Analogy to overturned German scholarship on the Gospels and Greek myths

Mike argues that entire schools of scholarly thought can be wrong and get overturned.

Examining claims about a feminist Ephesus and Artemis cult female superiority

Mike evaluates whether Ephesus was actually a 'hyper-feminist' city dominated by female authority through the Artemis cult.

Critique of the Kroegers' 'I Suffer Not a Woman'

Mike provides detailed scholarly critique of the Kroegers' influential but problematic book.

Carrier constructs a 'Frankenstein theory' drawing on ancient literature to claim Gospel narratives were plagiarized from myths

Carrier's literary dependence argument for the Gospel narratives

Earlier 20th-century scholarship (especially the Jesus Seminar) treated the Gospels as myths, but current scholarly consensus has shifted. Graham Stanton (King's College London) and David Aune (Notre Dame) both argue the Gospels fit the genre of Greco-Roman biography (bios), which aimed to faithfully record historical fact even with theological purpose.

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

Quoting another non-Christian scholar on mythicism

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

First-century Christians were pious, Torah-observant Jews who debated minutiae of Jewish law — making wholesale borrowing from pagan myths implausible

Cultural argument against the pagan parallels theory

Audience Q on mimesis: pagan parallels fail for the same reasons, plus early Christians were Torah-observant Jews who would not borrow from pagan myths

Audience question about mimesis / pagan parallel arguments

Christians can hold various views on Genesis 1 and the Big Bang; the Big Bang is actually strong evidence for God.

Question 11 from J James about whether the Big Bang is biblical.