Michael Paulkovich has published a new edition of his book No Meek Messiah. Actually, it appears that the new edition came out some time ago, and I didn't notice, in part because the new edition or editions -- I'm not sure how many editions there have been altogether -- has or have a completely different title: Beyond the Crusades. According to the publisher of the new version, American Atheist Press,
"It includes an exhaustively researched 19-page appendix that provides
citations for the controversial 126 'Silent Historians' of Chapter 49
and serves to rebut critics who erroneously claimed that some of the
writers on the list were not applicable or even pre-Jesus."
Well. I guess that shuts me up, once and for all. Seriously, though, I'm torn between a morbid curiosity on the one hand about just how Paulkovich has doubled down here, and on the other hand, profound, cringing embarrassment for him.
Does the change in title make sense? I have no way of knowing: I haven't read the book in any of its editions. I haven't read the article which was excerpted from it in Skeptical Inquiry either. Paulkovich has accused me of not reading that article, and he may have accused me of not having read his book either. In either case he would be correct. All I have addressed is Paulkovich's list of 126 names of people he calls "the silent historians," 126 people who, he claims, should have been expected to have mentioned Jesus if He had existed.
There are very many good books in the world, far more than any one person could ever hope to read. I have to have some incentive to read any particular book. Sometimes a page is enough to convince me that a certain book is not for me. In the case of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, one sentence was enough. In the case of No Meek Messiah and/or Beyond the Crusades, those 126 names were much more than enough. And I have tried to make the case that they ought to be enough to convince any reasonable person that Paulkovich is talking -- through his hat, as people used to say in quainter times. I have tried, and I have been very disappointed to have to come to the conclusion that most people who care a bit one way about Paulkovich either already knew what I was talking about -- just a few cases, these. Academics in one of the "relevant fields," mostly -- or they wouldn't really investigate the list of 126 names at all, trying to find out who, Paulkovich or I or perhaps neither, knew what he was talking about when referring to those 126 people, but were quite content to assume that Paulkovich was full of it if they were convinced that Jesus existed, or that I was full of it if they had their doubts that Jesus ever existed.
More nuanced positions, such as having doubts that Jesus existed but still thinking that Paulkovich was full of it, or being certain that Jesus existed but still thinking that I am full of it, seem to be represented by as few as 1 1/2 people: I am not certain Jesus existed, and Tim O'Neill may or may not think I am full of it. I don't want to speak for Tim on this point. See his comments under the very earliest article in the first link in this post.
There is one thing I find quite remarkable about the new edition or editions of Paulkovich's book, the edition or editions entitled Beyond the Crusades: Robert M Price, one of the most famous of all contemporary mythicists, who probably served as a college professor "in the relevant fields" longer than any other mythicist in the US if not the world -- Ah say Ah Say Robert M Price has written a Foreword for the new edition or editions. Whether this is a new low for Price, or just more of the same, I am not familiar enough with his work to say. Or maybe my wondering about that merely shows that I am terribly naive to assume that professors who write Forewords for books tend to read those books first.
Showing posts with label robert price. Show all posts
Showing posts with label robert price. Show all posts
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
In The Feud Between Historicists And Mythicists, There's Almost No One To Root For
And it is a feud. One of the disappointing things about this is the high proportion of personal attacks against other scholars to actual scholarly discussion of Jesus' historicity. As I've mentioned before on this blog, Bart Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist? disappoints not only for the weakness of the case it makes for historicity -- others of Ehrman's fans on both side of the historicist/mythicist divide agree that the case he made was very disappointingly weak -- but also for the egregiously insulting personal attacks on mythicists, comparing them to conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers. As if that weren't bad enough, the mythicists whom Ehrman attacked -- Richard Carrier, D.M. Murdock, Earl Doherty, René Salm, David Fitzgerald, Frank R. Zindler, and Robert M. Price -- have responded, not with something finer, but in kind, with an anthology of attacks on Ehrman, entitled Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth, in which they allow themselves in no way to be outdone by Ehrman when it comes to petty gotchas. Ad hominem all over the place, no ad rem to be seen anywhere.
Unless, of course, I'm entirely mistaken in thinking that the actual res here is the question: did Jesus exist? Price, who edited this volume along with Zindler, actually writes of Ehrman and Did Jesus Exist? : "He started it!" I suppose it's possible to find Price refreshingly informal and witty in a childlike way. I suppose. Some people must find him to be that way. Because he does have readers and fans.
