CHAT: Historian Fight!
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HJ Hornbeck
Mar 22, 2012, 4:23:45 AM3/22/12
to University of Calgary Freethinkers Club
This time it's Richard Carrier vs. Bart Ehrman. The latter posted a
brief article on the historicity of Jesus in the HuffPo; in true
historian fashion, Carrier's rebuttal is about five times as long as
the original. Here's a quick sampler:
"This makes Ehrman’s observation that no mythicist presently has a
professorship (a distinction he did not make, but I am) a self-
fulfilling prophecy: since Ehrman has all but explicitly stated that
professors in “accredited institutions” do not have academic freedom,
that indeed Ehrman opposes that freedom, verbally and institutionally,
and endorses persecuting, verbally and institutionally, any who dare
exercise it, who else do you think is free to challenge the consensus
on this issue? Obviously, only outsiders can. The fact that that is
what he observes is therefore not an argument against the merits of
mythicism, but against the merits of attacking academic freedom.
Few other issues have this problem. You can challenge the consensus on
almost anything else in Jesus studies, but this is sacrosanct, and if
you dare, “we’ll ruin your career.” Such is Ehrman’s message. The fact
that he then finds this a mark against mythicism betrays his circular
reasoning. No, Dr. Ehrman, it is a mark against mainstream
scholarship. You are acting like it is a religion, with dogmas that
cannot be challenged, lest you suffer the consequences. Just imagine
all the professors who find some mythicist theories plausible, reading
your article. You have just successfully intimidated them into
shutting the hell up. Or at least, apparently, you hope to have.
That’s not admirable. And it’s not how an institution that values the
pursuit of the truth should behave."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/667/
Carrier, thankfully, uses headings and bullet points to good
effect, so his behemoth of a reply is skimmable.
HJ Hornbeck
brief article on the historicity of Jesus in the HuffPo; in true
historian fashion, Carrier's rebuttal is about five times as long as
the original. Here's a quick sampler:
"This makes Ehrman’s observation that no mythicist presently has a
professorship (a distinction he did not make, but I am) a self-
fulfilling prophecy: since Ehrman has all but explicitly stated that
professors in “accredited institutions” do not have academic freedom,
that indeed Ehrman opposes that freedom, verbally and institutionally,
and endorses persecuting, verbally and institutionally, any who dare
exercise it, who else do you think is free to challenge the consensus
on this issue? Obviously, only outsiders can. The fact that that is
what he observes is therefore not an argument against the merits of
mythicism, but against the merits of attacking academic freedom.
Few other issues have this problem. You can challenge the consensus on
almost anything else in Jesus studies, but this is sacrosanct, and if
you dare, “we’ll ruin your career.” Such is Ehrman’s message. The fact
that he then finds this a mark against mythicism betrays his circular
reasoning. No, Dr. Ehrman, it is a mark against mainstream
scholarship. You are acting like it is a religion, with dogmas that
cannot be challenged, lest you suffer the consequences. Just imagine
all the professors who find some mythicist theories plausible, reading
your article. You have just successfully intimidated them into
shutting the hell up. Or at least, apparently, you hope to have.
That’s not admirable. And it’s not how an institution that values the
pursuit of the truth should behave."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/667/
Carrier, thankfully, uses headings and bullet points to good
effect, so his behemoth of a reply is skimmable.
HJ Hornbeck
Adam Elfner
Mar 22, 2012, 1:45:50 PM3/22/12
to freethin...@googlegroups.com
G.A. Wells?
HJ Hornbeck
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HJ Hornbeck
Mar 22, 2012, 4:48:07 PM3/22/12
to University of Calgary Freethinkers Club
To flesh out Adam's comment a bit, via Well's Wiki entry:
"Wells suggested that the earliest extant Christian documents from the
first century, most notably the New Testament epistles by Paul and
some other writers, show no familiarity with the Gospel tradition of
Jesus as a preacher and miracle-worker who lived and died in the
recent decades. Rather, they present him "as a basically supernatural
personage only obscurely on Earth as a man at some unspecified period
in the past". Wells believed that the Jesus of these earliest
Christians is not based on a historical character, but a pure myth,
derived from the mystical speculations based on the Jewish Wisdom
tradition. According to Wells, the Gospel tradition was a later stage
of the development of the Jesus myth, which was given a concrete
historical setting and subsequently embellished with more and more
details."
You can sample some of his writing here: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/
Finally, while Carrier didn't have Ehrman's book handy while
writing his rebuttal, Ophelia Benson did:
"That’s one place where Ehrman does the thing that Richard (quite
rightly, I think) protests – he talks about conjectural sources as if
they were more than conjectural. “Is found” is a very odd phrase to
use of “sources” that, if you read closely, he is admitting don’t
survive. Turn the sentence around to see it more clearly: It is
conjectured that there were sources for the Gospels that survive. They
must have been circulating throughout the Empire. The view that Jesus
existed is found in these sources (as well as the ones that do
survive). See how odd that looks? We think there were sources. They
didn’t survive. The view that Jesus existed is found in them."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/03/what-ehrman-actually-says/
HJ Hornbeck
"Wells suggested that the earliest extant Christian documents from the
first century, most notably the New Testament epistles by Paul and
some other writers, show no familiarity with the Gospel tradition of
Jesus as a preacher and miracle-worker who lived and died in the
recent decades. Rather, they present him "as a basically supernatural
personage only obscurely on Earth as a man at some unspecified period
in the past". Wells believed that the Jesus of these earliest
Christians is not based on a historical character, but a pure myth,
derived from the mystical speculations based on the Jewish Wisdom
tradition. According to Wells, the Gospel tradition was a later stage
of the development of the Jesus myth, which was given a concrete
historical setting and subsequently embellished with more and more
details."
You can sample some of his writing here: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/
Finally, while Carrier didn't have Ehrman's book handy while
writing his rebuttal, Ophelia Benson did:
"That’s one place where Ehrman does the thing that Richard (quite
rightly, I think) protests – he talks about conjectural sources as if
they were more than conjectural. “Is found” is a very odd phrase to
use of “sources” that, if you read closely, he is admitting don’t
survive. Turn the sentence around to see it more clearly: It is
conjectured that there were sources for the Gospels that survive. They
must have been circulating throughout the Empire. The view that Jesus
existed is found in these sources (as well as the ones that do
survive). See how odd that looks? We think there were sources. They
didn’t survive. The view that Jesus existed is found in them."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/03/what-ehrman-actually-says/
HJ Hornbeck
HJ Hornbeck
Apr 13, 2012, 3:18:04 AM4/13/12
to University of Calgary Freethinkers Club
Oh my, the mythicist / historicity debate saw a big uptick over
Easter! Here's an good overview on CNN:
"But the name on the amulet wasn’t Jesus. It was a pseudonym for
Osiris-Dionysus, a pagan god in ancient Mediterranean culture. Freke
says the amulet was evidence of something that sounds like sacrilege –
and some would say it is: that Jesus never existed. He was a myth
created by first-century Jews who modeled him after other dying and
resurrected pagan gods, says Freke, author of "The Jesus Mysteries:
Was the ‘Original Jesus’ a Pagan God?"
“If I said to you that there was no real Good Samaritan, I don’t think
anyone would be outraged,” says Freke, one of a group of mythicists
who say Jesus never existed. “It’s a teaching story. What we’re saying
is that the Jesus story is an allegory. It’s a parable of the
spiritual journey.”
[...] A number of authors and scholars say Jesus never existed. Such
assertions could have been ignored in an earlier age. But in the age
of the Internet and self-publishing, these arguments have gained
enough traction that some of the world’s leading New Testament
scholars feel compelled to publicly take them on.
Most Jesus deniers are Internet kooks, says Bart D. Ehrman, a New
Testament scholar who recently released a book devoted to the question
called “Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of
Nazareth.”
He says Freke and others who deny Jesus’ existence are conspiracy
theorists trying to sell books."
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/07/the-jesus-debate-man-vs-myth/?hpt=hp_c2
On the mythicist side, we have Eric MacDonald:
"What is decisive, to my mind, against the existence of a single
figure around which the Christian myth crystallised, is the fact that
the gospel narratives are so conflicting, especially when it comes to
the mythical parts, but the teaching conflicts too, and no one person
is plausible as the speaker of all the words uttered by the gospel
Jesus. The birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are entirely
incompatible, and the resurrection narratives are no better; and in
neither case are the disagreements such as might be expected from
witnesses whose testimony is not entirely consistent. Perfect
consistency almost always points to collusion, but differing about
where Jesus would and did appear — whether in Jerusalem or Galilee —
is simply too big of a mistake to support belief that the resurrection
narratives are the result of eyewitness testimony.
What might give historical weight to the narratives is something about
which they agree, where agreement is unexpected and unlikely. This may
be the case in the birth narratives, present only in Matthew and Luke.
The birth narratives in these two gospels conflict at almost every
point. The only common features seem to be Nazareth and Bethlehem,
though for different reasons."
http://choiceindying.com/2012/04/11/did-jesus-exist/
Not to be outdone, we have a glowing review of Ehrman's latest
book, courtesy Chris Hallquist:
"Ehrman gives other examples, such as stories in Mark that appear to
have been translated from Aramaic, and hypothesized sources behind the
Gospel of John and the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas. He also notes
that the beginning of Luke refers to “many” people trying to write
accounts of Jesus’ life. Unfortunately, with some of these
hypothesized sources, Ehrman makes an annoying jump from mentioning
that many scholars have made a conjecture to taking the correctness of
the conjecture for granted.
