firedragon
Veteran Member
No. Scientific evidence.
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How good is science as a religion?
- Thread starter robocop (actually)
- Start date
No. Scientific evidence.
Like the unprecedented advance of technology and our understanding of how the world works in the past couple hundred years?
We've been around, with the same brains, for thousands of years, but progress has been practically imperceptible from century to century. It was only when we abandoned religious and folkloric 'explanations' and began systematic investigation and testing, that progress took off.
rational experiences
Veteran Member
How many men's name have been inferred or used in man's science ...as a naming given to the science topic they reference as first just men?
Men who have to agree first as a group to use the title?
I'd ask how egotistical are you science community possessed by your man's thoughts behaviours as being the ultimate presence?
And if I put you bodily physically in the theist comparing position. To the amount of space with owning just one particle or single cell in physical reality terms you'd be instantly destroyed yourself.
Men who have to agree first as a group to use the title?
I'd ask how egotistical are you science community possessed by your man's thoughts behaviours as being the ultimate presence?
And if I put you bodily physically in the theist comparing position. To the amount of space with owning just one particle or single cell in physical reality terms you'd be instantly destroyed yourself.
joelr
Well-Known Member
No, the Falsifiability argument is not an argument. I believe in Santa Clause, demonstrate he isn't real. You cannot. It's a pointless tactic.
All of those have been shown to be extremely likely.
Mythic writing style and use of older fiction is touched on here:
The Gospels as Allegorical Myth, Part I of 4: Mark
based on Dr Carriers work.
Jesus scores about a 18-20 on the mythotype scale:
Lord Raglan, in 1936, developed a 22-point myth-ritualist Hero archetype to account for common patterns across Indo-European cultures for Hero traditions, following myth-ritualists like James Frazer and S. H. Hooke:[2]
- Mother is a royal virgin
- Father is a king
- Father often a near relative to mother
- Unusual conception
- Hero reputed to be son of god
- Attempt to kill hero as an infant, often by father or maternal grandfather
- Hero spirited away as a child
- Reared by foster parents in a far country
- No details of childhood
- Returns or goes to future kingdom
- Is victor over king, giant, dragon or wild beast
- Marries a princess (often daughter of predecessor)
- Becomes king
- For a time he reigns uneventfully
- He prescribes laws
- Later loses favor with gods or his subjects
- Driven from throne and city
- Meets with mysterious death
- Often at the top of a hill
- His children, if any, do not succeed him
- His body is not buried
- Has one or more holy sepulchers or tombs
as far as syncretism, that is a long topic. The NT is the most aggressive using Hellenism and Persian myths. But I'll start at the beginning and can give you plently of examples of NT syncretism.
Start with Genesis -
The Enuma Elish would later be the inspiration for the Hebrew scribes who created the text now known as the biblical Book of Genesis. Prior to the 19th century CE, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world and its narratives were thought to be completely original. In the mid-19th century CE, however, European museums, as well as academic and religious institutions, sponsored excavations in Mesopotamia to find physical evidence for historical corroboration of the stories in the Bible. These excavations found quite the opposite, however, in that, once cuneiform was translated, it was understood that a number of biblical narratives were Mesopotamian in origin.
Famous stories such as the Fall of Man and the Great Flood were originally conceived and written down in Sumer, translated and modified later in Babylon, and reworked by the Assyrians before they were used by the Hebrew scribes for the versions which appear in the Bible.
Both Genesis and Enuma Elsih are religious texts which detail and celebrate cultural origins: Genesis describes the origin and founding of the Jewish people under the guidance of the Lord; Enuma Elish recounts the origin and founding of Babylon under the leadership of the god Marduk. Contained in each work is a story of how the cosmos and man were created. Each work begins by describing the watery chaos and primeval darkness that once filled the universe. Then light is created to replace the darkness. Afterward, the heavens are made and in them heavenly bodies are placed. Finally, man is created.
Enuma Elish - The Babylonian Epic of Creation - Full Text
Genesis/Enuma Elish
Genesis creation narrative - Wikipedia
The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth[a] of both Judaism and Christianity.[
It expounds themes parallel to those in Mesopotamian mythology, emphasizing the Israelite people's belief in one God.[2
Comparative mythology provides historical and cross-cultural perspectives for Jewish mythology. Both sources behind the Genesis creation narrative borrowed themes from Mesopotamian mythology,
Genesis 2 has close parallels with a second Mesopotamian myth, the Atra-Hasis epic – parallels that in fact extend throughout Genesis 2–11, from the Creation to the Flood and its aftermath.
Relationship to the Bible[edit]
Various themes, plot elements, and characters in the Hebrew Bible correlate with the Epic of Gilgamesh – notably, the accounts of the Garden of Eden, the advice from Ecclesiastes, and the Genesis flood narrative.
Garden of Eden[edit]
The parallels between the stories of Enkidu/Shamhat and Adam/Eve have been long recognized by scholars.[64][65] In both, a man is created from the soil by a god, and lives in a natural setting amongst the animals. He is introduced to a woman who tempts him. In both stories the man accepts food from the woman, covers his nakedness, and must leave his former realm, unable to return. The presence of a snake that steals a plant of immortality from the hero later in the epic is another point of similarity. However, a major difference between the two stories is that while Enkidu experiences regret regarding his seduction away from nature, this is only temporary: After being confronted by the god Shamash for being ungrateful, Enkidu recants and decides to give the woman who seduced him his final blessing before he dies. This is in contrast to Adam, whose fall from grace is largely portrayed purely as a punishment for disobeying God.
