Robert Tulip

Hey Stephan and Spin, you guys are nearly as witty as Bart Ehrman. Loved spin’s ouroboric ‘head up his own arse’ joke!

The issue here is that this baseless insult by Ehrman against Acharya ('making things up') is an emotional tirade that conceals serious issues in the sexual politics of theology, namely the extreme bias against women that has characterised all of Abrahamic monotheism. Gross demeaning of women and celebration of male exclusivity may have been acceptable in Abraham’s day, but times have changed.

Acharya’s original use of this statue was clearly intended to mock Saint Peter as a symbol of sexism. That seems to be what Ehrman (and presumably you two) found so offensive in her oblique linkage of the penis to Pope Peter. If we want to open debate today about how religion can address sexual inequality, there needs to be some derision of the extreme sexism and stupidity of an institution, the Roman Catholic Church, which appears to find administration of communion by women nearly as sinful as clerical sexual assault against children. The level of depravity in Catholic gender politics deserves mockery, something you seem to find so sensitive that you distort what I said about it, just as Ehrman distorted Acharya’s work.

Stephan tells us he can't even see how cowardice, denial, bluster, violence, stupidity and arrogance relate to Saint Peter. I already explained most of them in fairly simple terms, but here we go again to aid Stephan’s comprehension.

Cowardice: This is the basis of the Rooster symbol, that Jesus predicted Peter would not have the guts to stand up for him when put on the spot three times before the cock crew.
Denial: Three times Peter lied and denied he knew Christ
Bluster: This one requires some knowledge of Peter’s See. Dogmas like the Immaculate Conception and Papal Infallibility require a certain blusterous capacity to defend with a straight face, believing absurdities that have proved their worth in spreading confusion and supporting clerical power.
Violence: Peter chopped off the ear of the high priest’s slave with his sword
Stupidity: Jesus gets irritated with all the disciples for their failure to comprehend his identity. For example Jesus explains at Mark 8 that the loaves and fishes are allegory, but this does not penetrate their thick skulls. And then Jesus compared Peter explicitly to Satan for his stupid failure to see the need for his death on the cross. You do have to be rather stupid to defend the literal absurdities of Catholic dogma, but that is what the holder of the keys to heaven symbolises.
Arrogance: A traditional attribute of the rooster, as cocky and self-assured. The self-centred rooster attitude is very much part of the ability of the church to ignore reasoned comment about its structures and rituals and beliefs and practices.

Cultural views about the penis have changed since ancient times. Heraclitus mocked Dionysian penis-worship as a religious tradition lacking in brains. Nowadays the term dickhead is a pure insult, reflecting stupidity and cruelty. Perhaps in ancient times these attributes of the brainless penis-rooster were seen as powerful, and the statue symbolised more the rooster’s energy and self-will. The fact that Saint Peter symbolised male power within the church illustrates that this rooster statue would readily have been associated with him.

Adam

Most of us assume that aa's mother language is not English, but even this seems inadequate to explain how he views this Zwinguliusredivivus posting as showing rejection of Ehrman's case against Mythicism. The article instead shows Stephanie Fisher and Maurice Casey chastising Ehrman for ignorance oh how many top scholars for ever so long have always been thoroughly disproving Mythicism!

aa5874

It is the mother language of Carrier that matters.

What is the mother language of Carrier??

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

Bart Ehrman is being accused of making false statements in some kind of a mother language.

See http://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress....-on-with-bart/

Robert Tulip

Hi Jeffrey - you have used this phrase 'agenda driven scholarship' as a term of moral opprobrium before. It does not do the work you imagine. Historians always have an agenda - an idea they want to convey. The quality of work is assessed on whether their agenda is proven, not whether they have one.

Murdock does not in this instance assert that Walker identified the statue with Peter. Even so, I think it is clear that both Murdock and Walker insinuate that the symbolism of the statue is reminiscent of Peter, who was commonly represented by a rooster. They both have an agenda of supporting a feminist analysis of conventional religion, and uncovering facts that support this analysis. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this agenda, which presents a cogent moral critique of Christianity.

The idea of scholarship without any agenda is farcical. People always have some reason for what they study, some guiding theory or set of values that leads them to consider some facts as important and others as unimportant. Only stupid nihilists like Lewis Carroll's King of Hearts break this basic rule that value-free scholarship is impossible. Both Walker and Murdock have an agenda of showing how the Christian church is thoroughly corrupted by patriarchal metaphysics. This hypothesis is fairly easy to prove, and once accepted lends itself readily to mockery of phallocratic values.

