13. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt.13

Three Voices on the Historical Jesus – No. 3: 1 Clement (with Addendum on the Epistle of Barnabas)

San Barnaba (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• Issue of authenticity of 1 Clement
• Does 1 Clement know any Gospels?
• Christ speaking out of scripture
• Clement knows of the Passion through Isaiah 53
• Christ’s sacrificial ‘blood’ and ‘flesh’ belong in the mythical dimension
• Prophecy in scripture not fulfilled in history
• Epistle of Barnabas: still lacking a written Gospel
• Barnabas points to scripture as his source
• New Testament math: 0 + 0 = ?
• A progression from mythical to historical

Is 1 Clement in any way authentic?

Despite doubts going back to the Dutch Radicals of the late 19^th century, Ehrman accepts the non-canonical epistle 1 Clement as authentic in regard to its ostensible purpose (a letter from the Christian community in Rome urging the settling of a dispute going on in the community in Corinth) and its traditional dating (the last decade of the first century), though its attribution to a Clement reputed to be the fourth bishop of Rome remains highly dubious.

With all of that I would agree, and have defended this degree of authenticity against a continuing radical view that the work is a much later forgery designed to encourage other Christian communities to acknowledge the hegemony of the Church of Rome. This issue need not be addressed here, except to say that I find the arguments for such a view quite unconvincing and unnecessary. (See the reasons given in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, note 169.) However, I will hereafter refer to the author as “Clement.”

Does 1 Clement know any written Gospels?

Some of those reasons will be evident in the present discussion. Ehrman makes the following admissions for 1 Clement:

The letter quotes extensively from the Greek Old Testament, and its author explicitly refers to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. But he does not mention the Gospels of the New Testament, and even though he quotes some of the sayings of Jesus, he does not indicate that they come from written texts. In fact, his quotations do not line up in their wording with any of the sayings of Jesus found in our surviving Gospels. (p. 104, DJE?)

If we agree on a reasonable dating of the 90s of the first century, or even the first decade of the second, we find here a similar situation to that of the Ignatian letters. At this period, even in Rome, there is no sign of actual written Gospels available in major Christian communities. When we see the same situation existing for Papias even later, we know that there is something wrong with the traditional view of the Gospels as historical documents all written before the first century was completed.

What does Clement know about a life of Jesus on earth? 

Despite this situation, Ehrman argues that “the author of 1 Clement, like Ignatius and then Papias, not only assumes that Jesus lived but that much of his life was well known.” The latter two writers may indeed have made such an assumption, but there is little sign that either one of them knew very much about their assumed Jesus’ life or teachings. As for 1 Clement, both of Ehrman’s claims are suspect. Here is what he offers as evidence that the author is speaking “about the historical Jesus” (I’ve altered Ehrman’s order for better efficiency in addressing them):

(1) Christ spoke words to be heeded (1 Clement 2.1).

This is first of all a misleading translation. Literally, it is “you paid attention to his words,” which eliminates the image of Christ standing before one and speaking. In any event, considering that spiritual figures such as Wisdom and the Holy Spirit are often presented as conferring advice and guidance, this statement in any form could easily apply to a spiritual figure.

12. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt. 12. Three Voices . . . Ignatius

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Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt. 12

Three Voices on the Historical Jesus – No. 2: Ignatius of Antioch

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COVERED IN THIS POST:

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  Martyrdom of St Ignatius of Antioch (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  Are the Ignatian letters forgeries?

• What does “truly” mean for Ignatius:
  • anti-docetism?
  • historical fact?

• Ignatius knows no Gospels, even in 110 CE or later
  • implications of this
  • rumours of an allegorical tale interpreted as history
  • no teachings of Jesus, no miracles,
  • no apostolic tradition

• Why did docetism arise in Ignatius’ time?
  • two reactions to the historical Jesus

• A Christ myth in Ignatius’ Ephesians

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Evidence for Jesus from Outside the Gospels

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 101-104)

Ignatius of Antioch

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Did Ignatius write the Ignatian Letters?

Bart Ehrman seems to assume the authenticity of the story that Ignatius was caught up in a persecution of Christians at Antioch around 107-110 CE, was condemned to death and sent to Rome under military escort to die in the arena. Along the way, he wrote letters to six churches in Asia Minor and one to bishop Polycarp of Smyrna.

Many doubt the feasibility of such an enterprise, including the likelihood that the authorities would have undertaken to send him all the way to Rome for execution. But that is the story told in later tradition, and it is to be found within the letters themselves.

I will not go into the arguments for and against authenticity here, but if they are later forgeries (that is, the versions known as the “Shorter Recensions” which have traditionally been considered the originals, with the Longer Recensions coming much later in the century and filled with obvious insertions based on the Gospels), such forgeries cannot have been made much later than a decade or two after Ignatius’ death. (I myself might opt for forgery, but I will continue to refer to the writer as “Ignatius.”)

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Arguing for a “true” life on earth

One of the principal purposes of these letters is to attack fellow Christians who espouse doctrines and practices Ignatius cannot countenance. Ignatius makes a set of claims about Jesus which he declares to be true, in opposition to those who deny them. The fullest statement of these claims is found in the epistle to the Smyrneans (as translated by Ehrman):

For you are fully convinced about our Lord, that he was truly from the family of David according to the flesh, Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born from a virgin, and baptized by John that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him. In the time of Pontius Pilate and the tetrarch Herod, he was truly nailed for us in the flesh. . . [Smyrneans 1-2]

How does Ehrman (and scholarship traditionally) interpret a passage like this? What is Ignatius arguing for and what is the position of those he criticizes? According to Ehrman, the latter are

. . . Christians who insisted that Jesus was not a real flesh-and-blood human. These opponents of Ignatius were not ancient equivalents of our modern-day mythicists. They certainly did not believe that Jesus had been made up or invented based on the dying and rising gods supposedly worshipped by pagans. For them, Jesus had a real, historical existence. He lived in this world and delivered inspired teachings. But he was God on earth, not made of the same flesh as the rest of us. (p. 102)

In other words, Ehrman sees Ignatius’ opponents as docetists (from the verb dokein, to seem), holding the doctrine that Jesus only seemed to be human, only seemed to possess a body of human flesh. In reality, this was only an illusion; he was and remained in spiritual form, so that he did not partake of human nature and did not suffer on the cross.

But is this the meaning that can reasonably be taken from some of Ignatius’ statements?

11. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: Three Voices . . . Papias

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Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt. 11

Three Voices on the Historical Jesus – No. 1: Papias

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COVERED IN THIS POST:

• Papias’ Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord as revealed by Eusebius

• Papias’ uncertain chain of oral transmission

• Had Papias read any Gospels?

• Papias’ “Mark” and “Matthew”: not the canonical Gospels, and not read by Papias

• Papias quotes nothing from any version of our Gospels

• The bizarre things Papias does give us as sayings of the Lord

• By c.125, no written Gospels have reached the bishop of Hieropolis in Asia Minor

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Evidence for Jesus from Outside the Gospels

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 98-101)

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PAPIAS

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Ehrman now turns to three Christian writers of the late first and early second centuries who “convey information about the historical Jesus and certainly attest to his existence” in alleged ways which are “independent” of the Gospels. The first is Papias, a Christian bishop in Asia Minor writing around 120-130 CE, for whom we rely on Eusebius two centuries later, since Papias’ one known work is lost.

Despite Eusebius’ judgment that Papias was “a man of very small intelligence,” what is quoted from his Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord is supposed to represent good evidence of an historical Jesus. Ehrman quotes from Eusebius’ quote of Papias introductory words (History of the Church, III, 39.3-4), in which we learn:

that Papias will give an orderly account “of all the things I carefully learned and have carefully recalled from the elders. . . . Whenever someone arrived who had been a companion of one of the elders, I would carefully inquire after their words, what Andrew or Peter had said . . .

