Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Thank you, but I'd better just read the threads for now until I know what I'm talking about. Then maybe I'll have something worth saying here.

Chapter 7 is the last chapter (except for a brief conclusion and an appendix) It is supposed to be about bogus parallels to Jesus (parallelomania) but it is rather miscellaneous.

It starts off opposing the claims that the word Christ is related to KRST on Egyptian coffins or to the God Krishna. It has useful things to say about invalid comparisons of similar sounding words in different languages.

It goes on to deal with invalid or questionable claims about parallels between Jesus and Zoroaster Mithras Inanna/Ishtar and Krishna. It also deals with Acharya's attempt to find parallels between John the Baptist and Anubis and various supposed parallels to the twelve apostles. It makes the good point that in so far as there are genuine parallels between Christian ideas and this pagan material they tend to occur in late Christian traditions. Casey finds time to oppose the view (which has some early textual support) that in the earliest tradition Jesus was not a carpenter but the son of a carpenter. Whether true or false this seems to have little to do with mythicism.

Casey has a very hostile analysis of Thomas Thompson's work. Mainly The Messiah Myth but also Is this not the Carpenter ?. Without carefully reading Thompson I am unclear how far this hostility is justified. However, Casey does make some good points, e.g. that Thompson puts considerable weight on "mythical" elements in material peculiar to Matthew. Material that is probably secondary to the parallels in Mark.

Casey ends the chapter with a criticism of the claims of Salm and Zindler that Nazareth and Capernaum did not exist in Galilee in the time of Jesus.

Chapter 7 is a short polemical conclusion. There is an appendix claiming plausibly that the Semitic (Aramaic and/or Hebrew) influence on Mark is more important than the Latin influence.

Done at Last.

Andrew Criddle

maryhelena wrote:Oh, my, Steven - you got into Casey's book!!!

Among bloggers, Doherty refers especially to Steven Carr, 19 to some of whose comments I shall accordingly refer . Doherty cites him as if he might be some kind of expert on Josephus, which he is not.

Casey, Maurice (2014-01-16). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? (Kindle Locations 305-307). BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING. Kindle Edition.

I imagine Casey, being Casey, will point out a mistake I made in a comment.

And not inform his readers that I corrected that mistake ONE minute after typing it.


And I am an expert on Josephus. I certainly know more than the average person. To be honest, it would be fairer to say that I have some expertise But that won't stop Casey indulging in ad hominem arguments. A is not an expert on Josephus, so whatever A says is wrong

Casey is now attacking blog comments by interested bystanders, as though they represented the best of mythical scholarship?

I just came across "St Paul" - and did a double take.......I thought Casey is supposed to be a secular scholar. Looks to me that however much he rails against the background of some mythicists - that they can't get away from their prior fundamentalist church backgrounds - that the thinking of the man himself is still very much tied up with church, whether orthodox or fundamentalist, notions of the NT Paul. Casey uses 'St Paul' 4 times (did a search of the Kindle edition...)

St Paul retained his Jewish identity,...

The second part of Acts gives an account of the Gentile mission led by St Paul,...

......both Jesus and St Paul..

......the ecclesiastical ideas of orthodoxy and heresy were not available at the time of St Paul..

Casey, Maurice (2014-01-16). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? (Kindle Location 2319). BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING. Kindle Edition.

my bolding

stevencarrwork wrote:

maryhelena wrote:Oh, my, Steven - you got into Casey's book!!!

Among bloggers, Doherty refers especially to Steven Carr, 19 to some of whose comments I shall accordingly refer . Doherty cites him as if he might be some kind of expert on Josephus, which he is not.

Casey, Maurice (2014-01-16). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? (Kindle Locations 305-307). BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING. Kindle Edition.

I imagine Casey, being Casey, will point out a mistake I made in a comment.

And not inform his readers that I corrected that mistake ONE minute after typing it.


