rjosephhoffmann
April 23, 2012 at 9:08 pm
I’ll have a look–though to be blunt. the existence of Jesus is not a philosophical question, and philosophers like to try.
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Jim
April 24, 2012 at 1:26 am
‘the existence of Jesus is not a philosophical question’
Agreed. But philosophers might be (thought) able to say something useful about what history, as a discipline is able to reveal.in this connection. In any case, I think Law covers some of the general arguments that might be seen to justify scepticism ‘(not mythicism). Its worth a skim – I suspect you will find these arguments thrown in your direction along with the mud cast by
the ‘Free Thought’ Bloggers who make me embarassed to call myself an ‘atheist’.
steph
April 24, 2012 at 1:56 pm
I had a look. Stephen Law merely demonstrates his oblivion to first century culture, language and context and doesn’t actually engage with any critical scholarship. He is merely applying an abstract philosophical approach, or law, which does not correspond with ancient historical texts. Making up silly analogies in a twenty first century context and assuming their similarity to all the complexities of first century culture (of which Law is unlearned), made very little sense. It’s call anachronism generally. He’s a philosopher, not a historian. There is an assumption among the mythtics, who do not comprehend historical approaches, that there is some homogenous historical method and set of facts which all scholars apply and yet reach different results. This is a mythtic allusion and they assume it because they are untrained in methodology and cannot distinguish between different approaches or differentiate between an apologetic scholar and a critical one. Instead they select whomsoever supports their assumptions but then appeal to those persons out of context. The mythtics ultimately have no method, but they assume alot of assumptions to be unarguable.
rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 2:24 pm
The mythtic problem is essentially what you say–a template of facts they think holds true throughout time. It begins with their definition of myth, or rather their unawareness of discussions about myth since the time of Strauss, especially of the way myths have enlarged our understanding of the traditions and customs of ancient civilization in anthropology and the social sciences. I have no trouble using the expression the Jesus myth for example when referring to a literary device found in the gospels and letters. But the Jesus myth overlays historical tradition–it neither overrides it nor cancels it out.
stephanie louise fisher
April 24, 2012 at 8:58 pm
And the mythtics have no comprehension of, or method of differentiating tradition which is composite. Abstract philosophical approaches and simplistic mathematical formulae applied to composite historical texts fail to recognise the difference between primary, and secondary tradition, which is legendary and myth mixed accretion. Consequently they are not equipped to say anything useful about history because they can’t see it through the myth…
Michael Macrossan
May 22, 2012 at 1:35 am
Law is discussing the methods used in historical Jesus studies. Seems perfectly reasonably for a philosopher to do that.
rjosephhoffmann
May 22, 2012 at 6:45 am
@Michael Macrossan: Sure, why not? It is perfectly reasonable for anyone to discuss anything. My question was, What by dint of his being a philosopher would you expect him to contribute to historical Jesus studies? I know Stephen Law and he is a very nice chap. So the question is not about that: it is about technical expertise
J. Quinton
April 23, 2012 at 9:38 pm
I read Carrier’s critique of Ehrman, and I didn’t see anything in Carrier’s blog post that said “Jesus doesn’t exist”.
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Mike Gantt
April 24, 2012 at 2:32 pm
J. Quinton,
Actually, I’m not surprised to hear this. in my experience of listening to mythicists, including Richard Carrier, in order to discover the core of their argument I find out that theirs is not an alternative view of history at all. Rather, it is an extreme form of skepticism about any facts associated with Jesus.
That is, they don’t seek to prove that Jesus was a myth who came to be regarded as historical; they simply assert that no history of Jesus is trustworthy.
In other words, because they can accept no facts about Jesus, he is ipso facto a myth. That’s very different from demonstrating historically that Jesus was considered a mythical figure before he erroneously came to be regarded as historical.
Therefore, to understand them properly you have to recognize that they are not historians with a different view. They are ahistorical or anti-history in outlook.
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Spanish Inquisitor
April 24, 2012 at 4:06 pm
I didn’t either, though I did have problems with some of his contentions. I thought his point was simply “there are massive errors, and can we trust the conclusion of a scholar who makes massive errors”.
I have no idea whether there are actually massive errors, though I have Ehrman’s book (unread as of today), and am interested in seeing the evidence. I thought, for instance, his contention concerning the statue with the cock-nose seemed more like a misreading of Ehrman, than a refutation of error. It depended on how one read Ehmans’s statement.
I also got the impression that Carrier doesn’t believe Jesus exists, that he was more myth than man, at best, but for reasons unrelated to what Ehrman wrote. He did, however, seem to get a bit unprofessional in his attack, in my not-so-informed opinion. He wasn’t dispassionate in his criticism. Nothing wrong with that, but it takes away from his air of impartiality.
In any event, I look forward to a thorough airing of the whole thing, because I think it is important to the theism/atheism debate. I suspect Ehrman himself will get involved somewhere.
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Mike Gantt
April 25, 2012 at 4:12 am
J. Quinton,
Actually, I’m not surprised to hear this. in my experience of listening to mythicists, including Richard Carrier, in order to discover the core of their argument I find out that theirs is not an alternative view of history at all. Rather, it is an extreme form of skepticism about any facts associated with Jesus.
That is, they don’t seek to prove that Jesus was a myth who came to be regarded as historical; they simply assert that no history of Jesus is trustworthy.
In other words, because they can accept no facts about Jesus, he is ipso facto a myth. That’s very different from demonstrating historically that Jesus was considered a mythical figure before he erroneously came to be regarded as historical.
Therefore, to understand them properly you have to recognize that they are not historians with a different view. They are ahistorical or anti-history in outlook.
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pulseteresa
April 27, 2012 at 5:19 am
I disagree. They do indeed seek to prove that Jesus was a myth who became historical.
There is very little written about Jesus and so much of what is there is riddled with miracle stories and the like which we know didn’t occur. The miracles break basic laws of physics and biology. Aside from the miracles, there are also demons, this God character, and events that archaeologists and historians have proved to be untrue (the slaughter of the innocents, the census). With so many inaccuracies and confabulations, how does one (one being a Biblical historian, Historian of Ancient History with a focus on the Christian era, i.e., both Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier, or any other qualified individual, including ) decide which parts of the Bible are historical and which are not?
If Jesus did exist, what can actually be said of him? He was a guy who said some things that earned him some followers and got himself executed? And how is this teased out from all the palpable nonsense that comprises the majority of the NT?
Spanish Inquisitor
April 27, 2012 at 3:33 pm
(responding to pulseteresa)
Isn’t it closer to the truth to say, or concede, that Jesus was both a historical character and a mythical character, as he is set forth in the Gospels? There are parts of the narrative that could certainly be grounded in history, and many more parts that clearly are interpolations added by myth-makers.Was he born of a virgin? Doubtful, though his birth may have occurred. Did he perform miracles. Not likely. Was he executed by the Romans? It’s possible. Did he rise from the dead three days later. Highly unlikely.
Even conceding the possible historicity of his existence, and perhaps some of the non-miraculous events surrounding him, the basis for Christianity is not grounded in his historicity, but his divinity. Christians don’t worship a mere mortal born in 3 BCE. They worship a god, and the portions of the Gospel that relate to his God-ness are almost certainly myth.
And you really don’t need a whole lot of “scholarship ” to arrive at that conclusion. In fact, you don’t need any, IMHO.
Andrew
April 23, 2012 at 9:42 pm
“we know less than we would like to know to form a coherent picture of Jesus…”
That was quite an overstatement.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 2:13 am
What historical figure from antiquity do you feel you have a coherent picture of?
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Blood
April 24, 2012 at 9:36 am
Ones that aren’t rooted in narrative theology written by mystics.
Lowen Gartner
April 23, 2012 at 9:45 pm
Forget Carrier – I am a fan of Erhman and I was hoping for a book that would clearly refute the like of Price and Doherty. He didn’t do that at all. Instead he resorted to ad hominem. I have no more information regarding the arguments for an historical Jesus than I did before the book was published.
I am eagerly looking forward to legitimate NT period historians actually taking the arguments of Price, Doherty, et. al. and dispensing with them.
Will they agree? Perhaps not. But we the people are the judge and jury not them.
Will you and your colleagues at Harvard, Claremont and Tuebingen condescend to convince me and provide me with real arguments I can use to discuss with my friends?
As it is, Erhman’s efforts, independent of the intemperance of Carrier, have done more to cause me to question whether there was an historical Jesus than to convince me.
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alnitak
April 25, 2012 at 1:18 pm
I agree. Perhaps when the promised essays are posted here they will not focus on Carrier but provide pointers to the firm scholarship that lies behind Ehrman’s populist writing. Most of the scholarship I’ve read interprets the gospels as largely fiction and the non-gospel sources seem quite weak: propositions that Ehrman largely agrees with, although he retains conviction that there was a man behind the legend.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Alnitak: This has never been about Ehrman per se and the essays coming up are about the mythtics, including Carrier. I’ve always felt Bart could fend for himself, but Carrier’s attack is another example of trying to assert poistions by telling the establishment to go to hell: To cite Bart:
“… Carrier, as many of you know, has written a scathing review of Did Jesus Exist on his Freethought Blog. He indicates that my book is “full of errors,” that it “misinforms more than it informs” that it provides “false information” that it is “worse than bad” and that “it officially sucks.” The attacks are sustained throughout his lengthy post, and they often become personal. He indicates that “Ehrman doesn’t actually know what he is talking about,” he claims that I speak with “absurd” hyperbole, that my argument “makes [me] look irresponsible,” that I am guilty of “sloppy work,” that I “misrepresent” my opponents and “misinform the public,” that what I write is “crap,” that I am guilty of “arrogantly dogmatic and irresponsible thinking,” that I am “incompetent,” make “hack” mistakes, and do not “act like a real scholar.” It would be completely irresponsible if all scholars in this field didn’t take offense at this kind of clutter.
Lowen Gartner
April 25, 2012 at 1:45 pm
What I am looking for is something written for the layman, where the author(s) don’t have an ax to grind, something that lays out the arguments for and against both historical and mythical interpretations.
Erhman wants to dismiss Doherty, Price, et. al., but doesn’t do so by dismissing their arguments.
In the world of lay readers interested in this topic, their ideas have credibility and if they are really not credible, it would be nice if someone could demonstrate this.
Maybe taking this approach will neither advance one’s academic career nor will it sell books, so nobody is interested in writing it.
If this is out there, I haven’t found it.
Maybe these essays are a start?
Lowen Gartner
April 25, 2012 at 1:58 pm
If this field is really nearly closed as far as new information, and that the new information trickling in is really in favor of an historical figure, then it should be possible to write a (nearly) definitive work on this, one that would indeed be timeless.
rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 5:32 pm
I doubt we will get new information that would satisfy the most scathing skepticism. What we do have is a puzzle, and there are right and wrong ways of piecing it together.
gbjames
April 25, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Given the jig saw puzzle analogy, what we really have is a handful of pieces which probably came from several thousand-piece puzzle boxes. Nearly all of the pieces are long gone, if they ever existed. Working under the assumption that it is possible to fit them into a meaningful picture seems to me an effort without much purpose.
rjosephhoffmann
April 26, 2012 at 6:46 am
Are you sure you have the right number of boxes?
Mens sana
April 30, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Lowen Gartner: As it is, Erhman’s efforts … have done more to cause me to question whether there was an historical Jesus than to convince me.
You must have missed Ehrman’s Ch. 4, “Evidence for Jesus from Outside the Gospels.”
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berndsmathblog
April 23, 2012 at 10:08 pm
I am an atheist and even a new atheist in the sense that I critique religion whenever it wants to teach scientific falsehoods or if it harmes the lives of people.
I must say that I am absolut with Prof. Ehrman and with the author of this blog. History and historical evidence are important and I must say that I am shocked that Coyne and PZ are not that critical when it comes to history. I think they don’t care much about these things, but the way they behave is quite shocking.
I have seen a series of lectures on the historical Jesus by Prof. Ehrman on the internet and I think that Jesus of Nazareth existed.
Hopefully the author of this blog doesn’t find that all new atheists are bad or fundamentalists…
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bjartesf
April 24, 2012 at 3:02 am
+1.
I don’t think it’s fair to call the Jesus Myth theory a postulate of New Atheism .That said, I also find it embarrassing to see other atheists – who are used to dealing with the tactics of creationists – dismiss an entire academic field as a mere front for the ideological agenda of the other side and even play the “academic freedom” card. Where have we heard all of that before…?
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Grog
April 23, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Just a few points: having read Carrier’s review, I see nothing in it that is not exlcitly directed at Ehrman’s argument. You insinuate here that Carrier engages in ad hominem, but I just do not read it that way. In fact, he praises much of Ehrman’s previous work and his overall scholarly ability. He calls this book,DJE, “an aberration.” Carrier, I note, can be equally harsh on what he calls “bad mythicist” arguments.
Second, As one of the unwashed masses, I have to express my rsentment at your insinuation that Ehrman follows proper form by treating Carrier and Price with a modicum of repect, but has no such responsibility toward those not safely esconced in the ivory tower. Many of your fans probably do not understand how academia works–the competition for tnured positions, the a**-kissing that doc students have to go through in their departments, ther committees–it is no wonder that deviant positions rarely get through those departments. So this position, in my opinion, is deeply flawed.
Third, I had to snort in derision at your appeal to the argument to the historicity of Pilate. To paraphrase, just so we can all get another good laugh: If it were not for the Pilate stone, we would have no evidence for Pilate. Oh, except for a passing mention in Philo, a throughly contmporary source. Oh, and Josephus who writes extensively about Pilate. But for these, the evidnce for Pilate is much the same as the evidence for Jesus. Oh, except that in the case of Jesus, we do not have a mention in Philo. We do not have inscriptions, and we only have a disputed passage in Josephus.
Thanks for your time.
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Jeremiah
April 24, 2012 at 2:04 am
The real irony of your comment is that you are ignorant of something to which Hoffman alludes in this very post. That is, if academia were as closed and unimaginative a system as you and Carrier seem to think, then Hoffman’s dissertation would never have been approved let alone published by AAR. Scholars are full of bold proposals (if you doubt it I invite you to attend the annual meeting of the SBL/AAR in Chicago this year), but they know that their argumentation will be vetted. If I go to SBL and say something stupid, I’ll get pilloried. It’s a winnowing process that is extremely useful, and it is a mistake to think that such criticism is a mere reflection of closed-mindedness.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 9:02 am
As usual a Jeremiah always speaks truth!
Grog
April 30, 2012 at 7:57 pm
Jeremiah–Really? Could you link to it, because if it was that groundbreaking, I am sure it is worth reading.
Jeremiah
May 1, 2012 at 3:52 am
I wouldn’t call it groundbreaking, provocative certainly. The book is called Marcion: On the Reconstitution of Christianity. It was published by the AAR, and copies are hard to come by. You basically need access to a theological library. If you decide to read it, I recommend doing so in conjunction with at least one other biography so you can get a feel for the debates. Sebastion Moll published one called the Arch-Heretic Marcion quite recently that is somewhat less revisionist than Hoffman’s work.
Grog
May 1, 2012 at 8:42 am
Jeremiah, I have read a lot about Marcion. I have read the very book Hoffman recommends, Marcion and Luke-Acts by Joseph B. Tyson. The door to this path was opened by Knox, there’s no reason to think that Marcion upsets the academy. Read Hector Avalos on the SBL.
rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 8:40 am
“Third, I had to snort in derision at your appeal to the argument to the historicity of Pilate. To paraphrase, just so we can all get another good laugh: If it were not for the Pilate stone, we would have no evidence for Pilate. Oh, except for a passing mention in Philo, a throughly contmporary source. Oh, and Josephus who writes extensively about Pilate. But for these, the evidnce for Pilate is much the same as the evidence for Jesus. Oh, except that in the case of Jesus, we do not have a mention in Philo. We do not have inscriptions, and we only have a disputed passage in Josephus.”
While you are snorting, please add to your list as evidence for Jesus a few texts called gospels more nearly contemporaneous than the disputed reference, which I reject, in Josephus. What form of apriorism permits you to disregard these artefacts? The references to Pilate in both Josephus and Philo have been disputed for two centuries by the way.
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Grog
April 30, 2012 at 12:59 am
They are artefacts, yes, but they don’t relate events that actually happened. We both know this ground, you don’t have to play dumb to your choir here.
Jeremiah
April 23, 2012 at 11:22 pm
I find it difficult to understand why these atheist apologists prefer the outlandish theories of mythicism over Ehrman’s reconstruction of the historical Jesus. I would think that viewing Jesus as a misunderstood 1st-century Jewish revolutionary who didn’t expect to die would be right up the New Atheist’s alley. Frankly, if Carrier wants anyone to take him seriously, he needs to come to SBL/AAR and present his views there. After all, he touts his PhD from Columbia as giving him academic credentials, so why not participate in the guild?
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Blood
April 24, 2012 at 10:02 am
Because some of the theories are not outlandish at all.
“A misunderstood 1st-century Jewish revolutionary who didn’t expect to die” is not what the evangelists wrote about at all. Their character very much expects to die, and in fact lets the reader in on that secret in the story. The evangelists also make it clear from early in the story that the Pharisees want to kill Jesus. They did not a real Jesus or the witness of real Pharisees to construct this story.
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Blood
April 24, 2012 at 10:03 am
Sorry – They did not NEED a real Jesus or the witness of real Pharisees to construct this story.
rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 10:40 am
You don’t need a real anybody to construct a story. What is the point of this comment?
Grog
May 1, 2012 at 8:35 am
I think this is a possibility. In fact, I used to believe this. There are problems with the theory, though. It doesn’t explain some very basic facts. Your hero, R. Joseph Hoffman, here has written on this very point. I agree with Hoffman. The reason I lean toward (notice the wording “lean toward”) “mythicism”–which to me means that Jesus-belief evolved out of Jewish suffering servant/messiah motifs, is because I believe it explains more pieces of the first century puzzle than any of the HJ theories. I don’t choose my theory to suit some over-arching goal such as serving some atheist or political goal. That is outright fallacy promoted by Ehrman.
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Jeremiah
May 1, 2012 at 2:36 pm
LOL @ Hoffman being my “hero.” We’ve never met, and before this semester when I started doing research on Marcion for some seminars I’d never heard of him. If it sounds like we are aligned, it is probably because I’m a grad student who knows the field and not some internet dilettante with half-baked theories about Christian Origins.
Eliott
April 24, 2012 at 12:24 am
In reading the very long Carrier review, he identifies several points he believes to be historically inaccurate in Mr. Ehrman’s book. My question to you are Carrier’s points on target regarding these innaccuracies irrespective of his conclusion regarding Jesus as fact or fallacy?
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bjartesf
April 24, 2012 at 1:56 am
For what it’s worth, I consider myself one of the “new atheists” (those who want to treat religious claims the same way we all treat secular claims), and I think the Jesus myth theory is crap.To me “atheism” (the absence of one particular subset of ujustified beliefs) is just the inevitable consequence of caring for the truth and respecting logic and evidence. The same commitment to truth, logic and evidence that leads me reject theism also forces me to reject the Jesus myth theory. The mythcists seem to be motivated by a different agenda. They don’t speak for me, and I don’t want to be associated with them in any way..
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John Andrew MacDonald
April 24, 2012 at 2:09 am
Hi Dr. Hoffmann. To be fair to the Christ-myth supporters, you can show certain very central bible stories may not contain any historical content, so they’re not just being completely silly.
For example, The Passion of the Christ in Mark:
Likely the clearest Prophecy about Jesus is the entire 53rd chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah 53:3-7 is especially unmistakable: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
The only thing is, Isaiah wasn’t making a prophesy aboout Jesus. Mark was doing a haggadic midrash on Isaiah. So, Mark depicts Jesus as one who is despised and rejected, a man of sorrow acquainted with grief. He then describes Jesus as wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The Servant in Isaiah, like Jesus in Mark, is silent before his accusers. In Isaiah it says of the servant with his stripes we are healed, which Mark turned into the story of the scourging of Jesus. This is, in part, is where atonement theology comes from, but it would be silly to say II Isaiah was talking about atonement. The servant is numbered among the transgressors in Isaiah, so Jesus is crucified between two thieves. The Isaiah servant would make his grave with the rich, So Jesus is buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a person of means.
Then, as Dr. Robert Price says
The substructure for the crucifixion in chapter 15 is, as all recognize, Psalm 22, from which derive all the major details, including the implicit piercing of hands and feet (Mark 24//Psalm 22:16b), the dividing of his garments and casting lots for them (Mark 15:24//Psalm 22:18), the “wagging heads” of the mockers (Mark 15:20//Psalm 22:7), and of course the cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34//Psalm 22:1). Matthew adds another quote, “He trusts
in God. Let God deliver him now if he desires him” (Matthew 7:43//Psalm 22:8), as well as a strong allusion (“for he said, ‘I am the son of God’” 27:43b) to Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20, which underlies the whole story anyway (Miller, p. 362), “Let us lie in wait for the righteous man because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and
let us test what will happen at the end of his life: for if the righteous man is God’s son he will help him and will deliver him from the hand of his
adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture that we may find out how gentle he is and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”
As for other details, Crossan (p. 198) points out that the darkness at noon comes from Amos 8:9, while the vinegar and gall come from Psalm 69:21. It is remarkable that Mark does anything but call attention to the scriptural basis for the crucifixion account. There is nothing said of scripture being fulfilled here. It is all simply presented as the events of Jesus’ execution. It is we who must ferret out the real sources of the story. This is quite different, e.g., in John, where explicit scripture citations are given, e.g., for Jesus’ legs not being broken to hasten his death (John 19:36), either Exodus 12:10, Numbers 9:12, or Psalm 34:19-20 (Crossan, p. 168). Whence did Mark derive the tearing asunder of the Temple veil, from top to bottom (Mark 15:38)? Perhaps from the death of Hector in the Iliad (MacDonald, pp. 144-145). Hector dies forsaken by Zeus. The women of Troy watched from afar off (as the Galilean women do in Mark 15:40), and the whole of Troy mourned as if their city had already been destroyed “from top to bottom,” just as the ripping of the veil seems to be
a portent of Jerusalem’s eventual doom.
And so we can at least propose there may not be any historical content with a fairly comprehensive haggadic midrash reading of The Passion of the Christ in Mark.
I don’t think the Christ Myth theory is right, but they do at least have some reasons for thinking what they think.
Take care,
John Andrew MacDonald
Ontario
Canada
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Jeremiah
April 24, 2012 at 2:28 am
Just so we are clear, you think the claim that Mark knew and borrowed from the Iliad on the basis of a slight semantic correlation is a good argument?
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rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 8:43 am
re: the Iliad and Mark: Have I ever argued this? Dennis MacDonald makes some interesting points, but I do not regard the evidence as persuasive.
John Andrew MacDonald
April 24, 2012 at 11:32 am
Hi Jeremiah
The Reason Dr. Price’s argument has some minor degree of plausibility, is that midrash in the New Testament may be the result of Oral traditions about Jesus being shaped in the synagogue.
References to the synagogue appears appears 11 times in Mark, 9 times in Mattthew, 16 times in Luke, and five times in John (The Christian movement was expelled from the synagogue around 88CE, which is probably why the references drop off in John). And there is (possibly) a heavy lining of Midrash in the gospels. Mark says “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ ; as it is written in the prophets.” Mark immediately interprets John the Baptist as a forerunner of the Messiah (a la Elijah in II Kings 1:8). Mark then clothes John similar to Elijah (Mark 1:6. II Kings 1:8.) He then says John ate locusts and wild honey,the food of the wildernes in which Elijah lived (and so on and so on). So it is not impossible that Robert M. Price could be reliable on content.
Only in the synagogue did people ever hear scriptures read, taught, discussed, or expounded. The vast majority of first century people could not read. So people didn`t own bibles. The Jews had access to their sacred stories in the synagogue. The memory of the historical Jesus could have been recalled, restated, and passed on only in the synagogue. And the gospel stories may also be shaped in terms of Jewish liturgy. The crucifixion may be shaped against the passover. The transfiguration echoes Hanukkah. Many things are reminiscent of Rosh Hashanah.
So as it says in Acts, they would read from the Torah, then from the former prophets (Joshua through Kings), and finally from the latter prohets (Isaiah through Malachi). At that point the synagogue leader would ask if anyone would like to bring any message or experience that might illumine the readings. So followers of Jesus may have then recalled their memories of him which that Sabbath elicited. This could be where all the midrash is coming from. This is what Paul does in Acts (13:16b-41). They went through this process for about forty years before the gospels were written.
If this is what happened, it doesn’t exclude Dennis MacDonald’s argument.
Whether you agree with the whole midrarsh of the Passion as I proposed it, I think the point still stands that it is at least a plausible comprehensive haggadice midrash interpretation of Mark’s use of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22.
Take care,
John Andrew MacDonald
Ontario
Canada
rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 12:15 pm
“The memory of the historical Jesus could have been recalled, restated, and passed on only in the synagogue.”
I would omit the word only as no culture operates this way, and women would not have been incuded though we have reasons to name them as transmitters of tradition as well. There is also a fairly strong tradition–see Wayne Meeks on the evidence–that expulsions from these “synagogues” were erratic ((Mk 13.9, vat. ex evnt.)but based on the closeted tradition about Jesus. If the Paul tradition reflected in 2 Corinthians 6.3 (cf Acts 18.17f) is accurate, it would be an example of Paul being singled out for punishment for the same offense.
John Andrew MacDonald
April 24, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Hi Jeremiah.
One last thought.
An argument can reasonably be made on textual grounds that a midrash on Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 is the basis for the passion narrative. All Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians about the crucifixion is just one line: “Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.”
Paul may have recorded no narrative details of that event because there were no narrative details at the time he was writing. That is quite possible, because Mark tells us that when Jesus was arrested ALL the disciples “took flight and fled (14:50).” There is no reason for Mark to recount the embarrassing abandonment if it were not true. This would mean Jesus in all probability died alone, without any eyewitnesses. This would, of course, have made the details of the crucifixion impossible to record, since no one witnessed the event.
The story also seems fictional because of us being told what Jesus said from the cross, but also what Jesus and the high priest said to each other, and what Jesus and the crowd said to each other (who would have been around to record these conversations?).
John Andrew MacDonald
Ontario
Canada
Andrew
April 24, 2012 at 9:06 pm
“The [crucifixion] story also seems fictional because of us being told what Jesus said from the cross, but also what Jesus and the high priest said to each other, and what Jesus and the crowd said to each other (who would have been around to record these conversations?).”
It is indeed remarkable that the central event of the religion utterly lacks any historical memory attached to it, and is instead recreated (or created?) using silent allusions to lines in the Psalms, Isaiah, and the Wisdom of Solomon. This makes great theological literature, for sure, but history? I tend to doubt it.
rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 1:34 am
I’m not sure you can call the gospels great theological literature:wrong species.
John Andrew MacDonald
April 24, 2012 at 2:51 am
Hi Dr. Hoffmann.
Thank you for posting my message. I noticed I spelled “about” incorrectly. I wrote “aboout”
Could you please fix it for me?
Thanks
John Andrew MacDonald
Ontario
Canada
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ken humphreys
April 24, 2012 at 4:53 am
My what a cornucopia of (promised) riches! Can’t wait! And no doubt Hoffmann and co., like Ehrman, would rather be doing “more serious work” than responding to the rabble that seem to be rudely kicking their way through the polished mahogany door of their gentlefolk’s club.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 8:41 am
Kicking is a good image: aimless battering without direction or purpose.
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Wim
April 24, 2012 at 5:02 am
Hi there,
First-time visitor (was directed here by Dr. Ehrman who put up a link to this article on Facebook).
As a “new atheist”, I’m really looking forward to your and your colleagues’ responses to Carrier’s review of Dr. Ehrman’s latest book.
I might actually learn some essential things about historical methodology that can help me separate the good from the bad arguments, and the bad from the really bad.
Thanks for putting in the effort. :)
Wim
Sweden
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apologianick
April 24, 2012 at 8:35 am
Keep in mind this is the Myers who has the “Courtier’s Reply” which is essentially saying “I’m too lazy to study the subject matter because it’s blatantly false on the face and I don’t need to study to have an opinion.”
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Spanish Inquisitor
April 24, 2012 at 5:06 pm
Ummm, no, but that interpretation is not unusual. Actually, I think the Courtiers Reply essentially said “Why bother studying a subject matter which is incapable of being properly studied?”
Laziness has nothing to do with it. Futility is the driving force.
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Lowen Gartner
April 24, 2012 at 5:36 pm
Futility?
It seems to me if we look at the last 200 years, there has
1) been little or nothing added to support the idea of a divine, miracle working Jesus
2) there has been substantial scholarship to show that the miracles and other evidence of divinity are borrowed from the OT and pagan sources
3) there has been, at best, minor additions to the evidence in support of an historical Jesus
4) there have been a significant increases in the methodology and data supporting the idea of a mythical Jesus
It seems that at this point, all but the true believers in the scholarly community find no merit in the case for divinity.
As for a historical Jesus, the mainstream scholarship community may still lean toward this interpretation, and that may never change. But it seems to me, short of finding a legitimate artifact, that the opinion will continue to creep toward the side of a mythical Jesus.
The whole effort doesn’t seem futile to me, even if there is no apparent hope of a conclusive answer. The efforts of scholars and armatures are advancing knowledge as a result of this process.
rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 2:20 am
“4) there have been a significant increases in the methodology and data supporting the idea of a mythical Jesus” False.
Actually, the evidence has trended much the other way. The myth theory was much stronger at the turn of the twentieth century. Scholarship has made the position increasingly untenable, especially in the last fifty years.
Soloview
April 24, 2012 at 8:37 am
The only thing that looks credible in this self-admitted ‘rant’ is that the exchanges btw Ehrman and Carrier aren’t a discussion, much less an academic one. The fact of the matter is that Ehrman published a book much under his standard, to characterize and badmouth a theory about the origins of Christianity which has outraged the theologo-nicologists since mid 19th century. He brought nothing new to the table, except near-idiotic drool about Paul being personally acquianted with Jesus brother. He does not even realize that the gospels claiming Jesus had a brother has no bearing on the claim that James was the leader of the Jerusalem messianists. Outside of the pathetic insert in Antiquities 20.9 the claims of Jesus’ family connections do not come to play until the 3rd century. Luke knows nothing about James (casually introduced by Peter’s mention in Acts 12) being Jesus’ sibling. Eusebius (H.E. 1.12) calls James one of Jesus’ ‘alleged brothers’. How could that be ? One surely will not get an answer from Ehrman, who forgot to inform himself about the Dutch Radicals. Van Eysinga ponted out in 1880's (!) out that neither Irenaeus or Tertullian (in some of his writings) knew about Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem, where Paul supposedly met James, the brother of the Lord. On the second visit, the church believes to this day, Paul met him again and called him a ‘so-called pillar’ who ‘added nothing’ to him as apostle. And you wonder why there are mythical hordes baying outside the gates.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 10:43 am
Luke knows nothing about James ” What? Your “facts” are wrong from first to last, and van Eysinga has been dead a long time, though his theories diedbefore him.
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Soloview
April 24, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Please read the whole sentence; I said Luke knows nothing about James (the one leading the church) being Jesus’ brother. Second, I am not talking about van Eisynga’s theories but textual issues he brought up. Whether the named fathers refer to a version of Galatians which did not record the first visit, can be factually verified. You look at Schweitzer’s dealing with the “mythicists” and Ehrman’s and you will see the difference. One knows the works and issues and can respond to them in a credible manner, the other fails on both counts.
rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 12:32 pm
I did read your whole sentence. It evokes two more questions: Why does Luke single James out at all if status is not being accorded to him in a leadership role, and second, what presses you to think that the writer of Acts who is also one of the makers of the birth story would want to claim biological kinship between James and Jesus? Acts is a second century composition with apologetic intent, so the fact that James’s historical role is preserved at all is significant, far more significant than any suggestion of biological relationship which is already clear from Paul and earlier gospels. If you are happy with Carrier’s tortured attempts to explain these allusions, fine. But I’m not. Parsimony dictates that the most efficient way to explain a verse not otherwise compromised by contradictory information is to let it stand: Mark 6.3. (and Mt 13.53) look pretty clear. But Luke plays his hand regarding the “brother tradition” by omitting any reference to brothers while in 3.30 employing names close to those in Mark 6. Your ball.
rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 12:35 pm
PS I am in short frontally challenging your idea that “Luke knows nothing of James being a sibling of Jesus.” Absence of evidence re Mk 6.3 is not evidence of absence.
Jake Jones IV
April 24, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Hi Soloview,
You have made a very important point here that seems to have been overlooked.
Bart Ehrman, in his book DJE, puts a great deal of emphasis on James the brother of the Lord, as do all historists. Indeed, this is probably the lynchpin of Ehrman’s book. So I am going into a bit of detail to illustrate that B.Ehrman has barely understood the depth of the ahistorist position.
Bart knows that if this is deemed a spiritual relationship (like the OT Ahijah, i,e “brother of Yahweh”) instead of a physical relationship (which is explicitly denied in 1 Apoc of James 24:10-16), then one of the “pillars” (pun intended) of the Historical Jesus argument collapses and the whole edifice begins to crumble.
But there is another reason that Bart Ehrman, of all scholars due to his study of orhtodox corruptions of scripture, should beware of appealing to Galatians 1:19!
We read in our canonical version of Galatians that Paul made a trip to Jerusalem to meet with the leaders there three years after his conversion.
Here is the text.
Galatians 1
18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and stayed with him fifteen days.
19 But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother.
Tertullian, in Against Marcion 5.3.1, does not mention the alleged first visit of Paul to Jerusalem. (Neither does Irenaeus in AH 3.12.14.) cf AM 1.20.2, cf De praescr. haer. 23,6f:
Here is Tertullian’s text.
But with regard to the countenance of Peter and the rest of the apostles, he tells us that “fourteen years after he went up to Jerusalem,” in order to confer with them about the rule which he followed in his gospel, lest perchance he should all those years have been running, and be running still, in vain, (which would be the case, ) of course, if his preaching of the gospel fell short of their method. Tertullian AM 5.3.1 http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/anf03-35.htm#P7223_2090790
Please notice that the first trip is unmentioned, even though that would have regarded the countenance of Peter. Please notice that when Tertullian quoted from Galatians 2:1 the word “yet” is missing.
This implies his text of Galatians did not mention it either, even into the early third century CE. If it had, Tertullian would surely have used it against Marcion. It would have clearly implied that Paul was subordinate to the Jerusalem authorities, something that Tertullian was very anxious to do. He didn’t, and this implies that he didn’t have gal 1;18-19 to use. Thus, it is in all likelihood a later insertion designed to abet the notion that Paul did go to Jerusalem as soon as possible to submit himself to Cephas and James. “Again” was added to Galatians 2:1 at the same time by way of harmonization. Tertullian apparently mentions the visit of 2:1-10 as the visit, not the second visit. See Robert Price, The Pre-Nicene New Testament, page 317, note K.
But the interpolator had a problem. The text of Galatians was already well known without the “first” visit. He had to “thread the needle” in order to plausibly insert the new information into the text. When we examine the passage carefully within the context of what was there before, we can see quite clearly that this is what he did, and it was quite clever. The initial problem is that the earlier version had stated that “I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood…” confirming that Paul had gotten his gospel 100% from revelation, as in Gal 1:1. It would be 14 years before he visited Jerusalem (Gal 2:1). Thus the plausible “three years” was chosen; not long enough to make Paul independent of the Jerusalem apostles, but long enough to satisfy “not immediately.”
Paul was unknown in Judea, never having been seen in person. Galatians 1:23-24. Thus, the “first” visit of Paul to Jerusalem must have been a *secret* and that is why it had never been heard of before. And this is exactly what the interpolator posed. Paul was only seen by Cephas and James, it was the only way to preserve his general anonymity! Can we imagine Paul sneaking in and out of Jerusalem in the dead of night, and hiding in Peter’s dwelling through his alleged 15 day stay? Or should we imagine him wearing a clever disguise, or should we imagine Paul cleverly exiting and entering in a basket? The only alternative to subterfuge is that Paul walked in openly and freely, during his two week visit, the only Christians in Jerusalem were Cephas and James! I find all of these scenarios rather less likely than the first trip was an interpolation.
But do we have any indication within the text itself that the passage was an interpolation, i.e. new material? Indeed we do. We read in Galatians 1:20 “Now in this recounting, I swear before God: I am not lying!” Now, why take an oath before God about the truth of what we are supposed to believe was an otherwise unremarkable prosaic trip? It can only be that new information has been inserted into the text, and the oath is meant to reassure the reader of the trustworthiness of the “secret” trip.
Best Regards,
Jake Jones IV
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rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 1:23 am
“Tertullian, in Against Marcion 5.3.1, does not mention the alleged first visit of Paul to Jerusalem. (Neither does Irenaeus in AH 3.12.14.) cf AM 1.20.2, cf De praescr. haer. 23,6f:”
This is wholly random: Why would Tertullian who does not even quote Acts if he knew it mention such a visit in his diatribe against heresy? What are these ridiculous e silentio arguments you lot keep invoking?
Soloview
April 26, 2012 at 11:30 am
Hi Jake,
it’s Jiri. You know what I think because you have visited my blog. Right ?
Jake Jones IV
April 24, 2012 at 9:19 am
Jesus is not a regular guy about which a few grandiose claims have been added. Jesus on a plain reading of the NT is a myth; a supernatural being, born from a Virgin and a Ghost, a walking phantom, performing miracles, and rising from the dead.(allegedly).
There is a poles apart difference between any imagined historical Jesus and the Jesus of the plain reading of gospels. Once you remove the mythical elements, the story falls apart. The myth is central, the historization secondary. Historists must first reject and discredit the gospels and then invent their own HJ. Once we remove all the supernatural and claims of great fame that cannot be substantiated, the most part of the gospel is shredded!
Almost 100 verses in the gospels–including synoptic parallels–claim Jesus acheived great fame in his lifetime. These events include the Trumphal Entry (something that would never have escaped the notice of the Romans), the Cleansing of the Temple (something that would never have escaped the notice of the Jews), huge crowds following him about the length and breadth of Judea to Decapolis to Galilee. Widespread fame for healing multitudes. Two miraculous feedings of 4,000 and 5,000 men (not counting women and children). His fame even reached Herod. Even Pontius Pilate was allegedly frightened by hostile crowds of Jews into executing Jesus instead of Barabbas. He raised the dead and sent a herd innocent pigs to their death by casting demons into them. then on his death, a Zombie parade of OT Saints emerged from their tombs and marched around Jeruslem. How did Josephus miss that?
So why weren’t these illustrous events from the career of Jesus record anywhere except the Gospels and Acts? Not in the Roman Historians, not in the Jewish historians, not even in the NT epistles. Because none of them ever happened.
The gospels are religous propaganda written long after the alleged events by unknown authors in undetermined locations. They made mistakes in geography and first century Jewish practices that make it unlikely that any of the evangelists were familiar with Judea. The author of Mark didn’t even know the Ten Commandments. There are no eye witness accounts of Jesus, and no accounts that necessarily incorporate anything that goes back to an eyewitness account.
New Testament scholars have customarily assumed that early Christians started with remarkable facts from the life of Christ, and after the fact searched the Jewish scriptures for predictions of them. But now it is apparent that the stories of Jesus Christ were created directly from the scriptures (and other literature) by a creative exegesis.
Almost all of the details in Jesus life can be shown to have originated in literary precedents. Every time you read a claim in the gospels that Jesus fulfiled some prophecy, you can be sure it isn’t true. It is not prophecy fulfilled but prophecy (as misunderstood by the Christians) historicized. Robert Price, in his recent book, _The Christ Myth and Its Problems_ demonstrates this in detail.
This is the the dilemma that historists face. They imagine if they merely strip away the layers that to them seem implausible, what remains will be historical fact. But no matter how much we peel away (supernatural, miracles, fame, prophecy, etc) whaever is left is no more assured of historical accuracy than what has already been thrown in the historical scrap heap.
Jesus is an illusion.
Jake Jones IV
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rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 10:39 am
Interesting, Jake. If you knew as much serious scholarship as mythtic pap your points would be better formed. I am curious about one thing, however: Why do you say the author of Mark didn’t know the Ten Commandments? I mean where do you infer this?
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Jake Jones IV
April 24, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Dear Dr. Hoffman
Thank you for the reply. “Do not defraud,” Mark 10:19, an error corrected by Matthew and Luke. Perhaps you want argue that the phrase µ? ap?ste??s?? was a scribal corruption that became the majority reading?
The world of the New Testament is only the real world superficially; it is a fictional construct in which impossible things are imagined to happen routinely. It is a world dominated by spirits, and has a cosmology completely at odds with science. Fantastic events are reported as common place. It is over this framework that the alleged deeds of Gospel Jesus are accreted.
The researchers for the Historical Jesus have failed their quests like the Christs they create for themselves. At most, only one of these alternative historical Jesus theories can be right, and perhaps none. By comparing the various arguments there must be some sort of systematic flaw in the methodlogies, else such widely varying conclusions would not be obtained.
But the very idea of a “Historical Jesus”, a Jesus stripped of all divinity and pre-existence, conceived as mere man whose mission had failed, is an idea that the Church Fathers would have rebelled against with all vigor. This is a conceit of the “Quest for the Historical Jesus” movements. Are we on now on the third or fourth quest?
The Jesus of the early Christians was not conceived of as a human failure. He pre-existed in heaven in some sense. He ascended as surely as he descended. He rose as surely as he died. He was glorified as surely as he was humbled. This is the language of faith, it is the world of myth.
Modern researchers into the Historical Jesus meet with a daunting challenge. The “Historical Jesus” must be wrenched from the text, regardless of the violence done to the stories. If you will forgive an analogy, it is like shattering a vintage Ming Dynasty vase, and trying to put together a coffee cup from the shards.
Best Regards,
Jake Jones IV
rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 5:49 pm
Jake says: “It is a world dominated by spirits, and has a cosmology completely at odds with science.” But everyone knows this. Esp. NT scholars. And everyone knows that the world imagined by ancient historians until the end of the Middle Ages was so populated and at odds with science.
Bernard Muller
April 26, 2012 at 1:24 pm
“The myth is central, the historization secondary. Historists must first reject and discredit the gospels and then invent their own HJ. Once we remove all the supernatural and claims of great fame that cannot be substantiated, the most part of the gospel is shredded!”
I do not agree. Someone can be attributed all that and still have been a regular human.
Once we remove all the extraordinary claims, plus some ordinary ones, such as itinerant + teacher + parables and other items (see here for a very minimal HJ, in a few words: http://historical-jesus.info/digest.html ), we still have a HJ acting as a trigger point for starting a religion after his death, as I explained here: http://historical-jesus.info/hjes3x.html
From my website:
“Paul has a few things in his letters confirming, in the relative near past, the existence of an HJ:
When eyewitnesses were still alive, Paul wrote about a minimal Jesus (but also, for Paul, pre/post-existent as a heavenly deity) who, from “Israelites, … whose [are] the fathers, and of whom [is] the Christ, according to the flesh …” (Ro9:4-5 YLT) and “come of a woman, come under law” (Gal4:4 YLT), “found in appearance as a man” (Php2:8) “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Ro8:3), “the one man, Jesus Christ” (Ro5:15) (who had brothers (1Co9:5), one of them called “James”, whom Paul met (Gal1:19)), “humbled himself” (Php2:8) in “poverty” (2Co8:9) as “servant of the Jews” (Ro15:8) and, after “the night in which he was delivered up” (1Co11:23 Darby), “was crucified in weakness” (2Co13:4) in “Zion” (Ro9:31-33 & Ro11:26-27).”
And “Mark” had to take in account testimony of eyewitness(es) when writing his gospel. He did not have a free hand in order to create pure fiction. This testimony gave him a lot of problem because it did not divinize in any way HJ, making him very much unlike a Son of God, Christ, Lord, etc. That was not acceptable anymore for “Mark” and his community and he had to force divine extraordinary stuff in Jesus’ last year.
From my website again, here are some examples:
“As already explained in HJ-2a, HJ-2b & HJ-3a, “Mark” had to address eyewitness(es)’ “against the grain” reports, duly noted silences on critical points and lack of prior attestations (i.e. on crucial stories generated by the author!).
Why?
Because those testimonies were still remembered by his community. If it was not the case, why create problems & raise doubts!
Here is an abbreviated list of items where “Mark” tried to counteract the embarrassment (E) or explain the silence (S):
a) Disciples NOT saying Jairus’ daughter was resurrected (5:42-43) (S)
b) Rejection of Jesus in his own village (6:2-4) (E)
c) Disciples NOT “seeing” the miraculous feeding(s) (8:17-21) (S)
d) Disciples NOT claiming Jesus was Christ (8:29-30) (S)
e) Peter NOT comprehending (as a Christian would) Jesus’ Passion (8:31-33, 9:31-32) (E)
f) Disciples NOT telling about the events on the high mountain (9:9-10) (S)
g) Disciples NOT knowing what is meant by resurrection (9:10,31-32) (E)
h) Disturbance in the temple (11:17) (E)
i) Peter saying Jesus cursed at a fig tree (11:21-24) (E)
j) Disciples falling away after Jesus’ arrest (14:27) (E)
k) Disciples NOT knowing about the empty tomb and Jesus’ rising (16:8) (S)
Note: the subsequent gospels eliminated some (GMatthew), more (GLuke) or most (GJohn) of these items, one way or another (deletion, “correction” or addition). How to explain their author could do it?
Either enough time went by, causing the (oral) “testimonies” to be forgotten, or the author’s community was never visited by any eyewitness(es).”
“Mark” did not dare to feature a bodily reappearance. That will be done later (I also think the “empty tomb” passage was an early interpolation).
He fashioned extraordinary events, such as the miraculous feeding, with incorporation of trivial (but likely true) elements to bring some credibility to his story. But he had to admit several times the disciples did not notice any multiplication of food: they just remembered, after a crowd ate together outside, they were able to pick up basketfuls of left over.
For more about “Mark” “forced” miraculous events, see here:http://historical-jesus.info/hjes2.html then search on: 15.
PS: I wish some scholar would develop a case for the existence of HJ along the lines I just sketched.
Bernard
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Let’s get specific, shall we? « Choice in Dying says:
April 24, 2012 at 10:18 am
[...] especially since this was one of the marginal points that Carrier makes in his critique. Meanwhile, R. Joseph Hoffmann attacks P.Z. Myers (amongst others) – Hoffmann, with wonted politeness, calling him the ”atheist [...]
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stephanie louise fisher
April 25, 2012 at 12:59 pm
What alot of over confident hot air and fluff from Canada. As usual he makes up silly analogies and throws it in to his incompetent muddle.
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Joe Atwill
April 24, 2012 at 11:19 am
Bart Ehrman claims to have evidence that Jesus was a historical character and liking those who believe that the character was fictional as akin to holocaust deniers. Bart Ehrman’s scholarship can be demonstrated to be incorrect.
Here’s an example of Bart flawed scholarship.
One of the principles Ehrman’s uses to determine historicity is “dissimilarity”. This approach looks for passages that would be ‘dissimilar’ to what a biased author would be expected to compose and therefore indicate history rather than fiction. (This approach overlaps the one called ‘embarrassment’ – which in NT criticism looks for passages that would be embarrassing to a Christian author.)
Ehrman cites the baptism of Jesus by John as a ‘dissimilar’ passage. In other words Ehrman claims that the story is likely historical because since John does the baptizing Jesus looks inferior to him and this this not something a biased follower of Jesus would record if it were not true. (Jesus Interrupted P 154 or listen to chapter 9 http://www.archive.org/details/HistoricalJesus )
While the principle of “dissimilarity” has limited analytic strength under the best of circumstances, Ehrman’s applying it to the baptism story is demonstrably incorrect and exposes a catastrophic weakness in Ehrman’s scholarship – his inability to recognize fictional typology.
As far as I can determine, Ehrman made no attempt to parse out the typological fiction from the history in the Gospels’ different baptism stories. Had he bothered to go through the process he would have recognized that the entire story of John’s baptism of Jesus was developed out of Malachi and none of it is historical.
I won’t go into every typological detail in the baptism stories but just cite a few:
The baptism of Jesus and its place in the storyline was chosen to fit it into the sequence of the “New Covenant’ Moses/Jesus typology.
OLD TESTAMENT MATTHEW
Gen. 45-50 Joseph goes to Egypt 2:13 Joseph goes to Egypt
Ex.1 Pharaoh massacres boys 2:16 Herod massacres boys
Ex.4 “All the men are dead which sought thy life”
Matt 2:20 “They are dead which sought theyoung child’s life”
Ex.12 From Egypt to Israel 2:21 From Egypt to Israel
Ex.14 Passing through water (baptism) 3:13 Baptism
Ex.16 In the wilderness “Tempted by bread”
Matt 4:4 In the wilderness “Tempted by bread”
Ex.17 “Do not tempt God” 4:7 “Do not tempt God”
Ex.32 “Worship only God” 4:10 “Worship only God”
The location of the story – the river Jordan – and John clothes are based upon those of his ‘type’ Elijah in 2 Kings 2.7-8.
The actual ‘baptism’ of Jesus was invented to mirror the ‘passing through water’ by the Israelites that led to their laws being given by God from a mountain top. The passing through water by Jesus leads to another concept from Exodus the law giving from a mountain top – the sermon on the mount.
Moreover, understanding that the passage is typology shows that Jesus had to go through water at this point because Israel had been established as a ‘type’ for Jesus in Matthew. 2: 15 – “and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.” Since the nation of Israel was the ‘type’ for Jesus, Jesus must pass through water at this point simply because that is what ‘Israel’ did during the exodus. Notice that if someone was shown Matthew’s Exodus typology absent the baptism story they would be able to predict both the story and its place in the narration.
