The Historical Bejeezus edition by Robert Price Religion Spirituality eBooks
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Despite its whimsical title, THE HISTORICAL BEJEEZUS is a work of serious scholarship. Dr. Robert M. Price has brought up to date the work of Albert Schweitzer who, early in the last century, presented a series of critical reviews of efforts to construct biographies of a would-be messiah named Jesus. Although Schweitzer simply concluded that it was probably impossible to know anything for certain about any historical reality behind the legendary New Testament character, he never denied the historicity of Jesus. Price, however, surveys the dismally unsuccessful effort of post-Schweitzer scholars and decides it's time to pay attention to some scholars who say that no biography of any "historical Jesus" can be written for the simple reason that no such character ever existed. Price himself is one of America's most prominent Christ-myth scholars.
The Historical Bejeezus edition by Robert Price Religion Spirituality eBooks
Robert M. Price (born 1954) is an American theologian and writer---and former Baptist minister---who taught philosophy and religion at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, and is now a professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute. He has written/edited a number of books, such as The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave,Blaming Jesus for Jehovah: Rethinking the Righteousness of Christianity,Jesus Is Dead,The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems,The Case Against The Case For Christ: A New Testament Scholar Refutes the Reverend Lee Strobel,Killing History: Jesus in the No-Spin Zone, etc.He wrote in the Introduction to this 2013 book, “I have been intensely interested in the historical Jesus problem for many years. At first my goal was to reassure myself that the gospel portraits of Jesus were genuine history. The farther I proceeded down this path, the less I judged the gospels to be faithful representations of a historical figure, finally gravitating toward the radical theory that there was no historical Jesus at all… the present volume [is] a collection of my essays and (mainly) reviews of historical Jesus scholarship.”
He states, “there is a more radical approach to the historical Jesus question that is also more consistent with recent generations of religious humanist thinking. This approach is that which seriously considers the possibilities that, first, Jesus never existed as a historical figure… second, that Jesus has retreated so far beyond historical recovery that we must remain agnostic concerning him; and that, third, far from preaching an enacting a theology of his own atoning death, Jesus may not have died on the cross at all… I would suggest religious humanists are perhaps in a better position than anyone else to recognize the astonishing implications of the most popular current theories of the historical Jesus.” (Pg. 22)
He explains, “The Christ Myth theory is really a set of theories. There are numerous approaches today, some mutually exclusive alternatives, some possibly compatible. But this very fact hints of the strength of the approach, since it implies that numerous scholars have arrived at the same conclusion (Jesus didn’t exist) by different routes. Thus historical Jesus skepticism is not a single precarious chain of dubious assertions. Just as there are many reconstructions of the historical Jesus… so are there a number of Christ-Myth theories… And if someone wishes to point out that the bewildering variety of approaches makes it more difficult for us to crown one of them the winner, I will gladly agree… But that is not really an embarrassment… We are not (supposed to be!) dogmatists, only historians. And historians are happy to admit the tentative, working-hypothesis character of their theories…” (Pg. 49-50)
He explains, “Earl Doherty’s position… must be distinguished from that of G.A. Wells, his great modern predecessor. Wells did not contend that the earliest Christians did not believe there had ever been an earthly historical Jesus. They believed he had lived on earth at some point in the past, but it was all very vaguely conceived. Wells thinks they were wrong… For Well, there never was an historical Jesus, even though the early Christians … believed there had been. Doherty, by contrast, holds that the earliest Christians envisioned a Jesus figure who had assumed only the apparent LIKENESS or SEMBLANCE of mortal flesh to offer himself to … the fallen angels… but not on earth, not in real mortal flesh, not in history or with the involvement of historical characters like Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas.” (Pg. 57-58)
He says of the late Acharya S. (author of books such as Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled), “Again and again, Acharya finds herself hemmed in by old writers who never elevated their claims above the level of hearsay… Kersey Graves ] assures the reader that he has before him plenty of original documentation for his claims of crucifixion parallels, but he, er, doesn’t have room to include ANY. And this is the rule, not the exception… Acharya seems generously inclined to believe them. I don’t… It’s just that I cannot agree or disagree with their evaluation of evidence they do not share with me.” (Pg. 64)
He says of Pope Benedict XVI’s [i.e., Josef Ratzinger] two-part work on the historical Jesus , I am eager to experiment with the text, to try new paradigms and heuristic devices, to see what does and doesn’t fit. Basically, I want to penetrate to the almost-lost secrets of the Jesus figure and of that religion that claims him as its patron. Ratzinger, by contrast, is the custodian of a gigantic and ancient religious institution, and his job, when it comes to scripture, is to defend a particular party line… By contrast, the Higher Criticism… scholars… are trying to strip off the masking tape even while apparatchiks like Ratzinger are busy reinforcing it.” (Pg. 92-93)
Of Luke Timothy Johnson’s The Real Jesus, he comments, “Johnson, who as far as I know has never attended any meeting of the Jesus Seminar, gives an altogether false impression that the Seminar uses some far-fetched and idiosyncratic methodology that respectable scholars would not deign to touch with a ten-foot pole… The fact of the matter is that most of the Fellow of the Jesus Seminary are far less skeptical, less methodologically rigorous, than Rudolf Bultmann and the critics of the previous generation… The only thing new about the Jesus Seminar is that it had made a point of going public with the commonplaces of professional biblical scholarship.” (Pg. 97)
This book will be of great interest to Atheists, skeptics, and other freethinkers who doubt Christianity.
