Whatever makes you so certain that we can know anything about this Jesus, perhaps a consensus, then by all means cling to it for what it's worth.
This belongs first, because it is an unjust, arrogant, and insulting dismissal of my work and my view, but best of all the only reason I talk about consensus is because I am dealing with individuals who have formed their opinions almost entirely without study.
I don't need consensus here. Instead, I have spent years reading journals, monographs, volumes, and other scholarship in a few different langauges, as well as many years reading primary sources (and the time spent learning the languages in order to do so). And thanks to all that study, I have an opinion formed by knowing the issues related to this topic.
You have don't any of that, but neither do you do what everyone does when they know next to nothing about a subject (with some exceptions, such as here where bias requires ignoring people who know what they are talking about so as to validate an uninformed view). Instead of acknowledging a lack of the familiarity and relying on what the experts say you sneer at the experts. You (quite wrongly) describe me as relying on consensus rather than research while at the same time you rely neither on research nor consensus, but opinions driven by bias.
OK, so I stated that I haven't read Bart Erhman's books, now you know what I have and have not read, as if Ehrman is the only scholar, good for you.
I don't think Ehrman is that good of scholar. It's just that everytime someone brings up some Jesus myth theory there are always the same handful of names and titles.
Last I checked Robert Price calls himself a Christian
Checked where?
and what the heck is a mythicist?
A group of amateurs characterized by most or all of the following traits:
1) They pretend that they are neutral, even though their supposedly balanced, critical approach is anything but. So, for example, when presented with evidence about, say, the dating of a papyrus fragment of John, their reaction is not actually neutral at all. A neutral individual would first try to learn about the issue and evidence, but a biased individual would form an opinion first.
2) Their knowledge comes almost solely from the internet. If they've read books, most are usually not by experts and all are sensationalist. Which means that all of their sources give a very distorted view of the state of research.
3) They aren't actually interested in ancient history, nor have they studied it. So a lot of what they find "shocking' about our evidence is because they uncritically accept even less evidence for far more when it concerns what little they know or come across about topics in ancient history. Examples typically include things like "no historian mentions him" or "we have no original copies of our manuscripts" or "nobody who wrote about him mentioned him" or similar arguments which portray an individual who adopts criteria for a amateur historical method. Also, as the method is designed specifically for this particular subject they can use it only because they don't care about the criteria's methodological soundness, the ways in which it contradicts the practice of historians quite apart from biblical scholars (e.g., classicists), and how logically flawed it is.
4) They have no conception of the development of modern historical methods in general or biblical studies in particular, which allow them to make unsubstantiated claims about the nature of bias in a field they have virtually no knowledge of.
5) Not only is their familiarity with secondary sources limited to non-academic material, they are also unfamiliar with primary sources, often including in whole or in part the very texts (Josephus, Philo, the bible, etc.) they refer to.
6) The name "mythicist" comes from their adoption of an ill-defined thesis: the Jesus of the gospels never existed as a historical individual. Sometimes they claim that Jesus was originally never thought to be historical, but that came later. Other times they think that the Jesus we read about is a bunch of disparate traditions slapped together somehow.
7) Apart from their view of Jesus' historicity, they are unified in at least one other thing: they almost invariably rely on looking at very specific point about which they have some issue, and after adding these "conclude" what they already assumed to begin with. However, not being familiar with the study of history, they fail to realize that they have not come up with a plausible explanation for why we have our sources.
In the end, they reach a very skeptical view about Jesus' historicity, the one they assumed and were looking for in the first place, which they "find" through a few simple steps:
1) Bring up criticisms from a point of view of ignorance of the subject matter such that you can't evaluate the responses
2) Concentrate almost entirely on perceived problems with the evidence, despite not being capable evaluating the sources thanks to an inability to understand them in their context, not to mention a decision that the past 200 years of effort by people who made this study their life's work can be written off.
3) Having "found" the errors, declare that Jesus is a myth (or is for all intents and purposes)
4) Respond to any claim about the reason why people who actually know this field don't agree with baseless slurs, accusations, and conspiracy claims.
5) Most importantly, don't actually try to attempt any historical analysis, because that would mean explaining the sources collectively, and the entire strategy of the mythicist is to avoid doing this at all costs.
To what extent gJohn is reliant on gMark is debatable, you are obviously not familiar in any way with the debate, or you simply conjured up a consensus. Who knows?
The extent to which every single historical text, but especially those from thousands of years ago, is reliable is
always debatable. But even the hyper-skeptical scholars who believe there is basically nothing historical about the gospels realize that we cannot explain them or the other early Christian sources without a historical Jesus who was born around the beginning of the first century, gained a following, gained a reputation for teaching and performing great feats, and was executed. If you would like to debate reliability fo particular gospels, that's fine. I'd be more than happy to. But it is relevant to how much we can know about Jesus beyond the pure basics. And that's not what this thread is for.
Also, if you want to debate, then that means not responding to scholarship with links to websites or similar material and acting like they are equally valid.
Yes, the old we have more about Jesus than anyone. Sure thing, we have a story, but if that's what you believe then by all means, bust a nut, I don't care to convince you of anything otherwise.
Convince me? You were trying to do that?
You can't actually read any of the NT in the language it was written.
You can't read the primary sources necessary to understand the literary and historical content of the gospels and the epistles, and at least for the literary part, knowing the language is key.
Whereas most of those who actually study the historical Jesus have to study a great deal of history to understand both the development of the classical world and the Jewish world, you haven't.
I would be very suprised if you have read much even in translation of relevant documents.
And as for experts, your defense for not being acquainted with this field is basically mocking those who spend a significant amount of time actually studying this topic as well as the experts themselves:
As for dating gJohn, take your own advice, "leave it to the experts, they have a consensus."
I suppose the better path is to respond to a claim about dating by doubting it without any reason other than bias to do so, and then to go to wikipedia for at least some indication that someone agrees with a view you were hoping for in the first place. Very neutral.
