karavan wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 12:57 pm
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.