Originally Posted by Chris Weimer

Scholars attack other scholars the legitimate way - via peer review or scholarly lists. When you go through illegitimate pipes, and then demand to be taken seriously, what do you expect, a cookie?

Originally Posted by JGibson

Perhaps you'd like to tell that to Philo, who believes in the pre-existent Logos and makes it/him out to be a mediator between God and the world (Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres sit) and yet never believes it/him to be a god, or to those who asserted that Moses was a "pre-existent" being, as were, according to some Jewish traditions, the angels Wisdom, the Son of Man, Jacob, "the Chosen One", and according to Jeremiah, Jeremiah himself, but who never made the claim you say has to be, and was being, made when a being is/was cast as "pre-existent". On this, see, e.g., Larry Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (or via: amazon.co.uk) (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) (41–69) as well as his entry "Pre-Existence" in The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Originally Posted by JGibson

Yes. It's a botched and tendentious misquotation of Jn 1:1 which fails to take notice of the fact if John had wanted to say that the LOGOS was a god, he would have written ho logos ēn theos and that in Jn 1:18 John does not say, as you assume, that the LOGOS became a man. On this, as well as on the meaning of LOGOS in GJohn, see, eg., D. H. Johnson "LOGOS" in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels and J. Hammerton-Kelly, Pre-Existence, Wisdom, and the Son of Man: A Study of the Idea of Pre-Existence in the New Testament [SNTSMS 21; Cambridge: University Press, 1973]).

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

Peer review is not the only avenue. There is no ID article that has been published in a scientific journal.

Originally Posted by youngalexander

Score HJ-MJ Scholarship 40-30

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

It is not about what Logos means (it had different meanings to different people). It is about Jesus being a reincarnation of a pre-existent being.

Originally Posted by Magdlyn

Well, technically, an incarnation, but yes. The Logos is an extremely powerful divine figure. Call it a god, an emanation from God, an angel, a spirit.

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

No Robots, no disrespect to you but I think you would be fine if you stopped defening Brunner. Brunner's ignorance in matter's concerning Jesus was only paralleled by his zeal and readiness to go charging off in the wrong direction and ignore experts in the field. As far as Jesus is concerned, what Brunner wrote was pure, unadulterated, Grade A prime crap. Even for his time. He had no excuse for doing such a slothful work in 'Our Christ'. I am often embarrased for you when you keep defensing that infernal monument of incompetence.

Originally Posted by jgibson000

Wow. What's the temperature outside? Though his language is a bit over the top, Ted H and and I actually agree on something!

Originally Posted by No Robots

It is impressive to me that mythicists, although mistaken in a way that grieves me deeply, are uniformly kinder and more humane than the scholarly experts around here. Mythicists are only a burden when they try to imitate these experts, and start showering their opponents with derision and affected airs.

Contemporary mythicism seems to me to be a folk movement born of the common person's discontent with religion and all the scholarly mumbo-jumbo about Christ. Why not just cut the Gordian knot, and say he never existed? I would, of course, argue that the knot needs to be patiently unravelled. But that is an argument that civilized individuals can pursue on a calm basis. There is no hope of any such calm discussion amidst the sneers and hoots of our barbarous experts.

And believe you me, if the experts really felt the tide to be turning, they would join the mythicist chorus, indeed, they would claim to have been leading it all along. This very thing is happening. The Jesus Seminar and its offspring have paved the way for a mythicist consensus. Oh, they haven't gone all the way... yet. So far, they stick to the "unknowable" Jesus. These people are watching, waiting to see how this debate turns out, and writing their lecture notes in a way that will let them wiggle over to the other side without too much fuss and bother. At least Weimer, Zeichman and Gibson have committed themselves too much to participate in this balancing act. I'd like to know, though, why they don't take on people like William Arnal, instead of hassling people around here. Is it just that they like going after the small fry, and haven't the stomach to fight fellow experts?