For those who defend Fox News

[Sava]

Fox news was practically the only station that said things that even approximated accuracy. CNN was a ****ing ****show

Fox News was running with the NY Post story that incorrectly identified the bombers. So yeah.

[Hauldren Collider]

Fox News was running with the NY Post story that incorrectly identified the bombers. So yeah.

Really? Nevermind then. I thought that was ABC.

The NY Post was ridiculous. I hope they got sued by someone for libel.

[Imran Siddiqui]

What was he supposed to say?"Nu-uhh"?

ACK!

A very simple answer would have been to state that Islam believes that Jesus is a major prophet as well, but his book actually didn't advance the Muslim view of Christ either. And then say he has degrees in religious studies and he found the story of Jesus to be fascinating. Then go on to how his book is different. Basic stuff.

Not start going all affronted and talking about his numerous degrees (none in history, though, mind - and "his job" btw is a Professor of Creative Writing, I'm not making this up, not history of Early Christianity).

[Sava]

Really? Nevermind then. I thought that was ABC.

The NY Post was ridiculous. I hope they got sued by someone for libel.

Pretty much everyone was going nuts in the wake of the bombing. Those first couple days were ridiculous. I do recall FOX being better than the likes of CNN and MSNBC. But they certainly had their own mistakes.

[Elok]

This is a fairly generic critique that can be applied to nearly any historical study.

Not to anywhere near the same extent. For some historical figures of interest--e.g., Charlemagne--there are copious sources to draw from, so scholars have something to work with. For others--e.g. Homer--we have a serious shortage of information, and scholars accept that anything they say about these people will be tenuous. Jesus is neither. There's a great deal of documentation about Him, but 99% of it is in gospels (canonical or otherwise). The first thing a secular historian does with that information is to gut the miraculous elements, which unfortunately leaves you with half of a story. The Jesus of the gospels won some people over with words, but the bulk of His following was due to the miracles. Likewise, the stated reason for His continuing to attract followers post-crucifixion--voluntary, self-sacrificial death and resurrection--is right out. You can go by what He said, but a big hunk of that is still in the context of miracles, as in the conversations with Jairus or the centurion.

What's left? A figure who attracted a large following in life for reasons unknown, and won an even bigger one posthumously on account of a pack of lies. You get a relative handful of lines of dialogue, plus a few non-miraculous actions like the driving-out of the moneychangers, to work with to fill in the gaps. What results is inevitably tenuous speculation. There are other, similar situations, like King Arthur, but at least with him historians say, "well, there could have been a chieftain near Wales around 500 or so, he might have lived in this hill-fort, and he may have had vassals named Owain and Peredur or something, but honestly all of this is guesswork. Try not to take it too seriously."

(in answer to "have I read this," no, but my agnostic dad is seriously into this stuff and my mom and I get to hear about the latest theories on an infuriatingly regular basis--and, seriously, look at this dude's credentials!)

[The Mad Monk]

Elok, did you check out my link? There's a lot of interesting information on dates and likely authorship of the various NT works. It's also from the viewpoint of a different faith (Baha'i), so the Divinity claim doesn't figure in as much.

[Wezil]

I like how taking out the miracles leaves half the story. I guess "story" would be the right word.

When looking for historical fact I thinking ditching the miracles would be a good first step.

[Dinner]

Indeed.

[DinoDoc]

Regarding the Man's credentials, it seems Elok was more correct than I would have guessed:

Reza Aslan Misrepresents His Scholarly Credentials

There is a bit of a hubbub in the interwebs about an interview conducted by Lauren Green, religion correspondent for Fox News Channel, with Reza Aslan, author of a new book on Jesus titled Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Our friend Joe Carter, over at GetReligion, has the basic story. Green launched the interview (available here in full) with a question about why a Muslim should want to write a book about Jesus. A reasonable question, and not a hostile one on its face–but by the end of the interview Green has returned to it in a somewhat more accusatory fashion. As Joe says, the interview is a mess. But as he also points out, Green’s critics are passing right by something far more interesting: that Aslan has misrepresented his scholarly credentials.

