Zenaphobe

If our culture were to carry on for another 1800 years, and Mormonism were to become the majority religious tradition with all other branches of Christianity eradicated and their histories purged from our collective well of knowledge, it's pretty certain that no one would doubt that the angel Moroni was a historical figure.

It would be "common sense", and those who expressed skepticism would be considered cranks.

I'm not a hardline mythicist or anything, but I don't think it's a really big leap to go from thinking stories about a guy who allegedly walked on water, raised the dead, multiplied loaves and fish, cast out demons, spent 3 days in hell, and ascended through the clouds were fabrications to thinking the guy himself might have been fabricated as well.

We have no problem thinking Moroni was a fiction used to launch a new version of an old faith, so why is a fictional Jesus such an impossible tool for the launching of a new version of an old faith?

Joseph Smith started a cult based on an imaginary figure, why couldn't have Paul done something similar? They both claim to have had private revelations.

Is this comparison valid?

aa5874

All those events were completely Plausible in antiquity just as it is Plausible today that Jesus was human.

That is PRECISELY why the stories were written so that people would BELIEVE them.

People of antiquity BELIEVED God made Adam and Jesus.

doubtingt

I emphasized the critical feature of your argument: "experts". It is reasonable to trust mechanics because you have reason to believe that they are trained in the knowledge, reasoning, methods, and inquiry skills that are relevant to objectively evaluating competing explanations for why your car is in fact not working. IOW, "experts" are not unqualified people who happen to be willing to make a career out of making baseless assertions, and this is what most "Biblical Scholars" are.
The bottom line is that most "Biblical Scholars" who assert a historical Jesus have not applied (and often were never even trained in) the knowledge, skills, and methods of inquiry that are actually relevant to answering the question of a historical Jesus. At minimum it entails being trained in and applying the most rigorous methods praticed by Ph.D historians to any other question of ancient history, which folks from seminarys, theology, Religious studies, and English departments lack, and this is where a huge % of "Biblical Scholars" come from. At best receive rather shallow and superficial training in history, just enough to pad their assertions with a false air of historical expertise.
Ehrman himslef (to whom most historicists tend to defer) has explicitly admitted that the whole field of "Biblical Scholarship" has lacked the required methodological approach and thus he implicitly nullified any "consensus" and exposed the non-expertise (and lack of honesty) of his colleagues by pointing out that they have long accepted and asserted a historical Jesus despite failing to apply relevant expert methods to determine the answer to the question. Which also means the fact that these same faith-based "experts" who now say Ehrman's pro-historicism analysis is sound are both not to be trusted and don't even have and/or apply the relevant expertise to make that judgment.

I can see for myself (and the most respected historicist admits) that Biblical scholars are not correct in their methods. So, to even begin to viewI wo their consensus as being a consensus of relevant "experts", I would have hear a consensus from the legit mainstream general historians trained by and working in public non-religious Universities and who work in history generally but have not devoted their career to the historicist assumption.