jdl

Carrier has finally released his comprehensive review of Did Jesus Exist?

Ehrman on Jesus: A Failure of Facts and Logic
Joseph

maryhelena

I must go back and read the review - but since I always read the ending first...............I just loved this..........

Steven Carr

What was wrong with 'kick his book across the room', after Carrier exposed Bart Ehrman using a translation of a line in Psalm 22 in Mark's Gospel to prove that Jesus existed ( because it was translated into Aramaic, and Jesus spoke Aramaic)?

Surely 'kick his book across the room' is a better line....

maryhelena

:hysterical:

Steven Carr

I liked Carrier's quoting Bart as saying that some mythicists only have degrees in Classics, and so lack the qualifications of a true expert like Bart, and then pointing out where Bart's lack of knowledge of classics has caused him to go so very badly wrong.

Zaphod

CostCo doesn't sell cans this large.

That was a 55-gallon drum, an oil tanker holding tank chock full of whup-ass that Carrier just unloaded on Ehrman.

youngalexander

Carrier certainly has given his 'Bart Noir' a decent old savaging!

I am only 1/3rd of the way thru DJE but was beginning to wonder if Erhman might not be a closet Mythicist - given the appalling case he has presented for Historicity.:constern01:

stephan huller

I think Carrier succeeds at bringing up some mistakes in Ehrman's research but a lot of it seems like he is gnawing at the margins. Maybe Ehrman didn't treat the mythicists with the respect they deserved but is a heavy-weight fighter to be faulted for not training very hard to fight a guy in a wheelchair?

A lot of these arguments come down to things like 'Ehrman says there are no free giveaways at Starbucks, well let me tell you a friend of mine just got a free cup of coffee.'

I haven't read Ehrman's book but I did read all of Carrier's post. Correct me if I am wrong but if we were to try and sum up Carrier's argument the point is that because Ehrman didn't take this very seriously (a) this is a bad book and (b) Jesus is a myth. Maybe Carrier is only saying (a). Am I missing something?

Is it really an overstatement to say that pretty much no one in professional scholarship goes along with the mythicist position? I am not saying that this invalidates the mythicist position but how exact does Ehrman have to be. Carrier keeps bringing up one, two or sometimes five exceptions to the rule. But how many fucking books have been written on this stuff since the world began? One or two or five people is still effectively zero when weighed against the hundreds of other sources.

I am not taking up Ehrman's cause. I am just keeping it real.

I thought the argument about baptizing in the cult of Isis was important. Carrier also did some fine work on the context of the Pliny letter. These are the kind of arguments that resonate (with me at least). But partisans can't get excited about stuff like that. There's no rah rah rah. He also over uses the word 'useless' in the review.

dog-on

Seems like Carrier is only saying (a) in his review. I do suggest that you read Ehrman's book, if you doubt what Carrier has written about it.

MrMacSon

I have wondered if Ehrman put up such an easily-knocked down set of propositions as a round-about contribution to the mythicist case
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