Solo

....the same way Paul "knew" that σκολοψ τη σαρκι was ο αγγελος σαταν . Did you look up "black bile" ? You didn't, did you ?:huh: Why don't ask Jeffrey, then ?

Jiri

Ted Hoffman

Michael has fluctuated between complimenting Doherty and forging a competing hypothesis. We have indeed fantasized about writing The Jesus Myth: Proving The Non-Existence of a Historical Jesus. Of course, we flirted with the idea and dismissed it.

Overall, he sympathizes with Doherty because of Doherty's logical and somewhat conservative approach and tight alignment with NT scholarship - so much so that there are more radical people who are in the mainstream compared to Doherty - radical in the sense of completely ignoring critical scholarship and simply doing their thing. Consider James Tabor's The Jesus Dynasty as an example.

Of course, there are points of divergence, for example, Michael believes Paul knew Mark while Doherty does not. And there are several others others.
I do not see why we should expect these two to arrive at the same conclusions. Or why we should erect false dichotomies. Indeed, even Carrier, who is supportive of Doherty sharply differs with the latter in terms of how they conceive Christianity as having emerged. It is a question of making an effort to account for the emergence of Christianity using the best approach. Ultimately, it is up to us to judge which methodology or argument makes best sense and which one is closely aligned to known data.
Criterions like embarrasment and dissimilarity criterion have been thoroughly debunked yet people in the mainstream are comfortable in applying them. They even disagree over whether they are doing theology or scholarship (look at Meier and Crossan). They even disagree on a simple thing like the question of whether Nazareth was a widely known city or a small Hamlet (Meier and Crossan). Or whether there was a cliff in Nazareth. They even have completely different reconstructions of a HJ. Yet we have both of them and make one big, er *cough* happy family. Nobody has written anywhere that we either have Crossan or Meier.

It is in that light that I do not understand where the following statement comes from:
Have mainstream scholars been subjected to these kinds of treatment?

JoeWallack

JW:
As usual I suspect the Truth Lies somewhere in between Heaven and Earth. My guess is James really was the brother of Jesus and Peter really was the Disciple. Their Witness to the Historical Jesus was Q, the Teachings of Jesus. Paul and "Mark" are both primarily a Rejection and Reaction to the Historical Jesus. They both Reject the Historical Witness of Q because it has a Possible Jesus. Their Reaction is an Impossible Jesus where Teaching and Life of Jesus is unimportant and Suffering and Death of Jesus is important.

So Jeff is technically correct that there was a Historical Jesus but Mr. Doherty is also correct that Paul and the start of Orthodox Christianity was interested in an Impossible Jesus and not a Possible one.

The related question I have is If Orthodox Christianity was Started by a Rejection of the Historical Jesus and Substitution of the Historical Jesus with a Mythical Jesus, than was there a Historical Jesus? I Am not sure what the answer is.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Ted Hoffman

Yes, I do intend to respond to Kevin Rosero's post. Thanks for bringing that up.

jakejonesiv

Jiri,

How do you know the thorn in the flesh, the "messenger of Satan", couldn't have been a physical problem like an eye ailment? I have no vested interest in the answer one way or another. I am operating on the assumption that you know something I don't.

So if you could please tell me, in simple declarative setences, without obfuscation, what in the hell you are talking about, I would be grateful.

Jake Jones IV

krosero

As requested, this is the post (the only one) that I contributed during the period that was lost by the server exchange. It appeared on July 17 before either of Earl's posts of that day. It is substantially as it was, recovered from my MS Word draft. Some things that I had added in the submission form and did not save in Word, I have had to restate from memory.

One entirely new sentence, I've placed in brackets.

Earl, let me say something about how you’ve misrepresented Brandon here, because it’s typical of your habits in speaking about all scholars. You say that you don’t claim these scholars to be intentionally supporting a mythicist paradigm, in which Christ existed purely on cosmic terms. It’s easy to believe your claim, because everyone knows that these scholars support a historicist paradigm. Everyone recognizes your longtime charge (or protest) that most scholars are historicists. But there are serious problems with the actual words you use – which I’m going to analyze here because I think they reveal a serious error in your logic, a blind spot, if you will.

Look at what you’ve said about Brandon:

“The idea that such powers worked through earthly leaders and that it was those earthly leaders who actually crucified Jesus, is nowhere to be found in Paul. That is Brandon reading such an idea into Paul, overriding his clear recognition of what Paul was saying.”

You’re claiming that Brandon inserts the idea of human agency and that this overrides Brandon’s own recognition of …. What? What was Paul saying that Brandon recognizes? You don’t spell it out, but it sounds like Paul was saying that such powers DID NOT work through earthly leaders. That’s the mythicist paradigm. You speak in strong terms as if Brandon clearly has recognized that there was no human agency in the crucifixion.

You might reply, No, I was not saying that Brandon recognized that human agency was not involved, I was noting Brandon’s recognition that human agency is not mentioned. Problem is, but Brandon is clearly not overriding his own recognition of a lack of historical details and contexts. Such lack is his very argument. You cannot possibly mean that Brandon is overriding his own conscious argument that the historical details are missing. The only thing you seem to be saying is that Brandon is overriding his own recognition that human agency did not occur.

