Richard Carrier

Many of you know I've been reading Doherty's book with a promise to critically review it. Well, I have finished the book, though I am still taking my time on the review. While I do, I'd like to collect any further material not already raised in the retired thread Doherty Critics: Here's Your Chance . I will repeat here what I asked for there:

I am opening this thread for a specific reason and I hope all posters here will respect that purpose. As many of you know I have finished Doherty's book The Jesus Puzzle and intend to write a thorough review of it for the Secular Web. I read it very carefully and slowly, analyzing the structure of every argument and am now doing the relevant fact-checking. But I want to approach it in the end with as much critical direction as I can get. Hence this thread.

What I would like here is to read what criticisms can be advanced against Doherty's thesis as set forth and defended in his book. I sincerely ask that you help me out and give me the best chance to be as honestly critical of the work as I can. This means the following:

(1) Please, no one reply to this thread who has not read his book in full. If you would like to post here but have not read it, please use the link above to buy it and give it at least one easy read-through first. I know Doherty has a website and has debated here and in other places, but I am not interested in any arguments or facts that are not in his book: the book's argument must stand alone and be assessed on it's own terms.

(2) I want critics to cite only one of three kinds of criticisms, and to carefully identify which category each criticism falls into (and give page numbers, please):

(i) FACTS. Are there any facts that you believe Doherty gets wrong or omits from his book, which diminish the probability of his thesis being true? You do not have to cite sources for your claims, but it would be appreciated.

(ii) METHODS. Is there something wrong with his method? I expect two things here: clear explanation of what is wrong, and the use of at least one analogy showing how it leads to an unacceptable conclusion in some other subject or field.

(iii) LOGIC. Is there some logical fallacy in any of his lines of reasoning? Please try to identify the type or nature of the fallacy if you can, but always identify exactly where the mistake is made.

If you think there are other relevant kinds of criticism besides these three, I will listen to proposals.

Note that I am myself already doing all this. The reason I am opening a thread and asking for input is that I want my end result to be as thorough as possible, and I expect many of you may have thought of or found things I have not, or have objections I am not considering, and so with many minds instead of one I can be sure to catch everything.

I do not promise to agree with every criticism made of Doherty's book here, but I do promise to consider carefully if not actually address (directly or indirectly) every one in my forthcoming review.

NOTE: as this thread is meant to help me in my work, work many here are eager to see completed, please do not respond here to defend Doherty. If anyone, including Doherty himself, wants to start up a thread disputing some criticism made here, please do so-- elsewhere. I guarantee I have the skill, background, and means to examine these criticisms myself and thus I will decide in the end whether they hold water or how much water they hold, and I ask Doherty and his valient defenders to trust me on that and keep this thread clean of debate and on-point. Since posts within a thread cannot be moved, off-topic replies here will likely be deleted, so to avoid that, take advantage of my request that off-topic responses be made in new threads and not here.

I want to thank everyone in advance who contributes here, and all others who politely respect my wishes and observe the purpose of the thread. I hope together we can contribute to making some progress in the end on the issue of the historicity of Jesus.

[edited by CX to fix links]

SmashingIdols

First - Yes I read the book in its entirety. I did not thoroghly research every argument put forth - I merely researched enough to determine if the arguments which I deemed were most crucial were valid, and to the best knowledge available, factual. I determined that they were, and did not continue with examination to the finest possible detail.

Second - I do have a criticism, although not of the type you have listed above.

My criticism is that while Doherty makes a very good case for Jesus being a mystical inspiration of Paul's, he makes absolutely no case as for what that inspiration was or why it was accepted to the degree that it was.

I feel that under such circumstances this information is crucial - people are inspired to flights of fancy and mystical revelations constantly; but none of them have given birth to anything of the magnitude of Christianity.

Doherty's arguments have torn down (to my total satisfaction) the myth of an historical Jesus, yet offered no explanation as to why Paul's letters and mission were (obviously) recieved and integrated so widely, and with such enthusiasm in the absence of some sort of oral historical tradition.

Note:Edited part is in bold at end of post.

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: SmashingIdols ]</p>

Shunt

I highly recommend the convincing arguments of Ruth H Green's The Born Again Skeptic's Guide to the Bible. While not all that scholarly, and rather repetitive, her answer to your question, which she elaborates, would be that Paul was your modern day evangelist, and quite an effective one too. Another point to make is that the Church did not really "consolidate" (for lack of a better word) for several centuries, and Xtianity was not the cohesive, widespread belief many make it out to be.

Did Doherty set out to explain how the Church formed?

BTW, I have nearly finished the Skeptic's Guide, and am about half way through The Jesus Puzzle.