Freethought & Rationalism Archive

dog-on · 06-29-2011, 03:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

I just finished Ehrman's book on Jesus as an Apocalyptic Prophet. Here's a passage on Judas:

"This act of betrayal is about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition. For one thing, it is multiply attested (Mark 14:10-11, John 18:2-3, Acts 1:16; possibly 1 Cor 11:23). Moreover, it is not the sort of thing that a later Christian would probably make up (one of Jesus closest disciples betrayed him? He had no more authority over his followers than that?). According to our accounts..."

Now, during the two page discussion of Judas, Ehrman never raises the serious possibility that Judas might be a fiction. In fact there are good reasons to argue for Markan invention of Judas, I laid them out in my discussion of Mk 14:10-11 here:

http://www.michaelturton.com/Mark/GMark14.html

The point is not whether Judas was invented or not. The point is that Ehrman's treatment of him as a character is incredibly shallow, even disingenuous, especially when one is writing for a lay audience.

Passages like this, which fill Ehrman's popular writing, don't give me confidence that his book on mythicism will be especially useful for anyone. I suspect it will be like Steve Carr says, we'll be paying $6 to learn that Paul said James was Jesus' brother, so Jesus is real.

Vorkosigan

Vork, that's kinda why I put Ehrman on the back shelf some years ago.

Sad really as he is actually pretty good in other relevant areas, but that is one academic who knows exactly where the line in the sand is drawn, down to the millimeter I suspect.

Vorkosigan · 06-29-2011, 04:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

]

Vork, that's kinda why I put Ehrman on the back shelf some years ago.

Sad really as he is actually pretty good in other relevant areas, but that is one academic who knows exactly where the line in the sand is drawn, down to the millimeter I suspect.

yeah, i had only read The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture and some of his papers, so I was quite unprepared for the glibness of his popular stuff. Severely disappointed.

I've got Misquoting Jesus up next. Hopefully better.....

Vorkosigan

GakuseiDon · 06-29-2011, 04:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Quote:

Either Doherty is right and this represents some kind of Christian "Son of God" worship, or I am right and this is consistent with a pattern that we see throughout the early Christian literature.

I'll go with Doherty on this, since you keep making his point for him.

I'm happy to make the point for him, since it is either powerful evidence for his position or powerful evidence against it.

What if some evidence popped up that should all those Second Century writers were in fact some kind of historicists? (I don't have that evidence btw) Should that make us rethink our expectations about what we see in the First Century writings, in your view?

GakuseiDon · 06-29-2011, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Just give the order of texts as YOU see it. Is this such a difficult task? How would you order your ancestors?

"order of texts" You mean the dating?

Yes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

It sounds to me that you are saying that it is all but impossible to determine what documents mythicists wrote and what documents historicists wrote. Is that what you are saying?

Nope. Because the early documents were all produced by people who believed in the cosmic christ. Then they were reinterpreted and edited by people who believed in a historical Jesus.

Would it be fair to say that, if you are right, it appears the historicist editors of the epistles in the NT decided, for some reason, to put in few historical markers about Jesus and the early church, leaving out things like Gospel sayings, Gospel events from Jesus' life, details about the apostles, details about the [supposed] history of the proto-orthodox church? And that they were happy to have Christ as "prophecy fulfilled" by referencing the Old Testament rather than insert Gospel details of Christ himself?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Can you personally identify which documents are the product of mythicists and which are the product of historicists? If not, how do you know there were any mythicists at all? If so, then my questions stand:

It is difficult to believe this is a serious question. Earl has discussed this at length. The Paulines contain a cosmic Christ, not a historical one.

Do you mean, Paul as he was originally, or Paul after the historicist editors have edited him to their satisfaction (interpretive frameworks not withstanding)?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

So does Mark, or rather, I should say, there's no history of a human person in Mark. Since i've worked with GMark at length, I;m pretty confident it contains no history and its author didn't intend it as such. Since I know of at least two sets of texts (actually four or more depending on you divide up "Paul") written by people who didn't believe in a historical Jesus and they are among the earlier texts, I'm pretty sure the early Jesus was a cosmic savior figure.

Ehrman sees the early Jesus as an adopted Son of God, so no doubt that will be one point of disagreement if he decides to address Doherty in his e-book. He points to such passages as:

[Christ Jesus. . .] who came from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was appointed Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead" (Rom 1:3-4)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

1. Can you give the name and date of the last piece of ahistoricist literature, in your opinion?
2. Can you give the name and date of the first piece of 'proto-orthodox' literature, in your opinion please?
3. Were ANY epistles in the NT written by historicists?

1. No.
2. Luke and Acts
3. Offhand, none that I can think of. But I haven't studied the NT epistles at length.

Thanks for that. I would be interested to see when you date Luke and Acts, and then the NT epistles, to see what comes out of it. I suspect there would be some overlap which would perhaps need some explanation.

Would you agree that the letters of Paul suggest that there was a wide-spread "cosmic savior" Christ religion at the time that Paul wrote? Do you think the author/s of Luke and Acts were aware of that wide-spread "cosmic savior" Christ religion and its writings when they wrote Luke and Acts?

jgoodguy · 06-29-2011, 05:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

I just finished Ehrman's book on Jesus as an Apocalyptic Prophet. Here's a passage on Judas:

"This act of betrayal is about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition. For one thing, it is multiply attested (Mark 14:10-11, John 18:2-3, Acts 1:16; possibly 1 Cor 11:23). Moreover, it is not the sort of thing that a later Christian would probably make up (one of Jesus closest disciples betrayed him? He had no more authority over his followers than that?). According to our accounts..."

