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Over on MDD, Bill Hamblin complains about a new book by Bart Ehrman that argues there was no Jesus.

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/563 ... sus-exist/

Per Hamblin, a representative of the Society of Biblical Literature said,

Hamblin wrote:He said that, as far as he is aware, no one has ever presented a paper at SBL advocating the theory. He said it is a pseudo-scholarly fringe movement recently popularized by the New Atheist crowd.

I think this is an interesting situation given that the MI is basically a pseudo-scholarly fringe think tank for Mopologetics. I would really like to know, per the SBL:

Is it more likely Jesus was a mythic construction or that the book of Isaiah predicts the LDS "restoration" and Joseph Smith?
Is it more likely Jesus was a mythic construction or that the Book of Mormon is an account of a Jewish offshoot led by Lehi, contemporary to Jeremiah?
Is it more likely Jesus was a mythic construction or that the Book of Abraham chronicles the life events of Abraham from the Old Testament?
Is it more likely Jesus was a mythic construction or that facsimile #3 contains the name of the King?

If the SBL's center of gravity does not immediately affirm the MI's Mopologetics as real scholarship the SBL and the rest of the world should take seriously, then I have to say this. Even though I personally don't care if Jesus was a real person who was overbilled or a construct of other myths, I will watch with glee as "New Atheists" come to disbelieve in Christ due to scholarship that while substandard, is equal or better than the pseudo-scholarship of the MI that attempts to justify the farm boy Joe Smith as a prophet who dug up buried treasure and done read Egyptian.

Ehrman's book is a critque of the Jesus Myth movement.

Gadianton wrote:Over on MDD, Bill Hamblin complains about a new book by Bart Ehrman that argues there was no Jesus.

But, of course, Hamblin wasn't complaining about the book at all, to any degree. He was plugging it. And, obviously, Ehrman is not arguing that there was no historical Jesus, but precisely the opposite: that there was.

Rather: I'd think you should be praising Dr. Hamblin for recognizing that Ehrman is no friend to Mormonism.

Hamblin appears to be consistent in that regard.

Gadianton wrote:If the SBL's center of gravity does not immediately affirm the MI's Mopologetics as real scholarship the SBL and the rest of the world should take seriously, then I have to say this. Even though I personally don't care if Jesus was a real person who was overbilled or a construct of other myths, I will watch with glee as "New Atheists" come to disbelieve in Christ due to scholarship that while substandard, is equal or better than the pseudo-scholarship of the MI that attempts to justify the farm boy Joe Smith as a prophet who dug up buried treasure and done read Egyptian.

Sharp eye there, Dean Robbers. There is undoubtedly a certain irony in Wild Bill Hamblin's rejoicing in Bart Ehrman's criticism of fringe scholarship. People in glass houses and all that, eh?

Like you, I don't particularly care about the historical Jesus question, except to note that those who invest a lot in the reality of Jesus tend to rely on sources that are, by objective standards, weak. The earliest Christian literature was written by Paul, who never met Jesus, and the gospels were probably written after Titus destroyed the Temple.

Still, I would privilege that over a nineteenth-century English translation of a missing set of gold plates.

Jesus Myth people tend to be low hanging fruit, this is why Hamblin is keen on talking about that then say, something of Mike Reed's.

MrStakhanovite wrote:Jesus Myth people tend to be low hanging fruit, this is why Hamblin is keen on talking about that then say, something of Mike Reed's.

Low hanging fruit, indeed. It diverts from the real problem, which is that the vulgar panegyrical quasi-biography of the gospels is not, in its details, to be taken literally by sober-minded folk.

Kishkumen wrote: panegyrical

Ever the teacher. I've learned a new word tonight!

MrStakhanovite wrote:

Kishkumen wrote: panegyrical

Ever the teacher. I've learned a new word tonight!

:-)

You guys got me: Mr. S. and CK. I went back to Hamblin's post armed with your correctives and I see that I got the story wrong. I apologize.

I'll let my post stand as is and allow the apologists to take a brief victory in my mistake.

However, "New Atheist Meme" substitutes for "Bart E's book" and the post retains the key point that MI scholarship is not promoting anything more scholarly than the belief that Jesus did not exist.

Kishkumen,

The fact that you caught my mistake but spun the situation to favorably accommodate what you perceived as my intentions scores major points. I'm going to go ahead and forget that you set the class curve in a course taught by one of the ten "leaders" of the JAC*.

*as if the membership and leadership of the JAC are two different sets of people.

What Hamblin is doing is almost like The Dude and Tarski taking apart something Cdowis posted. Fish in a barrel.

You see Top Tier Mopologists do this to raise moral or create an atmosphere of scholarly superiority over the critics they allow on their turf.