Chaucer

So far as I can see, this audio interview of Ehrman has not been spotlighted yet(?) by anyone else on this board --

http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/a...tc_08.mp3?dl=1

Thoughts?

Chaucer

tanya

Thank you Chaucer. I appreciate the link. I listened to this interview with NPR on Palm Sunday.

It was VERY well done, for those who have never heard Bart speak, it is a terrific introduction.

It is also, I think, based upon having read the publisher's excerpts, an adequate summary of his newest book, which has been the subject of so much debate during the past three weeks here on the forum.

I have posted my objections to Bart Ehrman's ideas in those threads and will not repeat them here.

However, I would like to draw attention to two details, which had escaped my notice previously.

a. Ehrman claims to be writing as an historian, and to be investigating the question of whether or not Jesus existed by scrutinizing the evidence, yet, he asserts, in plain English, that Paul met Jesus' brother, as evidence that Jesus must have been a flesh and blood, living, human walking the planet earth. We all know that the reference in Galatians 19:1 does not say that he met Jesus' brother, but "the lord's brother", and only if one interprets (and I do not) "ouk ei mei" as meaning "except". I regard this phrase as meaning "not even".

But, irrespective of any of that, what does this single verse, from "Paul" (whoever he may have been) have to do with "evidence"? Ehrman himself has covered the extensive forgery in the realm of early papyrus documents, so, why should an historian, examining evidence, regard this single verse in this single epistle, as bona fide evidence of the living, breathing, Jesus? Is there any other instance in ancient history, where a single sentence serves to underscore the credibility of the account?

b. Ehrman stated, I could hardly believe it, but it is there for anyone to hear:
"there can be no doubt about his crucifixion".

Holy Cow. Where's the evidence? I hope no one on this forum will cite the Annals of Tacitus. I did submit to one of the earlier threads, a detailed explanation of why the single manuscript of Tacitus, in our possession, in Latin (Tacitus having written in Greek) which dates from the 11th century, not a proud moment in the history of Europe, should not be regarded as valid for any historical research. In brief, there is a documented interpolation, acknowledged by heretic and believer alike, on this sorry text. Further, the document refers to chrestus, not christus, and in Greek, chrestus is meaningful. Mountainman has extensively reviewed this topic, and has included in his extensive documentation, a photograph of the attempted deception. In an earlier thread, a couple days ago, responding to Diogenes the Cynic, I quoted from one of the Italian scholars who discovered the fraud. (Dio of course, ignored my post!! haha!!)

In short, then, the tape is worthwhile listening to, it is a model of how one ought to present, publically. I acknowledge, as one has endeavored to lecture, being decidely inferior to Dr. Ehrman. I wish I had his composure, his assurance, his knowledge, and his linguistic skills. I regret that he does not have, apparently, the slightest understanding of how to conduct an investigation. For anyone seeking to learn Dr. Ehrman's perspective, this is the audio recording worth listening to. It is very well done.

MrMacSon

Erhman is a theologian, and trained as a Christian one, in Christian communities - an academic one & likely a socio-cultural ones in his family and local & extended neighbourhoods.

He has yet to show he has understood or applied objective historical methodology - many studiers of ancient theology special-plead they can apply looser methodology to aspects of 'historicity" to the ancient texts and to the characters in the texts.

aa5874

Again and again we hear Ehrman DISCREDITING his sources for HIS Jesus.

Ehrman ADMITS that in the NT the triumphal entry of the supposed Jesus is most likely historically inaccurate.

In other words, the NT is a source of Perjury, a source of Embellishments, a source of fiction.

The historical Jesus is an INDICTMENT against the veracity and integrity of supposed early Christians if they did indeed exist.

The Baptism, miracles, the triumphal entry, crucifixion and even words of Jesus are FULLY fictionalised.

The NT does NOT represent the words and actions of a Man--they represent Divinity in other words a Myth.

Bart's Jesus is found in his OWN IMAGINATION.

Chaucer

Wrong: he is an "agnostic with atheist leanings" (his words), and all his published work is grounded on detailed and rigorous research pursued entirely and exclusively in the wake and context of his deep skepticism, and his published results from all that research entirely reflect that skepticism. In fact, his published work has long been deeply resented by all fundies for precisely those very reasons and continues to be.

