In the comments on a recent post, some mythicists are showing how their perspective is similar to that of creationists. (I once compared their viewpoint to inerrancy, but young-earth creationism in this instance provides a greater resemblance). For those who may not have encountered this particular viewpoint, mythicists claim that Jesus was not a historical figure around whom legends and mythology developed, but rather was a purely-invented figure, created from scratch in the imagination of early Christians.
What are the similarities between mythicism and young-earth creationism? How about these:
(1) Both show a lack of familiarity with the basic data in a field, yet criticize the conclusions of academics in that field.
(2) They blame the fact that they aren’t taken seriously on a conspiracy among scholars rather than their own ignorance of the relevant scientific or historical methods and of the relevant raw data.
(3) They quote people without the relevant qualifications but whose websites they have read, while not reading mainstream scholarship (or at least, if they read it, they either misunderstand it or are so shaped by their preconceived notions that they are impervious to its influence).
(4) They are apologists for their viewpoint, and are interested in defending it at all costs, not in seeing where the evidence leads once one is familiar with it and has studied it critically.
Do you see other resemblances? Are there important dissimilarities?
If there is an important lesson in this, it is the following: Just because you oppose views on the opposite end of the spectrum from yourself, whose proponents take an uncritical, pseudo- or anti-scholarly approach, this does not mean that you yourself are being critical and scholarly. Scholarship is all about the method and a critical approach to the subject, not about situating yourself at a certain point on a spectrum of views.
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