If you don’t see this point, then try answering these questions. What does Brandon recognize in Paul that he is overriding with the HJ idea of human agency? Is it the lack of historical details? Well, that is his point, so he can’t be overriding that. Or is it that he “clearly has recognized” that human agency did not take place in Paul’s mind?

That is why everyone gets up in arms over the way you use scholars: Brandon would never agree that he “clearly has recognized” that human agency did not take place. What he has clearly recognized is that the verses are without historical details. You are portraying him as contradicting himself when all he has done is gone with his interpretation of the lack of historical details and not yours. All he’s done, essentially, is contradicted you – not himself. And yet you take it as evidence supporting you.

And you wonder why your use of scholars causes such bad blood. For you, there is no legitimate reason for everyone's anger; for you, everyone is angry simply because they don't want to accept an MJ.

I referred to a blind spot, and what I mean is that you always presume that the scholars go with the historicist interpretation as a mere assumption, so that you fail to see the specific reasons they do have, and do offer, for using the historicist model.

You want a demonstration? Let’s go back to Burton. It seems we now have wide agreement by all, including Ted Hoffman, that per Burton, “born of woman” was a clear reference to birth while “subject to the law” was not as strong a reference to birth per se. That thrust of Burton’s argument is missing from your use of him in your book, but I’m not getting here into the question of whether you misrepresented him. What I’m interested in is your charge that Burton merely assumes the HJ in “born of woman”. Look at this post of yours from a past debate:

Do you see this? “He can only conceive.” You’re talking about Burton’s personal range of conceptions – you’re saying that he, like countless scholars, has a certain range of conceptions in which only the HJ is possible, and the MJ is never openly considered.

You show no sign of considering the possibility that Burton had sound linguistic reasons (and perhaps reasons from other disciplines) to regard GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS as referring clearly to births regarded as taking place on the earth and not above it.

Ben surveyed the uses of this phrase several pages ago, and asked you for an instance in which this phrase or a similar one was used to denote a birth in the heavens. In other words, there is vast evidence backing up Burton’s reading of “born of woman”, and not merely HJ assumption coupled with anti-MJ prejudice.

It is no defense to reply that of course you recognize that there’s evidence for the HJ. What we’re talking about is your claim that the HJ scholars merely presume the HJ – that they merely insert the HJ without having solid reasons from their own disciplines and training to posit their particular readings of specific verses in Paul’s letters and all the rest.

It’s become a kind of ritual now for the MJ hypothesis – over and over again, just go back to the charge that HJ scholars are operating on assumption and nothing more (except perhaps prejudice). After a century in which the MJ has made hardly a dent, this charge must seem irresistible to an MJ adherent – and it is also completely necessary, for without it the lack of scholarly support makes no sense.

The problem, though, should be growing more apparent now to all observers: when you return routinely to this charge, you have just created a strong disincentive to look at the HJ evidence or to deal with it, or to understand it, as well as you might otherwise. [That is why I think you, Earl, have still not successfully seen how your citation of scholars looks to others; you just stick ritually to the hypothesis that they're mad about the MJ]. That is why I think you can always say that a scholar like Burton has merely assumed an HJ, instead of discovering and accounting yourself for the loads of evidence that GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS refers to births (mythical or otherwise) that are thought of as taking place on earth and not in the heavens.

You have described the MJ hypothesis as if you were hypothesizing a nonexistent Jesus and seeing if the evidence fits this hypothesis better than any other. A strong and necessary part of your hypothesis is that scholars have simply never looked at this hypothesis honestly or sufficiently – and in particular, that they insert the HJ because of confessional or other personal reasons more than because of any strong evidence pointing to the HJ. Then you have a disincentive to look at the HJ evidence honestly and sufficiently – in fact, as the ritual charge about scholarly bias is repeated, the evidence is sought less and less, and even seen less and less.

You want a demonstration? You say that Brandon is merely reading the HJ into Paul’s words about the rulers of the age. You have asked why Paul would lift the Crucifixion out of its historical context, yet an explanation is sitting right there in Brandon’s own words (this is what I mean by blind spots). Brandon is suggesting that Paul saw cosmic significance in a historical event. He is not hypothesizing about historicity, because that is not his topic here, but if it were laid out like a hypothesis, it would like any other, including your own:

Let’s hypothesize that elsewhere in his letters Paul is referring to a human being on the earth, and that “rulers of the age” is his characteristic way of giving cosmic significance to a particular event. This hypothesis is the best way to account for the many phrases in Paul that seem to point to an earthly savior, while at the same time accounting for Paul’s heavy emphasis on the cosmic perspective (i.e., the big perspective of God’s salvation plan).

