Posted: May 08, 2012 3:04 pm
IgnorantiaNescia wrote:proudfootz wrote:
Thompson is a biblical scholar who's written a book relevant to the topic we're here to discuss.
Good. My point about him is that he is as an amateur on the life of Jesus - and as a result not much of an 'authority' on it at all.
Though I readily admit he is much more relevant than Tom Verenna.
Yes, Tom Verenna. Can't say he inspires confidence.
As for Thompson, from what I can gather, his main contribution to the debate is his attempt to show that a lot of the stories about Jesus may be variations on earlier themes in the OT, which, in his view (I believe) often involved non-historic characters to populate such stories. He is described (at wiki I think) as taking the view that the NT is similarly literary by nature rather than historical.
I'm not saying I'm swayed by that. I wouldn't say it sounds especially persuasive of itself, but then I haven't read either of the books, the one mentioned earlier or the one reviewed here:
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ ... h_myth.htm
Regarding the idea of 'authority', I guess I don't give it the weight that you do. Certainly, in the arts, if one is not an expert, one can miss things, but equally, if one is an expert, one can end up appearing as if one has stared at the books so long that one has become entranced, and one can end up appearing to lose sight of the wider picture (that of the inherent weakness of the evidence). For example, one can end up saying that the evidence for Jesus is at least on a par with that for Alexander the Great. If one is truly entranced, one can say that the evidence for Jesus is better than for Alexander because we can work out what the former actually thought!
To my knowledge, NT scholar E. P. Sanders has said both these things.
Colour me suspicious of only entertaining what NT scholars say.