Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth: An Evaluation of Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?

by Frank R. Zindler (Editor), Robert M. Price (Editor), Richard C. Carrier

Richard Carrier Ph.D. (Author), D.M. Murdock (Author), René Salm (Author), Earl Doherty (Author), David Fitzgerald (Author), Robert M. Price Ph.D. (Editor), Frank R. Zindler (Editor)

When New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman published Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, he not only attempted to prove the historical reality of a man called "Jesus of Nazareth," he sharply criticized scholars who have sought to develop a new paradigm in the study of Christian origins—scholars who have claimed that Jesus was a mythical, not historical, figure, and that the traditional, Jesus-centered paradigm for studying the origins of Christianity must be replaced by an actual science of Christian origins. In the present volume, some of those scholars respond to Ehrman's treatment of their research and findings, showing how he has either ignored, misunderstood or misrepresented their arguments. They present evidence that "Jesus of Nazareth" was no more historical than Osiris or Thor. Several contributors question not only the historicity of "Jesus of Nazareth," they present evidence that the site of present-day Nazareth was not inhabited at the time Jesus and his family should have been living there.

Genres: History, Religion

608 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2013

About the author

Frank R. Zindler (May 23, 1939) is an American linguist, biologist, geologist, and atheist who served as interim president of the atheist organization American Atheists in 2008. In 1995, he became editor of both American Atheist magazine and Director of American Atheist Press. In 2009, he retired as editor of the magazine but continues as Director of American Atheist Press. In the spring of 2011, he published a multi-volume anthology of his short essays and other works.

Reviews

[Devan · Rating 4 out of 5]

From when I finished Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth by Bart D. Ehrman, I knew that all the reviews and reactions from other Mythicists I was reading were very true. In fact, unlike Ehrman I actually kept up with the controversy that his book caused upon publication and as many might imagine there has been a wealth of critique to this book that Ehrman should at least raise an inquisitive eyebrow.

In a lot of way's this book is actually a primer of some of the more important articles taken from the list of 80+ MYTHICIST RESPONSES TO B. EHRMAN’S DID JESUS EXIST? found at the site http://www.mythicistpapers.com/ where his faulty reasoning and piss poor evidence is brought to light in showing why his book is so atrocious. There might be those that accuse me of bias because I have a slanted view in favor of Jesus Mythicism and this is why I find Ehrman's work so atrocious: Because I am reading a position I obviously disagree with (being that Jesus existed). Many of these people however do not know that I do subscribe to a Jesus of history (more specifically, Jesus the Zealot advanced by the likes of S.G.F. Brandon in his book Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity) and so thus such an accusation would be erroneous. As a result, no matter what you think of the historical Jesus, whether he existed or not the fact still remains, Ehrman's work on arguing for the existence of a Jesus of Nazareth is atrocious, sloppy and as a standard response to Mythicists... woefully left wanting.

In terms of the content, I found the book to be quite interesting and very informative of various positions that Mythicists hold that I previous didn't think were that important. For example, the distinction that has been made by Frank R. Zindler and Earl Doherty on the distinction between the heavenly Christ (which is advanced as an early Celestial being for which the Christians worshipped and he existed outside of natural space and time... a sort of proto-Gnostic or proto-Docetic Deity as it were) and the character Jesus (for which Zindler actually attempts to make clear that these were two distinct figures in early Christian Theology which eventually came together in a sort of syncretism; which isn't surprising in the least to me). This was a position I was first exposed to by Doherty but never gave it much thought as to the importance of the argument and the significance of it. Another good example is the exposé of sloppiness brought forth by D.M. Murdock and René Salm where in which Ehrman is taken to task by asserting that Murdock fabricated a source (which if you understand how serious an accusation like that is, if found true your entire academic career is gone. You have no credibility if you fabricated the evidence) for which she took Ehrman to task in not only showing that the drawing she gave was not of her's, but of a scholar in the early 1900s and she confirmed even with modern reports that it exists. She also completely destroys his attempt to save face by claiming, "that's not what I really said..." even though it's clear he is accusing her of fabricating the evidence (after all, why bring up the idea of the picture being hand drawn by her if the intent behind it and the message is not to implicate Murdock in the creation of forged evidence?). Then there is the responses from Salm, who has expertly shown that Ehrman's response not only did not address his strongest arguments, but that he was sloppily citing individual's without knowing where or how these statements came to be. Also if what Salm says is true about the archaeology of Nazareth (something I cannot say is compelling or not because I have not looked into the matter), would show a devastating fact that Ehrman does not read the sources he claims to have read when writing this book. In short, this book exposes the major problems with Ehrman's work "Did Jesus Exist?" in a way that not only rebuts the scholar but informs the viewer.

