One of the arguments by Mythicists against using the New Testament as historical evidence for Jesus is that is Scripture for a living religion. Scripture (of any religion) cannot be used as a historical source.
Or can it?
This is related to the idea of the New Testament being too biased. Ignatius and Clement of Alexandria were biased in their writings but at least they were not part of the religious canon of Scripture.
For some people, rejecting religious scripture is just obvious. But I would want to ask, why? What is it about belonging to a canon that causes something to lose its historical value?
I am a Christian and so I may be accused of giving Christian Scripture a place among historical sources because of my personal faith. But this is not the case.
If I wanted to learn about the Buddha, I would not reject Buddhist scriptures. If I want to learn about Muhammad, I would not reject the Qur’an.
Rejecting Scripture may sound superficially to hold to Enlightenment values, but it is actually the opposite. The point of the Enlightenment was not to reject all Scripture but to study Scripture as we would any other literature.
There is no logical reason to reject any text as historical evidence, just because it is the scripture of a particular religion.
There is no reason why the New Testament should not have a seat at the table for discussing the historical Jesus.
