judge

Why wait to read a book to make a negative evaluation though?

judge

Did Ehrman say that you said the majority indulged in it?

All I can see from what you posted here is that Ehrman quoted you saying....“the predominant form of popular religion in this period.”

Adam

Ehrman is saying there are seven sources, without ever committing to my thesis that there are seven eyewitnesses. He even says three may be from the 30's. My thesis on my Gospel Eyewitnesses supports that. See my summary in Post #526 in the first five paragraphs:

The bigger issue is that our conversation here has revealed that the three earliest proposed eyewitness sources have little or no supernatural activity tied to them. One would suppose that if anyone here at FRDB had been following my thesis closely that he (or she, henceforth assumed) have pointed out that this part of my thesis would be acceptable here (at least to the HJ school). So let me point out how that would work here, for those who reject any consideration of the gospels in drawing up a picture of Jesus.

Gospel Eyewitnesses #526
To summarize these three, there was the Passion Narrative by John Mark written the week after it happened, the Johannine Discourses written by Nicodemus and Q1 written (or notes taken) by Matthew during the ministry of Jesus. (Ehrman would have a cow if I were to associate his name with these statements, but I present these to show that there is backup available even for what may seem to be his most outlandish statements. I was not aware scholars are now coming to agree with me that many of the gospel sources were written in the '30's, but I myself only recently put forth dates before 44 A. D. except for Nicodemus and maybe Q.

See also my #54 in Richard Carrier blogs about Ehrman's article. Delete my criticism about Carrier specifying Q instead of the Passion Narrative, as Ehrman does not limit himself to one example of a source from the '30's. See Ehrman Pg. 81 to 97.
Richard Carrier blogs #54

aa5874

Ehrman's arguments makes very little sense. He uses the very writings of the Canonical BIBLE to re-construct his Jesus after admitting the very Bible is historically unreliable and then have the gall to RIDICULE others for using the very SAME BIBLE to show Jesus was a MYTH.

How can Ehrman be taken seriously???

Ehrman depends on Galatians 1.19 to claim Jesus was human and appears to think others have an agenda when they use Galatians 1.1, Galatians 1.10-12 and Galatians 4.4 to show that Jesus was non-historical.

Ehrman PRESUMES the Pauline writings are historically accurate wherever HE thinks they are but appears to be offended if his PRESUMPTIONS are not accepted.

This cannot be Scholarship. This IS NOT higher criticism. There is some other underlying problem.

The quest for the historical Jesus was initiated because Jesus was ALWAYS considered Divine now Ehrman want people to think that Jesus was always considered a human being with a human father.

The very Quest for the historical Jesus is PROOF that Ehrman is indeed in ERROR.

These are the words of Tertullian in "On the Flesh of Christ".

It was the Spiritual nature of Jesus that was NOT questioned but up to the end of the 2nd century Christians were still ASKING if Jesus really had a Body with Flesh.

UP to the end of the 2nd century, it was NOT established that Jesus had a human father but it was AGREED that his existence was Spiritual.

Ehrman is in ERROR. Jesus was agreed to be DIVINE.

judge

So Ehrman hypothesises that the christianity or the messianism associated with jesus, that existed prior to 70 CE, hoped for god to come and vanquish the Romans.
However afterwards, after the destruction of Jerusalem, the story was changed and became quite different?

Is that was he says, or does he not really address this?

Diogenes the Cynic

Basically, that's it, yeah. He gives a short reiteration of the thesis he presented in Jesus: An Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium. (or via: amazon.co.uk)

To summarize very simplistically, Ehrman believes that Jesus believed in and preached the imminent coming of the "son of man." Jesus expected this entiy to descend from the sky as in Daniel, but that he did not believe that he himself was that figure. Ehrman believes that Jesus attempted to bring about this event with a symbolic assault on the Temple, was crucified, and that his followers then decided that Jesus himself was the son of man who would return from the sky.

Steven Carr

Still not a Messiah.

You've explained what a Messiah was and that does not fit your description of a Messiah.

Once Ehrman is through telling us how Christians plundered Daniel for prophecies about the Son of Man, yet never once took a reference in Daniel to 'Messiah' as referring to the 'Messiah' , can Ehrman tell us how Christians believed Jesus was the Messiah, when Ehrman trashes the idea that Jesus behaved like a Messiah was expected to behave?

dog-on

Judge, I haven't yet read the latter chapters. It looks like he proposes some idea regarding who the HJ actually was, so I'll comment after I read the last couple chapters.

I am still thrashing through his positive arguments for existence and his responses to various negative arguments.

He does seem to reach a lot of 'possibly, therefore probably, therefore almost certainly' type of conclusions, but I am trying to make sure I understand exactly what his arguments actually say and not simply what they might seem to say. (So far, the more I study his arguments, in many cases, the less certain they seem, despite his fairly confident conclusions. We'll see.)

Diogenes the Cynic

Ehrman says that they thought Jesus was going to descend from the sky as in Daniel, that he would return as a conquering Messiah, not that he already had been.

It's not true that he doesn't take any reference in Daniel to be about the future Messiah, but the one you're alluding to is a reference to a known historical high priest.

Steven Carr

So nobody thought the person referred to as 'Messiah' in Daniel would be the Messiah, but thought that the 'Son of Man' referred to in Daniel was the Messiah?

And before Jesus was crucified, he taught that the Messiah had already been killed, or was a figure he had found in scripture?

Basically Christians invented the concept of a crucified Messiah, although it was impossible, according to Ehrman, for a first-century Jew to think of the Messiah as being crucified?

But Ehrman is now claiming that Jesus taught that there would soon be a figure from scripture coming to Earth - a belief very close to Doherty's.....