Juggling Elders, Companions and Disciples

Of key interest here is the question of what Papias meant by these “elders”. Scholars will admit to an ambiguity, that “elders” may not refer to the disciple followers of Jesus subsequently named (as some older scholars have preferred to read it), but only to earlier Christians who themselves had known those disciples of Jesus. (That is, “inquire after their words” refers back to the preceding “elders,” but not to the men he goes on to name, which are two different groups and layers of tradition.) This would give us a chain of:

disciples → elders → companions of elders → Papias

And indeed, such a chain would make better sense given the amount of time between the disciples’ activity supposedly following Jesus’ death and Papias himself.

that Papias enquired of anything said by “Andrew or Peter or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew” or “any of the other disciples of the Lord.” But then he goes on to refer to things said by “Aristion and the elder John, disciples of the Lord.”

This is exquisitely confusing.

10. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: Listening to the Sounds of Silence

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Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt. 10

Listening to the Sounds of Silence

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COVERED IN THIS POST:

• Silence: Why did no-one until modern times deny the existence of Jesus?
  • - Does anyone on the early Christian scene deny the existence of the Gospel Jesus?
  • - Ignatius’ letters the first to show support for the Gospel story

• Sounds in silence: Or were they?
  • - Does 1 John reveal the first dispute over an historical Jesus?
  • - Should we expect Celsus to be a New Testament exegete?
  • - Trypho’s “groundless report”
  • - Sound of Silence: Ehrman fails to hear

• Golden silence of the Rabbis
  • - Silent rabbis on Jesus’ non-existence

• The silence of Irenaeus, Tertullian and their heretics
  • - Why do 2^nd century apologists not attack the Christ cult of Paul as a heresy?

• The sound of transition: From Paul to Orthodoxy
  • - The process of transition from a heavenly to earthly Christ

• The sound of diversity: A Logos religion
  
  • - The Logos religion of the 2^nd century apologists

• Silence complete: Revisiting Josephus and Tacitus
  • - Ehrman’s unsupportable assumptions

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Evidence for Jesus from Outside the Gospels

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 94-97)

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Later Sources from Outside the New Testament

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Silence: Why did no-one until modern times deny the existence of Jesus?

Ehrman spends a few pages at the beginning of his Chapter Four on the old canard which too many historicists seem to think is a knockout blow against the mythicist theory: that no one in all the documents we possess from the earliest period right up to the 18^th century ever suggests, or deals with an accusation, that Jesus never existed. A moment’s reflection ought to reveal why this might be the case. (There are in fact a handful of notable exceptions to this silence that I will go into shortly, which puts the lie to Ehrman’s sweeping statement.)

First of all, if an earthly Jesus did not exist for Christians of the Pauline variety of faith in a sacrificed Savior through almost the first hundred years of the movement, how would we expect to find a denial that he had? No one would have been claiming it.

We also have to ask, who would have been in a position to know that Christians were claiming something that was false?

When do we first see that claim surfacing? One can’t point to the Gospels themselves because the very issue in question is whether there is any support for their presentation of a supposedly historical figure and set of events; and their traditional dating is dubious.

The first direct reference by a Christian to an historical man who was crucified by Pilate is found in the letters of Ignatius, which if authentic can be dated no earlier than 107 CE, or if forgeries, some time after that. Is anyone going to be around in Antioch in 107 or later who had been alive in Galilee or Jerusalem three-quarters of a century earlier—with the upheaval and destruction of the Jewish War occurring in the interim—someone who knew everything that happened there in the 10-year period of Pilate’s governorship and was thus in a position to verify that such a figure never existed? A preposterous idea. Christians themselves show no sign of being familiar with the Gospel story, let alone that it had any circulation outside their circles, before the time of Ignatius.

9. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: Form Criticism and the Sources of the Gospels

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Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt.9

Form Criticism and the Sources of the Gospels

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COVERED IN THIS POST:

• Form Criticism and Oral Traditions About Jesus
  • The Fallacy of Form Criticism
  • The Written Evidence of Common Patterns Versus the Oral Hypothesis
  • Literary Construction out of Scripture, not Oral Traditions
  • Traditions in Thomas and Q — not independent
  • The Path to Jesus is Paved with Good Assumptions
  • How Ehrman Dates the Sources to the Day After Jesus
  • From Contradiction and Confusion to Total Chaos

• The Aramaic Origins of (Some) Oral Traditions
  • Aramaic originals?
  • An Aramaic Son of Man?

• Conclusion

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The Oral Traditions About Jesus

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 83-93)

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Form Criticism and Oral Traditions About Jesus

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In a section entitled “Form Criticism and Oral Traditions About Jesus,” Ehrman encapsulates the traditional scholarly approach to analysing the content of the Gospels, and sets these beside the current views he is espousing. But there are inherent contradictions in his scenario.

The Fallacy of Form Criticism

The “form-critical” approach, or “form criticism,” has sought to understand how the various stories about Jesus took shape as they were being “transmitted orally.” Scholarship has long observed something curious, says Ehrman:

Why is it that so many miracle stories seem to follow the same basic pattern? A person comes up to Jesus, his or her problem (or illness) is described, there is a brief interchange with Jesus, Jesus agrees to heal the person, he does so by a word or by a touch, and all the crowds marvel. Every miracle story seems to have the same elements.

Or take the controversy stories. Jesus or his disciples do something that offends the Jewish leaders; the leaders protest; Jesus has a conversation with them; and the story ends with Jesus delivering a withering one-liner that shows that he gets the better of them. Time after time, same form. (p. 84, emphasis added)

As Ehrman puts it, form criticism has asked: How did the various kinds of stories assume their various forms?

The stories about Jesus came to be shaped in the process of telling and retelling, as they assumed their characteristic forms. This means that the stories were changed, sometimes radically, when they were retold, and thus formed over the years. (p. 84)

Something doesn’t compute here. Ehrman has just told us that all the healing miracle stories, for example, are found in the Gospels in a more or less identical form. But oral transmission over a wide area, within an uncoordinated movement, is not likely to produce conformity. Quite the opposite.

8. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: Existence of Non-Existent Sources for the Gospels

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Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt.8

The Existence of Non-Existent Sources for the Gospels

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COVERED IN THIS POST:

• Those “sources” of the Gospels
  • How obvious?
  • Downplaying what scholarship knows
  • Enter Q with a cardboard cutout Jesus
  • Oral tradition hypothesis fails the prediction test
  • How one story became four
  • Luke’s and Matthew’s special sources
    • “You can’t be serious!”
    • Hiding and hoping?
  • Insupportable claims for Mark and John
    • John’s sources were unique . . . the problem
  • Evolution of Jesus
  • Who invented Jesus?

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Written Sources for the Surviving Witnesses

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 78-83)

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Those “sources” of the Gospels

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. . . our surviving accounts, which began to be written some forty years after the traditional date of Jesus’s death, were based on earlier written sources that no longer survive. But they obviously did exist at one time, and they just as obviously had to predate the Gospels that we now have. (pp. 78-79)

Obviously?

This is a curious statement. Usually one uses the term “obviously” only after one has indicated the basis for the obviousness. But since any sources of the Gospels would indeed “obviously” predate the Gospels without that point needing demonstration, perhaps Ehrman is taking the obviousness of written sources as equally self-evident.

