Peter Kirby

Okay, then I will probably pass. I have read the books of Craig and Habermas. Next big tome in that vein would be N. T. Wright's, which is on my bookshelf.

Price has had a few oral debates over such subjects as the resurrection (I document one here). Doherty has responded to various people who have posted brief or long criticisms over the past five years, but nothing quite substantial from any big name scholars has been published in response to Doherty. The reasons for this are open to dispute.

Doherty sort of promised himself that he wouldn't be replying to "apologists," but he later decided to respond to one person, Strobel. And before you knock Strobel, any responsibility for the flaws of his book must be shared with each of the big name apologists that he interviews. I don't know if Doherty would do it again with a different book. I have read Blomberg's book and have it on my shelf if you'd like to discuss it.

I would suggest starting with An Introduction to the New Testament, by Raymond Brown, a Roman Catholic scholar who passed away a few years ago, in good graces with the Vatican. This would give an overall view from a good source. If you'd like to continue with more reading, I have a reference list online.

best,
Peter Kirby

Diogenes the Cynic

I chose it because Crossan is nominally a Christian (which I hope might make his presentation more palatable to Phil) and because the book does extensively address the origin of the resurrection myth. I grant that it's not a "debunking" book, exactly (off the top of my head I couldn't think of any books that dealt with specifically debunking the literal resurrection, at least not exclusively).

Maybe I should have just linked him to Richard Carrier's Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection or perhaps Price and Lowder's Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave (which I have just now remembered).

Iasion

Greetings all,

Thanks for your comments :-)


Pliny the Elder more weight, cweb ?
It's true he wrote a large work just at the right time - I'll consider raising him, thanks.


GakuseiDon -
hmmm ... "historicity of Jesus was pretty much established"?
I think the degree of "historicity" can be seen to grow over the 2nd century -
* the amount known about Jesus grows,
* the number of writers who mention Jesus grows.

Pausanias wrote in that odd period when the Jesus stories were fairly well developed, yet even some Christians (Minucius, Athenagoras, Theophilus) didn't know or believe in Jesus.

It's hard to know exactly when the historicity of Jesus was firm - let us know what you think.



Vivisector -
As Dirac_Delta mentions - the issue is that so MANY books are silent.
Suppose you read every book you could find from the 20th century, and none of them mentioned David or Marshall?


More answers later...

Iasion

Peter Kirby

By the way, you have some nice programming books there. A man after my own heart :thumbs:

If you are looking for a nice skeptical compendium on the non-resurrection of Jesus, I can do nothing better than to point you at The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave, which should come out next month. I contribute a chapter to the book. :angel:

best,
Peter Kirby

Peter Kirby

While you are waiting for the book edited by Price and Lowder to come out, you should find Gerd Luedemann's The Resurrection Of Christ: A Historical Inquiry to be quite relevant.

best,
Peter Kirby

PhilVaz

I'm willing to buy a few of these books, or at least check them out from the library. But why is it that when I hear a John Dominic Crossan or Gerd Ludemann in debate with William Lane Craig (Craig has debated them both publicly, I have these in MP3 and/or Real Audio format in case anyone is interested), Craig certainly seems to do the better job in these debates. Maybe because Crossan and Ludemann are not debaters? Or I am not being totally "objective" when evaluating their performances and evidence in these debates?

I'll look for that Empty Tomb book by Lowder/Price when it comes out. Makes for a nice Easter gift to the Fundy in your life, I'm sure. :angel:

And if you want my C programming games with source code, they are here:

http://www.bringyou.to/games/

Phil P

Iasion

Greetings again,

Well,
Philo developed the Logos concept - the first-born son-of-god.
In the very period and region that Jesus, the acclaimed Logos, the first-born son-of-god, allegedly lived.

And as lpetrich noted, he discussed minor Jewish sects, such as the Essenes, who soem e.g. Eusebius considered WERE the early Christians. If a Christian father could believe Philo DID mention the Christians, its not hard to imagine he WOULD have, had he known of them.

Yet he never heard ANYTHING about Jesus or the early believers?



Bede -
well, as fta noted, some people DO doubt Paul existed.
If Jesus DID exist, he seems to have been so minor, so un-noticed, so forgettable that he was less known than the most minor of figures of the period - is THAT the Jesus that is real?
Someone so forgettable, no contemporary recorded him at all?


cweb -
d'oh :-)
Silly me.


lpetrich -
thanks :-)
Feel free to suggest improvements.


Roger -
hi :-)
How was I misleading?


Thanks GakuseiDon -
I can't imagine I will be answering JPHolding again, I just can't bear it :-(



Iasion

Diogenes the Cynic

FYI, the entire (pdf) text of The Jesus Puzzle can be found at The Jesus Puzzle home page. (scroll down)

Vorkosigan

Because Craig is a professional debater -- I don't think it is an objectivity problem. He relies on rhetorical tricks, not serious scholarship. Scholarship by its nature is tentative, complex, and difficult to explain in the debate format, which by its nature does not lend itself well to nuanced presentation. Further, winning a debate is not about being right.

For a real comparison, just look how bad Craig's writing is, compared to Ludemann's or Crossan's.

Vorkosigan

Iasion

Greetings again,

The current version of my Early Writers list is available online here:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentin...lyWriters.html


Iasion