Gullotta and Hurtado versus Carrier: a 'dialogue' between deaf

[karavan]

I don't really care about Giuseppe's materialistic atheism. The idea that Paul believed in a purely celestial space sperm Jesus is ridiculous on its face. The reason why Paul could believe in a pre-existence of Jesus is because he outright blatantly says, in very clear words, that he thinks Jesus gave up his divine pre-existent state and took on the form of a human, being born of a women. It's right there in Philippians 2, as clear as daylight.

[Giuseppe]

I don't really care about Giuseppe's materialistic atheism. The idea that Paul believed in a purely celestial space sperm Jesus is ridiculous on its face. The reason why Paul could believe in a pre-existence of Jesus is because he outright blatantly says, in very clear words, that he thinks Jesus gave up his divine pre-existent state and took on the form of a human, being born of a women. It's right there in Philippians 2, as clear as daylight.

The hymn of Philippians doesn't say that Jesus took on the form of a human, being born of a women. It says that Jesus took on the form of a human, being already adult, for the only mission of being crucified on the cross.

[ABuddhist]

I don't really care about Giuseppe's materialistic atheism. The idea that Paul believed in a purely celestial space sperm Jesus is ridiculous on its face. The reason why Paul could believe in a pre-existence of Jesus is because he outright blatantly says, in very clear words, that he thinks Jesus gave up his divine pre-existent state and took on the form of a human, being born of a women. It's right there in Philippians 2, as clear as daylight.

Do you deny the following facts?

First:

In Romans 1:3, Paul literally writes “concerning His Son, who came to be from the sperm of David according to the flesh.”
Most modern translations do not render these words literally but “interpret” the words to say something else according to each team of translators’ theological assumptions, adding words not in the Greek, or translating words contrary to Paul’s usual idiom.
We cannot answer the question with the data available whether Paul meant “sperm” (i.e. seed) allegorically (as he does mean elsewhere when he speaks of seeds and births, such as of Gentiles becoming the seed of Abraham by God’s declaration), or literally (God manufacturing a body for Jesus from the actual sperm of David), or figuratively (as a claim of biological descent—-even though Paul’s vocabulary does not match such an assertion, but that of direct manufacture). At best it’s equal odds. We can’t tell.

Second:

It is an indisputable fact that when Paul says this, he uses a word he only uses of manufactured, not birthed bodies (ginomai, referring to Adam’s body: 1 Corinthians 15:45, in the very context of describing Adam’s body; and our future resurrection bodies: 1 Corinthians 15:37, which, as for Adam, God will manufacture for us).
It is an indisputable fact that Paul uses a different word every time he refers to birthed bodies (gennaô, e.g. Romans 9:11, Galatians 4:23 and 4:29).
It is an indisputable fact that subsequent Christian scribes were so bothered by the above two facts that they tried to doctor the manuscripts of Paul to change his word for “made” into his word for “born” (and did this in both places where Paul alludes to Jesus’s origin: Romans 1:3 and Galatians 4:4).
It is an indisputable fact that Paul depicts Jesus’s body being manufactured for him in Philippians 2:7. No mention of birth, childhood or parents. And all this matters because…

Third:

It is an indisputable fact that Nathan’s prophecy of the messiah literally declared that God said to David that, upon his death, “I shall raise your sperm after you, who will come out of your belly” (2 Samuel 7:12) and that seed will sit upon an eternal throne (7:13).
It is an indisputable fact that Nathan’s prophecy was proved false: the throne of David’s progeny was not eternal; when Christianity began, Davidic kings had not ruled Judea for centuries.
It is an indisputable fact that when faced with a falsified prophecy, Jews almost always reinterpreted that prophecy in a way that rescued it from being false.
It is an indisputable fact that the easiest way to rescue Nathan’s prophecy from being false is to read Nathan’s prophecy literally and not figuratively as originally intended: as the messiah being made directly from David’s seed and then ruling forever, thus establishing direct continuity and thus, one could then say, an eternal throne did come directly from David.

[karavan]

Sorry, what? It says he was formed as an *adult*? Wishful thinking really does take a hold on some people, but of course it doesn't say that. It definitively says that Jesus simply transitioned from a divine to a human state. "Already adult" is your own ridiculous insertion, and Paul otherwise does literally say born of a woman in Galatians.

Looks like ABuddhist really does believe in the mighty delusion of a space sperm reading of Romans 1:3, which is a rather mundane reference to Jesus' lineal descent from David, LOL. Given the fact that there are literally mountains of texts which speak of descent of one person as the seed of another, we can safely sideline the space bank theory are the inane idea it is, only a sort of wishful thinking to preserve mythicism and the idea of a celestial Jesus in Paul.

