The vast majority of historians — including skeptics — affirm Jesus' historical existence. Only a tiny handful of scholars (Price, Carrier) deny it, and Winger notes they represent a fringe position.

Jesus-as-myth parallels to dragon analogy — internet claims of mythological foundations are "hokum"

Mike briefly addresses the mythicist position.

Introduction: Mike Winger introduces the topic of Jesus mythicism and its growing online influence

Opening segment of livestream

The Zeitgeist film and Bill Maher's Religulous cited as catalysts for the modern Jesus myth movement

Identifying pop-culture sources of Jesus mythicism

Scholarly consensus: Jesus mythicism is not a live discussion in academic New Testament studies or history

Mike Licona characterizes the state of scholarly opinion on mythicism

Bart Ehrman's statement: mythicist view has no foothold among modern critical scholars

Quoting agnostic/atheist scholar to demonstrate non-Christian scholarly consensus

Maurice Casey (agnostic) concludes mythicist arguments are completely spurious, put forward by incompetent and unqualified people

Quoting another non-Christian scholar on mythicism

Joseph Hoffmann (agnostic, Harvard/Oxford) calls mythicists the greatest threat to calm academic study of religion next to fundamentalism

Third non-Christian scholar quoted condemning mythicism

Analogy: Entertaining Jesus mythicism is like scientists debating Flat Earth, or historians entertaining Holocaust denial

Illustrating the scholarly view of Jesus mythicism's credibility level

Argument: Paul's conversion is inexplicable if Jesus were fictional — he was in Jerusalem at the same time as the crucifixion

Using Paul's personal proximity to events to argue against mythicism

The rapid genesis and spread of the Christian movement is hard to explain if Jesus were fictional and not within living memory

Sociological argument for historical Jesus

Richard Carrier's claim that all extra-biblical sources simply copy Gospel accounts is refuted by Tacitus's late date and hostile stance

Refuting Carrier's hypothesis that non-Christian sources merely echo the Gospels

The dying and rising gods parallel argument fails because Paul and non-Christian sources still have to be explained independently of the Gospels

Initial response to the Greco-Roman dying/rising gods parallel argument

Mythicists must composite multiple figures (Dionysus, Horus, Asclepius, Apollonius, Hercules) to approximate Jesus — historians reject this method

Exposing the composite methodology of Jesus-myth parallels

Analogy: Compositing Lincoln, JFK, and fictional David Palmer to "prove" Obama is a myth illustrates the fallacy of the mythicist composite method

Illustrating the logical fallacy in compositing pagan parallels

Richard Carrier's claim that Paul only describes a Jesus in outer space, never on earth

Presenting a key mythicist argument from Richard Carrier about Paul

Romans 1:3 refutes the "outer space Jesus" claim — Paul explicitly places Jesus as a historical descendant of David born in the flesh

Exegetical refutation of Carrier's cosmic Jesus interpretation

Some mythicists argue "James the brother of the Lord" means a fellow believer, not a biological brother of Jesus

Mythicist reinterpretation of Paul's reference to James

Advice to those influenced by Richard Carrier: read other skeptical scholars — Ehrman, Lüdemann, Casey — who have proper training in historical Jesus scholarship

Practical guidance for those following Carrier's mythicist arguments

Only a handful of bona fide scholars deny Jesus's existence — Carrier said there were seven including himself, none widely respected in their disciplines

Quantifying the scholarly minority who deny Jesus's historical existence

Red flags for mythicists: fringe scholarly support + primarily internet bloggers = gullibility warning; comparable to moon landing denialism and Holocaust denial

Warning signs that a position may be a conspiracy theory

Pastoral observation: many Jesus mythicists are atheists/agnostics who find it convenient to deny Jesus existed rather than grapple with who he claimed to be

Winger's pastoral/spiritual observation about mythicists' motivations

The claim that Jesus was based on Jesus ben Ananias (from Josephus) is historically untenable given the robust bedrock consensus of historical facts about Jesus.

Q16 from Aaron Rampersad: what do you think about the claim that Jesus Christ was based on Jesus ben Ananias in Josephus's Jewish War?