Earl Doherty

Earl Doherty does me a solid.

The review Earl is responding to, by an evangelical Christian and professional apologist, is something I've been made aware of but haven't invested the time to pore through. I confess a lack of patience when it comes to critiques fueled by religious fanaticism, especially when the pieces are thousands of words long. Life is too short and all that.

But such laziness does not afflict Earl Doherty. I am always impressed by the man's patience in the face of the illogic on the other side. On his side, Earl has a theory, the Christ Myth theory, that simply, elegantly and honestly explains the evidence we have about early Christianity. It all fits. On the other side, the Christian apologists are constantly scrambling to patch holes and bail water to keep the increasingly failing ship called Historical Jesus afloat. The evidence simply doesn't fit, and ultimately they're left mainly with an appeal to the supernatural.

Still, it is this other side that currently has a hold, however tenuous, on the "consensus of experts" on the matter of Jesus' historicity. It must be frustrating for Earl to have the equivalent of "the sun revolves around Earth" stand as an accepted theory while his better theory sits right out there, fully supported by evidence and logic, yet unsupported by the establishment. Still, Earl keeps plugging away, and keeps his cool while doing it.

Thanks, Earl, for taking the time to deal with anti-intellectuals so divorced from reality that they use the word "skeptical" as a pejorative.