Search Results for: oral tradition

28. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 28 (G. A. Wells)

* 1. Did Jewish Personified Wisdom generate Paul’s Christ Jesus? 2. Was Jesus an Unknown Jew Who Lived a Century Before Paul? . COVERED IN THIS POST: The (partial) mythicism of G. A. Wells The problems in Wells’ interpretation of Paul Jewish personified Wisdom as inspiration for Paul’s Christ Hellenistic Judaism and the Wisdom of … Continue reading “28. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 28 (G. A. Wells)”

27. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 27

Slightly edited 3 hours after original posting. * Did the earliest Christians regard Jesus as God? . COVERED IN THIS POST: Did the earliest Christians see Jesus as God? God vs. an emanation of God Concepts of the Son and Logos; Paul and Philo Epistolary descriptions of the Son The Synoptic Jesus: Man or God? … Continue reading “27. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 27”

A model history lesson (or, Why Does Rabbi Akiba Proclaim Bar Kokhba the Messiah?)

My recent encounter with Matthew Novenson’s Christ among the Messiahs has led me to a few other publications of his and one of them I found particularly surprising and interesting: Why Does R. Akiba Acclaim Bar Kokhba as Messiah? that appeared in a 2009 Journal for the Study of Judaism (40). (Bar Kokhba was the … Continue reading “A model history lesson (or, Why Does Rabbi Akiba Proclaim Bar Kokhba the Messiah?)”

A Profession of Faith — The Historical Jesus Creed

Presumably as a lead-up to the publishing of Is This Not the Carpenter? Thomas L. Thompson (as we mentioned earlier on Vridar) has published a rebuttal to Ehrman’s misleading statements in Did Jesus Exist? You’ve probably already read Thompson’s piece, “Is This Not the Carpenter’s Son? — A Response to Bart Ehrman,” but you may … Continue reading “A Profession of Faith — The Historical Jesus Creed”

26. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 26

* Mythicist Inventions: Part One – Creating the Mythical Christ from the Pagan Mystery Cults . COVERED IN THIS POST: Jesus as a dying and rising god Common creations of the religious mind The demise of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough The case for borrowing lies in syncretism Jewish and Greek forms of resurrection Paul … Continue reading “26. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 26”

25. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism — Part 25

* Is Jesus Based on Pagan Precedents? . COVERED IN THIS POST: A cult of parallels Comparing Apollonius of Tyana Kersey Graves as punching bag Compare John Remsburg Evaluating a range of different parallels Birth of Mithras Water into wine by Dionysos Horus the shepherd-king Isis and Horus, Mother and Child Do Christian fathers give … Continue reading “25. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism — Part 25”

Thomas L. Thompson responds to Bart Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist?

It’s good to see Professor Thomas L. Thompson come out and respond to Bart Ehrman’s crude dismissal of his scholarly contribution to the origin of the Christ myth. Here is what Ehrman had written of Thomas L. Thompson’s work: A different sort of support for a mythicist position comes in the work of Thomas L. … Continue reading “Thomas L. Thompson responds to Bart Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist?”

24. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 24

* Mythicist Claim Three: The Gospels Are Interpretive Paraphrases of the OT . COVERED IN THIS POST: The Gospels constructed out of scriptural midrash Jesus’ passion modelled on a traditional Jewish story The Gospel of the Old Testament according to Robert Price The Gospel Jesus as a new Moses A Jesus miracle modelled on Elijah … Continue reading “24. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 24”

23. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 23

* Part II: The Mythicists’ Claims – One: A Problematic Record . .COVERED IN THIS POST: Admitting to problematic Gospels Gospel authors unknown Fallacious analogies: Obama’s birth certificate The Hitler diaries Clinton’s presidency George Washington Discrepancies and contradictions in the Gospels Radically different pictures of Jesus How much of the Gospels is fictional? Form criticism … Continue reading “23. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 23”

22. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 22

* A Crucified Messiah COVERED IN THIS POST: Jesus and David Koresh Was a crucified criminal believed to be the messiah? Ehrman’s “story” of a resurrection A story missing in Q and the epistles The actual picture in the epistles Did Jews invent a crucified messiah? Did Jews anticipate a suffering messiah? The sources and … Continue reading “22. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 22”

21. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 21

* “Key Data” in Proving Jesus’ Historicity – The Crucified Messiah . COVERED IN THIS POST: The conflict between messianic expectation and result Assumptions based on the Gospels and Acts Why did Paul persecute the early church? Paul’s gospel vs. Ehrman’s view of early church beliefs Christ as “curse” for being “hanged on a tree” … Continue reading “21. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 21”

19. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt. 19

* The Pauline Epistles – Part Two . COVERED IN THIS POST: “Words of the Lord”: from earth or heaven? Why doesn’t Paul quote Jesus more extensively? The epistles exclude an historical Jesus Paul’s conversion chronology Paul’s crash course on Jesus from Cephas and James How much interpolation in Paul? Surveying the counterarguments Ehrman answering … Continue reading “19. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt. 19”

Debating the Place of the Ignatian Letters in Christian Origins: Doherty & Parvus

I and many other readers have been interested in Roger Parvus’s alternative explanations for some aspects of Earl Doherty’s arguments. Roger has posted a detailed comment on Earl’s Part 12 Response to Bart Ehrman but I am repeating it here as a post in its own right. Where Earl argues that the incipient docetism addressed … Continue reading “Debating the Place of the Ignatian Letters in Christian Origins: Doherty & Parvus”

17. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt.17

* Jesus Tradition in the Acts of the Apostles . COVERED IN THIS POST: Ehrman accepts Acts as reliable history Acts as a second century product Judas treated as an historical figure More Aramaic tradition? Quoting Paul quoting Jesus The speeches in Acts Adoptionism: Jesus becomes God’s son Tracing the sequence of ideas about Jesus … Continue reading “17. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt.17”