And I am an expert on Josephus. I certainly know more than the average person. To be honest, it would be fairer to say that I have some expertise But that won't stop Casey indulging in ad hominem arguments. A is not an expert on Josephus, so whatever A says is wrong

Casey is now attacking blog comments by interested bystanders, as though they represented the best of mythical scholarship?

Steven, I'm terrible shocked at the manner Casey has written his book.....it's shameful.

His disdain for those who question the assumed historicity of the gospel JC is so toxic that it makes reading his book most unpleasant. This is not a scholarly exercise. It's Casey hitting out at those who dare to question, what seems to be, his very deep seated personal need for the NT Jesus to have been a historical figure. Being agnostic about god is one thing - but bottom line is that the JC story hits the heart more than the mind......JC just has to be real, has to be true, so that everything is right in that ivory academic tower...Seems to me that JC has become god after all......

maryhelena wrote:Oh, my, Steven - you got into Casey's book!!!

Among bloggers, Doherty refers especially to Steven Carr, 19 to some of whose comments I shall accordingly refer . Doherty cites him as if he might be some kind of expert on Josephus, which he is not.

Casey, Maurice (2014-01-16). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? (Kindle Locations 305-307). BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING. Kindle Edition.

That devious Doherty tricking people into thinking that Steven Carr is an expert on Josephus!

Where did Doherty refer to Steven? And in what manner? This needs to be thoroughly investigated!

stephan happy huller wrote:I have to admit, I don't get this 'controversy' about whether Jesus existed or didn't exist. … what exactly is the point of this debate?

I think it's really a meta-debate. It's not about the strength of the evidence for the historical or mythical Jesus. It's about whether the non-historicist position is acceptable to hold or worthy of debate.

I don't have a firm opinion yet about any historicist or non-historicist view of Jesus. However, I think a minimalist approach is the most honest one, and the utter contempt for evenhanded debate and skepticism of the evidence that the new anti-mythicist brigade shows is no good for advancing scholarship. Their evidence and arguments are really not good enough to support their hubris, and their portrayal of mythicist arguments is often reminiscent of Creationist bluster.

hjalti wrote:

maryhelena wrote:Oh, my, Steven - you got into Casey's book!!!

Among bloggers, Doherty refers especially to Steven Carr, 19 to some of whose comments I shall accordingly refer . Doherty cites him as if he might be some kind of expert on Josephus, which he is not.

Casey, Maurice (2014-01-16). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? (Kindle Locations 305-307). BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING. Kindle Edition.

That devious Doherty tricking people into thinking that Steven Carr is an expert on Josephus!

Where did Doherty refer to Steven? And in what manner? This needs to be thoroughly investigated!

Doherty refers to me on page 571 of Jesus - Neither God nor man.

All I did was give two quotes from Antiquities, and Doherty has reproduced those passages of Antiquities.


'Judas was also in Antiquities 18 'Yet was there one Judas , a Gaulonite, of a city whose name was Gamala, who, taking with him Sadduc, a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them to a revolt , who both said that this taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery, and exhorted the nation to assert their liberty'.

Josephus referred back to Judas in Antiquities 20 'the sons of Judas of Galilee were now slain; I mean that Judas who caused the people to revolt, when Quirinius came to take an account of the estates of the Jews, as we have shown in a foregoing book .'


Apparently, if a mythicist (although I am an agnostic) quotes Josephus, they cannot even provide quotes unless they are an 'expert'.

Only an 'expert' is allowed to quote Josephus, according to Casey.

hjalti wrote:

maryhelena wrote:Oh, my, Steven - you got into Casey's book!!!

Among bloggers, Doherty refers especially to Steven Carr, 19 to some of whose comments I shall accordingly refer . Doherty cites him as if he might be some kind of expert on Josephus, which he is not.

Casey, Maurice (2014-01-16). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? (Kindle Locations 305-307). BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING. Kindle Edition.

