Toto

A theology student who used to post here was told that by his professor.
Carrier is a historian, not in Biblical or religious studies. And he is apparently not going for an academic career.
Listen to his podcast. He is unemployed.
He retired from his academic position before publishing on Jesus.

I don't think that any of these examples disprove my assertion.

Yes I have. Have you?

Shirley Case and RT France argued that the gospels could be taken as having a historical core. The only basis for this assertion is wishful thinking. Others rely on the criterion of embarrassment, or the idea that early Christians were illiterate fishermen lacking the imagination to make things up.

Vapors.

There are more substantive responses to the case that some mythicists make, that Jesus was just like other virgin born dying and rising gods of the time. But nothing that positively establishes the basic historicity of Jesus.

It seems that the best case for the historical Jesus is that the case for mythicism is so weak, and the best case for mythicism is that the case for the historical Jesus is so weak.

outhouse

scarcely know while alive.


maybe causing a riot in front of 400,000 people in the temple during passover a few days before his death, created some oral tradition LOL

outhouse

LOL thats what happens when you create false history


Ehrman, Reed, Meyers, Crosson, Borg all have been on TV lately

LegionOnomaMoi

Very true. However, not everyone who is a "history specialist" has a degree in history. In fact, when it comes to ancient history, most have degrees degrees in Near eastern studies, biblical studies, classics, etc., not "ancient history" or something similar. If you want to argue that theologians are no more qualified as historians than a professor of German studies, that's one thing. If you want to argue that someone with a PhD in NT or Biblical studies doesn't have the requisite qualifications, then that's something else altogether.

I haven't given you any list of names, because you haven't answered my question. Many of those who publish papers or books on the historical Jesus have Phds in NT studies. In my view, that makes them as qualified to talk about the historical Jesus as having a Phd in classics makes one qualified to talk about Julius Caesar. I'm not going to write off Meier's four volume A Marginal Jew simply because he doesn't have a PhD in history. On the other hand, Wright's three-volume work is more theology/christology/hermeneutics than historiography. As Tucker (Our Knowledge of the Past, pp. 52-53) points out, modern critical historiography began with biblical studies. And surveying recent discussions on historiography within The Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus (even those, like Joel Willitt's, which are extremely critical about the state and nature of historical Jesus research) I find that authors whose background is NT or Biblical studies have a knowledge of modern historiography and historical methods is at least as good as those with backgrounds in history or classics. So again, what kind of background makes one a "historical specialist" qualified to talk about the historical Jesus and why?

outhouse

he wasnt like any one of those deities, only if you tie in personal imagination do you get that bull crud.


because they wrote mythologically about all deities ever created does not mean all "son of god" charactors were mythical. we know for a fact they were not so thats a ignorant excuse and about the lamest lazy way out.


only due to the fact we have cross cultural oral traditions floating a legend do you have hellenistic attributes that mirror any deity one would dream up.


the fact jesus was written is as a poor peasant who didnt pay taxes and traveled around begging for dinner scraps is pretty much ,,,,,,, sounding like reality over them choosing a cat like this to make a sun god.

Toto

Price does not create false history. That's his problem. Dan Brown created false history and he made millions.


TV seems to be a major source of your knowledge.

spin

In short, we can drop the "specialist" rhetoric as wool over the eyes.

This is all lovely bait and switch. But getting back to the issue, you were the one talking about specialists. I merely called you on it because almost none of the enormous number of analyses on the historical Jesus was written by someone with a PhD in history, so none of them are actually specialists in the field of history. They may be intelligent and have PhDs in text criticism, biblical studies and the like, but "specialists", you'll have to make a case for them when they are writing in fields that are not text criticism or whatever else they are qualified in. You are the one wanting to call these people specialists. I merely have to point out that the bulk of them have no formal qualifications when it comes to writing history. You might eventually drop the specialists rhetoric as fluff and get on with argument and evidence. Or maybe not.

LegionOnomaMoi

Ok, I was looking for something a bit more than that.


Do you mean he doesn't intend to teach or hold a position at a university? He doesn't have to. I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday who just turned in the final draft for his PhD (he's studying classics at Boston University). Most of his collegues are going to spend the next few years teaching a class here or there (not necessarily even related to classics) trying to get a more permanent position after spending years without much in the way of income. Carrier had published more than any of them before he even received his PhD. He just came out with new book which was funded for the most part by online supporters. There aren't a lot of PhDs anywhere who can say that.


