Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Bernard Muller · 03-22-2012, 05:52 PM

to Gakuseidon,
So Ehrman missed on that (Roman) inscription (which only says Pilate existed as prefect of Judea under Tiberius). And then Carrier assumes Philo was a Roman citizen to make Ehrman look worse.
And Carrier blames Ehrman about forgetting Philo and Josephus, which is untrue.
That does not prevent Carrier to make personal attacks on Ehrman and his brain.
And I am guilty for not checking the sources of Carrier.
Cannot wait for your next post.

Toto · 03-22-2012, 06:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

...

Mistake #1: Ehrman says “not even … the most powerful and important figure of his day, Pontius Pilate” is “mentioned in any Roman sources of his day.” False. Philo of Alexandria was a living contemporary of Pilate, and wrote a whole book about him...

...

...
Googling Ehrman's book, this is what Ehrman writes (my emphasis):

We know from the Jewish historian Josephus that Pilate ruled for ten years, between 26 and 36 ce. It would be easy to argue that he was the single most important figure for Roman Palestine for the entire length of his rule. And what records from that decade do we have from his reign--what Roman records of his major accomplishments, his daily itinerary, the decrees he passed, the laws he issued, the prisoners he put on trial, the death warrants he signed, the scandals, his interviews, his judicial proceedings? We have none. Nothing at all. (Page 44)

[Does that mean that Pilate didn't exist?] No, he is mentioned in several passages in Josephus and in the writings of the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo and in the Gospels. He certainly existed even though, like Jesus, we have no records from his day or writings from his hand. And what is striking is that we have far more information about Pilate than about any other governor of Judea in Roman times. And so it is a modern "myth" to say that we have extensive Roman records from antiquity... (Page 45)

So, Ehrman DID mean "Roman sources", and written sources at that. He is addressing the "myth" that the Romans were great record keepers (which they were) and that therefore we should expect to have Roman records of people like Jesus. But we don't see any written Roman records of Pilate, much less of Jesus.

Note that Ehrman does refer to the Pilate inscription in his book, twice.

...

So by Roman sources, Ehrman did not mean all sources, only official records on papyrus, which no longer exist, but not records on stone or other proof of his existence.

I have heard the argument that the Romans were meticulous record keepers and therefore we should have trial transcipts of Jesus' hearing before Pilate. This argument is clearly wrong. But it seems misleading to say that we have no Roman records of Pilate, and inaccurate to say "no records from his day" since Philo was a contemporary. And it is completely misleading for Ehrman to imply that the state of the evidence for Pilate is comparable to that for Jesus.

aa5874 · 03-22-2012, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

....... Ehrman DID mean "Roman sources", and written sources at that. He is addressing the "myth" that the Romans were great record keepers (which they were) and that therefore we should expect to have Roman records of people like Jesus. But we don't see any written Roman records of Pilate, much less of Jesus.

Note that Ehrman does refer to the Pilate inscription in his book, twice.

Time for work, but I'll look at an even more disappointing example from Carrier in my next post.

Who here is arguing that Pilate did or did NOT exist??

It is illogical to PRESUME Jesus of the NT was human with a human father because Pilate did or did NOT exist.

If there are NO historical records of Jesus, Roman and Jewish, why are people arguing that there is evidence that Jesus did exist as a man with a human father???

If NO-ONE wrote of Pilate surely we would NOT have known of him. Surely, NO-ONE could have guessed there was a character called Pilate if NOTHING was found bearing his name.

Josephus wrote that Pilate was a governor or procurator.

The Gospels claimed Pilate was a governor.

But who or what was Jesus??

The very same Gospels which state Pilate was a governor ALSO state Jesus was the Child of a Ghost, and God the Creator.

Are not the Gospels reliable sources for Pilate and Jesus??

Do we have a double standard for Pilate and Jesus???

An historical Jesus cannot be defended.

Solo · 03-22-2012, 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blastula

That's a very strong critique. I'd like to see Ehrman respond.

I am puzzled that Ehrman would talk about Aramaic sources within a year or two of Jesus's life, yet one of his recurring themes about the unreliability of the gospels is how we don't have any original texts and nothing can be dated less than decades after his death. Depending on what he means, it may not be a strict contradiction, but there is a tension there.

