Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Some of us may be interested in a somewhat objective attempt to measure the tone of the discussion on the question of Mythicist-Agnosticism as raised on the Religion Prof’s blogsite: Current Debate Jesus Agnosticism/Mythicism – Raphael Lataster and James McGrath The measure is from a text analysis program, the LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). … Continue reading “The Tone of a Mythicist-Agnostic Debate”
Questioning the historical existence of Jesus attracts something other than mere curiosity or intellectual debate among many biblical scholars and some of the public who don’t even have any personal interest in religion. I can understand people with a personal faith in Jesus either simply ignoring the question with disdain or amusement or responding with … Continue reading “Understanding the Hostility to the Christ Myth Theory”
I thought Tom Holland was a historian. I am talking about the author of In the Shadow of the Sword, a history of the seventh century Arab conquests and emergence of Islam which I posted about three times in 2013. I had read the book after a fascinating interview with Holland on Australia’s Radio National’s … Continue reading “Well, I Sure Got That Wrong”
In my recent response to Tim O’Neill’s attempt to dismiss the significance of the parallels between Jesus son of Ananias in Josephus’s Jewish War and the Jesus of the gospels, in particular the Gospel of Mark, as without any scholarly merit (see Jesus Mythicism 4: Jesus as an Amalgam of Many Figures), I set out … Continue reading “Still Better Informed History for Atheists — More Scholars assess the Two Jesus Parallels”
Along with his contradictory rationalizations to (1) declare the parallels between Jesus son of Ananias and the gospels’ Jesus to be “hopelessly flimsy”, yet at the same time are real and strong enough to (2) point to real-world parallel historical, socio-political, religious and onomastic events and situations anyway, Tim O’Neill further adds a common sophistical … Continue reading “Even Better Informed History for Atheists: The Lincoln – Kennedy Parallels Fallacy”
A week ago James McGrath alerted readers to a new post by Tim O’Neill of History for Atheists commending it for its take down of “amalgam Jesus” theorists for supposedly uncritically and emotionally concocting excuses to disbelieve in a historical Jesus. It has taken me a week since that alert but I have finally caught … Continue reading “Better Informed History for Atheists — Scholars assess the Two Jesus Parallels”
The first part of my response to Tim O’Neill’s Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet is @ Examining the Evidence for Jesus as an Apocalyptic Prophet. There we pointed out that there is no support in our historical sources (primarily Josephus) for the common assertion that Judaeans and Galileans in the early first century were pining for an imminent overthrow … Continue reading “Response #2 to History for Atheists’ “JESUS THE APOCALYPTIC PROPHET””
On History for Atheists Tim O’Neill has set out the standard reasons for the view that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. He concludes that this particular portrayal of Jesus stands against what conservative and liberal Christians, and even “fringe Jesus Mythicists”, and “many people” generally “would like Jesus to be.” Put that way, one wonders why anyone … Continue reading “Examining the Evidence for Jesus as an Apocalyptic Prophet”
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
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””
PZ Myers: A consensus doesn’t necessarily mean anything. 200 years ago there was a consensus phlogiston existed. The key thing is: show me the chain of evidence and the logic that you use to derive this. (From video discussion with Eddie Marcus; see also transcript/paraphrase.) …. Tim O’Neill: If we look at relevant non-Christian scholars, … Continue reading “The Phlogiston Jesus”
Someone asked me who among atheists were critical of Jesus mythicism when I posted Atheist Hostility to Jesus Mythicism … making sense of it and a number have questioned my own view of why they do, or at least have offered alternative viewpoints. All fair enough. Meanwhile, someone on Facebook chided me for not having read … Continue reading “On mythicism, creationism and the wrath of ancient kings”
This morning I was slightly surprised by a criticism of my posts, in particular with reference to PZ Myers on “the Tim O’Neill Treatment”: Jesus Mythicism and Historical Methods, that I make sophistic distinctions and nuances, or that I quibble over precise meanings for the sake attacking an otherwise very evidently sound and sensible argument. I … Continue reading “Neil the Pettifogger?”
Not long ago PZ Myers responded positively to certain arguments in the post by Tim O’Neill, Jesus Mythicism 3: “No Contemporary References to Jesus”. PZ was not to know of the presumably inadvertent misrepresentations Tim O’Neill made of David Fitgerald’s arguments in that post. In a followup post by PZ, Tim reminded readers that he had, … Continue reading “Fake History for Atheists”