Reddit reviews On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
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I recently read the books on this topic by Ehrman, Doherty, and Carrier.
I found Carrier's case for a Mythical Jesus to be compelling, even though I found him to be annoying as a writer. He is rude to people who disagree with him and chooses language designed to offend. His writing is shrill and stiff. That said, his book is scholarly and well documented.
Ehrman argues for a historical Jesus. His book was almost the opposite of Carrier's. His tone was friendly and approachable. He seemed calm and reassuring. I kind of wanted him to prove his case. But his arguments sucked.
Doherty dissected Ehrman's case paragraph by paragraph. (I read Carrier first, then Ehrman, then Doherty.) Doherty raised many of the concerns I noticed myself. Ehrman's arguments just didn't make sense. Never mind the history or the evidence — I'm no scholar — his arguments didn't make logical sense.
I wouldn't say it's proven either way. Given the scarcity of evidence, it may never be. That said, Carrier made a surprisingly strong case against a historical Jesus. If Ehrman's defense of Jesus is the best that academia can do, I'd say Jesus is pretty much dead.
But I would love to see a serious and scholarly attempt to refute Carrier's work. Ehrman's work didn't cut it.
I. Sure, some forms of theism are coherent (Christianity is not one of those forms, for what it's worth; the Problem of Natural Evil and Euthyphro's Dilemma being a couple of big problems), but not all coherent ideas are true representations of the world; any introductory course in logic will demonstrate that.
II. The cosmological argument is a deductive argument. Deductive arguments are only as strong as their premises. The premises of the cosmological argument are not known to be true. Therefore, the cosmological argument should not be considered true. If you think you know a specific formulation of the cosmological argument that has true premises, please present it. I'm fully confident I can explain how we know such premises are not true.
III. There is no doubt that the teleological argument has strong persuasive force, but that's a very different thing than "being real evidence" or "something that should have strong persuasive force." I explain apparent cosmological fine-tuning as an entirely anthropic effect: if the constants were different, we wouldn't be here to observe them, therefore we observe them as they are.
IV. This statement is just false on its face. Lawrence Krauss has a whole book about the potential ex nihilo mechanisms (plural!) for the creation of the universe that are entirely consistent with the known laws of physics. (Note that the idea of God is not consistent with the known laws of physics, since he, by definition, supersedes them.)
V. This is just a worse version of argument III. Naturalistic evolution has far, far more explanatory power than theism. To name my favorite examples: the human blind spot is inexplicable from the standpoint of top-down design, but it makes perfect sense in the context of evolution; likewise, the path of the mammalian nerves for the tongue traveling below the heart makes no sense from the standpoint of top-down design, but it makes perfect sense in the context of evolution. Evolution routinely makes predictions that are tested to be true, whether it means predicting where fossils with specific characteristics will be found or how fruit fly mating behavior changes after populations have been separated and exposed to different environments for 30+ generations. It's worth emphasizing that it is totally normal to look at the complexity of the world and assume that it must have a designer...but it's also totally normal to think that electrons aren't waves. Intuition isn't a reliable way to discern truth. We must not be seduced by comfortable patterns of thought. We must think more carefully. When we think more carefully, it turns out that evolution is true and evolution requires no god.
VI. There are two points here: 1) the universe follows rules, and 2) humans can understand those rules. Point (1) is easily answered with the anthropic argument: rules are required for complex organization, humans are an example of complex organization, therefore humans can only exist in a physical reality that is governed by rules. Point (2) might not even be true. Wigner's argument is fun and interesting, but it's actually wrong! Mathematics are not able to describe the fundamental behavior of the physical world. As far as we know, Quantum Field Theory is the best possible representation of the fundamental physical world, and it is known to be an approximation, because, mathematically, it leads to an infinite regress. For a more concrete example, there is no analytic solution for the orbital path of the earth around the sun! (This is because it is subject to the gravitational attraction of more than one other object; its solution is calculated numerically, i.e. by sophisticated guess-and-check.)
VII. This is just baldly false. I recommend Dan Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" and Stanislas Dehaene's "Consciousness and the Brain" for a coherent model of a materialist mind and a wealth of evidence in support of the materialist mind.
VIII. First of all, the idea that morality comes from god runs into the Problem of Natural Evil and Euthyphro's Dilemma pretty hard. And the convergence of all cultures to universal ideas of right and wrong (murder is bad, stealing is bad, etc.) are rather easily explained by anthropology and evolutionary psychology. Anthropology and evolutionary psychology also predict that there would be cultural divergence on more subtle moral questions (like the Trolley Problem, for example)...and there is! I think that makes those theories better explanations for moral sentiments than theism.
IX. I'm a secular Buddhist. Through meditation, I transcend the mundane even though I deny the existence of any deity. Also, given the diversity of religious experience, it's insane to suggest that religious experience argues for the existence of the God of Catholicism.
