{"id":360,"date":"2011-02-11T12:26:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T12:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/02\/godfreys-razor-meets-procrustes-bed\/"},"modified":"2011-02-11T12:26:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-11T12:26:00","slug":"godfreys-razor-meets-procrustes-bed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/02\/godfreys-razor-meets-procrustes-bed.html","title":{"rendered":"Godfrey’s Razor Meets Procrustes’ Bed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Neil Godfrey has a \u201cresponse\u201d<\/a> to a recent post of mine on mythicism. He equates what seem to me to be distinct scenarios. On the one hand, we have something that is well-documented and much-studied, the drawing on literary prototypes in storytelling. This is what Allison\u2019s study<\/a>\"\" (which Godfrey cites) highlights in Matthew\u2019s Gospel, taking the already-existing figure of Jesus, and traditions about his teachings, and drawing on earlier stories about Moses to highlight similarities and differences between the two.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, we have what mythicists claim took place, which is the invention of a brand new fictional central character in a wide range of stories, based on supposed sources of inspiration in Scripture the connections with which are sometimes so slim that they are akin to claiming that a story of a thief stealing gold from a vault was inspired by \u201cGoldilocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

I assume that all non-mythicist readers, and perhaps even some mythicists who are coming to their senses, will have no difficulty seeing that the abundant examples we have of the first sort of instance \u2013 creating new stories from Scriptural inspiration and\/or retelling traditional material in dialogue with Scripture \u2013 do not constitute evidence that anyone invented anyone \u2013 much less a crucified Messiah \u2013 entirely or almost entirely from raw ingredients in the Jewish Bible.<\/p>\n

Apart from illustrating confusion between these two scenarios, I didn\u2019t find anything new or helpful in the post \u2013 just the same old claims, and the same old quotes from the same old sources.<\/p>\n

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

Neil Godfrey has a \u201cresponse\u201d to a recent post of mine on mythicism. He equates what seem to me to be distinct scenarios. On the one hand, we have something that is well-documented and much-studied, the drawing on literary prototypes in storytelling. This is what Allison\u2019s study (which Godfrey cites) highlights in Matthew\u2019s Gospel, taking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nGodfrey's Razor Meets Procrustes' Bed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Neil Godfrey has a "response" to a recent post of mine on mythicism. He equates what seem to me to be distinct scenarios. 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