Now, during the two page discussion of Judas, Ehrman never raises the serious possibility that Judas might be a fiction. In fact there are good reasons to argue for Markan invention of Judas, I laid them out in my discussion of Mk 14:10-11 here:

http://www.michaelturton.com/Mark/GMark14.html

The point is not whether Judas was invented or not. The point is that Ehrman's treatment of him as a character is incredibly shallow, even disingenuous, especially when one is writing for a lay audience.

Passages like this, which fill Ehrman's popular writing, don't give me confidence that his book on mythicism will be especially useful for anyone. I suspect it will be like Steve Carr says, we'll be paying $6 to learn that Paul said James was Jesus' brother, so Jesus is real.

Vorkosigan

Vork, that's kinda why I put Ehrman on the back shelf some years ago.

Sad really as he is actually pretty good in other relevant areas, but that is one academic who knows exactly where the line in the sand is drawn, down to the millimeter I suspect.

I am not enthusiastic about Ehrman either. My expectation is that we will see quotes like this.

Quote:

This act of betrayal is about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition.

This will leave anyone on the JMer side arguing with something like "The HJ is about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition".

dog-on · 06-29-2011, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgoodguy

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Vork, that's kinda why I put Ehrman on the back shelf some years ago.

Sad really as he is actually pretty good in other relevant areas, but that is one academic who knows exactly where the line in the sand is drawn, down to the millimeter I suspect.

I am not enthusiastic about Ehrman either. My expectation is that we will see quotes like this.

Quote:

This act of betrayal is about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition.

This will leave anyone on the JMer side arguing with something like "The HJ is about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition".

Yea, that's pretty much the way I suspect he will deal with it. I was watching a debate between Ehrman and some apologist, Craig I think, and it seems to me that Ehrman has a tendency not to drive his points through to their logical conclusion, from time to time. Perhaps because doing so might put him on the otherside of the aforementioned line.

But, that said, I will give him the benefit of the doubt and read what he has to say in his ebook.

judge · 06-29-2011, 06:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

I've got Misquoting Jesus up next. Hopefully better.....

Vorkosigan

I think you;ll be very disappointed. You're not his target audience at all. save your money.

ApostateAbe · 06-29-2011, 06:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

I just finished Ehrman's book on Jesus as an Apocalyptic Prophet. Here's a passage on Judas:

"This act of betrayal is about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition. For one thing, it is multiply attested (Mark 14:10-11, John 18:2-3, Acts 1:16; possibly 1 Cor 11:23). Moreover, it is not the sort of thing that a later Christian would probably make up (one of Jesus closest disciples betrayed him? He had no more authority over his followers than that?). According to our accounts..."

Now, during the two page discussion of Judas, Ehrman never raises the serious possibility that Judas might be a fiction. In fact there are good reasons to argue for Markan invention of Judas, I laid them out in my discussion of Mk 14:10-11 here:

http://www.michaelturton.com/Mark/GMark14.html

The point is not whether Judas was invented or not. The point is that Ehrman's treatment of him as a character is incredibly shallow, even disingenuous, especially when one is writing for a lay audience.

Passages like this, which fill Ehrman's popular writing, don't give me confidence that his book on mythicism will be especially useful for anyone. I suspect it will be like Steve Carr says, we'll be paying $6 to learn that Paul said James was Jesus' brother, so Jesus is real.

Vorkosigan

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgoodguy

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Vork, that's kinda why I put Ehrman on the back shelf some years ago.

Sad really as he is actually pretty good in other relevant areas, but that is one academic who knows exactly where the line in the sand is drawn, down to the millimeter I suspect.

I am not enthusiastic about Ehrman either. My expectation is that we will see quotes like this.

Quote:

This act of betrayal is about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition.

This will leave anyone on the JMer side arguing with something like "The HJ is about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition".

He did not write Apocalyptic Prophet (or via: amazon.co.uk) with you in mind. Jesus-minimalists make only a very slim percentage of his typical audience, and the position simply no longer has a place at the table among academics. Ehrman's eBook will be his first book written with you in mind. It will be a book written for you and only you! I don't know how you can possibly expect that it will be many pages of "The historical Jesus is about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition."

judge · 06-29-2011, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hjalti

You could just as well call it a historicist argument to claim that the beginning (v. 1-7 IIRC) of Romans 13 is an interpolation (because some mythicists, I think Doherty is one of them) uses it in an argument for mythicism.

Except historicists dont try and argue that.:huh:

Its mythicists who need to find interpolations in every corner to argue for their case

Mythers need to either argue that various texts mean exactly the opposite of what they appear to mean or if that doesnt work that the verse must have been interplotaed.

dog-on · 06-29-2011, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge

Quote:

Originally Posted by hjalti

You could just as well call it a historicist argument to claim that the beginning (v. 1-7 IIRC) of Romans 13 is an interpolation (because some mythicists, I think Doherty is one of them) uses it in an argument for mythicism.

Except historicists dont try and argue that.:huh:

Its mythicists who need to find interpolations in every corner to argue for their case

Mythers need to either argue that various texts mean exactly the opposite of what they appear to mean or if that doesnt work that the verse must have been interplotaed.

Actually it's the HJ crowd that actually ignores the text in order to produce some dude never even mentioned.

Now that, my friend, is balls...

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