Richard Carrier Video: Why He Thinks Jesus Didn't Exist (Long)

[stromboli]

This needs to be seen by every believer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUZOZN-9dc&app=desktop

[Minimalist]

I'm reading the book now.

[Mike Cl]

Just got my book--"On the Historicity of Jesus; why we might have reason for doubt."--via Amazon.  Tried to buy it from a local Barns and Noble a few days ago.  I really did not expect they would carry it, since I live in a town in CA, that if it were chipped off and sent to Alabama, they  (the CA town) would feel right at home.  I live in my own little bible belt.  Anyway, they carried not one Carrier book.  They looked it up on their computer and could order it for $95.  I said--say what???!!!  It's a special deal where the book is printed when a request is received.  I told the clerk that I could get that book for $33 from Amazon--the only reply was a weak, "Oh?". 

Anyway, back to the book.  I'm only on page 11, but can tell I'm going to love it!  I guess this is the second book dealing with this subject.  The first one deals with the method he will use; so that book is now on my back burner--I'll get to it when I can.  He has established so far that the mythical view of Jesus is not crazy and has used 4 examples of how that could happen:  King Arthus, Ned Ludd, the book of Daniel and Moses.  All were created to establish a moral authority for one movement or another.  So, the history of Jesus could easily have been crafted from myth.  But he is very scathing of both the mythicists and historicists for their sloppy scholarship.  He states he has no personal stake in the outcome of his study of this issue and will be content no matter the outcome of using his established method.  He simply states he wants to get to a reasonable conclusion no matter what that is.

Well, 11 pages down and  over 600 to go.  I have not been this excited about a nonfiction book for quite awhile.  I will try to update as I go.  But I hope I'm not doing this by myself--happily accept any and all additions, arguments, or expansions that anyone feels they'd like to add.

[stromboli]

Just got my book--"On the Historicity of Jesus; why we might have reason for doubt."--via Amazon.  Tried to buy it from a local Barns and Noble a few days ago.  I really did not expect they would carry it, since I live in a town in CA, that if it were chipped off and sent to Alabama, they  (the CA town) would feel right at home.  I live in my own little bible belt.  Anyway, they carried not one Carrier book.  They looked it up on their computer and could order it for $95.  I said--say what???!!!  It's a special deal where the book is printed when a request is received.  I told the clerk that I could get that book for $33 from Amazon--the only reply was a weak, "Oh?". 

Anyway, back to the book.  I'm only on page 11, but can tell I'm going to love it!  I guess this is the second book dealing with this subject.  The first one deals with the method he will use; so that book is now on my back burner--I'll get to it when I can.  He has established so far that the mythical view of Jesus is not crazy and has used 4 examples of how that could happen:  King Arthus, Ned Ludd, the book of Daniel and Moses.  All were created to establish a moral authority for one movement or another.  So, the history of Jesus could easily have been crafted from myth.  But he is very scathing of both the mythicists and historicists for their sloppy scholarship.  He states he has no personal stake in the outcome of his study of this issue and will be content no matter the outcome of using his established method.  He simply states he wants to get to a reasonable conclusion no matter what that is.

Well, 11 pages down and  over 600 to go.  I have not been this excited about a nonfiction book for quite awhile.  I will try to update as I go.  But I hope I'm not doing this by myself--happily accept any and all additions, arguments, or expansions that anyone feels they'd like to add.

I've got it about half read and promised a report, but it is very dense, and I have been busy dealing with other stuff. It really does cover the subject thoroughly, but really it is written in response to historicist arguments, so there is a lot of "why he did and how" you have to wade through.

[Mike Cl]

Okay--up to pg. 150.  A couple of observations so far.  He says he doesn't have a dog in this show--doesn't care if either side (myth/historical) proves it's side; just one or the other do it.  But try to do so using academic research, solid reasoning, and document it.  So far, neither side has quite reached the goal line.  He says:  "There are a large array of books and scholars who have advanced various Jesus myth theories over the last two centuries.  A historicist might complain that there are too many different theories advanced but that would only be the pot calling the kettle black. "  He would not list a book on the side of the historicist as being the 'best'.  But he made it clear that that did not prove that Jesus did not exist.  He listed Earl Doherty's book, The Jesus Puzzle:  did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?, as the best of the myth side--did not quite prove it, but came close.

Also, this is a dense book in that it is not unusual for the notes to take up most of the page.  He likes to cover his bases.

According to him, this is the aim of this book:  This book will advance the debate in two aspects.  It will survey the most relevant evidence for and against the historicity of Jesus, and it will do so with the fewest unnecessary assumptions, testing the simplest theories of historicity and myth against one another.