X. Oh, boy. I'm trying to think of the best way to persuade you of all the problems with your argument, here. So, here's an exercise for you: take the argument you have written in the linked posts and reformat them into a sequence of syllogisms. Having done that, highlight each premise that is not a conclusion of a previous syllogism. Notice the large number of highlighted premises and ask yourself for each, "What is the proof for this premise?" I am confident that you will find the answer is almost always, "There is no proof for this premise."
XI. "...three days after his death, and against every predisposition to the contrary, individuals and groups had experiences that completely convinced them that they had met a physically resurrected Jesus." There is literally no evidence for this at all (keeping in mind that Christian sacred texts are not evidence for the same reason that Hindu sacred texts are not evidence). Hell, Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Christ" even has a strong argument that Jesus didn't exist! (I don't agree with the conclusion of the argument, though I found his methods and the evidence he gathered along the way to be worthy of consideration.)
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I don't think that I can dissuade you of your belief. But, I do hope to explain to you why, even if you find your arguments intuitively appealing, they do not conclusively demonstrate that your belief is true.
I'm no historian, but have been interested in the Jesus myth question since I lost my faith a few years ago. I am a fan of Richard Carrier, to reveal my own bias.
A few thoughts that I think are fair:
Richard Carrier has explored this issue recently in a two-book series (Proving History, and On the Historicity of Jesus. Here is a lecture he gave while the second book was in progress, if you want an overview of the arguments. He's the most prominent historian I know of who considers a mythical Jesus most plausible.
> Redditepsilon, 2 day old account. While a very young account is usually indicative of some sort of got'ca or make-a-claim hit and run account - Redditepsilon, your post history provides some evidence that you will actually discuss/debate against your topic post, so some short answers (mostly copy and paste from previous debates) to these common claims.
> If we look at the background historical data on the resurrection of Jesus, which is the empty tomb,
Let's look at what is arguably the most important narrative related to Jesus in Christianity, the Resurrection narratives. Ignoring the completely inaccurate portrayal of the Roman trial law and procedures in the Trial of Jesus, and the historically unsupportable removal of the body of the decessed Jesus from the crufix and tomb burial - which presumes that the body was actually placed in the tomb (link - warning a HUGH wall of text), let's look at the consistency and accuracy of the various canon Gospel narratives related to the resurrection. The much studied, and selected, Gospel canon narratives, canon selected by learned men who had both (1) strong motivation to select narratives that supported their worldview and confirmation bias and (2) demonstrated rejection of dogma/narratives that did not fit their self-selected criteria, results in a series of Resurrection narratives that are highly non-internally consistent.
Before the Christian Apologist kicks in and claims that these narratives are all essentially the same (somehow), consider the narratives from the claim that there is a truth position in Christianity/Yahweh's existence that results from the argument of internal consistency and historical fact. Given the widely different versions of the Resurrection narrative, for what is arguably the most important and essential event/tenet of Christianity, the argument from internal consistency of it's own historical fact fails to be credible.
> the post-mortem apparances of Jesus to different people and groups of people
Besides the claim of the apostles that they saw Jesus post-resurrection, who were these other people?
> the origin of the disciples faith that Jesus rose from the dead
But speaking of the appearance of post-resurrection Jesus - Jesus purposefully provided empirical physical, and falsifiable, evidence that he (Jesus) was alive and in natural physical human body form (Doubting Thomas, John 20:24-29) following the Resurrection. 1. Why does Jesus fail to provide such evidence now? and 2. In light of the actions of Jesus, why is Religious Faith considered such a virtue?
> the willingness of Jesus' disciples to go to their deaths for that faith
Fallacy of argumentum ad martyrium (argument from martyrdom). While the argument from martyrdom, an appeal to emotion, produces an emotional response, the act of martyrdom/suicide in no way provides, or supports, a truth position against the belief that is used to support the label of martyr. People voluntarily die for all sorts of beliefs that have no truth value.
For a detailed assessment see: March to Martyrdom! (Down the Yellow Brick Road…)
> is that a convincing evidence on a balance of probability, that Jesus was raised from the dead?
No. The claim/assertions of resurrection is, at best, highly questionable.
> And doesn't that suggest he was raised by God from the dead?
Again no.
> it's almost certain he [Jesus] existed.
Did Jesus the man exist as depicted in the New Testament of the Bible?
Given the contradictions internally within in the narratives and the contradictions in events/dates between the narratives and events/dates presented in contemporary histories, I would say that it is unlikely that, presuming existence of a historical figure, the depiction of Jesus the man in the Gospels is accurate.
I will concede that there was a man, a Jewish man, that acted as a Rabbi, and that preached a form of divergent Judaism, and that lived around 4 BCE'ish till around 29 BCE'ish (when this man is said to have died). I concede that a historical Jesus existed, where Jesus is the name given to the archetype of the person upon which the Jesus narrative in the New Testament is based. Yĕhōšuă‘, Joshua, Jesus, יְהוֹשֻׁעַ, was not an uncommon name within the Hebrew community and may represent the actual name of this archetypal person. This Jesus character is also attributed with what can arguably be described as a lite version of the morality of Buddhism, and this Jesus was a decent, though with a rather shallow philosophy, fellow. This Jesus was also atypical of the contemporary Jews as he was in his 30's and had not married.