But I still think Ehrman’s right in his main point about the gospels.
If you look at them closely, it does look like in the 1st century
A.D., there were a fair number of independent strands of tradition
about Jesus’ life floating around. (The introduction to Luke actually
mentions that “many” people were trying to write accounts of Jesus’
life.) That’s a serious problem for some mythicists (people who deny
the existence of a historical Jesus), namely the ones who try to argue
the idea of a historical Jesus was made up by Mark, or that Mark was
the first one craft an allegory that got misinterpreted as being about
a historical Jesus, or something."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hallq/2012/04/12/review-bart-ehrmans-did-jesus-exist/
It's a fascinating debate to watch. Sometimes, both sides will
claim a bit of evidence as proof for their side! As I've mentioned
before, the problem is a paucity of evidence; we only have a small
number of source texts floating out there, some of which conflict, and
none of which give even part of the full story. Short of a time
machine, there's no way to get more data points (and even then, you
just open up the possibility that it was all a prank done by future
time travelers!)
HJ Hornbeck
Easter! Here's an good overview on CNN:
"But the name on the amulet wasn’t Jesus. It was a pseudonym for
Osiris-Dionysus, a pagan god in ancient Mediterranean culture. Freke
says the amulet was evidence of something that sounds like sacrilege –
and some would say it is: that Jesus never existed. He was a myth
created by first-century Jews who modeled him after other dying and
resurrected pagan gods, says Freke, author of "The Jesus Mysteries:
Was the ‘Original Jesus’ a Pagan God?"
“If I said to you that there was no real Good Samaritan, I don’t think
anyone would be outraged,” says Freke, one of a group of mythicists
who say Jesus never existed. “It’s a teaching story. What we’re saying
is that the Jesus story is an allegory. It’s a parable of the
spiritual journey.”
[...] A number of authors and scholars say Jesus never existed. Such
assertions could have been ignored in an earlier age. But in the age
of the Internet and self-publishing, these arguments have gained
enough traction that some of the world’s leading New Testament
scholars feel compelled to publicly take them on.
Most Jesus deniers are Internet kooks, says Bart D. Ehrman, a New
Testament scholar who recently released a book devoted to the question
called “Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of
Nazareth.”
He says Freke and others who deny Jesus’ existence are conspiracy
theorists trying to sell books."
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/07/the-jesus-debate-man-vs-myth/?hpt=hp_c2
On the mythicist side, we have Eric MacDonald:
"What is decisive, to my mind, against the existence of a single
figure around which the Christian myth crystallised, is the fact that
the gospel narratives are so conflicting, especially when it comes to
the mythical parts, but the teaching conflicts too, and no one person
is plausible as the speaker of all the words uttered by the gospel
Jesus. The birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are entirely
incompatible, and the resurrection narratives are no better; and in
neither case are the disagreements such as might be expected from
witnesses whose testimony is not entirely consistent. Perfect
consistency almost always points to collusion, but differing about
where Jesus would and did appear — whether in Jerusalem or Galilee —
is simply too big of a mistake to support belief that the resurrection
narratives are the result of eyewitness testimony.
What might give historical weight to the narratives is something about
which they agree, where agreement is unexpected and unlikely. This may
be the case in the birth narratives, present only in Matthew and Luke.
The birth narratives in these two gospels conflict at almost every
point. The only common features seem to be Nazareth and Bethlehem,
though for different reasons."
http://choiceindying.com/2012/04/11/did-jesus-exist/
Not to be outdone, we have a glowing review of Ehrman's latest
book, courtesy Chris Hallquist:
"Ehrman gives other examples, such as stories in Mark that appear to
have been translated from Aramaic, and hypothesized sources behind the
Gospel of John and the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas. He also notes
that the beginning of Luke refers to “many” people trying to write
accounts of Jesus’ life. Unfortunately, with some of these
hypothesized sources, Ehrman makes an annoying jump from mentioning
that many scholars have made a conjecture to taking the correctness of
the conjecture for granted.
But I still think Ehrman’s right in his main point about the gospels.
If you look at them closely, it does look like in the 1st century
A.D., there were a fair number of independent strands of tradition
about Jesus’ life floating around. (The introduction to Luke actually
mentions that “many” people were trying to write accounts of Jesus’
life.) That’s a serious problem for some mythicists (people who deny
the existence of a historical Jesus), namely the ones who try to argue
the idea of a historical Jesus was made up by Mark, or that Mark was
the first one craft an allegory that got misinterpreted as being about
a historical Jesus, or something."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hallq/2012/04/12/review-bart-ehrmans-did-jesus-exist/
It's a fascinating debate to watch. Sometimes, both sides will
claim a bit of evidence as proof for their side! As I've mentioned
before, the problem is a paucity of evidence; we only have a small
number of source texts floating out there, some of which conflict, and
none of which give even part of the full story. Short of a time
machine, there's no way to get more data points (and even then, you
just open up the possibility that it was all a prank done by future
time travelers!)