With all the things to be said positively about this book, there are a few notable negatives. Besides a couple of editorial typos (for which is entirely forgivable, a repeated word here, a missing word there... nothing too major to take away from it but just noticeable enough for me that it sticks) there were a couple of issues in reasoning. A couple of times Doherty made references to god's dying and stating that this cannot be the case for a Christian theology because god's do not die. Yet he is forgetting a major component of Roman and Middle-Eastern religions, the death of the old god and placement of new ones in their place. This just doesn't happen as an historical phenomenon where the worship of a deity falls out of favor and in his place a new god comes, the mythologies themselves are filled with this motif. Chronos killing his father Uranos and leading a war against the old Titan's to foster the new, Zeus cutting his father open to release a war against the New Titans and so on. Christianity grew up in this culture and if it is a syncretism of other religions then it would stand to reason this idea of an old god dying to replace a new one should have influenced Christianity in some way. Instead there appears (to me at least) an outright denial of this. Another issue is with some of the authors (Zindler was most guilty of this) of poisoning the well a couple of times through the often-handed declaration of that this case supports Mythicism when in fact it only supports an hypothesis that is related to Mythicism. These flaws are however, very minor and do not take away from the overall issue this book brings up which is that Ehrman's book is a bunch Blarmy!

Edit: One thing that should be mentioned but wasn't and is now added here as an afterthought is that the book is not as extensive in the footnote's and there is a lacking of Bibliography. This may seem like a minor point to most of you but I do have a preference for books that have these things. The lack of meticulous sources and footnotes (granted these are articles mostly taken from the net, but I would imagine the editor's and owners of those articles could have revised it with a footnote and have included a Bibliography from the authors) is an issue due to the fact that I like sitting down and going through those things with a more careful eye once I am done with the book to glean any kind of useful sources that I can check out later. Granted I got a lot of sources from this book, but the point is that they could have been more meticulous in what they cited which they did not.

At any rate, you will get your money's worth in this book but my suggestion is to first read Ehrman's book and then read this one, so you can get the fullest context possible. But that is just what I did.

[Jeffrey · Rating 1 out of 5]

A fascinating look into the mythicist echo chamber.

If this is the best they can produce it's no wonder academics don't take them seriously. Riddled with factual, rhetorical, logical, mathematical, and grammatical errors. Poorly edited. Badly sourced. Not even remotely convincing.

[Jc · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this would be shocking to some, blasphemous to others, and everything from slightly surprising to ranting lunacy (and every possible step in between) to many others, there is good reason to suspect that no "Jesus" ever existed in ancient Israel who is in any way related to the Jesus of of Nazareth of christian mythology. Leaving my personal conclusions out of this review, the book, a response mostly to Ehrman's recent rant against "mythicists" [i.e., those who argue against an historical Jesus] who think Jesus of Nazareth was no more real than Zeus, Thor, or Paul Bunyan, is worth reading. I have read publications from a number of the mythicists. Most recently, I have read Robert Price’s The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems and Ehrman’s answer, Did Jesus Exist?:The Historical Argument… (both reviewed by me in 2012) of the current state of Mythicist ideas. Ehrman’s book just seemed bad -- poorly written, illogical, and weakly documented. A very weak response to the Mythicist viewpoint that really shocked me – Ehrman is a very erudite intellectual who has produced many well done works, both academic and popular-level, discussing many mythical, legendary, and traditional aspects of christianity, especially relating to early proto-christianity and the documentary evidence. But his DJE? book was, in my eyes, not nearly up to his usually standard. He just sounded pissy, constantly repeating (in essentially these words) “everyone who is anyone ALWAYS agrees with me!!.” You could almost hear Ehrman stamping his feet as he typed. His arguments were AWFUL, full of logical fallacies and name calling. Wow. B.E. and the Quest for the Historical Jesus… is a direct answer to DJE? by many of those he was name calling at. While one of the editors in the current book goes on a bit (and needed more editing himself), in general this is a great response to Ehrman, and presents many of the major issues (and some minor ones) that make the theory of an historical Jesus having existed seem problematic at best, nonsensical at worst. Born againers, right-wing Catholics, and even many “moderate” christians will want to burn the book. But, if you actually want to hear what the documents and other evidence says, this is a good introduction to the question, did Jesus exist?