The problem in analysis of agendas in scholarship is that many conventional scholars carefully conceal their agendas, trying to convey an image of 'value free' objective enquiry. And yet, the debate about the historical existence of Jesus Christ is entirely value-laden. The way values have corrupted this debate is especially seen in the ignorant incredulity of conventional Christians when confronted with the lack of evidence for Jesus as a real man. People value the beliefs they have grown to accept as true, and have an agenda of defending them. This is a natural part of human psychology, which can itself be the object of analysis. The existence of this pervasive agenda of the defence of faith is readily seen in the absence of discussion of mythicism in the media and at universities.

Here are a few examples of the rooster as symbol of Peter.
http://www.newstpeters.org/the-nsp-rooster
http://saintpetersbasilica.org/Inter...Treasury/Items
http://andalltheangelsandsaints.blog...l/Museum-8.htm
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/b-e...-r/3990347177/

I am reminded of Roman statues of Peter holding a magic wand, with at least one identified as being of Peter because a rooster is also in the statue.

aa5874

After reading Bart Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist?" it is clear that the argument for an historical Jesus of Nazareth cannot be maintained at all.

Remarkably, even those who claim to be HJers question the credibility of Ehrman or question statements made in "Did Jesus Exist?"

Effectively, "Did Jesus Exist?" only helped to undermine Ehrman himself by exposing his bankruptcy of evidence for the HJ of Nazareth argument.

Ehrman was forced to discredit the stories of Jesus of Nazareth and then to accept the NT as credible. Ehrman placed himself in a most contradictory position.

Now, the fatal flaw in the HJ of Nazareth argument is that Jesus of Nazareth was unknown and was embellished by later authors of the Gospel.

HJers themselves did not realize that in claiming the Pauline letters were composed before c 70 CE and are historically credible that their argument immediately collapsed.

1. The Pauline writer claimed he Persecuted the Church of Christ.

2.The Pauline writer PREACHED that Jesus was the Son of God, equal to God and raised from the dead.

3. The Pauline writer was in Damascus since 37-41 CE in the time of King Aretas preaching about the Resurrection of Jesus.

The Pauline letters have contradicted the late embellishment argument by HJers.

There were Churches in Christ since 37-41 in


Galatians 1:22 KJV1 Thessalonians 2:14 KJVOnce HJers claim the Pauline writings were early and credible then it simply is completely in error that the Jesus character was embeliished by the later authors of the Gospels.

Since at least by 37-41 CE there were Churches in Christ when Paul was a persecutor.

The supposed embellishment must have occured since 37-41 CE or earlier and was not initiated by the Pauline writer but by those in the Churches of Christ whom the Pauline writer Persecuted.

The Churches in Christ of Judea PREDATED the supposed Pauline letters to Seven Churches. See Galatians 1-2

The Churches in Christ of Judea PREDATED the incident in Damascus when the Pauline writer was in a basket by a wall in the time of King Aretas. See 2.Cor 11.31-33

The late Embellishment argument has been destroyed by the Pauline letters.

Since 37-41 CE, the Pauline writer claimed Jesus was equal to God, was the Son of God and that he was raised from the dead.

Jeffrey Gibson

Two of these don't work. And one specifically says (without citation or evidence) that the rooster (not a cock) represents Peter's denial, not Peter. In any case, this is hardly proof that the alleged representation was common, let alone that that Peter and Phalli are synonymous.

Jeffrey

Adam

"some kind of a mother language"? aa, is English even your second language, or even your third? Or can you not comprehend in any language? Once again I point out that the import of your cited source is that Ehrman failed to state how thoroughly so very many scholars for so long have refuted Mythicism. (I'm taking for granted that you are not consciously misrepresenting your case, but such gross distortions by you indicate that maybe I will have to reconsider that.)

Adam

So all this implies that the Biblical Jesus is correct, that both HJ and MJ must be rejected, right? (I always thought I was HJ, but you and others here at FRDB make me BJ, it seems.)

Your argument does help greatly my argument in

Gospel Eyewitnesses that there were seven written eyewitness records of Jesus. I do have to admit, however, that I make a case for dates before 40 CE only for Nicodemus writing the Johannine discourses, Matthew writing Q1 (both during the lifetime of Jesus), and John Mark writing the Passion Narrative.

avi

In English, Rooster and Cock are synonymous, both describing the fowl, Gallus.

In USA slang, it is common to refer to penis as cock. As a boy, many decades ago, I often heard one refer to the male penis as "your Peter".

The statue clearly embraces BOTH meanings, i.e. Saint Peter's failure to acknowledge Jesus, (cowardice), his inability to remain awake as the cock crowed, and his male strength, guiding the nascent church, exemplified by the erect penis.

Jeffrey Gibson

So what? It still represents in these modern representations an event, not a person as the fact that there are two entities shown not one -- as we would expect if they were synonymous.

His what? Where in the gospels is Peter depicted as unable to stay awake as a cock crowed?

Jeffrey