All of the dialogue between John and Jesus is based upon Malachi. John’s ‘fiery’ declarations of Matt 3: 7-13 simply repeat the theme of Malachi 4: 1-2. In Matt 3: 13-15 John states that Jesus should baptize him but Jesus replies that John must do the baptizing “to fulfill all righteousness”. Matthew is operating completely within the Malachi’s ‘new covenant’ typology established in his prior passages and Jesus is therefore “the sun of righteousness who will rise with healing” predicted in Malachi 4:2.
John’s statement in GJohn where he calls Jesus the “lamb who will take away the sins of the world” is more ‘new covenant typology talk’. In other words, John is predicting that Jesus will become the human Passover lamb whose sacrifice will atone for the “unrighteousness” that ended the old covenant.
Any close inspection shows that Jesus’s baptism story does not reflect a tradition of a historical event held by a group of peasant believers in a first century Rabbi Christ. It is a tip to stern fiction written by highly trained specialists in typology.
The only interpretive framework that explains the typology is that following the Roman-Jewish war the authors of the Gospels simply took Malachi’s story about the end of the ‘old covenant’ between God and the Jews’, which described an angry visit by the “Lord” preceded by an Elijah ‘type’ forerunner and created a sort of Hebraic cartoon where Malachi’s characters came to life and both behaved typologically and made predictions about the coming war with Rome and a new covenant.
Joe Atwill
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rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 12:01 pm
Joe, with due respect for your careful recitation of typology–nothing you use here is unknown to NT scholarship; it was mainstream NT scholarship that identified the parallels in the first place. As I say in my “rant,” discussion begins after the mythological elements of the gospels are acknowledged. NT scholarship is not interested in “proving” an historical Jesus, in any case: it is interested in making the best sense of the artifacts of early Christianity. In order to do that, naturally all evidence must be assessed for what it tells us and not governed by presuppositions about What really happened. That is the way sound scholarship proceeds–not by analogy but ny the tools of inference.
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Joe Atwill
April 24, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Hi Joseph:
Are you claiming that a detail of Jesus’s baptism story is historical? If so, which one?
Joe
rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 12:19 pm
The baptism of Jesus if this is addressed to Joseph me) is formally an epiphany story. That has been known for 100 years. If you ask on the other hand, is it plausible that Jesus was baptised I would answer yes. Two different issues.
Jim Deardorff
April 24, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Have you wondered why there is so little, if any 1st century writings about Jesus, except for Paul’s epistles? Why was it not until 2nd century before so much relevant literature started appearing? It’s this unexplained lack of 1st-century writings about Jesus that helps fuel the Jesus-never-existed cause.
May I sketch out my findings on this (as briefly as possible)?
Suppose his name at birth had been Immanuel, not Jesus. Only then would Isaiah’s prophecy have had a chance of being thought to be fulfilled. The writer of Matthew evidently knew his name had been Immanuel, otherwise it makes no sense why he would include his reference to Isaiah 7:14 as support for “Jesus” being the Messiah. No sense at all. But he had to say he had been named “Jesus” in his Gospel, as that was the name he had come to be known as, by the later dates that the Gospels were written.
It was Paul of course who didn’t like to think of the man he worshiped, after his conversion, as being the Immanuel he,Saul, had once persecuted (or he had at least persecuted his followers). So Paul had to think of him by another name, one that would fit his new theology of being saved by God, namely Yeshua or Joshua or Jesus. It must have taken decades later before Paul could convince most others, disciples and all, to call him “Jesus.” By then, late first century, there would have been some writings about Immanuel, and these of course would let everyone know he had most certainly existed. These writings had to be destroyed by the eartly churches, which had gone over to Paul’s belief system. So there was a great shortage of writings about the man from the mid- to late first century to survive.
Paul’s views won out due to his persuasiveness as a speaker and writer, but not without a decades long fight. However, there are a few gnostic writings that indicate his real name was not to be spoken, which have survived.
Hence, the lack of evidence upon which the deniers thrive. Key thoughts — think how much Saul must have hated Immanuel and his teachings before recognizing his voice on the Road to Damascus. Think how he later would not wish to pray to the hated Immanuel, but rather to a resurrected “Jesus.”
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Michael Wilson
April 24, 2012 at 2:14 pm
I had given Carrier the benefit of the doubt, as someone who went through the work of becoming a PhD, that he had some novel theory for explaining Jesus as a mythical construct, but his response to Ehrman has shown that he has no such thing. His arguments are insulting to intelligence and I suspect that his goal as a historian is the make a few bucks and have his ass kissed by gullible new atheist, whom he seems to correctly have pegged as emotional vulnerable marks. To those that are disappointed that Bart does not elaborate more on the evidence and arguments for the historical Jesus, I have to say it is a slam dunk case and anyone on the fence about it should reevaluate their methods for rational thinking. The responses here show that Carrier’s fan base is completely ignorant of history which is a bad sign for a supposed historian.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 2:32 pm
@Michael: as to the responses here, yes–they are alarmingly similar and profoundly underinformed except by mythtic ideology. Before they are permitted near a Bible they need a basic lesson in the synoptic problem, a smattering of the languages needed to trace redaction and text history, and a basic class in historiography. Fortunately they could begin with Van Harvey’s The Historian and the Believer if they have time, and learn how to formulate warrants for historical assertions and “beliefs”– not specious premises based on false assumptions stemming from poor analysis of texts.
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ken
April 24, 2012 at 11:02 pm
A wonderful book….Harvey’s.
Fake Herzog
April 24, 2012 at 4:26 pm
I’m excited by this project, even though I’m somewhat grumpy you won’t go the “whole hog” and acknowledge the truth of Christ’s divinity and his miracles.
Anyway, just thought you should know, PZ Myers is actually a professor at the University of Minnesota. Wisconsin and Minnesota are next to one another here in the midwest.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 24, 2012 at 5:22 pm
Minnesota? whups. Really? Reminds me of the joke about the woman from Boston who met a woman at a cocktail party and on being told she was from Ohio said “Rally deah? except in Boston we pronounce it ‘Iowa’”
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scotteus
April 24, 2012 at 9:50 pm
Well Fake, no one is trying to argue either miracles or divinity, the question is the existence of Jesus; proof of miracles is an entirely different matter.
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corio37
April 24, 2012 at 5:57 pm
March 11, 2012:
“But I have decided to stop writing about atheism. Because I believe that atheism is to religion what counting on your fingers is to mathematics. It works, to a point. But it ends where the serious questions and complexities begin.” — RJH.
Well, that didn’t last long, did it?
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REx Invictus
April 25, 2012 at 4:09 pm
When in this essay Dr. Hoffman writes about atheism?
Are you so sensitive that a member of your FAITH gets attacked on a subject he knows less than he or his followers believe?
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Soloview
April 24, 2012 at 6:07 pm
Joseph: “I did read your whole sentence. It evokes two more questions: Why does Luke single James out at all if status is not being accorded to him in a leadership role, and second, what presses you to think that the writer of Acts who is also one of the makers of the birth story would want to claim biological kinship between James and Jesus? ” …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Answer to # 1 : I have not the foggiest, and it is irrelevant to establishing whether the writer of Acts knew that James the Just was a kin of Jesus. Answer to #2 : I have not the foggiest, and it is irrelevant to establishing whether Luke knew that James the Just was a kin of Jesus. IOW, if your 2nd question admits Luke not claiming biological kinship between James and Jesus, (even tho Jesus’ family appears briefly in Acts – so there would be an opportunity for Luke to reveal the kinship), you have made my case. Luke knows nothing of this relationship, and neither does Clement of Alexandria. Eusebius discounts the idea. His Church History gives an account by Hegesippus who apparently believed in the Davidic descent of James and Simon of Jerusalem. But the problem is that Hegesippus wants you to believe that James operated the church of his brother for thirty some years in a city of sixty thousand, but when he first makes public his faith in his sibling as the Savior he is promptly thrown down the parapet and clubbed to death. So what presses you to think that the ‘monarchical bug’ hit the church before well into the second century ? Ehrman’s ‘ipse dixit’ ?
Joseph: “PS I am in short frontally challenging your idea that “Luke knows nothing of James being a sibling of Jesus.” Absence of evidence re Mk 6.3 is not evidence of absence.” ………………………………………………………………………. Again, you are continuing to ignore my original point. By what feat of logic do you connect James of Acts 12:17 to James of Mk 6:3 ? To a rational sceptic like myself, it is not really clear at all.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 1:20 am
‘To a rational sceptic like myself, it is not really clear at all’– Rational skepticism is a mode, not a hermeneutical method.
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Soloview
April 25, 2012 at 10:29 am
In other words, you have no way of connecting the two Jameses by an orderly process that would withstand informed scrutiny. But that is not the problem; the problem is that on the information available to us one cannot dismiss “mythicism” quite the way Ehrman and you are doing. Am I a mythicist myself ? Do I agree with Carrier’s idea of using Bayes theorem to determine whether there is a historical figure behind the gospels ? If you are tempted to ask those questions you are missing my point.
rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 10:46 am
This is absolute rubbish: For one thing, the names Peter, James and John appear as a phrasal combination five times in the synoptics: at the Transfiguration (Mt 17,1; Mk 9,2; Lk 9,28), in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26,37; Mk 14,33), at the “raising” of Jairus’ daughter (Mk 5,37; Lk 8,51), and as the audience (along with Andrew) for the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and for Jesus’ “Little Apocalypse” (Mk 1,29-31 and 13,3) (thus appearing “alone” with him only “three” times). What do you mean “by an orderly process that would withstand informed scrutiny.” Start with a concordance, then work your way up to inference, and ask yourself what interest Luke would have in inventing another James. The mythtic interest in defeating the James tradition is beginning to rival the Catholic apologetic one in denying his biological brotherhood–the latter in the interest of making Jesus an only child, the former to make him unhistorical. This is pure nonsense.
Rob Baird
April 24, 2012 at 8:12 pm
?”I happen to believe that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist” – R Joseph Hoffman, 2007, Point of Inquiry
When did you change your mind, and why?
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Ben Schuldt
April 24, 2012 at 9:40 pm
Subscribing.
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Andrew
April 24, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Dr. Hoffman, I just listened to your interesting appearance on “Point of Inquiry” (15 June 2007) and was surprised to hear you deny the historicity of Jesus. Do you still hold to that? Because I had gotten the opposite impression from reading your blog.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 1:36 am
I have often had doubts about the historicity of Jesus. Many critical NT scholars and even theologians do. Have a look at what’s coming next week.
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Antonio Jerez
April 26, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Joseph,
Good that you have come to your senses again. I must admit that I was worried about your credentials as a historian when you claimed to be in the camp of the Jesus mythers some years ago. And I look forward to reading your riposte to the pompous Mr Carrier next week…
rjosephhoffmann
April 26, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Hmmm. not sure about this as a plaudit
Grog
April 30, 2012 at 9:42 am
It is interesting how this agumment gets framed. Here you say that you have doubted that Jesus, and that, in fact, many scholars do. Yet I read out of the academy that there ia a near consensus on this point and that one need be insane to entertain doubts. Ehrman says that explicitly in his Huffington Post article. Below, you say that you “lean” toward Jesus having existed. In your article above, you say there is a “slight” chance that Jesus did not actually exist. It seems like you sway with the wind. “Lean” gives the impression that you are, say, 51%, sure. “Slight chance” seems to suggest a near 100% certainty. That leaves me confused. If one can argue that “lean toward” for and “slight chance” against equal the same thing, then how firm is the consensus for the hisoricity of The Jesus who hailed from Nazareth? And if all this is the case, I have to wonder at extreme reactions from scholars like Ehrman who liken the consideration of this alternative hypothesis for the Origins of Christianity to Holocaust denial, UFO abductions, and Young Earth Creationism. Ehrman even says that deigning to even make this argument should automatically disqualify one for a tenured position. Really? You want to defend these positioons?
Mike Gantt
April 30, 2012 at 11:34 am
Grog,
You will cease to be puzzled when you recognize that the skeptics who have sired mythicism are now denying paternity.
The skeptics feel ashamed so they distance themselves – and the mythicists feel betrayed by the distancing.
Belief in Jesus is far more congenial to common sense than either of these two camps.
rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 1:49 am
I still think the question is intrinsically interesting. Everything depends on how it’s approached. What I have said ultimately in a series on the topic is that the evidence doesn’t permit us to judge absolutely; I think I am still in that camp, though I tend to be persuaded more and more that Jesus existed.
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giu73
April 25, 2012 at 5:36 am
So, is it a “slam dunk” or does “the evidence doesn’t permit us to judge absolutely”? I am buffled, expecially since all that Carrier has always said is that mythicism is *slightly* more probable than historicism. So, is this a respectable position, or just madness?
rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 8:32 am
The conclusion isn’t “impermissible”–it may not be reachable (as I’ve said); but the method, which is what matters, is madness–especially in forming the premises that have been used to reach it.
Soloview
April 25, 2012 at 10:53 am
There you go ! I knew that the former prez of CSIR had it still in him ! So, just in case you really want to write something interesting, take a listen to Ehrman, on March 2011 radio show – he said that no “serious” scholar he knows “doubts” the existence of Jesus. -> http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=8013.
This has to be some of those quirks that most bright people have. There is an issue on which they are simply not accessible. Arthur Koestler once wrote that he had some brilliant Indian scientist friends, whose minds were razor sharp and could analyze anything, …well, except the capacity of their favourite guru to levitate.
Grog
April 30, 2012 at 1:33 am
Interesting then. I am confused by your overt hostility to mythicism then. I see it as just another hypothesis of Christian origins, one that interests me. Yet what I see is a hostile over-reaction from Ehrman and, here, from you. You’d never know, I only knew by reading your chapters in Sources of the Jesus Tradition.
Lexa
April 24, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Here’s a little fact about Myers that has been buried. He was on a tenure-track position with the biology department at Temple University from 1993-2000. He ended up in Minnesota only because he didn’t even bother applying for tenure at Temple. Why? During his seven years there, he published ONE paper. That one paper he published back in 1998 was his last paper he ever published. In other words, Myers is a failed research scientist who spends his time blogging about atheism and religion instead of doing scientific research.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 1:38 am
Ah! I wonder if in his solo article he insults his readers for being so fucking stupid he just can’t stand it. I’m sure his fate was sealed by a conspiracy fomented by Baptists and Pentecostals posing as scientists?
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Fight Club! Historical Jesus Scholars Take On the Christ Mythicists! « Vridar says:
April 25, 2012 at 12:36 am
[...] they come. The advance warning was in the form of R. Joseph Hoffmann‘s Mythtic Pizza and Cold-cocked Scholars. He promises that within a week (apocalypse coming!) we will see on his blog “three [...]
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rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 1:41 am
Another noisome plaudit from the Librarian whose skills derive from being a professed ex-World-Wide Church of God escapee.
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stephanie louise fisher
April 25, 2012 at 11:14 am
Using the usual ad hominens he deplores in others so much – it’s called self righteous hyprocrisy in the real world. His post is completely inaccurate from beginning to end and loaded with misleading assumptions as usual. And the idea that critical scholars in Europe, where many of them, including for example Casey and Richard Burridge, have first degrees in Classics, including Ancient History, and in the Antipodes, where degrees are generally broader anyway, never stop to think of anything like this, and take the existence of Jesus for granted, is completely remote from their lives and works. This will be stated clearly for people too ignorant to know any such thing in forthcoming books by Casey and others, which are taking some time to write because such scholars do take time to think, and do not let fly with fantasies at the back of their heads. Casey also discusses this in his forthcoming contribution on this site.
This project isn’t about Ehrman or about defending his recent work at all and any timing is completely coincidental. This is about genuine critical enquiry and the prospects for research into the historical Jesus. It’s also about refuting incompetent, over confident, muddle and mistakes in mythtic methods, assumptions, fantasies and theories.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 11:33 am
To add to Steph’s comment: The Jesus Prospect is moving ahead and is totally independent of the Center of Inquiry, whose work in atheist advocacy made any further association between a scholarly project and its partisan lobbying impossible. The essays presented here on NO next week will be followed by a collection of studies on methodology in establishing criteria for a new Jesus quest. A number of the leading lights of the Jesus Project will contribute to this collection. Neither Richard Carrier nor Bart Ehrman are among the contributors.
gbjames
April 25, 2012 at 8:27 am
I wish advocates of the historical Jesus position would take a bit of time to tackle the more critical question of the existence of the historical John Frum. Given that John Frum is due back soon with plenty of cargo, it would be enlightening to demonstrate the reality of his historical existence. Surely this is a subject worthy of some devoted study.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 8:37 am
I love it: “the historical Jesus position.” !! You really think this is a high school debate, don’t you?
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stephanie louise fisher
April 25, 2012 at 9:32 am
Sounds a bit missionary.
gbjames
April 25, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Well, I haven’t quite figured that part out yet.
But seriously, I’m not understanding exactly why this topic is more substantial than the John Frum’s existence (or not). There seems to be an awful lot of heat generated over rather poorly defined terms, like “historical Jesus”. What exactly distinguishes this idea from “biblical Jesus”? And how many “biblical Jesus” attributes must be stripped away before we’re pondering trivialities, like whether there was a guy named “Ebenezer” in London in 1322?
rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 12:57 pm
It’s a fair question: But you mean as Arthur Droge has suggested Ned Lud(d)
gbjames
April 25, 2012 at 1:26 pm
No, I mean as in John Frum. The parallel is much more direct than Ned Ludd as the former is a root character in cult activities and the latter is not.
So… how important is it where there was a guy named John Frum? Does it matter much if his name was really John Frommer or Jan from New York? Isn’t his character defined by his ability/promise to bring lots of cargo to us?
So, if you start picking away at the biblical Jesus, and strip all of the fantastic parts… no more walking on unfrozen water, no more feeding of multitudes with a few crumbs, no more raising of the dead and such… When you have pulled all of that away, what are we arguing about? That Romans crucified people? That there were Jewish mystics wandering around? That some guys were named “Jusus” (or a pre-translated version of the name)? Aren’t these trivial questions?
Aren’t interesting questions of the form: “What goes into the making of a cult?” or “How did the Abrahamic myths develop?”
Is “Was there a historic Jesus?” even a coherent question once you strip off the divine attributes?
rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 1:38 pm
I detect an allusion to cargo cults, which are impt in anthropology esp in the study of Pacific religions. But I think the immortality and salvation cults represent a different and more esoteric pattern, at least from what i know of the difference–cargo cults being more this-worldly materialistic. You cna argue of course that when you strip the idea of heaven of its gold acoutrements you have basically the same problem as you have with a Jesus who has been stripped of his defining acts and teaching. But I don’t think the question, or the answer, is as simple as you want to make it (sorry).
gbjames
April 25, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Why? What is the substantive differenced between Jesus, stripped of miracles, and John Frum, stripped of the cargo-to-be-delivered? (Besides two thousand years and the number of believers who are really only interested because of the magic stuff.)
I don’t see the basis on which you think this is a too-difficult-to-take-seriously question.
John Andrew MacDonald
April 25, 2012 at 9:48 am
Andrew said:
April 24, 2012 at 9:06 pm
“The [crucifixion] story also seems fictional because of us being told what Jesus said from the cross, but also what Jesus and the high priest said to each other, and what Jesus and the crowd said to each other (who would have been around to record these conversations?).”
It is indeed remarkable that the central event of the religion utterly lacks any historical memory attached to it, and is instead recreated (or created?) using silent allusions to lines in the Psalms, Isaiah, and the Wisdom of Solomon. This makes great theological literature, for sure, but history? I tend to doubt it.
rjosephhoffmann said:
April 25, 2012 at 1:34 am
I’m not sure you can call the gospels great theological literature:wrong species.
Dr. Hoffmann is right.
Genre is a clue:
Mark is not interested in origins, education and inner development of Jesus, but narrates the history of the fulfillment of the divine promises from his perspective. In this focus Mark resembles a historical biography like Suetonius’s Lives of Caesars.
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John Andrew MacDonald
April 25, 2012 at 12:43 pm
And since Mark is not interested in origins, education and inner development of Jesus, but narrates the history of the fulfillment of the divine promises from his perspective, this in turn puts into question the historicity of any story in Mark by virtue of the principles of form criticism. It doesn’t imply mythicism, of course.
John Andrew MacDonald
Ontario
Canada
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John Andrew MacDonald
April 25, 2012 at 8:47 pm
And I guess the other point is, ‘Midrash” as a genre of writing in the New Testament presents an interesting problem. There are two poles of interpretation, with a lot of room in between. On one end, we could argue that in a midrash narrative like Matthew’s Jesus infancy account the gospel writer started with information about the historical Jesus and then added some material to make it seem like the story about Moses from the Old Testament. On the other end, we could say that the gospel writer simply wanted to rewrite a story from the old Testament and apply it to his times because he didn’t know any details about the birth of Jesus, in which case there is no reason to think there is any reliable information about the historical Jesus at all in the midrash narrative. And there is a lot of room between these two poles. When we present the problem in this way, it becomes a hard and sophisticated problem to try to determine what part of the midrash narrative (if any) presents information about the historical Jesus. This is the problem that comes up when the issue of “Midrash” is introduced as a New Testament genre. The question is: What criteria or method do we use to determine which part of the “Midrash” narrative is giving us information about the historical Jesus? Can we assume that any part of the “Midrash” narrative is representing the historical Jesus? If the midrash narrative says that Jesus did “such and such,” does this mean the historical Jesus actually did it, or was this characterization of Jesus just the author’s way of rewriting the Old Testament story (and the historical Jesus never did it)? If Jesus says something in the gospels, did he really say, it or was it just invented like Herodotus used to do. John Dominic Crossan, in “The Power of Parable,” shows many of Jesus’ speeches were probably creatively invented by the gospel writers. Even if a part of the narrative is actually representing the historical Jesus, how could we know that?
Ciaran
April 25, 2012 at 11:24 am
I’d like to comment as a vocal atheist, that could be labelled as a ‘new atheist’ I find your lumping together of all ‘new atheists’ under one banner as crass as PZ pronouncements on Jesus’ historicity. I’ve read Ehrman and some others and have come to two conclusions: I am not well read enough to come to a decision of any value on myth/history issue and if I do come to a decision it will make no difference to my atheism. While PZ may not believe in a historical Jesus other actual ‘new atheist’ authors do, as do many, many atheists. I think Carrier is a bit of a fool, and I lost patience with people like PZ, Darryl Ray etc. some time ago. Please, try not to do what you accuse us, en masse, of doing.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 12:48 pm
@Ciaran: The blog post you refer to was adequately identified as a rant. It does not try to be a careful approach to Carrier’s ideas. That is clear. I am glad you have lost patience with PZ and Co. because they are really doing atheism a huge disservice. But then so do mythtics who serve warmed over analogies as new method.
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berndsmathblog
April 25, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Here is a more complete reply of prof. Ehrman:
http://ehrmanblog.org/fuller-reply-to-richard-carrier/
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rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Yes, this is highly worthwhile–Ehrman’s I mean, and very charitable. I think we need to stress that although Carrier’s Ehrman review is the occasion for my “rant”, the essays following and the book coming out on the topic of historicity are more particularly concerned with mythicism and Carrier’s errors, not as such his unsuccessful attempt to demolish Ehrman.
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alnitak
April 25, 2012 at 1:50 pm
This is indeed a satisfying reply from Ehrman. I have noted in the past that his writing is prone to error in detail, and he admits as much here; he also acknowledges that his writing was sometimes not very clear. It is interesting that the above “rant” considered Carrier unworthy, while Ehrman sees the criticism a notable if unkind.
On to the greater question-has Ehrman established that Jesus was historical?
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Lowen Gartner
April 25, 2012 at 1:55 pm
IMO, not only has he not established that Jesus is “real”, but he has either been silent on, or ineffective in countering that major arguments that Jesus is “not real.”
rjosephhoffmann
April 25, 2012 at 1:56 pm
No: I see Carrier as engaging in unworthy polemic–see below, and I find his methods risible. I also identified my piece as a rant since I have responded to Carrier’s attacks on me elsewhere in this space. But i agree that we need to move on to the larger question and let Error take the hindmost. And by the way: Ehrman does not say he is prone to error in detail: you and Carrier do.
Lexa
April 25, 2012 at 11:25 pm
No, Ehrman shows that Carrier is a hypocrite. Carrier expects a charitable interpretation from his readers, but shows no such thing when he obsesses with nitpicking Ehrman. Carrier’s “victories” are cheap internet bragging rights but show us why he can’t secure a position within academia – he is a crackpot.
Samuel
April 25, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Mr. Hoffmann, may i ask you how on earth you once held the position that Jesus was likely not historical? I dont understand this at all, i have tried to make some sense of the mythicist position but to no avail. It is caveman insanity.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 26, 2012 at 6:44 am
Entertaining possibility is not at all the same as taking a position. I have never in my work taken or defended the argument for the non- historicity of Jesus and I do not believe the mythtic position is credible. I have certainly looked at the arguments, and continue to look at them.
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Samuel
April 27, 2012 at 2:44 am
My apologies then. Another question if you have the energy to answer it. I read somewhere here on your website that you believe that the TF is a complete forgery, if I am not mistaken again. What would be your strongest reason for this?
rjosephhoffmann
April 27, 2012 at 3:58 am
Sam–who is this addressed to, and to what are you referring?
Samuel
April 27, 2012 at 9:22 am
The question is for you mr. Hoffmann, sorry for the confusion. TF = Testamonium Flavium, the longer Josephus paragraph on Jesus. I read somewhere on your website, I think, that you are in that camp who believes it is a complete forgery. If I am not mistaken, could you please tell me your strongest reason for this?
rjosephhoffmann
April 27, 2012 at 10:13 am
as you know the history of 18.3.3. is confused and the current state of knowledge is not adequate to permit us to judge. I tend to agree with Feldman that Origen’s silence may be construed simply as nollo contendere–too bad it wasn’t Tertullian doing the looking. I do regard the relative lateness of Eusebius’ contribution problematical and the later MS tradition suspicious. I do not think TF is a secure basis for establishing a historicity argument. (I probably said so in Jesus outside the Gospels.)
Samuel
April 27, 2012 at 11:00 am
Would you not consider the Agapian texts, which show no signs of interpolation, to be a more secure bet? I understand the concern about Eusebius being the first one quoting it directly, but as far as I know, Josephus Antiq. are only mentioned 13 times up until Eusebius, and most of these mentions involves the church fathers using Josephus for polemics against Jews, in fact, most often quoted passages are exactly those that dealt with the fate of the Jewish people after 70 Ad. Especially an incident revolving a young Jewish women trapped inside Jerusalem dying from starvation, she ends up eating her own baby – an incident highly popular in the early church as they thought it represented the horrible destiny the Jews had to suffer for rejecting christ. If this is the case, I might be mistaken, is it still reasonable to suggest that the TF should have been quoted earlier? I mean if it had no real serving agenda for the church. Also have you considered Steve Masons argument, that if the church corrupted the TF, why did they not do it to Philo? He was a contemporary to Jesus and they certainly had the chance to do it if they wanted to since they kept his works from perishing. But not a single suspicion of forgery is suspected in Philo. Would it not then be more plausible that Josephus did write a longer paragraph about Jesus which later got interpolated? Excuse me for my horrible English mr. Hoffmann, it is not my native Tongue.
Andrew
April 27, 2012 at 8:32 pm
Samuel, re: Jesus mythicism being “caveman insanity,” what should we make of spurious epistles, not written by their alleged apostolic authors (which Ehrman calls forgeries), which insist upon the integrity of their witness and especially the historicity of Jesus? Isn’t this a case of protesting too much?
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neodecaussade
April 25, 2012 at 7:57 pm
Reblogged this on Neodecaussade’s Weblog and commented:
I am looking forward to the essay-length responses. Perhaps you might like them as well.
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John Andrew MacDonald
April 25, 2012 at 11:02 pm
One last point. Dr Ehrman says in many cases Dr. Robert M Price is suggesting cases of midrash that are far from obvious. I think the real problem is how do you prove a possible case of midrash is in fact historical and not midrash. There would be no way to make such an argument.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 26, 2012 at 6:53 am
All cases of midrash are historical as to occurrence but not as to fact.
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John Andrew MacDonald
April 26, 2012 at 7:27 am
Hi Dr. Hoffmann:
I just think Dr. Ehrman was a little too tough on Dr. Price. I think Dr. Price is correct for the most part about the cases of midrash he cites, and it’s interesting how the recently published “Jewish Annotated New Testament” carries on this issue in a fruitful manner. I think very highly of Dr. Price and think he is quite brilliant, but I disagree with him about the Christ Myth Theory. I think an historical Jesus makes for a much better explanation as to why Midrash is going on in the New Testament. I don’t see a reason why the people of that time would take a vague savior myth and then fill in the details by rewriting the Old Testament. That doesn’t fit in with what I understand about the people of that time.
Kindest regards,
John Andrew MacDonald
Andrew
April 27, 2012 at 8:40 pm
John Andrew MacDonald, re your comment: “I think an historical Jesus makes for a much better explanation as to why Midrash is going on in the New Testament. I don’t see a reason why the people of that time would take a vague savior myth and then fill in the details by rewriting the Old Testament. That doesn’t fit in with what I understand about the people of that time.”
What if the people were gentiles (like Mark) who had possession of copies of the OT and were desirous of monotheism but didn’t want to be subservient to rabbis or treated as second class citizens within Judaism? That would supply a simple reason why the “vague savior myth” of the Kyrios Christos would be adapted for anti-Judaic polemics by a fledgling church. In other words they started with the OT and then developed the savior myth afterward.
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Bart Ehrman svarar Richard Carrier | Lindenfors blogg says:
April 26, 2012 at 12:24 am
[...] börjar faktiskt bli pinsam för oss ateister. Här har ni någon som tar tillfället i akt och sågar ”nyateisterna” jäms med fotknölarna: historikern R. Joseph Hoffmann. Han passar på tillfället och definierar om nyateism till något [...]
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Ken Scaletta
April 26, 2012 at 8:52 am
There is no reason to sweepingly characterize Jesus Mythicism as being part and parcel of “new atheism,” or any significant percentage of atheists at all. Critiquing Carrier or other specific mythicists is fine and fair, but it’s neither fair nor accurate to try to generalize those views to all or most atheists. It’s not even really a feature of “new atheism.’ Dawkins, Hitchens etc. Don’t take that position. Bart Ehrman himself is an atheist and obviously is not a mythicist.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 26, 2012 at 8:56 am
I suspect the new atheists will want to run from mythic ism when they discover how error prone its advocates are, and needless to sAy there is no necessary connection except the natural propensity of free thought for excess.
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Ken Scaletta
April 26, 2012 at 1:56 pm
I’ve only heard that phrase “new atheist” used by religionists and don’t know what it’s supposed to mean, but I do know that Jesus Mythicism is not something most atheists ahve embrace or even taken any notice of.
Spanish Inquisitor
April 26, 2012 at 1:57 pm
Technically, I don’t think Ehrman has ever gone so far as to say he’s an atheist. Agnostic, yes, but to some, that’s just splitting hairs.
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James
April 26, 2012 at 1:42 pm
Philosopher Law, who’s generally a sensible fellow, holds that
Where testimony/documents weave together a narrative that combines mundane claims with a significant proportion of extraordinary claims, and there is good reason to be sceptical about those extraordinary claims, then there is good reason to be sceptical about the mundane claims, at least until we possess good independent evidence of their truth.
Now, he correctly observes that historically the gospel narratives “combine mundane [plausible, true] claims” with “extraordinary [implausible, false] claims.” We have then mundane claims, MC, and extraordinary ones, EC, from the same source. He holds (and I think he thinks this is a philosophical, not a historical, point) that EC contaminate MC. If the source is emitting both static (a misleading metaphor, I realize) and information, we must be skeptical about the information.
[Law also offers—again, he thinks philosophical—criticisms of the criteria of multiple attestation, embarrassment, and discontinuity. I pass these criticisms by, but Law is clever and generally sensible, and they’re no doubt worth a good look.]
Ours is a credulous age. Theirs—first-century Palestinians’—was probably even more so. At least, they lacked and we have the germ theory of disease and some notion that there could be no Hades below or heaven above. But even in our age of more demanding epistemic standards, we know people who provide highly reliable reports of the mundane doings of certain human beings and yet also attribute to them extraordinary ones that flunk any reasonable evidentiary test. Which is to say, Law’s thesis of contamination is quite mistaken. In fact, there are engineers and scientists who when at work are epistemically extremely diligent and highly reliable, but when at church are great fools—Mormons, for instance, or transubstaniationalists.
So the contamination thesis fails to account for how we come to know and think we know, and a comparamentalization thesis—allowing for reliability in one realm and sheer zaniness in another—is closer to the truth.
It’s a fact, that Jesus was widely believed to perform exorcisms. He doubtless himself believed he did, too. Few of us would take what he did to be accurately described as “driving out demons.” But should we then dismiss him as a charlatan? Or should we merely conclude “there are no demons, hence Jesus never effected a cure of any sort”? And then go on to argue “reports of exorcisms are incredible, hence reports Jesus was baptized and crucified are contaminated and dubious enough to be subjected to higher than usual standards of acceptance as true.” It seems to me that’s more or less what Law does. From which I conclude he’s a not so hot psychologist and historian, and a very skilled but overreaching philosopher.
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A Short Review of Why I Am Not A Christian (Richard Carrier) « Diglotting says:
April 26, 2012 at 3:39 pm
[...] has been a recent hooplah on the interwebs recently (e.g. here and here) concerning Richard Carrier and his response to Bart Ehrman’s book on why Jesus mythicism is [...]
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John Andrew MacDonald
April 26, 2012 at 7:17 pm
If anyone is interested in reading a little more about that post I made about the possible relationship between Christianity, Dionysus, Midrash, and the idea that Paul was lying, I wrote a short story about it in 2009. It’s a little different than what I posted, but some of the same ideas still apply. There’s a little swearing, so if that offends you don’t read it. I think it will be helpful and informative.
John Andrew MacDonald
“Have I been Understood? Dionysus Versus The Crucified”, Nietzsche, Ecce Homo
Here it is: http://www.caseagainstfaith.com/the-eternal-return.html
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Soloview
April 26, 2012 at 7:17 pm
Soloview: “In other words, you have no way of connecting the two Jameses (Acts 12:17, Mark 6:3) by an orderly process that would withstand informed scrutiny. But that is not the problem; the problem is that on the information available to us one cannot dismiss “mythicism” quite the way Ehrman and you are doing…..”
…………………..
Joseph:” This is absolute rubbish: For one thing, the names Peter, James and John appear as a phrasal combination five times in the synoptics: at the Transfiguration (Mt 17,1; Mk 9,2; Lk 9,28), in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26,37; Mk 14,33), at the “raising” of Jairus’ daughter (Mk 5,37; Lk 8,51), and as the audience (along with Andrew) for the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and for Jesus’ “Little Apocalypse” (Mk 1,29-31 and 13,3) (thus appearing “alone” with him only “three” times). What do you mean “by an orderly process that would withstand informed scrutiny.” Start with a concordance, then work your way up to inference, and ask yourself what interest Luke would have in inventing another James. The mythtic interest in defeating the James tradition is beginning to rival the Catholic apologetic one in denying his biological brotherhood–the latter in the interest of making Jesus an only child, the former to make him unhistorical. This is pure nonsense.”
……………….
I have responded to this in a civil and factual manner. My response was not posted as Dr. Hoffmann evidently needs to have a last word in the debate, or is simply embarrassed by his mixing up his Jameses.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 26, 2012 at 7:37 pm
“I have responded to this in a civil and factual manner. My response was not posted as Dr. Hoffmann evidently needs to have a last word in the debate, or is simply embarrassed by his mixing up his Jameses.” Mixing up Jameses? Oh my: Who is mixing up Jameses?
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rjosephhoffmann
April 26, 2012 at 7:44 pm
I find your attention to James quite amusing. If you think you have the right stuff, please solve it for me. Does mythticism stand or fall on this? Maybe it does. Carrier seems to think so too. But really: read a bit of the scholarship and especially read what Dieter Georgi did with the opponents controversy 25 years ago–then get back to me. You are living in the dark ages scholarship wise. And the only embarrassment comes from your trying to use the most conservative scholarship as scions of your cause.
The air is full of feathers | Butterflies and Wheels says:
April 26, 2012 at 7:34 pm
[...] read this self-confessed rant about Carrier on Ehrman (and, somewhat mystifyingly, also on PZ on Carrier on Ehrman). I read Ehrman on Carrier on Ehrman. [...]
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rjosephhoffmann
April 26, 2012 at 7:36 pm
Cute as well as totally useless comment. is syntax knowledge?
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rjosephhoffmann
April 27, 2012 at 4:01 am
Mystified(ly), surely.
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stephanie louise fisher
April 27, 2012 at 8:22 am
Passive aggressive hissing, hiding behind a flutter of frilly feminine fluff which is muddled and ungrammatical.
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John Andrew MacDonald
April 26, 2012 at 10:06 pm
In terms of form criticism, suggesting a link between Christianity, Dionysus, Midrash, and the idea that Paul was lying about his conversion experience, is the most plausible way to defend the Christ Myth Theory
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rjosephhoffmann
April 27, 2012 at 3:59 am
Would we assume that because we think Paul is a liar or because we don’t believe in conversion experiences?
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John Andrew MacDonald
April 27, 2012 at 4:40 am
Hi Dr Hoffmann:
By definition, post modern form criticism only yields negative results. By virtue of the very role of ‘devil’s advocate,’ the form critic’ s method is constrained by definition. As Dr Jacques Derrrida quite rightly saw,
“… all the conceptual oppositions of metaphysics (signifier/signified; sensible/intelligible; writing/speech; passivity/activity; etc.) – to the extent that they ultimately refer to the presence of something present (for example, in the form of the identity of the subject, who is present for all his operations, present beneath every accident or event, self-present in its “living speech”, present in its enunciations, in the present objects and acts of its language, etc.) become non-pertinent(Positions pp 28-30).”
As I said, as a matter of procedure the presentation is only historically possible. Plato in the Republic advocates the “noble lie,” deceiving the people so the rulers can get them to behave properly. “The noble lie” is a apparently a reference to Euripides’ Baccahe where someone says even though Dionysus isn’t a God, pretend that he is because it would be better for the people. That may be the reason behind the reference to Dionysus in this midrash from the gospel of John, although I did my best to demonstrate that it was.
This is the midrash that in my opinion most directly connects Dionysus to Paul’s conversion experience, so it is the correct choice, or at least the one I prefer.
So I used, from Dr. Price,
.
The Gospel of John2. Water into Wine (2:1-11)Though the central feature of this miracle story, the transformation of one liquid into another, no doubt comes from the lore of Dionysus, the basic outline of the story owes much to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 17:8-24 LXX (Helms, p. 86). The widow of Zarephath, whose son has just died, upbraids the prophet: “What have I to do with you, O man of God?” (Ti emoi kai soi, 17:18). John has transferred this brusque address to the mouth of Jesus, rebuking his mother (2:4, Ti emoi kai soi, gunai). Jesus and Elijah both tell people in need of provisions to take empty pitchers (udria in 1 Kings 17:12, udriai in John 2:6-7), from which sustenance miraculously emerges. And just as this feat causes the woman to declare her faith in Elijah (“I know that you are a man of God,” v. 24), so does Jesus’ wine miracle cause his disciples to put their faith in him (v. 11).
But as I said, whether Paul was being honest about his conversion experience is anyone’s guess. It comes down to an act of faith, because the method proceeds by pointing out what we don’t know (Devil’s advocate)
Take care,
John Andrew MacDonald
Ontario
Canada
Samuel
April 27, 2012 at 9:26 am
Why would someone who was a persecutor of the early church lie about his conversion experience?
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Samuel
April 27, 2012 at 11:15 am
I do not agree with you at all mr. MacDonald that Pauls honesty regarding his conversion experience comes down to faith. He was a persecutor of a church that had absolutely no authority what so ever! Why would he lie? To gain mammon? From who? To gain mercy from authority for his crimes? Absolutely not ( the opposite happened – he was imprisoned!). There is no real reason at all to suggest that he was lying.
John Andrew MacDonald
April 27, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Good question. Maybe I should publish an interpretation of what I wrote. But only if you promise to buy one. lol
Andrew
April 27, 2012 at 8:53 pm
Samuel, re your comment: “Why would someone who was a persecutor of the early church lie about his conversion experience?”
This is much the same as asking why would Peter have denied Jesus three times unless it really happened. The evil Pharisee who mends his ways and instantly abrogates Mosaic law once Christ had appeared to him is yet another convenient polemical concept for the anti-Judaic factions of the early church.
stephanie louise fisher
April 27, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Perhaps you ought to read Samuel Sandmel on parallelomania, John. I wonder why Paul would lie to send himself into Hades rather than lie to his advantage.
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John Andrew MacDonald
April 27, 2012 at 10:30 am
You must have found it at least a little funny. lol
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Spanish Inquisitor
April 27, 2012 at 12:37 pm
There is no real reason at all to suggest that he [Paul] was lying.
Perhaps he had an “experience” during an epileptic seizure that led him to honestly believe he was hearing a message from God? In that sense, he wouldn’t be lying. One has to know that what one says is not truthful for it to be a lie. ;)
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Samuel
April 27, 2012 at 12:47 pm
Key word in your argument: “honestly”. I am not invoking a supernatural explanation for his vision, only that it’s much more probable, considering the background information, that he was not lying about having a revelation from Jesus Christ.
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Spanish Inquisitor
April 27, 2012 at 3:07 pm
I agree. A natural explanation is more likely, more in line with Occam. Brain chemistry could account for all of Paul’s motivations, and he would believe everything he says. No lies needed.
John Andrew MacDonald
April 27, 2012 at 4:43 pm
I just tried to post a really good article by Dr. Price that argues there were Greek influences on the Jews in the time of Jesus. It disappeared for some reason. I’ll try again: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/jesusproject/articles/the_jesus_mirage
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John Andrew MacDonald
April 27, 2012 at 8:08 pm
R Joseph Hoffmann said: Except this isn’t discussion and it certainly isn’t academic.
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John Andrew MacDonald
April 27, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Written by John Andrew MacDonald,
St.Catharines,
2012
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Mike Gantt
April 28, 2012 at 5:07 am
To pulseteresa and Spanish Inquisitor,
Like the mythicists, neither of you is seeking history. You are simply assuming in advance what can and cannot happen and therefore only accepting as history anything supports your assumption. That’s like the detective deciding in advance of the investigation that there’s no way the butler could have done it. If the butler actually did do it, there’s no way that detective will ever find out.
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Spanish Inquisitor
April 30, 2012 at 11:54 am
“You are simply assuming in advance what can and cannot happen ”
You mean, like miracle that defy all known laws of physics and biology? Yes, I am assuming that, but then, I would venture to say that Prof. Hoffman does the same thing, elsewhere in this thread, when he concede that much of the stories of the Gospels are not true, while still following evidence for the historicity of the man.
And all that fluff that’s discarded? The stuff of myth-making. Maybe I don’t have full grasp of what Hoffman calls “myth” (I tend to equate it with “fiction” – the opposite of History) but it still seems that there are strong elements of myth-making in the creation of the Gospels.
If you think an assumption that miracles don’t happen is not warranted, then by all means, provide evidence that they do, and I will no longer assume that.
To borrow your analogy, that’s like a detective assuming the butler committed the murder by calling on a demon from hell to cast a spell on the victim. If he assumes that, he’ll never figure out that the wife of the victim poisoned him.
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Mike Gantt
April 30, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Spanish Inquisitor,
For me, a decision about miracles is simply an outworking of the more fundamental decision about God. That is, if we have no Creator then miracles are not possible. If there is a God, who am I to say He can’t do a miracle when He wants?
As to your question about my view of Dr. Hoffman on this issue, i suspect he will side with your skepticism. And to that end please see my comment to Grog as he was interacting with Dr. Hoffman elsewhere on this page, time-stamped April 30, 2012 11:34 am.
Den fortgående debatten kring Bart Ehrmans ”Did Jesus Exist” « Jesus granskad says:
April 28, 2012 at 10:43 am
[...] och sedan hänvisar till Joseph R. Hoffmans angrepp (jag hittar inget bättre ord) på Carrier i Mythtic Pizza and Cold-cocked Scholars (tydligt är att Hoffman och Carrier inte är såta vänner), dels hans Fuller Reply to Richard [...]
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Ananda
April 28, 2012 at 11:31 am
Greetings Joseph,
Now an intriguing debate or your studied opinion, if so, of the likelihood of the Flavian hypothesis as interpreted by Chris Carrington on the net as well as Joseph Atwill in his book Caesar’s Messiah has any bases from your prospective.
I just put this curiosity to Richard Carrier and conveniently found your link right below in a post. I am not saying it’s providence, perhaps synchronicity.
~metta
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rjosephhoffmann
April 28, 2012 at 11:59 am
I don’t think we can wish the dispositiveness of TF into existence. There are first order reasons to be skeptical and textual reasons that make the first order questions compelling. have a look at this discussion, http://www.socinian.org/files/TestimoniumFlavianum.pdf
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stephanie louise fisher
April 28, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Carrier’s post is full of despicable falsehoods and ridiculously bitter nonsense.
Carrier’s claim is deluded and pathetic. There is absolutely no doubt that Hoffmann is completely sane. I didn’t realise Carrier was a qualified psychiatrist as well. He’s not. He does not have “evidence” – that is ridiculous and untrue from beginning to end. I wonder if he knows what evidence is given the quality of his analysis of historical evidence. He does however have an extraordinarily high opinion of himself as having a multitude of areas of expertise – just read his ‘profile’. This extraordinary sort of fantastical egotism is not normal in intelligent society. He’s just bitter that he has not been embraced by critical scholarship. Does he realise that without qualification to diagnose he is liable to be accused of libel? Does he realise that critical thinking people change their mind with critical argument and evidence? That’s how scholarship works. It’s called skepticism, and it’s about being self critical, something Carrier is not. Instead Carrier boasts “I am no less a philosopher than Aristotle or Hume. My knowledge, education, and qualifications are comparable to theirs in every relevant respect… For you cannot be successful in anything of importance if you have a poor or even incorrect grasp of yourself”. Does he have evidence of Hoffmann ‘praising and loving’ his work? As far as I am aware his book ‘Proving History’ was vanity published first and was advertised to be released by Prometheus in April. I received my copy which was supposed to be vanity published but it arrived as a Prometheus edition a couple of weeks ago. Hoffmann never claimed to have read Proving History. He never claimed to be responding to Carrier’s points directly – in fact quite the contrary which he makes clear in this comment thread. This post is an overall impression from his previous ‘work’ and posts on his atheist blog. Carrier’s inability to distinguish between an error and a lie is astonishing. It is unfortunate that he always finds it necessary to use such vile language and falsehoods to express himself publically, and I think it might be helpful to his credibility if he started being a little more careful and honest. Carrier’s ridiculous rant is full of falsehoods from beginning to end.http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/love3141509.shtml
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Wayne
April 28, 2012 at 5:22 pm
One very simple question please. Have you changed your mind about the historicity of Jesus? You clearly stated on “Point of Inquiry” in 2007 that you did not believe he was historical, but you now seem utterly dismissive of that position. Thanks for clearing this up.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 28, 2012 at 6:46 pm
It is a very simple question. I hope it will not offend you if I say there is not a simple answer. It depends entirely on what you mean by historical Jesus. If you mean the figure in the gospels in every particular, then I do not know many NT scholars of any repute who believe that. If you mean “Did Jesus exist?” as an historical postulate, my answer is yes, but with reservations. Bultmann falls into this camp–and I assume you know his arguments? If you ask, “Is Jesus a myth,” then my answer is, No. First because a myth is a specific literary genre that mythicists including most atheists usually get wrong. Second because it usually implies a deception which cannot be attributed to the sources or their transmission. Does this clear things up? I very much doubt it. If on the other hand you ask me whether I have changed my mind: that is simple. No. But in order to understand what this means, you would need to read a bit and not listen to a podcast from 2007–my views go back to works as early as 1984. And that requires a bit of effort and concentration. To help you out: I will tell you that I regard the question of historicity a real question. At this point, I regard the question to have been answered affirmatively: the preponderance of evidence sways in the direction of a historical Jesus. I have said so repeatedly. And finally it is a matter of evidence, not what I “think”or “believe.” Richard Carrier’s arguments have done nothing to convince me that there was no historical Jesus, and indeed, I find his entire methodology ignorant, intellectually flawed, and useless.
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Wayne
April 29, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Thank you for your reply. My understanding of Bultmann on this point is that Jesus was an actual person, who was mythologized by the people who later wrote and spoke of him. (Unlike yourself, Bultmann goes on to espouse some muddled theology in an attempt to retain a Christianity).
The statement you made on the CFI show (which was specifically about the ill fated Jesus Project) was “I believe Jesus of Nazareth did not exist”, without any qualification. Since the point of the Project was to examine the case for the existence of an historical person, Jesus, your statement seemed pretty clear. In any case, , what I don’t understand is your now seeming contempt for those persons, like Dr. Robert Price who feel that the evidence weighs against an historical Jesus.
Grog
May 4, 2012 at 1:38 am
And yet…(and, no Dr. Fisher, I am not a stalker, I am just interested in this discussion)…in Sources of the Jesus Tradition (2010) you (Dr. Hoffmann, I am now addressing) write “…there is nothing in the tradition that requires a real death..Is it not just as plausible that the Passion narrative is a drama based on the binding of Isaac…?” and later: “Either way, the movement from the ‘ordinary’ to the
‘extraordinary’ upon which the Jesus-to-Christ model depends is implausible.”
What other plausible model exists for the HJ?
