stephan huller

Really, so this a war? Every able bodied male conscripted into the service of overthrowing tyranny?

Zaphod

Richard Carrier's review of Ehrman's book will be posted at his blog tomorrow, Thursday.

mountainman

What examples of "conspiracy theories" are there in the field of christian origins anyway? Setting aside empty rhetoric, is there any basis for Ehrman's claim in the available literature?

Steven Carr

You just have to compare the amazingly good scholarship in 'The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture', with 'Did Jesus Exist?', which lacks an index, can't get the cite of Pliny's letter correct, and can't even get the name of Doherty's book right.

Toto

Besides you?

I suspect Ehrman is referring to the sources for Dan Brown - Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln's Holy Blood, Holy Grail (or via: amazon.co.uk).

There's also Joe Atwill.

Acharya S comes out of the conspiracy loving New Age, although I don't think she dwells on conspiracies.

Conspiracies are entertaining, and a good way to sell books.

Steven Carr

Dan Brown is a firm believer in the historical Jesus.

Conspiracies are not as good a way to sell books as making a professional 2 minute 22 trailer , publishing it on your facebook page, and then do a blitz tour of radio stations to drum up publicity, while stirring up controversy by doing an article on The Huffington Post accusing people who disagree with you of being like Holocaust deniers.

That's how to sell books!

As for Ehrnan's reputation, Ken Humphrey's pointed out that 'Ehrman's case for a historical Jesus could have been presented much more succinctly than in a 368-page book. In fact, that case has been presented much more succinctly - in endless publications from Christian apologists. Ehrman, no longer the believer that he once was, rewrites that apologetics material, minus the supernatural elements. At its heart is the "chronological side-step" (in a debate I once had with Gary Habermas he actually performed the dance): Our extant sources (the canonical gospels) belong here (70s - 90s of the first century); the written sources on which they draw belong here (50s - 60s); the oral traditions which informed the earliest written sources belong here (30s AD!!!) Glory be, "first-hand evidence" from the time of Jesus himself!'

Craig does it better.

I really did not expect an historian to rewrite history. This is the last thing a historian should do.


To say nothing whatever of Ehrman's page 108 of Did Judas Exist?, where he performs the Craig dance of claiming that contradictory accounts prove something is historical.

I quote Ken Humphreys again. (Ehrman should sue that guy who did far more damage than Price did)

'The two utterly irreconcilable deaths of Judas (Matthew; Acts)? For Ehrman they stand not as two examples of palpable fraud but as evidence for "an early historical tradition." (page 108). Would he tolerate this sort of self-serving nonsense from mythicists?'

Just read page 108 of Did Jesus Exist? and shed a tear for what Bart has been reduced to.

Vorkosigan

Isn't Carotta's Jesus = Caesar some kind of conspiracy theory? And theres the old Piso theory....

Vorkosigan

If accounts all agree, it is history. If they don't agree, it is history. Never mind that Spong demonstrated back in 1987 that Judas is a created figure....

mountainman

AFAIK the Piso theory is more recently referred to as the 'Flavian Hypothesis'. i.e. the Romans Created Christianity

hjalti

But all of those authors were backed by a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, "The Pentavirate"!

And guess why they did it? So that Ehrman could use that to smear mythicism in his book! Who do you think owns HarperOne (Ehrman's publisher)? None other that one of the Pentavirate, Harland Sanders! Why do all that to slander mythicism if it isn't true? :constern01: