: “It’s short, unimportant and uninteresting.” That will show him! (
For those who may not watch all these things the term “mythicists” refers to those who believe Jesus never existed, that the stories about him were made up at some point and were not even centered on a minimal historical figure. There is a near alternative which holds that there were so few valid words of actions of the historical figure that he might as well have just been some random figure. But that’s a different argument.
James McGrath has an excellent short post on this, which will go into my library of links to use in response to such questions. I think he makes his case well and does so in easily understood language. He gets us away from “proof arguments” which dominate so much amateur discussion of history. Very little, if anything, can be absolutely proven about history even if it happened yesterday. One deals with probabilities. Sometimes these probabilities are overwhelming, but even so we should remember they are probabilities so as to deal reasonably with the less probable events.
In any case, read the whole post at Exploring Our Matrix.
James McGrath is a New testament scholar however, people should be aware that it is not a requirement for NT scholars to study the case for the mythicist position to get their PhD.
I’ve read his blogs and all McGrath has to offer is derogatory comments and ridicule. He doesn’t even understand the case for the mythicist position well enough to refute it. But, he tosses read meat to the Christian lions so to speak, and that’s enough to satisfy them, apparently. I see no reason to take McGrath seriously.
When you’re ready to get serious about understanding the case for mythicism read these
What is a Mythicist?
http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/mythicist.html
Evemerist vs. Mythicist Position
http://www.freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2160&start=0