Chaucer

Steven Carr

http://tomverenna.wordpress.com/2012...d-jesus-exist/

Tom Verenna points out really basic errors in Ehrman's book - the sort of basic errors a Doherty would not make.

tanya

Thanks for that link Steven, very well written article by Tom Verenna, who explained in his article at that link, that it was undertaken at the suggestion of Richard Carrier.

I noted the explanation of "sloppiness" or error as Tom describes it, by Ehrman, in confounding the precise citation of a letter from Pliny the Younger to Tacitus. It remains confusing to me, at least, just who collected and published these various letters, and in which language they were initially quilled. I have been unable, thus far, to locate a source of information attesting to these two data.

In reading a bit more about the letters, I was drawn to the letter describing the death of Pliny the Younger's uncle, Pliny the Elder, who as commander of the fleet, observed the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and gave the order to use the fleet to attempt to rescue the coastal inhabitants in the path of the eruption. He lost his own life directing the rescue, apparently.

It looks as though Pliny the Elder, though using Aristotle and many other Greek sources, wrote his enormous encyclopedia in Latin. Then, perhaps Pliny the Younger wrote in Latin as well, in which case, the Epistulae may also have been composed in Latin, originally, not Greek, as I had proposed. They exist today in Latin, but does that mean that they were initially written in the vernacular, or were they translated from the author's initial Greek messages? The publication history of the Epistulae is also cloudy. Consider this description of the manuscript evidence of Pliny the Elder's famous encyclopedia.

Chaucer

A word to the wise: Be careful with WordPress pages. Apparently, serious security issues have emerged for one's PC in gaining access to them:



"Vulnerabilities

Many security issues[52][53] were uncovered in the software, particularly in 2007 and 2008. According to Secunia, WordPress in April 2009 had 7 unpatched security advisories (out of 32 total), with a maximum rating of "Less Critical".[54] Secunia maintains an up-to-date list of WordPress vulnerabilities.[55][56]

In January 2007, many high-profile Search engine optimization (SEO) blogs, as well as many low-profile commercial blogs featuring AdSense, were targeted and attacked with a WordPress exploit.[57] A separate vulnerability on one of the project site's web servers allowed an attacker to introduce exploitable code in the form of a back door to some downloads of WordPress 2.1.1. The 2.1.2 release addressed this issue; an advisory released at the time advised all users to upgrade immediately.[58]

In May 2007, a study revealed that 98% of WordPress blogs being run were exploitable because they were running outdated and unsupported versions of the software.[59]

In a June 2007 interview, Stefan Esser, the founder of the PHP Security Response Team, spoke critically of WordPress's security track record, citing problems with the application's architecture that made it unnecessarily difficult to write code that is secure from SQL injection vulnerabilities, as well as some other problems.[60]

Individual installations of WordPress can be protected with security plugins such as Better WP Security, WP Security Scan and many others.[61]"

[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordpress ]



Frankly, I've stopped even visiting them now. I was starting to have occasional blue screens, and I wondered what was going on. Then, when a blogger warned a group of us about the WordPress dangers, I stopped visiting them and had my PC "cleaned" of its most recent malware, etc. I don't know if this is a coincidence, but, since the "cleaning", I've avoided WordPress pages and my PC has also been working perfectly (so far!). Maybe, the WordPress pages were at fault, maybe not. But I'm avoiding them completely now, and my current clean operation may or may not be a relevant correlation.

Chaucer

Chaucer

Bart Ehrman has posted some remarks on his blog related to certain ongoing accusations leveled at him in connection with his newest book, Did Jesus Exist? --

