Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 2 of 12: Sections 4.1 1. Epiphanius's Nazorians who believed Christ lived around 70 BCE

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GakuseiDon
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Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 2 of 12: Sections 4.1 1. Epiphanius's Nazorians who believed Christ lived around 70 BCE

Post by GakuseiDon »

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1Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 1 of 12: Sections 1 thru 3, What I liked and didn't likeviewtopic.php?f=3&t=10555

Section 4 of my review contains three blatant misreadings by Carrier, suggesting it's important to always check Carrier's citations. I argue that two of the misreadings seriously undermines Carrier's Minimal Mythicist position. I'll start threads for each of them. All three have been argued over on this board. The consensus on this board seems to be that Carrier is wrong on the first two, while the third one hasn't popped up in a while. Not sure what people here nowadays think of the third one.

The topic in this thread was last argued on this board in May 2022: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9454

It's a dilemma how much I quote from Carrier on each point. I don't want to spend too much time reading things out in my video. On the other hand, I don't want to leave anything out. Carrier tends to be long-winded on his points, which makes things difficult. :( If anyone feels I am missing something important out, please feel free to correct me.

I'm also not sure how much to put into each slide. I'd like to have at least the verdict ("Wrong" or "Pushback" or a combination of both) and the odds provided by Carrier. I'll probably make slides of longer quotes so the viewer can freeze-frame and take their time reading them.

So, my next section of my proposed video:

In this section I'll demonstrate three blatant misreadings by Dr Carrier. These misreadings suggest caution is required when using Carrier's work. Over the years, I've found Carrier to be very sloppy when citing early works or other scholars. You should always check his citations.

The first and second misreadings contribute to the odds favoring the Miminal Mythicist Theory. The second and third ones seriously undercut some of the information in OHJ's background knowledge section. I'll provide a wrap-up after the third misreading.

The first argument by Carrier I'll look at is this: [SLIDE]

ARGUMENT: Epiphanius wrote that there was a heretical group of Christians (Nazorians) who thought that Jesus lived and died around 70 BCE.

ANALYSIS: Carrier has misread Epiphanius. Epiphanius was writing about his own orthodox beliefs.

VERDICT: Carrier's statement is WRONG.

CONTRIBUTION TO ODDS (in conjunction with comments from the Talmud):
- Best odds for historicity: 4/5
- Worst odds for historicity: 1/2

Carrier writes on page 281-2:
"In the late fourth century the Christian scholar Epiphanius compiled an extensive dossier on all the 'heresies' he knew of, calling it the Panarion, 'Medicine Chest'. One of these 'heresies' he covers is that of the 'Nazori­ans'...
...
Epiphanius then says a curious thing: these Christians [Nazorians] say Jesus had lived and died in the time of Alexander Jannaeus. This is what he says they preach:

"The priesthood in the holy church is [actually] David's throne and kingly seat, for the Lord joined together and gave to his holy church both the kingly and the high-priestly dignity, transferring to it the never-failing throne of David. For David's throne endured in line of succession until the time of Christ himself, rulers from Judah not fai ling until he came 'to whom the things kept in reserve belonged, and he was the expectation of the nations'. With the advent of the Christ the rulers in line of succession from Judah, reigning until the time of the Christ himself, ceased. For the line fell away and stopped from the time when he was born in Bethle­hem of Judea under Alexander, who was of priestly and royal race. From Alexander onward this office ceased-from the days of Alexander and Salina, who is also called Alexandra, to the days of Herod the king and Augustus the Roman emperor."

The Babylonian Talmud not only confirms this, but its Jewish authors appear to have known no other form of Christianity. This means the Jews east of the Roman Empire (where this Talmud was compiled, assembled from the third to fifth centuries) were reacting to this Nazarian Christian­ity.
Carrier continues on page 285:
How can the descendants of the original sect of Christians have come to believe Jesus lived and died a hundred years before our Gospels say he did? It is nearly impossible to imagine how such a doctrine could have developed. Unless there was no historical Jesus. Then he could be placed in history wherever each sect desired.
The problem is that Epiphanius was not writing about Nazorian beliefs in that section, but rather his own orthodox beliefs. This is clear from the context. I'm guessing that Carrier is confused since Ephiphanius's comment is in Chapter 29 of the Panarion, which is indeed about Nazorian beliefs. But Epiphanius often explains points of orthodoxy when covering heretical beliefs, and this is simply another example of that. I'll give links to an on-line resource where you can read Epiphanius in English translation for yourself. [RESOURCES]

There are several on-line bloggers who have also made the same claim: that Epiphanius wrote about Nazorians who claimed Jesus lived around 70 BCE. They all have Carrier as their source. One blogger even linked to an on-line copy of Epiphanius's Panarion, but apparently the blogger didn't read it for himself. He accepted Carrier's claim.

Carrier himself cites earlier authors making claims about a Jesus who lived a century earlier than traditionally dated. Carrier writes on page 285 of OHJ that, while is not endorsing any particular theory, some scholars "have also noted these same facts". The first one he cites is G.R.S. Mead, "Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?", published 1903. I found an on-line copy of Mead, and discovered that Mead recognises that Epiphanius was writing about his own orthodox beliefs! Mead spends some time on it also. Carrier doesn't appear to have read Mead on the topic for himself. Or if he did, he doesn't mention that Mead is in disagreement with Carrier.

This is what G.R.S Mead wrote on the topic: MEAD, p. 400, http://www.gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/ ... /ch19.html

Can it then be that Epiphanius did not invent this astonishing statement as to the birth of Jesus in the days of Jannaeus, but that he is simply carrying out his plan of weaving inconvenient data into an orthodox texture? I have little doubt myself that this is the case.


I'll link to an online copy of Mead so you can check for yourself. [RESOURCES] I tried to check Carrier's other cites. Some of them are on the archive.org website, and I couldn't find references to Epiphanius's views in them, but they are hard to search so can't swear to whether they did or not.

So, if Epiphanius was writing about his own orthodox beliefs, what did he mean? Epiphanius was explaining how the dual roles of King and High Priest of the Jews had passed from Alexander Jannaeus onto the Christian Church. We can tell from his work that he believed Jesus was born at the end of King Herod the Great's rule, so around 4 to 2 BCE. We can also see, when he is referring to the heretical group called "Herodians", that saw the birth of Jesus as fitting into a so-called 'prophecy', which he explains in Panarion Chapter 20. The Herodians believed King Herod was Christ, because he was a “gentile King”, which indicated that the descendants of David had failed as per the ‘prophecy’ (20.1:7, 29.3:2). Thus King Herod, according to the Herodians, must have been the Christ. Epiphanius takes it one step further: the prophecy was correct, but it wasn't that King Herod was the Christ, but rather someone born during his reign. The dual roles of kingship and High Priest passed onto Christ and then onto the Church. There is an overlap between Panarion 20 and Panarion 29 which is worth reading.

It appears that 29.3:3 is slightly corrupted, with various solutions as to its original state. You can find discussions about the topic on-line. Whatever the solution, it's clear that Epiphanius wasn't writing about the beliefs of heretics. He was writing about his own orthodox beliefs. [RESOURCES]

Based on Carrier's reading of Epiphanius and the Talmud, Carrier gives the following odds [SLIDE]. I'll discuss the Talmud reference later in this video.

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GakuseiDon
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 2 of 12: Sections 4.1 1. Epiphanius's Nazorians who believed Christ lived around 70 BC

Post by GakuseiDon »

Oops! I forgot the links:

On-line link to Epiphanius's PANARION. See Chapter 29 for the key statement:

https://gnosis.study/library/%D0%9A%D1% ... -46%29.pdf

On-line link to Mead's work. See page 400 for his view of Epiphanius's statement:

http://www.gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/ ... /ch19.html

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/201 ... ian-jesus/
Paul the Uncertain
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 2 of 12: Sections 4.1 1. Epiphanius's Nazorians who believed Christ lived around 70 BC

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

GakuseiDon wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 3:28 pm
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/201 ... ian-jesus/
Thanks for the kind mention, G'Don. Best wishes for your project.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 2 of 12: Sections 4.1 1. Epiphanius's Nazorians who believed Christ lived around 70 BC

Post by GakuseiDon »

Paul the Uncertain wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 11:38 pmThanks for the kind mention, G'Don. Best wishes for your project.
I didn't know it was you! :eek: Though the blog name should have tipped me off. I thought the punctuation solution by Frank Williams was interesting. I thought about mentioning it, but since I don't know ancient Greek I felt I couldn't comment on it meaningfully. Nice blog by the way!
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