John Kesler

You may be interested in Thom Stark's rebuttal of Carrier on these points.

EarlDoherty

Well, Carrier does not agree with you. I don't regard Carrier, or anyone else for that matter, as infallible, but I'll take his word over yours, especially since he identifies himself by name and I know something about him. He maintains (if I have understood him correctly) that the two titles refer to two different offices, prefect as military commander, procurator as a financial official. They co-existed, NOT at two different times. The situation in Judea in Pilate's time was that Judea was not an official "province" (it was not until Claudius), and as such was governed by a "prefect", a military commander (maybe because such areas were not yet formal provinces because they were unstable and still needed a military hand). So Pilate was a PREFECT. But the financial officer was also required and existed at that time. I don't know whether it was common for the Prefect also to be the Procurator, but Carrier's position is that in Pilate's case he was. Once Judea became a province, as with all provinces, it was the procuratorial office which took over governorship. That was the situation in Tacitus' day, which is why he (only half right, but for the wrong reason) referred to Pilate by his lesser office (at that time) of "procurator". (This is assuming, of course, that the Tacitean reference to Pilate, as part of the Annals "Christ" passage, is authentic--which I don't, by the way, believe, which would make it the later interpolator's mistake.)

If you disagree with Carrier, please present your own case, with references. If you want to claim that Carrier's case is not 100% certain (he himself, I believe, left himself some wiggle room), then make THAT case. Perhaps a good starting point would be to read Carrier's article on the subject, which I believe is still to be found on FRDB.

What you do not need to do is pontificate on matters which you seem to have a rather inaccurate grasp of.

Earl Doherty

GakuseiDon

Ehrman explained a little more of his charge in his blog:

Carrier finds fault with my claim, about Earl Doherty, that he “quotes professional scholars at length when their view prove useful for developing aspects of his argument, but he fails to point out that not a single one of these scholars agrees with his overarching thesis” (p. 252). He points out that Doherty does in fact indicate, in various places throughout his book, that the argument he is advancing at that point is not accepted by other scholars. As a result, Carrier states, my claim is nothing but “falsified propaganda.”

It is true that Doherty acknowledges that scholars disagree with him on this, that, or the other thing. But the way he builds his arguments typically makes it appear that he is writing as a scholar among scholars, and that all of these scholars (with him in the mix) have disagreements on various issues (disagreements with him, with one another). One is left with the impression that like these other scholars, Doherty is building a tenable case that some points of which would be granted by some scholars but not others, and that the entire overall thesis, therefore, would also be acceptable to at least some of the scholars he engages with.

I tend to agree. I think that readers of your books come away without realising how controversial many of your conclusions are. For example:
1. That pagans believed in a "World of Myth" where the myths of their savior gods were carried out
2. There were Second Century apologists who believed in a "Logos" style religion
3. “Flesh” (sarx) and “according to the flesh” (kata sarka) were concepts that could be applied to beings existing above the earth and below the moon.
4. No "Jesus" sayings or narratives in the first stratum of Q.

As I wrote in my review, these are points that aren't even on the radar of modern scholarship. Yet readers don't get a sense of this in your books. They just seem to think that the controversial part is the application to these ideas to the origins of Christianity. As I've said before, your readers come away more strongly convinced about your theories than you are!

I don't think this is a ploy or strategy on your part, nor even wrong. But I think Ehrman is right to point this out. That's why I've been urging you for years to make a scholarly contribution to the field. You don't have to unleash the full 300 pound gorilla. Start off by showing that Tatian believed in a Logos style Son, and didn't believe in either a historical Jesus or a Pauline mythical Jesus. Or that Justin Martyr converted from that style of Christianity to a historicist one. Or even something to show that some pagans placed their myths of savior gods in the heavens. It's a longer road, but submitting these to peer-review would alleviate these concerns.

manoj

This is not the real problem. The real problem is that you were "writing as a scholar among scholars". A real scholar is "someone who has devoted his entire life to advancing scholarship and to making scholarship more widely available to the reading public", in other words Ehrman himself. :devil1:

-Manoj

Diogenes the Cynic

Earl, my real name is written under my username and location details (right under the red "A").

I'll let Ehrman's expert speak for himself on the procurator/prefect matter:

No procurators in Judea until Claudius.

Grog

I am not sure if you are intentionally trying to be dishonest or if you have actually convinced yourself that you are engaging in an open discussion here.

This is a response to my request for a citation of WHEN he does it. Please demonstrate that your assertion is true. It could be for all I know, I haven't read Doherty's book. My point is that I haven't seen any convincing examples. Here in response to my request for an example you just assert "he does do it." I didn't ask for your opinion, as far as I can tell, your opinion isn't worth very much and can be easily disregarded.

