{"id":867,"date":"2011-07-19T12:12:12","date_gmt":"2011-07-19T16:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=857"},"modified":"2011-07-19T12:12:12","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T16:12:12","slug":"my-criticisms-of-mythicism-must-be-on-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/07\/my-criticisms-of-mythicism-must-be-on-target.html","title":{"rendered":"My Criticisms of Mythicism Must Be On Target"},"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>My criticisms of mythicism must be on target. At least, that seems to me to be the best explanation for why <a href=\"http:\/\/vridar.wordpress.com\/2011\/07\/19\/why-mcgrath-should-honourably-step-down-from-the-debate\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">one of its well-known internet supporters, Neil Godfrey, has written a post offering accusations which are so off target that I regard them as laughable rather than genuinely slanderous, and asked me to \u201chonorably step down\u201d from the discussion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vridar.wordpress.com\/2010\/07\/05\/biblical-historian-mcdaft-admits-to-relying-on-hearsay-and-uncorroborated-reports\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Godfrey has in the past even stooped to name-calling<\/a>, and yet when someone offers substantive criticism of mythicism, <a href=\"http:\/\/vridar.wordpress.com\/2011\/07\/15\/the-unhelpful-way-in-which-the-debate-has-moved-or-attempting-to-understand-why-the-misrepresentations-from-hoffmann-mcgrath-et-al\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">he<\/a> regularly resorts to accusing <em>them<\/em> of not being civil.<\/p>\n<p>He is either an extremely adept and cunning individual who knows what to try in order to try to gain sympathy for his views, or he is out of his mind. I am not in a position to offer a diagnosis one way or another. All I can say is that I do not recognize myself in his accusations, and I believe that his post is simply yet another example of the ploy of conspiracy theorists to blame their critics and detractors, rather than the unconvincing nature of their own claims, for the fact that those claims fail to persuade. What do others think?<\/p>\n<p>For those who want some useful insights into how scholarship of a variety of sorts works \u2013 from physics to biology to history \u2013 here are some useful posts I\u2019ve found around the blogosphere.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/startswithabang\/2011\/07\/science_could_have_it_all_wron.php?utm_source=selectfeed&amp;utm_medium=rss\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Science Could Have It All Wrong, But..<\/a> (on assumptions in the natural sciences)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thebiblicalworld.blogspot.com\/2011\/07\/one-persons-crap-is-another-persons.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">One person\u2019s crap is another person\u2019s treasure<\/a> (on archaeological discovery)<\/p>\n<p>Conversations on methods in historical criticism:<br>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ntweblog.blogspot.com\/2011\/07\/on-contradiction-between-multiple.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MarkGoodacresNTBlog+%28Mark+Goodacre%27s+NT+Blog%29\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">On the contradiction between \u201cmultiple attestation\u201d and \u201cembarrassment\u201d in Historical Jesus Research<\/a><br>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/tomverenna.wordpress.com\/2011\/07\/18\/why-the-criterion-of-embarrassment-is-inadequate\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Why the Criterion of Embarrassment is Inadequate<\/a><br>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ntweblog.blogspot.com\/2011\/07\/where-single-attestation-is-preferable.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MarkGoodacresNTBlog+%28Mark+Goodacre%27s+NT+Blog%29\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"> Where single attestation is preferable to multiple attestation<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com\/ancient_hebrew_poetry\/2011\/07\/why-scott-bailey-is-wrong-and-alvin-plantinga-is-right.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ancienthebrewpoetry+%28Ancient+Hebrew+Poetry%29\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">John Hobbins<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/scotteriology.wordpress.com\/2011\/07\/19\/my-response-to-john-hobbins\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Scott Bailey<\/a> have an exchange around words of Alvin Plantinga.<\/p>\n<p>And specifically on mythicism, see <a href=\"http:\/\/tomverenna.wordpress.com\/2011\/07\/19\/defining-mythicism-paul-jesus-and-understanding-the-context\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Tom Verenna\u2019s response to my latest installment in my review of Earl Doherty\u2019s book<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com\/2011\/07\/disconfirming-evidence-is-decisive.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DebunkingChristianity+%28Debunking+Christianity%29\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">John Loftus has a post that is also relevant: some evidence may seem to support this view or that, and so it is <em>disconfirming<\/em> evidence that is usually the crux of the matter when it comes to the plausibility o otherwise of a point of view<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/unreasonablefaith.com\/2011\/07\/19\/mcdowell-vs-the-internet\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Unreasonable Faith discusses the fact that the internet unleashes an undifferentiated flood of information both reliable and bogus on its users<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/sciencestandards.blogspot.com\/2011\/07\/and-aig-responds-to-doonesbury.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ted Herrlich shares AiG\u2019s response to a recent Doonesbury cartoon<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/friendlyatheist\/2011\/07\/19\/the-northwest-science-museum-set-to-open-in-idaho\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Hemant Mehta highlights a new institution in Idaho that probably needs two sets of scare quotes inserted into its name, around \u201cscience\u201d and \u201cmuseum.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/patmccullough.com\/2011\/07\/18\/bibliwho-what-should-we-call-ourselves\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+katatabiblia+%28kata+ta+biblia%29\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Finally, see Pat McCullough\u2019s question on whether \u201cBiblical scholars\u201d is the best term for people in our field<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My criticisms of mythicism must be on target. At least, that seems to me to be the best explanation for why one of its well-known internet supporters, Neil Godfrey, has written a post offering accusations which are so off target that I regard them as laughable rather than genuinely slanderous, and asked me to \u201chonorably [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[1456,2255,2262,2272,2921,4648,5258,7853,7856,7999,9719,10886,11403],"class_list":["post-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mythicism","tag-bunk","tag-crackpots","tag-cranks","tag-creationism","tag-earl-doherty","tag-historical-criticism","tag-insults","tag-mythicism","tag-mythicists","tag-neil-godfrey","tag-pseudoscholarship","tag-science","tag-slander"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>My Criticisms of Mythicism Must Be On Target<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My criticisms of mythicism must be on target. 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