Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Note: I wrote this post back in February of 2012. I just never got around to adding a nice conclusion and finishing it. I offer it up now as a way to kick-start my blogging habit again. Failure-proofing the world I suck at bowling. I’ve tried. Heaven knows I’ve tried. I even bought a pair of bowling … Continue reading “Bowling with Bumpers or How Not to Do Critical Scholarship”
The problem with trivial objections is that they leave the central thesis largely untouched. It is fallacious to oppose a contention on the basis of minor and incidental aspects, rather than giving an answer to the main claim which it makes. . . .The fallacy is akin to that of the straw man. Instead of … Continue reading “Trivial Fallacies of a Hostile Anti-Mythicist”
Raphael Lataster in Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists shows readers that one does not have to personally like Richard Carrier to agree and critically engage with his arguments. Lataster addresses the “stumbling block” of Carrier’s abrasive blog comments and his promotion of controversial relationships values that have made and makes it clear that in … Continue reading “Carrier, Lataster and Another Small Stumbling Block”
It’s more of a few notes or a “book write up” than a review per se. PhD candidate and Bible scholar James Pate has posted Book Write-Up: On the Historicity of Jesus, by Richard Carrier on his blog James’ Ramblings. He explains the purpose of his brief notes: I would like to wrestle with some of Carrier’s arguments. … Continue reading “Another review of Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus“
I am finding Raphael Latater’s book, Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists, a most invigorating and fresh approach to the topic. Caveat: I am taking it slowly and so far have not even completed the first chapter. I have read Richard Carrier’s introductory remarks and Raphael Lataster’s own background introduction and am only … Continue reading “Jesus Did Not Exist — A New Contribution”
The citations refer to the previous two interview posts. Miami is the first one with David Fitzgerald; Logicast is Daniel’s follow up podcast. The time references match the preceding time marker in each of the two posts. So [Logicast, 49:00] means that the source for my statement can be found by beginning to read from the … Continue reading “Framing the Historicist-Mythicist Debate: A Case Study”
A few days ago I posted If you’re as sick of the Jesus Mythicist/Historicist debate as I am . . . That discussion has come and gone and is now found on the Miami Valley Skeptics podcast. H/t the Otagosh blog — Fitzgerald vs Gullotta – Discussing Jesus I haven’t heard more than a few snippets of it … Continue reading “Jesus Mythicist/Historicist discussion of Daniel Gullotta and David Fitzgerald”
James McGrath’s review of Maurice Casey’s Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? has appeared in RBL. Casey’s work is a diatribe against persons who have been associated with the Christ Myth arguments (even though some of them do not argue a mythicist case themselves), and against a selection of what he asserts (often inaccurately) are their … Continue reading “The Casey-McGrath Profiles of Mythicists and Mythicism”
Lately Richard Carrier has been providing me with excuses not to post new material myself here. Carrier’s latest post addresses an article that had also come to my attention some weeks ago, one that at the time I chose somewhat reluctantly to ignore. With this post I’m making an easy compromise and posting on Richard … Continue reading “One more free ride on Richard Carrier’s blog: Did Jesus Exist? (A metapost)”
Raphael Lataster article that recently appeared in The Washington Post as well as The Conversation opened with these words: Did a man called Jesus of Nazareth walk the earth? Discussions over whether the figure known as the “Historical Jesus” actually existed primarily reflect disagreements among atheists. Believers, who uphold the implausible and more easily-dismissed “Christ … Continue reading “Why Believers Ought Not To Get Involved in the Christ Myth Question”
Richard Carrier presents a “mock analogy” to illustrate the absurdity of so much of the reasoning that lies at the heart of the bulk of serious historical Jesus scholarship today. In fact the analogy is similar to ones Tim and I have independently made here. (One scholar who took himself far too seriously was so … Continue reading ““The Jesus Story Cannot Possibly Have Been Fabricated””
James McGrath directs readers interested in learning more about mythicism to read Dispelling the Jesus Myth, a blogpost by Simon J. Joseph. So I did. Simon’s post introduces nothing new into the discussion. It is the same litany of objections to mythicism one has run across countless times before so I was about to move … Continue reading “Dispelling the Jesus Mythicist Myth”
I’ve more or less “finally” completed the page WHO’s WHO: Mythicists and Mythicist Newly added: annotated lists to identify the viewpoint and methods of each of the authors, a second table to illustrate the different schools of mythicist thought, and several more names of prominent public sympathizers with mythicist arguments, along with links to their … Continue reading “Who’s Who among Mythicists . . . : Completed (for now)”
Table 1: Mythicists, Mythicist Sympathizers & Agnostics (and their Religious Backgrounds) As of 6th August 2020 only the colour coded table has been updated. The remainder of this page dates from some years earlier. The following updated table was originally posted at Who’s Who Among Mythicists and Mythicist Sympathizers/Agnostics and again at Maurice Casey’s Failure to … Continue reading “WHO’s WHO: Mythicists, Mythicist Agnostics & Historicists Who Call for Scholarly Debate (Updated 6th August 2020)”