R. Joseph Hoffmann

R. Joseph Hoffmann is a historian of religion, chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, Associate Editor of the journal "Free Inquiry"fact|date=October 2008 and editor of CSER's review, "CAESAR".fact|date=October 2008 Hoffmann has promoted a controversial thesis regarding the role and dating of Marcion in the history of the New Testament canon, and has also produced reconstructions of fragmentary works by ancient pagan opponents of Christianity.

Biography

Hoffmann received his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford, submitting his thesis on the heretic Marcion in 1982. [cite web |title=Marcion : on the restitution of Christianity : an essay on the development of radical Paulinist theology in the second century |work=OLIS web OPAC |url=http://library.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/record_display_link.pl?id=11968695 |accessdate=2008-10-05 ] He served during the 1980s as an assistant professor at the University of Michigan.cite news |author=R. Joseph Hoffmann |date=April 3 2006 |title=Old Borders Bookstore Would Sell Our Magazine, Muhammad Cartoons and All |publisher=Religion News Service |format=LexisNexis reprint |accessdate=2008-10-04 ] In 1990, he was a professor of humanities at California State University. [cite news |author=Anthony DePalma |date=August 5 1990 |title=A Special Report: Hot Potatoes; The Fourth R |work=The New York Times |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2D8123EF936A3575BC0A966958260 |accessdate=2008-10-04 ] He also taught at the American University of Beirut, Westminster College in Oxford, and Africa University in Zimbabwe. He later became a visiting professor of religion at Wells College, where he was appointed to a tenure-track position by 2005.cite news |date=29 September 2005 |title=Wells announces appointments |work=The Post-Standard |format=LexisNexis reprint |accessdate=2008-10-04 ]

Hoffmann is chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion,cite news |date=March 30 2006 |title=Magazine with Prophet toons shunned |work=The Times of India |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1470320,flstry-1.cms |accessdate=2008-10-04 ] and was senior vice president of its parent organisation, the Center for Inquiry.cite news |author=David Abel |date=September 16 2007 |title=The Nonbelievers |work=The Boston Globe |format=LexisNexis reprint |accessdate=2008-10-04 ] He contributed a commentary article to "Free Inquiry" magazine to accompany their reprints of the controversial "Jyllands-Posten" Muhammad cartoons in 2006. When Borders bookstores decided not to stock that issue of the magazine, he wrote an article unfavourably contrasting the chain's unwillingness to take a risk with the attitude of its original store in Ann Arbor, which he had visited while teaching at Michigan during the 1980s. Later that year he took the "contra" position toward the existence of God in a debate at Florida State University with Richard Swinburne, formerly the Nolloth Professor of Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oxford. [cite news |author=Jared Kelly |date=November 6 2006 |title=Existence of God debated at Florida State U. |publisher=University Wire |format=LexisNexis reprint |accessdate=2008-10-04 ]

Hoffmann welcomed the attention drawn to debates about early Christianity by the documentary film "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" (2007), but rejected the filmmakers' conclusion that the Talpiot Tomb was the burial place of Jesus and his family. [cite news |author=Jay Tolson |date=February 27 2007 |title=Revision for the Greatest Story Ever Told? |work=U.S. News & World Report |url=http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070227/27jesus.htm |accessdate=2008-10-04 ] He drew online attention with an open letter alleging that Harvard University's Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein was promoting "Gen-X humanism" and abusing his link to Harvard for publicity purposes, after Epstein had criticised the work of atheist authors Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. [cite news |author=Lisa Miller |date=June 18 2007 |title=BeliefWatch: Smackdown |work=Newsweek |format=LexisNexis reprint |accessdate=2008-10-04 ]

Scholarly work

Marcion

Hoffmann's 1982 doctoral thesis, "Marcion: On the Restitution of Christianity", was published in 1984. His assessment that Marcion must be dated substantially before the dates assigned on the basis of patristic testimony bore significant implications for the dating of the New Testament canon and the origins of the gospel traditions. According to Hoffmann, Marcion possessed the earliest version of Luke and preserved the primitive version of Paul's letters.

