Richard Carrier slams Ehrman's latest book

[Bernard Muller]

Moreover, Ehrman argues (again, rightly in my view), that the early claim that Jesus is Messiah, requires us to conclude also that Jesus had excited such hopes about himself during his own ministry.

I concluded it was not Jesus' so-called ministry which excited such hopes, but rather circumstances leading to his execution as "the king of the Jews": http://historical-jesus.info/digest.html

Indeed, this was likely the reason that the Roman authority moved against him and crucified him. (“Messiah” = typically a divinely appointed ruler/deliverer, a claim that would have been seen as sedition against Rome.)

I would basically agree with that. But much more important than Jesus' ministry were Pilate's blunder, the phenomenal John the Baptist, Jesus being perceived as a healer through some flukes, the expectations of some activist Jews from Jerusalem & the diaspora and the ruckus in the temple as the reasons why he was crucified as "the king of the Jews" => Christ & Lord (more acceptable for Gentiles and less provocative against the Romans).

As Ehrman observes, resurrection by itself would not have connoted that Jesus is Messiah. But, if Jesus’ followers had held such a hope during his ministry, then Jesus’ resurrection would quite readily have been taken as God’s validation of Jesus as Messiah. (This, by the way, is basically the argument made by the great Yale NT scholar, Nils Dahl, decades ago.)

NOT Jesus' followers from Galilee but those who acclaimed him as king near Jerusalem. And belief in resurrection most likely started as:
The king could not have died before having ruled. Consequently, he had to be saved in heaven in order to come back (at the advent on earth of the Kingdom of God). Supporting cherry picking out-of-context quotes from the OT could be found. And Philo of Alexandria wrote about the terrific proto-Jew, Abraham, and a superlative Jew, Moses, went to heaven after death: why not the future King of the Jews?
I am not denying that later "proof" of resurrection such as in dreams, or light (Ac 9:3, 22:7, 26:13), or a stranger on the road (Lk 24:13-16), or "internal voice" (Ac 22:9) or "I don't know how" (2 Cor 12:1-6) were strengthening the belief of resurrection.

Cordially, Bernard

[John T]

@GakuseiDon,

I have provided on other posts plenty of examples where Carrier gets his sources wrong. He has been called on them over and over again by real ancient history scholars yet he keeps plugging along as if his bogus claims have never been debunked. Why? Because he knows his niche audience (mythicists) are not really interested in history but in finding a way to kill Jesus. He has freely admitted as an atheist that he sees it as his moral duty to destroy Christianity. At the end of his lectures he will take questions and give pointers on how to trick or shame (marginalize) Christians into giving up their belief. He tells his fellow atheists to treat Christians as if they are brained washed or clinically insane if they don't agree that the historical Jesus is a myth.

Carrier is not doing history so much as he is evangelizing his religion in a most nasty and unseemly way. I think he is just as bad as the worst of the T.V. evangelists.
Shame on you for trying to equivocate me with that.


https://youtu.be/79UAYyMYk7I
https://youtu.be/HMyudP5z2Xw

[Peter Kirby]

A book review by Carrier

Of Bart Ehrman's How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee...

has no place on Christian Texts and History. Just saying.

Your opinion:

- does not matter
- and is clearly wrong

But... thanks for sharing...

Well then, let me jump into the fray that I started.

Ehrman knows about but glosses over a third way.

The pre-exsisting Logos/spirit in the form of a dove was infused into the mortal man Jesus at baptism.

Ehrman writes in; "Jesus, Interrupted" ....I [Ehrman] am taking here the original wording of the verse as found in some older manuscripts of the Bible, even though it is not found in most English translations. Here the voice says, "You are my son, today I have begotten you" [Luke] (3:22), quoting the words of Psalm 2:7."...pg40.

Furthermore, gMark (the first gospel written) points out that angels waited on Jesus. Mark 1:13
But hey, what do I know, my opinion is clearly wrong and does not matter.

One opinion of yours does not matter and is clearly wrong (that this thread "has no place on Christian Texts and History").

