Footnote 6 – Queries & Comments

On the other hand, Professor Neusner is easily hurt by what he perceives to be the callous remarks of other scholars despite his own sweet reasonableness and detached argument. For example, of the great New Testament scholar E.P. Sanders (who, incidentally, is a contributor to our Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism), Neusner writes, “Some of his writing is marred by personal animosity toward me … I do not in any measure reciprocate” (Judaic Law From Jesus to the Mishnah [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993]). Nonetheless, Neusner has called Sanders “gullible,” hardly a scholarly compliment.
Sanders is not the only New Testament scholar Neusner has attacked with this epithet: Harvard’s Helmut Koester has also been charged with being “gullible.” (Neusner, Tannatic Parallels? p. 171.)