Amaleq13

I'm not familiar with any that specifically argue that Jesus existed. All the ones I've read assume Jesus to have existed and argue their particular conceptualization as the most "historical".

I'm familiar with several but none seem credible to me. This holds true even if I assume an historical Jesus! The closest I've seen to a credible explanation is that Paul avoided anything that might suggest anyone else might have had greater authority to preach about Jesus. That almost works except that, if that is assumed, I don't understand why he would bother mentioning "the pillars" at all.

If someone asserts that the universe is significantly less than c.15 billion years old, it is not logically valid to simply dismiss their claim by appealing to the large number of astronomers that believe otherwise. If you want to present a logical argument against their claim, you have to provide the basis for that consensus.

I agree that it, in the course of every day life, reasonable to accept many examples of "expert consensus" without understanding the basis. In an attempt to assert one conclusion over another or to reject the credibility of a conclusion, however, continuing that sort of "blind acceptance" constitutes the logical fallacy of an appeal to the majority (with a hint of an appeal to authority as spice).

I agree except I would use "scholarly" instead of your first "serious". This is essentially what Carrier suggests to Doherty in his review.

PS I mentioned this elsewhere but, if it matters to you, my lack of faith in Christianity is entirely independent of my attempts to defend the mythicist position. I rejected Christianity and "became" an atheist all while assuming Jesus to have been an historical figure.

sodium

So, for example, if some scientists were building a rocket to the moon, would you argue that they should base their calculations on how physical objects have behaved in the past with regard to such things as gravity and inertia, or restrict themselves to knowledge that can be proven a priori?

Ted Hoffman

Thanks peter for the update.
Let me explain to Layman what I meant - and correct me (Kirby) if I am wrong about your approach.

In my judgement, Kirby attempts to enalyze Robbin's work via the same methods applied in the natural sciences and Kirby attempts to map the writings of the authors to one underlying objective reality at the time the texts were written. His intent is to demonstrate that there is no sea-voyage genre in the texts cited as Robbins argues.

This (making the claim that certain knowledge is priveledged or more correct) is exactly what the hermeneutics of deconstructionism are against.
To Robbins, its all about interpretation and no one interpretation has greater truth value than the other. Thats why he used the word 'exclusionary' with Layman.

Let me attempt to illustrate. After a war, if you ask one of the people from the victorious side and one from the vanquished side to narrate the events of the war, you will get different stories and not just because they are from two different sides but because of their tools of discourse and interpretation of events.

Robbins, IMHO, attempts to demonstrate that there is an underlying sea-voyage genre in Luke and Acts as seen in the we-passages. This, he argues is as a result of the Hellenistic culture and literary styles that were employed then.
Even economic lifestyles and the socio-cultural settings (eg being a sea-faring community) influence the tools of discourse communities employ. Reality, to postmodernists at least, is not one objective entity, but is a social construct defined by the text.

Half-full half-empty kind of thing. Both are correct.

When one examines the manner in which lakes and seas are constructed by the authors of the NT books examined and the coincidence of sea voyages and first person plural narration in Acts is striking (to me at least) and shows that there is a literary style (sea-voyage genre) at work. I am persuaded as Robbins argues, that the author of Luke-Acts is a versatile Hellenistic writer who is an intelligent participant in the literary arena of Mediterranean culture".

Bede says Robbin's work is dead in the water. Thats fine with me. If he is happy with that, I am happy with that.

Peter Kirby

I invite you to start a new thread on the 1978 essay by Robbins (now online), my detailed response (also online), or your scribblings on deconstructionist hermeneutics. This thread is not the place for such discussion.

If you do start a new thread, make sure to verify the representations made--e.g., what you say about the ideas of Robbins, which should be strongly grounded in what Robbins actually says. And, of course, what Robbins says is in no way the last word, as the work of Robbins is precisely that which we are debating.

best,
Peter Kirby

spin

It's time for those people who turn the literary figure of Jesus into a supposedly historical figure to justify themselves.

You continue to refuse to do this, like the flat-earther who refuses to show that the world is flat.

Yours is a position of no logic. You claim a substantive position yet you will not show the reasoning for that substantive position, therefore you have no case. You are just crapping on.

