Ted Hoffman

Doherty sent me the following link.Challenging Doherty where Fredricksten responds to Doherty's online article (she is a professor in the Department of Religion at Boston University, with a number of published books on the historical Jesus).
Doherty pulls his punches because evidently Fredricksten has not read his book seriously and was apparently providing an off-the cuff response.
Lets hope Dr. Paula Fredriksen will seriously read Doherty's book and provide a substantive response.
There has been fear of lending legitimacy to the mythicist case by giving it serious treatment while OTOH, lack of an effective response may be the reason NT scholars havent given serious treatment tp Doherty's works. It wil be incumbent upon Fredricksten to follow up with a substantive response soon since she may have placed her reputation as a high standing scholar in jeopardy by providing a casual response to the works of a serious person.
She has already sunk her teeth in the mythicist case. Tastes good (yum, yum). Might as well just eat it now.
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Layman

Can I get a link to Dr. Fredriksen's orignial comments instead of excerpts with running, interspersed commentary by Doherty?

And for anyone interested in what scholars themselves have to say about why they do not take the Jesus Myth idea seriously you can read some of their comments here:

http://www.bede.org.uk/price1.htm

Ted Hoffman

Nothing substantive, just baseless opinions. Either they have no serious response, or are scared to death of the mere thought.
As it is, Jesus Mythicism stands UNCHALLENGED. Lets hope Paula will grab and fling off the shroud of fear that scholars have systrematically blanketed around Jesus mythicism. Its time one of their own yanked it to center stage from the dark corners it has been relegated to and force them to face their fear - even with their shaking and empty hands.
Its a risk they have all been too scared to take. Its time someone grew some balls.

Vorkosigan

Good to see your moniker here, Jacob. Hope things are going well. Can't wait to read Fredriksen's comments.

Toto

If you read the article, Doherty is quoting some handwritten comments that Fredriksen made on a copy of Doherty's work for a third person.

Vorkosigan

Even better. Doherty has finally come up with something on the major weakness in his case, which is not stray comments in Paul, but the syncretization of the Life and Death tradition, the Galilee and Jerusalem stories.

Vorkosigan

Ted Hoffman

Thanks Vork. Nice to be back home. As you can see, Layman wants my ass in a sling without nary a ' and where the hell have you been?'. Already, he is asking to be spoon-fed.

Vinnie

Putting the names Doherty and Fredriksen in a title together is just blasphemous.

Vinnie

rlogan

I read through that and will add some bits to this quote regarding how the mythicist position should be toppled:


"What is needed is a comprehensive, all-inclusive paradigm which will deal with those elephants in a better way than the mythicist case does: explanations for the pervasive silence on the Gospel Jesus in the epistles, for the exclusive focus on scripture and revelation in all the early writers, for the great dichotomy between the Galilean and Jerusalem traditions, for the immediate elevation of Jesus to cosmic levels in a Jewish-style milieu, for the Platonic saturation of early christology, the blatant parallels in thought and ritual to the mystery cults, the picture in the 2nd century apologists, and on and on. No systematic refutation such as this to the mythicist case in general, or mine in particular, has been forthcoming from anyone."

I watch the HJ proponents do contortions to explain away things on a case-by-case basis. but when you step back and look at the whole, a general mythicist approach fits everything best.

I'll just give one example. I have been very suspicious of the complete lack of early tradition in visiting any place whatsoever associated with an HJ. Tomb, birthplace, calvary, or favorite sports bar. The response to me on this has been that good 1st century Jewish people didn't do that. No veneration of stuff. That's a later tradition. Anachronism.

So, OK lets accept that. Then how is it these good Jewish people on the other hand so readily accept the dramatic blasphemy of a man-God? You just can't have it both ways. On the other hand, accepting the Man-God belief sure lends itself to tomb veneration, etc.

The only way I see reconciling these is via the myth. There weren't places to visit, and the whole story wasn't straight yet.

I would add that Doherty is not the first, and he is not a monopolist over "the" mythicist position. Elements of truth may be found in the myth and there are many who readily accept for example the "composite" approach of part man (or men), part OT tradition, part pagan myth or whatever. Moreover, the final version of the myth was a political settlement consolodating the disparate individual "Christ" movements.

For that matter the HJ crowd (the saner ones anyway) dismiss the birth fantasies, lazarus, water into wine, and such - and so by definition the HJ crowd is admitting myth. In general they admit artful interpolations and a muddled picture of the "real" Jesus.

The question is how much of an HJ is there? No sane scholar can go for broke and say 100% because the books of the Bible are inconsistent on too many scores. So 100% of what?

I say "myth". Were I to promote the idea that everything about Jesus was 100% made up then I would use the term "fable".

That would be Vinnie's position, for example.

Steven Carr

Fredriksen
as quoted in the URL in the opening Post
'This is not so. Monotheism in antiquity is not so austere, and lots of second temple writings that are not canonical make elevated claims for figures like Enoch, or Moses, or Solomon.'

and later she writes

'The emperor Constantine, in his capitol city, was worshiped as hos theos, "a god", by Xns in the 5th c. This author seems to be taking modern views of monotheism and retrojecting them. In antiquity, divinity was on a gradient: only one High God, but lots of other divine personalities below him, too—whether you were pagan, Jewish or (eventually) Xn.'


WRIGHT in http://www.ctinquiry.org/publication...e_2/wright.htm
'Theologically, it belongs completely with Isaiah's ringing monotheistic affirmations that YHWH and YHWH alone is the true god, the only creator, the only sovereign of the world, and that the gods of the nations are contemptible idols whose devotees are deceived, at best wasting their time and at worst under the sway of demons.'

''''' 'What he (Paul) does with the Caesar-cult stems directly from what Isaiah does with the Babylonian cult, which in turn looks back to Deuteronomy's rejection of all paganism in favour of the stern monotheism of the creator and covenant god.'

CARR
So how austere was monotheism?
Was it stern (Wright) or 'not austere' Fredriksen?