Why is “no historical Jesus,Christianity-founder,ever existed ...

I spent a lifetime in the field, including serving as a tenured religious studies professor at a state-sponsored university in the U.S. Midwest, and even my most ardent atheist colleagues (including our department chair) taught that the historical Jesus certainly existed. (He and most of my colleagues personally dismissed the miracle stories of the Bible but none of them doubted that Jesus, son of Mary, actually existed and that his teachings brought about the Christian religion.) I could make similar statements about the membership of AAR and SBL, the major academic societies comprised of thousands of religious studies scholars and historians. The members who denied the evidence for the existence of Jesus were few and far between, although those few were often able to get media attention and some even published or participated in interviews bordering on tabloid-style sensationalism. So my question to this forum is a simple one: Why do you think that denial of the Historical Jesus is so rare in the university and scholarly environment but so popular in Internet forums among the hoi polloi?

Obviously, I’m not asking whether you personally “believe in Jesus” or any other tangential question. I’m simply asking your opinion as to why there is so much denial of Jesus’ existence in Internet forums but so little among the scholars of history and religious studies. (Indeed, I’m always amazed when I see posts claiming that “Every respected scholar knows that there is no credible evidence that Jesus ever existed.” when my half century of experience dealing with secular scholars in the field tells me otherwise.) ==================================

Fascinating. Some addressed the question posed while others (as is usually the tendency in this forum) could not resist the personal need to deny that scholars could disagree with them, to insist on debating the underlying issue of the Historical Jesus, and to attack me personally as if I pose some sort of danger to their belief system (or might unduly influence vulnerable readers.)

Probably my favorite “taunt” is accompanied by the claim that the scholars and historians who happen to disagree with them about Jesus must surely do so because of personal bias and a covert (and sinister?) religious propensity of some sort.

The Atlantic monthly

The Tyranny of the Trinity, The Orthodox Cover-up

NRB

Voting for Jesus, Christianity and Politics in Australia

The Concept