rationalskepticism.org

proudfootz wrote:

IgnorantiaNescia wrote:

proudfootz wrote:

Blood wrote:

Because they're Bible students interested in propagating religious doctrine, not seriously investigating history.

Apparently Ehrman says the so-called 'Jesus experts' never investigated whether the object of their study was an historical person or a fictive one:

"First, I realized when doing my research for the book that since New Testament scholars have never taken mythicists seriously, they have never seen a need to argue against their views, which means that even though experts in the study of the historical Jesus (and Christian origins, and classics, and ancient history, etc etc.) have known in the back of their minds all sorts of powerful reasons for simply assuming that Jesus existed, no one had ever tried to prove it.

Odd as it may seem, no scholar of the New Testament has ever thought to put together a sustained argument that Jesus must have lived. To my knowledge, I was the first to try it...."

So we have to ask - are not these 'Jesus experts' on a par with astrologers and unicorn specialists who've never even thought to question the foundational basis of their house of cards discipline?

The link:

http://ehrmanblog.org/did-jesus-exist-as-part-one/

I am afraid you are reading more into Ehrman than he has said. NT scholars and ancient historians have long been aware of the academic theory of Jesus Mythicism and know the reason for rejecting it, but few since Albert Schweitzer have spend much words debunking it by writing several pages and putting it to print. With sustained Ehrman probably means something like "full-length" since he must have been aware of Van Voort's discussion of it in Jesus Outside the New Testament. In any case, there have been earlier rebuttals by scholars of Mythicism.

So in anycase, he is not saying is that all scholars are simply too biased or collectively conspiring against Mythicism.

I don't necessarily take Ehrman to be saying that. He seems to be simply admitting that the historicity of Jesus is assumed (as some HJers here say 'the question is settled') and they go on from there.

I think it's quite telling that Ehrman seems to have advanced quite far into his career before ever seriously considering the question as to whether the subject of his scholarly career even existed - and the prompting for such a study had to come from the lay audience outside 'the academy'!

I doubt Ehrman believes that he and his colleagues are 'too biased' - but I think what he and his colleagues write about the mythicist challenge tells a different tale. But Ehrman does seem to say in so many words that no 'serious' rebuttal to the mythicist challenge has come from 'the academy'.

So if Ehrman is aware of these alleged 'rebuttals' you refer to, Ehrman doesn't seem to think much of them.

Ah, good, another reasonable post.

Well, I still disagree and think you're reading a little too much into "assuming" here, while the "powerful reasons for simply assuming" must receive some more attention. I'm sure he means intellectual reasons with "powerful reasons" and I'd be surprised if only a few NT scholars read Scheitzer early in their career - who, as Ehrman said, addressed the Mythicism of his day. Of course, I could be wrong on that point, but Ehrman thinks that other professionals could have come up with arguments for historicity as well.

As for Ehrman's awareness of the full-length scholarly rebuttals - or attempted rebuttals if you prefer, I do not think he is aware of the full-length ones, though I didn't mention that in my previous post so you couldn't have known that. There have been several of them though, but they just aren't very high-profile. As for Robert van Voort's chapter, I think he is aware of that one, but one good chapter isn't really a "sustained argument", is it?