Peter Kirby has posted an open letter expressing serious concern about the way I have expressed myself in my recent post and more generally in my treatment of Earl Doherty’s self-published book Jesus: Neither God Nor Man
Peter, thank you so much for posting this. I have all along struggled with what the appropriate tone for my discussion of Doherty’s book ought to be. The challenge is that, like creationists (I know you don’t like the analogy, but it is apt), mythicists are not people who are interested in doing scholarship, but people who try to make their products resemble scholarship to the untrained eye so as to use scholarship, as creationism uses science, to boost it’s message and increase it’s predators, but without adhering in the process to the methods that make the natural sciences or historical criticism effective. I have been in conversation with mythicists for some time, and have already seen them use even the fact that I take the time to discuss their claims as supposed evidence that those claims have scholarly merit. And so I have been trying to find a way to bring scholarly rigor to bear on mythicism’s claims, without thereby giving the impression that both the view of the reviewer and the view being reviewed are the result of the application of scholarly methods, and so as in instances in which scholars disagree in significant numbers, one should simply choose one’s preference from among the options.
I have discussed the positive case for a historical Jesus on my blog on many previous occasions. Mythicists sometimes responded that if I just read the latest edition of Doherty’s book, I would change my mind. I am doing so, and am finding it to be full of illogical arguments, misrepresentations, and claims which time and again reinforce to me the sense that time spent reading it is time wasted. I regularly benefit from reading scholarly works that challenge my assumptions, even when they don’t persuade me to change my mind, because they are academically rigorous and stimulating. Doherty’s book is not any of the above. And so perhaps my resentment at feeling I have no choice but to read and blog through it if I am to address mythicist appeals to it is showing.
I would love to be more polite, more objective, and if nothing else, give a better impression of myself in the process of reviewing Doherty’s book. But unless I find a way of making clear that the contents are altogether lacking in scholarly rigor, then my polite review will become fodder for mythicist quote-mining in support of their claims. And so I would truly value further input from you and other readers on how to navigate the waters between those two concerns.
Thank you again for reading my blog and for taking the time to challenge me on my tone. I do appreciate it immensely.
Long before I began interacting with mythicism, I had experience interacting with young-earth creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design. Scientists have been wrestling with and continue to wrestle with the question of how to best engage creationists who are ready to use whatever mainstream scientists do to their own ideology’s advantage. If scientists debate them, it seems to give them legitimacy. If scientists refuse to debate, then the creationists can either complain that they are not being given a hearing or even suggest that scientists are afraid to debate because of the weakness of their position. If scientists interact with proponents of Intelligent Design cordially, it can give the impression that this is yet another disagreement among experts with comparable evidence supporting each. If they call them “IDiots” or other names, then they are accused of breaking the rules of scholarly engagement, even though the view that they are criticizing is not itself playing by the rules of scientific research and peer review. It seems like a no-win situation to many scientists eager to get the message out that what is being offered as an alternative to mainstream science is bunk dressed in scientific clothing, a deception full of misrepresentations and half-truths, a fraud peddled by charlatans where the only real question is whether a particular promoter knows full well that they are lying, or are in good faith repeating lies they have heard from others. And yet to remain silent and allow the proponents of these views to have their say unchallenged is obviously not helping either. Is this the only viable approach?
I would like to invite input from anyone and everyone who has an opinion about this, whether in relation to creationism and Intelligent Design, mythicism, homeopathy, global warming – and maybe even predictions of the Rapture or the death of Osama bin Laden if you like. What is the appropriate way, in your opinion, for legitimate experts to challenge junk science, pseudoscholarship and pseudohistory, so as to make clear that their disagreements with these views are not in the same category or of the same kind as their disagreements with other scholars?
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