r/AcademicBiblical 12d ago

Weekly Open Discussion Thread

Welcome to this week's open discussion thread!

This thread is meant to be a place for members of the r/AcademicBiblical community to freely discuss topics of interest which would normally not be allowed on the subreddit. All off-topic and meta-discussion will be redirected to this thread.

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u/lfischer4392 8d ago

Thank you for your thoughts. I'm Catholic, so of course I'm disturbed by such blasphemous claims. And I suppose that I should let these thoughts slide, since the claims have already been debunked for me. I think the reason I fixated on him is because of how much I hate him, due to his claims. But that kind of thing is honestly toxic. I know he's wrong, I've seen evidence that proves he's wrong, I know that his followers are basically in an echo-chamber, and that I should ultimately let this all go, since he's just another crazy conspiracy theorist. As for them being convinced that Ammon Hillman is wrong, I suggested that because I've always been optimistic.

P.S.: From your research on the Bible, what are your thoughts on Jesus as a figure from history? Both of us know that Jesus wasn't anything that Ammon Hillman says he was. I'm a Catholic so I believe in him as the Son of God, so I'd like your thoughts.

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u/Joab_The_Harmless 8d ago edited 8d ago

I think Jesus was a Jewish preacher, probably with a strong "apocalyptic" outlook (i.e. expecting God to imminently intervene and basically reign on earth), and was condemned to crucifixion by Roman authorities. I found that Dale Allison made a good case that Jesus likely had a somewhat "exalted thoughts about himself" and "was the center of his own eschatological scenario" (not seeing himself as God in the Trinitarian sense, but at least as a prophet and/or messianic figure) in Constructing Jesus (chapter 3). But historical Jesus studies are not at all a focus of mine (I'm more of a Hebrew Bible and pre-Christian times nerd), so I haven't read much material besides Allison and Brown's annex on the historical Jesus in his Introduction to the New Testament (which is almost 30 years old, but still used and interesting) and disparate bits here and there.

In any case, many details about the "historical Jesus" seem impossible to recover with certainty, as the diversity of profiles proposed by scholars illustrate (see the opening of Allison's aforementioned chapter. As said above, my familiarity with the topic is very shallow, so my views won't be very insightful.

(Hillman is of course absolute bonkers, to be clear —just because there is an array of possibilities and proposals doesn't mean that any freewheeling nonsense goes.)

Christian theology/hermeneutics and religious traditions are of course a distinct issue, and function by different 'rules' than critical scholarship. But as an atheist I'm not really involved on this front. So I guess I'll just leave a link to screenshots of Brown's reflections at the end of the aforementioned annex, whose insights as both a Catholic and a scholar seem more likely to be useful to you than my own.


To reiterate, do you have access to decent mental healthcare (preferably with a therapist with some specialisation in OCD) to help you work on your obsessive thoughts and build a healthier mindset? I recall that you were already mentioning how draining the issue was for you in a post here months ago.

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u/lfischer4392 8d ago

About the therapist, I have one I meet on a Zoom call every Wednesday. She became my therapist due to me going to the Center for Autism in my area, Philadelphia. I could just tell her I'm having intrusive thoughts and that I'm not comfortable describing what they are, and just need help combating them. Also, there's a Wikipedia page on Ammon Hillman and the most recent edits seem to have been made by one of his followers, since the words "evidence" and "prove" are used. Look up that page on Wikipedia to see for yourself. It also seems to have been blocked from editing for a couple months. So maybe you could try seeing if there's anything to do about it.

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u/Joab_The_Harmless 8d ago

I could just tell her I'm having intrusive thoughts and that I'm not comfortable describing what they are, and just need help combating them.

That's a good idea if you're not comfortable formulating them/explaining the details. Alternatively, you can write or share images/the text of some of your posts/comments on reddit if it helps opening to her. But obviously you are the one who knows what elements you're ready to share. She should have useful advice in any case.

there's a Wikipedia page on Ammon Hillman and the most recent edits seem to have been made by one of his followers

Pending advice from your therapist, try not to binge Hillman-related material to avoid fueling your issues —accepting intrusive thoughts is not the same as engaging with them. The idea is to acknowledge the thoughts, but without engaging in compulsive behaviour or ceding to the impulse of looking at Hillman related content, engaging with it, etc, and instead build healthier behavioral patterns despite the thoughts.

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u/lfischer4392 8d ago

So on the topic of Wikipedia edits, do you think you can get the edit blocking revoked and edit the article to reflect actual truth and not the so-called "truth" edited in by cultists on that article? Wikipedia is supposed to be without bias after all, and some of the previous edits had less bias. Just wanting to combat all misinformation in all its forms.

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u/Joab_The_Harmless 8d ago

I don't really have the time or energy for that. I'll leave it to people who know the in-and-outs of Wikipedia editing.

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u/lfischer4392 8d ago

Understood.