My post on the archaeological proof that Nazareth did in fact exist elicited a number of responses, some of them asking for more details – especially about whether the name of the town could have been invented by someone who thought Jesus was a “Nazirite.” I actually deal with that question in my response to mythicists in my book Did Jesus Exist? There I deal with the arguments of mythicists Frank Zindler and G.A. Wells. Here is what ...
Continue Reading →One question I repeatedly get asked is about my opinion on whether the town of Nazareth actually existed. I was puzzled when I started getting emails on this, some years ago now. What I came to realize is that mythicists (i.e., those who think that there never was a man Jesus; he was invented, a “myth”) commonly argue that Nazareth (like Jesus) was completely made up. I still get the emails today – a couple within the past month. I ...
Continue Reading →QUESTION:
Robert M. Price posted on his FB wall a few weeks ago that he was considering starting a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to debate Ehrman. Looks like things might be going ahead? Ehrman said on ‘The Skeptic Fence’ podcast a few months back that he’d be OK with debating Price. Reading between the lines, it looks like that they may made some sort of verbal agreement? Dr. Ehrman, are you aware of this challenge??
RESPONSE:
Ha! No, ...
Continue Reading →Sometimes I think that if I’m “getting it from all sides,” I may be doing something right. The religious conservatives seems to be up in arms about my book How Jesus Became God – both conservative evangelical Protestants and conservative Roman Catholics like the Very Reverend Robert Barron. In fact, as I’ve said, I do not think anything in the book is inimical to Christian faith, unless it is completely committed to a view of the infallibility of ...
Continue Reading →I was invited to read from my book, “Did Jesus Exist: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth” at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Bulls Head Bookshop on Wednesday, March 21st, 2012 at 3:30 p.m. Here is a video of the event.
To give you an idea of the topic, the back cover of the book reads, “Large numbers of atheists, humanists, and conspiracy theorists are raising one of the most pressing questions in the history of ...
Continue Reading →As most of you know, I’m pretty much staying out of the mythicist debates. That is for several reasons. One is that the mythicist position is not seen as intellectually credible in my field (I’m using euphemisms here; you should see what most of my friends *actually* say about it….) – no one that I know personally (I know a *lot* of scholars of New Testament, early Christianity, and so on) takes it at *all* seriously as a viable historical ...
Continue Reading →In my previous post I pointed out that mythicists have a real problem on their hands when it comes to insisting that Jesus didn’t exist (well, they actually have a *boatload* of problems; but this is one of them): Paul actually knew, personally, Jesus’ own brother, James. It’s hard to say that Jesus never lived if he in fact had a brother….
It doesn’t solve the problem to say that this was in fact Jesus’ cousin, since, well, he would still ...
Continue Reading →QUESTION:
Since you’ve brought up the subject of Jesus’ family perhaps it won’t be too far off the subject to ask this question.
Mythicists are forced by their arguments to deal with Paul’s encounter with Peter and James in Galatians 1:18–20. They claim that when Paul refers to James as “The Lord’s brother” he does not mean that James is Jesus’ biological brother (which of course would mean that Jesus actually lived) but that he was using the word “brother” ...
Continue Reading →Poor Hercules, trying to fight the Hydra. Once he lops off *one* head….
So I’ve received several emails over the past couple of days about the breathtaking new announcement to be made on October 19 (assuming the world still is functioning after October 17!) in London by “American Biblical scholar” Joseph Atwill (whom – I have to admit – I have never even heard of, to my recollection) In this announcement Mr. (so far as I can tell, from his blog, ...
Continue Reading →Many apologies to any- and everyone who has grown accustomed to me posting virtually every day on the blog. I left NC for Israel on Tuesday, flew overnight to Tel Aviv, and have been on the run ever since with scarcely a free minute to call my own. Today is … Saturday (I think), so it must be Tiberias….
I am hoping that from now on I’ll be able to squeeze in some time to do a daily post – but ...
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