On the one hand, mainstream academic scholars have thorough training, great familiarity with relevant languages ancient and modern (a great deal of the standard work in the Biblical scholarship of the past several centuries has been in German) and peer review, but they also almost all seem to have the a priori assumption that Jesus existed, a compulsion to ridicule anyone who doesn't share that assumption, and a much too cozy relationship with theologians. And who can say to what extent the assumption, or the appearance of the assumption if that's really all it is in some cases, is merely a subset of the cozy relationship? On the other hand there are mythicists who have none of the above. And in the middle, with all of those good scholarly attributes but without that a priori assumption, are Price, and G A Wells, who's over 90 years old. And perhaps Carrier. Some say that Carrier exaggerates his credentials and some other details of his bio. Are they right? How the Hell should I know? If this blog post makes only one thing clear to you, it should be that I don't know whom to trust in Jeebus Studies, inside or outside of academia. And there's R Joseph Hoffmann, whose academic credentials are not in doubt, but who seems to have come to assume that Jesus existed. He comes short of calling it a certainty, as most of his colleagues in academia do, but not by much at all anymore. He says that the path which led him so very close to the orthodox certainty is clear and brightly-lit and plain for all to see. But I still can't see it. I must be thick. Yeah, that must be it.
To whom does one turn, between this rock and that hard place? Not to me: my Quixotic quest has to do with the lost books of Livy -- which definitely did exist at one point. In this matter of Jesus I am merely an appalled onlooker.
Unless, of course, I'm entirely mistaken in thinking that the actual res here is the question: did Jesus exist? Price, who edited this volume along with Zindler, actually writes of Ehrman and Did Jesus Exist? : "He started it!" I suppose it's possible to find Price refreshingly informal and witty in a childlike way. I suppose. Some people must find him to be that way. Because he does have readers and fans.
On the one hand, mainstream academic scholars have thorough training, great familiarity with relevant languages ancient and modern (a great deal of the standard work in the Biblical scholarship of the past several centuries has been in German) and peer review, but they also almost all seem to have the a priori assumption that Jesus existed, a compulsion to ridicule anyone who doesn't share that assumption, and a much too cozy relationship with theologians. And who can say to what extent the assumption, or the appearance of the assumption if that's really all it is in some cases, is merely a subset of the cozy relationship? On the other hand there are mythicists who have none of the above. And in the middle, with all of those good scholarly attributes but without that a priori assumption, are Price, and G A Wells, who's over 90 years old. And perhaps Carrier. Some say that Carrier exaggerates his credentials and some other details of his bio. Are they right? How the Hell should I know? If this blog post makes only one thing clear to you, it should be that I don't know whom to trust in Jeebus Studies, inside or outside of academia. And there's R Joseph Hoffmann, whose academic credentials are not in doubt, but who seems to have come to assume that Jesus existed. He comes short of calling it a certainty, as most of his colleagues in academia do, but not by much at all anymore. He says that the path which led him so very close to the orthodox certainty is clear and brightly-lit and plain for all to see. But I still can't see it. I must be thick. Yeah, that must be it.
To whom does one turn, between this rock and that hard place? Not to me: my Quixotic quest has to do with the lost books of Livy -- which definitely did exist at one point. In this matter of Jesus I am merely an appalled onlooker.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
They Come in Huge Throngs to Tell Us That They Don't Care
Another day, another flat assertion in Huffington Post that Jesus existed, that the question is settled except among kooks. Still, Kudos to Craig S Keener for giving a more straightforward title to his article than Bart Ehrman gave to his latest book.
Another huge load of readers' comments saying flatly that Jesus' existence or non-existence is completely unimportant, what matters are all the silly theological questions.
The supposed unimportance of whether or not Jesus existed is important enough to an amazing number of people for them to take the time to speak up about it.
Did they happen to notice that the article by Dr Keener also did not address anything supernatural? Although he sometimes writes on theological subjects, this particular article has a strictly historical orientation.
I started to participate in debates over whether or not Jesus existed only a couple of years ago. I had been raised in a Protestantism I found rather oppressive, became an atheist in the 1970's, before I was full grown, and although since then I have studied history with great interest, I tended to avoid Jesus as an historical subject.
That changed a couple of years ago, in part because so many people discuss whether or not Jesus existed. Discussions on this topic can be struck up all over the place. All in all I'd rather talk about Livy or Charlemagne, but it's much harder for an autodidact to find a group of people interested in one of them.
