Thomas Verenna's career takes a new turn

[fortigurn]

Saw this a few days ago, but since it's been slow on this forum I thought I would post it here today. Briefly, Verenna's glorious career as a leading scholar in Biblical studies will no longer come to pass; he is now considering an academic career in American history.

[evangelion]

Aug 25, 2014 6:34:34 GMT fortigurn said:

Saw this a few days ago, but since it's been slow on this forum I thought I would post it here today. Briefly, Verenna's glorious career as a leading scholar in Biblical studies will no longer come to pass; he is now considering an academic career in American history.

I just have had a hard time finding the words…

First time ever!

Worse yet, and I hate to say this but, I was outpacing most of my fellow students when it came to basic biblical knowledge.

LOL. But wait for the faux-modest disclaimer...

That isn’t me being full of myself, it was an actual thing.

Whoomp, there it is!

To say that I’ve become disenfranchised with academia is an understatement.

I see Tom's still having trouble with synonyms. ('Disenchanted' is the word you're groping for, lad).

Over 1,500 words to say what he could have said in 200, and in the same self-aggrandising style he's always used. Looks like he hasn't changed as much as he thinks.

[merkavah12]

Aug 25, 2014 6:34:34 GMT fortigurn said:

Saw this a few days ago, but since it's been slow on this forum I thought I would post it here today. Briefly, Verenna's glorious career as a leading scholar in Biblical studies will no longer come to pass; he is now considering an academic career in American history.

...who is Thomas Verenna? I tried to find information on him but they either were, a. Blind links or b. Were 'Noodle Incidents' that require that the reader KNOW what the previous issue was but will make no effort to explain what happened previously.

[ignorantianescia]

Aug 25, 2014 13:57:57 GMT evangelion said:

To say that I’ve become disenfranchised with academia is an understatement.

I see Tom's still having trouble with synonyms. ('Disenchanted' is the word you're groping for, lad).

Over 1,500 words to say what he could have said in 200, and in the same self-aggrandising style he's always used. Looks like he hasn't changed as much as he thinks.

Though with prose and an attitude and a history like that, you'd hope he'd become disenfranchised from academia. Though merely making that joke might cause the mythicist persecution complex to flare up.

Aug 25, 2014 14:09:56 GMT merkavah12 said:

Aug 25, 2014 6:34:34 GMT fortigurn said:

Saw this a few days ago, but since it's been slow on this forum I thought I would post it here today. Briefly, Verenna's glorious career as a leading scholar in Biblical studies will no longer come to pass; he is now considering an academic career in American history.

...who is Thomas Verenna? I tried to find information on him but they either were, a. Blind links or b. Were 'Noodle Incidents' that require that the reader KNOW what the previous issue was but will make no effort to explain what happened previously.

The question has been dealt with in this topic and it probably is the best way to get up to date with it. Some other sources are a little more rough on the guy than this forum.

jameshannam.proboards.com/thread/1182/historical-jesus-agnosticism

[merkavah12]

Aug 25, 2014 17:26:36 GMT ignorantianescia said:

The question has been dealt with in this topic and it probably is the best way to get up to date with it. Some other sources are a little more rough on the guy than this forum.

jameshannam.proboards.com/thread/1182/historical-jesus-agnosticism

.


MFW I read this in that link:

"Verenna is Rook Hawkins"






Oh good gravy, now I know why Verenna's obnoxious writing style was so familiar....

[ignorantianescia]

That Verenna will now let the discipline be is good news. Nobody could ever be better off if he would still produce chimeras like that article for Bible and Interpretation.

www.bibleinterp.com/PDFs/Response.pdf

Consider this statement made by Sanders; ‘we know more about Jesus than about Alexander [the Great]’ and ‘The sources for Jesus are better…than those that deal with Alexander.’28 This association is just simply unreasonable. In order to make such a statement, Sanders needs to ignore large amounts of archaeological, epigraphic, and reliable textual data while, at the same time, favoring less accurate, highly problematic textual data which does not survive in any original form and has undergone redactions, copying, and rewrites over thousands of years.

For the sake of argument alone, if one takes into account all the evidence for Alexander the Great, a well-documented and attested figure in history, there is simply no comparison between him and the figure of Jesus. Take any one Gospel (or all four, if one would prefer) and examine it next to Arrian's history of Alexander’s campaigns. Even as late as he is, Arrian uses methods that surpass those (if any at all) used by the Gospel authors. Arrian compares his sources which consisted of eyewitness (actual written) accounts from Alexander's generals (he explicitly cites his sources, even if they are now lost) and tells us why he is choosing one account of an event over the other, or why one seems to hold more weight.29 Further, many of the citations Arrian uses are known from other contemporary and later sources.30 In addition to Arrian's work, there are still perhaps hundreds of extant contemporary attestations of Alexander the Great from manuscripts,31 artwork (busts), coins, and inscriptions.32 If we had this sort of evidence for Jesus' life and ministry, there would be no need to write this paper, and that is precisely the point.

Now, one may make the argument that we cannot expect this sort of evidence for a historical Jesus, as he'd be relatively insignificant compared to a figure such as Alexander the Great. That's very true, assuming a historical, itinerant, impoverished Jesus as laid out by some historical Jesus scholars. Granting this objection’s validity, there is an obvious contradiction. Why would any scholar so desire to suggest, erroneously, that the evidence for a historical Jesus is greater than that of Alexander when the fact is, quite clearly, the evidence for Alexander is so superior to that of any provided for Jesus? Not only is it superior, but it is improbable—near impossible perhaps—that a historian should expect anything similar between Alexander and an insignificant historical Jesus as far as evidence goes.

The pages from which Verenna took those quotes (3 and 4) can be viewed on Amazon. It is clear that Verenna quote-mined them, because Sanders was only saying it in a discussion of reconstructing Jesus' (theological) thought and admitted himself that Alexander was far more politically influential. It is a disgraceful straw man against a world-class scholar. (Even if we allow that Sanders could have couched it in much more careful language.) So his 'refutation' is pointless.

[timoneill]

Aug 25, 2014 6:34:34 GMT fortigurn said:

Verenna's glorious career as a leading scholar in Biblical studies will no longer come to pass; he is now considering an academic career in American history.

All I can say is 'Biblical studies' loss is American history's ... loss.'

We will all miss malapropisms like "To say that I’ve become disenfranchised [sic] with academia is an understatement."

[jamierobertson]

Ed Babinski has asked Verenna to leave his blog available online for posterity. You can always judge a company...

[evangelion]

Aug 28, 2014 13:14:25 GMT jamierobertson said:

Ed Babinski has asked Verenna to leave his blog available online for posterity. You can always judge a company...

Hell, I would have asked him to keep it online. Comedy like that doesn't come round too often.