Category: Biblical Scholars

Prominent and not-so-prominent scholars of the Bible. Should this category be restricted to individuals with discussions of scholars collectively to be included within Biblical Scholarship? Scholars of the Bible should include persons who produce scholarly quality works even if not a member of a biblical studies academy or department (e.g. classicist like John Moles; historian like Richard Carrier). Technically I also think Earl Doherty and Rene Salm should be part of this category but wouild their inclusion raise problems? If so, in what category should such persons be included? What of Acharya S and others of questionable scholarly standards? Perhaps better to keep names like these within a Category related to discussions of the Christ Myth Hypothesis.

2011-01-25

More charlantry from a biblical professor on mythicism

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies
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char·la·tan (shärl-tn)

n.

A person fraudulently claiming knowledge and skills not possessed.

Source: http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Charlantry

Theologian James McGrath is once again exposing his ignorance — and peddling public ignorance in the process — of both Jesus-mythicism and of the gulf between biblical studies and nonbiblical mainstream historical methods.

His latest foray as far as I am aware is found in his discussion professing to explain what “mythicism” has to say about 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. This is where Paul writes some instructions about the observance of the Lord’s Supper.

The first flag McGrath waves to declare his ignorance of mythicism is when he writes:

What mythicism does with 1 Corinthians 11 is, on the one hand, refuse to allow the slightly later Gospel of Mark to shed light on it, while on the other hand, posits that Paul is referring to a heavenly occurrence in a mythical realm. Continue reading “More charlantry from a biblical professor on mythicism”

2011-01-14

Scholars who question the historicity of Jesus’ baptism and why they “do not persuade”

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Icon_of_jesus_baptism-138x300I was struck by a sentence by Dale C. Allison in his Constructing Jesus that began as follows:

Indeed, Jesus seems to have submitted to John’s baptism. . . . (p. 53)

Only “seems”? I did not know that any theologian and biblical scholar who accepted the historical reality of Jesus doubted it. So catch that footnote number and make a quick check. Here is the explanatory footnote:

This is rarely doubted, although see William Arnal, “Major Episodes in the Biography of Jesus: An Assessment of the Historicity of the Narrative Tradition,” TJT 13 (1997): 201-26; Leif E. Vaage, “Bird-Watching at the Baptism of Jesus: Early Christian Mythmaking in Mark 1:9-11,” in Reimagining Christian Origins (ed.. Castelli and Taussig), 280-94. Arnal and Vaage do not persuade, in part because, as Mark’s account of the crucifixion and Luke’s theological use of Jerusalem show, remembered facts may not only serve literary ends but may also be fully clothed in legendary and mythological dress. The snag here is that almost every bit of tradition is integrated into the surrounding Synoptic narratives and serves clear editorial ends, so unless we are to find only fiction in the Synoptics, observation of such integration and such ends cannot suffice to determine derivation.

This is why I like Dale Allison so much. He is equal to the most honest biblical scholar that I have encountered who also believes in the historicity of Jesus. He essentially admits his belief is a belief and does not kid himself (or his readers) that his reasoning is not circular. There are a number of other theologians who cannot face this fact about their own writings.

Theologian James McGrath challenged me to address a scholar like E.P. Sanders “point by point” and still deny the historicity of Jesus, and when I did so, including a discussion of what Sanders argues about the baptism of Jesus, McGrath belatedly responded with a weak and meek “I do not agree”. I had hoped for some serious response that included a statement of reasons for his disagreement. I would much rather engage with Dale Allison who does demonstrate an ability to give a reasoned response. Continue reading “Scholars who question the historicity of Jesus’ baptism and why they “do not persuade””

2010-12-31

Theologians Who Mistakenly Think They Are Historians

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by Neil Godfrey

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Morton_Smith
Morton Smith

Some theologians (I won’t mention any names) continue to call themselves historians despite never having majored in any historical studies. One renowned (or infamous to some) biblical scholar understood this as a serious problem in historical Jesus studies. He wrote of the anomaly of Jesus-studies supposedly having so much “primary documentation” yet being so fraught with unknowns, uncertainties and unresolvable disputes:

