outhouse

of course he does. it helps his oddball view.

GakuseiDon

"Their arguments on this point are correct" -- out of interest, what arguments are those? And does Carrier explicitly state his disagreements with Salm?

Price also gives Acharya S's books very positive reviews. That is a greater mystery.

GakuseiDon

I found a comment by Carrier on the "Debunking Christianity" board from 2009 (my bold below):
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspo...stence-of.html

Josephus says there were hundreds of cities in Galilee. He names only a fraction. The last argument is therefore a non sequitur (typical of Nazareth ahistoricity nonsense circulating on the web, don't fall for this stuff). The first argument is refuted by an inscription of the 3rd or 4th century A.D. establishing the existence of Nazareth as a haven for refugee priests after the Jewish War (and that can only mean the first war, since the temple was then destroyed and unmanned, not later). This inscription was erected by Jews (not Christians) decades before Helena, and certainly reflects data from the 1st century (I can't imagine where else it would have come from).

Your middle claim could be true (some peer reviewed discussions of late seem to concede the possibility that there is no definite evidence of an early 1st-century Nazareth), though there is a difference between not having evidence and the town not being there. Personally, I find it hard to believe the town would suddenly appear and get that name just in time to take in priests after the first Jewish War (entailing a narrow window between 36 and 66 A.D. for its founding or renaming, but if it could happen then, why not earlier?). I know Salm has arguments against all this, but they don't seem that strong to me (in his book, in fact, all he has are mere possibilities, and some quotations of Schürer, a long-dead historian whose assertions were often vague and speculative and whose work has been rendered largely obsolete by more recent scholarship on the 1st century and Judaism). I leave it to the experts to debate the matter. Until there is a consensus against an early 1st century Nazareth, we should be skeptical of claims to the contrary.

I don't think that Carrier sees Salm as a crank, but as an amateur with interesting ideas that are often speculative.

aa5874

Let us not get diverted. This thread is about Ehrman.

See http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1026/

Ehrman on Jesus: A Failure of Facts and Logic

Toto

You know how to access that blog. I wouldn't expect any early results, but you can see the activity.

I'm sure you would like to see mythicists fight each other, but I don't see why that would happen.

You don't seem to appreciate how Ehrman's work was a disappointment to mythcists who are mostly concerned about advancing the state of the argument. The case for the historicity of Jesus is truly flimsy, and I think Carrier and Price at least would have like to have a more solid case to test their theories.

hjalti

So you don't think that Carrier's case will be some variant of what Doherty and Price already argue for? That Christianity was really a mix of mystery religions and judaism, and that Jesus was originally thought of as a divine being and so on?

hjalti

That the title "Nazarene" might have originated not as a reference to the town of Nazareth, but a religious/sectarian term.

And they are correct, just ask spin!

aa5874

Gakuseidon has already admitted the evidence for an historical Jesus is weak. MJers inherently predicted that the historicity of Jesus was filmsy.

Ehrman was doomed to fail in his "historical argument for Jesus of Nazareth".

All HJers, Scholars or NOT will have NO Success, in their Quest for their Jesus based on the present available evidence.

GakuseiDon

I would LOVE to see it, though I would use the word "debate" or "investigate" rather than "fight". And there are good reasons for it to happen. Who do you think would give a fairer assessment of a mythicist argument: Carrier or Ehrman?

GakuseiDon

Not sure if he has got anything specifically from Price, but the core of Carrier's argument apparently borrows from Doherty's celestial being idea. It will be interesting to see how they differ.