The Divine narrative attributed to the Jesus character, however, is a different issue.
If you are interested in a mythist position concerning the historical Jesus, check out:
Summary: The assumption that Jesus existed as a historical person has occasionally been questioned in the course of the last hundred years or so, but any doubts that have been raised have usually been put to rest in favor of imagining a blend of the historical, the mythical and the theological in the surviving records of Jesus. Carrier re-examines the whole question and finds compelling reasons to suspect the more daring assumption is correct. He lays out extensive research on the evidence for Jesus and the origins of Christianity and poses the key questions that must now be answered if the historicity of Jesus is to survive as a dominant paradigm. Carrier contrasts the most credible reconstruction of a historical Jesus with the most credible theory of Christian origins if a historical Jesus did not exist. Such a theory would posit that the Jesus figure was originally conceived of as a celestial being known only through private revelations and hidden messages in scripture; then stories placing this being in earth history were crafted to communicate the claims of the gospel allegorically; such stories eventually came to be believed or promoted in the struggle for control of the Christian churches that survived the tribulations of the first century. Carrier finds the latter theory more credible than has been previously imagined. He explains why it offers a better explanation for all the disparate evidence surviving from the first two centuries of the Christian era. He argues that we need a more careful and robust theory of cultural syncretism between Jewish theology and politics of the second-temple period and the most popular features of pagan religion and philosophy of the time. For anyone intent on defending a historical Jesus, this is the book to challenge.
OP, if you wish to have a more indepth discussion/debate, a suggestion... Pick just one claim/assertion, start a new topic (here in /r/debateanatheist or /r/DebateReligion), present your claim and supporting argument/position, and then defend that claim and argument. When you post as many claims as you did in this topic post (and presented without actual credible evidence or supporting argument), the length of a full and detailed response becomes silly.
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EDIT: Going back to the empty tomb argument....
OP, here are some previous discussions concerning the claims made around the empty tomb that came up in /r/AcademicBiblical.
/r/AcademicBiblical is a fairly active subreddit that discusses early Judaism and Christianity—with a focus on Biblical texts, but also related noncanonical literature (1 Enoch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.)—in a scholarly context. A highly recommended subreddit for all those interested in studies of Judaism and Christianity.
>start with one lie that, if true, is sufficient, but then pepper in like two or three other things that are progressively less relevant
Bingo. And it's also the mark of a truly stupid liar, because each successive addition to the excuse chain brings down the mathematical probability that the core statement is true.
(Disclaimer: considering that I'm almost 40 but I only learned about this last year from this excellent book by Richard Carrier I think it's fair to say I'm a pretty dumb motherfucker myself, but I'll try to make sense.)
Take any statement A. You don't know whether it's true or not, but you can assign it a probability of being true. Let's say that the probability is 0.5 (50%) - a coin toss is worth your best guess at this point.
Then, imagine that there are more statements like that, let's call them B, C, and D. Again, you know nothing about the truth behind them, either, but you can again estimate that each of them has a 0.5 probability of being true.
Now, take three people:
Person 1 tells you "A".
Person 2 tells you "A and B".
Person 3 tells you "A, B, C, and also D, believe me, believe me".
At this point you still don't know anything about any of those four statements, but you can calculate the probability for each person of being full of shit.
Person 1 only claimed one statement, A, so the likelihood he's full of shit is 0.5 (50%).
Person 2 went further and claimed A and B. The probability that both are true is 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.25.
Person 3 is the bigliest guy with the best words, believe me. The probability of his four-part statement chain is 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.0625 - that's 6.25%.
Because person 3 is a fucking moron he went and stacked multiple statements on top of one another, thereby bringing his full-of-shitness from a 50% likelihood to a whopping 93.75%. Just like that, what a fucking clown.
PS: You can of course have different probabilities for each statement, and they can differ from one another, too. But by definition if you don't know the truth for sure then it logically follows none of the statements can ever achieve a probability of 1. The conclusion is that every additional statement will always reduce the overall likelihood.
Yes. His book On the Historicity of Jesus is published by an academic house and passed peer review.
He's also previously published scholarly articles, but I don't have any handy.
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users.
I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!
Here is link number 1 - Previous text "1"
Here is link number 2 - Previous text "2"
Here is link number 3 - Previous text "3"
Here is link number 4 - Previous text "4"
Here is link number 5 - Previous text "5"
Here is link number 6 - Previous text "6"
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^Please ^PM ^/u/eganwall ^with ^issues ^or ^feedback! ^| ^Delete
> people who believe that Jesus never existed despite historical data
please enlighten us and share just one contemporary historical evidence of Jesus' existence
for those new to this topic: there are none - every single piece of evidence comes much later, the earliest several decades after the death of Jesus. The more detailed and dependable "historical evidence" even later, at times hundreds of years later. None are contemporary.
for those curious to learn more via an PhD academic treatise on the topic:
http://www.amazon.com/On-Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason/dp/1909697494
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actuallyprobably*
That's the best we can do, since the evidence is suspiciously lacking and internally contradictory.
