MrMacSon wrote: ↑Sat Dec 30, 2017 1:36 pm
I have wondered if he would not have wanted to upset the pro-Christian demographic he lives in -ie. the USA (particularly as a Muslim: if he had done a Carrier he might have had to leave the country).
Possibly. Hard to say. As an immigrant...it's plausible.
He says his family background was liberal muslim verging on atheism, and that he only 'discovered' Jesus in the USA as a young man.
I don't really want to get into Carrier. Because I don't really want the discussion to devolve into a mythicist versus historicist dichotomy (aka 'a stupid pointless ding dong'), as, in my experience, it too often does on internet fora.
I will say this though. While I am not, in principle, averse to the mythicist or ahistoricist thesis, it's my personal opinion that Carrier specifically, in the words of Bruce Springsteen (in the song 'Hungry Heart'), 'took a wrong turn and just kept going'. Imho, Carrier is, unfortunately, polishing a turd made by Earl Doherty.
I don't know whose standpoint that might upset here (being new) but It's my considered opinion. Getting an outer space Jesus from the epistles is, imho, tenuous at best.
Carrier, or mythicist/ahistoricist theses generally, might even be a slight derail from this particular OP.