[Sara Sharick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read David Fitzgerald's "Nailed: Ten Myths that Show Jesus Never Existed," which is a great primer on the Jesus Mythicist case.

"Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth: An Evaluation of Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?" is a response to Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist?" which was supposed to be itself a response to the Mythicist case. Unfortunately, as good as Ehrman is in other areas of scholarship ("Forged" was excellent), he did rather poorly here and earned himself a resounding rebuke in 608 pages. All the contributors show, in exquisite detail, that Erhman not only didn't actually address any Mythicist arguments, he had only ad hominem and other logical fallacies as well as a complete lack of verifiable evidence for his own case to offer. Conversely, the contributors not only rebut Ehrman's arguments, but offer reasoned ones of their own, based on multiple disciplines of effort.

Jesus as myth - and possibly Christian origins as a mystery cult with aspects of Judaism latched on later - will almost certainly become the norm in scholarship. Apologetics can't hold water for much longer, as childhood indoctrination into Christianity slowly falls by the wayside, and as more and more adults are making their way out of the cult of Christianity.

[Lanko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most anthologies, their content is often mixed. And here is no different.

Some have interesting and new information, others give extremely convoluted views, others go into very different tangents and the presentation of information varies wildly between authors. How to present information properly is also a skill, and one worth developing.

The introduction of it made me hopeful this was gonna be an extremely serious, well presented and documented book, but alas, after thinking about it, despite some great points, it really feels all over the place, and in need of some much better editing.

I do agree that Ehrman's DJE is not a high quality work, specially compared to some of his others, and often feels like a rant - and some of the authors here also do it -.
I do agree some of Ehrman's arguments are weak, but some here also are quite the leap of faith as well.
The mythicists accuse Ehrman of ignoring some of their best arguments, but to be fair, they don't really discuss some of Ehrman's better ones too, and focus entirely on a subset, not all of them terrible, though some certainly were.

There's an excessive focus on the existence of Nazareth. While some information is interesting, and even if it's correct it's some cult term Nazorean or something like that that got wrongly translated or attributed, overall, it still wouldn't prove anything about the man... a point, even, that some of the mythicists themselves agree. So the large focus on it felt out of place.

Despite Zindler's jabs with Jesus-of-somewhere-else, overall, Ehrman, and others, are correct when saying that even if Nazareth didn't exist, this mistake can't be attributed to the man himself they are talking about.

Zindler also published e-mail exchanges with Ehrman. It's told Ehrman authorized, and now I know why he did it.
While for a time I was curious that Ehrman seemed to ignore Zindler's questions, I now side with Ehrman here.

Here's why, Ehrman is very likely assailed daily by all sides with similar e-mails asking him or wanting to debate like Zindler did. He can't possibly deal with it while doing everything else he needs to do, specially since some of these questionnaires would require ludicrous amounts of research just for some e-mail exchanges. Time better spent elsewhere.

Quite ironic that publishing the e-mails made me actually sympathize with Ehrman instead (not that Zindler was aggressive or anything, but people sending mail to Ehrman like he did probably flood Ehrman's inbox on a daily basis.)

Carrier quite eviscerates Ehrman on the weakest aspects of his book, and felt quite close to how I felt reading it too.

Turns out Murdock was correct in the existence of a statue Ehrman said, in a very off-putting tone, that it didn't exist. He never apologized for it or admitted the mistake, little as it was of importance to the main question of both books.

Anyways, by far the best piece is Carrier's (sadly he only had one chapter). Price also wrote decent pieces. Doherty had some interesting bits, and others not so. Murdock was really mostly about the statue. Salm, as an archaeologist, focuses on the Nazareth issue.

That leaves Zindler, who basically dominates the book. While the man's erudition and intelligence is impressive, I fear he goes into tangents not only on subject chosen, but even within its own dedicated chapters.
Sometimes it seems some things were personal too.

But more importantly, with over 600 pages, I think it could've gone down to like ~400 if Zindler's parts were properly edited. His parts just feel too bloated, too verbose. I admit I skimmed pages at some point.

Now I quite get why Ehrman made a point about credentials in his own book, as here we have a very scattered out book, with some claims that really needed better substance to hold, and needed more overall cohesiveness. Not that Ehrman himself had credentials some of the topics he talked about, mind you, but even in a not-so-great piece of work, you get a much clearer picture of the material presented.