Yet Jesus should be one of the better known figures of antiquity. We have at least half a dozen letters from Paul, who perhaps knew Jesus during his lifetime (II Cor. 5:16), and joined his followers within, at most, a decade after his death. We have four accounts of Jesus’ public career – the canonical gospels – written anywhere from forty to seventy years after his death; these are generally thought to rest, in part, on earlier written material. Few public figures from the Greco-Roman world are so well documented, but none is so widely disputed. This suggests that there is something strange about the documents, or about the scholars who have studied them, or both.

Probably both. Most of the scholars have not been historians, but theologians determined to make the documents justify their own theological positions. This has been true of liberals, no less than conservatives; both have used “critical scholarship” to get rid of theologically unacceptable evidence. But not everything can be blamed on the scholars. They could not have performed such vanishing acts had there not been something peculiar in the evidence itself.

(pp. 3-4 of Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? by Morton Smith, my bolding) Continue reading “Theologians Who Mistakenly Think They Are Historians”

That Curious Criterion Guiding Historical Jesus Scholarship

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by Neil Godfrey

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Sherlock Holmes
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Let’s close 2010 with a wonderful New Yorker article from May this year. It is a cleverly written discussion of the state of Historical Jesus studies by Adam Gopnik, What Did Jesus Do? Reading and Unreading the Gospels. One might even suggest that Gopnik demonstrates the ability of complete outsiders to see how starkly naked is the emperor of historical Jesus studies. I quote the opening paragraph and highlight some key points.

When we meet Jesus of Nazareth at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, almost surely the oldest of the four, he’s a full-grown man. He comes down from Galilee, meets John, an ascetic desert hermit who lives on locusts and wild honey, and is baptized by him in the River Jordan. If one thing seems nearly certain to the people who read and study the Gospels for a living, it’s that this really happened: John the Baptizer—as some like to call him, to give a better sense of the original Greek’s flat-footed active form—baptized Jesus. They believe it because it seems so unlikely, so at odds with the idea that Jesus always played the star in his own show: why would anyone have said it if it weren’t true? This curious criterion governs historical criticism of Gospel texts: the more improbable or “difficult” an episode or remark is, the likelier it is to be a true record, on the assumption that you would edit out all the weird stuff if you could, and keep it in only because the tradition is so strong that it can’t plausibly be excluded. If Jesus says something nice, then someone is probably saying it for him; if he says something nasty, then probably he really did.

The article even proceeds to compare the scholarly search for the historical Jesus with an imaginary search for, — wait for it — the “historical” Sherlock Holmes or Superman! Now where have readers of this blog’s commenters ever heard such comparisons before, I wonder. Continue reading “That Curious Criterion Guiding Historical Jesus Scholarship”

2010-12-25

Embarrassing failure of the criterion of embarrassment

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by Neil Godfrey

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Dome depicting the baptism of Jesus by Saint John the Baptist, and a pagan god in the guise of an old man stands to one side holding a leather bag; Arian baptistry, Ravenna, Italy.
Both symbolic (scroll on image to see the text) and embarrassing (don’t double click the image to look at Jesus too closely) baptism scene. Image via Wikipedia

So I hear from commenters that a new foray into demolishing mythicism has been launched by James McGrath with yet one more account of the “criterion of embarrassment”. The curious — yet tedious — thing about this is that while McGrath in particular has faulted mythicists for (supposedly) failing to engage with the scholarship on the historical Jesus, he himself, and some of the other more strident critics of mythicism, have notably failed to engage with the mythicist responses to those scholarly arguments.

James McGrath once wrote:

I have not yet seen . . . . a mythicist who engages a scholar like Sanders point by point and argues the case for drawing a different conclusion.

So when I proceeded to engage E. P. Sanders himself “point by point’ — and one of those points was Sanders’ argument for the historicity of the baptism of Jesus — I was disappointed that there was no response from McGrath. But he can no longer say that he has not yet seen a mythicist who engages a scholar like Sanders point by point and argues the case for drawing a different conclusion. I still await an opponent of mythicism to engage with the argument for the non-historicity of the narrative of the baptism of Jesus that I made in the following posts:

Engaging Sanders Point by Point: John the Baptist

Baptism of Jesus is . . . entirely creative literature

There are many possible reasons why McGrath did not respond to these. But what is not clear is why he would still use the criterion of embarrassment, with the baptism of Jesus as a principle case-study, as if no mythicist argument had ever been mounted against it. Why simply repeat the same argument that mythicists have long since responded to and found wanting? Continue reading “Embarrassing failure of the criterion of embarrassment”

2010-12-21

Crossan’s absolute certainty in the historicity of Christ Crucified

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by Neil Godfrey

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Christ crucified from the "Pigliata"...
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I take it absolutely for granted Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Security about the fact of the crucifixion derives not only from the unlikelihood that Christians would have invented it but also from the existence of two early and independent non-Christian witnesses to it, a Jewish one from 93-94 C.E. and a Roman one from the 110s or 120s C.E. (p. 372 of The Historical Jesus)

That last “but also” part of Crossan’s sentence addresses the only way we can have any certainty about the past: independent evidence, external controls.

Here Crossan goes beyond the usual subjective assertion that Christians would not have made up the story. Here he acknowledges the primary importance of independent corroboration.

This is good. It is exactly what nonbiblical historians do. They work with verifiable facts. Their task is to interpret verifiable facts and explain the known “facts” of history. (Historical Jesus scholars usually busy themselves trying to find what some facts are. Was Jesus a revolutionary or a rabbi? Did he or did he not “cleanse” the Temple? If there are no verifiable facts then they don’t do the history.)

Everything we need to know we learned as children

I have discussed this in some depth in my Historical Facts and Contrasting Methods posts. It’s a simple truism that most of us learned from our parents, read in the Bible, and that carries right through to normative history and modern-day journalism — Don’t believe every word you are told. Check the facts. Test what you hear. Continue reading “Crossan’s absolute certainty in the historicity of Christ Crucified”

2010-12-16

How the Faithful Destroy Biblical Stories to Stay Faithful (or the Ecumenical Method of Biblical Historiography)

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, Religion and Atheism
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Some call it “harmonization of the Gospels”, but it might also be described as a unique brand of theological historical method. That is, something that theological students do and call “history” so they can sound more like historians (a relatively relevant profession) instead of mere students of theology (a decidedly irrelevant one).

Here’s how it works.

One gospel describes a scene in order to illustrate a certain doctrinal teaching.

Another gospel, with a different doctrinal interest, describes a contrary scene to reflect another doctrine.

The historian (sorry, the theology student) enters and says: Ah, here the historical evidence appears to be contradictory. (Only “appears” contradictory, mind you. Aspiring theologians know that whatever can be seen is not of faith, and it is faith that is all important.)

So the (irrelevant) “theologian” who thinks he/she is a (relatively relevant) “historian” draws on their ecumenical leanings and finds a way to unify the two contradictory (oops, “apparently” contradictory) narratives.

This process is not a mere intellectual conceit. It is a necessary activity for those who need something consistent to believe in.

Here’s a case study to illustrate. It is from Tom Powers’ discussion of the ‘Alexander son of Simon’ ossuary. Continue reading “How the Faithful Destroy Biblical Stories to Stay Faithful (or the Ecumenical Method of Biblical Historiography)”

2010-12-15

Open invitation to Dr Maurice Casey

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by Neil Godfrey

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I invite Dr Maurice Casey to an online discussion or debate — an open exchange between himself and me in any blog or wiki or “live” public internet forum — about anything I have said in relation to his recent book, Jesus of Nazareth.

This all began when I had been wondering what happened to Mike Kok whose review of chapter 3 of Maurice Casey’s book I reviewed. The last time he visited this blog he dropped off a comment but failed to respond to my reply. I understand he has also failed to respond to others like this.) So in an idle moment I went looking and . . . .