HJ Hornbeck
HJ Hornbeck
Apr 20, 2012, 12:25:18 PM4/20/12
to University of Calgary Freethinkers Club
Carrier's finally had a chance to look over Ehrman's book. And,
well, it ain't pretty:
"So regarding the death and resurrection of Osiris, Ehrman states what
is in fact false. And this is most alarming because much of his case
against mythicism rests on this false assertion. But worse, Ehrman
foolishly eats his foot again by hyperbolically generalizing to all
possible gods (he repeatedly insists there are no dying-and-rising
gods in the Hellenistic period). Which is really bad, because that
proves he did no research on this subject whatever. I shouldn’t have
to adduce passages such as, from Plutarch, “[about] Dionysus, Zagreus,
Nyctelius, and Isodaetes, they narrate deaths and vanishings, followed
by returns to life and resurrections” (Plutarch, On the E at Delphi
9.388f-389a). That looks pretty cut and dried to me. But it’s worse
than that. Because for Romulus and Zalmoxis we undeniably have pre-
Christian evidence that they actually die (on earth) and are actually
raised from the dead (on earth) and physically visit their disciples
(on earth). And likewise for Inanna, a clear-cut death-and-
resurrection tale exists on clay tablets a thousand years before
Christianity (she dies and rises in hell, but departs from and returns
to the world above all the same). [...]
Even if Ehrman had done any responsible literature review on this, he
would have found the latest peer reviewed scholarship establishing,
for example, that vanishing bodies as elements of resurrection tales
were a ubiquitous component of pagan mythmaking: Richard C. Miller,
“Mark’s Empty Tomb and Other Translation Fables in Classical
Antiquity,” Journal of Biblical Literature 129.4 (2010): 759-76. And
thus a dying-and-rising hero theme was incredibly ubiquitous, even if
highly flexible in the different ways this theme could be constructed.
To be fair, Ehrman does address Tryggve Mettinger’s work on pre-
Hellenistic dying-and-rising gods, dismissing it as questionable but
ultimately admitting he might have a case for there being such gods
(Ehrman arguing instead, albeit implausibly, that they can’t have
influenced Christianity). But Ehrman doesn’t address any of the
evidence for these same (much less other) gods in the Hellenistic
period, the period actually relevant to Christianity, which proves he
did no checking, and isn’t even aware of such evidence, nor even
thought it was important for him to be.
Again, Ehrman exposes himself as completely uninformed, and
incompetent as a scholar (like any hack, trusting a single biased
scholar and not checking any of the evidence or reading any of the
other literature), and as consistently misinforming his readers on the
actual facts, and thus hiding from them almost everything that
actually adds strength to the mythicist thesis. That he does this on a
point so central and crucial to his book’s entire argument is alone
enough to discredit this book as a worthless."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1026/
I'm gonna have to pick up a copy of Ehrman's book, and check this
out myself.
HJ Hornbeck
well, it ain't pretty:
"So regarding the death and resurrection of Osiris, Ehrman states what
is in fact false. And this is most alarming because much of his case
against mythicism rests on this false assertion. But worse, Ehrman
foolishly eats his foot again by hyperbolically generalizing to all
possible gods (he repeatedly insists there are no dying-and-rising
gods in the Hellenistic period). Which is really bad, because that
proves he did no research on this subject whatever. I shouldn’t have
to adduce passages such as, from Plutarch, “[about] Dionysus, Zagreus,
Nyctelius, and Isodaetes, they narrate deaths and vanishings, followed
by returns to life and resurrections” (Plutarch, On the E at Delphi
9.388f-389a). That looks pretty cut and dried to me. But it’s worse
than that. Because for Romulus and Zalmoxis we undeniably have pre-
Christian evidence that they actually die (on earth) and are actually
raised from the dead (on earth) and physically visit their disciples
(on earth). And likewise for Inanna, a clear-cut death-and-
resurrection tale exists on clay tablets a thousand years before
Christianity (she dies and rises in hell, but departs from and returns
to the world above all the same). [...]
Even if Ehrman had done any responsible literature review on this, he
would have found the latest peer reviewed scholarship establishing,
for example, that vanishing bodies as elements of resurrection tales
were a ubiquitous component of pagan mythmaking: Richard C. Miller,
“Mark’s Empty Tomb and Other Translation Fables in Classical
Antiquity,” Journal of Biblical Literature 129.4 (2010): 759-76. And
thus a dying-and-rising hero theme was incredibly ubiquitous, even if
highly flexible in the different ways this theme could be constructed.
