{"id":24267,"date":"2014-06-09T08:11:23","date_gmt":"2014-06-09T12:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=24267"},"modified":"2014-06-09T08:11:23","modified_gmt":"2014-06-09T12:11:23","slug":"jesus-and-the-historians-craft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/06\/jesus-and-the-historians-craft.html","title":{"rendered":"Jesus and the Historian&#8217;s Craft"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Tim O\u2019Neill has posted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.strangenotions.com\/an-atheist-historian-examines-the-evidence-for-jesus-part-1-of-2\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">part 1<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.strangenotions.com\/an-atheist-historian-examines-the-evidence-for-jesus-part-2-of-2\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">part 2<\/a> of an online article which is getting a lot of discussion: \u201cAn Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for Jesus.\u201d He does a really good job not just of explaining what the positive evidence is for there having been a historical Jesus, but why mythicist counterarguments are unpersuasive, especially when examined closely and in detail.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bibleinterp.com\/articles\/2014\/06\/pow388006.shtml\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">\u00a0Mark Allen Powell offered an updated survey of scholarship on the historical Jesus<\/a>. Mythicists and Christian apologists get a mention towards the end. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencemeetsreligion.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/is-the-bible-supported-by-modern-archaeology\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">David Bailey<\/a> also gave them a shout-out.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1589836650\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1589836650&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkId=SJVICGFW2MBYTFCB\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"border: 0px\" src=\"http:\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=1589836650&amp;Format=_SL110_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20\" alt=\"\" width=\"73\" height=\"110\" border=\"0\"><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" src=\"https:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1589836650\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookreviews.org\/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8697\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>RBL<\/em> had two reviews<\/a> of Beth Sheppard\u2019s book <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1589836650\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1589836650&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkId=SJVICGFW2MBYTFCB\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Craft of History and the Study of the New Testament<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" src=\"https:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1589836650\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\">, <\/em>which is about how New Testament scholars apply the same methods used in the wider discipline of history.<\/p>\n<p>For those interested in what Richard Carrier has to say on this topic, <a href=\"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/carrier\/archives\/5630\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">he will be offering some free classes this summer<\/a>. See also <a href=\"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/carrier\/archives\/5612\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">his attempts to spin his debate with Zeba Crook<\/a> in the worst possible light for his opponent and the best possible light for himself. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/05\/zeba-crook-and-richard-carrier-discuss-the-historicity-of-jesus.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">I shared the video of the debate here on the blog previously<\/a>. See also <a href=\"http:\/\/brucegerencser.net\/2014\/06\/will-real-jesus-please-stand\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Bruce Gerencser\u2019s ongoing search for the real Jesus<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And finally, it was pointed out to me that it is not just Jesus who gets fake quotes attributed to him. There is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fakebuddhaquotes.com\/doubt-everything-find-your-own-light\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">an entire blog dedicated to Fake Buddha Quotes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-24357\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2014\/06\/doubt-everything1-570x372.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"570\" height=\"372\"><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tim O\u2019Neill has posted part 1\u00a0and part 2 of an online article which is getting a lot of discussion: \u201cAn Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for Jesus.\u201d He does a really good job not just of explaining what the positive evidence is for there having been a historical Jesus, but why mythicist counterarguments are unpersuasive, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":24357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,40,64,67],"tags":[871,899,1313,1434,3332,4641,4652,5677,7331,9859,10000,10359,14048],"class_list":["post-24267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-historical-jesus","category-history","category-mythicism","category-new-testament-bible","tag-atheist","tag-authentic","tag-book-reviews","tag-buddha","tag-fake","tag-historian","tag-historical-jesus","tag-jesus","tag-methods","tag-quotes","tag-rbl","tag-richard-carrier","tag-zeba-crook"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jesus and the Historian&#039;s Craft<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tim O&#039;Neill has posted part 1\u00a0and part 2 of an online article which is getting a lot of discussion: &quot;An Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/06\/jesus-and-the-historians-craft.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus and the Historian&#039;s Craft\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tim O&#039;Neill has posted part 1\u00a0and part 2 of an online article which is getting a lot of discussion: &quot;An Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/06\/jesus-and-the-historians-craft.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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