avi

Abe, thank you for your clarification in an earlier post.

In this message, above, however, I think you would benefit from explaining to yourself, if no one else, how these folks appear to you to be "hacks".

In other words, when I think of the word hack, it would apply to someone, well, like myself-->unskillful, unread, and not in possession of the requisite tools to properly analyze the situation--functionally illiterate.

I have read David Trobisch's papers, and I do not think he is a "hack". His scholarly credentials and experience strike me as very robust. He may or may not be correct on every point, but, I don't think he writes in a careless fashion, without profound contemplation, whereas, a "hack" would be a guy like me who just types whatever pops into his head at that moment....

Sorry, Abe, I very much disagree with your characterization here.....

avi

Steven Carr

I had to remind Bart that Luke/Acts has no hint that Jesus had any brother called James, as he never knew that.

He had no explanation for why the only even semi-official early church history makes no mention of Jesus having a brother called James.

Of course, nobody takes seriously a claim that Luke/Acts never says Jesus had a brother called James, because people knew that James the church leader was not a brother of Jesus.

That would be lunacy...... After all Galatians 1:19 talks about a brother of the Lord. This is obviously not metaphorical, unlike 'Son of God' which is obviously metaphorical.

Bart also agreed with me that Jesus could not have said those words in 1 Corinthians 11 that historicists keep claiming come from a tradition of the earthly Jesus telling his followers what to do after his death.

2-J

This is great news. Thanks so much ApostateAbe for telling us about this.

I have read lots of Ehrman's books, I have am working my way through Jesus : Neither God Nor Man at the moment, and I have read a lot of what Richard Carrier has written on this subject. I can't wait to see Ehrman respond to Jesus Mythicism.

Doug Shaver

Does that mean I'll have to buy a Kindle if I want to read it?

andrewcriddle

Hi Avi

From Chadwick's edition of Contra Celsum and articles by Chadwick. (Paraphrased)

There is a complete text in the 13th century Vatican manuscript Vatic. Gr. 386. All other continuous texts are copies of this and are only of value where 386 has been damaged.

However in the late 4th century Basil and Gregory prepared an anthology of Origen called the Philocalia This contains about 15% of Contra Celsum and survives in several manuscripts going back to an archetype of c. 700 CE. There is also a 6th century papyrus from Tura which contains extracts from the earlier part of Contra Celsum and preserves about 10% of the total.

Comparison of these sources shows that Vatic. Gr. 386 preserves the same type of text as represented by the Tura papyrus but, (as well as straightforward copying errors), has had its biblical quotations 'corrected' to agree with the later Greek text of the Bible.

One possible problem with the Vatic. Gr. 386/Tura papyrus text, is that it may well represent an edition of Contra Celsum made by Pamphilus c 300 CE rather than going back directly to Origen himself.

Andrew Criddle

DCHindley

So, a tidied up version (eliminating the heterodox ideas that existed in the Greek copies of his day), on the line with the translation of First Principals by Jerome?

DCH

ApostateAbe

Like I said, maybe he isn't. Some time ago, I found out that Hoffmann supports a sort-of postmodernist position on the historical Jesus, where we just don't know one way or the other, much in the same way as Robert M. Price and you. I have a lot of contempt for that position, as it is a philosophical approach that neglects all judgments of probability, though such judgments are the only way historical conclusions can be made. It is not aligned with scientific empiricism. Instead, it is aligned with unlikely fringe theories, whose advocates want to put their positions on the same level as the mainline theories strongly backed by the evidence. Before I was deeply involved in the historical Jesus debates against atheists, I saw the postmodernist arguments regularly among creationists, who would never explicitly identify with the philosophy of postmodernist, but they are generally the same arguments. "We all have the same evidence, you have your interpretation, we have ours, and who is to say that your explanation is better than ours?"

Hoffmann is and has been an anti-religious activist. He was chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion for seven years, and he was senior vice president of the Center for Inquiry.

