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Old 01-20-2012, 04:47 PM   #31
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The Quest for the Historical Jesus has NOT one thing to do with Doherty or Wells.

The Quest for Historical Jesus is a 250 year old Search that still continues.

Let us NOT get diverted by what appears to be some form of trickery or magic by HJ apologists

There is NO credible historical source to support the Quest so they will be forced to BELIEVE in the same Bible Jesus that they had initially rejected.

The very same data for MYTH Jesus of Nazareth is now employed HJ.
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Old 01-20-2012, 06:02 PM   #32
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After Ehrman agreed to write the book, he contacted Robert M Price and got some reading recommendations.

I suspect some of the book will be a debunking of the less respectable mythicist internet memes going back to Kersey Graves.
Hopefully Ehrman will be covering Doherty's theories, upon Price's recommendation. However, Price has given very positive reviews of Acharya S's work as well (Doherty has also given Acharya S's "The Christ Conspiracy" and "Suns of God" very positive reviews), so Ehrman may also be addressing astrotheology, which would be interesting.
On a recent podcast, Price indicated that he has a more nuanced view of Acharya S's published work than this indicates, and that Acharya S is revising her earlier works.

I think astrotheology is a little too far outside Ehrman's area. I don't think he could have read everything he would need to if he were going to write something valuable on the subject.
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Old 01-22-2012, 08:55 AM   #33
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"Serious" is a subjective title, but Ehrman's slur gets a pass from me, because I take the minimum requirement of authority in scholarship to be either employment in a state-accredited college or authorship of many articles in respectable journals. Robert M. Price is probably the Jesus-minimalist still alive who has the best credentials, which I take to be an embarrassing point, because Price has a PhD (two PhDs?) but no employment at an accredited research institution. Doherty has no credentials other than an MA in ancient languages and popularity on the web. You may have a different idea of what counts as "serious," though, and that is OK with me.

I think Ehrman made a good point about the brother-of-Jesus passage of Galatians 1:19, in that it is something that Paul said in passing, as though it was not so much in Paul's interest and not a significant point of ancient debate. I don't think that is "bluster," but maybe you have a different idea about that, too.

At the time, I doubt that he read either Price or Doherty. That has probably changed, because, according to Price himself on his radio show, Ehrman asked Price for some of the relevant literature, and Price obliged. Price actually has considerable respect for Ehrman, and Price predicted that Ehrman's book would not be lightweight.
Interesting reply, cheers.

I'm gauging seriousness by the content of their books, rather than by their official credentials. I don't think you could read Ehrman and then read Doherty, and say that Doherty appears to be at any sort of academic disadvantage. The Doherty book I have is copiously referenced and very tightly argued. He does not strike me as amateur in a derogatory sense at all, although I am not an ancient historian so take my opinion as it might be worth. It is very easy for historicist academics to react with snobbery. I accept they are the experts and may be right, but experts too are capable of prejudice as many academic scandals have shown. I hope Ehrman's book will be really strong, presenting the historicist case with a force it has never had applied up till now. Then we will be able to tell which side is stronger. It's worrying though if he had never previously read any of this work. How could he dismiss it without even reading it?

Re the brother thing, all we can say is that Paul was operating with very different assumptions from us. What he could mention in passing and expect his audience to understand, is not the same as what goes for us. We don't really have enough evidence to make more than an educated guess.

Looking forward to seeing how this pans out. Hope Ehrman sends advance copies to the mythicists so we get the debate going quickly!
Yeah, I expect that Ehrman would give the Jesus-minimalist authors advance copies. I expect the publisher would use the debates hot on the Internet to drive the sales.

The debate about the existence of Jesus was hot among scholars one hundred years ago, when a few German scholars such as Bruno Bauer and Arthur Drews put it on the table. They represented an anti-religious camp, as the modern Jesus-minimalists do today, they are believed to have lost the debate, and scholars have since ignored it except for retrospection of modern scholarly history. More modern authors such as GA Wells and Earl Doherty cater to the audience that wants to hear it, but their best arguments are merely repeats, and their new arguments tend to be their worst.

They follow in the patterns of many other authors who have improbable theories about history. When the textual evidence contradicts the theories, they tend to have three ways of dealing with it:

1) They claim the passage in question was edited.
2) They claim not-so-obvious interpretations of the passage in question.

These two methods would make any theory you can possibly imagine consistent with the evidence. There is nothing wrong with those two methods as long as one supplies a strong argument. If they are mere possibilities proposed to make the theory fit, then they are mere ad hoc. Earl Doherty does this all throughout his literature. For example, he explains the passage in Josephus about "James, the brother of Jesus, called Christ," as interpolation, where "called Christ" did not originally exist. The evidence seems to stand against this, as it would leave "Jesus" unidentified until a few lines later (at best), breaking a consistent pattern of Josephus, but it is still a possibility, and Earl Doherty writes as though the mere possibility is enough to save his case. In history, though, anything is possible. Making a case should be about probability, and, typically, the theory with the least number of improbable ad hoc explanations is the winner.

