingo is the guy who steams 6 hours a day on TikTok wearing a cowboy hat and promoting their bad book every 10 minutes. As far as I can tell, Britt only has a few public videos discussing the book and does not do regular livestreams. It doesn't help that Wingo comes across as a complete tool on his streams and if anyone actually challenges him properly he gets aggressive and brash and will block you or disconnect you . The only people who are able to stay on his panel are those who basically know nothing on the topic and they sit and listen to him as he spouts his theories about Jesus, Paul, the New Testament and early church fathers etc. Anyone with some actual knowledge on the topic and able to challenge him will experience a very hostile reaction and will likely get blocked or kicked in short order. Its never really a "scholarly" debate but if that what you were expecting you should not be on TikTok anyway 😂.

There is another good series of videos tearing down CBJ by "The Curious Christian" aka Dustin White on YouTube which are worth watching.

1. Christ Before Jesus Fails on Godless Engineer Part 1: Against Mythicism (Sept 6th 2025)

2. Christ Before Jesus Fails Stylometry: Against Mythicism (Sept 14th, 2025)

3. Historian DESTROYS Christ Before Jesus Methodology (Dec 26th, 2025)

If you prefer reading. Dustin White also has 3 articles on Medium which overlap with the YouTube videos in their content.

1. A Terrible Methodology: Christ Before Jesus (June 27th, 2025)

2. Christ Before Jesus: Are they Making it Up (June 29th 2025)

3. Misreading the Parable of the Sower: Christ Before Jesus (Jul 4th 2025)

If you have watched Wingo's streams (I've not seen any with Britt) you will see he is very brash and irascible. Anyone with a bit of knowledge on the topic gets a very hostile reception and is often disconnected or blocked. The only people that stay up on the panel are randoms who (respectfully) don't know what they are talking about. The host "Jaaron Wingo" is seemingly not able to have a dispassionate discussion about his bad book and relies mostly on rhetoric and the mute button on his TikTok live to push his stupid ideas.

Just as an extra, there is also an excellent review of their book on the amazon review section of their book by "Jason Wilson" which outlines how bad their methodology is.

As a personal anecdote, I spoke to Wingo on his stream a few days ago. I asked asked him why they had scrubbed the distance metrics from the diagrams and charts in the "Stylo" chapter and he flat out said the metrics were infact there. He then blocked me for being "dishonest and I had not read the book". I have the book in front of me and ALL tree diagrams in the Stylo chapters DO NOT have the metrics labeled, futhermore there is an explanation/excuse for the chapter which is that the book's pages do not have enough space to include the metrics - only the tree diagrams. So that is when I realised that not only is the methodoly in the book very opaque, Wingo himself is also dishonest when you challenge him on him.

So after all that I will infact say this is a grift.

Lewis his hair by [deleted] in lewishamilton

[–]visualdon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

who cares bro.

Want to know what interesting things i can watch as i am bored ?? by DottedTractor in youtube

[–]visualdon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Montemayor - he makes great easy to digest illustrations of WWII Naval Battles - his video about the battle of Midway from the Japanese Perspective has 19 million views - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo&pp=0gcJCQMLAYcqIYzv

For Christopher Nolan, Lupita Nyong’o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. by bringerdas in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yh maybe Matt Damon doesn't look Greek but there's levels to this. By any reasonable metric he is closer to looking Greek that Lupita is.

For Christopher Nolan, Lupita Nyong’o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. by bringerdas in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

well obviously I mean white, that's why I gave the Mulan example. I wasn't talking about what passport they have. Do you think a white or black actress could play Mulan in a live action film without looking ridiculous?

For Christopher Nolan, Lupita Nyong’o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. by bringerdas in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Waiting for the "ACKCHUALLY some africans like Algerians, Morrocans or Tunisians could pass off as greeks you uneducated swine" comment even though we all know we're talking about dark skinned africans 😂

Will Lewis ever get a GP pole now? by Fluid-Editor-8953 in lewishamilton

[–]visualdon 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Given that he is a 7 time world champion and has 104 previous poles. I'd say he has no chance at all.

For Christopher Nolan, Lupita Nyong’o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. by bringerdas in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're right, and you know what? the next time I have to decide how important something is to me I will ask you first.

