Merged Topic - Historical Reliability of the Gospels

[Mike Cl]

Randy, that one has to use probability to believe in the bible is proof that your god is at best shoddy and at worst a fiction.  I'll side with fiction.  God cannot supply a coherent Word, or rules to live by?  Your god created all--everything.  Except it cannot seem to be able to accurately communicate with his crowning creations.  That is simply too odd to believe.  To have his word come into human knowledge so late in it's history is quite puzzling; as is the fact that it was handed down to only a few in one section of the globe.  You creator cannot foresee the problem with languages?  He could not create a set of basic rules that all can read and understand?  He cannot have that set of rules sent everywhere?  There is no logic or sense to any of this.  Your god is simply a human created fiction.

[Randy Carson]

Oh geez, internet crap huh? Ever heard of the Epic of Gilgamesh (I have the book WITH PICTURES of the clay tablets in cuneiform)??? How about Horus or the Pandora Fable? The Royal Museum in Cambridge has them displayed for perusal. So please get real.

As to Jesus' existence, well his time was one of the most extensively written eras ever. Writers such as Aulus Perseus, Columella, Dio Chrisostome, Justus of Tiberius, Livy, Lucanus, Lucius Florus, Petronius, Phaedrus, Philo Judaeus, Phlegon, Pany the Elder, Plutarch, Pomponius Mola, Rufus Curteus, Quintillian, Seneca, Silius Italius, Statius Caelicius, Theon of Smyrna, Valerius Flaccus, Valerius Maximus, kept meticulous records of the time. Not one single word about a Jesus.

I see you have conveniently overlooked Josephus, Tacitus, Thallus, Phlegon, Lucian of Samasota, Suetonius, Sextus, Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, Julianus Africanus, Mara bar Serpaion, the Talmud as well as the 800-lb elephants in the room: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as well as all of the gnostic gospels such as those attributed to Thomas, Peter and Mary among others.

Even Bart Ehrman cites eleven sources of reliable historical corroboration of the existence of Jesus.

So, yeah. It's time for YOU to get real...or better yet...educated.

[reasonist]

I appreciate your attempt at humor, although it is only that, an attempt. First of all, you avoided my questions. For good reason, it would embarrass you more than you are already.
Funny you mentioned Mithra as the ONLY refute. I did not mention the name. Nice try. Here are a few examples, so obvious that even you could notice:
If you want to know the origins of the flood, Noah and the ark, the animals etc. you just have to look into the Babylonian "Epic of Gilgamesh" from 2,500 B.C. Also the same story is in the 'Deluge of Ziusudra' with Atram-Hasis as Noah and in the fable of 'Diodorus and the Flood of Deucalion'.
If you believe in a prophet who received God's laws on stone tablets on a mountain, compare that to Manou of India, Minos of Crete (from Zeus on Mt. Dicta) and Mises of Egypt (Bacchus of the Greeks)
‎Manou -  Minos - Mises.....Moses. It does not get any more obvious.
Moses' story was copied from the fable of 'Sargon of Akkade', 2,250 B.C. who was placed in a basket and set adrift in a river to avoid infanticide. He was rescued and raised by royalty, just like Moses.
The ten commandments are mostly taken from the Egyptian 'Book of the Dead'.
Heaven and Hell, Satan, final judgement, afterlife and more are taken from the Zoroastrians.
The story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden tree/fruit is taken from the Greek Pandora fable. In both stories the first woman (made of clay in the greek story) brought misery and misfortune to mankind for being curious and disobeying a rule. Both disobeyed god and brought on the end of a paradisical world free of sin.
Attis of Frigia: Born of a virgin on December 25th, crucified, dead for 3 days and resurrected.
Dionysus: Born of a Virgin on December 25th, performed miracles such as water into wine, was called 'King of Kings, Alpha and Omega, God's only Son' and was resurrected.
Genesis is a mish mash of previous mythology. The story of Eve eating from the tree of knowledge (Oh no! Knowledge! Can't have that!) and the serpent are in many older fables as well. In Greek mythology the serpent "Ladon" is coiled around a tree in the garden of Hesperides, protecting the golden apples. This story actually goes back to the Sumerian seals. Man/woman made of dirt or clay is very common in ancient story telling. In the Babylonian fable "Enuma Elish" the goddess Ninhursag created humans from clay. Prometheus shaped man out of mud. In Africa, the Yoruba culture holds that the god Obatala created the human race out of clay. Egyptian mythology states that the god Khnum made people of clay, and Chinese, Mayan, Norse, and Maori cultures have/had the same stories. 
You see, this information is all out there for everybody to research, even you with a little effort can avoid being schooled.
Now try to be a good boy and tell us if the Earth is a disk or a sphere. Maybe we can get the conversation back into the adult range.

