Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
A handy collation of Richard Carrier’s responses to James’ McGrath’s less-than-professional attacks on Carrier’s work is found in the Introduction to Raphael Lataster’s book, Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists: What academic disease does this signify? [5] See Richard Carrier, “McGrath on the Amazing Infallible Ehrman” (25 March 2012); “McGrath on OHJ: A … Continue reading “Carrier on McGrath’s responses to Carrier”
Part two of a scholar’s review of Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus has appeared on the Bible and Interpretation site and once again the reviewer has deftly avoided any mention of Richard Carrier’s argument. More positively, however, he has managed to insinuate the possibility that Carrier is “deliberately misleading” (character smear is de rigueur for … Continue reading “Once more: Professor Stumbles Over the Point of Rank-Raglan Mythotypes and Jesus”
His mother is a virgin and he’s reputed to be the son of a god; he loses favor and is driven from his kingdom to a sorrowful death—sound familiar? In The Hero, Lord Raglan contends that the heroic figures from myth and legend are invested with a common pattern that satisfies the human desire for idealization. … Continue reading “The Rank-Raglan Hero-Type (and Jesus)”
A few readers have indicated to me that my recent series of posts on the problematic use of Bayes Theorem for assessing “historical claims” have failed to make their intended point. Hopefully here I can succinctly explain why Bayes cannot help us decide whether Christianity began with a historical Jesus. Reason #1: If our question … Continue reading “The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History””
Previous posts in this series: Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 1: Historical Facts and Probability Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 3: Prediction and History * For an excellent introduction to Bayes‘ approach to problem solving read Sharon McGrayne’s The Theory That … Continue reading “Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 4: Did Jesus Exist?”
It’s been a long while since I wrote about Jesus mythicism. I hope what I write now will present a slightly different and useful perspective. Should not Christian apologists be thrilled with Richard Carrier’s widely known conclusion and welcome it: In my estimation the odds Jesus existed are less than 1 in 12,000. . . … Continue reading “Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 1: Historical Facts and Probability”
These past few weeks I’ve been trying to untangle my way through the data strands that seem to relate to Christian origins and early development (again) and I find myself coming back to the chimerical figure of Paul (again). When I reach this point, as I have done so many times before, I tend to … Continue reading “Questioning the Identity/Historicity of the Apostle Paul”
My earlier posts on M. David Litwa’s How the Gospels Became History were not my favourites. Negatives about assumptions and methods tended to predominate. But I would not want that tone to deflect readers from the many positives and points of interest in the book. Chapter four discusses Jesus’ genealogies in the Gospels of Matthew … Continue reading “Review, part 5 (Litwa on) Jesus’ Genealogy and Divine Conception”
M. David Litwa declared at the outset of his book How the Gospels Became History Whether or not the evangelists did report actual events is a separate question and is not my concern. (p.3) So I remain mystified by his decision to make his first chapter entirely about the “Jesus Myth Theory”. It adds nothing … Continue reading “Review, part 2 (Damnation upon that Christ Myth Theory!) : How the Gospels Became History / Litwa”
As I read each chapter or section of Raphael Lataster’s book, Questioning the Historicity of Jesus, I wrote about it here, but now that I have read the concluding pages I discover that Lataster anticipated some of the points I made along the way. Especially this one, the final footnote on the final page: The … Continue reading “Review part 10: Questioning the Historicity of Jesus / Lataster (Conclusion)”
Until now I have been working from a digital version of Raphael Lataster’s Questioning the Historicity of Jesus: Why a Philosophical Analysis Elucidates the Historical Discourse, that was supplied to me by Brill for these review posts. I have since been forwarded by Brill a physical copy of the book after I informed them that … Continue reading “Review part 8: Questioning the Historicity of Jesus / Lataster (Case for Mythicism)”
Questioning the historical existence of Jesus attracts something other than mere curiosity or intellectual debate among many biblical scholars and some of the public who don’t even have any personal interest in religion. I can understand people with a personal faith in Jesus either simply ignoring the question with disdain or amusement or responding with … Continue reading “Understanding the Hostility to the Christ Myth Theory”
Fellow-former members of the now defunct Worldwide Church of God will recognize that cult’s influence in the title. (It is tongue-in-cheek, an in-house joke.) It came to me after reading the following by PZMyers: Now I have to recalibrate. What does “Jesus mythicist” mean? Apparently, rejecting the idea of the Son of God wandering about … Continue reading “Just what do you mean… HISTORICAL JESUS?”
[Note: This post reflects my perspective. Neil is not responsible for any of the following content. –Tim] We have Thomas Huxley to thank for the word Darwinism, which he coined in 1860 in a review of On the Origin of Species. In modern times, of course, creationists have misused the term, applying it to any … Continue reading “What Is Euhemerism?”