Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Response #1: Motives Response #2: No fame outside Galilee Response #3: Ascension of Isaiah At around 28 mins Tim says those opposed to the consensus are mythicists most of whom are not scholars and least qualified to assess this stuff. Point 1: Tim is not a scholar either so he presumably includes himself among those … Continue reading “Response #4: Non Sequitur’s Tim O’Neill presentation, …. Your turn”
This is why people like me when you read Carrier’s book you think, What the f*ck are you talking about? — Tim O’Neill Response #1: Motives Response #2: No fame outside Galilee Tim spoke those words seconds before leading listeners to infer that he had checked the ancient text that Carrier was misrepresenting, the Ascension … Continue reading “Response #3: Non Sequitur’s Tim O’Neill presentation, The Ascension of Isaiah“
For the previous response and a link to the Non Sequitur video see Response #1 to the Non Sequitur program with Tim O’Neill: MOTIVES. At about the 49th minute of the Non Sequitur program Tim O’Neill makes the following claim: Even if you look at what the gospels say about Jesus — and these are … Continue reading “Response #2 to the Non Sequitur program: “Not even the gospels say Jesus was famous outside Galilee””
Last weekend I watched Tim O’Neill present his arguments against the idea that there was no historical Jesus. I said I would respond in a post to his points and expected to cover it all in one or two sessions. But time is getting away from me this evening so here I will address just … Continue reading “Response #1 to the Non Sequitur program with Tim O’Neill: MOTIVES”
Vridar’s first post on a Hermann Detering work was in February 2007: Little Apocalypse and the Bar Kochba Revolt The next “mention” of Hermann Detering was subtle. It was hidden as a link in the last sentence — But that leads us to a new set of questions about dates and identities that will have to be addressed … Continue reading “Remembering”
I recently wrote in a blog post: Roger Pearse, for instance, goes even further and without any suggestion that he is aware of Doherty’s arguments says they are “all nonsense, of course.” A theme I come back to from time to time is the gulf between many biblical scholars and scholars of early Christianity. We … Continue reading “Scholarship and “Mythicism”: When the Guilty Verdict is more important than the Evidence or Argument”
A spirit of obsession these past few days has possessed me with an intent to find something good and positive among mainstream biblical scholars of the historical Jesus and Christian origins. I fear I have proven to be a leaky and soon sunk vessel. All I discovered this past week was a post titled Revision … Continue reading “The Poverty of Jesus Historicism (sorry, Popper)”
To state the argument against one hypothesis using the presuppositions and terminology of the competing hypothesis involves a circularity that undermines any hope for a fair assessment of the evidence. — Mark Goodacre, 2002 (82) Simon Gathercole has had an article published behind the paywall of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus opposing … Continue reading “Addressing Simon Gathercole’s “Historical and Human Existence of Jesus” (#1)”
I have updated the post discussing Tim O’Neill’s Non Sequitur discussion of the Ascension of Isaiah. Response #3: Non Sequitur’s Tim O’Neill presentation, The Ascension of Isaiah
Apart from archeological evidence, the only facts we can attain are the texts. We must therefore reason about the texts that relate facts, not about the facts related by the texts. Yesterday I completed reading a most unexpected argument (an argument that led to the conclusion that Christianity did not originate with a historical Jesus) … Continue reading “Enticed by a great quote & surprised by an unexpected “mythicist””
… Continuing from PZ Myers interviews a historian about Jesus mythicism and How do historians decide who was historical, who fictional? –o– PZ Myers asks: How do we approach this kind of topic? Eddie Marcus, introduced as a professional historian, responds: Eddie Marcus informs listeners that his expertise is in Australian culture and history, not … Continue reading “How do we approach the question of Jesus being historical or mythical?”
For an annotated list of previous posts in this series see the archived page: Daniel Gullotta’s Review of Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus I ended my previous post with these words: From this point Gullotta loses sight of Carrier’s own line of reasoning, sometimes erroneously conflating MacDonald’s and Carrier’s views, and even at … Continue reading “Gullotta’s Dysrepresentation of Carrier’s Case for the Gospels as Myth … Part 3”
The focus of my response will center on Carrier’s claim that a pre-Christian angel named Jesus existed, his understanding of Jesus as a non-human and celestial figure within the Pauline corpus, his argument that Paul understood Jesus to be crucified by demons and not by earthly forces, his claim that James, the brother of the … Continue reading “Gullotta’s review of Carrier’s argument #3: crucified by demons or Romans?”
In the late 1990s, I worked as a consultant at a technology company based in the midwestern United States. At one point, our team was rolling out a new version of a help desk solution. They needed to send someone to Europe to train new users, and, as luck would have it, they picked me. … Continue reading ““Who Is It That Struck You?” — Minor Agreements and Major Headaches”