Amaleq13

Thanks for that information. I will now happily withdraw my earlier claim that Jesus-mythicism has not been subjected to peer review though the main points obviously still stand (ie Jesus-mythicism cannot be considered part of mainstream scholarship and not every detail about Jesus is disputed in mainstream scholarship).

I'm sure spamandham will eventually thank you for fulfilling his responsibilities for one of his unsubstantiated claims.

~M~

For what it is worth, Carrier reviewed Doherty's case.

Chris Weimer

Price isn't the same kind of mythicist as talked about here. He believed that early Christian communities took this Jesus fellow and made up their own stories/sayings etc... and attributed it to him. For some reason, even Price still has the Jesus figure there to start it all, but we just don't know anything about him.

From the review:
If I understand this correctly, the three elements - gnostic, rabbinic, and cynic - were all merged and transposed into this Jesus character. So while there may not have been a Jesus of Nazareth, there wasn't this sub-lunar Jesus, yet there was somebody.

Am I understanding Price right?

Amaleq13

Yes but "peer review" was in the context of professional journals.

Amaleq13

Hey, I'm trying to throw poor S&H a bone or, at the very least, bring an end to an ultimately irrelevant tangent.

I think it is accurate for when he wrote that book but, IIUC, he has since moved further into the MJ camp.


So, in your opinion, the mythicist position has yet to be genuinely subjected to critical peer review?

Chris Weimer

I haven't communicated with Price at all on the issue, so I cannot say one way or another. I wonder what his position is now, for I was about to write a short blog post on one of the problems I noticed with his position (well, two, but there's already been plenty said about Jesus the Cynic).

I don't know. I haven't looked around for it. I know it hasn't been subjected to thorough critical peer review, something that every solid theory needs before it can become legit (even if not mainstream). I assume Price and Carrier will soon be publishing more on it. I expect that they will be answered when they do.

Chris Weimer

Talking to Dr. Price, his position came across not as assured as Doug seems to imply. He thinks, he said, that there are still good arguments for an historical Jesus, but "on the whole [he leans] the other way." His comments also reminded me of someone more agnostic - the question, in his opinion, will never be settled. I pressed him further, but he's to answer yet. So we'll see. In any case, it's a step.

However, one thing I noticed - it's not the same thing as Doherty's "mythicism". I even asked Dr. Price about how he's using the term "mythicism" in comparison to Doherty's use of it - so hopefully we'll see about that also.

GakuseiDon

I wonder whether Doherty's position has been subjected to critical review by anyone, in particular by knowledgeable mythicists like Dr Price. I can understand complaints that scholars ignore Doherty because of the controversial nature of his claims, but where are the reviews by the mythicists confirming Doherty's findings? I don't mean people who point to Doherty's book and say "good read!" I mean people who have investigated points raised by Doherty, e.g. on the "fleshly sublunar realm", how pagans believed that the myths of the gods acted in a "spiritual realm", how Second Century apologists didn't believe in a HJ.

I've only seen reviews by amateurs in the field, and these are generally negative (including mine). The only positive one I know is a short one by Carrier, but even he finds problems. Is he right regarding those problems? Are they areas that mythicists should be discussing, in order to iron out problems and get the best case together?

The pattern seems to be that people who disagree with Doherty are "locked into a paradigm". So it would be very useful to read mythicists/non-theists who have reviewed Doherty's book. Do we have any mythicists/non-theists who have reviewed or are in the process of reviewing Doherty's book? If not, why not?

Amaleq13

No, that's pretty much what I was thinking (ie that he seems to have become less agnostic than he appeared to be before). It might just be my perceptions of him that have changed.

Ted Hoffman

Despite the problems, he leans towards mythicism so that tells you that they are not huge problems. In any case, issues regarding platonism and the "fleshly sublunar realm" are unclear whether you are arguing mythicism or not. So its not just a problem for mythicism. Anyone interested in understanding the ancient/platonic cosmology should be busy ironing out these issues not asking what mythicists are doing about them.
I think Carrier's review was as good as any. Scholars should be busy developing alternative mythicist theories, not reviewing what they already agree with so that mythicism can grow from many fronts. In my view, what matters is not whether or not amateurs like you developed "negative reviews" but whether the issues you raised were resolved or resolveable and whether they were real issues.