Does anyone have On the Historicity of Jesus yet?

[perseusomega9]

I was trying to be diplomatic...

[stevencarrwork]

To answer the question in the opening post, I do now have the book.

I have seen smaller telephone directories.

It seems better written than Carrier's blog posts.

[stevencarrwork]

Probably because Dr. Price would handle an exchange professionally with mutual respect. I can't tell you how many times Price has recommend such and such author even when he diagrees with their conclusions on his Bible Geek podcasts.

So, unlike Ehrman, he wouldn't start a book by comparing people who disagree with him to Holocaust deniers?

[MrMacSon]

^Nah. I think Ehrman just sees Carrier as a bit of a prick. Which he is IMO (even though I do respect his scholarship). But there is mutual respect between Ehrman and Price, as there is between Ehrman and Dom Crossan, for example, despite their major disagreements about the historical Jesus. There's no point of contention to the issue of historicism vs. mythicism that Price wouldn't press Ehrman on that Carrier would. Price would push Ehrman just as hard with more or less the same points that Carrier would. But he'd clearly do it in a more professional manner. Carrier is out for blood. I can smell it LOL. Did you see him advertise his 7,000 word response to a fundy-Christian amazon.com reviewer? He seems desperate for a fight LOL!

as Steve Carr points out, Erhman has been a prick too; that Holocaust-denier dig by Erhman was the genesis of the bad blood.

Erhman has undermined his previous generally-excellent scholarship and his status by being a dick over his surprisingly-superficial commentary* about whether he thinks Jesus exists. Erhman came out as a bully, & it seems he has now become what bullies become when confronted - a coward.

* and I emphasis commentary - DJE? was not scholarship

[neilgodfrey]

I'm quite sure Ehrman has had experience with abrasive critics before and surely there is little doubt he could hold his own with them by this stage of his career.

The real reason, I suspect, is that Carrier was merciless in the way he exposed the fraudulence of Ehrman's approach to the question of mythicism. Ehrman clearly did not read Doherty (except perhaps for a few excerpts that had been spoon-fed him) and demonstrated a general ignorance of the topic he was claiming to address. Carrier made Ehrman look a fool and a fraud. I doubt Ehrman has done any remedial reading since then to change any likely outcome in an exchange with Carrier.

[stevencarrwork]

Probably because Dr. Price would handle an exchange professionally with mutual respect. I can't tell you how many times Price has recommend such and such author even when he diagrees with their conclusions on his Bible Geek podcasts.

Would Price go on public radio to laugh at people for fabricating drawings of statues, only to admit a week later that the statue did exist?

[andrzej8882837]

Ehrman was right, he usually talks with passion and he likes this work. Sometimes have an idiotical answears for hard questions but at all he is smart.

[Adam]

Notice that according to the mythicist position, James is not the brother of Jesus and, thus, there is no conflict with Acts. James was an important early Christian, but not a brother of Jesus, as shown in Galatians and Acts, which are in agreement on this point.

Ironically the Mythicist position agrees with the Catholic position. ECF agrees that Jesus did not have any literal brothers in the flesh, they were cousins or step-brothers. Even outside Orthdox/Catholic circles the Simon who became bishop of Jerusalem after James is regarded as the son of Cleopas, thus not the brother that the New Testament would have us accept. If Simon was not Jesus's brother, maybe James was not either, and was himself a cousin, the son of the other Mary (Mt. 27:56, Mk 15:40). James, Joses, Simon, and Jude seem like brothers to each other, the son of the other Mary.

[Adam]

If we were to use normative methods for dating the gospels -- the same methods used in other historical inquiries -- we would find a terminus a quo (post 70 CE -- internal evidence) and a terminus ad quem (mid second century -- when unambiguously cited by others) and take that range seriously and work with all the options that range allows.

I realize that you had just previously explained your rejection of the late Maurice Casey and his University of Sheffield cohorts who accept Q and the Gospel of Mark as dated 37-41 A. D., but that is not enough to justify your stance that 70 A. D. is the terminus a quo. Not when peer-reviewed scholars have held for decades for a much earlier date.

As I understand it, for the better part of a century biblical scholars have been working on much more skeptical guidelines than straight historians. I presume you are an extremist in your opinions on that matter as well.

[Adam]

It's the observation of Dennis Nineham and a major theme in his lectures collated in The Use and Abuse of the Bible. Early discussions here -- http://vridar.org/tag/dennis-nineham/

Strange that you cite Dennis Nineham as the ogre who saddles us with theological presuppositions favoring historicity of Jesus. He is the very one who so over-used (the more recently refuted) Form Criticism as his proof in his 1951 articles and 1958 book on Mark that there were no eyewitnesses to any of the gospels. Strange how all the apostles were whisked away to Heaven before they could tell anything about Jesus, as Taylor wittily said in refutation of Bultmann!