Dr. Richard Carrier's lecture in Bangor, Maine: The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- Dr. Richard Carrier's lecture in Bangor, Maine: "The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus." Attendants met in person with others attending through Zoom. Dr. Carrier discusses his new work and material from his new book.
An arithmetical correction to the last slide can be found here: www.richardcar...
If Carrier is correct, tens of thousands of books on Jesus are invalidated.
That's why scholars are afraid to even read his books.
so?
Isn't it delicious 😋😃?!
I don't particularly see what your point is here...
Thank you for this. Dr Carrier never fails to astound. I can't wait to read his new book when it's finally publicly available.
Dr. Carrier is one of the great critical thinkers of our time.
I agree. Over the last few years, Dr. Carrier has become my favorite scholar. He's brilliant and he seems like a nice guy, too.
yeah keep BIBLES out our Schools 😊
I’ve ben following him for over half a decade myself. «On the Historicity of Jesus» is a beautifuly written text, andI’m in complete agreement with his methodology and conclusions.
I have heard that he privately can be… lets call it it… problematic.
Does not affect his work, and it isn’t like I’m his personal friend.
So in the end the metric I judge him by is the quality of his work, that is far better than others I’ve seen in this field.
@@Saraqual honestly, everyone and anyone can be problematic privately.
Ummm. No. Applying Bayesian statistics to ancient history is crap. I am sure no one here actually knows anything about Bayesian statistics but the cliche holds --> put junk in, get junk out. The truth behind the matter is that the paper trail is so small so his "likelihood ratio" is very subjective, in essence the error on that ratio swamps the result so the error on his conclusion is larger than the conclusion itself. The Holocaust example is crap as he knows. Listen to him. Video existed, photographs, etc "Modern historians are luckier ..." The Socrates is even more ludicrous. Jesus was a poor Jew. Anybody ever ask him why he does not have a real academic job as opposed to talking to old white men on zoom?
Dr Carrier seems to be one of the most honest and measured voices surrounding Jesus studies. I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough to know how correct he is but I do find him somewhat of a breath of fresh air. Many other commentators become too emotionally invested in the ideas, to the point where they seem to miss the thrust of his arguments or attribute an argument to Carrier that he hasn't made.
Thanks for hosting Dr Carrier on this topic and about his new book. It is true that I have wondered about the progress for acceptance of his arguments in OHJ so I'm gld to hear about his new book! (
A tour-de-force of textual analysis from Dr Carrier. Thank you 😇!
Dr. Carrier being an absolute badass while casually drinking whisky lol
the problem with most biblical scholars is that:
They are not historians, they are afraid of math and, if they did the probability calculation, they wouldn't like the results
Dot Dot Dot Infinity Plus God Equals Folly by James Lindsay .Also I say how can anyone live to infinity? Not if you have a resurrected brain you can't
@sresponsesIt is pure comedy to read comments such as yours when it comes to the Word of God. I mean it's like a bunch of liberal goobers trying to explain their way into a mystery that is held closed to them. Praying God will call you to HIM but until then keep up the folly
I doubt it's the fear of math that's the greatest barrier in this case. It's not wanting the result. Personally, the numbers don't do the heavy lifting for me. My reasoning could be broken down that way, as Dr. Carrier describes, but to me, the arguments against an historical Jesus are compelling without going to the numbers. (I don't know where most people's cut off is for "didn't happen" -- don't even know what mine is numerically. But in this case, mine seems to fall well above the one in 10,000 that is Carrier's more realistic estimate of the chances Jesus was historical. I just think he wasn't historical*.)
The Christian scholars just can't face that their religion is unnecessary. (That's why so many Christians go for the absurdity of a 6,000-year-old universe, too. If Adam and Eve are metaphorical, there is no original sin requiring blood sacrifice to redeem.) The secular scholars are more complicated, but I think it comes down to conformism and fear of social consequences. Those forces can work at a less than fully conscious level. It's definitely been disappointing to see how many scholars I respected fall in this category. They should know better. They should be more conscientious in their work.
---------------
* The only "historical Jesus" that's plausible to me is Jesus Ben Ananias. But he died 40 years later, wasn't crucified, and his story was used as a sketch for the back-dated version. That's not what people mean by a historical Jesus, and it doesn't fit even the most "minimal facts" version of the story, so I don't think it counts. The gospel story is myth, with some local color included.
