Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
User avatar
GakuseiDon
Posts: 2296
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2013 5:10 pm

Re: Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

Post by GakuseiDon »

Peter, Ulan, Tim: thanks for your input!
It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
Ulan
Posts: 1505
Joined: Sat Mar 29, 2014 3:58 am

Re: Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

Post by Ulan »

Peter Kirby wrote:Side note: Some wag once suggested putting a few typos in the first few paragraphs of anything needing consensus approval just so that the wombats can get their "input" in and bugger off...
:D

That's actually standard practice. You won't do it for a submission to absolute top journals, but for everything else, it's good advice. There have to be a few things that are easy to spot but don't make the author look stupid. The reason for this is that most published authors will be reviewers in return, which means you know the other side of the medal. You will get articles for review that don't interest you even a little bit. Refusing to review in such a case is no good option, or you will most probably never get an article for review again, even those you may be really interested in. You are supposed to write a substantial amount of comments, so you have to at least try and understand the article. In such a case, you are really happy for any easy things to add to that list of comments, give some mildly positive summary and be done with it. However, if that article is really perfectly written, things get ugly. Then you have to spend hours on digging into stuff you couldn't care less about, and that's not good for the mood. This mood will most probably be reflected in the verdict.

I've had my share of completely inane, furious rants from reviewers who were quite obviously not familiar with the topic. So yes, give them something to pick on and move on.
timhendrix
Posts: 62
Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:56 am
Contact:

Re: Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

Post by timhendrix »

PS-- Carrier didn't say that someone asked him to write "the" statement he did, just an impact statement ("it")... if I were in his shoes, I'd probably approach it similarly and write something that easily satisfies whatever they're asking for... being ticked off a bit already at having to fit in their box.
If a reviewer asked him to change his impact statement to hype the paper and he decided to go over the top then all I can say is: :notworthy:
User avatar
GakuseiDon
Posts: 2296
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2013 5:10 pm

Re: Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

Post by GakuseiDon »

What about the question of where Origen get the idea that Josephus blamed the fall of Jerusalem on the death of James? Dr Carrier argues that Origen mistook Hegesippus for Josephus; Mizagaki and Baras seem to believe that Origen got this from Josephus, through a process that Mizagaki describes as 'theologically interpreting' Josephus' historical account. (See links in my earlier post here).

Is there a preferred mainstream position to explain Origen's view that Josephus saw that the death of James led to the fall of Jerusalem?
It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
User avatar
winningedge101
Posts: 46
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 6:26 pm

Re: Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

Post by winningedge101 »

If we agree to Carrier's terms then I don't think the evidence can honestly, objectively be weighted one side more than the either. What I don't get about Carrier is that we have a man named James with an incredibly strong tradition of this James being the bishop of Jerusalem and this man being Jesus's brother. It is unanimous throughout church history and even mentioned by Josephus. I get concerned we are doing revisionist history here not true honest history.
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8798
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Re: Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

Post by MrMacSon »

winningedge101 wrote: ..What I don't get about Carrier is that we have a man named James with an incredibly strong tradition of this James being the bishop of Jerusalem and this man being Jesus's brother. It is unanimous throughout church history and even mentioned by Josephus. I get concerned we are doing revisionist history here not true honest history.
There are at least two James in the Bible --i.e. there is no unanimous 'James'. Moreover, there is no James-the-Just in the bible.
User avatar
winningedge101
Posts: 46
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 6:26 pm

Re: Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

Post by winningedge101 »

MrMacSon wrote:
winningedge101 wrote: ..What I don't get about Carrier is that we have a man named James with an incredibly strong tradition of this James being the bishop of Jerusalem and this man being Jesus's brother. It is unanimous throughout church history and even mentioned by Josephus. I get concerned we are doing revisionist history here not true honest history.
There are at least two James in the Bible --i.e. there is no unanimous 'James'. Moreover, there is no James-the-Just in the bible.
Your point? James the less is the one most identified with as Jesus's brother. The Catholics and Orthodox say he was his half brother.
Diogenes the Cynic
Posts: 502
Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2013 10:59 pm
Location: Twin Cities, MN

Re: Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

Post by Diogenes the Cynic »

Jacob was one of the most common names in Palestine, and the only reason any Jacob is identified as Jesus' brother is because of a single reference made by Paul in Galatians 1:19 (which may or may not have been intended to reference a literal sibling of a historical Jesus. I'm not persuaded that we can know either way), but even if it was, Jerusalem was still crawling with dudes names Jacob.

Incidentally any High Priest named Jesus would have been "called Christ" in that they would have held the honorific of "Anointed." All Jewish kings and High Priests were "Messiahs/Christs." It is not even clear that the word "Messiah" would have primarily meant anything else to Josephus.
User avatar
winningedge101
Posts: 46
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 6:26 pm

Re: Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

Post by winningedge101 »

Diogenes the Cynic wrote:Jacob was one of the most common names in Palestine, and the only reason any Jacob is identified as Jesus' brother is because of a single reference made by Paul in Galatians 1:19 (which may or may not have been intended to reference a literal sibling of a historical Jesus. I'm not persuaded that we can know either way), but even if it was, Jerusalem was still crawling with dudes names Jacob.

Incidentally any High Priest named Jesus would have been "called Christ" in that they would have held the honorific of "Anointed." All Jewish kings and High Priests were "Messiahs/Christs." It is not even clear that the word "Messiah" would have primarily meant anything else to Josephus.
It doesn't matter how common the name Jacob was in Judea it doesn't change the fact that the bishop of Jerusalem was consistently associated with as Jesus's brother. Just because there were thousands of Jesus's doesn't change the fact that the one we're talking about is the one from Nazareth, specifically the "messiah". You say the only reason this James was associated as Jesus's brother is because of Galatians but I think you would have to be reading Jesus mythicism into this to honestly come to that conclusion. What is more probable? That James was actually Jesus's brother and was a bishop of Jerusalem as all extant history tells us? Or that this James was just "another brother of the Lord" and had no family relation to Jesus? Like I said, mythicism when it comes down to it seems like helpless revisionist history, not actually trying to reconstruct history, but a pure ideological movement. To me it has no more credibility than those who said that the Old Testament and the history of Israel and Judah is nothing more than a pious fiction of the third to second century B.C. :thumbdown:
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8798
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Re: Carrier on Ehrman and Tim O'Neill

Post by MrMacSon »

.
Last edited by MrMacSon on Sun Apr 17, 2016 10:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
Post Reply