Carrier: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jesus?

[neilgodfrey]

James McGrath takes Carrier to task for referencing Ehrman in his Bible and Interpretation article. The Bible and Interpretation site linking directly to McGrath's blog.

The Carrier Train Wreck Continues
McGrath Blog: August 29, 2014

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringo ... inues.html

The Carrier Train Wreck Continues

What Carrier says after summarizing his view of things is nothing short of remarkable. He writes: “Such is the theory. Why might we conclude it’s the more likely explanation? Because the sequence of evidence aligns with it. As Bart Ehrman himself has recently confessed, the earliest documentation we have shows Christians regarded Jesus to be a pre-existent celestial angelic being.”

This is such utter nonsense, and thoroughly hypocritical, that it makes me doubt that Carrier has any interest in engaging in serious discussion. He has elsewhere argued that Ehrman’s work is so full of errors that he is incompetent and completely untrustworthy, even when defending the consensus view that all work on the historical evidence in recent years points to, and not just Ehrman’s own. Yet when Ehrman makes an idiosyncratic case for his own atypical view, it is called a “confession” and accepted without question, and no mention of the details of Ehrman’s book which show that “angel” and “human” were not viewed as mutually exclusive categories in this period, and so the point does nothing to support his mythicism.

What Carrier offers in these recent online posts isn’t scholarship. It is apologetics, of the sort we regularly see conservative Christians engage in – the denigration of scholars, and then the favorable quotation of them when it suits one’s purposes.

Is there a single logical or coherent thought in anything McGrath writes here? McGrath himself excoriates the works of Doherty but quotes passages of his when it suits his purpose and believes it argues his own case. I can argue that a book by a Creationist should be dismissed but at the same time point to a legitimate statement in it that in fact points to a logical or factual contradiction. McGrath is nothing if not inconsistent.

[Leucius Charinus]

Why is it so difficult for some people to imagine that Christianity was never a Jewish sect? The vile hatred for Jews by Christians begins with the New Testament and continues unabated for the next 20 centuries. And, that entire time, non-Jewish people were using the Jewish Bible as if it were written for them and about them.

Good point. New Testament manuscripts in Hebrew or Aramaic are rather scarce.

Christianity must have followed the New Testament, and the NT seems to have been a Greek thing, copy/pasted from the Greek LXX thing.

Jesus and Joshua in the Series of Books (LXX+NT) have the same encrypted code name.



The multiplicity of Greek "sacred names" mitigates away from a Jewish sect

And the use of Greek "sacred encryptions" begs the question in the 21st century as to who owned and implemented the Greek de-encryption algorithm.

[Stephan Huller]

Well if you've won over the guy with a hard on for dashing young Romans in purple you must be on to something

[neilgodfrey]

omg, i feel we are in bible code and dan brown territory. i was so looking forward to serious discussions here.

[Leucius Charinus]

omg, i feel we are in bible code and dan brown territory.

You appear to mention the "nomina sacra" only once in all your blog posts.
I think they deserve some analysis since the earliest Greek bibles use them universally and there is no consensus on their appearance.

i was so looking forward to serious discussions here.

Sorry .... please feel free to continue bashing James McGrath's intellect.

[Stephan Huller]

But you, Pete mention it in a stupid way and the rest of us try to be taken seriously. Come on Pete, you think differently than everyone else in the world except for your pet monkey Tanya or whatever else she calls herself lately. If you are going to promote a stupid theory expect to be hated by those who want to be fair and serious.

[Leucius Charinus]

But you, Pete mention it in a stupid way and the rest of us try to be taken seriously.

What's stupid about asking questions Sherlock?

What's stupid about a discussion of the Greek "nomina sacra" - encryption of the sacred names?

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=865

Did Marcion implement the nomina sacra?

If you are going to promote a stupid theory expect to be hated by those who want to be fair and serious.

Your hatred - and your hate club - Huller is your own, and its only poisoning you. Cough it up and get rid of it - it's not required.