To be fair, Ehrman does address Tryggve Mettinger’s work on pre-
Hellenistic dying-and-rising gods, dismissing it as questionable but
ultimately admitting he might have a case for there being such gods
(Ehrman arguing instead, albeit implausibly, that they can’t have
influenced Christianity). But Ehrman doesn’t address any of the
evidence for these same (much less other) gods in the Hellenistic
period, the period actually relevant to Christianity, which proves he
did no checking, and isn’t even aware of such evidence, nor even
thought it was important for him to be.
Again, Ehrman exposes himself as completely uninformed, and
incompetent as a scholar (like any hack, trusting a single biased
scholar and not checking any of the evidence or reading any of the
other literature), and as consistently misinforming his readers on the
actual facts, and thus hiding from them almost everything that
actually adds strength to the mythicist thesis. That he does this on a
point so central and crucial to his book’s entire argument is alone
enough to discredit this book as a worthless."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1026/
I'm gonna have to pick up a copy of Ehrman's book, and check this
out myself.
HJ Hornbeck
Sam Khangyi
Apr 20, 2012, 12:40:16 PM4/20/12
to freethin...@googlegroups.com
I guess i will have a long read for the weekend :-)
--
Cheers,
Sam
Lucas McMahon
Apr 20, 2012, 1:16:09 PM4/20/12
to freethin...@googlegroups.com
"Because for Romulus and Zalmoxis we undeniably have pre-
Christian evidence that they actually die (on earth) and are actually
raised from the dead (on earth) and physically visit their disciples
(on earth)."
Christian evidence that they actually die (on earth) and are actually
raised from the dead (on earth) and physically visit their disciples
(on earth)."
Except that is not what the story of Zalmoxis says at all. Herodotos 4.95
tells the earliest story of Zalmoxis. He does not die, and he does not rise
from the dead. Instead, he goes into a cave for three years and lived there
while some of his followers thought he was dead (ἐν ᾧ δὲ ἐποίεε τὰ
καταλεχθέντα καὶ ἔλεγε ταῦτα, ἐν τούτῳ κατάγαιον οἴκημα ἐποιέετο. ὡς δέ οἱ
παντελέως εἶχε τὸ οἴκημα, ἐκ μὲν τῶν Θρηίκων ἠφανίσθη, καταβὰς δὲ κάτω ἐς τὸ
κατάγαιον οἴκημα διαιτᾶτο ἐπ᾽ ἔτεα τρία., 4.95.4). This is a standard
Pythagorean method of gaining wisdom, and one needs to keep in mind that
this is Herodotos writing about foreign peoples of whom he had little direct
knowledge. Diogenes Laertius (8.41, using 3rd c. B.C. Hermippos as a source)
told a very similar story about Pythagoras going down into a cave in order
to (falsely, according to Hermippos) gain wisdom. These stories contain no
hint of coming back from the dead at all. They are simply tales of
individuals entering the earth to better gain knowledge and power from
underworld deities, a common theme in the Pythagorean tradition. This is the
same reason why we find lead curse tablets buried in the ground. It's an
attempt to access underworld power, and there is no connection to dying on
earth, being raised from the dead on earth, and physically visiting their
disciples on earth as Carrier asserts.
Romulus' return is not described by Plutarch as resurrection (Plut.
'Romulus, 26-28). He disappeared in a storm. Then he was seen later by a
senator, who was informed that Romulus took them form of the god Quirinus.
The problem with Plutarch's story is that Quirinus does not seem to have
been worshipped until the 3rd c. B.C., putting him four centuries after the
supposed existence of Romulus. This is compounded by Plutarch writing in the
late first and early 2nd. c. A.D. Not only is there nothing in the story to
suggest that Romulus came back from the dead, Plutarch's story is so late
(800+ years from a period when the Romans did not keep records) and based on
such flimsy evidence that one needs to be extremely careful with taking it
as authoritative.