You said:

A "fuller" quotation from Ehrman's response:

His answer was quick and to the point. I quote: ‘Not really’ has to be the answer to your question, because prefect and procurator are simply two possible titles for the same job. The initial growth of equestrian posts in the emperor’s service was a gradual, haphazard process, and there was little concern to fix titles for them [see, e.g., Talbert's chap. 9 in CAH ed. 2 vol. X]. PP could just as well have had the title procurator, but evidently he didn’t …

So here Ehrman's expert says exactly what you accuse Carrier of saying. And contradicts what Ehrman said. He even gives a reason for the titles NOT being fixed: "the inital growth of equestrian posts...haphazard process...little concern to fix titles..." This is not what you are NOW (as opposed to what you were PREVIOUSLY saying, let's see, how can we nail these goalposts down?) saying that there was a fixed chronological succession of titles. It is at that point, Ehrman turns to the PIR, which as I said doesn't exactly fit into what Carrier described as recent scholarly opinion.

Don't follow Ehrman down a dishonest path. I believe Ehrman uses his colleague's opinion in a fraudulent manner. By fraudulent, I mean in a scholarly dishonest way.

I'm not conceding the rest, I just think banana analogies don't deserve responses. And actually, I'm of the opinion that you aren't really worth the time anymore.

I criticized Carrier when his review came out. Perhaps not as harshly as I could have, but I did point out what I thought were some weaknesses in his review. As I said to someone critical of me then, "I'm not a fanboy." Why are you playing the fanboy with Ehrman? The man is capable of mistakes. He is also apparently capable of fudging evidence and even the opinions of colleagues to make his point. He isn't scoring points with me in any of this.

Some of his response is much better than his book and he has dropped some of his dismissive tone. That's a good thing. I hope he can keep it on that path.

EarlDoherty

Bullshit! In typical GDon fashion, you are trying to obscure one point by bringing up other red herrings. WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT JUSTIN MARTYR OR TATIAN OR KATA SARKA HERE. We are talking about the issue of appealing to other scholars' arguments. You are trying to create a diversion and a prejudice against my approach to that perfectly legitimate practice by bringing up completely different issues which YOU regard as 'tainted' and trying to attach that taint where it does not belong.

You keep referring to "the reader" of my books. What readers are those? Complete ignoramuses who know nothing about the field? Am I supposed to be writing entirely for them? (Evidently Ehrman is.) No, Ehrman is NOT right to point that out (referring to quoting points from other scholars). Not unless he clarifies that this is a proper practice, a clarification needed by those ignoramuses. Otherwise, HE is being deceptive to his ignorant readers by implying that there is something unacceptable and deceptive on my part about that practice.

And YOU are doing exactly the same thing. Just as I am not going to point out every time I use a scholar's particular observation that he is not a mythicist, I am not going to point out that some of my views "are not even on the radar of mainstream scholarship." Of course they're not. Does that need stating in actual Kindergarten words? Do YOU need that to be stated? Does anyone else here need it? For Chrissakes, that's evident in my text.

I offer a "World of Myth" by giving a mountain of evidence for it. I have given two lengthy chapters and more on the issue of "flesh" in the heavens, virtually all of it clearly my own analysis. Do I need to point out to the reader that this is NOT A MAINSTREAM VIEW? Do YOU need that? My discussion of the second century apologists' Logos Religion makes it clear that this is NOT A MAINSTREAM VIEW. Did you miss the fact that I do NOT *declare* this to be a mainstream view?

I am going to take it as a given that you have answered my earlier question and are admitting that you are indeed an idiot.

(And no, I am not getting aa to write my posts for me. Sometimes capitalization can serve a purpose. And yes, you're damn right I'm getting angry.)

Earl Doherty

Solo

Excellent stuff, John. Thanks !

Best,
Jiri

Iskander

Yes, it is very good.

Thank you

EarlDoherty

Well, we can now see what the problem is here. You simply can't understand language.

Whether Ehrman's expert meant it, or whether Ehrman misinterpreted it, what you quote does not say "no procurators in Judea until Claudius." It says that the governor of Judea was not a man known by the role/title of "procurator." It does not say that the office of procurator did not exist in Judea, whether held by Pilate or someone else. In fact, the quote from Ehrman's expert includes this statement: "PP could just as well have had the title procurator, but evidently he didn’t." So how could PP have theoretically held the title procurator, if such an office didn't exist in Judea until the time of Claudius?

What the expert is saying, in my reading of English, is that both offices existed in the time of Pilate, that the official office/title which Pilate held AS GOVERNOR was "Prefect." This expert, however, apparently in contrast to Carrier, seems to think that Pilate did not co-hold the office of procurator--though he is not absolutely sure (his "evidently").

I am beginning to think that GDon is right. There are simply too many "readers" (I guess himself included) who are so ignorant and incapable of understanding or exercising judgment on what they read that it is absolutely necessary that everything be spelled out to the nth degree. I guess I needed a companion book as a Guide to deal with the clearly pervasive idiot factor. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

Earl Doherty