He is talking through his mortarbard.

Best,
Jiri

blastula · 03-22-2012, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bernard Muller

Richard is right on the mistakes of Ehrman (more so #1 & #2). But I found his application of the Bayes theorem very prone to attract detractors.

I don't think Carrier is right on #1 of Ehrman's mistakes. In fact, it's disappointing that Carrier is doing to Ehrman what Acharya S is doing to Carrier on the Luxor inscriptions. Very disappointing indeed.

Carrier writes:

Mistake #1: Ehrman says “not even … the most powerful and important figure of his day, Pontius Pilate” is “mentioned in any Roman sources of his day.” False. Philo of Alexandria was a living contemporary of Pilate, and wrote a whole book about him...

We also have discussions of Pilate in Josephus’ Jewish War, written in 78 A.D., the same distance from Pilate’s life as the earliest Gospels are assumed to be from Jesus.

But Ehrman wrote "Roman sources". Carrier notes that and writes:

If Ehrman is being hyper-specific as to his use of the word “Roman,” that would be even more disingenuous (as Philo’s cititizenship would hardly matter for this purpose; and at any rate, as a leading scholar and politician in Alexandria and chief embassador to the emperor, Philo was almost certainly a Roman citizen)...

But that is not the extent of his mistake. Forgetting (or not knowing?) about Philo (or even Josephus) mentioning Pilate is bad enough. Worst of all is the fact that Ehrman’s claim is completely false even on the most disingenuous possible reading of his statement. For we have an inscription, commissioned by Pilate himself, attesting to his existence and service in Judea. That’s as “Roman” an attestation as you can get...

Then Carrier goes on to psychoanalyze what is happening in Ehrman's brain:

But Ehrman didn’t make that valid argument; he made the invalid argument instead, and premised it on amateur factual mistakes. Emotion seems to have seized his brain. Seeing red, he failed to function like a competent scholar, and instead fired off a screed every bit as crank as the worst of any of his opponents. Foot, mouth.

All that, remarkably, based on one line.

Googling Ehrman's book, this is what Ehrman writes (my emphasis):

We know from the Jewish historian Josephus that Pilate ruled for ten years, between 26 and 36 ce. It would be easy to argue that he was the single most important figure for Roman Palestine for the entire length of his rule. And what records from that decade do we have from his reign--what Roman records of his major accomplishments, his daily itinerary, the decrees he passed, the laws he issued, the prisoners he put on trial, the death warrants he signed, the scandals, his interviews, his judicial proceedings? We have none. Nothing at all. (Page 44)

[Does that mean that Pilate didn't exist?] No, he is mentioned in several passages in Josephus and in the writings of the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo and in the Gospels. He certainly existed even though, like Jesus, we have no records from his day or writings from his hand. And what is striking is that we have far more information about Pilate than about any other governor of Judea in Roman times. And so it is a modern "myth" to say that we have extensive Roman records from antiquity... (Page 45)

So, Ehrman DID mean "Roman sources", and written sources at that. He is addressing the "myth" that the Romans were great record keepers (which they were) and that therefore we should expect to have Roman records of people like Jesus. But we don't see any written Roman records of Pilate, much less of Jesus.

Note that Ehrman does refer to the Pilate inscription in his book, twice.

Time for work, but I'll look at an even more disappointing example from Carrier in my next post.

Carrier was responding to the HuffPo article, not the book. If Ehrman makes a clearer point in the book, that's not Carrier's fault he didn't do so in the article.

GakuseiDon · 03-22-2012, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bernard Muller

to Gakuseidon,
So Ehrman missed on that (Roman) inscription (which only says Pilate existed as prefect of Judea under Tiberius). And then Carrier assumes Philo was a Roman citizen to make Ehrman look worse.
And Carrier blames Ehrman about forgetting Philo and Josephus, which is untrue.
That does not prevent Carrier to make personal attacks on Ehrman and his brain.
And I am guilty for not checking the sources of Carrier.
Cannot wait for your next post.

