The Prior Probability of Jesus Mythicism Re-Evaluated in Light of the Gospels’ Dramatic Date

Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F25%3A10502756" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/25:10502756 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=Tw6SzZOCcU" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=Tw6SzZOCcU</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2024.2366767" target="_blank" >10.1080/2222582X.2024.2366767</a>

Result language
angličtina
Original language name
The Prior Probability of Jesus Mythicism Re-Evaluated in Light of the Gospels’ Dramatic Date
Original language description
This article re-examines the prior probability of Jesus mythicism recently put forward by Richard Carrier. Carrier argues that this probability is relatively high because Jesus is among the so-called "Rank-Raglan heroes" from Mediterranean antiquity who are all fictional. If Jesus was the only historical example, he would be exceptional, which is inherently improbable. We make use of a recent survey of primary sources which has identified a large number of additional historical ancient Mediterranean Rank-Raglan heroes and draw attention to a peculiar feature of these figures which appears, at face value, highly relevant to the question of their historicity. This is the dramatic date, or the date when the person in question is depicted as living. We show that all ancient Mediterranean Rank-Raglan heroes depicted as living in the very distant past are fictional while almost all living in a relatively recent past, much closer to the dramatic date of Jesus, are historical. We anticipate several potential objections to this finding, fully reproduce Carrier's formal Bayesian analysis, and show that when the dramatic date of these newly identified heroes is taken into account, the prior probability of Jesus mythicism becomes very small.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60101 - History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year
2025
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

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