Search Results for: criteriology

The Dishonesty of a “Scholarly” Review of Robert Price

Associate Professor of Religion at Butler University, and professing Christian, James McGrath, has written in his review of Price’s chapter, “Jesus at the Vanishing Point”, in The Historical Jesus: Five Views, the following: Crossan rightly highlights that Price’s statement that he will simply skip the matter of the Testimonium Flavianum is “not an acceptable scholarly argument as far … Continue reading “The Dishonesty of a “Scholarly” Review of Robert Price”

Reviewing McGrath’s review of Robert Price on mythicism (2)

This continues my previous post in which I began discussing McGrath’s “review” of Price’s arguments for mythicism, although as I pointed out there, “review” must remain in quotation marks because McGrath simply writes a lot without actually addressing Price’s arguments! In my previous post I remarked on the ignorance of the oft-repeated claim that there … Continue reading “Reviewing McGrath’s review of Robert Price on mythicism (2)”

Gospels and Genesis as historical documents

I believe that few “serious scholars” (as they say) see any reason to attribute the first couple of chapters of the Book of Genesis to historical reality. Few actually see any reason to attribute its claims that God fashioned the world in 6 days and created Adam from dust and Eve from his baculum. But … Continue reading “Gospels and Genesis as historical documents”

A Lewis Carroll satire on McGrath’s methods of historical enquiry

“Herald, read the accusation!” said the King.On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment-scroll, and read as follows: “The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, All on a summer day: The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts And took them quite away!” “Consider your verdict,” … Continue reading “A Lewis Carroll satire on McGrath’s methods of historical enquiry”

Biblical historian McGrath admits to relying on hearsay and uncorroborated reports

Testimony about what someone claims to have heard from an eyewitness would not stand up in a court of law today — it is what is known as “hearsay”. Nevertheless, sometimes hearsay is all a historian has, and the rules of historical investigation are not as strict as those of the American legal system. We … Continue reading “Biblical historian McGrath admits to relying on hearsay and uncorroborated reports”

Scot McKnight’s lament and the fallacy of the HJ historical method

I addressed Scot McKnight’s chapter on historiography in Jesus and His Death in order to respond to the central fallacy in his article in Christianity Today, The Jesus We’ll Never Know. McKnight is only half-correct when he claims that scholars have used normative historical methods to discover the historical Jesus (HJ). It is the missing … Continue reading “Scot McKnight’s lament and the fallacy of the HJ historical method”

Historical Facts and the very UNfactual Jesus: contrasting nonbiblical history with ‘historical Jesus’ studies

Historical Jesus (HJ) scholars have boasted that they use the same sorts of methods as scholarly historians of other (nonbiblical) subjects, but this is a misleading claim. When it comes to the basics of the nature of “facts” and “evidence” this claim is simply not true. Historical Jesus scholars use a completely different standard to … Continue reading “Historical Facts and the very UNfactual Jesus: contrasting nonbiblical history with ‘historical Jesus’ studies”