Hi Michael,
Thanks for taking the time to respond to me. My earlier responses to your book have to be understood as primarily responses to Vincent’s long essay, which summarized your book’s arguments as a “bombshell” that completely demolished the historical case for the Resurrection. Thus, it would be incorrect to accuse me of arguing from authority. Rather, I am asking Vincent to apply a higher standard of judgment. The implication of Vincent’s post, as I took it, is that no respected historian should ever defend the Resurrection from historical grounds. This is a strong conclusion that only someone actually working in the field of NT history can credibly make. It implies that people like NT Wright and Mike Licona are going to become fringe figures in the field if they do not immediately recant their earlier work defending their Resurrection. Only an authoritative scholar who has a clear idea of what is intellectually respectable within the field can make such a judgment.
Now, even if one is not a professional historian, one can make judgments about history. However, the bar is higher. One has to demonstrate that despite being an outsider, one has the same level of competency as an insider. One way of doing this is by putting forth a clear, rigorous historical methodology that is consistent with what the rest of the field uses, and showing that one is familiar with the literature of the field. I did not see this in Vincent’s post summarizing your book, nor in his subsequent replies in his thread. Perhaps you do have a section in your book doing just this, but Vincent missed it. If that is the case, then feel free to correct me.
Instead, Vincent argued mainly based on his own logic (inspired by your book), while constantly claiming that “this is what an impartial, independent historian would claim.” Apart from the issue of whether Vincent’s logical arguments have some merit, because he is not a historian in this field, his pronouncements that your book is a “bombshell” for the field of Resurrection historical studies fall flat.
Daniel