Dr. Richard Carrier on the Mythical Jesus
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- Опубликовано: 5 июл 2024
- Richard Carrier's doctorate is in ancient history, with special emphasis on comparative mythologies. He's also a Biblical scholar and a Jesus mythicist. Here he is speaking at Zetiticon in Fargo North Dakota to explain that. We've known for a long time that the Jesus depicted in the Bible is not reflected in history. But where we once thought there was an actual rabbi on whom the legendary stories were based, it now seems that all that was made up out of nothing. There may have been people named Jesus living at that time, but it seems THAT Jesus never existed at all.
I see a lot of people taking Ehrman's position on this. But Earl Doherty, Richard Carrier, David Fitzgerald, and Robert Price are all mythicists who say they're disappointed in Ehrman; they say Ehrman is ignoring certain critical points. It doesn't matter to me whether you believe there was an actual heretical cult leader at the base of these legends, or whether you believe that Jesus' human history was manufactured later. At that matters to me is the reason why you believe whatever you do. Is it reason enough for me to believe it too?
Well put Aron
Ehrman's case is not as persuasive as he thinks it is. That said, I do side with him in that I think the more reasonable explanation to the origins of Christianity is that it emerged from the worship of a Jewish cult leader who was executed under Pilate - what Carrier might call his 'minimal historicist' option. It's the simplest, most textually evidential, and most contextually coherent - the signs of a good working hypothesis. I think too many of my fellow atheists focus too much on the question "Did Jesus exist?", rather than the question "How did Christianity begin?" I think from that ever-so-slightly different angle, the historicist option becomes more and more clear, even if it can never be proven (unless new archaeological evidence is found). Carrier makes excellent negative arguments, but like most mythicists, overstates his positive case for mythicism.
At the moment, the mythicist position is not the consensus opinion among historians. Thus it's going to be an uphill battle to convince others.
And rightfully so. I'm not convinced that there wasn't a historical Jesus.
The case for a historical King Arthur doesn't prove the existence of a Merlin, Camelot, Excalibur, or fifteenth century plate armor in the sixth century.
To my mind it is equally plausible for a fictional character to produce miracles as a real one. Therefore the historicity of Jesus is irrelevant.
Finding the name Harry Potter in the phone book does prove that wizards exist.
Great lecture by Carrier.
Many of us who no longer believe in Christianity, have come to our current mind set not simply through the writings of researchers like Carrier, but through years of bible study, logic, reason, and knowledge of who humans are and what we require in our lives. Carriers work is simply another nail in the coffin of Christian belief, one of many. The journey of leaving Christianity is a long one for many of us. It takes years to get to the point of realization that the bible is flawed, and that we can actually think for ourselves. That the Satan character cannot be blamed for every thought counter to the bibles teachings and is just a smoke screen to keep us from seeing the truth. Once you make that step, and start thinking for yourself without fear, is the start of the long journey to true knowledge.
The Problem is true believers will never admit they are wrong about their version of God. Whether that God is Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, or Vishnu once they have been indoctrinated since they were babies and all the authority figures tell them their myths are true they will not believe anything else with only a few exceptions.
@Contend4Truth Gerald Massey said it all in his essay on the gnostic Christ and the historical Jesus.
A giant red flag for accepting Jesus as a "real" person is the resurrection. Unless you believe in zombies that part of the story just screams fantasy. If that is fantasy then the rest of the story is suspect as well. I always thought of the resurrection as a metaphorical device built on to make a point. I thank Richard for doing all this work. It is definitely food for thought.
all the stories of Christianity go back to the cradle of Egypt were resurrection was always on a spiritual level, never a physical actual fact
No where in the Bible zombies are mentioned. You are making that up. Dick Carrier does the same thing. You are confused and have your facts all wrong.
has anybody else even come to the realization that Jesus's "ultimate sacrifice" was really cheap? he had a really bad Friday, napped til Sunday morning, and was hale and hardy again that day. he didn't give his life for our sins, he re-spawned less than 2 days later
+Randall Stevenson And seeing as God is all-knowing, Jesus probably knew he was going to be resurrected anyway (especially if you believe God and Jesus are one being).
+Randall Stevenson The story was interpolated with paganism and lies by Herodian Paul, Sadducee Josephus, and the Greek Gentile Luke, all whom had tremendous animosity towards the family of Joshua, his brothers are Jacob, Peter, and John. That is why the bible reads like a fairy tale and is unacceptable to any person with logic. Every aspect of the outlandish things written in the NT all have a factual basis that is regular and not fantastic. For example - many of the miracles stories started because of this metaphor - Joshua came to make the blind see - meaning that people were blind in knowledge and his teaching made them see clearly. The deaf hear - meaning that the ignorant had closed ears, but to whom "has ears let him hear." The lame walk - meaning that those who act in sin walk down the narrow path of the Way. Fed many people from one loaf of bread - this was because it was said that when Joshua blessed a piece of bread and gave it to a hungry man, he felt full because of the Holy Spirit. All these sayings which were based on word plays metaphors (very common in those times) were used by Herodian Paul, Sadducee Josephus, and the Greek Gentile Luke to trick the masses - and which they did because they knew how gullible the masses could be. You will not hear many people such as I who truly know the origin of all this mess, from a historical and political view point of the 1st century Judea. but even with all my learning, I am aware that the Christ is the true Christ, and his teaching doesn't have anything to do with outlandish things that are impossible for us to believe in. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are different versions of scripture that do not have the outlandish miracles in them, because in the true sect of Judaism they only observed truth, but the version handed down to us were from opposing sects who did not observe truth in the most strict of sense.
Now on your comment, you are correct - Joshua did not die for the sins of the world. He lived for the sins of the world. He was a suffering servant for his own salvation and righteousness, and example, not having anything to do with our sins. That doctrine we have today, based largely upon Paul, who was an enemy to the real apostles, and called himself an apostle by dishonesty, is not true, not correct, and something that should be thrown out. There was no risen in three days, nothing like that, it is all paganism written into the doctrine and lies, but after a rigorous study - here is the truth we can mix together. Joshua was crucified, but was allowed to be taken down, this was not uncommon, for an important figure to be let down from the cross. That is why all the gospels agree that he was on the cross for 6 hours, but none of them agree on the resurrection details, simply because it was not part of the true account of history. After he was let down from the cross, he was exiled with his father Joseph to England, and his wife Mary was also exiled to France. I know it is a lot to take in, but you can relax knowing that the truth is not stranger than fiction in this case. I am sorry that so many people lied to you and me, but I am here to reassure you that they are just liars and not much more.
Kevin Paul now, that made a whole lot more sense now that you've put it that way. certainly sounds more credible than the actual gospels.
RUclips search "Robert Sapolsky Dopamine Jackpot".
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions, - some one who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said, "The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church." On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success. (Robert Green Ingersoll in his essay "Individuality" 1873)
I'm pretty sure that's a bogus quote that would've gotten Magellan killed by the church of his time. timpanogos.wordpress.com/2015/02/21/misquote-of-the-moment-magellan-didnt-say-it-but-its-still-brilliant-shadow-on-the-moon/
Riiiight so he quotes the little horn system that lies “flat earth” and makes it look like Christianity
Street Warrior Jesus changed time?! How did he do that? How could anyone do that who was born prior to 4 BC and simultaneously after 6 CE?
Nor one account going to Egypt to escape Herod while another has them going to Jerusalem to get circumcised right in Herod's backyard if he were alive.
AronRa Yeah. Those two men didn't rule at the same time. It's a clear cut contradiction. I'm not sure how believers could possibly reconcile that blunder.
To be fair, both authors were trying to accomplish different things:
Matthew was euhemerizing Revelation 12 while Luke was using Josephus to try and connect it to actual history.
The Gooch "To be fair, both authors were trying to accomplish different things:"
It doesn't matter. Giving an explanation as to WHY it contradicts doesn't make it NOT a contradiction.
"Matthew was euhemerizing Revelation 12."
How is that possible considering that Revelation wasn't written until at least 95CE? If you believe early church tradition, that is.
I don't accept church dates for any book in the New Testament. The Church has a history of revising their own history for apologetic purposes.
When it comes to dating the bible, nobody is more full of shit than the Catholic Church.
There is no evidence of any of the Gospels existed in the first century, and revelation screams multiple authors between the first Jewish/Roman War & 200CE
If somebody had told me 10 years or so ago that Jesus probably didn't exist, I'd have said it was preposterous, of course he did. But my view of his existence has totally flipped on it's head, i now seriously doubt he ever existed.
Wrap a lie around a truth means the true parts are pointed to infer the lies aren't lies. Confirmation bias focuses on the true parts are skips over the lies, and so in one's own mind one feels valid. It is very difficult to change a mind, particularly if indoctrinated from child, reinforced with threat of loss of social connections (friends, family, community) and threat of eternal suffering. And so why religions persist. It is slowly eroding, more so in the better educated.
Philo's writings and the genuine Epistles are the key.
That's what happens with the free flow of information on the internet. The internet is where religious myths go to die.
bonnie43uk Sorry forf your loss of reason
Anytime Christians want to prove the truth of the bible, feel free: "Truly I tell you, Jesus replied, “if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask in prayer" (Matt. 21:21-22). Go ahead! Post your video to RUclips demonstrating your magic Jesus levitation powers! I'm ready to be impressed.
I find this topic exceedingly interesting. As a former xtian turned atheist some years ago, I really don't have a 'personal' dog in the fight. If there were a human Jesus then he was transformed into legend. Of course I don't buy such things as the miracle of a virgin birth. A pregnant woman isn't much of a miracle. Now Joseph magically being made pregnant and giving birth -- that would have been a miracle :-). At any rate, Dr. Carrier does make a very well presented case that it is probable that the human Jesus of the bible didn't exist. I'm currently working my way through his *On the Historicity of Jesus* for the third time now. Some of his arguments are quite persuasive while others are less so. Am I convinced? Well, I've been moved to accept that there aren't necessarily good reasons to assert that Jesus did exist and that it is entirely within the realm of *reasonable* possibility that he didn't without having a personal degree of certainty that would allow me to assert that there was no human Jesus. I do think it is at least just as likely that he didn't exist as he did.
Thanks AronRa -- it's a pleasure to hear a reasoned argument from an educated man.
Most of the comments here seem to be missing the point of the video, that Jesus was originally an angel, not a man.
Were is Jesus now? In the place he has been for a thousand years, in the fears, hearts and minds of superstitious ignorant children dreaming of superman to save them from the bereavement of mortality.
Religion is the oldest Virtual Reality (VR) game.
Being one who has seen and spoke with Jesus face to face... Jesus truly is the only begotten Son of the one true God. All of the denials in the world from the beginning of time cannot change that. Denial without providing evidence is not evidence. Beconing Jesus and not receiving him is not evidence either. When y'all sought no God and no Jesus with your heart, you find no God and Jesus, thus that is your own fault.
Having not received evidence is no evidence.
With all this, yet there will be a time when y'all shall see him, but alas, this occurs after you have shown your disbelief.
@@terryglenweaver While the absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, only the actual _presence_ of evidence is evidence of presence. You can claim to have seen and spoken with Jesus, but did anybody else witness this event? Is there any objective evidence to support the claim? For that matter, before it happened, did you _already_ believe? People of ALL faiths frequently claim similar experiences. Why should I believe your unsubstantiated claim over theirs? Moreover, I find it ironic that you would point out how Atheists who seek to confirm their beliefs (or lack thereof) will always fail to find evidence of God, BUT you utterly miss the fact that Theists who seek to confirm THEIR beliefs can always find something to CALL evidence, whether it actually is or not...because they _already_ believe it is. It isn't the job of the non-believers to be convinced; it is the job of the believers to SHOW the non-believers the EVIDENCE that convinced them.
