"inability or unwillingness to discuss at the level of very minute details and specifics."
I have a hard time with this comment.
I've read a lot of Doherty's work and correspondence, including all the old listserve material. He didn't in any way avoid specifics; indeed the opposite. He was trying to engage in specifics but rather it was the mainstream scholars that avoided the specifics.
I've seen the same with Carrier, and Robert M. Price. I know that both have endeavored to engage in specifics.
I'm happy to engage in specifics, indeed that's what I want is to get into the details.
Now, it can be true that there are times when it appears a biblical scholar may be trying to hide behind irrelevant details, especially when it comes to things like translations because perhaps the biblical scholar knows how to read ancient Greek and the mythicist they are engaging with doesn't, so they try to then take the conversation to a place where its all about whether or not the other person can read ancient Greek or not. I've seen that happen, but really that's just a tactic to avoid the real issues.
What I've seen from mythicst opponents is doing stuff like calling out one detail, making it all about that one detail, and then ignoring 10 other points. Carrier's book is the perfect example, because in his book he makes about 500 points, so its easy to cherry pick 2 or 3 questionable points, hammer on those, and then ignore the rest. And I've seen this happen a lot.
But I think the perspective on the mythicst side is that we can't get mainstream scholars to actually fully engage with the material and actually address all the details.
This example is just a simple example of the cleansing of the temple, comparing my analysis of the scene to that of Ehrman's and Meier's. That's a very simple straight forward example.
Let's see the details. My conclusion is that the temple cleansing scene in Mark is a literary fabrication and I provide the evidence to support the conclusion. In fact the evidence laid out in this example is really just a fraction of the evidence, but its a very strong and clear portion of it.
Prof. McGrath
"inability or unwillingness to discuss at the level of very minute details and specifics."
I have a hard time with this comment.
I've read a lot of Doherty's work and correspondence, including all the old listserve material. He didn't in any way avoid specifics; indeed the opposite. He was trying to engage in specifics but rather it was the mainstream scholars that avoided the specifics.
I've seen the same with Carrier, and Robert M. Price. I know that both have endeavored to engage in specifics.
I'm happy to engage in specifics, indeed that's what I want is to get into the details.
Now, it can be true that there are times when it appears a biblical scholar may be trying to hide behind irrelevant details, especially when it comes to things like translations because perhaps the biblical scholar knows how to read ancient Greek and the mythicist they are engaging with doesn't, so they try to then take the conversation to a place where its all about whether or not the other person can read ancient Greek or not. I've seen that happen, but really that's just a tactic to avoid the real issues.
What I've seen from mythicst opponents is doing stuff like calling out one detail, making it all about that one detail, and then ignoring 10 other points. Carrier's book is the perfect example, because in his book he makes about 500 points, so its easy to cherry pick 2 or 3 questionable points, hammer on those, and then ignore the rest. And I've seen this happen a lot.
But I think the perspective on the mythicst side is that we can't get mainstream scholars to actually fully engage with the material and actually address all the details.
I have an example on my website that I'd love for you or any other biblical scholar to address: http://www.decipheringthegospels.com/examples.html
This example is just a simple example of the cleansing of the temple, comparing my analysis of the scene to that of Ehrman's and Meier's. That's a very simple straight forward example.
Let's see the details. My conclusion is that the temple cleansing scene in Mark is a literary fabrication and I provide the evidence to support the conclusion. In fact the evidence laid out in this example is really just a fraction of the evidence, but its a very strong and clear portion of it.
Let's get into the details.