Doug Shaver

As Toto tried to explain, there is little that we ahistoricists agree on, and one area of disagreement is the prima facie credibility of Jesus' existence. For many of us, though, there is simply no argument about its being plausible. We think it is obviously plausible and we have never claimed otherwise. Mere plausibility, however, does not imply any degree of probability. We are not saying that a historical Jesus is implausible. We are saying that the totality of evidence renders it improbable.

Doug Shaver

Historicists often betray their mindset in the shameless persistence with which they affirm without qualification, "Paul said that James was Jesus' brother." The begging of questions doesn't often get more blatant than that.

Steven Carr

Ehrman states that Paul said 'as clearly as possible' that he knew Jesus's brother.

I guess 'the brother of Jesus' is not as clear as 'the brother of the Lord.'

If Paul has written 'the brother of Jesus' , Ehrman would doubtless be writing articles wishing Paul had been just a little bit clearer....

JoeWallack

JW:
Now that we have determined that Ehrman's objectives almost certainly exist it's time to search for evidence of his methodology. Sadly, he has no formal, organized methodology. A combination of a certain/almost certain conclusion and no formal methodology, that's a bad combination, For those of us addicted to methodology, we need to piece together a methodology for him.

On page 39 Ehrman starts to identify attributes of quality evidence for historicity:

1) Physical evidence

2) Literary (from)

3) Literary (about)

1 - Location (time)

2 - Scope

3 - Unbiased

4 - Confirmation

5 - Independence

Ehrman later identifies http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php...Galatians_1:19

as a major part of one of two key pieces of evidence for HJ. Regrettably, Ehrman does not directly apply his attributes for quality evidence above to Galatians 1:19. How does it fare?

Everyone is welcome to comment, especially Harvey Dubish.



Joseph

ErrancyWiki

dog-on

Ehrman makes as strong of an argument as one can make for it, given his assumptions, I suppose.

The problem being, imo, that Carrier knocks this one out of the park.

Point Carrier...

denarius

Of course anyone offering a new paradigm is going to encounter resistance, that is the nature of scholarship. A mythicist like anyone else has to make a credible case for his ideas. He has to show that he knows what he is talking about by having his facts right, he has to have evidence that perceived wisdom is wrong which is acceptable to others in the field, he has to be able to explain why they are wrong and to offer new ideas that better explain the facts. Do you really expect sholars to give serious consideration to every new idea that is presented to them, no matter how lame it might be?

I think Ehrman's book is an important one for lay readers precisely because it does give serious consideration to the mythicist positions. When I first read the arguments on the Internet about Jesus never existing I had no idea that it was a fringe idea. Ehrman's book puts everything into its proper perspective.

It does the mythicists no service to complain that they are being discriminated against. What they need to do is get off their butts and do the research and develop the arguments that will be convincing to at least some of those in the field. Richard Carrier is very smart; maybe he will eventually do that.

There is a specific hypothesis which needs to be addressed: that a historical Jewish man named Jesus existed who went around preaching and was crucified by the Romans and that he was thought by some to be the messiah. The mythicists have a good case that the church made up stories about him and made him into a god and that the church fabricated evidence and lied. But they haven't specifically shown that they fabricated his existence. And they haven't made a good case that he was fabricated from stories about sun gods, Osiris, or any of the fertility gods or borrowed from mystery or other cults. That is all pure speculation.

On the meaning of "brother of the lord". Your argument is that I am biased about the meaning of the phrase as used in various contexts. That is complete rubbish. I read it as I see it. And it is not an argument that shows I am misinterpreting it. The passages say what they say, and I don't need to dance all over the map to explain them as Carrier does. Ehrman makes a case on pp. 118-121 and again on pp. 146-152. I suggest you read it and then we will have something to discuss.

denarius

I can understand that some mythicists think that Jesus' existence is plausible though improbable. I have long thought that myself, though I was not really interested enough to investigate it at depth. It seems that nearly everyone (including Ehrman) agrees that the Jesus that everyone learned about in Sunday school is a myth. So why all the fuss about it?

On the other hand, why should scholars give credence to a hodgepodge of ideas that are not supported by evidence? If even one ahistoricist came up with a credible coherent theory about the nonexistence of Jesus that is supported by facts I have little doubt that it would be seriously considered by the scholarly community. But it would be just that theory that would be considered, not all of the other speculations that have been offered.

Ehrman argues in his book that Jesus' existence as a historical figure is also probable, at least more probable than the argument that it is fabricated. In fact, he appears to be the first scholar to actually write a book giving serious consideration to the mythicist viewpoint and to say why scholars think it is wrong.

Doug Shaver

Because of a frequent equivocation on "myth," for one reason.

In common usage, to call something a myth is just to say, "Lots of people believe it, but it isn't really true." This is the sense in which most historicists will say that the Sunday school Jesus is a myth.

But in the historicist debate, "myth" often refers to a particular way of thinking about the universe that was prevalent during ancient times in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions. The notion is central to various hypotheses about how Christianity could have originated without there having been any actual human being who could be identified with the central character of the canonical gospels. These hypotheses are collectively called mythicism. All mythicists (in that sense) are ahistoricists, but not all ahistoricists are mythicists.

Whether ahistoricism is or is not supported by evidence is part of the debate. We who doubt Jesus' historicity believe we have plenty of evidence, notwithstanding the intransigent denial of most historicists.

What you are capable of doubting does not constitute evidence of what the scholarly community is willing to seriously consider.

I have not read the book yet, but I have read several previous attempts by historicists to justify the scholarly consensus. As best I can tell so far from comments about Ehrman's book, he adds nothing new to that particular component of the debate.

denarius

Thanks Doug for your explanations. I think I have a clearer picture of what debate is all about.

JoeWallack

JW:
Witnesses have two key characteristics:

1) Knowledge = The extent of accurate information about the subject

2) Credibility = The ability to transmit accurate information

We can rightly divide Ehrman's attributes above as follows:

Knowledge

Location = In position to acquire

Scope = In position to acquire quantity

Independence = Availability of sources

Credibility

Unbiased = Extent of information filtering

Confirmation = Extent of agreement with other quality sources

How does Paul score as a witness here in relative terms (compared to other ancient witness) and in absolute terms (compared to modern witness)?



Joseph

ErrancyWiki