"It is an indisputable fact that when Paul says this, he uses a word he only uses of manufactured, not birthed bodies"

That's blatantly ridiculous, that's not "indisputable" at all and you know that you don't know the Greek, and that the only person who makes this "indisputable" claim is Richard freaking Carrier, whose paycheck depends on people subscribing to his Patreon for his mythicist blog. The "indisputable" fact is that Paul is referring to the Septuagint of Genesis where God specially forms Adam, and for Paul, that's an analogy to God specially incarnating Jesus as a human descendant of David.

The 2 Samuel reference is to Solomon, LOL. Richard Carrier's mental gymnastics to get around this fact is that it can be totally reinterpreted, beyond its actual meaning, to imply a cosmic space bank otherwise never attested in the history of the interpretation of 2 Samuel or the history of Judaism in any context at all. And that fact alone, besides the fact that Paul has literally no care for and never cites this passage, is enough to dismiss *that* delusion.

So yes, the cosmic space bank reading of Romans 1:3 is as laughable as it seems to be. It's a form of hyper-desperation to save a theory whose main backer is some completely failed "scholar" who hasn't published anything in 7 years (not for a lack of trying — Carrier claimed he was going to try to publish his response to Gullotta).

If your "facts" are nothing more than the personal ravings of a nobody like Carrier, who created a ridiculous and failed million dollar lawsuit for people pointing out that he got banned from a conference for doing you know what to some woman, and once accused an author of a critical review of his book for being "fawningly evangelical" only for them to turn out to have been an atheist (in other words, Carrier literally cannot believe that he's just not at all convincing to any neutral person who actually understands the subject), then stop calling them "facts". You should preface all your comments with "These are the personal theories of Richard Carrier, which I have accepted without actually doing a wee bit of research — you should too!"

[Giuseppe]

Sorry, what? It says he was formed as an *adult*?

as a 'slave', precisely.

by taking the very nature of a servant,

It is not a coincidence that the form of death is the servile supplicium: the crucifixion.

Is a child a slave ? I don't think.

[ABuddhist]

Sorry, what? It says he was formed as an *adult*? Wishful thinking really does take a hold on some people, but of course it doesn't say that. It definitively says that Jesus simply transitioned from a divine to a human state. "Already adult" is your own ridiculous insertion, and Paul otherwise does literally say born of a woman in Galatians.

Looks like ABuddhist really does believe in the mighty delusion of a space sperm reading of Romans 1:3, which is a rather mundane reference to Jesus' lineal descent from David, LOL. Given the fact that there are literally mountains of texts which speak of descent of one person as the seed of another, we can safely sideline the space bank theory are the inane idea it is, only a sort of wishful thinking to preserve mythicism and the idea of a celestial Jesus in Paul.

"It is an indisputable fact that when Paul says this, he uses a word he only uses of manufactured, not birthed bodies"

That's blatantly ridiculous, that's not "indisputable" at all and you know that you don't know the Greek, and that the only person who makes this "indisputable" claim is Richard freaking Carrier, whose paycheck depends on people subscribing to his Patreon for his mythicist blog. The "indisputable" fact is that Paul is referring to the Septuagint of Genesis where God specially forms Adam, and for Paul, that's an analogy to God specially incarnating Jesus as a human descendant of David.

The 2 Samuel reference is to Solomon, LOL. Richard Carrier's mental gymnastics to get around this fact is that it can be totally reinterpreted, beyond its actual meaning, to imply a cosmic space bank otherwise never attested in the history of the interpretation of 2 Samuel or the history of Judaism in any context at all. And that fact alone, besides the fact that Paul has literally no care for and never cites this passage, is enough to dismiss *that* delusion.

So yes, the cosmic space bank reading of Romans 1:3 is as laughable as it seems to be. It's a form of hyper-desperation to save a theory whose main backer is some completely failed "scholar" who hasn't published anything in 7 years (not for a lack of trying — Carrier claimed he was going to try to publish his response to Gullotta).

If your "facts" are nothing more than the personal ravings of a nobody like Carrier, who created a ridiculous and failed million dollar lawsuit for people pointing out that he got banned from a conference for doing you know what to some woman, and once accused an author of a critical review of his book for being "fawningly evangelical" only for them to turn out to have been an atheist (in other words, Carrier literally cannot believe that he's just not at all convincing to any neutral person who actually understands the subject), then stop calling them "facts". You should preface all your comments with "These are the personal theories of Richard Carrier, which I have accepted without actually doing a wee bit of research — you should too!"

