Loomis

At the risk of sounding like someone who kisses aa5874’s ass (and I don’t) - I think that if I was in a bookstore and saw a book written by aa5874 sitting next to a book written by Carrier, I would buy aa5874’s book first. All of this ‘identifying the criteria for establishing the criteria’ horseshit is masturbation. For christ’s sake he sounds like JoeWallack. :vomit:

Carrier should cut to the chase - and if he needs to explain or defend his ‘criteria’ then he should do it while he presents his arguments for whatever point it is that he is trying to make. Leave the pseudo-intellectual-academia horseshit for guys like Joe.

spamandham

...I guess I don't view BC&H as studying what's in the Bible, but instead as trying to figure out who wrote it and why. It's the study of the authors. The authors are not fictional, even if we don't much about them.

I can certainly appreciate "it's all a bunch of crap, just forget about it" since that's pretty much my position in regard to Islam, Buddhism, etc., and if not for Christian saturation of my own culture, I'm sure I'd feel the same way about Christianity. But if I did, I can't imagine wasting my time in this subforum.

Toto

One man's worthless garbage is another man's treasure trove of archaeological source material.

DAZ

He does. He shows that Bayes' Theorem (BT), which is successfully used in other fields of science, is also applicable to history. Furthermore, he shows that all the criteria currently used to get 'truths' about Jesus are either invalid or reducable to BT.
In other words, he is able to assess the probability of every hypothesis about Jesus, depending on the evidence and our background knowledge and alternative hypotheses (and a concensus regarding the probabilities concerning those - which, of course, is the clincher).

@all
By the way, mr. Carrier, like me, used to think a historical Jesus was self-evident.

mountainman

Using BT then, Richard Carrier (or anyone else for that matter) ought to be able to assess the following simple hypothesis.

Bayes' Theorem: INPUT Hypothesis = 4th century Christian Origins

The NT canon was fabricated by Constantine's Christians between 312 and 324 CE. The Council of Nicaea was when the shit hit the fan. The NT "Gnostic Gospels and Acts" were authored between 325 and 336 CE (As an indigenous Graeco-Roman academic satirization of Constantine's Canonical Jesus, and His Canonical Apostolic Boneheads). For political power and greed, the militant 4th and 5th century "Constantinian Christian Church" rendered a cement (literary) slab over the controversy and obscured the evidence by political might, destruction, burning, house-searches and tools like "damnatio memoriae".

What are the Bayes' Theorem OUTPUT Results ?

To answer the question "Who was Jesus?" imo we need to first ask another question:
namely ............................................. "Who was Leucius Charinus"?

The question then for the ancient historian in all of us is precisely when, and how, and by whom did the idea of the historical jesus first appear as a "Big Idea" in ancient history. What does the archaeology say? What does the C14 say? What does the manuscript evidence say? Who had most to gain? Who profited from "The Big Idea of the HJ". All sorts of investigative all-over-the-ball-park questions such as these should be contemplated, and meditated upon, by those who see themselves as ancient historians.

David Deas

The historicity of a character has nothing to do with whether your theory about the historicity of said character is testable. And furthermore, the historicity of characters like Jesus and John Henry, who for all we know did or did not actually exist, *is* currently an untestable uncertainty.

Counter to what you seem to be suggesting, there *is* a such thing as not having enough information to decide either way. If you disagree with that then by all means, please explain how we can know before actually knowing.

aa5874

You seem not to understand how theories are developed.

A person can consider any entity as fictional/mythical once such entity is described in a way that is similar to other entities that are considered fictional/mythical.

Jesus of the NT was described as an entity who was TRULY the offspring of a Ghost of God, the Creator of heaven, who healed incurable diseases, sometimes with SPIT, walked on water, transfigured, was raised from the dead and ascended through the clouds.

There is no historical source external of apologetics that can account for any Messiah named Jesus who lived in Galilee for about 30 years and was worshiped as a God by Jews with the ability to REMIT their sins.

And further, the non-apologetic sources, Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny the younger that mentioned "christians" did not even say a word about Jesus.

There is also NO indication from Philo and Josephus that Jews would worship a man as a God.


Jesus of the NT satifies the criteria for a fictional/mythical entity just like Achilles and Romulus.

The theory that Jesus was fictional/mythical is EXTREMELY GOOO.


You seem not to understand that whatever you think of the information supplied in the NT and Church writings cannot ALTER what I think of the very sources after I have examined them.

The NT and Church writers have supplied a VAST amount of information for hundreds of years about Jesus which they claimed is true but upon close examination has been found to be false.

There is enough informatiion to support the theory that Jesus of the NT was fictional/mythical.

All entities deemed to be fictional/mythical have no known history or their history is worthless untestable garbage just like Jesus.

David Deas

No. Its not.

It may be a theory, but it is certainly not a scientific theory. And if its not science, then its not the truth.

Coming from a person with a science background, a theory has to do more than simply explain the data set. It has to have falsifiability. If a theory is not falsifiable then it is a complete waste of time. Merely suggesting that Jesus was a myth or that Jesus was historical are, in both cases, the equivalent of saying nothing at all.

You may as well say that the invisible, undetectable flying spaghetti monster was responsible for the birth of Christianity.

jgoodguy

Historical IUFSM or Mythical IUFSM?

aa5874

You have already stated that you disagree with my position.

It is not unusual for people to have opposing views however you NOW need to put forward your evidence, information or data to show that the theory that Jesus was fictional/mythichal is NOT extremely good.

Let me repeat the facts, evidence or information that support my theory that Jesus was mythical/fiction.

1. Jesus was described by the NT and Church writers as a non-historical being. See Matthew 1.18, Luke 2.35, Mark 9.2, John 1, Acts 1.9, and Galatians 1.1.

2. There is no external source that mentioned Jesus except the forgeries in Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 where Jesus was also described as a resurrected creature.

3. Based on the writings of Philo and Josephus even if there was a Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth it was extremely unlikely that he would have been worshiped as a God and asked to REMIT the sins of Jews before the Fall of the Temple.

4. The SALVATION of mankind in the NT REQUIRES that Jesus perform a non-historical act. In the NT, Jesus carried out a non-historical act, his resurrection, and then ATE FOOD.

The theory that Jesus was fictional/mythical is EXTREMELY good.

What!??! You may need to re-consider your statement.

You have a science background? People with a science background would hardly ever say this:

.

But I don't have to make any stuff up.

I will let the author of gMatthew tell you about HIS Jesus of Nazareth.

Mt 1:18 - And I will let the author of De Principiis tell you about Jesus.

The Preface to De Prinicipiis Now, do you see any science in gMatthew 1.18 and the Preface to De Principiis?

You have a science background and if "it is not science then it is not the truth".

The NT and Church writings are NOT even Science FICTION.

They are BLATANT FICTION.

The theory that Jesus was fictional/mythical is EXTREMELY good.