Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
James McGrath directs readers interested in learning more about mythicism to read Dispelling the Jesus Myth, a blogpost by Simon J. Joseph. So I did. Simon’s post introduces nothing new into the discussion. It is the same litany of objections to mythicism one has run across countless times before so I was about to move … Continue reading “Dispelling the Jesus Mythicist Myth”
This post continues on from The Secular Approach to Christian Origins, #3 (Bias) and addresses the next stage of Professor James Crossley’s discussion on what he believes is necessary to move Christian origins studies out from the domination of religious bias and into the light of secular approaches. In the previous post we covered Crossley’s dismay that scholarly conferences … Continue reading “Good Bias, Hidden Bias and the Phantom of Jesus in Christian Origin Studies”
The previous two posts in this series: Why Christianity Happened — Toward a Secular Approach to Christian Origins Why Christianity Happened – The Secular Approach, 2 The Necessity and Problem of Bias in Christian Origins Studies James Crossley (Why Christianity Happened: A Sociological Account of Christian Origins (26-50 CE)) examines the role of bias in … Continue reading “The Secular Approach to Christian Origins, #3 (Bias)”
Table 1: Mythicists, Mythicist Sympathizers & Agnostics (and their Religious Backgrounds) As of 6th August 2020 only the colour coded table has been updated. The remainder of this page dates from some years earlier. The following updated table was originally posted at Who’s Who Among Mythicists and Mythicist Sympathizers/Agnostics and again at Maurice Casey’s Failure to … Continue reading “WHO’s WHO: Mythicists, Mythicist Agnostics & Historicists Who Call for Scholarly Debate (Updated 6th August 2020)”
Continuing from Why Christianity Happened — Toward a Secular Approach to Christian Origins James Crossley seeks to explain what he calls the “puzzle” of the nearly complete failure of biblical scholars to apply “social-scientifically informed approaches” (p. 3) to the study of Christian origins between the 1920s and 1970s. Crossley is actually addressing two types of historical explanation: … Continue reading “Why Christianity Happened – The Secular Approach, 2”
All posts in this series are archived at Henaut: Oral Tradition and the Gospels (This post extends well beyond Henaut, however.) . I have recently posted insights by John Drury and Michael Goulder into the literary character of the parables in the gospels. (The vocabulary and themes are part and parcel of the larger canvass and … Continue reading “Doubting an Oral Tradition behind the Gospels: The Parables”
The Professor of Religion who blogs at Exploringourmatrix is a widely respected source of disinformation about mythicism and mythicists. He won accolades from readers for his recent dressing down of Richard Carrier and this blog has from time to time drawn attention to some of his more remarkable triumphs in exposing just how devious mythicists really are through his manufacture of mythicist claims that can … Continue reading “Fear in the Heart of a Bible Scholar”
There are at least six well-qualified experts, including two sitting professors, two retired professors, and two independent scholars with Ph.D.’s in relevant fields, who have recently gone on public record as doubting whether there really was a historical Jesus. — Richard Carrier Six names? Arthur Droge Kurt Noll Thomas Brodie Richard Carrier Robert Price Thomas … Continue reading ““It’s time to rethink our assumptions, and look at the evidence anew.” — Carrier”
Until recently I have had little interest in arguments that our apparently earliest written gospel, the Gospel of Mark, was composed as an attempt to teach the ideas of Paul as found in his letters. After reading Mark, Canonizer of Paul by Tom Dykstra I am now more sympathetic to the possibility that the author of this gospel … Continue reading “Mark, Canonizer of Paul”
This continues the little “It’s absurd to suggest that most historians have not considered the strongest case for mythicism” series inspired by the unbearable lightness of the wisdom of Professor James McGrath. The previous post saw how Professor Larry Hurtado’s source for the comprehensive rebuttal to all arguments mythicist, H.G. Wood’s Did Christ Really Live?, in … Continue reading ““It is absurd to suggest. . . “: The Overlooked Critic of Mythicism (+ A Catalog of Early Mythicists and Their Critics)”
This post continues on from It is absurd to suggest. . . . It’s about a much lesser known anti-mythicist than Goguel but I will excuse myself for that anomaly on the grounds that Goguel’s book is freely available on the web and many would have read it already. Maurice Goguel is evidently R. Joseph … Continue reading ““It is absurd to suggest . . . . “: Professor Hurtado’s stock anti-mythicist”
We know Maurice Casey has claimed to have researched the backgrounds of mythicists and claimed that the evidence is clear that most of them are reacting against fundamentalist or similarly strict and closed-minded religious backgrounds. Other scholars such as James McGrath, Jim West and James Crossley have picked up Casey’s claims and repeated them in … Continue reading “Maurice Casey’s Failure to Research Mythicists — More Evidence”
Professor James McGrath is a parallelomaniac. Every time he sees an argument for a parallel that he does not like or from which the author draws an uncomfortable conclusion he claims that the parallel is actually a parallel to Samuel Sandmel’s notion of “parallelomania”. Samuel Sandmel introduced the term “parallelomania” into English-speaking New Testament studies … Continue reading “James McGrath the Parallelomaniac”
You have the right to remain silent Over on The Bible and Interpretation web site, James McGrath once again takes up his jousting lance to do battle against the big, bad mythicists. He raises an interesting point: If we were to combine a number of recent and not-so-recent proposals related to Jesus, we could depict him … Continue reading “Some Thoughts on the Nature of the Evidence and the Historicity of Jesus”