Why are you so filled with wrath, insults, and assumptions about my beliefs about Jesus, research about Jesus, and knowledge about the relevant issues, when I have never been wrathful towards you, nor insulted you?

I was, I admit, citing Carrier (who, insofar as he has Ph. D. in relevant inguistic and historical matters, is not a nobody) not because I agree with him (I do not, being more guided by Gmirkin and Parvus in my inquiries - when not guided by the Buddha), but rather because he has concisely set forth the linguistic and interpretive surrounding references to "seed" and being born/made in Paul's writings. I decided not to mention that I was citing Carrier because I did not want to unleash vitriol from you by citing him - but I failed because of your inability to control your vicious temper.

I was hoping to receive a dispassionate assessment of the alleged facts - which you failed to give to me.

In all honesty, you and Dr. Carrier are both so insulting towards views that you disagree with that it is difficult to separate the refutation/insults/assumptions from the legitimate refutations.

That having been said, I set forth the following words in response to your arguments:

1. There are considerable reasons to doubt that Galatians 4:4 was originally reading what it now reads, as you may learn through consulting https://vridar.org/series-index/the-bor ... -44-index/ and https://vridar.org/2014/01/15/born-of-a ... atians-44/ , wherein many scholarly views are presented. No less a scholar than R. Joseph Hoffman, who has dedicated himself to refuting mythicism, said "“(a) The earliest Christian literature, that written by Paul, knows the names of none of Jesus’ family members. It is sometimes pointed out that Paul makes reference (Galatians 4.4) to Jesus having “been born of a woman, under the law,” but it is widely believed that these words are an insertion into the text of Galatians: Marcion, our earliest witness, does not know them, and as Hilgenfeld once noted, if his opponent, Tertullian, could have quoted them against Marcion, a docetist thinker, to prove the essential humanity of Jesus, he would have. We are left with the bare fact that Paul knows nothing of the human family of Jesus. He does know the names of some of Jesus’ followers, and in the same epistle uses the phrase “James the brother of Lord,” which makes it the more remarkable that he would not know of an extended family with a strong female influence operating in Jerusalem. As suggested below, Paul’s use of the term “brother” is not dispositive since he is not using it in reference to a biological relationship.”" Furthermore, J. C. O’Neill (1930-2004), a biblical scholar who was a believing Christian and who argued that the Christians' scriptures supported Christians' doctrines, was of the opinion that Galatians 4:4-5 were a non-Pauline interpolation.

2. You talk much about reading things into text when criticizing Dr. Carrier (even as you yourself incorrectly readed into my citation of Dr. Carrier's words the false assumption that I agree with him). But here is another way in which you are reading into the text: you assume that Paul, when referring to a Jesus of the seed of David who had been born of a woman, was envisioning a Jesus with a normal human birth and development when such things are found nowhere in Paul's letters. Rather, they are borrowed from the gospels. But I have yet to come upon any argument for why we should accept the earliest gospel, from which all others derive (GMark), as telling a true story when it does not claim to be telling a true story, does not identify its author, and does not list its sources. You may say that GJohn is independent from GMark, to which I say that I was under the impression that such is debatable and, in any case, GJohn is used the least (and regarded as least trustworthy) when reconstructing Jesus's life. Now, at this point you may be preparing to spew condemnation against me as a mythicist (note that I make not any assumptions about you!), but I follow the model set forth by Roger Parvus and Russell Gmirkin in which the historical Jesus was a non-entity whose only deed was getting crucified - he did not even preach. However, some of his companions became convinced that his death had had cosmic significance and venerated him, following which the gospels were written based upon Paul's career and teachings. This view, I concede, is unorthodox, but it is not mythicism, and certainly not the mythicism espoused by Dr. Carrier.

3. You make much of the fact that Dr. Carrier is an atheist writing for atheists through patreon - as if to suggest that Dr. Carrier's work has been corrupted by his religious biases and his income's source. But surely the same should be considered about mainstream biblical scholarship, which is overwhelmingly financed by believing Christians and was founded and was (and to a great degree still is!) dominated by believing Christians. Almost all of the believing Christians involved in mainstream biblical scholarship believe that if they should waver in their faith in a crucified man-god's salvific powers, then they will be damned to an eternity in a hell-realm. Given this background, they have little incentive to challenge seriously their faith's core tenets - that Jesus Christ was a fleshly man born in the normal way who preached and was crucified to death. Their non-Christian students, exposed to their comparatively anodyne analyses (to say nothing of their power), have no incentive to challenge these assumptions. Tellingly, Bart D. Ehrman was under the impression that he (an agnostic biblical scholar!) was the first person to create a book-length defence of Jesus's historicity - in turn meaning that others had simply assumed it. For what it is worth, I, as a Buddhist, am not immune to this type of thinking - I deliberately refuse to read inquiries into the historical development of Buddhism if they challenge too much my faith in the Buddha as teacher/saviour.

