Ted Hoffman

His CV is at the Journal of Biblical Studies site.

Thomas L. Thompson is a professor. IBE, University of Copenhagen. He got a B.A. Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1962 and undertook graduate studies in ancient Near East and biblical studies and got a PhD: Temple University in 1976.
He is a professor of Biblical Studies and Religion and professor of Old Testament.
In his new book, The Messiah Myth, an excerpt from Amazon says:
Well, well, well, very delightful.

Bede

As Thompson is one of the leading OT minimalists, it seems my question as to why one is OK and the other not is now rendered moot. I will be most interested in how he uses his OT ideas to interpret the NT and even more interested in the scholarly reaction from the NT community. Thompson will be rather harder to ignore than Doherty.

Bede

Ted Hoffman

It depends on how he presents his case for the Messiah Myth and the strength of his arguments.

Many of us here have no qualms about largely ignoring the likes of Luke Timothy Johnson in spite of their credentials.

The good thing about the Messiah Myth is that it further drowns the hackneyed phrase that says "No serious scholar takes the Jesus Myth seriously".

Vorkosigan

It only takes one pebble to start an avalanche.

Vorkosigan

Killer Mike

I think most scholars agree Jesus did exist but that Gospel writers incorporated many mythological themes into their stories. The Gospels are neither biographies nor historical narratives. They were written after the failure of the first Jewish revolt and are a reflection of how Christians were dealing with that (Christianity was still a part of Judiasm at the time) and the fact that the Kingdom of God had not come after his execution. The followers of Jesus were expecting the world would come to an end soon and God would come with all his glory shortly after his death. This is why Paul was so aggressive in his ministry teaching in so many places in such a short time. I guess my question is whether or not Professor Thompson believes that there never was an historical Jesus, or mearly that we can never discover the historical Jesus because there is so much mythology incorporated into the Gospels?

Ted Hoffman

"Incorporated" is a term loaded with assumptions we don't ascribe to.
Same as above. Arent you aware that the gospels, juxtaposed against the rest of the early documents like Pauline episples, GThomas, Q, Didache etc, are an anomaly?

JohnHud

I have not yet read T's book. However from the blurb it is unclear who he thinks invented Jesus--or why. There is a lot of NT scholarship showing how the literary figure of Jesus could have been assembled of stories from the Hebrew Binble and other mythical elements----but the critical question is why should anyone do so. That is why Atwill's forthcoming book Caesar's Messiah (February 2005, Ulysses Press) is so important---because it shows 14 major correspondences between Jesus and Titus, and also re-interprets the Testimonium passage to show what it really is----a confession by the Flavian Emperors that they invented Jesus as the mask of a false god in order to screw the Jews

JH

gregor

Why does it appear that you are shilling for Atwill's book in several threads?

Intelligitimate

Very interesting! Now I feel compelled to take his Myth of Israel off the shelf and read it.

GakuseiDon

Is he, in fact, a Christ Myther? The title of his book alone isn't enough to confirm this. I checked the net, but couldn't find any explicit statements regarding to Thonpson's belief in a non-historical Jesus.