Scholars see these kinds of explanations all the time, and a brief glance at Doherty's literature I think would be enough to justify dismissing it as that same old style of bad argumentation, intended for a lay audience, not knowledgeable scholars. Ehrman's theory has the advantage of relying on interpretations that are evident on the face of the ancient texts with minimal need for interpolations or "layers" of editing.
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Old 01-22-2012, 09:57 AM   #34
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.... They represented an anti-religious camp, as the modern Jesus-minimalists do today,
Why do you keep repeating this false accusation? Robert Price is not anti-religion, nor is Tom Harpur. A lot of the interest in the Christ Myth theory comes from New Age believers, such as Freke and Gandy.

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they are believed to have lost the debate, and scholars have since ignored it except for retrospection of modern scholarly history. More modern authors such as GA Wells and Earl Doherty cater to the audience that wants to hear it, but their best arguments are merely repeats, and their new arguments tend to be their worst.
They lost the political debate, and scholars have since ignored it for their own convenience.

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They follow in the patterns of many other authors who have improbable theories about history. When the textual evidence contradicts the theories, they tend to have three ways of dealing with it:

1) They claim the passage in question was edited.
2) They claim not-so-obvious interpretations of the passage in question.
Funny, these are the same methods most scholars use. There are widespread interpolations in early Christian literature, and the most obvious interpretation is often not the best when you are dealing with literature full of allusions and hidden meanings.

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These two methods would make any theory you can possibly imagine consistent with the evidence. There is nothing wrong with those two methods as long as one supplies a strong argument. If they are mere possibilities proposed to make the theory fit, then they are mere ad hoc. Earl Doherty does this all throughout his literature. For example, he explains the passage in Josephus about "James, the brother of Jesus, called Christ," as interpolation, where "called Christ" did not originally exist. The evidence seems to stand against this, as it would leave "Jesus" unidentified until a few lines later (at best), breaking a consistent pattern of Josephus, but it is still a possibility, and Earl Doherty writes as though the mere possibility is enough to save his case. In history, though, anything is possible. Making a case should be about probability, and, typically, the theory with the least number of improbable ad hoc explanations is the winner.
There is no evidence against the idea that "called Christ" is an interpolation.

In general, Doherty does not favor interpolations.

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Scholars see these kinds of explanations all the time, and a brief glance at Doherty's literature I think would be enough to justify dismissing it as that same old style of bad argumentation, intended for a lay audience, not knowledgeable scholars. Ehrman's theory has the advantage of relying on interpretations that are evident on the face of the ancient texts with minimal need for interpolations or "layers" of editing.
This is crazy. Doherty's writing is full of careful research. Ehrman is a major proponent of the claim that the Christian documents have been forged and altered.

Let's just wait for March 20.
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Old 01-22-2012, 03:50 PM   #35
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I would be disappointed if Ehrman did not make the copy-cat-Christs arguments the focus of his book, because those are the most popular arguments among mythicists generally, though not on this forum.
Not among 'pro' mythicists, including myself. If Ehrman, knowing this, nevertheless makes that his focus, then he will be indulging in fraud; or if he does not know it, then he knows nothing about the mythicist case and is indulging in ignorance.

You really never change, do you, Abe?

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Old 01-22-2012, 04:09 PM   #36
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These two methods would make any theory you can possibly imagine consistent with the evidence. There is nothing wrong with those two methods as long as one supplies a strong argument. If they are mere possibilities proposed to make the theory fit, then they are mere ad hoc. Earl Doherty does this all throughout his literature. For example, he explains the passage in Josephus about "James, the brother of Jesus, called Christ," as interpolation, where "called Christ" did not originally exist. The evidence seems to stand against this, as it would leave "Jesus" unidentified until a few lines later (at best), breaking a consistent pattern of Josephus, but it is still a possibility, and Earl Doherty writes as though the mere possibility is enough to save his case. In history, though, anything is possible. Making a case should be about probability, and, typically, the theory with the least number of improbable ad hoc explanations is the winner.
Ad hoc explanations are both ways. If you want to accept the "..called Christ" as original to the text, you're stuck producing ad hoc explanations of the silence about it in the Xtian sources, explaining why Josephus would refer to someone called "Christ" when he has no truck with messianic pretenders, why the death of a random James should result in the rise of the Damneus family to the High Priest position -- which makes sense if the passage had originally referred to a James in that family, why Photius reports a different phrase in that location, indicating tampering, etc. You can't escape the problem of ad hoc explanations by falling back on the mainstream interpretive framework, you simply trade one set with few or none (mythicism) to one set with zillions (historicism).

