EarlDoherty

But this is the author's actual work. It is Ehrman quoted, not promotional material created by the publisher. Whether it is *representative* of the book as a whole remains to be seen. But that Ehrman could even make such statements even in an introduction does not augur well for the scholarly integrity and effectiveness of the whole work. That is my point.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

Gee, if not, I guess one will have to read the whole thing in order to find out whether or to what extent Ehrman addresses the arguments of "Doherty, Earl." Of course, if he and other mythicists are nothing but crackpots who simply have it in for Christianity, Ehrman may have decided it was neither necessary nor fitting to address them.

By the way, I wonder if to support his negative evaluations of mythicists and their 'agenda' Ehrman will offer evidence from our writings to justify that accusation. When I presented my 3-part article about "Alleged Refutations of Jesus Mythicism" on my website, I noted in the Introduction that a whole range of historicist scholars were highly prejudiced against the very idea that Jesus could not have existed, with mythicists dismissed as a class of 'village idiots'. However, I provided quotes from their writings to back up that accusation of non-scholarly bias. I also noted Michael Grant's willingness to condemn mythicism simply on the basis of claims by earlier scholars that mythicism had been annihilated, scholars who themselves had not provided much if anything in the way of evidence for those claims and were relying on even further-down turtles. If Ehrman is going to accuse and dismiss us on the basis of having a non-scholarly agenda to put the boots to Christianity, he had better similarly back it up.

Maybe Steven would like to offer us another prophecy.

Earl Doherty

la70119

Tip o' th' hat to mountainman... there ARE exceptions.

He quoted one. I will quote another.

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 8

Notice again what he says to Justin:

Quite obviously Tryphone does NOT believe the Christians' Jesus was in any way, shape or form, historical. And this was BEFORE the NT gospels and Acts were developed. Not to mention, the letters of 'Paul'.

Bart Ehrman, to his credit, said the Historical Jesus (there were several) was not at all like the NT Jesus of the gospels.

BUT he USES the SAME gospels to suss out an Historical Jesus! His quest will FAIL.

If HJ =/= NTJ, then you CANNOT find HJ inside the NT.

NTJ = MJ. End of story.

Minimalist

So what? Saying otherwise, up until the Enlightenment meant a bonfire with you as the guest of honor.

la70119

Actually I'm sure plenty of people were saying that, before Julian the 'Apostate' was assasinated. But most of the polemicists from 100 CE through 363 CE assumed there was an historical person, usually some poor unfortunate Jew, a wise teacher / philosopher-king or a lawbreaker who got got killed for his troubles either way.

Problem is, there was a war going on and all the records in Palestine got destroyed.

aa5874

It is really surprising that up to now there is confusion about the term "the historical Jesus".

The term "historical Jesus" is NOT the belief that Jesus existed it is the claim that Jesus was ONLY HUMAN.
The historical Jesus is a term coined just over 250 years ago and REFERS to a HUMAN Jesus.

Christians BELIEVE the Jesus of FAITH Existed and that is why there a search for the Historical Jesus---the Human ONLY Jesus.

In the 2nd century Christian writers were ARGUING that Jesus was GOD in the Flesh WITHOUT a human father. God in the Flesh [God Incarnate] is NOT the historical Jesus.

Steven Carr

A quote from an admiring review ' Ehrman’s torrent of prose reads as if he wrote nonstop in a weeklong fit of inspiration, like Jack Kerouac speed-typing on amphetamines, to behold Jesus, his followers and their enemies acting on history’s stage in first-century Palestine. '

A search through the book doesn't seem to bring up any references to Romans 13, where Paul explains how the Romans do not crucify the innocent.

Didn't Bart want to mention mythicist arguments?

I predict this book will be toast by Wednesday.

Ehrman also says John the Baptist was an apocalyptic preacher. I wonder where that comes from?

maryhelena

Yep, Wednesday is going to be a very sad day for NT scholarship.....:tombstone:

Sheshbazzar

But he wrote it to pander to a certain market. Expect it to be very attractive to those horse-flies, who will suck it up, and be regurgitating it out in their 'Ehrman says' flyspecks for decades.

ApostateAbe

Yeah, it takes only one day to come up with ten ad hoc alternative explanations for each argument that Ehrman can possibly make in the entire book.