Ari’s blog has some awesome links. He spotted Mark Goodacre’s latest NT Pod, on the question whether Jesus existed, before it even popped up in my feed.
I agree with Mark on the useful positive role mythicists can play for New Testament scholars in keeping us honest. And I obviously also agree with Mark’s criticisms of them. My only critical comment is that, given his important point early in the podcast about the fact that it is unreasonable to expect someone like Jesus to leave behind the evidence that a ruler could (coins, inscriptions, etc.), Mark would have done better to limit his list of other people that we would have to doubt existed, if we were to apply mythicist skepticism across the board, to figures who are more like Jesus: John the Baptist, Peter, James…
It is also worth mentioning that in another post, Ari shares videos of John Barclay talking about Josephus.
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