Lucas
HJ Hornbeck
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Jonathan Harper
Apr 20, 2012, 3:10:42 PM4/20/12
to freethin...@googlegroups.com
Selective citation is a beautiful trick. Unfortunately such behaviour befits magicians, not scholars. "They name him ‘Dionysos’ and ‘Zagreus’ and ‘Nycteleos’ and ‘Isodi’; they also tell of certain destructions and disappearances and diseases and new births [παλιγγενεσία, which means "regeneration/rebirth/reincarnation" is not the same as the Greek for resurrection (ἀνάστασις); when early Christians use this term they are not referring to a physical rebirth but a spiritual renewal (e.g. Titus 3:5). This is yet another uncomfortable fact Carrier feels no need to mention.], which are riddles and fables pertaining to the aforesaid transformations: and they sing the dithyrambic song, filled with sufferings, and allusions to some change of state that brought with it wandering about and dispersion." (Plutarch "On the E at Delphi" 9.388-389, see: http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Delphi.html for the entire document). Now we should all slow down and check what the good doctor has omitted: "...which are riddles and fables...." Of course this is an entirely natural thing to omit when you're making a case for mythicism, a theory based on selective use of ancient sources. For those that are unfamiliar, Plutarch is by far one of the most gullible authors of the ancient world in terms of believing in supernatural claims and various omens. Furthermore, he was himself a high level priest at Delphi. Given these two factors, he's a prime candidate for the mythicist argument. But damn, even Plutarch doesn't believe this stuff. What to do, what to do? Oh, gee, let's lie to our uninformed public. Ergo selective citation. The same can be said for his mistranslation of the term παλιγγενεσία. Doesn't mean what you want it to say? Just forget to mention that bit. This is the reason Carrier has no job in Classics - they're all aware of the sources, and they know he's using them incredibly dubiously (although even that seems to be a generous description in this particular case). This is academic fraud, but unfortunately Carrier is outside the realm of mainstream scholarship where he could be brought to account for his behaviour. To be clear: he is lying to you. Explicitly. He could not conceivably think that the rest of the sentence was irrelevant to his point. Terms like "riddles, fables... allusions" certainly undermine his point, but a real academic deals with the text head on. History is not a game of cut-and-paste anecdotes. This man brings shame to the discipline. If I were a New Atheist, methinks I would have a virulent blog post about how one of my own intellectual kin had tried to pull the wool over my eyes. After all, truth is a central value for freethinkers. But hey, not my battle.
-John
-John
-----Original Message-----
From: freethin...@googlegroups.com [mailto:freethin...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of HJ Hornbeck
Sent: April-20-12 10:25 AM
To: University of Calgary Freethinkers Club
Subject: [FUC] Re: CHAT: Historian Fight!
HJ Hornbeck
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HJ Hornbeck
Apr 20, 2012, 11:48:21 PM4/20/12
to University of Calgary Freethinkers Club
Bwahaha, excellent! I was feeling a bit guilty about not including a
contrary position to Carrier in that last post. Now, I've got TWO fine
counter-points! Thanks, Lucas and John, I'll try delving into both
side's arguments in detail over the summer.
In the meantime, though, one point needs addressing:
On Apr 20, 1:10 pm, "Jonathan Harper" <invisiblerob...@gmail.com>
wrote:
and Carrier had lied to me I totally would get out my nasty thesaurus.
The problem is, lying requires that Carrier full-well knew that he was
saying was false, instead of merely misinterpreting what he'd read. I
don't know enough about the subject matter to make that call. Until I
can spare a few cycles to gather up some knowledge from independent
sources, and study both yours and Lucas' charges more closely, all I
can do is follow what evidence I have. As you two have gone into
greater detail, and shared more sources for me to look into, the
weight of evidence is currently in your favor.
HJ Hornbeck
contrary position to Carrier in that last post. Now, I've got TWO fine
counter-points! Thanks, Lucas and John, I'll try delving into both
side's arguments in detail over the summer.
In the meantime, though, one point needs addressing:
On Apr 20, 1:10 pm, "Jonathan Harper" <invisiblerob...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> If I were a New Atheist, methinks I would have a virulent blog post about how one of my own intellectual kin had tried to pull the wool over my eyes. After all, truth is a central value for freethinkers. But hey, not my battle.
I'm not a New Atheist (i hold there's no such thing), but if I were
and Carrier had lied to me I totally would get out my nasty thesaurus.
The problem is, lying requires that Carrier full-well knew that he was
saying was false, instead of merely misinterpreting what he'd read. I
don't know enough about the subject matter to make that call. Until I
can spare a few cycles to gather up some knowledge from independent
sources, and study both yours and Lucas' charges more closely, all I
can do is follow what evidence I have. As you two have gone into
greater detail, and shared more sources for me to look into, the
weight of evidence is currently in your favor.
HJ Hornbeck
Jonathan Harper
Apr 21, 2012, 1:18:18 AM4/21/12
to freethin...@googlegroups.com
"Until I can spare a few cycles to gather up some knowledge from independent
sources, and study both yours and Lucas' charges more closely, all I can do
is follow what evidence I have." A perfectly reasonable approach to take. Isources, and study both yours and Lucas' charges more closely, all I can do
look forward to hearing your thoughts. I've found this particular copy of
Josephus to be fairly invaluable for Second Temple Judaic context:
http://www.amazon.ca/Josephus-Complete-Works-Thomas-Nelson/dp/0785250506/ref
=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334985336&sr=8-1 Let me know if you need to borrow any
of the sources, I've got a fairly decent selection sitting about including
Josephus. A read through of some of Plutarch's Parallel Lives is generally
both quite enjoyable and helps give an impression as to his religious
tendencies.
