Toto

From Jim West's blog contains a long post by Stephanie Fisher that Bart rejected from his blog for being "mean spirited."

I can't find anything mean spirited there (although Fisher's blog comments are often on the snarky side, this one seems quite academic.) The only possible thing that might have raised a hackle or two was Fisher's claim that "“I feel compelled to add that your derogatory insinuations about New Testament scholars are false and offensive. Responsible New Testament scholars around the world do take mythicists seriously. They do read the published work and even the blogs. They do not just dismiss them. That would be irresponsible. "

hjalti

Really?

Toto

Because if they didn't take mythicism seriously, that would be irresponsible, a dereliction of their scholarly duties. So they do. QED.

yalla

'In' fighting amid the 'in' group?

JonA

Or...

irrelevant controversy? :constern01:

Toto

It's not within the "in" group, and it's not irrelevant. Casey represents one particular approach to historicism, which is not in fact favored by the majority. But the challenge is to Ehrman's competency in his review of the scholarship.

tanya

Most of us on this forum have recognized both serious flaws in Ehrman's competency, and his own "mean spiritedness" vis a vis authors with a mythicist predilection.

What troubles me, about this debate over Ehrman's newest book, is the relative dismissal by both Ehrman and forum members, of the key point, (key, at least to me) regarding the mythicist view of Jesus: the fact that the gospels identify him as son of god, born of a human female, exactly like Hercules, another Greek mythical character.

No. There is only ONE mythicist argument: The text, the gospels that is, identify Jesus as the son of God. End of story.

That neither forum members, nor others, including Ehrman, and Stephanie Fisher, discuss, argue, or debate this point, is, for me, the most mysterious aspect of the controversy.

If someone shouted from the rooftops, "long live geocentrism", or someone else shouted: "long live creationism", and folks, intelligent people, defended such nonsense, would you not be surprised?

I feel as though most of the arguments here, against Ehrman, including this quote from Stephanie, represent the kind of repudiation one might observe from a fireman, passing the guy shouting "long live geocentrism", grabbing his axe, and wearing his large black hat, with an oxygen mask strapped to his back, shouting in reply: "Watch out, there is a brick loose, just below you, be careful, not to fall inadvertently". What? Wait a minute....what about heliocentrism?

Why is the fireman not warning this guy that what he is shouting so loudly, from the rooftops, is utter nonsense?

I read such intricate, convoluted arguments about this or that interpretation of this or that passage in the "old testament" (aka "scripture"), as if any of it is relevant to the issue at hand. There is only one issue here.

The issue is whether or not one is dealing with an historical character, who was born as son of a deity. The only issue, is whether or not the gospels represent an accurate account of a fictional event: for in real life, unlike the world of make believe, women do not give birth to children, whose father possess no human DNA.

That's the reason, the only reason, why Jesus is a myth. Arguing about Jesus family, his "brother", his baptism, his death, his resurrection, etc, etc, is all a waste of time: Jesus is imaginary, because his father was a deity, not a human, just like Hercules.

So, Stephanie, and forum members, how is Casey going to refute Mark 1:1 in his forthcoming book? How is he going to "provide evidence" against the mythicist view of Hercules?

James The Least

Well, that's not the only reason. The resurrection also proves Jesus is a myth. Dead people don't come back to life.

It's simply too incredible for modern minds to comprehend how and why people would have kept elaborating on the basic Kurios Christos legend to bring in a family, a home in Nazareth, a baptism, 12 disciples, etc., if they were not basing it on something historical. And to then have the chutzpah to call their imaginary folktales holy scripture. And have the uber-chutzpah to propose that anyone who didn't believe in their imaginary folktales was destined for a fiery afterlife. Something like this could not happen in modern times without heavy criticism and opposition, therefore, we conclude, it could not have happened in ancient times.

LegionOnomaMoi

This is not necessarily true. That is, it is not necessarily the case that specialists in any given field are somehow duty bound to takes seriously views about that field (or about an aspect of it) which are virtually non-existent among specialists. I don't think, for example, many people other than creationists would fault any number of scholars within various scientific fields for not taking creationism seriously.

With respect to mythicism, apart from the specialists mentioned in your link who have addressed mythicists' arguments, I know that J.D.G. Dunn addressed Wells' argument (quite effectively, it would appear, as Wells subsequently changed his position). Whether mythicists are taken seriously in the academic community is one thing, but it certainly is not the case that they are outright ignored.

aa5874

Ehrman's problem with competency is very serious because it brings into the question the competency of so-called modern scholarship with regards to the question of an historical Jesus.

One would have expected that Ehrman would have developed a water-tight theory for an historical Jesus and would have at least discussed his theory with his peers before publishing it.

Ehrman has EXPOSED that the theory of an historical Jesus is IN SHAMBLES within Scholarship itself

Surely, you must know that HJers argue that gMark and the Gospels are LATE Embellishments. They argue that they are NOT contemporary.

Essentially, based on HJers, the Gospels are NOT historically accurate, not contemporary, they are fundamentally fictionalised except that Jesus was from Nazareth, was baptized by John, was an Apocalyptic preacher who was crucified under Pilate.

So, Mark 1.1 is a LIE, FALSE, an Embellishment, based on HJers but Mark 1.9 is TRUE or most likely historically accurate.

Now, that is exactly why HJers attempt to use Galatians 1.19 because they PRESUME, PRESUME, PRESUME that the Pauline writer was a contemporary of a Real human Jesus of Nazareth.

But, HJers have the very same problem with Galatians as they have with the LATE non-contemporary Gospels.

In the PRESUMED contemporary Galatians Jesus was FATHERED by God.

Galatians 2:20 KJVGalatians 4:4 KJV But, that is NOT all.

The PRESUMED contemporary Galatians author would DECLARE to the people of ASIA that he was NOT, NOT, NOT the apostle of a human being and that he did NOT, NOT, NOT get his gospel of Jesus from human source.

Galatians 1 The Presumed contemporary Galatians writer has OBLITERATED an historical Jesus.

The Galatians Jesus was non-human, the Son of God and was Raised the dead and the Pauline gospel of Jesus was derived from Imagination, Hallucination or Dreams and Visions.

But, NOT only in ASIA, the Presumed contemporary Pauline writer made similar claims to the Romans and Corinthians.

Romans 5:10 KJV2 Corinthians 1:19 KJV The very PRESUMED contemporary Galatians writer has NOTHING whatsoever about a human Jesus.

The presumed contemporary Galatians writer was NOT, NOT, NOT the Apostle of a human being, just Jesus the Son of God who was RAISED from the dead.