Reply to James McGrath’s Criticism of Bayes’s Theorem in the Jesus Mythicism Debate

James McGrath in a recent post, Jesus Mythicism: Two Truths and a Lie, made the following criticism of the use of Bayes’s theorem in the Jesus Mythicism debate: . . . . as I was reminded of the problematic case that Richard Carrier has made for incorporating mathematical probability (and more specifically a Bayesian approach) … Continue reading “Reply to James McGrath’s Criticism of Bayes’s Theorem in the Jesus Mythicism Debate”


A Historian Reviews Carrier: “The Bayesian perspective on historiography is commonsensical”

Thanks to a reader who has alerted me to an article by a philosopher of history, Aviezer Tucker, on Richard Carrier’s Proving History in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal History and Theory. I have since seen an rss feed alerting me to Carrier’s own comments on the review. I look forward to reading it but meantime I’d like to … Continue reading “A Historian Reviews Carrier: “The Bayesian perspective on historiography is commonsensical””


Real Historians Do Bayes!

How do historians, comparative linguists, biblical and textual critics, and evolutionary biologists establish beliefs about the past? How do they know the past? That’s the subject of Aviezer Tucker‘s Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography (2004). Tucker’s interest is the relationship between the writing of history (historiography) and evidence (p. 8). It … Continue readingReal Historians Do Bayes!”


The Laziness and Incompetence of Yet Another Biblical Scholar

In the past I have posted on biblical scholars I have caught out promoting and citing Wikipedia articles, books, journal articles, archaeological finds in support of their views that in fact directly contradicted their arguments and claims. Mercifully the names of these scholars have been relatively few. I have posted far more on many excellent … Continue reading “The Laziness and Incompetence of Yet Another Biblical Scholar”