-John
-----Original Message-----
From: freethin...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:freethin...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of HJ Hornbeck
Sent: April-20-12 9:48 PM
To: University of Calgary Freethinkers Club
Subject: [FUC] Re: CHAT: Historian Fight!
HJ Hornbeck
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email to freethin...@googlegroups.com with "CHAT" somewhere in the
subject line; that little addition helps others deal with the HUGE volume of
traffic!
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- To post an announcement to this group instead, fire off a message to
freethin...@googlegroups.com . Keep it brief and informative.
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HJ Hornbeck
Apr 21, 2012, 8:51:47 PM4/21/12
to University of Calgary Freethinkers Club
Break time! I'd better catch up on a little mail.
On Apr 20, 11:18 pm, "Jonathan Harper" <invisiblerob...@gmail.com>
wrote:
book as well, so we can do an exchange. My library, as usual, is open
to you.
In the meantime, more fighting! James McGrath has responded to
Carrier's latest salvo:
"Carrier also spends a significant amount of time alleging that Ehrman
is wrong about dying and rising gods even though Carrier himself has
in the past said that such deities are unlikely to have been the
prototype for Jesus. The main passage Carrier appeals to as evidence
can be read online, as do others, and the ones I looked at illustrate
rather than counter Ehrman’s point, namely that scholars today
consider the idea of a dying and rising god to be read into such texts
rather than found in them. [...]
I won’t go into more detail, lest I likewise lose sight of the big
picture in focusing on details. Even if Carrier were correct in all of
his criticism (which even my own incredibly brief and admittedly
superficial fact-checking suggests he is not), none of that would
support the contention of mythicists that Jesus was originally thought
of by Christians as a purely celestial figure, and thus more likely
invented rather than an actual historical figure about whom myths and
legends arose."
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/04/carrier-and-other-mythicists-reacting-to-ehrman.html
And I took the liberty of posting Lucas' challenge to Carrier on
his blog, and got a response. In full:
That is what the Greeks were saying to disparage the Thracian religion
(it’s a slander). It’s analogous to the Jews saying Mary was an
adulteress. See my discussion of the passage and it’s context,
language, and meaning in Not the Impossible Faith (page numbers as
given in the article above). [HJH: pp. 17-20 and 85-128] Where you
will also find citation of the actual scholarship on Zalmoxis. The
notion that Herodotus was talking about a wisdom quest and not a death
and resurrection is ridiculous, even to anyone who actually reads his
actual words in context, but my discussion in NIF makes it painfully
clear.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1026/
Gah! So much reading to do this summer, and I've still got a book
to finish writing!
HJ Hornbeck
On Apr 20, 11:18 pm, "Jonathan Harper" <invisiblerob...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Let me know if you need to borrow any
> of the sources, I've got a fairly decent selection sitting about including
> Josephus. A read through of some of Plutarch's Parallel Lives is generally
> both quite enjoyable and helps give an impression as to his religious
> tendencies.
That would be awesome! I've still got to give back your gospel
> of the sources, I've got a fairly decent selection sitting about including
> Josephus. A read through of some of Plutarch's Parallel Lives is generally
> both quite enjoyable and helps give an impression as to his religious
> tendencies.
book as well, so we can do an exchange. My library, as usual, is open
to you.
In the meantime, more fighting! James McGrath has responded to
Carrier's latest salvo:
"Carrier also spends a significant amount of time alleging that Ehrman
is wrong about dying and rising gods even though Carrier himself has
in the past said that such deities are unlikely to have been the
prototype for Jesus. The main passage Carrier appeals to as evidence
can be read online, as do others, and the ones I looked at illustrate
rather than counter Ehrman’s point, namely that scholars today
consider the idea of a dying and rising god to be read into such texts
rather than found in them. [...]
I won’t go into more detail, lest I likewise lose sight of the big
picture in focusing on details. Even if Carrier were correct in all of
his criticism (which even my own incredibly brief and admittedly
superficial fact-checking suggests he is not), none of that would
support the contention of mythicists that Jesus was originally thought
of by Christians as a purely celestial figure, and thus more likely
invented rather than an actual historical figure about whom myths and
legends arose."
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/04/carrier-and-other-mythicists-reacting-to-ehrman.html
And I took the liberty of posting Lucas' challenge to Carrier on
his blog, and got a response. In full:
That is what the Greeks were saying to disparage the Thracian religion
(it’s a slander). It’s analogous to the Jews saying Mary was an
adulteress. See my discussion of the passage and it’s context,
language, and meaning in Not the Impossible Faith (page numbers as
given in the article above). [HJH: pp. 17-20 and 85-128] Where you
will also find citation of the actual scholarship on Zalmoxis. The
notion that Herodotus was talking about a wisdom quest and not a death
and resurrection is ridiculous, even to anyone who actually reads his
actual words in context, but my discussion in NIF makes it painfully
clear.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1026/
Gah! So much reading to do this summer, and I've still got a book
to finish writing!
