Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 1:30 am I'm not sure what your point is, I'm sorry. Marcion apparently thought his Gospel and his collection of Paul's letters supported a Jesus who lived on earth for a period of time, in the form of a human being, and who interacted with the apostles. What does it matter whether or not Marcion thought Jesus descended as an adult? While it might not add to a historical Jesus, it does add to an earthly Jesus.

I think that some of the confusion is losing track of an early step in Carrier's formal analysis. In his academic book, he is not considering the full range of seriously possible hypotheses about Christian origins and where the character 'Jesus' fit into them. Rather, he is narrowing the possibilities to two: a "celestial" Jesus worshipped from the outset or else a fairly broad specification about a real man who actually lived and whose survivors launched a durable movement.

That's fine within Bayesian orthodoxy, and uncontroversial as a practical way to approach a messy, ill-structured tangle of conflicting tenable hypotheses. But it leaves the analyst silent on serious possibilities that are neither Carrier-Doherty-celestial nor something about a real human being whose friends ran away to live to fight another day.

So, yes, there are earthly possible-Jesuses who are not historical human beings, nor are they objects of worship initially, but who reputedly interact both with people and supernatural beings while they are here (perhaps something on the model of Hercules, speaking of sons of gods). These many other hypotheses are simply outside the formal published analysis, although like anybody else, Dr Carrier may have an opinion about their plausibility.

As to adult form from the beginning, Hercules supposedly had a childhood, while Abraham's well-informed visitors apparently didn't. Neither model is "celestial" nor "historical." It does seem that any useful Christian origins explanation has to get Jesus portrayed earthside in some form early on, but what form is wide open.

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 1:30 am from page 319:

more precisely, he quotes Ignatius as evidence for mythicism.

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Tue Dec 20, 2022 10:04 pmWhat does it matter whether or not Marcion thought Jesus descended as an adult? While it might not add to a historical Jesus, it does add to an earthly Jesus.

it is not the same thing. From Mark we may always extrapolate a Jesus mere man and mere sinner before the baptism. In Marcion not even that. "Earthly" for Marcion is synonymous of "demiurgical": the exact denial of the his Jesus, accordingly you can't even talk about an "earthly Jesus" in Marcion.

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 3:07 am As to adult form from the beginning, Hercules supposedly had a childhood, while Abraham's well-informed visitors apparently didn't. Neither model is "celestial" nor "historical." It does seem that any useful Christian origins explanation has to get Jesus portrayed earthside in some form early on, but what form is wide open.

I find very enlightening that prof Vinzent, already in the preface (available online) to his coming book Resetting the Origins, raises the possibility that the first gospel was for the previous myth what the Neuschwastein castle was for the real medieval castle. He is the first to get distance from this comparison introduced by himself, but the fact that he has raised it is, IMHO, very enlightening. Someway, the discussion on the historicity of Jesus is the unavoidable corollary of the marcionite priority. Is it so in virtue of the disturbing legacy of Paul-Louis Couchoud? Or is it so because very many mythicists, especially in France, have argued for the marcionite priority as an obvious thing?

Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:55 am

schillingklaus wrote: ↑Tue Dec 20, 2022 9:30 pm Carrier is only a pseudo-mythicist as he believes unrepentingly in Pauline Authenticity and Markan Priority, as completely opposed to true mythicists, who refrain from striking insane compromises with mainline scholars.

Thus it is better to ignore Carrier, notwithstanding Hansen's feeble apologisms.

I'm not doing apologetics for Carrier. I don't like Carrier, even remotely.

May I ask, why not?

R Carrier is bewildered by ideas beyond his wilderness

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 3:07 am I think that some of the confusion is losing track of an early step in Carrier's formal analysis. In his academic book, he is not considering the full range of seriously possible hypotheses about Christian origins and where the character 'Jesus' fit into them. Rather, he is narrowing the possibilities to two: a "celestial" Jesus worshipped from the outset or else a fairly broad specification about a real man who actually lived and whose survivors launched a durable movement.

That's fine within Bayesian orthodoxy, and uncontroversial as a practical way to approach a messy, ill-structured tangle of conflicting tenable hypotheses. But it leaves the analyst silent on serious possibilities that are neither Carrier-Doherty-celestial nor something about a real human being whose friends ran away to live to fight another day.

Exactly right, and a lot of people saw that collapsing of probability spaces into "historical" and "celestial" as a major flaw in Dr Carrier's analysis in OHJ.

