This week we first get up to speed on something very fundamental: Who was Jesus, according to orthodox belief? We delve into the multiple—and conflicting—genealogies of Jesus in this episode's "Apologetics is Never Having to Say You're Sorry." We answer some great listener questions, including: What does the Bible say about marriage? Does it really make a big deal about it being between one man and one woman? While we're at it, what does it have to say about polygamy? Unsurprisingly, the answers may surprise you. Finally, what did Jesus himself have to say about being the messiah? Did he ever actually make that claim? Is that really in the Bible?!Now really, how could you resist?
Sunday, 12 August 2012
Human Bible XII
The twelfth episode of The Human Bible is available, hosted by that nemesis of historicists, Dr. Bob Price.
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Is it just me, or does it seem to you that Price sometimes forgets that he is a mythicist? Like in the quote you offered, when he says "Finally, what did Jesus himself have to say about being the messiah? Did he ever actually make that claim?" I've noticed this in his books, too, as though sometimes the effort of trying to force the evidence into a mythicist framework is just so taxing that he can't keep it up...
ReplyDeleteA measured, meticulous lecture by Mr Price on the evolutionary
ReplyDeleteapotheosis from carpenter to divinity within a few centuries.
So why would a mythicist bother with this? And why do modern
students/colleges invest millions teaching about stories of
'ancient eastern-Mediterranean hippy magician'?
It's because our psyches need him like Indians still need Krishna.
McGrath: "Is it just me, or does it seem to you that Price sometimes forgets that he is a mythicist?"
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me, Price isn't an ardent "mythicist" so much as a scholar who says no good historical evidence about Jesus survives to prove anything one way or another. Dr. McGrath seems to think that historicist/mythicist beliefs are dogmatic positions one must defend at all costs against alternative arguments and explanations.
Dr. Price is happy to discuss various aspects of the New Testament and Christian theology from the supposition that Jesus did exist, and he has often discussed which description of Jesus is the most likely if he did indeed exist. This ability to entertain notions you don't personally hold to seems to be conspicuously absent among many scholars today.