HJ Hornbeck
HJ Hornbeck
Apr 26, 2012, 11:03:19 PM4/26/12
to University of Calgary Freethinkers Club
And now Erhman has gone whole-hog in rebutting Carrier, nearly on a
point-for-point basis:
"I may have moments of idiocy, but I have indeed read the letters of
Pliny, especially those of Book 10. I’ve taught them for years. When
he accuses me of not knowing the difference between a fact and a
hypothetical reconstruction, though, he is going too far. I do indeed
know that the context scholars have reconstructed for the “Christian
problem” is the broader problem outlined elsewhere in Pliny’s
correspondence with Trajan. The problem here is simply that I was
trying to summarize briefly a complicated account in simple terms for
readers who frankly, in my opinion (right or wrong) are not interested
in the details about Pliny, Trajan, provincial disorder, and fire
brigaids when the question is whether Pliny knows about Jesus or not.
This relates to a bigger problem. Carrier seems to expect Did
Jesus Exist to be a work of scholarship written for scholars in the
academy and with extensive engagement with scholarship, rather than
what it is, a popular book written for a broad audience. There is a
big difference. I write both kinds of books. My scholarly books
would never be mistaken for books that would be read by a wide,
general public. But Carrier indicates that the inadequacy of Did
Jesus Exist can be seen by comparing it to two of his own recent
books, which, he tells us, pay more attention to detail, embrace a
more diverse range of scholarship, and have many more footnotes.
I did not write this book for scholars. I wrote if for lay
people who are interested in a broad, interesting, and very important
question. Did Jesus really exist? I was not arguing the case for
scholars, because scholars already know the answer to that question.
I was explaining to the non-scholar why scholars think what they do.
A non-scholarly book tries to explain things in simple terms, and to
do so without the clutter of detail that you would find in a work of
scholarship. The book should not be faulted for that. If I had
wanted to convince scholars (I’m not sure whom I would then be writing
for, in that case) I would have written a different kind of book"
http://ehrmanblog.org/fuller-reply-to-richard-carrier/
I did a quick fact-check, and it seems Carrier never references
"The Prosopography of the Roman Empire" in his arguments for King
Herod being a procurator. Which is too bad, because it seems to openly
declare Herod wasn't a procurator. Hmm.
The ball's in Carrier's court now. And someone on FTB is calling
Carrier out, quite publicly:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hallq/2012/04/26/dear-richard-please-admit-you-screwed-up-with-your-review-of-bart-ehrmans-latest-book/
HJ Hornbeck
point-for-point basis:
"I may have moments of idiocy, but I have indeed read the letters of
Pliny, especially those of Book 10. I’ve taught them for years. When
he accuses me of not knowing the difference between a fact and a
hypothetical reconstruction, though, he is going too far. I do indeed
know that the context scholars have reconstructed for the “Christian
problem” is the broader problem outlined elsewhere in Pliny’s
correspondence with Trajan. The problem here is simply that I was
trying to summarize briefly a complicated account in simple terms for
readers who frankly, in my opinion (right or wrong) are not interested
in the details about Pliny, Trajan, provincial disorder, and fire
brigaids when the question is whether Pliny knows about Jesus or not.
This relates to a bigger problem. Carrier seems to expect Did
Jesus Exist to be a work of scholarship written for scholars in the
academy and with extensive engagement with scholarship, rather than
what it is, a popular book written for a broad audience. There is a
big difference. I write both kinds of books. My scholarly books
would never be mistaken for books that would be read by a wide,
general public. But Carrier indicates that the inadequacy of Did
Jesus Exist can be seen by comparing it to two of his own recent
books, which, he tells us, pay more attention to detail, embrace a
more diverse range of scholarship, and have many more footnotes.
I did not write this book for scholars. I wrote if for lay
people who are interested in a broad, interesting, and very important
question. Did Jesus really exist? I was not arguing the case for
scholars, because scholars already know the answer to that question.
I was explaining to the non-scholar why scholars think what they do.
A non-scholarly book tries to explain things in simple terms, and to
do so without the clutter of detail that you would find in a work of
scholarship. The book should not be faulted for that. If I had
wanted to convince scholars (I’m not sure whom I would then be writing
for, in that case) I would have written a different kind of book"
http://ehrmanblog.org/fuller-reply-to-richard-carrier/
I did a quick fact-check, and it seems Carrier never references
"The Prosopography of the Roman Empire" in his arguments for King
Herod being a procurator. Which is too bad, because it seems to openly
declare Herod wasn't a procurator. Hmm.
The ball's in Carrier's court now. And someone on FTB is calling
Carrier out, quite publicly:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/hallq/2012/04/26/dear-richard-please-admit-you-screwed-up-with-your-review-of-bart-ehrmans-latest-book/
HJ Hornbeck
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