Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

"What you say is defamatory. I will report you for this to both Mr Carrier and to this website's administrator."

LOL how is what I just said defamatory? I made a joke about being Carrier just fooling you guys this whole time ROFL. But yeah, go tell your daddy Carrier about this. Also, no need for excuses on why you didn't report Neil for his two identifications of me, one of which he then deleted (but is already on record in my own response) because it was against the rules. Just admit your bias dude. P.S. Hansen calling himself a "historicist" makes HIM a historicist, I've literally never seen any other person in my life describe themselves this way. If he wants to identify himself with a particular camp alongside mythicism, he can go straight ahead. Just don't pretend like the average dude who doesn't think Paul mentioned space sperm is a "historicist" anymore than that anyone who thinks anyone else existed is a "historicist" for that figure or that there are "Muhammad historicists". There aren't, there are Muhammad deniers and people who don't deny Muhammad's existence. Muhammad denialism has some interesting common patterns with Jesus denialism, it just shows how the same failed principles can be applied to multiple people.

___

P.S. Neil, you totally misrepresented what I wrote. Good job.

"According to K's logic, if I point out misguided criticisms of the radicalization process and ideological aims of Islamist terrorists, then in K's logic I must be a supporter of Islamist terrorists. (And of course, I have done just that and been accused of that, too. That's how it goes.)"

Nah, totally false dude. Read closely:

1. You have posted BAJILLIONS of blog posts responding to EVERYONE who has ever dared criticize Carrier
2. You have posted, literally, to my knowledge, NONE trying to debunk Carrier's theories despite what you just now claim to be a literal mass of things you disagree with him on

How the hell else can I describe someone who never writes anything against one particular person, but a million things in favour of them for every critic there is? A fanboy. By the way, you should let us know a little more about those points you brought up. You disagree on NAZARETH? What does that mean, that you believe in the fraud claims of Rene Salm which O'Neill wiped off the map? (Yes ABuddhist, I mentioned O'Neill again. Eat it.) And what do you mean on "HIS explanation" for Gal. 4:4? Do you have a different tactic for getting rid of it, i.e. interpolation based on literally not a figment of actual evidence? I could ask more about all those points, but I really want you to actually explain what you mean by those disagreements. Because I really wonder if that list is real in any sense, i.e. your disagreements aren't on the topic in general but you just find different absurd routes for coming to the same crazy conclusions. IS that list real? I find it hard to believe it is and, unless you actually give any sort of detail on those points, I think it's probably much more probable to say with your blog post history that you just find different tactics for arriving at roughly an identical conclusion.

Great, you agree with Carrier's literal pseudoscience on Bayes theorem. That makes you a believer in pseudoscience. Sorry dude, you can't just pull numbers out of your arse and then stick them into a model. Oh yeah, and Carrier blatantly manipulated (and here I mean literally changed, without telling anyone in his book that he was doing so or why) multiple criteria in the RR hero class to make Jesus fit into it. By the actual, original criteria, Jesus isn't an RR hero. Like, at all. But he IS an RC Hero, and by "RC" I mean "Richard Carrier" given that Carrier rewrote the criteria to force-fit Jesus into it, just so he could pull a "background probability" out of his arse to stick it into the theorem. Carrier claims that Romans 1:3 is 4:1 in favour of Jesus, which is just blatantly ridiculous. It completely wipes the whole celestial crap off the map, it would be far more honest to make it 400:1 in favour of Jesus LOL.

"I take the existence of Jesus as a non-starter. The evidence for his existence is simply not comparable to evidence we have for very minor persons by comparison in ancient times."

Totally and blatantly false, the evidence for Jesus exceeds pretty much every comparable figure from that time. The only people who can even be claimed to start to compare with Jesus in comparable circumstances are people who, by luck, were contemporaries of Josephus. Because Josephus is the only surviving historian of ancient Judea for the 1st century. But everyone else who comes before Josephus has zero contemporary people who wrote about them. But there IS a contemporary of Jesus who wrote about him: Paul. Mythicists tend to blatantly forget the fact that Paul and Jesus were contemporaries, and that Paul knew mountains more of Jesus' contemporaries and literal own family.


