The Brain that Wasn’t There

You’ve probably never heard of Brian Flemming. Especially if you’re a biblical scholar, a philosopher, a historian, or an intellectually responsible person. But apparently he’s a bit of a hero. Here’s a gem from his website, about the absolutely wonderful glorious masterpeice of scholarship (I’m being as fair as the video itself), The God Who Wasn’t There:

“Bowling for Columbine did it to the gun culture.

Super Size Me did it to fast food.

Now The God Who Wasn’t There does it to religion.”

Be afraid. It’s right up there with Michael Moore!

The thesis of the video is that Jesus never existed. Not merely was He not divine, not merely is Christianity wrong about many things, but there was never ever a Jesus of Nazereth, says Flemming. To prove that he’s really serious about reputable scholarship on New Testament history, he draws on such names as Richard Dawkins (move over N.T. Wright!) and Robert Price of the (wait for it) Jesus Seminar.

Stop Laughing. It gets better.

As some people who have offered to debate Flemming on the issue have discovered (thanks for the link, Dee Dee), he’s not exactly interested in defending his claims. Before he decides that anyone is worthy of his time, they must first sign a noterized statement of faith. They must agree to the following:

Take note. In order to debate whether or not God or the Holy Spirit did anything in the formation of Christianity (such as, say, sending Jesus into the world, and having Him rise from the dead), a person must first agree that those things never happened.

What’s amusing for a guy who has presumed to make a documentary about the “alleged” life of Christ is that in the first version of the statement, point 3 read: “I believe there are no written eyewitness accounts of the existence of Jesus Christ.” Six days later he posted this new version. Maybe someone handed him a copy of the New Testament for the first time?

In any case, my suspicion is that Mr Flemming’s – statement of faith will do its job, and he will be nicely protected from ever having to debate the issue.