On the other hand, Hoffmann has academic creds. He got his theological doctorate from Oxford, and he was a professor at several campuses.

There is no dichotomy between academics who are "well qualified" and academics who are "extreme." They may overlap, and those were the kinds of participants in the Jesus Project. My judgment about what happened in the Jesus Project came from Hoffmann's blog entry titled, "Rethinking the Thinking behind The Jesus Project." In it, Hoffmann writes:

The first sign of possible trouble came when I was asked by one such “myther” whether we might not start a “Jesus Myth” section of the project devoted exclusively to those who were committed to the thesis that Jesus never existed. I am not sure what “committed to a thesis” entails, but it does not imply the sort of skepticism that the myth theory itself invites.

I think April DeConick's explanation for why she left the Jesus Project is much more direct and revealing.

My decision about The Jesus Project

After reflecting for two years since I was initially contacted about participating in The Jesus Project, and recently determining the actual goal of TJP which had always been vague to me, I have decided to step aside.

First, the goal to prove Jesus' existence or not is methodologically a black hole from my perspective.

Second, another quest for what we can know about Jesus will turn up nothing new, because each thing that will be identified will be easily deconstructed by the members of the group. When this happens, I can imagine that the minimal-to-nothing "evidence" could be framed as "proof" for Jesus' non-existence. The media will have a heyday - "now scholars prove that Jesus didn't exist" or "scholars say that we can know nothing about Jesus".

This line of reasoning became very evident to me when Tom Verenna quoted a statement of mine published on my blog (in which I stated that the historical Jesus we reconstruct only exists in our imaginations) as somehow aligning with his myther position, as giving validity to it. This is simply false. Because I recognize that my colleagues in the Jesus Seminar have constructed the historical Jesus from their imaginative interpretation of the evidence available, has no bearing on whether or not Jesus actually existed.

In fact, I think that Jesus did historically exist, although I cannot prove this anymore than the mythers can prove he didn't. I have reasons to think that he did exist, including the fact that Paul knew Jesus' brother James and that Hegesippus reports that he knew that the grandsons of Jesus' brother Jude had been interrogated under Domitian. And yes I know how mythers get around this evidence (how it is deconstructed), just as I know how Christians have traditionally gotten around it using some of the same arguments (since human brothers don't coincide with theologies like Mary's perpetual virginity, just as they don't coincide with the position that Jesus was not a historical person).

Unless there is a new orientation to the project, I will not be participating in it, and wish those who remain part of TJP my best.

So, the take-away point is that the Jesus Project was infested with scholars who wished primarily to advance the hypothesis that Jesus was merely myth. That isn't to say that they are unqualified scholars. But, they would qualify as both "extreme" and "hacks," at least in my estimation.

ApostateAbe

That would make me cry.

Toto

You can download a free Kindle reader from Amazon that will work on your PC. You don't need an actual Kindle.

Steven Carr

APRIL
First, the goal to prove Jesus' existence or not is methodologically a black hole from my perspective.


CARR
So not only is it crystal clear that Jesus existed, it is also a black hole.

'Hegesippus reports that he knew that the grandsons of Jesus' brother Jude had been interrogated under Domitian'

Wow! This is some of the evidence put forward.

I can show you pictures of the Maitreya - a totally mythical person who has messages on the Internet, has appeared to many people and who has a photograph http://www.share-international.org/maitreya/ma_main.htm

Let's see Bart Ehrman put a picture of Jesus in his book!

Even mythical people have better evidence for their existence than Jesus of Bethlehem and/or Capernaum and/or Nasareth.

APRIL
Because I recognize that my colleagues in the Jesus Seminar have constructed the historical Jesus from their imaginative interpretation of the evidence available, has no bearing on whether or not Jesus actually existed.


CARR
And just because some cartoonists have constructed Popeye from their own imaginations, has no bearing on whether or not Frank Friegel existed.....

But mythicists say Popeye never existed, and it is left to scholars to try to educate the public into believing that Popeye is as real as Jesus.