No Robots

Yeah, mythicism is indeed a position that arises in an attempt to develop a coherent post-religion approach to Christianity. As such, it attracts all kinds of people. And on the surface, it seems like a good solution. Dig deeper, though, and its implausibilities become evident. It is most imprudent to establish post-religion culture on such flimsy ground.

Ben C Smith

See my PM to you. Thanks.

Ben.

Ted Hoffman

Thanks Ben. I really appreciate your taking the time to respond.

Ben C Smith

No problem. And, just for the record, your review looks good in PDF, too.

Ben.

Solo

Fair question: the MJ idea itself is not "rotten" and indeed it may turn out in the end that Jesus of Nazareth originated as a purely imaginary guide through ecstatic and depressive experiences of Jewish sectarians, on which the later communities hanged their beliefs and their sense of morals. I think it's a stretch but I would be ok with that. As I indicated in several places on the board, I am thinking "post-religion": a way of tackling the subject from a non-ideological middle ground, where we share the core values beyond how we split on the semantics of God
.
No, the problem with the MJ position is the ideology behind the idea in most of those who subscribe to it:

religion is "bad"; it is the root cause of evil in the world; it must be "unmasked" as conscious swindle and vile instrument of oppression. If only it were overthown, we would all live happily ever after. With communist intellectuals (or new-lefties), who are otherwise sophisticated and learned individuals, this forms the untouchable scriptural core of their creed - it's "their kingdom come", as Bertrand Russell astutely observed. I don't think it has anything to do with any particular "political situation". It has to do with a certain human character profile.

I think you will find on closer inspection that the MJ-ers recruit almost exclusively from the left, and tend to the dogmatic varieties of the political left. There is no shame in being "leftie", btw. Most of our social advances in the West - some that the US does not know to this day - came from there.

The issue again is not the MJ belief itself. It's the "method" by which one convinces himself that certain things must be explained by the MJ theory. Jacob wants to kid the board by his Freudian spoof of me but he really cannot undo my perception of his ways with fact and logic.

For example, in his reading of Sanders two statements, he states:

He [Sanders] maintains, in the face of gathering difficulties, that “Something of the real Jesus was certainly preserved” [39] and he admits that whereas the evangelists had theological views, “nevertheless the gospels contain material that the theological views did not create.” [40]

These are like statements of faith since they are not supported by evidence.
They betray the fact that Sanders did not start his research with a blank slate because he presumes that the historical Jesus is the fountain that brought forth the gospel narratives

Let us look at the labour by which Jacob arrives at his conclusions:

First, Sanders states first that "something of the real Jesus was certainly preserved". That is an expression of his conviction, based (-presumably, I have not read the book-) on his analysis of the texts. Second, similarly, he opines that certain gospel materials are not of "theological origin".

What does a Baker Street Irregular conclude ? Jacob informs us that these are "like statements of faith" since they are not supported by evidence. Ok then, there are two things off the bat that Jacob himself wants us to take on faith: 1) that Sanders is not providing evidence for his position, and 2) that this lack of evidence itself bespeaks of "faith" or some such.

I would venture that Jacob is right about the first statement being an expression of belief. In its emphasis, I don't think it would not be sustained by anything that Sanders can show as factually verifiable. In Jesus and Judaism, Sanders considers "a firm fact" the report that Jesus was executed by the Romans as a "would-be king of the Jews". I disagree with the historical factuality of the mocking epithet and the charge against Jesus. I don't think they can be established beyond a reasonable assumption, and as such only by faute de mieux. The violent death of Jesus at the hands of the authorities, seems the best explanation of the way the movement developped. But I do not think one can have certainty even about that, in the historical sense.

What about the second statement ? Even without reading the HFoJ, based purely on my own reading of the texts, I would say, no, without much of a doubt, certain stories cannot be explained as originating in theological expose. (e.g. Jesus' family view of Jesus , Jesus going over the top with Peter at C-P, the fig tree, Gadarene swine, etc.). It would be up to those who want to argue that the gospels are wholly a theological thesis to explain the derogation of Jesus, the strange structures and cognitive challenges evidencing conflicting traditions and manipulation of the texts. I think Sanders would have no problem pointing to facts and constructs to defend his position. I would be surprised if in fact Sanders did not did not make the ground for his opinion explicit.

So, it would be "like faith" only in one of the two statements. Now, the question is: faith in what ? Are we to take Jacob's say-so as the proof that Sanders is a closet Jesus worshipper and that it clouds his vision ? Jacob claims it is a fact that Sanders did not start with a "clean slate" because he presumes that the historical Jesus is the fountain that brought forth the gospel narratives. Now what is the evidence of the cause and effect here ? Let me offer this: there is none. This is just Jacob's charming poetry in asserting that Sanders is prejudiced against Earl Doherty's mid-heaven molestation theory which he worships.

