I can hardly be considered an objective reviewer of this book, holding
Robert M. Price as a dear friend and owing Frank Zindler the favor of
a very kind blurb and
Amazon review
of the book that Dr. Price and I co-authored. Readers obviously have
shared interests, too, at least in following Price’s writings: Each
book is currently first on the other’s Customers Who Bought This Item
Also Bought… list on Amazon.com. My review is also hindered by the
fact that I have not read the work toward which Zindler and Price’s
collection of essays directs its ire, Bart Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist?
(New York: HarperOne).
All this full-disclosure preamble leads to an important opening point:
Objectivity seems to be a rare trait in Historical Jesus
studies. Indeed, the Zindler-Price book leaves the reader wondering if
any of the scholarship supporting the historical existence of the
man revered by two billion Christians is more than a thin coat of
respectability varnish painted onto agenda- and consensus-driven
apologetics.
Robert Price makes that point right on page one, saying that Ehrman
“is an apologist for a new orthodoxy, ‘mainstream scholarship,’ the
Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) magisterium.” Price calls this
the “‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ school of biblical scholarship,
where nothing out of the comfortable bell curve of theories can be
taken seriously.” The author of the next chapter, Dr. Richard Carrier,
takes pains to distinguish himself from his fellow skeptics, both in
the book and in a
blog posting that
personally made me cringe. But he pulls no punches in reinforcing
Price’s point: “The modern ‘consensus’ that Jesus existed has simply
not been founded on any logically valid or properly employed
methodology” (p. 15).
 |
According to one of the several fine essays Zindler himself
contributes to the book, Ehrman accuses those who deny Jesus’
existence of having an agenda that is served by such denial. But
Zindler asks a pointed question in reply: “Is he unaware of the
immense monetary agendas served by many who affirm the historicity
of Jesus? Does he not realize that most of his [Christ] Mythicist
opponents have come completely unwillingly to their positions and that
many have suffered professionally and financially in order to serve
their ‘agenda’ of denial?” (pp. 230-31). As René Salm notes, “Saying
that Mythicists are not professionally engaged academics—as Ehrman
does repeatedly in his book—is simply unfair, for a Mythicist may
possess all the customary credentials yet still be unable to find work
in academe” (p. 330). It is their views rather than a lack of
credentials that bars them “from the guild,” Salm says (p. 331).
One can understand why there seems to be an undercurrent of hurt
feelings pervading much of this book. For all their diligent efforts,
countless hours of probing around dusty writings and dead languages,
the Mythicists are left at the edges of the cafeteria looking
wistfully at the Historical Jesus table where all the cool kids are
sitting. Zindler’s description of the e-mail correspondence between
himself and Ehrman (which he republished with permission) feels like
the story of one of those poor cafeteria nerds working up the nerve to
ask if he might sit at the seemingly vacant chair at that table and
show what a worthwhile guy he really is, even without the letter
jacket. Mr. Popular looks up at the interloper awkwardly carrying his
tray, and asks, “What are your qualifications to talk about first
century Palestine in the writings of the early Christians? Or do
qualifications, in your opinion, not matter?” (p. 86). For Ehrman,
whose very limited replies to Zindler in their lopsided correspondence
include requests for Zindler’s curriculum vitae and an explanation
for the circumstances of his departure from SUNY (p. 116),
qualifications seem to matter a great deal indeed. Or, more
specifically, credentials.
What about all the things this amazing man actually knows, and
communicated amply in his lengthy, mostly unanswered emails to Ehrman?
I’ve had the privilege of sharing one hour of Zindler’s 73 years of
life in conversation on the phone, and was overwhelmed at the
intelligence and wisdom behind that sparkling voice on the other end
of the connection. To see what short shrift this is all given, because
of what Zindler calls a “hyperparochial attitude” that seems to have
prevented Ehrman from reading “my books and papers because I am not a
doctoral graduate of a seminary or similar program” (p. 88) is
maddening to read.
But even having the right combination of letters on their diplomas did
not seem to earn Drs. Price or Carrier much fair attention from
Ehrman. Is that a hasty conclusion for me to make just from reading
this book, and not Ehrman’s? Very possibly, and you should weigh it
accordingly. But consider Price’s statement that Ehrman “could at
least have done me the courtesy of replying to my arguments”
(pp. 11-12) and Carrier’s that he “just cherry picks isolated claims
and argues against them, often with minimal reference to the facts its
proponent has claimed support it” (p. 19).
And Carrier isn’t impressed by the way Ehrman responded to his
criticisms, either. On one issue that goes over my head and possibly
those of most readers, for example, Carrier says “Ehrman refused to
admit his mistake,” claiming “it was just a typo” (p. 28). No it’s
not, Carrier replies in his essay, which is peppered with polemic that
would have done Martin Luther proud. He says Ehrman’s “dishonesty and
inability to admit real mistakes call into question everything he
argues. His excuses are destroying his reputation. What else has he
misrepresented? What else has he fudged, screwed up, or lied about?
