Is Christianity based on older myths?

[Mister Agenda]

Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote:

appeal to authority

"He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees"

appeal to authority and popularity -within- an appeal to authority

Robert M. Price (an atheist)

appeal to authority

who denies the existence of Jesus agrees that this perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars

reassertion of the majority opinion

Michael Grant (a classicist)

appeal to authority

states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus'

poisons the well

Richard A. Burridge states:

appeal to authority

"There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more."

poisons the well

Jesus christ man just show us some fucking evidence!

An appeal to authority is not automatically fallacious. The fallacy ought to be called 'appeal to inappropriate authority' to be less confusing. It is not a fallacy to cite someone who is an actual authority on the topic under discussion. If I cite Einstein on relativity, I shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, the citation requires a rebuttal: show how Einstein was wrong or how I am not correctly understanding Einstein's position.

It would be a fallacy for me to cite the vast majority of electricians being unconvinced by climate change claims as a reason to disbelieve those claims, but it is not a fallacy for me to cite the vast majority of climatologists being convinced by those claims as a reason to believe them.