[reasonist]

I see you have conveniently overlooked Josephus, Tacitus, Thallus, Phlegon, Lucian of Samasota, Suetonius, Sextus, Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, Julianus Africanus, Mara bar Serpaion, the Talmud as well as the 800-lb elephants in the room: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as well as all of the gnostic gospels such as those attributed to Thomas, Peter and Mary among others.

Even Bart Ehrman cites eleven sources of reliable historical corroboration of the existence of Jesus.

So, yeah. It's time for YOU to get real...or better yet...educated.

Precious really. OK, so tell us when was the first mention of a Jesus. I know you have a book that is proof of it's own authenticity, but again who wrote all this? Until the 15th century everything was written by hand, copied thousands of times, we have no originals only written down hearsay from decades after Jesus died, if he ever lived. IF you try what you are doing here in a court of law and you would be laughed off so fast your head would spin. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as proof? Huh? You are claiming something that is impossible to do. Unless you have a direct line of communication with your deity, nobody knows who wrote the bible or the other main books.
God had a knack of appearing in only one little area in the middle East. All three 'prophets' were illiterate, so there goes the first argument. Jesus, a divine entity, does not speak Chinese otherwise he would have appeared in china where many were literate. All 3 so called prophets had one thing in common for sure: their claim. A claim that cannot be verified or tested, brought forward by simpletons who had no idea what a Kangaroo or a bacteria was. There is not one single word in those books that could not have been written by ordinary mortals like you and I.
A word such as motor, electricity, virus, DNA for example that would drop our jaws in awe and admit that this was something special. But no! Not a single word. How pathetic!

[Randy Carson]

Precious really. OK, so tell us when was the first mention of a Jesus.

The earliest of Paul's epistles was written about AD 45. Let's call it an even 15 years after the resurrection.

However, in 1 Cor 15, Paul quotes the proto-creed that he learned from the apostles in Jerusalem in about AD 33-35.

The non-Christian sources would follow in the second half of the first century beginning with Thallus, Josephus and Tacitus, etc.

I know you have a book that is proof of it's own authenticity, but again who wrote all this?

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Jude. But we don't have to rely on them as inspired texts...we can simply view them as reliable historical accounts. Most reputable scholars do.

Until the 15th century everything was written by hand, copied thousands of times, we have no originals only written down hearsay from decades after Jesus died, if he ever lived. IF you try what you are doing here in a court of law and you would be laughed off so fast your head would spin. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as proof? Huh? You are claiming something that is impossible to do. Unless you have a direct line of communication with your deity, nobody knows who wrote the bible or the other main books.

Hardly. Papias recorded who wrote the gospels, and notably, there is no competing list of candidates. NO ONE has ever suggested any names other than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

God had a knack of appearing in only one little area in the middle East. All three 'prophets' were illiterate, so there goes the first argument. Jesus, a divine entity, does not speak Chinese otherwise he would have appeared in china where many were literate. All 3 so called prophets had one thing in common for sure: their claim. A claim that cannot be verified or tested, brought forward by simpletons who had no idea what a Kangaroo or a bacteria was. There is not one single word in those books that could not have been written by ordinary mortals like you and I.

Um...yeah. That's kinda the whole point, reasonist. The Bible WAS written by ordinary mortals like you and me. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."

A word such as motor, electricity, virus, DNA for example that would drop our jaws in awe and admit that this was something special. But no! Not a single word. How pathetic!

I AM.

Okay, that's technically two words.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Randy, I hate resorting to copypasta, but until people like you come up with an argument that hasn't a million holes in it I shall be obliged to continue:

Any document written or inspired by a supreme being would contain knowledge and wisdom so profound that no rational human being could deny the value of its contents. This text would not be subject to different interpretations, as any interpretation could only detract from the document's profundity. It would also be 100% consistent with all scientific observation, requiring no faith to believe its contents. There would therefore be no religion based on this document since its validity would be so painfully obvious that no cult following would be necessary to promote it.

