In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is considered a fringe theory, and finds virtually no support from scholars to the point of being addressed in footnotes or almost completely ignored due to the obvious weaknesses they espouse. Common criticisms against the Christ myth theory include: general lack of expertise or relationship to academic institutions and current scholarship; reliance on arguments from silence, dismissal of what sources actually state, and superficial comparisons with mythologies.

According to agnostic scholar Bart D. Ehrman, nearly all scholars who study the early Christian period believe that Jesus did exist, and Ehrman observes that mythicist writings are generally of poor quality because they are usually authored by amateurs and non-scholars who have no academic credentials or have never taught at academic institutions. Maurice Casey, an agnostic scholar of New Testament and early Christianity, stated that the belief among professors that Jesus existed is generally completely certain. According to Casey, the view that Jesus did not exist is "the view of extremists", "demonstrably false" and "professional scholars generally regard it as having been settled in serious scholarship long ago".

In 1977, classical historian and popular author Michael Grant in his book Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels, concluded that "modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory".
If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.

Graeme Clarke, Emeritus Professor of Classical Ancient History and Archaeology at Australian National University stated in 2008: "Frankly, I know of no ancient historian or biblical historian who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ—the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming". R. Joseph Hoffmann, who had created the Jesus Project, which included both mythicists and historicists to investigate the historicity of Jesus, wrote that an adherent to the Christ myth theory asked to set up a separate section of the project for those committed to the position. Hoffmann also called the mythicist theory "fatally flawed".

Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, wrote, "What you can't do, though, without venturing into the far swamps of extreme crankery, is to argue that Jesus never existed. The 'Christ-Myth Hypothesis' is not scholarship, and is not taken seriously in respectable academic debate. The grounds advanced for the 'hypothesis' are worthless. The authors proposing such opinions might be competent, decent, honest individuals, but the views they present are demonstrably wrong. ... Jesus is better documented and recorded than pretty much any non-elite figure of antiquity."

According to Daniel Gullotta, most of the mythicist literature contains "wild theories, which are poorly researched, historically inaccurate, and written with a sensationalist bent for popular audiences."

According to James F. McGrath and Christopher Hansen, mythicists sometimes rely on questionable and outdated methods like Rank and Raglan mythotypes that end up resulting in misclassifying real historical persons as mythical figures.

Few of these mythicists are actually scholars trained in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine. ... These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99% of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology.

In 2000 Van Voorst gave an overview of proponents of the "Nonexistence Hypothesis" and their arguments, presenting seven arguments against the hypothesis as put forward by "Wells and his predecessors":

"Arguments from silence" are to be rejected, because "it is wrong to suppose that what is unmentioned or undetailed did not exist". Van Voorst further argued that the early Christian literature was not written for historical purposes.

[ Ссылка ]
Please Consider joining my Patreon to help finding scholars to bring on. Any amount helps me. Thank you existing Patrons.


#mythicism #gnosticinformant #richardcarrier

свернуть