Buying Options

Print List Price:	$31.95
Kindle Price:	$9.99 Save $21.96 (69%)

Enter a promotion code or Gift Card

Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth by [Richard Carrier Ph.D., D.M. Murdock, René Salm, Earl Doherty, David Fitzgerald, Robert M. Price Ph.D., Frank R. Zindler]

Follow the Authors

D.M. Murdock

David Fitzgerald

Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth Kindle Edition

by Richard Carrier Ph.D. (Author), D.M. Murdock (Author), René Salm (Author), Format: Kindle Edition

60 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$9.99

—

Paperback

"Please retry"

$31.95

$31.63

$25.00

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.

Print length

608 pages
Language

English
Publication date

April 7, 2013
File size

1274 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Joshua Bowen
54
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Richard Carrier
353
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $25.99
Richard Carrier
107
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $10.49
Bart D. Ehrman
483
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.49
Bart D. Ehrman
475
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $8.99
David Fitzgerald
596
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $5.99

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Richard Carrier
259
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $3.95
Bart D. Ehrman
475
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $8.99
Bart D. Ehrman
416
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $10.99
Bart D. Ehrman
1,733
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $8.99
David Fitzgerald
596
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $5.99
Richard Carrier
107
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $10.49

Amazon Business: Make the most of your Amazon Business account with exclusive tools and savings. Login now

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

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. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00C9N0WBI
Publisher ‏ : ‎ American Atheist Press (April 7, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 7, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1274 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 608 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #881,349 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #322 in Historiography (Kindle Store)
- #1,085 in Historiography (Books)
- #1,424 in Christian New Testament Study

Customer Reviews:
60 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		51%
4 star		21%
3 star		8%
2 star		9%
1 star		11%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Well worth a read, even if you didn't read Ehrman

Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2020

Verified Purchase

Not every entry/chapter/essay is as good as the others, so I can't give it 5 stars, but for anyone interested in the history of Jesus and the major arguments for and against, this is essential reading. Worth the price just for the best essays, which are truly excellent.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Andrew Olsen

Ups and Downs, But needs more Refining

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2015

Verified Purchase

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.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

B Michael Fenley

Expose backed with scholarship

Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2019

Verified Purchase

Bart is hanging on with all fours and clenching with his teeth. Let it go Bart.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Richard E. Hayes

Ehrman shot down

Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2014

Verified Purchase

Another paring away at the "historical evidence" for the life of Jesus. Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist?" is in my opinion the weakest of the seven of his books I've read. Carrier, Zindler, Price, and others give him a good pounding, though he is their nearest and most effective ally in demythologization. The existence of Jesus does not have to rely on his coming from Nazareth, so Ehrman may have to give that up, as most scholars have given up so much else -- Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, of a Virgin, did not flee to Egypt, did not believe he was God. As Ehrman says in "Did Jesus Exist?", most of what people believe about Jesus is not true, so in that sense "he" (the figure of our religious heritage) did not exist. (Schweitzer said it a century ago.) Some of the "did not exist" arguments in Zindler's book go back more than a century. It is worthwhile to catch up on this argument about a very important idea, even if most of the arguments have been around for one or two centuries.

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

Katherine Strange

Probably not an easy read for the average person

Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2017

Verified Purchase

Very interesting and informative, but also very academic. Probably not an easy read for the average person. But it was enough to convince me that everything I was taught growing up by my strict Southern Baptist mother was total bullsh*t.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Laura Knight-Jadczyk

Genuine Scholarship

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2015

Verified Purchase

This book is just simply terrific all the way around. It not only sets the arrogant Prof. Ehrman in context, there is a LOT of scholarship presented with precision that Ehrman chooses to ignore. Ehrman's complete failure as a scholar in approaching this topic is stunning.

I particularly enjoyed Zindler's inclusion of a lengthy email correspondence with Ehrman. If anything exposes that man as a snob and tool of the mainstream controllers of consensus, this does. Further Zindler pieces included in this volume are just troves of fascinating data showing that Jesus certainly never existed as Ehrman would like us to believe.

