Diogenes the Cynic

Yes, that is about as bad as he gets. He does not engage in the same tenor of hyperbole and character assassination that he has gotten in return.

Toto

There has been no character assassination of Ehrman.

Ehrman's criticisms of Doherty and Price were not ad hominem, and the criticism of his work on this book was similarly aimed at the content of the work, not his character.

Steven Carr

I'm just astonished that Ehrman, who produced a truly fantastic piece of scholarship in 'The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture', now writes the way he does.

'Corruption' was that rare thing - a work of great scholarship that was a real page-turner, despite being on a supposedly dry subject.

It was one of the best books I have ever read.

Solo

There is a silly attack on G.A.Wells and J.M. Robertson on page of 150 DJE, accusing them of making up a messianic group called "brothers of the Lord".

Now, this is a nasty piece of skullduggery by Ehrman. First of all, he does not quote properly. Wells wrote a number of books (I have four of them) and his view of the matter has evidently undergone some development over the years though in the books that I have, his argument has substantuially been the same. Nowhere that I have seen, is Wells arguing for a messianic group separate from what Acts presents as Jerusalem Christians. Ehrman is likely misquoting Wells who says in his 2009 volume, Cutting Jesus Down To Size, p 143:

As a matter of fact a group of "apostles", (a term which was unlikely used in Jerusalem in Paul's time to refer to Jesus' disciples) is said to have segregated itself in Acts 6 and left the everyday running of the assembly to the Hellenist deacons. The group proclaims "we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word." (Acts 6:4) The problem is "the word" was Paul's teminus technicus for "the gospel" (Rom 9:6, 10:8, 1 Cr 1:18, 1 Cr 14:36, Gal 6:6) and Paul, according to the Acts was still harrassing the church when this happened. So is hard to imagine then that the group's object of their ministry would have been "the word". It is much more likely they were brothers in the ministry of the Lord, meaning Lord God. The idea that temple worshipping Jews would have referred to a human being by the (near-absulute) non-titular Lord, strikes me as goofy. It would have been seen as impiety if not blasphemy. Of course, "the brothers of the Lord" would later morph into "apostles" and the "apostles" of Paul time, i.e. those who were missionaries for the assembly, and collected money for them, would disappear. So the charge that Ehrman makes that Wells or Robertson invented a messianist group is pure bunkum and demeaning to Wells. He should apologize.

Best,
Jiri

Diogenes the Cynic

Or maybe he just meant "brother." If it refers to some elite "brotherhood." then why aren't the other Pillars in it? Why make that distinction for James alone? "I saw no other apostles but James, the brother of the Lord." Are none of the other apostles brothers of the Lord? If they all are, then isn't it redundant to say that for James.

Even if all the Pillars are in this hypothetical brotherhood, then it's still redundant to say it about James in a context where he's talking about the Pillars?

If Peter and John were not Pillars,then who the hell was elite enough/

The only reason to reject a plain reading is to serve an a priori desire to reject any possibility of a genuine historical personage behind the Jesus myth.

I heard Robert Price say recently on his podcast that whenever there is a great deal of disagreement and argument over the meaning of a passage, it's usually because the meaning is obvious.

Does that mean Paul MUST have been referring to a literal brother of a real person? No, but I need to see some explanation for why James was singled out for that distinction even from Peter and John.

Solo

FWIW, I don't think that James the pillar is James the Just. Take a peek !

Best,
Jiri

manoj

In the last chapter of DJE?, after having 'proven' his case, Ehrman trains his guns on people who question the very existence of Jesus. He then proceeds to psychoanalyze them. (The Mythicist Agenda, page 336-339.)

The only reason people question Jesus' historicity is because they are anti-religion, apparently. Here are two snippets:

I do not know about Dr. Carrier or Dr. Price. I took that as a personal insult.

GDon, if you haven't already, please do read the book.

-Manoj

GakuseiDon

I can understand that. The problem is that there ARE mythicists out there like that, and these are probably the more vocal ones.

Richard carrier writes about his concern with the "sloppy methodology of other mythers". Even he has faced the scorn of mythicists, from the likes of Acharya S, calling it "unfriendly paranoia":
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/580

I have also had mythers’ unfriendly paranoia cited at me by professors in the field, forcing me to also prove I don’t act like that–I had dismissed that claim about Murdock in the past, but now seeing it flung at me, evidently the scholars who mentioned it to me were correct about it; this is not doing her or mythicism any good, it makes them both look like tinfoil hat.

I think that the mythicist "tinfoil hat" brigade is the one Ehrman is psychoanalyzing there, probably because they are the ones that are sending him the most emails. Once Carrier publishes his books in a scholarly format, that should change.

Carrier also writes (same link as above):

I will conclude with this: it is precisely because of these threads of research and analysis, which tediously take up my time for no purpose, only to reveal how unreliable Murdock is, in reporting, sourcing, and discussing facts, and in drawing inferences from what she quotes, that I don’t want to engage in these debates. If I were to repeat this for every claim she makes, and every claim every myther made, I would be occupied with this for hundreds of years. All to no purpose.

If you had to psychoanalyze the motives of the mythicists referred to by Carrier, what do you think is motivating them to accept ideas that are clearly ludicrous? You can see Carrier's concern about the "tinfoil hat" mythicists and Ehrman's own views; what do you think? What drives the "tinfoil hat" mythicists, that makes them the most vocal?

I certainly shall one day soon. I'm planning to buy the ebook version, once my PC is set up with an ebook-friendly program.

hjalti

I've just started reading the book, and I must say that so far (16% done) Ehrman isn't that mean.

The problem is of course that on the one hand we have the "crank"-side of mythicists and on the other we have more serious mythicists (who cite primary sources, are more careful). Ehrman makes that distinction clear in the introduction.

Maybe he didn't always make that distinction clear, but from what I've seen, he has not said "bad things" about the saner side of mythicism, like Carrier or Price.

Toto

Once again, GDon is obsessed with Acharya S and exaggerating her importance.

The whole question of the historical Jesus has been the subject of a variety of tinfoil hat theorists, only some of whom are mythicists. There are also a variety of historicist theories are "ludicrous" to the mainstream, and they are attractive to people for the same reason conspiracy theories are - they explain events that otherwise remain a puzzle. The whole story in the gospels of Jesus just doesn't make sense, and there is a human tendency to try to make sense of things.

The big issue on the biblioblogs at present is not Ehrman's book. It is a book with a TV special attached to it, authored by James Tabor, a credentialed professor, which claims that the actual tomb of Jesus has been found, and that Jesus was part of a royal dynasty.

The best seller of all time on the historical Jesus is probably Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, based on a book that claims to have found the secret history.

These "fringe" thinkers are all historicists, and they make much more money than mythcists.

And then there are mainstream Christians, whose beliefs are at least a ludicrous as any tinfoil hat mythcist - a guy rose from the dead? That's the only way to explain Christianity?