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Happy Ēostre, and happy reading!
> but a historical Jesus isn’t a point of contention for historical/biblical scholars.
Also existence of Bigfoot is not a point of contention for lifelong believers. I don't understand why you appeal to a source with such a conflict of interest.
Point of Contention
Dr. Richard Carrier's new book further cements the Mythicist view as very plausible.
For anyone interested, there is a great talk from David Fitzgerald about the evidence of Jesus. And then there is a talk by Richard Carrier about the Jesus myth theory. Then there is also great deal of debates where Richard debates opponents of the myth theory. You can look and see, if their arguments seem valid. Lastly, Richard Carrier wrote a book which should be his complete case for the Jesus myth theory along with apologists arguments (didn't read it but I'm going to).
If you want to learn more I would suggest reading:
historicity of Jesus - Richard Carrier.
Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All - David Fitzgerald.
> your religion is based on a text written over 1400 years ago
All four Canonical gospels, the letters of Paul etc, Acts and Revelation were all written by 110-140 AD at the latest, although it was probably earlier.
Source: Currently reading this book, On the Historicity of Jesus, which is putting forward a thesis that there was no historical person who is Jesus Christ as described by the New Testament. Full of fascinating stuff they never teach you in school, like the letters of Paul were written around 60AD before the Gospels, and never mention Jesus as a human being, only as a risen celestial being/god.
>Du greifst nur die Talpioth Särge heraus.
Du kannst also nicht bestreiten das in deiner Liste Mist steht. Was sagt das über die Verlässlichkeit der Endaussage?
>Wieso sollten die anderen Argumente nur schlecht und nicht belastend sein?
Weil sie dem Schluss, der daraus gezogen wird, nicht entsprechen.
>Hast du belastende Argumente für diese Sichtweise oder ist es mehr ein Glaube?
Die Historisierung von mythischen Gestalten kommen in der Antike andauernd vor, siehe Äneis oder Gilgamesh. Zudem ist es aus der historischen Abfolge der NT Schriften ersichtlich das eine Historisierung erst im Verlauf der Ausbildung des Christentums zustande kam. Zudem fehlen Hinweise, die man bei einer tatsächlichen historischen Existenz Jesus erwarten würde, vollständig, währen die Hinweise, die wir haben, bestens durch die Existenz einer Gottesgestalt die historisiert wurde erklären lassen ( "Argument der besten Erklärung")
Ich würde dir ja Richard Carrier und als Gegenposition Bart Ehrmann zum Lesen empfehlen, allerdings scheint es mir dass du nichtmal das kritisch gelesen und beurteilt hast was du selbst postest.
> Und eine Abhandlung über die Augenzeugenfrage.
Was als Augenzuegenbreichte in deinen Quellen gelten, wird unter historischen Methoden als "Gerüchte" abgetan.
>Auf Wikipedia heißt es:
Ein Konsens von Forschermeinungen dient dem wissenschaftlichen Prozess, nicht als endgültige Wahrheit. Der Konsens ist in diesem Falle geprägt von nicht belastbaren Argumenten.
>There is no evidence today that the existence of Jesus was ever denied in antiquity by those who opposed Christianity
Wenn man da die Bedeutung hineinliest du du wahrscheinlich darin siehst, versteht man den Kontext von Religionen der Antike nicht. Das ist kein üblicher Kritikpunkt und ist daher auch nicht zu erwarten.
You might want to read this book. Even reading the reviews might be helpful.
http://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418932301&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=david+carrier+jesus&pebp=1418932362622
If you want to read about Jesus mythicism, Richard Carrier's book On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt is a far better place to start.
I suggest moving the Lataster (Washington Post) and Tarico (Alternet) to the top of the list. These are concise well written articles that serve as a good introduction, and are more authoritative (reviewed and edited by the publisher) than the many personal blogs on the list.
There's a few duplicates as well.
One link to add - Richard Carrier's book:
https://www.amazon.ca/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494
You might want to pick up Richard Carrier's latest work.
I'm very sorry to hear this, but it is natural for people to waver & wobble a bit.
When one looks at the behavior of natural systems, it's never a straight line from being (say) a desert to a green plain - or vice versa. There are always upticks and down-dips in the graph.
>He asked me again if I was going to stop going to meetings. I said "I wish I could tbh, but I'm gonna have to......................" (I paused just to make sure how he would react). He replied with "Good. As long you keep going", and he also says "if we don't have this then what do we have? Being out there in the world??"
If there was a tactful way to ask him whether your attendance made him look or feel better, I would have asked him about that.
I'm NOT tactful.
