To the editors:
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Secondly, the reason that I selected the “barrage” of names was, as the letter stated, to offer a set of exempla which demonstrate the fact that there is no scholarly consensus on the “facts” Mr. Sheehan claims. Mr. McClory’s response in this latter respect sounds quite shrill, unless he is willing to admit that three men (including Sheehan) make for a consensus in a field where thousands labor.
As for example of this lack of scholarly unity (since Mr. McClory obviously still has not done his “homework”), I will leave you with a quotation taken from Mr. Mack’s Myth of Innocence (Philadephia: Fortress Press, 1988), p. 10, n. 4, which offers a summary of the current state of debate regarding the circumstances which led to Jesus’ death. (I should also mention that I am not particularly sanguine about Mr. Mack’s general thesis nor all of the evaluations he makes in the subsequent note, but I believe that all that is necessary is to demonstrate a lack of consensus–which this quote manifestly does.)
J. Andrew Foster
