Richard Carrier trashes Bart Ehrman's book on the Historical Jesus.

[michaelsherlock]

Hi Ryft,

We have not had the pleasure yet. I am always happy to see Christians on these forums, as I understand that you have chosen to speak amongst those who do not hold your particular beliefs, which I think is admirable.

May I ask, what type of Christian you are?

[Minimalist]

He's more or less typical.

[coffeeveritas]

The HJ crowd is always somewhat hysterical on the subject. I haven't read the book but I had seen Ehrman's previous attempt at defending an HJ concept in Jesus Interrupted and it was far from convincing. When he had to resort to trotting out Josephus I knew he had jumped the shark.

Oh this reminds me of the good ol' days when me and you debated this thing to death. You're making me all nostalgic my friend. I want to try something new though.

I would like to make a confession, I made up the historical Jesus. It was me and a group of writers from SNL, and just like everything else on SNL, it's not funny anymore. I apologize.

Now let's all go get some wings and do shots!

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

...

Get a functioning sense of humor, people. They sell them cheap at Walmart.

You may have thought the point of the article was entirely humorous, but it was mostly an attempt to demonstrate actual problems with the method that Carrier uses. It's like when Creationist use carbon dating and find out their pet dog is 15 million years old, laugh, and then try to argue that that result somehow discredits completely carbon dating.

[Ryft]

You may have thought the point of the article was entirely humorous, but it was mostly an attempt to demonstrate actual problems with the method that Carrier uses. . . .

Where is the cited quote from McGrew or Peoples to that effect?

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

...

Where is the cited quote from McGrew or Peoples to that effect?

I'm not sure what you're asking. If you're still trying to say this was entirely humorous, then it's humor that has no point. I think it was a fairly obvious attempt to humorously discredit Carrier's methods.

[Ryft]

I'm not sure what you're asking.

It was quite simple, really. You stated quite confidently that the article "was mostly an attempt to demonstrate actual problems with the method that Carrier uses." I assumed that you had some evidence supporting that claim, perhaps some quote from either McGrew or Peoples from which it was drawn, so I requested that you provide it. I was not prepared to assume that you would have such confidence in a pronouncement you had pulled just from your arse. (Otherwise you would express your assertion more tentatively and provisionally, I would assume. Was I mistaken?)

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

I'm not sure what you're asking.

It was quite simple, really. You stated quite confidently that the article "was mostly an attempt to demonstrate actual problems with the method that Carrier uses." I assumed that you had some evidence supporting that claim, perhaps some quote from either McGrew or Peoples from which it was drawn, so I requested that you provide it. I was not prepared to assume that you would have such confidence in a pronouncement you had pulled just from your arse. (Otherwise you would express your assertion more tentatively and provisionally, I would assume. Was I mistaken?)

If you really can't see that, then I don't know how to properly explain it to you without wasting an inordinate amount of time. I'm currently in 3 other debates at the moment, and this one is trivial in comparison. So, for the time being: