Reconstructing the Historical Jesus

I for one have been reading with interest.
I appreciate that this thread has lacked responses but I think this is because many cannot compete with your level of detail and knowledge.
Don't let that stop you presenting your thoughts.I don't think your thread will be closed. But for the record nor do I think it should.
If I feel informed/qualified enough later I may join in more constructively but at the moment I am just happy to observe.Don'tlet the lack of participants lead you to necessarily believe that no-one is reading your well constructed analysis.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Hmmm. On what evidence does he conclude this? How reliable is this evidence? Is Wright a Christian whose objectivity regarding this matter might be questionable? In other words did he fit his evidence to the conclusion he had already made or did he derive his conclusion solely from the available evidence?Conclusive evidence for the resurrection seems unlikely (I am sure it would be more widely known if genuinely reliable or even remotely likely) but I am interested to hear more. Do you have any links for this?

Declaring the nature of the conclusion before the evidence has been analysed is not the way to draw objective conclusions. Whichever side of the argument one happens to be on.
Surely the only intelligent way to approach this is to see if the evidence reliably suggests that the miraculous did occur.
If no reliable evidence for the miraculous is available then by default, based on experience of the real world, reason and rationality it must be assumed to the miraculous did not occur.In short no conclusion should be discounted as impossible before investigation has even begun but the burden of proof lies with those making extraordinary claims.

And what I am saying is that to definitively conclude this before considering any evidence would be wrong.
However, as Grizz has stated elsewhere, scepticism is a wholly necessaary requirement for a historian (or a scientist for that matter).
I think you are confusing this highly necessary scepticism with a perceived philosophical bias.If the evidence conlusively suggests miracles then fair enough. Ruling them out on philosophical grounds is not following the evidence.However taking the non-existence of the fantastic as the default position until conclusively demonstrated otherwise is not just desireable it is absoluetly necessary. The burden of proof is on the out of ordinary.I think you are confusing the two.For example - If I told you I had managed to turn water into wine but that I had no evidence of this and could not manage to do it again you would presumably not think there was a 50/50 chance for or against my claim. In fact you would be wholly justified in concluding it deeply unlikely. Wouldn't you?The default position has to be one of requiring evidence for the fantastic. Not one of assuming equal validity for or against in the absence of conclusive evidence.Try not to confuse this healthy scepticism with philosophical bias.

Having read the links you provided earlier I think it is fair to say that Crossman and Borg approached the subject with what we can both agree to be a healthy, and indeed necessary, skepticism whilst Wright has approached the subject with a distinct philosophical bias in favour of the miraculous.Do you dispute this?
Do you still think the two approaches are equally valid?

Precluding conclusions no matter what the evidence, as you originally suggested, is one thing (and unjustifiable as anything other than philosophical bias)Stating that extraordinary claims require greater levels of evidence seems more than reasonable and cannot sensibly be claimed as philosophical bias.Given this - The theistic assertion that we all interpret evidence with equal bias is a false claim but that is exactly what you are doing here.