Tenorikuma

Well, returning to the topic of Dr. Price's book, I agree with Tom Verenna that Price's work would make a greater impact if he published more peer-reviewed articles. With effort, he might even help steer NT studies in a new direction like the OT minimalists have.

On the other hand, I dare say thousands of amateur enthusiasts (like myself) have benefited from Price's unending push to engage with those outside the academy and promote higher criticism outside the ivory tower. Judging from informal forums on Biblical studies (like this one), I would say that the positions of Price and Carrier are rapidly gaining ground thanks in no small part to their engagement with the general public.

To address aa's recent comment, I would just point out that all theologically-motivated historical Jesus studies are stuck in the mire of popular Christianity, whose Jesus is docetist, and for whom all extra-biblical early writings are utterly irrelevant. The folks at your friendly neighbourhood First Baptist or Assemblies of God chapel have never heard of Aristides or Sabellianism, and they couldn't tell Irenaeus from a hole in the ground. For them, Jesus is a Time Lord capable of fulfilling even mutually contradictory conditions, like simultaneously having no human father yet descending from David's sperm (through two incompatible lines of descent, no less). Jesus said and did every single thing in the Gospels — even the things that contradict the other things. Sadly, even modern, liberal theology and Jesus scholarship reflect this thinking, with an impossibly perfect Jesus who never did anything wrong, and who did everything in the Gospels that isn't completely absurd or paradoxical. To even the most minimalist promoter of the human Jesus, it is unthinkable that a clearly fictional book with the title of "Mark" should have been wrong about the general details of Jesus' crucifixion.

joedad

Which is to say that gods are part of their ontology and that gods are therefore part of their cultural ontology. It's one thing to choose between competing gods, but quite another to choose between god and no god. And it is something completely and radically different to be able to have the meta discussion as to whether gods and spirits are even real, a discussion few of our ancestors engaged in or even conceived of.

So I don't really know if Price and Carrier and others are the gifts or the givers of their times. They are most certainly aided by the fact that culturally and individually, atheism is acceptable in many quarters of the planet.

Toto

Price announced that he will be selling hard copies of the book soon for $25.