Overall, it's an okay book. Interesting information. I guess this and DJE get tied for me. While it correctly eviscerates some of Ehrman's weak points and shoddy presentation, when it isn't doing this or some line-by-line of the weakest passages in Ehrman's books, it also doesn't really make strong convincing points when it's the one that needs to put arguments and theories on the table to be dissected as well.

This does makes Ehrman's position stronger, of course, since it's sort of the status quo opinion (aside Ehrman making it very clear and pointing out how modern society specifically changed and customizes Jesus), but an extraordinary claim such as what the mythicists propose need extraordinary evidence or arguments, and it doesn't really have those, at least not here.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

SEVEN “MYTHICIST” AUTHORS CRITIQUE EHRMAN’S “DID JESUS EXIST?” BOOK

Frank Zindler (who, among other things, is Editor of American Atheist Press) wrote in the Foreword of this 2013 book, “Until the publication in 2012 of Bart D. Ehrman’s 'Did Jesus Exist?' The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth,' scholars who have denied the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth have for the most part been answered only by religious apologists, not genuine historians of biblical scholars…. Mythicist evidence and arguments against the Historical Jesus were largely excluded from the ordinary channels of scholarly communication. Everything changed, however, when the Mythicist position was formally engaged by Professor Bart D. Ehrman… [who] arguably is one of the most famous and professionally respected New Testament scholars in America… This is a milestone in the history of the Historical-Jesus studies and it lends hope that before too long a genuine Science of Christian Origins will be able to supplant Historical-Jesus Studies in the world of secular scholarship. The present book provides an opportunity for Mythicists to reply to Professor Ehrman’s criticisms… it is likely that readers will perceive conflicting images of ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ in the following pages…”

He continues in the Preface, “Mythicists have wished for a book such as Ehrman’s for the simple reason that they have been confident that it would be impossible to discover really new evidence for Jesus of Nazareth and that such a book would only be able to collect the various arguments used by apologists and dress them up in more modern, secular garb. Such a book would be extremely easy to refute… It is hard, then, to describe the depth of disappointment that Mythicist scholars have experienced after reading Ehrman’s long-awaited book… one sees that Ehrman has not produced any NEW evidence to support the hypothesis that Jesus of Nazareth was an historical figure. Indeed, it appears that his survey of Mythicist arguments has been almost as incomplete as his survey of Mythicist evidence… Readers will have to decide that for themselves after carefully reading the following pages.”

Richard Carrier wrote in the first essay, “The main problem with ‘Did Jesus Exist?’ was the sheer number of errors, fallacies, and misleading statements that fill it… Ehrman’s book was so full of gaffes it is simply unsalvageable… I could not list all the errors, fallacies, and misleading statements I marked up in my copy of his book. There were hundreds of them, averaging at least one a page. This shocked me, because all his previous works were not like this… In my critical review I chose a representative selection of the worst mistakes… they are NOT a complete list, but just the tip of the iceberg… there are probably many more errors than I saw, because for much of the book I was trusting him to tell me correctly what he found from careful research; but the rest of the book illustrates that I can’t trust him to correctly convey information about this subject or to have done careful research.” (Pg. 17-18)

He observes, “Ehrman falsely claims that from antiquity ‘we simply don’t have birth notices, trial records, death certificates---or other kinds of records that one has today’… In fact, we have lots of those things. I mean LOTS… probably some are in his own university’s library. But more importantly, Christians COULD HAVE quoted or preserved such documents relating to Jesus or his disciples, as such documents certainly would have existed then. Thus a historian must explain why they did not… What he said, therefore, suggests he didn’t even check whether his claim was true, and that he had no significant experience with ancient documents other than New Testament manuscripts… Although his conclusion is correct (I agree we should perhaps not expect to have any such records for Jesus or early Christianity)… How can he not know that we have thousands of these kinds of records? Yes, predominantly from the sands of Egypt, but even in some cases beyond.... For instance, Suetonius references birth records for Caligula… And spouting unchecked generalization about antiquity from the armchair is precisely NOT how to argue for historicity.” (Pg. 29-31)

Carrier concludes, “I predict Ehrman will eventually find that he chose the losing side of the argument. Once you strip away all the illogical, uninformed arguments for historicity, none of any great merit remain; whereas when you do the same for Mythicism, several arguments of significant merit still do remain. So I believe the balance in the end favors the non-existence of Jesus. Or at the very least, uncertainty as to his existence. But to challenge that conclusion, we need something far better researched … than the book Bart Ehrman has given us.” (Pg. 61)

