MrMacSon

I agree, the focus on the whole penis-nose thing is unnecessary.

Steven Carr

So Ehrman is claiming that his book states clearly and unequivocally that the statue depicted in Archarya's book ( the one he accused her of drawing himself) does exist?

And that his book states clearly and unequivocally (without 'a lot of problems of misunderstanding') that a rooster is indeed a symbol of St. Peter?

And is Ehrman claiming that his book states (without misunderstanding) that Christians produce symbols of St. Peter that have roosters?

http://www.newstpeters.org/the-nsp-rooster

And is Ehrman claiming that he has quotes of Archary stating that this statue is Peter himself?

Or did Ehrman just make that up?


Has Ehrman actually apologised for insinuating that Archarya drew the picture herself?

Is he a big enough guy to put his hands up and say 'I'm not infallible. I messed up there.'?

Toto

Somehow I don't really think you have the welfare of the mythicist case at heart.

Carrier is a professional historian, with a concern for the craft of history and for attention to detail. These are not side issues to him.

What "good will" could there be from someone who started out by demonizing mythicists and refusing to take their arguments seriously?

Well, I think that historicists are the agenda-driven camp (most have made their agendas very clear) and any "historicist" who thinks that the Resurrection happened is a fringe thinker.

Steven Carr

It seems that now, at last, the gloves are off from Ehrman.

The goodwill is gone - finished, finito.

Gakusei Don predicts that now Ehrman will start comparing that mythicists are like Holocaust deniers and Birthers.

Any moment now, Ehrman will start to accuse people of simply drawing pictures of things themselves , because they are such frauds.

Steven Carr

EHRMAN
What Carrier wants us to know is that in fact this statue does exist and that it is in the Vatican. It does not take much research to dig out this juicy bit of museum lore. Acharya S herself gives the references in her footnotes. And yes, they are both right. The statue does appear to exist.

CARR
If it took so little research, and Acharya gave the reference herself to see that there really was the statue, pictured in the book why in the name of all that is good did Ehrman begin to think that Acharya had drawn the picture of the statue herself?

How could he have thought that when it took so little research to see that the statue 'does appear' (ahem) to exist?

How?

You can see Ehrman's thought processes here. I can see them and outline them, but I can't grasp the internal logic from one thought to the next.

Let me roughly map out Ehrman's thoughts here...




Here is a picture of a statue.

It does exist - look, Acharya gives the reference herself.

This statue does exist , so she must have drawn the picture herself. There is no other explanation.

Must put that in my book.....

andrewcriddle

On the substantive point, ie not whether Ehrman expresed himself badly, did the Romans keep proper archives of trials ?

In the modern world judges and lawyers can and do appeal to cases of many years ago that might be relevant to the current case.

My impression is, that in cases in the provinces, involving non-citizens with the verdict decided summarily by a Roman governor, these archives just did not exist.

Andrew Criddle

jdl

No way, Steven. He has a rock solid defence. You see, he only made this comment "very much in passing" while "No major point was being made". Don't you understand? If you're a professional scholar like Ehrman you can make any kind of unethical remark you like, as long as you're super casual about it and not trying to support a major point.

Joseph

Solo

Ehrman never had any goodwill to the mythicist case to begin with. Here is an excerpt from his now-infamous casting of the issue on the Infidel Guy podcast from March 2011. After assuring the listeners that the information that he does not think Jesus existed is false, he opens up:

"I don't think there is any serious historian who doubts the existence of Jesus. There are a lot of people who want to write sensational books and make a lot of money who say Jesus did not exist but I don't know any serious scholar who doubts the existence of Jesus".

I e-mailed to him, telling him that I was was not sold on the non-existence idea, but was open to the proposition and asked him to come to discuss his view that Paul personally knew Jesus' sibling to the Jesus Mysteries forum. He replied in an offhand manner basically repeating what he had said in the podcast: only a crank would be taking the proposition that Jesus did not exist seriously. No go.

So whatever it was that motivated Ehrman to be a cheap twit on this issue (and I can only guess), it certainly was not his having an abiding scholarly interest in it or insults that he got after he made it official.


Best,
Jiri

James The Least

Mark obviously isn't Jewish, and he doesn't know Hebrew. His audience was probably largely, if not entirely, Greek-speaking gentiles. Reading chapter 7 doesn't give any indication that Mark expected Jews to be reading his gospel.

GakuseiDon

I think that this is Ehrman's point, in response to the claim by Freke & Gandy, that the Romans were "careful record keepers" so we should expect to have Roman records about Jesus. Ehrman claimes that we don't have the standard kinds of reports from that period that we have today, so it isn't reasonable to expect such records.