That devious Doherty tricking people into thinking that Steven Carr is an expert on Josephus!

Where did Doherty refer to Steven? And in what manner? This needs to be thoroughly investigated!

Doherty writes, on p 571 of "Jesus: Neither God Nor Man":

• On the other hand, if Josephus had written some version of the Testimonium two books earlier in the Antiquities, might the reader have been expected to link the reference in Book 20 with it? Would the latter's phrase have been considered sufficient as a "referring back" to that particular Jesus character earlier mentioned? In an Internet article,221 Steven Carr notes that when going back some distance, Josephus tends to orient the reader toward the earlier mention of the figure and bring back to mind what had been said about him. Carr provides several examples, such as this one:
  
  • Judas was also in Antiquities 18: "Yet was there one Judas, a Gaulonite, of a city whose name was Gamala, who, taking with him Sadduc, a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them to a revolt, who both said that this taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery, and exhorted the nation to assert their liberty." Josephus referred back to Judas in Antiquities 20: "the sons of Judas of Galilee were now slain; I mean that Judas who caused the people to revolt, when Quirinius came to take an account of the estates of the Jews, as we have shown in a foregoing book."
  In the later book, this reference back contains several details, including the stated point that Josephus is referring to an earlier described figure. By contrast, "called Christ" in the Ananus passage is sparse. It would hardly be enough to carry the reader back to a short paragraph two books earlier, and especially if it originally contained no reference to the "Christ." If there had been no Testimonium at all, the phrase "called Christ" in Antiquities 20 would be left on its own, with a completely inadequate identification of its "Jesus."
  
  Without the reference to Jesus, the passage makes good sense and does not jar within the context. The passage is not about James—much less about Jesus. It is about the high priest Ananus and his fate. Ananus was deposed because he had executed "a man named James and certain others," an act which incensed some of the influential Jews of the city. The reader did not need to know anything else about those who had been stoned.

Casey writes about Carr and Doherty in his "Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?":

• ... Doherty has simply preferred an audience of people who will more easily agree with him.
  
  Among bloggers, Doherty refers especially to Steven Carr, (19) to some of whose comments I shall accordingly refer. Doherty cites him as if he might be some kind of expert on Josephus, which he is not. This is because Doherty is discussing Josephus. Ant. XX, 197-203, where Josephus relates how King Agrippa removed from office the high priest, whom he calls Ananus son of Ananus...
  
  Josephus describes Jacob as 'the brother of Jesus called Christ, Jacob his name' Ant. XX, 200, which is as clear as could be. Mythicists, however, do not wish to believe this. This is why Doherty calls upon a blog post by Carr to argue that Josephus could not have written this passage as it stands. This is a standard ploy by mythicists. They cannot cope with the evidence as it stands, and constantly seek to alter it by positing interpolations. For this purpose they frequently repeat, often without references, very old scholarship written before the study of ancient texts had settled down in modern scholarship.
  
  Carr is also catalogued by Dorothy Murdock. She is another influential mythicist, who cites him as an expert on New Testament textual criticism (20)... Neither she nor Carr, however, offers a proper critical discussion, nor demonstrates a convincing grasp of critical scholarship...
  
  ... It is only fair to add, however, that Blogger Carr's blog has many entries which show that he knows more about early Christianity than anyone could guess from such entries.

so ex-Professor Casey does not know of the latest scholarship in a peer-reviewed journal about Ant. 20

Shouldn't he try to keep up with the latest publications?

Rather than relying on blog entries to inform him?

Actually, I'm sure Casey has read Journal of Early Christian Studies 
(vol. 20, no. 4, Winter 2012), 
pp. 489-514. He is an (ex) professional , after all.

He just doesn't want his readers to know of this journal's existence.

That paper may not be the last word on the subject, but Casey will refuse to discuss it, just in case his readers start to become 'confused' by mythicist arguments.

(thanks to GDon for typing in that extract from Casey's book - appreciated)