To be fair to Carrier, if Ehrman had said "Roman records", it might have given Carrier pause. But I was fairly certain I knew where Ehrman was coming from, since I had seen that kind of accusation (about Romans being such great record keepers but missing out on Jesus) before. So it wasn't hard to track down Ehrman's thoughts in his book.

But I don't think it excuses Carrier's rant against Ehrman's scholarship. As much as I appreciate Carrier -- I've sent him emails over the years and he has always responded quickly and graciously -- he is too quick to jump to accusations of incompetence and bias.

The next example is much, much worse. Carrier writes:

Mistake #3: Ehrman says “we do not have accounts of others who were born to virgin mothers and who died as an atonement for sin and then were raised from the dead (despite what the sensationalists claim ad nauseum [sic] in their propagandized versions).”

Okay, so this is marked as a "mistake". Then Carrier writes:

Taken strictly literally, this sentence is true.

That is terrible. It's like Doherty earlier describing me as "misrepresenting" him, but when I challenged him, he wrote that my statement was "semantically correct".

So why is it a "mistake"? Carrier writes (my emphasis):

But that is misleading, and therefore disingenuous. As such, it amounts to a straw man (at least of many mythicists; some few mythicists, the more incompetent of them, make that specific claim, but attacking only the weakest proponent of a position is precisely what makes this a fallacy). No competent mythicist makes this claim.

But by making Ehrman's statement about "competent mythicists", he has made a strawman version of Ehrman's statement. Mythicists DO make that claim -- that specific claim -- of other savior gods dying for our sins. But more below.

Carrier continues (my emphasis):

Rather, they claim that virgin-born gods were a common phenomenon in the region at the time and dying-and-rising gods were a common phenomenon in the region at the time (in precisely the way these were not anywhere else, e.g. in ancient China), and so for Jews to suddenly start claiming they have one, too, looks pretty easily explained in terms of standard theories of cultural diffusion. (See my chapter on the origins of Christianity in The End of Christianity, ch. 2, pp. 53-74.)

Ehrman appears to be denying this, and as such is making himself look like a crank again–in fact like an ignorant Christian apologist spewing contrafactual propaganda. That makes him at the very least guilty of really terrible writing. What I suppose he means to say is the disingenuous, strictly literal thing, but as I already noted, that would be fallacious and thus logically incompetent.

So, who has written along the lines that Ehrman is objecting to? His statement again: "... [saviour gods] with virgin mothers, and who died as an atonement for sin and then were raised from the dead (despite what the sensationalists claim ad nauseum [sic] in their propagandized versions)"

Oh, only Freke & Gandy and Acharya S, who are among the most popular writers on the topic and have written some of the most popular mythicist books. Perhaps Carrier might have a point if the idea of "savior gods dying for your sins" was a fringe idea even amongst mythicists. But it's not. It is widely used by mythicists. It can be found in "Zeitgeist", in the "God Who Wasn't There" movies, in lots of places. How many have seen mythicists claim "Did you know Mithras died for your sins!"?

Here is what Ehrman writes in his book (my emphasis):

... gods or demigods, such as Heracles, Osiris, Mithras, Attis, Adonis, and Dionysus, who were said have been born on December 25, before three shepherds and wise men; among their miracles they turned water to wine; they all rode into town on a donkey; they all were crucified; at Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world; they descended to hell; and on the third day they rose again. Since these same things are said of Jesus as well, it is obvious that the stories believed by the Christians are all simply imitations of the pagan religions. Real historians of antiquity are scandalized by such assertions-- or they would be if they bothered to read Freke and Gandy's book. (Page 33)

Whether Ehrman should address the incompetent claims of Freke & Gandy or Acharya S is one thing; but if his aim was to combat the most popular mythicist claims, it's inevitable he would address the idea of "savior gods" (whom died for our sins, apparently).

Carrier then writes what he thinks Ehrman should have mentioned in his article, about virgin births and syncretism. He ends with another remarkable rant:

So does Ehrman mean we have no precedent who satisfied all those attributes at once? (A straw man.) Or does he mean we have no precedents for any of those attributes individually as available material for syncretism? (A false claim, of the most incompetent kind.) Either he is engaging in patently illogical argument, or disturbingly incompetent reporting. Neither makes him look like he’s the one to trust in this debate. Again, this makes him look like the slipshod crank.

