Roger Pearse

I wouldn't take him very seriously. There are some odd people around at US universities, and I don't know how good his scholarship is, since I've never encountered any of it. It is certainly true, as I understand it, that he has a PhD, and has published some material on Marcion in serious journals. But he has also published some very strange material, and FWIW this is what shapes my impression of him.

In the 80's he published a 'translation' of the fragments of Celsus which was peer-reviewed in just two journals, and the reviewer commented on how he had 'improved' the text to answer Origen's objections. It was very readable, but it had no scholarly value that I know of. I did enjoy the (mistranslated) passage where he makes Celsus call "perfect little pigs", however -- it got circulated around the web, which is how I became aware of it, and at one stage I thought of getting a tee-shirt made up! (The real text was a reference was to the unwary sailors of Odysseus being turned into pigs by the deceiving Circe; hence to those listening to Christian preachers being deceived).

In the 90's he did a translation of Porphyry's Against the Christians through Prometheus Press, which translated only the fragments from the dialogue of Macarius Magnes, for which an English translation existed already, and not the mass of material for which none did. The volume also contained a long and dodgy essay on Christian origins without a single footnote and a 'quote' from Tertullian without a reference which is not to be found in Tertullian's works. That said, the work was actually useful, to me anyway, and I felt that it was rather better than the Celsus. The translation was spirited and accurate as far as I could tell, although again it seems to have said things to some people that in fact the text does not say, judging by online use of it.

I do recall that he didn't understand why Magnes responded to the point made by the pagan by labelling it 'Hellenic' -- which suggests limited knowledge of the apologetic literature of late antiquity.

The volume cover also claimed that he belonged to the theology faculty of Oxford University, which makes him sound as if he was part of the university. But I understand that in fact he merely did a spell as a visiting academic at a now defunct theological college at Oxford. There are several of these halls around the town, which are not part of the university. As I understand it, their staff are given courtesy membership of the university faculty. (At many of these colleges the staff are certainly academics anyway). Of course this might be just his publisher, but I don't know. The book was not peer-reviewed in any journal, anyway.

He also did a 'translation' of Julian the Apostate's work against the Christians; again of something that already exists in English. This volume I have not seen so cannot comment on.

Just to declare my back-story with Hoffmann:

I wrote a page on some of the defects of the 'Celsus' long ago, which squelched the misuse taking place at that time. It earned me a page-full of insult from Dr. Hoffmann, for some reason, which I only saw recently and enjoyed immensely. I have also reviewed his 'Porphyry' on Amazon, and placed an expanded version here.

I also added a note to the discussion of the Jesus Project on X-Talk where I indicated that James M. Robinson was unaware of being listed as a fellow for the project. I had to withdraw this as I hadn't cleared the statement with my source. This earned me a curious accusation of lying from Dr Hoffmann in his vindicatio, which was unwise of him. The poor fellow is clearly feeling 'got at', and I suppose we can all sympathise.

I should add that I don't feel any special animosity to the chap -- why should I? I had rather hoped to meet him at the Patristics Conference, to talk about Macarius Magnes, in which I am interested and where there is some serious work to be done. But it looks as if he is one of these people also involved in non-academic work who can't take criticism of his work. Nothing that I said seemed that unreasonable to me -- honestly it didn't. Perhaps others will think otherwise.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin

It doesn't seem too wise to depend on texts you can't date to talk about origins of the religion. You can't show the relevance of those texts.

I'll ask you then how do you get back before Paul's attempt to forge a connection with the Jerusalem messianic group (as seen in Galatians 1-2)?

I think it's obvious that there is no case for historicity, so none is needed against. Oh, I guess there is a case which says "what are the texts based on?" but one responds "beats me and you have no way of knowing either".


spin

spin

While Roger is trying his darnedest to be nasty to Hoffman which he seems to have done long and often, let's here Hoffman.


spin

Clivedurdle

A new word!

http://www.babylon.com/definition/Tadler/English

Roger Pearse

Yes, I'd never come across it either.

Clivedurdle

But the comments about the Oxford Movement were a blast from the past - I had to proof read a project on that by my SO over 30 years ago!

Clivedurdle

I am more optimistic - I see slowly a very strong case for some kind of evolutionary process that involved the invention of a super godman. We are still sifting the rubble but our forensic skills are improving and patterns are discernable - and a pattern that is not there is of a human fulcrum of a Jesus.

Clivedurdle

I think this is a good image of where we are

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Palace_dinosaurs

We have made attempts to describe something very different we have seen but have not yet got it right. Some people have got it more wrong than thumbs on noses, and they have been rejected out of hand, instead of seeing their work as early attempts to describe.

Are people aware that when I was a child the Diplodocus in the Natural History Museum had its tail trailing, and now it is in the air?

lpetrich

That's a VERY dumb argument. What may be obvious to spin will be far from obvious to many other people.

The historicity of Jesus Christ is the mainstream view, like it or not, and that means that Jesus mythicism is the viewpoint that has the burden of proof.

Fortunately, however, most Jesus-myth advocates have been willing to accept that burden.

Roger Pearse

It's a nearly forgotten movement, isn't it?

One thing that I want to know about is the translation project that they did -- the Oxford translations of the Fathers. I believe that they got a lot of flak for it too, but they did us all a favour. Indeed some of it has never been translated before or since; notably the stuff by Cyril of Alexandria. Any idea where I could find out about that? I've never read any books on the subject.

All the best,

Roger Pearse