This theory requires that our NT has an alternative genesis and developmental history from the one described by the church and mainstream Christian scholarship. But doesn't the argument from silence apply equally well to this alternative history? That history (if it existed) has also left very few fingerprints for modern scholars to dust. Hence the mythical / historical debate -- it exists because of history's silence. Who are the communities that produced these writings, believing Jesus to be a purely celestial deity? Why is history silent on them? Christianity sprung up and spread quickly, but left few markers of its true historical origins. To my way of thinking, that silence doesn't lend weight to either the historical or mythical argument.Jesus wasn't historical, certainly not in the way described in the gospels, because Paul and other NT writers mention nothing about his life on earth.
Some other questions re: mythicism
If the epistles are unaware of Jesus' life of earth, because it hasn't been invented yet, then:
- Who wrote the deutero-Pauline epistles and why? What was the purpose of pretending to be Paul in the pre-historical-Jesus/pre-Gospel era? Or are we saying that there was genuine Paul, then Gospels, then deutero-Paul, and deutero-Paul was so expertly forged as to resist the temptation to include "evidence" from the gospels?
- If Paul's "Lord Jesus Christ" was a purely celestial being, why doesn't he make that clearer to his audience? Why does he keep dropping hints about flesh, being crucified, being born of woman, being of the tribe of Judah, etc? If the answer is that his audience understood that Jesus was purely celestial, why can't we point to the historical proof of that? (another argument from silence?)
- I am confused when mythicists speak of Pauline or Petrine doctrine, or what have you. Surely if Jesus is a literary device, the whole genre is just 50 Shades of Pray. Why then, would anyone think there was an historical Peter? Surely you'd throw the baby out with the bathwater and start from scratch trying to understand the origins of this religion!
- If there are fake letters of Paul, and a phony historical Jesus, and an invented Jerusalem church, and a hundred faked romanticised Acts of Brian, there seems to be more faking than a reality TV show. Perhaps the reality is that none of it is fake, or phony, in its original intent, but was all honest and genuine according to its original intended purpose, which we have lost visibility of?