rationalskepticism.org

Evan Allen wrote:

IgnorantiaNescia wrote:This is incorrect, Occam's Razor clearly argues against Mythicism, which requires either very unusual readings of several texts or establishing interpolations ad hoc. We have some biographical details about Jesus in Pauline epistles and in non-Christian accounts that are simply dismissed by these methods with insufficient evidence, sometimes no evidence at all. Material in the gospels that is poorly explained by an invented figure is nevertheless explained away. Aside that, it would require that around one hundred years ago either the overwhelming majority of relevantly trained scholars suddenly stopped asking a question that was posed before that time or developed a very strong bias against Mythicism. What we have there is not the simpler hypothesis, but an unsound hypothesis that is laden with extensive and dubious claims.

I think this is wrong. Occam's razor clearly states that one should not needlessly multiply entities. In Latin -- Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora.

I am going to list the HJ hypothesis and the MJ hypothesis and we will count the entities involved.

HJ -- Historical Jesus, followers of Jesus in Palestine, Oral story tellers throughout the Roman Empire, collectors of oral stories from throughout the empire, gospel authors.

MJ -- Gospel authors.

By my count, HJ has at least five entities, MJ has one. Seems simple to me.