2023-04-09

BRUNO BAUER: Christ and the Caesars – in English

Machine translated by Neil Godfrey from Christus und die Caesaren. Der Ursprung des Christenthums aus dem römischen Griechenthum
March 2023

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— Mary Booker, – February 2020 (personal email)
"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."

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— James Crossley, – April 2010
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Raphael Lataster - August 2019
"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!"

— Eva Mroczek, – June 2017
"Very good. This post is going straight to the March 2016 Biblical Studies Carnival."

—N.T. Wrong, – March 2016
"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!"

-- Timothy Bagley, - November 2024
"Many thanks for this post, and for the quality of your blog."

— Philippe Wajdenbaum, – November 2018
"By the way, my thanks to Neil for an ongoing superb job of exposing Jim’s review for what it is: a farcical and none too effective exercise in mythicism assassination, nothing to do with rational, let alone unbiased, scholarship. I’m also happy to see even Jim giving Neil credit where credit is due."

— Earl Doherty, June 2011
It is worth saying another word of appreciation here for Neil Godfrey's effort to make Bruno Bauer accessible in English.

-- Peter Kirby, - May 2023
"I find your blog most interesting and appreciate your ongoing effort to keep to the evidence for the issues discussed!"

-- Thomas L. Thompson, - April 2020
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— Earl Doherty, November 2013 (personal email)
"Neil, You’ve done a clean job in your posting on ‘Jesus the Healer’. It reflects well on you. Best, John"

— John Moles, September 2011 (personal email)
This is superb work, Neil, and reminds me of Albert Schweitzer’s work from a century ago. . . . .

I commend you for being the first to even TRY to translate Bruno Bauer’s brilliant Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs, which is now more than 150 years old.

. . . . .Thank you for your historic effort.

-- Paul Trejo, M.A., - November 2022
Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed
"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."

— Tom Dykstra, – JOCABS 2015
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

-- Enrico Tuccinardi, - October 2022
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-- Jim West, – September 2010
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— Russell Gmirkin, – October 2016
Congratulations, Vridar, . . . I declare, Vridar, your own hard work translating Bruno Bauer will make a major difference in future studies of Bruno Bauer and the evolution of Hegel’s philosophy of religion.

-- Paul Trejo, - April 2023
"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."

— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
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Nancy Fraser - June 2019 (personal email)
"Neil, this is actually rather useful. Good job."

— R. Joseph Hoffmann, – June 2014
"Thanks much for this book review. I think it expands, and contributes to, the effort in honouring Thomas that we with Lukasz originally had in mind with this volume. Best, Emanuel"

-- Emanuel Pfoh - August 2020
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— April DeConick, – November 2007
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-- Martin Lewadny, - March 2009

Neil Godfrey on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: “Thanks, Stephen. I have just one quibble — though ἡδονῇ lies behind our word “hedonism”, it was a more neutral…” Jun 23, 21:19
Stephen on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: “I think you are correct about this, Neil. My reading of the TF is that “Jesus….was a teacher of such…” Jun 23, 14:00
proudfootz on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: “I find these efforts to salvage Josephus as a witness to a real historical Jesus to have more than a…” Jun 23, 13:49
SidneyMartin on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’: “I don’t see any “New Evidence,” just a new and labored argument. I stand by my opinion that the TF…” Jun 23, 12:44
db on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” by Schmidt – Review 1 – ‘if indeed one ought to call him a man’: “Thomas C Schmidt is a researcher of the Historical Jesus, He makes no study on the question of the “(a)Historicity…” Jun 22, 23:03
Gordon Rouse on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” by Schmidt – Review 1 – ‘if indeed one ought to call him a man’: “If a Christian apologist made these arguments for the authenticity of TF, I would have probably thought this was a…” Jun 22, 10:38
Neil Godfrey on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” by Schmidt – Review 1 – ‘if indeed one ought to call him a man’: “I forgot to note in the original post that the quotation of the extract from Cernuda’s article was my machine-assisted…” Jun 21, 19:55
ABuddhist on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” by Schmidt – Review 1 – ‘if indeed one ought to call him a man’: “>By saying that “early Christians viewed denying Jesus’ humanity as heretical” Schmidt is excluding the possibility that the doctrines that…” Jun 21, 19:46
Ken Olson on “Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” by Schmidt – Review 1 – ‘if indeed one ought to call him a man’: “I agree with what you posted, but I’m particularly grateful for this point that had not previously occurred to me:…” Jun 21, 15:53