Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
This is a continuation from my previous “little bio” post. An earlier version was accidentally published about half an hour before I had completed it. This is the completed version. It never occurred to me that the historical existence of Jesus could be questioned until I came across Earl Doherty’s website. Till then I had … Continue reading “Why and how I came to question the historicity of Jesus”
I post the following in good faith after having attempted multiple times to elicit advice from a New Testament scholar on its accuracy. Historical Jesus scholarship is unlike other historical studies in the following way: Historical Jesus scholars (or “historians”) set about applying a set of criteria (embarrassment, double dissimilarity, coherence, etc) to the Gospels … Continue reading “The fallacy at the heart of historical Jesus scholarship”
New Testament scholars have sometimes been pioneers. The attempt to define criteria of authenticity was in fact an attempt to articulate more precisely and rigorously things that in most other areas of history were determined in much the same way, but with a far greater degree of intuition and instinct. (Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence … Continue reading “New Testament scholars are pioneers in historical methods”
Obviously the fact that people can speak about Jesus as if he had really existed does not mean that he really did exist. But what if historians (whose careers are in history faculties that have nothing to do with biblical studies) who write about the Roman empire mention Jesus as the founder of the Christian … Continue reading “Historians on Jesus”
In the process of moving recently I discovered one of my long-boxed copies of a history book researching the lives of renegade leaders of small bands generally considered to be Robin Hood type bandits. What is interesting about this particular field of history, and that is worthy of note among those interested “how history works” … Continue reading “How doing real (nonbiblical) history compares with historical Jesus studies: a case study”
I’m posting here a recent comment by Tim in which he explains his reason for rejecting the Historical Jesus hypothesis. I’ve posted along a similar vein in the past (Alice in Wonderland’s trial; Making detectives look silly; Like Sherlock Holmes) but Tim’s comment is a more sober clarification of the insubstantial foundations of historical Jesus … Continue reading “The historical Jesus hypothesis “does not even rise to the level of requiring investigation . . . “”
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 … Continue reading “Embarrassing failure of the criterion of embarrassment”
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 … Continue reading “Scholarly attempts to “explain” historical methods for Jesus studies (1)”
In response to my post in which I cited the Game of Avoidance as one played by some HJ scholars in relation to mythicist arguments, one such scholar has posted a series of comments with each one ironically avoiding my argument. Irony seems to be lost on some people. So when challenged to address my … Continue reading “Response to James McGrath’s Argument from Wikipedia”
A review of Dale Allison’s forthcoming book, Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History, illustrates both in its post details and subsequent comments how far removed Historical Jesus studies are from the way history is practiced in other (nonbiblical) fields. These comments of mine on this review address starting assumptions of the reviewer problems left hanging … Continue reading “Games Historical Jesus Scholars Play”
Thomas L. Brodie has a chapter (“Towards Tracing the Gospels’ Literary Indebtedness to the Epistles” in Mimesis and Intertextuality) discussing the possibility of the Gospel authors using the NT epistles among their sources, but what I found of most interest was his discussion on methodology and criteria. The difference between Brodie’s discussion of historical methodology … Continue reading “Brodie (almost) versus McGrath on historical methodology in NT studies”
Rick has posted an interesting discussion titled What is History? The Nature of “Facts” in response to my Historicist Hocus Pocus post. This follows a short exchange between us in the comments beneath my own post, and is an extension of earlier blog posts of his own on the same theme. I appreciate Rick’s response … Continue reading “Historical facts and the nature of history — exchange with Rick Sumner”
Since I now have time to go over older posts critiquing the mythicist view of Jesus, I have decided to address head on some of the arguments against mythicism that appear to have been left dangling. Such an exercise, of course, does not argue “for” mythicism. But it is important that bogus arguments, especially from … Continue reading “Historicist Hocus Pocus (Or, What on earth would happen if a course on logic were introduced into biblical studies!)”
Although a certain professor of religion regularly insists that his historical methods are the same as those of other historians who deal in nonbiblical subjects, he has failed to demonstrate the similarity. Rather, his attempt to establish this particular point is a classic in obfuscation, misrepresentation of the issues and avoidance of the challenges of … Continue reading “Historical methods: how historical Jesus studies fall over before they start”