Ask A Historian

[Mudhammam]

Is it "an historian" or "a historian"?

I'm pretty sure it's "an historian." Not really sure why but I think I see it written that way most of the time. Maybe it's like "an academic"? Though we don't typically say "an philosopher" or "an scientist" so I don't know what the rule is or why.

@OP
What I don't understand about mythicists is what reasons are there for believing that a bunch of Jews and Greeks got fixated on this idea of a Jewish man from Nazareth named Jesus, who has parents, brothers, and sisters, and is crucified by the Romans? The additional mythological components make sense to me. We see numerous figures become the focal point of cults throughout history and even today---Pythagoras, Socrates, Epicurus---shit, even Virgil was granted divinity. But it doesn't make sense to me that there could be Epicureans, people who follow the philosophical teachings of a man that they later bestow godlike features upon, without an (a?) historical Epicurus. Aside from the fact that I think there is ample evidence in the NT texts themselves to establish the likelihood that Christianity began with the teachings of a single Jewish peasant, I don't see mythicists offering any evidence or plausible scenario to the contrary. All they do is explain how the myths were borrowed from other figures without clarifying why the all too realistic aspects are at the story's very core. If there is a plausible alternative, my question is, what is it? What's the evidence?