[Cheese]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I will get to Carrier's response in due course, but it will take more time to address his points properly.

As to the question at hand, I don't know much about Mohammed, but from what I do know, the socio-economic circumstances of Jesus's life were considerably different, which in turn made for a very different sort of life.

I think his "greatness" is speculative and highly debatable. We should bear in mind that there was almost certainly nothing altogether unique or exceptional about Jesus, nor his message. There were many apocalyptic movements, and many purported Jewish messiahs within 100 years of Jesus life, and they all bore fairly similar traits. It should also be noted that there were a not insignificant number of would be miracle workers in Greco-Roman Palestine, so even these claims about Jesus cannot be considered all that unusual or exceptional.

The success of Christianity is in many ways a matter of timeliness and good fortune (or bad, depending upon your own stakes in this discussion). As a Christian, I continue to hold a certain faith commitment regarding the exceptional claims made about Jesus, but as a historian, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that he was anything but a rather pedestrian apocalyptic prophet; one how was in no way out of place or of extraordinary note in his own time or place.

How does one have or hold faith in this topic when as you suggest there are many exceptional claims and he was nothing more than a pedestrian prophet?