krosero

Please step back for a moment and take a breath. It's important, and I hope you'll do the same in critiquing my larger essay. I was not saying that Doherty has misrepresented his work or his qualifications; nor was I saying that readers, sympathetic or not, would be too dumb to figure out where the book stood in the scholarly community, how it was put together, etc. I did not suggest that the caveat be placed there for such basic reasons; I simply think that when an author gives space and time to a reflective discussion of where he comes from, what he's aiming at, who he's writing for, how the work was produced and vetted, etc., it adds a lot to the book and to my estimation of the author.

We have had bitter threads here before about whether certain lines in Doherty's work misrepresent other scholars, and I've been a part of those debates; my comment above was a very general recommendation, with no wish to resurrect any debate along those lines. I have no wish to make Doherty out to be a dishonest writer or anything of the sort.

Again, you're not an idiot. In my eyes, you're far from it. I would never call you or Doherty an idiot. My own education has been very basic and I was not boasting. My comments about the mind were about as general as they can be; sometimes I really do just think out loud and offer thoughts for general reflection.

There was no particular attack on Malachi, whose work on parallels I have not read, nor even any specific attack on how parallels are being made by others. I'm looking forward to reading Doherty's next essay; it will likely have something to say about parallels drawn between Jesus and pagan myths; but that's about as much as I'm concentrated on that issue right now. My thoughts are on my paper.

If my writing, esp. in my paper, is ever striking you as ad hominem, please take a breath and consider what else I might be saying. It was something I did several times in reading Doherty's book: I would interpret a passage one way and force myself to think about it some more lest I misrepresent Doherty. I'm sure I was not completely successful, but taking a breath like that can be very productive. Certainly it's one tool for minimizing rancor.

Kevin

Steven Avery

Gregg, we agree.
There was a smidgen of understated sardonicism in my previous post .

Shalom,
Steven

Magdlyn

See The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, by Price.

jgibson000

Ah, yes: The crank's explanation/excuse for his not being/not needing to be/refusing to become well grounded in the subjects on which he claims expertise -- and his justification for claiming that his under-researched and uninformed pronouncement are still more authoritative and should be taken more seriously than anything made by all those fellers who have been well trained in these subjects.

:rolling:

JG

Solo

...well, thanks, Steve, I'll pass along the compliment You see, where it really gets kind of complicated in retrospect is that the the first four opinions saw me as too far gone to make informed decisions. I was very confused: I (or my alternate selves) refused drugs essentially because I was afraid I would not "remember the body of light" (which I was experiencing when I was delirious)......real psycho stuff. But you see, the body of light was very real, and I wanted to hang on to it; at the same time I desperately wanted to be sane. At a point I became aware I was delusional, but somewhere beyond that there was hope I was clinging to, hope for meaning in all that, some sort of concluding assurance - ahead.

Your friends turn away from you when they see you screaming nonsense in the streets, and a tidal wave of shame engulfs you when you become aware you have become incontinent in panic attacks that feel like the world is collapsing on you. What do medics know about your struggle to pull through that, how will Haldol ever resolve the loss of self you have suffered ? The loss of meaning ? The loss of dignity ?

(to Jeffrey and friends)
So, how does someone with that sort of encounter read 1 Cr 2:1-5 ?
Glad you asked. Not as a doctor of ancient history, which I never will be. On the other hand, I want to have the history of Jesus, Paul and the early followers straight. I am not delusional to think that my experience gives me that - all that it gives me is a way of reading it. I need to be informed; it will be (mostly) by what most of you consider, secondary sources. I feel comfortable with that: I feel no need to pretend to know anything else than I do know (though I reserve a right to an opinion).

Jiri

jgibson000

One book from Prometheus Press makes it "huge"?

JG

Magdlyn

No, sorry. My point was that the parallels between Mark's hagiography of Iesous of Galilee and passages in "Jewish" scripture, ie: quote-mining, has been thoroughly laid out in this book, and convincingly appears to be more than coincidental.

His earlier book, Deconstructing Jesus, has a similar thesis.

Gregg

Sorry, maybe it was Chris. I do know i never said it.

Ted Hoffman

First of all, for the newbies, there is nothing that Gibson, Weimer or Zeichman have argued that has not been adressed or thoroughly debunked here before. Either by myself, Vorkosigan, Carrier, Toto or others.