Can you provide a link? His official website still lists his employment.


Which academic position?


No, it doesn't. But then, all you seem to have to back it up is what someone said a professor told them. I see a lot of things published in mainstream journals about Jesus which would undermine christian claims. I don't see how claiming that Jesus' body was eaten by dogs or that he was cynic philospher and the NT is almost entirely myth is somehow academically acceptable, but stating he didn't exist at all is academic suicide. There have been and continue to be scathing reviews of historical Jesus research in its entirety yet they are written by people who still hold academic positions.


Not all of them, but many, yes.

No, it isn't, and why did you pick those two? As recently as 2011, Craig S. Keener wrote a paper ("Assumptions in Historical-Jesus Research: Using Ancient Biographies and Disciples' Traditioning as a Control" Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus) presenting yet another argument that the gospels belong to ancient biography. In her critical response to this article, Amy-Jill Levine acknowledges that "few argue that Mark invented 'most' of his material: that Jesus was baptized by John, gathered disciples, healed, told parables, went from Galilee to Jerusalem, had a significant final meal, and died on a cross is not much in doubt."

This is a serious misrepresentation of historical Jesus scholarship. And even those (e.g., Rafael Rodriguez) who argue that the methods used by many historical jesus researchers are actually misused, used inconsistantly, or are just bad, acknowledge that this isn't universally true, and also that these methods have little to do with whether Jesus existed. Bultmann and others thought that virtually all of the NT was myth and little to nothing went back to the historical Jesus, but recognized that there is no explanation for the origins of chrisitanity that better fits the data than that someone named Jesus lived, gained a following, was executed, and followers built a tradition around this.




Not just that. It's the fact that any and all evidence is explained away by stories as unlikely as ones conservative christian scholars call history (e.g., Jesus' brother in the gospels, Paul, and Josephus).

LegionOnomaMoi

Or, we can accept the fact that you responded without knowing what you were talking about or what I was saying.

This is all lovely bait and switch. But getting back to the issue, you were the one talking about specialists. I merely called you on it because almost none of the enormous number of analyses on the historical Jesus was written by someone with a PhD in history

Like most historical analyses. Why? Because "degree in history" isn't saying anthing. Most historical scholarship is not written by people with degrees which include the word "history" because historical study has become so specialized that "history" is usually dropped from degree titles. There's no point. Are you seriously asserting that, for example, someone with a degree in classics is not qualified to discuss classical history? How about archaeologists? Are they out to? Where does you bizzare, ridiculous demarcation end? Because quite apart from NT studies, your little "only someone with a PhD in history is qualified to talk about history" approach would be rejected by any academic. Ask Richard Carrier if the only people qualified to talk about "history" are those who have a PhD which actually says "X history" or "history." Your distinction is ignored by historians (including those with degrees which include the word "history") so there isn't any reason for anyone to think it has any value.

Toto

I don't completely understand the psychology, but academics seem to be able to write lots of things that would seem to undermine Christianity. But claiming that Jesus never existed crosses some invisible line.

Not the ancient biography diversion again. Ancient biographies could be written about mythical characters and involve non-historical events. And the reason that Amy-Jill Levine seems so sure that some things are not in doubt goes back to the criterion of embarrassment.

Is it? What else is there?

How can historical methods not have more than a little to do with whether we can know that Jesus existed? What good methods do HJ researchers use?

Do you have some explicit quote from Bultman that says this? I think that Bultman just said that anyone who doubted that Jesus existed was crazy. He had no evaluation of how a historical Jesus was a better explanation for the origins of Christianity than a mythical Jesus - and since the origins of Christianity lie with the followers and not the historical Jesus, it is not clear how a historical Jesus fits into that better explanation of the data.

The identification of James the Brother of the Lord in a dubious section of Galatians with James who was mentioned as Jesus' brother in the gospels has been dissected here. Neither of these gentlemen resembles the James identified as the brother of Jesus "called Christ" in what was probably a marginal note by a scribe in Josephus.

Face it - later Christian embellishment and forgery is a much more economical explanation of these texts than the contortions that historicists have to go through. Jesus had a brother who was the son of a carpenter, who is not a follower of Jesus, and thinks he's crazy. Then James morphs into the head of the Jerusalem church when Paul meets him, and by the time we get to Josephus he is a Jewish quasi official . . . Is this what you call historical evidence? Is there any reason to see these James' references as identifying a single person?