How would an Historical JC be Defined?

[outhouse]

it's a hypothetical,

So is evolution and gravity.

it proves nothing

not the intention. that much is flat obvious.

it's a fallacious argument from ignorance,

brilliant!!! its a question not a argument.

ignorance, I see plenty here.

need I say more?

Nope, why start now?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

All facts, because our criteria tells us that they could not have made this **** up.

And you know what these are, because you've read recent papers on e.g., the addition of cladistics to computational stemmatics as they were applied here: Galatians.
And these are just the same ol' for you:
Barr, G. K. (2001). A computer model for the Pauline epistles. Literary and linguistic computing, 16(3), 233-250.

Spencer, M., & Howe, C. J. (2001). Estimating distances between manuscripts based on copying errors. Literary and linguistic computing, 16(4), 467-484.

Royal, K. (2012). Using Objective Stylometric Techniques to Evaluate New Testament Authorship. Journal Of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation, 8(19), 1-7


That's just textual criticism. We haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet. But no doubt you've also read criticisms (e.g., Fisher's) on those like Carrier who wish to paint the state of research as a mess of incompetence.


And you are fully aware that this "historian" can't even understand his own sources because his fundamental approach (Bayes' theorem) is not logically valid and is counter to real Bayesian statistics (which is based on updating your model given new information, whether that is obtained through permutation or resampling or actual new information).


He doesn't use "Bayes' theorem", but Bayesian statistics. He doesn't tell you this (and doesn't understand it enough to realize the flaw in his little "proof"), but Bayes' theorem cannot be used unless you know the entire sample space. Basically, you need at least two criteria:
1) All events/hypotheses have to be mutually exclusive
2) They must be collectively exhaustive

Spoiler: Definitions of criteria

Collectively exhaustive means I need to know how any and all events that could happen, and mutually exclusive means the events can't both happen. If a woman thinks she is pregnant, her hypotheses are "I am" and "I'm not", as there are no other possibilities. Moreover, she cannot be both pregnant and not pregnant, so these events are mutually exclusive.

Carrier can't use Bayes' theorem. His references (see the books listed on page 300-301) say so. Maybe some were too complicated for him, but the proof in Bayes or Bust on p. 13 is extremely basic. Of course, BT does have one advantage: Bayesian analysis is extremely useful and popular across many fields, so as long as you don't know that Bayes' theorem and Bayesian statistics aren't the same, he can claim to be doing REAL history, backed by mathematically valid models.

So why doesn't he apply his own logic to his own dissertation (written 3 years after he used Bayes' theorem in The Empty Tomb)? What kind of historian would be so credulous he thinks Aristotle, the guy who impeded physics for over a thousand years, distinguished between applied sciences and theoretical sciences?



There are two people with relevant degrees on this planet that don't believe we can say Jesus existed, and one of them has
1) Based his historical approach by misunderstanding mathematics
2) Applied completely different standards when he wants to actually produce something relevant his field, "ancient history", because if he applies the same standards, he can't produce any historical research.

 

[steeltoes]

brilliant!!! its a question not a argument.

ignorance, I see plenty here.

This was your question:

"Why is a martyred man at Passover who ended up on a cross, a bad argument?"

You asked why it's a bad argument, I answered why and then you say it's a question not an argument and then talk about ignorance. Sorry, I am not interested in playing your games.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I lost just about all respect for Carrier after Proving History.

Thanks for this.

I've been hating some people's work for so long that I need to be remind why sometimes.

 

[outhouse]

Thanks for this.

I've been hating some people's work for so long that I need to be remind why sometimes.

I quit following his work after his math book.

That and a few personal emails dealing with my threads, showed me how little he knew of some of the cultural anthropology of the temple, and Passover attendance numbers.