I knew that Ehrman was going to be charged with incompetence as soon as he announced he was writing a book against mythicism; I was expecting tirades from Acharya S; but I'm shocked that it is Carrier who has tried to tar him so strongly with incompetence, based on that article.

blastula · 03-22-2012, 09:15 PM

Even if there are mythicists who would claim all attributes, I think Carrier's right on #3. As a historian, Ehrman should be testing his hypothesis against the stronger counter-hypothesis, not trying to point to an easy target.

GakuseiDon · 03-22-2012, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blastula

Even if there are mythicists who would claim all attributes, I think Carrier's right on #3. As a historian, Ehrman should be testing his hypothesis against the stronger counter-hypothesis, not trying to point to an easy target.

(Stands in front of mirror) Dave31! Dave31! Dave31!

Solo · 03-22-2012, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bernard Muller

Richard is right on the mistakes of Ehrman (more so #1 & #2). But I found his application of the Bayes theorem very prone to attract detractors.

I don't think Carrier is right on #1 of Ehrman's mistakes. In fact, it's disappointing that Carrier is doing to Ehrman what Acharya S is doing to Carrier on the Luxor inscriptions. Very disappointing indeed.

Carrier writes:

Mistake #1: Ehrman says “not even … the most powerful and important figure of his day, Pontius Pilate” is “mentioned in any Roman sources of his day.” False. Philo of Alexandria was a living contemporary of Pilate, and wrote a whole book about him...

We also have discussions of Pilate in Josephus’ Jewish War, written in 78 A.D., the same distance from Pilate’s life as the earliest Gospels are assumed to be from Jesus.

But Ehrman wrote "Roman sources". Carrier notes that and writes:

If Ehrman is being hyper-specific as to his use of the word “Roman,” that would be even more disingenuous (as Philo’s cititizenship would hardly matter for this purpose; and at any rate, as a leading scholar and politician in Alexandria and chief embassador to the emperor, Philo was almost certainly a Roman citizen)...

But that is not the extent of his mistake. Forgetting (or not knowing?) about Philo (or even Josephus) mentioning Pilate is bad enough. Worst of all is the fact that Ehrman’s claim is completely false even on the most disingenuous possible reading of his statement. For we have an inscription, commissioned by Pilate himself, attesting to his existence and service in Judea. That’s as “Roman” an attestation as you can get...

Then Carrier goes on to psychoanalyze what is happening in Ehrman's brain:

But Ehrman didn’t make that valid argument; he made the invalid argument instead, and premised it on amateur factual mistakes. Emotion seems to have seized his brain. Seeing red, he failed to function like a competent scholar, and instead fired off a screed every bit as crank as the worst of any of his opponents. Foot, mouth.

All that, remarkably, based on one line.

Googling Ehrman's book, this is what Ehrman writes (my emphasis):

We know from the Jewish historian Josephus that Pilate ruled for ten years, between 26 and 36 ce. It would be easy to argue that he was the single most important figure for Roman Palestine for the entire length of his rule. And what records from that decade do we have from his reign--what Roman records of his major accomplishments, his daily itinerary, the decrees he passed, the laws he issued, the prisoners he put on trial, the death warrants he signed, the scandals, his interviews, his judicial proceedings? We have none. Nothing at all. (Page 44)

[Does that mean that Pilate didn't exist?] No, he is mentioned in several passages in Josephus and in the writings of the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo and in the Gospels. He certainly existed even though, like Jesus, we have no records from his day or writings from his hand. And what is striking is that we have far more information about Pilate than about any other governor of Judea in Roman times. And so it is a modern "myth" to say that we have extensive Roman records from antiquity... (Page 45)

So, Ehrman DID mean "Roman sources", and written sources at that. He is addressing the "myth" that the Romans were great record keepers (which they were) and that therefore we should expect to have Roman records of people like Jesus. But we don't see any written Roman records of Pilate, much less of Jesus.

Note that Ehrman does refer to the Pilate inscription in his book, twice.