We do not observe this phenomenon anywhere on planet Earth. If any document on Earth was indeed authored or inspired by a supreme being, then based on what we observe we can only conclude that this being intentionally lies to us on a regular basis. Since this creates a situation where we either have flawed evidence or no evidence, the only reasonable conclusion one can reach for the moment is that no supreme being is in communication with humanity.

TL;DR GIT UR FAGGIT SHIT OUTTA HEER N00B!

[Randy Carson]

Randy, a word or two about your atheist hero: (Made by Richard Carrier)

Bart Ehrman Just Can’t Do Truth or Logic
Bart Ehrman was again asked what evidence there is that Jesus existed this February 18, 2016, at Fresno City College. See the video here (he begins his answer at timestamp 23:18). First he says this:

I don’t think there is any doubt that Jesus existed. There are a couple of scholars who’ve argued he didn’t exist. There are a lot of voices out there saying that he didn’t exist. But they’re not by scholars who are actually trained in any historical disciplines. There are voices on the internet. But there are voices on the internet for all sorts of things. Scholars who study this stuff really, there isn’t any, it’s not a question that’s debated among my colleagues. It is not debated. Because the evidence is so overwhelming.
This is not a very truthful statement.

There are seven fully qualified scholars on the record who doubt the historicity of Jesus. Not “a couple.”
We are not “internet voices.” I have a peer reviewed academic monograph from a mainstream biblical studies press on this question.
Ehrman even appears to be saying that we are not “scholars who are actually trained in any historical disciplines.” Because he leaves out any mention of the fact that this isn’t just “internet voices” but also published scholarship by his expert peers and recognized by his expert peers.
He fails to make clear that there are “scholars who are actually trained in any historical disciplines” who have expressed their doubts. Again so far, seven of us.
And contrary to his last sentence, we are “scholars who study this stuff.” We are his colleagues (fully his peers in respect to credentialsâ€"some of us even better trained and more qualified in the subject of history than he is; so this looks a lot like he is lying about our credentials again).
And this question is debated by his colleagues. Not only by the seven of us so far who doubt historicity, but a lot of his colleagues have debated me. Including Zeba Crook, Trent Horn, Kenneth Waters, and (now) Craig Evans. One of those debates was even sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature. So the claim that it is “not debated” among his colleagues is false.
The evidence is not, of course, overwhelming. It’s not even whelming. But you can see that for yourself. IMO, the fact that this is what he thinks, discredits his opinion. Because there is no way in the universe any historian in any other field would call the evidence for the historicity of Jesus “overwhelming.” Maybe Ehrman just doesn’t know what overwhelming evidence looks like. But since he can’t even be honest about how many fully qualified colleagues of his doubt the historicity of Jesus, he can’t even honestly tell an audience that a mainstream peer reviewed academic monograph exists questioning historicity, and he can’t even honestly tell an audience that it is being debated by many of his colleagues, we shouldn’t expect him to honestly use the word “overwhelming” either.


What I realized was that I missed this presentation--damn!  I live only 50 mi. from Fresno and would have loved to have been there.

Sounds like Carrier was stung by the charge that he was flying solo so he rounded up a posse. Okay. Bully for him. Needless to say, the number of atheists who acknowledge that Jesus existed still vastly outnumbers the Magnificent Seven.

[reasonist]

You are running out of sensible replies. So you believe blindly what other mortals wrote thousands of years ago. People who worried about their neighbors ass and foreskins and pork chops. Really? I rest my case.

[aitm]

I see that you are an admin. Apparently, the ability to form a coherent argument germane to the topic of the thread is not a requirement for the job.

You're here seeking our approval of your opinion, where our opinion is important to you, we could care less what you think of us and we have no need or desire of your opinion. And from what we have seen of your babbling ramble, as always we are correct in our first opinion.

[reasonist]

I see that you are an admin. Apparently, the ability to form a coherent argument germane to the topic of the thread is not a requirement for the job.

Condescension must be part of the christian doctrine.

[Randy Carson]

You are running out of sensible replies. So you believe blindly what other mortals wrote thousands of years ago. People who worried about their neighbors ass and foreskins and pork chops. Really? I rest my case.

Oh, the irony.

Actually, lackofreasonist, if you read my OP's in this thread and the one I started this morning, you will see that there are actual reasons for believing that the NT is reliable.