I would suggest several avenues of approach, but you'll have to consider very carefully what the effects of these suggestions might be, before you do anything:
The lack of affection in the congregation makes you feel like you're attending due to obligation, not because of any love amongst the brothers. If you can come close to stating his feelings about being "[made to] feel guilty for not being at meetings and he reluctantly goes because he feels pressured" without obviously mimicking his comments, you might be able to get a kindred feeling about how both of you really view the constant demands to attend the meetings.
What if he'd been born somewhere else? Afghanistan? Amish country? Mennonites? He wouldn't know about the Jehovah's Witnesses - but would STILL have the same attitude about being "no part of this world".
>He also said he doesn't like to talk about not going to meetings and I said if I can't talk to him about it then who would I talk to?
DON'T talk about it. Let it slide. True apathy is one of the biggest enemies the Watchtower Society has. Whenever you talk about attending the meetings, you are reinforcing the guilt he's feeling, even (especially!!!) if you're talking about the meetings in a negative way.
On the other hand, real apathy just ignores things, wishing they'd go away. Real apathy seeks out excuses to avoid attending meetings. If he's having a spurt of spirituality right now, but his past behaviors show that he really doesn't want to do it, then your best response would be to show up at some meetings with him, but fake a headache for others. When you do go to meetings with him, keep your responses flat. No response afterwards. Just so bored with it, you can't even be bothered to react negatively. If you've got an electronic tablet, then read something else while you're at the meetings.
Have you ever done a first-aid class where they teach the students how to pick up a fully-relaxed, unconscious person? That lesson amazed me; if a person goes completely limp it is VERY difficult to pick them up. A small person of around 100 pounds is harder to lift if they're as limp as a cooked noodle.
If you feel you need to attend any more meetings with him, then just go completely limp [so to speak]. NO negative resistance, but also absolutely no interest whatsoever.
Personally I'd pull up some of the books written by authentic bible scholars & read them during meetings, like "The Early History of God - Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel" or "Did God Have a Wife?", or
https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X
https://www.amazon.com/Did-God-Have-Wife-Archaeology/dp/0802863949
https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Biblical-Monotheism-Polytheistic-Background/dp/0195167686
Whether or not Jesus existed:
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494
There's a whole world of research out there, that the Watchtower Society absolutely doesn't want their members to have a clue about. You could gain far more knowledge about the real (man-made) origins of the bible while you're sitting there in the meetings. You could be sitting there, cool as a cucumber, learning more about the bible than any male leader of the Watchtower Society knows, even the 7 men on the Governing Body.
That would keep your mind occupied while your husband struggles with the guilt & obligation of an unloving, manipulative cult.
For that matter, you could also read about how cults manipulate people, while you're at the meetings. Anything to feed your mind while he loses his - er, while he gets a belly-full of the banality, hypocrisy & idiocy of the WT meetings & literature.
This is a better investment than the lot of them, from an honest learning perspective, even if you don't agree with the conclusion. Ehrman is a seriously flawed source where, while you're still going to get exposed to some objectively true information that will be new to you, the logical fallacies and assumptions can do as much harm to developing a realistic understanding of the subject matter as it can be of benefit.
>new source that disputes the existence of Jesus.
There are no sources which dispute the existence of Moses or Romulus but that doesn't mean we should start accepting them as real historical figures.
>Jesus and other similarly or worse attested characters like Hannibal and Alexander the Great.
Alexander is way better attested than Jesus, we even have more evidence of Pontius Pilate than Historical Jesus.
>no respected expert in the field believe in it.
There are several, most prominent ones are Robert M. Price who holds double doctorate in NT studies and Thomas L Broody who's also a biblical scholar.
>Neither Koresh or Jim Jones had a large following
At its peak Peoples temple had a following in upward of 20,000 so i don't think its a right comparison but yeah Koresh or Marshal Applewhite kinda fits the bill.
>but is more rickety than any of them. It doesn't explain why or how. There are no sources supporting it.
I suggest you read some works on Christ Myth theory because all those point were covered by many authors, here's a good introductory article and as for books, Richard Carrier's On the historicity of Jesus is pretty comprehensive and there's also The Christ Myth by Arthur Drews which you can download freely.
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494
As I said it is generally accepted but still debated.
Generally accepted does not mean it is a fact.
Give her Richard Carrier's new book, it's all about how Jesus probably never existed at all.
Good to hear there are still open-minded people out there. I think Richard Carrier is closer to the truth though 1, 2.
Just butting in here to recommend On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
Carrier has stated he was firmly in the historical Jesus camp until he was introduced to Earl Doherty's hypothesis in The Jesus Puzzle.
I would also highly Highly recommend reading some criticisms of the myth theory, just to sharpen and refine your thoughts on the subject. Start here with reddit's (or rather /r/badhistory 's) own Tim O'Neill: http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2014_01_01_archive.html
Those 3 paras are seriously cool, thanks for sharing!
I'd like to make people aware of what may end up being Carrier's most important work: On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt.
Carrier examines all the available historical evidence (much more than many of us think, yet much less than many apologists claim) and makes a very earnest, thorough effort to use (Bayesian) probability theory to estimate the likelihoods, respectively, that Jesus was a real existing dude or that Jesus was completely mythical.