+@@OmniphonProductions Mr Weaveer was lucky to have a private meeting.....hmmmm.... would appears that JC makes house calls but ensures there are no others presence. What a Personal Jesus he is...
@@BJBFOREST INDEED! ;)
Perhaps there will be a day where humanity can move past religion as a whole. Let’s hope that comes sooner than later :/
Awesome! Thanks AronRa and excellent production.Please post the Q&A is part II.
Everyone needs to share this everywhere!
I respect Ehrman, have read his books, including his latest, and have watched countless lectures, talks, debates, presentations and interviews on line. Regarding his total acceptance of the historicity of Jesus, which surprised me, I wonder how objective he is able to be at this time, on that specific topic. Ehrman's views have evolved from once being a fundamentalist to now being an admitted agnostic ("what you know") AND atheist ("what you believe"). It's quite a journey, and not that unusual these days, and his views continue to evolve. I suspect that it is difficult for him to take the "radical" step towards being a mythicist, due to his background, the present "consensus", and the fact that his wife is a theist, as are most of his friends, colleagues, and associates (Darwin faced a similar dilemma). But I also feel he is making the mistake of taking too much for granted based on the status quo. Richard Carrier stands at the forefront of serious, scholarly evaluation of the historicity issue, and has astutely opened the door towards bringing respectability to mythicism with his thoughtful thesis. He and his like-minded contemporaries (Earl Doherty, Richard Carrier, David Fitzgerald, and Robert Price), whom I have also followed, appear to be in a position to change the landscape that has been a mainstay for 2,000 years. I find Richard Carrier's arguments convincing, and revolutionary (though the hypothesis itself is not new). I think he is poised to be an important historian in his field of study. He appears to be breaking the mold of the historicity of "Jesus" being universally taken for granted.
BRAVOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AWESOME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MORE PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN THIS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ajs1031 All deserve the truth.
I've been waiting for this Upload!!! :) Thank you Aron!!!
Hi Dante it me alexis
Hi Alexis :)
Alexis Hammer Hi Alexis :)
why does everyone hate on this guy? i dont know much about him, but as a person who has a minor in biblical studies (which isnt really THAT much), he's got a really good amount of his facts straight. his greek and acknowledgment of the psudopigraphical books and how all of the forgeries were cycled through the majority of the letters, not to mention that it is quite true many of Paul's works were doctored after he wrote them are all pretty solid facts or atleast they are really easily supportable claims.
Christian apologists hate him for obvious reasons. I have no clue why (some) atheists hate him, as if it even mattered whether or not Jesus existed. To me, it's simply a matter of Occam's Razor: we know almost nothing about and have zero concrete evidence of the most important human who ever lived on this planet. I mean, come on. "Did Jesus really exist?" is a question that practically answers itself.
Atheists hate him because this piece of shit has done everything he can to divide atheists into two categories. The crazy ass "social justice warriors", and everyone else. They say if you aren't one of them, you are a rape supporter ,etc. Watch his atheist+ speech sometime and you will thoroughly understand our hatred. He literally says" it is us vs. them "over and over in it. Richard carrier ,Pz meyers , Rebecca Watson and the whole FTB crew ruined atheist conferences with their bullshit for years ,and it is just now dying out. Unfortunately they have even gotten to aronra, but luckily he keeps his FTB bullshit there ,where it belongs.
i dont understand why people try to group up atheists in the first place. like... i dont get what you mean by "anything he can do to divide atheists into two catagories" and so on. atheism is just the lack of belief in a god or superstitions, its not a religious group. atheists can be what ever the fuck they want, its non dogmatic lol
jon gillette Atheist+ is dogmatic,and that is what people hate about it. It tries to force people into believing a bunch of shit that has nothing to do with why we don't believe in god.
hmm, ill have to see it for myself. reguardless of how rediculous atheist+ might be, i still dont think it takes too much away from alot of what it talked about in this video
With Jesus, the miracles and the divinity ARE the story. To remove them and tell a story about a mortal human religious leader is to tell a different story about a different character.
It would be like telling a story about a human Clark Kent without the superpowers, without the alternate superhero persona and without the alien heritage. The story that would unfold and the character developed would be unrecognizable from the Marvel tales.
How about a human Dr. Who, removing the Tardis, the time travel, the regenerations and the part about being an alien from another world? You've gutted the original story and wind up telling a different tale about a different person.
There was a historical Dracula. Does that make the vampire any more real?
There was a historical Troy. Does that make the Iliad a historical document or Zeus real?
There may have been a historical King Arthur. Does that mean Excalibur is out there somewhere?
Even if the historical Jesus existed, his real story would bear no similarity to the Gospels, we'll never know anything about him and his existence would be moot.
Great analogies. Debating whether an "historical" Jesus existed strikes me as a completely pointless exercise given, as you say, it's the supernatural and divine aspects of the figure which are the most essential and the only support for those claims are the highly dubious accounts of the Gospels.
DC Comics dummy. Superman is from 'Detective Comics', not Marvel.
***** Opps. My bad. Sorry for my blasphemy.
DeistPaladin lol!
it was a pretty big gaffe to make lol
great talk. this guy is challenging many long held views that are unjustified upon closer scrutiny
Oh right it took thousands of years to finally figure out which no one did before that Jesus didn’t exist “probably not” according to the video 🤦. Still not quite sure…
Here’s some actual help if you truly want to study: ruclips.net/p/PLdbXyyVfVp-6TTHXK9aiIoFcBWWH59esb
ruclips.net/p/PL13eE2x3qhPmDJCPm9F2cjckCUdUSubU1
Richard may be an Atheism+ SJW (eww), but he's earned his PhD in this field, and it's good to get more info on the historicity of Jesus. I may not like the speaker's beliefs, but this presentation is solid and I approve of what he's saying *here* .
To all you "oh he's A+ he sux" ... remember to judge the argument separate from the one presenting the argument.
Being able to see these arguments separate from his A+ is what makes you better then the people on the A+ forums. If not, you are just as bad, if not, worse.
@malignor ... now 6 years later.
I appreciate your open mindedness. I urge you to read up on the "Silent Historians"..... writers in the early decades of the first century who WOULD have commented on such a rabble rousing rabbi if such a person existed in any of the ways described in the bible. No such commentary from these contemporary historians at all. None. Check out Michael Paulkovich's book "Beyond the Crusades", chapter 49.
Dr. Richard Carrier presents a strong case against the historicity of Jesus.
+EddieRHS, Anytime you want to present evidence for your fake book of fairy tales and it's absurd claims of a talking snake, talking donkey, 900-year-old men, virgin birth and zombies...feel free! I can't wait to be underwhelmed by the ZERO you provide.
Who should we believe a *religophobe* like carrier OR every ancient history professor who John lennox in an interview with Prof. Graham Clarke ANU said *I know of no ancient history professor who has the slightest doubt as to the historicity of Jesus.* The first disciples had nothing to gain by lying and starting a new religion. They faced hardship, ridicule, hostility, and many suffered martyr's deaths, *rather than betray what they knew to be true.* They could never have sustained such a charade with unwavering motivation if they knew what they were preaching was a lie. The disciples were not fools and Paul was a cool-headed intellectual of the first rank. There would have been many opportunities over three to four decades of ministry to reconsider and renounce a lie." "If the defeated and depressed group of disciples overnight could change into a victorious movement of faith, based only on autosuggestion or self-deception-without a fundamental faith experience-then this would be a much greater miracle than the resurrection itself. Has anyone listened to Carrier's pathetic attempt to deny God's existence. it should give u some insight into a twisted, fallacious fraud whom I call a *religophobe.*
What I don't understand is why athiests always have to fight over the existence over one Palestinian cult leader, whose cult ended up getting way out of hand.
Muhammad existed, but that doesn't give Islam any more credibility.
Cringe
Dr Carrier certainly has a strong case. Good lecture!
If we were to judge and discount the works of every scientist, painter, author etc. based on opinions they have stated on other subjects or things they have done we would need to dispose of everything that has been accomplished by the human race.
Unlike a lot of the people in this comments section, I give respect on a case-by-case basis.
But I do find it hilarious that the people who let their feelings on Atheism + taint their views on this man's research on this subject are walking hand in hand with people who are pissed at him because they think Jesus was real. The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Strange bed fellows? Birds of a Feather? I'll just call it like I see it: Irrational people who let emotions taint their objectivity. Now you know what it's like to be an Apologist.
Newton was a huge Jesus freak, he spent more time reading and searching the bible for hidden codes than he did on his work in physics and mathematics, doesn't mean his work on those subjects wasn't inspired. I admire Newton the scientist and I accept that we would disagree on many other subjects. Same with Carrier, his work is unimpeachable whatever his social views are.
Kai Green Excellent example. I always think of Arthur Conan Doyle: created Sherlock Holmes, but also believed in the supernatural. He was taken in by the Cottingley fairy hoax.
Very well said. Amongst all the "criticism" not one person actually contests anything he said. It's all about how he is an impure heretic to the true atheism and all that.
People, stop that. That's WHY you hate Atheism+ is it not? Stop being like them.
Thank you. Observing other atheists has made me realize that atheism as a cause or a movement is a bad idea. I think promoting secularism is much more effective.
The reason is that human beings are incapable of complete neutrality. Our perceptions are flawed by preconceived notions, beliefs, desires, etc. That's why the scientific method exists: as a defense against human error and prejudice.
Thank you for this comment. I am definitely not a fan of Atheism+ and, from what I've heard, Richard Carrier has said some pretty awful/stupid things in defence of it, but at the same time, I've heard him speak about the historical vs mythical Jesus before, on the thinking atheist podcast, and he was very interesting and entertaining. So long as he keeps the two topics separate, there's no reason not to listen to and enjoy his speeches on Jesus and other academic matters.
My first reaction several years ago to the Jesus Myth position was to discount it. No, Jesus wasn't the magical being the Bible tries to push, but there was likely a historical person he was based on. Having listened to Richard Carrier before, and now in this video, as well as reading Robert Price's _The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems_, I'm more open to the idea. Still not 100% sold, but am coming closer each time I hear more about it.
I love his Roswell analogy at the end. :)
Thank you for posting this, Aron.
It's at the very least interesting to see all these accounts of "jesus wasn't a human being that lived in historic palestine" proponents and how much work they have put into sourcing, analyzing and backing up their hypotheses with facts, documents and other "tangible" sorts of proof... wile the "jesus was not just real he IS god's son" crowd mostly only refers to "how can you fake all that is written in the bible, look it says here 500 witnesses" and similar arrguments based on presuppositions ("the bible is correct because it says so in the bible")
+EddieRHS, That's just the kind of nonsensical response I'd expect from a brainwashed fanatic defending his human sacrifice cult and who believes a book of fairy tales with a talking snake, talking donkey, 900-year-old men, virgin birth and zombies.
+EddieRHS, Hey fucktard...where's your evidence about Jesus existing? Oh yeah, a book of fairy tales with a talking snake, talking donkey, 900-year-old men, virgin birth and zombies. It must be a reliable source of historical information then! LOL!
