~M~

Not what I meant. He is a big deal in culture, history and so forth. This remains true whether you are indifferent or not.

Toto

Would he stop being a "big deal" if it were determined that he was a legendary figure based only loosely on a real person? Would it change if he didn't exist at all? I doubt it, somehow.

No Robots

We are trying to arrive at an accurate understanding of a critical social phenomenon. The consequences for misunderstanding this phenomenon will be as they have always been: strife, psychic distress, violence and degradation.

openlyatheist

True, it is a fact of life that we rely on second hand information. We cannot all know everything. However, areas such as medicine and law are far less tangled up in religion, and that makes a distinct difference to the question you ask. I think you far to glibly dismissed Toto when he wrote:
This is true. The field of medicine is not decided by scholarly opinion, but by whether people get well. The medical establishment didn’t accept Pasteur’s work on germ theory at first, not until it was proven through practice. Scholarly opinion can change.

To extend the analogy: I take my car to the mechanic not just to get an opinion, but to actually get the car fixed. But I need to chose my mechanic carefully. Whether or not I rely on an expert’s expertise is entirely dependent upon my being educated enough to know that I’m not being cheated. Between two doctors, or mechanics, who both have degrees, yet one wears a shrunken voodoo head doll around his neck to keep away evil spirits, who am I as a Naturalist going to go with? The one who has the least evidence against his credentials.
You and me both. Fortunately for me, I do not need Doherty or anyone else to point out a myth when I see one. I haven’t even read The Jesus Puzzle, or anything by Robert Price for that matter.
Which begs the question; “What exactly is this scholarly support?” And there’s always, “Are you speaking of a Natural Jesus, or a Supernatural Jesus?” Which are two entirely separate propositions.

But if I went the road of just following the majority because they’re the majority, wouldn’t I have to be a Christian? How many “Historical Jesus” proponents are not Christians too? Very few I gather, since every Christian, by definition, believes their deity is historically real. So if majority opinion is my sole criteria for truth how can I accept the Historical Jesus and yet reject all the supernaturalism of the religion believed in by that same majority? That would be selective reasoning. That will become more clear when you read my responses to achristianbeliever below.

You might enjoy reading the Historicity of Jesus FAQ. Like you, I don’t consider “Jesus” a high priority in my life, but there will always be room for me to learn and books for me to read. I’ll be sure to let everyone know if my opinion changes. Like anyone will care.


I’d be happy to answer these questions:
That depends on what a “historical figure” is. Since I am an atheist, and a Naturalist, my definition of a person is based upon the amount of evidence I can accumulate concerning what a person is.

Unfortunately, the Christian definition of Jesus violates every example of a person I have ever seen or heard. In fact, Jesus is purported to be entirely unique compared to every person who ever existed, who had properties that cannot be seen in any other person, and therefore properties for which there is no evidence at all. Furthermore, since I reject all supernaturalism as fiction, the more supernaturalism attached to someone’s description the more I count it as negative evidence, (like a doctor with a shrunken head).

So to me, the believability of the proposition of a particular person’s historical existence is directly proportional to their similarity to real people, and inversely proportional to how much stories of that person violate what I know of the real world.
Off the top of my head, I’ll choose Lucretius. Like Jesus, we have little to go on about him except his being mentioned by other people. We don’t have pictures of video tape of him. Unlike Jesus, we do have an actual work that belongs to him. But what we DON’T have are radical stories of Lucretius violating the laws of nature, killing mythical beasts, or having tea with aliens. What we know of Lucretius doesn’t violate anything I believe about the real world. So the evidence of Lucretius is backed up by reality, as far as I’m concerned, and easy to accept.

Now, what if someone were to tell me that Lucretius was the son of Zeus? Oops, now I have a proposition attached to Lucretius that contradicts what I believe about the real world. Not only would I need more evidence than can be found on Wikipedia, I would now need enough evidence to convince me that Zeus exists, and then what about the rest of the Greek Gods, and why haven’t I seen any evidence of these Gods before, etc. Such a claim would count against the believability of Lucretius’ existence, and the more unsubstantiated stories about him that had cameos of Zeus the harder a time I would have believing any of them.

~M~

No...what does that have to do with anything?

Toto

It has to do with whether there are any consequences for deciding that Jesus existed or not. If there are not, why commit yourself to a decision at all?

~M~

Why would this make a significant difference?
A scenario: I have a sore on my lip. I see 10 doctors and 8 tell me it is a cold sore albeit 2 tell me it is a bacterial infection. What am I reasonable to believe? I do not see it all that different from this. I would like to know whether Jesus existed or not. Yet, i do not have the background nor the time to put forth to form my own informed opinion. Thus, I turn to the experts.


No, it is not. there is good word of mouth; there is good track records, etc.



Are you sure you don't mean raises the question and not begs the question?
are you telling me that there are not many relevant non-christian scholars who affirm a historical jesus?

~M~

irrelevant to my question. please stick on topic.

Clivedurdle

I am very puzzled by this alleged lack of degrees in the Mythicist camp because I see the whole academic world of Classicism as actually being very sympathetic to the Mythicist cause, but what has happened is that they have not looked at the subject because they have assumed the status quo is correct.

openlyatheist

Because of bias. If you have a discussion about US policy towards Israel with an Israeli, and then have a conversation about it with a Muslim, it doesn’t matter if they both have degrees in political science, they will both give you answers based upon their background, culture, upbringing and biases. Which one is the expert?
How do you know they are doctors? Do they all have the same credentials? Do they work in the same hospital? Are they all from the same background? Better yet, have you taken their advice to see if the sore actually goes away?

You say you have turned to the experts concerning Jesus, so what has changed? Has it actually solved some sort of problem, the way a doctor can make a sore go away?

(I find it interesting that your position on turning to experts sounds very much like how Christians tell me I must turn to Jesus to do my thinking for me too.)
You are not disagreeing with me, though you appear to be trying. Heeding word of mouth, checking track records, are all part of the process of educating yourself about the person you’re relying on. No matter how much you wish to rely on 'experts' you must still make a judgment call as to who and what an expert is.
There are not as many non-Christian scholars as there are Christian scholars, at least not in the Western world, because Christians are the majority. That is true for every field there is. Why, do you believe there are “many relevant non-christian scholars who affirm a historical jesus?”? I’m always up for new reading material from them if you have it.