A discussion on Facebook of my recent blog post helped me distill the essence of what disturbs me about mythicism. Here it is in a nutshell:
This is why I find mythicism so disturbing. There is a willingness to bring in any and every late source to attempt to argue against Jesus’ existence, but resistance to bringing in even the earliest sources in favor of his existence.
Yet those who argue in favor of the mainstream historical conclusions that are accepted not merely by Christians (who could be accused of bias) but atheists, Jews, and indeed pretty much everyone engaged in academic historical study, are accused by mythicists of being “apologists.” To which I reply: If picking late evidence that supports your viewpoint, while disregarding or rejecting early evidence that undermines it, doesn’t suggest one is engaging in “apologetics,” then I don’t know what would.
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