TedM

A few years ago I created a website reviewing the Top 20 Silences Earl Doherty had written about found here, which comprise a significant portion of his thesis that Jesus never existed on earth. I recently discovered Doug Shaver's review of my work, found here.

In response, I've reviewed the first of his responses, and included that on my website. This response can be found here and is posted below:

Doug Shaver

Thanks, Ted. I got your e-mail, too.

I'm badly short on discretionary time at the moment. I'll get back to this when I can.

EarlDoherty

And until people on this forum start giving specific locations within the texts for the things they say (or claim) a certain document says, a smooth course of discussion is going to be made very difficult, if not impossible.

I am not going to get heavily into this thread, but when a poster makes a claim which I know, or have discredited, as false, it would be nice to know exactly where he (thinks he) got it. I have no idea, for example, where 1 Clement could be taken to say that Jesus gave his life from "earth." (And Ted has a history of making interpretations which can easily be shown to be unjustified.)

Earl Doherty

Ben C Smith

1 Clement 16.8:

His generation who shall declare? For his life is taken away from the earth.

(This is word for word from the LXX of Isaiah 53, the suffering servant chapter. 1 Clement 16.2-3 affirms that Clement regards this chapter as speaking of Christ.)

Ben.

TedM

I'll try to give chapter and verses in the future.

May I ask why you extracted "since the creation of the world" from your verse for #1 in your Top 20? It seems to me that the phrase is critical to understanding the context, and the reader is misled without it.

ted

Toto

Ted - I find your OP hard to read without formatting. Would it be possible for you to use quote boxes or some formatting so it is easier to see who says what?

TedM

No problem. I'll put Doug's words in quotes, with my reply (from the website) not in quotes. I hope that helps make it easier to read.

Here is my reply to Doug's review. I might first point out that the form of my original review was in 4 parts for each question. The first part was to define the alleged silence. The second was to see how well the silence fits the context (ie should it really be expected in the verse(s) in question?). The third was to inform the reader of other verses in Paul and the other early epistles Doherty quotes from which are related to the silence in question. The fourth is my conclusion. Knowing this format perhaps will be helpful in reading the responses here:


Doug Shaver has reviewed this website at http://www.dougshaver.com/christ/ahi...ponseTedM.html

I may get around to reading the entire review someday, but have more pressing issues at the moment. I have however read his review of the first "silence". I found his response there to be deficient in a number of ways. Herein is my response to his review of #1 Godly Attributes, Knowledge. My original review of Doherty's #1 is here: http://mypeoplepc.com/members/tedrik...top20/id4.html, and Dougs review of my review of #1 is found here:
http://www.dougshaver.com/christ/ahi...ilences01.html


Doug questions my purpose in saying who Paul is writing to and who Paul's gospel is addressing, adding in his "what's the point" type of questions. He completely ignores my description in the SAME PARAGRAPH of the context of the passage Doherty quotes in relation to the bulk of the entire book of Romans!

He then says I "finally" get to "a point of sorts". That "point of sorts" was in the very next paragraph, as a conclusion to the information in the previous paragraph. He conveniently left out the beginning of the sentence: "So clearly, the verses Doherty quotes are the beginning of this entire discussion, and they are focusing on the guilt of all men...".

For the current reader, here is the background paragraph which shows the importance of the context being examined, found in my original review for #1:

"Paul is writing to believers in Rome (1:7). Paul states that "14I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish." He states in 1:16 that his gospel is to the Jew first and also to the Greek. The above passage follows these opening statements and represents the beginning of a long message from Paul regarding guilt of all men before God, then more specifically that of the Jews. This portion of his message is from 1:18 to 3:20. The next portion is his message of salvation through faith in chapters 3:21-8:39. Then there is more discussion along these lines and the future in 9:1-11:36. "

I was describing the CONTEXT being examined. His failure to recognize this shows the same lack of appreciation of context that Doherty showed. It does not bode well for the accuracy of the rest of his review of the other 19 silences.