Time for work, but I'll look at an even more disappointing example from Carrier in my next post.

Hi Don,

I think you got lost a bit in your argument. First, is what Carrier charges against Ehrman in Error #1 true or not ? Is it factually a mistake or grossly misleading to say “not even … the most powerful and important figure of his day, Pontius Pilate” is “mentioned in any Roman sources of his day.” ?

I think it is an unsound parallel for a "disinterested historian" to make given that the historicity of Jesus is not questioned primarily on the sparsity of records about him but on the combination of two things: 1) the character of the Christian communal witness of Jesus which cannot be accepted as historically factual and 2) no convincing external record of him. The difference between the large scholarly community and the "mythicists" in this regard is only in the latter's greater skepticism. Bultmann (whom the book calls 'the greatest theologian of the 20th century') and Dibelius, whose Formgeschichte Bart sneaks in to argue for his cock-eyed methods, were classical examples of historical skeptics, who would have scoffed at the yahoo version of historical positivism of Ehrman. Surely, Bart's worldview in this matter is far more informed by his Moody Bible Institute pastors who I presume did not have the know-how to separate events visible only to faith from events visible by everyone.

Second, the hyper-specific "Roman records" is a red herring. Ehrman wants to let on that the "modern myth" that Romans kept written logs about everything and therefore would have one of Jesus trial before Pilate is something that most "mythicists" believe. BS! No one I know believes that; such an argument never actually figures as a substantive issue in any theory he cites. (I am not vouching for Miss Murdock). So why this silly patter ?

Third, the Embassy to Gaius where Philo mentions Pilate is a treatise on an embassy to the Roman Emperor, ipso facto it is a Roman source. (The embassy was acted on by Claudius). At any rate, it is demonstrably untrue to say about Pilate "Like Jesus, we have no records from his day" as you noted the book says (without the "Roman" qualification) on page 45. It is an embarrassing gaffe any way you look at it, and you can't change that.

Best,
Jiri

LegionOnomaMoi · 03-22-2012, 11:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

Hi Don,

I think you got lost a bit in your argument. First, is what Carrier charges against Ehrman in Error #1 true or not ? Is it factually a mistake or grossly misleading to say “not even … the most powerful and important figure of his day, Pontius Pilate” is “mentioned in any Roman sources of his day.” ?

Given what I've heard and read from Ehrman (and how he has responded to questions concerning records before) I think he means "we have no Roman sources written while Pilate was alive." Carrier discusses Philo, but as to whether Pilate was still alive we only get "probably." Of course, Philo was Jewish, and wrote in Greek, so how he constitutes a Roman source even if Pilate was still alive (let alone a "secular" source) is something I don't understand.

I've no doubt that Ehrman, who spends more time selling and promoting popular works than he does on research and producing scholarship, has made many a claim that, under scrutiny, can be seen as fallacious. The same, however, is true of Carrier. For example, it is patently false that "The only explanation for why Philo never mentions Christianity is that it was not as important to Jews as Acts depicts, but was a tiny fringe cult of no significant interest to the Jewish elite." There are obviously other explanations (e.g., Philo didn't want to contribute to the spread of christianity by disseminating information about christians, or that he wrote an entire work about Jesus and christianity which was lost). These explanations may be improbable, even vastly improbable, but there are clearly other explanations. Carrier's nitpicking could just as well be turned on his own public statements.

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03-22-2012, 05:52 PM	#11
Bernard Muller Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Alberta, Canada Posts: 927	to Gakuseidon, So Ehrman missed on that (Roman) inscription (which only says Pilate existed as prefect of Judea under Tiberius). And then Carrier assumes Philo was a Roman citizen to make Ehrman look worse. And Carrier blames Ehrman about forgetting Philo and Josephus, which is untrue. That does not prevent Carrier to make personal attacks on Ehrman and his brain. And I am guilty for not checking the sources of Carrier. Cannot wait for your next post.

03-22-2012, 09:15 PM	#17
blastula Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: USA Posts: 6,070	Even if there are mythicists who would claim all attributes, I think Carrier's right on #3. As a historian, Ehrman should be testing his hypothesis against the stronger counter-hypothesis, not trying to point to an easy target.

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