Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
...I do know that Carrier has talked a lot about the state of scholarship in the area of a historical Jesus and that it's lacking. I get the impression his opinion is that it's very self-referential, where things that are well established are just a deep layering of references with little at the bottom. That's his view as a historian compared to other areas of historical scholarship anyway, I'm really interested to see what he says.
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I would worry a little on the outset that Carrier's method of historical inquiriy is excessively pessimistic, very much like the "presentists" or the so-called new historiography. While I am keenly aware of the fragile nature of ancient history, and of the historical record rather generally, it makes little sense to me that we approach the subject as pure skeptics. At some point, I must exercise some confidence that perceptions of the past can be both accurate and accessible.
As for Jesus, an exceptional amount of "faith" must be exercised with regards to the historical record, simply because it is not—nor could it be otherwise—very strong. We can never validate Jesus historically the way we have Augustus or Plato or the Judaean King Hezekiah. Because of his social and economic station, the record of Jesus existence is simply not accessible. However, my belief in his historicity comes from a recognition of its very reasonable plausibility. Simply put: Jesus, his activities, teachings and death fits well within a first century Jewish context. It makes no sense to me to deny this, unless one is driven by ulterior motives, as I suspect that Carrier too often is. One can very reasonably assert a real Jesus whose fingerprints remain in the gospels and in the writings of Paul, and can still quite happily maintain a fiercely anti-Christian worldview.
So, while I can affirm Carrier's observation about the poor burden of proof for Jesus's existence, I cannot agree that it is in any way necessary or even wise to draw his conclusions from it. To me, the vociferous arguments of the mythicists appear too much like special pleading—it is much-ado-about-nothing, and far to often begs the question.