On the other hand, when there is a discussion going on started by an article written by an academic who studies Livy or Charlemagne or theoretical math or metallurgy or the history of soccer or horology, it's relatively rare for someone to pop in just to say, "I find the subject of your work to be unimportant." Can you see how that would be kind of jarring to people who just wanted to talk about Livy, because they're fascinated by Livy? (He was an ancient Roman historian, in case anyone's wondering who I'm talking about.)
For me, aside from a purely historical perspective -- as an atheist I do not actually participate in theological discussions so much as sneer at them and study them from an anthropological perspective and wonder how much longer people will continue to go for such deadly-dull hooey -- the question of the historicity of Jesus is very interesting to me because of what it reveals about Christianity's continuing influence over academic fields which supposedly these days are secularized and objective and dedicated to free and open inquiry. Because it seems to me that the view which continues to dominate -- well represented by Keener above -- is, "It's settled, even if you're completely secular it's settled, Jesus existed, period, move along folks, nothing to see here..." The dominant position is still an unwillingness to actually debate the question. If there were such willingness, then such an article as Keener's would address the positions of people like Robert Price and Thomas Thompson and the other actual bona fide, non-kooky academics [PS, 18. July 2016: Since writing this I've come to regard Price as kooky, and I still don't actually know Thompson well enough to have a legitimate opinion about whether or not he's kooky. Be that as it may, I'm still not at all convinced that Jesus existed.] who are not at all convinced that Jesus existed -- because while dominant, the view that it's settled is not nearly so unanimous among experts as Keener or Ehrman would have you believe. Typically, Keener doesn't even mention any of their names, but merely claims that are very few such people, and suggests, as have Ehrman and Crossan, to name but the most prominent two, that people who are not sure that Jesus existed are either nuts or have been led astray by nuts. They're avoiding a debate.
But hey, look at all the people who don't care one way or the other, so they say.
Another huge load of readers' comments saying flatly that Jesus' existence or non-existence is completely unimportant, what matters are all the silly theological questions.
The supposed unimportance of whether or not Jesus existed is important enough to an amazing number of people for them to take the time to speak up about it.
Did they happen to notice that the article by Dr Keener also did not address anything supernatural? Although he sometimes writes on theological subjects, this particular article has a strictly historical orientation.
I started to participate in debates over whether or not Jesus existed only a couple of years ago. I had been raised in a Protestantism I found rather oppressive, became an atheist in the 1970's, before I was full grown, and although since then I have studied history with great interest, I tended to avoid Jesus as an historical subject.
That changed a couple of years ago, in part because so many people discuss whether or not Jesus existed. Discussions on this topic can be struck up all over the place. All in all I'd rather talk about Livy or Charlemagne, but it's much harder for an autodidact to find a group of people interested in one of them.
On the other hand, when there is a discussion going on started by an article written by an academic who studies Livy or Charlemagne or theoretical math or metallurgy or the history of soccer or horology, it's relatively rare for someone to pop in just to say, "I find the subject of your work to be unimportant." Can you see how that would be kind of jarring to people who just wanted to talk about Livy, because they're fascinated by Livy? (He was an ancient Roman historian, in case anyone's wondering who I'm talking about.)
For me, aside from a purely historical perspective -- as an atheist I do not actually participate in theological discussions so much as sneer at them and study them from an anthropological perspective and wonder how much longer people will continue to go for such deadly-dull hooey -- the question of the historicity of Jesus is very interesting to me because of what it reveals about Christianity's continuing influence over academic fields which supposedly these days are secularized and objective and dedicated to free and open inquiry. Because it seems to me that the view which continues to dominate -- well represented by Keener above -- is, "It's settled, even if you're completely secular it's settled, Jesus existed, period, move along folks, nothing to see here..." The dominant position is still an unwillingness to actually debate the question. If there were such willingness, then such an article as Keener's would address the positions of people like Robert Price and Thomas Thompson and the other actual bona fide, non-kooky academics [PS, 18. July 2016: Since writing this I've come to regard Price as kooky, and I still don't actually know Thompson well enough to have a legitimate opinion about whether or not he's kooky. Be that as it may, I'm still not at all convinced that Jesus existed.] who are not at all convinced that Jesus existed -- because while dominant, the view that it's settled is not nearly so unanimous among experts as Keener or Ehrman would have you believe. Typically, Keener doesn't even mention any of their names, but merely claims that are very few such people, and suggests, as have Ehrman and Crossan, to name but the most prominent two, that people who are not sure that Jesus existed are either nuts or have been led astray by nuts. They're avoiding a debate.
But hey, look at all the people who don't care one way or the other, so they say.
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