Ben C Smith

Earl Doherty likes to refer to what he calls an historicist circling of the wagons in the middle of the last century. This circling of wagons presumably involved a closing of ranks by (historicist) insiders against the threat of (mythicist) outsiders making significant headway in the academy.

Regardless of whether historicists ever consciously (or even unconsciously) performed such a defensive maneuver, that term, a circling of wagons, is what comes to my mind as I compare (or rather contrast) what Dr. Robert M. Price had to say about Acharya S in his review of her first book against what he had to say about her second book.

Here are two respective excerpts. Review 1:

For instance, recently I was interviewed on local television on the subject of my book Deconstructing Jesus. The host recommended the book to viewers along with Earl Doherty's masterful The Jesus Puzzle and Acharya S's The Christ Conspiracy, a work utterly unknown to me. I got a copy and read it for myself, and immediately I cringed, realizing that skeptics and freethinkers might, as apparently the television host did, regard my book and The Christ Conspiracy as interchangeable polemical weapons. The latter would confirm my suspicion that such people are no more discriminating than their mirror-opposites, the fundamentalist apologists, and are interested in any book, any argument, well- or ill-founded, that appears useful in the service of one's (religious or antireligious) cause.

Review 2:

The issues over which she and I differ are secondary, though important and fascinating. In my review (which I fear has done at least as much harm as it may have done good) of her previous book, I focused on our differences, disliking to be held responsible for certain specific views set forth by one with whom I am nonetheless in fundamental agreement. Some readers have opportunistically used my review out of context in order to rebut views on which Acharya and I are in fact in basic accord. So, hoping to avoid such a reading this time out, I would like to underline the fact that our differences over secondary points are legitimate differences in the way we weigh the evidence. I hope that readers of my review will take these differences as signals of where more research is necessary on all our parts. I know Acharya has given me many new questions and much to think about. That was true of her first book and equally true of this one. I do not mind acknowledging her as my teacher as well.

In the first excerpt, Price and Doherty stand apart from Acharya, who is regarded as the skeptical version of a fundamentalist apologist, and read the rest of the article; it does not get any better from there.

But Price at some point removed that review from his website (the link above is to a cached copy on the Wayback Machine that J. J. Ramsey pointed out on another thread). I originally was under the impression for some reason that he did so only because he was under pressure from Acharya for having revealed her real name. But his review of her second book seems to dispel such a simplistic notion.

In the second excerpt, Acharya stands side by side with Price; combining it with the first we get a cheerful picture of three dedicated writers sympathetic to mythicism. (One might compare it to the saintly image of Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker standing together at the conclusion of Return of the Jedi.)

More to the point, I think we get the impression that what matters more than quality of argumentation is fundamental agreement, as Price puts it, on the viability of the Christ myth. I get the impression of a group of insiders (Price, Doherty, Acharya) defending a single thesis despite differences big enough to inspire a scathing review of an entire book on the part of one against the other. (Granted, this group of insiders is not nearly so large as the group that closed ranks, according to Doherty, against mythicism, but the game mechanics would be the same.)

Is this a circling of the wagons?

I am interested in honest appraisals of and commentaries on this situation. I actually have a great deal of respect for Robert Price, despite different positions, but his flip-flop on Acharya has me mystified, perhaps even suspicious that there is something going on behind the scenes of which I (probably in good company) am blissfully unaware.

Ben.

ApostateAbe

Why did Price and Acharya S suddenly warm up to each other? Circling the wagons? If not that, it is likely something they're not going to tell anyone else. I would like to warn my brothers and sisters out there that you should not grant much scholarly authority to those who play popularity games. The well-educated authors who want to be popular tend to provide the conclusions that the audiences wish to believe at the expense of reason. I am tempted to say that, in legitimate scholarly circles, sociological studies like this do not matter nearly as much, but that would probably be wishful thinking on my end.

Ted Hoffman

Of course. My guess is that it was informed by a realization that:

1) The mythicists are a minority with enough 'enemies' on the other side so it would not help their case to have a go at each other: The HJers would only be delighted at this and proceed with alacrity to pit them against each other and capitalize on their disagreements. This, of course, would not help their 'cause.' Its better to piss outside your tent than to piss in it.

