I think it goes without saying that Buddhist scholars agree that nowhere in the Pali canon (the nikayas) does the Buddha give an unambiguous, outright denial of atta/atman. All that the Buddha rejects is the belief that sees the atta/atman in the temporal and finite earthly personality referred to in Buddhism as the five khandhas/skandhas (aggregates).
That some leading scholars have become almost atman-deniers doesn't speak all that well of their critical thinking skills for reasons which I can only speculate. Somewhat helpful, back in 2006 (on Wikipedia, Talk:Anatta/Archive2, most of the 99 pages now lost which I have, fortunately, managed to keep) the Buddhist scholar and translator Stephen Hodge wrote:
Here I shall first let you into a little secret. The majority of people who translate pre-modern/religious texts start out with a theory of meaning. They have consciously or unconsciously decided in advance what the text ought to say, especially if they are members of the same faith body that reveres the texts they are translating. Thus, in the case of Pali texts, most translators, like Bhikkhu Bodhi, Maurice Walshe or Nanamoli, adopt and apply the prevailing Theravadin assumptions to their translations.
And I think here is the nub of the problem: A failure to let the words of the Buddha speak, clearly, for themselves before drawing any conclusions. Instead, Buddhist scholars “have consciously or unconsciously decided in advance what the text ought to say.” Moreover, Buddhist scholarship has become a peer-to-peer echo chamber.
Those scholars who are not included in this echo chamber are soon forgotten—erased from public memory whose works are hidden in academic libraries which students rarely visit these days.
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