I’m currently in Chicago attending the annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature (along with satellite meetings by scholarly organizations like the American Schools of Oriental Research). These meetings are also attended by dozens of major academic publishers. Consequently, there are hundreds of books available here at “once a year only” discounts that help those of us who care about data and coherent thinking battle paleobabble. I came across what apparently looks to be an important one today, “Jesus: Evidence and Argument, or Mythicist Myths” by Maurice Casey (T & T Clark, 2013).
Yes, that’s 2013.
You won’t find the title in Amazon in any form. However, Professor Casey has published other items on Jesus as a historical figure. I’m guessing this work will be something of an update or perhaps fuller presentation. The book will be important because Casey is not what anyone in the academy would call an evangelical or “Bible believer” in the pop religion sense. He’s a high profile scholar of New Testament and Christian origins.
For those Zeitgeist fundamentalists out there, Casey’s work will likely take its place alongside that of atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman (Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth), who also thinks the claims of Zeitgeist are nonsense.
“Old babble” is about right.
Casey lost the battle before he even put pen to paper.
Ehrman’s book was crap. Like Casey, he has no clue about the subject matter. Yep, Casey’s stupid book will take place right next Ehrman’s retarded attempt in the circular file. Mythicism goes WAAAAAY beyond Zeitgeist. Good luck catching up.
Jesus is a myth.
This is the sort of substantive interaction we love on this blog. Someone who refuses to interact with criticism of his pet myth.
I’ve got news for you bud; I haven’t spent 20 years and earned three degrees in ancient history to catch up to anything the mythicists say. The entire position is based on selective use of data filtered through the systems itself. It is KING of the flawed logic that assumes “correlation = causation.”
Put another way: There are lots of reasons mainstream scholars from atheists like Ehrman to Christians think Jesus mythicism is crap. Let’s hear you explain why such a “compelling” idea is so universally rejected by scholars in all the pertinent disciplines. (I can already feel the ol’ argument from conspiracy coming; how brilliant).
Not buying it and then some.
Believe it or not, Zeitgeist has had a rather large influence on the way many people (especially younger people) view the historical validity of both the Bible and Christianity. After seeing the film, people seem to go from being “on-the-edge” about Christianity to being “absolutely convinced of it’s mythical origins.” It’s sad to see so many tricked into believing such flawed logic and outright false claims that are put out by the Zeitgeist movement.
There’s an decent talk by a Dr. Mark Foreman that was recently posted on YouTube where he discusses this exact issue of the Jesus Mysticism assuming this “correlation = causation” argument, as you but it, MSH.
I hope people start to do follow-up research and fact-checking after viewing such films as Zeitgeist. It really isn’t difficult to refute it’s claims and logic after doing just one or two hours of research on the web.
I know Zeitgeist influences multitudes. People believe garbage all the time.
Zeitgeist influences people who don’t have any expertise in the material. (That isn’t a positive thing). As a biblical scholar, I have it in my power to convince millions (my sites take close to a million hits a month) to believe in crap, since millions of people don’t have the necessary background to critique what I say. If I posted crap online (er, like Zeitgeist) and didn’t care about peer review — just targeting the ignorant — and argued my crap eloquently, reminding people that I have credentials, I’d convince millions to believe something that isn’t true.
I’d just have to turn in my soul to do it.