2016-04-25

Once more on reactions to Brian Bethune’s Macleans article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Coincidentally with my own two posts Richard Carrier has been posting on two other reactions to the widening interest in questions about the historicity of Jesus. He takes the trouble to respond to James McGrath’s typically dishonest nonsense (this time against Raphael Lataster’s new book), and to respond point by point to John Tors’ reaction to Brian Bethune’s Macleans’ article.

On Stanley Porter’s reaction: Biblical Scholars Reacting to Public Interest in Mythicism: Part 1

On Philip Jenkins’ reaction: Biblical Scholars Reacting . . . Part 2

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"Neil, in my mature judgement (I am now an old man), this fine 4-part study is a brilliant reworking, an instructive restatement of Hayden White’s Metahistory (and his subsequent writings). Your critique of certain historiographic representations as imbedded in the case study of the “scientistic”, “empirical” Richard Carrier provides a solid starting point for the more honest “fictive” reading of the New Testament that you encourage. Your last paragraph is a very intelligent call to sensitive readers of these texts. I suspect a whole generation of biblical students has been educated without the insights provided by the incomparable White. Bravo!"

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https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
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Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed
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Neil Godfrey on The Fiction of Paul and the Church Communities: “So the direction you are proposing is from Acts to 2 Corinthians, yes? Your argument appears reasonable. The only fly…” Feb 26, 21:17
will neeb on The Fiction of Paul and the Church Communities: “I always enjoy a counter argument, in this case the direction of influence. When looking at the singular story of…” Feb 26, 12:57
Neil Godfrey on Which One Came First? “Gnostic” ideas or “Orthodox” Christianity?: “Thanks, Roger. The book is happily available on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/nolongerjewssear0000smit I would like to post a few observations of Smith…” Feb 26, 00:34
RParvus on Which One Came First? “Gnostic” ideas or “Orthodox” Christianity?: “This book may be of interest: “No longer Jews – The Search for Gnostic Origins”, by Carl B. Smith. The…” Feb 25, 16:04
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