"Historians” agree that there is no written eyewitness account of Jesus." This is utter rubbish. Spread by Charlatans and frauds like Carrier Dennett Baker et al for their own gratification and greed. Who should we trust? *"There is NO ancient history professor who has the slightest doubt as to the historicity of Jesus."* Says Professor Graham Clarke ANU. All the evidence points to Mark's Gospel being written around 60-70 AD by eye -witnesses from the "Q documents{ www.earlychristianwritings.com/q.html
and John around 90-95 AD. Moreover the Gospels were referenced in letters by the Bishops of Antioch and Rome around 95AD and 135AD
*"With respect to Jesus, we have numerous, independent accounts of his life in the sources lying behind the Gospels (and the writings of Paul) - sources that originated in Jesus’ native tongue Aramaic and that can be dated to within just a year or two of his life (before the religion moved to convert pagans in droves). Historical sources like that are pretty astounding for an ancient figure of any kind. The claim that Jesus was simply made up falters on every ground."* *-Bart Ehrman*
The first disciples had nothing to gain by lying and starting a new religion. They faced hardship, ridicule, hostility, and many suffered martyr's deaths, *rather than betray what they knew to be true.* They could never have sustained such a charade with unwavering motivation if they knew what they were preaching was a lie. The disciples were not fools and Paul was a cool-headed intellectual of the first rank. There would have been many opportunities over three to four decades of ministry to reconsider and renounce a lie." "If the defeated and depressed group of disciples overnight could change into a victorious movement of faith, based only on autosuggestion or self-deception-without a fundamental faith experience-then this would be a much greater miracle than the resurrection itself.
Luke Chap 1 verse *1* Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, *2* just as they were handed down to us by those who *from the first were eyewitnesses* and servants of the word. *3* With this in mind, since I myself have carefully *investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,* *4* so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
I thought the Roswell analogy was poor. In the Roswell case - something happened, it was reported at the time, the real truth was hidden - etc All of which did not happen in the Jesus story .......
Take Hollywood biography movies about people who lived in recent times, they are usually embellished for entertainment purposes. More often than not, they usually get the subject's life story completely wrong. This is the age of film and recordings.
Imagine a christ story passed along verbally 2000 yrs ago. Human nature... The story is fiction and the jesus character might have been based on 3 or 300 people, or the stars above. Amazing to think of the masses who absolutely believe jesus was a tall, blues eyed , blonde haired son of god ( EUROPEAN). Astounding to share the planet with so many who hold this as truth....
I've made that very same argument.
@AronRa I got to meet you today at the movies! So nice to meet you :D I didn't get a picture though I wasn't thinking ha.
Best regards,
Cheers!
Dr Carrier accepts the consensus dates of the Pauline letters, but the dates are derived from the Book of Acts which he knows to be fiction.
First it seems the Bible is written as Literature rather than factual History
This is Dr. Carrier's best summary of his work on the historicity of Jesus, in my opinion. If you haven't bought the book (On the Historicity of Jesus), you should. You should also subscribe to AronRa's channel.
One have to respect richard carrier for his deep knowledge in this specific field - i really enjoy how his view is spreading threw the web and around the world.
loved his book sense&goodness without god
Carrier's talk interests me especially from a literary point of view. If Jesus was a purely fictional character, what's fascinating is how that character was invented, first as one who lived and died and rose from the dead in "outer space," then as a rabbi who lived and died and rose from the dead on earth. How this character was presented so that he became the basis of a world religion is in itself a riveting historical story.
The way you put it makes it sound rather simple but I suspect the reality of the development of his character is a complex one that has occurred over thousands of years of Judeo-Christian writings.
The more I learn about the new testament, the more it feels like old timey fanfic.
Ehrman's book (Did Jesus Exist?) pales in comparison to Carrier's book (On the Historicity of Jesus), in my humble opinion. Ehrman says the gospels aren't reliable..then he relies on them to establish the historicity of Jesus...:)
Who should we believe a religophobe like carrier OR every ancient history professor who John lennox in an interview with Prof. Graham Clarke ANU said *I know of no ancient history professor who has the slightest doubt as to the historicity of Jesus.*
First it seems the Bible is written as Literature rather than factual History
Come on people, I agree with the notion that atheism+ is really not the most amazing thing around - oh, sweet euphemism - but the man seems to speak the truth here.
Rate and comment for the content here provided, not your thoughts on something totally beside the point. If someone I dislike and/or disagree with profoundly on other topics makes a great case for something, in seemingly rational and well-put fashion, why ever would I say it's shit, or give it a thumbs down ?
Judge the content for the content. And on the side, yeah sure, criticize the perceived idiocy of the one making the speech on other issues. But don't demonize and over-generalize. That's the type of thng we're supposed to fight against. ^^
If people think you're being irrational and uncritical when talking about one subject, they might be less inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt on others.
Scott Bowser Yes. So ? One only has to listen to him right here, and from my own viewing, the content seems worthy of attention at least.
If someone doesn't want to listen to him because they don't like him, fine, I respect that, but some people seem to think that because his views on some things are stupid (to them), they should give the video a thumbs down, or comment about how bad he is, or some other thing.
His affiliation with atheism+ is far from the topic here. And what he's saying in the video, should be judged based upon what he's saying in the video. Not general opinion of his other views.
Jesus was mentioned in the history written by the Roman historians (Josephus and Tacitus). The idea that Jesus actually visited India can be traced to the Russian writer Nicholas Notovitch (1894) and his book The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ. In it, Notovitch claims to have visited the monastery of Hemis near Leh, Ladakh in 1887 and to have read manuscripts there telling of the travels of Jesus, known as “Issa,” in India, including his teachings, his work with untouchables, and his conflicts with Brahmans and Zoroastrian priests (Crossan, 1998). Swami Avedananda, a brother monk of Swami Vivekananda verified the claims of Notovitch by vising the same monastery in Ladakh in 1922 and supported Notovitch (Avedananda, 1988). In 1929, Nicholas Roerich and his son George Roerich went there and found clear evidence to support Notovitch (Roerich, 1929; Roerich, 1931).
Dr. Richard Carrier has little knowledge.
Reference:
Avedananda, 1988, Journey into Kashmir and Tibet, Calcutta: Vedanta Press.
Borg, M., 2005, “The Spirit-Filled Existence of Jesus.” In The Historical Jesus in Recent Research. Eds. James Dunn and Scot McKnight. New York: Eisenbrauns, 2005.
Crossan, J. D., 1998, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus. San Francisco: Harper.
Notovitch, N., 1894, The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ, New York: Simon & Schuster
Prophet, Elizabeth., 1986, Lost Years of Jesus, New Delhi: Jaico
Roerich, N., 1929, Altai-Himalaya, New York: Frederick Stokes.
Roerich, G., 1931, Trails to Inmost Asia: Five Years of Exploration, New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press.
These are quoted from our next book, Ethics, Morality, and Business, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan-Springer.
Best lecture ever
I'm seeing a lot of hate on this guy because of his past foolishness with the failed Atheism+ nonsense.. but I find I don't really care whether I agree with his other statements, and I don't think any of you should either. I'm sick of "us vs them" really, and this video, I'm assuming, as I'm only 5 minutes in, has nothing to do with Atheism+. What matters is whether he's right or not, and that's all. Not if he really is or isn't a nice guy. Just because he was divisive in the past doesn't mean we have to be.
it is hard to put the personal bias aside ( think he is a douche for siding with the atheism+). But credit where credit is due.
Raz0rking
Yeah he has said some stupid things in the past. Some really stupid things. Some really, really stupid, and dividing things. That was something he'll probably never live down but being wrong in one area does not make him wrong in another unless proven otherwise.
mPky1
Read my comment again. Try not to fail at reading this time.
Everyone keeps shitting on this guy because of his stuff with Atheism+. I don't find Atheism+ to be a positive thing for the atheist community. However, he made great points in the video ,and his connection to Atheism+ should not be used as an excuse to shit on him in this comment section.
If I could "thumbs up" this 100 times I would! I agree and like what he is saying. The only thing I wish he would have done, so I could show this to my 'believing' friends, is explain his background more. However, I will have to get his book and explain that to them myself!!!
C'mon, everybody! Let's get the chant going! "Q AND A! Q AND A! Q AND A! WE WANT MORE! WE WANT MORE! WE WANT MORE!"
Nevertheless, great video. Thumbs up.
I was totally going to start chanting. But then I realized that I'm not wearing any pants. This is embarrassing.
Richard makes some interesting arguments. A debate of his views and mainstream Christian views can be found here:
www.reasonablefaith.org/media/craig-vs-carrier-nw-missouri-state-university
Wow, incredibly education discussion.
Richard Carrier's arguments are persuasive. The example of Mark 11:13 seems particularly compelling, but I would add one thing: Assuming for the sake of argument that Jesus - if he existed - would've had the supernatural power to cause the tree to wither and die, why would he not have had the power to make it bring forth fruit, even out of season? After all, if he can feed 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two small fish, causing some figs to appear on the tree should be child's play, shouldn't it?
ajs1031
That may be true, but it's irrelevant to the point I was making. Richard Carrier argues that the story can't be true in part because nobody has the power to wither trees, but in a sense that's begging the question. It seems more useful (especially when discussing the subject with someone who believes that everything in the bible is strictly true) to point out that the unreasonable, uncharacteristic use of the supernatural power in this anecdote just doesn't comport with other examples.
Hpsmith, Good point you brought up about why Jesus could not command the fig tree out of season to bear fruit if he could feed 5000. I think Mark was trying to tell a moral story but missed the logic.
Forget Ehrman, Jesus never existed.
This is an excellent video!! I've added it to my stock of videos explaining the real origins of Christianity. Thanks for posting this!
you could link some ?
I've always wondered what that fig tree story was about!
Anyone know where to find the Q&A for this? It is mentioned at the end.
I have been wanting to see that for a year.
Now 2 years.
What a wonderful scholar!
Fascinating and enlightening. And it makes complete sense
AronRa please read this question. i am looking for a video, or maybe a text that i could watch/read that has carrier "deunking?" the zeitgeist crap. i know he has an opinion and once in a while he does share his view about the zeitgeist movies. but i can't find anything that would show truely what is wrong with the 1st part of the 1st movie, the part where jesus is compared to all the other non existent characters/gods invented through history. i am not interested in the other parts of the movie, for obvious reasons.
A cool new perspective. Good one.
From the many questions I had as a small child being indoctrinated & beaten into a Christian cult, I began to doubt the existence of a real [Jesus] Christ due to all the contradictions in the New Testament, especially the contradictions in the stories about Christ's actions, attitudes & directions to his followers...
First he's 'pacifist'; then he's directing his disciples to buy SWORDS??? That was the first contradiction that threw me for a loop.
Then his followers are exhorting slaves to be docile & obedient? From a guy who's supposed to be setting humanity (only the Jews, actually) free?
But that was explained in a very mundane, politically-savvy fashion when I learned about the revolt of the slave Spartacus (some 100 years before Christianity arose), & the effect that had upon Rome & Roman responses to any such threat afterwards.
Then there were [Jesus] Christ's temper tantrums (cursing a fig tree) & nastiness to his mother ('Woman, what have I to do with thee?'), which led me to realize he was actually a rather unpleasant character.
What branch of Christianity were you indoctrinated into?
AnEntropyFan Watchtower Society, better known as Jehovah's Witnesses.
Jehovah's Witnesses' movement is both boring AND nutty at the same time.
Mormons' origins are more titillating, & for really whacked one must look to Scientology.
*****
Ah, now I feel much better for flashing them, not that I didn't feel good about it to this point :-)
Is it a common practice for them to beat children into submission or not? Was this a recent occurrence, as in past couple of decades or so, or earlier?
Ah, definitely, these two are unabashed frauds and I on some level am suspecting that the "Moroni" angel is an easter egg of sorts (i.e. a way to say this is a fraud, morons) and there's also a rumour that L.Ron have said that the easiest way to get rich is to invent a religion.
AnEntropyFan Ah, ha ha ha!! When they come to my door anymore, I just ask questions they can't answer - & that usually rattles their brains.