Next, Doug comments on my conclusion that "This is NOT the place to disuss the arrival of Jesus on earth only recently."

Doug is apparantly oblivious to the nature of Paul's epistle. Why would Paul mention Jesus as God's revelation to men who were dead before Jesus arrived, or who hadn't seen Jesus when he was on earth, or hadn't even heard of him? Since Paul's gospel is about salvation for ALL men through faith, he speaks of how that salvation was possible SINCE THE CREATION OF THE WORLD--the very words Doherty intentionally extracted from his quotation of Romans 1:19-20, and that Doug equally sees as irrelevant! And the source of revelation that Paul says was available to ALL men was and is that that EVERYONE can experience--nature itself.

There is also a CHRONOLOGICAL theme in Romans: He speaks of the guilt of ALL men prior to the Law in chapters 1 and 2, and the guilt of ALL Jews under the law in chapters 2,3, and 4.

He then clearly says that Jesus came to SAVE through faith ALL men when he says in 5:18 "Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men". This was the "man" who "was to come" after Adam (verse 14).


Doug then has a paragraph about how Jesus COULD HAVE been mentioned as evidence of God's attributes since some people use the Shroud of Turin as supporting evidence of the resurrection. I agree, but not all people mention the shroud, nor need Paul mention Jesus where Doherty or Doug or anyone else thinks he should have, especially when it detracts from the essential message he was making: ALL men failed to see God's revelation.



1. Paul DIDN'T mention the scriptures or prophets or visions or personal revelation in Romans 1:19-20, yet Doherty thinks it inconceivable for him to have ommitted mentioning Jesus. Poppycock! It completely misses the point--Jesus' message/arrival was UNNECESSARY because all men were guilty without NEED of anything other than nature itself! Second, mentioning Jesus would only have confused the issue since many men lived and died or were still living who never heard of Jesus.

2. Note how Doug has now shifted the argument from Jesus as a reflection of God's attributes and knowledge about God's nature to a teaching ministry. He is turning this into an argument against the existence of a teacher as in the Gospels. Jesus well could have had a small or insignificant teaching role yet still existed, been crucified, and inspired Christianity.

3. If Romans 1:19-20 is the "most conspicous example" of the omission of discussing Jesus' role in revealing God's nature to all men--including those since the creation of the world, as Doug says, then we certainly should not expect Paul to have mentioned Jesus or a ministry revealing God's nature anywhere else!


Finally it seems Doug glimpses the fallacy of including Jesus in verse 20 when he writes:


Doug is now introducing another silence to the mix. It is irrelevant to the fact that the so-called silence of 1:19-20 doesn't fit the context. Period. To answer his new objection, I refer the reader to 9:32-33. One might also consider that Paul himself didn't believe as a result of Jesus' life on earth, but faith came later upon revelation/reflection regarding the meaning of his resurrection and how it tied in to scriptures.


Now that I have thoroughly discredited the claim that the #1 "Silence" was legitimate and inconceivable, let's look at what Doug says regarding the passages I referenced under the section titled "Related information in other early writings":



Paul is not only "never quite explicit" about Jesus having lived his life in some "spirit world" where he was crucified and resurrected, he never even comes close to suggesting such a thing! Not once. But, Doug seems to want to overlook the references Paul makes to Jesus as having been a man, born of a woman, in the flesh, and of the Jewish race. He begs for more details--ie "where", "when", "what about this?" etc., and those would be great to have, but we have to deal with what we have. The detail we have from Paul most reasonably is describing a Jewish man on earth who was recently crucified, and who Paul believes enable ALL men to be saved--the essence of Paul's gospel. Paul got Jesus' attributes from somewhere--did he just make them up? Did he make up the Lord's supper and the words of Jesus that night?

In any case, I think we can conclude from Paul's writings that Jesus in fact DID have some kind of ministry which Paul believed reflected attributes of God, and most reasonably that it all occurred on planet earth.



