“They all disagree with each other on nearly everything to do with historicity. Was Jesus a pacifist or a whitewashed zealot? Was he a miracle worker or only a preacher? Did he ever really perform exorcisms, or was that projected onto him because his later Christian followers did that? Did he think he was the messiah or in any sense divine, or was that idea pushed onto his memory after his death? Was he a Rabbi or a commoner? Was he actually a Hillelite Pharisee (as his teachings, as represented in the Gospels, match theirs pretty closely), or an Essene, or a disciple of John the Baptist, or all of the above, or something else entirely? How many of the stories in the Gospels reflect things that really happened? Was Jesus baptized by John the Baptist? Was he betrayed by one of his own crew? Did the Gospels construct their stories of him as a reaction to Homeric heroes? Did Q exist or not? Does the Gospel of Thomas date to the early first century or a hundred years later? Did Jesus get himself killed on purpose to trigger the apocalypse? Or was his execution a surprise even to him? Why was he killed at all? Did he establish the religion that continued after him (complete with Eucharist theology and ritual and an expectation of replacing temple Judaism with a new system of salvation), or did he have no idea of that even being a thing, and it was invented by his highest ranking students after he died? You will find professional historicists disagreeing on all these things. And a hundred other things besides.”

I also asked her why she would wade into a field that is so fraught with conflicting motives, emotions and bad methodology when she has obviously not done even basic reading on the subject. No response to me except for getting angry at a self-deprecating comment I made that she misinterpreted. When I aplogized for any misunderstanding and explained what I meant, she never acknowleged that post. She mostly gave combative, insulting, and nonsubstantive reponses to a couple of other people who tried to engage.

I gave up and quit watching the videos. She has no new insights and isn’t interested in actually discussing the subject in a reasonable, scholarly manner.