Toto

The extended discussion on reasons to believe in a HJ has been split here

GakuseiDon

Nah, it's not something I'm interested in escalating. Either Tom will pull the Jesus Project down, or the Jesus Project will pull Tom up. He isn't off to a good start, though. He's treating scholars like he did the people on the RRS forum. No good can come of that.

Eventually he will have to repudiate his RRS past, including comments like "Belief in God is a mental disorder". He has an opportunity to put away the animosity he has built up with others over the years, and he will need to do so, otherwise it is going to follow him back to the Jesus Project.

IGExpandingPanda

No, Tom (Rook) gave a lecture in New York

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...EJbUqAOm8ajHBQ

It wasn't received very well. I and someone else tried to warn Jane Everhart of New York City Atheists about Rook and get them to correct an erronious press release that Rook translated the whole bible from Greek. Rather than face reality she accused me of being a child molester working for the Vatican. I'm not kidding. This was Aug 2008.

Jan 2009 they revisted the whole thing and claimed we were from a "Christian site".

I covered some of this in a YT vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch7EyICevnc

But no, the only thing successful over on Dawkins.net was Rook hiding on the RRS site. He now blogs on http://tomverenna.wordpress.com/

Rook is pretty remarkable.

http://forbiddengospels.blogspot.com...s-project.html

Ok perhaps April DeConick was on the fence, but it seems pretty clear her interaction with Rook pushed her over.

rigorist

Of course we do not "know" it. But we do know that shortly after the Assistant Director of the Project was exposed as Rook Hawkins, Mythic Activist, both Drs DeConick and Goodacre withdrew from participation. We can infer the two events are related.

Toto

Only if you don't understand cause and effect, or the logical fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc

Goodacre was never part of the Project. DeConick was not reacting personally to Rook, but clearly didn't want her valid speculations about the weakness of the historical evidence to be used as support for mythicism. That's her right.

I believe that if DeConick of Goodacre wanted to join the Project and Rook were the only impediment, a simple phone call to Hoffman would result in the removal of Rook.

IGExpandingPanda

It's hard to say who was part of the project. According to others people got listed as fellows without their knowledge or consent.

It's fair to say that Rook was acting as Assistant Director at the time this went down. He's now Assistant to the Director. Either way he's listed as a fellow. I admire you desire to keep this information accurate, and you are right we inferred.

Here's the deal, Rook has one conversation with a "scholar" and promptly calls them a colleague. Rook saw DeConick and tried to align her as a myther. It could be she was on the fence to begin with, and Rook pushed her over the edge, but it seems pretty clear she made a choice after speaking to Rook. Now it could be if Rook was the only impairment she could get him removed, or alternatively the organization lost come credibility as a direct result of a foofoo head listed as a fellow and at the time assistant director.

Ben C Smith

Assuming you are referring to April DeConick, why is the word scholar in quotation marks? Is DeConick not a real scholar or something?

Ben.

IGExpandingPanda

I was not referring directly to DeConick, but Tom's(Rook's) pattern of behavior. Though it somewhat applies. I'm sure someone toss her a memo about this pattern of behavior.

Scholar was in quotes because this is the word Tom uses far too often. Academic seems to be preferred.

Toto

That was an early error that was corrected a long time ago (aeons, in internet time.) Let go of it.

The JP is a project that is part of the Center for Inquiry, and it is headed by R. Joseph Hoffman. There are fellows who are formally affiliated, although anyone can attend their meetings, and other scholars have given papers.

Please be more careful. It is only fair to say that Rook was listed as "assistant director" on a webpage, and this webpage was revised to say that he is "assistant to the director." The webpage has had erroneous information before. The webpage is not the Project.

No, here's the deal. Many honest scholars who believe that there was a historical Jesus admit that the hard evidence is lacking. Some of them agree with the mythicist case about 90% of the time - they think that most of the NT is a literary or theological creation and is not to be trusted as history. They differ only in their conclusion that there is a real person at the core of the myths.

The difference between a liberal academic historicist of this sort and an academically grounded mythicist is very, very small. In fact, much of Doherty's work is based on the liberal academic consensus. The real differences are so small, that DeConick appears to be concerned about the use that mythicists would make of her work - although there is nothing anyone can do about the use that others make of their research.

So these are personal reasons that she might not want to put her efforts into the Jesus Project.

Rook is incidental to this.

No Robots

Let's face it: this whole Deconstruction of the Historical Jesus is just so much pomo wankery. I mean, see if you can fill in the blanks below:

As far as I’m concerned, ______ doesn’t exist. I mean, the sort of entity constructed around a proper name, signifying at once a certain individual, the totality of his writings, and an immense historical process deriving from him.--_________________

Answers:

N/A