thedistillers

Still, I think that the choice of word speaks volume.

Would you write a book "the historical argument for Napoleon"? It seems to me if there is no doubt about a historical character (and that is the position of Ehrman and co about Jesus), you would phrase your book differently. Searching "historical argument for" on google, it doesn't seem like it's a phrasing historians would use.

About the analogy of a trial, well duh, the very idea of a trial applied to history is that there is doubt over something and the truth needs to be established. You wouldn't write a "the historical argument for Obama" book, would you?

Doug Shaver

On further reflection, I revise my previous response as follows.

You are assuming a separability that does not hold. A presentation of evidence just is an argument. It makes no difference how good the evidence might be. Whenever you claim "X is evidence for Y," you are arguing for Y. If the evidence is good enough, then the argument is irrefutable, but it does not thereby cease to be an argument.

Solo

I see your point now and register the quotation marks around the term 'the history of religion' when first used in the passage. The defenders of Jesus' existence have opponents 'in the field of the history of religion'.

Thanks, Andrew, for pointing out my error.

Despite my misreading the term, I still think my point to Ehrman is valid. Schweitzer considered the Jesus mythicism a serious challenge that needed a substantial response. In the very next paragraph from which I quoted he says:

This [i.e. the general trend to mythicism in academia] explains why those who defend the existence of Jesus do not seriously question the more general view of their opponents in the field of the history of religion, but only their boldest assertions. But in fact a critical survey of the much famed findings on which Drews and his associates base their findings would be more than useful at this time.

Best,
Jiri

Steven Carr

You can hardly expect Ehrman to accept Price's views if he has never heard of him.

As Paul says in Romans 10 'And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?'

Happily, people have preached about Bob Price to Ehrman, so he has now heard of him.

I wonder why Paul had to concern himself with why Jews had not heard of Jesus.

I suppose Jesus was the Bob Price of his day, an obscure person , with a handful of followers, who people only heard about when his followers insisted that they hear about this guy. Otherwise they had little clue that he had even existed, just as Ehrman had no clue that Price existed.

I can't help think that if Bob Price was known in his day as a healer and exorcist, and if his ideas were so controversial that his death had to be arranged by the Establishment, then Ehrman would have heard of him.

But, just like the supporters of Jesus, supporters of Price have to explain why people have not heard of him.

stephan huller

Ughh :vomit: That's just wrong on so many levels ...

Solo

One of my youthful idols, the American Marxist sociologist, C.Wright Mills made a great quip directed at the Frankfurt School. He said of Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and Co. that they are the epitome of the German philosophy's obsession with syntax at the expense of semantics. I wonder what he would have said of Heidegger had he bothered.

Best,
Jiri

jgoodguy

I agree.