Posted: May 08, 2012 1:13 pm
IgnorantiaNescia wrote: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.
Mythicism also requires hundreds of NT scholars and classic historians who have been either been hoodwinked into ignoring Mythicism or deliberately suppressing Mythicism since it waned in academia. But abstractions are entities as well and those are generally the kind of entity Mythicism indulges in. You could think of the supposed sub-lunar fleshly realm in Doherty's version or the expectation of a crucified Messiah (based on mishandling of evidence) in Carrier's version. Not to mention the Mythicist-posited interpolations and the suggested readings of passages based on slim lexicographical evidence.
So, colour me unconvinced that Mythicism is the more parsimonious theory.
Tell me what's more likely --
An apocalyptic Messiah figure was crucified, but his followers (against all precedent in Jewish thinking) deified him into a God. A complex process of oral transmission, originally exclusively Aramaic, reached highly educated Greek speakers and writers within 40 years, who, contra the original movement, turned it on its head and made it into an anti-Jewish religion,
or:
Some Greek speaking, anti-Jewish theologians rewrote some stories from the Septuagint?