neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:34 pmThe question of his qualifications has been a point of personal slur against him from the beginning of his engagement in public discussion.
archibald wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:00 ama degree in history (specifically a BA with distinction in Ancient History and Classical languages) as he claimed
What I don't get about the OP is this language of "claim."
Doherty's statements about his attainments in education are more disclaimer than claim.
The academic type generally consider a PhD to be the standard, with a Master's degree having some marginal status.
When they don't like you, they will eagerly bump this up to "tenure-track professor at a reputable university."
Anyone who still meets the bar will just be told directly that they are not liked. Until then it's this cat and mouse credential game.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:34 pmThe question of his qualifications has been a point of personal slur against him from the beginning of his engagement in public discussion.
archibald wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:00 ama degree in history (specifically a BA with distinction in Ancient History and Classical languages) as he claimed
What I don't get about the OP is this language of "claim."
Doherty's statements about his attainments in education are more disclaimer than claim.
The academic type generally consider a PhD to be the standard, with a Master's degree having some marginal status.
When they don't like you, they will eagerly bump this up to "tenure-track professor at a reputable university."
Anyone who still meets the bar will just be told directly that they are not liked. Until then it's this cat and mouse credential game.
To you, or to academics generally, it may not be much of a claim at all (and I liked your analogy with wearing underpants) but it's still a claim, even if a small one, and not a disclaim, imo.
Do you know what, at one point in the book, it did cross my mind that way too ('Paul' as 'Jesus'). Maybe she was covertly signalling it to the reader, as a 'mystery'.
Last edited by archibald on Tue Jan 23, 2018 4:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.
archibald wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:32 pm
As to Einhorn, I have just finished her book and thankyou for recommending it because I found it extremely interesting. Unlike you, I am (currently at least, fresh from being in thrall to the book as I am) not inclined to necessarily disagree with her conclusions.
That said, and here might not be the place to discuss it, I do have a couple of queries. The first is that if she is right in saying that the NT is essentially a covert tale about a militant/rebel (as she put it, a tale that the writers felt needed to be preserved, but could not be told overtly), then where did all the love and pacifism come from? Was it purely invented as a foil? Was it an aspect of the man himself? Or was it derived from somewhere or someone else?
The simplist explanation is probably that the Gospel writers were just data mining the works of Josephus. Looking for anything that they could use to flesh out a person of Jesus. Paul didn't leave them much to go on.
They had to place their Jesus when they did to use the John the Baptist that they found in Josephus but there was no corresponding Jesus or other characters like him to select from during that time so they took bits and pieces of what they could find from other time slots, in Josephus and the LXX as well as other places.
archibald wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:32 pm
As to Einhorn, I have just finished her book and thankyou for recommending it because I found it extremely interesting. Unlike you, I am (currently at least, fresh from being in thrall to the book as I am) not inclined to necessarily disagree with her conclusions.
That said, and here might not be the place to discuss it, I do have a couple of queries. The first is that if she is right in saying that the NT is essentially a covert tale about a militant/rebel (as she put it, a tale that the writers felt needed to be preserved, but could not be told overtly), then where did all the love and pacifism come from? Was it purely invented as a foil? Was it an aspect of the man himself? Or was it derived from somewhere or someone else?
The simplist explanation is probably that the Gospel writers were just data mining the works of Josephus. Looking for anything that they could use to flesh out a person of Jesus. Paul didn't leave them much to go on.
They had to place their Jesus when they did to use the John the Baptist that they found in Josephus but there was no corresponding Jesus or other characters like him to select from during that time so they took bits and pieces of what they could find from other time slots, in Josephus and the LXX as well as other places.
Ok sure. But that seems slightly separate to answering where all the love and pacifism might have come from, doesn't it? In the case of Einhorn's 'rebel Jesus', we would be sort of asking where the antichrist (aka 'Godspell/Jesus Christ Superstar Jesus') stuff came from.
The Jesus of the NT is an eclectic moving target. He is obviously a fictional construct from multiple and disparate sources which is why he eludes classification.
