In a recent post I pointed out that Ehrman fully agreed with Doherty’s portrayal of the ancient mystery cults as most likely having a quite different understanding of traditional myths from the way the philosophers interpreted them. (The only pity is that Ehrman did not read Doherty’s book in order to know that he and Doherty are on the same page.) Doherty points out, and Ehrman completely agrees, that the everyday person in the towns and villages was not at all interested in finding ways to interpret the myths allegorically in order to explain grander cosmic processes. That sort of thing was, as both Doherty and Ehrman explain in unison, the preserve of esoteric philosophers like Plutarch. Similarly, Ehrman heartily agrees with Doherty’s account that there many different views of the universe and a wide range of different philosophies — e.g. Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cynicism, Neo-Platonism — in the days of early Christianity.
Someone who read that post has since alerted me to further confluences of agreement between Ehrman and Doherty. Gosh, I wonder if Ehrman is a closet mythicist. You know, like the way gay-haters are sometimes thought to be suppressing their own homosexual urges. (I speak tongue in cheek. Of course Ehrman is not a mythicist. My point is to highlight the hypocritical (or worse) nature of Ehrman’s attempts to discredit Doherty.)
Readers of both Doherty’s books (1999 and 2009) and Ehrman’s publications (2000 and 2004) will be struck at how very similar they are at so many critical points. It is as if Ehrman and Doherty had attended the same classes and had come to think quite alike. Could that be one factor in Ehrman’s outrageous efforts to disinform readers about what Doherty really writes? read more »
Diogenes the Cynic philosopher went around the sunlit streets of Athens, lantern in hand, looking for an honest man.
Bart Ehrman has expressed outrage at Earl Doherty’s suggestion that ancient philosophers had any influence at all upon the way ancient myths came to be understood in the wider culture of the day. Doherty discusses the way philosophers came to reinterpret certain types of traditional myths so as to lift them out of the primordial past and to place them into a spiritual dimension, even an upper world, and to allegorize them to represent larger cosmic forces and generic human impulses. At the same time he makes it clear that he thinks myths such as those of Heracles or of Olympian gods interacting with humans on earth were not affected, but that other myths such as those of Isis and Osiris were evidently lifted into that “spiritual dimension”. How were these myths interpreted in the mystery cults? Do we have a right to suggest that elitist philosophical thinking had any influence at all upon the wider culture of the day? Doherty’s writes:
And if that transplanting [of myths from a primordial past to a supernatural dimension] is the trend to be seen in the surviving [philosophical] writings on the subject, it is very likely that a similar process took place to some degree in the broader world of the devotee and officiant of the mysteries; it cannot be dismissed simply as an isolated elitist phenomenon. In fact, that very cosmological shift of setting can be seen in many of the Jewish intertestamental writings . . . . [Other hints and deductions which can be derived from archeological remains, such as the Mithraic monuments, can also be informative.]. . . . .
[N]or would everyone, from philosopher to devotee-in-the-street, shift to understanding and talking about their myths in such a revised setting. The changeover in the mind of the average person may well have been imperfect, just as modern science has effected a rethinking of past literal and naïve views toward elements of the bible in the direction of the spiritual and symbolic, but in an incomplete and varied fashion across our religious culture as a whole. [p. 100,Jesus: Neither God Nor Man]
Ehrman retaliates vociferously:
Why should we assume that the mystery cults were influenced by just one of these philosophies? Or for that matter by any of them? . . . .
I hardly need to emphasize again that the early followers of Jesus[Christians] were not elite philosophers. They were by and large common people. Not even Paul was philosophically trained. To be sure, as a literate person he was far better educated than most Christians of his day. But he was no Plutarch. His worldview was not principally dependent on Plato. It was dependent on the Jewish traditions, as these were mediated through the Hebrew scriptures. (pp. 254 – 255, Did Jesus Exist?)
I have substituted Ehrman’s ambiguous yet question-begging “followers of Jesus” for “Christians” in the above quote so it can be reasonably dealt with in a logical manner. Here Ehrman can scarcely be any more dogmatic. There can be no doubt that here he is leading his readers into thinking that ancient philosophy had no impact on Paul nor even on any of the ordinary folk who became the earliest Christian converts. Paul’s world view was Jewish, so he is stressing. His theology was informed by the Jewish tradition and his meditations on the Jewish scriptures alone. Ehrman is laying out his point in stark contrast to anything else he leads the readers to think Doherty is arguing: Paul and the early Christians were dependent upon the Jewish religion and scriptures and NOT pagan philosophies or mystery cults.
But wait!
Ehrman answers his own rhetorical question
Before Ehrman wrote this book attacking mythicism he wrote other stuff that sounds for all the world as if he was agreeing with the very possibility Doherty was suggesting — that the philosophical ideas of the elite probably did indeed trickle down in whatever bastardized form to the wider community! read more »
“Neil Godfrey and Tim Widowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work.”
“Thanks for your very elaborate review! I realized that I hadn’t added your blog to our blogroll. This oversight has been corrected. Looking forward to more segments.”
“I’d like to thank you for this very nice representation of what I was trying to show in the book. It’s always gratifying when a reader zeroes in on exactly those aspects I thought were most interesting and most central to my argument. Thank you for this careful and engaged reading of my work – much appreciated!”
“Neil, for what it is worth it is obvious to me that if you had earlier in life tracked into a graduate program at one of the world’s leading research universities you would be one of the world’s formidable ones. You are doing essentially the same quality now (apart from the philology and languages) except mostly sticking to commenting on others’ work as informed comment/discussion.”
“For an excellent example of generally high-quality scholarship by someone who isn’t a biblical studies professor, see Neil Godfrey’s work posted on the website vridar.org.”
“Vridar is consistently thought-provoking, well-informed, and asking the right questions. There are intelligent, thoughtful comments and commenters regularly offering productive discussion. Books and publications are covered with a range of perspectives with attempts at fair and accurate representation of others’ arguments and content (where there are occasional and inevitable missteps on that I notice Neil making corrections and apologies where warranted, which wins points with me). Please carry on.”
“I’ve even been cited by atheists with approval (which I really don’t know how to take, so thanks, I think, but I’m not sure, Vrider (even though I feel like I need to take a shower now)).”
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Note that I do not use the term ‘amateur’ pejoratively. . . . In fact, Godfrey is extremely well read and his librarian skills have brought many important academic works to my attention.
db on Trumpian Style Response to Mythicism: “On the off chance that that someone should jump the wall that historicists like McGrath set up around Mythicism and…” Dec 14, 06:28
db on Trumpian Style Response to Mythicism: “I find it hard to comprehend how someone can fail to see... It is probably related to how someone can…” Dec 13, 18:47
r.g.price on Trumpian Style Response to Mythicism: “Any time I bring that up in polite company I'm considered a conspiracy theorist, crank, who obviously had no idea…” Dec 13, 18:24
Pofarmer on Trumpian Style Response to Mythicism: “I find it hard to comprehend how someone can fail to see that a "consensus" based off of those who…” Dec 13, 14:33
Pofarmer on Trumpian Style Response to Mythicism: “There are so many things about Iranaeus that are "inconvenient" for the fundamentalist narrative.” Dec 13, 14:31
Steven Watson on The First Edition of John as the Dionysian Gospel: “Classical Greek Models of the Gospels and Acts: Studies in Mimesis Criticism is available at: http//claremontpress.com/uploads/3/4/8/4/34846481/classical_greek_modedownloadable_proof.pdf” Dec 13, 13:58