Carrier does explain in the section “Complexity Objection” (p. 246) that the non-celestial “still occupy nearly all the probability-space reserved for ‘myth’, and thus treat that theory as equivalent to ‘nonhis­toricity’ altogether” and that “[a]nyone who believes otherwise will have to demonstrate an alternative differential in prior probability, and until that happens I will stick with my estimate” (p. 247) Yet, Dr Carrier himself demonstrates that 3 of 15 members of his RR reference class possibly started as literary characters, a fairly significant percentage.

Carrier's explanation that other options are so small that they can be (in effect) folded into a celestial Jesus needs to demonstrated first. "Literary” gets folded into “celestial”. On the historical side, “earthly” gets folded into “historical”. A person “born of a woman” is earthly, but lots of non-historical people were “born of a woman”. Similarly with “seed of [David, Abraham, etc]”. I love his use of Bayes in his book but not his application. The analysis should have started with “earthly” vs “celestial”, and then — if appropriate — “earthly” vs “historical”. But as it stands theories like GA Wells’ (“Paul’s Jesus was earthly but not historical”) and those proposing a literary origin for Jesus get folded into the “celestial” probability space. Carrier has “born of a woman” at “2 to 1” in favour of ‘historicity’. That implies that for every 3 references to “born of a woman” in the ancient literature, there is 1 reference to a ‘celestial’ being and 2 to ‘historical’ beings. Does this reflect ancient literature? Are the only options for Hercules either celestial or historical? And if he is neither, why is he in the reference class?

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 3:07 amAs to adult form from the beginning, Hercules supposedly had a childhood, while Abraham's well-informed visitors apparently didn't. Neither model is "celestial" nor "historical." It does seem that any useful Christian origins explanation has to get Jesus portrayed earthside in some form early on, but what form is wide open.

Yes, counting Hercules as contributing towards a celestial Jesus makes no sense. Similarly, I can't see how an "earthly" docetic Jesus contributes towards a celestial Jesus. An "earthly" non-historical one, yes. But celestial? No. (Similarly with the Ascension of Isaiah as well, for that matter)

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 5:35 am

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 1:30 am from page 319:

more precisely, he quotes Ignatius as evidence for mythicism.

Yes, he does. Using best odds for historicity, Dr Carrier has the Gospels and the letters of Paul as about 75% to 25% in favour of historicity; and then 1 Clement, Ignatius, Hegesippus and Acts of the Apostles all move the needle towards mythicism. The trajectory is bizarre and frankly jaw-dropping.

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Tue Dec 20, 2022 10:04 pmit is not the same thing. From Mark we may always extrapolate a Jesus mere man and mere sinner before the baptism. In Marcion not even that. "Earthly" for Marcion is synonymous of "demiurgical": the exact denial of the his Jesus, accordingly you can't even talk about an "earthly Jesus" in Marcion.

I'm sorry Giuseppe but that makes no sense. Marcion appeared to place Jesus on earth, in the time of Pilate, and interacting with apostles. Marcion appeared to believe his Paul thought that Jesus existed on earth. Surely that is an "earthly" Jesus (which of course doesn't mean a historical Jesus)?

Chris Hansen wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 3:41 pm

lclapshaw wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 1:28 pm May I ask, why not?

I'll just leave this here: https://the-orbit.net/almostdiamonds/20 ... d-carrier/

Aside from that, I don't think he does good history, and the way he treats his critics is awful (akin to how I use to as well; something I've been working on). Also, he just a really inflated sense of self. Like... I've never seen any academic in the world abuse the word "peer review" into meaninglessness like he has.

We get it Richard. You were "peer reviewed." We don't need you to post it 50 times a day.

Not that I am defending Dr. Carrier, whom I also think to be defective in many ways, but given that the mainstream scholarly community (if I understand correctly) condemns not only mythicism but also theories which can be construed as supporting mythicism (such as the claim that Josephus never mentioned Jesus and that GMark was inspired by Homer), emphasizing that at least 1 pro-mythicist book has passed peer review is a useful counter-balance to people's tendencies to dismiss both mythicism and its associated ideas out of hand.

I really wish that you would write a book about mythicism.

MrMacSon wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 1:31 pm R Carrier is bewildered by ideas beyond his wilderness

Anything later than 150 CE - Carrier's boundary for background evidence - is in his chronological wilderness. (That's one way to deal with Irenaeus)