Spoiler: Although he generously errs in favor of historicity in his estimates, in the end he considers the odds of a real historical Jesus no better than about 1 in 3. That's definitely not "disproving" Jesus, but it's a basis for giving the possibility of non-Jesus some serious thought. Sadly, we're unlikely to gain any more certainty than this, unless some surprising find of ancient documents is made.
Regardless, though, of whether someone follows Carrier's reasoning and math, this book is a real treasure trove of information: about historical sources, about pre-existing Pagan myths, about OT literary templates copied by the NT authors, about motifs from Homer and other old Greek literature that cropped up in the Bible, about Jewish beliefs in "a" Jesus or Messiah long before "the" Jesus, about the narrative structure of Acts and the Gospels (including the gaping plot holes)... and so on.
Carrier's forte is not just presenting this suff, it's all very thoroughly referenced and footnoted. On some pages, there's more footnotes than body text! Whatever his critics may accuse him of, it can't be a superficial treatment or a lack of authoritative sources. So there's a lot to learn, and it's all meticulously sourced. Even without worrying about whether Jesus existed or not, this is a treasure trove on state-of-the-art historic scholarship on Jesus and the NT, and doesn't suffer from the usual religious bias or heavy reliance on the authority of other religious scholars.
Recommended? Hell yeah. Belongs on the bookshelf of anyone considering himself an intellectually "serious" atheist.
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Footnotes/disclaimers:
I personally think the historical Jesus did exist, however, you keep pestering for a solid work claiming otherwise so I recommend you read this
As a side note - you have been very rude, dogmatic and unyielding. Its neither necessary nor polite.
Are there any subjects you're particularly interested in? I'll link a few below that I found very helpful, but I know everyone has different sorts of interests and stumbling blocks, so if there's something more specific you're looking for (or if you want more resources on a particular topic), let me know.
Anyway, that ended up being way longer than I intended, but hopefully some of the sources help you. At the very least, it should give you something to think about and some possible topics to consider when evaluating your religious beliefs.
\>Christians are humans and sinners.
There is no such thing as "sin" It's a made up concept designed to control you. You have been lied to and the sooner you realize it, the better.
\>Jesus, taught.
Jesus never taught a thing.
On the Historicity of Jesus
The question of why christianity emerged has a fairly complex answer. It's tied to the roman occupation of jerusalem, influence from mystery cults, societal discontent, a feeling that the jewish leadership was immoral, a constant re-reading of scriptures to search for hidden truths, and a kind of darwinian elimination of other competing sects.
If you're actually interested in the case against historicity, Richard Carrier has a masterful work called On the Historicity of Jesus Christ - Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. This is incredibly well researched, heavily footnoted (i've never seen a book more thoroughly documented), and over 700 pages.
Dr Carrier wrote the book in such a way as to push this discussion into a format that can be analyzed in a scientific way. Up until now, this debate has just basically been a series of opinions. He's changing things by trying to take all of the assumptions and assign them probabilities. All of the evidence and assumptions are broken into the smallest pieces and assigned an "element number" which can allow historians to push this conversation along. Disagree with Dr Carrier? Great - point to the element that isn't right, and we can refine the model.
On the Historicity of Jesus by Richard Carrier
> how do respond to the claim that Jesus is essentially too unique and revolutionary not to be a God? That his message was so subversive and out of the blue that there's no way he could just be some guy?
Actually, around the time of Jesus there were a lot of apocalyptic preachers going around. He wasn't unique at all. Jesus is just the one whose influence happened to continue to our time.
You might want to search YouTube for "Richard Carrier" or read his book.
Jesus didn't create anything. It's all a creation of a series of forgers, forging one document after another, and usually with a previous forgery in hand. There is so very little that is actually genuine (as in only 6 letters of Paul that are considered likely to be written by him), and that which is genuine is wildly different from the usual narrative.
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1572742518&sr=1-1
Jeesuksen historiallisuudesta on loppujen lopuksi todella vähän nykyaikaiset metodit täyttävää tutkimusta. Ja Carrier on kollegasi kun hän on väitellyt historiasta tohtoriksi todella kovasta yliopistosta (Columbiasta New York). Carrierin metodi ja lähdekritiikki kestää päivänvalon.
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494
Uskontoja syntyy ilman, että tarvitsee olla historiallista sankaria kaiken takana. Itseasiassa Jeesusta vanhempia mutta kovin samankaltaisia mysteerijumaluuksia tunnetaan lukuisia ja niitä kaikkia pidetään keksittyinä. Miksi tämä yksi olisi poikkeus?
Tietenkin jos löytyisi yksikin todiste historiallisesta Jeesuksesta niin kysymystä siitä onko Jeesus olemassa vain musteena paperilla ei tarvitsisi käydä vaan voitaisiin miettiä minkälainen henkilö siellä loppujen lopuksi oli.
