Can Richard Carrier be trusted to write the truth?

[John T]

^Though the Hitler diaries are fake, they still contain historical truths about the person they're based on... Indeed, I'm sure one could learn a lot about the historical Hitler just from reading them. Where does Ehrman ever say the gospels are "genuine"? He reasonably concludes like most critical scholars that they are not written by the persons attributed to them.

The forger of the Hitler Diaries(Konrad Kujau) thought he could get away with it because people knew Hitler was real.

Same thing with authors of the gnostic gospels, i.e. they thought they could get away with it because they knew Jesus was real.

Would anyone try to sell the Diary of Zeus as non-fiction?

Which helps explain the mythisict authors like Carrier. They appear to me to be nothing more than atheists looking for a new way to make a few bucks while attacking religion, i.e. Christianity.
Truth matters not just, attack, attack, attack.

Why is it they don't write propaganda books attacking Allah as a myth?

Sincerely,
John T

[Ulan]

Would anyone try to sell the Diary of Zeus as non-fiction?

Who knows? I just visited the cave where he was raised and later buried. I didn't have a spade to look for his diaries though.

[John T]

Ehrman in his book "Did Jesus Exist?", looked at the prevailing views of the leading mythicists. He picked them apart one by one and showed there was no there, there. Carrier, Doherty, Feke, Gandy, Price, and Wells all make statements of fact that are unguarded, undocumented or outright misstatements of fact.

The common theme of most of these bizarre theories is that Jesus is a myth patterned after the dying and rising gods of ancient myths, e.g. Osiris, Hercules, Mithras, etc.. However, when you look at the history of these pagan myths, it turns out it is the mythicists who are simply imagining things.

Ehrman is not alone in pointing this out.

"The category of dying and rising Gods, once a major topic of scholarly investigation, must now be understood to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts.
[Jonathan Z. Smith, "Dying and Rising Gods," in Encyclopedia of Religion, 1987, Volume 3, page 521]

http://www.pocm.info/scholarship_con_JZ_Smith.html

The main problem is, the rising and dying god myths do not contain a crucified messiah as the mythicists so want us believe. To cherry pick and mix together the aspects of the myths that appear similar to Jesus and then claim the new aggregate proves Jesus is also a myth, is a flawed methodology. Ehrman points out there is no evidence that pagans prior to Jesus believed in dying and rising gods. Furthermore, when it comes to the mystery cults [e.g. Mithras], "There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that these cults played the least role in the development of early views of Jesus."...Ehrman pg. 257.

So, can mythicists be trusted to write the truth about mythology in order to prove that Jesus was also a myth, the short answer (so far) is a resounding, no.

Carrier characterized "Did Jesus Exist?" as a hack job book by Ehrman. He wrote that without even reading the book first.
What does that say about Carrier's credibility as a scholar?

I wondered why a so-called respected historical scholar would stoop to ugly ad hominem attacks? Isn't that the standard default of those who don't have any facts to argue to the merit?

Perhaps, Carrier did it in hopes that he could dissuade his mythicist followers not to bother to evaluate evidence contrary to the mythicist religion nor question the dogma of mythicistism but remain faithful to the cause and you do that by buying Carrier's new book instead of Ehrman's.

Of course it is only proper for me to now look at the other side of the coin and that is to see what proof Carrier has to proclaim "Did Jesus Exist?" as a junk status book.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1794

Sincerely,
John T

[Ulan]

The common theme of most of these bizarre theories is that Jesus is a myth patterned after the dying and rising gods of ancient myths, e.g. Osiris, Hercules, Mithras, etc...

This thread is about Carrier. He does not claim any such thing.

Ehrman points out there is no evidence that pagans prior to Jesus believed in dying and rising gods.

Ah yes, that's what Ehrman claims. Sure.

At least I now know for sure that it's not worth answering you.

[DCHindley]

Isn't the point supposed to be that characteristic phrases in a Greek text that only make sense in Aramaic (i.e., they are what is known as "translation Greek") suggest that that portion of an account is drawn from an Aramaic source? Then folks take a further step and assume that this Aramaic source was about Jesus or at least recorded or paraphrased his words. I don't know if that second step is the only possibility for the Aramaic allusions.

I have long maintained that the double tradition (essentially, "Q," the source of which was likely written in Aramaic) was derived from a collection of generic wisdom sayings (common in the ANE, see particularly Kloppenborg's The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections, Minneapolis, 1987). The intent? To take the edge off of Jesus as the founder of a tradition (of a coming new world order) crucified by the Romans for it, by making him a harmless wisdom teacher tragically misunderstood by both Judeans and the Roman authorities, and whose death, ironically, created the path of salvation for all mankind, not just Judeans.

That latter path to salvation for mankind is, IMHO, pure rationalization of the death of the man Jesus, but the incorporation of a collection of wisdom sayings and putting them into the mouth of Jesus was essentially marketing savvy by the evolving Jesus movement.

DCH

So the use of aramaic directly and indirectly in the gospel(s), from a group started in jewish lands, is evidence of a certain historical guy crucified in roughly ad 30 under Pilate?

And the Hitler diaries are in German, meaning that they must be genuine. Because Hitler spoke German.

Ehrman points out that the story of Jesus raising a child from the dead must go back to the historical Jesus because it has some Aramaic words in it.

I guess Daniel must also go back to an historical Daniel because it has some Aramaic words in it.

Can anybody remember the sentence in Paul where Ehrman says in one part of 'Did Jesus Exist?' that the first half of it is early and in another part of the book that the second half of it is late?

[John T]

This from Carrier's blog:

"• CARRIER: Ehrman commits a straw man fallacy (or a red herring fallacy, depending on what you think he was trying to argue). He correctly declares the non-existence of a single mythic god narrative (before Christianity no one deity was born to a virgin mother and died as an atonement for sin and was raised from the dead) and thereby implies none of its elements existed in any pre-Christian mythic god narratives. That is false. Each of those elements exists in the narrative of one pre-Christian god or another (or something relevantly similar to each element did), and some are shared by several gods. That all three are not shared by any single god narrative is irrelevant.

Ehrman is thus either making a straw man argument (“mythicists who claim Jesus is a copy of a previous god narrative with all three elements are wrong, therefore all mythicists are wrong”) or a red herring argument (“the Jesus narrative is not a copy of a previous god narrative with all three elements, therefore it was not influenced by any other previous god narratives with similar elements”). In fact, when we look at the peculiar features of god and hero narratives surrounding pre-Christian Judaism and the parallel features within Judaism itself, and combine them, what we end up with is a demigod so much like that of Jesus that this cannot be a coincidence. As I wrote in my critique:

He is implausibly implying that it’s “just a coincidence” that in the midst of a fashion for dying-and-rising salvation gods with sin-cleansing baptisms, the Jews just happened to come up with the same exact idea without any influence at all from this going on all around them. That they “just happened” to come up with the idea of a virgin born son of god, when surrounded by virgin born sons of god, as if by total coincidence.

That’s simply not plausible. And it misinforms the public to conceal this fact from them."...Carrier

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1794

****************************

However, this is what Ehrman actually wrote: "Where do any of the ancient sources speak of a divine man who was crucified as an atonement for sin? So far as I know, there are no parallels to this central Christian claim. What has been invented here is not the Christian Jesus but the mythicist claims about Jesus. I am not saying that I think Jesus really did die to atone for the sins of the world. I am saying that the Christian claims about Jesus's atoning sacrifice were not lifted from pagan claims abut divine men. Dying to atone for sin was not part of the ancient pagan mythology. Mythicists who claim that it was are simply imagining things."...Erhman pg 214-215.

Please note all the false assumptions Carrier made about Ehrman and then notice he did not cite any examples to prove Ehrman was wrong. So, it looks like Carrier is just imagining things that Ehrman wrote, likewise Carrier is imagining he proved Ehrman wrong on those things imagined.

At what point does arrogance become delusional?
Has Carrier reached that point?

John T

[stevencarrwork]

' "Where do any of the ancient sources speak of a divine man who was crucified as an atonement for sin? So far as I know, there are no parallels to this central Christian claim....Dying to atone for sin was not part of the ancient pagan mythology..'

Well, I guess there are no parallels anywhere in anything.

Where does Shakespeare ever write about gangs in New York? Gang fights in New York never feature in Shakespeare, although they are central to West Side Story.

I guess West Side Story wasn't based on Romeo and Juliet.

[Ulan]

Please note all the false assumptions Carrier made about Ehrman and then notice he did not cite any examples to prove Ehrman was wrong. So, it looks like Carrier is just imagining things that Ehrman wrote, likewise Carrier is imagining he proved Ehrman wrong on those things imagined.

At what point does arrogance become delusional?
Has Carrier reached that point?

No. Do you not understand the argument of what you just quoted? While I see that Carrier overdoes the tone, he principally admonishes Ehrman for building up a straw man argument, because Ehrman denies borrowing by Christianity from pagan religions because there is no pagan divine being that unites all elements of Jesus dying for our sins and being resurrected in one single pagan deity. You find all these elements in separate pagan myths though. Which just means that, while the combination is new, the elements are not.

I mean, just to give an example, you probably know the Sumerian Inanna myth, where the goddess Inanna went to the underworld, was killed there and nailed to a wooden pole, where she was exhibited for three days and then resurrected by Enki. She returned as goddess and sent her lover Tammuz to the underworld instead (someone has to die for her), the same Tammuz the Israelites cried over on the steps of Salomo's Tempel in the book Ezekiel, or the same Tammuz (one of the dying/resurrecting gods of the area) who was venerated at Jesus' birth cave, or the same Tammuz one of the summer months of the Jewish calendar is named after. The Inanna myth doesn't contain any atonement for sins obviously, but I guess you can see that some of the elements are there and, often enough, well known to Jews of the time.

[John T]

@Ulan,

"The Inanna myth doesn't contain any atonement for sins obviously,..."Ulan

So, after all that explaining how I didn't understand the argument, you admit Ehrman was right all along?

If so, it is a start.

Carrier has a big problem with misapplying definitions of fallacy arguments, e.g. straw-man arguments.
Surely, a true philosopher like PhilosopherJay can point them out to you instead of me.

Sincerely,

John T

[toejam]

The forger of the Hitler Diaries(Konrad Kujau) thought he could get away with it because people knew Hitler was real.

Same thing with authors of the gnostic gospels, i.e. they thought they could get away with it because they knew Jesus was real.

Could this not also be the case for the content of the canonical gospels? - that they contain false stories about Jesus that their authors thought they could get away with because they knew Jesus was real? How do you draw the line between legitimate gospel stories and illegitimate ones being the result of either lies, exaggeration, misunderstandings, or some combination of these factors?