burning flames

??/

GakuseiDon

Is it a question of "trustworthiness"? Are you planning on lending him a hundred bucks, for example?

Scholars have biases, just like anyone else. If you want to question their work, they can be accused of being biased (even if they're not). Which do you want to pin on him?

burning flames

found this video.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...arch&plindex=7

Toto

Robert Price has two PhDs, in NT studies and systematic theology. He is a contributor to the Internet Infidels Library.

You can find more information about him here.

I think he is honest and at least as trustworthy on most questions as anyone else you can find.

Your link goes to an interview with Reginald Finley. Don't expect everyone to be able to see a video or take the time to watch it.

Roger Pearse

He's a fringe scholar.

Toto

That wasn't the question. He disagrees with some of the current trends in the field, which might make him "fringe."

But then the question in the OP was not exactly well formed.

Malachi151

I've read two of his book, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man and The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-four Formative Texts. I found them both very informative and there was nothing in those books that I followed up on that didn't pan out.

I find him to be quite trustworthy and reserved in his judgments.

Jeffrey Gibson

But, given what appears to be a lack of grounding on your part in the material that Price speaks about, the question is whether your estimation of the value of his work or the quality of his judgments is any good.

I take it, for instance, that you've not done much work in the scholarship on the ancient novel -- especially as that is set out in, say, P. Readon's Collected Ancient Greek Novels and in David Aune's entry on the ancient novel in his Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature and Rhetoric (or via: amazon.co.uk). If you had, you'd have seen how Price skews data to support some apriori conclusions about the forms and functions of NT writings.

You might want to have a look at what is said about Price's scholarship in the recently published The Jesus Legend (or via: amazon.co.uk) by P.R. Eddy and G.A. Boyd -- of which Price himself has said "I am gratified that my friends and colleagues Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd have taken my work as seriously as they have in this comprehensively researched work [which, BTW, also reviews Earl's writings]. I urge any reader of my books to read this one alongside them".

Jeffrey

Doug Shaver

As others have noted, your question is not well formed, and so I cannot give you a straight answer.

For myself, though . . . if I want to know whether I should believe what a particular scholar writes, I examine the methods they use to reach their conclusions. And, if other scholars disagree with them, I examine the methods those scholars use in their attempts to discredit them.

hatsoff

I'm not sure how trustworthy he is compared to other individual NT academics, however from what I've read of him (which is not very much, I admit), I can't think of anything which might disqualify him as a useful source of information on Biblical scholarship. Yet whenever one reads an author--regardless of that author's credentials--he must be careful. Historical research works best when multiple scholars work together and critique eachother's ideas. Individuals have a far greater tendency to make mistakes.