I have just learned from a comment by Steph on the Sheffield blog that Dr Maurice Casey is to include in his forthcoming book responses to “the blogger Godfrey’s main arguments and ‘review’ there.” “There” is presumably this Vridar blog. (Ah yes, as Steph so often used to say, she cannot answer my arguments in a blog because it was “only a blog” and it would take a whole book to explain what is wrong with my arguments. So it looks like Casey, her mentor, is to produce the book she has been alluding to.) Continue reading “Open invitation to Dr Maurice Casey”

2010-12-12

Jesus vs Julius Caesar

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by Neil Godfrey

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Zerowing21 has posted on the evidence for Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon compared with the evidence for Jesus. Specifically . . . .

Christian apologist Douglas Geivett’s claim that the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection meets “the highest standards of historical inquiry,” and is as certain as Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon in 49 B.C.E.

N. T. Wright might agree with that. But read the blog post for an excellent run down of the sorts of evidence historians work with as opposed to theologians who think they are historians.

The blog post begins with a few links to other sites that will interest some who read this:

I know, some will instinctively respond with some quip that Jesus wasn’t a great political figure so we can’t expect the same evidence for him as for the other JC.  Exactly, but what some such instinctive respondents want to do is change the rules to allow us to use different material as “evidence” so we can write just as much about Jesus with the same assurance. They want to change the rules, that is. But real historians do not change the rules. What they do is change the scope of their inquiries. That is why you will find most books on ancient history covering broad sweeps of civilization or political and social developments. There are fewer exhaustive biographies than can be, and are, written for persons who dot later historical periods.

2010-12-04

Nazareth fictions, Aramaic blindspots and scholarly bias: Filling some gaps in Sheffield’s review of Casey’s ‘Jesus of Nazareth’

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Archaeology, Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, New Testament
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view of Nazareth
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I know I said I would not touch Casey’s book (Jesus of Nazareth) again for a while, but Mike Kok’s review of chapter 3 (Historical Method) on the Sheffield Biblical Studies blog does call out for some response.

No archaeological evidence for Nazareth in early first century

I ignored Casey’s critique of Zindler’s and Salm’s arguments over the evidence for the presence of Nazareth and Capernaum in the supposed time of Jesus largely because I thought anyone reading Casey’s book would clearly see that Casey gives no evidence at all in his rebuttal of their claims, and the claims of “trained scholars” whom they each cite. (I like the word “trained” as a descriptor of biblical scholars as it is used by both Kok and Casey. Training has connotations of Pavlov’s dog-like behaviourist conditioning to say the right things in order to be accepted by the academic guild.) But Kok failed to notice what I took to be obvious, so presumably others will overlook the weakness of Casey’s argument, too:

He also critiques the extreme view that Nazareth did not existed (Zindler, Salm) based on a problematic handling of archaeological and textual evidence (128-32). Continue reading “Nazareth fictions, Aramaic blindspots and scholarly bias: Filling some gaps in Sheffield’s review of Casey’s ‘Jesus of Nazareth’”

2010-11-20

Maurice Casey’s Historical Methods for Historical Jesus Studies

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, Historical Methods and Historiography
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Maurice Casey (Emeritus Professor of New Testament Languages and Literature at the University of Nottingham, UK) in his 2010 book Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching devotes his third chapter to a discussion of his historical method, and becomes the latest New Testament scholar to demonstrate (once more) how studies of the “historical Jesus” follow their own idiosyncratic rules and are unlike any other studies of ancient historical figures.

Unfortunately, Casey also demonstrates in this chapter the all too familiar tendency of biblical scholars to carelessly misrepresent arguments and authors they do not like. In this case, Casey’s representation of Crossan’s methodology and arguments is, at best, a little unfair, as I will demonstrate by setting Casey’s and Crossan’s words side by side.