4. You are wrong when you say that Dr. Carrier has not published anything in 7 years. Dr. Carrier's latest book, "Jesus from Outer Space: What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ", was published on Sep 1 2020, and purports to address his critics' arguments. If you were talking about his publishing a peer-reviewed response, the fact that the biblical studies journal dedicated to Historical Jesus apparently refuses to even consider any article supporting mythicism, regardless of its potential merits, means that not only Dr. Carrier but also a hypothetical mythicist with the qualifications of Nagasena, the skill in debate of Aryadeva, the gentleness when faced with insults of the monk Angulimala, and the erudition of Tāranātha could not be peer-reviewed within the biblical studies journal dedicated to Historical Jesus.

[ABuddhist]

Sorry, what? It says he was formed as an *adult*?

as a 'slave', precisely.

by taking the very nature of a servant,

It is not a coincidence that the form of death is the servile supplicium: the crucifixion.

Is a child a slave ? I don't think.

With all due respect (and in order to further establish that I do not support Dr. Carrier), children could be slaves in Roman times, as could babies. That having been said, the text does not refer to Jesus as having been adult, child, or baby, but only a slave.

[karavan]

I do admit, I am being mean in my comments. I don't really even approach the "wrath" of Carrier on his endless blogs, but I am being mean. But, you shouldn't take it personally. Think of it this way: wouldn't you pull a few jokes and be dismissive if you were talking with a young earth creationist? Mythicism is in the same sort of category.

Carrier's PhD is a red herring — he has zero academic post and hasn't published anything in 7 years. Your comment at the very end is completely irrelevant — I was obviously referring to Carrier publishing something PEER-REVIEWED in the last 7 years, not yet another one of his self-published booklets. And if mythicists had something to publish that was academically credible, they would immediately be allowed to do so. And his theories are universally rejected by actual experts, regardless of their religious background (and no, that has nothing to do with Carrier's absurd conspiracy theory of completely public and secular universities persecuting mythicists — that's the myth if anything). Plus, he's a known anti-religious activist, which is amazingly a common factor among all mythicists with an even tangentially related degree.

Neil Godfrey's ravings about interpolation in Galatians 4:4 aren't credible dude. You're going to have to produce something more than a blog post. There isn't a hint of manuscript evidence for any change there, nor even a pinte of linguistic evidence. It's a concept that solely exists in mythicist circles, and for good reason: the "celestial Jesus" of Paul combusts with it. And Marcion isn't a "witness" to anything because his (heavily edited) collection of Paul's epistles are lost. Something <lost> can't be a "witness", nor is it helpful the fact that Marcion heavily edited what he had. Besides, you don't even have any evidence except for the extremely circumstantial "Tertullian didn't mention it" to even claim that Marcion's collection didn't have Galatians 4:4. This is a circumstantial argument based on a circumstantial argument based on someone whose texts are lost and who heavily edited their works. It's basically circular reasoning at that point. And of course Paul' knows of Jesus family. Y'know, his ... BROTHER? LOL. But there's another whole range of dancing mythicist theories around Galatians 1:18-19 as well, all debunked by Tim O'Neill and so not worth bothering about.

"you assume that Paul, when referring to a Jesus of the seed of David who had been born of a woman, was envisioning a Jesus with a normal human birth and development when such things are found nowhere in Paul's letters"

Yup, absolutely NOWHERE in Paul's letters if you just ignore the fact that he outright says Jesus was born of a women, with a brother, and a descendant of Abraham and David. As for Paul saying other things like recording the actual last supper that Jesus partook in with his disciples, bread and everything, I'm sure you've also fully bought into Carrier's theory that this also took place in space. It's the highest order of mental gymnastics. Apparently, Jesus was also buried in space because 1 Cor. 15 says Jesus was buried. And he was "crucified" in space. All without the teeniest, tiniest strand of evidence from anywhere in Paul's letters mentioning anything about any of this happening in outer space. Gosh, don't ya just love wishful thinking?

The rest is yet more mental gymnastics. Nope, secular public universities are *not* financially motivated to protect a historical Jesus. That's an amazingly silly idea, and Bart Ehrman would be no less employed whether or not he was a mythicist. This is the equivalent of saying that historians of Greek mythology are under pressure to claim that Zeus is historical, lest they lose their jobs. Sorry dude, but the mountains of atheist, agnostic, generally irreligious and Jewish scholars simply have nothing to gain from "historicism" (a word mythicists like to use). The idea that there's sort of financial or religious pressure on actual, secular public universities is quite hilarious, if not a blatant copout to explain away the fact that mythicists are the laughing stock of much of academia. Unlike real experts who aren't even Christian (not just Ehrman but many mountains of others), Carrier actually IS financially dependent on his mythicist blog. Which is actually really funny, given that he has to invent some sort of conspiracy theory involving finances to explain why actual experts don't take him very seriously.

