Sure, there were many teachers in that era. But what evidence is there for the supernatural bits? That's where the stories get implausible and embellished. It's notable the Gospels are not consistent in their details. It's interesting how the myth of Jesus mirrors stories from Egypt and pagans. We can't ignore those facts with our reasoning about Jesus.
You're missing the context and flow of my conversation in this thread. It's OK, no problem, I'll get you caught up. It's not long.
The OP has come to challenge the claim made by others, not made by me, that there is historical evidence of the gospel Jesus. Yes, including the miracles. The objection raised is that those who make that claim rely mostly on the bible, and then confirm that reliance on a misunderstanding of what it means when historians claim there is evidence for the historical Jesus. Those who are claiming there is evidence of the gospels confuse, or ignore, that these are two different Jesuses.
My observation is, that the counter-accusation "It's all a lie" based on the myth-ranking of Jesus is equally erroneous, because the individual points in the ranking are not actually describing Jesus, but can be mis-read, and misinterpretted in the same way that a person misreads and misunderstands "historical Jesus" as being evidence for "gospel Jesus".
My claim is NOT that there is evidence for the gospel Jesus. My claim is that the conclusion reached due to the lack of evidence is an over-reaction. And evidence in support of this, is the obvious misunderstanding of the myth-ranking criteria when evaluating gospel Jesus.
Now, these similarities between Jesus and the egyptian stories and the pagans seem minor to me. I haven't spent a lot of time on them. But essentially it's casting a very wide net, and finding a few similarities in the vast number of stories. That's not meaningful. It's just law of averages.
Back when we had phone books, if I looked long enough, I'd find someone with my own exact name. That doesn't mean that my name was given to that other person for the same reason. It's the same with the Jesus story. If you keep looking through all the myths, there are going to be similarities. Just because those other stories might be false, and were written for a specific purpose, whatever that purpose was, that does not mean that the Jesus story is false and as authored for the same purpose, to be a myth.
These are called coincidences. If a skeptic begins believing in coincidences, then they have lost their skepticism.
And there are many stories that have historical backgrounds but include fictional characters. There are characters in books and movies that are based on real people, and I suspect if a Jesus actually existed in some way that he is used as a basis for the Gospels.
Yes, yes.... I know.
Well that wouldn't be an accusation, but a rebuttal, and assertion. And let's note that comparing Jesus to other fictional characters is MORE likely true and plausible than to believe the Jesus myth at face value.
I'm not saying to believe it at face value.
There is no rational reason to believe Jesus was everything the Gospels say, and what is popular among Christian belief.
And there's no ratinal reason to say it's entirely false either.
The whole Jesus story is absurd and suggests an incompetent God at work.
Nope. That's just ignorance and bias talking. The only god you seem to be able to imagine? Sure, that imaginary god is incompetent. But that's your own limitation.
I have argued numerous times that it makes vastly more sense to interpret the Jesus story and myth as symbolic, not literal.
But I'm guessing not like Hercules?
I also argue that it makes more sense to think of heaven and hell as metaphors for one's state of mind in life, not some destination after death.
Makes more sense to you, based on your own self-imposed need for evidence for everything. There doesn't need evidence for an idea to make sense. A person starts with an idea, and then logically moves from step to step, arriving at a conclusion. If the conclusion has explanatory power, and none of the steps leading to the conclusion are known false, and if each step is consistent and relevant, then the original premise "makes sense" and could have merit. Historians do this all the time.
Generally your arguments in this context are equally vacuous. They can be summarized as "what else could it be?" Basically an unanswered question elevated, improperly, into evidence.
Your "critic's creed" is biased. It opened the door to criticism itself. It didn't suggest you are interested in truth, but in justifying assumptions, and proping up existing belief. That's fine, it's preferable that this is realized instead of being biased against those actually seeking true answers.
Non-sense. The truth is, "it's unknown". And I accept that, no problem. And the critics-creed is exactly what happens 'round here everyday. Most often the bible-critic denies, never admits anything, never actually applies critical thinking to their own position, demands evidence for everything then concludes without evidence it MUST be false. And then conjures up some other outrageous counter accusation: Jesus is a mythical hero like Hercules.
But the critic believes they are so smart, and they are so critical that no one can fool them. But they forget that they are infact fooling themselves. These people, yourself included, most often came from Christian backgrounds, and they have traded one set of exaggerated beliefs for another.
For you, it's "My experience with Christianity was X,Y,Z, therefore ALL Christians and all religions with anything in common don't do A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H..... correctly or at all".
