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| Red dead nettle |
Ben Witherington interviews Bart Ehrman on the latter's new book argues for Jesus' existence - Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.
All should now be able to discount mythicist myths that Jesus never existed.
Ehrman says: "I do not see this [mythicist enterprise] as disinterested history by people who really want to know what happened in the past. I see it as ideologically driven history by people who have an agenda, and who are willing to “find” what they do in history so long as it meets with their agenda. In my judgment, that is not the best way to do history."
Ehrman also points out, among other things, the importance of multiple attestation in establishing the historicity of any historical claim. In regard to the existence of Jesus "the reality is that we have lots of [multiply attested] sources."
Now please note this. Aren't many of these sources biased? Ehrman says, correctly: "Whether or not these sources are biased is immaterial when it comes to this criterion." We would have no historical knowledge were we to demand totally unbiased reports. And, even so, totally unbiased reports and intepretations are, in principle, impossible.