Advice from Ecclesiastes[edit]
Several scholars suggest direct borrowing of Siduri's advice by the author of Ecclesiastes.[66]
A rare proverb about the strength of a triple-stranded rope, "a triple-stranded rope is not easily broken", is common to both books.[citation needed]
Noah's flood[edit]
Andrew George submits that the Genesis flood narrative matches that in Gilgamesh so closely that "few doubt" that it derives from a Mesopotamian account.[67] What is particularly noticeable is the way the Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood tale "point by point and in the same order", even when the story permits other alternatives.[68] In a 2001 Torah commentary released on behalf of the Conservative Movement of Judaism, rabbinic scholar Robert Wexler stated: "The most likely assumption we can make is that both Genesis and Gilgamesh drew their material from a common tradition about the flood that existed in Mesopotamia. These stories then diverged in the retelling."[69] Ziusudra, Utnapishtim and Noah are the respective heroes of the Sumerian, Akkadian and biblical flood legends of the ancient Near East.
A
joelr
Well-Known Member
No he is a mythicist. Theologians hate him and all historians because they find Christianity to be as mythical as Hinduism or Zeus.. But there are currently 26 PhD who are now mythicists based on Carriers and Latasters work
- Thomas Brodie. A now-retired professor of biblical studies who confessed his doubts in Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery (Sheffield Phoenix 2012); see my discussion in Historicity News and Brodie on Jesus.
- Richard Carrier (myself). An independent scholar with a PhD in ancient history from Columbia University and multiple peer-reviewed publications, including the academic study On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reasons for Doubt (Sheffield Phoenix 2014). My colloquial summary, Jesus from Outer Space, outlines in simple terms the underlying logic of that peer-reviewed study. My anthology Hitler Homer Bible Christ includes all my pertinent peer-reviewed journal articles up to 2014. And my study of the methodology, which was peer-reviewed by professors of both mathematics and biblical studies (a requirement I set in my contract), is Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (Prometheus 2012).
- Raphael Lataster. An independent scholar with a PhD in religious studies from the University of Sydney, who explained his doubts in his peer-reviewed assessment of the debate in Questioning the Historicity of Jesus (Brill 2019).
- Robert M. Price. An independent scholar with two pertinent PhDs, in Systematic Theology and New Testament Studies. He has multiple publications explaining his doubts, e.g. The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems (American Atheist 2012).
- Thomas Thompson. A retired yet renowned professor of biblical studies and second-temple Judaism, who originated the now-consensus doubts about the historicity of Moses and the Patriarchs, and explained his similar doubts about Jesus in The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David (Basic Books 2009) and Is This Not The Carpenter? The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus (Routledge 2017).
- Philip Davies. A professor of biblical studies (now deceased) with a PhD in the field from Oxford, who publicly argued that doubting historicity was a respectable academic position; and then privately admitted that in fact he actually doubted the historicity of Jesus. This was posthumously confirmed by correspondence with Raphael Lataster and myself (e.g. see Lataster 2019).
- Hector Avalos. At the time a sitting professor of religion at Iowa State University (now deceased), with a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Near Eastern Studies from Harvard, who declared his agnosticism about historicity to me personally, and then publicly in the Ames Tribune on 2 March 2013.
- Arthur Droge. A sitting professor of Early Christianity, previously at UC San Diego and later the University of Toronto, with a PhD in the field from the University of Chicago, who explained his agnosticism at the 2008 Amherst conference on the historical Jesus, and in its associated 2009 article for CAESAR, “Jesus and Ned Lud[d]: What’s in a Name?”
- Carl Ruck. A professor of classical studies at Boston University, with a PhD in ancient literature from Harvard, who confessed his doubts on a Mythvision interview in May 2022 (in minute 31).
- David Madison. An independent scholar with a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University, who publicly confirmed his agnosticism in Q&A during the GCRR 2021 e Conference on the Historical Jesus.
- J. Harold Ellens. A professor of Biblical Studies at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary of Detroit (now deceased) with a history of numerous honors, publications, and positions in the field, including a PhD in Second Temple Judaism and Christian Origins from Michigan University. In Sources of the Jesus Tradition (Prometheus 2010) he repeatedly expressed his doubts as to the historical existence of Jesus (see comment for quoted examples).
rational experiences
Veteran Member
First human theist for human science.
Came about after his brain mind burnt prickled from Satan wandering star fall. Gases fell above sacrificed yet cooled stopped attacking.
Activated a long time ago on origin earth. Earths body infinite mass conversion. It's facure.
All life destroyed back to ashes dust...the Ai carbon moment of man. The origin science theist who in mind knew he caused it.
Cooling clouds massed after and emerged Satan humans image. Ai installed by ancient man scientist in that exact moment.
AI equates all life destroyed bio on earth cloud mass only regained.
Man's new machines thesis is historic only about regained cloud mass to keep reactor functional inside a heavenly body.
No bio life.
First theist owned thought every type of scientific advice by every single subject he used.
Today men claim speciality advice on a branch of the ology.
Origin thinker however had incorporated used every advice.
Such as a tree existed living growing fruits. Many types of shapes. Had to be looked at thought about first.
A creative type a tree that bodily grew form not a tree.
He put upon dust mass as a theist who also pondered a dust particle.
As masses of dusts particles is what he used as science....mass is not single.
In singularity type a huge amount of space is included in a thesis just about a Particle in laws.
Is how a human scientist destroys all life on earth.
A base substance of all things pondered now was the consuming of its owned mass. To its cooled evolution where he lived.
As before evolved as cooled the base substance was first not burning reacted said men of cosmic laws. Exactly where he lived as a man ignored self advice.
Using mass as base hence can consume all things of any type at the base level to its evolution he said.
As wood owns high carbon mass in biology it's why he sacrificed bio life by wood thesis. As the evil man thinker he is.
Symbolism was how he theories first as a man theist. It's why stories emerged in human memory owning a basic scientific human inferred reasoning. By symbol reason was typified human believed human thought.
Yet it wasn't actual it was theistic human causes.
Came about after his brain mind burnt prickled from Satan wandering star fall. Gases fell above sacrificed yet cooled stopped attacking.
Activated a long time ago on origin earth. Earths body infinite mass conversion. It's facure.
