Robert M. Price

[Mudhammam]

My Christian fundamentalist brother says Robert M. Price is "hardly taken serious" by the majority of scholars, even the "most liberal." I take it to be his typical misinformed bullshit but I figured I'd see if anyone has any additional insight to share.

[EgoRaptor]

Tell him that William Lane Craig isn't taken seriously by even the most fanatical Christians.

[Alex K]

Richard Carrier has published with him I think, and he's a serious published historian even if he's got a bit of a minority opinion concerning the historicity question. So I'd say Price is not a crackpot.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

This is just the appeal to majority fallacy. Mythicism is a minority opinion among scholars but that doesn't mean it's wrong. There could be a whole host of alternative reasons why it's not held by the majority such as bias, politics, lack of understanding, etc. And mythicism is becoming more open to discussion and consideration now in academic circles than it used to.

Mythicism isn't crucial to atheism anyway. Jesus could have existed and we'd still have no reason to believe him to be God. It's a shame that this question of whether Jesus existed is such a polarizing issue among supposedly secular and objective scholars. It's just a historical theory. There's no need on the part of the majority scholars for emotionally charged attacks on scholarly mythicists.

[Alex K]

Here's the usual fun question: What does one mean by "There is a historical Jesus". How many properties, and which, does a historical person have to share with the biblical one to be the historical Jesus? This is not clear at all, in other words, the question is not well-defined at all just by itself.

[Minimalist]

Tell your fundie brother that when those same "scholars" talk about a "historical jesus" they are NOT talking about his back-from-the-dead, died-for-his-sins, miracle-working, born-of-a-virgin silliness.

Some, like Ehrman and Aslan think he was just a apocalyptic preacher who got himself killed.

As noted above, being a historical person means living, eating, fucking and shitting. Not "miracles."

[Mudhammam]

Haha. Thanks everyone.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

I wouldn't recommend mythicism for promoting atheism however. You can make just as good an argument against Christianity assuming Jesus existed and assuming a majority opinion as an anti- apologetic will make your argument more easily accepted.

[Mudhammam]

I wouldn't recommend mythicism for promoting atheism however. You can make just as good an argument against Christianity assuming Jesus existed and assuming a majority opinion as an anti- apologetic will make your argument more easily accepted.

Agreed. I tend to argue from the general principle cited by Marcello Truzzi: "An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeteticism#...skepticism

[Minimalist]

"An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof."

Shame that the jesus freaks aren't held to that standard, eh?