Overprecision — excessive confidence in the accuracy of our beliefs — can have profound consequences, inflating investors’ valuation of their investments, leading physicians to gravitate too quickly to a diagnosis, even making people intolerant of dissenting views.
via People are overly confident in their own knowledge, despite errors.
Maybe this is why — well, just one of the many reasons — mythicists act the way they do, ever-so-confident in their own abilities while real scholars progress
You have a real thing about mythicists don’t you…
No…. yes. Just some. Not all. I like one, but…
Note to self – mythicism kills careers.
Indeed… http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2013/02/review-of-thomas-brodie-beyond-the-quest-for-the-historical-jesus.html
Ah what a mess the whole thing became. I do firmly believe that a religious bias in biblical studies blinds many to anything close to an objective discussion of the historical Jesus. For myself I have no problem with an historical Jesus but think that we can’t really get close to that person. So I stay away from that question and stick to literary questions. Sadly, as I’ve said before, Brodie’s book is very damaging for those of us associated with him. I was the last student of his to graduate before his “retirement” so literally days before the book came out hundreds of people saw him placing a robe over my head at a graduation ceremony. It’s hard to find a way forward when his name is so closely associated with all my work.
I cannot imagine that sort of situation. I agree about the historical Jesus and the sticking to literary questions. That’s my goal as it were.