Metacrock

Meta => Merry Mithramass Mike!

"Arou Mazda rest ye merry gentlemen
let nothing you dismay
for Mirthras the ashvin guy came on
Mirthramass day
to save us all from the cosmic bull
when we had gone astray

O good tidings of comfort and joy
comfort and joy...

Vorkosigan

Sorry Michael, I shouldn't really post late at night - I was rambling about various things there. I didn't mean to suggest that my above characterisation was an accurate summary of your own position or that of some of the mythicists. OTOH it's not a complete charicature because I have seen people who should really know better, on these boards and elsewhere, use exactly those objections to a historical Jesus - eg in Losing Faith in Faith Dan Barker asserts that no such person as Jesus existed, and one of the lines of evience he uses is that there are contradictions in the Gospels. I don't really think that those kinds of leaps of logic do the image of atheism a great deal of good.

I tend to agree, but take comfort in the fact that there are a lot more naive theists out there than naive atheists. Confession time: I found Barker's book heartfelt but embarrassing. The best parts were the discussions of his own experiences as a pastor who was becoming an atheist; the worst, his discussion of the Bible. I wish he'd just junk that, and give us more dirt on the pastors who are faking it.

Also, I've never read Doherty (!). He comes under the heading of Experiences I Will Enjoy And Thus Am Putting Off.

Michael

Metacrock

Meta => I wish i had said that.

Family Man

If that is the mythicist position, it is one with which I am in accord. I've frequently seen the position stated as Jesus never existed; if I misunderstood the position, I apologize. The latter position I have little respect for; the former position is quite sensible.

My purpose in presenting Brown wasn't to imply that he was the end all in biblical scholarship. Like all scholars, he ought to be read as critically as any historical document. The point I was making is that much of what passes as theistic commentary in this forum violates how critical scholarship is actually done. Brown is clearly taking a Christian viewpoint; but even within that bias, he is still careful to point out the limitations of arguments he makes. We never see such caution with guys like Nomad, Layman, and evidently Polycarp, who has rashly admitted his attraction to bull feces. In doing so, they do quite a bit of harm to their own position.

Of course, that is not necessarily a bad thing, is it?

Metacrock

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Polycarp:
[QB][b]

I won't quibble over percentages, but if Cowboy X doesn't start a thread on the topic I will after I'm finished celebrating the birth of Mithras next week. I've got the bull lined up to be sacrificed. You know, we need one to get the blood running onto us and stuff.

I'm in the same camp as Layman and Nomad, and I don't think I'm any less prone to BS than they are.

Meta =>Are you kidding, Nomad is Canadian! Layman is Texan, like me, that should answer that question.


Anything of which they're guilty, I have also probably committed. As a matter of fact, I think they're gonna be over at my place for the bull sacrifice ceremony.

Meta => Hey no body invited me!

But seriously now... We'll resurrect the Jesus-myth in the near future and see who crawls out of the woodwork.

Meta => If you invite me to bull sacraficing shindig I'll bring the Marx Brother's films and the Joan Baez Albums, (o shhhhhh, they aren't suppossed to know about that part of the cerimony).

Metacrock

Meta =>I tried to get Doherty to come back and debate me but he wouldn't. I'm not saying that's because he was afraid, of course not. Seriously I'm not saying that. But for whatever reason it didn't happen.You to debate me on the 1x1 board? I'll do it. In fact I'll debate anyone, at the drop of a hat. Depending of course on which hat.

Seriously, I would like to do that. When I'm through with my Gurdur debate I'm going to take on Still and Bill S. and then I'll take you on if you wish! I like the 1x1 thing better than daily posting.

BTW whose going to vouch for Foucault now that Postmodernism has kind of packed it in?

Toto

Meta - why do you say Postmodernism has packed it in? If so, what is replacing it? I thought you used Postmodernism to bash the Enlightenment. What will you use now?

As for debating you, I haven't even had the time to read your debate with Gurdur. I might catch up with that over Mithrasmas (or Newonmas for the Enlightenment crowd.)

