{"id":21572,"date":"2014-02-13T10:55:45","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T15:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=21572"},"modified":"2014-02-13T10:55:45","modified_gmt":"2014-02-13T15:55:45","slug":"debating-the-historicity-of-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/02\/debating-the-historicity-of-jesus.html","title":{"rendered":"Debating the Historicity of Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I was notified about this event coming up in April. Given how the Ham-Nye debate went, maybe this is something to approach with hope rather than excessive concern? It is being organized by the Center for Inquiry in Ottawa<\/a>. A Facebook page has been created for the event.<\/p>\n

\"\"Did a man named Jesus live in Palestine 2000 years ago? Zeba Crook, professor of religious studies at Carleton University thinks so, but historian and philosopher Richard Carrier disagrees.Join us at the Centrepointe Chamber Theatre for a lively discussion on this controversial topic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tickets on sale now<\/a>: $15 general admission, $10 for CFI members<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you want to see why, whatever the popular impression happens to be after the debate, I don\u2019t find Carrier\u2019s treatment of this topic persuasive as scholarship, simply take a look at his recent post<\/a> responding to a recent article in The Bible and Interpretation<\/em>. He begins by acknowledging that mythicism thus far has not offered a substantive case. But he then goes on (at his typical irritatingly unnecessary length, given the paucity of genuine substance in that section) to attempt \u2013 very much in the same way other mythicists have \u2013 to score cheap apologetic-style points which any scholar or historian of the relevant periods and sources can easily see are worthless.<\/p>\n

The comparison with the Patriarchal narratives is a good example. Suggesting that, because religious scholarship once assumed that the Patriarchal narratives were based on history (and we do not know for certain that they are not<\/em> legends based distantly on history), written as they were more than a millennium after the alleged events occurred, therefore secular and other non-Christian historians are wrong to conclude that Jesus, about whom people held the view that he was historical within a matter of decades, is about as fallacious a case as one could possibly make.<\/p>\n

He also makes ludicrous and unsubstantiated sweeping statements such as \u201cvirtually none of what he says or does makes any plausible sense on any known human psychology.\u201d Those who study ancient Jewish sources from close to that time disagree with Carrier\u2019s assessment. Merely asserting such things is not going to persuade those familiar with scholarship on ancient Judaism and\/or the historical Jesus. Indeed, Carrier\u2019s comparison of Jesus, claimed in our earliest sources to be the awaited Davidic anointed one, to demigods<\/em> suggests that Carrier isn\u2019t even in the appropriate ballpark of ancient Judaism<\/a>. To extend the metaphor further, if you haven\u2019t made the case that you are in the right ballpark, then the fact all the other players are playing the game in a different one ought to be cause of concern.<\/p>\n

Carrier draws frequently on the self-published work of Earl Doherty, whose book I blogged part of the way through<\/a> on this blog<\/a> previously<\/a>. There are plenty of serious scholarly arguments that are nonetheless wrong. Doherty\u2019s work is not that \u2013 if it were merely unpersuasive scholarship, I would have respectful appreciation for it, even if I found it unconvincing. But what it is is painfully bad pseudoscholarly bunk. Until Carrier understands why it seems that way to those who work in the relevant fields, it is hard to see how he can make a case that will persuade those he hopes to persuade.<\/p>\n

If what he wrote in his blog post<\/a> is the sort of thing that Carrier offers in the upcoming debate, then it will most likely resemble the Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham one. And unfortunately, it doesn\u2019t seem as though any evidence would persuade Richard Carrier that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure.<\/p>\n

Of related interest, see Mark Goodacre\u2019s untypically-long snow-day NT Pod<\/a> on beginning historical Jesus research.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was notified about this event coming up in April. Given how the Ham-Nye debate went, maybe this is something to approach with hope rather than excessive concern? It is being organized by the Center for Inquiry in Ottawa. A Facebook page has been created for the event. Did a man named Jesus live in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":21590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2527,4652,7853,10359,14050],"class_list":["post-21572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mythicism","tag-debate","tag-historical-jesus","tag-mythicism","tag-richard-carrier","tag-zeba-crooks"],"yoast_head":"\nDebating the Historicity of Jesus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I was notified about this event coming up in April. 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