Battling the Consensus

In my ongoing discussions with Tim O'Neill, I have observed that he adheres to historical consensus as if it were religious dogma, not to be questioned - ever.  Historical consensus is the bastion of Christians who insist that Jesus was a real person, and who want to tamp down any discussion that might suggest the possibility that they could be wrong.  Take, for example, this article by apologist Steven Bancarz: Did Jesus Exist? All Scholars Agree He “Certainly” Existed, which makes claims that are patently false.  In particular, the title of the article says that "all scholars agree", which is a lie.  (The article then goes on to denigrate and dismiss those scholars who don't agree.)  O'Neill isn't so brazen as to make this same claim, but he uses the same tactic in arguments supporting the consensus.  If you don't have a solid argument, you can always rely on ad  hominem as a tactic to win the battle, and this appears to be one of O'Neill's favorite tactics.

Before I go on, I'd like to make it clear that I am not arguing against the consensus on the issue of historicity of Jesus.  But I'm not sure there is consensus on exactly what the consensus is.  (Is it merely that someone existed who became the basis of the Jesus legend?  I'm not so sure.)  I have argued that there are scholars who find reason to doubt whether it is true, and that I find their arguments at least worthy of consideration.  Does that mean I accept the hypotheses of mythicism?  No.  But I do say that the evidence is not sufficient for me to come down on one side or the other with any degree of certainty.  In my previous post on mythicism, I did say that "I think there's a good chance that there was some person that the legends were based on.  But that person almost certainly was not the legendary figure Christians see as their savior ..."  This statement may be taken in different ways.  Some might see it as an affirmation that I am not a mythicist, because it acknowledges a person behind the stories of Jesus.  Others might understand it in a way that can be likened to the historicity of King Arthur.  There was likely someone (perhaps a valiant soldier) who was the original source of the legends, but that person was not King Arthur.

The thing is, historians are generally open to evidence regarding the historicity of Arthur, because they haven't adopted an ideological worldview that depends on the truth of his existence.  It wouldn't destroy them to find out that the evidence indicates that Arthur was more legendary than real.  In the case of Jesus, though, the situation is different.  The majority of historians (especially with regard to early Christian history) have been Christians.  Is it any surprise, then, that the historical consensus says that Jesus existed?  I don't think so.  They have amassed their arguments, and as we see in the above-mentioned article by Bancarz, they can be completely closed to the idea that the consensus may not be correct.  This is more a matter of religious belief than evidence-based argumentation.  Of course they have evidence on their side, but they stubbornly refuse to hear any evidence to the contrary, or they dismiss it too easily, without giving it due consideration.

And even in the case of atheist historians, many exhibit a similar dogmatic adherence to the consensus, although there certainly are some who are more open to evidence and arguments that depart from that consensus.  If you listen to the arguments they make, you find echoes of the same arguments made by Christian historians (some of which strike me as poor arguments).  And like their Christian counterparts, they are dismissive of anyone who questions the dogma.  Their primary argument appears to be that the consensus should be taken as the one and only legitimate view of historical knowledge, and that anyone who disagrees is a crackpot.  The biggest problem with this argument is that the consensus of the majority of historians is the agreement of those who are predominantly Christian, and doesn't necessarily agree in all respects with what atheist historians think.  I don't mean to say that consensus has no value, or that it shouldn't be taken seriously.  But this is one area of inquiry where the consensus of the majority has been formed by people with a biased ideological agenda.  That doesn't make it wrong, but it certainly undermines the argument that the consensus on this particular matter is the only legitimate viewpoint.  What would the consensus be in the absence of any Christian ideological bias?

Bart Ehrman does not call himself a mythicist.  But he does have a concept of the historical Jesus that is distinctly different from that of most Chrisitian scholars:

In  my  view,  humanists,  agnostics,  atheists,  mythicists,  and  anyone  else  who  does  not advocate belief in Jesus would be better served to stress that the Jesus of history is not the Jesus of modern Christianity than to insist - wrongly and counterproductively - that Jesus never existed. Jesus did exist. He simply was not the person that most modern believers today think he was. - Bart Ehrman [Did Jesus Exist?]

When Christian scholars speak about the historicity of Jesus, they don't have the same idea in mind that Ehrman does.  What does this say about the historical consensus?  Would it be fair to say that the Christian consensus is the same as the secular consensus?  When Thomas Brodie, a highly respected Christian historian argues (contrary to most Christians) for a mythicist view of Jesus, what can be made of the claim that all mythicists are crackpots?  For additional perspective on the state of scholarship in the historicity of Jesus, see this paper by Tom Dykstra.

Despite the fact that the "consensus" doesn't really seem to be a unified stance among historians, nor is it something that is disputed only by crackpots, look at the invective and hostility directed against mythicist Richard Carrier by Tim O'Neill.  If O'Neill has any good arguments to make against Carrier (and I must emphasize that I'm not trying to defend Carrier's arguments here), they are lost among all the snark and ad hominem attacks.  This is exactly what we see from many Christians when debating atheists about the existence of God.  It typically serves to mask the fact that they don't have an appropriate answer for those arguments.  It alleviates them from the responsibility to make a case that stands on its own.  Most of all, it often indicates that they feel that their own position is threatened, and they have to lash out defensively.

I regard history as being similar to science in many important ways.  Historical method is similar to scientific method.  And of course, we know that in science, while there is consensus about the scientific validity of various theories, no scientific consensus is immune from questioning.  New information or evidence can potentially overturn even the best established theories.  The same should be true of historical consensus.  And while you might note that what I am saying sounds quite similar to the arguments against scientific consensus that we often hear from science deniers, I would point out that I am not arguing against historical consensus per se, and I have no ideological dog in the hunt, as the science deniers usually do.  But it is the style of argumentation in defense of a particular consensus that I take issue with here.