andrewcriddle

This quote from Schweitzer (p 411 of Quest) is discussing the situation among scholars belonging to the history of religion movement. For such scholars it was almost obligatory to emphasize the alleged importance of pre-Christian myths in the origins of Christianity. Schweitzer should not be taken as sympathizing himself with that particular tradition of scholarship.

Andrew Criddle

Toto

This appears to be the updated announcement:The Amazon link on that page does not work (yet), but there is a B&N Nook version

PhilosopherJay

Hi Toto,

Getting a famous Biblical Scholar like Ehrman to acknowledge that this is an issue is a great step forward. I hope he comes up with good arguments and not the old "Eusebius says so and why would Eusebius lie" stuff.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Toto

And we can expect over 50% more value due to the extra time.

Chocky

I emailed Ehrman earlier this month about his book, and he said it was ready and had gone to the publisher.

Chocky

I hope he distinguishes between the old "Christ-Myth" and modern writers like Doherty. Scholars can't defeat mythicism by assuming it just uses the same arguments as Robertson/Drews/Mangasarian etc.

Solo

It is clear that Schweitzer personally had no doubts about the historical substance of the figure of Jesus. However, the passage from which I quoted criticizes not only Robertson/Smith/Drews, saying that "their errors are manifest and must be exposed" but also the historians of religion who, "do not seriously question the more general view of their opponents (the mythicists of his time), but only their boldest assertions". He says further that history of religion has "sunk to the level of vulgarization". I would consider Ehrman's ill-advised past comments that we know more about Jesus than most historical figures of antiquity fitting such description. It is simply not true.

Best,
Jiri

Tom Verenna

Just some other info on this, since some of you have an interest in this book. Ehrman was originally (and it is my understanding, still is) going after internet mythicism, i.e., like those who follow the Zeitgeist movement. He was unaware of Thomas Thompson's book, my coedited volume on the subject (forthcoming) or Richard Carrier's forthcoming work. He has been made aware of these and he acknowledged he would be looking into them and engaging them and not just dealing with the Zeitgeisters. So hopefully he follows through with his promises. It would be nice to see someone do that. I am also under the impression that he is engaging Doherty's work as well. But I am not as sure about that one.

Toto

It's hard to believe that Ehrman could be that unaware of the subject, or that he could get up to speed in six months.

Internet Jesus mythicism is not the same as the Zeitgeist/Acharya S crowd.

thedistillers

Isn't it interesting that it is called:

The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth

rather than the historical evidence for Jesus?

That alone already speaks volume about the quality of the evidence. Why, afterall, would you need to make an argument if the evidence was good enough?