Although I have had to decline any significant committment of time to the project, I applaud Tom Verenna’s recent expression of a desire to bring greater clarity to the topic of mythicism.
To briefly chime in, I understand “mythicism” to mean the belief that Jesus is best viewed as having been invented from scratch, or from a palette of mythical ideas and figures that themselves seem to not be based in historical events. It also maintains that our earliest sources referring to this figure are best understood in such a framework.
I would contrast this viewpoint with what we might call “Jesus agnosticism” (or hopefully something better!), i.e. the view that the historical evidence is inconclusive and thus the status of Jesus as a historical figure is best left open, with no attempt to make the positive claim that it is more likely that Jesus was a purely mythical invented figure.
Both of these viewpoints should be distinguished from what we might call “historical minimalism”: the stance that it is more likely that Jesus existed than that he didn’t, but that we can know little if anything about him with certainty other than that, and perhaps a few other basic details such as his execution.
Do those sound like useful distinctions? Are there other categories that should be added to the list, including perhaps distinctions within the categories I’ve mentioned? Can you suggest better names for these groupings? And of course, feel free to mention which you fit into, if any! 🙂
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