Johnny Skeptic

Richard Carrier versus James Holding

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...n/rubicon.html

mountainman

I was impressed with Carrier's criteria for the first approximation
of an objective assessment of "histority", a term reflecting the
"historical integrity" or "historical authenticity" of a person and/or
an event. The criteria are amenable to a simple programatic
calculator, that allows for change and different weightings
on the assessment of evidence.

These two threads utilise Carriers five criteria ...
in the form of worked examples.

comparitive historicity (Apollonius of Tyana c.f. Jesus of Nazareth)

and

H I S T O R I C I T Y - Can it be reduced to a percentage value?

suggest that the "comparitive historicity" perspective may
provide a simple relational and objective method for assessing
the relative merits of certain events and people.

Jayco

Richard Carrier rocks the shit. I'm interested what Chris Weimer has to say about this. As in, I'm actually interested.

Chris Weimer

There are a couple of problems with Richard Carrier's rebuttal, mostly how he directly contradicted himself:

Emphasis mine. Now compare with below:

So, Paul is unreliable (though he does admit, unlike some of the people here, that it is not wholly so) because we have identified interpolations, yet written tradition is better than oral tradition because there were safeguards in the written tradition, like a supervisor checking copies against the original. But in the case of Christian writings, the scribes had a religious agenda and thus altered the texts.

If Carrier had made his points much more succinctly, I would have given it greater applaud. But in refuting Holding (which is not a hard thing to do--any Classicist could have easily pointed to the numerous citations directly refuting Holding's theory), he has gone on and said some unnecessary and some ill-informed comments.

Now I'm curious why Jayco singled me out? Does he think I buy the resurrection story?

matthewthomas

Just out of curiousity, what else do you see as particular problems in Carrier's rebuttal?

Best wishes,
Matthew

Chris Weimer

In the second paragraph under number 2, Carrier assumes that Christianity would have been big enough for it to be noticed. Secondly, Josephus is a first century Jew who mentions Christianity. What Josephus said is and always will be up for debate, but there is something there.

In the third paragraph, he demands absurd evidence, like a testimony from Pilate. Such a thing is ludicrous. First of all, Pilate never wrote anything (though a letter was forged in his name) and second of all, the Romans weren't in the business of checking for odd or unusual claims. Pliny the Younger wasn't even aware of Christians' beliefs until he had to deal with them as a social group.

In the sixth paragraph (still under the same number), Carrier once again assumes Christianity would have been big enough or powerful enough for statue erection, nevermind that it took over a hundred years between Epicurus and Diogenes of Oenoanda building a statue to him.

In the sixth paragraph under number three, Carrier talks about Luke recasting what Jesus says, and therefore this is supposed to be a negative point against Luke. The simple fact is that even the eyewitness Thucydides, as Carrier mentions earlier, does the same thing. Carrier went on and on about how this was a standard, and now he contradicts himself again by singling out Luke. He then says that Luke would have harmonized his accounts, but this isn't necessarily so. First, compilation historians like Livy have contradictory material, and second, Luke was perhaps following precedent by Thucydides.

Finally, most recent studies done on historians, especially on Josephus, show that "reliability" is not what it appears to be. There is Contradictory material in War and Antiquities, for example, and often Josephus will alter the storyline to fit his beliefs.

While Carrier may have entirely refuted Holding, he has done a poor job on actually describing the situation the gospels were created in.

matthewthomas

Thanks Chris. I've only had a chance to skim read Carrier's article so far, but I'll re-read it properly with your points in mind.

My first impression, though, was that although Carrier may have been demanding too much of early Christianity, the general point was that there is good evidence for Caesar's Rubicon crossing, but not as much evidence available for the resurrection for whatever reason (and perhaps we shouldn't expect much evidence to survive from Early Christianity), thus refuting Holding's claim that the resurrection evidence was at least as good.

Still, as I said, so far I have only had a chance to skim read the article, and I will certainly have missed much.

Thanks again,
Matthew

Chris Weimer

Yes, you're absolutely right on this. Holding's claim is pure bunk, and Richard does do a good job refuting them. In my opinion, he should have stopped there.

Minimalist

Bart Ehrman, in Misquoting Jesus, reports that early christian copying was done by non-professional members of the church in question. They made numerous errors.

When professionals later picked up the copying they were working with flawed originals.

Ted Hoffman

Speaking for myself, your post does not bring out any problem with Carrier's statements. If anyone has understood your argument, I will be happy to know exactly what you are arguing. Are you disputing that scribes had a religious agenda? My understanding is that an argument is either valid, invalid or false or correct. This new quality of "succinctness" is unclear and its significance and relevance is hard to judge. Maybe you could enlighten me?