Ever since Bart Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist? came out in March 2012 arguing for an historical Jesus, the "Christ myth" scholars he criticized in his book have struck back hard. Their latest endeavor is a new book called Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth: An Evaluation of Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist", which is a collection of refutations from several different scholars including Robert M. Price, Richard Carrier, Acharya S (D.M. Murdock), Earl Doherty, and Frank Zindler.When Ehrman's book was published it was almost immediately lambasted by scholars who hold the mythicist position, also called the Christ myth theory - the view that Jesus was not an historical figure, but was instead a mythical/fictional character who only later became historicized.
Historian Richard Carrier wrote a blistering critique of Ehrman's book on his blog titled "Ehrman on Jesus: A Failure of Facts and Logic" in which he says the book is "filled with factual errors, logical fallacies, and badly worded arguments. Moreover, it completely fails at its one explicit task: to effectively critique the arguments for Jesus being a mythical person."
Carrier said he was greatly disappointed because he was hoping and expecting Ehrman's book to be the very best yet at arguing for an historical Jesus. Instead, said Carrier, it is actually the worst. The best books of this kind therefore remain Van Voorst's Jesus Outside the New Testament and Theissen & Merz's The Historical Jesus. Carrier said both are "inadequate but nevertheless competent, if not always correct."
Earl Doherty also wrote a lengthy response to Ehrman's book. Doherty's rebuttal has now been put in e-book form titled The End of an Illusion: How Bart Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist?" Has Laid the Case for an Historical Jesus to Rest.
Acharya S (D.M. Murdock) has also written extensive responses to Ehrman's book. She referred to his book as a "hastily composed screed, in which he tosses out calumny that could be construed as libel". [source]
Many of the mythicists' responses to Ehrman's book express bewilderment at how a scholar whose previous works were of such high quality could then come out with something as grossly incompetent as Did Jesus Exist? Ehrman's previous books include the New York Times bestsellers Misquoting Jesus, Forged, and Jesus Interrupted.
Oddly enough, just 12 days after Did Jesus Exist? was published, Bart Ehrman gave an interview to National Public Radio in which he said things that sound almost like a retraction of what he had said in his book. According to the interviewer, Ehrman admitted there were a large contingent of people claiming that Jesus never did exist. He then made the following statements:
"It was a surprise to me to see how influential these mythicists are," Ehrman says. "Historically, they've been significant and in the Soviet Union, in fact, the mythicist view was the dominant view, and even today, in some parts of the West - in parts of Scandinavia - it is a dominant view that Jesus never existed".
"Mythicists' arguments are fairly plausible", Ehrman says. "According to them, Jesus was never mentioned in any Roman sources and there is no archeological evidence that Jesus ever existed. Even Christian sources are problematic - the Gospels come long after Jesus' death, written by people who never saw the man."
"Most importantly, " he explains, "these mythicists point out that there are Pagan gods who were said to die and rise again and so the idea is that Jesus was made up as a Jewish god who died and rose again."
"The mythicists have some right things to say," Ehrman says. "The Gospels do portray Jesus in ways that are non-historical." [source]
Several of the mythicist scholars say that Ehrman only recently came across the mythicist theory and evidently did far too little research into it before writing his book. The theory was the subject of serious scholarly debate in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and in recent years has become more well-known to the general public because of the internet and the publication of several popular scholarly books.
"It was a surprise to me to see how influential these mythicists are," Ehrman says. "Historically, they've been significant and in the Soviet Union, in fact, the mythicist view was the dominant view, and even today, in some parts of the West - in parts of Scandinavia - it is a dominant view that Jesus never existed".
"Mythicists' arguments are fairly plausible", Ehrman says. "According to them, Jesus was never mentioned in any Roman sources and there is no archeological evidence that Jesus ever existed. Even Christian sources are problematic - the Gospels come long after Jesus' death, written by people who never saw the man."
"Most importantly, " he explains, "these mythicists point out that there are Pagan gods who were said to die and rise again and so the idea is that Jesus was made up as a Jewish god who died and rose again."
"The mythicists have some right things to say," Ehrman says. "The Gospels do portray Jesus in ways that are non-historical." [source]
Several of the mythicist scholars say that Ehrman only recently came across the mythicist theory and evidently did far too little research into it before writing his book. The theory was the subject of serious scholarly debate in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and in recent years has become more well-known to the general public because of the internet and the publication of several popular scholarly books.
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