Questions like, how old is the bible, & why are there so many other deities that are FAR older than the bible gods?
Pointing out that there are at the very least several gods OF the bible would rattle their brains, too, but I haven't gotten to that point yet - they're usually off of my porch after the 1st question.
Beating children (& wives...) isn't OFFICIALLY sanctioned. But Jehovah's Witnesses are FUNDAMENTALISTS, with every unpleasant aspect that comes with such belief systems.
Plus, there is a great deal of psychological pressure in being a member of a cult - & that often comes thru as abusive behavior & dysfunctional family systems. The Watchtower Society actually encourages, suggests & enforces, or fails to act, in many types & aspects of destructive, dysfunctional behavior in their members' lives.
About "Moroni" - I was quite disappointed to learn that the term 'moron' was coined in the 1920's, not in the early 1800's. So Joseph Smith wasn't thinking of 'morons' when he came up with "Moroni".
But I think of it, every time I'm approached by a Mormon... >XD
About con-men & religion - I think that con-artists are naturally attracted to religion - it puts them in their element, so to speak.
After all, what could be more natural to a con-artist than, as Bill Maher put it, "selling an invisible product" - that the con-artist can put themselves in supreme control of.
*****
Well, I kinda do feel sorry for the young woman who was standing there, chances are she saw a crocoduck for the first time...
Ah, I bet these questions put them in the famous glass-eyed automaton mode, i.e. the famous god glasses and the mindset of pretending that reality isn't real.
Cults, churches with historically poor attendance. When you have so few of them, I guess you have to keep 'em tightly herded and expected issues will stem from that.
Very much correct, coined in 1910 according to Wikipedia. 19th and early 20th century "psychology" is very hard for me to keep any cohesive track of as in which is which, for most of the early 20th century stuff is as pseudo-scientific as that which significantly predates. I mean, did you know that they were using basically sexualised torture, including amputation of the clitoris, to treat "hysteria" (a clearly invented ailment) appallingly enough considerably into the last century? Well, yeah.
The relation between conartistry and religion is one of those rarely self-evident truths, for gods even on the off chance that there are some definitely do not need you money.
"If you're not a feminist, you're anti-feminist." Dr. Richard Carrier. (source recent Atheist TV interview) The dear doctor made a fallacy called a false dilemma in the quote.
While you're right about the whole, "If you're not with us, you're against us," fallacy, one could argue that...with regard to basic human rights and equality...if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem because "inertia" favors the status quo.
P.S. You have just made a (combo) Genetic Fallacy Fallacy by implying that because Dr. Carrier EVER employed a logical fallacy (even while discussing a completely different topic), his conclusions in THIS case (and the evidence upon which they are based) are inherently tainted. His PhD isn't in Classical Logic, Sociology, or Political Science; it's in Ancient History. Even if he's dead wrong about Feminism, it doesn't change the fact that THIS topic is precisely within his academic wheelhouse.
maybe its talks like this that are the reason for Jesus Christ preaching the importance of your Faith and your Belief. its a choice that god gave us our own will. thats what i call true love. so he can have people who genuinely believe.
Thanks for sharing this video. Great insights.
It's strange that the forgeries are no less valid than the authentic biblical verses. Nonsense is nonsense; real or fake.
Did a person named Jesus exist back then and spread the word about Christianity and crap like that? Probably. Did he have superpowers? Almost certainly not.
Did you even watch this video? It's pretty specific about Jesus not existing.
lukus black Carrier's position is a fringe one. Not dissimilar to creationism. Mythycists are not taken seriously by historians in mainstream academia.
Mario Pendic Can you name one who is a professor of early Christianity at an accredited University?
Mario Pendic I'm not making up history, I'm representing the the majority academic view. Do you care to answer my question, or do you just want to keep avoiding answering it?
Mario Pendic Richard Carrier is not a professor of early Christianity teaching at an accredited University. Why are you making up answers? Or did you not read my question?
Dr. Richard Carrier and AronRa paved the highway to atheism and i see highway traffic building up!. Kudos!
VERY interesting. Thanks for the link AronRa : )
It's an interesting subject, but when debating with Christians, I tend to just grant for the sake of argument that an apocalyptic rabbinical preacher named Jesus lived about 2000 years ago, and that the gospels are at least somewhat loosely based on this person, who was most likely illiterate, spoke Aramaic, lived in what we now refer to as Palestine, and was sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be executed. That seems to be the core set of facts that most historians agree on. None of that makes the divinity or miracle claims of the bible more likely to be true.
Why historians might consider it possible is that dozens of such guys were running around at that time. This view of the possibility of a Jesus was feed largely by the popularity of that religious fantasy miracle Jesus. All people heard that stories some even belief in them. This made most of them biased to consder that a grain of of this wild stories might be true.
TorianTammas I think that the methodology that serious historians use when attempting to determine the historicity of a person is somewhat more involved and nuanced than what you've outlined here.
TestMeatDollSteak Sure as we are not in a university. Usually students of history take several semester to learn the basics of the craft.
TorianTammas Kind of like how Robin Hood is supposed to be an amalgamation of several guys named Robin who were outlaws and freedom fighters living in England between 1070 and 1374. They all had legends built around them even in their own lifetime much like Davy Crockett.
Robert Corbell
Yes like Robin Hood and such a template is used by people to add hopes, desires, wishes and so you create a hero of the people by the people through the people.
Fairytales to keep the peasants docile and paying their taxes. It works! The reward: Heaven, live forever floating around in the fluffy white (which to me sounds like Hell).
"On the Most Plausable Mythicist Theory"
22:42
I suggest that it wasn't "just below the moon" (the literal moon)
"Burial" or, what can be called 'the flush', took place much much further away; all in outer space, agreed, but below...and what is glaringly obvious, Uranus.
At least he acknowledges that the majority of scholars who have studied the historicity of Jesus disagree with him.
How does one study the historicity of Jesus? How many of these people are christians or are dependend on christian fundings?
TorianTammas Generally one would look* at all of the earliest writing there is about the person like you would with anyone else. Early opponents didn't seem to doubt his existence nor does anyone seem to doubt the existence of his brother, James. It hardly seems an extraordinary claim that some Jewish fella became mythologized after his death because he left quite the impression on his following.
DizzyDisco93
When did this early opponents write about Jesus? Did one really care if this movement had a founder? May be the stories of several guys had been mixed together. Who can say?
For example Plato is doubted to have existed. Aristoteles could have made him up.
Deifying a human was about the lamest idea you could come up at the time of Jesus as Caesar and Augustus had been declared to be gods after their death. Not to mention that Augustus made even coins with this claim. By the way Romulus and Remus the founders or Rome got deified and they were surprise born by the virgin Rhea Sylvia. What a puzzle of heathen elements christianity is.
TorianTammas the earliest are around 50 ad. It wouldn't if you have a bone to pick, but it's strange that they didn't comment on how he wasn't a real person. Again, strange how no one comments on this when they critiqued christians and christianity
Everyone from antiquity is doubted to have existed.
Deifying things is something people do. You have charismatic people around now with a cult following that swears their magical or divine. Why would it be harder to pull of two thousand years ago? And on a side-note could you explain why it is a "lame" idea, I'm not sure what you mean.
DizzyDisco93 Would you be so kind to show me the original of the NT from the 50s? Oh you can't well then we should say we belief, we guess, we pretend, we hope but we have no physical evidence whatsoever from this early date.
You are right nobody in the life time of Jesus wrote a word about him. Nobidy noticed Jesus it was just like he never existed.
The only thing of importance is is Jesus god and what evidence do we have for it. We have no possibility to find out what if a real person was behind he was. We have just unauthorized fan fiction and religious propaganda without any credibility. The new testament stories do not even claim that god has authored them.
wasnt this pretty much crushed by Bart Ehrman?
This isn't a fucking wrestling match. What are the historically reliable documents attesting to the existance of the cult leader named Jesus?
Turtoi Radu Here's a link to some of Ehrman's biggest disputes with Carrier's book :)
Ehrman is a wonderful New Testament historian who argues for the historical Jesus while at the same time argues for how unreliable the gospels are...so you need to read them both and draw your own conclusions. The issue is far from resolved. That said,they both agree that the "biblical son of god jesus" is fiction, so does it really matter?
Alex Lundell I don't see it. Think it was put as spam. Try again and I'll preface, if it is not a link to peer review academia, I'll be forced to take it as insufficiently justified and as such meaningless.
I'll also point out that you are dishonestly changing the subject. I'll repeat: what are the historically reliable documents attesting to the existance of the cult leader named Jesus?
CircularLogic 1) Stop the ass kissing, I'm not interested in your value judgements;
2) Link me peer review academia, I'm not interested in books if they lack proper academia support.
Institutional Inertia! Oh that's a wonderful word!
The consensus references the consensus in a big circular reasoning fallacy. This is PRECISELY what I run into whenever I try to introduce an idea which folks disagree with.
"There's no evidence! Show me a study! The consensus doesn't agree with that!"
Well, if the consensus doesn't agree with my assertion how would you expect me to produce a study? People who mindlessly defend the "scientific position" without having any degree of critical thought themselves are somehow worse to me than the religious.
It's groupthink at its worst!
Hum... So you expect people to believe you when you make a claim and have nothing to back it up, because most disagree with you ?
Or did I misunderstand ?
Could you explain further ? Give an example of some kind ?
gilless429 Your confusing expectation of belief with immediate and unnecessary dismissal.
Does this difference make sense?
Do you see the problem with dismissiveness as opposed to genuine skepticism?
UniversalPotentate Of course I do. I'm not confusing the two. Your comment just didn't make the difference in any fashion. Until something is proven to be false, I won't believe it to be false. On the other hand if that something is a positive claim, one that goes beyond the purely observable facts, then I will behave as though it isn't true until it is proven to be true. Just won't believe it to be false.
The big problem I have with your first comment is the part where you say "People who mindlessly defend the "scientific position"". It is not the scientific approach in any way shape or form, to believe something to be false because it isn't proven to be true. Therefore, your comment is quite confusing. If you mean purely to say that people shouldn't believe something is false solely because there's no proof it is true, I agree, but at the same time you shouldn't expect any sort of credence given to that something, until such evidence does come forth. THAT's the scientific approach, and there's nothing wrong with it.
gilless429 I think you're probably simply unfamiliar with the context I'm describing. I'll elaborate a bit.
Within the scientific community there is this "institutional inertia" he describes.
THIS HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS.
This is a failing in the scientific process where mental laziness and a lack of creativity take over and people reference "the consensus" without any independent evidence or experimentation.
This is especially true when someone asserts a claim that doesn't match the consensus (i.e. Jesus is NOT a real person).
For example, I was just discussing on the latest SciShow episode with someone the efficacy of magnetic energy as a health therapy. Having used them myself, I can attest that they are helpful. This person asked me for a study. Why the fuck would I have a study and what would it prove if I did?
Somehow it got circulated that magnets are snake oil, Hank repeated that assertion, I countered with my personal experience. My recommendation (as I'm a casual user of such products and not someone deeply involved in the science or sales of the devices) was for them to seek out direct experience. This was met with how "I can't simply assert claims and expect them to be believed!"
Is that what I did? I thought I told them to take an anecdote and go find more compelling evidence. This is RUclips, not a scientific laboratory where I can set up controlled experiments.
This was all in response to someone asking why the video had some dislikes. While I clearly stated I liked the video, I offered a hypothesis as to how a few people, having direct experience with magnets, might get offended by the passing comment that magnetic therapy has no health value.