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The Historical Bejeezus edition by Robert Price Religion Spirituality eBooks Reviews
In this book the author, Robert Price, takes the reader through various interpretations of Jesus, and analyzes them rationally. This is entertaining and well written, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone most highly. I loved it!
This book is a compilation of Price essays form various sources. The majority are available online but it is always nice to have them in convenient format. They all bear on the issue of the historical Jesus (as might be supposed by the patented whimsical Price title). Most are book reviews so Price is either criticizing or praising the scholarship (or otherwise) of others. It may just be me but I seem to enjoy the ones where he criticizes more than the ones where he praises.
As always, the reader should have some previous exposure to modern Biblical criticism. Most of the reviews were written with a professional audience in mind and will probably be inaccessible to those with little more than a Sunday school Bible education. As it is Price uses a lot of specialized terms and the dictionary (and the Google or Wikipedia search feature where the dictionary failed) was extremely helpful.
Unfortunately the edition has a serious flaw. There is a marker like "[begin p. 26]" for every single page. It is astonishing that a flaw of this sort can slip through the publishers quality control. On the for iPad application these markers also seem to change the font back and forth. Very annoying, but the book is still readable. It is to be hoped a corrected edition will be uploaded to quickly.
For the Price reader who has read much of the author's website there will be little new here but for those (like me) that prefer the reading experience this is a worthwhile purchase.
This is an amazing collection of scholarly research and commentary. There cannot be many writers alive today who have the breadth and depth of knowledge Dr. Price displays here on this subject.
Here he reviews dozens of books, some for, some against, the idea that such a character as "Jesus Christ' lived and walked the earth as a historical actual human being approximately 2,000 years ago. Not only does Dr. Price know the arguments inside and out, in every case of the dozens of books he reviews here, he points out what is good and realistic about the arguments and what is just plain silly and false and wishful thinking on the part of true-believers.
It's funny to me how malleable we humans are in arranging 'evidence' to meet the criteria of our wishes. The human psyche is ever on the outlook to satisfy our longings and make sense of our hopes and dreams even when a truly honest unbiased look at the evidence might indicate a different conclusion.
And so all these many authors over centuries write vast arguments favoring [usually] only the evidence that pleases them and carefully leaving out or discrediting what does not suit them. Dr. Price includes both sides here and lets you decide for yourself.
I admit I come down on the side of those who think the character 'Jesus' is mostly the invention of wishful thinking and the evolving modernization [relatively] of the more ancient mythologies of gods and miracles. For so momentous a proposition to be historically 'true' there is an appalling lack of evidence that a fair-minded person can claim in favor of the 'historical' argument.
I have read a number of Robert M. Price's other books and always find them very worthwhile and so, yes, would recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject of Jesus' 'historicity.'
One slight [very slight] criticism-- the usage of 'Bejesus' in the book title unnecessarily adds a flippant or insincere feeling [to me] while the arguments in the book are all sincere and very deep and, to me at least-- fascinating.
