oa [Contra Merz. Een repliek op A. Merz’ artikel ‘Ein Jesus ohne “spin” und “special effects” ’, Contra Merz]

This is a reply to a paper by A. Merz, Ein Jesus ohne ‘spin’ und ‘special effects’, in which she states that my 2008 book Jezus van Nazaret is a methodological failure. I want to show that Merz reaches this conclusion by unfair methods. First: she characterizes my argumentation in a general way as ‘implausible’ but never mentions the content of my arguments, let alone discusses them. Second: whenever I quote established theologians whose ideas I used, Merz systematically avoids mentioning their names, instead proceeds as if these ideas are mine – which gives her the academic freedom to belittle them. Third: she paraphrases my text in mocking hyperboles, thereby misleading the reader. Merz’s goal is apologetic: she tries to undermine the image of Jesus I presented in my book.