Carrier on Ehrman’s Response to Criticisms

Carrier took a moment out of his conference schedule to type a response to Ehrman.  It is as efficient as his others, meaning that he thoroughly shows the hubris of Ehrman’s latest foray (his book and his response to critics).  And let us not beat around the bush here, there is either dishonesty at work [...]

‘Is This Not the Carpenter’ in the Mail Today!

So my coedited volume ‘Is This Not the Carpenter?’ The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus arrived today, much to my excitement (and confusion).  This is not due out for another two months (June 2012) but somehow a copy made its way to a third party bookseller on Amazon and I picked [...]

Agnosticism and Jesus and What it Means

Joel Watts recently wrote: One cannot easily deny their association with a group if they spend all of their time defending the ‘quality’, ‘truth’ claims, or ‘validity’ of said group. Pick a side, Tom. via Pick a side, Tom | Unsettled Christianity. But I refuse to do so.  The only honest position in this whole [...]

Richard Carrier, Bayes’s Theorem, and Historical Jesus Criteria

Richard Carrier has a new article posted at the online journal Bible and Interpretation entitled Bayes’ Theorem and the Modern Historian: Proving History Requires Improving Methods.  Here is the blurb: Several examinations of the methodologies employed in the study of Jesus have consistently found those methods invalid or defective. Which fact has resulted in the [...]

Of Scholars and Things: Bart Ehrman, Pride, and Credibility

καλεῖ δ᾽ ἀκούοντας οὐδὲν ἐν μέσᾳ δυσπαλεῖ τε δίνᾳ: γελᾷ δὲ δαίμων ἐπ᾽ ἀνδρὶ θερμῷ, τὸν οὔποτ᾽ αὐχοῦντ᾽ ἰδὼν ἀμαχάνοις δύαις λαπαδνὸν οὐδ᾽ ὑπερθέοντ᾽ ἄκραν: δι᾽ αἰῶνος δὲ τὸν πρὶν ὄλβον ἕρματι προσβαλὼν δίκας ὤλετ᾽ ἄκλαυτος, αἶστος. (Aeschylus, Eumenides 558-565) In Ehrman’s recent response to Carrier’s criticisms of his book, Ehrman writes the following (rather [...]

Ehrman Responds to Carrier: An Assessment

Bart Ehrman has responded to Carrier’s partial review.  You can read the full response here.  Overall my impression of Ehrman’s response was that it was weak.  But he does make one or two interesting points.  More on that in a moment. First, let me stress that I think Carrier can at times be very blunt [...]

Carrier on Ehrman on Jesus – Part of Richard Carrier’s Review is Posted

I was pleased to see carrier posted up his review of Ehrman’s book late last night (early in the morning for me, here on the East Coast); what is a shame is that Carrier’s (dozen or so page) review is so outstandingly better than what Ehrman wrote (in his few-hundred-page book) that you have to [...]

Preliminary Overview of Bart Ehrman’s ‘Did Jesus Exist?’

I will write up a full review in due course (when I can muster the patience and the time necessary to sit down and write it). I had very high hopes for this book; it was the book for which I had been waiting.  So now that I have finished the book, what do I [...]

A Request for Easter Thoughts

As Easter approaches there will of course be an innumerable amount of garbage proclaiming to be ‘fact’ about the death and resurrection of Jesus.   Over years past, I have largely ignored this time of year; but this year I’d like to do something different.  I want to hear from you, my readers, and also my [...]

James McGrath Responds to Richard Carrier and….

…he once again proves my point: He doesn’t read things with which he has a predisposition to disagree.  He reacts to them.  This is precisely the criticism I gave to him before.  And because he doesn’t critically examine things he just flat out disagrees with, he makes gaffes and is then called on them and [...]