Now, the scientific thing to do would be to research the claim, not argue endlessly with someone who has direct experience. A rational person cannot be "logicked" out of their real life experience. A rational person cannot be "logicked" into believing someone's story is true via the internet. This should be an obvious impasse but some folks just wanna argue.
This is an example of institutional inertia. Claims are dismissed out of hand because the consensus (in this case Hank Green) said one thing and someone they don't trust (another screen name on the internet) said the opposite.
This is a 2-sided ad hominem fallacy where one subscribes to the opinion of those on "your team" (positive ad hom) while denouncing those not on "your team" (negative ad hom). This behavior avoids the researching of facts and such ridiculous statements are made like "the person making the claim is required to provide evidence for the claim!" … because current scientists NEVER pick up the work of deceased scientists??
If people were to stay truly unbiased until all evidence collected in sufficient quantity to be able to form a logical, coherent theory then we wouldn't be arguing in 2014 on whether or not Jesus existed.
Nor would I be commenting on the notion of institutional inertia.
UniversalPotentate Well I personally wasn't able to find the episode of which you speak, but my own source on this particular "technique" is this :
www.sillybeliefs.com/magnets.html
The problem here, is that all claims and reasonable possibilities made as to how it works, have been shown to be hogwash. From there on, all there is left, is the supposed empirical "evidence" (as essentially you use it as a reason for belief) of people like you, who say they've seen it work. As the person you were arguing with insisted, this means nothing at all. I've had people tell me homeopathy worked because they used it as a treatment for things that always end up going away with time anyway, or things that they also admitted to using another form of treatment against at the same time, etc... There are thousands of ways that this could mean anything other than that you indeed did witness this thing working. And of course, there's also liars.
At the end of the day, none of this stuff should substitute, for actual evidence THAT it works and as to HOW it works. You had one thing happen, and another thing followed, and you have no reason whatsoever to believe in the first place that the first thing has something to do with the second, as that first thing's supposed effects are scientifically baseless.
There isn't any evidence to be found through research for anyone on this, as there is no evidence that this does work whatsoever, and instead evidence that the particular claims as to how it works, can pretty much all be refuted.
This would be equivalent to me saying that I found reason to believe knocking on wood actually has some sort of effect because I did it at some point, and the very same day, I got extremely lucky (i.e. I ended up in the middle of a shooting but didn't get hit by any bullet). I can provide no reason for belief that indeed the two are linked, none whatsoever. As such not only is this not something that should have ME believing that knocking on wood works, but in no way does it have any form of weight on others either, not even to the point that they should do further research, as, again, the burden of evidence is on the one making the claim.
How would you feel if I told you that I prayed one day for my first crush not to reject me, and that same day not only did she not reject me, we ended up having a make-out session on the sofa at her place after seeing a movie together. Then I'd proceed to tell you that you should make further research before dismissing prayer as non-efficient because of this.
I did something, something else happened, I see some sort of link for no rational absolute reason, and logic (or in the case of magnets and all, science) dictates that this first thing, has no effect of the like of which I am claiming, or at least there is no way that we can explain how it'd work, and it seems quite improbable. In this case, certainly, you shouldn't have a positive belief in the absolute and complete impossibility of prayer actually working, but really, would you consider it a real possibility, and not just something done for the sake of skepticism not to believe ? Would you consider that further research needs to be done ? Would you consider that someone who just goes about their life as though prayer doesn't work, without any need or desire to look further into it, is making some form of mistake ?
I'm an atheist but with a quick search you see that Paul does talk about a physical Jesus (Galatians 4:4)
Galatians 4:4 is a passage explicitly mentioned by Carrier as a story that Paul describes as an allegory saying how Jesus was "born" of a woman. And Bart Ehrman documents in 'The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture' that later copies of Galatians 4 was changes so that the word 'born' was used instead of the word 'made.'
Galatians 4:4 does not support the idea of a historical Jesus.
That depends on which Bible version and translation you are reading from.
Paul mentions Jesus as a man
1 Corinthians 9:1 “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?...”
Romans 5:15 15But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
Romans 5:17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
Romans 5:19 19For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
Romans 1:1-3 1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God - 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life [ a ] was a descendant of David,
Romans 8:3 3For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man,
Romans 9:5 5Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
1 Corinthians 15:3-9 3 For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to [that which] the Scriptures [foretold], 4 and that He was buried, and that He was [bodily] raised on the third day according to [that which] the Scriptures [foretold], 5 and that He appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the [a]Twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, the majority of whom are still alive, but some have fallen asleep [in death]. 7 Then He was seen by James, then by all the apostles, 8 and last of all, as to one [b]untimely (prematurely, traumatically) born, He appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least [worthy] of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I [at one time] fiercely oppressed and violently persecuted the church of God.
1 Corinthians 2:1-2: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
do you also have the Q&A session?
RC may be the craziest of all the atheism+ ideologues. Not related to the topic, but I don't care for this guy at all.
listen and learn
It can be psychology/emotionally devastatingly/poignant when we have to embark on the world/life frontier of truth.
You've been praying to a fictional character, like a child waiting to awake to see what the Tooth Fairy left.
Isn't this the if-you're-not-with-us-you're-against us guy? No thanks. Thumbed down at 0:05 and watching another video.
Nice one. Is there a Q+A?
Where is the question ans answer session?
Oh look. It's our version of creationists again!
TomServo can you please be more clear?
Our version of Creationists are people like you.
Did you even watch the video?
You can come up with reasonable sounding objections to anything. It is very easy to throw up a road block, and it takes hours to explain how they have been torn down.
I am not a historian, but I do know that the vast majority of people who should know disagree with Richard Carrier. His response to why he is in the minority is basically "They just haven't thought about it that much". The thing they are paid to study, that they devoted their life to studying.... the haven't thought about that much...
This seems to be a belief born of wanting to be able to throw something in Christians' faces.
When historians talk about Jesus, many put it in terms of how one might show that the biblical account is wrong. Things like 'he was an apocalyptic preacher' because the sayings persists in the books even though the apocalypse didn't happen. 'He was from Nazereth' because the prophecy said he should have been from Bethlehem, so they lied to place him there. 'He was crucified' because the messiah was never a figure who was supposed to be defeated by his enemies. 'His name was Yehoshua'. On and on and on.
A necessary precondition of saying 'he was an apocalyptic preacher', 'he was from Nazereth', and 'he was crucified' is in fact that he existed. You can't be from Nazereth and not exist.
If he was made up out of whole cloth, then why the fuck didn't they make him up to be someone with no fuzzy business about where he was from originally? Why did they make up the story that he had been crucified? Why did they make up the story that he said wrong things about the way the world was going to end? Why didn't they just make up a person that fulfilled all prophecies to a T?
The most obvious answer is that they were working off of an existing person with existing sayings that had to be reconciled with what actually happened.
So why is this like creationists? Because it is a belief that exists as a talking point in a religious debate, against scholarly consensus, and is made up almost entirely of vaguely plausible sounding assertions.
For instance, if you look in to the specifics of what he is claiming, things like 'there are a lot of dying and rising gods in the ancient world' you run into a virtual road block. Most of the examples that can be brought to bear aren't gods, and many of them didn't rise. Osiris is kind of sort of maybe if you look at it from an angle.
Does a minority opinion make it wrong? No. But it is a strike against it, and it means you probably don't have good enough reason to assert it as fact.
Jesus 6 BCE-33? CE
There's no contemporary sources for Jesus during his supposed lifetime.
Pauline Epistles 51-58 CE
Only 7 out of 13 letters of Paul are considered nonpseudographical.Paul is not a witness to a living Jesus, but through revelation.
Rome Sacking of Judea 70 CE
The Gospels are labeled by Church tradition, but are from unknown Greek educated writers.They make the same translation mistakes found in the Greek version of the Old Testament called the Septuagint.
Mark 65-70? CE
Matthew 75-80? CE
Luke 75-90? CE
John 85-125? CE
Hahah, this was fun, cant believe I wasted 43 mins of my life watching this garbage.
People who are filled with the Holy Dopamine Ghost tend not to like Dr. Carrier's lectures.
hehe ;) And those who know how the field of history works :)
bazzahaug You mean the field of wishful thinking and circular logic that is the backbone of Christianity.
what about the tacitus reference?
He was born too late to be a direct witness, didn't provide any explanation of a source as it was more a passing mention, and wrote his annals (in which the reference is made) during christianity's creation.
So I personally don't see any reason to take that particular one to mean Jesus did exist. ^^
Tacitus was writing about certain criminals which had a leader named Krestus. He neven even mentions Jesus. He never make a claim that this Krestus was a god. Tacitus was born long after Jesus death and so he could record only hearsay from followers.
*****
Yes and more then one author of antiquity considered that gods were walking on earth. Not to mention that we have a lot of deified persons like the god of healing Asklepios. Funny thing is that his miracles are better documented as in his temples people gave devotional pieces to thank for. So one can see how many people had which ailment and were healed. These can be considered first hand witnesses testimonies. From Jesus we have his fan club claimng that certain guys who never ever talked about got healed.
Firstly Tacitus account is confirmed by another writer, Suetonius Tranquillas (Secretary of Emperor Hadrian) (c.69-130/140 A.D) - Also refers to the punishment of Christians by Roman Emperor Nero. He writes, "After the great fire of Rome ... punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief." Suetonius confirms Tacitus account.
Tacitus gives his readers warnings anytime hearsay, gossip, rumour, unverified or contested claims were suspected. Tacitus is known to have given these warnings 42 times in his Annals. He never gives his usual hearsay warning in his passage on Christ. In fact he probably got this information from the Roman archives.
Tacitus uses specific phrases "to substantiate a statement or to present a statement for which he does not care to vouch". In Books 11-16 of the Annals (the Jesus cite is in 15) Tacitus "concerns himself with the evidence and source references to a greater extent than in the earlier books." He relies on other historians, a bronze inscription (11.14), reports or memoirs (15.16), personal testimonies (15.73), and physical evidence (15.42). There are indications of searches for first-hand (15.41) and written (12.67, 13.17) evidence. Thus, the cite on Jesus comes in the middle of one of Tacitus' most carefully-documented works. Furthermore, we know he had access to the Acta Senatus (archives of the Roman Senate’s activities) as he cites it multiple times in his works. Jesus’ crucifixion may have very well appeared in these archives or similar to it (Tertullian a Roman lawyer who access to the records of the time, corresponds with the fact that there was an official document in Rome from Pontius Pilate).
Just shared this to my group would love to connect just subscribed:)
I'm glad the historicity is becoming more of an issue rather than brushed off or the assumption being Jesus did exist.
***** Thanks for posting. I think Richard has the most cogent of all mythicists' arguments. Always a pleasure.
+rationalmuscle HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! cogent? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Idiot atheist your moniker says more than you realize.
rationalmuscle You are too stupid to understand.
Idiot atheist And you have a hard time completing a thought, now don't you little man?
Go on... make an argument against Carrier's arguments. I'm happy to take you to school.
rationalmuscle dick is an idiot. There is a reason why no accredited University will hire him The man lacks the proper credentials to speak with authority. dick is basically a coward. Don't forget, many PhD's agreed with the Nazi's and Nazi ideas. PhD ≠ smart.
For me, Carrier starts with a position and proves it, he proves this over and over again by showing a minimum of in depth knowledge. For example he talks about Philo of Egypt was a renown Jew (not true he was a Sadducee a small group helonized by Rome. ) and talks about a celestial Jesus where else are these teachings (they don't exist), but Ehrman starts from a position and over a period of in depth study changes his mind. Carrier relies on other peoples opinions, Ehrman studies the documents, talks with other people who have studied the documents and has a different point of view.