In fact, it is Aslan who immediately turns the interview into a cage match by reacting very defensively to Green’s first question. And here is where the misrepresentations begin. For roughly the first half of the interview Aslan dominates the exchange with assertions about himself that seem intended to delay the substance of the discussion:

I am a scholar of religions with four degrees including one in the New Testament . . . I am an expert with a Ph.D. in the history of religions . . . I am a professor of religions, including the New Testament–that’s what I do for a living, actually . . . To be clear, I want to emphasize one more time, I am a historian, I am a Ph.D. in the history of religions.

Later he complains that they are “debating the right of the scholar to write” the book rather than discussing the book. But the conversation took that turn thanks to Aslan, not Green! By the final minute he is saying of himself (and who really talks this way!?) that “I’m actually quite a prominent Muslim thinker in the United States.”

Aslan does have four degrees, as Joe Carter has noted: a 1995 B.A. in religion from Santa Clara University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa and wrote his senior thesis on “The Messianic Secret in the Gospel of Mark”; a 1999 Master of Theological Studies from Harvard; a 2002 Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from the University of Iowa; and a 2009 Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

None of these degrees is in history, so Aslan’s repeated claims that he has “a Ph.D. in the history of religions” and that he is “a historian” are false. Nor is “professor of religions” what he does “for a living.” He is an associate professor in the Creative Writing program at the University of California, Riverside, where his terminal MFA in fiction from Iowa is his relevant academic credential. It appears he has taught some courses on Islam in the past, and he may do so now, moonlighting from his creative writing duties at Riverside. Aslan has been a busy popular writer, and he is certainly a tireless self-promoter, but he is nowhere known in the academic world as a scholar of the history of religion. And a scholarly historian of early Christianity? Nope.

What about that Ph.D.? As already noted, it was in sociology. I have his dissertation in front of me. It is a 140-page work titled “Global Jihadism as a Transnational Social Movement: A Theoretical Framework.” If Aslan’s Ph.D. is the basis of a claim to scholarly credentials, he could plausibly claim to be an expert on social movements in twentieth-century Islam. He cannot plausibly claim, as he did to Lauren Green, that he is a “historian,” or is a “professor of religions” “for a living.”

It may be that Aslan sensed a tougher interview from Lauren Green than he is accustomed to. Hence he immediately went into high-dudgeon mode, and made the ten minutes all about her alleged disrespect of him and his alleged scholarly credentials. But in order to change the subject he told a string of gratuitous falsehoods about himself. Perhaps that master’s in fiction writing came in handy.

Is Aslan’s book worth reading? I have no idea. But he has earned enough distrust from me that I haven’t any interest in finding out.

[Elok]

Elok, did you check out my link? There's a lot of interesting information on dates and likely authorship of the various NT works. It's also from the viewpoint of a different faith (Baha'i), so the Divinity claim doesn't figure in as much.

Not exactly:

Bahá'u'lláh classifies Jesus Christ, Moses, Abraham, Muhammad, Zoroaster, the Báb, and Himself as Manifestations of God.[8] To understand the Bahá'í concept of the Manifestation, one must also understand the Bahá'í concepts of God, creation, and humanity.

I'd be interested in seeing the rationale used for some of these claims; the footnotes to ch. 4, on the actual life of Jesus, refer almost exclusively to a book by someone named Crossan. Note the abundance of the words "perhaps" and "speculate" throughout...

[Elok]

DD: I read that article--it's how I knew Aslan had issues. I didn't cite it here because I assumed a conservative Catholic blog would be pooh-poohed into oblivion on sight. Maybe you'll prove me wrong.

[kentonio]

He is an associate professor in the Creative Writing program at the University of California

So he is an expert in religion after all! /snark

[Elok]

Ah, would this be an opportunity to use your :golfclap: smiley? Or just ?

[Ben Kenobi]

none in history, though, mind - and "his job" btw is a Professor of Creative Writing, I'm not making this up, not history of Early Christianity.

To put it in perspective, I am more qualified to write such a book. As a work of fiction, it probably has some marginal value.

[Ben Kenobi]

I didn't cite it here because I assumed a conservative Catholic blog would be pooh-poohed into oblivion

Which blog? Always interested in new reading material.