P.S. Also +1 to what ABuddhist says, show us your specific blogposts criticizing Carrier given you have mountains of (a few of them now refuted) blog posts criticizing literally anyone who has dared to disagree with him over a decade or something.

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:14 am

neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:05 am Just for the record -- not for the childish karavan who has no interest in serious discussion -- areas where I have posted disagreements with Carrier:

• heavenly crucifixion,
• Jewish messianism of the first century,
• the Ascension of Isaiah in relation to Jesus descending to the lower heaven
• the James the Brother of the Lord passage in Galatians,
• his explanation for "born of a woman" in Galatians
• the specific dating relevance of the Book of Daniel
• Nazareth
• his tone in certain venues and on certain occasions
• what I consider to be misplaced colloquialisms

There are other areas we disagree (in particular, Paul and Philo) that I have not yet posted about. (And Tim has posted other disagreements on the blog, too.) But I do agree with his Bayesian approach and much of his background data discussion. (I have applied the Bayesian approach to a wider range of evidence in some cases than Carrier has done and come to different conclusions on some details.)

Mr. Godfrey, although I hesitate to ask you for sources (given the vitriol that karavan may throw your way in making similar requests), I would be sincerely interested in reading the precise blog-posts. Would you mind linking them for me (and others, if they want) to read?

My name is Neil (as an Australian I do chafe at certain American formalisms).

For now, just use the search box on the blog and type in Carrier and whatever topics I have listed above. Example, if you type in Carrier and Jewish Messianiam you will see several titles "Questioning Carrier..."

But given k's personal abusive attacks on me here (gee, did I spill coffee on his jeans or pinch his parking space or something?) I don't think this is the appropriate thread to post a detailed list. When k comes down from wherever he is at the moment and gets back on his meds.

As for the business about requesting to ban k from the forum -- I do get tired of being accused of being a liar. I do consider that to be a character attack. You might want to add that to the reasons, too. Also his accusing Salm of fraud. That's defamation.

karavan wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:27 am LOL how is what I just said defamatory? I made a joke about being Carrier just fooling you guys this whole time ROFL. But yeah, go tell your daddy Carrier about this. Also, no need for excuses on why you didn't report Neil for his two identifications of me, one of which he then deleted (but is already on record in my own response) because it was against the rules. Just admit your bias dude. P.S. Hansen calling himself a "historicist" makes HIM a historicist, I've literally never seen any other person in my life describe themselves this way. If he wants to identify himself with a particular camp alongside mythicism, he can go straight ahead. Just don't pretend like the average dude who doesn't think Paul mentioned space sperm is a "historicist" anymore than that anyone who thinks anyone else existed is a "historicist" for that figure or that there are "Muhammad historicists". There aren't, there are Muhammad deniers and people who don't deny Muhammad's existence. Muhammad denialism has some interesting common patterns with Jesus denialism, it just shows how the same failed principles can be applied to multiple people.

1. With all due respect, your original words in which you claimed to be Dr. Carrier were not explicitly marked as a joke, and your written laughter could have been interpreted as representing Dr. Carrier's cruel amusement at tricking his fans - especially because you have repeatedly claimed (in a way that is apparently not joking) that Dr. Carrier is a fraud and a confidence trickster.

2. With all due respect, you are moving the goal-posts; formerly, you claimed that only mythicists dismissed their opponents as historicists, but now, when confronted with evidence that one anti-mythicist has defined emself as a historicist, you are reduced to saying that such a thing is eir own quirk of language. I prefer to discuss advocates of the Christ-myth theory as opposed to mainstream biblical scholarship, but I do not begrudge people (regardless of their views about Jesus) the right to use the terms mythicists and historicists.

