Why The Gospels Are Myth-Dr.Richard Carrier

[Geezer]

 

[SerenelyBlue]

Don't believe everything you read or hear only because someone has a phd.  Jesus may have existed.

[SerenelyBlue]

2 hours ago, SeaJay said:

Interesting watch, that. 

 

Interesting as well that Carrier seems to believe that Jesus existed (1h 9m 45s? Though at 1hr 20m he says he probably didn't?).

 

Anyway, I thought he and Ehrman were at loggerheads with Carrier believing Jesus never existed and Ehrman believing he did. At least they tend to spend a fair bit of time debating it. 

What's with you?  Hanging out with the devil's crowd while still professing a false love for Jesus?  Christianity is crap, you know it, I know it.  How can you not leave it behind after having seen how flawed it is.  How can you still call yourself a Christian?  Are you blind or stupid or something?

[Margee]

28 minutes ago, SerenelyBlue said:

What's with you?  Hanging out with the devil's crowd while still professing a false love for Jesus?  Christianity is crap, you know it, I know it.  How can you not leave it behind after having seen how flawed it is.  How can you still call yourself a Christian?  Are you blind or stupid or something?

SerenityBlue, he is having a hard time deconverting much like you and I went through. He needs to come to accept his own truth when he is ready. And that can take lots of time. You and I know that.

 

I hope you are feeling OK? You are not normally cranky like this?

[SerenelyBlue]

I'm sorry.  I forget he suffers from anxiety.  He has a different way of deconverting.  Fine.  Sorry.  I apologise.

[Margee]

Just now, SerenelyBlue said:

I'm sorry.  I forget he suffers from anxiety.  He has a different way of deconverting.  Fine.  Sorry.  I apologise.

 Even if a member doesn't suffer from anxiety, we both know that brainwashing is a very powerful thing, even for a totally 'normal' person with no mental disorders. Deconversion can be extremely hard on people. Learning truths is not easy sometimes for some of us. 

 

[♦ ficino ♦]

Just today I read a good deal of Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist? in which he disagrees with Carrier, Price and other mythicists (who form an almost negligible slice of the professional field). Ehrman's two strongest arguments for Jesus' existence are:

1. epistles of Paul and Paul's acquaintance with Cephas and James

2. unlikelihood that Jews would have invented a story of a CRUCIFIED Messiah, since crucifixion renders the person cursed under the Torah and it goes against all depictions of messiah figures in the OT.

 

Ehrman also accepts mainstream theories that the gospels make use of earlier written and oral accounts, some of them Aramaic some Greek, and that some apocryphal gospels, which also treat Jesus as a real guy, are independent of the 4 canonical gospels.

 

Ehrman of course thinks that much of what is in the four canonical gospels is invented, including the resurrection.

[sdelsolray]

Good summary.

 

Because of the frequency and depth of his writings, Ehrman has much to say.

[LogicalFallacy]

14 hours ago, SeaJay said:

Interesting watch, that. 

 

Interesting as well that Carrier seems to believe that Jesus existed (1h 9m 45s? Though at 1hr 20m he says he probably didn't?).

 

Carriers position is that Jesus is entirely myth. He is merely highlighting at 1:09:45 some plausible theories, then goes on to give his own view.

 

You are correct that Ehrman and Carrier disagree on an historical Jesus, but they agree that the biblical Jesus never existed.

 

We can also point to the creation myth, the flood myth, the exodus myth and so on in the bible. Its really an exercise in trying to pry out factual events in the bible from all the myth, than the other way around.

[Geezer]

19 hours ago, ficino said:

Just today I read a good deal of Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist? in which he disagrees with Carrier, Price and other mythicists (who form an almost negligible slice of the professional field). Ehrman's two strongest arguments for Jesus' existence are:

1. epistles of Paul and Paul's acquaintance with Cephas and James

2. unlikelihood that Jews would have invented a story of a CRUCIFIED Messiah, since crucifixion renders the person cursed under the Torah and it goes against all depictions of messiah figures in the OT.

 

Ehrman also accepts mainstream theories that the gospels make use of earlier written and oral accounts, some of them Aramaic some Greek, and that some apocryphal gospels, which also treat Jesus as a real guy, are independent of the 4 canonical gospels.

 

Ehrman of course thinks that much of what is in the four canonical gospels is invented, including the resurrection.

 

I find it interesting that Ehrman acknowledges the gospels are literature not history, and that they have been altered, changed, redacted, & even rewritten an unknown amount of times; but then he claims the parts that validate his belief Jesus was a real person are accurate.  

 

It matters not whether a person identified as Jesus of Nazareth existed. He only matters if he was God incarnate & I am not aware of any evidence that validates that. 

[sdelsolray]

18 hours ago, SeaJay said:

No harm done 

 

But to clarify, I wasn't suggesting anything. I was just surprised to hear Dr. Carrier talk about how he could see that Jesus might have existed. I then watched the other video Geezer posted ("Why Invent the Jesus?") wherein Carrier clarifies that though it is possible Jesus might have existed, he finds it highly unlikely. 