Robert M. Price (born 1954) is an American theologian and writer---and former Baptist minister---who taught philosophy and religion at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, and is now a professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute. He has written/edited a number of books, such as The Empty Tomb Jesus Beyond The Grave,Blaming Jesus for Jehovah Rethinking the Righteousness of Christianity,Jesus Is Dead,The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems,The Case Against The Case For Christ A New Testament Scholar Refutes the Reverend Lee Strobel,Killing History Jesus in the No-Spin Zone, etc.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 2013 book, “I have been intensely interested in the historical Jesus problem for many years. At first my goal was to reassure myself that the gospel portraits of Jesus were genuine history. The farther I proceeded down this path, the less I judged the gospels to be faithful representations of a historical figure, finally gravitating toward the radical theory that there was no historical Jesus at all… the present volume [is] a collection of my essays and (mainly) reviews of historical Jesus scholarship.”
He states, “there is a more radical approach to the historical Jesus question that is also more consistent with recent generations of religious humanist thinking. This approach is that which seriously considers the possibilities that, first, Jesus never existed as a historical figure… second, that Jesus has retreated so far beyond historical recovery that we must remain agnostic concerning him; and that, third, far from preaching an enacting a theology of his own atoning death, Jesus may not have died on the cross at all… I would suggest religious humanists are perhaps in a better position than anyone else to recognize the astonishing implications of the most popular current theories of the historical Jesus.” (Pg. 22)
He explains, “The Christ Myth theory is really a set of theories. There are numerous approaches today, some mutually exclusive alternatives, some possibly compatible. But this very fact hints of the strength of the approach, since it implies that numerous scholars have arrived at the same conclusion (Jesus didn’t exist) by different routes. Thus historical Jesus skepticism is not a single precarious chain of dubious assertions. Just as there are many reconstructions of the historical Jesus… so are there a number of Christ-Myth theories… And if someone wishes to point out that the bewildering variety of approaches makes it more difficult for us to crown one of them the winner, I will gladly agree… But that is not really an embarrassment… We are not (supposed to be!) dogmatists, only historians. And historians are happy to admit the tentative, working-hypothesis character of their theories…” (Pg. 49-50)
He explains, “Earl Doherty’s position… must be distinguished from that of G.A. Wells, his great modern predecessor. Wells did not contend that the earliest Christians did not believe there had ever been an earthly historical Jesus. They believed he had lived on earth at some point in the past, but it was all very vaguely conceived. Wells thinks they were wrong… For Well, there never was an historical Jesus, even though the early Christians … believed there had been. Doherty, by contrast, holds that the earliest Christians envisioned a Jesus figure who had assumed only the apparent LIKENESS or SEMBLANCE of mortal flesh to offer himself to … the fallen angels… but not on earth, not in real mortal flesh, not in history or with the involvement of historical characters like Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas.” (Pg. 57-58)
He says of the late Acharya S. (author of books such as Suns of God Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled), “Again and again, Acharya finds herself hemmed in by old writers who never elevated their claims above the level of hearsay… Kersey Graves ] assures the reader that he has before him plenty of original documentation for his claims of crucifixion parallels, but he, er, doesn’t have room to include ANY. And this is the rule, not the exception… Acharya seems generously inclined to believe them. I don’t… It’s just that I cannot agree or disagree with their evaluation of evidence they do not share with me.” (Pg. 64)
He says of Pope Benedict XVI’s [i.e., Josef Ratzinger] two-part work on the historical Jesus , I am eager to experiment with the text, to try new paradigms and heuristic devices, to see what does and doesn’t fit. Basically, I want to penetrate to the almost-lost secrets of the Jesus figure and of that religion that claims him as its patron. Ratzinger, by contrast, is the custodian of a gigantic and ancient religious institution, and his job, when it comes to scripture, is to defend a particular party line… By contrast, the Higher Criticism… scholars… are trying to strip off the masking tape even while apparatchiks like Ratzinger are busy reinforcing it.” (Pg. 92-93)
Of Luke Timothy Johnson’s The Real Jesus, he comments, “Johnson, who as far as I know has never attended any meeting of the Jesus Seminar, gives an altogether false impression that the Seminar uses some far-fetched and idiosyncratic methodology that respectable scholars would not deign to touch with a ten-foot pole… The fact of the matter is that most of the Fellow of the Jesus Seminary are far less skeptical, less methodologically rigorous, than Rudolf Bultmann and the critics of the previous generation… The only thing new about the Jesus Seminar is that it had made a point of going public with the commonplaces of professional biblical scholarship.” (Pg. 97)
This book will be of great interest to Atheists, skeptics, and other freethinkers who doubt Christianity.
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