Toto

The Historical Jesus: Five Views (or via: amazon.co.uk) James K. Beilby (Author, Editor), Paul R. Eddy (Editor)

with essays by Robert M. Price, Darrell Bock, John Dominic Crossan, Luke Timothy Johnson and James D. G. Dunn

Rick Sumner

It will be interesting to see what Johnson--perhaps the only person who can really hold to the old Bultmannian conviction of historical impossibility--has to say in contrast to Price. Two extremes of fundamentally the same point.

Steven Carr

Presumably these people , being scholars, all subscribe to the consensus that we are told exists about the historical Jesus of Nazareth.

So why not just print one essay, 5 times?

Toto

What would be the fun in that?

Price is there to represent mythicism. Bock, I gather, represents the maximalist position ("while critical method yields only a "gist" of Jesus, it takes us in the direction of the Gospel portraits.") Crossan represents the Jesus Seminar, Dunn represents liberal British Protestants, and Luke Timothy Johnson rejects attempts to find a historical Jesus.

You tell me where the consensus is.

maryhelena

I found the following review online - - nothing of note by the reviewer. I just had a chuckle with the reviewer's quote from Crossan - who seemingly wrote, in regard to Robert Price's contribution to the book: "...John did not say, "God so loved the world that God sent us a story.".....

http://bbhchurchconnection.blogspot....-review-3.html

aa5874

But, didn't John say" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.....And the Word was made flesh....

It is most alarming when so-called scholars use the very sources that presented Jesus as a God who created heaven and earth, and turn around and claim he was just a man.

The entire NT is fundamentally about a GOD/MAN, not a man.

dog-on

Here is, again, where I become confused:

Why is this a "fatal flaw"?

aa5874

This statement by Dunn is most astonishing when there is an example recorded in antiquity for any serious scholar to consider where MARCION invented a Phantom Jesus who lived in Capernaum during the days of Tiberius.

And there is also Valentinus who must have also invented his Christ with his Aeons and Pleroma.

Wholesale inventions of Gods, angels and devils are nothing new. Less than 200 years ago, a man invented an angel named Moroni.

It is just absurd to suggest that an invention of a MYTH is improbable.

maryhelena

Methinks, the “fatal flaw’ lies with Dunn’s interpretation of the Jesus myth - at least with what his above comments reflect.

“..total invention of a figure who had purportedly lived within the generation of the inventors....”

Inventing a Jesus of Nazareth that actually lived in their own generation - now that would be no better than the imaginary friends that children like to invent. And, as with children, those early Christians would have had a hard time trying to convince others that their ‘friend’ - friends - really are real. And, surely, if that would have been the case 2000 years ago - it hardly needs saying that it’s not going to be an idea that will sell today!

What the early Christians produced, the gospel storyline, is an attempt to merge mythology with prophecy. In so doing they created the story of Jesus of Nazareth. And it is this that the Jesus myth theory tries to understand. It’s a theory, Dunn notwithstanding, that does not attempt to use a magic wand to create real friends out of imaginary ones...

‘...the imposition of such an elaborate myth on some minor figure from Galilee..”

Well, on this point, Dunn needs to set down the historical evidence for such a ‘minor figure from Galilee’ - before he can start raising questions regarding whether or not a dying and rising god mythology has been superimposed upon such a “minor figure from Galilee.”

I've not read the book - so these comments are simply an opinion on what this particular reviewer has noted in his review of the book.

Steven Carr

Because Dunn is incredulous that such a thing could happen.

And if Dunn simply cannot believe something can happen, that is a fatal flaw to the idea that if happened.