dogsgod

The mainstream of scholarship reads the texts as if Jesus is historical.

judge

I'd be very interested in hearing earl explain this. Earl can you explain why no one is fit to peer review your work?

Vorkosigan

Getting back to the topic at hand... I am reading Ehrman's Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium. The discussion of the pagan sources of Jesus takes the Pliny letter as evidence for the existence of Jesus, and Tacitus. Josephus is treated in the standard "Christianized kernel" manner. He also points out that if you read the NT outside of the gospels, it tells you next to nothing about Jesus.

His book on mythicism is sure going to be interesting.

Vorkosigan

dog-on

I hope so, but somehow I kinda doubt it...

ApostateAbe

Earl Doherty does not have peers in mainstream scholarship because he is not a scholar. He does not have any scholarly credentials above a Master's, he promotes a theory that is appealing to a focused lay community but it is absurd on the face, and no scholar would regard him as a peer.

Toto

Earl's scholarly credentials are adequate. He reads Greek. His theory is not absurd on its face, merely outside the mainstream and inconvenient for some religiously oriented scholars. He made a valiant effort to engage the mainstream community and get peer reviewed, but, except for Richard Carrier and a few evangelicals who believe in miracles, the mainstream has refused to pay attention to him.

This is off topic. If you think there is anything more worth discussing, take it to a new thread.

aa5874

So, what is your point?

Are you an HJ Scholar? Have you submitted "the Gospel of Abe" to peer review?

The quest for the "historical Jesus" started over 200 years ago and Ehrman has Already stated that the sources for his HJ are UNRELIABLE.

Ehrman cannot magically produce a Credible HJ from UNRELIABLE sources.

The quest for the historical Jesus is in shambles.

Jesus is NOT coming later this year. Jesus is NOT coming again.

If Jesus could come, he would have come BEFORE Ehrman.

Steven Carr

SO Ehrman thinks much of Josephus writing about Jesus was 'Forged', to use the title of one of his books, but he believes it was not all forged.

Does Ehrman not know that forgery belongs to the world of 'lying and deception' to quote his book?

How can forged passages be taken as evidence that there was something there that was not forged?

EarlDoherty

Did I say that?

But to address judge's interpretation of what I said, mainstream scholarship has shown itself incapable ("unfit" if you like) of 'peer reviewing' any work on mythicism, not just mine, because it is highly prejudiced against the subject and closed-minded to a fanatical degree while essentially ignorant on the arguments in mythicism's favor. It has made up its mind a priori. (Actually, one can't say "made up its mind" because that implies an initial consideration of the various options.) All that is in direct opposition to the principles of honest scholarship in any field which would claim any degree of "critical" or "scientific" basis, or indeed any claim to be "scholarship".

Given that there are all sorts of religious, social and philosophical movements in human history the existence of whose traditionally reputed founders has become highly questionable or outright rejected, the question of the existence of Jesus is hardly to be considered impossible, absurd, or worthy of disdain without investigation, especially in the face of the extensive problems and weaknesses of the case for his existence and the reliability of the Gospels as history. And yet we have this rabid knee-jerk condemnation and dismissal of Jesus mythicism by collective New Testament scholarship (supported by camp followers like judge and Abe and numerous others of indeterminate motivation and expertise we've all had contact with). That in itself discredits any claims to honesty and integrity on the part of traditional academia and reveals it to be nothing more than pseudo-scholarship. It would make peer review impossible and a farce.

Fine with me.

Tacitus and Pliny (almost the only) evidence for an historical Jesus, according to Ehrman? Can't wait to take that on. In fact, I've been toying with the idea of offering to organize a 'collective' e-(book?)response directly to Ehrman's upcoming book, which could involve a number of contributions, including from more than one person on this board whom I have respect for. In the public eye it may be time to supplement the writings of the handful of today's acknowledged mythicists with a broader picture of the 'mythicist community' whose academic venue is the Internet. We have no need to associate ourselves with "peers" in established academia or to seek their approval, since the latter have discredited themselves and abdicated scholarly responsibility by their disgracefully intolerant dogmatism in regard to a persistent theory in their own discipline (almost two centuries old) which has every reason to be taken seriously.

We may be able to thank Bart Ehrman for offering himself as a sacrificial lamb.

Earl Doherty

dog-on

Ummm, lamb chops...