Re: Two different theories explain better the origin of the Myth of Jesus
Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2024 9:25 am
You have rapidly cycled through several different points, or expressions of points, in this thread.
(a) the OP - "inclined to support the first view rather than the second view, because we have another example of a figure who was developed out of a previous deity: Muhammad"
(b) excluding the historicity of Jesus rather than allowing its possibility was "A reason to support the second view rather than the first view"
(c) " a historical Jesus ... is equivalent to ... appeal to the hypothesis of a god creator ... a deus ex machina. It reveals only the own ignorance, a reluctant confession of it"
Perhaps this is your point (b) stated differently:
But if mythicism is compatible with both views, then there is a mythicist theory (at least one) corresponding to each of these two views.
One weird thing about the points made in this thread is that nowhere has the idea of historical evidence entered into it, apart from an adamant insistence on its absence relative to a historical Jesus. It started with an analogy to "the best mythicist" view about Muhammad, as if an analogy showed anything and as if such a view about Muhammad is in any way cogent because it is "the best mythicist" view. Then it moved on to the idea that one of the views was better at being mythicist than the other because it entirely excluded a historical Jesus, making it somehow a better view therefore because it's more properly called mythicist. Then there was something about how a historical Jesus would be an appeal to ignorance of the god-of-the-gaps kind, as if historical human beings weren't ordinary participants in historical events that existed in the millions and therefore entirely appropriate within the normal course of understanding and explaining history naturalistically.
What went wrong, where pursuing mythicist theories became an end in itself?