On Joseph Atwill and Dovid Gottlieb

Larry Hurtado has written a post addressing the crazy claims by conspiracy theorists like Joseph Atwill.
http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/flimflam-of-the-month-covert-christianity/
and analyzed by Nick Peters:
http://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/thoughts-on-joseph-atwill/

While reading through his description of Joseph Atwill and other conspiracy theorists, it struck me how similar this is to Dovid Gottlieb and his Kuzari Principle argument.

Where does this stuff come from?  I just got an email asking about a guy self-described as a “biblical scholar” with a new (to me) notion:  Jesus, Christianity & the NT were all invented by the Roman government for the purpose of quieting the Jews from their interest in militant messianism.  He calls it “Covert Christianity.”

And, no, I haven’t heard of the guy before either (Joseph Atwill), largely because, well, he’s a nobody in the field of biblical studies.  No PhD in the subject (or related subject), never held an academic post, never (so far as I can tell) published anything in any reputable journal that’s peer-reviewed, or in any reputable monograph series, or presented at any academic conference where competent people could assess his claims.  Instead, per the flimflam drill, he directs his claims to the general public, knowing that they are unable to assess them, and so, by sheer novelty of the claim he hopes to attract a crowd, sales, and publicity.  It’s a living, I guess (of sorts).

So, again, for those who care, it’s wise to consider who is making the claims when you hear them made.  Atwill knows he can’t get to first base on his crazy claims with anyone competent in the field.  So, he “goes public”, i.e., dodges the scholarly process by which ideas are tested and challenged before being accepted.  But he’ll probably get a TV programme out of it.  It seems actually to help to propose something kind of weird like this.  And when asked why scholars don’t accept it, you respond (yup, you guessed it) “It’s an academic conspiracy to keep these things from the public.” Sigh!

(Oh well, as a colleague noted, if Jesus was invented by the Romans, then, obviously, he couldn’t have been married to Mary Magdalene!  I love when the weirdo-theories people cancel each other out.)

 Most of these apply just as well to Dovid Gottlieb and his Kuzari argument. None of the Old Testament historians I have met have even heard of him, let alone his argument. He doesn't have a doctorate in a related field (Mathematical Logic is not relevant to Philosophy of History or Ancient History). I could not find any articles in a search of peer-reviewed journals in history or in religion. The only thing I could find was one history article which cites Gottlieb's book as a biased account against which he compared more objective accounts of the event. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23266308

 In saying why he doesn’t bother with it that much, Hurtado says that

It’s not necesssary to engage something so self-evidently unfounded and incompetent. If his press releases at all reflect his stance, it’s not worth the time. We scholars have enough to do engaging work that is by people with some competence. There isn’t time or value in dealing with nonsense. And Atwill and his ilk don’t really want scholarly engagement anyway. Again, let it go.

And when told Atwill would want scholarly engagement Hurtado says

No. He wouldn’t. Otherwise, he wouldn’t avoid the normal scholarly venues to test theories. These people know that they would be shredded by competent scholars.

 The same criticisms can be leveled against Dovid Gottlieb. If he really wanted scholarly engagement, he would not have bypassed the scholarly venues that test theories and tried to hock his theory on the public.