I understand that one is constantly skeptical, even of one’s own previously held views. But we seem to have had a sudden and abrupt change in tone and attitude toward this question. It really is counter-intuitive. To the point where you seem to mock those who hold the very same views that you held as recently as two years ago. I thought those essays were insightful. You are an engaging, observant writer. So what’s happened? Do you now repudiate your past views? Do you now find the Jesus to Christ model plausible? If not, what model do you propose to explain the development of Christianity that began with an historical Jesus? What can you tell us about this historical Jesus?
stephanie louise fisher
April 28, 2012 at 6:52 pm
Critical scholarship is about being constantly skeptical and self critical and evaluating all new evidence and arguments. It isn’t about holding convictions and formulating arguments to support them. Research involves investigation, engaging with learned critical arguments and evidence and having an ability to change one’s mind. Ideas evolve in conjunction with new insights, and conclusions are not always conclusive but in state of flux, constantly changing and evolving. Only in the fundamentalist worlds do people make up their minds and refuse to change them.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 29, 2012 at 5:26 am
Over at the Freethought Ghetto, for anyone who missed it, Dick Carrier has written a flatulent fact-free reply to Ehrman’s reply to him in which he alludes to something called Hoffman’s [sic] Madness. http: //freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1117 This comes from a man who compares himself to Aristotle and Hume, thinks the scholarly establishment is out to get him, and that the whole discipline of New Testament scholarship, in his word, is “fucked.” I would write more about my psychiatric state but me and the Apostles have work to do in Jerusalem before I die.
stephanie louise fisher
April 29, 2012 at 11:01 am
It is interesting that Carrier still hasn’t approved my comment (which I re-paste below) or any other comment on his post. It grieves me to acknowledge that Carrier’s flatulent fact-free flight of fancy demonstrates that he is regrettably deluded and committed to a fantasy world which convinces him of his extraordinary and inflated importance. He has made unqualified psychological diagnoses of ‘lunacy’ on at least three occasions (links pasted here for sad amusement), as if repetition makes something true. It is tragically no more than psychological projection. He appeals to his ‘evidence’ which naturally is not ‘evidence’. Instead it consists of a bitter rant about how he has been criticised by Hoffmann for academic incompetence. It is however tragic evidence that Carrier is quite unfit for normal intelligent society and taht he certainly shows no signs of ever being fit for academic posting. His incompetence is transparent and he shows no genuine desire or need to learn. Thom recently demonstrated Carrier’s incompetence and his inablity to provide valid evidence: http://religionatthemargins.com/2012/04/the-death-of-richard-carriers-dying-messiah/
and the ludicrous projections:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2012/01/03/on-accusations-of-fraud-and-making-weird-sexual-jokes/#comment-50556
http://richardcarrier.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/sources-of-jesus-tradition.html?showComment=1306873573247
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1117
My unapproved comment on Carrier’s tantrum or typical emotional outburst:
Carrier’s post is full of despicable falsehoods and ridiculously bitter nonsense.
Carrier’s claim is deluded and pathetic. There is absolutely no doubt that Hoffmann is completely sane. I didn’t realise Carrier was a qualified psychiatrist as well. He’s not. He does not have “evidence” – that is ridiculous and untrue from beginning to end. I wonder if he knows what evidence is given the quality of his analysis of historical evidence. He does however have an extraordinarily high opinion of himself as having a multitude of areas of expertise – just read his ‘profile’. This extraordinary sort of fantastical egotism is not normal in intelligent society. He’s just bitter that he has not been embraced by critical scholarship. Does he realise that without qualification to diagnose he is liable to be accused of libel? Does he realise that critical thinking people change their mind with critical argument and evidence? That’s how scholarship works. It’s called skepticism, and it’s about being self critical, something Carrier is not. Instead Carrier boasts “I am no less a philosopher than Aristotle or Hume. My knowledge, education, and qualifications are comparable to theirs in every relevant respect… For you cannot be successful in anything of importance if you have a poor or even incorrect grasp of yourself”. Does he have evidence of Hoffmann ‘praising and loving’ his work? As far as I am aware his book ‘Proving History’ was vanity published first and was advertised to be released by Prometheus in April. I received my copy which was supposed to be vanity published but it arrived as a Prometheus edition a couple of weeks ago. Hoffmann never claimed to have read Proving History. He never claimed to be responding to Carrier’s points directly – in fact quite the contrary which he makes clear in this comment thread. This post is an overall impression from his previous ‘work’ and posts on his atheist blog. Carrier’s inability to distinguish between an error and a lie is astonishing. It is unfortunate that he always finds it necessary to use such vile language and falsehoods to express himself publically, and I think it might be helpful to his credibility if he started being a little more careful and honest. Carrier’s ridiculous rant is full of falsehoods from beginning to end.
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stephanie louise fisher
April 29, 2012 at 4:46 pm
Carrier claims on his ‘free’ thought ghetto blog:
Richard Carrier is the renowned author of Sense and Goodness without God, Proving History, and Not the Impossible Faith, as well as numerous articles online and in print. His avid fans span the world from Hong Kong to Poland. With a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University, he specializes in the modern philosophy of naturalism, the origins of Christianity, and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, with particular expertise in ancient philosophy, science and technology. He has also become a noted defender of scientific and moral realism, Bayesian reasoning, and the epistemology of history. For more about him and his work visit http://www.facebook.com/l/sAQF1TFvpAQFOEFL27QRhKLJaQmCjSJQ1xZZwxdFMN2qj8w/www.richardcarrier.info.
It is worth noting that Aristotle aka Hume aka Carrier is also an expert on food science, animal psychology and ethics. He has announced with authority in this extraordinary piece of research and analysis, that all reasons for vegetarianism are ‘irrational’, all vegetarians are therefore ‘deluded’ and vegetarianism is a delusion. He sprinkles the eff word liberally throughout, but you know, he just got passionately worked up about it all. I guess this means that all fruvegrians are bananas.http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/87
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rjosephhoffmann
April 29, 2012 at 5:13 pm
How does one become the renowned author of vanity published and still unpublished, unreviewed books?
rjosephhoffmann
April 29, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Aristotle thou shouldst be living at this hour; sanity hath need of thee
stephanie louise fisher
April 29, 2012 at 5:55 pm
Proving History was released earlier than advertised according to my copy (which with deep regret I read). However while the bookseller promised to send a vanity published copy, the copy which arrived has a publication page with ‘Prometheus’ printed on it. However the quality of print on this particular page is peculiar and I suspect it might be a facsimile. Proving History has not had an academic review to my knowledge although it has been endorsed by the notorious Hector Avalos and Malcolm Murray of the Atheist Primer. The epithet ‘renowned’ is egotistical nonsense.
stephanie louise fisher
April 29, 2012 at 6:00 pm
If Aristotle were alive, I’m sure he would rebuke Carrier for his incompetence and Carrier would respond, charging Aristotle with insanity. Mind you, Aristotle probably wouldn’t have given him the time of day in the first place.
Grog
May 1, 2012 at 8:58 am
Wow, Stephanie Fisher, you really do get worked up over this don’t you? I, like you, think Carrier is full of himself. Toning down his rhetoric would serve him well, in my opinion. However, you do a good job demonstrating how scholars who go against the grain are received. For example your characterization of Avalos as “notorious.” You are starting to sound like a shrill apologists, you know. Do you know that?
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stephanie louise fisher
May 1, 2012 at 9:28 pm
Oh hi again Grog – you’re becoming a bit of a stalker. It’s a bit creepy especially considering you hide behind a pseudonym. Perhaps you’re just a bit worked up as an apologist for Carrier. I’m quite comfortable and familiar with going against the grain. It’s all part of independence. And Hector can look after himself.
steph
May 1, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Oh hi again Grog – you’re becoming a bit of a stalker. It’s a bit creepy especially considering you hide behind a pseudonym. Perhaps you’re just a bit worked up as an apologist for Carrier. I’m quite comfortable and familiar with going against the grain. It’s all part of independence. And Hector can look after himself. Do you know that?
ROO BOOKAROO
May 12, 2012 at 9:23 pm
This Stephanie Louise Fisher is simply unbearable. There’s absolutely nothing to learn from reading her. It’s all emotional outpour. Better skip over it every time she comes in.
And speaking of being full of oneself, it does look to an outside observer that every poster is full of himself, or herself, in her case.
david mills
May 14, 2012 at 3:26 am
Agreed. I thought the joke about Carrier having a penis for a nose was very telling. One side is as bad as the other, IMO.
Dan Gillson
April 29, 2012 at 11:07 am
I find it hard to believe that Carrier still has emails from you from four years ago — if he did, why wouldn’t he just post them so we could read them in entirety and not just lines from them lifted out of context?
Reply
Spanish Inquisitor
April 30, 2012 at 1:16 pm
To MIke Gannt
“,i>For me, a decision about miracles is simply an outworking of the more fundamental decision about God. That is, if we have no Creator then miracles are not possible. If there is a God, who am I to say He can’t do a miracle when He wants?
So you make assumptions to? All kinds of assumptions about the existence of god, his powers and abilities, his role in this earthly existence, etc. I make assumptions about the nonexistence of miracles. So, when you say:
“You are simply assuming in advance what can and cannot happen and therefore only accepting as history anything supports your assumption…”
This could be applied equally to both of us.
So, then the question is, which assumptions can be substantiated and worthy of retention, and which are not, when you are applying them to historical inquiry?
You probably can guess my answer to that.
Reply
Mike Gantt
April 30, 2012 at 1:36 pm
Spanish Inquisitor,
I was was agnostic on the question about God and therefore agnostic on the question of miracles. What changed my mind was reading the New Testament documents and learning firsthand from it about the claims Jesus made regarding God. He was so polarizing i found it impossible to be agnostic about Him. He was either who He said He was, or else He was not. I found the evidence more compelling for the former than for the latter. Thus my decision about God and about miracles flowed out of my decision about Jesus of Nazareth.
The deficiency of your position is not that you are making an assumption per se, but that you are making one which prevents evidence from coming your way. If you want to make a wise decision, you want a full flow of evidence.
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Spanish Inquisitor
April 30, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Thus my decision about God and about miracles flowed out of my decision about Jesus of Nazareth. The deficiency of your position is not that you are making an assumption per se, but that you are making one which prevents evidence from coming your way. If you want to make a wise decision, you want a full flow of evidence.
Well, again. Goose. Gander.
You are making assumptions that prevents you from accepting a lack of evidence for extraordinary claims (i.e miracles). Absence of of evidence is not evidence of absence in all cases, but it is in some, especially in the claim for miracles. Your belief in miracles, stemming from your assumptions about Jesus of Nazareth, prevents you from accepting that there simple is no evidence for miracles. This means that in a question of the historicity of Jesus, you assume the existence of that which you are trying to prove.
Sounds a bit circular to me.
Mike Gantt
April 30, 2012 at 4:59 pm
Spanish Inquisitor,
My belief that God can do a miracle does not require me to believe every person who says they have witnessed a miracle. Therefore, I am able to discriminate between accounts and am not committed a priori to a judgment. Your position does not allow you the same freedom. You have to reject all claims, and the absence of any valid claims legitimizes your decision. Therein is circularity.
Spanish Inquisitor
May 1, 2012 at 9:15 am
My belief that God can do a miracle…
…assumes God
…does not require me to believe every person who says they have witnessed a miracle. .
However, you just don’t know, and can’t ever know, (and, after, all knowledge is what were are seeking here) because the God you assume CAN do miracles. So how do you know, one way or the other? How do you test the veracity of the claim? You can’t, you have to take it on faith, which is a lousy methodology for testing historicity. Ask R. Joseph up there. He doesn’t use faith to arrive at whatever conclusion he reaches about the historicity of Jesus, (and if he does, his conclusions are next to worthless – No, they’re worthless.)
Therefore, I am able to discriminate between accounts and am not committed a priori to a judgment.
A totally useless exercise if you are using faith to “discriminate between accounts”.
I, on the other hand, until evidence to the contrary arrives, assume the natural order of the world precludes miracles, and hence any accounts of miracles are specious, and can be discarded as the product of fancy (myth). I don’t a priori preclude miracles. I simply strip them of their supernatural elements and assess them in the light of all human knowledge.
Of course, I would accept a supernatural element to the claim IF one could be proven. But by definition ofsuper-nature, it can’t. So why even consider it?
Reply
Mike Gantt
May 1, 2012 at 11:01 am
Spanish Inquisitor,
Faith is something we all – skeptics and believers alike – practice all day long. That is, we are constantly accepting information from others and relying on it without independently validating it. (My daughter texted my wife yesterday. How do I know? My wife told me.)
If we are wiling to place faith in human beings who have earned the right to be trusted by us, how much more we ought to be willing to trust our Creator.
Reply
Spanish Inquisitor
May 1, 2012 at 11:55 am
But if your wife was a habitual liar, what faith would you have in her comment?
You’re confusing trust in evidence with faith in revealed truth.
Understandable, but not very reliable.
I trust my car will start, even though sometimes it might not, because the evidence I’ve received over 40 years of driving plus the education I’ve received about the role of engineering, science and manufacturing in my car allows me to trust that it will. I don’t have any “faith” that God will start it.
Mike Gantt
May 1, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Spanish Inquisitor,
I think you’re the one who’s confused. And, specifically, you’re confused about the nature of trust (i.e. faith, belief).
My wife is trustworthy. That’s why I trust her. If she were a habitual liar, I could not trust her.
I trust people who deserve my trust.
I do not trust my car. I may expect my car to operate properly, or I may not. But I would never trust it. It is an inanimate object. Trust is something personal.
As for God, I would not trust Him to start my car, but I would trust Him to do anything that He promised through the Scriptures to do. I would also trust Him to do what is right and consistent with His responsibilities in any and every circumstance – even if I don’t always know what those responsibilities are. (I’m pretty sure it’s not His responsibility to start cars.) He deserves my trust. He deserves it first of all as my Creator, and secondly by virtue of the way He behaved Himself when He walked the earth as Jesus of Nazareth. Thus I have more than sufficient reason to trust Him.
Spanish Inquisitor
May 1, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Mike Gannt
…the nature of trust (i.e. faith, belief).
The confusion is yours, Mike. No offense, but you are using trust, faith and belief synonymously. While in vernacular speech, that may be sometimes OK, when you are doing scholarly work relating to the historicity of the Bible, it’s not. They have different meanings, and you cannot conflate them.
My wife is trustworthy. That’s why I trust her. If she were a habitual liar, I could not trust her.
And why is that? Is it because someone whispered in your ear that she was to be trusted, i.e. they “revealed” her trustworthiness to you and you accepted it? Doubtful.
Or is it because your experience with her, years of trusting her and finding that she followed through every time causes you to now continue to trust her implicitly? That’s more likely. In short, the evidence you’ve gleaned from the years you’ve been in a relationship with her supports your trust, not someone telling you she’s trustworthy. The first time you met her, would you have given her your life savings to invest? Or did it take a little time to get to know her?
Evidence-based trust is not the same as revelation-based faith.
The former is what scientists and historians do. The latter is what theologians do.
I do not trust my car.
Yes you do, or you wouldn’t own it. You investigated the car before you bought it. You looked at reviews, you spoke to people who had knowledge about it and got their opinions, you may have owned the same brand in the past (I keep buying Toyota) and found it reliable, you looked at reliability surveys, and you test-drove it before you bought it. You obtained evidence about it. You trust your decision to buy the car, and your trust that it will start, just like it usually does, every time you turn the key.
Sure, you know that sometimes even the most perfectly well built and maintained cars have parts that fail, but you actually “trust” that occasionally your car will too. But even that lack of trust is evidence based. It’s not revealed to you by a superior being, which you accept on faith, like you do in miracles, if I may take us back to where we began.
Faith is the belief in something without the necessity of evidence, indeed, sometimes in the face of evidence to the contrary. That’s religious faith described to a T. You don’t have faith in your car.
Your “faith” in your car only goes as far the evidence to justify it. As soon as the evidence says it’s an unreliable car, that’s when you start looking for a new one. You don’t wait for God to tell you when to purchase a new car, do you?
As for your last paragraph, well, this is where we will have to agree to disagree. I’m not trying to convince you of anything, other than the error of using your faith in Jesus as a means to prove his actual historical existence, which is circular. You seem to be already well convinced not only of his historical existence, but of his divinity, so I’m not even going to try to talk you down off that ledge. ;)
But really, you need to be able to differentiate between the “trust” we use in everyday life that is based on evidence we constantly accumulate, and the “faith” in a revealed god. They are apples and oranges.
Reply
Mike Gantt
May 1, 2012 at 4:25 pm
Spanish Inquisitor,
I’ll stick with my “vernacular” understandings. I welcome scholars, but life is too important and too personal to leave it entirely to their definitions.
The crucifixion of Christ, particularly when understood in its Second Temple Judaism and Greco-Roman context, gives me all the evidence I need of the character and trustworthiness of God. Even if you don’t believe Jesus is divine, God’s resurrection of him on the third day after his death is ample attestation to the rightness of his course and the vindication of all who follow him.
If it makes sense to trust the name of Toyota, how much more sense it makes to trust the name of Jesus.
Reply
Spanish Inquisitor
May 1, 2012 at 4:59 pm
Can’t say I’d ever want to drive a Jesus. Unless I needed to get across a body of water quickly, and there were no bridges. ;)
Mike Gantt
May 2, 2012 at 5:13 am
Spanish Inquisitor,
You’re eventually coming to a chasm called death. He’ll be the bridge when you get there.
Wayne
May 2, 2012 at 1:24 am
It is a scary day when we need to agree with Ehrman …. isn’t it?
Wayne
Reply
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Religion and Culture for the Intellectually Impatient
??? ????
by rjosephhoffmann
You are as dark as your name
but is there something more?
What of the one who’s not the same
minute to minute, for
You specialize in being unknown–
Except for your shoulders or
Your breasts cupped, or a frown
That melts into a self-approving smile
When I am caught speechless
In beauty’s glare and bravery overtakes you.
I thought I loved your neck the most–
It has a fleshy resonance, a certain style–
But now, I think, I like the rest
Of you. I have become a connoisseur
Who hopes like Moses for a sign
And waits, expecting you to lure
Samson from his sleep with naked thighs.
And will it come, this final vision?
Will you make my life dance
Like so many dervishes in fast
And furious step, until they chance
To say, Listen! The music’s done, at last.
Or will you, thighs clad,
Retreat into my lengthening past,
Like my shadow, like your mad
Ideas, by what this love will cost?
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Religion and Culture for the Intellectually Impatient
The Death of the Gentleman Scholar
by rjosephhoffmann
The Death of the Gentleman Scholar
by ADMIN posted on OCTOBER 22, 2011
“Wisdom crieth aloud in the street; she uttereth her voice in the highways” Proverbs 1,22
Recent events have made me remember that one of the reasons I dropped out of law school was that lawyers seemed just like businessmen to me. They told the same jokes, drank the same beer and ogled the same girls while they sat smoking the same cigarettes (when you could smoke cigarettes on a university campus, a hundred years ago) between classes. I had chosen “the law” (notice the phrase) because I’d seen A Man for All Seasons twenty times and thought if it ever came to it I would willingly die for justice, which had become in my head a worthy substitute for God. I’d left him behind at the end of my freshman year and there was an intellectual and moral gap that needed filling.
But I did not want to end my days among the sons of peanut farmers in lower Virginia, so I escaped and joined the ranks of the liberally artsy. I defended my choice by telling my parents that wisdom was as good as justice any old day, even if it didn’t pay as well. My Black’s Law Dictionary for years was a doorstop in my bedroom, reminding me of this early vocational recalibration. For their part, my family were still recovering from the time, at 14, I had absconded by night from a Roman Catholic minor seminary in Baltimore after deciding I lacked the right stuff to be a priest.
One of the things you learned quickly in graduate school was that you could not always be right. In high school it had never seemed to matter if I was wrong: everyone was wrong, much of the time. In college it mattered a little more, but in “major public universities” the cloak of anonymity helped to deliver you from discernible error. Their opposite, “the small liberal arts college” was where people with money went to be told, in the nicest way, that they were wrong, but that it didn’t matter because they were going to get a good job anyway and what really mattered was that they weren’t being taught by graduate students but suckled by grossly underpaid PhD’s.
But graduate school was different—primarily because error was conspicuous. It mattered. The twelve people sitting around the table with you all wanted to be right– to show that they’d done the reading, translated the passage, mastered the method better than their chums. Facts mattered when they mattered, but ingenuity and imagination mattered more, more than anything except sleeping with the professor.
So did civility. The quickest way to the bottom of the heap in every class and every seminar was to call a colleague (and mean it) crazy, wrong, pathetic, or dickheaded. In my over-long graduate school career, I probably encountered all of the known subtle equivalents of calling somebody hopelessly stupid, but never directly. You relied on market pressure and quiet consensus to make the case. You relied on what was beginning to be called discourse. Only once do I remember a student breaking under the pressure of this consensus and telling a professor, a woman professor as it happens, to go fuck herself. That student is now a lawyer.
What I remember most, however was artful disagreement: “You may be right that Shakespeare was an alcoholic, but have you considered that by our standards everyone in Elizabethan England was?” or, “I do take your point about the importance of classical grammar; but I think I’m with F.R. Leavis on this one.” It was always good to be with F.R. Leavis on anything, especially if the professor was with him as well. Cheap disagreement was citing expert opinion and footnotes in your own defence. Good disagreement was learning how to make a case of your own. Once, in the world, we had professors who knew the difference between the two.
The sensible pattern of those days stuck with me: in my own small classes and seminars, I don’t permit students to begin sentences with “You must be kidding,” “What a load of crap,” “Get over yourself” or “I can’t believe you just said that.” That’s for the mall, or a disagreement over drinks or Thanksgiving dinner. Treasure a space where it’s not allowed. And there is a small, cowed part of me that regrets that the free speech impetus of my college generation, thirty years on, seems to have inspired mainly linguistic muck and the artifice of quick put-downs.
Graduate students, if they are lucky, become something called “academics.” They write book reviews to pad their resumes, then articles made from chopping their dissertations into tiny bits, and then recombine the bits, with invention, into new books. The smart ones never budge more than an inch from the research they did for their dissertation because, usually, it has meant a job, tenure, and intellectual territory. It has also meant, in some cases, a degree of celebrity–though the reality is that most academics will die in shadows gray, even if tickled pink at the number of hits they get on a Google search.
Anonymous or not, the scholar has always been a citizen of a larger world—the world of ideas. He is no longer confined to the seminar room, nor even to a particular “employer.” The academic world is wide and scary. Teeming with people just like the ones you knew when there were twelve of you around a table waiting for you to crash and burn so that they could rise and fly. It is Olympic, and full of people who sniff error the way hounds sniff for rabbit.
The profession of scholarship as it was inherited by my generation of scholars still possessed an element of chivalry. It is easy to scoff at chivalry, because it has been bruised, battered and left for dead in free speech wars, gender and sexual revolutions–and by fiat in the literary critical verdict that no discourse is privileged over any other and its marketplace corollary–that teachers are, first and foremost, industry service providers, and students are clients and paying customers. (Change that C- to a more comfortable B+ for you, John? My pleasure. Blanket?).
All chivalry is slightly artificial, based on the ancient idea of Do ut des – giving what you expect to get. But to say you were a “scholar” was also descriptive of what you were as a servant of knowledge, someone who would always be, in a socratic kind of way, a subordinate of the wisdom you were trying to communicate to students in the classroom and colleagues reading you in libraries.
The academic profession was a collective full of idealists who actually thought they were combating the ignorance that is the natural state of youth and society. They were the front line of defence against a return to barbarism and Hobbes’s first stage of Me-ism
Any academic is lying who tells you she hasn’t spent the last ten years in committee meetings being reprogrammed to know that the primary role of a university is not the dissemination of knowledge but the retention of students, frantic for self-esteem. This almost imperceptible insertion into academic life by the educationist theory factories will have had some innocent title like “The Changing Face of American Education” or “Managing Student Persistence.” But basically, the program to be got with was about how your ivory tower has been converted into a condo association. –And just to drive the point home, your performance reviews will be done by the customers every 16 weeks, and they do count.
I miss chivalry. I miss the cozy, feathered protection of Oxford common rooms, quiet tutorials where tea is served and two-hundred count formal lectures where students take notes instead of covert text messages . I even miss calling my students Mr and Miss, already quaint in my day when socialist professors insisted on their right to be called Jerry.. But in his heyday, madly perhaps, the scholar “behaved” as though he knew what he was: a servant of knowledge, a master of arts, a professor of wisdom–of some sort–an unworthy midwife who “got” the Socratic thing about knowing nothing being the first step in knowing.
But one thing that did not change until much more recently was the discourse, at least not substantially. In the reviews you wrote, you tried to imagine the scholar whose work was in front of you and sharing your predicament. If you rose in the ranks, and he hadn’t, you felt the tug of generosity in knowing that a good word might make the difference between tenure and failure. In the books you wrote and edited, you were careful to give full and fair credit in footnotes (which seemed to grow inexplicably longer than your paragraphs as you created your case or argued your point).