All life destroyed back to ashes dust...the Ai carbon moment of man. The origin science theist who in mind knew he caused it.
Cooling clouds massed after and emerged Satan humans image. Ai installed by ancient man scientist in that exact moment.
AI equates all life destroyed bio on earth cloud mass only regained.
Man's new machines thesis is historic only about regained cloud mass to keep reactor functional inside a heavenly body.
No bio life.
First theist owned thought every type of scientific advice by every single subject he used.
Today men claim speciality advice on a branch of the ology.
Origin thinker however had incorporated used every advice.
Such as a tree existed living growing fruits. Many types of shapes. Had to be looked at thought about first.
A creative type a tree that bodily grew form not a tree.
He put upon dust mass as a theist who also pondered a dust particle.
As masses of dusts particles is what he used as science....mass is not single.
In singularity type a huge amount of space is included in a thesis just about a Particle in laws.
Is how a human scientist destroys all life on earth.
A base substance of all things pondered now was the consuming of its owned mass. To its cooled evolution where he lived.
As before evolved as cooled the base substance was first not burning reacted said men of cosmic laws. Exactly where he lived as a man ignored self advice.
Using mass as base hence can consume all things of any type at the base level to its evolution he said.
As wood owns high carbon mass in biology it's why he sacrificed bio life by wood thesis. As the evil man thinker he is.
Symbolism was how he theories first as a man theist. It's why stories emerged in human memory owning a basic scientific human inferred reasoning. By symbol reason was typified human believed human thought.
Yet it wasn't actual it was theistic human causes.
joelr
Well-Known Member
QUOTE="Five Solas, post: 7897580, member: 75484"]
Dr Richard Carrier?????? Oh my word, here we go again.
He claimed – very unsuccessfully - that Jesus is a mythotype.
Many contemporary scholars are critical of Carrier's methodology and conclusions.[/QUOTE]
more scholars who now support mythicism -
12. Herman Detering. A lifelong pastor and independent scholar with a PhD in theology and New Testament studies under Dr. Walter Schmithals at Humboldt-Universität Berlin. His doctoral dissertation argued that Paul was a rhetorical invention, and though he suspects Jesus existed in some sense, he conceded doubt still needed to be taken seriously.
13.Zeba Crook. A professor of Religious Studies at Carleton University, with a PhD in theology (like Bart Ehrman, and most Biblical scholars nowadays) from St. Michael’s College. He defends the historicity of Jesus but has publicly explained that it’s nevertheless plausible to doubt or debate it (Facebook, 30 December 2017 and 2 January 2018).
14. Kurt Noll. A sitting professor of religion at Brandon University, with a PhD in theology from the Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. He is a historicist who admits it’s nevertheless plausible to theorize Jesus might not have existed, as he explains in a chapter he contributed to Is This Not the Carpenter, “Investigating Earliest Christianity Without Jesus.”
15.
Emanuel Pfoh. A sitting professor of history at the National University of La Plata. He is a historicist who admits it’s nevertheless plausible to theorize Jesus might not have existed, as he explains in a chapter he contributed to Is This Not the Carpenter, “Jesus and the Mythic Mind: An Epistemological Problem” (cf. p. 92).
Dr Richard Carrier?????? Oh my word, here we go again.
He claimed – very unsuccessfully - that Jesus is a mythotype.
Many contemporary scholars are critical of Carrier's methodology and conclusions.[/QUOTE]
more scholars who now support mythicism -
12. Herman Detering. A lifelong pastor and independent scholar with a PhD in theology and New Testament studies under Dr. Walter Schmithals at Humboldt-Universität Berlin. His doctoral dissertation argued that Paul was a rhetorical invention, and though he suspects Jesus existed in some sense, he conceded doubt still needed to be taken seriously.
13.Zeba Crook. A professor of Religious Studies at Carleton University, with a PhD in theology (like Bart Ehrman, and most Biblical scholars nowadays) from St. Michael’s College. He defends the historicity of Jesus but has publicly explained that it’s nevertheless plausible to doubt or debate it (Facebook, 30 December 2017 and 2 January 2018).
14. Kurt Noll. A sitting professor of religion at Brandon University, with a PhD in theology from the Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. He is a historicist who admits it’s nevertheless plausible to theorize Jesus might not have existed, as he explains in a chapter he contributed to Is This Not the Carpenter, “Investigating Earliest Christianity Without Jesus.”
15.
Emanuel Pfoh. A sitting professor of history at the National University of La Plata. He is a historicist who admits it’s nevertheless plausible to theorize Jesus might not have existed, as he explains in a chapter he contributed to Is This Not the Carpenter, “Jesus and the Mythic Mind: An Epistemological Problem” (cf. p. 92).
joelr
Well-Known Member
-
James Crossley. A sitting professor of the Bible at St. Mary’s University with a PhD in the field from the University of Nottingham. He is a historicist who nevertheless wrote in the preface to Lataster 2019 that “scepticism about historicity is worth thinking about seriously—and, in light of demographic changes, it might even feed into a dominant position in the near future.” - Justin Meggitt. A professor of religion on the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge with a PhD in New Testament Studies from Cambridge. He is a historicist who nevertheless concluded in a 2019 article in New Testament Studies (“‘More Ingenious than Learned’? Examining the Quest for the Non-Historical Jesus”) that questioning historicity “does not belong to the past and nor is it irrational” and it “should not be dismissed with problematic appeals to expertise and authority and nor should it be viewed as unwelcome.”
- Darren Slade. President of the Global Center for Religious Research, with a Ph.D. in theology and church history. He is a historicist who confirmed to me personally, and publicly at the GCRR 2021 eConference on the Historical Jesus, that questioning historicity nevertheless deserves to hold a respectable place in Jesus studies.