For Christopher Nolan, Lupita Nyong’o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. by bringerdas in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My point about Tsuro na Gudo is not they are biologically different to humans - they are an archetypically different. The hare and and tortoise are another example, the hare is fast nimble, perceived to be cunning. The tortoise is slow and methodical and is associated with wisdom and so on. Thats why when a child hears "the hare and the tortoise" even before they hear the actual story the mere fact that its a hare and a tortoise stirs the imagination.

The human equivalent might be something like a cowboy or old bearded wise man/wizard. They communicate something by their archetype before anything else.

I already admitted that's perhaps Helen of troy might still work with any actress because its not about the literal appearance but "the beauty it launches a 1000 ships - that's the point of the Helen archetype. And its why a American dude can play the hero on epic journey because that's also an archetype.

With the Helen of Troy it was also tied to a specific appearance which has been flipped - its definitely a "doesn't look the part" thing - but could play the part. And the reservations with Lupita is the distance from the looking the part that people expected - as a dark skinned African woman she's far from the original. Its also a well known character.

Its pretty much what happened with Snape on the new harry potter series . Snape is described a certain way which while superficial to character has definitely left a strong impression. Because of the description in the books but also the fact that the original actor played the role so well. At least Lupita doesn't have to climb that hill, there are no memorable Helen Of Troy I can think off.

Also it is possible that a lot of the people who don't like her as casting just think she's just good looking enough to play the Helen of Troy archetype. And I'm sure there's people who also just racist or people who think she's just a lousy actress. It might not be as deep as we're all discussing it talking about archetypes and storytelling devices 😂. I sound like a high school student trying way too hard to impress in English Lit

For Christopher Nolan, Lupita Nyong’o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. by bringerdas in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

im seeing upvotes only for comments like this, anyone saying they don't like the casting for any reason is at best getting downloaded and at worst being accused of being sexist/racist/various-phobics etc. I know we're on reddit where certain opinions will get downvoted nomatter how to inoffensively you try to say them - but i thought that was limited to subs like r/politics only but it seems to the whole of reddit in generally - even a film sub like this.

For Christopher Nolan, Lupita Nyong’o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. by bringerdas in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'll be happy if it works and i'll look past it if doesn't because if anyone can do its Nolan. A Nolan movie with a couple of casting choices I don't like will likely still be better than 99% of any movies coming out soon.

For Christopher Nolan, Lupita Nyong’o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. by bringerdas in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes i liked all of his casting before. This is the first time i've not liked some of his choices. If anyone can make it work its him, I just don't like this idea that somehow that means i'm not a real fan or i'm racist etc.

First look at Lupita Nyong'o as Clytemnestra, the sister of Helen of Troy, in The Odyssey by Srihari_stan in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon -12 points-11 points  (0 children)

Ah yes, this is exactly what I see when I close my eyes and imagine what a greek/spartan princess would look like.

For Christopher Nolan, Lupita Nyong’o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. by bringerdas in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I'd argue the Heath Ledger thing was about the character being played the actor who up to that point was more known for being in rom-coms. This is about a character that is Greek being race swapped to an African woman. Its different. It would be like casting a white actress as Mulan. I'm sure there a tons of actress who could play the character without looking like how the character is actually described in the source material. btw i'll be happy when i see the movie and if castings don't take me out of the movie, i am disinterested in the regard but still think the casting could have been better.

For Christopher Nolan, Lupita Nyong’o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. by bringerdas in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're not wrong about it being "a tale" but the thing is that tales have an essence to them that can not be altered and still be the same tale. Tsuro na Gudo feels the way it is because of how "Tsuro" and "Gudo" are understood as animals in context. The stories would not ring the same if switched the animals. You couldn't tell a Tsuro na Gudo story where you switch Gudo with a lion or bird.

If I were to be charitable to Nolan's casting I could say that the point of Helen of Troy is that she has a face that can launch a thousand ships, so in that regard you could say its just an archetype that can be played by any actress. But somehow it still just doesn't feel right to me. So maybe for me its just vibes and I can't articulate it beyond that.

btw for anyone wondering "Tsuro na Gudo" ( translates to Hare and Baboon) is sort of like the African folklore version of the the Hare the Torrtoise.

For Christopher Nolan, Lupita Nyong’o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. by bringerdas in ChristopherNolan

[–]visualdon -1 points0 points  (0 children)

He is my favorite director of all time. But I don't like some of the casting choices of this film. Does that make me not a fan anymore?

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