The list was only a small glimpse.

I have no idea how many of them, if any, have bothered to read Doherty's book.

Hello max

So far as I am aware Doherty has never submitted his material to scholarly journals for peer review. My guess is that this is because he knows very well that he will be thrashed. He does, however, defend his work on the site given by MortalWombat, and will almost certainly reply to emails.

What I am hoping to achieve here is an open discussion on a non-Christian web discussion board about Doherty's ideas. If he will come here to defend them all the better. If not, then those that agree with him can certainly present a case of some kind. To me that is what these kinds of forums are for in the first place, and I welcome any feedback or replies.

Nomad

Er..well if they haven't read the book or if you don't know any reviews of his work by these people, I'm at a lost to understand what the list represents. My initial post was regarding Ish's comment that "most" scholars reject Doherty's theory. I'm simply trying to find out if "most" scholars even know about his arguments. Then I'm interested in knowing if they have actually published any critiques of it. I'm not sure how one gets to saying most scholars have rejected Doherty's theory if these simple things can't be shown.

I believe that Doherty, on his website, mentions distributing his book to some scholars. He specifically mentions J.D. Crossan and that Crossan never responded, indicating that he didn't take it seriously.

Ish

Ah, yes, the secret truth theory. Or, as I call it, gnostic skepticism. The ideas are so revolutionary that the scholarly community just hasn't have the time to respond to them.
Usually followed by the revolutionary truth theory. The ideas are so revolutionary they would upset the established order so they seek to discredit by silence or dismissal theory. It must be a conspiracy.

The scholars that I have read are aware of, and have rejected, various formations of the Jesus-myth theory. The fact that someone has a new spin, but no new evidence, doesn't make him more likely to be true.

Michael Grant, Jesus, An Historian's Review of the Gospels, at 200.

[This message has been edited by Layman (edited April 19, 2001).]

The "12 Pieces of the Puzzle" feature on Doherty's web site is just a dramatic summary of the problem of Jesus' historicity as Doherty sees it. Contrary to Nomad's strawman attacks, Doherty deals with the details in his book and his other articles. I'll give just three examples.

(1) Regarding Gal.1:19, Doherty says "The term 'brother' (adelphos) appears throughout Paul's letters, and was a common designation Christians gave to each other. In 1 Corinthians 1:1 Sosthenes is called 'adelphos', as is Timothy in Colossians 1:1. Neither one of them, nor the more than 500 'brothers' who received a vision of the spiritual Christ in Corinthians 15:6, are to be considered siblings of Jesus. 'Brothers in the Lord' (adelphon en kurio) appears in Philippians 1:14 (the NEB translates it 'our fellow-Christians'). This is a strong indicator of what the phrase applied to James must have meant. James was the head of a community in Jerusalem which bore witness to the spiritual Christ, and this group seems to have called itself 'brethren of/in the Lord.' The pre-eminent position of James as head of this group could have resulted in a special designation for him as THE brother of the Lord" ("The Jesus Puzzle," 57).

See also note 26: "Compare also 1 Cor. 9:5. Here is a literal translation: 'Have we not the right to take along a sister (adelphen), a wife, as do the rest of the apostles and the brothers (adelphoi) of the Lord and Cephas?' Look at the word 'sister.' No one would say that Paul is referring to his own or anyone else's sibling. He means a fellow-believer of the female sex, and he seems to use it in apposition to (descriptive of) the word 'wife.' Indeed, all translations render this 'a believing wife' or 'a Christian wife'" (335).

(2) Regarding Heb.5:7, Doerty says "In that higher world revealed by scripture, Christ takes on a 'body' for sacrifice, in order to do the will of God and supplant the old animal sacrifices that God no longer wants. Here we can see the type of source in scripture which could have given rise to the idea that the spiritual Son had taken on or entered 'flesh,' that he had undergone sacrifice. Since this was envisioned to have taken place within the lower celestial sphere, it placed him, as Hebrews puts it (2:9), 'for a short while lower than the angels'.…

"In this way, we can understand the concept of Christ being 'in flesh' (en sarki, kata sarka, etc.), a stereotyped phrase which appears with surprising regularity in the epistles. It signifies either that Christ took on the spiritual counterpart of flesh, its 'likeness,' when he descended to the lower celestial sphere (as in the Ascension of Isaiah 9 or the hymn of Philippians 2:6-11), or as Barrett has suggested, that he entered the 'sphere of the flesh,' which included the realm of the demon spirits in the firmament. On occasion, it may refer to Christ's 'visit' to that sphere, as in 'the days of the flesh [not 'Earth' as Nomad's mistranslation says]' in Hebrews 5:7" ("The Jesus Puzzle," 122).

