These days I personally subscribe to the view that Jesus started off as a mythical character who later got made into a historical character. Earl Doherty proposes this hypothesis in the Jesus Puzzle.
The fact that Christian apologists such as Mike Licona have said that subscribing to the Christ Myth Hypothesis is the same as holocaust denial, to me indicates that these people are deeply challenged by the Christ Myth theory. Since apologists dominate the biblical studies field, it is not surprising very few in that field would advocate the Christ Myth hypothesis, it is much akin to say biology being dominated by those who advocate intelligent design or creationism.
Because as I have stated earlier this reaction is because these people know all very well (unless they are idiots) that the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus, let along attesting to the events in the New Testament is sparse and of dubious reliability. Which should ring alarm bells so to speak, because the Church took a lot of pains to preserve the writings of Church fathers at the expense of other ancient works* (which the church was not interested in preserving). Anything which attested to existence of Jesus and the events portrayed in the Gospels would have been meticulously preserved.
As the Minimalist has pointed out time and time again the references to Jesus in the works of Josephus and Tacitus may well have been later forgeries. Which would mean the earliest attestations to Jesus existing are in the later part of the 2nd century or more than 100 years after Jesus supposedly died.
*The notion that much knowledge was lost during the Dark Ages is true. Because of the church's desire to preserve all manner of writings from various Church fathers, at the expense of everything else. In the words of the historian Richard Carrer We have a hundred volumes of Jerome's inordinately boring letters, but not a single volume on Aristarchan heliocentric theory. Yes, heliocentric theory--over a thousand years before Copernicus.
The fact that Christian apologists such as Mike Licona have said that subscribing to the Christ Myth Hypothesis is the same as holocaust denial, to me indicates that these people are deeply challenged by the Christ Myth theory. Since apologists dominate the biblical studies field, it is not surprising very few in that field would advocate the Christ Myth hypothesis, it is much akin to say biology being dominated by those who advocate intelligent design or creationism.
Because as I have stated earlier this reaction is because these people know all very well (unless they are idiots) that the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus, let along attesting to the events in the New Testament is sparse and of dubious reliability. Which should ring alarm bells so to speak, because the Church took a lot of pains to preserve the writings of Church fathers at the expense of other ancient works* (which the church was not interested in preserving). Anything which attested to existence of Jesus and the events portrayed in the Gospels would have been meticulously preserved.
As the Minimalist has pointed out time and time again the references to Jesus in the works of Josephus and Tacitus may well have been later forgeries. Which would mean the earliest attestations to Jesus existing are in the later part of the 2nd century or more than 100 years after Jesus supposedly died.
*The notion that much knowledge was lost during the Dark Ages is true. Because of the church's desire to preserve all manner of writings from various Church fathers, at the expense of everything else. In the words of the historian Richard Carrer We have a hundred volumes of Jerome's inordinately boring letters, but not a single volume on Aristarchan heliocentric theory. Yes, heliocentric theory--over a thousand years before Copernicus.
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