I have seen trenchant, damning reviews of my work and undeservedly generous ones. The damning ones did not call me a fool and the good ones did not call me a genius. Once upon a time, the world of ideas was more about the ideas than the advocates. Now, a political model rules in which killing the advocate is the fastest way to get rid of the idea. If Barack Obama is a communist, how can anything he says be right? If Professor Lewis is a Jew, of course his opinions about Islam and terrorism can be ignored, negated—nay, vilified. Judging a book by its cover, a scholar by his race, politics or religion, is nothing new of course; except that scholarship itself is supposed to be about correcting this predilection, not buying into it wholesale.
Based on my conversations with colleagues over the last year, I’m sad to say that the gentleman scholar is as dead as a doornail. What G B Shaw once said about Christianity (“The conversion of the savage to Christianity is the conversion of Christianity to savagery) is more profoundly true of scholarship, where the popularization of ideas makes it difficult to distinguish between good ideas and atrocious ideas since all have equal standing in a world of flash and hyperlinks.
It means that many scholars, including scientists, can use the “authority” they have earned in a particular area and apply it to areas in which they have no expertise at all. Amateurs who failed as job-getters, teachers or authors can find a new life as experts in virtual classrooms in which the only responsibility is to themselves. (I speak of blogs.) Self-taught experts can cavort with real experts in the great democracy of ideas where no one is better and so no one is, really “right.” In short, the chastening experience of criticism that might have led to self-criticism, humility and a keen sense of wrongness just doesn’t happen. What does happen is a style and language that makes rightness more difficult, makes “knowledge” so negotiable that it becomes indistinguishable from darkness. ”Learning” (awful, archaic idea) becomes affectation—pomposity and arrogance. Late-breaking news and myth-busting become the current wisdom.
In a world dominated by the twin opposites of sham authority and rank amateurism, the first casualty is real scholarship.
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Published: April 27, 2012
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24 Responses to “The Death of the Gentleman Scholar”
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Neil Godfrey
April 27, 2012 at 3:48 am
It appears never to have occurred to you that some bloggers who are even amateurs do indeed rack themselves with self-criticism and understand the way of humility and a keen sense of the possibility of being wrong — that is, has it ever occurred to you that these qualities are also to be found “in the ghetto”? Instead of treating them like disease carrying mosquitoes, if you actually condescended to allow yourself a serious discussion, you might find your own sense of humility and keen sense of wrongness being tested. I have learned much from public intellectuals. I have also learned a few of them are insufferable self-pleasuring snobs of no intellectual value whatever to the wider community. And there is also gold, I have learned through experience, hidden in the ghetto. Some public intellectuals act is if they know this and the dialogue is rewarding to both sides.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 27, 2012 at 3:57 am
Thank you in general for the tone of this Neil: you need however to send this to Mr Carrier whose aspersive style was the provocation of this rant, which I identified as a rant, and to his advocate PZ Myers. Dig for gold there.
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Neil Godfrey
April 27, 2012 at 5:25 am
I find gold in your poetry. And some nuggets of silver and bronze in your Marcion thesis.
Neil Godfrey
April 27, 2012 at 5:42 am
Or should I have first said “Sorry, I’m a disease carrying mosquito from the ghetto”? And then have begged to have been swatted for entering the hallowed halls of the esoteric humanist space. . . . ? Is that the tone you wanted from me?
rjosephhoffmann
April 27, 2012 at 10:16 am
Neil, no: as you like some of the poetry, you are now my best friend:)
robertb
April 27, 2012 at 7:17 am
Dr. Hoffmann, I am in complete agreement with you. Great post.
However, in the interest of thouroughness, I would add quite a few more names to the mailing list that you supplied to Neil.
labnut
April 30, 2012 at 8:59 am
No doubt about it, gentlemanly discourse is dying an ugly death at the hands of the atheist fundamentalists and this comment seems determined to make that point – ‘it appears never to have occurred to you’, ‘has it ever occurred to you’, ‘if you actually condescended’.
Neil has ignored the central thrust of the posting to latch onto the criticism of bloggers and thereby promptly confirms Dr Hoffmann’s point with his own conduct. Nice one.
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Franklin Percival
April 27, 2012 at 6:17 am
Mr Hoffman, Sir, I wonder whether you are not being a little too hard on the amateur, perhaps. For amateurs such as I with a couple of dodgy A-levels left over from the ‘sixties it is still possible even in this Elsevier dominated world of the Intertoobz and Adobe to research a subject by reference to observation and original papers thus arriving at some conclusion which is then open to argument, is it not?
Whether the field of interest be drug addiction, a particular disease or HT power cable pylon design (yes, I should get out more) there is much to be discovered out there by any who thirsts for wisdom.
I suggest that even though there are many hazards in the way of finding knowledge, the discerning will learn rather than be bullied.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 27, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Franklin, you are right that no one should be discounted because s/he is an amateur: but when someone whose credentials are not at all clear decides to establish himself simply by taking random jabs at the incompetence of scholars who have a proven record of competence, something has to be said. Carrier has now tried to discredit Ehrman — and me previously — and I think it is time to invoke Matthew 7.16 — not simply trust someone who is operating a fan club based on his own private view of his extraordinariness.
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rjosephhoffmann
April 27, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Or this:
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/love3141509.shtml
stephanie louise fisher
April 27, 2012 at 1:19 pm
We’re all amateurs on most things. While we can have opinions, we just don’t pretend to be experts and have the training and knowledge to make learned arguments and pronounce with arrogance entire disciplines to be “fucked” (Carrier 28.11.2011). I studied many things at university in my first degrees, including classics, history, psychology, ecology, criminilogy, anthropology, English literature, Music, Art History, Maori studies and more. I read widely and still read those subjects but I am not an expert and don’t pretend to be. I’ve read Stephen Hawking. I don’t understand it completely because I haven’t the training or knowledge. While I accept his argument as the best and totally plausible as he presented it, I’m not qualified to disagree with anything anyway.
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scotteus
April 30, 2012 at 8:51 am
I think it might be safe to say we’re all professional amateurs of a sort.
scotteus
April 30, 2012 at 8:53 am
We all professional amateurs in one way or another.
Dwight Jones
April 27, 2012 at 10:39 am
As a philosophy undergrad many decades ago, and now as a blogger myself, my view of academics was/is not as gracious. Too often the academic will arbitrarily narrow the terms of discourse to exclude concepts they consider to be ultra vires, regardless of their intrinsic value.
As an example, ethics remains a favourite subject among philosophers, and biologists must fear any pronouncement from that camp – that their project be declared ‘immoral’. I engage these pundits with the notion that ethics today must be examined less from the perspective of mores, and increasingly from the implications of our actions on our species and planet – and they simply won’t go there. The concept of ‘morality’ is too wonderfully nebulous to forsake.
Remember too that academics are known to form schools of thought (in my day the British Analytic Tradition) and so, as an undergraduate I was not to expect any mention of German or Oriental philosophies, and had to make do with Alan Watts for the bulk of my introduction to the latter. Over the past century Wittgenstein and his emulators have done a lot to keep Asia, Islam and the West as three solitudes. They abdicated any responsibility for the T-shirt/Tweed jacket of their own little club, and that has cost us dearly.
It’s true that my sherry-and-recorder (the flute) seminars for 5 credits were very cordial, but they were also an intellectual travesty and bad joke for all concerned.
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Jeremiah
April 27, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Well, I had an Intro to Philosophy class in undergrad, and a class focused on Epistemology in grad school. I’ve spent a lot of time studying religion in the first century CE. I think I can safely say that I am as educated as Plutarch, and I’m definitely superior to Lucian.
Reply
timnerk
April 27, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Reblogged this on Tabula Rasa and commented:
If you’ve ever argued on the internet, you’ve most likely run into to this problem. It’s almost a 1:1 ratio.
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scotteus
April 29, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Perusing modern Philosophy reminds me I why I majored in History, it offers the broadest scope of the humanities.
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Ben
April 27, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Subscribing to comments.
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Viv
April 29, 2012 at 11:59 am
The problem it is not the “amateur” thought. The problem is the arrogance that some minds, amateurs or not, have to dismiss people work because does not “fit” whit their own theory and “their” position is the only ” true and logical ” conclusion. This is valid for Catholic Church in Galileo’s time and for, less educated and similarly arrogant Carrier, PZ Myers and company. They have not knowledge to debate, so they attack… And Internet is a nice battle field where reputations can be harmed without academic review.
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scotteus
April 29, 2012 at 1:27 pm
At this point I’ve discovered that I’m a professional amateur (:
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Glenn
May 1, 2012 at 12:08 pm
These are not footnotes, and I’m not disagreeing.
A. Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini (Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds, 1994):
The essential elements of the Bayesian procedure are as follows:
(1) A series of possible alternatives (which statisticians call “states of nature”) that come before the decision and the gathering of further information.
(2) The a priori probability assigned to each alternative, before verification or testing.
(3) The degree of reliability and the predictive capacity of each test.
(4) The results of the tests (inquires, controls).
(5) The probability assigned to each alternative a posteriori–after, and in light of, all the tests and the further information gathered.
Bayes’ classic law… states that the probabilities in (5) can be exactly calculated on the basis of data provided in (1) through (4)… It must be stressed that both Bayesian and non-Bayesian theoreticians of induction agree on the formula discovered by Bayes… What theoreticians disagree about is the amount of insight one gains from applying this formula to all actual cases of induction…
…the most delicate and difficult part of the operation: One is seeking to calculate the probability of the hypothesis before, and independently of, the test, as well as to calculate the probable result of the test, independent of that particular hypothesis but taking into account other plausible alternatives. This requires rigor, but also flair, common sense, an acute intuition, a fair dose of expertise, and a refined imagination.
Thereafter, applying Bayes’ formula is purely mechanical… The grandeur of Bayes’ law lies precisely in its great formal simplicity–but a simplicity that requires a highly intelligent mix of science and art when applied to concrete examples. In individual cases, it is difficult to insert the right ingredients or numbers in the formula. A mistake in the…a priori probabilities means that the law’s wheels grind out numbers, and an “answer” quite without sense [I'm smelling kielbasa; yum]. The correct calculation of the [a priori] probabilities in a given sector… requires years of study and the cumulative experience of thousands of analogous cases and tests, each patiently analyzed…
B. George Poyla (Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, 1954):
My friend and I are both interested in the conjecture A. (This friend is a mathematician, and A is a mathematical conjecture.) We both know that A implies B. And now we find that B, this consequence of A, is true. We agree, as we honestly have to agree, that this verification of its consequence B is evidence in favor of the conjecture A, but we disagree about the value, or weight, of this evidence. One of us asserts that this verification adds very little to the credibility of A, and the other asserts that it adds a lot.
This disagreement would be understandable if we were very unequally familiar with the subject and one of us knew many more formerly verified consequences than the other. Yet this is not so. We know about the same consequences of A verified in the past. We agree even that there is little analogy between the just verified B and those formerly verified consequences. We agree also, as we honestly should, that this circumstance renders the evidence for A stronger. Yet one of us says “just a little stronger,” the other says “a lot stronger,” and we disagree.
We both suspected, even a short while ago, that B is false and it came to us as a surprise that B is true. In fact, from the standpoint of a rather natural assumption (or statistical hypothesis) B appears pretty improbable. We both perceive that this circumstance renders the evidence for A stronger. Yet one of us says “just a little stronger,” the other says “a lot stronger,” and we keep on disagreeing.
We are both perfectly honest, I think, and our disagreement is not merely a matter of temperament. We disagree because his _background_ is different from mine. Although we had about the same scientific training, we developed in different directions. His work led him to distrust the hypothesis A. He hopes, perhaps, that one day he will be able to refute that conjecture A. As to myself, I do not dare to hope that I shall prove A one day. Yet I must confess that I would like to prove A. In fact, it is my ambition to prove A, but I do not wish to fool myself into the illusion that I shall ever be able to prove A. Such an incompletely avowed hope may influence my judgement, my evaluation of the weight of the evidence. Yet I may have other grounds besides: still more obscure, scarcely formulated, inarticulate grounds. And my friend may have some grounds too that he did not yet confess to himself. At any rate, such differences in our backgrounds may explain the situation: we disagree concerning the strength of the evidence, although we agree in all the clearly recognizable points that should influence the strength of the evidence in an impersonal judgement according to universally accepted reasonable standards.
Let us note: two persons presented with the same evidence and applying the same patterns of plausible inference may honestly disagree.
C. Chronological conundrum aside (and D. below notwithstanding), it might be noted that A –> B.
D. In his Introduction to Logic, Irving M. Copi tells the story of a barrister who failed to prepare for a case (i.e., he eschewed ‘due diligence’). “He arrived at court just a moment before the trial was to begin and was handed his brief by the solicitor. Surprised at its thinness, he glanced inside to find written: ‘No case; abuse the plaintiff’s attorney!’”
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rjosephhoffmann
May 1, 2012 at 12:57 pm
No one doubts the mechanics of Bayes. “Thereafter, applying Bayes’ formula is purely mechanical… The grandeur of Bayes’ law lies precisely in its great formal simplicity–but a simplicity that requires a highly intelligent mix of science and art when applied to concrete examples. In individual cases, it is difficult to insert the right ingredients or numbers in the formula. A mistake in the…a priori probabilities means that the law’s wheels grind out numbers, and an “answer” quite without sense [I'm smelling kielbasa; yum]. The correct calculation of the [a priori] probabilities in a given sector… requires years of study and the cumulative experience of thousands of analogous cases and tests, each patiently analyzed…” and this paragraph seems rife with reasons to reject it as a solution to a literary critical puzzle that requires first a hermeneutic about which almost no one agrees. Even to disagree with the previous sentence illustrates the uselessness of the application to the New Testament where premises have to be constructed from dozens of different types of genres. I like your Copi example–I recall using his text in logic a hundred years ago.
Reply
Glenn
May 1, 2012 at 12:18 pm
…s/b… FactsOf(A) –> ToneOf(B).
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rpearse
May 12, 2012 at 12:58 pm
These are good thoughts, although somewhat doleful. Change is the universal constant, and some is for good and some for bad.
The idea that universities are merely farms for paying students is certainly a change. It is likely to have some odd effects, at least initially.I don’t belong to academia myself, so I don’t know how widespread the disease has become. Probably it is being felt in lower-grade universities first, where there is less financial ballast in the system from endowments and the like. On the other hand … in the longer term it will probably have some positive effects as well.
On the other point: I feel that the amateur like myself has no real chance to compete with the academic. He hasn’t the time. Always he has a tent-making job to do. He must do whatever he does in the evenings when he’s tired, with no access to the literature. Good scholarship must always crush the bumptious amateur, if the two are fairly matched.
Yes, it is certainly easier for the amateur to become well-known at the moment, because of the web. But I wonder whether this is only because the scholars are not really using the web. By this I mean that they are not publishing their work on it.
If so, the dominance of the amateur like myself is purely because the “other side” (although I see myself as a servant of learning, not a competitor) hasn’t entered the ring. I think this will change. If academics can retain enough control of their own work to put it online, then their work will become known, and the amateurs will return to being mere popularisers.
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Religion and Culture for the Intellectually Impatient
News from the Freethought Ghetto
by rjosephhoffmann
Over at the FTG, for anyone who missed it, Dick Carrier has written a flatulent fact-free reply to Bart Ehrman’s reply to him in which he alludes to something called Hoffman’s [sic] Madness. If you don’t want to read all ten thousand words, here is the bottom line: (1) Ehrman pretending to be nice to him is an attempt–a “deflection tactic”–designed to hide his manifold errors (cf. Courtier’s Reply in the Atheist Sure Fire Response Manual) (2) Hoffmann is Crazy: I can prove it and Ehrman better keep his distance if he doesn’t want to catch it; (3) I am going to write more about this but am hung over from a gig at the Madison Freethought Festival.
Carrier calls it “Round One” showing us that he is a scrappy guy and won’t let scholarship, civility or temperament keep him down for long. You’re alright in my book, Dick. Carrier the Terrier. Hey, in round two it won’t be the trouser leg he goes for:
Steph Fisher, a real New Testament scholar, has cited Carrier verbatim, though Carrier in his latest post professes not to have said any of the things he said: Carrier’s criticisms include “He [Ehrman] not only sucks as a writer but can’t even tell that he sucks as a writer”, “it [Ehrman's book] officially sucks”, “he screwed up”, “like some Christian apologist or the whackiest of mythers” “Ehrman’s book is so full of egregious factual errors demonstrating his ignorance, sloppiness, and incompetence in this matter, it really doesn’t even need a rebuttal. It can be thrown straight into the trash without any loss to scholarship or humanity. It is, quite simply, wholly unreliable”, “I have no choice but to condemn this thing as being nothing more than a sad murder of electrons and trees….”
This comes from a man who compares himself to Aristotle and Hume, thinks the scholarly establishment is out to get him, and that the whole discipline of New Testament scholarship, in his word, is “fucked.” If you have never heard if him, this is what he writes about hiself on the basis of two never reviewed books, two vanity published:
Richard Carrier is the renowned author of Sense and Goodness without God, Proving History, and Not the Impossible Faith, as well as numerous articles online and in print. His avid fans span the world from Hong Kong to Poland. With a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University, he specializes in the modern philosophy of naturalism, the origins of Christianity, and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, with particular expertise in ancient philosophy, science and technology. He has also become a noted defender of scientific and moral realism, Bayesian reasoning, and the epistemology of history. For more about him and his work visit www.richardcarrier.info.
–That and being Aristotle.
I would write more about my psychiatric state but as you can see from my picture (above) me and the Apostles have work to do in Jerusalem before I die.
[Since posting this, Carrier has entered round two. I hope Ehrman won't, but basically the gist is this: "Notice. I did not say he [Ehrman] was completely wrong, but that he was mostly right, and was only misleading readers by giving the impression that mythicists were on their own here. I also did not mean that this particular incident makes the book crap.” Other things then? because you did call it crap. Actually this is a squirm, a niggle, a bad witness talking after his lawyer has said to shut up. ]
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Published: April 29, 2012
Filed Under: Uncategorized
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57 Responses to “News from the Freethought Ghetto”
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Rocky Morrison
April 29, 2012 at 6:51 am
Guys with faces like Carriers should not talk about “penis nosed statues” so much.
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stephanie louise fisher
April 30, 2012 at 2:41 pm
oh yes he should because it’s in character – and caricature. :-)
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Antonio Jerez
April 30, 2012 at 2:08 pm
Carrier is just getting more and more pathetic…
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stephanie louise fisher
April 30, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Notice for Carrier. Ehrman wrote, quoting Carrier “Carrier says this is “crap,” “sloppy work,” and “irresponsible,” and indicates that if I had simply checked into the matter, I would see that I’m completely wrong.” Ehrman did not say Carrier said he was completely wrong so why does Carrier complain that he did? It is not in speech marks. The implication is that this is what Carrier meant when he combined crap, sloppy work and irresponsibility. These characteristics don’t generally describe accurate work, but generally describe inaccurate work (although they’re not used in academic conversation because they’re crass), that is, they describe work that is wrong. Carrier has no comprehension of implication.
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Matthew
May 1, 2012 at 1:08 am
Are you the Stephanie Fisher who is (or was) a graduate student of the esteemed NT scholar Maurice Casey?
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stephanie louise fisher
May 20, 2012 at 11:25 am
The only Matthew I know is the lovely Matthew Malcolm who earned his PhD with Tony Thiselton in Nottingham and who is now teaching in Perth Australia. Are you he? :-)
stephanie louise fisher
April 30, 2012 at 3:11 pm
Carrier the knower, says “I do not believe he’s telling the truth here… Is Ehrman now lying about what he actually thought when writing the above? …Ehrman simply lies about this–or, again, is such a godawful writer…” I fear that Carrier is a neurotic ultracrepidarian with an obsessive psychological projection disorder.
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stephanie louise fisher
April 30, 2012 at 3:20 pm
It is interesting that Carrier still hasn’t approved my comment April 28th (which I paste below) on his post. It grieves me to acknowledge that Carrier’s flatulent fact-free flight of fancy demonstrates that he is regrettably deluded and committed to a fantasy world which convinces him of his extraordinary and inflated importance. He has made unqualified psychological diagnoses of ‘lunacy’ on at least three occasions (links pasted here for ironic amusement), as if repetition makes something true. It is tragically no more than psychological projection. He appeals to his ‘evidence’ which naturally is not ‘evidence’. Instead it consists of a bitter rant about how he has been criticised by Hoffmann for academic incompetence. It is however tragic evidence that Carrier is quite unfit for normal intelligent society and taht he certainly shows no signs of ever being fit for academic posting. His incompetence is transparent and he shows no genuine desire or need to learn.
It is worth noting that Aristotle aka Hume aka Carrier, the ultracrepidarian, is also an ‘expert’ on food science, animal psychology and ethics. He has announced with authority in this extraordinary piece of research and analysis, that all reasons for vegetarianism are ‘irrational’, all vegetarians are therefore ‘deluded’ and vegetarianism is a delusion. He sprinkles the eff word liberally throughout, but you know, he just got passionately worked up about it all.
Thom recently demonstrated Carrier’s incompetence and his inablity to provide valid evidence: http://religionatthemargins.com/2012/04/the-death-of-richard-carriers-dying-messiah/
and the ludicrous projections:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2012/01/03/on-accusations-of-fraud-and-making-weird-sexual-jokes/#comment-50556
http://richardcarrier.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/sources-of-jesus-tradition.html?showComment=1306873573247
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1117
My unapproved comment on Carrier’s tantrum or typical emotional outburst:
Carrier’s post is full of despicable falsehoods and ridiculously bitter nonsense.
Carrier’s claim is deluded and pathetic. There is absolutely no doubt that Hoffmann is completely sane. I didn’t realise Carrier was a qualified psychiatrist as well. He’s not. He does not have “evidence” – that is ridiculous and untrue from beginning to end. I wonder if he knows what evidence is given the quality of his analysis of historical evidence. He does however have an extraordinarily high opinion of himself as having a multitude of areas of expertise – just read his ‘profile’. This extraordinary sort of fantastical egotism is not normal in intelligent society. He’s just bitter that he has not been embraced by critical scholarship. Does he realise that without qualification to diagnose he is liable to be accused of libel? Does he realise that critical thinking people change their mind with critical argument and evidence? That’s how scholarship works. It’s called skepticism, and it’s about being self critical, something Carrier is not. Instead Carrier boasts “I am no less a philosopher than Aristotle or Hume. My knowledge, education, and qualifications are comparable to theirs in every relevant respect… For you cannot be successful in anything of importance if you have a poor or even incorrect grasp of yourself”. Does he have evidence of Hoffmann ‘praising and loving’ his work? As far as I am aware his book ‘Proving History’ was vanity published first and was advertised to be released by Prometheus in April. I received my copy which was supposed to be vanity published but it arrived as a Prometheus edition a couple of weeks ago. Hoffmann never claimed to have read Proving History. He never claimed to be responding to Carrier’s points directly – in fact quite the contrary which he makes clear in this comment thread. This post is an overall impression from his previous ‘work’ and posts on his atheist blog. Carrier’s inability to distinguish between an error and a lie is astonishing. It is unfortunate that he always finds it necessary to use such vile language and falsehoods to express himself publically, and I think it might be helpful to his credibility if he started being a little more careful and honest. Carrier’s ridiculous rant is full of falsehoods from beginning to end.
Incidentally, Proving History was released earlier than advertised according to my copy (which with deep regret I read). However while the bookseller promised to send a vanity published copy, the copy which arrived has a publication page with ‘Prometheus’ printed on it. However the quality of print on this particular page is peculiar and I suspect it might be a facsimile. Proving History has not had an academic review to my knowledge although it has been endorsed by the notorious Hector Avalos and Malcolm Murray of the Atheist Primer. The epithet ‘renowned’ is egotistical nonsense.
Reply
Grog
May 3, 2012 at 12:55 am
Well, we can all now rest a little easier, because Carrier has approved comments, including Dr. Fisher’s. It seems to have made a big impact over at FTB.
