EarlDoherty

Beautifully put Grog.

"How does one argue with such logical flexibility."

Earl Doherty

Diogenes the Cynic

Paul does not say demons killed Jesus.

I assume you're talking about 2 Cor. 2:8, but τῶν ἀρχόντων τοῦ αἰῶνος does not refer to demons. That is a specious interpretation which imports a 2nd Century allusion into a 1st Century text. That same word, archon, is used throughout the NT to refer to earthly rulers, and when used supernaturally it is used only for Satan as the (singular) ἄρχοντι τῶν δαιμονίων ("prince of demons"). That distinguishes rulers of the earth from the ruler of demons even at Luke and John's late dates, and it is not used as a word FOR demons, but only to designate a ruler OF demons.

In my opinion, Paul is merely using a circumlocution to avoid calling out the Romans directly. I would need to see some better evidence that Paul was talking about demons in a manner used nowhere else in the NT than because of the way archon was used esoterically by 2nd Century Gnostics.

Solo

She seems to get special care from Maurice Casey. He refers to her work several times in his "Jesus of Nazareth" though she remains unpublished. The accolades he pays here are unreal and a good indication of the marginal status his work commands in the academe.

Best,
Jiri

stephan huller

She told me once "she takes care of him." He also told me the same thing in a phone conversation. I think they lived together or she at his home. Everytime I make reference to this I get in trouble with the biblioblog mafia

Toto

Unless "rulers of this age" is a second century interpolation into the allegedly first century text.

Doherty's discussion is here. I don't see anything specious here.

Diogenes the Cynic

Casey says that she is a research assistant. I won't speculate on anything, but they clearly have some of kind of close personal relationship, and their mutual, uncritical lauding of each other's every word is distracting, to say the least.

Fisher had the worst essay, not necessarily in terms of content, but in terms of style. She comes off as strident, gratuitously belligerent, elitist, defensive, ad hominem and arrogant. She's a grad student who says that Richard Carrier is not qualified in HJ scholarship because he (she says) has no qualification in New Testament studies (Carrier having his doctorate in Ancient History). This seems to evade (or somehow show complete unawareness) of the fact that the provenance of "Jesus," by definition, belongs to the province of Ancient History, and if I recall correctly, Carrier's PhD had an emphasis on Christian Origins. Her protestation that he is not formally and specifically a "New Testament" scholar is not only (obviously) fallacious, but immature and reaching. She needs to learn to respond on the facts and leave out the snarking and the constant attempts to discredit people based on irrelevant facets of that person's identity (He's a Jew, he's a fundy, he's an atheist).

She seems to be very caught up in defending Casey (she claims his wax tablets will soon became the accepted synoptic source theory with a confidence that seems rather naive), and not so much in just defending HJ per se.

Hoffman's essay I thought was a model of civil disagreement and rebuttal. Casey was Casey.

stephan huller

They should just shut down all the humanities departments. you could find more sincerity in a brothel

spin

But they are shutting them down, Stephan. We're going to end up with purely work centered training establishments (plus religious studies: there's money to keep it going) with no interest in cultural heritage, its significance now and its impact in the future.

anethema

Yes quite its a mug's game. It reminds me of a story George Coyne(retired vatican astronomer) told Richard Dawkins. Apparently one of the first proponents of the big bang theory was a catholic priest, and the pope was so excited about it that he was going to make it a dogma of faith of the church. Until of course the priest pointed out the actual implied ramifications of it ie. no creator. The pope of course then had to condemn it. Infallible in faith and morals? lol

anethema

A lot of these "experts" seem to have a touch of the papal infallibility bug.