TD: 1 day ago
The “Jesus Myth” hypothesis (the notion not only that certain parts of the Jesus story might not be literally true, but that the figure of Jesus himself is fictional) has zero scholarly legitimacy. It’s propagated online by pseudo-scholars like Acharya S. and eager pubescent atheists and skeptics. the truth is, it’s rarely been addressed in scholarly circles because no serious scholarly argument has been advanced in its favor. the explosion of do***ents referring to Jesus, the development of a fast-spreading community that was devoted to Jesus’ teachings, the willingness of the early apostles and early Christians to die for the truth of the story, all together make it clear that Jesus was indeed a historical person. Put differently: we have more historical evidence for Jesus than we do for almost any other person in ancient history, and if we cannot believe that Jesus existed then we may as well throw out the entire methodology of historical study.
Further, the notion that Jesus’ story mimics the stories of other ancient religious figures is absurd. It’s easy to make a superficially convincing case if you’re willing to play fast-and-loose with those stories, and with Jesus story, to produce faux parallels. But when you look at the details, the whole argument falls apart.
See the work of R. T. France or Ronald Nash if you want to read actual, scholarly treatments of these things. or if you want something online, see this four-part series — I’ll link to the fourth part, since it includes links to the other three: http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Is-Jesus-Christ-a-Myth-Part-4-James-Hannam.html