It's my right to treat all carping on my administration of this forum with complete disdain and dismissal.

I don't know why some people whine when any of "their" threads are touched at all, but I've made no representations to you or anyone else that you can expect that your thread or your post will stay put where you place it. Quite the opposite, in fact. And at my sole discretion.

The pre-exsisting Logos/spirit in the form of a dove was infused into the mortal man Jesus at baptism.

Ehrman writes in; "Jesus, Interrupted" ....I [Ehrman] am taking here the original wording of the verse as found in some older manuscripts of the Bible, even though it is not found in most English translations. Here the voice says, "You are my son, today I have begotten you" [Luke] (3:22), quoting the words of Psalm 2:7."...pg40.

Furthermore, gMark (the first gospel written) points out that angels waited on Jesus. Mark 1:13

This stuff is interesting. Thank you.

[GakuseiDon]

@GakuseiDon,

I have provided on other posts plenty of examples where Carrier gets his sources wrong. He has been called on them over and over again by real ancient history scholars yet he keeps plugging along as if his bogus claims have never been debunked. Why? Because he knows his niche audience (mythicists) are not really interested in history but in finding a way to kill Jesus. He has freely admitted as an atheist that he sees it as his moral duty to destroy Christianity.

And I don't see anything wrong with that at all. Good luck to him! Different perspectives help keep us all honest. I don't care what the motivation is, as long as building the argument takes precedent.

Carrier is not doing history so much as he is evangelizing his religion in a most nasty and unseemly way. I think he is just as bad as the worst of the T.V. evangelists.
Shame on you for trying to equivocate me with that.

It's the "nasty and unseemly way" that I object to, both from him and from you. It's playing the man rather than the ball.

How are you different from Carrier in that particular aspect?

[andrewcriddle]

On Ehrman changing his mind.

IIUC Ehrman started working on How Jesus became God a number of years ago. I.E. he wrote Did Jesus Exist after he had already began working on How Jesus became God . If so references in How Jesus became God to Ehrman having changed his mind while researching this book probably do not mean that he changed his mind between writing Did Jesus Exist and How Jesus became God

Andrew Criddle

[toejam]

Again, I don't know what Ehrman writes in his latest book, but based on DJE, Carrier is almost certainly exaggerating here. Criticize Ehrman for thinking that there is any history in the Gospels, okay, that might be fair. But "Ehrman resorts to a literalist reading of Mark, treating the text essentially just as Christian fundamentalists do"? C'mon, that's just ridiculous.

I agree. I actually laughed out loud a few times reading Carrier's smears against Ehrman in this review. Laughing at Carrier, not with him. Carrier comes across as highly jaded in these sorts of reviews. It's like he's desperate to get a response. To say Ehrman holds to a "literalist reading" of Mark is beyond silly and bordering on the dishonest IMO.

[stevencarrwork]

Again, I don't know what Ehrman writes in his latest book, but based on DJE, Carrier is almost certainly exaggerating here. Criticize Ehrman for thinking that there is any history in the Gospels, okay, that might be fair. But "Ehrman resorts to a literalist reading of Mark, treating the text essentially just as Christian fundamentalists do"? C'mon, that's just ridiculous.

I agree. I actually laughed out loud a few times reading Carrier's smears against Ehrman in this review. Laughing at Carrier, not with him. Carrier comes across as highly jaded in these sorts of reviews. It's like he's desperate to get a response. To say Ehrman holds to a "literalist reading" of Mark is beyond silly and bordering on the dishonest IMO.

You mean when Ehrman said that Mark was literally recording Jesus words 'Talitha koum', it was silly to say that he had a literalist reading of Mark?

or is this yet another place where Ehrman's views are now different, but where he has not changed his opinions?

[maryhelena]

Yeah, I suspect Carrier is saying something along those lines. However, Ehrman has already stated in 'Did Jesus Exist' that he thought early Christians might have regarded Jesus as a pre-existing angel, and since he is using Paul for that, it suggests that Ehrman -- at the time he wrote 'Did Jesus Exist' -- had already decided that the "from above" Christianity was an early expression of Christianity. So where is this 'reversal'?