Great talk!
what are the authentic epistles
All of them
how did the gospel writers conspire together to write about the same thing or kind of agree with one another ....its interesting no one puts there hand up and say hey guys al this stuff has been made up
Good point.
Dr. Carrier needs to read "Ceaser's Messiah" along with everyone else to give a positive theory of the 'Jesus' story included in the New Testament. Saul of Tarsus was a Roman Citizen and also a High Priest of the Mithra Religion, so when given the job of forming the 'Historicity' of Jesus, had his secret teachings to draw on to consolidate the Roman Myth.
I would be interested to see the argument regarding Gal 4:4 (i.e. that Paul meant "born of a woman" allegorically). There is certainly nothing in that chapter that makes it obvious that is what he means, though in the context of the other arguments in this video it is at least plausible.
he gave you the argument in the video, re-watch it.
No, he says that the argument is in his book. He presents a general argument that Paul did not take Jesus to be a historical figure, but not a specific argument regarding that verse (he just mentions it offhand).
Read the rest of Gal 4.Paul is making a heap of allegory and metaphor over fathers, mothers and sons.Then look at the "Young's literal translation" of Gal 4:4.
People with Schizotypal personaslity disorder have imaginary friends btw.
Just curious if John the Baptist is considered historical or not
what about the ramey memo?
Why no Q&A?
I was always under the impression that Josephus had mentioned Jesus' brother.
If you want to know why the fans of Jesus made up stories about him, read Acts chapters 4 and 5.
People were selling land and houses then laying down the money at the apostle's feet.
One couple kept back some of the money and when discovered, gave up the ghost.
AronRa, I'm curious if you've read Ehrman's book? Would be curious to hear your opinion. I would actually recommend his earlier book "Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium", which is a more detailed picture of his views (i.e. he doesn't spend half the book wasting time debunking the more obviously crank mythicist hypotheses). I think you can download the Teaching Company course as an audiobook from audible (titled "The Historical Jesus") which covers more or less the same content as "Apocalyptic Prophet". Recommended. Bob Price and Carrier are the only mythicists out there with anything worthy of merit to add to the discussion IMO. Doherty and Fitzgerald aren't the real deal when it comes to being scholars.
I have a question. Let's say a cult evolved around "Slenderman", for example. And let's say some of us didn't like that for some reason, and let's say I'm one of those people who want to denigrate Slenderman and his followers, so I decide to pen an anti-Slenderman polemic. It seems to me that one of my main talking points would be the fact that Slenderman is a purely fictional character.
So my question is: Does the fact that the authors of the Babylonian Talmud don't make this argument regarding Jesus imply that they thought he actually existed?
Thanks for posting Aron Ra.
sometimes I like to imagine that the apostles were all poes
By pretending they weren't? Lol
To me, Jesus is either a composite of multiple figures, much like Robin Hood, or possibly a single figure that had legends grow around him even in his lifetime, like Davy Crockett, William Wallace, or Chuck Norris. Either way, not nearly the symbol the guy has become.
“I marvel that whereas the ambitious dreams of my self, Caesar, and Alexander should have vanished into thin air, a Judean peasant-Jesus-should be able to stretch His hands across the centuries and control the destinies of men and nations.” Napoleon Bonaparte
I hope other scholars will see this and either confirm or refute the arguments. Whatever the truth is, that's what I want to believe.
I've always thought of the two different Jesuses in the Christian Testament (or the one schizophrenic) like Paul Bunyon.
this man would be a court reporter's nightmare.
I used to be a Christian. When I was a 7th day Adventist - I was raised an independent fundamentalist creationist baptist - I was taught that Satan and his fallen angels could not go beyond the orbit of the moon. As to why I became a 7th day Adventist is because I thought they were keeping the bible more closely that what I was raised as. Probably true, and the reason why I did not go from baptist to atheist in a strait line. I do wish, though, that it had not taken me 56 years to leave. When I finally become convinced that the story of the fall of man, and the creation of the universe were false, I left. When those are gone, the Bible falls apart. I should have paid more attention to the Apostle Paul's words "If God does not exist then we are of all men most miserable." What threw me off was his reaffirmation of his faith in the verses immediately following. If you are wondering, My parents were missionaries, and after they left the mission field, they were still very active in the church. Much work here taking my brain out of my skull, washing it with indoctrination, and putting it back in again to ensure that I would never question it.
Fuller Reply to Richard Carrier by Bart Ehrman
Richard Carrier is one of the new breed of mythicists. He is trained in ancient history and classics, with a PhD from Columbia University - an impressive credential. In my book Did Jesus Exist I speak of him as a smart scholar with bona fide credentials. I do, of course, heartily disagree with him on issues relating to the historical Jesus, but I have tried to take his views seriously and to give him the respect he deserves.
Carrier, as many of you know, has written a scathing review of Did Jesus Exist on his Freethought Blog. He indicates that my book is “full of errors,” that it “misinforms more than it informs” that it provides “false information” that it is “worse than bad” and that “it officially sucks.” The attacks are sustained throughout his lengthy post, and they often become personal. He indicates that “Ehrman doesn’t actually know what he is talking about,” he claims that I speak with “absurd” hyperbole, that my argument “makes [me] look irresponsible,” that I am guilty of “sloppy work,” that I “misrepresent” my opponents and “misinform the public,” that what I write is “crap,” that I am guilty of “arrogantly dogmatic and irresponsible thinking,” that I am “incompetent,” make “hack” mistakes, and do not “act like a real scholar.”
Most of his review represents an attempt to substantiate these claims. Some readers may find the overblown rhetoric offensive, but I have no interest in engaging in a battle of wits and rhetorical flourishes. I would simply like to see if the charges of my incompetence can be sustained.
Let me say at the outset that I am not perfect, that as a full-blooded human being, I do make mistakes, and that nothing I say is an inerrant revelation from above. I sometimes try to convince my wife otherwise, but, frankly, I’ve made very little headway there. When I do make mistakes, I am not afraid to admit it. I don’t *like* admitting it, but my interest really is in discussing what we can know about history, not in proving that I’m always in the right.
One of the mistakes I make in the book I should state up front, because Carrier found it particularly offensive. I indicated in the book that Carrier’s degree was in Classics. I was wrong about that. His PhD is in Ancient History. I am not sure where I got the wrong impression he was a classicist; I think when I first heard of him I was told that he worked in ancient history and classics, and the “classics” part just stuck with me, possibly because I have always revered the field. In any event, I apologize for the mistake. His degree is in Ancient History, although he is trained as well in classics.
Contrary to what Carrier suggests, this mistake was not some kind of plot on my part, in his words: “a deliberate attempt to diminish my qualifications by misrepresentation.” I frankly don’t know why a classicist is less competent to talk about the ancient world of Rome than an ancient historian is, since most Romanists I know are in fact Classicists; and it seems odd that Carrier wants to insist that he is not “just a classicist.” My classicist friends would probably not appreciate knowing that they were “just” that. But in any event, it was an honest to goodness mistake, for which I apologize.
The bulk of Carrier’s harsh critique involves a set of “Errors of Fact” - including one that I have already dealt with in an earlier post, whether a bronze Priapus that is allegedly in the Vatican (but not actually, as one of the posts on this blog shows) was of Peter. I stated it was not, and Carrier agrees. He mistakenly thought I was arguing that no such statue existed, but that was not my intention or concern. I can see how my wording could be (mis)read that way, however. The other charges against me and my book are more damning - or at least they certainly seem to be on the surface.
I will not answer each and every single point Carrier raises (on this, see my closing comments), but will deal with the most serious ones in which he charges me with scholarly incompetence. I am always happy to answer questions about any of the others, should I be asked.
The Pilate Error
In my book I take the Roman historian Tacitus to task for claiming that Pontius Pilate was a procurator rather than a prefect. The question has little to do with my overall point - that Tacitus is one of the first Roman authors to refer to Jesus - but Carrier takes great offense at my assertion and indicates that it shows that I do not know what I’m talking about. According to Carrier, provincial prefects were often also imperial procurators. He indicates that “recent literature on the subject confirms this, as would any consultation with an expert in Tacitus or Roman imperial administration.”
I have to admit that I was surprised to see this objection - as I had never heard of this before, that procurators could be prefects. I am certainly not an expert on Roman imperial magistrates. But I do try to get my facts straight and work hard to make sure I do not get things like this wrong. But it was news to me. So I decided to look into it. I have acquaintances and colleagues who are among the world’s leading authorities on Roman history. I emailed one of them the following:
My question: The New Testament indicates that Pontius Pilate was a procurator; the inscription discovered in Caesarea Maritima indicate that he was a prefect. Is it possible that he could have been both things at once?
His answer was quick and to the point. I quote: ‘Not really’ has to be the answer to your question, because prefect and procurator are simply two possible titles for the same job. The initial growth of equestrian posts in the emperor’s service was a gradual, haphazard process, and there was little concern to fix titles for them [see, e.g., Talbert's chap. 9 in CAH ed. 2 vol. X]. PP could just as well have had the title procurator, but evidently he didn’t … PIR (ed. 2, 1998) P 815 sums it up neatly: “praeses Iudaeae ordinis equestris usque ad Claudii tempora non procurator, sed praefectus fuit….” [This comes from the Prosopographia Imperii Romani (i.e., The Prosopography of the Roman Empire); I translate the Latin as follows: “Up until the time of Claudius [i.e., 41-54 CE], the provincial governor of Judea, a man of the equestrian order, was not a procurator but a prefect.”].
That would seem to settle it. This email acquaintance of mine is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of Roman history, so I trust his judgment. He asked not to be identified by name, I think because he too does not want to be subject to the kinds of attacks one faces on the Internet no matter what one says and on what grounds or authority. In any event, I think the quotation from PIR sums it up.
The Tacitus Question
While I’m on the Tacitus reference. At one point in my book I indicate that “I don’t know of any trained classicists or scholars of ancient Rome who think” that the reference to Jesus in Tacitus is a forgery (p. 55). Carrier says this is “crap,” “sloppy work,” and “irresponsible,” and indicates that if I had simply checked into the matter, I would see that I’m completely wrong. As evidence he cites Herbert W. Benario, “Recent Work on Tacitus (1964-68) The Classical World 63.8 (April 1970) pp. 253-66, where several scholars allegedly indicate that the passage is forged.
In my defense, I need to stress that my comment had to do with what scholars today are saying about the Tacitus quotation. What I say in the book is that I don’t know of any scholars who think that it is an interpolation, and I don’t. I don’t know if Carrier knows of any or not; the ones he is referring to were writing fifty years ago, and so far as I know, they have no followers among trained experts today. In that connection it is surprising that Carrier does not mention Benario’s more recent discussions, published as “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1969-1973,” “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1974-1983,” “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1984-1993,” “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1994-2003.” Or rather it is not surprising, since the issue appears to have died on the vine (one exception: a brief article in 1974 by L. Rougé). I might also mention that there is indeed a history of the question that goes before the mid-20th century. I first became aware of it from one of the early mythicists, Arthur Drews, whose work, The Christ Myth (1909) raises the possibility. But Drews did not invent the idea; it goes back at least to the end of the 19th century in the work of P. Hochard in 1890, De l’authenticité des Annales et des Histoires de Tacite. I’m not sure if Carrier is familiar with this scholarship or not. But my point is that I was not trying to make a statement about the history of Tacitus scholarship; I was stating what scholars today think.