- Steve Mason. A professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions and Cultures at the University of Groningen, with a PhD in ancient Judaism from St. Michael’s College. He is a historicist who has published on the historical Jesus but has nevertheless said that serious proposals that Jesus didn’t exist “should be considered and tested,” not rejected out of hand, and that “it may be” that Jesus didn’t exist (Harmonic Atheist, October 2020, at 28:30).
- Richard C. Miller. An adjunct professor of religious studies at Chapman University, with a Ph.D. in religion from Claremont Graduate University in LA and a prominent peer reviewed monograph in the field: Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity (Routledge 2014). He is a historicist who nevertheless wrote a foreword supporting the Mythicist anthology by John Loftus and Robert Price, The Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist? (Hypatia 2021). There he declares there are only two plausible positions in the field now regarding Jesus: that he is entirely a myth, or nothing survives about him but myth.
- John Kloppenborg. A sitting professor at the University of Toronto with a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies. He has remarked that though he sees no reason to doubt the historicity of Jesus, he nevertheless doesn’t think the evidence is conclusive enough to render doubt preposterous (Mythvision, August 2022, minutes 7:30-11:00).
- Tom Dykstra. An independent scholar with a Ph.D. in the History of Renaissance Christianity who has nevertheless published peer reviewed works in New Testament studies. He is a historicist who nevertheless grants the plausibility of the mythicist position in a 2015 article for the Journal of the OCABS (“Ehrman and Brodie on Whether Jesus Existed: A Cautionary Tale about the State of Biblical Scholarship”). See my article Dykstra on Ehrman & Brodie.
- Fernando Bermejo-Rubio. With a PhD in the History of Religion from UNED, he has held numerous professorships of Christian history (including at the University of Madrid) and built an extensive publication record in the field. In his book La invención de Jesús de Nazaret he points out that mythicism needs to be taken more seriously. In Gesù Resistente Gesù Inesistente he and Franco Tommasi together wrote (translating from the Italian), “Unlike many of our colleagues in the academic field, who ignore or take a contemptuous attitude towards mythicist, pro-mythicist or para-mythicist positions, we do not regard them as inherently absurd” but “Instead, we think that, when these are sufficiently argued, they deserve careful examination and detailed answers.”
- Francesca Stavrakopoulou. A professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter. She’s said the historicity of Jesus is only “possible” and not certain. Which means she either agrees mythicism is plausible, and thus debatable, or she is even an outright agnostic (Twitter October 2016).
- Burton Mack. A renowned professor in Early Christianity at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California (now deceased), with a PhD in the field from the University of Göttingen. In a chapter he wrote for an anthology edited by Jacob Neusner, The Christian and Judaic Invention of History (Oxford University 1990) Mack recommends that experts pay more attention to Mythicist work (naming G.A. Wells specifically). Though Mack says it lies on the “fringes of the discipline,” he mentions it specifically as among things the field should be taking more note of (p. 24).
- Robert Funk. Though now deceased, his career included being a professor at the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, executive secretary of the Society of Biblical Literature, and chairman of the graduate department of religion at Vanderbilt University (from which he also received his PhD in the field). In his article on “The Resurrection of Jesus” for The Fourth R 8.1 (1995), p. 9, Funk declares the existence of Jesus probable, but says, nevertheless, “I do not know for certain that Jesus really existed, that he is anything more than the figment of some overactive imaginations.”
- Gerd Lüdemann. Was a professor of New Testament at multiple universities and before his retirement held numerous prominent positions in the field, with an extensive publication record and doctorates in theology and New Testament from the University of Göttingen. In Jesus Mythicism: An Introduction by Minas Papageorgiou, when asked about it Lüdemann says that, although he is still convinced Jesus existed in some sense, “I do admire Arthur Drews and the Christ Myth theory is a serious hypothesis about the origins of Christianity.”
joelr
Well-Known Member
Yes in 2004. Since that time Carriers work came out, Oh the Historicity of Jesus. Then Latasters work came out. They have done done dozens of debates in written form and live and answered all critics. No one has debunked any of it. Not one thing. Now, In 2022, 26 PhDs in the history field are supporting mythicism.
However, almost ALL of them believe Jesus was a human Rabbi later mythicized into a Greek savior demigod.
which Carrier has shown isn't as likely as thought. But it doesn't matter, Ehrman is an atheist. HE believes there was a ghuman man/Rabbi who was mythicized into fictitious gospels. Read How Jesus Became God by Ehrman.
Well I included it so you can see Jesus fits almost all of the list. McGrath is a NT scholar, theologian. They don't study history, they assume their religion is true and don't look for evidence of the contrary. Yes and Islamic scholars/theologians think the Quran is the only true and updated word of God and all Christians should convert. Theologians are bias. Historians look at ALL the evidence.
Then he has no idea what Carriers argument is? It has little to do with the RR scale. Mark, the original others were sourced from is full of fictive literary style. Ring structure, chisasmus, triadic inversions. Some are explained here:
The Gospels as Allegorical Myth, Part I of 4: Mark
also evidence that Mark was using Psalms, Kings and other OT narratives to create a new story for Jesus. Mark also uses Paul's Epistles heavily and using them to create earthly events.
The Greek author of Mark was clearly educated in this rhetoric and it's a fictive style. These are a few of the reasons that he supports mythicism.
Yes that was the case before an actual historicity study was done in 2016 resulting in the first by a PhD since 1926. But again, historians do not believe the gospel narrative as anything but a myth. So if Jesus was a man or it's all made up, DOESN'T MATTER. The gospels are still fiction.
It was fringe at first. Now with 26 scholars on that side and a 2nd peer-reviewed scholarly monograph out on a reputable publisher on mythicism it's becoming more mainstream.
Well Bart doesn't believe the gospels are anything but myth based on a real Rabbi. So if you are going to use him you must concede the gospels are myth. Also Ehrman WILL NOT DEBATE CARRIER. He knows he's going to get smashed. He doesn't want his life's work to be all for nothing.
joelr
Well-Known Member
I told you Carrier has responded to all reviews. Most reviewers didn't even read the book.