Sanders starts with what he calls "good hypothesis" (of the existence of Jewish sectarianism - again based on Jesus & Judaism) and proceeds to the evidence of the NT which of course is a real crime in Jacob's eyes. The scholar actually takes for granted some of the NT text as having historical provenance.

Sanders does not even once consider the possibility that Mark may have written his gospel as faux history which was mistaken as actual history by Luke and the other evangelists.

I am not sure who postulates the misreading of Mark by Luke, Matthew and John beside Jacob, but such a theory is laughable even to amateurs like myself. Why should one of the leading biblical scholars like Sanders pay attention to such random brainwaves (assuming he even knows about them), disconnected from anything known to him ? Because MJ believers declare themselves the fountain of wisdom ?

Jiri

EarlDoherty

I must compliment Jacob on his review of Sanders’ The Historical Figure of Jesus. I’m almost tempted to call it “an exposé”. It’s in the same line as my own website article addressing the alleged refutations of Jesus mythicism. Sanders may not be defending the historical Jesus per se against mythicists, but he is defending a basic historicity for important Gospel elements, and doing so using the same dubious and often fallacious methods of argument which scholars have traditionally indulged in to defend the HJ.

Sanders is a respected scholar and yet his indulgences are often biased and logically flawed. As Jacob points out in regard to the conflict over the birth year of Jesus and Sanders’ attempt to reconcile the conflicts in the nativity stories of Matthew and Luke,

In the same vein, Sanders argues for a “modest demonstration” by Jesus in his entry into Jerusalem on ‘Palm Sunday’. As well as outlining various scholarly arguments against any event even remotely resembling the Gospel account, Jacob incisively observes:

One might note that Sanders also indulges in a technique practiced by so many others. When forced to present and acknowledge evidence that fails to support desired viewpoints or even militates against them, he nevertheless cavalierly offers a positive counter: “Something of the real Jesus was certainly preserved,” or that there must be some real history in the Gospels. As Jacob puts it:

Sanders’ technique might be styled “snatching an alleged victory out of the jaws of defeat.” Unfortunately, New Testament research, at all levels, is rife with these kinds of approaches, and we need more of Jacob's sort of exposé. It also puts the lie to the claim that critical scholarship is free of bias, and that NT research in general can be divorceable from apologetics. As Jacob quotes in his Note 1:

On the issue raised by Peter Kirby, that this kind of layperson-oriented publication is “pulp junk”, I think Peter misses the point. When aiming at a general audience, as opposed to in-house academia, a scholar/writer has to have it make sense for those who bring little academic knowledge and no insider orientation to the subject. To some extent, the methodology employed is indeed different. The jargon, the esoteric referencing to minute aspects of the topic (while overlooking the need to examine larger axiomatic assumptions and question underlying paradigms), cannot be indulged in where more public-oriented books are concerned. Insiders know the pitfalls and how to avoid them, and they accept them as left unaddressed, but the same is not true of the general public, for whom they must be addressed, and this is where the weaknesses show, and where the author has to fall back on argumentation which is more obviously wanting. Here, the scholar finds himself naked and has to resort to fig leaves that—in the eyes of the more knowledgeable layperson—fails to conceal the defects and shortcomings in the orthodox anatomy. When the patina of academic jargon, esoteric referencing, and general obfuscation is not available to give the work ‘respectability,’ and what is resorted to is patently deficient (including in common sense), those with a non-neutral interest may be led to stylize the latter as “junk”. What it really is, is the emperor caught outdoors wearing his new clothes.

It also points out the gulf between what scholars will admit to each other, and what they will admit to the public, the two being often incompatible. For general public consumption, certain admissions are too rash to make. In one way, Sanders’ HFJ is anything but “junk” because he is forced by the public expectation to try to explain and retain the unexplainable and unretainable, and in the process ends up addressing what is (or should be) essential in today’s NT scholarship, namely those very axioms which academia so comfortably assumes: key issues like the reliability of anything recounted in the Gospels as historical fact, including the actuality of their central character. This is why an exposé of Sanders-style “junk” is far more important than a review of his more ‘scholarly’ works.

Now, I am not going to pass up an opportunity to pick up on something on this thread which was of particular interest to me. Jacob called attention to the fact that my rebuttal to Chris Zeichman’s critique (which I am more than willing to regard as in the same category of concern for orthodoxy as the Sanders book) has so far been met with silence, in contrast to the several favorable comments and applause initially given to the critique itself. I note that Ben Smith responded to this by saying that he had been requested (nicely) by Zeichman to review his draft of the critique and Ben had obliged. Had I (nicely) requested a similar review of my own draft, he says, he would have done the same for me. Ben says my piece is nestled on his hard drive awaiting attention, although I can’t quite tell from his remarks whether he actually intends to give it that attention and comment on it, or whether he will once again withdraw into his alternate conceptual universe where nothing I can say proves bothersome or disturbing.