There is nothing "blind" about it.

And yes, the books were written by real, mortal men who were inspired by God.

Is this really so difficult to comprehend?

[Randy Carson]

Randy, one more on your hero:

Ehrman also is betraying his incompetence as a historian by falsely thinking religions never make up scandalous, ludicrous, difficult-to-believe ideas. In fact, religions routinely do that. Why would Attis cult invent a castrated savior? Why would Romans invent and revere a mythical founder who murdered his own brother? Why would the Nicene council back the wildly illogical Trinitarian creed? How are the seer stone and golden plates of Joseph Smith anything but ludicrous? And why would Mormons advocate polygamy even though it brought severe and constant persecution upon them? Ehrman is a lousy historian if he doesn’t even know that the ludicrous is what religions specialize in. See OHJ, pp. 613-16 (and PH, pp. 124-69).

And yet it wasn’t even all that ludicrous. Human sacrifice as heroic and potent was revered, not laughed at (OHJ, Chapter 5, Element 43; Chapter 4, Element 18). Dying-then-triumphant heroes were ubiquitous among the very savior cults of the time that Christianity most resembled (OHJ, Chapter 4, Elements 13 and 14, and Chapter 5, Element 31). And the scriptures already said there would be a murdered messiah. And the Talmudic Jews agreed the scriptures already said there would be a murdered messiah. So evidently, it wasn’t ludicrous to even Rabbinical Jews, much less to a counter-cultural anti-Rabbinical fringe sect such as Christianity. What was ludicrous was that Christians could claim to know that a celestial archangel had performed this sacrifice (Hebrews 9), when there hadn’t been the public signs expected (OHJ, pp. 613-15). Paul does not say the crucifixion was turning the Jews off. He explicitly said it was the lack of signs confirming it that was turning the Jews off (1 Corinthians 1:22-24). Quoting verses out of context is what Christian apologists do; not what a secular scholar like Bart Ehrman should be doing. That’s pseudo-scholarship.

And on top of that, apart from being hopelessly fact-challenged, Ehrman’s entire point is illogical. As I’ve pointed out before, his question, “Why would you invent” anything other than a victorious king “if you wanted to convince people?” answers itself. Obviously you can’t invent a military victor when no such person exists! So the only messiah anyone could invent was one whose victory was invisible (to all but the revelators announcing it). Thus, Ehrman’s claim that “if” someone invented a messiah, they would have invented a “king of Jerusalem” is false. And it is not merely false; it is false because it is logically impossible. So his argument makes zero sense.

A better question is “Why did they invent the idea that the messiah got crucified?” Because they needed one, is the mythicist answer. It accomplished what they needed: the elimination of dependence on the Jewish temple cult and its Jewish leadership. It also created a plausible Jewish variant of a massively popular fashion among salvation cults at the time. Yet Ehrman does not show any sign of knowing what the mythicist answer to that question is. Because he provides no rebuttal to it. Yet he cannot argue for “a crucified messiah was more likely to be real than a revelation” without rebutting why it made sense as a revelation (OHJ, Chapter 4, Elements 16-18, and Chapter 5, Elements 23-31).

So Ehrman has no logically coherent argument here. And no facts to rest it on. This is not evidence for a historical Jesus. At all. Much less “overwhelmingly.” It’s just as likely that a radical sect like Christianity would invent a celestial sacrificial deity as that they would try selling an actual man as having been one. The odds of either are the same. The odds of either succeeding are the same. This makes the evidential weight of the fact zero.

Ehrman does what many christian historians do is to make hypothesis and treat that as a theory.  They don't test their hypothesis; Richard Carrier also creates hypothesis--but he will and does test it.  He tries to make the evidence fit as many possible hypothesis as he can think of then he tests them all to find out which one holds water--if any.  That is the hypothesis he then settles on.  But he is willing to revise said hypothesis whenever new evidence is provided.  Ehrman and his ilk are not.

Thanks for all that. I appreciate that you put some real time and effort into our exchange. Seriously.

