Steven Carr

Of course, he isn't.

But the forthcoming 'Enyclopediea of the Historical Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk)' would cut away the entire ground Doherty stands on, if the scholarship were any good.

Take http://paulinetheology.blogspot.com/

This says ' Only a few references to the sayings and activities of Jesus prior to his crucifixion appear. In this regard the Pauline corpus is not unlike other NT letters, the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse. These too contain few quotations of or allusions to Jesus’ teachings and deeds during his earthly ministry.'

Well, there you are.

Even people who definitely taught an historical Jesus (such as the author of the Acts of the Apostles) had just the same few allusions to Jesus deeds during his earthly ministry as Paul does.

How then can Doherty claim that there is something special about Paul (and not just Paul , of course)

Except.....

Jesus himself appearing in Acts?

Try Acts 10, where a few verses tell us more about Jesus of Nazareth, than the whole of Paul's letters.

Mentions of Judea, Galilee, Jerusalem, miracles, John the Baptist, and even the fact that Peter saw some of things things. (Something nobody can get from Paul)

All missing from Paul, and hardly a 'few allusions'

Still, historical Jesus scholars have no great need to back up what they say with scholarship.

After all, everybody knows there was an historical Jesus.

The author writes :-'For example, in writing of love’s supremacy (1 Cor 13:2) Paul echoes Jesus’ teaching that faith can move mountains (Matt 17:20).

Paul never acknowledges that Jesus taught that.

In fact, while Matthew has Jesus portray a faith that can move mountains as a good thing, Paul downgrades the teachings of his Lord and Saviour and declares such a faith as 'nothing'.

If Paul got that from Jesus, he would not have dared twist his Master's words in the way he did. He would have had more respect for the Lord's metaphors.

But Doherty has already covered this, in a way that historical Jesus scholars just ignore.

Minimalist

These people are desperate. They now lack the ability to burn people at the stake for saying these things and their hold on power suffers accordingly.

Toto

Hm, so scholars disagree as to whether Paul didn't know much about Jesus, or didn't care much about his words and deeds, or preferred to just preach about Jesus but not write about him, or. . . . . And now an entire encyclopedia on what is not known, (costing $165 when it comes out next year), and how scholars can disagree on what that means.

Homepage for the Encyclopedia of the HJ

List of entries

Vorkosigan

Is there a methodology section?

Toto

Yes, there is a methodology section. The links above seem to be down, but when they were up I copied a table of sections. Methodologies had the following topics:

• Aramaic and ipsissima verba Jesu
• archaeology and Jesus
• authenticity criteria
• chronology
• form criticism
• Gospels, extra-New Testament
• historical criticism (or Gospels as sources)
• interpretation of the Gospels (general)
• language criticism
• literary criticism, new forms of
• redaction criticism
• social criticism
• source criticism (including Synoptic Problem)
• sources, extra-New Testament (e.g., Josephus, etc.)
• textual criticism and oldest Gospel manuscripts
• tradition criticism

eta: you can read Craig Evan's article on Form Criticism in the Google cache.