Steven Carr

Didn't Earl Doherty or a sponsor once offer to fund an issue of a journal to discuss the historical Jesus?

And the offer was rejected as the subject was 'of no interest'?

Does anybody have a copy of what was said in the rejection?

Toto

Here is the original thread, from the archives:

http://www.freeratio.org/thearchives...d.php?t=147064

It wasn't Doherty - it was someone who offered to fund a discussion of the issue. And it wasn't a mainstream "journal" - it was the "Fourth R" publication from Westar (the Jesus Seminar) which is called a magazine, but is more like a short bulletin, with a few articles of interest to religious liberals.

The exact words:

hjalti

Why doesn't Earl either publish a book at an academical publisher ot try to get an article published in an academic journal?

ApostateAbe

Yes, the mythical Jesus theory apparently was a living issue 100 years ago. It is sort of like donating $5000 to Discover magazine to debate the issue of whether humans descended from monkeys. It would be ethically responsible to turn it down like any other bribe, especially if their readers are not interested in it.

Steven Carr

The historical Jesus theory, by contrast, is very much a living issue.

After the failure of 3 Quests to find the Historical Jesus, you can now earn at least that 5000 writing books documenting the repeated failures to find an historical Jesus that people can agree existed.

2-J

I was in the big Waterstone's bookstore in Birmingham last week and in the Religion section I saw the shelves were littered with books claiming to offer an account of the authentic Jesus behind Christianity. Agreeing on virtually nothing, if anything. Very depressing.

aa5874

But, when this passage is closely examined there appears to be some gross fallacy or error.

This writer fallaciously implies that once a person is deemed a skeptic that they will always be a skeptic.

There must be some who were once skeptics that now believe Jesus did exist.

His experience is beyond belief.

ApostateAbe

I can not disagree. There will probably always be debate about who Jesus was. Some people think that the lack of agreement about who Jesus was undercuts the theory that he ever existed, but the argument is a non-sequitur, because the most direct and relevant evidence that Jesus existed does not speak to the specific personality that he had.

Steven Carr

There has always been disagreement about who Jesus was.

2 Corinthians 11
For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.

Even in Paul's time, Christians had different historical Jesus's.

If it could not be settled then who the historical Jesus had been, how can it be settled now?

ApostateAbe

The times are not really comparable, because it wasn't so much about historical accuracy as it was about gaining the greatest number of Christian followers. But, yeah, the issue is not going to be settled any time as long as there are people willing to sacrifice the greatest likelihood in favor of personal wishful thinking.