But I think your comment helps to explain why mythicists can't publish anything. Is it because of some sort of Christian guard? Of course not, that's absurd and the idea of some sort of Christian guard ignores literally everything about the history of biblical scholarship since the 19th century. The number of radical revisionists who have published peer-reviewed work is huge. Marcionite priorists can get their stuff peer-reviewed. Dennis MacDonald with his silly theories of Mark being based on Homer gets his stuff published. Crazy revisionism has always been able to get itself published. But Carrier? God, he's having a LOT of trouble. Because he's a fraud.

P.S. You didn't respond to a ton of my points. I'm just going to assume you drop what you don't respond to.

EDIT: Forogt Giuseppe's comment, LOL.

"It is not a coincidence that the form of death is the servile supplicium: the crucifixion. Is a child a slave ? I don't think."

LOL. Dude, ever heard of something called "growing up"? Psst, you might wanna take a quick look at the whole "born of a woman" thing in Gal. 4:4 and the "descendant of David" thing in Rom. 1:3.

[billd89]

Philippians 2:6: "...who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, (2:7) but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness."

Berean Study Bible, Philippians 2:7: “but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

Philippians 2:7: ἀλλὰ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών, ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος• καὶ σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος.

Part 1: δούλου = servant

Paul has Christ Jesus {Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ} - who was in the form of God {μορφῇ θεοῦ} - empty his Divine Essence to become an earthly Therapeut.

At the link of that excerpt, I explored some of Greek terminology (re: 'servant') in greater detail. Has this (Jung's theory) been discussed previously?

I think Celsum - drawing on biographical sources c.115 AD or older? - negatively interpreted Jesus' 'service' and used a different word to twist (i.e. malign) his character. But Jesus must have been 'gifted' to be able to play charlatan in Egypt - and Celsum admits he was extraordinarily successful as a 'fraud.' (This is the sort of evidence that convinces me Jesus was a real person.)

Contra Celsum 1.28:

...[Celsus] accuses [Jesus] of having "invented his birth from a virgin," and upbraids Him with being "born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child. And because of his poverty, he prostituted himself to serve in Egypt. And having demonstrated there some miracle-powers (about which the Egyptians irreverently boast), he returned home with the miraculous conceit and publicly proclaimed himself God."...

Translated by Frederick Crombie. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4. [1885]

Jesus ... who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a God.

1.28.

... καὶ ὅτι οὗτος διὰ πενίαν εἰς Αἴγυπτον μισθαρνήσας κἀκεῖ δυνάμεών τινων πειραθείς, ἐφ' αἷς Αἰγύπτιοι σεμνύνονται, ἐπανῆλθεν ἐν ταῖς δυνάμεσι μέγα φρονῶν, καὶ δι' αὐτὰς θεὸν αὑτὸν ἀνηγόρευσε. ...

μισθαρνέω = 'work, serve for hire' rather slanderously suggests 'prostituted himself'. However, the aquisition (and implicit demonstration) of miracle-powers obviously necessitated a discipleship in some cult. I suppose 'hired to serve' might have been twisted by Celsum, if a more accurate 'servant of god' (θεράπων) had been originally conveyed to him by rumor, etc. The clear implication is that Jesus is demoted to a mere greedy charlatan (in my English) - albeit one who had some success - with his 'Egyptian powers' being suspect/dodgy but not denied.

Dr. Carl Jung (projecting himself into the story as Jesus!) picked up on this illegitimacy, and rationalized the theory (another author's?) that Jesus was a Therapeut. Celsus never uses that term (nor does any other 1st-2nd C author, btw), but it is readily inferred.

[ABuddhist]

I do admit, I am being mean in my comments. I don't really even approach the "wrath" of Carrier on his endless blogs, but I am being mean. But, you shouldn't take it personally. Think of it this way: wouldn't you pull a few jokes and be dismissive if you were talking with a young earth creationist? Mythicism is in the same sort of category.

Carrier's PhD is a red herring — he has zero academic post and hasn't published anything in 7 years. Your comment at the very end is completely irrelevant — I was obviously referring to Carrier publishing something PEER-REVIEWED in the last 7 years, not yet another one of his self-published booklets. And if mythicists had something to publish that was academically credible, they would immediately be allowed to do so. And his theories are universally rejected by actual experts, regardless of their religious background (and no, that has nothing to do with Carrier's absurd conspiracy theory of completely public and secular universities persecuting mythicists — that's the myth if anything). Plus, he's a known anti-religious activist, which is amazingly a common factor among all mythicists with an even tangentially related degree.

