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Forum:The problem of Biblical scholarship
After losing my religion in my late teens I have somewhat lost interest in the topic. One thing that still hugely interests me is the historicity of Jesus. Christians would have it that the Gospels are a historical account of Jesus life. I'm highly in favour of Jesus being a mythical character in its entirety, or maybe a mystified historical character which barely resembles the New Testament. Not being an expert on the topic, I must resort to the scientific consensus (which I often do when confronted with topics I barely understand). The scientific consensus seems to be that Jesus is a largely historical character, though his supernatural abilities and deeds would have to be invented later. I accept this, however there's one big problem with following the scientific consensus on the historicity of Jesus: Biblical Scholarship is dominated largely by Christians and former Christians, potentially skewing the scientific consensus. How would the scientific consensus on the historicity of Jesus look like in a world where Christianity was a thing of the distant past? -Strangelove (talk) 19:29, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
- I think the scientific consensus would be that historians wouldn't care as much anymore to the degree that there wouldn't be that much effort in uncovering the history of the man, just like almost nobody gives a fuck nowadays if Hercules was a historical character. Because the main reason scientists today even pay attention to this issue at all is just to finally unearth all the historical evidence and prove that he was simply a nondescript Middle-Eastern man who dabbled in the politics of his day and died for it because his flesh was weak like anyone else's, and not the magician many people believe he was. ∈ NameThatNobodyTakes (✎) 20:12, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
- If you have the time and the energy for it, I whole-heartedly recommend the following presentation on the topic by Dr. Richard Carrier. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 01:17, 12 October 2016 (UTC)