Dr. Carrier is the G.O.A.T.!!!
Thank you for recording and uploading this, it's been very informative.
Dr Carrier I am very much looking forward to an updated "On the historicity" 👍🏼
Just amazes me how few scholars are brave enough to stand up and say how little evidence there is for a historical Jesus and how that makes the biblical Jesus impossible.
LOL scholars
I'm glad u Albinos deconverted me 😊
Thomas Jefferson did not believe there was a historical Jesus because he said there is not one redeeming feature in Christianity and Jesus is "our Redeemer."
Great presentation. Thank you very much!
Brilliant talk, thanks for sharing. It's hard to believe it's been ten years since "On the Historicity of Jesus" was published. Very happy to see a book that addresses trends and arguments, culled from a decade of debates and articles.
I would absolutely love to peruse Richard's bookshelves! But that's the case every time I see a bookshelf in a video.
Has anyone read "Did Jesus Ever Live?" by L. Gordon Rylands? It was published in 1936...Before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered as well as the Nag Hammadi Library...
Nice work Dr Carrier!
Albino u must be gay with them Rainbows
@@1stHuemanAmerican thanks for proving you cant tell female from male or straight from gay.
What is the likelihood that the gospels are true? Starting with the likelihood that Herod was killing all the of the children, without somebody writing it down, all the miracles up to the Zombies in Jerusalem that nobody noticed.
I think it’s terribly shameful that an Ehrman, Goodachre, or a Crossan hasn’t published a monograph defending the Historicity of Jesus.
There hasn’t been one in 100 YEARS!
Ehrman has (“Did Jesus Exist?”) but it isn’t very good. Basically just “they wouldn’t make up a crucified messiah” and “brother of the lord” (Galatians 1:19), with fluff on top.
@@Ryansarcade9 yeah that book ages like milk 🥛
@@Ryansarcade9 That was published before the peer reviewed studies (mine and Latasters) and is popmarket, not peer reviewed academic. I discuss this, and why it matters, in the book.
There is no defense to publish. At least one that is not embarrassing to the writer. It's like defending the historicity of the Owl and the Pussycat. You just make a fool of yourself -- like Ehrman did. The Emperor has no clothes.
Who wrote the original one? 100 years ago?
How did I miss this?! I live so close.
Great presentation by Carrier. Very useful follow up to his previous presentations. I now have a better idea of the Bayes maths.
Please, similar work into the persons of Muhammad and Buddha would also be very useful. They never existed
Which buddha? Theres 27 of them.
"math is more important to this than anyone wants to admit." 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 His use of math has been thoroughly debunked.
Where? By who?
@@dayofthejackyl by a mathematician. The post is available via the internet archive. I don't have the link right this second, but I'd you want it let me know! I'll try and find when I get to a computer.
@@KTempestBradford yes that’d be great! I like listening to carrier but he definitely has a lot of detractors
"Bayes’ theorem is an all-purpose tool that can serve any cause. The prominent Bayesian statistician Donald Rubin of Harvard has served as a consultant for tobacco companies facing lawsuits for damages from smoking." (John Hogan, Scientific American 1-4-2016)
Yeah, that's simply untrue. It shows a complete misunderstanding of Bayes theorem.
I agree. It all depends on what the person feeding it data considers evidence and its weighing. GIGO.
Argumentation is an all-purpose tool that can serve any cause. All Bayesian thinking does is ask you to lay out your assumptions.
*”Son of David” is telling*
Mark didn’t claim Jesus had a biological line to David. In 11:9-10 the author seems to think all Jews considered David their father.
So I see no “requirement” to claim Jesus was the seed of David…. So when Paul says Jesus was the seed of David, it is some evidence that he thought Jesus had a human form (I’m not saying Paul didn’t think Jesus was more spirit than any other human)
Literally _everybody_ agrees Paul thought Jesus had "a human form". At issue is only where: in Palestine, or in The Firmament? Mythicism has Paul believing in a human sky-Jesus killed by sky-demons ("archons") in the sky. The forged, late 2 Peter warns us against believing the evidently numerous Christians of its time still saying so.
Note that that is the thesis: even in the mythicist model Paul believes Jesus became human, and his mortal body had some physical or spiritual relationship to David. I have a whole chapter on this in the new book (it just isn't a subject of this talk).
