freigeister

Just so. And here is the real problem with those who deny the historicity of Christ. "Bah," they say, "it's all BS." Well, that is some powerful BS.

If you do look into this by assuming that we are dealing with a real historical person, you may find someone who is the ultimate weapon to use against those who usually speak in his name, be they of the right or the left. The disease is the cure.

But hey, if you want to lump yourselves in with the Oxfordians, be my guest.

Ted Hoffman

Sensei Mela
He is not 'backing down' since he hasn't countered any 'opposition' or rebuttal to his work. When the only person who can challenge you has refused to put on the gloves, the battle is won before it is done and you can proceed to the next item, and that is what Doherty is doing.

NT Scholars responded to his work by turning their collective backs on it and burying their heads deep in the sand and waiting for Doherty to go away - most likely for fear of being used as an example (they were horrified at what Doherty did with Lee Strobel's Case For Christ).

They should 'waste their time' because Doherty's work challenges one major axiom of NT Scholarship.

Scientists are 'wasting their time' with ID not because its right, but because it purports to challenge science.

Thus the need to climb a higher hill and reach a wider population in a 'world' that is quickly sliding back to the middle ages.

OTOH, it can serve to show that NT Scholarship is not mature enough to handle challenges and that it responds with shock (denial) when views that threaten its legitimacy are fronted.

Their social reaction (as opposed to academic reaction) to Doherty's work doesn't speak of scholars secure of their positions. It speaks of a society concerned about its own survival.

It speaks of a closely-knit, xenophobic society that, instead of offering an academic response to a scholarly work that offers an alternative view, it anathematizes the work via social action. Perhaps dogma has so much pervaded NT theology that we should no longer regard it as 'scholarship'.

This is a theological welfare society that locks out different ideas and members reflexively shut down their minds to an idea if it threatens the status quo.

Chili

Exactly. It happens all the time.

Instead they should defeat the argument, please, and without social ad hominies.

GakuseiDon

Has Doherty had anything published in a peer-reviewed publication? (Not trying to be critical here, just wondering) For that matter, has any article laying out the historicists' case ever appeared in a peer-reviewed publication?

Vorkosigan

I'd like to find one too!. Of course there have been innumerable articles written on the various aspects of it in the peer-reviewed literature. It's probably too long and involved for presentation in journal article format, and in any case Jesus' historicity is an axiom of the field, and that which is self-evident is rarely defended as such. Most scholars feel that Jesus' historical existence is established by the TF and by the cite in Tacitus. There's a review article by Meier in Biblica -- this link should get you to Biblica and then you can search to find it -- that lays out some of the information on the Third Quest and Historicist criteria. BSW is a great set of links to resources on the Web, BTW.

Do you have Theissen and Merz's The Historical Jesus? There's a review of the mythicist case in there from the perspective of committed Christian mainstream scholars. It's less than competently written -- shot through with the various assumptions it is trying to defend -- but at least it outlines the case for historicity in the light of mythicism.

Vorkosigan

Ted Hoffman

I don't know what you mean by 'anything' but he has published in Journal of Higher Criticism - whose editorial and peer-review quality has recently come to question.

Rumours elsewhere have it that JHC is falling apart. Plus, I don't know to what extent the center can hold in the face of Price's disgusting views on the Bush question.

I dont know whether Price and Doughty are still teaching at Drew University and the current composition of its Editorial Board is unknown given what they have at the JHC site (wrt the editorial board) is 4 years old.

GakuseiDon

Thanks, Vork and Ted, for your comments.

Killer Mike

I think it a waste of time trying to continue with the "Jesus Myth" hypothesis. Even GA Wells has recently changed his tune and has come to the conclusion Jesus did exist. Im no scholar but I did see "From Jesus to Christ" and took a few undergraduate courses at the University of Minnesota in N. Testament. Most scholars agree Jesus did exist, and preached for about 1-3 years in which he had a small following. He most likely was executed for treason. It is unlikely however, that he was ever buried in a tomb as described in the Gospels. This is because it was common practice for the Romans to let the bodies of crucified criminals hand on the cross for days and let the body decompose. The Romans did this to intimidate and remind people of the penalty for treason. It is true the Gospel writers incorporated myth into their story telling and you can find many parallels of stories in the Gospels to ancient Pagan religions. But I think it more likely that Jesus did exist and that his followers simply began to tell stories about him, since they were disappointed that after his death nothing happened and the kingdom had not come.

I also really dont see the point anyway. I mean nobody is trying to argue Mohammad, Christopher Columbus, or the Buddah never existed. Im an atheist and look at Jesus mearly as one of hundreds of "preachers" that were around at that time. But this is just my opinion.

Magdlyn

Coming into this late.

Are you guys saying all the Jesus Myth "scholars" out there are just giving up? I find that extremely odd. The evidence for an HJ is so very tenuous.

Are Doherty and Price the only respectable JMers out there?

Why then are so many on this board skeptical of Jesus' existence?

Toto

My understanding is that Doherty is going to return to the Jesus Mysteries list on yahoogroups.

I think that the mythicist hypothesis is still alive; Wells still qualifies as a mythicist by most definitions. I think that European scholars will be developing the hypothesis, while American scholars continue to treat it like a hot potato and retreat into literary analysis and deconstructionism.

Robert Price is not a mythicist. He is teaching at a small college in North Carolina. I am sure that most scholars have an agreement to ignore each other's political views on the last election, otherwise scholarship would be impossible. I don't know anything about the organizational status of the Journal of Higher Criticism, but I wouldn't be surprized if it suffers from the usual problems of small academic enterprizes.

"Peer review" in such journals is not at all comparable to peer reviewed scientific research in any case.

Just my 2 cents.