But our knowledge of such sources is extremely limited. Once again, the Prologue of Luke is appealed to: those “many” earlier authors who had compiled narratives about the life of Jesus. One of them, of course, is indeed “obvious”: the Gospel of Mark. But this is a source that we do have, and so it falls outside the range of those claimed by Ehrman which “no longer survive.” What we are looking for is evidence that written sources of the life of Jesus predated Mark, sources on which the Gospel content is based.

Ehrman downplaying what scholarship knows

Ehrman does acknowledge a debt to Mark by Luke:

But he certainly liked a good deal of Mark, as he copied many of Mark’s stories in constructing his own Gospel, sometimes verbatim. (p. 79)

Yet once again, we see Ehrman down-playing something well known to scholarship. “[H]e copied many of Mark’s stories” makes it sound like Luke cherry-picked some of these to fit into his own composition, whereas the very heart and spine of Luke’s own Gospel is Mark’s story. Luke has actually used a little over 50% of Mark. (Matthew used almost 90%.) Without those Markan parts, Luke’s (and Matthew’s) story would not exist. There would be nothing to hang their own parts upon. This bears repeating: on a fundamental level, Mark and Luke and Matthew do not represent multiple accounts of Jesus’ life, let alone independent ones. They are the same account, with Luke and Matthew each recasting it with editorial changes and additions to fit their own and their community’s agenda.

Enter Q (with a cardboard cutout Jesus)

7. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: Telling the Gospels Like It Is

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Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt.7

Telling the Gospels Like It Is

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COVERED IN THIS POST:

• Should “faith documents” be treated as legitimate historical sources?

• Are the Gospels independently based on oral tradition?

• Matthew and Luke’s story is Mark’s story

• Hearing about Nazareth and Jesus

• Should we trust accounts of George Washington but not Jesus?

• Equating Luke and Plutarch, or Luke and Philostratus

• Mark as sole source for a life of an earthly Jesus

• Luke and Matthew’s “special material” (“L” and “M”)

• John’s dependence on the Synoptics

• Gospels of Thomas, Peter, Egerton as “independent accounts”

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In his Chapter 3, Bart Ehrman says that he will present “common knowledge” about the Gospels which mainstream New Testament scholars “have known for a long time.” He asks how anyone can complain about making the public more knowledgeable on these matters. Mythicists would heartily endorse that thought.

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Gospels as Historical Sources?

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 69-78)

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Ehrman’s Preliminary Comment

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Ehrman claims that

. . . once one understands more fully what the Gospels are and where they came from, they provide powerful evidence indeed that there really was a historical Jesus who lived in Roman Palestine and who was crucified under Pontius Pilate. (p. 70, DJE?)

In a “Preliminary Comment on the Gospels as Historical Sources,” Ehrman acknowledges that the Gospels “are filled with non-historical material, accounts of events that could not have happened,” that they have “many discrepancies in matters both great and small” and “contradictions all over the map.” On the other hand, there is “historical information in the Gospels,” but “it needs to be teased out by careful, critical analysis.”

To support his contention that the Gospels “can and must be considered historical sources of information,” whether by conservative congregations or by atheists/agnostics who dismiss them as faith documents with no value as history, Ehrman urges that they be recognized as literature, written by human beings in response to the human times they lived in. Such authors had no intention of producing sacred scripture. They “were simply writing down episodes that they had heard from the life of Jesus,” some of which may have been historically accurate, others not. “They had heard reports about Jesus; they had probably read earlier accounts of his life; and they decided to write their own versions.”

Ehrman inserts another reference to the intentions voiced in the Prologue of the Gospel of Luke, a topic I’ve dealt with earlier, pointing out why those statements cannot be taken at face value. Luke and the other evangelists, admits Ehrman, were not disinterested and unbiased, but

they were historical persons giving reports of things they had heard. The fact that their books later became documents of faith has no bearing on the question of whether the books can still be used for historical purposes. (p. 73, DJE?)

No bearing? Hardly. Being documents of faith — and on what grounds is Ehrman claiming they did not begin as such? — may not justify ruling them out as totally valueless, but it is a warning to use extreme care in evaluating whether anything in them is reliable history.

Does Ehrman regard the Passion in Mark’s Gospel as containing anything ‘historical’ when virtually every part of it, even at the level of individual phrases, can be shown to be dependent on — often a verbal borrowing from — a scriptural passage? (That has been recognized since around 1980.) If there is no “history remembered” (and no external corroboration not dependent on those Gospels), how do we securely perceive an actual historical event behind it? Because “Pilate” and “Caiaphas” are involved? Any fictional story can contain historical elements and characters.

Ehrman’s constant emphasis on “hearing” about what Jesus said and did as the basic channel through which the Gospel content passed is not only curious, it’s quite misleading, especially regarding the later evangelists. The old view that the Gospels are basically a recording of oral traditions circulating in Christian communities is no longer in vogue — indeed, it’s untenable. A compromise might have been that Mark was dependent largely on oral tradition, but that the later evangelists essentially redacted Mark (with the exception of John’s ministry), with Matthew and Luke inserting the contents of a written collection of sayings into that redaction.

6. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: Jewish Sources

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Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt.6

What Did Jews Have to Say?

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COVERED IN THIS POST:

• Philo of Alexandria
• Josephus
  • the Testimonium: entirely interpolation or an authentic residue?
  • is an authentic residue “neutral”?
  • is the Testimonium intrusive or a digression?
  • silence of Christian commentators on Testimonium before Eusebius
  • how could Josephus have felt ‘positive’ or even neutral toward Jesus?
  • is the Testimonium’s language the language of Eusebius?
  • changes to the Testimonium and its location
  • the case of Antiquities 20
• The Jewish Talmud
  • why are there no traditions about Jesus going back to the 1^st century?

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Non-Christian References to Jesus

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 56-68, Jewish Sources)

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Philo of Alexandria

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Bart Ehrman, in his survey of the non-Christian witness to Jesus, turns next to the Jewish category. He first dismisses the silence about Jesus in the writings of the philosopher Philo of Alexandria as something unsurprising, since by his death (probably by 50 CE), Christianity had not yet penetrated to Egypt. That may be the case, but this does not mean that a philosopher living in Egypt, just around the Mediterranean corner from Palestine, especially one whose philosophy about God and the mediator Logos was a close antecedent to that of Paul, was completely isolated from news of Judean events, or from new ideas being bandied about in the very field of thought Philo was engaged in.

What we do know from Philo’s writings

Moreover, we know from his writing that Philo was familiar with Pilate and his objectionable activities in Judea. He would not, of course, know about every rebel or criminal executed by the governor, but considering the developments which supposedly followed this particular execution, and considering his interest in the sect known as the Therapeutae to which the early Christian community in Judea would supposedly have borne a strong resemblance, it would not be infeasible for him to have noticed the latter and especially what was presumably being made out of its human founder.

We have writings of Philo up to the year 41 CE, but it could be argued (Ehrman does not) that, even had he taken notice, commenting on that notice was something he simply didn’t get around to doing. The silence in Philo is therefore not overly significant, it’s just another void to add to the overall picture.

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Josephus

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The romanticized woodcut engraving of Flavius Josephus appearing in William Whiston's translation of his works. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But the most important Jewish historian of the era is another matter. Josephus has been a battleground in the ‘clash of titans’ and understandably so. The last half-century of scholarship has focused mainly on whether the passage known as the Testimonium Flavianum in Antiquities of the Jews, Bk.18 contains an authentic original by Josephus which Christians later only made additions to. This is a bandwagon which virtually every New Testament scholar these days has hopped onto, as though the maintenance of an authentic original is seen as crucial to Jesus’ existence.

What scholars used to say

It should be noted, however, that prior to the Second World War, many scholars were quite willing to postulate that Josephus made no reference to Jesus at all. See, for example, Maurice Goguel, Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History?, p.35 (that both passages can be “suspected of interpolation”); or Charles Guignebert, Jesus, p.18 (“It seems probable that Josephus did not name Jesus anywhere”). The latter, in regarding the Testimonium as a complete forgery, suggested: “It may be admitted that the style of Josephus has been cleverly imitated, a not very difficult matter” (Ibid., p.17).

Who proofread this book? I

Curiously, Ehrman says he will deal with Josephus’ two references to Jesus “in reverse order,” gives us a brief description of the Antiquities 20 passage, then “before dealing with” the mythicist claim that it’s an interpolation, he switches over to the Testimonium in Antiquities 18, calling it the “second passage.” One gets an impression more than once in this book that Ehrman simply went with his first draft, and without benefit of editor.

The suspicious passages

Though most of the present readers will know this passage like the back of their hands, I’ll give Ehrman’s rendition of it according to “the best manuscripts”:

At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one should call him a man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. He was the messiah. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. For he appeared to them on the third day, living again, just as the divine prophets had spoken of these and countless other wondrous things about him. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out. (Antiquities 18.3.3) [DJE?, p. 59]

The problem parts of this passage, as Ehrman recounts them, are well known:

5. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: A Roman Trio

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Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt.5

A Roman Trio

COVERED IN THIS POST:

• Pliny the Younger – Letter to Trajan
  • Information taken from Christians
  • Is “Christ” a man or only a god?
  • “Christo quasi deo” – “as” or “as if”?
  • Ancient quotes have no “quasi”
• Suetonius – Life of Claudius
  • “Chrestus” and the expulsion of Jews
  • Misleading translation
  • Paul and Acts
• Tacitus – Annals 15
  • “Christ” but no “Jesus”
  • Tacitus’ source: archive or hearsay?
  • “Procurator” vs. “Prefect”
  • The question of authenticity
  • No Christian witness to martyrdom for the Great Fire
  • No Roman witness after Tacitus
  • Sulpicius Severus (c.400) the first witness

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Non-Christian References to Jesus

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 50-56)

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Pliny the Younger

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After this considerable amount of prefatory material, Ehrman finally arrives at his discussion of the non-Christian references to Jesus. He begins with Pliny the Younger and his famous letter to Trajan in the year 112 CE during his governorship of the province of Bithynia,making inquiries regarding the prosecution of Christians.

At the outset Ehrman admits that any information about Jesus that might be gleaned from Pliny could be seen as having been derived from the Christians themselves (indeed, this is a virtual certainty from what he says), and thus is of little if any value in establishing the historicity of Jesus. Nor does Pliny use the name “Jesus,” referring to the Christian object of worship simply as “Christ.”

The information Pliny has collected from the accused about the sect’s activities is pretty innocuous:

• A pre-dawn chant,
• subscription to certain ethics and behavior,
• assembling to “take food of an ordinary, harmless kind.”

We might note that the latter does not suggest the Eucharist ceremony with its eating of the flesh and blood of Christ, whether god or man, and there is no reference to a crucifixion let alone an alleged resurrection.

As if!

But that pre-dawn chant: Pliny says it was “in honor of Christ as to a god [Christo quasi deo].”

4. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: Chapter 2 continued

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Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 4

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In this post Doherty covers Ehrman’s arguments dealing with:

• Probability in history and the burden of proof
• Ideal evidence historians want against what they actually have
• Ehrman downplays the problems with the (lack of) evidence
  • Unsuccessful comparison with Pontius Pilate
• Absence of eyewitness accounts
  • Late date of the gospels
  • Ehrman overlooks problems with Luke’s Prolog
  • Ehrman overlooks scholarship on origin of the Gospel of Luke
  • Ehrman fudges reference to the backbone of New Testament scholarship (Markan priority)
    .

* * * * *

Preliminary Remarks

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 37-39 of Chapter 2)

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In yet another preface to his discussion of the non-Christian witness to Jesus, Ehrman examines some of the principles involved in historical research. No, it is not like science which can repeat experiments and get observable results.

Technically, we cannot prove a single thing historically. All we can do is give enough evidence (of kinds I will mention in a moment) to convince enough people (hopefully nearly everyone) about a certain historical claim . . . . (p. 38, DJE?)

Burden of Proof

True, all we can really establish is “probabilities” based on judgments about the evidence. And yes, I agree with Ehrman and against Price and some other mythicists that the burden of proof does not lie entirely on the historicist side. As Ehrman quotes E. P. Sanders: “The burden of proof lies with whoever is making a claim.” The problem is, historicists have a habit of maintaining that no burden lies on their side, or else (too often) that adequate ‘proof’ is to be garnered simply through majority opinion, the authoritative consensus which scholars past and present have adopted that an historical Jesus existed. When asked to actually present an adequate case for the existence of the Gospel Jesus, the demand is too often brushed aside as ‘already proven’ or by simple dismissal as an axiomatic non-starter, dissented to only by those driven by an “agenda.”

*

The Kind of Evidence Historians Want

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 39-42 of Chapter 2)

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Ehrman asks what kind of evidence historicists look for, and rely upon, to establish the existence of a given person in the past. He enumerates a “wish list.” Hard, physical evidence, such as photographs. Obviously, none of the latter are available for Jesus, but Ehrman goes further and admits that there is no physical evidence of any kind. No archaeological evidence; again, probably not surprising. No contemporary inscriptions, no coins. Fine. No writings: perhaps a little less natural, but perhaps he was illiterate; or if he could read, he could not write, although Ehrman fails to note that there was nothing stopping him from dictating (it wasn’t a far-fetched idea to Eusebius some centuries later who quotes clearly fabricated correspondence between Jesus and an Edessan king).

Ehrman focuses on the most common form of written witness: documents about a person. The more the better, and best that they be independent and corroborative. At this point, he once again fails to make it clear that the four Gospels are anything but independent and corroborative. They are all dependent on Mark, with one reasonably perceivable lost source, the Q document extractable from Matthew and Luke. John, too, is dependent on Mark for his passion story, and where he is not dependent on a Synoptic source, namely in his portrayal of Jesus’ ministry and the content of his teaching, he is not corroborative. For he gives us a drastically different set of teachings by Jesus, thereby casting doubt on the authenticity of any of the teachings of Jesus, for how could John take the liberty of going off on such an alien tangent from the others, totally ignoring them, if the others were real and reliable?

Another preferred feature of written records is proximity in time, the closer the better. Leaving aside efforts by conservative scholars, the standard dating of the Gospels, all of them following soon after the Jewish War, is not close proximity, especially given the disruptive effects of that war on all of Palestine. A considerable number of mythicists prefer to date all the Gospels well into the second century, but even if a compromise is adopted (I and others like G. A. Wells, with demonstrable reasons, would date Mark to around 90, with the rest following over the next two to three decades; see Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, p.400f), we have nothing resembling proximity. And another wish-list preference, disinterest on the part of the writers about their subject, is as far from the actuality of the Gospels as one can get.

*

The Sources for Jesus: What We Do Not Have

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 42-50 of Chapter 2)

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No Witness to Jesus in the First Century

Ehrman attempts to address this lack head-on. But he makes observations which are patently a down-playing of the real situation. No Greek or Roman author in the first century makes mention of Jesus? No matter,

3. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: Chapters 1-2

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Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 3

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In this post Doherty covers Ehrman’s arguments dealing with:

• the argument from silence and the positive case for mythicism
• why is Paul so silent on the historical Jesus?
  • Paul’s “words of the Lord”
• Problematic Gospels and their basis in scripture
• Dependence on Mark / no variety in Passion story
• The question of parallels with pagan salvation myths
• Uncertainty surrounding Jesus’ teachings

* * * * *

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Before embarking on “the positive evidence that convinces everyone except the mythicists that Jesus existed,” Bart Ehrman provides “a rough idea about why some of the smarter and better informed writers have said he did not exist.”

The Basic Mythicist Position

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 30-34 of Chapter 1)

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Positives, negatives and Ehrman’s silence

Ehrman divides the mythicist arguments into negative and positive, claiming the former are “far more” numerous. This I would dispute, and certainly in my own case. Too much stress is laid by historicists on the supposed reliance by mythicists on the argument from silence. Yes, on my website I have a feature titled “The Sound of Silence: 200 Missing References to the Gospel Jesus in the New Testament Epistles.” It is meant to highlight and deal individually with the extensive occurrences of that silence and the perplexity—indeed, the impossibility—of such a situation if an historical Jesus had existed, especially in the face of historicism’s blithe dismissal of it as inconsequential or as ‘explained’ by the weakest and most unworkable excuses.

But in my books and website I spend far more space on presenting the positive aspects of the mythicist case than the argument from silence, laying out the actual picture of the early Christ cult movement which the epistles provide, demonstrating that it not only needs no historical Jesus, it actually excludes one. And in dealing with the Q side of things, I demonstrate that the Q record itself shows that no historical Jesus founder was present at the root of the Kingdom preaching sect, but was only developed and inserted into the Q record as the sect and its document evolved, a common sectarian feature.

But that will come later. Ehrman provides a telling description of the fact that no mention of Jesus can be found in any Greek or Roman source for at least 80 years after his death. He also acknowledges the mythicist claim that the two famous references to Jesus in the Jewish historian Josephus are very likely interpolations, without putting up a fuss about it (“If they are right…”)—at least at that moment. He goes on to further acknowledge that mythicists are right to point out that

the apostle Paul says hardly anything about the historical Jesus or that he says nothing at all. This may come as a shock to most readers of the New Testament, but a careful reading of Paul’s letters shows the problems. (pp. 31-32, DJE?)

What he doesn’t add here is that this situation is far from peculiar to Paul. It exists across virtually the entire range of the non-Gospel record from almost the first hundred years of Christianity. One writer’s silence (and peculiar language we will look at) could perhaps be an idiosyncrasy though still curious; the entire flock of them outside the Gospels showing the same curiosities would be so unlikely as to be rejected out of hand. (Ehrman will later try to get around this by declaring that those other silent authors, such as of 1 Peter, Revelation and Hebrews, nevertheless “clearly indicate that Jesus existed.” I will be demonstrating that he is mistaken—and not by claiming interpolation!)

2. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: Chapter 1

This second post addresses the opening pages of Ehrman’s first chapter. It continues from the last words of the first installment.

Here Doherty examines

• Ehrman’s appeal to Schweitzer and the problems faced by both Schweitzer and Ehrman
• The logical improbability of Ehrman’s reconstruction of an historical Jesus
• Ehrman’s appeal to pre-Gospel sources and his failure to notice the problems that will have for his own reconstruction
• Ehrman’s treatment of the history of mythicism and the contradiction his observations present for common claims about mythicism among mainstream scholars

*  *  *  *  *

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“But as a historian I think evidence matters,” says Ehrman. Let’s see how he handles evidence, and those who interpret that evidence in a different way.

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Chapter 1: An Introduction to the Mythical View of Jesus

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Ehrman begins by quoting the great Albert Schweitzer. On the one hand, says Schweitzer:

There is nothing more negative than the result of the critical study of the life of Jesus. 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 had any existence.

On the other hand, says Ehrman,

toward the end of his book he [Schweitzer] showed who Jesus really was, in his own considered judgment. For Schweitzer, Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who anticipated the imminent end of history as we know it.

This of course is a “judgment” dear to Ehrman’s heart, because he himself subscribes to it and has written a book advocating such a picture of Jesus. It is a mantra in New Testament scholarship these days, in agreement with Schweitzer a century ago, that immense difficulties abound in the effort to unearth the real historical man from beneath the Christ of faith. And yet scholar after scholar, from Schweitzer and before him to Ehrman and no doubt after him, can claim that they have done so, and have usually disagreed with each other on what the result is. Both Ehrman and Schweitzer can acknowledge the difficulty of getting beyond the faith literature—Ehrman and more modern scholarship have benefited from the realization that there is no “history remembered” in the Gospels, and that virtually all of it is midrashic construction out of scripture—and yet both declare certainty in their knowledge that the Jesus character (whatever he was) did indeed exist.

Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism: Introduction

This is the first installment in a comprehensive response by Earl Doherty to Bart Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist? We plan on publishing one or two installments per week. Upon completion, the full series will be converted to an e-book and made available on Amazon Kindle.

Earl Doherty’s response (title yet to be finalized) will essentially follow Ehrman’s book section by section. In this opening post he covers:

• Anticipation of Ehrman’s book and initial reaction to it
• Procedure in this rebuttal
• Ehrman’s Introduction:
  • How did a humble non-divine preacher become God?
  • Problems with Ehrman’s answer
  • His recent discovery of mythicism and an appeal to authority
  • Examining the term “myth” and a “mythical Jesus” in the record
  • Calling on experts
  • Demonizing agendas

* * * * *

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A Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism

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Bart Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist? has been long-awaited.

First, this particular book was announced over a year before its publication and became much anticipated. As he says in his Introduction, Ehrman had increasingly found himself subjected to queries and challenges concerning the growing idea that there had never been an historical Jesus, and that the Christian story of such a figure was entirely fiction, allegory, or mythology based on other mythological precedents; that earliest Christ belief related only to a heavenly entity who had never been on earth. And so Ehrman decided to devote himself to making a definitive case for the historical Jesus and lay so-called “Jesus mythicism” to rest.

Second, it has been almost a century since any mainstream New Testament scholar devoted an entire and substantial book to refuting the theory that Jesus never existed, a theory that is now some two centuries old, championed over that time by often reputable scholars outside the mainstream. Occasionally, shorter attempts at refutation have appeared within other books by various mainstream academics. But a new and comprehensive case against mythicism was not to be had, despite a resurgence of the no-Jesus theory in the last two decades due to renewed attention generated on the Internet and a general broadening of the ‘critical’ element in traditional scholarship since the Jesus Seminar. Bart Ehrman’s book, it was anticipated, would fill that bill and hopefully move toward settling the question once and for all.

The unanticipated

What no one would have anticipated, however, was the extent of the furor and negative review of the book within the days and weeks after its publication. The quality and legitimacy of Ehrman’s case has been questioned and condemned by many on blogs and discussion boards across the Internet, by amateurs and professionals alike. The latter, thus far, do not include established scholars from mainstream academia, whether conservative or liberal; they have so far kept quiet. But many from outside the establishment who possess qualifications and knowledge more than sufficient to judge Ehrman’s case (and that includes many of those technically referred to as “amateurs”) have roundly reproached the failings of Ehrman’s case and his less-than-objective treatment of mythicism and mythicists.

Earl Doherty’s comments on my posts about Ehrman’s treatment of his book

I am posting here Earl Doherty’s comment — originally made on FRDB — about my recent posts on Bart Ehrman’s treatment of his book, Jesus: Neither God Nor Man.

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I hope that all of you are following the postings on Vridar by Neil Godfrey relating to Bart Ehrman’s presentation of statements and arguments in my book Jesus: Neither God Nor Man. . . . What Neil has focused on in this posting (“Bart Ehrman’s false or careless assertions and quotations concerning Earl Doherty“), the first of several he plans on the same problem in Did Jesus Exist [I now notice he has just posted a second instalment], is Ehrman’s handling of my discussion of the ancients’ views of the universe and how one in particular influenced early Christian cosmology and their placement of their Christ Jesus’ sacrifice in the heavenly world. Here, as quoted on Vridar, is what Ehrman says:

Ehrman continues to repeat and underscore this aspersion — that Doherty is so simplistic as to speak of a single view of the world among ancients:

To begin with, how can he claim to have uncovered “the” view of the world held by “the” ancients, a view that involved an upper world where the true reality resides and this lower world, which is a mere reflection of it? How, in fact, can we talk about “the” view of the world in antiquity? Ancient views of the world were extremely complex and varied…

Neil points out that this is a direct misrepresentation of what I say in my book. Ehrman is discussing my page 97, which actually says (the square-bracket insertions are mine just made):

To understand that setting, we need to look at the ancients’ views [VIEWS, plural] of the universe and the various [i.e., MULTIPLE] concepts of myth among both Jews and pagans, including the features of the Hellenistic salvation cults known as “mysteries.”

But Ehrman has not simply ‘misread’ one word, the surrounding context, and in many other places in my book, contains further material like this:

From the documentary record both Jewish and pagan (and there is more to survey), it is clear that much variation existed in the concept of the layered heavens and what went on in them, just as there were many variations in the nature of the savior and how he conferred salvation.

Neil and some commenters on his posting point out that Ehrman’s language (see above) also implies that this particular “view” of the universe (the Platonic one) I present is somehow my own laughable invention, whereas any undergraduate student of ancient thinking knows full well that this was a widespread (and even pre-Plato) type of cosmology about the nature of the universe. Unfortunately, much of Ehrman’s readership will not even be undergrads.

In the same posting Neil quotes this blatant non-sequitur on Ehrman’s part:

This view of things was especially true, Doherty avers, in the mystery cults, which Doherty claims provided “the predominant form of popular religion in this period.” (This latter claim, by the way, is simply not true. Most religious pagans were not devotees of mystery cults.)

Something that is a “predominant form” is not necessarily indulged in by the majority. Ehrman’s criticism here is based on this fallacy. I have not said that a majority of pagans were initiates into the cults. Besides, the presence of the word “popular” gives a different cast to things. If I say that the predominant form of popular music over the last half-century has been “rock and roll” that does not say that a majority of the population of all ages and ethnic groups around the world have been enthusiastic about rock and roll. Ehrman exhibits serious logical deficiencies here.

On the “view”/”views” matter, Neil suggests that Ehrman may have been “more careless than dishonest,” while one commenter puts it “we must first assume carelessness and not malice”. (Dishonorable or incompetent, take your pick.) But I think this is bending over backwards unjustifiably. It is admittedly hard to believe that Ehrman could have deliberately misrepresented my words, consciously falsifying my arguments in order to put me in the worst possible light. But what is the alternative “carelessness” due to?

What has always been wrong with historical Jesus scholarship

First, the background . . .

Earl Doherty had written:

Titus 1:2-3 — “…in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but (now) at the proper time, he has revealed his word [NEB: openly declared himself] through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior.”

Step One: God promised eternal life long ages ago (lit., before the beginning of time)…

Step Two: God has now revealed that word and fulfilled his age-old promise, through the gospel being preached by Paul. (The writer represents himself as Paul, reflecting the Pauline tradition, as all of the pseudo-Pauline forgeries do.)

God’s promise…then the revelation of that promise in Paul’s gospel.

Where is Jesus in this pattern, Bernard? Where is Step One and a Half? God’s promise wasn’t fulfilled in Jesus? Jesus himself didn’t preach the fulfillment of God’s promise? The “proper time” is identified with Paul’s time and preaching with not the slightest glance at Jesus himself, his life and preaching? The same void exists in other (genuine) Pauline passages, such as 2 Cor. 3:5-6, 3:7-11 and 5:5, Romans 3:21-25, 1 Cor. 10:11. I’m not twisting these passages to eliminate some obvious HJ. He simply isn’t there, and all your sputtering and forced doctoring of them, especially in ignorance of the original Greek texts, won’t put him there. (Some translations do their best to supplement various Greek passages in order to insert him. The NEB is particularly guilty in that regard.)

Mike Wilson replied:

I’m not sure how you conclude there is “no room here for a human Jesus between God and Paul in the course of salvation history”. We can presume Jesus’ actions are part of the promised hope of eternal life without disrupting the meaning of the sentence. I don’t think this line has been a source of any particular trouble for commentators. It reads perfectly well if one supposes the hope of eternal life was accomplished by some action in time on the part of Jesus. That pseudo-Paul did not specify “the promised fulfilled by God gouging out Jesus’ eyes” or whatever they believed, is outside or knowledge. I’m not sure why he doesn’t explain how rebirth and the holy spirit are being poured out though Jesus, but I have to presume the author has an idea of how. While not mentioning the historical deeds or sayings of Jesus, it is not incompatible with such as you believe and little different in its lack of Historical Jesus material as many works by known Historical Jesus authors.

“All that is wrong with historicist scholarship”

Doherty responds

A mythical Jesus, or a “nobody” Jesus

A mythical Jesus, or a “nobody” Jesus.

I would like to know why the second would be so much preferable and acceptable to so many here than the first. I would like to have someone who so prefers to present us with the actual evidence for the second which is so much superior to the actual evidence for the first.

I would like to know just how one defines a “nobody” Jesus. Obviously, such a Jesus can be assigned virtually nothing that is portrayed of him in the Gospels, not just because it is now recognized that there is no history remembered in the Gospels, but if he were assigned anything remotely like we find in the Gospels, he wouldn’t be a “nobody.” If he is a “nobody” then he does not constitute the Jesus of Christianity, and would serve no purpose for it.

So why does everyone seem to get all warm and fuzzy for a “nobody” Jesus (at least, that’s what they convey), and foaming at the mouth against those who would postulate a mythical Jesus?

Or is this all a smokescreen? Will James McGrath tells us openly whether he subscribes to and finds acceptable the idea of a “nobody” Jesus? Will Mike Wilson? Tim O’Neill? Anyone else who regularly craps all over mythicism?

Earl Doherty

And by way of rejoinder to McGrath who wrote:

Doherty answers McGrath and others (continuation of ch. 6 criticisms)

Earl Doherty has responded in detail to criticisms by James McGrath and others over chapter 6 of Jesus Neither God Nor Man. I have collated them in this post, and may add any future ones here, too. (Compare comments on my outline of chapter 6)

Updated 31st May 2011

Brother of the Lord

By now we are all familiar with how much historicists rely on Galatians 1:19 and its “brother of the Lord” to find an historical Jesus within the epistles. It’s one of a small handful of life preservers thrown into the waters to try to rescue Paul from drowning in a mythical sea. I would like to put an additional emphasis on one of the arguments I have used to poke holes in this particular preserver. I have pointed out that Philippians 1:14 uses a similar phrase to Galatians 1:19, namely “brothers in the Lord” (ton adelphon en kurio). This can hardly be taken any other way than meaning “fellow-believers in the Lord” and indicates the usage of a phrase to describe a group of sectarians Paul is acquainted with. The very fact that it is so similar to the Galatians phrase should be a strong argument that the latter is likely to have the same meaning.

McGrath’s suppression of Doherty’s arguments: Ignatius

I had half hoped that by posting an outline of Doherty’s arguments in chapter 6 ahead of James McGrath’s review of that chapter I would be encouraging him to be honest with the content he claims to be reviewing. Unfortunately, it appears I have misjudged him. For example, the first specific criticism refers to Doherty’s reference to Ignatius. Here is McGrath’s criticism:

Doherty also [sic] notes that Ignatius knows biographical details about Jesus, even though he does not show clear signs of knowing written Gospels such as those that made it into the New Testament (pp.57-58). That these considerations might themselves provide reasons for drawing a conclusion different than the one Doherty is heading for is never considered. (“Also”? McGrath has not stated any earlier argument or point Doherty makes about Ignatius at all, but has only given his own irrelevant argument that Ignatius’s attack on Docetism does not necessarily mean a rejection of historicity.)

All McGrath can bring himself to argue here is that Doherty fails to consider that Ignatius’ reference to biographical details of Jesus might be an argument for historicity! Well, when Ignatius speaks of Jesus’ biographical details, it is understood he thinks Jesus is historical. Doherty is addressing the contrary evidence that McGrath complains Doherty does not address, but faults him for not using it in a way that would support McGrath’s beliefs.

What McGrath actually wants Doherty to say here is left unsaid. McGrath’s own rebuttal of Doherty’s point is nonexistent. The bottom line is that McGrath faults Doherty for arguing mythicism and for not using Ignatius to argue for historical Jesus. But how McGrath would use the evidence of Ignatius to overturn Doherty’s argument is left a mystery.

Earl Doherty responds: “It’s too bad Jim did not actually refute the arguments . . .”

Well, since he couldn’t cope with me in the exchanges over his review of my book on his own blog (responses to chapter 1; to chapter 2; to chapter 3; to chapter 4; to chapter 5), Jim regrettably has had to have recourse to a garbage review on Amazon. The following was the result of his reading 5% of the book, addressing none of the key chapters or issues involving my case, and ignoring the feedback arguments I gave him on the five chapters he did review. He also ignored all of the negative reactions from others on his blog who were less than sympathetic to his rabidly hostile, and usually irrational, treatment of mythicists and mythicism. What he wrote on Amazon he could have written—and would have—even before opening Jesus: Neither God Nor Man. Instead of anything approaching a substantive criticism of my book or parts of my case, which might have given pause to those in doubt, this thoroughly condemnatory and arrogant dismissal has actually demonstrated where is coming from (his resume attached to the review helps make that clear) and the untrustworthiness of any review at his hands or others like him. I ought to thank him for making my point.

“This self-published book contains nothing that someone well-informed about the tools of historical scholarship, ancient Judaism, and/or the New Testament will be able to take seriously. Evidence that runs counter to Doherty’s predetermined conclusion is dismissed or dealt with unpersuasively, in much the manner that conservative Christian apologists deal with evidence that disagrees with their assumptions. Mythicism is to historical scholarship what young-earth creationism is to biology, and this volume is just one disappointing example of it.”

It’s too bad that Jim did not use his “well-informed” knowledge of the tools of historical scholarship to actually refute the arguments I made throughout the book. What he gave us for the first five chapters was simply laughable. (Paul’s readers already knew everything! was a good example. Talk about your “well-informed knowledge”!) Unfortunately, Amazon readers will assume that he read the entire thing, and that he could show that the totality of all the evidence is indeed “dismissed or dealt with unpersuasively.” (In fact, Amazon allows a thousand words, sometimes more, for a review; too bad he didn’t use some to actually demonstrate what he claims.) Jim ought to be ashamed of his own lack of honesty, but he’s in good company, and none of it ever shows any shame. Regrettably, authors don’t have the opportunity to comment or rebut on Amazon itself.

Earl

Earl Doherty’s concluding responses to James McGrath’s Menu of Answers for Mythicists

This is the final installment of Earl Doherty’s responses to James McGrath’s Menu of Answers for Mythicists. The previous two posts in this series are at

1. Earl Doherty’s Antidotes for a James McGrath Menu
2. Continuing Earl Doherty’s Antidotes . . . 7 to 12

This post completes Earl’s responses up to McGrath’s menu item #23.

Menu Entrée #13:

“If, as Earl Doherty suggests, the ‘life’ and ‘death’ of Jesus occurred completely in a celestial realm, is the same true of the recipients of Ephesians?”

Something went awry in the preparation of this dish. Has there been any implication that the recipients of Ephesians are said to operate in a celestial realm? In any case, the comparison seems a pointless one. Locating the Ephesians and their struggle with the demons (6:12) as taking place on earth does nothing to prove the location of their Christ’s redeeming death, since the demons operated both on earth and in the heavens. And Ephesians is one of those documents which shows not the slightest sign of an historical Jesus in the background of the writer’s thought, not even in regard to traditions about healing miracles performed by Jesus on earth which would have demonstrated his power over the demons, an issue which would have been of key significance to the Ephesians community.

“Brother of the Lord” – Doherty versus McGrath

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Xiuquan

I am copying a comment by Earl Doherty here as a post in its own right. Doherty apparently attempted to post it on McGrath’s blog in response to McGrath’s post, James the Brother of the Lord and Mythicism, but was confronted with word-length issues. James was responding to Earl’s Menu Entree #3 in his Antidotes post.

For ease of referencing I copy James McGrath’s post below, followed by Earl Doherty’s response:

Neil Godfrey has posted a “response” from Earl Doherty that nicely illustrates, as usual, why mythicism is not taken seriously by most people, but more importantly pretty much anyone with actual expertise in history and a genuine interest in applying historical methods to learn about the past.

The post is in fact intended to provide an “antidote” some brief responses to mythicist claims that I offered in a post a while back. My own view is that it fails miserably, but I am not exactly an impartial observer. But since brief responses are only persuasive if one is familiar with the wealth of evidence behind them, presumably it may be useful for me to say a little more. Rather than trying to say something about each of Doherty’s points, let me focus on one in this post: how he, as a mythicist, treats the references by Paul to “James the brother of the Lord.”

Continuing Earl Doherty’s antidotes for James McGrath’s Menu Items 7 to 12

This post is a continuation of Earl Doherty’s responses to James McGrath’s Menu of Answers to Mythicists. The first installment, items 1 to 6, was posted here. Earl Doherty continues with menu item #7, preceding each of his responses with McGrath’s description in bold italics.

Menu Entrée #7:

“Demonstrating the likelihood that someone existed means showing there are good reasons to think that he did, not that it is impossible for anyone to construct a scenario in which it might have been otherwise. Historical study offers probabilities, not absolute certainties.”

Let’s break down this entrée and do a taste test on its ingredients:

(1) Demonstrating the likelihood that someone existed requires showing that there are good reasons for thinking so.

(2) Demonstrating the likelihood that someone existed does not require showing that no scenarios are possible which could suggest that he did not.

(3) The implication is that this particular historical study is able to demonstrate that No. 1 can be shown to be more probable than any counter scenario envisioned in No. 2.

Earl Doherty’s Antidotes for a James McGrath Menu.

Image via Wikipedia

Earl Doherty has visited James McGrath’s Matrix Restaurant and sampled for himself all 23 items offered on his Menu of Answers for Mythicists. Here is the first part of Earl’s complete culinary report on his experience along with tips for other prospective diners.

Herewith a response to Jim McGrath’s blog feature A Menu of Answers to Mythicists

Dr. Jim McGrath has kindly offered historicists who visit his Matrix restaurant a handy “Menu of Answers” to arguments and claims put forward by mythicists. With his white napkin of pre-washed orthodoxy draped securely over his forearm, waiter McGrath hands diners his menu and wishes them “bon appetit.” The problem is, the entrées on this menu as often as not produce indigestion, since they have not been properly cooked with reason at fallacy-killing temperatures, seasoned with critical acumen or sautéed in clarity, and the accompanying beverage list offers only the cheaper vintages of biased brews. So I would like to offer a selection of antidotes, guaranteed to restore equilibrium to the digestive system and a measure of rationality to the world outside his establishment, since at the end of the day we all have to return to it.