Once again, Doug is misinformed. Using the same materials Doherty appeals to Jesus is said to give "commands" in the Didache and as having "imparted the gospel" to the Apostles and having given "commandments" (specific ones stated) in 1 Clement. 1 Clement was even so explicit to say that Jesus gave his life from "earth" (16:8). Until these can be proved to be non-credible or too late, they need to be considered as including "related information in other early writings".


CONCLUSION: The first of Doherty's Top 20 "silences" is a very poor example because of the context. Additionally, there are quite a few related writings, including from Paul, that reference the attributes of God found in Jesus. Paul certainly doesn't give any clear references to Jesus as having had a recent ministry on earth, but Doherty needs to come up with a better example of where he would expect such information, while simultaneosly explaining where Paul DID get the information he provides us about his Jesus--his godly attributes as well as the claim that he was a Jewish man, lived and crucified in the flesh.


ted

EarlDoherty

Good grief. This is a prime example of what I am talking about. First of all, this is not the words of the author. They are the words of Isaiah, as you point out, part of his Suffering Servant Song which "Clement" quotes more or less in its entirety. For Ted to claim that this is Clement stating that Jesus' death took place on earth is so far from justified it becomes comical. This is the sort of thing that makes Ted so frustrating to try to deal with, and why I have long since given up that task.

The context of the statement in Isaiah is, of course, a human person. Naturally, anything said is going to have an earthly context. And not even that particular line is clear as to the very matter of death, since scholars are divided as to whether the Servant is being said to have been killed.

And just because Clement says in verse 2 that the Isaiah passage is the Holy Spirit speaking of Jesus, does not mean that he envisions everything in it to be a literal description of a man on earth. If you or Ted have read anything on my case (book and website), you will know that I have argued extensively that early Christian use of scripture treats it as a medium that has revealed Christ and his spiritual-dimension activities. It is their exclusive source for information about such things, not even supplemented by historical tradition. That goes for everything from the opening of Romans to Hebrews to Clement to Barnabas.

The very fact that Ted had to appeal to this uncertain phrase buried in the Jewish scriptures as quoted by Clement shows how desperate is the situation to come up with something in the early record which could truly point to the non-Gospel writers having any conception of a Jesus who lived and died on earth.

Earl Doherty

TedM

It is reasonable to postulate that the scriptures were the source for the creation of Christ. But there ARE other things that argue against scriptures as the "exclusive" source: What about the Last Supper reference for example? And the specific teachings mentioned in the Didache and 1 Clement. And the specific numerous references to being crucified on a cross?

Does the author seem desparate when he mentions the following?

*He taught others forbearance and long-suffering 13:1
*He taught "Have mercy, that ye may receive mercy...." 13:2
*He was a holy teacher, giving commandments 13:3, 49:1
*He had apostles whom he charged to spread his message 42:3
*He taught about those that cause others to lose faith "Woe unto that man..." 46:8
*He lived in the flesh 49:6
*He shed his blood 49:6
*He was resurrected 42:3
*His resurrection assured his apostles that the kingdom of God would come 42:3
*His apostles went out and spread the good news following the resurrection 42:4

It would be a better argument for you to simply say that 1 Clement shows traces of the original conception of a mythical Jesus (if that is what you think), but that it (or part of it) was written by someone who believed in a historical Jesus who lived on earth. Same goes for the Didache.

Earl, I think your overall thesis would be strengthened by clearly identifying exactly which or which parts of the "early" epistles you believe pre-dated belief in an earthly Jesus, and which passages you believe were added later. (From what I recall in your writings you have done this to some extent with your writings on 1 John and more vaguely on the Didache). Without such identifications you'll continue to have people like me finding passages which most reasonably indicate belief in an earthly Jesus in the very epistles you are claiming support your case.

ted

Ben C Smith

If the suffering servant is, of course, a human person on earth, and Clement thinks that Jesus is the suffering servant, then does Clement think that Jesus is, of course, a human person on earth?

Ben.