Ben C Smith

Nor do I. I will take quality arguments over credentials any day of the week.

Credentials, however, can provide a sort of personal reality check sometimes. If I find that what I think is ridiculous happens to be held by credentialed scholars in the field, then perhaps it is not ridiculous (even if it is still wrong). IOW, while I do not at all feel that credentials can help one decide between what is correct and what is incorrect, I do think they can help one decide between what is absolutely outlandish and what is not, though even here only in a negative sense, as disproving (so to speak) that something is outlandish by the presence of scholarly support, not as proving it by the absence of scholarly support.

Fair enough, but I believe you do that too. I think most do. I probably do it too (though knowledge of having read something into the text is usually the least available to the one actually doing it at the time). When you do it, it is quite clear to me that you have done it. Doubtless it is also quite clear to you when I have done it.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

That was good, careful detective work.

I have no problem, for the record, with Doherty claiming to be a scholar. He has published one peer-reviewed article, I think, and Price (whom I would never dream of denying scholarly standing) references him in at least one of his books.

On the other hand, Richard Carrier reviewed The Jesus Puzzle as if Earl had no scholarly standing at all. In fact, I found some parts of that review a tiny bit condescending.

Ben.

Zeichman

Ben, is that article from the Journal of Higher Criticism? I know at least three articles by Doherty have been in it: shortened (iirc) reviews of Birth of Christianity and one of Price's books and I think also his "12 pieces" thing. I'm not sure how I found out about the Price review since it's not on the JHC website, ATLA, WorldCat, etc. but I've got a copy of it around. There may have been more, but the JHC site definitely needs an update.

EarlDoherty

Who, me? You must be thinking of someone else.

Actually, it's quite clear to me that you are reading into me what you want to see there rather than...

Earl Doherty

Amaleq13

Elementary, my dear Smith, elementary.

In that he is somewhat of a specialist, I tend to agree.

Doug Shaver

The passages cited do not say that Jesus will reappear. Wright can insist all he wants that that is what they mean, but his insistence will not make it so.

Ben C Smith

Oh, I did not know about the reviews. I knew only about the puzzle article, which Price mentions in Deconstructing Jesus.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

It is clear that Wright has assumed that the appearance described in those two verses is a second appearance; he has imported what amounts to the gospel story into his translation of that word (with the re- prefix). Carr and Doherty et alii are correct to point that out.

But I feel it my duty to also point out that Wright is not refuting mythicism in this article. His point is theological, and those with whom he is in implicit debate do not dispute the gospel story. Wright is arguing that the second coming (again, both he and his implicit debating partners would agree to call it that) is not Jesus coming to take us back up to heaven.

To write, then, as Steven Carr has introduced this thread...:

...is a little misleading. Wright shows no awareness in this article of the distinction that Doherty makes; therefore, Wright is not refuting Doherty in his article. I have noticed this trend before among certain posters on this board; there is a tendency to assume that a writer either was or should have been addressing a mythicist argument, regardless of the actual debating partners involved. But that is an unreasonable expectation. I am something of a Q skeptic, yet I do not assume that one two-source scholar disagreeing with another two-source scholar based on shared assumptions about Q ought to be addressing me on my terms.

My objection here may be aimed only at the way certain phrases are worded, not at what the writer is actually thinking. But I am a big believer in careful phrasing and, with that in mind, I reiterate that I think the objectors here are correct to point out that the actual wording of the two verses in question does not, on its own, imply a pair of comings, and that the translation reappearance assumes as much without argument.

Ben.

Rick Sumner

Anyone who thinks their own preconceptions don't affect what they take out of a text is only kidding themselves.

Hemmingway's famous six word short story provides a fantastic example of this. He once said that he considered it his greatest work:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn

Most of us have little difficulty making a story out of this. Most of them are probably tragic. None of them are the product of anything other than our own imaginings.

Few of us would consider our own exegesis to be equivalent to this--indeed most would be aghast at the suggestion.

Fewer still would be right to deny it.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

~M~

where is the refutation? :huh:



btw,


Hi, Earl! I love the book! :notworthy: