The comments which follow the post include not only the usual sorts of false accusations and attempts at\u00a0labeling\u00a0and ad-hominem arguments, but even insults against my colleagues in the history department at my university! There is also a description of what religion departments are at secular universities that would dismay members of SBL.\u00a0I won\u2019t encourage anyone to go over and try to explain mainstream scholarship, since I\u2019ve tried and failed before. But if you\u2019re so inclined, feel free \u2013 if you\u2019re lucky, you may get an amusing insulting nickname as a reward!<\/p>\n
So here once more are the mythicist-creationist parallels, for those who might be new to this topic.<\/p>\n
First, there is the suggestion that, if genuine secular historians offered the opinion that the existence of Jesus is well documented, the historians must be incompetent, or the question must have been phrased poorly, or they misunderstood. \u201cTrue historians\u201d couldn\u2019t possibly reach a conclusion that does not conform to mythicist orthodoxy, and so all sorts of ad hoc and ludicrous \u201cexplanations\u201d are found to explain why the experts do not support the mythicists\u2019 assumptions. Somewhere in the same recent discussion, the recommendation was made to read secular historians\u2019 treatment of the subject, and yet it is clear that apart from a few fringe figures, those engaged in these discussions have not read any such historians, and they do not get mentioned by name. Just like in creationism, there is the assumption that \u201ctrue science\u201d or \u201ctrue history\u201d does and must support one\u2019s own views, insults against those who work within the scholarly mainstream of the discipline, and little evidence of having read and understood what mainstream scholarship in the field concludes and why.<\/p>\n
Next we have religion departments at secular universities depicted as centers for religious apologetics \u2013 a particularly ironic and ridiculous generalization in view of the recent discussions about the mission of the Society of Biblical Literature! Here too we see the similarities with other pseudo-academic movements: centers of research and teaching in this field are said to actually be propaganda machines promoting a unified ideology and \u2018conclusions\u2019 that are never challenged or tested. I doubt that anyone who has actually been through such a program \u2013 whether in biology or religion \u2013 would not feel insulted at the way their education is being demeaned by people who seem not to have\u00a0benefited\u00a0from a comparable educational experience.<\/p>\n
Finally, we have the usual repeated half-truths and misconceptions of people who are sure Jesus didn\u2019t exist but have not read the earliest sources and have only a vague idea of what they contain. Our earliest source is not an anonymous Gospel, but Paul\u2019s letters, and he refers to Jesus as having been \u201cdescended from David according to the flesh\u201d (Romans 1:3). This statement may or may not be a true one as far as Jesus\u2019 genealogy is concerned, but there is no more straightforward way to understand it than that Paul believed<\/i> that the Jesus of whom he wrote and spoke was an actual historical human being, a descendant of David. To suggest otherwise, one has to insert a number of ad hoc assumptions and unconvincing interpretations which are clearly aimed at avoiding the plain sense of the text. That\u2019s not scholarship, it is apologetics, and despite all the times they decry apologetics and falsely accuse mainstream historians of being closet apologists for Christianity (even Bart Ehrman would be, by their standards!), what they offer is itself apologetics and not scholarship.<\/p>\n
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