Early Doherty states, “Ehrman brings up the old canard that none of the dying and rising gods was resurrected the way Jesus was resurrected. I’m tempted to quote Ehrman from earlier in his book: ‘So what?’ What they all had in common was a death, followed by an overcoming of that death and coming back to life.” (Pg. 172)

David Fitzgerald points out, “Why does Philo of Alexandria, who was intimately connected to affairs in Jerusalem… have nothing to say about… the multitudes who followed the miracle-worker and bold, radical new teacher Jesus throughout the Galilee and Judea?... Why can’t the Gospels agree on so many fundamental facts about Jesus’ life and ministry? For instance, was he born during the reign of Herod the Great, or over a decade later, during the tenure of Quirinius?... Why is there not a single historical reference to Jesus in the entire first century---a pair of obviously interpolated snippets in the works of Flavius Josephus notwithstanding?” (Pg. 183-185)

Frank Zindler recalls, “around the year 1980. I was at a convention of American Atheists, Inc. … [Madalyn Murray O’Hair] told her Atheist audience that she had begun a work on a book she was going to publish under the title ‘Jesus Christ Superfraud.’ I was aghast. O’Hair was about to make American Atheists a laughingstock… I spoke with her after her speech and asked her for more proof that Jesus had never existed… I wrote down a brief list of references she recommended and began studying them… One by one, all my previously imagined evidences for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth dissolved away. No contemporary records of Jesus existed… No evidence of importance had ever been produced by biblical archaeologists. There was nothing new in Christianity; all had been recycled from Old Testament, Pagan, or Mystery-cult sources.” (Pg. 221)

In another essay, Zindler says, “Bart Ehrman is mistaken in his argument that the first Christians ‘from day one’ know that their Messiah, Jesus, had been crucified. It is argued… the earliest Christians did not worship a Messiah… In support of the thesis that the first Christians worshipped a celestial Christ before they worshipped a terrestrial Jesus, it is noted that crucifixion of Jesus with nails was added late in the tradition, and that lack of nails makes more supportable the idea that the crucifixion was a celestial, not terrestrial, event.” (Pg. 423)

Still later, Zindler asks, “What will Historicists such as Bart Ehrman do if it can be clearly demonstrated that eighty or ninety percent of the ‘biography’ of Jesus is bogus in the sense that it was created ad hoc to create a terrestrial itinerary for a heavenly being sojourning on our sublunary sphere? Some years ago I sent a questionnaire polling fellow members of The Jesus Project in which one question read something like ‘If it would be clearly demonstrated that the entirety of the gospel Jesus biography was inauthentic, would you still believe in the historical Jesus? If 90%? If 80?’ To my astonishment, more than one of those hard-headed, secular scholars indicated that they would continue to believe in the Historical Jesus even if his entire biography were proven to be a fiction!” (Pg. 524)

Doherty summarizes, “what has Ehrman himself been doing? Is Christianity any more debunked by demonstrating that Jesus did not exist than by demonstrating that he was nothing like the character the Christian faith worships, a failed, somewhat crazy preacher of doom who got himself executed, never to be seen again? Either one would leave it in a ‘total shambles.’ (Personally, if I were a believer I would prefer Mythicism, because that would at least leave me in a position to fall back on Paul’s heavenly Christ as an object of faith and salvation, a divinity unaffected by later delusions created by the Gospel writers that he had actually come to earth and been sacrificed there.” (Pg. 552)

This book will be of great interest to anyone studying the Mythicist/Historicist controversy. [I might suggest parenthetically that if the Mythicists want to receive genuinely “scholarly” attention to their arguments and theories (see Carrier’s conclusion in 'On the Historicity of Jesus') they might be a little more “receptive” and even “polite” to a recognized scholar discussing them.]

[Ari Damoulakis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just know too little about all this and I really don’t know if we can ever get a proper answer.

[Richard Goff · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is a rejoinder to Bart Ehrman's book Did Jesus Exist? (DJE?). It is a collection of essays, mostly directed specifically at Bart Ehrman, in direct response to DJE? or other positions Ehrman has taken on the historicity of Jesus. In the introduction, Price backhandedly thanks Ehrman for engaing the mythicist argument, essentially legitimizing the position within mainstream scholarship. He, and his co-authors, understandably, take umbrage at Ehrman's portrayal of some of their positions and the unfortunate ad hominem attacks from DJE? Price believes that mythicists are unfairly lumped together as self-marginalizing, nonacademic, conspiracy theorists with particular axes to grind. Tragically, they respond in this book by sounding like self-marginalizing, nonacademic, conspiracy theorists with particular axes to grind--and embittered ones at that. Things I learned from this book about why Christ is a myth:

(spoiler alert)

1) Bart Ehrman is a doodie head
2) Bart Ehrman does not return emails
3) Mythicists really don't like Ehrman
4) Jesus is a Myth.