And now for an opposing view:

Fuller Reply to Richard Carrier
by Bart Ehrman
http://ehrmanblog.org/fuller-reply-to-richard-carrier/

[Randy Carson]

More from your hero, Randy:

Anyway, he goes on…

The people who are called mythicists argue that Jesus was invented, that he’s a myth, that was made up, that there never was an actual man Jesus.
Not quite. We argue that the Gospel Jesus was made up. A conclusion even Bart Ehrman largely agrees with. He seems to be confused as to what the mythicist thesis actually is (as will become evident below). The peer reviewed mythicist thesis is that the first Christians genuinely believed there was an archangel named Jesus who underwent a cosmic ordeal to fix the universe using standard Jewish atonement magic (OHJ Chapters 3 and 4). They “met” this Jesus in visions and “discovered” what he said and what happened to him by finding hidden messages in the Old Testament (this is not conjecture; we know it for a fact: OHJ, Chapter 12.3-4).

So they didn’t make him up, in the sense Ehrman means (they might have, but it’s not necessary to assume they did: see OHJ, Chapter 4, Element 15). What a later generation of Christians did (not the first Christians, nor anyone who ever met any of the first Christians so far as we can tell) is make up the version of Jesus that had him tromping around earth interacting with historical figures. The distinction is crucial. Yet Ehrman conflates the two. And with this conflation he proceeds…

Here’s one reason for thinking that’s wrong. The early Christiansâ€"whether or not Jesus existedâ€"the early Christians said that Jesus was the messiah, and they said he was crucified. That would be a nonsensical statement for people in antiquity, that the messiah got crucified. The messiah was not supposed to suffer and die.
This is false. The Talmudic Jews preached that the messiah would suffer and die. So it clearly was not nonsensical. Even the Old Testament said the messiah would die. More on that in a moment. But the Talmud is clear on the matter (OHJ, pp. 73-75). There is in fact no evidence of any Jew ever finding this notion nonsensical. Many found it not to their preference. But it still made sense (as Hebrews 9 makes clear; see also OHJ, Chapter 4, Element 18, and Chapter 5, Elements 31 and 43). Especially since he wasn’t defeated in this account, but gained the power from it that he would use upon his return. Thus, a dying messiah is also a militarily victorious messiah. He just has to get resurrected.

Now Christians today typically say … that you have a prediction of a suffering messiah in the Old Testament. If you actually read the Old Testament, there is no passage in the Old Testament that talks about the messiah, that says anything about the messiah suffering. There are passages in the Old Testament that talk about somebody suffering, but they are never talking about the messiah. There are other passages that talk about the messiah, and they don’t talk about the messiah suffering. These were two incommensurate categories.
This is false. Daniel 9 says the messiah will die. Explicitly. And Isaiah 53 says so as wellâ€"using the word “Chosen One,” which Ehrman has otherwise agreed is a term used in the OT for the messiah (How Jesus Became God, p. 66). And Talmudic Rabbis agreed this was about the messiah. Even Psalms 89:32-52 says the messiah will be abandoned by God and suffer at his enemies’ hands (before being redeemed). And that is explicit that this is what will happen to the messiah. So Ehrman remains very truth challenged. Compare the evidence in OHJ, Chapter 4, Element 5.

So for Ehrman to keep repeating this claim, as if none of the above evidence existed, is simply dishonest.

Because the messiah was supposed to be the great king of Israel who overthrew the enemy, and set up God’s kingdom in Jerusalem. He was to be the great political, military leader of the Jews, who destroyed the enemy. That’s what the messiah was expected to be.
Not by everyone (Dan. 9; Is. 53; Ps. 89; the Talmud). Everyone expected that ultimately that would happen (as even the Christians still preached it would). But many did imagine there would be some suffering and possibly a brief death on the way. Moreover, Ehrman agrees we can’t claim to know what all Jews expected, so we can’t argue from what no Jews would have expected. Ehrman himself has said this explicitly: “saying what Jews thought is itself highly problematic, since lots of different Jews thought lots of different things. It would be like asking what Christians think today” (HJBG, p. 50) and “how would we know [what] ‘every’ early Christian [thought], unless all of them left us writings and told us everything they knew and did?” (DJE, p. 193), which is even more true of the Jews, who were even more divided into varying sects than the early Christians were, and about whom we know even less. So once again he is not telling his audience the truth.

Um...Dr. Carrier? I have a question...the Jews believed that anyone who was hanged on a tree was cursed by God (cf. Deut. 21:23).

The Jews may have believed (rightly) that the messiah would suffer, but how would they believe that Jesus was the messiah if He was hanged on a tree?

So, it seems you are equivocating in the passage I highlighted above. The messiah would suffer and die? Sure. But hang on a tree? Never!