3. With all due respect, you have not addressed my broader point about why I mentioned Chris Hansen in the first place - presumably because that would have required you to recognize that a fellow advocate of mainstream biblical scholarship has condemned the tactics that you are using within this forum.

4. I do not pretend that the average person who does not think that Paul mentioned space sperm is a "historicist", but I am not thinking about the average person. I am thinking about people with theories about Christian origins (who are not average people). Not all mythicists, after all, accept Carrier's interpretation of the verses in Romans, yet they, by advocating for a Jesus who did not exist upon the Earthy, would be mythicist. Similarly, it is hypothetically possible for a person (whether widely respected scholar or raving crank) to believe that Paul believed that Jesus Christ was created from David's sperm stored in Heaven (hardly the strangest account of Jesus Christ's conception; cf., Mormonism) while still believing both that Jesus Christ walked upon this Earth's surface and Paul believed and taught that Jesus Christ walked upon this Earth's surface. Such a model may indeed be disproven, as you claim, but it could not be fitted within a mythicist paradigm (unless, as I concede is possible, we differ about what mythicism is).

5. With all due respect, the issues related to Muhammad's historicity are different (there being no biography of him for over 100 years after his death) and are advocated by people with fundamentally different agendas; the leading popularizer of Muhammad's historicity is a Roman Catholic who apparently is disgusted with the Christ myth theory.

neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:52 am But given k's personal abusive attacks on me here (gee, did I spill coffee on his jeans or pinch his parking space or something?) I don't think this is the appropriate thread to post a detailed list. When k comes down from wherever he is at the moment and gets back on his meds.

May I link such blog-posts in this thread? Or would you object?

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:04 am

neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:52 am But given k's personal abusive attacks on me here (gee, did I spill coffee on his jeans or pinch his parking space or something?) I don't think this is the appropriate thread to post a detailed list. When k comes down from wherever he is at the moment and gets back on his meds.

May I link such blog-posts in this thread? Or would you object?

Yes, you may. No, won't object.

(As for "brother of the Lord" -- I have archives for those posts in the right margin. I cannot recall if I explicitly brought Carrier into my discussions on those two topics, but my views on them definitely do differ from Carrier's. Carrier posits casting the net wider for the meaning of "brother" in the Galatians ref to James. I have recently seen discussion that has begun to make me question if Doherty and Carrier might in fact be right after all on that point -- but my posts take an approach that is incompatible with the Doherty-Carrier explanation. Anyone who knows the Doherty-Carrier view will see my posts as an opposing explanation of the term.)

That's one whole large list of points that doesn't advance anything. But yes, 1) It was a pretty obvious and hilarious joke 2) Hansen can call himself a "historicist" if he wants, just don't force anyone else into this silliness. There's no such thing as a "Muhammad historicist" or an "Alexander historicist". 3) What broader point? 4) Just because you CAN believe the gibberish of a space sperm Jesus in Paul without being a mythicist doesn't change the fact that everyone who accepts that theory is a Carrier fan and, well, a mythicist. 5) LOL, looks like you're ALSO a Muhammad mythicist. As usual, clownery in one area extends to clownery in another. But with Muhammad, there are literal mentions of him within a few years (under 10) of his death. Oh yeah, and there's the Quran, which is his own literal text. That's right, Muhammad produced the Quran in his lifetime, and the Quran mentions Muhammad, meaning that the Quran <contemporaneously> mentions Muhammad. Eat it dude.

"But given k's personal abusive attacks on me here ... I don't think this is the appropriate thread to post a detailed list."