Menu Entrée #1:

Jesus and Entrées at other Establishments

A James McGrath–Earl Doherty Exchange

James McGrath blogged with reference to the recent interview with and follow up comments by Earl Doherty here, and Earl Doherty has replied here.

For ease of reference I bring the two — McGrath’s post and Doherty’s response — together in this post.

James McGrath’s post

Earl Doherty Believes Paul Existed…For Much the Same Reasons Historians Believe Jesus Existed

Neil Godfrey has kindly posted an interview with Earl Doherty and then Doherty’s response to a question from Evan, who also frequently comments here at Exploring Our Matrix. The question relates to whether and why Doherty accepts the existence of a historical Paul, but not a historical Jesus.

It is a fantastic question.

If mythicism emerges out of a principled stance that literary documents alone, or in particular literary documents all from a particular religious tradition, cannot serve as historical evidence for the existence of persons, then there ought to be no difference in how the two are viewed. The difference of genre between letters claiming to be written by Paul and Gospels claiming to be about Jesus is for all intents and purposes irrelevant when it comes to this question, since there is no more difficulty forging letters from a fictional person than in “forging characters” in a fictional narrative.

Doherty, in fact, believes that a historical Paul makes better sense of the evidence. That is, of course, precisely the stance of historians when it comes to the question of the existence of a historical Jesus.

I am curious whether Neil Godfrey, Evan, and others will criticize Doherty for this or will be pleased with his answer. Either way it should make for interesting discussion.

Posted by James F. McGrath at 10:58 PM

And Earl Doherty’s response:

First let me comment on Jim McGrath’s remarks posted on his blog.

If Jim really believes that there is no difference between the evidence for Paul and the evidence for Jesus (regardless of how they are to be ranked), if he believes that accepting one figure requires that we must accept the other, he has very little understanding about the arguments for mythicism. And he is ignoring the very differences I pointed out in the posting he has quoted from this blog.

I’m not sure what Jim is so excited about, or what point he thinks he has scored. He claims that

“Earl Doherty Believes Paul Existed…For Much the Same Reasons Historians Believe Jesus Existed.

Doherty, in fact, believes that a historical Paul makes better sense of the evidence. That is, of course, precisely the stance of historians when it comes to the question of the existence of a historical Jesus.”

Yes, it may be their stance, but that does not make the two positions necessarily equal in merit, and certainly not for the same “reasons.” Every field of research, or some segment of it, will make a similar claim, that its current conclusion makes the best sense of the evidence. Until, that is, some other research comes along and demonstrates otherwise. And one case of such a claim can hardly be used to prove the legitimacy of some other case. This is a peculiar type of fallacy.

There is no question that historicists claim that the existence of an HJ makes better sense of the evidence. But are they justified in so claiming? Are they being unbiased and free from predisposition? Are they immune from reading one set of documents into another? Are their arguments coherent and free of fallacy? The mythicist position is that they are not.

The fact that we hold respective convictions that we’ve made the best sense of the evidence is not dramatic in itself and hardly proves anything. Jim seems to be suggesting that my acceptance of the likelihood of an historical Paul and my rejection of the likelihood of an historical Jesus is some kind of arbitrary eenie-meenie-minee-moe. Rather, it is a matter of subjecting each case to its own careful and unbiased examination.

One of the major differences I put forward was the nature of the evidence. We have writings purporting to be by Paul, but none by Jesus. Much of the ‘genuine’ Pauline letters have the sound of a real person with all its human emotions and weaknesses, its personal experiences and reactions to real-life situations. The “sound” of Jesus in the Gospels, on the other hand, is a bunch of set-pieces and mirrorings of scripture, almost nothing in the way of an identifiable personality. Even his third-person-related deeds are midrashic rewrites of passages from scripture. On the cross, Mark can give him nothing more to say than a line from Psalm 22. As for the epistles, they ‘recount’ Jesus’ life by paraphrasing lines from passages like Isaiah 53, as in 1 Peter 2:22. This is just one example of the differences between the two ‘records’ and why a conviction of reality in regard to Paul has its own reasons which are quite distinct from the reasons historicists may have for their conviction of reality for the Gospel figure. If Jim cannot recognize those differences and their quality, or chooses to ignore them, it is no wonder he finds the mythicist case so easy to dismiss.

Earl Doherty

Comment by Earl Doherty — 2011/04/05 @ 3:17 am

Sifting a historical Paul from a nonhistorical Jesus: Doherty’s position

Image via Wikipedia

In response to the Earl Doherty interview posted here two days ago, Evan asked what evidence convinces Doherty that the Apostle Paul of Tarsus was a genuine historical figure, and in what way it is different from the evidence for the historical Jesus of Nazareth.

Earl Doherty responded at some length in listing factors that need consideration. I have taken the liberty of turning his reply into a post here, with slightly modified formatting and added subheadings, to make any follow up discussion easier to access.

Earl Doherty’s response:

Boy, nothing like a simple question to start things off. To answer it would take a book in itself. It’s really a topic for a proper discussion board, which I am not too sure is what Neil envisions his blog as being, or wants it to be. So let me just itemize a few points, rather than argue them in any detail.

The documentary record in relation to a first century Christianity and authentic Paul

Acts may be thoroughly unreliable as providing an actual history of the early Christian movement, but given an authentic Paul and a first century Christianity, the documentary record and its content as a whole has always struck me as much more coherent than what I would call ultra-radical alternatives which discard Paul and essentially shove everything into the second century.

There are just too many problems created, too many jerry-built measures which have to be undertaken, to try to make those alternatives work. It’s a lot like the no-Q position, the Luke used Matthew proposal. In my estimation, the latter runs up against too many problems that have to be ‘solved’ in ways I don’t regard as legitimate that it becomes a far less acceptable and workable theory than Q.

Interview with Earl Doherty

I asked Earl Doherty a few questions about his background and what led him to his Christ myth views; his understanding of the relationship between atheism and mythicism, and atheism in genera; influences leading to his own distinctive views and public/scholarly reactions to the mythicism, and towards him personally; his place in the history of the Christ myth idea and what he sees as the future status of Christ-mythicism. I also asked him about his website and books, including his novel.

His responses address other mythicists such as G. A. Wells and Paul-Louis Couchoud, a few mythicism’s current critics, and his views on American novelist Vardis Fisher. (The name of this blog, Vridar, is taken from the autobiographical character in Vardis Fisher’s final novel in his Testament of Man series, Orphans in Gethsemane.)

I am sure others will find his replies as interesting as I did.

And a special thanks to Earl for making time to respond as he did. I include a link to his Age of Reason and Jesus Puzzle websites at the end of his responses to my questions.

————-

1. What led to your interest in the Christ myth theory?

Earl D: In 1982 I read a couple of books by G. A. Wells, and I was quite taken aback. While I had vaguely heard of the ‘no historical Jesus’ idea during the 1970s, I tended to regard it as unlikely. Not, however, based on any particular knowledge of the subject. But that has enabled me to understand the automatic dismissal which the Christ myth theory usually receives from those who really know very little about it. In 1984, after finishing a novel I had been working on for some time, I began to read more widely, and soon decided I would undertake my own research of the question, perhaps with a view to writing my own book. While I have a high respect for Prof. Wells, I felt that the subject could use a different approach. Fortunately, I had studied ancient Greek in university during the 1960s, as part of a degree in ancient history and classical languages. I could build on that earlier education and supplement it with my own private study. Before long, I guess you could say it became an obsession.