Historical Jesus, Biblical Jesus

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Alright, I had to go back to your list to see where we go from here.

You said "They are all historians. "

So let's dispose of another myth.

Of the 15 names you gave:

1.  Vermes was previously dismissed as a former priest.

Down to 14.

2.  Charlesworth, Van Voorst, Powell and Evans work for various seminaries, as you noted.  You probably have no problem with that.  I do.  They know who fills their rice bowl.

Down to 10.

Casey.  Employed by University of Nottingham in the Department of Theology.

Down to 9.

Ehrman.  In one of his books, and I've read almost everything he's ever written, he mentioned that he fell for ( my words, not his) the Josephus fraud.  I found it disappointing that he was so gullible but he is no fan of your "gospels."

But I am going to give you Ehrman anyway because he is as close as you got.

N. T Wright.  You were just breaking my balls on this one, right?  (Pun intended.)  He was a fucking bishop!

Down to 8

Marcus Borg:  New Testament Scholar and Theologian.

Down to 7.

Larry Hurtado:  Former Theology professor and Graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Central Bible College.  Also, I had missed the fact that Hurtado had passed away in 2019 so thanks for making me look him up.

Down to 6.

J. Paget: Who?  Any number of people came up on the search, including a British doctor for whom Paget's Disease is named.  I did find one old codger on the Cambridge Faculty of Divinity but I can't tell if that is who you meant or not.

Provisionally down to 5 unless you can more adequately identify him.

Edwin Judge:  Only found a reference to him on a website called "Gospel Conversations," which told me all I needed to know.

Down to 4.

A. E. Harvey:  Former lecturer on Theology at Oxford.

Down to 3.

E. P. Sanders:  PH. D 1966 in Theology from Union Theological Seminary.

Down to 2.

Which leaves only Michael Grant who was not even a Theologian.  He was a writer and translator and his degree was a Doctor of Literature.  He was a specialist in Roman coinage, of all things but he did attend Trinity College so there's that. 

I'm going to call him a draw.  Which leaves you with one win, 13 losses, and a tie.

Now, the reason for bolding "Theologian."

I read this quote some years ago:

"What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false. If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? Even the bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and sonar-guided whaling vessels work! The achievements of theologians don't do anything, don't affect anything, don't mean anything. What makes anyone think that 'theology' is a subject at all?"

-- Richard Dawkins

I agree with Dawkins completely.  As far as I am concerned, theologians are as useful as tits on a bull.

Except ... Dawkins is merely speaking about theologians, not historians. He's speaking about those who propagate religion, not those who study history. And for the record, Dawkins believed that Jesus existed as an ordinary man. So I'm not sure why you would select him as your go-to guy.







One can separate their personal beliefs from factual information (just like Richard Dawkins did) and still use the factual information to arrive at a perfectly reasonable and majority supported conclusion. There is a reason why these religionists arrive at the same conclusion as secularists. They reviewed the factual evidence and reasoned it to be sufficient to warrant historicity that a man named Jesus, called Christ, was crucified by the Roman Pontius Pilate circa CE 33.

And the evidence and reasoning for the crucifixion is 100% agreed upon by hundreds of historians world-wide, while only a handful disagree and that handful can be demonstrated as employing a great degree of bias of their own.

And let's add some other context here. We'll just look at your assertions about Vermes and show his "real" qualifications:

Geza Vermes: Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, but continued to teach at the Oriental Institute in Oxford.

Your bias is showing, Min. You intentionally chose to ignore the true qualifications of Vermes, and we can conclude you did it with them all.