Steven Carr

It is amazing how bad Mark Goodacre's arguments are.

Apparently, Paul took a lot of stuff for granted, and look , he says Jesus was born of a woman. (Couldn't he take THAT for granted? If he had to explain Jesus was born of a woman, why not explain that Jesus testified to this new righteousness.)

And Mark just basically lies about Paul saying Jesus had disciples. Or else his prejudices led him to believe that such a passage must exist....

And Mark is inaccurate about Paul saying Jesus passed on traditions to apostles, who passed them on to him....

Mark also claimed that 1 Corinthians came before Galatians, so that by the time you get to Galatians, Paul has to deny that he got his Gospel from human beings.

Steven Carr

Gosh, Mark Goodacre's arguments really are appalling. Surely somebody as educated as he is would have prepared something for such a debate?

We have the criterion of embarrassment. Everybody found the idea of a crucified Messiah so horrifying, that they must have really thought Jesus was a crucified Messiah.....

Toto

Vridar summary

EarlDoherty

Yes, and the appalling deficiencies in his arguments surrounding an historical Jesus make one wonder why we ought to rely on him to the extent that so many do in regard to his defense of a no-Q position. I see the same flaws he is showing here in his "The Case Against Q." And where would that case be without Goodacre, who is now the go-to man for most who want to dismiss Q? Farrar and Goulder? Neither one of them won over mainstream scholarly opinion. Sooner or later, Goodacre will be seen to have failed as well.

Earl Doherty

outhouse

Agreed.


While there may be something I could learn from him, there are better uses of time to not be spun around in the wrong direction.

I have always chose to avoid him.

Toto

Another blog comment

aa5874

Your response is absolute fascinating. You are implying that mainstream schorlarly opinion supports "Q" and that Goodacre have failed.

Well, mainstream scholarly opinion does NOT support the "sub lunar" crucifixion of Jesus so it is clear that you have inadvertently admitted your own failure.

Who is the go-to man for the "sub lunar" crucifixion of Jesus??

The appeal to mainstream scholarly opinion is really worthless because it is clear to me that we have completely forgotten that it is the ACTUAL evidence, the actual written statements from antiquity that matters NOT hypothetical unknown sources.

gurugeorge

Yeah it's really quite astonishing the amount of question-begging Mr Goodacre indulges in - and the kicker is, he doesn't even seem to have the faintest clue that he's doing it. The fact that he's obviously very smart makes it all the more astonishing.

Maybe it's something like not being able to see the wood for the trees? He's looked at the evidence the way he has for so long, and is so well-versed in that particular way of looking at things, that it's just really hard for him to even conceive the alternative? I think it's something like that, because he doesn't seem to have any a priori objection to mythicism (as many critics do). He's obviously giving it a fair crack so far as he understands it, but what's obvious is that he isn't even "getting his head around" the concept at all (which he freely admits, to be fair).

It will be interesting to see his response to Mr Carrier's Jesus book, presuming that has a more detailed exposition with compelling logic.

Further thought: this interview has made it clearer to me is that what we're dealing with is something like a "gestalt switch" (Duck/Rabbits, Necker Cubes, Magic Eye pictures, etc.) It's not so difficult for someone who hasn't invested many years in looking at the evidence as if it's evidence of a duck, to see it as evidence of a rabbit; hence us amateurs and non-committed can make the switch it more easily. But it must be much, much harder for someone who's delved into the apparent duckishness of the evidence for so long, to make that switch to seeing the evidence as equally, if not even more plausibly, good evidence for a rabbit.

Toto

I think Goodacre was doing the best he could with the material.

Carrier has a blog post about the debate:

The Goodacre Debate

Toto

Mark Goodacre's blog has a raging discussion.