But Carrier’s objection to my view did take me a bit off guard and make me wonder whether I was missing something, whether there were in fact scholars of Tacitus who continue to think the reference to Jesus was an interpolation in his writings. I am a scholar of the New Testament and early Christianity, not of Tacitus! And so I asked one of the prominent scholars of the Roman world, James Rives, who happens now to teach at UNC. Anyone who wonders about his credentials can look them up on the web; he’s one of the best known experts on Roman religion (and other things Roman) internationally. He has given me permission to cite him by name, as he is willing to stand by what he says.
My initial email question to him was this:
I’m wondering if there is any dispute, today, over the passage in Annals 15 where he mentions Jesus (whether there is any dispute over its authenticity).
His initial reply was this:
I’ve never come across any dispute about the authenticity of Ann. 15.44; as far as I’m aware, it’s always been accepted as genuine, although of course there are plenty of disputes over Tacitus’ precise meaning, the source of his information, and the nature of the historical events that lie behind it. There are some minor textual issues (the spelling ‘Chrestianos’ vs. ‘Christianos’, e.g.), but there’s not much to be done with them since we here, as everywhere in Tacitus’ major works, effectively depend on a single manuscript.
I then asked him about the article Carrier mentioned with respect to Benario, and this was his reply:
Benario’s article cited below is one of a series he did over a period of decades, in which he summarizes other people’s work on Tacitus; they’re an extremely useful bibliographical resource (although there’s no reason that a non-specialist would be aware of them!). I’ve just checked this particular article, and can only assume that the particular work to which your adversary makes reference is mentioned on p. 264: Charles Saumagne, ‘Tacite et saint Paul’, Revue Historique 232 (1964) 67-110, who according to Benario ‘claims that the Christians are not mentioned in 15.44, that there is an ancient interpolation, taken from book 6 of the Histories, which were written after the Annals, and that Sulpicius Severus was responsible for the transposition’. So I’m wrong that no classicist has argued that the passage is not authentic. Saumagne may not be alone: Benario cites another article on the same page whose author ‘recalls that Christians are not linked with the fire before the time of Sulpicius Severus’. Nevertheless, I would still point out that 1) Saumagne does argue that this is an interpolation, but only from another of Tacitus’ works; 2) the whole thing sounds like a house of cards to me, since Histories Book 6 doesn’t exist and so can’t provide a firm foundation for an argument; 3) this is clearly a minority opinion, since I’ve never encountered it before.
He then pursued the matter further (he’s a *great* colleague!), and wrote me this:
I’ve had a quick look at the two articles in question. Saumagne does think that the text has been interpolated, but also that the reference to Christ being killed under Pontius Pilate comes from a lost portion of Tacitus’ Histories. His argument seems very shaky to me, but in either case it doesn’t affect your own, since Saumagne thinks that Tacitus knew about and referred to Jesus, which is the main thing for you. The other article, by Koestermann (an editor of Tacitus), argues that Tacitus made a mistake in associating the Chrestiani with Christ, but doesn’t say anything about the reference to Christ not having been written by Tacitus himself. There may be scholars who’ve argued that the reference to Christ is a later interpolation into the text, but neither of these two did, and I certainly don’t know of any others.
I think that’s enough to settle it. I really don’t think what I said was “irresponsible,” “sloppy,” or “crap.”
The Dying and Rising God:
In my book I argue that there is very thin evidence indeed for anything like a widespread pagan belief in a dying-rising god, on which Jesus was modeled. In the context of showing the shortcomings of Freke and Gandy’s book The Jesus Mysteries, I make a passing comment on the Egyptian god Osiris, first by asking a series of questions: “What, for example, is the proof that Osiris was born on December 25 before three shepherds? Or that he was crucified? And that his death brought atonement for sin? Or that he returned to life on earth by being raised from the dead? In fact no ancient source says any such thing about Osiris”
Carrier does not seem to disagree with most of this statement, but he takes very serious issue indeed with the claim that Osiris was not raised from the dead to return to life on earth. He indicates that I received this information entirely from an article by Jonathan Z. Smith, and that if I had been “real scholar” I would have looked up the ancient sources themselves. As it is I made a “hack mistake” showing that I was “incompetent.” His counter claim is that “Plutarch attests that Osiris was believed to have died and been returned to earth… and that the did indeed return to earth in his resurrected body.” He gives as his reference Plutarch “On Isis and Osiris,” 19.358b.
Carrier is wrong on all points. I did not get this information just from J. Z. Smith (who, by the way, is one of the most eminent and distinguished historians of religion walking the face of the planet, and certainly no hack) and his charge that I have not behaved as a “real scholar” is completely unfounded. I have read Plutarch’s account of Osiris many times. For years I used this text in the graduate seminars I taught on Graeco-Roman religion. In my reading of the myth of Osiris, he does not rise from the dead back to life here on earth.
One of our principal sources of knowledge of the myth of the gods Isis and Osiris, brother and sister but lovers, is the famous second century pagan philosopher and priest Plutarch. The myth as Plutarch recounts it is not long; most of his treatise De Iside et Osiride consists of a range of ways people had interpreted the myth, in particularly the various allegorical interpretations. A convenient translation of the treatise can be found here: penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Isis_and_Osiris*/
I do not need to relate all the details of the myth in this context. Suffice it to say that Osiris is killed by an enemy and hidden away in a chest/coffin that was lost. Isis finally finds it and mourns the loss of her dead lover. But (another) enemy finds the body and does something unspeakable. Here is the passage from Plutarch, in the Babbitt translation of the Loeb Classical Library:
18 As they relate, Isis proceeded to her son Horus, who was being reared in Buto, and bestowed the chest in a place well out of the way; but Typhon, who was hunting by night in the light of the moon, happened upon it. Recognizing the body [of Osiris] he divided it into fourteen parts and scattered them, each in a different place. Isis learned of this and sought for them again, sailing through the swamps in a boat of papyrus. This is the reason why people sailing in such boats are not harmed by the crocodiles, since these creatures in their own way show either their fear or their reverence for the goddess. The traditional result of Osiris’s dismemberment is that there are many so called tombs of Osiris in Egypt; for Isis held a funeral for each part when she had found it. Others deny this and assert that she caused effigies of him to be made and these she distributed among the several cities, pretending that she was giving them his body, in order that he might receive divine honours in a greater number of cities, and also that, if Typhon should succeed in overpowering Horus, he might despair of ever finding the true tomb when so many were pointed out to him, all of them called the tomb of Osiris. Of the parts of Osiris’s body the only one which Isis did not find was the male member, for the reason that this had been at once tossed into the river, and the lepidotus, the sea-bream, and the pike had fed upon it; and it is from these very fishes the Egyptians are most scrupulous in abstaining. But Isis made a replica of the member to take its place, and consecrated the phallus, in honour of which the Egyptians even at the present day celebrate a festival. 19 Later, as they relate, Osiris came to Horus from the other world and exercised and trained him for the battle.
In this telling of the myth - the one the Carrier refers to - Osiris’s body does not come back to life. Quite the contrary, it remains a corpse. There are debates, in fact, over where it is buried, and different locales want to claim the honor of housing it. It is true that Osiris “comes back” to earth to work with his son Horus: ἔπειτα τῷ Ὥρῳ τὸν Ὄσιριν ἐξ Ἅιδου παραγενόμενον. Literally, he came “from Hades.” But this is not a resurrection of his body. His body is still dead. He himself is down in Hades, and can come back up to make an appearance on earth on occasion. This is not like Jesus coming back from the dead, in his body; it is like Samuel in the story of the Witch of Endor, where King Saul brings his shade back to the world of the living temporarily (1 Samuel 28). How do we know Osiris is not raised physically? His body is still a corpse, in a tomb.
Evidence to that comes from various places in the treatise. For example, section 20, 359 E
not the least important suggestion is the opinion held regarding the shrines of Osiris, whose body is said to have been laid in many different places. For they say that Diochites is the name given to a small town, on the ground that it alone contains the true tomb; and that the prosperous and influential men among the Egyptians are mostly buried in Abydos, since it is the object of their ambition to be buried in the same ground with the body of Osiris. In Memphis, however, they say, the Apis is kept, being the image of the soul of Osiris, whose body also lies there. The name of this city some interpret as “the haven of the good” and others as meaning properly the “tomb of Osiris.”
It is his soul that lives on, in the underworld. Not his body in this world. Carrier wants to argue that the body comes back to life, and points to a passage that speaks of its “revivification and regenesis.” But that is taking the Plutarch’s words out of context. Here is the relevant passage:
35 364F-365A Furthermore, the tales regarding the Titans and the rites celebrated by night agree with the accounts of the dismemberment of Osiris and his revivification and regenesis ὁμολογεῖ δὲ καὶ τὰ Τιτανικὰ καὶ Νυκτέλια 5 τοῖς λεγομένοις Ὀσίριδος διασπασμοῖς καὶ ταῖς ἀναβιώσεσι καὶ παλιγγενεσίαις. Similar agreement is found too in the tales about their sepulchres. The Egyptians, as has already been stated, point out tombs of Osiris in many places, and the people of Delphi believe that the remains of Dionysus rest with them close beside the oracle;
Note: whatever his revivification involves, it is not a return to his physical body, which remains in a tomb someplace. It is his soul that lives on, as seen, finally in a key passage later:
54 373A It is not, therefore, out of keeping that they have a legend that the soul of Osiris is everlasting and imperishable, but that his body Typhon oftentimes dismembers and causes to disappear, and that Isis wanders hither and yon in her search for it, and fits it together again; for that which really is and is perceptible and good is superior to destruction and change.
Carrier and I could no doubt argue day and night about how to interpret Plutarch. But my views do not rest on having read a single article by Jonathan Z. Smith and a refusal to read the primary sources. As I read them, there is no resurrection of the body of Osiris. And that is the standard view among experts in the field.
The Other Jesus Conundrum
In my discussion of G.A. Wells’s work I have occasion to consider his claim that Paul did not think Jesus was a person who lived just a few years before his conversion, but 150 year or so earlier. In that context I indicate that Paul thought that “the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were recent events.” I go on to “stress that this is the view of all of our sources that deal with the matter at all” (p. 251).
Carrier jumps on this last statement, stating that it “is false” and that by making it I “arrogantly and ignorantly” mislead my readers. As evidence he points out that in the writings of Epiphanius there is reference to a group of Christians who held that Jesus lived in the days of the Jewish king Jannaeus (103-76 BCE), and that this was the view as well in the Jewish writings of the Talmud and the Toledot Yeshu.
In this case Carrier has attacked one of my statements by taking it completely out of its context - as would be clear had he simply quoted my next sentence. After speaking of Paul and the other sources, I say “it is hard to believe that Paul would have such a radically different view from every other Christian of his day, as Wells suggests. That Jesus lived recently is affirmed not only in all four of our canonical Gospels…. It is also the view of all of the Gospel Sources - Q…M, L - and of the non-Christian sources such as Josephus and Tacitus.”
When I refer to “all of our other sources” in the sentence that Carrier attacks, I was referring to the sources I then enumerate, those of “every other Christian of [Paul’s] day.” Iin other words, As a careful reading of this entire section of my book makes crystal clear, in this context I am talking about our earliest sources of information about Jesus: Paul, Q, the Synoptics and their sources, and the non-Christian sources. I am not referring to every source that ever existed at any time whatsoever. Epiphanius, whom Carrier cites as an alternative source, was writing at the end of the fourth Christian century; the Talmud and the Toledot Yeshu were later than that.
Maybe I could have made this a bit more clear by saying that the view I was referring to could be found in “all our sources from Paul’s time and in the decades that followed, not sources written 300 years later that have no bearing on Paul’s thinking.” But frankly, I didn’t think it was necessary since I went on to enumerate the sources that I was referring to. What I meant, of course, was that all of the relevant sources have this view.