[reasonist]

Oh, the irony.

Actually, lackofreasonist, if you read my OP's in this thread and the one I started this morning, you will see that there are actual reasons for believing that the NT is reliable.

There is nothing "blind" about it.

And yes, the books were written by real, mortal men who were inspired by God.

Is this really so difficult to comprehend?

I comprehend. The proof that the bible is the authentic word of a god is....the bible.  Must make sense in your world...

[Randy Carson]

Randy, one more on your hero:

Ehrman also is betraying his incompetence as a historian by falsely thinking religions never make up scandalous, ludicrous, difficult-to-believe ideas. In fact, religions routinely do that. Why would Attis cult invent a castrated savior? Why would Romans invent and revere a mythical founder who murdered his own brother? Why would the Nicene council back the wildly illogical Trinitarian creed? How are the seer stone and golden plates of Joseph Smith anything but ludicrous? And why would Mormons advocate polygamy even though it brought severe and constant persecution upon them? Ehrman is a lousy historian if he doesn’t even know that the ludicrous is what religions specialize in. See OHJ, pp. 613-16 (and PH, pp. 124-69).

And yet it wasn’t even all that ludicrous. Human sacrifice as heroic and potent was revered, not laughed at (OHJ, Chapter 5, Element 43; Chapter 4, Element 18). Dying-then-triumphant heroes were ubiquitous among the very savior cults of the time that Christianity most resembled (OHJ, Chapter 4, Elements 13 and 14, and Chapter 5, Element 31). And the scriptures already said there would be a murdered messiah. And the Talmudic Jews agreed the scriptures already said there would be a murdered messiah. So evidently, it wasn’t ludicrous to even Rabbinical Jews, much less to a counter-cultural anti-Rabbinical fringe sect such as Christianity. What was ludicrous was that Christians could claim to know that a celestial archangel had performed this sacrifice (Hebrews 9), when there hadn’t been the public signs expected (OHJ, pp. 613-15). Paul does not say the crucifixion was turning the Jews off. He explicitly said it was the lack of signs confirming it that was turning the Jews off (1 Corinthians 1:22-24). Quoting verses out of context is what Christian apologists do; not what a secular scholar like Bart Ehrman should be doing. That’s pseudo-scholarship.

And on top of that, apart from being hopelessly fact-challenged, Ehrman’s entire point is illogical. As I’ve pointed out before, his question, “Why would you invent” anything other than a victorious king “if you wanted to convince people?” answers itself. Obviously you can’t invent a military victor when no such person exists! So the only messiah anyone could invent was one whose victory was invisible (to all but the revelators announcing it). Thus, Ehrman’s claim that “if” someone invented a messiah, they would have invented a “king of Jerusalem” is false. And it is not merely false; it is false because it is logically impossible. So his argument makes zero sense.

A better question is “Why did they invent the idea that the messiah got crucified?” Because they needed one, is the mythicist answer. It accomplished what they needed: the elimination of dependence on the Jewish temple cult and its Jewish leadership. It also created a plausible Jewish variant of a massively popular fashion among salvation cults at the time. Yet Ehrman does not show any sign of knowing what the mythicist answer to that question is. Because he provides no rebuttal to it. Yet he cannot argue for “a crucified messiah was more likely to be real than a revelation” without rebutting why it made sense as a revelation (OHJ, Chapter 4, Elements 16-18, and Chapter 5, Elements 23-31).

So Ehrman has no logically coherent argument here. And no facts to rest it on. This is not evidence for a historical Jesus. At all. Much less “overwhelmingly.” It’s just as likely that a radical sect like Christianity would invent a celestial sacrificial deity as that they would try selling an actual man as having been one. The odds of either are the same. The odds of either succeeding are the same. This makes the evidential weight of the fact zero.

Ehrman does what many christian historians do is to make hypothesis and treat that as a theory.  They don't test their hypothesis; Richard Carrier also creates hypothesis--but he will and does test it.  He tries to make the evidence fit as many possible hypothesis as he can think of then he tests them all to find out which one holds water--if any.  That is the hypothesis he then settles on.  But he is willing to revise said hypothesis whenever new evidence is provided.  Ehrman and his ilk are not.

"Incompetence as a historian"? "Ehrman and his ilk"?

Yeah, those are the objective, detached phrases of academia. Not.

Carrier has lost it.