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ChrisHallquist comments on What Can We Learn About Human Psychology from Christian Apologetics? - Less Wrong
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Partly it's because I come from a dominant-Christian culture, partly because of accidents of my personal history led to me reading a lot of Christian apologetics. I do know a little bit about Muslim and Mormon apologetics, and yes there are parallels (in fact, I once wrote a book chapter on the similarities between evangelical apologetics and Mormon apologetics).
I haven't bothered much with Jewish apologetics, as Judaism is in the unfortunate situation that its founders (Abraham, Moses) pretty clearly didn't exist (yes, Jesus mythicism, I know, but that's more controversial). On the other hand, yeah, I've heard the rabbinical writings are fascinating.
Why is it important? If it matters to you that a prophet in question is historical beyond doubt, then you ought to stick with Islam or with other more recent religions. Say, how about Scientology? It's well documented, and also pretty convincing, I bet. All that is known about historical Jesus with high likelihood is that there once lived a Jew who was executed during the time Pontius Pilate apparently was the prefect of the Judaea Province. The rest of the "evidence" is heavily Christian and so hardly trustworthy.
It's not the only thing that matters, hence no paying attention to Scientology apologetics. But the non-existence of Moses is well-enough established to justify saying, "Hopless case! Next!" when it comes to Jewish apologetics.
Sorry, I was unclear. My question is, given the title of your post "What can we learn about psychology...", why would it matter if the original event was real or made-up? You can fruitfully study the psychology of the apologetics either way.
As already explained, long before this post I spent a lot of time reading Christian apologetics for other reasons.
I think what's going on here is a misinterpretation of your intention with the "Judaism is in the unfortunate situation..." comment. You were indicating why in the past you had not thought about them, and not that they would be any more or less illuminating for this purpose... right?
Yes.
Why is the nonexistence of Abraham and Moses anymore established than the nonexistence of Jesus? And anyway, Abraham and Moses are also considered prophets by Christianity and Islam, so if their nonexistence was a problem for Judaism, it should be a problem for Christianity and Islam as well.