GakuseiDon

For Bart Ehrman:

There is a lot of speculation about how mainstream academia is pressured to resist examining questions of the non-historicity of Jesus. Earlier in this thread I gave examples I have gathered. Some quotes:

(Bob Carlson) Ehrman’s wife is a believer, so it wouldn’t be good for marital harmony if he were to consider the ahistoricity issue with more objectivity...

(Neil Godfrey) At bottom Ehrman’s a defender of the tradition. He’ll lean on assumption, speculation, and illogic–the very antitheses of good historical method–when the chips are down and when it comes to placing his (sometimes carefully researched) specifics in context. As far as I’m concerned Ehrman has sold out. He’s now primarily a seller of books.

Is there pressure on or by mainstream academia when it comes to questioning the historicity of Jesus Christ? If you became convinced that Jesus Christ was a non-historical character, what would be the implications for your career and academic standing?

jdl

That's just another way of saying what you said in your previous post. And I still don't think you're right, for the simple reason that you can't "prove" a paradigm without comparing it to the alternatives.

It may well be that Ehrman can make a brilliant argument for the existence of Jesus, but if there are arguments for his nonexistence that fit the evidence more cleanly, it makes no sense to say those are rendered moot or defeated ipso facto.

Vorkosigan

O Don, coming from you, the irony is so thick you can practically fry it. FYI Bart, Steven sees considerably deeper into the Jesus story than Don ever will.

Speaking of pithy screeds that misrepresent, is that what Earl believes? A rhetorical question. Earl argues that the second century apologists did not have a Christianity that had a recent historical figure at its core. For some of them the Son was the Logos, for others, things are a bit vaguer.

Considering how consistently you misrepresent, perhaps we could have the entire quote in context, and Carrier's permission to post his private emails on the web, if that is what you are drawing from?

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

That's the problem with Diogenes' claim. The issue in something like Creationism vs Evolution is that both sides use the same data and view it the same way (layers in the Grand Canyon are laid down by the action of water in both cases) so simply presenting the case for evolution refutes creationism.

But the mythicist/historicist debate is a Clash of Competing Interpretive Frameworks, not an attempt to suppress science, complicated by the social approval that the latter framework has. Merely presenting one interpretive framework and claiming it is right won't cut it. What are the grounds for determining which framework's explanation of the vast silence on the Jesus story in Paul and the other epistle writers, as well as the Second Century apologists, is correct? Methodology, of course. Except that HJ studies is in the midst of a drawn-out methodological collapse re Crossan, Ludemann, Porter, and the recent Keith volume (which I can't wait to read).

In the creation/evolution debate, the methodologies are useful and reliable. They work. That is simply not true of the HJ debate, especially among the defenders. What reliable and useful methodologies can Ehrman appeal to?

Vorkosigan

EarlDoherty

I have suggestion for Abe. Instead of demanding a review from Steven Carr, why don’t you read Ehrman’s book and give us a positive review of your own? Demonstrate how he has made a case to support your claim that belief in an HJ is “a powerful historical conclusion,” or how the evidence is “strongly conclusive.” Surely with your vast reading in this field, on both sides of the issue, you could give us an insightful summary of the overwhelming positive and scholarly case which Ehrman presents. That way, we would all know that you are indeed familiar with the quality and integrity of the arguments in favor of an HJ, and along the way, that you, like Ehrman himself we have no doubt, have taken into account and rebutted the major mythicist arguments and how they are easily revealed to be empty, fallacious and fraudulent.

(We might request that you leave off any praise of or appeal to Ehrman's tawdry attacks on the integrity and motivations of mythicists themselves, except that I know that such things constitute a major element of your own 'case' against us.)

I might offer the same suggestion to judge, who also invites a review from Steven. He says that “in the part of the world (he) comes from” no one has ever heard of Earl Doherty, or presumably, any other mythicist. And just what part of the world is “Bli Bli” located in? Not only does he not have the courage to use his own name, he even disguises where he comes from. Maybe it’s another planet (which would explain a lot about him).

It’s also good to know that judge, who is here to show how much better he understands the abysmal quality of the mythicist case, has one of the most insightful supporters of mythicism on ignore. But then, when your opinion on something is axiomatic, why listen to dissenting voices?