It seems as though your only source, that isn't the bible, is Bart Ehrman. In fact, almost everything that you've written on the subject is almost verbatim Ehrman's own phrasing, especially this little gem which Ehrman has never provided any evidence for:
> Each and every one of these scholars with a teaching position at a university not only believes that Jesus existed...
So, either you are Ehrman or you've read a single book that validates your viewpoints and have begun a crusade on r/atheism.
I will see your one, single source, and raise you 2 additional doctorates in the field that disagree directly with Ehrman:
On the Historicity of Jesus by Richard Carrier, PhD Ancient History
The Messiah Myth by Thomas Thompson, PhD Theology who also was a professor of religious studies at a few universities despite the incessant assertions of both yourself and Ehrman that every single scholar in a teaching position believes the same as you.
The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems by Robert Price, PhD Systematic Theology and PhD New Testament yet another professor of religion at a university.
If you want to know what got me into Bayes, it's Richard Carrier and his methodology for proving that Jesus never existed ;)
I would recommend Nailed by David Fitzgerald, Proving History by Dr. Richard Carrier, and On the Historicity of Jesus, also by Dr. Carrier
And I’ve perused Nailed, and have read both of the books I recommended by Dr. Carrier
You may be interested in these five books: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. These examine the claimed evidence of the existence of a historical jesus without presupposing any of christianity is true (i.e. they were written by atheist scholars). They judge it way more likely that the jesus story is a melting pot of earlier myths and stories without any basis in fact.
Yeah, I wasn't sure how Amazon links were treated here. Here's the full URL:
http://www.amazon.com/On-Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason/dp/1909697494
If anyone is interested in a great back and forth between a mythicist and a historicist, check out this debate between Richard Carrrier and Zeba Crook.
I think Crook ultimately comes out looking better, but they both make some good points.
Richard Carrier has published a peer reviewed book called "On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt".
LOL. Scholars think there's only a 1 in 3 chance that a character of Jesus really existed. Those odds are probably too high.
Ah, ye olde appeal to authority and/or popularity. If that's your opening salvo, you've already lost this argument.
How about we just jump to the end?
Find a single solitary historian who can present ANY contemporaneous evidence of Jesus of Nazareth. One will do.
Because if you can't, and you can't, then their starting assumption that Jesus actually existed cannot be supported by the evidence.
Then, ask yourself why they might hold onto this assumption, in light of a complete lack of evidence?
It really shouldn't be too hard to figure out.
In the meantime, here's a good layman's article on the topic.
http://churchandstate.org.uk/2016/07/jesus-the-man-that-never-was/
And here is the peer-reviewed master's class.
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494
Actually, testing your faith as an outsider is necessary for being able to determine its objective truth and hardly "a waste." For instance, suppose you were raised as a Catholic, baptized as an infant. Ask yourself, how do other reasonable people first become believers, or insiders, if from the outside they can't understand Christianity? Which comes first, faith or understanding? If, as a nonbelieving outsider, someone cannot understand the Christian faith, then how does God expect them to reasonably come to faith in the first place? How do you get from being an outsider to being an insider as a rational, thinking, skeptical adult? If you were raised Catholic from childhood then you know that as children we had not yet developed critical thinking faculties to question what our parents told us. We didn't know any better. Isn't it unfair to bring up a child in that environment? How many Catholic parents have adequately questioned their own faith and investigated its truth content before raising their children Catholic?
How many Catholics would accept Catholicism if it were forced upon them when they were 18 years old? Wouldn't we have asked some questions about what our parents told us? If someone came along and tried presenting you a brand new religious paradigm, for example, Scientology or Mormonism, at your age you would, as an outsider, take a critical, skeptical stance against accepting those views. At some point along the line, as we become adults, we need to critically examine what we were taught as children. Doubt and skepticism are learned virtues and as we learn to question, we become thinking adults. But strangely most people don't seem to question their religious faiths which seem too obvious and have become too ingrained in us, usually because they are a part of the culture we live in. Not only that, your faith has ingrained in you a fear of Hell if you deviate from it (of course there is no evidence for the existence of heaven or hell, either), although if you do deviate from it, you can always return later.
Given the abundance of religions around the globe, the probability that the one you happened to have been brought up in is true is highly unlikely. Basically all religions teach that they are the one true religion. At best, only one can be true, as you pointed out earlier. At worst, they are all false. The only rational way to test one's culturally adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider, a nonbeliever, with the same level of reasonable skepticism that a believer already uses when examining the other religious faiths he or she rejects. If you can do that and show how Catholicism is still objectively true, then Catholicism is the one true religion, and all nonbelievers could rationally convert. The problem is that there is just no evidence to support its truth. Again, Richard Carrier's Proving History and its companion On the Historicity of Jesus are the most comprehensive scholarly treatments on the existence of Jesus. Carrier has done a lot of scholarship on the early history of the church and the facts do not hold up the way that the Catholic church would make you think they do. Not to mention that "God's true church" has been involved in some nasty terrible acts throughout history and held some embarrassingly mistaken views about reality, and it is not the paragon of moral virtue that an institution with divine inspiration would exhibit. I would challenge you to question your faith as an outsider. Read those books by Richard Carrier, for instance. Read The Outsider Test For Faith by John Loftus and question your faith as an outsider would. And if you still hold to Catholicism as the one true religion, then you have not lost anything. But if you are convinced by reasonable, skeptical arguments that Catholicism is mistaken at bare minimum or at most totally false, then you have gained a truer perspective on reality.
