Jesus the Man

[Asolepius]

I have just finished reading this book by Barbara Thiering. Apparently she wrote an earlier one on the same theme. Has anyone else here read either? I searched the forum and only found one post. I'm really interested in hearing what others think of her methodology. She bases her interpretation of the gospels and the Dead Sea Scrolls on the `pesher', which is an accurate subtext discoverable when one knows the true meaning of the words used. Are there any other historians who are authorities on this? I found some of her extrapolations a bit implausible, but overall it seemed a reasonably cogent argument.

[jjramsey]

I searched for comments on Thiering's work and tried to avoid the obvious objections of conservative Christians. This is what I've found so far:

A review "Geering on Thiering" (http://sof.wellington.net.nz/geerthie.htm) by Lloyd Geering (http://www.westarinstitute.org/Fellows/Geering/geering.html), who is a very liberal Christian and a "Sea of Faither (http://sof.wellington.net.nz/ukfaq.htm)." He writes,

Why is Barbara Thiering so convinced? It is chiefly because of what she maintains is the absolute consistency which operates whenever she applies the clues she has painstakingly uncovered. She speaks of "the very rigorous test of consistency", and of a "very highly structured system" used by the Pesharists.

She invites readers to test this consistency for themselves.

When we do so, we find her argumentation extremely unclear. She arrived at her hidden "facts" only by a process of selectivity which ignores all contrary evidence. Like the Qumran monks before her, the "facts" she finds in the texts "are not really there." She claims to have uncovered evidence of new historical facts; no reputable historian would dream of writing history on the basis of this kind of evidence.

A review of Thiering's Jesus of the Apocalypse. The Life of Jesus after the Crucifixion (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/5490/jotarev.htm) by James F. McGrath (http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/cv.htm), who is also a very liberal Christian, as can be evidenced from what he wrote on the Lukan census (http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/jesus/quirinius.htm). He writes,

As it stands, scholars of both the New Testament and early Judaism will find themselves compelled to reject Thiering's thesis, not because she is bringing to light new and controversial insights which challenge the way people think about Jesus and early Christianity, but because she is reading things into these ancient texts without any evidential basis whatsoever. Not that Thiering is wrong to suggest that the Apocalypse itself suggests a symbolic reading (pp.xiixiii); but as most scholars would agree, proposed interpretations of the symbols should be those suggested by the text itself, and not those formed in the imagination of the interpreter and then imposed on the text.

Carbon dating appears to be a problem for her thesis. See here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/1465
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/1555