Oh, no! Not another thread about Richard Carrier!

[Secret Alias]

So, what do you think about it?
Did you get deeper, that is in other pages of my website?
If you have lot to say, better open a new thread.

N R C cism. Trust me, if he had more to say he'd have said it. It was a polite way of telling you to fuck off and leave him alone.

[Ben C. Smith]

to Ben,

I have considered it. I have read that page several times before. Thanks.

So, what do you think about it?
Did you get deeper, that is in other pages of my website?
If you have lot to say, better open a new thread.

I am not sure how much would constitute enough to open a new thread, since I am not sure just how eager you are here for an open debate. I will observe this much, however. On your main page you write:

It took me three years doing research on the history of (very) early Christianity. Then, with no predetermined agenda, I decided to write this reconstruction about the historical Jesus and the sequence of events ('historical thread') leading to the earliest Christian doctrine. It is a sincere conclusion of a personal exercise motivated by my curiosity and not any anti-Christian propaganda or apologetic effort. My approach, as a critical investigator, will appear radically new. The research was not based on studying extensively scholarly works; but instead by inquiring about contextual facts, scrutinizing primary sources, getting free from past indoctrination and, above all, doing a lot of thinking. Never interested in divergent learned opinions, lofty ('high context') intellectualism, slick or bullying rhetoric, agenda-driven 'studies' or ill-validated theories, I applied myself to discover the bottom of things, the facts and the bare truth, as naive as it may sound.

I tend to believe you here; you dove right in, with very little reference to scholarly precedents, and you came up with your own sense of how things happened. You used a tool that most good historians use, to wit, an analysis of what goes "against the grain" of what the author is trying to convey, and it served you well for the most part. I have found some ideas of yours, formulated as they were by your own combination of sincere on-the-spot analysis and intellectual curiosity, to be well worth considering and even brilliant at times. (I would suggest that they seem especially brilliant when they agree with me... but truthfully, some of them seem pretty great even when they came as a surprise to me.) And I can honestly say that I have learned things (or at least seen things in a new light) from your pages.

However, I think your greatest strength may also be your greatest weakness: by not turning to the scholarly discussions, you seem sometimes to ignore some bits of evidence and some inaugural questions, especially regarding the genre of the texts which you are analyzing, and I consider the matter of genre to be fairly foundational to the whole line of inquiry. I expect different things from novels than from biographies, for example. Or, for example, you often seem to assume that, once you have found something that runs "against the grain", it is most likely authentic; you do not often seem to consider the alternative, that things inherited from the previous generation may both run against the grain and be inauthentic. (In other words, that criterion, in my estimation, really only suggests that the datum preceded the author, not necessarily that it goes all the way back to bedrock historicity.) There is still an argument, however small it may be, to be mounted between "against the grain" and "probably historical".

I am probably already dragging my own thread too far afield here, but those are some of my overall impressions. Anything more detailed would certainly demand its own thread (if such is not the case already).

Ben.

[Charles Wilson]

...I am not sure just how eager you are here for an open debate.

To Bernard Muller and Ben C Smith: Let's you and him fight!
There just so happens to be a "Let's Debate" Forum Box thingie at the top of the Board [Board Index => The Podium => Debate Arrangements]. Why not try it?

CW

[outhouse]

Just thinking out loud as I take down notes for yet another possible set of circumstances accounting for the origins of Christianity....

Ben, why don't you consider my set of circumstances accounting for the origins of Christianity?
http://historical-jesus.info/digest.html

Cordially, Bernard

Love ya dude, but way to many certainties over attributed.

I like,,, a Galilean Aramaic Jew who was taught by John and took over his movement when he was murdered. Said Galilean made at least on trip to the Temple where he was crucified under Pilates and Caiaphas rule. His death viewed as a sacrifice and he was martyred by Hellenistic Proselytes who found value in the growing mythology and theology that accelerated the divorce of cultural Judaism from Hellenistic Judaism.

[MrMacSon]

I like ...a Galilean Aramaic Jew who was taught by John and took over his movement when he was murdered ...

I presume you mean John the Baptist .. with John the Apostle being a different John (+/- other Johns)

[TedM]

Hope you guys don't mind my 2 cents here too..I don't know about a debate, but I welcome any discussion between Ben and Bernard as you are two of my favorite thinkers on the threads. Ben appears to have become more accepting of some of the Jesus-myth concepts (my impression) over time, so a discussion between you both might be more fruitful -or at least interesting! - than in the past when perhaps you would have been in more agreement.

...I am not sure just how eager you are here for an open debate.

To Bernard Muller and Ben C Smith: Let's you and him fight!
There just so happens to be a "Let's Debate" Forum Box thingie at the top of the Board [Board Index => The Podium => Debate Arrangements]. Why not try it?

CW

[MrMacSon]

...I welcome any discussion between Ben and Bernard ...

I think such a discussion would be interesting as long as Bernard does not revert to linking to his website, and provides his propositions and arguments fully within his posts to such a discussion on this forum.

[Ben C. Smith]

Hope you guys don't mind my 2 cents here too..I don't know about a debate, but I welcome any discussion between Ben and Bernard as you are two of my favorite thinkers on the threads. Now that Ben has become more friendly to the Jesus-myth concepts (my impression) over time, a discussion between you both might be more fruitful -or at least interesting! - than in the past when perhaps you would have been in more agreement.

...I am not sure just how eager you are here for an open debate.

To Bernard Muller and Ben C Smith: Let's you and him fight!
There just so happens to be a "Let's Debate" Forum Box thingie at the top of the Board [Board Index => The Podium => Debate Arrangements]. Why not try it?

CW

That is very kind of you to say, Ted. I am not interested in a formal debate, no. But Bernard and I have debated several points on this forum before, and depending on the topic I may be open to debating him more.

My main interest has always been methodology; where that methodology leads is, strictly speaking, a separate matter. I am, as you surmise, currently more attracted to some mythicist options (in that respect I somewhat resemble myself in my twenties before I had something of an historicist surge in my thirties). But, truth be told, I am probably most comfortable with an agnostic position of some kind... which is not a very entertaining end in itself, so I keep trying to find individual clues or patterns of clues which stand a chance of tipping the balance one way or another. This subtle massaging of data, alongside the meaningful presentation of the evidence (usually textual), is what entertains me most of all.

[TedM]

Ben, I understand. You and Bernard are doing a good service by sharing what you have learned and continue to learn regardless of the format.

[outhouse]

I like ...a Galilean Aramaic Jew who was taught by John and took over his movement when he was murdered ...

I presume you mean John the Baptist .. with John the Apostle being a different John (+/- other Johns)

Yes , I thought it obvious enough in this crowd