No Robots

Btw, it seems Ehrman is having trouble with his book, The Transformation of Jesus: How a Jewish Prophet Became God. Publication is now apparently scheduled for 2020!

Toto

Please retract any hint of libel there.

Richard Carrier is not engaged in deception. He is providing a professional historian's evaluation of the evidence, and has not committed to any particular result.

No Robots

Please retract any charge of libel here.

Perhaps not. But he is, imho, peddling bilge.

He has made his own position quite clear, and will presumably endeavor to substantiate it.

Toto

He has made his position clear - he is only interested in evaluating the evidence from the standpoint of a professional historian. He is not a committed advocate for anything except rationality.

No Robots

I still think that anyone coming away from Christian religion with a sense of grievance should probably think twice before signing up with a movement that seems tailor-made to cultivate that very sense of grievance.

rlogan

Seriously - I think this is an extremely important element that is far too often left out of the discussion.

It isn't tangential. It goes right to the core. Erhmann says he is going to explain why we don't know about contradictions.

It is because contradictions cause you to question your faith.

Why does the preacher reinforce faith with deception? I am satisfied beyond all doubt that two of my long-time pastors were very clever about deceiving me into thinking the gospels were eyewitness accounts, that they were harmonious, that there was a historical Jesus preaching a 4th century canon...when they knew none of that was true.

I don't think we can ascribe exactly the same profile of motivations to everyone. Clearly there are the L. Ron Hubbard (Scientology) and Joseph Smith (Mormonism) types who were charletans of the first rank, seeking money and power without regard to the lives of others. Jim Jones - power, money, sex...

We have those who question their own faith but continue to deceive because they feel the church on balance does more good than harm.

We have those who invested all their time and resources into it and fear getting a regular job as a mechanic or busdriver or whatever. Wow, how conflicted they must be on the inside. Priests who diddle the aterboys. Following Jesus? Must be a missing chapter in Romans.

Being in front of people, as a leader, is a powerful drug. Power corrupts. The important thing is retaining power, not truth.


The path to personal glory, power, wealth, and hot babes in the early centuries was either economic, political, religious, or even then via entertainment and sports. It really isn't that much different now.

With religion we do have some basic human instincts like fear of death and the yearning to understand our surroundings at work. But we absolutely must address the self-interest of our church leaders.

Just very curious if Ehrmann does that.

Plain as day to me.

No Robots

But why not start with the movement you are actually in? I mean, here we have Carrier, a self-avowed mythicist, claiming to be conducting an objective study of the matter. Is it not plain that his conclusions will sustain his position? Otherwise, would he not be compelled to repudiate his position? His interest is in sustaining his current position. If it were not so, surely he would have by now indicated as much. In none of his public statements has he said anything like, "Wow, my research has led me to change my position." So, I think it safe to bet that his conclusions will in fact validate his mythicism.

bacht

Why do politicians tell people what they want to hear? Why do advertisers show images of life that are more fantasy than reality?

It's a two-way street: there are people who want to be lied to, and others glad to provide the misinformation. Human nature hasn't changed in the last two millenia.

show_no_mercy

I doubt that his upcoming book on the historicity of Jesus will confirm his "mythicist" leaning. At the same time, it probably won't confirm the historicist position either. It seems as though he has problems with the scholarship of both camps, and is trying to put out a book to acknowledge and reconcile this.

show_no_mercy

The point of church leadership isn't to tell you the truth. The point of church leadership is to save your soul. Truth itself is tangential.