-- Do My Research Assistants Do All My Work For Me?
I was surprised, shocked, dismayed, incredulous, and well, OK, pretty ticked off and aggravated when some of the mythicists that I deal with in my book, Did Jesus Exist, went on the attack and made it personal. Let me make a confession: before getting ready to do this Blog, and getting into Facebook as a preparation for it, I had no idea how grimy the Internet can be. It is one messy place. I know, I know – welcome to the 21st century!One of the charges against me that is being made is not just atrociously wrong but insulting to my integrity, something I take very seriously. It’s one thing to have a disagreement about how to interpret historical data; it’s another thing to charge a scholar with dishonesty. The first instance I know of the charge was suggested by Achyra S on her blog, and most forcefully by Robert Price on his podcast. The charge is that I did not actually do any of the research for Did Jesus Exist myself, but that I had my Research Assistants (RA’s) read the mythicist literature for me and I relied on what they summarized (poorly, is the implication) for the comments I make about it.This is wrong, wrong, wrong.Let me explain how I use my RAs generally, then say something about their role in Did Jesus Exist.
I’ll start at the beginning. Most senior professors at research universities are given, in addition to their salary, a research budget. My colleagues at UNC and around the country use their research budgets for all sorts of things – to purchase computer equipment and books, to afford to go to academic conferences, to travel for research to visit archives, and on and on and on. I tend to use my research budget, however, for one main thing: to hire my graduate students to serve as research assistants. I do this both because I like having the help, given the enormous demands on my research time, and even more important because it is a way to provide funding for poor graduate students and advanced opportunities for them to be involved in doing real research.I do know other colleagues hither and yon who have RAs, and who use them to do menial tasks: photocopying and scanning of books and articles, getting books out of the library, making indexes for books they’ve written, and so on. I tend to use my RAs for meatier work. The main reason: I want them to have real, hard-core, research experience as part of their education. And to get paid to do it! It’s a great system and the students love it and profit from it enormously. As they will tell you.One of the things I typically have students do is read important scholarship in the field that I am currently working on, for the books that I happen at that time to be writing. I give students a bibliography of books and articles, and ask them to write one-page summaries of this or that book or article. They do so. Some of these summaries are better than others, depending on who is writing them. But this next step is crucial. Once the student has produced the summary, his/her work is done, and mine can now begin. I use the summaries to decide which books / articles I can scan quickly, which I can read around in (some chapters more fully than others), and which I need to read slowly and carefully, taking full notes on them.I never, ever rely on the summaries my RAs write for me if I actually decide to use a book /article in my own research (never!). In other words, I use these summaries simply to see what I myself need to read, and at what depth. It’s true that these RAs are very smart and are advanced graduate students. But I would never trust the work of someone else for work that I myself have to do. Apart from the fact that this would strike me as lazy and marginally dishonest (passing off someone else’s work as mine), I simply do not think that I can trust someone else’s views of what is important, what is right, and what is wrong – even if it’s an advanced graduate student. And these RAs are, after all, students. Most of them will become top-rate scholars, some of them world-class. But most of them are not that yet.That, in short, is how I typically use my RAs.But I did not use them that way for Did Jesus Exist. And there is a simple reason. In almost every instance, I have my RAs do this kind of work for me for the serious scholarship I am interested in and dealing with, for the works of scholarship I am writing. In other words, I only rarely use them in this way for the trade books (i.e., the “popular” books – written for a general audience) I write. For the past several years my serious scholarship has been on the polemical use of literary forgery in the early Christian tradition. This has resulted in a book that is now in the pipeline to be published in the Fall by Oxford University Press. It is a big book – 800 pages in manuscript – called Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics. It is also complicated and hard. It deals with lots of Greek and Latin texts and with scholarship in such languages as French and German. I had my RAs read a lot of books and articles for that book. And to do lots of other really hard tasks, like checking out all my references to Greek and Latin authors of antiquity.While my RAs were checking my references in Forgery and Counterforgery, I began to write Did Jesus Exist. I did not need to have my RAs summarize any of the mythicists’ writings to help me decide which ones I needed to read. I needed to read all of them. And so I did. It was a long and painful process, let me tell you! Much of this is not pleasure reading, and some of it is so bad that it made for a miserable few months. But I did the reading and took notes on just about everything. And my RAs had nothing to do with it.I’ve said this on my Facebook page, and a number of mythicists simply don’t believe me. As I said, I don’t mind if my views are challenged or my conclusions are rejected. But I really don’t like my integrity being impugned. The Internet. What a place!Bart Ehrman

--

Chaucer

Grog

Personally, the accusation sounded like it was baaed on hearsay to me, so I did not give it much credit. Worse though is the now acknowledged fact that Ehrman did such a poor job all on his own. The RA story gained credibility because it was hard to believe that Ehrman himself would make such egregious errors. Some tactics, like referring to Ehrman as "errormam" are childish and should be dropped. DJE is a poor book and Ehrman's gravest error was putting out a subpar defense of historicism.