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steph
May 3, 2012 at 12:33 pm
That’s an extraordinarily silly little comment isn’t it Grog. Criticising his rudeness and inaccuracies only invites his ridiculous ad hominen attacks. It appears he can be as rude as he likes and consider himself professional. However when others critique his style and unwillingness or inablity to engage in academic dialogue, he condemns their critique as ‘a nice crazy rant’ or efforts to engage as ‘deflection tactic’ and calls them liars or insane or both. He gives the impression of being so unfamiliar with language that he hasn’t grasped the concept of ‘vanity publishing’. It is considered obsolete in the popular audience but it is a term perfectly alive in the publishing world, synonymous with the more common term ‘self publishing’. Amazon.com advertised the book as self published with the Prometheus edition not being available until later this year. The UK bookseller also advertised the book as self published. Carrier seems oblivious to this and can only say ‘liar’. Perhaps he should try to be better informed before he makes up his silly defensive blunders. The publication page in the copy that arrived had ‘Prometheus’ in a peculiar print which appears slightly smudged. The bookseller provided no explanation. As for quoting old emails completely out of context without links, he ought to know better than that. And only people with fundamentalist convictions are incapable of changing their minds. Not only that, but implied ‘evidence’ (completely out of context) of changing minds is not ‘evidence’ of lunacy, it is evidence of critical thinking and following evidence where it leads. I think it’s time to recognise that his slapping of abuse such as ‘liar’ and ‘insane’ on people is not just ridiculously laughable but libellous too, and I wonder if perhaps he doesn’t understand the meaning of any of those nouns, or perhaps he just calls others liars because he doesn’t like the truth. It’s truly astonishing he considers himself ‘professional’. I responded to his silliness and I expect he’ll only approve it if he has the audacity to repeat more pointless ad hominens.
rjosephhoffmann
May 3, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Try someone who is not known for being conservative, Columbia’s Morton Smith, “The Historical Jesus,” in Jesus in History and Myth, ed. R.J. Hoffmann and G.A Larue (Amherst, 1986),47-48. who concluded that the myth theory is almost entirely an argument from silence, the purported silence of Paul especially. Smith points out that a fundamental flaw in Well’s approach is that in order to explain just what it was that Paul and other early Christians believed, he is forced to manufacture “unknown proto-Christians who build up an unattested myth . . . about an unspecified supernatural entity that at an indefinite time was sent by God into the world as a man to save mankind and was crucified.” You are quoting common tropes. motifs and analogies as if they are examples of twentieth century undergraduate plagiarism on the part of the gospel writers and stringing beads as though each one was pearl. It isn’t.
stephanie louise fisher
May 5, 2012 at 1:05 pm
Carrier appears not to like the truth. Ben Schuldt, his loyal follower and regular ‘subscriber’ (troll?) here, appears not to like the truth either. Carrier has failed to approve my response to his flippant allegation of ‘liar’. Fact: his book was advertised as self published and this fact is inconvenient to Carrier. Ben ludicrously accuses Hoffmann of lying as well, merely demonstrating his inability to grasp reality. Neither Carrier nor Schuldt understand the concept of evolution, following evidence and changing ideas, and neither, regrettably have the remotest concept of actual context. Context context context, everything has context. Mythtics however live in their own self made fantasy world which has no historical context other than themselves.
steph
May 6, 2012 at 1:18 pm
“Wow, Steph, I think you might be even crazier than Hoffman. Still making stupid arguments, and still telling absurd lies …Either someone punked you (which is unlikely) or you are just making this shit up.”
Punked? He really does not like the truth. His reaction is astonishing and laughably un ‘professional’. It is not an ‘argument’ to state how the book was advertised. It is an account. Maurice Casey is writing to the bookseller for written confirmation that Richard Carrier’s ‘Proving History’ was advertised as published by Richard Carrier. Who is “making shit up”? Perhaps it’s that “professional” chap who compares himself to Aristotle. I wonder if Ben and Grog, Carrier’s “shrill sycophants” are listening.
rjosephhoffmann
May 6, 2012 at 1:44 pm
I am approving this comment reluctantly because someone whose comment I have not seen is being quoted, but it does violate moderation rules for this site, While I don’t mind sarcasm, irony and even occasional lapses of decorum,we haven’t yet resorted to winning arguments here by calling people crazy. I realize of course that Richard Carriers uses aspersion like that as part of his appeal to unreason, along with calling people liars. In any event, whoever and wherever the author of the above, please find happy grazing (or barn burning) on other blogs because you’re not welcome here.
rjosephhoffmann
May 6, 2012 at 5:20 pm
BTW, while I am not anal about the second n in Hoffmann, I wonder how Carierr feels about it? I have always thought that good scholars pay attention to spelling.
stephanie louise fisher
May 6, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Everything in quote marks, except the final quote, is written by Richard Carrier http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1117/comment-page-1#comment-9687
The author of the final quote is ‘Grog’. http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1117/comment-page-1#comment-9570
rjosephhoffmann
May 6, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Thanks for the clarification: My response below is not to Stephanie but to the “quoter”–it turns out that the quoter is…Richard Carrier using his normal midshipman vocabulary to call anyone who disagrees with him a jerk. (I think the Tea Party is missing a great opportunity here).
stephanie louise fisher
May 6, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Correction “punked” should also be in quotation marks. It comes from Richard Carrier on the first link. It is not a term I am familiar with and I had to look it up in the urban dictionary of slang. Hence the question mark after my repetition of the word which should be in quotation marks. Carrier’s comparison of himself to Aristotle (and Hume) is here http://www.richardcarrier.info/contrawood.html#philosopher
stephanie louise fisher
May 10, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Your comments too are published: here is one
Reply
1. Grog says:
May 2, 2012 at 9:35 pm
I’ve found if you can find some mean things to say about Carrier and then throw in some nice things about Hoffmann, he’ll allow the comment.
stephanie louise fisher
May 10, 2012 at 3:48 pm
Yours too, Grog.
Reply
1. Grog says:
May 2, 2012 at 9:35 pm
I’ve found if you can find some mean things to say about Carrier and then throw in some nice things about Hoffmann, he’ll allow the comment.
scotteus
April 30, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Well, I’m relieved as I thought I was being a bit arrogant by comparing myself to SpongeBob Squarepant; apparently I have nothing on Carrier…er..I mean Aristotle2.
Reply
stephanie louise fisher
April 30, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Factician Carrier, isn’t a classicist because that implies a love of language and literature, all a bit too arty farty, derogatory and unfactual. He claims this of his criticisms of Ehrman’s book: “in fact they were all professional in nature” Carrier’s criticisms include “he not only sucks as a writer but can’t even tell that he sucks as a writer”, “it officially sucks”, “he screwed up”, “like some Christian apologist or the whackiest of mythers” “Ehrman’s book is so full of egregious factual errors demonstrating his ignorance, sloppiness, and incompetence in this matter, it really doesn’t even need a rebuttal. It can be thrown straight into the trash without any loss to scholarship or humanity. It is, quite simply, wholly unreliable”, “I have no choice but to condemn this thing as being nothing more than a sad murder of electrons and trees”… I could go on but such repetition is just absurd. Carrier’s limited and unscholarly vocabulary does not represent professional critique or invitation to scholarly and intelligent conversation. His preposterous tone and attitude and regrettable hypocrisy, makes him unclear and renders all constructive engagement futile. I have read Ehrman’s book and have expressed my own criticisms of it privately. I look forward to a proper academic critical peer review which he deserves. Carrier’s meandering verbosity was just a fluster of self obsessed muddle and malicious madness.
Reply
Grog
May 1, 2012 at 9:48 am
Why not share those criticisms publicly? I agree with your take on Carrier’s review of Ehrman’s book, for the most part. He spends far too much time on trivial errors (or differences of opinion that Carrier holds to be errors, such as the “prefect” or “procurator” debate and far too little time on issue of substance, like uncritical citation of “Aramaic sources” or leaving the impression that scholarship only holds questionable the very last phrase of 1 Thess 2:13-16. Those criticisms are substantial and deserve a more thorough review.
However, it is worth mentioning that your critique of Carrier is not substantive, but completely about his tone. Again, I agree with you. Not professional, not scholarly. But, unlike Ehrman, he is applying all of his comments to Ehrman’s work, in this case. Ehrman, on the other hand, paints all “mythicists” with the same brush–they are, in his view, on the same intellectual level as “Holocaust Deniers.” Interesting all this. Here we are on the blog of skeptic R. Joseph Hoffmann where Hoffmann defends Ehrman calling him a Holocaust Denier. You think I am wrong? Hoffmann is skeptical about the existence of Jesus. Ehrman is directly referring to skepticism on this point and comparing it to skepticism that the Holocaust occurred (or occurred to the extent that it did). There is a difference between skepticism about the existence of Jesus and the theories to explain the origins of Jesus without the man, Jesus of Nazareth.
Reply
rjosephhoffmann
May 1, 2012 at 11:33 am
“Here we are on the blog of skeptic R. Joseph Hoffmann where Hoffmann defends Ehrman calling him a Holocaust Denier.” And on the basis of this absurd extrapolation you talk about context? I said I do not equate skepticism towards the historical existence of Jesus to be in the same ball park with Holocaust denial; you parse this to mean, as Ehrman seems to have phrased it, that to say this is to call Ehrman a holocaust denier? Or is this just a tactic–in fact, I hope so, because as interpretation, to quote Mr Carrier out of context, it sucks.
stephanie louise fisher
May 1, 2012 at 12:57 pm
I think it’s blatantly obvious that in this comment thread, my “critique of Carrier is not substantive, but completely about his tone”. That is because this is a comment thread and the main subject of this post is Carrier. Proper review of Carrier’s work demands at minimum an essay type format, and that is what I am currently working on. My concern is with Carrier, who is not a New Testament scholar, dabbling in an area of history in which he assumes authority and makes pronouncements. He applies irrelevant method without having the training or competence to engage with relevant and recent critical research, evidence and argument. Instead he is committed to defending a position of agnosticism at least, effectively denying the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. (However in his forthcoming book if all he denies is the ‘historicity of Jesus Christ’ as is implied in the title, I might at the least agree with his conclusion. The Christ title was applied post mortem according to recent critical scholarship. However I’m not sure he realises the implications of applying the Christ title).
Here in this thread I am concerned with his lack of willingness to engage in academic conversation but in my essay I am particularly concerned with his ‘method’ and mistakes. I haven’t got time to give Ehrman the public review he deserves and my concern is not with his disappointing book. I think alot of Carrier’s comments are insinuations against Ehrman’s character – eg not telling the truth, and his criticisms are certainly not ‘professional’.
rjosephhoffmann
May 1, 2012 at 1:10 pm
With Stephanie and other colleagues I am very interested to know what Carrier sees as the difference between (a) negative results (i.e., supporting the thesis that Jesus did not exist) and (b) positive results (the argument that Jesus was invented by the early Christian community from a smorgasbord of pre-existing tales and legends). Classical myth theories ran aground in coalescing the two purposes, with many arguing that if (a) is true, then (b) must also be true. This is not a valid argument. We’ll try to show how very soon.
Grog
May 2, 2012 at 5:22 pm
Dr. Hoffman, I will be very interested in what you all come up with. I think you use some loaded language in ‘b,’ though, not that the observation is completely undeserved. This: “…the argument that Jesus was invented by the early Christian ” doesn’t cover the range of possibilities. It implies a creative hand (“invent”) and it also implies a group called “christians” on hand to invent it. There are theories out there like that, I don’t hold to them and I don’t think they are representative of what is referred to as “mythicism”–itself not a great descriptor. Your b) doesn’t cover the possibility of an organic evolution out of the pre-existing memes related to the suffering servant/messiah motifs that we know existed in pre-Christian Judea. “Christians” wouldn’t exist though they might worship a “Jesus Christ.” We might not have every stepping stone from Daniel’s “Son of Man” to Paul’s “Jesus Christ” but we do have some and they, for the most part, exhibit the transitional forms that one would expect from an evolution of a meme (rather than an invention, which I, for one, don’t accept).
Now…I am not claiming that this theory is the case. I am claiming that there is evidence to support it and it ought to be examined, rather than dismissed out of hand. I fully recognize your a) and your b). But if you hold to a), you have to have some kind of b) or you are, as I said before, just a crank. I am skeptical, so I fall into a). I am not sure about that, but there is enough in the record to convince an amateur such as myself that one ought not accept the Jesus to Christ Hypothesis uncritically. So if I am going to entertain a), then I have to give consideration to the most plausible theories that are out there. For me, the most plausible is the evolution of the “Jesus Christ” meme. Certainly, that’s more plausible than accepting a magical being who came back to life.
In my brief look at Ehrman’s book (Aramaic sources, threw me off, I admit and I returned it to the B&N shelf after a quick skim), I don’t think he addressed this sort of theory. I didn’t see much about Philo’s logos-belief, Qumranic messiah-belief, or anything much resembling that. Maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance. Personally, I think there is a gold mine to look at in this area. Doherty has given a lot of attention to it, but, in my opinion, gets caught up in the layers of heaven bit. But who am I to say anything to Doherty?
Reactions such as Dr. Fisher exhibits here on this site seem to be overly melodramatic. This is simply an alternative hypothesis for the origins of Christianity. It is, in my opinion, almost irrelevant to society today, even to current Jesus-belief. So this scramble to “prove” that Jesus existed seems overwrought and not a little like an overreactive circling of the wagons.
Philo’s logos-belief,
ken
May 2, 2012 at 6:47 pm
For what it’s worth….
“The early Christians found the Servant Songs, as well as certain Psalms, to be very useful in their efforts to solve their intellectual problems and promote their faith. Isaiah 53 was an important force in shaping the synoptic accounts of Jesus’ death. But the Servant in the Songs in not the Messiah. The Suffering Servant type of Messiah was not a concept in Judaism. Jewish Christians created it to help explain Jesus’ death and to justify their mission to the gentiles.”
Howard M Teeple from ‘How Did Christianity Really Begin?”
steph
May 2, 2012 at 8:15 pm
Melodramatic? Scramble to ‘prove’ the existence of Jesus? It takes a bit of imagination and a large leap to describe highlighting incompetence and rudeness in a blogger as melodrama. And what ‘scramble’ to ‘prove’ the existence of Jesus? Most people, regrettably, are either apathetic about the existence issue or just accept it. There is an area of critical historical scholarship concerned with examining and evaluating evidence and argument and following where it leads, but no ‘scramble’ to ‘prove’ something of ancient history with modern historical criteria. This site, including the forthcoming essays, represents an effort to maintain accuracy, competence and honesty in scholarship, and the world.
Grog
May 3, 2012 at 1:11 am
Ken, I also value Teeple’s work. The Oral Tradition that Never Existed is an article you might be interested in. Notice though the contradiction here. Jews couldn’t think of a suffering servant messiah, but, then they did. If Jewish Christians could think of a suffering servant motif to explain the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth,the possibility exists that other events could also prompt the development of such a motif. Here is an example from Abegg (1995) that you also may find interesting:
4Q458, Narrative, contains the provocative line (2 ii 6),
“Messiah (or anointed) with the oil of kingship”…*9 The fragmentary context can only be suggestive. Line 3
“he/they destroyed him and his strength”…, is
reminiscent of 4Q285 5 4, “and he put him to death”…
Grog
May 3, 2012 at 1:13 am
Dr. Fisher:
Maybe “shrill” is a more descriptive term.
ken
May 4, 2012 at 11:21 am
I owe a great deal to Dr. Teeple. Both of his books, “The Historical Approach to the Bible”, and “How Did Christianity Really Begin” are wonderfully informative and balanced. I often wrote to him back in the 1980's when he was the Executive Director of The Religion and Ethics Institute in Evanston. He kindly took the time to reply to my numerous questions by answering back in type written letters with footnotes. On the question of the historical Jesus, Teeple responds in the affirmative. In “How Did Christianity Really Begin”, he says the following….
“If the Christians had created the person of Jesus out of thin air, their story of his life would not have included features that were contrary to Jewish expectations of the coming Messiah, features which early Christians tried desperately to explain in their efforts to persuade other, especially Jews, that Jesus was the Christ and fulfilled prophecy. A fictional Jesus would have conformed much better to the messianic hope and not have generated so many difficult problems for the early Christian communities.” I think he has in mind here certain Gospel accounts, such as doubts about the Davidic descent of Jesus, the strange birth narratives, the baptism of Jesus, and the fact that he was executed by his enemies rather than triumphing over them. And the belief in the second coming seems to show that early Christians must have been dismayed by the failure of Jesus to achieve what the Messiah was expected to accomplish, namely freeing the Jews and ushering in the kingdom, rather than suffering and dying. I have no credentials in the field, just a simple Philosophy degree from a Midwestern university, but I find these arguments quite persuasive.
steph
May 3, 2012 at 1:04 pm
How amusing you are Grog. You’re imitating the tactics of Carrier.
Reply
Andrew
April 30, 2012 at 11:11 pm
I don’t think a person who compares himself to Aristotle has any business commenting on the mental health of others.
Reply
Grog
May 1, 2012 at 9:34 am
To be fair (fairness being in short supply at the New Oxonian), Hoffmann takes Carrier’s quote above out of context. Tsk tsk. Not the most honest thing to do. Carrier says (and originally did say) that he agrees with Ehrman that the Tacitus passage is authentic and not an interpolation (wait, I thought “mythicists” never came across an interpolation theory they didn’t love?!). He disagrees on the reason why he holds that position and claims Ehrman makes a mistake regarding the titles “prefect” and “procurator.”
Also, I notice that Carrier hasn’t approved any comments on either of his last two blog posts, so Dr. Fisher’s insinuation that her rabid comment is being withheld from the minds of the captive Freethought Rabble is, in my opinion, a bit delusional. For the record, I believe Carrier was trying to be humorous when he “compared himself to Aristotle.” However, the mistake here is understandable because one does get the sense that Dr. Carrier does indeed hold himself in high esteem.
Reply
stephanie louise fisher
May 1, 2012 at 11:11 am
The quote ‘taken out of context’ is relevant regardless of the context because it highlights the point that Carrier has described the book as crap with occasional synonymous slang, all the way through despite agreement at times, in a very unacademic blog rant. What are readers to think with Carrier’s accumulated slang such as ‘sucks’, ‘crap’, etc to describe a book he concludes in his blog by saying “I have no choice but to condemn this thing as being nothing more than a sad murder of electrons and trees”? He is effectively condemning the book and telling people not to read it. I find it extraordinary that you need to defend Carrier on this and it makes you appear to squirm in a Carrion way.
To say “It is interesting that Carrier still hasn’t approved my comment April 28th” is to say it is interesting. I wonder why. It’s curious isn’t it. Your projected insinuation is your fantasy, and it is not what I said. I am quite aware he has not posted any comments on either rant. Curious isn’t it, considering the amount of comments, mainly positive, which he normally receives. I don’t detect any humour in the Aristotle/Hume comparison. On the contrary, as you suggest, it is consistent with his constant self promotion and inflated ego. For example he considers himself as much an authority on Koine Greek as the apologist Craig, when all he has done is a couple of elementary courses. For the record? Perhaps all that Carrier writes is a failed attempt at humour. http://www.richardcarrier.info/contrawood.html#philosopher
Reply
Rocky Morrison
May 9, 2012 at 5:21 pm
How do you know the comments Carrier gets are mainly positive?
He obviously censors criticism; not totally of course but to a high degree.
Dustin Cooper
May 1, 2012 at 3:23 pm
While I haven’t been fond of Carrier as of late, I am curious about the interview he quoted you from where it does indeed sound like you were in the mythicist camp from the bit I listened to. Was that an accurate representation of your opinion at the time? If not, what did you mean, and if so, what made you change your mind?
Reply
rjosephhoffmann
May 1, 2012 at 3:33 pm
I’ve dealt with this fairly extensively both in this thread, in references to blogs and my articles and other forums as well. I have never been a mythtic–that is I do not believe the story of Jesus of Nazareth was a concoction of the early church. I believe historical tradition is suspect and raises the existence question for us, unavoidably, but that there may be no way to resolve it. I wouldn’t put too much stock in a Point of Inquiry interview, in any event, since I have been fairly public about the degree of my skepticism, but it is not as radical as it may have “sounded”: “The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the kingdom of God, who founded the kingdom of heaven upon earth and died to give his work its final consecration never existed….” ch 20 of Albert Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus. It doesn’t mean that Jesus did not exist but that the Jesus of Church teaching and doctrine did not exist. Sorry to disappoint you but there has been no game change or flip flop here. Just radical conclusions that have been around for more than a century.
Reply
Dustin Cooper
May 1, 2012 at 4:18 pm
I actually figured something like that might have been going on, but I wanted to double check. Thanks for the clarification.
Grog
May 2, 2012 at 6:02 pm
How is this different than Jesus did not exist? His name was Jesus Goldstein and he lived in Jersey? If you are skeptical about a), then you need a theory to explain Christian origins. It’s not enough to say, “there was some guy” who died and then “some people just started to say”. His name might have been Jesus. Did he come from Nazareth? I mean, this hypothetical person shrouded in Jesus Myth started one of the world’s largest, most enduring, and influential religions. We just say “I dunno”? It’s a fine line.
rjosephhoffmann
May 2, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it?
Ben
May 2, 2012 at 4:10 am
Subscribing for comments.
Reply
john
May 2, 2012 at 12:04 pm
As an Evangelical Christian, there is nothing more satisfying than a good Atheist fight :) However, Carrier should know better than an Ad Hominem attack. Any argument against Ehrman’s book is diminished greatly by it.
Reply
scotteus
May 2, 2012 at 4:56 pm
Dr H,
I can see perfectly well how it is not possible to support both a and b, but I’ll wait to see how yourself and your colleagues argue the matter.
Reply
GakuseiDon
May 3, 2012 at 12:02 am
For Grog: I just read Ehrman’s book. Your comment above that “Ehrman… paints all “mythicists” with the same brush–they are, in his view, on the same intellectual level as “Holocaust Deniers” is not remotely correct. Ehrman is clearly talking about those mythicists who promote a conspiracy theory version of mythicism, and he differentiates between them and the more scholarly ones. I’ve quoted Ehrman in a thread on FRDB here:http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?p=7156886#post7156886
In fact, Carrier himself uses “tinfoil hat” and “unfriendly paranoia” when describing some mythicists, much harsher terms than used by Ehrman.
Reply
Ed Jones
May 7, 2012 at 10:45 pm
A viable historical solution to the Jesus puzzle has taken place within the Guild of NT studies, the only discipline capable, not only of identifying our primary Scriptural source of apostolic witness, but of appropriately interpreting this source as well. However, “few are they who find it” even among well-known NT scholars. Finding it, this historical solution, is “a task to which specialized knowledge in the areas of philology, form and redaction criticism, literary criticism, history of religions, and New Testament theology necessarily applies.” (Hans Dieter Betz). “Over the last two centuries, there gradually emerged a new access to Jesus, made available through objective historical research.” (James M. Robinson). Under the force of present historical methods and knowledge this new access was brought to a highly creditable understanding during the 1980’s. Schubert Ogden: “We now know not only that none of the Old Testament writings is prophetic witness to (Jesus), but also that none of the writings of the New Testament is apostolic witness to Jesus as the early church itself understood apostolicity. The sufficient evidence for this point in the case of the New Testament writings is that all of them have been shown to depend on sources, written or oral, earlier than themselves, and hence not to be the original and originating witness that the early church mistook them to be in judging them to be apostolic. [“the sufficient evidence” without the agonizing detail of what they do contain which now supplies the grist for the blogosphere mythicists’ mill] – - the witness of the apostles is still rightly taken to be the real ‘Christian’ norm, even if we today have to locate this norm, not In the writings of the New Testament but in the earliest stratum of (Scriptural) witness accessible to us, given our own methods of historical analysis and reconstruction. Betz identifies this earliest stratum to be the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3-7:27). “This source presents us with an early form – deriving from (the Jerusalem Jesus Movement) – which had direct links to the teaching the historical Jesus and thus constituted an alternative to Gentile Christianity as known above all from the letters of Paul and the Gospels, as well as the later writings of the New Testament. [All are written in the context of imaging the Christ of faith, not the man Jesus]. If the Sermon on the Mount represents a response to the teaching of Jesus critical of that of Gentile Christianity, then it serves unmistakably to underline the well-known fact of how little we know of Jesus and his teaching. The reasons for our lack of knowledge are of a hermeneutical sort and cannot be overcome by an access of good will (apologetics). The Gentile Christian authors of the Gospels transmitted to us only that part of the teaching of Jesus that they themselves understood, they handed on only that which they were able to translate into the thought categories of Gentile Christianity, and which they judged to be worthy of transmission.” (More to the point they included no more than they felt to be sufficient to lend historical credence to their Pauline Christ of faith myth). This calls for a new reconstruction of post death Jesus traditions. Ed Jones Dialogue – Vridar is such an attempt, it is in the form of a letter to R. Joseph Hoffmann about the now defunct Jesus Project. It is based largely on extracts from works of Ogden, Robinson and Betz.
Reply
stephanie louise fisher
May 8, 2012 at 7:22 pm
Hi Ed :-)
Reply
rjosephhoffmann
May 8, 2012 at 8:30 pm
Ed: Thank you so much for this—-filled with wisdom and understanding, like Job!
Reply
I have a look at Ehrman’s new book on Jesus « Why Evolution Is True says:
May 9, 2012 at 9:12 am
[...] The book has inspired a fracas, with several scholars—including Richard Carrier—claiming that Ehrman’s scholarship is dreadful, giving little evidence for his thesis (see Carrier’s website for many posts on this issue). Others, including the irascible R. Joseph Hoffmann, defending Ehrman and attacking Carrier. [...]
Reply
rjosephhoffmann
May 10, 2012 at 4:21 pm
Me–irascible? Thanks.
Reply
stephanie louise fisher
May 11, 2012 at 6:26 pm
“I Have Never Met a Poet Worth A Damn that was Not Irascible” Ezra Pound. I’m impressed that someone so inarticulate can actually recognise and appreciate your artistic talent. Irascibility is an essential component in any creative spirit.