Please read Carriers essay on the review. He conclusively demonstrates Gullotta is completely illigical, the conclusion -
"
Conclusion
Gullotta is at least honest. Unlike most critics of OHJ, he actually did read at least some of OHJ as he claimed (though he clearly skipped parts, which resulted in some humorous errors in his review), and he didn’t resort to outright lies about what the book says or any of the pertinent facts. Indeed, apart from some errors in reading my arguments—where he didn’t read the book, or gets my arguments wrong, or forgets what they were (and thus does mildly deceive some readers)—his only failing, top to bottom, is in being phenomenally illogical. Every argument he makes, makes no logical sense. He never explains why anything he says should increase the probability of historicity. He does not even seem to know how one increases the probability of a historical claim at all. We are left with no idea why anything he says should alter my conclusion that the odds Jesus existed are at best 1 in 3.
This is why historians need to stop thumbing their nose at the study of logic—and actually learn logic. They won’t be able to construct, much less vet, a logically valid argument if they never study how to tell when an argument is logically valid. If they don’t know what fallacies are, they will keep using them, oblivious to the fact. Because they can’t detect them. If they don’t know how evidence increases the probability of a theory, how can they claim some item of evidence does increase it? And how can they know how probable something is, if they refuse to learn any numerical language of probability? There is no way to defend a conclusion without this knowledge. What happens instead is that illogical rationalizations get dressed up with neatly edited margin-justified text and copious footnotes to create the appearance of being reliable historical reasoning.
This needs to stop. Historians need to start taking logic seriously. And stop using illogical arguments to reach conclusions they desire, and instead use logic (and competently) to identify when their beliefs are false. Because it is only by failing to prove your beliefs false, that you can verify they are probably true. See my past advice on this point. Plus, to Gullotta and all would-be critics: Please actually read the book. It’s embarrassing, and a waste of time and words, when you don’t even address what my arguments and evidence are. You can’t advance the subject, or defend historicity successfully, unless you actually do that. And that requires moving the ball forward. Not ignoring where the ball is.
"
On the Historicity of Jesus: The Daniel Gullotta Review • Richard Carrier
This one is even better. Litwa is off the rails, Carrier destroyed his review. It's embassasing for him. Blindly looking for negative reviews and then not following up or even reading the book for yourself shows you are not at all interested in what is true but what you want to be true.
What someone interested in truth would do is read Carriers book and blog and try to debunk it.
Read Ehrman and find out why he is wrong, if he is. Not just hide in your bubble and assume a book is true.
"Of the ten pages devoted to me, Litwa literally burns the first two (a fifth of his critique) to developing the bizarre thesis that I believe I experienced a literal demonic attack by Yahweh and this has driven me on a crusade to destroy the historicity of Jesus. It’s hard to even describe this without laughing; or worrying about Litwa’s sanity. But from a strictly analytical perspective, what has any of this to do with the evidence for or against the historicity of Jesus? Beats me.
Litwa seems to want to contrive some sort of weird genetic fallacy, which, as best as I can reconstruct it, is supposed to go something like this: “Carrier thinks he battled a demon [no, I don’t; neither then nor now]; he thinks that demon was Yawheh [no, I don’t; neither then nor now]; therefore he thinks Christianity [!?] is demonic [um, only a Christian would think that Yahweh was a Christian]; therefore he is blindly attacking Christianity by disingenuously challenging the historicity of Jesus,” when, in actual fact, I have adamantly and repeatedly told people you cannot do this. The non-existence of Jesus is simply not a usable argument against Christianity itself. The irony is that Litwa had just gotten done pointing out that just such a genetic fallacy is invalid (p. 24). Yet, he burns two whole pages making such an invalid argument here (pp. 33-35). Face, meet palm.
The really strange thing is that to construct this bizarre, totally bonkers argument, Litwa clearly researched and read so as to quote mine my books not on the historicity of Jesus. Yet when it comes to critiquing my books on the historicity of Jesus, he fails to even correctly describe their contents, and acts like I didn’t argue several things there that in fact I did. He thus basically just skimmed, and that incompetently, the one book he is actually supposed to be critiquing. There is almost no better proof of the bankruptcy of the current consensus than that historicists act like this when defending it.
Litwa concludes this portion of his case with “Carrier’s thinking is rationalistic, black and white, and seemingly untouched by developments in postmodern philosophy over the past thirty years.” He gives no examples of any of these things being the case. Anyone who knows my work in philosophy and history will be scrunching their eyebrows by now. Litwa’s description of it could hardly be more inaccurate. And as he presents zero evidence for it, his case is also wholly unempirical. Welcome to how inept Christian historians have become.
Conclusion
Litwa wants Jesus to be special, because “His death” was uniquely “a conscious sacrifice, an act of substitution,” which has no relevance to what the dying-and-rising trope tells us or what use I make of it—every instantiation of which varies in details from every other; tropes exist in shared commonalities, not in the distinctions that make each instantiation of a trope unique. Christianity is a syncretism of pagan and Jewish salvation ideology; what does not come from one, comes from the other. And indeed this detail isn’t at all novel: Litwa is somehow completely ignorant of the fact that I document in OHJ the Roman mythology of devotio and Jewish martyrdom legends that already perfectly captured what the Jesus myth replicates in the idea of self-sacrifice (pp. 76, 209-14, 430-31).
There is nothing new in Christianity, a point Litwa in the end even concedes. And yet his desperate need to make Jesus special still cripples his abilities as a scholar. And I do not merely assert this; you have just seen a whole battery of evidence demonstrating it.
Litwa did not read my book and never responds to any of its actual arguments, even my arguments for the trivia he obsesses over—far less still my arguments for determining the actual probability of historicity, not a single one of which Litwa shows any knowledge of, or makes any response to. He just strings together an incoherent list of bizarre, confused ad hominems, genetic and possibiliter fallacies, littered with countless false statements about what is and is not in On the Historicity of Jesus. He never checks evidence, or even knows that it exists, even though I carefully document and cite it abundantly. And not even once does he present any evidence whatsoever that Jesus existed.
