tonym190169

now this one is fairly bad, but bad in an intriguing way. He laughably holds to the long-refuted Wredian thesis. Thirdly, he fails to engage Tom Wright or GB Caird on the points where the specifically challenge and overthrow Ehrman's thesis. He is aware that NT Wright has completely ravaged his thesis, but it doesn't bother him. Some of the chapters on Gnosticism are interesting and helpful. He does go out of his way to show that certain historical details could not have happened. For example, he says the census by the Roman Emperor could not have happened for two reasons: 1) there is not corroborative evidence for it and 2) it would have been impossible to carry out. In response: (1) is not as big a problem as he thinks. He has already filtered out the NT acting as primary evidence, but says that it must be interpreted in light of Roman records. But the NT is the most attested ancient document in the world, whereas Roman records are woefully scanty. It is simple prejudice that keeps him from accepting the NT as evidence. (2) This isn't a problem at all. Big Governments routinely embark on projects which cannot possible work (healthcare.gov, anyone?).

2023-07-17 10:33