Vorkosigan

Earl, don't waste your time. Spin and I have already tried to explain to Adam the various problems with his methodology and understanding of things.

Vorkosigan

hjalti

Detering is a mythicist?

Vorkosigan

AFAIK, yes.

mountainman

The ancient historian Momigliano preferred to call the biblical historians the INSIDERS, while the ancient historians remained the OUTSIDERS. If you want the reference let me know.

The Biblical historians appear to have some "inside information".

Solo

Understatement of the year !

Best,
Jiri

Adam

Did I just say something controversial? You hold that gThomas is so much later than the canonical gospels that it has no relevance to original sources? So that's why my citation of Funk upsets you, because he goes even farther and regards gThomas parallels with the Synoptics as from a source independent of and earlier than Q? (And yes, there is talk of a Parables Source, which is reconcilable with my quote above.)

spin's "method" was simply to quote me back line-by-line and demand that I prove my assertions. Vork's method is ad hominems, as you see, based on dismissing me as not in line with conventional academic scholarship. Can't allow any of that!

badger3k

Hoffman really, really, really likes credentials. Not what you do with them, or what arguments and evidence you have, just that you have them. I stopped reading his tripe after a few too many incomprehensible rants about atheists not being classical scholars. What that had to do with evidence...he never said. :huh:

badger3k

I was amazed to see an English translation of his newest (I think) book in the Amazon Kindle store for $3.70 US. Since I haven't been able to read anything of his yet, I scarfed it up. It will be interesting to see what he has to say. I did google translate his reply/review of Ehrman, but it wasn't the best. I did get the basics of it, I think, and it was interesting.

hjalti

Bart Ehrman has responded to Carrier: Fuller Reply to Richard Carrier

GakuseiDon

Thanks for the link, hjalti.

Ehrman writes:

I am absolutely positive that Carrier and his supporters will write response after response to my comments here, digging deeper and deeper to show that I am incompetent. They will expect replies, so that then they can write yet more comments, to which they will expect more replies, so that they can write more comments. I am finding, now that I am becoming active on the Internet, that engaging in discussion here can mean entering into a black hole: there is no way out once you hit the event horizon. Many critics of my work have boundless energy and, seemingly, endless time. I myself have lots of energy, but not lots of time. I have had my say now, in an attempt to show my scholarly competence. I do not plan on pursuing the matter time and time again in this medium.

and

Carrier seems to expect Did Jesus Exist to be a work of scholarship written for scholars in the academy and with extensive engagement with scholarship, rather than what it is, a popular book written for a broad audience. There is a big difference. I write both kinds of books. My scholarly books would never be mistaken for books that would be read by a wide, general public...

A non-scholarly book tries to explain things in simple terms, and to do so without the clutter of detail that you would find in a work of scholarship. The book should not be faulted for that. If I had wanted to convince scholars (I’m not sure whom I would then be writing for, in that case) I would have written a different kind of book

Ehrman has written a popular book for a broad audience, to counter popular books written for a broad audience. The obvious answer here is for mythicists to write scholarly books for scholars. Carrier will be the first to do so, at least in modern times. But his shocking hatchet job on Ehrman, as well as the vitriol directed towards Ehrman on the Internet, is going to make a difficult job impossible. He has set the standard for how his own books can be received. And down the spiral we go.

Guys, why do you have to do that? If you have the evidence, let the evidence speak for itself. Maybe on the Internet, a few zingers here or there aren't going to matter. We're all pretty much amateurs here, and that's part of the game. But to treat a scholar who is actually addressing mythicist arguments -- even if you think it is in a half-assed way -- as though he were but another poster on the Internet is so counter-productive, that it makes mythicists appear indistinguishable from the lunies pushing any number of other fringe ideas. Result: one foot, one gun-shot wound.

Let the evidence speak for itself.