Toto

If you like to listen to podcasts -



The host is into some sort of New Age-ish neo-Gnosticism, and spends an inordinate amount of time at the beginning riffing on his philosophy, which you might or might not find entertaining - but then the interview with Zindler is quite down to earth.

Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth [Kindle Edition] (or via: amazon.co.uk)

ApostateAbe

Frank Zindler seems to be the mythicist who is interested in the subject for the sake of politics, and you can see it in this interview, the way he rebukes Ehrman for opposing both his friends and his enemies, as though Ehrman is also in it for the atheist activism. Zindler is a friend to all the mythicists, even the ones who are barely short of insane, though he may have gone out on a limb among the mythicists himself with his theory that Nazareth didn't exist. His arguments from silence would likewise prove that all but a few small villages in the ancient world never actually existed, a world of nothing but cities, apparently.

Toto

I though that Zindler pointed out that Ehrman was opposing both friends and enemies - not as a rebuke - but to imply that Ehrman was trying to occupy the "virtuous middle." I don't think there is any implication of political activism there.

Zindler is part of an activist organization. He also has extensive academic credentials.

I thought his arguments on the archaeology of Nazareth were quite interesting. He has more than an argument from silence.

ApostateAbe

Thanks for letting know. Sometimes I paid attention during that interview, sometimes I didn't.

aa5874

Surely, you must realise other people have heard what Zindler said.

What we have before us is a collarorative effort to expose the fallacies and massive errors in "Did Jesus Exist?" by Bart Ehrman probably the weakest of weak arguments for an HJ of Nazareth.

And not only that Zindler did make reference to the credibility of Ehrman with respect to information that he supplied to Ehrman.

ApostateAbe

At about 30 minutes in, Zindler brings up a common claim among mythicists, that ancient Christian docetists were akin to those who did not believe in a historical Jesus. Docetists were apparently second-century Christians who believed that Jesus had all the seeming of a human being but was really purely divine, and this was probably an attempt to reconcile the humanity of Jesus with the divinity of Jesus, which were generally incompatible natures in the ancient world. To claim that docetists were akin to mythicists seems to be just a failure of logic plain on the face. It would be like claiming that someone who believes in ghosts has plenty in common with someone who believe ghosts to be merely myth, because they both believe that ghosts are non-physical. But, to Zindler, it is only splitting hairs, and he speaks for a lot of mythicists out there. On the other hand, Zindler is flattered to be in the company of a new-age gnostic crank, so maybe it really isn't such a stretch in his mind?

MrMacSon

Docetism & Docetists, and other Gnostics, reflect the initial stories of a spiritual, heavenly saviour - part of the likely early evolution of the Jesus narrative.

Jeffrey Gibson

Which (presumably pre canonical Gospel) stores in particular, "initial" (?) or otherwise do they reflect? Where can we find these stories set out so that we can look at them ourselves?

Jeffrey

Horatio Parker

Much depends on the properties or qualities ascribed to the docetic Jesus.

If doceticism allows Jesus to appear any time any where than he is compatible with mythicism. If docetic Jesus is limited to appearing only in the times described in the gospels, then he's not.

ApostateAbe

Not likely, because the earliest Christian writings (synoptic gospels and Paul) speak of Jesus as a human being, not as God. Allusions to docetists came only after those writings.