EarlDoherty

Don, your deviousness and subtlety is even greater than I have given you credit for. The old "jelly on the wall" has nothing on you. You, and those who can recognize what I'm talking about, don't need any further elucidation from me. Those who can't don't matter.

I'll leave you to play your games solo.

All the best,
Earl

judge

Ok Ill play...who argues for Romans 13:1-7 as an interpolation in order to argue against mythicism?

aa5874

Please talk about Ehrman's new book. Please deal with the OP.

Now that HJers have a thread to show that the Ehrman's HJ theory will BLOW AWAY the competition they are talking about mythicism.

Talk about the evidence for HJ that Ehrman will likely include in his new book.

This is Ehrman telling us how to determine history in his debate with William Craig.

I cannot determine what happened in the Gospels based on Ehrman's own parameters.

GakuseiDon

That's just Earl's exit strategy. Throw a lot of adhoms at people on the board, and when they respond in kind, leave in a huff. I thought Spin countered that beautifully by just ignoring the adhoms and calmly pointing out the flaws in Doherty's arguments.

Yes, and it's not just his sub-lunar realm nonsense. I think the silliest part of his theory is his analysis of the Christianity of Tatian, Theophilus and the rest of the extant Second Century apologists.

It seems incredible that we have Theophilus, writing around 180 CE, calling himself a "Christian", talking about the doctrines of the Christians (apparently all of them!), referring to the prophets of the Old Testament, quoting from the Gospels, making allusions to the letters of Paul, giving the Prologue to the Gospel of John, talking about the Word being sent by God... but somehow Theophilus believed in a Christianity that had no-one called "Christ" at its core, not even a mythical "Christ"!

And his analysis of Tatian's "Address to the Greeks" is even sillier.

GA Wells also recognised the silence in the Second Century apologists, but wrote that:

"... for all their unexpected silences, [they] nevertheless betray an acquaintance with the Jesus tradition that is not to be found in the earlier ones. (GA Wells, "Can we trust the New Testament?: thoughts on the reliability of Early Christian Testimony." (2003), page 58)

In a way, Doherty is committed. He has already spend a lot of pages defending the notion that all this silence in the Second Century isn't what we would expect, and he has already linked it to the First Century silence. So he can't back down now on it, even if he wanted to. He HAS to treat each letter as a standalone and in terms of what we would expect, rather than in terms of how the letter fits into the wider literature of the time, in order to force his readings into them.

So he is stuck. I'm hoping Ehrman will take Doherty to task on the Second Century apologists, and then see Doherty try to pull the same crap on Ehrman as he does here.

aa5874

Please stop making erroneous claims about Theophilus of Antioch and talk about Ehrman.

Theophilus made ZERO, I repeat ZERO, mention of any character called "Paul" or any character called Jesus, Christ, or Jesus Christ or that Jesus, Christ or Jesus Christ lived and was crucified and was raised from the dead.

Theophilus made ZERO, and I repeat ZERO, reference to any Pauline Epistle and did not claim he had heard of "Paul".

It is UTTERLY erroneous that Theophilus made mention or alluded to the Prologue of John because Theophilus specifically wrote that his Word of God or Son of God was NOT born of a woman.

Examine"To Autolycus" 2 Please talk about Ehrman's new book, deal with the OP, because what you claim about Theophilus is ERRONEOUS.

Steven Carr

According to http://thepassivehabit.blogspot.com/...myth-with.html Ehrman's book promises to be one more of the crushings of mythicism that have happened in the past 100 years.

IE. it looks like Ehrman will produce really bad arguments, and claim a crushing defeat.

According to the blog, Ehrman says 'If you want to make up a story about the Messiah, will you make up the story that he got squashed by the enemy and got crucified, the lowest form of execution in the empire? No! If you're going to make up a story about the Messiah, you'd make up that he actually overthrew the Romans and he's the King in Jerusalem now...Why didn't [early Christians] make up that story? Because everybody knew Jesus was crucified...this is why Christians had the hardest time convincing people that Jesus was the Messiah.'

It must be true because nobody would make it up.....

People would have had the same problem trying to persuade people that Lee Harvey Oswald was the True President of the United States of America.

Ehrman doesn't explain why Christians thought Jesus was the Messiah. According to Ehrman's own methodology, Christianity is an Impossible Faith, so must be based on real events.

And Ehrman doesn't explain why, if Paul was always banging his head against the brick wall of persuading people that somebody executed by the Romans was the Messiah, Paul then claims that the Romans were God's agents - sent to punish wrongdoers, and who did not bear the sword for nothing, and who held no terror for the innocent.

If you are banging your head against a brick wall, you don't start putting concrete on the wall.

If Jesus execution by the authorities had been the biggest stumbling block to Christianity for decades, why would Paul write that people executed by the authorities had it coming to them?

maryhelena

Perhaps we should point him to this quotation - which Philosopher Jay referenced in another thread: John M. Robertson, [1911]

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cv/pch/pch41.htm

The historical model was there for the gospel writers to draw upon when creating their composite JC figure - a bound to a cross, crucified, flooged (and beheaded) the anointed, Christ figure, the last King and High Priest of the Jews, in 37 b.c. (70 years prior to the last date usually given for the gospel crucifixion story re JC - 33 ce.)

2-J

I'm especially looking forward to read what Ehrman has to say about Earl Doherty's case, and I'm equally looking forward to what the (I hope) inevitable Earl Doherty reply to Ehrman's book.

hjalti

In order to argue against mythicism? I have never seen anyone do that. But William O'Walker, who I think is a historicist uses this argument. Thus is it a "historicist argument", I'm of course using Abe's definition

Steven Carr

As prophesised, the HJ crowd have ignored Romans 13....

While claiming that mythicists have to explain away texts, historicists do not even attempt to explain texts. They just ignore elephants in rooms, hoping they will go away.

As Ehrman says ''If you want to make up a story about the Messiah, will you make up the story that he got squashed by the enemy and got crucified, the lowest form of execution in the empire?'

You don't then start also claiming that the Romans were God's agents sent to punish wrong-doers, in much the same way that Al-Qaida do not witness Osama bin Laden being killed and then claim the Americans are God's agents sent to punish wrongdoers, and that they did not bear the sword for nothing,.

But historicists are silent on such issues, as they are very busy complaining that the plain meaning of the text supports them, while never telling us what the plain meaning of text after text is.

Hence Doherty's famous 20 silences where he points out where historicists have traditionally failed to even register the plain meaning of texts.