Magdlyn

I pointed out the biased nature of the group above. If they are published believers in the historic Jesus, they are invested in apology, to maintain their reputation and incomes. Just like many priests and pastors, they may be spouting tired dogma through a haze of doubt and hypocrisy.

The 20 questions listed do not address Jesus' character or historicity. They ask the participants to agree to one reason or another "why" Jesus said what he said.

Why did Jesus prohibit divorce?

Why did he heal a Gentile?

Were the parables metaphors or folk-tales?

What does this tell us about the historical Jesus? It just seems like a chance to show off your own theological beliefs.

I don't know what you mean here.

I guess my main objection to the whole enterprise is a suppostion that the canonical gospels contain any recognizable historical information about a real man called Jesus of Galilee.

Magdlyn

And what kind of "credentials" do you need to decide if Jesus was doing "magi" or "miracles?" And again, what does that have to do with whether he existed or not?

I mean, it's all just a guessing game. Like playing Clue or something. Where is the scientific method here?

I'll take "Mud in your eye" for 200, Alex.

Vorkosigan

That was not Loren's purpose. Note that the did discuss criteria for determining historicity.

It might be interesting to see if there is a correlation between denominational claims and HJ positions. That might be an interesting study. I suspect that it would show that less prominent and accomplished scholars are more orthodox in their views of Jesus' life, and more prominent ones are less orthodox.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Magdlyn

Well, that is true. His purpose was to ask their opinion of

this?

In other words, no agreed upon criteria? No methodology?

So, with no agreed upon criteria and no method other than spouting opinions about the difference between a prayer and a spell, a wand and mud in your eye, the author hoped to (and even claimed to) reach an "objective" viewpoint from these credentialed scholars how exactly?

Magdlyn

Less prominent Jews and Unitarians would be orthodox?

Why should it hinge on being "prominent and accomplished?" (By accomplished do you mean, a published scholar as opposed to a well-read amateur?)

Would it not more likely hinge on religion? An Evangelical would be more "orthodox" than a Unitarian. A Catholic would be more "orthodox" than a Jew (or the non-existant Muslim or Buddhist or feminist Christian missing from the survey, of course).

andrewcriddle

Assuming at least FTSOA that there was a Historical Jesus, how far do people agree with the results of the conclave ?

I've already posted on Loren's blog that, although in general agreement with the things they agreed about, I was a little surprised at their consensus that parables such as the sower go back to Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

darstec

First, I think any study with just 12 people is flawed at the onset. Unless the study is for instance on some particular disease and only 12 people in the world have or have had it, I don't care what statisticians say 12 is not a representative number for any study. I once had a reference to a study that concluded 100% of the town agreed that farming corn was the best occupation a person could engage in. Then the data was shown -- the town's total population consisted of four families, all of whom were were corn farmers. I wish I could find that study reference again.

And we all know the story about the scientists that studied trained circus fleas. These fleas would jump around, "seemingly" on command. These scientists cut off the wings of the fleas and came to the conclusion when the fleas no longer jumped it was because they lost their hearing when the wings were cut off. One can jump to the wrong conclusion in spite of the evidence.

It would be interesting to compare this survey with one that included hundreds of experts, The Jesus Seminar. Off the top of my head, I would say that among those experts agreement was rarely unamimous.

I think Loren Rosson's study should include experts in all the Pseudepigraphy, alternate gospels/epistles, and early church fathers' writings. And anyone not totally familar with the same should be automatically excluded. The only thing I see is that the study's participants agreed that the total of what we can determine of Jesus is contained in the four gospels. Perhaps the wording of the question only allowed such a conclusion.

Loren Rosson III

I agree, but it's better than Meier's 4. Remember the goal of the unpapal conclave is to see what a diverse group can possibly agree to. The more members involved, and the more diversity involved, the more difficult it becomes to reach consensus, and therefore any points of consensus increase the possibility of those points being objectively true. (Our group reached less consensus than Meier's muse did; we would not have endorsed all the claims staked out in the Marginal Jew series.)

I agree this is important. The use of this literature is one of the first things addressed by Meier in Vol I of A Marginal Jew, and I had originally slated more questions involving the use of classical writings, rabbinic literature, etc. (The survey was getting long.) But yes, this is an area that clearly needs more attention in our group.

Loren Rosson III

It's difficult to take these accusations seriously. Speaking for myself, I'm neither published in the field nor have a reputation or income which depends on my views of Jesus. Some folks in my (UU) church deny Jesus existed; some say he existed but is irrelevant; others find him about as relevant/irrelevant as other religious figures; and then some deny he existed but find relevance in the teachings ascribed to him anyway.

As for professionals in the field, look at someone like William Arnal. His reputation is doing just fine, and he's a hair's width away from being a Christ-myther. Scholarship is extremely diverse these days. Whatever the liabilities of our conclave group as a whole, apologetic interests isn't one of them.

Magdlyn

Acc to the first pg of the study, these were the sources Loren thought most important to use to determine who HJ was:

-- synoptic gospels
-- gospel of John
-- gospel of Thomas
-- letters of Paul
-- letter of James

The respondents were to chose their favorite and most chose #1, with Paul coming in 2nd. Interesting, as Paul contains no bio info at all on the HJ. :huh: