There is NO Historical Evidence for Jesus

[Thrillobyte]

But I do not think that there is a slam dunk either way.

Because we don't have a single document from the first 4 centuries that touches on the topic. The first whole copies of any gospels don't start showing up until roughly 330 CE. Scholars are debating in a vacuum about who came first. It's like an Abbott and Costello routine "Who's on first, what's on second, I don't know's on third."

 

[Thrillobyte]

This comes from your wiki source: There is 25% crossover between Matthew and Luke. Is that extensive? I don't know.... I think you exaggerated...

View attachment 78918

I won't split hairs on the matter. The percentages would matter to diehard scholars who go to bed dreaming of this stuff.

 

[Colt]

i suppose you practice the one and only true religion, just as everyone claims to.

No, “true religion” is generic, not subject to precise definition. Basically anyone sincerely searching for God or Gods will find Gods spiritual presence.

 

[dybmh]

I won't split hairs on the matter. The percentages would matter to diehard scholars who go to bed dreaming of this stuff.

Verbatim is still unsupported. Hopefully you recognize everything I posted in this exchange was supported and accurate. And there's no reason to exaggerate if you have a strong argument.

 

[Thrillobyte]

Verbatim is still unsupported. Hopefully you recognize everything I posted in this exchange was supported and accurate. And there's no reason to exaggerate if you have a strong argument.

I recognize your "scholarship" is better than mine. What I'm saying is that scholars can't be 100% certain of any of this. This stuff is 2000 years old and there aren't any written records to corroborate any of it. It's pure guesswork. How many times have these gospels been changed before arriving at their final product several hundred years later?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Weather if they were telling the actual truth or not is a different issue, my point is that they were not lying, they were not making things up, but rather they reported what they thought was true.

Do you grant this specific point?

I would, but it is a worthless "point". You were trying to argue that the Gospels were reliable. That does not help your case at all. Can you admit that?

We´ve been over this before

The reason for I I trust them is because most of the verifiable claims are true…….(you trust josephus for the same reason)

Nope, now you are once again not being honest. I only rely partially on Josephus. Even without Josephus Luke was wrong.

Can you quote a specific response that I ingored?

Yes, the aforementioned fact. I pointed out that when it came to the history of Quirinius that there were multiple sources on him. And especially that Josephus's coverage of him would have only been in regards to his time in Judea. Josephus focused mainly on Roman/Jewish history.

Yes local census where made in the roman empire


Maybe Joseph had properties in Bethlehem, maybe he had “paper work to do”……. Maybe he had a good reason to go to bethlehem.

LOL! Maybes are not worth a hill of beans. Now you are trying to make Joseph into something that he was not in the Bible. He was not a wealthy absentee landlord. You need to remember "maybes" are never refutations. You need evidence.

In the last presidential election in Mexico I had to “travel” to a different town to vote, because my ID had my former address. ……. My point is that joseph could have been a special case.

Oh, you are just continuing your prior error, nevermind.

But the relevant point is “so what” the claim is that Luke was correct in most of the verifiable claims that he made, so even if you find 1 or 2 errors the main claim would still be true

But was he? How would you confirm those? You do not get to assume that he was right just because he was not shown to be wrong. For example where outside of the Bible is it recorded that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Now he may have been a historical figure. But that does not confirm that he baptized Jesus. I know of one significant claim and he was wrong in that.

Then if Joseph had properties in bethlehem it makes sense for him to travel………….


You mean that you made up the lottery story to serve a literary purpose?........

Back to that nonsense.

Hey, yes! My story served that purpose. Perhaps as all of the myths of the Gospels do.

 

[lukethethird]

But is that theory about Luke copying from Matthew actually "extensive" and is it "verbatim", or is @Thrillobyte exaggerating? That's what I want to know. And I think the only way to tell is to look at some of the verses and stories and compare them.

But I can't do the choosing, because I could just pick ones that are intentionally bad examples. Although, the claim of exensive, is a bit of a stretch already. So, like, all of those crossovers are verbatim? I doubt it.

At this point, it needs to be shown that ANY are verbatim. Just 1.

What is exclusively unique to Matthew and Luke is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus that are not in Mark, and yes, mainly word for word which is why a common source such as a sayings gospel is hypothesized, or Luke merely copying Matthew.

 

[lukethethird]

No, “true religion” is generic, not subject to precise definition. Basically anyone sincerely searching for God or Gods will find Gods spiritual presence.

True, and those not searching for God or Gods seek natural explanations for their anomalous experiences, sometimes but not always finding an explanation, and are able to live with the idea of not knowing when no explanation is available.

 

[Thrillobyte]

In over 4,423 years of religious scriptures (since 2,400 BCE), nobody has ever provided any evidence that Gods exists. Therefore, it is impossible for anyone to claim any of God's attributes (e.g., all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing, wise, perfect, jealous, loving) or what God wants, thinks, did, said, etc. etc. etc. God has chosen to remain anonymous & mysterious over the millennia. I don't make the rules, I just play the game (live a productive life).

The longer I live the more I realize that the reason people say they believe in God and Jesus just boils down to them desperately trying to convince themselves there is a God because deep in the inner most pit of their gut they are terrified of the thought their life will simply be coming to an end and their consciousness obliterated forever. This is if they truly love themselves. Notice how people who don't love themselves have no worry about any of this because they know that once their life ends so does their suffering and loneliness.

So believing in some kind of God or Higher Power assures themselves that they will go on, they and their loved ones because let's face it--no one who's having a good time here on earth and lots of family and friends wants the party to end. Belief in God gives them hope the party will continue forever in heaven. It's a beautiful dream and it's a crying shame there's simply no truth to it. It's all an illusion.

13 Atheists Explain Why They Don’t Believe In God

“I must have prayed for something like 25 or 30 years. Not one single prayer was ever answered.”

thoughtcatalog.com

 

[Windwalker]

The longer I live the more I realize that the reason people say they believe in God and Jesus just boils down to them desperately trying to convince themselves there is a God because deep in the inner most pit of their gut they are terrified of the thought their life will simply be coming to an end and their consciousness obliterated forever. This is if they truly love themselves. Notice how people who don't love themselves have no worry about any of this because they know that once their life ends so does their suffering and loneliness.

This is confusing. You're saying people who love themselves are terrified of life coming to and end and their ceasing to exist as the person they were in this life? That's doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If they truly love themselves, they are contented and grateful for what time they have and don't worry about the unknown. It's those who are insecure about themselves who try to cling to life and not want to let go. And those who don't love themselves, can't truly love life and have disconnected from it. That also applies to those who escape into religion seeking to leave this world for a better one tomorrow.

The existential dread you just described about being obliterated fits the vast majority off all human beings who have ever lived regardless of whether they try to avoid this mortal confrontation with the Void, or the Abyss with religious escapism, or materialism, or some other immortality project such as leaving behind a legacy in their name, offspring to carry on their memories, towers and monuments to themselves, etc. Religion is not the only venue where people work out their Atman projects.

So believing in some kind of God or Higher Power assures themselves that they will go on, they and their loved ones because let's face it--no one who's having a good time here on earth and lots of family and friends wants the party to end. Belief in God gives them hope the party will continue forever in heaven.

There's as much escapism in religion, as there is in consumerism, alcoholism, and ego projects. But I don't believe it's because they don't want the party to end. I think that's kind of naive. I think it's because they don't want to face the Unknown. It's avoidance of a confrontation with the Void, their own nothingness. Most everyone alive lives with this, even if it's not at a conscious level, it is there like the background radiation from the Big Bang that is found in all directions of the entire universe.

It's a beautiful dream and it's a crying shame there's simply no truth to it. It's all an illusion.

You say this as though you have actual knowledge it's an illusion. How did you determine this?

 

[lukethethird]

The longer I live the more I realize that the reason people say they believe in God and Jesus just boils down to them desperately trying to convince themselves there is a God because deep in the inner most pit of their gut they are terrified of the thought their life will simply be coming to an end and their consciousness obliterated forever. This is if they truly love themselves. Notice how people who don't love themselves have no worry about any of this because they know that once their life ends so does their suffering and loneliness.

So believing in some kind of God or Higher Power assures themselves that they will go on, they and their loved ones because let's face it--no one who's having a good time here on earth and lots of family and friends wants the party to end. Belief in God gives them hope the party will continue forever in heaven. It's a beautiful dream and it's a crying shame there's simply no truth to it. It's all an illusion.

13 Atheists Explain Why They Don’t Believe In God

“I must have prayed for something like 25 or 30 years. Not one single prayer was ever answered.”

thoughtcatalog.com

It's more of an empty promise than an illusion. People have been giving money to the church for eons to hear about a life after death. It's the perfect scam because nothing is given but a promise, and no one can come back from the dead to say it's not true.

 

[joelr]

cell phones??? well, sort of

UB, 1911?-1934, printed 1955

47:10.2 John the Revelator saw a vision of the arrival of a class of advancing mortals from the seventh mansion world to their first heaven, the glories of Jerusem. He recorded: “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and those who had gained the victory over the beast that was originally in them and over the image that persisted through the mansion worlds and finally over the last mark and trace, standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God, and singing the song of deliverance from mortal fear and death.” (Perfected space communication is to be had on all these worlds; and your anywhere reception of such communications is made possible by carrying the “harp of God,” a morontia contrivance compensating for the inability to directly adjust the immature morontia sensory mechanism to the reception of space communications.)

Doesn't sound like cell phones.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Who were the ghost people of Africa? DNA reveals ancient Africans bred with new unknown race of humans just 50,000 years ago​

DANYAL HUSSAIN and JOE PINKSTONE FOR MAILONLINE

Evidence of the so-called ‘ghost population was found in modern-day people and did not match the genetic fingerprint of Homo sapiens, Denisovans or Neanderthals (pictured, artist’s impression of a neanderthal)
An extinct branch of human ancestry has been discovered lurking inside the DNA of modern-day West Africans which evolved around 500,000 years ago.

Traces of this so-called ‘ghost population’ were located in modern-day people and did not match the genetic fingerprint of Homo sapiens, Denisovans or Neanderthals.

Exactly what species the hominids belonged to is unknown, but humans mated with them around 50,000 years ago, researchers discovered.

No physical evidence — DNA from ancient bones, for example — was found, but a computer model indicates this mysterious species must exist.

Scientists at the University of California in Los Angeles say the unidentified species accounts for up to 19 per cent of the genetic ancestry of four populations in three countries: two from Nigeria, one from Sierra Leone and one from the Gambia.......


Cont>Who were the ghost people of Africa? DNA reveals ancient Africans bred with new unknown race of humans just 50,000 years ago.

Urantia Book 1911?-34, printed 1955
64:6.10 2. The orange man. The outstanding characteristic of this race was their peculiar urge to build, to build anything and everything, even to the piling up of vast mounds of stone just to see which tribe could build the largest mound. Though they were not a progressive people, they profited much from the schools of the Prince and sent delegates there for instruction.

64:6.11 The orange race was the first to follow the coast line southward toward Africa as the Mediterranean Sea withdrew to the west. But they never secured a favorable footing in Africa and were wiped out of existence by the later arriving green race.

64:6.12 Before the end came, this people lost much cultural and spiritual ground. But there was a great revival of higher living as a result of the wise leadership of Porshunta, the master mind of this unfortunate race, who ministered to them when their headquarters was at Armageddon some three hundred thousand years ago.

64:6.13 The last great struggle between the orange and the green men occurred in the region of the lower Nile valley in Egypt. This long-drawn-out battle was waged for almost one hundred years, and at its close very few of the orange race were left alive. The shattered remnants of these people were absorbed by the green and by the later arriving indigo men. But as a race the orange man ceased to exist about one hundred thousand years ago.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Urantia Book​

Paper 74​

ADAM AND EVE​

74:0.1 ADAM AND EVE arrived on Urantia, from the year A.D. 1934, 37,848 years ago. It was in midseason when the Garden was in the height of bloom that they arrived. At high noon and unannounced, the two seraphic transports, accompanied by the Jerusem personnel intrusted with the transportation of the biologic uplifters to Urantia, settled slowly to the surface of the revolving planet in the vicinity of the temple of the Universal Father. All the work of rematerializing the bodies of Adam and Eve was carried on within the precincts of this newly created shrine. And from the time of their arrival ten days passed before they were re-created in dual human form for presentation as the world's new rulers. They regained consciousness simultaneously. The Material Sons and Daughters always serve together. It is the essence of their service at all times and in all places never to be separated. They are designed to work in pairs; seldom do they function alone.





Clip source UBtheNEWS

According to The Urantia Book, which was published in 1955, the first human beings (roughly corresponding to Homo erectus) evolved about 1,000,000 years ago. It also recounts that almost 38,000 years ago Adam and Eve introduced some genetic upgrades into our gene pool, which enhanced brain function and resistance to disease (roughly corresponding with Homo sapiens sapiens). The authors extensively recount the development of the civilization that Adam and Eve started and how their descendants migrated around the world and mixed with other races. The Urantia Book provides specific information regarding time periods, places, degree of admixture with other races, and the impact on language and other aspects of culture.

Starting in 2004 numerous reports started to be published relating to portions of the Y chromosome and the Microcephalin gene. The Microcephalin gene play a critical role in the growth of the brain. The research results closely correlate with what The Urantia Book says about the spread of the genetic and cultural contributions of Adam and Eve. The research into Microcephalin indicates that new genetic material was introduced into the Microcephalin gene about 37,000 years ago and that the rest of the Microcephalin gene was approximately 990,000 years old. None of the obvious explanations for how new material might have been introduced fit well with the results of the research. It then spread into most of the human population quite rapidly, excepting sub-Saharan Africa. Similarly, Y chromosome related studies also document how some types of mutations or other changes occurred around 40,000 years ago, originating in the Mesopotamia region, and spreading quickly into most of humanity, excepting sub-Saharan Africa.

Is this UB claim a coincidental cold-hit by fraudsters?????

Microcephalin, a Gene Regulating Brain Size, Continues to Evolve Adaptively in Humans

Yes coincidence. Some super race would leave super information, not vague occasional coincidences

 

[Colt]

True, and those not searching for God or Gods seek natural explanations for their anomalous experiences, sometimes but not always finding an explanation, and are able to live with the idea of not knowing when no explanation is available.

The Gods send us explanations in the form of revelation. The habits of God can be seen in nature.

 

[Colt]

Doesn't sound like cell phones.







Yes coincidence. Some super race would leave super information, not vague occasional coincidences

We are spiritual beings having a human “faith” experience on an evolutionary world. God is so obvious it’s blinding! This quest for truth is by design.

 

[joelr]

The topic is exaggerations. And McGrath makes a good point that the RR scale does not contribute to probability.

it contributes to the posterior probability.

If you could do a root cause analysis, you'd see why typing out Carrier's criteria isn't helpful

You tried to demonstrate Carrier is a liar. He is not. You were wrong. His criteria is helpful.

Settle Dr. Joel, simmer-down.

My response is justified.

He doesn't address the exaggerations and neither do you. All you've said is, "the scale can be exaggerated because it's a myth". And, "it's not that important. "

And I've asked this several times, from the beginning. If it's not that important, why include it?

HE does. Another thing you would encounter if you studies the argument first, then formed an opinion on it..


“I don’t use Raglan’s definitions precisely because they don’t match how he employs them. I adjust the definitions to the actual trope, per the advice of Dundes.”

My Rank-Raglan Scoring for Osiris • Richard Carrier Blogs

The first question anyone has to answer when answering the question “How likely is it that Jesus was a mythical and not a historical person?” is “How often, at that time, were people like Jesus mythical and not historical?” And that requires answering the question, “What does it mean to be like...

www.richardcarrier.info

You wouldn't need to do all that typing if you would answer for yourself. And maybe the answer is: "I don't know why it's included if it's not that important."

"

You can’t define genres and tropes out of existence with semantic legerdemain. Clearly these genres and tropes exist. It would be more appropriate to just admit that and work from it being a fact, rather than try to make it go away because you are uncomfortable with the result.
Serious literary analysis requires honestly engaging with the actual semantic range of meaningful tropes and plot-points in replicated genres and mythotypes. In other words, you should not be stumping for either of the above fallacies. If you are, you have some soul-searching to do. You need to ask yourself why you are doing that. Because there is no valid literary reason to be doing it.
That’s the point of my John Wick and Ten Ways analogies: they make the impertinence of these tactics quite clear. Genres clearly exist. They also clearly have wide semantic ranges. But they also just as clearly don’t have infinite semantic ranges.
How you structurally understand a replicated trope defines its actual semantic range. These are not just random arbitrary boxes to check, that someone just made up. The tropes constituting a genre or mythotype have a structural role, one that curiously repeatedly appears in different ways; hence how you define and locate instantiations of them thus requires focusing on that structural function, rather than disregarding it.
What actually is it that we see continually repeated in curious conjunctions over and over again for hero after hero? You need to look at that, and not try to hyper-define entire genres out of existence. Yes, there will be edge cases, and a fortiori, we might choose not to count them (e.g. Osiris is fostered, but not in a foreign place); but not every variation of a theme is “therefore” an edge case (e.g. Hercules is indeed hailed a king at one point; and he does rule a few times even apart from actually earning an exact title)."

Not an actual king,

“Osiris is born to Cronus, “king” of the Titans “, not an actual king, still scores as a king on RR.

no actual kingdom,

That Jesus was not acknowledged the king by everyone is not relevant either. He was so acknowledged by the people (in the triumphal entry, explicitly quoting and citing and replicating the events of Zechariah 9, which is about hailing the king). And even ironically by the state (in his crucifixion inscription, and Jesus tricking Pilate into admitting he was the king of the Jews: a joke the authors put there on purpose). The Gospels very clearly struggle to establish this element, while maintaining the verisimilitude of not inventing a state-recognized king history did not record. So it very definitely scores. It is indeed a very good example of how hard the authors deliberately tried to make Jesus conform to the trope, while still fitting the actual recorded history of Judea. That’s evidence of mythologization, the very thing this trope signifies.


And yes, Jesus is literally driven from the capital city. The very city whose populace hailed him their king with hosannas and quotations of scripture just days before.

not actually spirited away,

Even the paper that argues against Carriers' use of RR gives him this one. He was spirited away.

no actual battle satan is not actually defeated,

And the contest with Satan is certainly an emulation of solving the Riddle of the Sphinx, the paradigm model used in the Rank-Raglan scheme. It very definitely rates. The differences are irrelevant. Satan is an adversary, and as Satan himself proposes in the encounter, a rival king. Satan was well known to the composers of the Gospels as the dragon (of Eden fame), even a rival superpower (as Paul said, Satan was the God of This Age). But clearly even in the Gospels, a rival ruler, whom Jesus must defeat before the triumphal entry. A sequence that peculiarly matches the ubiquitous hero trope. That he doesn’t use a sword is irrelevant. Just as Oedipus defeated the Sphinx (and thus scores) by word and will alone, so does Jesus.

mary s not actually royal...

That was my argument, where does Carrier say Mary is royalty?

No, I went through the list myself, ranked Jesus a 4-5, i think. I asked the OP to justify the 20 out of 22 score. The best that was presented as a 14. You haven't been able to justify the 19 without going to Paul and the Catholic church. Then I wen and did a search found McGrath's article. It makes perfect sense, there's no apologizing in it anywhere. Carrier is simply inaccurate. Then I read Carrier's response and it is still inaccurate. he misrepresents what McGrath said. And he makes a further exaggeration about Moses.

I give him 19. Price gives him a very high score as does R. Lataster in his peer-reviewed monograph.

All arguments against it fail to even understand the RR hero type and the 15 examples rated.

And then you bring more Carrier, you don't pull out any reasons why McGrath is an apologist

Becaue he says things that are not true in defense of his religion

You just post blog-posts, but it doesn't look like you read them, or checked to see if what they said were true. I read the first paragraph of Carrier's blog that you brought. Then I went to check to see if it was true what Carrie said. it was 100% false AGAIN.

What do you find false?

Carrier says, based on someone else's quote, it seems, that McGrath's complaint is that any 1 of the 3 criteria individually do not support the theory. But... McGrath says the opposite, ALL 3 COMBINED don't support the theory. Even if they're all true, they don't support it.

McGgrath doesn't engage with Carrier's arguments at all. As the comments in the article say:
While Professor McGrath raises a number of questions about the usefulness of the Rank-Raglan list of hero archetypes he fails to address Richard Carrier’s specific argument and use of the list.

Firstly, although McGrath refers three times to the list being used as a tool for “determining the historicity” of Jesus, Carrier in fact uses the list only to establish a prior likelihood of probability that Jesus would score as highly as he does if he were historical. This is set out (pp. 214-234) in the beginning of Carrier’s book where he sets out “background information” and again in his assessment of prior probability (pp. 235-53) before embarking on the main section of his book (pp. 254-618) where he undertakes his assessment of arguments for and against Jesus’ historicity.

Secondly, contrary to an impression a reader may take from the above review, Carrier explains that he is prepared to concede that one in three names that appear to score highly on the Rank-Raglan scale might indeed by historical (pp. 241-244). So simply finding several historical names to sit alongside the mythical ones (Carrier even allows one in three historical names) is beside the point and fails to address Carrier’s specific argument. Carrier repeatedly points out that he is attempting to argue a fortiori in favour of Jesus being historical and to this end his arguments is simply that it is comparatively rare for historical persons to score highly on the list (p. 243).

Thirdly, McGrath questions the relevance of later developments of mythical details but Carrier does in fact rely upon the details of Jesus found only in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew (pp. 232, 239).

As for the function and origin of the Rank-Raglan list itself, while McGrath discusses the Freudian associations of Otto Rank’s list he overlooks the fact that Lord Raglan’s list (the one Carrier uses) is quite different in that it has no Freudian associations at all (See Part II of Lord Raglan’s The Hero). It is, moreover, simply a classification of those types of myths that were thought to have originated as from religious rituals. The debates to which McGrath refers in his review do not question the validity or reality of the elements themselves but are instead focussed on the disagreements over literary versus other cultural approaches in anthropological studies. Alan Dundes, whom McGrath cites, in fact himself uses the same Raglan list to score Jesus very highly indeed. (See Alan Dundes, "The Hero Pattern and the Life of Jesus," in Otto Rank et al. "In Quest of the Hero," Princeton University Press, (1990), Page 179 to 223) (Segal, also quoted by McGrath, similarly scores Jesus highly.) So McGrath’s assertion that his own belief that Jesus should not be taken as a more objective conclusion than Carrier’s score.

McGrath is correct when he says that the conformity to a list does not itself determine the historicity or otherwise of a character. Lord Raglan explained why this is the case: in the case of historical persons one can peel away the mythical layers and still identify nonmythical historical substance. Carrier does not dispute this and in fact buids this fact into his assessement of prior probability.

McGrath has unfortunately missed an opportunity to address Carrier’s argument concerning the Rank-Raglan case -- that what the list demonstrates is that a person who ranks highly finds him/herself in the company of more mythical persons than historical ones. This is a prior probability only, and not used by Carrier to “determine” the question of the historicity of Jesus.

 

[joelr]

And that's where I stopped reading. Why should I continue. It's a waste of time, Dr. Joel. Carrier cannot be trusted.

Which is a fallacy, bad scholarship and crank. Besides that the original conjecture is wrong, but even if it were not it would still be those things.

But it is wrong because all of McGrath's points are not about things that Carrier is saying. THEN McGrath goes and lists other people on the RR list that also use the same style Carrier uses? So it's fine for him to find counter examples of real people on the list using a loser reading but with Jesus, no can't do that?


Apologist.
You stopped reading because McGrath gets exposed.

In Which James McGrath Reveals That He Is a Fundamentalist Who Has Never Read Any Contemporary Scholarship in His Field • Richard Carrier Blogs

The title of this article is a joke. Sort of. But maybe not as much as you think. As I’ll show. Because James McGrath has added another entry to his bizarrely uninformed critique of On the Historicity of Jesus, and this time is the most dishonest of the bunch. For to get the result he wants, he...

www.richardcarrier.info

The only evidence you're brining is that Carrier exaggerates and misrepresents. He exaggerated the RR scale. And he misrepesents the opposing point of view and calls them names. In the last blog post I mentioned, it seemed like he copied somone else, who as speaking incorrectly about McGrath. So he, like you, isn't checking his sources. If you are in this club, the PHD-bible-critic club that doesn't check it's sources, just copies off each other. I hope you are starting to see what failed enterpise that is.

No, it has been explained Carrier is using the RR scale exactly correct. It has been explained thta McGrath is making up a different argument because he's an apologist and is mad hat Jesus is being put on this list.

Failed enterprise is you not understanding the argument and methods and believing an apologist.

I say "enterprise" for a reason. Have you ever heard of the "Peter Principle"? Like "petering out" Like losing effecacy.

Peter principle - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Basically it descrbes a condition where all the leaders at the top of a group are completely incompetent. And it appears that what's happened with the PHD-bible-critic-club. If Y'all copy off of each other without checking sources in college and universtity and demonize anyone who finds fault. And diplomas are given to those who do the same thing. Copy each other, don't check sources, and demonize, pretty soon everyone's incompetent and no one ever ever checks sources, and the errors are compounded and compounded and compounded.

Says the guy using one apologist article as a source. An article that is completely wrong with all of it's points.

When are you going to start checking your sources, Dr. Joel. You can break this cycle of incompetence.

I always check my sources. Sometimes people get butthurt and maybe accuse me of not checking and pretending like there is some cycle of incompetence. If that happened it's all make believe.

Not true. I just have found your sources are not chosen for accuracy. And it's amazing that you haven't adjusted your methods after having been shown this over and over and over again.

You haven't shown anything. You failed to read Carriers book and could have read the blog posts I gave where all is explained. Now you are stuck defending an apologist with a nonsense argument who also didn't read the book parts that explain RR.

Right, what's wrong with that. You haven't explained anything. What McGrath said above is true.

He's still wrong.


"McGrath closes with a quote of Dundes:


The fact that a hero’s biography conforms to the Indo-European hero pattern does not necessarily mean that the hero never existed. It suggests rather that the folk repeatedly insist upon making their versions of the lives of heroes follow the lines of a specific series of incidents. Accordingly, if the life of Jesus conforms in any way with the standard hero pattern, this proves nothing one way or the other with respect to the historicity of Jesus.

McGrath evidently thinks x “does not necessarily mean” y means x cannot make y more probable. Sorry. No. That’s not how math works. Dundes said nothing about a high score not being able to up the probability of non-historicity. He only said it does not entail non-historicity. Which is exactly what I say myself. Repeatedly. In the book. Which McGrath is starting to show little sign of having read.


If x increases the probability of y by 10% or 50% or even 80%, it would still be true that x “does not necessarily mean” y. So quoting someone saying x “does not necessarily mean” y tells you nothing about the one thing you actually want to know: whether x increases the probability of y. Even when Dundes says Jesus scoring high (and Dundes fully agrees he does, by the way, contrary to McGrath) “proves nothing one way or the other with respect to” historicity he is simply repeating the same point: it does not prove Jesus did not exist. He can’t mean anything more than that, because he uses the logical connector “accordingly,” so he is saying the second statement follows from the first, and is not a separate additional point being made.

But even if Dundes made the same error McGrath just did, and mistook x does not entail y as meaning x cannot increase the probability of y, in actual fact, and indeed perhaps unknown to Dundes (who did not study Bayesian reasoning or how reference classes work, or set theory or probability theory), when we look at the available data, the Rank-Raglan profile does prove “something” with respect to historicity: it proves high scoring members are more often not historical.

And that means just what I explain in the book:


Just as ‘the prior probability that Jesus was raised from the dead by a supernatural agency is the same as the prior probability that a supernatural agency raised Romulus from the dead, or Asclepius [etc.]’, so, too, the prior probability that Jesus is historical is the same as the prior probability that Romulus is historical, or Moses or Hercules or anyone else in the same class. Again, as with the resurrection claim, the evidence in the case of Jesus can be much stronger than for any of the others; but that is accounted for with the consequent probabilities. Here we’re only talking about the prior probability. We’ll get to the evidence later. The prior probability is not the posterior probability, and only the latter is the probability that Jesus existed. But we have to start somewhere, and this is the best starting point, because here the frequency data are sufficiently clear and there is no narrower reference class we can say the same for. (p. 239)


It’s clear McGrath did not read this. Or did not understand it. Because he has no response to it.

McGrath does not attempt to show the ratio of historical to non-historical persons in the high Rank-Ragan set is different than the ratios I propose. Nor does he then apply his ratio to see how that changes the probability that Jesus existed.


So McGrath actually doesn’t know whether the ratio is any different than I say, or if it is, whether that even makes the historicity of Jesus likely, or how likely it makes it. Which means McGrath has nothing to contribute to this debate."

 

[joelr]

Um, dude, this is not talking about McGrath's critique of the useage of the RR scale. And like I pointed out in the posts you replied to, this is FALSE. McGrath doesn't say this at all. And I quoted what McGrath *actually* said. But it's not in the article about the RRscale. McGrath says all three criteria IN TOTAL don't support the argument. So it's not that he didn't read Carrier's book, or understand. It's that Caririe's claim that "all three combined" are not significant. Thats what McGrath said.

Carrier said: - "No one of these criteria is sufficient to identify a narrative as mythical. But the presence of all three is conclusive. And the presence of one or two can also be sufficient, when sufficiently telling."

Godfrey continues with -

"(McGrath) Ignoring Carrier’s point that “no one of these criteria is sufficient to identify a narrative as mythical but the presence of all three is conclusive” McGrath proceeds to “protest” that “no one of these criteria is sufficient to identify a narrative as mythical”. Not only that, but he completely fails to grasp the difference between “emulation” and “similarity“.

Since similarity between real events and other real events is not at all unlikely, and on the contrary well documented, the first alleged characteristic of myth simply doesn’t work.

Now the article in question is missing. It's from McGrath's review on Carrier's OHJ.

But here you are mismatching what's being quoted and the topic, and losing track of the debate. You're frustrated, I understand. Your sources are failing you.

I know where I am in the debate. Winning. Frustrated, sure because it takes you like 17 posts to lose after trying all tricks in the book.

My sources are fine, I have many more.

But that doesn't mean Gospel Jesus is true. All it means is that your PHD club can't be trusted for accuracy.

A claim you cannot seem to produce evidence. Everyone makes mistakes so eventually ....

But thats not what McGrath *actually* said. It's the opposite of what he said.

Are you talking about the article with th eedit???

[Edit: Possibly McGrath didn’t realize the logic of his argument entailed this. See comment. Some mistook Godfrey’s description as a direct quote, despite the fact that it is literally verbatim, which should have clued them in. Godfrey and I are describing the logic of McGrath’s argument, and pointing out the fact that it ignores the actual argument is disrespectful and insulting. Not a lie. Only in subsequent sections do I catalog McGrath’s lies.]

Which is ironic, because Carrier is claiming McGrath said something McGrath didn't actually say.

The article where Carrier admits he took a quote from Godfrey incorrectly? That is your big point?

And somehow now everything else is "unreadable"??

But since you still aren't checking your sources for accuracy, you'd never know what McGrath actually said. Instead, You heard McGrath criticised someone in your club, and immediately you lashed out with the name-calling ( it's basically bigotry ). And you still haven't been able to find the fault in what McGrath said. Your quote from McGrath's critic of Carrier's RRscale is 100% true. It isn't appropriate for contributing to the probability of Jesus as a myth. Certianly not if the tally is exaggerated.

I have explained what Mcgrath got wrong. For anyone who CAn get past th eedit up front it's here:

In Which James McGrath Reveals That He Is a Fundamentalist Who Has Never Read Any Contemporary Scholarship in His Field • Richard Carrier Blogs

The title of this article is a joke. Sort of. But maybe not as much as you think. As I’ll show. Because James McGrath has added another entry to his bizarrely uninformed critique of On the Historicity of Jesus, and this time is the most dishonest of the bunch. For to get the result he wants, he...

www.richardcarrier.info

Carrier uses the RR scale correctly:

“I don’t use Raglan’s definitions precisely because they don’t match how he employs them. I adjust the definitions to the actual trope, per the advice of Dundes.”

and his use of the scale as a small part of prior-probability:

" I use it to establish a prior probability. Which is not sufficient to demonstrate non-historicity. As I explicitly explain on pp. 238-39 and 252-53. So McGrath is actually just repeating what I already explained in the book, as if I didn’t know this, and didn’t take it into account. And somehow he thinks this is a valid criticism. That bespeaks a befuddling failure to pay attention to the very book he claims to be reading."

And then you brought a misquote of McGrath talking about a totally different issue, not the RRscale. And here' Carrier complaining about misquoting, while at the same time misquoting. That's the perfect example of what's happening in this thread.

Show me, I can make mistakes. I don't see a mistake? But its' possible. Has nothing to do with Carrier's use of RR.

You have FAITH in Carrier, you don't check to see if it's true, and complain that I don't care about what's true. But I'm the one checking sources and you're not. Whatever you were taught to earn the PHD doesn't seem to be very useful for turth-seeking.

Yeah right, that's hilarious. Mr FACTS. Or should I say Mr "I didn't read anything else because trust issues....."

No it doesn't entail that!

McGrath's claim:

Criteria 1 ---> myth is false, because of a valid counter example
Criteria 2 ---> myth is false, because of a valid counter example
Criteria 3 ---> myth is false, because of a valid counter example

Then, these three can be re-written as true statements.

Criteria 1 ---> NOT myth is true
Criteria 2 ---> NOT myth is true
Criteria 3 ---> NOT myth is true

Now the three can be joined in a true logical conjunction

(Criterian 1 ---> NOT myth) AND (Criteria 2 ---> NOT myth) AND ( Criteria 3 ---> NOT myth ) is true.

Then using the truth tables for logical implication/entailment ( the arrows ) and for conjunctions ( the ands ), this simplifies to:

( Criteria 1 AND Criteria 2 AND Criteria 3 ) ---> NOT myth.

McGrath is saying even if all three criteria are met, it still doesn't entail a myth.

Carrier isn't giving a syllogism, with these 3 myth markers.

"
We see this again in his treatment of my mythic marker criteria, which I did not invent (as McGrath dishonestly implies) but adopted from mainstream scholarship. As Godfrey also pointed out, McGrath does not address what I mean by mythical emulation as one of the three criteria. He says instead that mere similarities are inevitable; thereby implying I neither looked for nor found anything more than that. He doesn’t mention the example I give (Virgil’s emulation of Homer), which refutes him, or the mainstream peer reviewed scholarship I cite arguing my very point (I didn’t make this criterion up).

Nor does McGrath reveal that I actually address the importance of distinguishing inevitable similarities from actual emulations in my methodological primer for OHJ, Proving History (pp. 192-203), which he also reviewed and thus claims to have read. Nor does he offer any rebuttal to my solution. So again, McGrath is lying to you about what I said, and trying to make it look like I said something else.

McGrath also confuses my third criterion (the presence of uncorroborated persons and events as key to the story) as meaning lack of corroboration entails their non-historicity. I never say any such thing. All I said was, when that happens, that ups the probability, but does not guarantee, that we are looking at a myth. I said nothing about having determined anything as non-historical from such a criterion alone, and in fact elsewhere in the book I explain in detail that that can’t be done (e.g., chs. 2.1 and 8.3-4). McGrath effectively lies to you, by not telling you that, and telling you instead that I said the opposite of what in fact I actually said.

"

Well, I'd have to fact check each one of these. And since he over-reacts, and seems to fail at logic, I don't see why I should.

something about finding out what is actually tr.... never mind.

No. It is inaccurate. If the items on the scale are subjective the scale is meaningless. Therefore they MUST have intended for the items to be literal. Literal royalty. Literal king. Literal kingdom. Literal battle. Literally defeating the beast.

Otherwise I'm a myth cause I'm the king of our convo, and I defeated Carrier's beastly exaggerations.

Carrier studies experts and actual 15 examples.

"

You can’t define genres and tropes out of existence with semantic legerdemain. Clearly these genres and tropes exist. It would be more appropriate to just admit that and work from it being a fact, rather than try to make it go away because you are uncomfortable with the result.
Serious literary analysis requires honestly engaging with the actual semantic range of meaningful tropes and plot-points in replicated genres and mythotypes. In other words, you should not be stumping for either of the above fallacies. If you are, you have some soul-searching to do. You need to ask yourself why you are doing that. Because there is no valid literary reason to be doing it.
That’s the point of my John Wick and Ten Ways analogies: they make the impertinence of these tactics quite clear. Genres clearly exist. They also clearly have wide semantic ranges. But they also just as clearly don’t have infinite semantic ranges.
How you structurally understand a replicated trope defines its actual semantic range. These are not just random arbitrary boxes to check, that someone just made up. The tropes constituting a genre or mythotype have a structural role, one that curiously repeatedly appears in different ways; hence how you define and locate instantiations of them thus requires focusing on that structural function, rather than disregarding it.
What actually is it that we see continually repeated in curious conjunctions over and over again for hero after hero? You need to look at that, and not try to hyper-define entire genres out of existence. Yes, there will be edge cases, and a fortiori, we might choose not to count them (e.g. Osiris is fostered, but not in a foreign place); but not every variation of a theme is “therefore” an edge case (e.g. Hercules is indeed hailed a king at one point; and he does rule a few times even apart from actually earning an exact title)."

No, you clearly don't even know what that word means.

It often means using confirmation bias, cognitive bias, or historical rewrites to prove something true that may not actually have good evidence.

He's caught exaggerating, and you called the critic an apologist without knowing a single thing about him. And even in the link you brought above, he's called a fundementalist, but that has nothing to do with anything.

Because I don't have "trust issues" with Carrier and I read his blogs where he demonstrates an apologist-y method McGrath uses.

When are you going to start checking the accuracy of your sources?

I have been saying the same thing all along. The irony is had you read why McGrath is wrong you would not need defend a losing battle.

 

[joelr]

A story from the age of 12 correcting the other scholars IS a story from his childhood.

Carrier uses "virtually no childhood information". As explained RR use of the criteria are how he uses them

You posted it, you should have mentioned that the first part was false the needed a correction. And still... the edit is wrong too.

As I posted above: McGrath's claim is a logical conjunction, not a disjunction. He's saying EVEN if all three are true, it's still not a myth. That's how entailment works:

McGrath's claim:

Criteria 1 ---> myth is false, because of a valid counter example
Criteria 2 ---> myth is false, because of a valid counter example
Criteria 3 ---> myth is false, because of a valid counter example

Then, these three can be re-written as true statements.

Criteria 1 ---> NOT myth is true
Criteria 2 ---> NOT myth is true
Criteria 3 ---> NOT myth is true

Now the three can be joined in a true logical conjunction

(Criterian 1 ---> NOT myth) AND (Criteria 2 ---> NOT myth) AND ( Criteria 3 ---> NOT myth ) is true.

Then using the truth tables for logical implication/entailment ( the arrows ) and for conjunctions ( the ands ), this simplifies to:

( Criteria 1 AND Criteria 2 AND Criteria 3 ) ---> NOT myth.

McGrath is saying even if all three criteria are met, it still doesn't entail a myth.

So here is what I actually said: the more improbabilities that are stacked in a story, the more likely the story is to be myth. Does McGrath have a rebuttal to that? To what I actually said? No, he does not. Nor could he. Because I’m right. And it would make him look like a fool to deny so obvious a principle.

McGrath also says my criteria would establish 1 Maccabees as myth, “but,” he complains, someone said 17 years ago (!) that 1 Maccabees was totes history and not at all mytho-historical fiction. Since he doesn’t actually perform the procedure I describe, and that he claims would get this result, on the text of 1 Maccabees, I get to call bull****.

I am fairly certain the Gospels perform far worse by all three of my criteria than 1 Maccabees. And yet, everyone agrees there is myth and fiction in 1 Maccabees. The Gospels, many times more so. And that’s precisely what makes the difference between history with some myth in it, and myth with some history in it. Again, McGrath has no rebuttal to what I actually said. Because he cannot deny that what I actually said is correct. And, again, denying it would make him look like a fool. So he has to lie and pretend I said something else.

In a sense, even McGrath’s entire thesis is a lie: he tries arguing at length that I am wrong to dismiss the Gospels as of any use because some history may yet be in a myth-heavy narrative. A fact I never deny. To the contrary, I repeatedly say, “There is no good case to be made that any scene in Mark reflects a historical Jesus. Because most scenes clearly do not, and even if any do, we cannot discern which, or what in them is historical” (OHJ, p. 456); “There is in fact no way to discern what if anything Matthew has added to Mark has any historical basis, or even a source (and its having a source would still in no way establish that it’s historical…),” so “The burden is therefore on anyone who would insist there is anything in Matthew that is any more authentic than what’s in Mark,” otherwise, “Even if any historical facts about Jesus are in it, we have no way to identify them” (OHJ, p. 469); “Even if any historical facts about Jesus are in [Luke], we have no way to identify them” (OHJ, p. 487). Etc.

Not really. It's a myth that Jesus is a myth.

Sure, to apologists. To some historians there is a chance he is a myth.

He is.

Still waiting for evidence.

First, please be honest. Did you read the myth yourself? Which version? Who translated it? When was it dated?
Second, did you keep track of the differences?

These are simple questions.

That's cute. From Mr "can't read anything in this debate except one apologist artice".

Trust issues and all.

I'm not doing your conspiracy theory or other things unmentioned.

It looks like the academic review is 50/50:

Two academic reviews of On the Historicity of Jesus now exist: one positive by Raphael Lataster published in the Journal of Religious History (38.4, 2014, pp. 614-16); and one negative

On the Historicity of Jesus: The Daniel Gullotta Review • Richard Carrier Blogs

Two academic reviews of On the Historicity of Jesus now exist: one positive by Raphael Lataster published in the Journal of Religious History (38.4, 2014, pp. 614-16); and one negative by Daniel Gullotta published in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus (15.2-3, 2017, pp. 310-46)...

www.richardcarrier.info

Read Carrier's response here- On the Historicity of Jesus: The Daniel Gullotta Review • Richard Carrier there are positive and negative points.

Do you own that book? Please snap a quick photo of the page ( or a screenshot ) with that quotation so I can read the context. What relation does Segal have to Rank and Raglan?

And none of this comments on whether the "king" is a literal king or not. Just because the king is divine, that doesn't mean it was a fake king. a wanna-be king that never made it to the throne and nevere actually had a kingdom, but his followers decided to pretend there was a spiritual throne and a spiritual kingdom, and some day some day, that actual jkingdom will be realized.

That Jesus was not acknowledged the king by everyone is not relevant either. He was so acknowledged by the people (in the triumphal entry, explicitly quoting and citing and replicating the events of Zechariah 9, which is about hailing the king). And even ironically by the state (in his crucifixion inscription, and Jesus tricking Pilate into admitting he was the king of the Jews: a joke the authors put there on purpose). The Gospels very clearly struggle to establish this element, while maintaining the verisimilitude of not inventing a state-recognized king history did not record. So it very definitely scores. It is indeed a very good example of how hard the authors deliberately tried to make Jesus conform to the trope, while still fitting the actual recorded history of Judea. That’s evidence of mythologization, the very thing this trope signifies.

Nah, not till I read it will I believe that's what was intended. And honestly, even if Segal has decided that the RR can be stretched to fit those things, it doesn't change the simple fact that my daughter is now a myth, and I'm a myth, and Obama is a myth, and everythin is now a myth if the scale is exaggerated.

It simply cannot be subjective and be meaningful.

“I don’t use Raglan’s definitions precisely because they don’t match how he employs them. I adjust the definitions to the actual trope, per the advice of Dundes.”

My Rank-Raglan Scoring for Osiris • Richard Carrier Blogs

The first question anyone has to answer when answering the question “How likely is it that Jesus was a mythical and not a historical person?” is “How often, at that time, were people like Jesus mythical and not historical?” And that requires answering the question, “What does it mean to be like...

www.richardcarrier.info

"

Oedipus is also completely uninterested in being a king and is later surprised to find out he is to become one; so again, clearly that has nothing to do with the criterion, and is an irrelevant difference among the manifestations of the same trope. You need to realize that these are the same bogus techniques used by Marshall: claiming different ways to realize a trope, eliminates the trope. False. The similarities establish the trope. The differences are what keep every hero on the list from just being Oedipus. If such trivial differences mattered, there could never even in principle be fifteen members of the set, because only the same one identical person could be in the set!


"

Pick one. Any of them and let's discuss it. Please choose one where there is a full version of the myth that we both can read and refer to. I don't mind buying a book, if it's digital, and not too spendy, if that's what's needed. Just pick one.

Carrier claims to have studied Dundes and all of the original RR myths and Ragalin's wording in his descritions and use.

"

“But the central point is that at some point in his myth he is hailed a king (or in Raglan’s employment, “does” rule, whether literally as a king or not).


That this is supposed to happen at a certain point in the narrative is not an element of the scoring (some of the points relate to ordering; but this doesn’t). But even if we use Raglan’s wording, he isn’t using the word king literally, but only in reference to ruling, whether actually or in mere proclamation, either one satisfied the pattern."


So he clearly did the work here. If some apologists single article impresses you that much then good on you. I'm not impressed and Carrier completely debunked it. I gave a list of links.

Then let's drop it. If it doesn't matter, then that's the actual answer Dr. Joel. It could be exaggerated and it doesn't matter. It could be literal and it doesn't matter. Jesus could be a zero on the RR scale and it doesn't matter.

If you ant to talk about a myth, pick one from the list you brought and let's talk about it. Just please be sure to pick one where a full version of the myth exists. OK?

And none of that is going to change the opinion of Carrier, Price or Lataster, who also happen to have the time and skill to back-study the genre and make an application of their own and are PhD historical scholars focusing on Jesus and similar.

 

[joelr]

But you didn't see anything that she wasn't a green lesbian from Jupiter. This is YOUR logic, Joel. You said you didn't see anything where she wasn't the queen of heaven. That's super-duper weak. It doesn't mean anything. She's not royal because you didn't see something saying she isn't.

Where does Carrier say Mary was Royal?

Sure ya do. The bigger God has an affair with a human concubine. The concubine is not royalty. I thought you knew mythology. This is standard pagan god-stuff. The bigger God wants a romp with a human, so, it does so and produces a baby-God.

Zeus has affairs, not NT Yahweh. I gave sources for Mary's royal status, you ignored those. Ok?

No. Not really. Not in a royal house, not with royal responsibilites. Not with royal assets. Never referred to as royal. None of Jesus' siblings are royal.

I gave sources. But Carrier doesn't put this concept forward.

But none of that happened. He never got that throne. He doesn't rule over Jacob. This is Catholic. So, its not in the gospels that mary is a queen. It's a later Catholic invention. Again, casting the net wider and wider until you catch something.



That doesn't say he was a king.



No, not really. Jesus says that is what Pilate will cal him. And that's what the plaque said when they posted him on the cross. he wasn't a real king.

“But the central point is that at some point in his myth he is hailed a king (or in Raglan’s employment, “does” rule, whether literally as a king or not).


That this is supposed to happen at a certain point in the narrative is not an element of the scoring (some of the points relate to ordering; but this doesn’t). But even if we use Raglan’s wording, he isn’t using the word king literally, but only in reference to ruling, whether actually or in mere proclamation, either one satisfied the pattern.

Biblical

Matthew 27:37


And set up over his head his accusation written, This Is Jesus The King Of The Jews.


My Kingdom Is Not of This World (John 18:36)

He didn't actually battle satan, and he didn't actually defeat satan. Not the same way as a literal giant, dragon, or beast. The title adversary doesn't matter. what matters is, "Get behind me satan" is not a battle. And satan was not defeated, if so there would be no more satan.

You are now just repeating stuff. I already dealt with this.

Fine YOU'RE casting the net wider and wider till you find something like hunting for bible codes. AND Carrier is a proven exaggerator. So, when are you going to start fact checking your souces, Dr. Joel?

I may have gone to later sources but everything Carrier has done is within the bounds of proper RR scoring. But although I employed Catholic lore, there is Biblical as well.

The fact that Jesus was never a king, Mary wasn't royal, Jesus never battled anyone or anything, certainly not defeating Satan who was still operating in the story and after the story. Jesus never had a kingdom. Jesus didn't receive a better body when he was returned from the dead. Stuff like that. Details.

ALl dealt with. Jesus did have a better body. Paul describes it and in the gospels it glows among other things. They also didn't recognize him and he FLEW AWAY in one.