Ed Jones
May 9, 2012 at 9:17 am
Joe: Thanks for the generous words. At my aged state (93) this comes with not a little emotion and a certain awe. I take it as a kind of ultimate statement.
And Steph, bless you.
Reply
stephanie louise fisher
May 10, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Ed, Always wishing you the best health, and bless you – or in te reo Maori, kia kaha, Ma te Atua koe e manaaki.
Reply
stephanie louise fisher
May 10, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism: Richard Carrier: 9781420802931: Amazon.com: Books
Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism: Richard Carrier: 9781420802931: Amazon.com: Books
Buy from Amazon
self published: AuthorHouse
Amazon.com: Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith (9781456588854): Richard Carrier Ph.D.: Books
Amazon.com: Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith (9781456588854): Richard Carrier Ph.D.: Books
Buy from Amazon
self published: CreateSpace
Not the Impossible Faith
Not the Impossible Faith
Buy from Amazon
self published: Lulu
Doctoral Thesis?? not published.
We had great difficulty ordering the book through Amazon.com. We first looked sometime in January. The availability date did change and seem unable to make up its mind. It went from April to June and April again as far as we remember. When we tried ordering it at the end of March, Amazon.com said they would send it to the US, and the US would send it back for 30 pounds extra! But the publisher was Richard Carrier. Carrier’s other books are self published under usual self publishing names such as Lulu and AuthorHouse etc, so this wasn’t unexpected. A week later we managed to order it through the Book Depository, who are on Amazon.com’s list, who said it would arrive in a few days. All the trouble with Amazon.com just seemed like typically muddled bureaucracy. The copy that arrived in early April is perfect in every way but the title page with publisher, now clearly Prometheus, is odd. I described it as smudged but Professor Casey has suggested it’s more appropriately described as “a peculiar highlighting” behind the words ‘BAYES’S THEOREM and the Quest for the HISTORICAL JESUS.’ For all intents and purposes this could be an artistic intention, but it is just unexpected. Neither of us have ordered books from Prometheus before. We normally deal with well known academic publishers, but we often order from the Book Depository as they have been completely reliable so far.
Reply
stephanie louise fisher
May 10, 2012 at 4:13 pm
Hmm – obviously I’m talking about ‘Proving History’ originally advertised on Amazon.com as published by Richard Carrier, and it is the subtitle that has the ‘peculiar highlighting’.
Reply
rjosephhoffmann
May 10, 2012 at 4:36 pm
Although I have published with Prometheus myself and used to be their religious studies consultant, they have often taken subsidies to publish work. In my own comments I meant to suggest that I cannot name a single scholar who would promote himself as “renowned” on the basis of three vanity published, unreviewed books. I actually did not know that ALL Carrier’s work had been self-published and not peer reviewed, except perhaps the m,ost recent? So this is really about the propriety of promoting yourself to your “fans” as a renowned author when you are writing your own ticket. It does seem odd to me. It seems more Hollywood than anything else.
.
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Religion and Culture for the Intellectually Impatient
The Poetics of Unbelief
by rjosephhoffmann
riting about not believing is not easy. We are accustomed to poems about neurotic seizures, personal crisis, lost love and suicidal consequences, but the big questions of belief and religion have more commonly been objects for satire.
Let me call attention to two exceptions.
Philip Larkin (d 1985) was a soft-spoken intellectual, quietly angry young and middle-aged man, who hated the limelight and preferred ridicule and mild eroticism (he was a defender of soft porn) to the intellectual poetry of his era. He was encouraged in what he liked to do best– jabbing at the hypocrisies of religion, politics and family life–by writers like Kingsley Amis and imitated Yeats and Hardy before developing his own mid-century “symbolist” vocabulary:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself. (“This be the Verse” 1946)
As for religion he lamented among other things the debasing effect of worship on Christian believers:
[who] kneel upon the stone,
For we have tried
All courages on these despairs,
And are required lastly to give up pride,
And the last difficult pride in being humble. (“Come then to Prayers,” 1946)
The atheism in Larkin’s work gives free rein to the despair and fatalism of 1970's British politics:
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die. (Aubade 1977)
As a matter of taste, I have never liked Larkin’s poetry because it seems stuck in its era: damp London streets in November and the smell of hard- coal fires that seep back into the parlour and leave their traces on coats and scarves. It is the poetry of a uniformly asthmatic post-war generation. What Larkin ridicules probably deserved his wit, and his attention. But just when he catches you with jape or his tone, he disappoints you with his low view of human nature:
”And girls you have to tell to pull their socks up/Are those whose pants you’d most like to pull down.” (Administration, 1986)
y personal choice for the best poet of unbelief is the incredibly lyrical Katha Pollitt, who manages to write clear and concise essays, magazine, and op-ed pieces with an unfailing sense of language.
In “Cities of the Plain,” (New Yorker, 27 Februrary 2004) Pollitt looks on as God decides to eradicate Sodom and Gomorrah. She assumes the role of a casual observer, recording the event like an “embedded” reporter. Only at the end does she comment on the nature of the primary actor: “…being God, he wouldn’t permit himself regrets.”
The poem is an extended synecdoche. This one happening says everything that needs to be said about the justice of God, making doctrine, theology and explanatory preaching unnecessary:
After he vaporized the pleasure gardens,
The temples of Luck and Mirrors, the striped
Tents of the fortune-tellers,
After he rained down sulfur
On the turquoise bathes, the peacock market,
The street of painted boys,
Obliterated the city, with all its people,
Down to the last stray cat and curious stink,
He missed them. Killing them
Made him want to kill them again –
How cleverly they escaped him,
Hiding in the corners and laughing
Just out of sight!
Being God, he wouldn’t permit himself regrets.
There would be other cities, just as wicked.
But none like Sodom, none like Gomorrah.
Probably He has been angry ever since –
Angry and lonely.
The difference between the two poets is partly tonal, but I think Larkin is the product of a lonely and antisocial period where religion could not make things better—has it ever?–and so had to be discharged in the only way a poet can kill anything–with words. Pollitt–as Harvard as Larkin was Oxford–takes higher ground: The people are not lonely, defeated and miserable–they are clever, they hide, they laugh, and God is a murderer (“Killing them made him want to kill again”) who has been angry and lonely ever since.
It is the juxtaposition of cruelty and intellect, Prometheus and Zeus all over again.
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Published: April 30, 2012
Filed Under: Uncategorized
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4 Responses to “The Poetics of Unbelief”
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stephanie louise fisher
April 30, 2012 at 7:24 pm
the irony is perfectly beautiful… Anne Sexton, in consecrating mother, declared “I stand before the sea, and it rolls and rolls in its green blood saying, ‘Do not give up one god for I have a handful.’”
Reply
stephanie louise fisher
April 30, 2012 at 8:44 pm
Larkin, the librarian, never liked him – the irony is complete. Crude, course, crass, tedious, shallow, smug, sententious, and emotionally dead. Zeus conquers Prometheus and Katha Pollitt breathes the cultural spirit of humanity with language of passion, subtlety, intuitive sensitivity and spirited finesse.
Reply
Sabio Lantz
May 2, 2012 at 5:42 am
Fantastic contrast of two different voices !
You said,
I think Larkin is the product of a lonely and antisocial period where religion could not make things better—has it ever?–and so had to be discharged in the only way a poet can kill anything–with words.
But I wonder if it is more a matter of temperament interacting with local up-bringing than it was an entire “antisocial period”.
The two poets had clearly different temperaments more than they came in different periods of history. For we still hear these different voices even today.
Reply
richard
May 2, 2012 at 7:44 am
Joseph, I guess from the post you have read Larkin, so you know he is not in need of comparison.
I have followed your blog for the last year or so, initially as a direct foil from Coyne and Myers, and then independently.
Always interesting
Regards
Richard
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Religion and Culture for the Intellectually Impatient
The Death of American Secularism
by rjosephhoffmann
Since the virtual death of the Center for Inquiry and the inability of the so-called father of American secularism to find a compass, this critique from Jacques Berlinerblau repinted from New Humanist Weep, O Not Jersualem; Weep ye sons and daughters of Zion (Not)
Illustration by Otto
Lest he be misunderstood, recently withdrawn Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum wanted to make it perfectly clear that he did, in fact, want to vomit upon reading a famous 1960 address by John F Kennedy. “Because the first line, the first substantive line in the speech,” a revving Santorum explained to journalist George Stephanopoulos in February, “says I believe in America where separation of church and state is absolute.” Santorum then disgorged: “To say people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up!”
Needless to say, not one syllable of JFK’s famed oration suggested that believing Americans have no role in the public square. The first substantive line in the speech (pace Santorum) was that “war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.” The young senator, soon to be president, proceeded to envisage a country “where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all … where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice.”
Sentiments such as these outrage the current, outrage-prone iteration of the GOP and its base. This is a base, incidentally, that has made quite a name for itself throughout the election season’s many raucous debates: it lustily booed the Golden Rule, wildly cheered the death penalty, and did not bat an eye when governor Rick Perry of Texas proposed that the United States re-invade Iraq.
The present Republican frontrunner, Mitt Romney, already canvassed the Church/State beat during his first presidential run four years ago. He too invoked Kennedy, albeit respectfully and without reference to bodily fluids, as he lamented the establishment of a “religion of secularism”. That alleged faith sought “to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God”. Candidate Newt Gingrich, mired in the second division but seemingly enjoying himself nonetheless, routinely decries “Obama’s secular-socialist machine” on the campaign trail.
Which seems to be a baseless accusation since the president, like so many other Democrats, has given secularism the old heave-ho. How else to explain his supersizing of George W Bush’s much-maligned Office of Faith-based Initiatives? How else to make sense of the quasi-Christological disquisitions he delivers on occasions like the National Prayer Breakfast and Easter Prayer Breakfast? It was, after all, junior senator Obama who once cautioned his party against equating “tolerance with secularism” in The Audacity of Hope – a warning heeded by disconsolate Democrats who watched Bush flutter to a narrow victory in 2004 on the wings of Conservative Christian “values voters”.
When, how, and why did secularism become such a problematic and controversial idea in America? Why have both of the nation’s major political parties and three branches of federal government turned their backs on it? Why has jacking-up (as the American footballers like to say) an already woozy secularism become such a lucrative sport for political and religious demagogues alike?
The sheer volume of persuasive answers to these questions testifies to the current malaise of the secular idea in the United States. One failsafe explanation, however, is the 40-year ascent of religious conservatives in the United States. An almost direct correlation exists between their rise and the fall of those seemingly unobjectionable principles espoused by a figure like Kennedy. What happened to secularism? The Christian Right happened to secularism.
From humble beginnings in the post-Roe v. Wade maelstrom of the ’70s, this movement has grown into an immense, diverse, well-funded, political and cultural juggernaut. Its activists are everywhere, from local PTA Boards to statehouse to Washington DC. Its worldview is articulated and defended by a formidable cohort of pundits and intellectuals. Its ideological concerns (e.g., abortion, opposition to gay marriage or gay anything) dictate many of the policies of the Republican Party. And its convictions about America being a “nation under God” and/or a “Christian nation” do not lack for sympathisers on the United States Supreme Court.
That a traditionalist Catholic and anti-secularist such as Santorum could garner so much primary support in the South among White Evangelical Protestants – interestingly, his co-religionists can’t seem to stomach him – is significant. His success in Dixie casts light on the unprecedented and reactionary voter formations that began to coalesce in the middle decades of the 20th century.
Those would be the decades, not coincidentally, where a doctrine that scholars refer to as “legal secularism” achieved a position of prominence. If American secularism ever had a Golden Age it may have been triggered by Justice Hugo Black’s famous phrase in the 1947 Everson case: “That wall [of separation] must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” For the ensuing three decades – a period that overlapped with the anything-goes 1960s – religious traditionalists in the South and elsewhere observed the fruits of secularism with horror. Their return to the public square was meant to thwart the progress of what they saw as godlessness run amok.
Aside from conservative religious reaction, there is a second explanation for secularism’s crack-up: a colossal failure of leadership and strategic vision. Those who advocated on its behalf in the 1970s and ’80s had little understanding of who their irate, coalescing adversaries actually were. In the secular mindset these “Fundies” were just a bunch of yokels, sitting on their front porches, cleaning their guns to the musical accompaniment of Pa strumming the gutbucket. In reality, however, the movement had scads of charismatic and savvy, if not incendiary, leaders.
Secular leadership, by contrast, was static and moribund. As I demonstrate in my forthcoming book it is exceedingly difficult to figure out exactly who was steering the good ship secularism while the Jerry Falwells, Pat Robertsons and Ralph Reeds of the nation suited up and took to the pitch. My own research indicates that in the waning decades of the past century, there was little in the way of effective direction and guidance provided to the secular base.
Then again, who was the base? And with that we arrive at one of the most debilitating ironies afflicting American secularism, if not secularism itself. If one looks at the history of this movement it is exceedingly difficult to gain clarity as to what precisely it stands for and what types of people it represents.
As best we can tell, the term “secularism” was coined somewhere around 1851 by George Jacob Holyoake. The intrepid English freethinker had taken a well-known and theologically freighted word, “secular,” and slapped an “ism” on its back. It is not widely realised how much definitional chaos and confusion accompanied its christening. My reading of Holyoake’s most comprehensive statement on the subject, his 1871 The Principles of Secularism, yields no fewer than a dozen descriptions of the term. These include: 1) utilitarianism, 2) freethought, 3) service for others, 4) positivism, 5) naturalism, 6) an emphasis on science, 7) this-worldliness, 8) sincerity, 9) materialism, 10) a form of religiousness, 11) the free search for truth, and 12) free speech, among others.
Of course there is a 13th definition, if you will – one that Holyoake championed for more than half a century. This would be his insistence that secularism was something other than theism or atheism. Such an approach baffled many Victorian infidels. None was more flummoxed than MP Charles Bradlaugh, who debated Holyoake for two nights in 1870 on this very question. There the relentless anti-theism of Bradlaugh – a sort of proto New Atheist – collided with Holyoake’s non-atheistic (and non-theistic) system of ethics. Their argument about the essence of this new “ism” was unresolved and remains so until this day.
A little ambiguity is always a good thing and social movements most likely benefit from a touch of ideological sprawl. All the better to pitch a big tent! But my contention is that secularism’s endemic inability to define itself, to reconcile whopping incongruities in its ideological platform, has contributed to the difficulties it experiences abroad and in the United States. Is it atheism? Is it a type of worldly ethics espoused by Holyoake? Is it separationism? Is it humanism, rationalism, secular humanism, anti-theism, naturalism, freethought, liberalism? What is it?
The potential secular base in America is currently rent by these divisions. Consider that secularists in the Golden Age were mostly religious people who advocated on behalf of separationism (as opposed to, let’s say, naturalism or humanism). Foremost among these were religious minorities. These included liberal Catholics like Kennedy and nearly every Jewish person in the country. There were also larger groups, such as certain Baptists, with deep theological roots in a tradition of religious liberty. Compare these secularists of faith to the current spate of American atheist groups, many of them virulently anti-religious, who increasingly speak in secularism’s name.
Culture Warriors love a void. With secularists perennially incapable of articulating and agreeing upon what they stand for, their opponents are more than happy to do it for them. Caspar Melville memorably quipped in The Guardian: “Secularism is the handy one-word distillation for all that is wrong in the modern world. Consumerism, divorce, drugs, Harry Potter, prostitution, Twitter, relativism, Big Brother, lack of moral compass, lack of community cohesion, lack of moral values, vajazzling.” A quarter-century ago things were scarcely different. In 1985 a New York Times writer joked that Secular Humanism stood for “everything they [the Religious Right] are opposed to, from atheism to the United Nations, from sex education to the theory of evolution to the writings of Hemingway and Hawthorne.”
The time has arrived for some sort of open, frank, melanomas-and-all discussion of what secularism does (and does not) entail. This conversation would benefit from a dash of critical distance and objectivity. In the academy, the subject of secularism lies pincered between two of the most ideologically rigid detractors imaginable. On the one side, a postmodernist and postcolonial Left has argued – in academic jargon of impressive incomprehensibility – that secularism is something called a “discursive formation” and a sinister policy henchman of “Enlightenment Reason” (a very odious thing in such quarters). On the other, the religious Right imagines it as an enemy of religious freedom and close personal friend of Nazism, Communism, Jihadism, what have you.
Until secularism starts to know and define itself, Kennedy’s principled opposition “to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or persecute the free exercise of any other religion” runs the risk of being expunged, Santorum style, from the nation’s political body.
Jacques Berlinerblau’s How to Be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedomis published in September by Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt
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Published: May 12, 2012
Filed Under: Uncategorized
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19 Responses to “The Death of American Secularism”
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tnt666
May 12, 2012 at 10:11 pm
Secularity and secularism were ridiculous ideas from the start. The religious minorities used it to ensure their own potential place in the public sphere, to not be outdone by majority religions. Atheists (I’m not going to touch Humanism with a 10-ft pole, because that’s the most confused ism of them all) hopped on the secularist bandwagon in complete ignorance of one simple human reality, SECULARITY CAN NOT EXIST. If a person is a faither, their faith will, knowingly or more likely unknowingly, guide their every decision in life. Therefore, secularity is but a weak mask meant to camouflage the presence of religion in the public sphere. Most newly converted atheists cling steadfastly to their religious morals, and think that one can remain “Christian in nature” but not in name, and without god… that is simply ridiculous. You are or you aren’t, and until atheists throw away religious values entirely, and stop trying to pretend these ‘values’ and ‘rules’ are “innate” this will be an ongoing barrier to the diminishing of the power of illusion and lies in our societies.
In order to become a true atheist, one must rid him/herself of all religious morals, and reconsider all of human existence and life on earth through the eyes of science, not arbitrary moralities.
I have little hope that this will change any time soon.
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Dwight Jones
May 13, 2012 at 9:00 am
The notion that one’s religion is a private matter may be the essence of secularism, and the one that the Christian Right would fear most.
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tnt666
May 13, 2012 at 11:24 am
And it’s this very point that can never truly exist. If we really look it in the face, there is no such thing as religion being a ‘private matter’. Religions need to be disappeared, not privatised.
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stephanie louise fisher
May 13, 2012 at 6:04 pm
One’s philosophical position on God or whatever, can and is and has been, a purely private matter in many parts of the world for centuries. It came about through religion being a matter of the State and people holding religious beliefs privately other than those of the State. Religions don’t ‘need to be disappeared’. Ideas and beliefs evolve and matters of government can be distinct and operate as an umbrella for all varieties of people, as they do in England down through to the Antipodes. People should be free to have ideas. Our ideas don’t ‘need to be disappeared’.
Dwight Jones
May 13, 2012 at 7:59 pm
“..a purely private matter in many parts of the world for centuries.”
Of course, more common sense than anything. In polarized societies like the US, though, the sturm is after the drang relentlessly.
Nothing would disappoint the Jerry Foulmouths or their PZ antagonists of this world more than to be asked to quietly shut up, grow up, and be polite.
tnt666
May 14, 2012 at 2:20 am
To Stephanie and Dwight, even when religious people PRETEND to be secular, their religious convictions DO affect all the decisions they take. In that sense, we kid ourselves that religion is only private. It’s only ever superficially private. Most religions are inseparable from the state. Religions were in the past 3000 years viewed not even considered a category, belief in supernatural was completely integrated in every experienced minute of the day. It is only recently, since the French revolution, that people have pretended to practice religion privately. In France there was an attempt to disappear faith, but the powers that were were able to keep religion underground long enough for it to resurface, just like in Russia.
As for Dwight’s funny/odd comment, I have no calling other than living in reality, not the supernatural. I have never experienced blind faith and have absolutely no desire to do so.
Dwight Jones
May 13, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Granted, tnt can make things disappear. I fear to ask what calling you are in, and you rightly guard it.
stephanie louise fisher
May 14, 2012 at 12:48 pm
When atheists/secular people “PRETEND” to know what religious people think, religious people laugh. Hahahahaha. Modern, educated religious people do not hold beliefs which contradict the evidence of science. Modern, educated religious people often prefer to live in an inclusive society with the government an umbrella for all philosophical ideas. Muslims immigrating to New Zealand confirm this and tell the truth. Similarly, educated Muslims I have spoken to while in the UK, have moved here for the same reason – a better and fairer life for all people under an inclusive government. They are also free to be honest about how little or how much they believe of their religion. You believe alot of things without evidence, by the way.
stephanie louise fisher
May 14, 2012 at 12:51 pm
To tnt666.
Interesting allusions in your identity of the supernatural which modern religious people don’t believe.
tnt666
May 16, 2012 at 1:21 am
To Steph… You cite NZ, I’ll cite Canada, we are in a phase of history where masses of religious people from poorer countries are coming to here to find freedom… to pursue whatever faith they like, making Canada MORE religious instead of less religious. Canada is loosing its secularity through this trend, and we in here have no constitutional protection. In our Constitution, gods DO rule Canada. Are we going forwards with this secular thing? no, we’re going backwards.
As for my ID, there are no gods therefore no devils, my ID serves as a bait for faithers.
stephanie louise fisher
May 18, 2012 at 1:11 am
So gods do rule, but there are no gods. Would you like the whole world to become atheist? Then we could disappear all the gods. Shame about the devils.
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Herb Van Fleet
May 15, 2012 at 5:26 pm
Ah, ambiguities, semantics, the ever-changing color of language. James Joyce’s “Interpretations of interpretations interpreted.” Orwell’s “Newspeak.” Shaw’s admonition that “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” All this and more are the fodder of philosophers, poets, politicians, prachers, and pontificators; not to mention blogers, not to mention them.
Here we have a small word – secular – with a simple meaning – stuff that’s not religious. Then somebody comes along and sticks a damn “ism” on the end of it. It seems all words that end with “ism” are trouble. Make a word into some kind of doctrine and the intelligencia has a protracted and noisy come-apart. Specific meanings are assigned and staked out. Books are written, heated discussions are had. Everyone’s definition is the right one and those who disagree just don’t get it.
The typical dictionary defines ism as “a distinctive doctrine, cause, or theory.” There are a gazillion words with ism glued to the tail end. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. But that discussion is for another time. In the present instance however, I argue, that the ism is a dangling, uh, let’s say a wannabe doctrine, cause or theory. Ergo, secularism would mean (1) a doctrine of something that’s not religious, or (2) the cause of things that are free of religion, and/or (3) a theory of anything other than religion. In other words, the word secularism is essentially meaningless and about as uselfull as an ashtray on a motorcycle.
So, IMHO, anybody who uses this worthless term should be locked in a quiet room and required to read Joyce’s “Ulysses” from dusk to dawn until either they go insane or swears on one of their favorite family member’s grave that they will never, ever use the word secular again.
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Dwight Jones
May 15, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Herb sed: “Specific meanings are assigned and staked out. Books are written, heated discussions are had. Everyone’s definition is the right one and those who disagree just don’t get it.”
We are blind men fondling the elephant. But useful in the end, like learning how a setting sun sets up photos of things. So too does omnidirectional examination produce some resolution fo the concept. Secular is a clean word admired like Venus.
That said, when you come to the part in the movie where the Virgin Mary actually handled the Shroud – if you feel something – you are shorn of atheism.
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stephanie louise fisher
May 18, 2012 at 7:49 pm
If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.
Margaret Mead: Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935)
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Dwight Jones
May 19, 2012 at 9:30 am
The odds against winning the genetic lottery and finding oneself alive are so high, that “each diverse human gift” is indeed a champion, and it is incumbent on each of us to celebrate – perhaps perpetuate – each other’s presence on the podium.
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stephanie louise fisher
May 19, 2012 at 7:27 pm
That’s true Dwight – and I think you capture the essence of her wisdom as I understand her. A celebration of the cultural spirit and individual diversity and achievements through history. Margaret Mead is one of our treasured and outstanding scholars who advanced knowledge so much that we still hold her in the highest esteem.
tnt666
May 23, 2012 at 12:27 pm
If the odds were so bad, there wouldn’t be a looming 8 billion of us in the near future.
Seeing each human as a gift is akin to seeing each cancer cell as a gift. Cancers may be part of nature, but Homo sapiens sapiens is the ultimate cancer, we grow and grow with no end in sight, we destroy everything in our path.
Herb Van Fleet
May 19, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Margaret Mead. So 1930's. Mead takes the classical individualism and Lockian liberalism (more ism’s to deal with) philosophies to imagine a world of altruists where everybody greets everybody else with a big Kumbaya and a high five.
But here in the 2010's, we’re are not as naive. We know now that it’s not just about genes. It’s about genes and memes. It’s the ever-present tension between the individual and the group. It’s the understanding that personal freedom is limited by the responsibility to others; that the id must be tempered by the superego. It’s the “duel inheritance theory,” which is all the rage now among sociologists and psychologists.
Books are now being written about this duality. Most recently, “The Social Conquest of Earth” by E. O. Wilson. (Yes, the ant guy, late of Harvard.)
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