Ted Hoffman

Thanks ben.

EarlDoherty

It’s true, Ben, that I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of your remark, but it’s not so much that you declined that particular offer to engage in debate over my Sounds of Silence feature (much less that you “insulted” me, which you didn’t), but the outrageousness of the remark itself. And if mythicists and historicists do indeed inhabit “different conceptual universes,” then why are you here? If nothing any mythicist can say troubles you, if no amount of silence or incompatible material in the early record could disturb your placidity (even if multiplied a hundred-fold, as I think you put it), then there is clearly no point in you wasting your time (and ours) on IIDB. On the other hand, if you are here to defend your convictions and keep us honest, why pass up important opportunities? As I recall, you used the same sort of reason (if not quite the same phrase) a month or two ago in declining someone else’s offer to discuss arguments pro and con.

It just seems there’s a recurring pattern here, and not just with you. In the period before I wrote my article refuting those alleged scholarly refutations of the Jesus Myth theory, there was a fair bit of appeal and discussion on this forum about the claim that traditional scholarship had long laid the JM claim to rest. I write a major rebuttal to a century of that traditional scholarship (the first of its kind), and no one bothers to read and comment on it, much less attempt a counter-rebuttal to any of it (although I did notice that such appeals fell silent). Zeichman’s critique gets congratulations, I respond, and no one sees fit to address it.

I get the feeling that the HJers on this board are one-trick ponies. OK, two tricks. Kata sarka, and born of woman, and even though I’ve offered extensive argument in explaining and/or neutralizing them, they continue to be assumed as more or less self-evident, indicating a Pauline knowledge of an historical Jesus, case closed.

I don’t remember all the details about the history you cite of me passing up your own challenges, but I have certainly never used the excuse that we move in different worlds or refuse to address them because I am unperturbed by ‘all the evidence’ for an HJ. But perhaps it’s true that our worlds are different conceptually. In any case, I’ll give it a rest. The thing has probably run out of tread by now. As for your query on the Zeichman thread, I do recall that it went by the wayside in my determination to ignore Gibson and get back to finishing my Mysteries & Christianity series, another item that has been ignored by the HJ crowd who quite frequently have dismissed the idea of Christianity’s debt to the mysteries and especially heaped ridicule on any claim that the Jesus story has been ‘borrowed’ from Greek or savior-god mythology.

However, I will continue to post a few excerpts from my response to Zeichman, but I will do so on a new thread (later today): “Fear and Loathing of Doherty’s Use of Q”: A Response to Chris Zeichman. Perhaps it will even prompt some notice and comment. Am I “goading,” as Ben suggests? That’s hardly the way to put it. Nor is it a case of me wanting attention. I just expect that if opponents of the JM theory are going to bother coming aboard—remember, this is the Internet Infidels, not CrossTalk—that they do something to earn their keep, rather than sitting around the fireplace congratulating each other and drinking our beer. (Zeichman excepted, of course. He actually took the trouble to write an article.)

Someone recently remarked on the JesusMysteries list that “IIDB is on the way to becoming another XTALK2.” Not if I can help it.

All the best,
Earl Doherty

Ben C Smith

Sorry, I did not realize I had to earn my keep around here. Let me see if I can get a broom and dustpan or something.

Much more importantly, I also did not realize there was free beer!

(I do think I explained once before that I am not here to defend any HJ theory per se. I am here in the interests of interpreting the texts, which sometimes involves the whole HJ-MJ thing.)

Ben.

Ben C Smith

It do not think it is true that mythicists and historicists inhabit different conceptual universes, nor have I ever said that.

I said that you and I inhabit different conceptual universes.

AFAICT, G. A. Wells and I occupy the same conceptual universe, and he is (was?) a mythicist. (Background information: I used to be something very close to a Wells mythicist. Seems so long ago now.)

Ben.

Amaleq13

I don't visit either so what does this mean?

Unfortunately, it is in my fridge so "free" is relative.

Ted Hoffman

Okay, okay, okay, slow down guys. What in Jesus' little feet is a Wells mythicist?

Peter Kirby

One who doubts the existence of the Jesus at the bottom of the well? :devil3:

Or, perhaps, one who subscribes to a theory of Christian origins like the one put forward by Wells in half a dozen books from the 1970s to early 1990s.

Ted Hoffman

But Wells was not a mythicist! What is the meaning of "mythicist" as used here?

Peter Kirby

You tell me then, what is the meaning of mythicist?

Did early Wells believe in a Jesus crucified under Pontius Pilate? So...what are Wells and Ellegard? (Forgive the absence of the accent, Ellegard.)

Ted Hoffman

I mustave confused Wells with Ellegard.