Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
If “hits” are an indication of what posts others have found of most use or interest, then I can say that the following two tables list the dozen most useful or interesting posts I have done
The lists should help clarify the sort of blog this is and what its primary impact has been. Continue reading “The 12 most read posts on Vridar”
I have posted several times explaining what the purpose of this blog is and what my interests and motivations are. It is all there, including links to those posts, in my “About” page that I have updated today.
American readers expressed concerns when my home town was hit earlier this year by that “inland tsunami”. My thoughts go out in return over the horrific news of weather calamaties in the U.S. now.
Well I can now more or less say that on the basis of a poll that contained a sample of over a 100 responses (I cannot affirm that there were 100 respondents) that I set up about a week ago that slightly fewer than 40% of the readership of Vridar identify themselves as “mythicists” in the sense of believing that Jesus was not historical in the sense of being a real person who acted out his career in first century Palestine.
Half the readers are either believers in the historicity of Jesus or undecided. Continue reading “Vridar Readers and Vridar Futures”
Updated an hour after initial posting.
There is no historical inquiry comparable to: “Did Julius Caesar exist?” That ought to tell us something about the nature of mainstream historical investigations — and also something about the evidence for a historical figure of Jesus as an originator of the Christian religion.
I have posted far more in depth articles and discussions from mainstream scholarly publications on this blog than anything by or about “mythicists”, and I have never posted what aspires to be a comprehensive argument for mythicism. I used to say I rejected the label “mythicist” because such a label implied that I was somehow dedicated to presenting arguments for the idea that Jesus was not a historical person. (How, then, to explain that I have posted very little on mythicism per se or on publications by mythicist authors, opting overwhelmingly for non-mythicist publications? I have actually read very little on mythicism. One can get some idea of my reading range and interests on my librarything page.)
I certainly do think those arguments that claim Christianity originating with a historical person of Jesus and a few followers after his death are implausible, romantic and circular. And I do believe that many mainstream biblical scholars are in denial over the circularity of their methods, and have opted to bypass and denigrate rather than address serious challenges to their culturally sanctioned historicist paradigms.
So I finally realized it is less confusing if I do not attempt to disown the label “mythicist”. But my interest is not with arguing a case for a mythical Jesus per se. Continue reading “Vridar, not a mythicist blog, but a blog for Christian origins and the nature of the early evidence”
In my previous post I misdirected anyone interested in following up where I posted on Dale Allison’s discussion of circularity in historical Jesus studies. I have since corrected that link. Here it is again:
Clarity about circularity by Dale Allison
The point being that Hobsbawm’s insistence on the need for independent evidence is designed to avoid just this circularity that is at the core of historical Jesus studies. His attempt to equate Hobsbawm’s historical concerns with those of Allison curiously manages to avoid this central point and difference between the two approaches to history.
It does not do to try to change the rules and say we have to work without independent evidence in the case of the gospels because it doesn’t exist. If it doesn’t exist then we need to ask questions of the evidence that will allow us to work within the norms of a valid logic that avoids circularity.
2010 has been a strange year blogwise. Had never expected so many readers — and especially appreciate the comments, supportive, corrective and informative.
Thanks all — glad to have made your company.
Wishing you all a good new year.
And may all the historical Jesus scholars be nice.
I like the idea of blog comments being threaded to enable replies to specific comments to be kept together, but a few times (not often) the comments do get quite numerous and it can be easy to miss someone’s latest contribution if it is nested in the middle of a long series of posts. The alternative is get rid of nesting altogether and have all comments listed in chronological sequence. I am in two minds about it, so am soliciting other views.
If interested do register an opinion in the poll I have set at the top of the left margin or here:
[polldaddy poll=4288732]
We have resumed making comments on this post
/2010/10/03/how-shall-they-hear-about-jesus-unless-from-a-christian-preacher/
but there is a tech problem — WordPress is having a hard time coping with comments nested up to 10 deep and totalling over 100 altogether.
Attempts to post comments there will almost certainly apppear out of order and be lost from context.
Unless someone can suggest a better idea can we resume the discussion at this post site instead:
/2010/10/03/how-shall-they-hear-about-jesus-unless-from-a-christian-preacher-2/
Or just start adding new comments at the end of this one instead if that’s easier.
Thanks
Neil
Someone occasionally comments on a post of mine in a way that indicates they think I have some vendetta against Christians, Christianity, or biblical scholars. A scholar in a recent exchange has shown that he has assumed I am out to attack Christianity, that I have some anti-Christian agenda in my posts relating to historical methodology and HJ studies and mythicism.
For the sake of the record, I invite anyone who thinks I have such an agenda to see if they can find room to dispel such a notion by having a look at my post “Why I am doing this” linked in my profile, and to do a search in the Search Vridar box on the name Pataki and read the first two posts that appear in the results, and maybe even have a look at where I speak of the “refreshing honesty of Jim West”.
I have also several times spoken of exchanges I have had with devout Christian friends of mine. That we are friends should also suggest that those who know me know that the idea that I have some “anti-Christian agenda” is so far from my nature or interest that any suggestion to that effect is pure fantasy.
I am certainly not wanting to imply I am pro-Christian either. I see myself as a secular humanist, and acknowledge that religions are a part of the rich tapestry of human experience. Though where there are ideas of any kind, not just religious, that do cause real harm, I will be “against” those. But I hardly see “Christianity” per se in that way.
I am fascinated by the study of Christian origins and the nature of early Christian documents for historical reasons. This is a topic that is at the heart of western culture, and still has a profound relevance today on millions. Christianity has been a major part of my life that has given me much good as well as negatives. It is gratuitous to assume that such an interest by an atheist must somehow be necessarily motived by ill-will. That’s simply nonsense.
Added post post:
As for mythicism, my interest is in Christian origins, and that is a far broader topic than the mythicist question, as I explained in another comment.
Having been a Christian myself once or twice, it would be hypocritical of me to put down anyone for their religious beliefs. I have even posted a few nice-ish things recently and in the past about the relevance of religion for many people. But lest it be thought I’m going all marshmallowy on the topic, here are a couple of mundane tidbits that have recently come my way. It’s too easy to ridicule some things, so I really should just let them speak for themselves.
A few weeks ago I received this email from the developers of a new Christian website: Continue reading “Christian crock”
Associate Professor of Religion, James McGrath, helpfully offered me the following advice:
Perhaps your time would be better spent interacting with those historians and philosophers of history who don’t agree with your presuppositions, and seeking to understand why and address those issues, rather than insulting those who have understandably not written a full-fledged monograph in response to your blog-only self-published proclamations on history.
Well I have spent quite a bit of time reading historians who do not agree with me, and I have responded to quite a few of them. James McGrath himself is one of them. I have responded to aspects of his own little volume in which he sets out for the lay reader exactly how biblical historians work. I have demonstrated that his analogies with prosecuting attorneys or detectives are false, and actually make a mockery of how those professions really work.
McGrath also challenged me to read the discussions of historical method by historians such as E.P. Sanders. So I did. And I wrote some detailed responses demonstrating that the methodology was nothing other than another example of “biblical exceptionalism”. I was a little disappointed that James failed to respond to my efforts that I had undertaken at his request, but he did eventually say he simply disagreed with me when I finally pushed him for a comment. Continue reading “Having interacted with historians who do not agree with me, as advised . . .”
I suspect [ETA: strongly suspect] Jesus originated as a theological and allegorical creation, that he was “a myth” if you like. I do not know it. I cannot prove it. But I can see some very good arguments in favour of this proposition. I can also see some very good reasons to question the standard methodology of mainstream scholars based on the assumption that Jesus was a historical figure. And the same questions I raise about this methodology also open up questions about the standard mainstream arguments for the historicity of Jesus.
But I have never thought of myself as “a mythicist” because that sounds to me like I am entrenching myself in a position that I will defend at all costs.
I have posted this sort of remark before, but given that James McGrath and others continually label me “a mythicist”, I will repeat it once more. I do not see the point of “defending” a “mythical Jesus” position.
That is not what historical inquiry is about.
Would any scholar bother to spend a career arguing for or against a historical or mythical Socrates? Some mainstream scholars really do question the historical existence of Socrates, but no-one calls them “Socrates mythicists”. It is a ludicrous proposition when we see it in the context of nonbiblical studies. The existence of Socrates has been occasionally raised as a minor side-point that is really quite irrelevant to the real historical questions about the origins and nature of early Greek philosophy.
My interest is, to repeat, in exploring the origins and nature of early Christianity.
I think that this historical inquiry has been held captive by mainstream NT historical methods that begin with the presumption that the narrative of Gospels-Acts is in some sense related to real events. What I have questioned is the rationale for this assumption. Continue reading “Why I am Not a “Mythicist”, and why I challenge mainstream methodology”
Since the original of this post I have added the last phrase to the title.
In response to my request for him to support his allegations of lying etc, Joel said quite bluntly that he doesn’t not have to bother being nice. — presumably “being nice” means little things like telling the truth about me. I have reproduced his comment in the comments section.
Joel Watts has published the following on his Church of Jesus Christ blog:
Dr. James McGrath, again, on the Resemblance Between Mythicism And Creationism
In responding to a rather juvenile post by Neil G., Dr. McGrath again steps into the water and wades out a little bit deeper. This is Neils bailiwick, in which he insults someone who he disagrees with, and then proceeds to spit out nothing by lies, misinformation, and logical fallacies about them and their positions along with the notion that Christ is nothing more than a myth. I would encourage you to read the posts in the series (click the tags at the bottom of this post, or the labels at Dr. McGrath’s site) for a better understanding of the issues and how it is academically handled.
I will return to the insult charge at the end of this post, though anyone who knows the history of James McGrath’s exchanges with me can well make up their own minds on that one.
Joel’s last sentence inviting readers to read my post implies it is linked at the bottom of his, but I did not see any links to it – only links to spread his own post on Facebook and Digg. But maybe I missed them.
Watts has blatantly accused me of “spitting out nothing but”
He is referring to this post of mine.
Joel does not cite a single instance of a lie, a piece of misinformation or a single logical fallacy, and does not reference any part of my post arguing that Jesus is a myth. Given that he charges my post is “nothing but” a collation of these it should have been easy for him to have cited just one example of one of those.
What my post does is challenge the methodology of mainstream historical Jesus scholarship.
That I can get this sort of response to making that critique is most instructive. Continue reading “Joel Watts stoops to lies and slander”