Lest I be guilty of lumping all Mythicists in one category, the only reason why the book gets 2 stars is because there a few articles that, if one sifts through the hysterical anti-Ehrman diatribes, have some redeeming value. Richard Carrier has a piece which helps to frame the historical debate which is worth reading. There is a discussion, more of a rehash, of the unreliability of the Gospels and the problem of truly 'knowing' what the original texts were, the original spellings, and original order of words because they have translated and re-written so many times.

Mythicists are in the unenviable position of proving a negative, and one that is commonly believed to be true. Some of the more interesting discussions focus on the actual evidence, not Bart Ehrman. For example, is Jesus Christ of Nazareth a name? Or a title? Or a little of both? It it's a title then that's an issue. Did Nazareth even exist? Was it originally intended to be the town of Nazareth or a description of a Nazirite (one who separates/consecrates themselves)? Although they don't speak specifically to whether Jesus existed, it can raise doubts if Jesus Chist of Nazareth should be translated as The Savior Messiah, and Consecrated one.

Similarly, the authors argue that Docetist and Gnostic heresies seem to be present very early, raising questions about which was the "original" Christianity, but the proof here is thin--certainly thinner than the proof of the historical Jesus. Ironically, it is based on a similar "reading into" of texts that others might use to prove the existence of historical Jesus, someone like Bart Ehrman.

I was greatly disappointed in this book. I am a skeptic but this book did a poor job of representing the mythicists. After reading a number of books on the subject, including several by Ehrman, Elaine Pagels, Theissen and Mertz, and some of the mythicists including Richard Carrier, I have concluded that the Jesus story was most likely based on something, an actual person; but similar to Ehrman and even some of them mythicists, it is difficult to say much about that person beyond some rough outlines of his life and death.

[Eric Wojciechowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

It could very well be that in, "Did Jesus Exist?", Bart Ehrman wrote the final attempt to defend a historical Jesus of Nazareth. Because as the authors of the present compilation of essays in this anthology demonstrates, this is as good as the case is going to get. And it fails. In fact, the opening volley goes so far as to suspect that Ehrman gave the task of "Did Jesus Exist?" to undergraduates and then stamped his name on to the book. The errors are not typical of his other work which is held up even by those doing the criticizing in the present volume. So how Ehrman can defend a historical person behind the myth with the data in "Did Jesus Exist?" is what the present volume examines.

If you've read other works by Robert M. Price, Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty or David Fitzgerald, you'd be safe to skip this book. If you're mainly interested in whether or not there's a man behind the myth, you can do better than this book. But if you want to see the dirty detailed deconstruction of Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist?", then feel free to plow through it.

Prior to this, I was only familiar with the name of Acharya S / D. M. Murdock. I purposely shied away from her work as her book, “The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold” seemed like woo-woo with it's claim of purposeful conspiracy to deceive instead of, what I consider to be more likely, a religion that came about through a natural order out of chaos like any other religion. But her work in the present volume gets me thinking a second look is in order. And Frank R. Zindler takes up the majority of this book, which while packed with some good information, seemed more an angry response to years of courting Ehrman only to be dismissed in the end and not taken seriously. Seemed a lot of grudge holding in these parts.

The main problem was that the book could have been much shorter and achieved the objective. I felt it dwelled too much on whether or not Nazareth existed at the time Jesus is said to have lived (contributed too by the final author in the collection, Rene Salm). I've never felt this mattered. Lots of characters are placed in real cities like New York who never existed. And most of Stephen King's books take place in the State of Maine. Doesn't mean the state is home to monsters and high strangeness. So for me, Nazareth doesn't matter in the big picture. So I skimmed this section. Besides, the current state of archeology on the site of ancient Nazareth is laid over with modern structures so it's still too early to tell for certain on when this city got its start.

But all in all, an adequate collection defending the mythicist position and putting a nail in the final coffin attempt to resurrect a real historical Jesus from the myth. I do suspect that in time, Jesus as myth will become as common as Moses is seen today or even Zeus or Osiris. It will just take the world giving up on that one last shred. This book contributes to that achievement. But you can do better with the solo works of Price, Carrier, Fitzgerald or Doherty on their own.

[Darrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Bart Ehrman's book, Did Jesus Exist?, he attempts to prove that Jesus existed as a historical person. The scholars he criticizes respond in Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth. While the scholars presented in this volume don't agree with each other on everything, they all agree there is no compelling evidence that Jesus of Nazareth existed. I'll admit I haven't read Bart Ehrman's book and I don't think I ever will. The parts of his book quoted here indicate that his argument is little more than an appeal to authority with some ad hominems thrown in for good measure.

In the first essay, Robert M. Price calls Bart Ehrman a paradigm policeman because he defends the current paradigm of mainstream Biblical scholarship without even considering the mythicist position. To him, the notion that Jesus did not exist as a historical person is unthinkable, so he must defend historicity at all costs. He starts with his conclusion, only afterward looking for evidence to support it, behaving as an apologist rather than a scholar who starts with the evidence then comes to a conclusion afterward.

My favorite essay in this collection is How Not to Defend Historicity by Richard Carrier. Although Ehrman has been a top notch scholar in previous works, in Did Jesus Exist? he drops the ball. Carrier goes through several factual errors he discovered in Ehrman's book including logical fallacies, failing to engage the arguments, not checking his facts, hiding relevant facts, contradicting himself, using an illogical methodology, and being ignorant of ancient history overall. He also demonstrates that Ehrman is unable to admit when he is wrong, going so far as to lie when his factual errors are pointed out to him.

Acharya S/D. M. Murdock contributes a short chapter rebutting Ehrman's claim that she made up the existence of the Priapus bronze by citing numerous scholarly sources that Ehrman should have known about if he had bothered to check his sources. She also contributes an essay concerning the use of midrash to create the stories found in the Gospels.

In his essay, David Fitzgerald draws attention to the Historicist problem: if Jesus existed as a historical figure, why are there so many contradictory reconstructions of who he was? Various Historicists have proposed that Jesus was a Cynic philosopher, liberal Pharisee, charismatic Hasid, conservative Rabbi, antinomian iconoclast, magician/exorict/faith healer, violent Zealot revolutionary, nonviolent pacifist resister, apocalyptic prophet, a first-century proto-Communist, an early feminist, an earthly Hedonist, a family man, a home wrecker, Savior of the world, Savior of only Israel, and radical social reformer. Since all Historicists pick and choose the parts of the Gospels that appeal to them and disregard the parts that don't, we can't trust that any of them are being objective.

Rene Salm contributes an essay regarding the lack of archeological evidence for the existence of the city of Nazareth during the time of Jesus, something Ehrman dismissed without researching the data for himself. Salm also mentions that in the Samaritan Book of Joshua (different from the Hebrew Book of Joshua), Joshua has twelve disciples. Since Joshua and Jesus are the same name in Hebrew, this may have been used as inspiration for the story of Jesus in the Gospels.

Most of the essays in this collection come from Frank R. Zindler and Earl Doherty. Doherty's essays cover a wide range of topics including why Ehrman is wrong to dismiss similarities between Christianity and other religions that preceded it. If you follow the Vridar blog, you will have seen Doherty's essays already. My favorite essay by him is an examination of the Epistle to the Hebrews which explicitly states that the sacrifice of Jesus took place not on earth, but in heaven.

Frank R. Zindler got Ehrman's permission to reprint their email correspondence, although since Ehrman largely doesn't reply to Zindler's emails, it's rather one sided. However, here we have proof that Ehrman either didn't read, didn't understand, chose to ignore, or forgot most of the evidence Zindler provided to him, especially in regards to Mithras.

Zindler also writes an essay that asks if Bart Ehrman is qualified to write about the historical Jesus. Ehrman compares Mythicists to Creationists, yet ironically, Ehrman himself received his education from Creationist schools like Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. This seems like a case of the pot calling the snow black. Ehrman claims Mythicists lack the proper credentials to discuss Christian origins, yet Ehrman's ignorance of ancient history disqualifies him.

In another essay, Zindler performs a Bayesian Analysis of Mark 1:9 to determine the likelihood that the lack of a definite article before Jesous is due to a scribal error as Ehrman contends (as opposed to Mark 1:9 being an interpolation as Zindler contends). By reviewing known instances of scribal error versus interpolations in the 67 critically most important manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark, he concludes that the probability that Ehrman is right is 0.000002031 (and Zindler does show his math).