Richard Carrier's contribution, "How Not to Defend Historicity" [of Jesus] is also excellent and his prediction that Ehrman is going to discover that he has chosen the losing side may very well come true sooner than expected.

There are contributions from Earl Doherty and Robert Price as well. I particularly like Price's work since he writes clearly and occasionally peppers his text with modern comparisons that can be as funny as they are devastatingly accurate.

There is a great contribution from Rene Salm about the archaeology of Nazareth, as in, Nazareth didn't exist at the time of the alleged Jesus. He details how the evidence is being fudged and even outright falsified. Taking this together with the Ehrman-Zindler correspondence and the things revealed there, one gets the very strong impression that Ehrman has sold out to commercial interests.

You see, there is a big multi-million dollar project to create a theme park in the Nazareth area that is supposed to be a big money-maker from all the Christian tourists. It is crucial for this project that Jesus - and by extension - Nazareth, be validated as a real, historical figure who "lived here" etc. It sure leaves a bad taste in the mouth to think that Ehrman is a sell-out and not a purveyor of truth at all. As Rene Salm notes: "I leave the reader to decide whether all these irregularities are merely atrocious sloppiness on the part of several scholars or whether they are evidence of collusion and unethical behavior."

Definitely a must read for anyone interested in the topic of the historical existence of Jesus.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Tony S

Comprehensive and convincing but long

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 5, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a devastating and total deconstruction of Bart Ehrman's book "Did Jesus Exist?". It demolishes his entire set of arguments. But I hesitate to give it five stars because it is not an easy read. It is too long, sometimes repetitive, often complex. I believe it could have been improved if a couple of chapters had been dropped while the rest could have been edited and pruned. However, for those willing to read it all from end to end, it packs a huge punch.

One person found this helpful

Peter Marchant

This is a very mixed bag. There are certainly ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a very mixed bag. There are certainly a number of goodies though perhaps not as many as I would have expected in a book of this length. I think it succeeds though in exposing Ehrman's presumpions,

One person found this helpful

Carl Smotricz

Possibly the turning point in the discussion

Reviewed in Germany on January 2, 2014

Verified Purchase

The question of Jesus' historicity was answered emphatically in the affirmative by Bible scholars and historians of antiquity. But their positions are defended with authority and dogma more than evidence and reason. The bluster of entrenched historians is reminiscent of Christian apologetics.

Finally, the champion of Jesus historicists, Bart Ehrman, has emerged from his lair to give those pesky Mythers their long overdue beatdown.

Having thus given the Mythers a position to challenge, we find Ehrman instead embarrassed by a profusion of errors, omissions, misinterpretations and other blunders, which the authors of this book diligently - and, one surmises, gleefully - expose.

Regardless of formal qualifications, there is an impressive amount of intellectual firepower knocking on the doors of the ivory tower. This book teaches us a wealth of facts that make Ehrman's and other Historicist's certainty on the matter look inappropriate, if not outright dishonest.

2 people found this helpful

Scruffy

If you've read Ehrman's book - you should read this too!

Reviewed in Australia on May 23, 2014

Verified Purchase

This book raises many questions that deserve to be answered. It is a little tedious in places because the authors are clearly passionate about their subject and don't want to leave one stone unturned. But I found it very compelling reading.

Hobjob

Fascinating

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 7, 2014

Verified Purchase

I've read several of Bart Ehrman's books and enjoyed them all, but "Did Jesus Exist" I found less convincing, hence buying "Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth". This debunks much of Ehrman's thesis - which is really one atheist arguing with another. In this case a Christian trained Bible scholar (now atheist) arguing with Mythicists.

"Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth" gets a little long-winded and repetitive but should be mandatory reading after "Did Jesus Exist". It is a shame that more Christians don't read such books.

10 people found this helpful