I don't think so. Three gospels out of four do not mention, not even suggest, any pre-existence. That notion appears to have started by Paul (& the author of 'Hebrews') and was not accepted by many Christians for a long time (evidence: the Synoptic gospels, 1 Peter, James, Ebionites).
We do not have evidence the belief of pre-existence appears before Paul.
The Philippians "hymn" (2:6-11), even if it predates the epistle, does not have to precede it by many years. Actually its manner & style are very much similar to the one of 'Hebrews' (according to my research, written by Apollos of Alexandria in 54 CE):

According to Hurtado in the link given by Bertie just above:

• Moreover, Ehrman argues (again, rightly in my view), that the early claim that Jesus is Messiah, requires us to conclude also that Jesus had excited such hopes about himself during his own ministry. Indeed, this was likely the reason that the Roman authority moved against him and crucified him. (“Messiah” = typically a divinely appointed ruler/deliverer, a claim that would have been seen as sedition against Rome.) As Ehrman observes, resurrection by itself would not have connoted that Jesus is Messiah. But, if Jesus’ followers had held such a hope during his ministry, then Jesus’ resurrection would quite readily have been taken as God’s validation of Jesus as Messiah. (This, by the way, is basically the argument made by the great Yale NT scholar, Nils Dahl, decades ago.)

To me, it suggests Ehrman sees the "from below" Christology as coming even before crucifixion, while the "from above" Christology as coming after the resurrection visions were accepted. Sounds like an interesting book from Hurtado's description.

That's the backwards working of Ehrman's 'from below' Exaltation Christology.

Ehrman has a subheading:

• The Backward Movement of Christology
  
  .....the earliest Christians held that God had exalted Jesus to a divine status at his resurrection...
  
  ....If an exaltation Christology maintains that a human has been elevated to a divine status, then there is no point for that to happen earlier than the moment of conception itself. Jesus is now the Son of God for his entire life, beginning with . . . his beginning. One could argue, in fact, that this has pushed the moment of exaltation so far back that here we no longer even have an exaltation Christology, a Christology from “down below.” For here, Jesus is not portrayed in any sense as beginning life as a normal human who because of his great virtue or deep obedience to the will of God is exalted to a divine status. He starts out as divine, from the point of his conception.
  
  Ehrman, Bart D. (2014-03-25). How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (p. 244). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Two christologies, 'from below' and 'from above' start to get into a scenario in which the 'from below' Exaltation Christology eventually gets sidelined...with all the theological problems that generated for both the historicists and the ahistoricists/mythicists: The whole god/man issues regarding the nature of Jesus and the dropping entirely of the 'from below' Exaltation Christology of Carrier.

The ahistoricists/mythicists have rejected a historical Jesus figure. This does not mean they don't have to deal with the Synoptic gospel's 'from below' Exaltation Christology. That Jesus did not exist historically does not render the Synoptic gospel's 'from below' christology irrelevant. It's not the christology itself that is meaningful - it's the human element in that christology scenario that is relevant. i.e. the Synoptic gospels have raised, as it were, a human element as being important to their gospel storyline. A human element, human history, is not surrendered on the altar of Pauline 'from above' christology.

Ehrman has a foot in both camps. The Pauline camp and the Synoptic camp. Carrier has his two feet in the Pauline camp. The stronger position seeks to hold a stake in both camps.

[MrMacSon]

For here, Jesus is not portrayed in any sense as beginning life as a normal human who ... is exalted to a divine status. He starts out as divine, from the point of his conception.

Ehrman, Bart D. (2014-03-25). How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (p. 244). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

That suggests that Bart is espousing a nonhistorical Jesus.

[neilgodfrey]

That suggests that Bart is espousing a nonhistorical Jesus.

No, by no means. Ehrman's Jesus is human and historical. The divinity was attributed to Jesus by his followers upon his "resurrection".