there is no solid evidence for much of antiquity that is not questioned at all.
what we have as Caladan has pointed out is a small minority of what I find to be uneducated bafoons. They have Price and thast about it and his work I think I can bust.
Again, I find ad hominem attacks like this as useful as ad hominem attacks usually are. They are intended to suppress debate, not resolve it. As for there being no solid evidence for much of antiquity, that depends on how you define "antiquity". There is solid evidence for a lot of what we find in history books. The historicity of Jesus needs to be judged on the merits of the arguments made in its favor.
Perhaps we have differing opinions on what "solid evidence" means. The evidence for the existence of Jesus is all textual. If solid evidence existed, then this question would not produce the level of controversy that it does. Nobody has trouble proving that the Holocaust occurred or that Obama is an American-born Christian, despite the notoriety of the deniers. The evidence for Jesus is far more difficult to verify.
everyone understands there is plenty of evidence and it could be stronger, but it doesnt need to be solid.
OK, but you just said that you didn't buy my claim that there was no solid evidence. Now you seem to agree with me.
The mythers have even less evidence that sits upon something I would not label as ground, while the historicty of histrorical jesus/HJ is more on the plus side of the equation.
That just restates the opinion of people who believe in historicity. Those who oppose it argue that the evidence on the other side--that the myth/legend could have arisen by syncretism of popular myths or that Paul was the progenitor--is better than that on the side of historicity. For me, the most convincing piece of evidence is Paul's reference to James, the alleged "brother" of Jesus. I don't like Carrier's argument that all Christians called themselves "brothers", but it is conceivable that even his textual "evidence" had no basis in reality. We don't know whether Paul was reporting an accurate memory or a false memory. We don't know a great deal about the context in which he wrote. People today repeat hearsay as if it were fact, so I don't see why we should put such trust in a handful of texts that were written two millennia ago without some reasonable historical corroborating evidence.
really it does fit "kooks" the shoe is on.
The more you repeat arguments of this sort, the more you give the impression that this kind of thinking is what has convinced you. It doesn't convince me.
Im involved in the myther forums and I know what many are claiming, they are all weak. Even a few authors are weak. Doherty is off on a weird tangent but his work is still respected. Price uis highly educated amnd has sound work, but provides a weaker case then mainstream scholarships.
Have I disagreed with this? I think that both sides of the argument have a fairly weak case, although the mythers do have a fairly convincing case that much of what was written about Jesus in Christian texts was hokum. Ehrman has been in the forefront of those making that case.
the average myther in teh forums trips all over theirselves
As do the average anti-mythers. I don't see much profit in this line of ad hominem disparagement. It convinces nobody but the already-convinced.
This is where I respect Richard Carrier, he is not a myther and he plays 50/50 and rides the middle of the fence, his new book offers a good insight to the proccess of developing historicty. I wont spoil it
I like Carrier, too, but I thought that he was a myther. That is, he believes that Jesus likely was not a single historical figure. He used to believe in historicity, but Doherty convinced him otherwise. I haven't read his book, though.