They just dont get tired of repeating the same old, tired claims. Zeichman is also acting as if he has debunked Doherty: he has not. First of all, Doherty is yet to respond to his rebuttal on Q and secondly, D's hypothesis is not impaired one way or another whether or not he was wrong about K. The important thing is that Q cannot be attributed to a single historical person.
No scholar does a perfect work. Even Gibson recently made a mistake regarding archons. It doesnt mean Gibson has no good ideas. It just means he is fallible and we accepted him back into the fold.
Doherty isnt infallible either.

I'd like to comment on a few glaring misrepresentations and mistakes.

First of all, the ID/Creationism divide cannot be compared with the MJ/HJ debate. For the following reasons.

1. Scientists use a clear methodology for picking corn from crap. HJ scholars do not. Anyone familiar with the literature will be aware that HJ criteria (friend and foe, dissimilarity criterion, embarrasment criterion and so on) are worthless.

2. Science studies observable data that are often measurable, verifiable and falsifiable. We dont have the same in HJ studies. There is great paucity of data - for both sides. Any serious HJ book will admit this (Sanders does, Van Voorst does. All critical scholars admit there is paucity of reliable data on a Jesus). Unlike that, the evidence for evolution is OVERWHELMING.

3. Science assumes nothing. Everything is questioned. But HJ scholars treat the existence of a HJ as an axiom - or a dogma if you like (for those with confessional interests - per the Nicene creed - which ensures that the so-called "scholars" confess their belief in a HJ).

4. The Scientific enterprise derives its authority from its reliance on a robust methodology. The HJ scholars OTOH use consensus that is based on social rather than academic reasons to present themselves as the bigger, more authoritative team on issues. They have used their numerical collective to wrap themselves at the mantle of NT scholarship, instead of using arguments and evidence.

5. MOST HJ scholars have confessional interests and carry out research funded by religious institutions like Theological Seminaries. Those without axes to grind like Mack are very few. This of course has resulted in bias or even where there is no bias, they are hamstrung by their own assumptions.
And you know what? They admit this. In The Historical Jesus (1991), John Dominic Crossan says regarding the unstandardized nature of historical Jesus research: "the historical Jesus research is becoming something of a scholarly bad joke".
Crossan adds that because of this comical and irregular nature "it is impossible to avoid the suspicion that historical Jesus research is a very safe place to do theology and call it history, to do autobiography and call it biography". However, Meier thinks that Crossan and like-minded scholars are deluded on this and he contends that HJ scholars are doing theology, whether they realize it or not.
Crossan received a doctorate of divinity from Maynooth College, Ireland, in 1959. JP Meier, his compatriot, and who is normally on the receiving end of his criticism, is a Catholic University scholar who believes that Jesus was both fully divine and fully human. He is a scholar who, among other things, has tried to bridge the gap created by Rudolph Bultmann's dichotomy, which sought to separate Christ from the historical Jesus. Meier holds a doctorate in sacred Scripture (1976) from the Biblical Institute in Rome. In 1968, he graduated from the theology program at Gregorian Universit and has served as a Catholic priest.

Meier thinks that "a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people claim they are doing a quest for the historical Jesus when de facto they’re doing theology, albeit a theology that is indeed historically informed. Go all the way back to Reimarus, through Schleiermacher, all the way down the line through Bultmann, Kasemann, Bornkamm. These are basically people who are theologians, doing a more modern type of Christology". When asked about historicity of Jesus' miracles, he opines that "It’s a matter of faith."

WTF?!!!! Scholar my ass!

6. Scientists have debunked ID theories and actively engaged IDers(or IDiots) and exposed their work for what it is. OTOH, Doherty has presented a thesis that challenges HJ theory yet NO recent scholar has debunked Doherty's thesis.
Goguel tried and so did Van Voorst. But they were rebutting old, underdeveloped hypotheses. No scholar has had the spine to thoroughly debunk Doherty.
So far, amateurs like Bernard Muller, Gakusei Don have tried. But Doherty and Carrier have exposed their critiques as wanting. Zeichman also has and the jury is still out.
No scholar has tried. The implication of this is that Doherty has SINGLEHANDEDLY debunked a thesis embraced and parotted by an entire enterprise. Of course, there were earlier MJ hypotheses, but D's was different and he used the same methods mainstream scholars were using.