Not actual 19. Metaphorical 19. 19 is a myth.

sure according to an amateur.

Nah. You want it to fit, but it doesn't. If you want to claim God was the biological father, then you need to prove the biology of God. good luck with that.

Romans 1:3 rom the seed of David according to the flesh, "made" from the seed. Foster dad. (ginomai)

Did you fact check these sources Dr. Joel?

says the guy using one bad apologist article and amateur "seems right to me" moxie. You go.

No. I'm saying it for sure is too high. The RR scale is not a subjective-choose-your-own-ranking system. It would have no value at all if each person got to choose what each attribute meant. That would mean that their neighbor's dog named "Prince" suddenly makes them royal.

And then I questioned why include it? If it's not important, then leave it out, and don't over-react when someone correctly points out that the tally is grossly exaggerated.

And you still have not pointed out anything that makes McGrath an apologist. Maybe it's coming and I haven't read it yet. But this is something you've done before. And now we see it from Carrier. And if you're a PHD and this is the accepted behavior among your group, y'all just shout, "Apologist" at anyone who disgrees, and flaunt the PHD as a pathetic hopeless defense, guess what? It makes y'all look like a bunch of cry-babies who can't defend their ideas.

Is what I have been waiting for. You can't lose with pretending to have all sorts of dirt. Some kind of ego thing I guess.

I explained, several times, and gave links to many examples on McGrath:

McGrath on OHJ: A Failure of Logic and Accuracy • Richard Carrier Blogs

In preparation for my upcoming defense of On the Historicity of Jesus at the SBL regional meeting, I’ve set aside time to publicly summarize my take on James McGrath’s critique of (parts of) the book for Bible & Interpretation: “Did Jesus Die in Outer Space? Evaluating a Key Claim in Richard...

www.richardcarrier.info

How many times have you criticized name calling and such? A lot. Of course now we get a TicToc wprthy acronym for PhD, literal name calling, oh...and then the mysterious "done it before"......which was NEVER.


Sorry, Carrier did do his homework and can justify his use of RR, McGrath did get arguments wrong, many times.

First of all, that's not an apologist. An apologist is someone who defends their preferred interpretation and ignores all opposition. In this context, it's a Christian who ignores any argument in opposition to Christianity.

an apologist is many things

You're acting like a Carrier-apologist. McGrath, if he didn't read the book, would make him, ignorant, or unprofessional, or making false assertions. All of those are accurate. But this whole "religious-apologist" bucket that everyone gets thrown into by you and your crew is just as meaningless as "ivory-tower-ignorant-arrogant-know-it-all". It doesn't explain the fault.

NO he is ignorant when he get stuff wrong:

McGrath closes with a quote of Dundes (emphasis mine):

The fact that a hero’s biography conforms to the Indo-European hero pattern does not necessarily mean that the hero never existed. It suggests rather that the folk repeatedly insist upon making their versions of the lives of heroes follow the lines of a specific series of incidents. Accordingly, if the life of Jesus conforms in any way with the standard hero pattern, this proves nothing one way or the other with respect to the historicity of Jesus.

McGrath evidently thinks x “does not necessarily mean” y means x cannot make y more probable. Sorry. No. That’s not how math works. Dundes said nothing about a high score not being able to up the probability of non-historicity. He only said it does not entail non-historicity. Which is exactly what I say myself. Repeatedly. In the book. Which McGrath is starting to show little sign of having read.

If x increases the probability of y by 10% or 50% or even 80%, it would still be true that x “does not necessarily mean” y. So quoting someone saying x “does not necessarily mean” y tells you nothing about the one thing you actually want to know: whether x increases the probability of y. Even when Dundes says Jesus scoring high (and Dundes fully agrees he does, by the way, contrary to McGrath) “proves nothing one way or the other with respect to” historicity he is simply repeating the same point: it does not prove Jesus did not exist. He can’t mean anything more than that, because he uses the logical connector “accordingly,” so he is saying the second statement follows from the first, and is not a separate additional point being made.

Now, when I show you that your not fact checking your sources, repeatedly. Then my critique about your actions, Dr. Joel, are true, meaningful, and potentially useful. IF you start checking your sources.

Right, except they are not, they are this rounds chosen method of "say it over and over until it's true" hyperbole.

But you said it is being used to support probability. Right?



There you go. The RR scale does not contribute to probability of historicity. And there's good reasons given for that to be the case.

And now you make THE SAME mistake as McGrath, despite posts after post about "fact checking" and now you can't get the central argument correct? Because you don't even have a source. Ridiculous.


Jesus most definitely belongs to a set of persons in which more members of that set are non-historical than are historical. That is a fact. It is not theory. It is not phantom. It is not opinion. It is not interpretation. It is a bare, objective, observable fact. It does not matter why or how or even when Jesus got that way. Because the only question that remains is: if you put all the people in that set in a hat, jumbled them up, and pulled one out at random, how likely will it be that the one you pull out is historical? That’s your prior probability. And the answer equals the ratio of persons in that set who are historical, to those who are not. And this is true even when historical persons are in there. And it remains true even if one of those historical persons is Jesus.

McGrath perhaps can’t understand this because he is confused by what a prior probability is. It is not the probability that Jesus was historical. But it still must be included in calculating that probability. But if that’s McGrath’s problem, he needs to re-read chapter six until he understands how the argument works. Only then can he offer any meaningful critique of it.

 

[joelr]

Nope. The exaggerations are completely left unaddressed. Carrier mentioned one item on the list which was a mild exaggeration, but McGrath actually included it in his tally of 4. So again, Carrer is lying, misrepresenting, presenting false info, again, about what McGrath is actually saying.

I addressed them, the ridiculous amounts of times you bring them up, the SAME things every post.

Nah. You haven't justified calling him an apologist. Not even a little. It just seems like this is what you do in your club/friend group.

He misrepresented Carrier in order to try to debunk him and failed.


There are articles from Carrier explaining many examples of his apologist tactics

Lataster v. McGrath: Jesus Must Be Real...Because, Reasons • Richard Carrier Blogs

With my move back to California and so much else going on I haven’t had time to closely read several books I want to review here, including Raphael Lataster’s peer reviewed defense of historicity agnosticism regarding Jesus, Questioning the Historicity of Jesus (Brill 2019). With my preceding...

www.richardcarrier.info

Nah. Ya didn't. All you've done is bring more evidence that Carrier cannot be trusted. And a PHD does not replace actual fact checking.

Except you never demonstrated that, ever. Just claim it over and over. And sometimes you think you are correct and jump to "He's tota;ly unreliable, one error and everything is wrong (a fallacy). But even that didn't happen. Not one new fact or example was introduced in all these posts. Just repetition and hoping something will stick.
You want facts unless they are facts on your side, the facts you make up. I give evidence that experts on RR, including RR were studies and go against your amateur ideas on the scale and you demand evidence further. Because how could your amateur musings ever be wrong?

I demonstrated explanations Carrier gave, experts he studied. Which makes your case, dead. Move on. 4 posts of all the same thing?????