My comment was addressed to the narrow issue of the evidentiary value of the parallels. Again, as good Bayesians, we have to ask what we whether we should expect the evidence we see to be different in the two cases: mythologized real person and mythologized non-existent person. In both cases, we should see parallels to then existing myths. That being the case, the parallels are of no evidential value and we should discard them as irrelevant to the question we are asking.dastardly stem wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2023 2:52 pmYeah...I like continual disagreement being acknowledged. I got your question and I answered, to be clear, "it may or may not be expected", which I took as saying no.Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2023 2:33 pmThis is one of those things I suspect we'll disagree about and move on. Thinking like a Bayesian, my question is should the existence of these parallels affect our prior probability. If you have to appeal to your prior to argue that the new evidence changes the prior, the answer is clearly "no." The parallelism argument should be discarded as irrelevant.
ALlow me to clarify the point of mentioning the parallels. Mark's story represents the claim for historicity. We have to inspect the claim by confirming it with other evidence. If we have no other credible evidence supporting Mark's story, then we have nothing to put into the weight for historicity. So it may be that we have no weight added to mythicism. The point is there is no historicity data to tip the scales.
My mythicism is near 50/50. That is to say probability-wise I'd say its nearly as likely Jesus lived as did not live. I just happen to think the scales tip slightly in the direction of not existing.
To me there's plenty to discuss and agree upon here...but I'm happy if you wish to leave it as agree to disagree ultimately.
I’m persuadable on this narrow issue, but only by a well reasoned argument that we should expect to see some difference in the two cases when it comes to finding parallels.
On the ultimate question, I lack the expertise to reach any informed conclusion on what we should expect the evidence to look like assuming a mythologized real person. I find the arguments interesting, but I’m not motivated enough to make historical judgments about the relevant time and events.