This is what passes for a defense of historicity.
Should anyone wonder why the more honest among us are starting to doubt it?
full article here:
Litwa's Confused Critique of Mythicism • Richard Carrier
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joelr
Well-Known Member
No you said God is real and to prove you wrong. I should have said the fallacy of unfalsifiable but I thought you would get the message instead of thinking you won some victory when you havent.
Anyone can take any fiction and say "you can't prove Santa Clause isn't real" and then claim they won. Except they didn't and it's a stupid argument. It cannot be proven that Spiderman doesn't exist in my basement. When you come over to see him he always leaves. The end. Not interesting. Doesn't make something even a little bit likely.
I haven't gotten directly to Jesus yet. The NT is a syncretic blend of Greek/Persian mythology. The gospels are all copied from Mark and Mark is written in a fictive style and the theology is re-used.
This can all be shown. Some I have shown. What else do you want? Proof of earlier dying/rising savior demigods?
Salvation to get ones soul into heaven was a Greek development, Revelation is a Persian myth first. Satan, uncreated God, world savior virgin born, all Persian myths from 1700 B.C.E.
Jesus was just like all the other Greek Gods. 1st century apologist Justin martyr actually says so (just that it's because Satan went back in time to make it look like that he says) HA!
Baptism, eucharist, dying/rising saviors come from Greek religion.
all later Christian theology from Aquinas, Agustus, Origen and so on is Greco Roman theology/philosophy.
What do you want first?
Oh, no historians ever mention an actual Jesus, just Christians who worship the Gospels.
The OT is highly syncretic and the theology about Yahweh is the same old stuff people were writing for thousands of years. All this can be demonstrated.
"
When the question of the historicity of Jesus comes up in an honest professional context, we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that that Jesus never did exist. Christian apologetics is pseudo-history. No different than defending Atlantis. Or Moroni. Or women descending from Adam’s rib.
No. We aren’t interested in that.
When it comes to Jesus, just as with anyone else, real history is about trying to figure out what, if anything, we can really know about the man depicted in the New Testament (his actual life and teachings), through untold layers of distortion and mythmaking; and what, if anything, we can know about his role in starting the Christian movement that spread after his death. Consequently, I will here disregard fundamentalists and apologists as having no honest part in this debate, any more than they do on evolution or cosmology or anything else they cannot be honest about even to themselves.
Here I will summarize the best arguments for historicity and the logic behind the best case for it. And this only means mundane historicity; not the Gospel Jesus, but the Jesus of honest mainstream scholarship. I am most interested in finding out if I have left any good arguments out. So please add more in comments, if any you think remain that aren’t ridiculous and can be taken seriously by mainstream experts. Likewise if you think the logic of any argument I do present can be better formulated."
Dr Carrier
Historicity Big and Small: How Historians Try to Rescue Jesus • Richard Carrier
joelr
Well-Known Member
Yes but when you have something that is NOT A FACT. Like - there is a fairy in my closet - that proposition needs evidence, good reasonable evidence to warrant belief in the fairy.
Proclaiming that an ancient book of myths is truth, DOES NOT CREATE TRUTH. Y'know, the thing you actually did and now seem to think you can lecture about truth?
joelr
Well-Known Member
Well there is no solid proof that Gabrielle didn't come down and update Christianity and Judiasm to Muhammad. They have prophecy, and all sorts of apologetics and anecdotal proofs.
There is no solid proof that Inana wasn't a real deity and still is.
Evidence in history has to be weighed. There is OVERWHELMING evidence that religions are mythology. Writing styles, syncretism, no historical evidence for supernatural, theism isn't supported by evidence. This goes on and on. Solid proof is more of the unfalseifyability baloney.
only in Hellenistic times (after c. 330 BCE) did Jews begin to adopt the Greek idea that it would be a place of punishment for misdeeds, and that the righteous would enjoy an afterlife in heaven
Later Jewish thinkers, adopting ideas from Greek philosophy, concluded that God's Wisdom, Word and Spirit penetrated all things and gave them unity.[11]
Kaiser, Christopher B
Christopher Barina Kaiser is a noted author and scholar, with doctorates in astrophysics and Christian dogmatics.
DURING THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD! SOME HEBREWS....
-During the period of the Second Temple (c.515 BC – 70 AD), the Hebrew people lived under the rule of first the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then the Greek kingdoms of the Diadochi, and finally the Roman Empire.[47] Their culture was profoundly influenced by those of the peoples who ruled them.[47] Consequently, their views on existence after death were profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans.[48][49] The idea of the immortality of the soul is derived from Greek philosophy[49] and the idea of the resurrection of the dead is derived from Persian cosmology.[49] By the early first century AD, these two seemingly incompatible ideas were often conflated by Hebrew thinkers.[49] The Hebrews also inherited from the Persians, Greeks, and Romans the idea that the human soul originates in the divine realm and seeks to return there.[47] The idea that a human soul belongs in Heaven and that Earth is merely a temporary abode in which the soul is tested to prove its worthiness became increasingly popular during the Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BC).[40] Gradually, some Hebrews began to adopt the idea of Heaven as the eternal home of the righteous dead.[40]
(Sanders, Wright, Hundley)
joelr
Well-Known Member
Jesus is based on older myths. It's the gospel Jesus that is easiest to show is likely a myth
"Within the confines of what was then the Roman Empire, long before and during the dawn of Christianity, there were many dying-and-rising gods. And yes, they were gods—some even half-god, half-human, being of divine or magical parentage, just like Jesus (John 1:1-18; Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-35; Philippians 2:6-8 & Romans 8:3). And yes, they died. And were dead. And yes, they were then raised back to life; and lived on, even more powerful than before. Some returned in the same body they died in; some lived their second life in even more powerful and magical bodies than they died in, like Jesus did (1 Corinthians 15:35-50 & 2 Corinthians 5:1-10). Some left empty tombs or gravesites; or had corpses that were lost or vanished. Just like Jesus. Some returned to life on “the third day” after dying. Just like Jesus. All went on to live and reign in heaven (not on earth). Just like Jesus. Some even visited earth after being raised, to deliver a message to disciples or followers, before ascending into the heavens. Just like Jesus."