I was surprised to learn from one of Zindler's essays just how anachronistic Mark 13 is. In Mark, Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem which Herod the Great began to construct before he died in 4 BCE. However, the Temple wasn't completed until 64 CE, just six years before it was destroyed by the Romans. If he lived during the time of Pilate, Jesus should have predicted the completion of the Temple rather than its destruction. I was also surprised to learn that U. S. Founding Father Thomas Paine didn't believe Jesus ever existed as a historical person for many of the same reasons Mythicists cite today.

My only complaint is that many of the scholars repeat themselves and each other, so this book certainly could have been more concise, but overall this book does a good job of showing some of the many errors Ehrman made when he wrote Did Jesus Exist?

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seriously, it's a Jesus mythicist circle jerk. I'm familiar with Carrier the Pompous, Price the hypocritical seeming racist teaching at an unaccredited Black New Thought seminary, Murdock/Acharya the nutter and unqualified. I am elsewhere familiar with Salm. I have elsewhere familiar with Doherty.

None are tenured academics. None are more educated than me. Price and Carrier don't know Hebrew.

Yes, this is a review bomb of a book that deserves one.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star only because it was not what I expected. It's a critique of Dr Ehrman's book.

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would've been a great read if it weren't for the ass-kissing.

[Andrew Olsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has its Ups and Downs, But needs more Refining

Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth is a compilation of essays by many proponents of historical minimalism or mythicism as Ehrman defines it. It was constructed in order to refute and point out errors in Ehrman's book Did Jesus Exist: the Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.

For the most part the writing was well done and arguments convincing. Authors I recommend are Richard Carrier, Robert Price, René Salm, D.M. Murdock and Earl Doherty, others have varying levels of relevance. Zindler's outlining of his private email's with Ehrman comes off crass and pointless while the emperor's new clothes at the end the compilation was kind of pointless.

The largest problem with the compilation of the historical minimalist point of view is, one they are all over the place with their alternative explanations and influences upon the text. The subject matter needs to be narrowed down, the mythical nature of the gospel stories, linguistically arguments, Homeric elements, the study of Nazareth as a place existing at the time of Jesus. Also the requirements outlined by Zindler for a good historian on the New Testament seem a bit excessive, there are branches of study and expertise in any new science and one person shouldn't be required to know everything. In fact, all these points of view have varying amounts of credibility and need to be honed and fine tuned. You can't just claim a shotgun compilation of arguments and claim the argument from the historical minimalist
perspective is correct.

Two, yes the argument from authority can be frustratingly annoying and have more or less reasonableness to it. If it is used correctly to support arguments summarizing or quotes as outlining necessary lines of reasoning. Like many of the mythicists do. Again, either get the necessary credentials or don't but don't complain you are being undermined, or that it is too costly, or pointless to get them, because there are some historical minimalists that have them, so it can be done. In the field of academia there is a game and if you can't play by the rules to get the credentials then stop complaining when academics claim you haven't done the appropriate work necessary to be taken seriously.

Three, yes Bart Ehrman had a rough go on his book and you should take some consolation in the fact that he has admitted the pre-existent Jesus of Paul to be almost be as old as the proto-orthodox, and Jewish roots. He did so in his book How Jesus Became God, which was infinitely better than Did Jesus Exist.

Also it should be extremely noted that the book Did Jesus Exist was written for a lay audience and even if all arguments were addressed and fallacies removed it wouldn't have made it much better. It is justifiable to be upset that the historical minimalist argument is not taken seriously especially when it is not done particularly well but it's another to challenge the academic credibility of a university professor who often writes for public consumption and it was them he had in mind when writing it. In the end it would take more than one academically sound book to address all the myth theory arguments that have been put forward. The ones that need the most response is arguments put forward by Richard Carrier in On the Historicity of Jesus, and Robert Price's The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man.

Pace would have been appropriate in the academic journalistic field but made better if there had not been some articles with some pretty severe vitriol.

I would recommend it but with a catch, read the articles by Price, Doherty, Salm, Murdock, and be careful with Zindler, some of them are good, but others are best left unread like the email correspondence which seemed that though it had some small relevance, could have been left out without any great negative affect.

Otherwise, I'm glad this book was done because these ideas have been sidelined and marginalized while some of the stronger arguments are being taken seriously, most notably the cosmic pre-existent Christ of the authentic Pauline epistles. I also hope that some of the stronger arguments get more attention while the irrelevant or implausible are left behind for good.