> Can you cite to any peer-reviewed historians other than Ray Price for your position? Can you explain why the book is "drivel"?
It's published by InterVarsity. It's a christian apologetics publisher. If I post a book by Dawkins as my proof that he didn't exist, would you accept that? If so here's my equivalent 'proof'. I couldn't make it through the entirety of your book. The authors will say one thing "consistency is what matters" then throw that out the next page, and just accept inconsistent evidence. It's just awful.
> I'm not seeing you provide any reasoning or reference to authority (other than, "there's no evidence because I choose not to recognize any of the evidence"),
If you'd post any that was real, I'd look at it. But there isn't any. Just a few books written 300 years after he died, with so many contradictions that they're useless as a history book.
> so at this point it seems like you are simply stating your opinion.
My opinion is that Jesus did exist. I just walked the Via Dolorosa, and went to the Holy Church of the Sepulchure last month. But I don't delude myself that there's any 'proof', and none should be needed. That's what faith is all about.
>If so, then I can't respond. If your opinion is that chocolate is better, I'm not going to try and convince you to prefer vanilla.
Likewise, it's simply your opinion that he did at this point. You've posted nothing substantial, then ask me to do so. Which I will. Now its your turn to not post something horrible and shitty as 'evidence'
Here - the only peer reviewed work to ever be published on the topic. we'll call this one 'better than anything you can provide'
Ok.
Tell me about your childhood situation:
parents marital situation
financial situation
siblings
location(s)
Elaborate as much as you feel comfortable
EDIT:
yeah, you are an very conservative mormon, and somehow you think you didn't suffer childhood trauma. Okaaaaayyyyyyy.......
You do realize that parents long-term, consistently lying to their children is broadly accepted, and has been for a long time, as significantly traumatic to a child, right?
https://www.google.com/search?q=parents+lying+to+children+considered+trauma
and do some reading on something called NPD
https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Americans-Confident-Assertive-Entitled/dp/1476755566
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Always-About-You-Narcissism/dp/0743214285
https://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Oz-Other-Narcissists-Relationship/dp/0972072837
Instead of bottle-ing up your misgivings about devoting your entire life orientation around a gigantic lie your parents forced on you, you might try being honest with yourself and doing some actual research about the topic. Here's a good place to start if/when you summon up enough courage and honesty to do so:
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494
Obviously you're intelligent enough analytically to already realize that Mormonism is complete and total bullshit, yet you can't seem to accept it and move on. The problem seems to be you can't accept that your parents subverted your life for their own desires. Again, you'll find reading about NPD's effects on children very enlightening. I'll take a wild guess that there are some addiction and avoidant issues you need to address as well.
Here's a good start:
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/special-reports/new-insights-narcissistic-personality-disorder/page/0/1
Ronningstam, Harvard U., and is considered one of the, if not the, best researchers in the world on NPD. Hopefully that measures up to your grandiose personal standards of quality research.
Btw, ADHD is one of the biggest garbage can diagnoses in modern medicine. Can't focus consistently DOES NOT automatically = ADHD. It's just as worthless a standalone dx as "irritable bowel syndrome". Amazingly, nearly every person with a personality disorder and/or significant addiction could also qualify for an ADHD diagnosis, if their other issues were not taken into consideration (DSM, flawed as it is, actually qualifies this in hierarchical diagnostic criteria, but I'm sure you already knew that from your super extensive personal research into ALL of psychology, psychiatry, and brain science, not just some reading about ADHD, right?).
Case studies are FULL of examples of zombie-fied children of religious-version narcissistic parents. You can plenty of case study books available for purchase online.
Good luck!
Yes it is
If the mythical Jesus never actually lived, then no. It's like asking if it is at all true ithat Hermes actually brought messages from the gods. Since probably everything we know about Jesus comes from mythical writings, we have good reason to doubt that he existed. See Richard Carrier's recently released book, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt.
And I suggest you read Richard Carrier - On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. He's an atheist who is upset at folks like Bart Ehrman who he feels have dropped the ball when it comes to this particular subject despite being generally clear thinkers on other subjects.
I will consider it credible when I see evidence that the view has support from critical scholars. Dr Carrier's book is thoroughly academic, but it doesn't make his hypothesis credible.
The Two Source Hypothesis has problems, that much is true. But it is seen as the least problematic theory. We don't have to know exactly how the minor agreements happened, that's not a "weakness" per se. The problems are presented as if they're evidence for an alternate theory, which I don't see as being the case. An argument advancing a different theory should rely on its own merit.