Solitary Man

So much for your abilities of discernment. Why need names? Do I ask what makes you smile? Sorry if my note is causing you so much distress.

PS - If I started to name names, I could be banned for calling users crackpots (cranks). Sorry, I'll allow your imagination to do my dirty work for me.

youngalexander

According to my Concise Oxford:
crackpot an eccentric or foolish person

Both eccentrics and fools can be right. Also, many an orthodox sage has been shown to be wrong. Labels ultimately mean nothing, evidence does.

Solo

But that is what I am saying, am I not, if you read also the second half of my sentence ? One needs to distinguish between foolishness and the mere appearance of foolishness.

Jiri

RED DAVE

All true, but please check out the definition of a crank (crackpot) provided above.

(edited for format: paragraph breaks added)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-...stRecentReview

No one denies that "eccentrics and fools" can be right. However, their data has to be subject to the same scientific scrutiny as that of an "otrhodox sage." And that they don't do.

RED DAVE

EthnAlln

I haven't been around here as long as RED DAVE, but long enough to know what most posters believe. I can't think of who you have in mind. We get the occasional troll who refuses to engage and just keeps on dogmatically dismissing what others say while reiterating his/her original claims, but those people tend not to stay around long, since people stop responding to the threads they start. Generally people do feel obligated to address the points that others bring up.

Sven

It's quite obvious that Solitary Man has everyone in mind who subscribe to a mythical Jesus. I have to say that the definition by Red Dave fits quite well (though not 100%):

The first is that cranks do not participate in scientific conferences or peer-reviewed journals, but instead write for journals they themselves edit, and speak before groups they themselves founded.

Second, they believe that the failure of the scientific community to adopt their beliefs represents widespread stupidity or corruption on behalf of the entire scientific community.

(well, apart from the writing for journals they themselves edit)

Please note that I don't claim that mythicists are wrong! As others have noted, being a crank does not make one wrong.

gurugeorge

Hmm. This is more apt the other way round. I'm no expert, just an interested layman, but as such, it seems to me that the field of "biblical scolarship" as a whole is the "crank" field in town, in relation to the field of the scholarly study of ancient history, ancient religions and ancient literature as a whole.

Which is why I always find it funny when HJ-ers try to finger the old school tie ("have you ever put this bizarre MJ opinion before a peer-reviewed biblical studies journal?").

Biblical scholarship seems to me to have a place at the scholarly table only as a result of past history and the political power of Christianity. It has academic standing only by tradition and sufferance.

Sven

With regards to most historical questions, you are probably right. With regards to the question if Jesus was historical, I know of close to no scholars (especially not about publications in journals) who subscribe to "mythical".

Please note that I'm well awaree that my knowledge does not mean much. I'm not even a layman!

gurugeorge

I don't know - exactly how much effort have ancient historians as a whole made to discover the truth of the matter, to "triangulate", so to speak, what the biblical historians tell us? Hardly any. So at the moment, it looks like the wider field is taking the cranks' word for it!

Solitary Man

No, actually, I don't. I don't know Red Dave at all, so I cannot say for sure. Both Price and Carrier, besides publishing in their own journals (Price founded JHC, if I recall correctly) also either publish, or in the case of the latter, intend to publish, in respectable journals as well.