See also note 59: "Where, then, did the idea in 5:7 come from? In the case of this epistle [Hebrews], the answer is clear: from scripture. Buchanan (op.cit., p.98) suggests that 'offering up petitions' is drawn from Psalm 116:1, which uses the same words (in the Septuagint version). Montefiore (op.cit., p.97), while noting that it does not appear in the Gospel description, sees the phrase 'loud cries and tears' as an enlargement on Psalm 22:24: 'when I cried to him, he heard me' (again in the wording of the Septuagint.) Reflecting scholarship in general, Ellingworth (op.cit., p.285) admits that 5:7 represents 'a generalized use of the language and pattern of Old Testament intercession.' He allows that it does not refer to Gethsemane--though he considers that it must refer to SOME historical event."

(3) Regarding Heb.13:12, Doherty says "Paul never locates Jesus anywhere, and for all his talk about the death and resurrection, no historical data about these events appears in his letters. Hebrews 13:11-13 says that Jesus 'suffered outside the gate,' but no city is mentioned, and the idea is determined by scripture. For this writer, Jesus' experience in the realm of myth must be portrayed as paralleling the sacrifice of animals which took place 'outside the camp,' referring to the Israelite camp at Sinai. The sacrificial cult described in Exodus is the model to which Jesus is compared throughout the epistle" (62).

****

But Nomad says regarding these passages that they "could not be clearer. Jesus lived, in the flesh, here on earth. Once again Doherty prefers to ignore the evidence rather than address it."

This is simply and obviously a misrepresentation of Doherty. Whether you agree with his arguments is a separate matter, but to declare that Doherty "ignores the evidence rather than addresses it" is blatantly false and unfair.

aikido7: Why don't you guys get a staff of apologists to help you do your research? Wouldn't it be easier?

SWL: Hmmm...Since you seem to get offended when Christians here post data on the subject of "Biblical Criticism and Archaeology", from the relevant primary sources and scholarly literature, why don't you just go away? Wouldn't that be easier?

SecWebLurker

Ah, yes, the secret truth theory. Or, as I call it, gnostic skepticism. The ideas are so revolutionary that the scholarly community just hasn't have the time to respond to them.

Usually followed by the revolutionary truth theory. The ideas are so revolutionary they would upset the established order so they seek to discredit by silence or dismissal theory. It must be a conspiracy.

The scholars that I have read are aware of, and have rejected, various formations of the Jesus-myth theory. The fact that someone has a new spin, but no new evidence, doesn't make him more likely to be true.


quote:
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To sum up, modern historical critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus'-or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disproving of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.
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Michael Grant, Jesus, An Historian's Review of the Gospels, at 200.


I have to say your posts are bit bewildering to me Layman. You assume so many things about simple questions that I have a hard time understanding where your coming from.

From my simple questions regarding the assertion that was made, all of the sudden I am now attempting to make a case for "secret truth theory" or "gnostic skepticism" or a conspiracy. I guess I don't get it.

The assertion was made. (and I've seen similiar ones lately) - "most scholars" have rejected Doherty's theory. This assertion is either true or not true. If true, thats okay by me, I'd just be interested in hearing support for it. It'd be neat to hear what they have to say specifically. Logically this would seem to involve scholars that have actually looked at Doherty's stuff. If the list you provided isn't known to contain any such people, then it doesn't help answer my question.

Frankly, even if there were a number of scholars that agreed that Doherty had a reasonable case, I still wouldn't buy it. Like I said, there is at least a good prima facie case that can be made to support Jesus's mere existence.

Ah, well thats cool. Maybe sometime they'll be able to write an essay or something with some specific rebuttals. It'd be interesting to at least hear them.

Madmax,

Sorry, I didn't see Ish's preceding quote. I focused in on your reference to me and my claims that "most scholars" believe such and such. Since I never said that "most scholars" had specifically read and rejected Doherty's stuff, I thought we were speaking in the terms of the Jesus-myth. So I provided a list of scholars who accepted Jesus' existence and I could separate out for you those that I have read who directly rejected the Jesus-myth theory.

Sorry I misunderstood.