 

Richard Carrier's book, Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (2012), is a good (although somewhat tedious) read on how and why Carrier concludes the existence of a historical Jesus is a matter of probability.

 

Here's the Google writeup on the book:

Quote

"This in-depth discussion of New Testament scholarship and the challenges of history as a whole proposes Bayes's Theorem, which deals with probabilities under conditions of uncertainty, as a solution to the problem of establishing reliable historical criteria. The author demonstrates that valid historical methods--not only in the study of Christian origins but in any historical study--can be described by, and reduced to, the logic of Bayes's Theorem. Conversely, he argues that any method that cannot be reduced to this theorem is invalid and should be abandoned.

 

"Writing with thoroughness and clarity, the author explains Bayes's Theorem in terms that are easily understandable to professional historians and laypeople alike, employing nothing more than well-known primary school math. He then explores precisely how the theorem can be applied to history and addresses numerous challenges to and criticisms of its use in testing or justifying the conclusions that historians make about the important persons and events of the past. The traditional and established methods of historians are analyzed using the theorem, as well as all the major "historicity criteria" employed in the latest quest to establish the historicity of Jesus. The author demonstrates not only the deficiencies of these approaches but also ways to rehabilitate them using Bayes's Theorem.

 

"Anyone with an interest in historical methods, how historical knowledge can be justified, new applications of Bayes's Theorem, or the study of the historical Jesus will find this book to be essential reading.

 

[Blood]

Carrier makes some sound points. However, I believe he is too overconfident with his theory. He relies too much on an obscure extra-canonical text, "The Ascension of Isaiah." 

 

He also doesn't question that there are seven "authentic" Pauline epistles, when this is highly questionable. I need a good reason to believe that any of them are authentic. 

 

He also just dismisses textual evidence when it isn't convenient to his theory, which is the standard apologetics trick. So, he just dismisses 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 (the Jews crucified Lord Jesus) as an interpolation, because his theory needs to have Jesus crucified in the heavens by demons. 

 

None of this stuff will ever make sense. You can construct theories and make arguments, but in the end, we're dealing with the bizarre thoughts and ideas of mystics who lived thousands of years ago. Nobody will ever know who they were, what they witnessed, or what they were trying to accomplish. 

[Blood]

13 hours ago, Geezer said:

I find it interesting that Ehrman acknowledges the gospels are literature not history, and that they have been altered, changed, redacted, & even rewritten an unknown amount of times; but then he claims the parts that validate his belief Jesus was a real person are accurate.  

 

Good point. David Friedrich Strauss made this same point back in 1835. He said when you cannot separate history from myth, then you are forced to conclude that all of it is myth, and that the burden of proof is on the side of anyone proposing it isn't myth. 

 

Rationalizing myth is a slippery slope. If the gospel writers had the freedom to invent myths about Jesus, what exactly was preventing them from inventing Jesus? 

[Joshpantera]

On 1/5/2018 at 9:46 PM, Blood said:

Rationalizing myth is a slippery slope. If the gospel writers had the freedom to invent myths about Jesus, what exactly was preventing them from inventing Jesus? 

 

That's a good way of putting it. 

[Joshpantera]

On 1/4/2018 at 4:25 PM, SeaJay said:

No harm done 

 

But to clarify, I wasn't suggesting anything. I was just surprised to hear Dr. Carrier talk about how he could see that Jesus might have existed. I then watched the other video Geezer posted ("Why Invent the Jesus?") wherein Carrier clarifies that though it is possible Jesus might have existed, he finds it highly unlikely. 

 

Just about any of the leading mythicist's will readily admit as much - that Jesus might have existed. It would be ill conceived to suggest he couldn't have existed in a very absolute way. It's just not that absolute of a situation, either way. 

 

A lot of people have become very invested in this debate. But it's a debate that will likely never be solved completely. The whole thing is full of maybe, might have, perhaps this, perhaps that. It's all pretty much lost to history. It could have been any number of ways. And after admitting that, mythicist's lean on what they think is probable and historicist's will lean on what they think is probable. No one hits a home run. History itself is largely based on uncertainty, so there's really no where to go for those who are determined to find certainty in this equation. 

 

Which I think leads to a very understandable state of "Jesus Agnosticism." 

 

The only important point in all of this is that both sides reveal how agnostic the issue of Jesus actually is, which, eliminates one party in particular.Which is the believer position. Of the three choices, historical person, mythical being, and God in the flesh of one particular man, it's the God in flesh position that is the most easily eliminated. Beyond that, it really doesn't matter whether the historicists or mythicists are right. The believers are wrong, very wrong. 

 

 

[Anushka]

Thank you so much.. I loved this, listened to 20 mins of it, so interesting, gonna listen to the rest when i wake up in the morning..

I wish i found this website atleast 8 yrs ago, a lot of unfortunate events could have been avoided.. But, then again who knows - I would have run away from this website fearing God will punish me had I found it 8 years ago...

 

[Joshpantera]

3 hours ago, SeaJay said:

I myself came here months ago when I was in a very dark place. The people on here have helped me loads. 

 

It's good to hear that SeaJay.