“No Roman Records”
In the course of my discussion of Freke and Gandy’s The Jesus Mysteries, I fault them for thinking that since the Romans kept such detailed records of everything (“birth notices, trial records, death certificates”), it is odd indeed that we have no such records from Roman hands about Jesus. My response is that it is a complete myth (in the mythicist sense) that Romans kept detailed records of everything. Carrier vehemently objects that this is altogether false, indicating that in fact we have thousands of such records, and that he has “literally held some for these documents in my very hands.” And he points out that some of them are quoted and cited in ancient books, as when Suetonius refers to the birth records for Caligula.
What Carrier is referring to is principally the documentary papyri discovered in Egypt, which I am in fact very familiar with and some of which I too have held in my hands. Over the years I have frequently referred my PhD students to these important records, and have often perused accounts of them, such as the many volumes of the Oxyrynchus Papyri, in the course of my research. We do indeed have many thousands of such documents - wills, land deeds, birth records, divorce certificates, and on and on - from Egypt.
Several points need to be made about these documentary papyri. First, they are, in fact, largely from Egypt - in no small measure because climactic conditions allow for their preservation there. Second, most of these are not in fact records of Roman officials, but made by indigenous Egyptian writers / scribes. And third, this is not what I was talking about.
In this case the misunderstanding is understandable, but easily explained, and shown by considering my comments in their larger context. My book is about Jesus, a Palestinian Jew of the first century. Throughout this entire book, I was thinking about Jesus, in everything I said. And his environment and context. That is why, as I pointed out in an earlier post, when I was disputing that an bronze ithyphallic rooster represented the disciple Peter, I could say “There is no penis-nosed statue of Peter the cock in the Vatican.” I wasn’t even thinking about whether there was a penis-nosed statue in the museum; I was thinking about whether it had anything to do with Peter. No, it doesn’t. (And it turns out, it is evidently not even in the museum; but I have no first-hand knowledge of that one way or the other.)
When I denied that we had Roman records of much of anything, or any indication that there ever were Roman records of anything, I was thinking of Palestine. That becomes clear in my other later reference to the matter where I explain in detail what I was thinking, and that Carrier, understandably, chose not to quote in full: “I should reiterate that it is a complete “myth” (in the mythicist sense) that Romans kept detailed records of everything and that as a result we are inordinately well informed about the world of Roman Palestine [Note: I’m talking about Palestine] and should expect then to hear about Jesus if he really lived. If Romans kept such records, where are they? We certainly don’t have any. Think of everything we do not know about the reign of Pontius Pilate as governor of Judea…” (p. 44)
I go on to detail what we have no record of about Pilate from Roman records: “his major accomplishments, his daily itinerary, the decrees he passed, the laws he issued, the prisoners he put on trial, the death warrants he signed, his scandals, his interview, his judicial proceedings.” In talking about Roman records, I am talking about the Roman records we are interested in: the ones related to the time and place where Jesus lived, first-century Palestine. It’s a myth that we have or that we could expect to have detailed records from Roman officials about everything that was happening there, so that if Jesus really lived, we would have some indication of it. Quite the contrary, we precisely don’t have Roman records - of much of anything - from there.
We do indeed have lots of records from someplace else that doesn’t matter for the question I’m interested in (Egypt; even though even there most of the records are not Roman or from Roman officials). I can see how my first statement on the matter could be construed (without my fuller explanation of what I meant some pages later) and how it could be read as flat-out error. But yes, I do indeed know about our documentary papyri. A better way for me to have said it is that we do have records for other places - at least Egypt - but it’s a complete myth that we have them, or should expect to have them, for the time and place Jesus lived.
The Doherty “Slander”
Carrier finds fault with my claim, about Earl Doherty, that he “quotes professional scholars at length when their view prove useful for developing aspects of his argument, but he fails to point out that not a single one of these scholars agrees with his overarching thesis” (p. 252). He points out that Doherty does in fact indicate, in various places throughout his book, that the argument he is advancing at that point is not accepted by other scholars. As a result, Carrier states, my claim is nothing but “falsified propaganda.”
I am afraid that in this case Carrier misses my point. It is true that Doherty acknowledges that scholars disagree with him on this, that, or the other thing. But the way he builds his arguments typically makes it appear that he is writing as a scholar among scholars, and that all of these scholars (with him in the mix) have disagreements on various issues (disagreements with him, with one another). One is left with the impression that like these other scholars, Doherty is building a tenable case that some points of which would be granted by some scholars but not others, and that the entire overall thesis, therefore, would also be acceptable to at least some of the scholars he engages with.
The reality, however, is that every single scholar of early Christianity that Doherty appeals to fundamentally disagrees with his major thesis (Jesus did not exist). This is completely unlike other works of true scholarship, where scholars are cited as having disagreements on various points - but not, universally, as an entire body, on the entire premise and virtually all the claims (foundation and superstructure). I was urging that Doherty should come clean and inform his readers in clear terms that even though he quotes scholars on one issue or another, not a single one of these scholars (or indeed, any recognized scholar in the field of scholarship that he is addressing) agrees with the radical thesis of his book.
This criticism of Doherty applies not just to his overall argument but to his argument in the details, at the micro level. The way Doherty uses scholars is just not scholarly, since he often gives the impression that the scholars he quotes agree with him on a point when they expressly do not. Just to give a typical example: at one place in my book I discuss Doherty’s claim that Jesus was not crucified here on earth by Romans, but in the spiritual realm by demonic powers (p. 252). In his book Jesus: Neither God Nor Man Doherty quotes New Testament scholar Morna Hooker in support of his view. In the sentence before he introduces her, he says: “this self-sacrificing divinity (who operates in the celestial spheres, not on earth) is a paradigm for believers on earth” (p. 104). In other words, Christ was sacrificed in heaven, not on earth. Then he quotes Hooker: “Christ becomes what we are (likeness of human flesh, suffering and death), so enabling us to become what he is (exalted to the heights).” Here he cites Hooker to support his claim that Christ was paradigmatic for his followers (a fairly uncontroversial claim), but he does not acknowledge that when she says Christ became “what we are (likeness of human flesh)” she is referring to Christ becoming a human being in flesh on earth - precisely the view he rejects. Hooker’s argument, then, which he quotes in favor of his view, flat-out contradicts his view.
In short, I am not denying that Doherty sometimes acknowledges that scholars disagree with him; I am saying that he quotes them as though they support his views without acknowledging that in fact they do not.
The Pliny Confusion
Carrier indicates that he almost fell out of his chair when he read my discussion of the letters of Pliny. Sorry about that! He points out that when I talk about letter 10, I really meant Book 10; and when I summarize the letter involving Christians, I provide information that is not found in the letter but is assumed by scholars to apply to the letter based on another letter in Book 10.
To the first charge I plead guilty. Yes, when I said letter 10 I meant a letter in book 10. This is what you might call a real howler, a cock-up (not in the Peter sense). I meant Book 10. This is the kind of mistake I’m prone to make (I’ve made it before and will probably make it again), that I should have caught. A more generous reader would have simply said “Ehrman, you say letter 10 but you mean a letter in book 10,” and left it at that. Carrier takes it to mean that I’m an idiot and that I’ve never read the letters of Pliny.
I may have moments of idiocy, but I have indeed read the letters of Pliny, especially those of Book 10. I’ve taught them for years. When he accuses me of not knowing the difference between a fact and a hypothetical reconstruction, though, he is going too far. I do indeed know that the context scholars have reconstructed for the “Christian problem” is the broader problem outlined elsewhere in Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan. The problem here is simply that I was trying to summarize briefly a complicated account in simple terms for readers who frankly, in my opinion (right or wrong) are not interested in the details about Pliny, Trajan, provincial disorder, and fire brigaids when the question is whether Pliny knows about Jesus or not.
This relates to a bigger problem. Carrier seems to expect Did Jesus Exist to be a work of scholarship written for scholars in the academy and with extensive engagement with scholarship, rather than what it is, a popular book written for a broad audience. There is a big difference. I write both kinds of books. My scholarly books would never be mistaken for books that would be read by a wide, general public. But Carrier indicates that the inadequacy of Did Jesus Exist can be seen by comparing it to two of his own recent books, which, he tells us, pay more attention to detail, embrace a more diverse range of scholarship, and have many more footnotes.
I did not write this book for scholars. I wrote if for lay people who are interested in a broad, interesting, and very important question. Did Jesus really exist? I was not arguing the case for scholars, because scholars already know the answer to that question. I was explaining to the non-scholar why scholars think what they do. A non-scholarly book tries to explain things in simple terms, and to do so without the clutter of detail that you would find in a work of scholarship. The book should not be faulted for that. If I had wanted to convince scholars (I’m not sure whom I would then be writing for, in that case) I would have written a different kind of book
Conclusion
I have not dealt with all the myriad of things that Carrier has to say - most of them unpleasant - about my book. But I have tried to say enough, at least, to counter his charges that I am an incompetent pseudo-scholar. I try to approach my work with honesty and scholarly integrity, and would like to be accorded treatment earned by someone who has devoted his entire life to advancing scholarship and to making scholarship more widely available to the reading public.
I am absolutely positive that Carrier and his supporters will write response after response to my comments here, digging deeper and deeper to show that I am incompetent. They will expect replies, so that then they can write yet more comments, to which they will expect more replies, so that they can write more comments. I am finding, now that I am becoming active on the Internet, that engaging in discussion here can mean entering into a black hole: there is no way out once you hit the event horizon. Many critics of my work have boundless energy and, seemingly, endless time. I myself have lots of energy, but not lots of time. I have had my say now, in an attempt to show my scholarly competence. I do not plan on pursuing the matter time and time again in this medium. My main energies - and my limited time - need to be devoted to the two ultimate goals of my career: to advance scholarship among scholars and to explain scholarship to popular audiences. That requires me to write books, and that takes massive amounts of time. That is where I will be putting the bulk of my energies, not to writing lengthy responses defending myself against unfounded charges of incompetence.
I close by quoting a passage that Carrier himself wrote in one of his earlier books, as provided to me by a sympathetic reader. In the Introduction of his book Sense and Goodness Without God (pp. 5-6), Carrier makes the following plea:
“For all readers, I ask that my work be approached with the same intellectual charity you would expect from anyone else…. [O]rdinary language is necessarily ambiguous and open to many different interpretations. If what I say anywhere in this book appears to contradict, directly or indirectly, something else I say here, the principle of interpretive charity should be applied: assume you are misreading the meaning of what I said in each or either case. Whatever interpretation would eliminate the contradiction and produce agreement is probably correct. So you are encouraged in every problem that may trouble you to find that interpretation. If all attempts at this fail, and you cannot but see a contradiction remaining, you should write to me about this at once, for the manner of my expression may need expansion or correction in a future edition to remove the difficulty, or I might really have goofed up and need to correct a mistake.”
I like very much the idea of “intellectual charity,” and I think that it is a good idea to contact an author about problems that might be detected in her or his writing. I wish Carrier had followed his own advice and contacted me, in fact, rather than publish such a negative and uncharitable review. But I do hope, at least, that fair minded readers will see be open to the arguments that I make and the evidence that I adduce in Did Jesus Exist, and realize that they are the views, in popular form, of serious scholarship. They are not only serious scholarly views, they are the views held by virtually every serious scholar in the field of early Christian studies.
How are you going to argue over the meaning of a word that is a translation from another language? People need to realize KJV is just one of a long list of translations off scrolls written in a dead language, then edited, then re edited. Translate KJV to Spanish, then back to English, two modern, commonly used languages, and see how many changes there are from just that. Translate to Chinese and see what happens! Oh, did I mention edited?