I see that the only mythicist theory in your survey is the celestial Jesus one. I think it is important to point out that mythicist theories range from the truly kooky (Acharya S's views) to the much more scholarly (Doherty's and Carrier's). My gut feeling is that supporters of Carrier's tend to forget the more kooky theories. I'm a 'historicist', but I don't feel any ownership of, say, the apologetic historicist views of a William Lane Craig.
The issue here is that I believe that Acharya S has sold many more books than either Carrier or Doherty on the subject. Views of the movie 'Zeitgeist', which uses her work, are in the millions. Anyone encountering mythicism for the first time is more than likely to encounter her ideas.
This is what Bart Ehrman says in the link you gave:
This unusually vociferous group of nay-sayers maintains that Jesus is a myth invented for nefarious (or altruistic) purposes by the early Christians who modeled their savior along the lines of pagan divine men who, it is alleged, were also born of a virgin on Dec. 25, who also did miracles, who also died as an atonement for sin and were then raised from the dead.
That's Acharya S's view, and the most popular mythicist view, AFAIK. It's not the views of Carrier and Doherty.
I suggest one big flag in having mythicists seemingly conspiracy theoriests is having a book called "The Christ Conspiracy" as probably the best selling book on the market! You can see some of that conspiracy thinking in my thread on Acharya S's book "The Christ Conspiracy" on this board here, where I quote her as follows:
Unbeknownst to the masses, the pope is the Grand Master-Mason of the Masonic branches of the world... Masonry originally held, and still does at the higher levels, the knowledge that the Christ character was the sun. This knowledge has obviously been hidden from all but the few. (TCC, page 348)
It is reported that priests, high-ranking Masons and members of other such brotherhoods are informed about the real origins of Christianity but are sworn to a blood oath against revealing the truth. Perhaps some of these individuals will be encouraged that others not thus bound are exposing this all-important information. (TCC, page 374)
The above combines the old conspiracies of the Masons as being behind-the-scenes secret power brokers, and the Catholic Church really knowing that what they preach is nonsense. (It adds that scholars are in on it as well!) Where it differs is having the Catholic Pope as the leader of the Masons. The Catholic Church historically has been against the Masons.
As I've said many times on this and previous boards, mythicists are their own worst enemy by giving support to the wackier theories, like Doherty and Dr Robert M Price supporting Acharya S. One thing I respect Carrier is that he states mythicists do themselves a disservice by doing that. I made a note about that on my website here, in my "Update 3" section:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakuseid ... view1.html
Carrier writes:
Bad mythicists (e.g. Atwill, to pick an example of someone who is very much arguing a thesis Murdock must reject) are doing good mythicists no favors. In fact, they are making it worse for us, by communicating to the scholarly community that “mythicism” is based on sloppy methodology, dubious speculations, and ignorance of the arguments and evidence discussed by the actual experts in these matters. So when I try to present at a conference or publish a paper, I have to explain at length how my methodology is valid and that I do not endorse all the nonsense that people like Atwill argue, and even then academics are suspicious, because all they have seen is Freke & Gandy crap. Mythicists can’t even agree on what happened (is it Murdock’s explanation? Or Atwill’s? One of them is wrong…which one? What method do they have to answer that question with?).
There is therefore no benefit in “not criticizing” each other. Because, by all disagreeing with each other, most mythicists must be wrong. And the cornerstone of valid, professional methodology is pursuing and rooting out error and determining who of any collection of disagreeing parties is wrong. We therefore must do that. To say we shouldn’t do that, in some sort of political solidarity to the abstract “idea” of mythicism is precisely the kind of dogmatic, political, emotional bullshit that is screwing over serious myth research. That behavior is the surest way to never be taken seriously by anyone who matters.
So if you want to talk about conspiracy theories and mythicist, please don't leave out Acharya S, Freke and Gandy, and others. There are no conspiracy theories at all in the works of Carrier and Doherty. Dr Robert M Price has stated his skepticism of climate change science, but that isn't anything to do with origins of Christianity.
Statistics: Posted by GakuseiDon — Fri Jan 16, 2015 12:11 am