{"id":855,"date":"2010-10-20T13:19:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-20T13:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/10\/defining-mythicism\/"},"modified":"2010-10-20T13:19:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-20T13:19:00","slug":"defining-mythicism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/10\/defining-mythicism.html","title":{"rendered":"Defining Mythicism"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Although I have had to decline any significant committment of time to the project, I applaud <a href=\"http:\/\/tomverenna.wordpress.com\/2010\/10\/20\/defining-mythicism-my-struggle-with-the-question-of-the-historicity-of-the-figure-of-jesus\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Tom Verenna\u2019s recent expression of a desire to bring greater clarity to the topic of mythicism<\/a>. <\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.quickblogcast.com\/112732-105293\/500x_call_who_ghostbusters.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"https:\/\/images.quickblogcast.com\/112732-105293\/500x_call_who_ghostbusters.jpg\" width=\"253\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>To briefly chime in, I understand \u201cmythicism\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p>I would contrast this viewpoint with what we might call \u201cJesus agnosticism\u201d (or hopefully something better!), i.e.\u00a0the 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\u00a0the positive claim that it is <em>more likely<\/em> that Jesus was a purely mythical invented figure.<\/p>\n<p>Both of these viewpoints should be distinguished from what we might call \u201chistorical minimalism\u201d: the stance that it is more likely that Jesus existed than that he didn\u2019t, 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.<\/p>\n<p>Do those sound like useful distinctions? Are there other categories that should be added to the list, including perhaps distinctions within the categories I\u2019ve mentioned? Can you suggest better names for these groupings? And of course, feel free to mention which you fit into, if any! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-6783598859498310370?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although I have had to decline any significant committment of time to the project, I applaud Tom Verenna\u2019s recent expression of a desire to bring greater clarity to the topic of mythicism. To briefly chime in, I understand \u201cmythicism\u201d to mean the belief that Jesus is best viewed as having been invented from scratch, or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Defining Mythicism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Although I have had to decline any significant committment of time to the project, I applaud Tom Verenna&#039;s recent expression of a desire to bring greater\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/10\/defining-mythicism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Defining Mythicism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Although I have had to decline any significant committment of time to the project, I applaud Tom Verenna&#039;s recent expression of a desire to bring greater\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/10\/defining-mythicism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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