But since the defenders of the HJ on this board have a bothersome and disturbing history of failing to address much of my material, I will take the opportunity to quote here a few bits and pieces of my Zeichman rebuttal myself. I will offer these one at a time (perhaps every couple of days), to make the task of fulfilling their self-appointed role an easier one. In connection with this first excerpt, one might wonder, if Ben obliged by reviewing Zeichman’s draft and yet failed to pick up on this glaring logical fallacy committed by Zeichman which would have required only the most basic knowledge of Kloppenborg’s stratification of Q, what purpose Ben’s review could have served, other than perhaps to correct his grammar. (In this excerpt, the “Dialogue” refers to the Q pericope Luke 7:11-35, what I call “the Dialogue between Jesus and John [the Baptist]”. The phrases in square brackets within the Zeichman quote are mine.)

This is only one example of the problems I point out (and they are legion) in Zeichman’s essay against me, Personally, I think he needs to junk the whole thing and start from scratch. In any case, I will be offering further examples from my rebuttal and will perhaps start a new thread the next time to do so. Incidentally, as I say in my introduction, this rebuttal is more than just a critique of Zeichman’s critique. It also introduces much in the way of new argument and evidence for my case that no historical Jesus lies at the root of Q, and I'll include examples of that.

”Fear and Loathing of Doherty’s Use of Q”: A Response to Chris Zeichman’s “Fear and Loathing in a Lost Gospel: Earl Doherty and the Case of Q”

All the best,
Earl Doherty

Ted Hoffman

Thanks Ben and Doherty. I am glad that, amongst other things, Doherty has reiterated the point I was making earlier regarding revieweing popular books as opposed to scholarly ones. In any event, a lot of work has to be done as far as exposing Biblical Scholarship for what it really is with regard to the origins of Christianity and how much can be supported with evidence and what alternative explanations exist besides the orthodox one.
I am prepared to review Jesus and Judaism if it will help clarify issues to other laypeople like myself - although I suspect that if HFoJ is bunk, J&J is likely to be bunk too. Both Turton and Doherty have written reviews that analyze the scholarship of Crossan. I do not know to what extent Meier's portrait has influenced the wider public but I am interested in reviewing a HJ book that has had a far-reaching influence. Even Carrier reviewed Doherty's book because of the stir it had caused and several people asked him to review it. There is a lot of debate going on all over the web and a review of a book that is being relied on by garden-variety Christians would be most helpful in triggering questions regarding the historical existence of Jesus. I haven't read Theissen and Merz but they strike me as borderline HJers like Mack (and what is with such tiny fonts in Who Wrote The New Testament?). Any pointers?
To the HJers reading this, is there a single book that in your view, presents the best case for a Historical Jesus? That is the book I would like to read. Who knows, I might just abandon my current position. After all, it will not affect my atheism and at best, can only prove that some guy lived and made an impression on other people.

Ted Hoffman

I have already read Van Voorst's Jesus Outside the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk)- which Gibson had recomended earlier. I find him borderline too and his book can be appealed to by both sides. Rick Sumner mentioned Sanders a few years ago and so I have reviewed it. Brown is thorough and detailed but I am not aware of any of his books where he tackles the question of who Jesus was. Plus, he has passed on. Younger, energetic, engaging and more liberal scholars like Goodacre would perhaps be more interesting to deal with.

Ben C Smith

I will probably not comment on it. I am not much of a Q supporter, so your debate with Chris feels like an in-house affair at which I would fit only awkwardly.

I repeat that, if you had asked me (as Chris did), I would have done so, no problem. By now, however, it feels a bit like goading, and I am about as easy to herd as a clowder of cats.

You have certainly gotten a lot of mileage out of a comment that I made months ago and at the same time you were declining to answer my Ascension of Isaiah thread.

I addressed the Ascension of Isaiah, and you declined to answer. I addressed Hebrews, and our exchange ended prematurely (on only the second page, IIRC)... and I was not the one who backed out. I challenged a statement of yours on the Zeichman thread, and you never got back to me. The only substantial exchange we have really had was on born of a woman, and again I was not the one to leave the thread.

Yet I turn you down once, on the Top 20 Silences, and it is all you can talk about since. Did I insult you with my comment on conceptual universes? Is that it?

Ben.

Ben C Smith

IMVHO, no. On TalkOrigins I once read a very nice series of essays about evidences for evolution. In the introduction the author noted that evolutionary biologists do not frequently turn their findings into evidences for evolution; rather they generally presume an evolutionary framework and debate the details (major paraphrasing there on my part). This series of essays was intended to actually turn some of those details into arguments for evolution against creationists.

Historicists are much the same way. (Nota bene: This is not a comparison of the merits of the separate cases for evolution or historicism.) They usually presume historicity, and pass up opportunities to turn their detailed findings into arguments precisely for an historical Jesus. For me, then, the best arguments for an historical Jesus are to be found by reading a lot of scholarship in ways it was not exactly intended, as it were.

Ben.