Neil Godfrey's ravings about interpolation in Galatians 4:4 aren't credible dude. You're going to have to produce something more than a blog post. There isn't a hint of manuscript evidence for any change there, nor even a pinte of linguistic evidence. It's a concept that solely exists in mythicist circles, and for good reason: the "celestial Jesus" of Paul combusts with it. And Marcion isn't a "witness" to anything because his (heavily edited) collection of Paul's epistles are lost. Something <lost> can't be a "witness", nor is it helpful the fact that Marcion heavily edited what he had. Besides, you don't even have any evidence except for the extremely circumstantial "Tertullian didn't mention it" to even claim that Marcion's collection didn't have Galatians 4:4. This is a circumstantial argument based on a circumstantial argument based on someone whose texts are lost and who heavily edited their works. It's basically circular reasoning at that point. And of course Paul' knows of Jesus family. Y'know, his ... BROTHER? LOL. But there's another whole range of dancing mythicist theories around Galatians 1:18-19 as well, all debunked by Tim O'Neill and so not worth bothering about.

"you assume that Paul, when referring to a Jesus of the seed of David who had been born of a woman, was envisioning a Jesus with a normal human birth and development when such things are found nowhere in Paul's letters"

Yup, absolutely NOWHERE in Paul's letters if you just ignore the fact that he outright says Jesus was born of a women, with a brother, and a descendant of Abraham and David. As for Paul saying other things like recording the actual last supper that Jesus partook in with his disciples, bread and everything, I'm sure you've also fully bought into Carrier's theory that this also took place in space. It's the highest order of mental gymnastics. Apparently, Jesus was also buried in space because 1 Cor. 15 says Jesus was buried. And he was "crucified" in space. All without the teeniest, tiniest strand of evidence from anywhere in Paul's letters mentioning anything about any of this happening in outer space. Gosh, don't ya just love wishful thinking?

The rest is yet more mental gymnastics. Nope, secular public universities are *not* financially motivated to protect a historical Jesus. That's an amazingly silly idea, and Bart Ehrman would be no less employed whether or not he was a mythicist. This is the equivalent of saying that historians of Greek mythology are under pressure to claim that Zeus is historical, lest they lose their jobs. Sorry dude, but the mountains of atheist, agnostic, generally irreligious and Jewish scholars simply have nothing to gain from "historicism" (a word mythicists like to use). The idea that there's sort of financial or religious pressure on actual, secular public universities is quite hilarious, if not a blatant copout to explain away the fact that mythicists are the laughing stock of much of academia. Unlike real experts who aren't even Christian (not just Ehrman but many mountains of others), Carrier actually IS financially dependent on his mythicist blog. Which is actually really funny, given that he has to invent some sort of conspiracy theory involving finances to explain why actual experts don't take him very seriously.

But I think your comment helps to explain why mythicists can't publish anything. Is it because of some sort of Christian guard? Of course not, that's absurd and the idea of some sort of Christian guard ignores literally everything about the history of biblical scholarship since the 19th century. The number of radical revisionists who have published peer-reviewed work is huge. Marcionite priorists can get their stuff peer-reviewed. Dennis MacDonald with his silly theories of Mark being based on Homer gets his stuff published. Crazy revisionism has always been able to get itself published. But Carrier? God, he's having a LOT of trouble. Because he's a fraud.

P.S. You didn't respond to a ton of my points. I'm just going to assume you drop what you don't respond to.

EDIT: Forogt Giuseppe's comment, LOL.

"It is not a coincidence that the form of death is the servile supplicium: the crucifixion. Is a child a slave ? I don't think."

LOL. Dude, ever heard of something called "growing up"? Psst, you might wanna take a quick look at the whole "born of a woman" thing in Gal. 4:4 and the "descendant of David" thing in Rom. 1:3.