Metacrock

Meta =>Like most big trends in academia that last for several decades, it is slow to vanish and slow to be replaced by any one particualr craze. So it's mark will remain for some time. Probably a couple of decades from now one will be able to look at a college catelouge and say "OK, Gender politics 101, that's left over from the post modern days but they still offer it because it became an orthodoxy for a time."

As for what's replacing it, that has yet to be seen. As far as I can tell no one school or trend has emerged to replace it outright, but among those that are the strongest, genetic determinism is at the top of the list. So is a return to the conservative orthodoxy of modernism in terms of science and reductionistic assumptions. But the PC thing is still around and will be for a long time. Women's studies will always been around. Some aspects of PM will always be there. One can still point to certain classes in ethics and say "this is left over from the days of G.E. More and emotivism at the turn of the century (19th to 20th) and so it is with PM.

As for what I will do with without it, well I think the aspects from which I barrow are minimal so I can probably get away with making those assertions for some time ;-) ahahahahaahah.


Meta => neither have I!



ahahahah, thanks man. Issac thanks you, I thank you.

CX

Doherty is revered by noone who actually does real research in Historical Jesus studies, including the Non-Xian scholars.

CX

Well, "kook" and "nutjob" are subjective opinions. I conclude this from having corresponded with him and from the feedback I've gotten from legitimate biblical scholars. I don't have any burning desire to defend the position that Doherty's thesis is essentially without merit, but consider this:

A)Doherty is not really recognized as a biblical scholar, I cannot find his curriculem vitae, but I recall getting a hold of it before (several years ago) and noting that he is not lettered in biblical studies and is for all intents and purposes, just a very well read dilletante.
Originally the book was available only in PDF format online. It was apparently subsequently published by some obscure humanist publisher in Canada. Doherty's work in the field does not appear in any peer reviewed journals. If a theist published anything with no academic background and no support from other scholars AND the book was published in an online format and only later through some wacky fundamentalist publisher like Zondervan noone here would accept it. Even a Xian scholar with a good academic background and published peer reviewed articles who nonetheless published a thesis in the popular press would just as quickly dismissed especially if his theory contravenes the currently established one. Consider as an example Biochemist Dr. Micahel Behe and his "irreducible complexity" thesis in support of intelligent design creationsim.

Because Doherty's thesis does agree with the preconcieved ideas of some lay people it is accepted without the proper amount of scrutiny and skepticism.

B)Despite Doherty's feeble background and lack of support in the scholarly community and depsite having no published articles in peer reviewed journals, his thesis could still be right, but it is wildly divergent from existing theory and relies heavily on his own post-hoc reasoning. There are any number of sources outside the canonical new testament both extra-canonical Xian or Gnostic Xian works and in Pagan or Jewish works. None of these comes anywhere near proving the historicity of the NT, but it seems sufficiently established to conclude that Xianity had a real human founder. The early church fathers in the beginning of the 2nd cnetury are absolutely preoccupied with anything from Jesus' original followers to give authority to there position. This presupposes that Jesus had such followers and thus implicitly that Jesus was a real person.

C)There isn't any really good reason to suppose Jesus is an entirely fictional personnage. It has been a long time since I read Doherty's work or corresponded with him so I'm not prepare for a full-refutation of Doherty's thesis nor am I inclined to commence one, but if anyone would like to take what they consider particularly compelling arguments from Doherty's thesis and excerpt them here I'd be happy to address them within the reasonable constraints of both my interest and time.

In the end it doesn't really matter to me. I conclude that the Jesus presented in the NT is not an historical person but rather is based on one. My interest is in the development of the Xian text legacy and early Xian theology, however, so whether Jesus really existed or not is not of much interest to me. It is an extraoridnary claim to say he did not exist and so requires extraordinary evidence. Evidence which, owing to Jesus relative obscurity initially, is significantly lacking either for or against.

I guess what really annoys me about supporters of Doherty is that in other instances where a particular position equally controversial and with similar support is advanced in support of theistic claims is put forward, it is dismissed out of hand. As it should be IMO. I think it is intellectually dishonest for nontheists to than embrace Doherty so readily.

[ December 22, 2001: Message edited by: CowboyX ]</p>