Yep, pretty much knew it. The list above is basically a misdirection from the fact that you arrive to Carrier's exact same conclusions most of the time, but with your own silly routes to getting there. But look, forget about me here dude, ABuddhist is *also* curious about this. Do you ACTUALLY, despite the virtual entire history of your blogging, have real disagreements with Carrier's madness? I mean, ABuddhist is a GIANT fan of yours (literally posting numerous of your articles every time the topic came up between me and him earlier) and even he got surprised when you said this about your disagreements. Either you're afraid to be honest about this solely because of my presence here, or you're too afraid of losing your audience to give any details about your disagreements with Carrier. Or maybe you're just afraid of Carrier himself.

1. WHAT is your disagreement about Philo?
2. WHAT is your disagreement about the ascension of Isaiah?
3. WHAT is your disagreement about the heavenly crucifixion?
4. WHAT is your disagreement about James the brother of the Lord? (Your most recent comment simply says you give an opposing "explanation" of the term, which probably means you have another escape tactic from the basic facts on the subject.)
5. You obviously think Gal. 4:4 is interpolated without real evidence (ABuddhist noted a blog of yours on this earlier), so no need to ask more about this one.

Points 4 and 5 seem like a fake disagreement (just another pseudo explanation for the same conclusion), so I think we're left with 1-3 with any possibility of a serious, substantive disagreement with Carrier on anything to do with mythicism. Maybe. We'll see.

For anyone curious, Godfrey actually does totally debunks Carrier on the topic of Jewish messianism in the first century (which is unrelated to mythicism), and shows he misrepresents some of the scholars he cited in the process: https://vridar.org/2016/07/29/questioni ... messiah-3/

Although take care mate: Godfrey gets some of his own facts entirely wrong, like his idea that there were no pre-70 synagogues LOL. But that's well and debunked right now by the archaeology in the region. See Mordechai Aviam's paper "First-Century Galilee – New Discoveries" (2018). Literally nine pre-70 synagogues are known, a number of them being recently discovered. Aviam actually concludes that every Jewish settlement probably had a synagogue.

karavan wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:23 am That's one whole large list of points that doesn't advance anything. But yes, 1) It was a pretty obvious and hilarious joke 2) Hansen can call himself a "historicist" if he wants, just don't force anyone else into this silliness. There's no such thing as a "Muhammad historicist" or an "Alexander historicist". 3) What broader point? 4) Just because you CAN believe the gibberish of a space sperm Jesus in Paul without being a mythicist doesn't change the fact that everyone who accepts that theory is a Carrier fan and, well, a mythicist. 5) LOL, looks like you're ALSO a Muhammad mythicist. As usual, clownery in one area extends to clownery in another. But with Muhammad, there are literal mentions of him within a few years (under 10) of his death. Oh yeah, and there's the Quran, which is his own literal text. That's right, Muhammad produced the Quran in his lifetime, and the Quran mentions Muhammad, meaning that the Quran <contemporaneously> mentions Muhammad. Eat it dude.

1. Again, though, you did not say when you claimed to be Dr. Richard Carrier that you were joking - only in a later post. This leaves to the reader of the original post the unalloyed claim that you are Dr. Richard Carrier.

2. Why are you accusing me of forcing anyone else into the silliness of calling emself a historicist when said that "I prefer to discuss advocates of the Christ-myth theory as opposed to mainstream biblical scholarship, but I do not begrudge people (regardless of their views about Jesus) the right to use the terms mythicists and historicists."? You are just seeking reasons to condemn me, I think.

3. To quote from my earlier reply to you, "I was citing Hansen as an opponent of mythicism who is wise enough to condemn debating styles based upon insults, recognize that non-mythicists have constructed cases against Josephus's having mentioned Jesus (which he accepts as true arguments), and recognize that citing Tim O'Neill is not the be all and end all of ways to refute arguments that when accepted as true support mythicism." The fact that you are not able to keep track of the issues that we are discussing (presumably because you are so seized with wickedness and desire to insult) is an excellent further reason for me not to trust your attempted refutations.