@@RichardCarrierPhD Thank you, but now I’m at a loss as to what mythicism means and when you think Jesus became human because every time I listen to you, you seem to be arguing that Paul didn’t think Jesus took human form.
@@scienceexplains302 As I understand it Paul thought Jesus had a human form in which to suffer at some undisclosed time & in some undisclosed location, not necessarily on earth as you & I would understand it.
I think that Dr. RC should work with mathematicians to come up with more robust mathematical equations, parameters, and criteria. If we use the current system of "do we know the life?", "Did people write about them?", and other hearsay findings that are not archeological or authentically historical without redactions and interpolations, then 2000 years people will think Peter Parker was a real person.
How do we know that Paul actually existed and wasn't made up by Marcion?
I have the Historicity Of Jesus book, and indeed, it isn't an easy read, no chance for me to read it cover to cover, I just pick it up occasionally and read a part till I get tired. But now I can hardly wait to get my hands on this new, shorter book! :)
You don't have to be a Biblical zcholar to see the holes in Christian thinking. Many seven year olds in Sunfay Schools ask the right questions. But this discussion is the ultimate answer to the answers they are given.
I find it a bit weird to say you wish Christians would become better Christians by returning to the original Christianity "before the Catholic Church got involved". The form of Christianity that evolved with input from thousands of debates within the Church has the advantage of surviving by appealing to millions of people. Would anyone say I wish humankind hadn't evolved so much and we were more like Australopithecus? A trivial example would be the Christmas story - you could insist, to no avail, that Christians chose one of the contradictory versions (Mathew or Luke) and demand that Christmas decorations have either three wise men with a star or angels talking to shepherds but not both. One can laugh at the Diatessaron but Gospel harmonies were and are popular.
I suspect that a demand to return to the original would turn out to be a demand that Christianity become so weird and unpopular that it dies out. I mean, Paul was a werido and his writings have to be reinterpreted to become palatable and survive (once the end times didn't happen in his lifetime).
Christianity survived via the Roman Empire enforcing it against competitors, for reasons we should not find persuasive today. It later evolved to support the power structure of the papacy in competition with secular nobility, again not by reference to anybody else's needs. Since the Reformation it evolved further in ways strongly constrained by its history.
Modern Xians are Weridos as well. Super Weridos generally.
If you want to say the Catholic Church is an evolved view of Christianity... be my guest.
I'm truly amazed at the Word of God. Truly it is right on when it discusses those who think they are so very intellectual but are yet fools. I mean, before thet even open their pie holes you can puck them out of a crowd. It is a sad thing but it's a very comedic thing to see y'all trying to break in to something that is hidden from you. Rather than let God explain Himself to you you rather explain Himself to Him. You really gotta watch what you say, God will not be mocked, getting fast tracked to hell is obviously not in your thinking but it's real. I pray God would reveal himself to you and if He has but you resisted, well, you'll be with like minded fools
@@earlwhite3760look in a mirror.
Youll see a brainwashed fool.
Were the gospels written independent of each other, or did they mostly copy from Mark? What about the other 40 gospels?
when was this?
It was live April 27, 2024 (just a couple weeks before the post date).
@@RichardCarrierPhD Do you know why the video of your first presentation on the historicity of Jesus was taken down?
the final actual history of the political fiction that the bible is, would be all the actual politics and powerplays by those who could carry them out for their benefit, in shaping the political cult of god/jesus.
better discuss anythink positive are there any sitings are there any qoutes in the bible that can be said to be authentic
I am always surprised that what is to me the knock-down evidence, the silence of Paul, is rarely mentioned. Paul never gets to say, "and Jesus agrees with me on this", and is never obliged to show why something Jesus said doesn't actually disagree with him. (Similarly, 1 Clement digging deep for examples of betrayal from within has never heard of Judas.) Since almost everything Mark has his Jesus say matches something Paul promotes, Paul should have had no difficulty finding a Jesus quote that would let him avoid constructing elaborately argued support for his opinions.
There is maybe an intermediate position where a Jesus existed but nothing he said was recorded or none of it agreed with later doctrine, so Mark had to make it all up anyway, but that seems less likely than not existing at all.