Continue reading “Maurice Casey’s Historical Methods for Historical Jesus Studies”

2010-10-15

Vridar is not an anti-Christian blog

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies
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Someone occasionally comments on a post of mine in a way that indicates they think I have some vendetta against Christians, Christianity, or biblical scholars. A scholar in a recent exchange has shown that he has assumed I am out to attack Christianity, that I have some anti-Christian agenda in my posts relating to historical methodology and HJ studies and mythicism.

For the sake of the record, I invite anyone who thinks I have such an agenda to see if they can find room to dispel such a notion by having a look at my post “Why I am doing this” linked in my profile, and to do a search in the Search Vridar box on the name Pataki and read the first two posts that appear in the results, and maybe even have a look at where I speak of the “refreshing honesty of Jim West”.

I have also several times spoken of exchanges I have had with devout Christian friends of mine. That we are friends should also suggest that those who know me know that the idea that I have some “anti-Christian agenda” is so far from my nature or interest that any suggestion to that effect is pure fantasy.

I am certainly not wanting to imply I am pro-Christian either. I see myself as a secular humanist, and acknowledge that religions are a part of the rich tapestry of human experience. Though where there are ideas of any kind, not just religious, that do cause real harm, I will be “against” those. But I hardly see “Christianity” per se in that way.

I am fascinated by the study of Christian origins and the nature of early Christian documents for historical reasons. This is a topic that is at the heart of western culture, and still has a profound relevance today on millions. Christianity has been a major part of my life that has given me much good as well as negatives. It is gratuitous to assume that such an interest by an atheist must somehow be necessarily motived by ill-will. That’s simply nonsense.

Added post post:

As for mythicism, my interest is in Christian origins, and that is a far broader topic than the mythicist question, as I explained in another comment.

 

Scholarly attempts to “explain” historical methods for Jesus studies (1)

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by Neil Godfrey

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Scot McKnight of recent controversial article fame, devotes an entire chapter in his book Jesus and His Death to a discussion of the historiography of New Testament scholars, and writes:

In fact, the historiography of historical Jesus scholars is eclectic and often unconscious or uninformed of a specific historiography. (p.16)

Biblical scholarships’ ignorance of the significance of different types of evidence

This unfortunate state of much scholarship of Christian origins is aptly illustrated throughout many studies of the historical Jesus, but I focus in this post on statements by one such self-professing “historian” of the New Testament who makes a point of explaining what he understands by “the historical enterprise”:

I’ve long been perplexed by the frequent complaint from mythicists (i.e. those who claim that Jesus was a purely invented figure, not even based on a real historical human individual) that those working on the historical Jesus simply assume as a presupposition that Jesus existed, rather than addressing the question directly. Continue reading “Scholarly attempts to “explain” historical methods for Jesus studies (1)”

2010-10-13

What is the difference between a religious bigot and a hostile anti-mythicist?

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, Politics & Society
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L’esprit d’escalier. In my earlier post I should have explicitly mentioned religious tolerance instead of subsuming it beneath general human tolerance and acceptance of differences. (Listening to another Late Night Live podcast last night, this one on being Moslem in America, brought this to mind.)

We would never think to publicly denigrate someone who had investigated various faiths and decided to embrace, say, Catholicism or Mormonism.

We love the idea of free speech. Some of us even take it seriously and do actively live by the principle:

I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.

The principle goes back to the Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke who argued that truth will win in the free exchange and airing of ideas.

So why do we find public intellectuals, even some adhering to a religious faiths that boasts of love and tolerance, denigrating those who are persuaded by or even consider plausible the idea that Jesus Christ never historically existed? Some actively incite public ridicule and scorn.

One academic, a doctor of divinity who specializes in christology, is on record as even insisting, repeatedly, that mythicists do not deserve to be heard. It is perhaps instructive that one whose professional speciality is in such a nebulous meaningless area should be the one to practice opposition to the values of the Enlightenment. (It is also instructive that the earliest Christ Myth theorists came out of that same Enlightenment.)

John Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration he...
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