James The Least

"Classicist Michael Grant" just regurgitated what the McGraths of his day said about the historical Jesus.

Tenorikuma

I actually like McGrath (probably one of the few here who does) when he's not mocking mythicists, but this conversation illustrates two of my biggest problems with him.

1. Equating historical opinions with pseudoscience and Young Earth Creationism. This is just a petty smearing tactic that no honest scholar should resort to, because it's intended to disparage the messenger and distract from the message. It's also counterproductive as a debate tactic, because it makes his position look desperate.

2. Lack of familiarity with primary sources. McGrath is far too dogmatic about his position for someone who can be (and is) shown up on a regular basis by amateurs who have read and studied more than he has.

mountainman

Grant has however no qualms whatsoever in slagging Eusebius. In his article Early Alexandrian Christianity he mentions Eusebius about 50 times and on nearly every occasion has nothing good to say about him.



εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

neilgodfrey

I used to get along quite happily with McGrath. We had what we both considered stimulating discussions for a while -- through 2008 and 2009. He even wrote in response to one of my comments:

Thanks for this detailed interaction! I’ll try to offer something more substantial than “Thank you” in response at some point, but I didn’t want to wait until I had time to do that in order to express appreciation for your detailed interaction with what I’ve written!

And even after the question of mythicism was raised in early 2010 we still had cordial exchanges for some time, with James once responding with:

Thank you for taking the time to respond in such detail. There’s a lot here, and I will try to interact in detail over time in a way that does justice to your many points.

I look forward to your presentation of your own positive explanation of how you think the myth of Jesus was created and how it came to be misunderstood. I’ve yet to come across such a presentation that seriously engaged the primary source material.

One major point about which we clearly disagree is that you think Paul’s letters present a God who becomes flesh. To me, they seem to clearly reflect the view of Jesus as a human being, who is then exalted to a god-like status. I suspect this more than anything else may account for our divergent views on a number of other topics.

Just out of curiosity, if you understand Jesus to originally be viewed as a divine figure, and believe that it was thereafter that he was made more human, would you in any way depart from the usual view regarding the order of Gospels . . . I’m just curious about your views on this.

Thank you for the stimulating interaction!

Ah, now those were the days!

mountainman

halcyon




εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

andrewcriddle

I think there is a confusion here between the classicist Michael Grant and the church historian RM Grant (who wrote the article on Eusebius and Origen.)

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller

Hee hee hee hee

mountainman

Thanks again Andrew.

Robert M. Grant (theologian)

Michael Grant (author)






εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

neilgodfrey

When McGrath refers to "historical criticism" here, is he not really referring to the work of "literary/textual criticism"?

Toto

I think he means Historical_criticism.

I don't know why he thinks that historical criticism had reached such definitive results.