Switch89

He discusses the book in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSzQC1zKesU

This is unusual. James Randi is an archapostle of skepticism but is supports Rene Salm's Nazareth Myth, while Richard Carrier, another great skeptic (and expert historian), seems to think Salm is a crank (This was in a comment he made on Rook Hawkins' blog ages ago).

Who is right? I think we'll have to consult the evidence. The only thing which bothers me is that I know exceedingly little about archaeology.

EXODUS44

Perhaps we may be better served by the following:
Today is today, Yesterday is gone, and Tomorrow is another day. Too much fascination with the past, only confuses the Mind.

Switch89

Sure, but history is important, if only to satisfy our own curiosity about the past.

Toto

If you want to know Carrier's position, email him.

It seems to be impossible to disprove the existence of Nazareth, since we don't know where it would have existed, so the lack of archeological evidence is not proof.

And the issue seems almost trivial. Showing that Nazareth didn't exist won't disprove Christianity - most liberal Christians are reconciled with the idea that the gospels are not literal history. Showing that it did exist will not prove anything about Christianity.

In any case, you can search the archives for old threads on Nazareth.

GakuseiDon

I saw that. This is terrible. The Amazing James Randi is one of my childhood heroes. His exposure of Uri Geller is legendary, and his book "Flim Flam" is a classic. I even have an email from him, where he kindly responded to one I sent him (many years ago now). To see him repeat Salm's work uncritically is just horrible.

I've sent him an email at his JRF website on this. What a terrible day.

Switch89

I think what Salm argues is that Nazareth did exist, just not in Jesus' time. As for the archaelogy, I think we should be prepared to consider the possibility that no evidence exists because Nazareth was not there. How do we know how much evidence to expect?

@ GakuseiDon

Have you read Salm's work? If so, what is wrong with it? If not, don't you think Randi might be right?

GakuseiDon

Randi says, at around 7:10 min:

The facts are that no demonstrable evidence dating either to the time of Jesus, or to earlier Hellenistic times has been found at Nazareth. It is a late Roman Byzantine village, not a mythical settlement at the turn of the era. As author Salm says, "That question has already been answered, and answered convincingly."

Here we have a parallel with the situation re the evidence for parapsychological miracles. For generations, the believers who support the Nazareth myth had been defending their case by demanding "Prove me wrong!" When empiricists come up with the required facts they discover that the facts don't seem to matter to those people."

Carrier writes here:

The bottom line: there is absolutely no doubt that Nazareth existed in the time of Jesus.

Maybe Carrier and others are wrong, but Randi has appeared to have picked up this modern disease that anything that appears to support any kind of claim of Christianity must be the work of believers. I'm not surprised that this attitude exists, since it pops up here often. But it is a shock to hear it coming from Randi.

I've read some of his on-line work, and quotes from his book (mostly by detractors). Some of his comments about how Christians have "reconstructed" Nazareth are on the money. The apparent need to label everyone who thinks the evidence that Nazareth existed at the time of Jesus as agenda-driven is not.

(ETA) Here is a thread on this board on Salm's book, where one poster writes:
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=246095

"So the consensus amongst the (non-Christian) professional archaeologists is quite clear: Nazareth existed in the First Century. Where did the idea that it wasn't come from? From a biologist (Frank Zindler) and a piano teacher (Rene Salm); neither of whom have any archaeological training or qualifications.

So who am I going to be inclined to believe: all of the archaeologists who have actually surveyed the literature or dug on the site or these two complete amateurs? I'll go with the scholars thanks.

Especially when the amateurs have ideological biases that immediately make their nitpicking around the edges of real archaeologists' work highly suspect: Zindler is a Jesus Myther and Salm has his own kooky theory about Jesus coming from India. When kooky Creationists poach out of field and try to critique research by professionals in disciplines like paleontology and biology, motivated by their own ideological biases, we rightly deride them. Yet here we have two totally unqualified dabblers doing the same thing in the field of archaeology and we're somehow meant to take them seriously?"

THAT's what I find disappointing about Randi's comments: he should know better.

Toto

That's not a disease, it's a statistical probability. It's like the "research" that corporations do that for some strange reason always supports the profit motive of that corporation.

If I thought it important whether Nazareth existed or not in the 1st century, I might try to do my own research. Since I don't, I'll reserve judgment.

GakuseiDon

If Antipope on the other thread is correct, you have a piano teacher and a biologist on one side, and all the archaeologists -- including non-Christian ones -- on the other. Which represents the "corporation research" side?

Randi has picked up on an idea that agrees with his world-view. Because it agrees with his world-view, he doesn't stop to question whether the idea is backed up with facts. Isn't this the problem with many people here, from theists to atheists to Jesus Mythicists to you and to me even?

Randi was a hero of mine, for many years. I knew he had made some silly comments about the Bible, but Biblical illiteracy didn't concern me. But he has gone beyond that now. It's a damn shame.

When do you actually give a judgement, then? Even as a probability? What is stopping you from saying "there probably was a Nazareth around the time Jesus supposedly lived"?

Steven Carr

Before Gakusei Don will take him seriously, Salm needs to get published in a serious peer-reviewed journal.

This is what all cranks need to do, before they can lose the label of crank.