was Mythicism more popular in 70s scholarship or are they (presumably) intentionally overstating its influence?
This doesn't really answer your question at all, but there's a lovely subplot early on in
The Master and Margarita where Bezdomny has written an epic poem or something of that sort that offers a highly critical view of a 'Historical Jesus' character (presumably not the same quasi-'Historical Jesus' who is Himself a character in the novel), and Berlioz chastises him because he was supposed to make the poem mythicist somehow.
