EarlDoherty

Bli Bli? Must be pretty local, as my Gazetteer lists no such place name. If you're not trying to conceal your location, why give us only such an obscure name?

And of course your response to this 'lack of knowledge' has typically led to your firing back at me with a cannon to my peashooter.

Ever judge.

Earl Doherty

GakuseiDon

Yes, and my point was that Earl's argument is that the Second Century apologists' Christianity had no Jesus Christ -- either historical or his Pauline cosmic Jesus Christ -- at its core.

:huh: I don't understand what you mean, I'm afraid. That was about Justin Martyr, Earl's "exception", and how "Trypho" (according to Doherty) contains hints on how he converted originally to a non-historical Jesus Christ based Christianity.

I'll admit to stupidity or ignorance, but not to misrepresentation. I don't need to misrepresent, because I believe I am right. Still, I'm just an amateur in this subject, so no-one should take my word for anything. People should check things out for themselves.

EarlDoherty

Thanks, Don, for reproducing key parts of my argument about the Second Century apologists, without, I note, any attempt to rebut them. I know I’m biased toward my own interpretation, but they sound pretty supportive of my position to me.

As for Carrier, he sounds a bit muddled about my position. He seems to be suggesting (and you’ve latched onto it) that I am saying that apologists like Theophilus, early Tatian, Athenagoras, know of and accept the existence of an HJ, but have simply set him aside in favour of a more mystical/heavenly focus on the man. Sorry, that’s not my position, and I have demonstrated that such an interpretation cannot be made. At best, I’ve suggested that most of them are familiar with the existence of “gospels” that may contain such a figure, but that the evidence shows that they reject him as either existing or as having anything to do with the movement they themselves belong to, that they did not “believe in an HJ” in the sense of a founder or object of worship. As far as I know, I never made a statement to Carrier that I maintained that no second century apologist (outside of Justin) didn’t know about the claim that there was an HJ, so somewhere along the line he has misinterpreted me. (And he has read JNGNM, I sent him a complimentary copy, though Vork points out that this quote is 7 years old. Thanks again for being so clear and honest.)

There’s a big difference here. Your position has always been, and I’m sure you know it, that the second century apologists believed in an *historical* Jesus Christ, and I’ve argued with you on that basis. Your statement about “no JC at its core” is semantically correct, but not much more, since they had such a figure-type in their Son and Logos who was a revealer of God, one of the threads of thought we find even in the first century. Like some in the first century to whom Paul witnesses in his own background (if we don’t let the gospels intrude on a passage like 1 Cor. 1), this Son and Logos was not a sacrificed figure, not a “Christ crucified.”

Earl Doherty

Vorkosigan

Agreed, to the last.

Vorkosigan

la70119

How does he know?

Acts is FICTION.

Paul is a LIAR and a FRAUD.

When mainstream scholarship figure that out, expect the whole search for HJ to collapse like a house of cards.

Christianity, on the other hand, can go on indefinitely with only a MJ. On the other hand, a proven HJ will absolutely DESTROY Christianity.

judge

Google easily reveals it. Right near Ninderry, Yaninda, Yaroomba, Marcoola, Woombye, Kuluin, Mooloolaba, Mudjimba etc

If you want to dish it out then don't complain if you get it back.

EarlDoherty

Will I do a full-scale rebuttal to Bart Ehrman’s book? At this point, I can’t say. Zindler/Price/Salm want me to take part in a collective effort, which may be an efficient way to do it, since it would draw on several people’s strengths. At the same time, there are posters on this forum who have proven themselves quite capable of effective rebuttals to the historicist position (the Terrible Trio of Don, Judge, and Abe notwithstanding), and it would be interesting to see such a collective response made, regardless of whether I took part or not. On the other hand, I have a reputation for providing book reviews of my own on important historicist publications, whether on website or in book (such as against Lee Strobel), and Ehrman’s book would certainly fit that bill. (Though you all know that the piracy situation has soured me on publishing further paper books.) Unfortunately, someone's plan for getting a ‘review’ copy to me from Amazon went awry, and I personally have never been an Amazon customer. Perhaps Ehrman could supply me with one, in return for my own to him (through a supporter in Virginia when it first came out).

I am facing one complication, however. This Friday I am having my first cataract operation, the second to follow in about a month. I don’t know to what extent or for how long this might hamper my working abilities, but at the least it will delay things for a short time. I’m told it’s a piece of cake, but…I mean, slicing through the white of one’s eye to remove and insert an internal lens, yike! (No jokes, please, about how it might make me see the historical figure of Jesus more clearly!)

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

I'd love to get it back, judge. For years, I've "dished out" plenty of argument in support of the mythicist case. What I "get back" from you is a lack of engagement with those arguments, instead a lot of appeal to authority and personal attacks on me and mythicists in general. Blindly hostile pontification seems to be your preferred game.

And you're right. Bli Bli certainly isn't in my backyard. Right next door to Diddillibah and Mooloolaba, which we should also be expected to be familiar with, no doubt. Why not add "Australia" to your location, so at least we'll know that you're really not from another planet, just the bottom of this one. (Though having to hang upside down like that for so long may have the same effect.)

Earl Doherty

la70119

Wait a minute... wasn't Ehrman himself confronted with a claim by his Evangelical opponent in a debate about that very thing?

If that's the case, we might as well all just go back and believe there actually, definitely was an historical Jesus... and that he was exactly what the gospels and Paul say he was!

mountainman

Which claim? The Aramaic sources or the Holocast deniers?



It's a little over the top. He's almost hate-preaching to the converted.



He is referring to his imagination.

Biblical Historians dont have evidence, they have imagination.