RPS

I would expect any reader to be concerned about potential bias, but the books he cites can speak for themselves.

It's much better than conjecture, I think, but by no means is it conclusive.

RPS

And he's hardly an apologist for traditional Christianity.

Mountain Man

If my claims are easily dismissed, then why haven't you done so? Claiming that others accept a hysterical jesus proves nothing except your gullibility. I have yet to see any proof, other than heresay, that this jesus even existed. Just come up with some contemporary writings that are not of a highly questionable nature, and then we can talk.

Oh, did you know that gullible is not in the dictionary?

Clivedurdle

The entire mystical tradition? St Francis as the patron saint of mythicists?

I think the entire pentecostal movement could switch quite easily - their beliefs are based on present experiences, not really on a gospel Jesus.

Gnosticism is still around! This historicist stuff should be seen as a particularly virulent heresy!

Actually the old eastern orthodox, catholic and anglican bits as well - the new fangled literalist protestant ones would hold out, southern baptists and all low church evangelicals as the last bastions of historicism

RPS

I guess that settles it then.

Indeed. It's a good summary of the professor's conclusion.

I guess we should only consider the professor's evidence and arguments if his conclusions provide revelations rather than support the unanimous academic view. But at least it puts "paid" to the idea that the Jesus-myth has never been addressed by contemporary scholarship.

You're right. Those Cambridge guys are morons -- there's no need even to address what they say.

Of course, it's not likely that anyone with a closed mind will be convinced of anything that doesn't agree with her/his pre-existing dogma.

Edit: typo

RPS

I didn't, but I didn't think heresay was either.

freigeister

Yeah, most of Brunner's whuppass is directed against traditional Christianity. He's on everybody's shit list.

Toto

On the contrary, I had no pre-existing need to believe that Jesus never existed. It is entirely consistent with my beliefs to think that Jesus was an apocalyptic entirely human preacher who started a new religion that didn't have a lot to do with what he preached.

But Layman and a few of his friends started posting here about how terrible it was to believe that Jesus never existed, and I started looking into the case. I read Doherty, also Grant and a few other historicists. I was amazed at how flimsy the case for Jesus' existence was, and how much sense it made to see Christianity as a post-70 CE movement that wrote a history for itself and created its own mythic founder figure.

gudanov

Doesn't it basically boil down to how historically accurate the gospels are? One of the weaknesses of apologetics for me has been the assumption that the gospels are accurate or at least mostly accurate. I can't make that leap. OTOH, I think it's equally difficult to convince someone that Jesus was mythical by making the assumption that the gospels are fictional or at least mostly fictional.

Amaleq13

There is no rational argument for considering Engels' interest in a particular mythical Jesus theory relevant to the credibility of the theory. Only the evidence is relevant. It doesn't matter how smart or how famous or how numerous the people are who believe it.