Thank you Hughes. These are all possibilities as well. Carrier and I like to focus on the Celestial Jesus theory because it fits the evidence (particularly the pre-Gospel evidence) really well. And thank you Price. It seems that you agree quite a bit with us. We also think that pre-Christian Jewish exegesis and revelations of a purely celestial being (the archangel called Jesus, or perhaps he was called Michael before...) were involved, and that Mark is an allegorisation of Paul's writings (as many non-mythicist scholars are now accepting). All we need to explain the whole 'Jesus story' is one pre-Pauline Jew/Christian imagining that the Celestial Messiah that several Jews at the time already believed in spoke to her/him, explaining that his name is Jesus and that he has fulfilled his mission (dying for our sins, and rising). And, of course, many religions started with such 'revelations', so there is nothing implausible about this scenario. As time has gone on, much of the extra evidence we have found has only made this theory more probable. As for the Historical Jesus theory, as time has gone on it has become less probable as we learn how unreliable the Gospel sources really are.
Thank you Hughes. These are all possibilities as well. Carrier and I like to focus on the Celestial Jesus theory because it fits the evidence (particularly the pre-Gospel evidence) really well. And thank you Price. It seems that you agree quite a bit with us. We also think that pre-Christian Jewish exegesis and revelations of a purely celestial being (the archangel called Jesus, or perhaps he was called Michael before...) were involved, and that Mark is an allegorisation of Paul's writings (as many non-mythicist scholars are now accepting). All we need to explain the whole 'Jesus story' is one pre-Pauline Jew/Christian imagining that the Celestial Messiah that several Jews at the time already believed in spoke to her/him, explaining that his name is Jesus and that he has fulfilled his mission (dying for our sins, and rising). And, of course, many religions started with such 'revelations', so there is nothing implausible about this scenario. As time has gone on, much of the extra evidence we have found has only made this theory more probable. As for the Historical Jesus theory, as time has gone on it has become less probable as we learn how unreliable the Gospel sources really are.