Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I think the Christians were a hierarchical sect. There were the apostles, the brothers of the lord and the ordinary Christians. And above all, all Christians were brothers and sisters of Christ (Romans 8:29). To see biological brothers in Galatians and 1 Corinthians 9:5 therefore seems to me illogi...

It probably muddies the water somewhat, but Eusebius in the Fourth Century makes an extraordinary claim of having found primary evidence of Jesus, namely correspondence between King Abgar and Jesus. Eusebius claims the provenance of his copy is the Edessan state archives (by Eusebius's time no longe...

Well, Iranaeus thought that Siman was claiming to have been Jesus Christ, and I see no problem with believing that such a thing was either taught by Simon or was claimed by Simonians later. So far, so good. We're in agreement. Such a claim, either by Simon or by his followers, is not direct proof t...

Where is the reference to "Simon's Jesus?" The report (consistent with others given in the Uncertaintist article whose link appears in what you quoted) was that Simonians were taught that Simon appeared among the Jews. I have no problem with the modern analyst amending their claim to state...

The Simonian claim from Irenaeus is and he [Simon] taught that it was himself who appeared among the Jews as the Son, but descended in Samaria as the Father while he came to other nations in the character of the Holy Spirit. He represented himself, in a word, as being the loftiest of all powers, th...

The killer for me, though, was the ancient attestation of a Simonian claim that Simon Magus enacted the deeds falsely attributed to Jesus as magical performances, including the crucifixion. That implies that Simonians asserted in ancient times that the typical definition of "historical Jesus&q...

For a long time, I was mystified why historicists bother with the argument-substitute "doubt about Jesus being a real man who actually lived is of modern vintage." Apart from being a gold-plated example of the genetic fallacy, what is wrong with modern ideas so very especially? Apart from ...

Concerning the original inhabitants of Africa, the settlers that afterward joined them, and the manner in which they intermingled, I shall offer the following brief account, which, though it differs from the general opinion, is that which was interpreted to me from the Punic volumes said to have be...

7. Explanation of the Terms in Bayes’ Theorem P = Probability (epistemic probability = the probability that something stated is true) h = hypothesis being tested ~h = all other hypotheses that could explain the same evidence (if h is false) e = all the evidence directly relevant to the truth of h (...

Found this blog website on Carrier's claim that I thought was interesting since it discusses possible solutions to why Epiphanius's statement ended up that way: https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/epiphanius-didnt-write-about-a-pre-christian-jesus/ Thanks for the kind mention, G'Don. Bes...