The Religions Wiki has an interesting article called Jesus began as a myth and was later historicized that I think I will write a number of posts on. The first part is a section called Minimal facts.
When Christian apologists hear “minimal facts”, they probably think of the method that some use to try and demonstrate the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. That is not what is being talked about here.
This article relies on the concept of Richard Carrier in which he defines the facts required for a Jesus Myth Theory to be valid. I will go through each of them with my thoughts.
Jesus was first portrayed as a celestial deity, similar to other religions.
This is based on the fact that our earliest Christian texts are Paul and not the Gospels. Paul primarily talks about Jesus as being in heaven. Based on this, Carrier concludes that Jesus was originally only a celestial deity.
There are two problems with this. One is that Paul speaks of Jesus as being heavenly because Paul writes post-ascension. Also, Paul is not as silent on an earthly Jesus as is claimed. Read what Paul says in 1 Corinthians concerning the Last Supper.
Followers of Jesus claimed they received visions or dreams that gave them divine knowledge.
This is mostly true. What it lacks is that visions and dreams were not their only means of knowledge. Paul states clearly in 1 Corinthians that he passed on traditions that were passed on to him, even though he elsewhere states that he received his gospel directly from Jesus in a vision.
His followers believed that Jesus underwent a dying and rising ordeal in a supernatural plane.
Yes, Jesus’ followers believed that Jesus died and rose again. But they did not see this as only in the supernatural plane, nor would they have seen a distinction between natural and supernatural.
The story of Jesus was told to new followers as an allegory which placed Jesus in a historic setting.
And the evidence for this is what? This is very ironic. Jesus Mythicists reject the evidence for the historical Jesus as being too inconclusive but then accept a theory with no evidence.
The story was eventually taken by adherents to be more literal than allegorical.
This has the same problem as the previous point. Plus, Mythicists struggle to point out when this transition took place. Some point to the second, third or even fourth centuries. Some to the first century, since the lack of texts means their theory cannot be proven wrong.
These minimal facts are not very impressive. While helpful to give structure to the Jesus Myth Theory, they are full of logical holes.