This is rather naïve. If the evidence for an HJ were one-tenth as strong as the evidence for evolution, historicists might, as Richard Dawkins does, ignore the claimed evidence on the other side. Even so, in principle it is very dangerous to presume to do so. Especially in this case. Ehrman wrote this book because mythicism has become a force to be reckoned with, and he perceived that many people were demanding a rebuttal to it, or challenged him to provide one. Has Ehrman delivered, or has he simply provided the same tired old arguments that have been claimed to prove historicism and “annihilate” mythicism for a century, to which he has added attacks on mythicists themselves (of course, *that’s* been around for a century, too). I am reminded of Maurice Goguel’s approach in that oft-appealed to—despite its age in the 1920s—rebuttal of mythism in the early 20th century which openly refused to address contemporary mythicist arguments but relied on presenting what he considered an adequate case for an HJ. (Ironically, Goguel and more than one scholarly contemporary, including the respected Charles Guignebert, was of the opinion that Josephus probably made NO reference to Jesus at all.)

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

As most of us here know, this has been one of Don’s biggest bugaboos for years, despite the fact that I have provided, in website articles, in my books, in internet debates with Don, extensive evidence in the texts that my judgment about those apologists is justified, something against which Don’s rebuttals have been limited to demonstrably fallacious comparison with a 3rd century writer (Tertullian). I have supported my interpretation of Minucius Felix almost beyond the shadow of a doubt. The evidence for my claim about Justin Martyr’s conversion is found right within Trypho’s opening chapters. My arguments surrounding Tatian’s early views as found in his Apology are almost as compelling. None of this has Don answered (not even in his ‘review’ of Jesus: Neither God Nor Man) except with ridicule and the argument from personal incredulity. Let’s see if Ehrman has addressed my Chapter 31 in any more substantive fashion.

And as Vork has called him on, we here are also familiar with Don’s tendency to phrase his comments in ways that are less than direct and even misleading, as well as managing to ignore all counter-arguments made to his earlier, multiple repetitions of the same old things. (I took the liberty of inserting in square brackets the word “historical” before Don’s phrases “Jesus Christ”, although one has to note that most of those 2nd century apologists don’t even use the name, let alone a reference to his incarnation, so we can’t really tell if they have any “Jesus Christ” as part of their faith, as opposed to a simple Logos as Revealer of God.) Traditional scholarly rationalizations to explain away this situation in the bulk of the second century apologists I have demolished in both books.

Earl Doherty

GakuseiDon

Not just no "recent historical figure" called "Jesus Christ", but also the cosmic crucified "Jesus Christ" of Paul and the other epistle writers. The point is that these writers called themselves "Christians" without apparently having a person or spirit called "Christ".

Of course! :wave: That's what those who question mythicism do. We misrepresent. We sell out. We are too bound by traditions, too stifled by the cultural paradigm. As soon as Ehrman announced he was going to write a book against mythicism, he gained automatic membership to the club.

Carrier made the comment to me on FRDB. From here:
http://www.freeratio.org/thearchives...=59493&page=30

To GakuseiDon, who says "There is no reason to believe that any 2nd century apologist didn't believe in a historical Jesus," I agree. Well, to be precise, there might be "a reason" to believe that, but I do not believe it is a sufficient reason. This is one reason why I limit myself to what he says in his book, which is a bit more restrained than what he has argued elsewhere. For example, his book does not say "all" but only addresses some (and I read him charitably--i.e. in the best light possible, without any knowledge of what he has argued anywhere else), and his book does not say they didn't know about the claim that there was a historical Jesus (an astonishing thing he has claimed to me since) and hence it does not exactly commit to a position on what they believed about that. In other words, whatever Doherty was thinking or intending to say, I took his book as making the case that they weren't much interested in the historical Jesus but interested in a mystical one known through revelation, who had a primarily cosmic role, which is IMO true (for those he discusses), but compatible (to my mind, but apparently not Doherty's) with their believing in a historical Jesus. This is just one of many major quarrels I have with Doherty. IMO, if we stick to his core argument, and ignore his wilder flights of fancy like this one, his case stands up much better.

The following is from Doherty's "Jesus: Neither God Nor Man". Doherty comments on the similarities between the Second Century apologists and the First Century epistle writers:

Another aspect is the fact that in almost all the [Second Century] apologists we find a total lack of a sense of history. They do not talk of their religion as an ongoing movement with a specific century of development behind it, through a beginning in time, place and circumstances, and a spread in similar specifics. Some of them pronounce it to be very "old" and they look back to roots in the Jewish prophets rather than to the life of a recent historical Jesus. In this, of course, they are much like the 1st century epistle writers. (Page 477)

As one can see by this survey, if one leaves aside Justin Martyr there is a silence in the 2nd Century apologists on the subject of the historical Jesus which is virtually equal of that found in the 1st century epistle writers. (Page 485)

