judge

The term is different for different periods. For ancient history a "primary source" is a document or text from the period in question.
A secondary source would be one that analyses and cites primary source material.

Diogenes the Cynic

One that makes primary claims and presents them as true. It doesn't matter if the claims actually ARE true. That's not a criterion for being a primary source. If it's a first person account, then it's primary.

spin

Jesus is basically the Latin form of the Greek Ihsous, from Joshua and later Yeshua, which was in Aramaic Yeshu, though the "e" wasn't written, leaving us with something extremely similar to the Arabic form.

Zaphod

An interesting position, that, and one that would have resulted in your burning at the stake for most of a 1500 year span, as it conflicts with official ecclesiastical doctrine. You know... the Pope and all.

And here I thought it was only mythicists who were motivated by a hatred of Christianity!

outhouse

history is history, and thankfully dogma doesnt get in our way.



be kind of hard telling the ancient beginning's of christianity that jesus would have been their direct enemy had he still been alive

Dave31

There is no formal mythicist position in current modern scholarship for Ehrman to address AFAIK. Dr Robert M Price and Dr Carrier haven't produced a case for a mythical Jesus to date, so if Ehrman is going to critique any mythicist position, it will probably be among the most popular ones in print and on the Internet. The two best known ones to my knowledge are Doherty's "Mythical Realm Christ" theory and Acharya S's "Astrotheological origins" idea. Maybe GA Wells' might be in there as well, from a Pauline perspective. Any others?

Actually, Acharya created a bonafide Mythicist Position in her book, Christ in Egypt, page 12 (2009).

Here's the video:

The Mythicist Position video


Ehrman does a pathetic job with this book from what I've seen so far. I think this book is going to blemish Ehrman's credibility. He has screwed up everything that he complains about Acharya's book Christ Conspiracy and he fails to even mention that she's written 5 more books. Ehrman's book might as well have been written by JP Holding - it's that bad.

Here's just one thing Ehrman screwed up:

The phallic 'Savior of the World' hidden in the Vatican

Here's the mythicist position thread here at this forum:

Dave31

Earl Doherty is right:

What about the copycat theory?

stephan huller

tanya,

Jesus in Arabic is Isa not Isu. I see you're in the Middle East. Why don't you know that? Typical American. Visit the world eat at a hundred different McDonalds. Like the people who come back from Eye-raq or talk about bombing Eye-ran (or mention the Eye-talian restaurant down the street). Drives me crazy.

I find the attacks against Ehrman really annoying also. He's a fucking real scholar. You may not like what he has to say. You may think that Jesus is a mythical figure. Fine. But just huffing and puffing about how Acharya's book is better than Ehrman's is a joke. Ehrman could shit in a bucket and it would be better than the Christ conspiracy.

I say this not being a believer in Jesus the man.

But seriously, it is a bad sign when people who haven't even read the book are already lining up against it. Yes, we know that there all sorts of reasons to think that Jesus was mythical and there are all sorts of other reasons for believing he was a real historical figure. The way many of these atheists act as if 'absolute knowledge' is possible is really annoying. Only God is perfect and if there is no God then no one has perfect knowledge.

We should always suspend judgment until we actually take the time to read someone's arguments. It is a sign of bad faith to already attack something you haven't read.

outhouse

your right

no one has perfect knowledge.



no god or moses or abraham ever existed outside of scripture.

Dave31

Actually, Bart Ehrman's new book is going to ruin his credibility because Ehrman's criticisms are full of sloppy and egregious errors. I have actually read parts of his book via Google books. Everything He complained about regarding Acharya S was all screwed up.

Speaking of "bad faith" regarding criticizing books people have never read, Ehrman didn't read Christ Conspiracy - he merely plucked out whatever dirt he thought would be easy to smear her with and he got it wrong. Richard Carrier maliciously attacks her and he's read nothing of hers either. Carrier has embarrassed himself with his sloppy and egregious errors criticizing her too. But, I see very few here with the integrity or character capable of pointing that out. You've probably read nothing of hers either. So, who's really acting in bad faith? I think we know who.

Here's just one example of Ehrman's sloppy and egregious "scholarship":

The phallic 'Savior of the World' hidden in the Vatican