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Old 01-22-2012, 04:16 PM   #37
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By the way, is Ehrman's book still due to be available only in electronic form? If so, any response I make (by myself or in concert with others) will be in trouble. I have just spent three frustrating months trying to convert my Jesus: Neither God Nor Man to Amazon Kindle, and have failed. Numerous communications with the "Kindle Team" (all located in India, apparently, unless all the tech people in the U.S. happen to have Indian names!) have failed to solve the problems I have run into. They seem incapable of anything but stock responses and offering links to explanatory material which doesn't explain or requires a degree in Rocket Science to interpret. (Nobody thinks linearly these days, I guess, and the instructions are all over the map.) Among other things, I have run into unsolvable indentation problems, and most important, Kindle's apparent inability to support even the simplest special characters (the "o" and "e" letter with a bar over them in transliterated Greek words)--despite the fact that they declare such characters *are* supported, but can't explain why my conversion doesn't do so. So much for outsourcing. I can't seem to get around this India team and reach anyone in the U.S. who might know a little more about the system.

I may make enquiries with other booksellers to see if their Reader systems are a little more friendly (and their Contact people more knowledgeable). Perhaps B&N's "Nook." Is it really beyond modern technology to create a Reader which can handle a simple conversion, let's say from pdf files? What a fiasco!

Despite Ehrman's ridiculous claim about me and my money-making ambitions, it's quite possible I won't have enough financial resources to make a second print run of Jesus: Neither God Nor Man. (It's an expensive book, including getting it to Amazon.) I was hoping to be able to supplant the printed version with an electronic one, saving cost and nightmare shipping logistics. If that's not possible, the book may just go into limbo. (On top of which is that JNGNM has already been pirated and put in its entirety on a website, and even though I managed to get the site owner (dreamhost) to get this one removed, there may be others I haven't learned of yet, with this sort of trampling of copyright probably the wave of the future. One can understand, when you occupy my position, why something like SOPA is needed, if we can just solve the negative effects on the Internet.)

Earl Doherty
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Old 01-22-2012, 04:38 PM   #38
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I have a Kindle book on the history of yoga, with transliterated Sanskrit words containing vowels with bars over them. Those letters look like someone hand wrote them and pasted in a graphic, not always very evenly.
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Old 01-22-2012, 04:57 PM   #39
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By the way, is Ehrman's book still due to be available only in electronic form? If so, any response I make (by myself or in concert with others) will be in trouble. I have just spent three frustrating months trying to convert my Jesus: Neither God Nor Man to Amazon Kindle, and have failed. Numerous communications with the "Kindle Team" (all located in India, apparently, unless all the tech people in the U.S. happen to have Indian names!) have failed to solve the problems I have run into. They seem incapable of anything but stock responses and offering links to explanatory material which doesn't explain or requires a degree in Rocket Science to interpret. (Nobody thinks linearly these days, I guess, and the instructions are all over the map.) Among other things, I have run into unsolvable indentation problems, and most important, Kindle's apparent inability to support even the simplest special characters (the "o" and "e" letter with a bar over them in transliterated Greek words)--despite the fact that they declare such characters *are* supported, but can't explain why my conversion doesn't do so. So much for outsourcing. I can't seem to get around this India team and reach anyone in the U.S. who might know a little more about the system.

I may make enquiries with other booksellers to see if their Reader systems are a little more friendly (and their Contact people more knowledgeable). Perhaps B&N's "Nook." Is it really beyond modern technology to create a Reader which can handle a simple conversion, let's say from pdf files? What a fiasco!

Despite Ehrman's ridiculous claim about me and my money-making ambitions, it's quite possible I won't have enough financial resources to make a second print run of Jesus: Neither God Nor Man. (It's an expensive book, including getting it to Amazon.) I was hoping to be able to supplant the printed version with an electronic one, saving cost and nightmare shipping logistics. If that's not possible, the book may just go into limbo. (On top of which is that JNGNM has already been pirated and put in its entirety on a website, and even though I managed to get the site owner (dreamhost) to get this one removed, there may be others I haven't learned of yet, with this sort of trampling of copyright probably the wave of the future. One can understand, when you occupy my position, why something like SOPA is needed, if we can just solve the negative effects on the Internet.)

Earl Doherty
Earl, Calibre e-book management software converts PDFs to any of a number of formats. It is free.

http://calibre-ebook.com/

Why don't you download that, run your book in PDF through the converter, and see what it looks like in Kindle? You can download Kindle for PC free from Amazon. Just note that after you CONVERT in Calibre you have to again SAVE separately.

Ehrman's book is going to be available in both print and e-book.

Alas, pirated books are now common, the internet is awash in free books, illegal scans. It really sucks for people who create things. The scarcity model of economics is running up against the problem of the essentially zero cost of making a digital copy. Especially given the thoroughly ridiculous cost of e-books from the major publishers.... so many times on Amazon I find a book I'd like to buy but the low-end print edition is cheaper than the e-book. And academic books are ridiculously overpriced in e-book format.

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Old 01-22-2012, 05:21 PM   #40
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If you can wait until March I live in Seattle and go visit the office on your behalf. I know how frustrating it is to deal with Amazon
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