Can we ever trust him on this subject?” (p. 29).
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| Flavius “Whaddya mean, Nazareth?” Josephus |
Strong words, but this book is strong medicine. I learned quite a bit
from it. An ancient historian attested “that Osiris was believed to
have died and been returned to life,” using the same words as
Christians did about the resurrection they believed in (Carrier,
p. 37). Pagan resurrection stories included the themes of vanishing
bodies and a dying-and-rising hero (Carrier, p. 40), as well as the
idea of a ritual baptism for the washing away of sins (Carrier, p. 45;
Zindler, p. 132). The Roman-Jewish historian Josephus [37-100 CE]
“mentions 45 cities and villages in the tiny territory of Galilee,”
but not Nazareth, despite having worked to fortify a town less than
two miles from the location of that present-day tourist destination
(Zindler, p. 263). One of the pieces of evidence now touted to support
the existence of the place when Jesus was supposedly living there is
from an excavation “associated with a multimillion-dollar mega-resort
called the Nazareth Village,” which “has been well funded by an
international consortium of Christian groups” (Salm, pp. 343-44).
Then there are the issues with the primary sources referenced by those
questing for a Historical Jesus: Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John,
written roughly in that chronological order. There’s just not much
else to go on, certainly not from Paul with his lack of detail about
any earthly doings of the Jesus he met only in a vision. Nor, as Earl
Doherty lays it out in his discussion of Jesus outside the gospels,
are things any more solid in the Epistle to the Hebrews. “Yet again,”
Doherty says after noting that Hebrews doesn’t give any thought to
actual words of an earthbound Jesus, “Ehrman’s ‘references to the life
of the historical Jesus’ have evaporated into the wind” (p. 496).
Jesus talks plenty in the canonical gospels, but why do their stories
have any more authority than, say, the one in the Infancy Gospel of
Thomas about a pimply Jesus in the shop
fixing his stepdad’s carpentry problems?
D.M. Murdock notes that “there remains no clear and unambiguous
evidence of their emergence in the historical record before the last
quarter of the second century at which point they suddenly begin to
be discussed by a number of Church fathers” (p. 398).
Zindler reminds us that, “as bearer of the Historicist banner, Ehrman
has to stake everything on the Gospels and other documents of the
canonical New Testament because there are no eyewitnesses or
contemporary writers who could vouch for the existence of Jesus or
any of his 12 disciples/apostles.” And then Zindler offers this
zinger: Nobody in early times ever described Jesus’ physical
appearance, but 1 Corinthians 15:6 has Jesus appearing to 500 people
at the same time. How did they recognize him? (p. 526). It’s the
same problem that Price has pointed out regarding the Transfiguration:
Peter, James, and John are treated to the ascended Moses and Elijah
having a pre-game mountaintop pep talk with the not-yet risen
Jesus. Despite being remarkably thick-headed about many other things,
Peter gets it right away: Let’s build a tabernacle for you, Jesus, and
Moses and Elijah, too! Did they have name tags?
 |
| A few things noted… |
There are many other little flashes of brilliance (alas, not from any
heavenly vision) in this book: Carrier’s observation that false
stories—about things Ehrman wouldn’t defend as historical, like the
transmutation of water into wine at Cana—“cannot support the existence
of real people” (p. 53, my emphasis); Zindler’s schooling of Ehrman
about where the burden of proof really lies (hint: same place it did
with “the Boston divines who all universally agreed that lightning was
the wrath of Jehovah,” p. 307); Salm’s observation that faith
“constitutes a curious blind spot in our human psychology, a mental
drunkenness in which jettisoning reason is [considered] altogether
laudable” (p. 360).
Certainly, Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of
Nazareth is not perfect. Some of the essayists are so well versed and
impassioned about the “of Nazareth” part that they go on to the point
of tedium about there being no such town for a “Jesus of Nazareth” to
have claimed for his mailing address. Carrier’s invective against
Ehrman (e.g., “he not only sucks as a writer but can’t even tell that
he sucks as a writer,” p.23) are the kind of thing you would more
expect to see in the comments for a YouTube video than in the
otherwise stellar discourse of a razor-sharp academic.
But it is an important and very worthwhile book, filled with nuggets
of information and insight. It is a must-read for anyone really
interested in the question of whether there was an actual Christ
behind this gigantic edifice of Christianity that confronts
non-believers every day in our culture. I am the better for having
read its 500+ pages, and Bart Ehrman would be, too.
———
See also
A Christ-Myth Carol, reviewing Raphael Lataster’s fine book
There Was No Jesus, There Was No God, and
Myth, Method, and the Will to Believe, which discusses the “Christ Myth” viewpoint of Dr. Robert M. Price.