Every dying-and-rising god is different. Every death is different. Every resurrection is different. All irrelevant. The commonality is that there is a death and a resurrection. Everything else is a mixture of syncretized ideas from the borrowing and borrowed cultures, to produce a new and unique god and myth.
Not in ancient Asia. Or anywhere else. Only the West, from Mesopotamia to North Africa and Europe. There was a very common and popular mytheme that had arisen in the Hellenistic period—from at least the death of Alexander the Great in the 300s B.C. through the Roman period, until at least Constantine in the 300s A.D. Nearly every culture created and popularized one: the Egyptians had one, the Thracians had one, the Syrians had one, the Persians had one, and so on. The Jews were actually late to the party in building one of their own, in the form of Jesus Christ. It just didn’t become popular among the Jews, and thus ended up a Gentile religion. But if any erudite religious scholar in 1 B.C. had been asked “If the Jews invented one of these gods, what would it look like?” they would have described the entire Christian religion to a T. Before it even existed. That can’t be a coincidence.
The general features most often shared by all these cults are (when we eliminate all their differences and what remains is only what they share in common):
- They are personal salvation cults (often evolved from prior agricultural cults).
- They guarantee the individual a good place in the afterlife (a concern not present in most prior forms of religion).
- They are cults you join membership with (as opposed to just being open communal religions).
- They enact a fictive kin group (members are now all brothers and sisters).
- They are joined through baptism (the use of water-contact rituals to effect an initiation).
- They are maintained through communion (regular sacred meals enacting the presence of the god).
- They involved secret teachings reserved only to members (and some only to members of certain rank).
- They used a common vocabulary to identify all these concepts and their role.
- They are syncretistic (they modify this common package of ideas with concepts distinctive of the adopting culture).
- They are mono- or henotheistic (they preach a supreme god by whom and to whom all other divinities are created and subordinate).
- They are individualistic (they relate primarily to salvation of the individual, not the community).
- And they are cosmopolitan (they intentionally cross social borders of race, culture, nation, wealth, or even gender).
- They are all “savior gods” (literally so-named and so-called).
- They are usually the “son” of a supreme God (or occasionally “daughter”).
- They all undergo a “passion” (a “suffering” or “struggle,” literally the same word in Greek, patheôn).
- That passion is often, but not always, a death (followed by a resurrection and triumph).
- By which “passion” (of whatever kind) they obtain victory over death.
- Which victory they then share with their followers (typically through baptism and communion).
- They also all have stories about them set in human history on earth.
- Yet so far as we can tell, none of them ever actually existed.
- This is sounding even more like Christianity, isn’t it? Odd that. Just mix in the culturally distinct features of Judaism that it was syncretized with, such as messianism, apocalypticism, scripturalism, and the particularly Jewish ideas about resurrection—as well as Jewish soteriology, cosmology, and rituals, and other things peculiar to Judaism, such as an abhorrence of sexuality and an obsession with blood atonement and substitutionary sacrifice—and you literally have Christianity fully spelled out. Before it even existed.
Osiris
Dionysus
Inanna
Zalmoxis
Romulus
Asclepius
Baal
Hercules - Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier
Five Solas
Active Member
Five Solas
Active Member
I do not discuss the Quran
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Why not?
My point is that it is virtually impossible to disprove claims of "divine inspiration" with any religion, but neither is it possible to objectively prove it as well.
So we are left with competing P-values, which, it turns out, are not so competing.
joelr
Well-Known Member
I talk a lot? I answered your post which contained statements and questions. What you would do now is respond. That is how a debate forum works. Or if you cannot you maybe tell the person they talk a lot?
There is no solid proof that angel Gabrielle didn't give Muhammad updates on Christianity and is the true word of God. But there are many lines of evidence to suggest the story is not true. Same with any religion.
Let's see, post # 234 has a part of the article from Dr Carrier on earlier dying/rising savior gods and a link to the full article and original sources on each deity.
post 233 has some information from scholars Sanders, Wright and Hundley about souls being redeemed and going to heaven and a general resurrection were myths in Greek and Persian religions first and Hebrew writers incorporated them into Jewish/Christian thought. As well as a linnk to World History on the NT being a Hellenistic document.
Post 231 has a link to Dr Carriers article on how hisiorical scholarship views the NT
Post 230 has explanations of why the 2 reviews you posted were illogical and full of errors.
post 229 has a link to an essay based on Carrier, McDonald and other historians who explain how Mark wrote his Gospel (the source for the other 3) using highly fictive language and re-worked Kings, Psalms and other narratives to make Jesus the updated Moses.
3 posts before that all list scholars who take mythicism seriously.
post 224 has the Rank-Ragalin mythotype scale showing Jesus scores an almost perfect score. As well as evidence that Genesis was rewriting Mesopotamian myths in Genesis.
That's just this page.
post 207 has more proof of Genesis using older myths and even a academic paper from a Baptist Pastor/historian on Genesis using older stories instead of writing actual events.
It also list more scholars explaining Genesis uses MEsopotamian and Babylonian myths AND a link to an interview with William Dever about biblical archaeology and how it doesn't match the narrative at at all from the origin of the Israelites to the size of the empire.
From post 233 , "the resurrection of the dead is originally from Persian cosmology" I'll expand on that. DUring the 2nd Temple Period 500-100 B.C.E. the Hebrew nation was occupied by first the Persians then Greeks. During this period the OT was revised and canonized and Christainity was formed.