1. The fact that you admit that you are being mean strongly suggests that you are a fundamentally wicked person. If you were truly kind, you would discuss these matters civilly, no matter how ridiculous and unworthy of respect they are. Being honest, your combination of cruelty, lack of respect, willingness to attribute the worse to people whom you disagree with, and pride in your cruelty decreases my willingness to trust your refutations - because such traits are not correlated with wisdom or honest representation of one's opponent's positions. Furthermore, you have not revealed your name and qualifications. Unless you abandon your cruelty in your reply to me, I will not reply to your replies to me. Young Earth Creationism (YEC) is popular in portions of the United States – more popular than Christ myth theories, by all accounts. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html is a website that refutes many YEC claims, from many scientific perspectives. Particularly relevant are (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA118.html: Many arguments may be discounted because they were put together by amateurs who are not scientifically qualified), (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA602.html: Evolution is atheistic), and (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA602_2.html: The goal of many scientists, especially evolutionists and cosmologists, is to explain the universe without God. They want to make God unnecessary.). These three pages all address issues that opponents of the Christ myth theory have raised, all without the level of insult that you are displaying.

That having been said, I will reply with civility to some of your points.

"hasn't published anything in 7 years. Your comment at the very end is completely irrelevant — I was obviously referring to Carrier publishing something PEER-REVIEWED in the last 7 years, not yet another one of his self-published booklets."

1. Why do you say that you were obviously "referring to Carrier publishing something PEER-REVIEWED in the last 7 years" when your words were "who hasn't published anything in 7 years" with no reference to peer-review? Do you expect every person who reads your words here to read as much into them as you read into others' words (except in a way that praises you rather than insults your opponents)?

2. "Jesus from Outerspace" is a standardly sized hard-covered book with 376 pages - hardly a booklet. The fact that you condemn it as a booklet despite these facts reveals to me that you refutations are not trustworthy. I am not saying that you are not trustworthy, but maybe you need to do more research.

3."Jesus from Outerspace" was not self-published, but was published by Pitchstone Publishing, which is not a vanity press (as you may read here: https://www.pitchstonebooks.com/submissions ) even as it publishes many atheists' works. The fact that you condemn it as self-published despite these facts reveals to me that you refutations are not trustworthy. I am not saying that you are not trustworthy, but maybe you need to do more research.


"Neil Godfrey's ravings about interpolation in Galatians 4:4 aren't credible dude. You're going to have to produce something more than a blog post"

1. Why should I believe that they are ravings rather than sober assessments of the evidence, when you have provided no evidence of this?

2. Why should I believe that they are not credible, when you have provided no evidence of this?

3. The blogposts (2) that I provided to you were meant to establish for you (in a conveniently readable form) that multiple scholars mentioned and cited within the blog-posts, including from the so-called mainstream, have said that Galatian 4:4 was interpolated. The fact that you have not acknowledged this, nor even addressed my citation within my reply of the scholar Hoffman, suggests to me that you are not actually interested in addressing evidence. Rather, you are interested in reciting stock rejoinders to arguments that you have not investigated. This further decreases my trust in your refutations of your opponents.

You then introduce (out of the blue), references to Jesus's brother in Pauline literature (Galatians 1:18-19). I say in response that there are many problems with the idea that the reference to James as Jesus’s brother settles the matter.
1. Authentically Pauline?: The entire corpus of letters attributed to Paul is so controversial that I am not hostile to the idea that the phrase “Brother of the Lord” in this context is an interpolation. Arguments to this effect have been made even by scholars attempting to refute mythicism, as you may read here: https://vridar.org/2019/07/12/when-did- ... -the-lord/ (citing p. 76 of Jesus Not A Myth by A. D. Howell Smith) and https://vridar.org/2016/01/16/the-funct ... tians-119/ (citing R. Joseph Hoffman).
2. Accurate?: Even if it be assumed that the phrase “Brother of the Lord” in this context is authentically Pauline, there arises the issue of whether Paul was reporting true things about James’s claimed status. Paul’s letters, after all, must be seen in the context of his effort to control a factitious religious movement and collect money from them. In this context Paul may have lied in order to increase his credibility among his followers. Alternatively, he may have made a mistake in his recollection of the meeting and the names/titles of those whom he met (as, ironically, Ehrman did with his talk of a man named Messiah Taiping Hong Xuiquan).
3. Representing James’s claims about Himself?: It must be remembered that this is not a letter in which James says “I am the Brother of the Lord, which means…”; rather, it is a report (which for the sake of argument may be accepted as true) in which Paul met James the Brother of the Lord. Paul may have believed that this meant that he was talking to a James who was claiming to be Jesus’s biological brother, but this does not mean that James himself necessarily interpreted it this way.
4. The ambiguity of the phrase “Brother of the Lord”: Since the writing and discussion by Paul took place in a religious context, I will not seriously consider the possibility that “Brother of the Lord” referred to a secular authority. Others, such as Joe Atwill, are welcome to that. But even confining the phrase “Brother of the Lord” to divine figures within Christian context, it is ambiguous. Lord could mean YHWH or Jesus. Certainly, the idea of any person claiming to be YHWH’s brother is strange – but there have been religious movements that claimed that YHWH had a wife, and Christians claim the YHWH had a son (among whom Mormons make him YHWH’s physical son, conceived through intercourse with Mary). James may have claimed that he was YHWH’s brother. In this context, it is interesting to note that in GThomas (Logion 12), James is said to have been the reason that Heaven and Earth were created, which may be the remnant of the idea that James was himself a divine figure who might have been conceptualized as YHWH's brother.
5. Brother of Jesus in What Sense?: Conceding that James had meant to present himself as Jesus’s brother, it is in this context, and this context only, that the possibility arises that James had, like Hong Xiuquan, understood his brotherhood with Jesus being based purely upon spiritual connection/visions arises. In this context, it is useful to note that within the Bible, only Acts (not the Gospels) unambiguously shows that Jesus’s physical brother, named James, had a role in the Christian movement – and Acts is increasingly being recognized as piously motivated piece of historical fiction at best, meant more to unite Christian sects than to provide an accurate account of Christianity, as you may read here: https://vridar.org/2013/11/22/top-ten-f ... s-seminar/ and https://vridar.org/2013/11/24/pauls-let ... ar-report/ [summarizing the Acts Seminar].