Yes we do. Ezekiel 8 has women mourning for Tammuz - a god. Inanna died and was raised from the dead. There are numerous examples.
He was a god to those like Tatian. Maybe not a savior god, but a god nonetheless. Or to be more precise, the incarnation of God.
Tatian for example has God incarnate and does not regard that incarnation as a saviour and that incarnation does not undergo cricifixion.
From Address to the Greeks, Tatian believes: (a) that the Greek gods were demons [Address 8]; (b) that “The demons were driven forth to another abode …[they] were driven from earth, yet not out of this earth, but from a more excellent order of things than exists here now” [Address 20], and “none of the demons possess flesh: their structure is spiritual, like that of fire or air. And only by those whom the spirit of God dwells in and fortifies are the bodies of the demons easily seen...” in Address 20 and Address 15; (c) that God's incarnation [as portrayed in the "Christian narratives"] was “similar” to that of the incarnation of the Greek gods in Address 21.

Contrary to Gibson's void assumptions, in Philippians 2:6-11, Jesus is presented as a pre-existent being (a god) who came/comes down and undergoes suffering/crucifixion and is honoured by being called Jesus.

GJohn casts Jesus as a pre-existent being. How can a being who was preexistent not have been a god? "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word became flesh.” - can Gibson explain that? Even Justin and Tatian believed this (God incarnating in flesh). That is why Marcion parted ways with them.

As you can see, for all his Greek, Gibson can mislead those who arent familiar with the subject. Of course, Gibson yells a warning:
A pre-existent being (per John), or a being who incarnates (Phillipians) is a God dude. Deal with it.

Malachi made a very important and penetrating observation which I have to paste again:
Very true. And the response about "educated Christians" is nonsense. Educated Christians make up less that 2% of Christians. In other words, they that know are negligible. Christians dont know that Pauline epistles came first so they smuggle in gospel assumptions while reading Paul.

To date, there is no methodology in NT scholarship for separating the corn from the crap in the NT so there is no strawman there. They use a very simple method:
1) Assume Jesus existed.
2) Who was he?
PS: Use pick-and-choose methodology (fly-shit-removal) for (2) above.

This is a bullshit methodology and it is no wonder we have a riotous diversity of opinions regarding who the HJ was. Sample this confusion:
N.T. Wright proposes that the historical Jesus was a revolutionary and saviour. Geza Vermes presents a historical Jesus who is a charismatic teacher, healer, and exorcist - a Galilean holy man. Robert H. Stein proposes that he was a supernatural historical miracle worker and saviour. Marcus Borg talks of Jesus as a spirit person, subversive sage, social prophet, and movement founder. John Dominic Crossan and Burton Mack tell us that the historical Jesus was a cynic sage/ landless labourer, displaced peasant. J.P Meier tells us that Jesus was a marginalized jew (a ‘blip’ on the radar screen of pagans and mainstream Jews), a radical egalitarian feminist socialist with a social agenda. Stevan Davies tells us that the historical Jesus was a healer - alternate personality as "the spirit of God,". Robert Eisenman hypothesizes that the historical Jesus was a Torah-observant and nationalistic Jew of insurrectionist leaning. Paula Fredriksen, Bart Ehrman, Theissen, E.P. Sanders, Dale Allison and Ludemann all claim that Jesus apocalyptic prophet. Richard Horsley tells us he was a social revolutionary for an egalitarian society. Stevan Davies claims he was a Galilean charismatic, Luke Timothy Johnson persuades us that Jesus as a son of god who was baptized and died for our sins. Riley tells us he was a Hellenistic hero. The Jesus seminar vouch for an uprooted, iconoclastic Jesus who is dissimilar to both the antedecent Jewish tradition and the christian one that followed it and who is a wandering cynic philosopher, and so on and so forth.

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold scholarly confusion. Do we see the same in Evolution?

Compared to HJ hypothesis which has all sorts of brands of Jesus.
Cynic sage, marginal Jew, miracle worker, charismatic healer, apocalyptic prophet and any other portrait depending on who you ask.
N. T. Wright's books get published by Vanity press? And Tabor's garbage? Please. Vanity press my foot.
You mean people who have PhDs in Star Trek from Theological Seminaries like James Tabor and N.T. Wright?
And what about Thomas L Thompson?

Magdlyn

Actually nowhere. However, "Wisdom" is shown to have been thought to have had this role. Wisdom, the Logos ("John's" name for the Son of Man/Jesus), and the Shekinah have somewhat similar roles in the Axial Age and into the time of Jewish/Hellenistic late antiquity. As manifestations of the "glory" of God/Yahweh, they can be shown to have been thought of as active, "knowable," earthly creative aspects of a remote great god.