The fact that before almost the end of the century no one but Justin has incorporated the human, teaching Jesus into his appeals to the pagan is too bizarre a situation. No, some other explanation for the silence of almost the whole of the apologetic movement must be sought. (Page 487)

On Justin Martyr, Doherty writes (my bolding below, italics in the original):

Even Justin Martyr gives evidence of this picture. After reaching Rome in the 140s, he encountered the Gospel story and embraced the historical man-god it told of. In his apologetic writings, penned in the 150s, Jesus and the Gospels occupy center stage. For Justin, the Word/Logos "took shape, became man, and was called Jesus Christ" (Apology 5). But he seems to have left us a record of the nature of the faith he joined before his encounter with the story of a human Jesus. (Page 490)

Here, in a specific discussion of teachers of the truth, the historical Christ on earth is not mentioned. In fact, the old philosopher has just said, in pointing to the Hebrew prophets, "These alone both saw and announced the truth to men" (my emphasis). They have been put forward as the opposite to the deficient pagan philosophers; yet there is no sign of Jesus as the prime example in this regard. The old man has even disparaged "false prophets" who seek to astonish men with miracles without offering a qualification for the miracle-working Jesus.

Trypho himself may be a literary invention, but Justin puts into his mouth (8:6) an intriguing accusation, one which must have represented some prevalent current opinion: "But Christ—if he has indeed been born, and exists anywhere—is unknown...And you, having accepted a groundless report, invent a Christ for yourselves..." (This passage is discussed at length in Appendix 12 [p.696].) Trypho also expresses the opinion that the incarnation is incredible, and even Justin (Apology 13) admits that "sober-minded men" are of the opinion that "Christians are mad to give a crucified man second place to God." (Page 491)

GakuseiDon

Hi Earl, nice to have you back again! Someone on the thread must have spoken your name three times in front of a mirror again.

The Second Century (and Third Century in the case of Origen) Christian and early pagan writers are my primary area of interest. It's only been in the last few years that I've really looked at Paul. But my first criticisms on your theories were around the Second Century apologists.

I'd like to see that also. Thus my question to Ehrman.

... which is why I used "Jesus Christ" and not "historical". Perhaps I should have put the name in quotes; that's about the only thing I would change. But in all other respects my comment is accurate:

"Earl Doherty believes that the majority of extant Second Century apologists, with Justin Martyr being the exception, were members of a Christianity that had no Jesus Christ at its core."

So no historical Jesus, and no cosmic Jesus. As you write on Page 498-499:

The forms of non-historicist faith among the apologists we have examined should not be regarded as belonging to a Pauline-type mythical Jesus...

If they all style themselves "Christian" in one way or another, it is through the significance of the word in terms of the Jewish concept of the "Anointed" which, translated into the Greek "Christos," exercised an attraction serving many different expressions in those two formative centuries. All were at their foundation expressions of the ground-bass concept of the intermediary Son.

Or are you now saying you believe those Second Century apologists who called themselves "Christians" may have had some kind of "Jesus Christ" at the core of their Christianity, but they just didn't mention the name? :huh:

judge

Why don't you google it? Are you so insulated that you don't realise that other parts of the globe may have place names that sound strange to you?



No you're just seemingly unaware of other parts of the world apart from your own backyard.

Anonymity on the internet is very important for reasons I think might escape you. As you are such a supporter of SOPA I imagine you probably want the US government to take full control of the internet.
Internet privacy, in todays, political and authoritarian climate, allows free speech. It allows dissent.

You have no choice but to post under your name, and you doubtless haven't thought through the implications of privacy on the internet.
But your probably unaware of this sort of stuff, and apparently cocooned in your own world.

Vorkosigan

I agree, it is sad that misrepresentation is so pervasive on your side, the one that claims to have The Greatest Morality In The World on its side.

Thanks for the seven year old Carrier citation. You can never be too careful when you're involved in a thread, DonG. The quotes below show exactly what I mean...

here's what I said:

"Earl argues that the second century apologists did not have a Christianity that had a recent historical figure at its core."

Now read each one of those quotes. ROFL. Each one uses the phrase historical Jesus, human Jesus, etc. I'd bold them but, I mean, you already have bolded some of them.

It's hard for me to understand how you could put these up to defend a position that Doherty is saying something else than the apologists did not believe in a recent historical figure at the core of their Christianity, when you have bolded each quote saying. just. that.

But thanks, Don. See how it is? The misrepresentation your team constantly engages in is so pervasive you can look at a series of quotes using some form of 'recent historical figure' and. not. see. it.

Vorkosigan