McGrath on Carrier's mythicism

BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Mythicism and the Making of Mark

Carrier’s approach allows him to say that every single thing he finds in the relevant sources is “exactly what we’d expect” if mythicism is true – “as symbolic myth, every oddity is explained, and indeed expected.” This is because “they made this up” is compatible with everything that any text says – especially if one excludes in advance the possibility of using traditional critical methods and criteria for determining that some details may reflect actual historical events.


By James F. McGrath
Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature
Butler University
August 2015

McGrath invokes Karl Popper: "the appropriate scholarly response to this approach is to set it aside as 'not even wrong.'"