Now, I am aware that Josephus is another source mentioning Jesus’s brother James, but even leaving aside the fact that it is not outside the pale to suggest that such a reference was inserted later, Josephus would have been in no position to know what type of relationship Jesus and James had behind the title “Brother of the Lord”.

Tim O’Neill’s blog “History for Atheists” has attracted considerable criticism from another atheist amateur biblical scholar, Neil Godfrey, as you may read here: https://vridar.org/?s=%22history+for+atheists%22

Among several flaws in O’Neill’s claims, the following are noteworthy:
1. Ignoring the fact that multiple mainstream biblical scholars have said that there are strong parallels between the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus Christ and Josephus’s account of Jesus ben Ananias in favour of claiming incorrectly that such parallels are not significant, as may be read here: https://vridar.org/2019/03/22/better-in ... parallels/
2. Fundamentally misrepresenting what the Gospels say about Jesus in order to incorrectly say that the Gospels presented Jesus as an obscure figure only noteworthy in Galilee. In this way, O’Neill ignores the fact that the gospels say that “the fame of Jesus brought crowds flocking to him from Syria, Lebanon, south of Judea and Jordan. Mark 3:8 tells us Jesus’ fame was such that people flocked to him from “Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon.”” More details can be read here: https://vridar.org/2020/11/14/bad-histo ... e-sources/ , under the heading “Response 1 — not famous by gospel standards?“
3. Ignoring the fact that we have contemporary records from figure of Jesus Christ’s status and approximate occupation (itinerant preacher/sage) in order to claim that “we have more references to Jesus than any other analogous figure of the time”: see https://vridar.org/2020/11/14/bad-histo ... e-sources/ , under the heading “Response 2 — No contemporary record of any comparable figure?“

For this reason, the fact that you cite O’Neill as a refutation of the views that I am discussing is yet further evidence to me that your refutations are not worth taking seriously.

With regard to biases within mainstream scholarship about Jesus, I am afraid that you are over-simplifying and misrepresenting my claims. I am not talking about publicly funded universities (although they play a role in the debates); rather, I am talking about faculties of biblical studies. If there were no Christian faith and no people interested in it, no person, even if a Shinto devoted to the God of Mount Hiei, would have a job at faculties of biblical studies. Almost all faculties of biblical studies (even when not explicitly faith-based) were founded by Christians and cater in their scholarship towards those who are deeply interested in Christianity. The majority of people with both a deep interest in Christianity and the finances to support a faculties of biblical studies (as opposed to, for example, financing other types of scholarship) are Christian. Therefore, it seems likely that faculties of biblical studies are likely to exert much pressure of various types in order to avoid having their scholars write materials that are overtly antiChristian. A faculty of biblical studies whose scholars, for example, were to publish books dismissing Jesus as a madman and a violent criminal who deserved to be convicted for something over the violent disturbance in the Temple, or whose books would portray Paul as some combination of insane, incoherent, and a scam artist like Alexander of Abonoteichus, would alienate all Christians and without such supporters and their money, where would the average faculties of biblical studies be? Bankrupt. For this reason, those who work in faculties of biblical studies face pressure (if not from their own faculties and Christian colleagues then from other faculties of biblical studies and their members), if they must criticize Christianity, to do so softly. You mention that other unorthodox ideas are permitted to be published within mainstream biblical journals, but the ideas that you cite all accept (or at least do not challenge) the fundamental Christian claim (as in, literally within the Christians’ scriptures!) that Jesus came in the flesh.