I personally am agnostic about the Jesus myth/reality. Convince me one way or the other.

Oh, and by the way, there may have been traditions as those papers you have put up indicates, but these are no indication of a historical reality. That is still your problem. We've been through Papias and he is found wanting as a witness to the documents we now have -- as I said, he was clearly not referring to our Matthew when he talks of a document by a Matthew --, so as a witness he has little to offer for corroborating what he says. The Didache should tell you to beware of those itinerant preachers who went around sponging off communities because of their knowledge. We have preachers telling people what will get them fed. Reports of reports have no value. We need historical indications of Jesus to get past the agnostic position. So far, you've shown yourself empty sleeved.


spin

Ted Hoffman

Kirby, that would take time and effort. I am not willing to expend my time defending Robbins work. At least not at this point in time.

I will take it that you are not satisfied with my analysis and leave it at that. I am not particularly keen on proving anything here.
But thanks for the challenge, if I see a window next year, I will inform you about whether and when I can undertake the task you have stated.

Thanks

Ted Hoffman

Layman,

First of all, I hope you have quit whining that JP Holdings work got serious attention and yours just got 'skimmed'
Secondly, you display a lot of immaturity when you keep secret the link to the documents Doherty was responding to. That was just juvenile.

Thirdly, even christians and other theists review books in Amazon.
Fourth, scholars, by definition, are supposed to be well acquainted with works that touch on their field. To find a piece of work that readers think is brilliant while scholars show utter ignorance about is evidence that there are parochial forces at work that make that work untouchable and their thinking , sectarian. For scholars to respond to serious research work with huddling together to get consensus instead of sitting down and studying the work is craven and irresponsible.
Its clear that they knew of the contents of Doherty's book via divine inspiration and not through reading it. How scholarly!

Expertise in these areas is irrelevant if its not brought to bear upon a particular work in question.
If its not applied, whats the point in being an expert? You Layman have stated that Doherty's work is probably not even on the radar screen of these so-called scholars. If you agree with them that Doherty's work is useless and not worth the time, why have you done exactly the opposite?
How much time have you spend writing essays on Doherty's work? Does the amount of time you have spent on it show Doherty's work is crackpottery?

And don't mention methodology - there is NO methodology for separating fact from fiction. These 'scholars' are just using hunches and just go with what feels comfortable.
We dont need them if thats all they can do.

Layman

I hardly whined. I simply noted it.

You live on another planet. I kept nothing secret. I had no idea that Doherty was going to pass along his email response to me and that someone would post it here. Nor did I realize that you could not read Doherty when he talked about responding to articles in the plural. Nor did I realize you were ignoring the fact that I had posted a link to the longest of those articles, my critique of Hebrews.

Really, you are being bizarre. It's not my fault you didn't read Doherty's email and assumed I had only written one article. It's not my fault you ignored the post I did on Hebrews. It's not my fault you didn't visit my website which is noted on my profile and lists all of my responses to Doherty.

Seriously, are you feeling okay?

Sheesh.

Sure, but how many reviewed Doherty's book? Geeze.

I've met Christians who thought that Ken Ham was brilliant, but I doubt many biologists have even heard of him much less responded to him in any detail. They rightly see him as a fringer.

Oh, now I'm obsessed with Doherty whereas before I only dismissed him with one article. Please get the story straight.

I am no historian, nor am I a New Testament scholar. But I finally got fed up with not being able to discuss any issue other than the Jesus Myth on boards like this one that used to have some seriousness to it. I also noted that however meritless the idea was, the fact of the matter was that it was gaining momentum on the 'net. So I thought I'd do the world a favor and offer measured rebuttal.

A lot more time than Doherty's disciples do apparently. And definitely more time than they spend responding to them.

Nope. You do that quite well though.

I know that this is an article of faith for you guys. But historians do this all the time.

If there are no methods for learning the truth about history, how did Doherty do it?

Layman

I should finally have my own article out on this issue soon. So when you do get around to defending Robbins, you might want to check it out as well. You can always check my website for it.

spin

Truth is hardly the criterion here, Layman. It is too opaque to be useful. One can find truth in myths or fables, but their truth doesn't render them history. You need to get past such loose terms in order to work on what happened in the past.


spin