4. You are again moving the goal-posts. Formerly, you were claiming that "Just don't pretend like the average dude who doesn't think Paul mentioned space sperm is a "historicist"", which I took as meaning that the average person thinking that Paul did not mention heavenly sperm from David is a believer that Jesus walked upon the Earth's face. I provided for you a model according to which such a person could be a supporter of mainstream biblical scholarship or mythicism - as could the person believing that Paul did mention heavenly sperm from David. I never denied that the people who currently believe that Paul did mention heavenly sperm from David are mostly if not always mythicists. For you to claim this as a victory is as absurd as praising one's self for winning a race against a person who was competing again one in boxing.

5. I am not a Muhammad mythicist any more than I am a Jesus mythicist, nor was my discussion about Muhammad mythicism premised upon the claim that Muhammad mythicism is plausible. I merely pointed out that the earliest complete biographies about him, as so much later than the gospels are after Jesus's life (which I accept as real!), leave a lot more room for speculation about mythicism than Christian sources, where we have, for example, references to James as Jesus's brother (which, I concede, are probably authentic) and gospels recounting Jesus's alleged deeds and life from c. 40 years after his death. I am not denying that there are partial sources within a few years of Muhammad's life that make Muhammad mythicism more difficult to accept and easier to reject (as I do). But I know that some non-Muslims deny that Muhammad wrote the Qu'ran (attributing it to a circle of people surrounding Muhammad) and Muslims also deny that he wrote the Qu'ran (attributing it to Allah). The references to Muhammad within the Qu'ran are strong evidence against muhammad mythicism. But again, I am not saying that I accept muhammad mythicism - you are.

Since you are so hostile and willing to assume the worse about your opponents, I could claim that you are a closeted mythicist seeking to strengthen mythicism by burying refutations of mythicist ideas beneath insults, misunderstandings of your opponents' ideas, and defamation. But I will not support such an argument - even as others may make it.

Evidence that Neil Godfrey disagrees with Dr. Richard Carrier - part 1 of 6:

In the blog post "Further Details on those Medieval “Christ Mythicists”" [https://vridar.org/2020/07/08/further-d ... ythicists/], Neil says, "I myself have doubted the view of some mythicists — Couchoud, Doherty, Carrier — that any early Christians believed in a heavenly crucifixion of Jesus. I also have come to doubt their interpretation of the Ascension of Isaiah which posits a crucifixion in the firmament above the earth. But I cannot deny the interest that certain beliefs of the Cathars must hold for many of us, including me."

Evidence that Neil Godfrey disagrees with Dr. Richard Carrier - part 2 of 6:

In the blog post "Questioning Carrier and the “Myth that the Jews Expected a Messiah” (#3)" [https://vridar.org/2016/07/29/questioni ... messiah-3/], Neil says, "This is part 3 of my series arguing against the popular notion that the time of Jesus as narrated in the gospels was ablaze with various cults and movements eagerly expecting a messiah to appear as per prophecies or even time-tables found in the Jewish scriptures. My depiction of this supposition as a myth in the title of this post is taken from James H. Charlesworth whom I quote below. I am focusing on Richard Carrier’s presentation of this view because he goes further than many others by attempting to set out the evidence for this idea."

Evidence that Neil Godfrey disagrees with Dr. Richard Carrier - part 3 of 6:

In the comments for his blog post "Thinking through the “James, the brother of the Lord” passage in Galatians 1:19" [https://vridar.org/2017/12/05/thinking- ... tians-119/], Neil says, "I personally find the evidence for interpolation very strong. I can understand the reluctance of Carrier (and Doherty, too) to argue interpolations, but I do believe such arguments deserve more recognition and acceptance. Unfortunately, most biblical scholars are the ones who are so resistant to those arguments. Yet a survey of the “culture of interpolations” in the world of ancient literature surely, in my view, makes them worthy of serious consideration a lot more often than they currently are."

Furthermore, as I have noted, arguments to the effect that this phrase was an interpolation 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). Although I personally disagree with such claims, their existence within anti-mythicist polemicists' works reveals that such an argument is not totally insane.