Historian explains why Jesus ''mythers'' aren't taken seriously by most Historians

[CapnAwesome]

You've heard of the mythicist position from people trying to discredit it so as to avoid it's criticisms entirely (like our "no jesus, no history" OP).  Richard Carrier didn't invent it......the mythicist position -can be- that there was no person, but this doesn't encompass every possibility.  All that -every- mythicist position agrees upon is that the character in the text is not an example of the life of an actual man, that it cannot support even -the notion- that there was a real man upon which it was based.  That must simply be assumed, and it never goes any farther, and we don't simply assume that there was a historical hercules - so it seems entirely out of place.    

Let me ask you this, if the jesus of the text is not the jesus of history......who is?  What does it even mean to say "historical jesus"?

First off, I've primarily heard the mythicist position from people on these boards and hardly ever from people trying to discredit it. I don't know what would give you that idea.

If you use your very broad definition on what makes a mythicist than every Atheist and Agnostic and non-Christian is by default one, since if you don't believe in the supernatural you obviously can't believe in the Jesus of the bible. However with that broad of a definition it kind of makes the whole idea an irrelevant.

While I have a way better grasp on the historical process and ancient sources than most people on these boards, biblical scolarship isn't really my area of expertise. I'm pretty sure Bart Erhman has written a book on the historical Jesus and it would probably answer that question more than I could. All I'm qualified to say is that the Mythicist argument that I've commonly heard (such as Jesus not having primary sources, or because there is magic in the Gospels there can't be a historical person) isn't consistent at all with what we know about how ancient sources actually were.