Gooch's dad

Yes, Vinnie, atheist historians by and large accept a HJ. And for sound reasons, IMHO.

Cheers,

-Kelly

godfry n. glad

Here's an interesting source on the theological backgrounds of some of the leading lights of the "Third Quest", from one of those leading lights, Fr. John P. Meier himself, as presented in "The Present State of the ‘Third Quest’ for the Historical Jesus: Loss and Gain" _Biblica_ 80 (1999) 459-487:

"The wide spectrum of scholars, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and agnostic, who have participated in the third quest not only in the United States but also in Canada, Britain, Germany, and elsewhere has given an international and inter-confessional breadth to the third quest that the former two lacked. To take but a few examples, Ben Witherington, who has stressed the role of Jesus as wisdom teacher, is a conservative Methodist; E.P. Sanders, in a sense the person who launched the third quest, comes from a Methodist background and might best be described as a post-liberal Protestant (though a Texan, he taught for many years in Canada and England); Robert Funk, the founder of the Jesus Seminar, comes out of the Disciples of Christ tradition; N.T. Wright, a perennial opponent of the Jesus Seminar, is an Anglican and the Dean of Lichfield cathedral; and writers of such diverse views as John Dominic Crossan, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, and myself come from Roman Catholic backgrounds. To this can be added the valuable contributions — indeed, the decades-old impetus — of Jewish scholars such as Geza Vermes of Oxford and more recently Paula Fredriksen of Boston University.”

So...

Ben Witherington - conservative Methodist

E.P. Sanders - Methodist background, now "post-liberal
Protestant" (whatever that means)

Robert Funk - Disciples of Christ

The article is most interesting and can be found at:

http://www.bsw.org/project/biblica/bibl80/Comm11.htm

Best,

godfry n. glad

Ted Hoffman

Vork, this is funny!

God fry and glad, thanks that was very edifying. Where does that leave Metacrocks popularity appeal conflated with appeal to numbers?

A few apologists, theologians and roman catholic scholars? Hmmm....

Meta, I think you will need to do better with your appeal to numbers.

For the sake of intellectual honesty Meta, I suggest you do not make any appeal to numbers argument or if you want to use your dubious list, state the religious position/affiliation of each member (no pun intended) in your list.
Witholding such info (that can be used to judge bias and inertia) is manipulative and deceptive.

Indeed, judging from the context you were peddling the list, its a spurious list.