A possible reason that Paul rarely used Jesus’ ministry (assuming we have accurate versions of Paul’s letters), is that that would emphasize the human Jesus, whereas for Paul to promote himself, he needed his “spiritual vision” or whatever Paul was claiming, as his authority.
If the human Jesus was the authority, then Paul’s position would diminish in relation to the disciples.
@Letsthinkaboutit-mb7nn He quotes or cites Jesus’ supposed words twice that I can think of, which is very little, but not “never.”
1 Corinthians 7:10-12 where he discusses divorce.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 where he recounts the Last Supper.
@Letsthinkaboutit-mb7nn “… Galilee”Location was irrelevant to Paul. He wasn’t interested in biography.
But the fact that he cites Jesus so little in his (Paul’s) arguments against other Christians *is* interesting. As I said, one possible reason is that citing the human Jesus would shift post-Jesus power to Jesus’ in-person followers.
@Letsthinkaboutit-mb7nn Paul *could have* thought they were from revelation, but when he discusses revelation, he doesn’t mention them.
@Letsthinkaboutit-mb7nn “location”
It’s not a supposition, it’s a tentative conclusion from reading his letters and from listening to scholars.
Did anyone contact Jehovahs Witnesses on This
Brown Frank Hall Barbara Lewis Sarah
brother of the lord is interpreted
Carrier is actually referring to William II (Rufus) who was killed in controversial circumstances. His brother who became Henry I seized the treasury.
Did the Apostle paul make it all up
Who knew history could be so complicated!?
Dr. Carrier is my hero.
I'd like to see Carrier do a Bayesian mathematical formula on whether Kennedy was assasinated due to an elaborate conspiracy.
He wasn't. Lee harvey oswald shot Kennedy on his own. There's no conspiracy. Anyone who tells you other is lying or delusional. Read Vincent Bugliosis book it's the most complete research on the history of the assassination. Some con artists have made a lot of money out of lying about this topic.
Google 'the mafia killed jfk'
Its pretty thorough
Here's the one thing I hate about these 'is Jesus real' discussions. First you need to define what you mean by a Jesus.
1. Do you mean a man that claimed to be supernatural?
2. Do you mean a man that had connections to the supernatural?
3. Do you mean a man that was supernatural?
4. Do you mean something else?
I’m not defending mythicism - I think it’s extremely weak. But those points are all covered in his books such as OTHJ.
@@steveclark8538 But how sloppy is the discussion when you fail to define what you are talking about.
@@gerardgauthier4876
Like I already said, He does so in his book. He defines very clearly what he means. I just disagree with what he considers evidence or not and how to weigh it.
Carrier clearly defines what he means by Jesus in both cases. Jesus Existed: A failed apocalyptic prophet who said & did very little of interest & who was greatly mythologised after his death. Mythic Jesus: A cosmic, revelatory being who underwent an atoning sacrifice in the sub lunar realm at the hands of Satan and his demons.
John Hogan, Scientific American 1-4-2016: "In many cases, estimating the prior is just guesswork, allowing subjective factors to creep into your calculations. You might be guessing the probability of something that--unlike cancer-does not even exist, such as strings, multiverses, inflation or God. You might then cite dubious evidence to support your dubious belief. In this way, Bayes’ theorem can promote pseudoscience and superstition as well as reason." Or "The Holycaust."
Online silliness? That's rather disrespectful
Indeed. It is a form of ad hominem fallacy; albeit itself a very silly ad hominem fallacy.
What this "online silliness" refers to?
would hate to think God actually created this slave religion.
Carrier is a charlatan.
Sounds like you have a personal problem.
@@dayofthejackyl About the level of illogical that is typical of Carrier fans.
@@danieleyre8913 the level of illogical what? You’re not forming coherent thoughts.
@@dayofthejackyl No pipe down.
What is not coherent is this random declaration that I have personal problems without any supporting basis
@@danieleyre8913 your hostility is the basis.
Unfortunately there are contemporary Roman writings that prove Jesus was a real historical person. Not 1 teal historian will tell you Jesus was not a real person.
What do mean by contemporary? I’m personally not aware of of any source (Roman or otherwise) that talks about Jesus during his lifetime. As far as I know, Paul writing in the 50s AD is our first written mention of Jesus.