He also quotes from and mentions his book "Proving History".  This is the method he uses to evaluate the data and evidence he cites.  I guess I'll have to read that book when I'm done with this one.

Chpt 1 establishes "The Problem"--takes 16 pages.

Chpt 2--The Hypothesis of Historicity--he lays down the evidence that could be used to prove the historicity of jesus.  He only evaluates it lightly.  The will test it later.

Chpt 3--The Hypothesis of Myth--does the same for the other side.

Carrier uses the method of covering 48 elements of importance and covers them over the first 5 chapters.

So far I am loving this book.  It is very dense and that kind of keeps skimming to a minimum--there is a lot of material here.  The deeper I go, the more I like it. 

More later.....................

[stromboli]

THANK YOU! Exactly the same conclusions I came to and why I posted the video rather than try to write a report on it. You'll get to chapter 6 before you get past him explaining everything and spelling it all out. I'm still reading it in pieces, between other stuff. The book is written as much to historians as anything, and is obviously a response to historicity claims. And it is very dense, which is why it is so hard to explain in depth.

[Mike Cl]

THANK YOU! Exactly the same conclusions I came to and why I posted the video rather than try to write a report on it. You'll get to chapter 6 before you get past him explaining everything and spelling it all out. I'm still reading it in pieces, between other stuff. The book is written as much to historians as anything, and is obviously a response to historicity claims. And it is very dense, which is why it is so hard to explain in depth.

You are most welcome.  It is good to have a fellow reader to critique my posts about this fantastic book.  Carrier did suggest several different ways to read his book, but I elected to simply read it from the start--the slow way.  I figured I'd end up reading it all anyway.

[Mike Cl]

stromboli did you read Carriers book--Proving History?  Or did anybody else on this board?

[josephpalazzo]

Wikipedia has a funny page - by funny I mean pathetic:

According to classical historian Michael Grant the idea that Jesus never lived is an "extreme view" and wrote
<blockquote>If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as
we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can
no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of
pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.^[212]</blockquote>

According to Grant, "modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth
theory". He adds that 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the
non-historicity of Jesus' and says that the idea has been "annihilated" by the
best scholars because the mythicists "have not succeeded in disposing of the
much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary".^[213]





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory

[stromboli]

Wikipedia has a funny page - by funny I mean pathetic:

Yeah. I have previously been involved with Wikipedia financially and have sent them emails on this very topic. Christian historians have taken over the mythicist pages and have denounced Carrier specifically, and any other non-historicity scholar. They have not, in fact, provided any substantive counter argument. This type of response is what you get, but because I don't have the credentials or the time to battle it, they succeed in keeping this in place. This is the problem of having a "people's encyclopedia;" you cannot keep out dedicated and moneyed interests with an agenda. Christian conservatism is a cancer in this country, and it pervades every aspect of our lives, from politics to school texts to information sources.

[Mike Cl]

Yeah. I have previously been involved with Wikipedia financially and have sent them emails on this very topic. Christian historians have taken over the mythicist pages and have denounced Carrier specifically, and any other non-historicity scholar. They have not, in fact, provided any substantive counter argument. This type of response is what you get, but because I don't have the credentials or the time to battle it, they succeed in keeping this in place. This is the problem of having a "people's encyclopedia;" you cannot keep out dedicated and moneyed interests with an agenda. Christian conservatism is a cancer in this country, and it pervades every aspect of our lives, from politics to school texts to information sources.

I quite agree.  Typically, like Grant quoted above, they make pronouncements but offer no proof.  And since their audience is taught that reason has no substance, only faith has real substance, their message is accepted at face value.  If their power continues to grow, and for some stupid reason it appears to be growing, this country will be in real trouble.

[josephpalazzo]

Yeah. I have previously been involved with Wikipedia financially and have sent them emails on this very topic. Christian historians have taken over the mythicist pages and have denounced Carrier specifically, and any other non-historicity scholar. They have not, in fact, provided any substantive counter argument. This type of response is what you get, but because I don't have the credentials or the time to battle it, they succeed in keeping this in place. This is the problem of having a "people's encyclopedia;" you cannot keep out dedicated and moneyed interests with an agenda. Christian conservatism is a cancer in this country, and it pervades every aspect of our lives, from politics to school texts to information sources.

Indeed, if Grant's idea  were applied, then Ulysses and countless other fictional characters would have to be historical and real!?!?

[stromboli]

Indeed, if Grant's idea  were applied, then Ulysses and countless other fictional characters would have to be historical and real!?!?

Sad to say it, but by extension that is true. Xtian historians are cherry pickers par excellence, if you look at what they have brought us. The section of Jesus says, quote,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus

"Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically,[f] although the quest for the historical Jesus has produced little agreement on the historical reliability of the Gospels and on how closely the biblical Jesus reflects the historical Jesus.[19] Most scholars agree that Jesus was a Jewish rabbi from Galilee who preached his message orally,[20] was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate.[21] Scholars have constructed various portraits of the historical Jesus, which often depict him as having one or more of the following roles: the leader of an apocalyptic movement, Messiah, a charismatic healer, a sage and philosopher, or an egalitarian social reformer.[22] Scholars have correlated the New Testament accounts with non-Christian historical records to arrive at an estimated chronology of Jesus' life. The most widely used calendar era in the world (abbreviated as "AD", alternatively referred to as "CE"), counts from a medieval estimate of the birth year of Jesus."

This entire passage is BS, literally. there simply is, as far as I know, no set of records nor any other independent accounts that actually verify that Jesus was anything like the historical figure they claim. Since several scholars, including Carrier and Bart Ehrman, categorically disagree.

This from Rationalwiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus

Jesus myth theory, variously called Christ myth theory and the nonexistence hypothesis, among other names,[1][2][3] is a term that has been applied to several theories that at their heart have one relatively common concept: the New Testament account of the life of Jesus is so filled with myth and legend as well as internal contradictions and historical irregularities that at best no meaningful historical verification regarding Jesus of Nazareth (including his very existence) can be extracted from them.[4]
However, as Archibald Robertson stated in his 1946 book, Jesus: Myth Or History, at least as far as John M. Robertson was concerned, the myth theory was not concerned with denying the possibility of a flesh and blood Jesus being involved in the Gospel account, but rather, "What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded."[5]
In fact, as the John Frum cargo cult shows that the cult version of 1957 (literate white US serviceman that appeared to the village elders in a vision on February 15, late 1930s) and historical version (illiterate native named Manehivi who caused trouble using that name from 1940 to 1941 and was exiled from the island as a result) of religion's "founder" can become effectively two different people in as short as 17 years.[6][7]
The theory in its broadest definition can be traced as far back as the concept of Docetism and Celsus (around 180 CE) and there is a possible hint of it in Justin Martyr's "Dialogue with Trypho"[8], though its modern revival goes back only to the 1790's with the ideas of Constantin-François Volney and Charles François Dupuis.[9] The theory has been supported by a number of influential thinkers and Bertrand Russell expressed some doubt about the existence of Jesus, though he did not fully embrace the myth theory.[10] The idea seems to have gained a considerable amount of popularity among the secular community in recent years.
In June 2014, Richard Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 1-909697-49-2 became "the first comprehensive pro-Jesus myth book ever published by a respected academic press and under formal peer review".[11]

So there were questions raised as early as 180 CE to the authenticity of the Jesus account, not long after the earliest accounts were written. Making the statement that is historical Jesus had to exist is done only by ignoring any counter argument. And you can also see why they are attacking Carrier so strongly, because his book serves as a serious refutation to their pronouncements.

[Minimalist]

Carrier is certainly not the only one pursuing this inquiry.  Xtians have a compelling need to limit and personalize their opposition so they can marginalize them.  But he is in good company.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/did-jesus-exist-growing-number-of-scholars-dont-think-so/

5. Modern scholars who claim to have uncovered the real historical Jesus depict wildly different persons.  They include a cynic philosopher, charismatic Hasid, liberal Pharisee, conservative rabbi, Zealot revolutionary, nonviolent pacifist to borrow from a much longer list assembled by Price. In his words (pp. 15-16), “The historical Jesus (if there was one) might well have been a messianic king, or a progressive Pharisee, or a Galilean shaman, or a magus, or a Hellenistic sage.  But he cannot very well have been all of them at the same time.”  John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar grumbles that “the stunning diversity is an academic embarrassment.”

One might reasonably suspect that the HJ-ers see what they are eager to see.

[Mike Cl]

A couple of the more capable authors dealing with the mythical jesus are:
Earl doherty--The Jesus Puzzle:  Did Christanity Begin with a Mythical Christ?
and Jesus: Neither God nor Man (The Case for a Mythical Jesus)

And Robert M. Price
--Deconstructing Jesus
--The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man
--the Case against the Case for Christ

Both authors have websites that deserve to be visited.