Revelation and the common idea that Jesus will return to bring on the final resurrection of all members and like in paradise on Earth. Except it's just a riip-off of a Persian myth. As is the NT concepts of God, Satan, and a few other additions credited to Christianity.
From Mary Boyce, leading scholar on the Persian religion -
Revelations
but Zoroaster taught that the blessed must wait for this culmination till Frashegird and the 'future body' (Pahlavi 'tan i pasen'), when the earth will give up the bones of the dead (Y 30.7). This general resurrection will be followed by the Last Judgment, which will divide all the righteous from the wicked, both those who have lived until that time and those who have been judged already. Then Airyaman, Yazata of friendship and healing, together with Atar, Fire, will melt all the metal in the mountains, and this will flow in a glowing river over the earth. All mankind must pass through this river, and, as it is said in a Pahlavi text, 'for him who is righteous it will seem like warm milk, and for him who is wicked, it will seem as if he is walking in the • flesh through molten metal' (GBd XXXIV. r 8-r 9). In this great apocalyptic vision Zoroaster perhaps fused, unconsciously, tales of volcanic eruptions and streams of burning lava with his own experience of Iranian ordeals by molten metal; and according to his stern original teaching, strict justice will prevail then, as at each individual j udgment on earth by a fiery ordeal. So at this last ordeal of all the wicked will suffer a second death, and will perish off the face of the earth. The Daevas and legions of darkness will already have been annihilated in a last great battle with the Yazatas; and the river of metal will flow down into hell, slaying Angra Mainyu and burning up the last vestige of wickedness in the universe.
Ahura Mazda and the six Amesha Spentas will then solemnize a lt, spiritual yasna, offering up the last sacrifice (after which death wW be no more), and making a preparation of the mystical 'white haoma', which will confer immortality on the resurrected bodies of all the blessed, who will partake of it. Thereafter men will beome like the Immortals themselves, of one thought, word and deed, unaging, free from sickness, without corruption, forever joyful in the kingdom of God upon earth. For it is in this familiar and beloved world, restored to its original perfection, that, according to Zoroaster, eternity will be passed in bliss, and not in a remote insubstantial Paradise. So the time of Separation is a renewal of the time of Creation, except that no return is prophesied to the original uniqueness of living things. Mountain and valley will give place once more to level plain; but whereas in the beginning there was one plant, one animal, one man, the rich variety and number that have since issued from these will remain forever. Similarly the many divinities who were brought into being by Ahura Mazda will continue to have their separate existences. There is no prophecy of their re-absorption into the Godhead. As a Pahlavi text puts it, after Frashegird 'Ohrmaid and the Amahraspands and all Yazads and men will be together. .. ; every place will resemble a garden in spring, in which
there are all kinds of trees and flowers ... and it will be entirely the creation of Ohrrnazd' (Pahl.Riv.Dd. XLVIII, 99, lOO, l07).
they were also introduced to messianism from them resulting in OT predictions that they too would get a messianic figure,
Belief in a world Saviour
An important theological development during the dark ages of 'the faith concerned the growth of beliefs about the Saoshyant or coming Saviour. Passages in the Gathas suggest that Zoroaster was filled with a sense that the end of the world was imminent, and that Ahura Mazda had entrusted him with revealed truth in order to rouse mankind for their vital part in the final struggle. Yet he must have realized that he would not himself live to see Frasho-kereti; and he seems to have taught that after him there would come 'the man who is better than a good man' (Y 43.3), the Saoshyant. The literal meaning of Saoshyant is 'one who will bring benefit' ; and it is he who will lead humanity in the last battle against evil.c and so there is no betrayal, in this development of belief in the Saoshyant, of Zoroaster's own teachings about the part which mankind has to play in the great cosmic struggle. The Saoshyant is thought of as being accompanied, like kings and heroes, by Khvarenah, and it is in Yasht r 9 that the extant Avesta has most to tell of him. Khvarenah, it is said there (vv. 89, 92, 93), 'will accompany the victorious Saoshyant ... so that he may restore 9 existence .... When Astvat-ereta comes out from the Lake K;tsaoya, messenger of Mazda Ahura ... then he will drive the Drug out from the world of Asha.' This glorious moment was longed for by the faithful, and the hope of it was to be their strength and comfort in times of adversity.
Just as belief in the coming Saviour developed its element of the miraculous, so, naturally, the person of the prophet himself came to be magnified as the centuries passed. Thus in the Younger Avesta, although never divinized, Zoroaster is exalted as 'the first priest, the first warrior, the first herdsman ... master and judge of the world' (Yt 13. 89, 9 1), one at whose birth 'the waters and plants ... and all the creatures of the Good Creation rejoiced' (Y t 13.99). Angra Mainyu, it is said, fled at that moment from the earth (Yt 17. 19); but he returned to tempt the prophet in vain, with a promise of earthly power, to abjure the faith of Ahura Mazda (Vd 19 .6
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joelr
Well-Known Member
It's all Grecko Roman philosophy. Mostly theology taken from Platonic ideas.
36:46 Tertullian (who hated Plato) borrowed the idea of hypostases (used by Philo previously) to explain the relationship between the trinity. All are of the same substance.
38:30 Origen a Neo-Platonist uses Plato’s One. A perfect unity, indivisible, incorporeal, transcending all things material. The Logos (Christ) is the creative principle that permeates the created universe
41:10
Agustine 354-430 AD taught scripture should be interpreted symbolically instead of literally after Plotinus explained Christianity was just Platonic ideas.
Thought scripture was silly if taken literally.
45:55 the ability to read Greek/Platonic ideas was lost for most Western scholars during Middle Ages. Boethius was going to translate all of Plato and Aristotle into Latin which would have altered Western history.
Theologians all based on Plato - Jesus, Agustine, Boethius Anslem, Aquinas
59:30
In some sense Christianity is taking Greco-Roman moral philosophy and theology and delivering it to the masses, even though they are unaware