Roman Governor Pliny the Younger wrote to Emperor Trajan about him and the Christians. Tacitus writes about Jesus execution by Pontius Pilate. Josephus mentions him. Eusebius was later in the 300s. Then there are lots of mentions of Jesus in the Talmud which never say he didn’t exist or didn’t perform miracles but instead say he was maybe a trickster or say he was a magician. Once mention says he studied under a famous rabbi that actually lived 200 bc. Oops :). There’s more evidence for him than there is for many historical figures at that time bc of all the early references.
@@philmiska7295 Josephus and Eusebius are NOT contemporary writers to Jesus. Anyone talking about him in 200 bc is obviously not talking about him so not sure how that reference applies.
@@dayofthejackyl Josephus was not a contemporary of Jesus, was of two generations later.
But the men who educated him were contemporaries of Jesus, as were his parents and most of the adult people in his community while he was growing up.
And these were hostile witnesses, aristocratic Judeans who would have held the historical Jesus and his rabble in low regard.
So sorry but that is an illogical argument. You must have personal problems to come up with it.
@@danieleyre8913 word of mouth decades after the fact isn’t contemporary evidence. Sorry, but you’re letting your personal problems cloud your judgement.
One other thing about textual errors in books. Publishers make a limited number of deliberate mistakes in order to assist with helping catch copyright infringement.
His misuse of Bayes is enough to tip anyone who has had college level mathematics that a game is afoot…
That’s a funny way of saying you don’t understand how to apply math.
@@JA-in3hw No it’s the other way around.
If you make a factual claim like this, please provide a reason or a link to a resource which supports your claim. Otherwise, there's no way to tell if what you are claiming has any merit.
@@joshblack9182 Hahahaha are you serious?
Okay answer this: Where and how does Carrier pull his baseline probabilities from?
Honestly it’s like you asking that over claims that the earth is flat or creationism…
@@danieleyre8913 My comment wasn't addressed to you. Regardless, you appear to have construed my comment as somehow supporting Carrier, which it isn't. It's a straightforward, sincere request for more information about the validity of the comment. The person with an agenda here appears to be you, based on the tone and content of your unsolicited response and other responses in this thread, which have all the characteristics of a bad faith actor.
*Paul/Cephas/James Not considering all the evidence?*
The fact that Paul wrote about the supposed meeting seems to mean that Paul thought his readers thought that Jesus walked as a human with Cephas and James.
(Paul may refer to James differently because he thought James was lesser known or their was more than one relevant James, thus James needed more of an intro.)
There were a _lot_ of Jameses. But the grammar definitively indicates the James he (says he) met along with Peter was not an apostle, unlike Peter, whatever sort of brother that James was, hence neither of the Apostles James we imagine we know of. And, no, you only get an earthly Jesus by assuming it: the text doesn't help there, it is _perfectly_ ambiguous.
One of few names more common than James was Jesus; the entire lack of other Jesuses in the NT is strong evidence it is fiction. There should have been two apostle Jesuses and a leper Jesus.
@@sciptick Indeed. This is why the new book has a whole chapter on this (which this talk wasn't about).
In one of the gospels, one of those embarrassing women at the tomb was described as Mary, mother of James. I heard someone immediately claim this therefore had to be Jesus's mother. Do we have any idea which James and therefore which Mary?
@@johnnehrich9601 I don’t know. If it were Jesus’ mother, wouldn’t the author say that?
@@sciptick One of the things (of many) that drive me up a wall is that so much can be spun off from a simply sentence or phrase - whole books have come from nuggets like this. With all the copying errors and deliberate changes, not sure how anyone can be sure what was said and how it was said, on any biblical passage. Like nailing fog to a wall.
And in like manner, the dogmatic claims of both apologizes and even some advocating for a historical Jesus. (I'm speaking of you, Bart.)
----
There is evidence that the later church leaders were responding to what they read in the gospels. And that each gospel was based on the previous ones before it, all the way down to Mark. And lots of evidence Mark took Paul's letters and rewrote them to make a historical Jesus, putting Paul's words into Jesus's mouth. But I'm not sure why does Paul get a pass? He could have been an individual who saw a great potential to scam off people in distant places, by telling them about events in Jerusalem. He could have made the WHOLE thing up, including talking/meeting with Cephas, James, etc. I'm not too convinced this theory has any weight but don't like the fact it seems to be dismissed out of hand.