2) The HJers have an very huge amount of 'scholars' (like James Tabor and E. P. Sanders), who routinely publish fatuous manure but the more critical scholars do not attack their work or expose them as full of historical inaccuracies, mystical nonsense and fallacious reasoning. Instead, they are welcome with dignity into their guild and their works are reviewed scholastically in SBL and other forums, as if they are worthy of respect.

3) Based on the foregoing, its obvious that the best approach of mythicism is to have the more critical proponents develop along parralel lines with the popularizers (like Archaya) bringing in converts with their uncritical but controversial and popular potboilers, and Price and Doherty weaning the converts with critical stuff when they come of age. In other words, everyone has a role to play. As Vork says, we need everyone: the loud ones, the quiet thoughtful ones, the rash uncritical ones and so on. Consider Richard Dawkins for example, he routinely blunders in matters scientific and a number of scientists think he gives science a bad name, but he is a strong popularizer of science and an aggressive debater and he is not afraid to bring matters to the fore. Even Christopher Hitchens, very media savvy and eloquent but not a very good debater.
Bottom line, we need everyone. If we shut them down on account of facts and inaccuracies, we are cutting down on the number of troops that resonate with us on a foundational level and not helping our cause because the other side does not give a rats ass about facts: all they care about is the spread of a belief - that a HJ existed.

Roger Pearse

On another thread someone referred to litigation by Acharya S against Price. Is there documentation for this? Naturally it would explain a more cautious tone in a subsequent publication.

mountainman

At a superficial level they are intelligent enough
people to understand that they can help each
other sell books. At a more profound level most
people would agree that the waggons are loaded
with a fresh perspective on the Moebius-HJ, in
the form of MJ supplies, but nothing earth-shaking.


This has been the case since Nicaea.
What is new? What has changed?
What can the opposition do that to date
it has not done?

It can examine the case that the HJ was
fabricated for Nicaea. I have sketched
the territory for this already, here.

There are enough political history precedents
for this sort of thing. Military despots were
doing it routinely over the last few thousand
years.




Best wishes,


Pete Brown

GakuseiDon

That may have been me. I've seen Acharya threaten suing those who have criticized her, and so I wondered if the same occurred with respect to Dr Price. But I don't think we need to go further than that he has now some kind of friendship with her. Possibly not unexpected when you run in the same circles. And due to that friendship, he is more apt to be kind to her in his reviews. Still, if you look at his review of "Suns of God", while he is willing to give Acharya the benefit of the doubt in some areas, he blasts her (in a kind way) in others. So, even through their friendship, Dr Price manages to display objectivity.

What I can't understand is why Doherty gives Acharya the time of day. Doherty certainly should know better. It beggers belief that Doherty should be so one sided in his evaluation of her work. "Three Magi"? Doherty should know better than that.

Malachi151

I agree completely with Ben, and I think that it is something extremely detrimental to the field. That's how scholarship is degraded and the field loses credibility.

Its also why I feel so strongly about confronting the (lack of) scholarship of Acharya. I think that she is seriously damaging the field right now.

Ted Hoffman

You need to be a giant before you can damage a field IMO. Unless the field can easily be invaded by charlatans and crackpots. As it is, I think its the reputation of her work that is in tatters and herself as a credible, reliable author. Nobody holding a serious conference on Mythicism can invite her as a speaker, I think. Inclusion of her name in a list of speakers would suck out any respectability from such a panel. So, I think its her reputation that she has damaged. And probably, by extension, mythicism.

Jeffrey Gibson

I wonder if you could tell us Ted/Jacob, exactly what reviews of Sanders, Tabor, and other "fatuous" scholars published in JBL (SBL is an organization, not a journal) and elsewhere (CBQ, Biblia, NTS, JSNT, NovTest, etc.) you have actually read.

How many of the panels at SBL and CBA and SNTS dedicated to reviewing the works of HJ scholars have you been privy too?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

I'd be interested in hearing more specifically -- and with examples -- why you think her work is (as you put it previously) "manure" and what it is about her "scholarship" that you find so questionable that her presence at a conference would desolate its respectability.

Can you supply us with your specific criticisms of her work and her "scholarship"? What claims of hers do you find bogus? And where/why, in your eyes, is her scholarship poor/lacking?

Jeffrey