Another irony related to the mythicist emphasis on the existence of stories about Jesus not constituting proof of Jesus’ existence is this: Mythicists regularly weave stories about how they think Christianity might have arisen, how and why Gospels were composed, how Paul’s letters were composed and interpolated, and much else. They tell a story and treat their ability to do so as though it were proof of mythicism, or at least an argument in support of it.
Is this not as self-contradictory as the claim that stories can provide evidence of Jesus’ ahistoricity but never of his historicity? If the telling of a compelling story is (rightly) recognized as itself no basis for regarding the subject of the story as historical, ought this not to lead mythicists to be more cautious than they are, and to recognize that a modern blogger’s or author’s ability to tell a compelling story about early Christianity is not evidence that the story is correct, or even that the story is compatible with relevant historical data?
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