Reviews of the Marcion reflected the controversial nature of the work. J. L. Houlden commended Hoffmann's skill in "reading between the lines" of Marcion's ancient critics and called the book "a model of how doctrinal history should now be written", [cite journal |author=J. L. Houlden |date=August 1984 |title=Marcion revisited |journal=Expository Times |volume=95 |issue=11 |pages=345 ] while George E. Saint-Laurent concluded, " [H] ereafter Marcion's positive contribution to the mainstream tradition of Catholic-Orthodox Christianity so far as the decisive role of Paul is concerned will have to be acknowledged." [cite journal |author=George E. Saint-Laurent |date=Spring 1986 |quotes=no |title=Review of "Marcion" |journal=Journal of the American Academy of Religion |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=176–177 ] Other reviewers thought that Hoffmann's examination of the evidence was valuable but that his conclusions could only be regarded as speculative. [cite journal |author=Robert B. Eno |date=March 1985 |quotes=no |title=Review of "Marcion" |journal=Theological Studies |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=173–174 ] [cite journal |author=LeMoine G. Lewis |date=June 1985 |quotes=no |title=Review of "Marcion" |journal=Church History |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=230 ] The book received a very negative assessment from C. P. Bammel, who accused the author of numerous historical errors and misinterpretations of patristic texts. [cite journal |author=C. P. Bammel |date=April 1988 |quotes=no |title=Review of "Marcion" |journal=Journal of Theological Studies |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=227–232 ] In a book published in 1993, Bart D. Ehrman wrote that Hoffmann's "Marcion" had "not been well received". [cite book |author=Bart D. Ehrman |authorlink=Bart D. Ehrman |origyear=1993 |year=1996 |title=The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=0-19-510279-7 |pages=p. 245 n. 22 ]

Hoffmann responded to critics of the "Marcion" in a special issue of "The Second Century". [cite journal |author=R. Joseph Hoffmann |date=1987/88 |title=How Then Know This Troublous Teacher? Further Reflections on Marcion and his Church |journal=Second Century |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=173–191 ] His thesis has since been revisited by New Testament scholars including David Trobisch and Joseph Tyson. [cite book |author=David Trobisch |year=2000 |title=The First Edition of the New Testament |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=0-19-511240-7 ] [cite book |author=Joseph B. Tyson |year=2006 |title=Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |location=Columbia |isbn=1-57003-650-0 ]

Ancient critics of Christianity

Hoffmann has also produced reconstructions in English of several pagan opponents of Christianity: Celsus (1987), Porphyry (1994) and Julian the Apostate (2004). Reviews of the Celsus were mixed with one critic suggesting that the translation improved Celsus' arguments. [cite journal |author=Joseph W. Trigg |date=1988 |quotes=no |title=Review of "Celsus" |journal=Church History |volume=57 |pages=353–354 |url=http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/celsus/celsus.htm |accessdate=2008-10-05 ]

The Porphyry contained a new translation of the fragments of an unknown pagan critic of Christianity preserved by the writer Macarius Magnes, previously translated into English by W. Crafer. [Porphyry's Against the Christians : the literary remains / ed. and transl. with an introd. and epilogue by R. Joseph Hoffmann. Amherst (N. Y.) : Prometheus Books, 1994. 181 p. || JNStud 1997-1998 6 (2) : 115-126 Douglas P. Lackey. ] The argument that the pagan critic was Porphyry was first advanced by the historian Adolph von Harnack.

Selected works

*"Marcion: On the Restitution of Christianity", author, (Scholars Press, August 1984), Oxford University Press, 1995), ISBN 0891306382
*"Celsus: On the True Doctrine", translator, editor, (Oxford University Press, February 19, 1987) ISBN 0195041518
*"What the Bible Really Says", editor, with Morton Smith (Harper and Row, May 1993)ISBN 0060674431
*"The Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam", editor, (Prometheus Books, January 2, 2006) ISBN 1591023718
*"Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History?", introduction, (Prometheus Books, April 21, 2006) ISBN 159102370X
* "Myth and Christianity: A New Introduction," in Karl Jaspers and Rudolf Bultmann, "Myth and Christianity: An Inquiry into the Possibility of Religion Without Myth", (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, May 6, 2005), ISBN 1591022916
* "Beyond the Discontinuity Paradigm: Towards a Pan-African Church History", "Journal of Religious History", 21 (2), 136–158. Blackwell Publishing
*"Julian's Against the Galileans", editor and translator, (Prometheus Books, November 2004) ISBN 1591021987
*"The Secret Gospels: A Harmony of Apocryphal Jesus Traditions"] , editor, (Prometheus Books, April 1996) ISBN 157392069X
*"Porphyry's Against the Christians: The Literary Remains", editor and translator, (Prometheus Books, July 1994) ISBN 0879758899
*"Jesus Outside the Gospels", author, (Prometheus Books, February 1987) ISBN 0879753870

References

External links

* [http://www.centerforinquiry.net/cser CSER]
* [http://www.centerforinquiry.net Center for Inquiry Transnational]
* [http://www.pointofinquiry.org/?p=51 Point of Inquiry - RJH - "Examining the Da Vinci Code"]
* [http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/celsus/celsus.htm Unfavorable examination of selected passages from the Celsus]
* [http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/porphyry/hoffmann.htm Review of the Porphyry translation]
* [http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=205 Response to review of Celsus translation]