Historical particularities can get in the way of general cosmic statements. If you want to talk about the salvation of human beings from their enslavement to their greatest enemies (the demons), it helps not at all to mention a little procurator, himself one of the enslaved, by the name of Pilate. Nor does it help the Gentile mission (which Paul saw in cosmic terms, i.e., as an extension of universal salvation) to bring up the Jewish career and Jewish context of the life – and crucifixion – of Jesus. (This is probably why Marcion liked Paul so much).

Incidentally, you have often argued that Paul does not mention historical details that might have helped his argument. Here, in a passage that we all agree is about the cosmic dimensions of salvation history, it would not help Paul in the least to talk about particulars – yet in this case you don’t see it as Paul not having a need to bring up the HJ. In this case you merely see it as, well, Paul not bringing up the HJ, i.e., more damning silence.

You, Earl, never operate by balancing two hypotheses, with evidence for each one fairly and totally considered – you only take what helps the MJ case. A lot of people, including historicists, behave this way, so of course I’m not singling you out as unique. But it becomes insufferable when you return again and again to preaching about the spirit of science and following the evidence wherever it leads.

Since I never know whether you’ve announced your last post here, let me suggest that you remove the subtitle, “Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus”, from “The Jesus Puzzle,” and try to defend to the book as a fair and balanced approach to the question of Jesus’ existence. Or, variously, keep the subtitle, defend your book honestly as advocacy for a particular position, but try defending it without the supporting arguments about the come-what-may spirit of science and the charge that historicist scholars are all (unlike you, somehow) hopelessly biased advocates.

Kevin Rosero

jakejonesiv

Hi Ted,

This is a good point. Of all the many Historical Jesus reconstructions that have been created, most contradict something in some of the others. The sheer number of HJ reconstructions proves that the methodologies employed are somewhat subjective.

So when these HJ supporters demand uniformity from the MJ side, it is something they do not demand of themselves.

I have suspected for some time that there is a very fragile alliance in the HJ camp, and all that holds them together is opposition to the MJ proposition. IMHO that is why, when the question of the pre-existence of Jesus came up, Bede ran away and Jeffrey refused to define his position.

Jake Jones IV

Rick Sumner

I certainly did not demand uniformity, and the fact that you think so is quite amusing. What I demanded is that of two methodologies that point to diametrically opposed conclusions, one of them has failed. That isn't a demand for uniformity, that's a truism. Opposite answers cannot be right in a dichotomy (which is what we have here--there either was an earlier tradition, or there wasn't).

And the suggestion that the same requests aren't made of "HJ Scholars" (an amusing categorization, in this context, since what's at stake are methodologies, not historicity) is utter rot. For an easy example, because I am persuaded that Sanders' approach (focussing on context) is right, I am equally, and inherently, persuaded that Crossan's approach is wrong. They both can't be right.

For another example, I have recently posted on what I see as the reversibility (and subsequent tentativity) of the criteria of embarassment. It's also a subject I've discussed here. Because it is reversible, I think it is suspect. That doesn't mean it's always wrong, anymore than I've suggested that Doherty or Turton are always wrong. It means that they do not always point to solid conclusions.

For yet another example, Robert Price is frequently quoted here for noting that by using but two criteria (dissimilarity and multiple attestation) he can show the entire NT to be unhistorical. Yet again, we see an attack on methodology based on reversibility.

Still going, Michael Turton has waxed lyrical (though, IMO, ineffectively, Loren Rosson III has handled this ably) about how embarassment can be applied to the Lord of the Rings, and that because of this reversibility, it is not trustworthy.

Eric Eve presented a paper at the SBL Seminar a few years back, arguing that multiple attestation's strength needed to be reassessed, because by application to early twentieth century events that are known not to be historical it shows itself to lead to false conclusions. Yet again, criteria of HJ scholars is being challenged by virtue of reversibility.

But you want the real icing on this scrumptuous cake? Ted Hoffman (as Jacob Aliet) himself used this approach--the reversibility of criteria (here by virtue of subjectivity) employed by Crossan and Meier to discount them both. Equally important, despite your claims of special pleading he does so in agreement with my assertions about their methodological bankruptcy. This is a criticism I not only issue equally now, it's one I have issued equally for years. A point that is easily provable by reading through this thread on Ebla Forum

http://www.eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic.php?t=464

If you would like to read Hoffman's post, you can go to it directly here:

http://www.eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic.php?p=4153#4153

One of these criteria--Doherty's or Turton's--is reversible. Calling out such a criteria is standard practice, and, despite your cries of special pleading, one I have always called out. All the "poor-hard-done-by-us" speeches in the world won't change that. You are asking me to exclude the MJ methodology from the same criticism every methodology is exposed to.

You not only ask this unusual request of me, you ask it of me on the basis that I am guilty of special pleading? Physician, heal thyself.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

jakejonesiv

Hi Rick,

Your response contains real substance. That is becoming increasingly rare, and I appreciate the information. I have learned something from you today.

:bulb:

Thanks again,
Jake Jones IV

Rick Sumner

Well, that's emphatically not the response I had rather braced myself for when coming back to this thread!

You're quite welcome, of course.

Regards,
Rick Sumner