Carrier: On the Historicity of Jesus, a community discussion

[doubtingmerle]

No, you are taking it too literally. He is using apocalyptic language. If you compare this to OT Hebrew apocalyptic literature, the moon being darkened and stars falling are referring to the changes in the world powers. God is leaving Israel which is demonstrated by the destruction of the Temple and the age of Gentiles has begun with Roman Empire destroying Israel and reaching its height. And the new True Israel is coming into existence, ie the Church. The Son of Man comes with power at Pentecost with His Holy Spirit being spread throughout the world by His disciples preaching throughout the world and converting people.

That seems to be a quite creative interpretation of Mark 13 which says:

24 “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 26 And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.27 And then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven
​

It makes more sense to me that Mark goofed, that he prophesied this would happen after the temple was destroyed, and was mistaken.

 

[Ed1wolf]

That seems to be a quite creative interpretation of Mark 13 which says:

24 “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 26 And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.27 And then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven
​

It makes more sense to me that Mark goofed, that he prophesied this would happen after the temple was destroyed, and was mistaken.

Many scholars agree with my interpretation. Because it is well known from Isaiah and Joel that these are symbols of fallen powers, not literally falling stars and the moon. And the old Hebrew theocracy is the one that is falling with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. And if Mark had known that the Temple had already fallen he would have mentioned that it confirmed Jesus' prophecy but he didn't so this is strong evidence Mark was written before 70 AD.

 

[mark kennedy]

When discussing the historicity of Jesus there seem to be three main camps. In one, believers assert that Jesus existed as a historical figure and was indeed the divine son of God. In another agnostics or atheists claim that Jesus existed in history as a man but was not in fact divine. Then we have the myth hypothesis, where the claim is that Jesus never existed as a historical person at all.

My interest in this thread is the latter, specifically I would like to discuss the relative merits of On the Historicity of Jesus, by Dr. Richard Carrier. To the best of my knowledge no peer reviewed response (that is no critical response), has appeared anywhere in any journal. Yet given that Carrier's OTHJ was published in a relevant peer reviewed journal it seems to me that at the very least it merits discussion.

I myself have read through the book once (I think it would take a few readings to really be comfortable with all the information packed in this long long book) and found it to be compelling, although perhaps not conclusive. To be fair though, I am an atheist and I recognize that I really want Carrier to be right. I have a bias to agree with him because it would validate my lack of belief if it turns out Jesus was not historical but a myth. To this end I would love to talk through Carrier's work with believers, assuming that you don't agree with Carrier! I have heard a number of claims about the lack of reliable scholarship in the book but no one has ever given me a specific example. Regardless of your reasons for agreeing with or disagreeing with Carrier, I would welcome the discussion. I anticipate that any discussion on this topic will lead us down the rabbit trails of early sources and writings which is fine as long as the intent is always to relate them to OTHJ and to eventually return to that focus.

What do you make of OTHJ, do you agree with Carrier, why or why not?

Thanks

I did some looking around and watched a Carrier video on the historicity of Jesus, highly suppositional and some pretty fundamental errors. For instance, the cursing of the fig tree, the tree was infertile or otherwise defective. The proper thing to do was to cut it down and burn out the roots before it infects another fig tree. It wasn't the season but their were leaves and the fruit appeared on the fig tree before the leaves, this one had nothing. There should have been green buds. This is his big evidencial argument proving the Gospel accounts are mythology? This guy does a 700 page book on the Gospels and he did no research on fig trees or manuscript evidence?

What's more I don't know where he gets his ideas about the dating of the Gospels or what random second century writings have to do with anything. I caught maybe half a dozen similar misconceptions, we have nothing from the people who Peter wrote 2 Peter to. Really? Do you think there was a stationary store on every corner? Scrolls were kind of expensive and the reason the Scrolls were so prolifically copied was because invariably the churches made copies so they could be taken to other churches and read to the congregation. We have manuscript evidence of Matthew and Mark going back to the first century.

He's really not bringing anything all that new, apparently this is what passes for academic validity in modern circles. Carrier seems oblivious to actual Christian apologetics:internal, external and bibliographical testing. I know your a humanist and an atheist but it's fascinating that your actually interested in this sort of thing. I have had a hard time getting Christians interested in actual evidential apologetics let alone skeptics. If your really interested in the historicity of the New Testament I would be happy to pursue the subject matter with you.

Apologetics was one of the first things I was interested in pursuing after becoming a Christian. I was astonished at how strangely pointless so much of what is passing for apologetics is. Instead of getting into New Testament apologetics I found most of the online discussion revolved around creationism which while all very interesting, is hardly the place to start when looking at historicity with regards to evidential apologetics.

I would propose this and perhaps I could get my hands on the book and maybe a couple of his papers. We will just have to see how this goes, too many times I've had to chase arguments like this in circles.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[anonymous person]

I did some looking around and watched a Carrier video on the historicity of Jesus, highly suppositional and some pretty fundamental errors. For instance, the cursing of the fig tree, the tree was infertile or otherwise defective. The proper thing to do was to cut it down and burn out the roots before it infects another fig tree. It wasn't the season but their were leaves and the fruit appeared on the fig tree before the leaves, this one had nothing. There should have been green buds. This is his big evidencial argument proving the Gospel accounts are mythology? This guy does a 700 page book on the Gospels and he did no research on fig trees or manuscript evidence?

What's more I don't know where he gets his ideas about the dating of the Gospels or what random second century writings have to do with anything. I caught maybe half a dozen similar misconceptions, we have nothing from the people who Peter wrote 2 Peter to. Really? Do you think there was a stationary store on every corner? Scrolls were kind of expensive and the reason the Scrolls were so prolifically copied was because invariably the churches made copies so they could be taken to other churches and read to the congregation. We have manuscript evidence of Matthew and Mark going back to the first century.

He's really not bringing anything all that new, apparently this is what passes for academic validity in modern circles. Carrier seems oblivious to actual Christian apologetics:internal, external and bibliographical testing. I know your a humanist and an atheist but it's fascinating that your actually interested in this sort of thing. I have had a hard time getting Christians interested in actual evidential apologetics let alone skeptics. If your really interested in the historicity of the New Testament I would be happy to pursue the subject matter with you.

Apologetics was one of the first things I was interested in pursuing after becoming a Christian. I was astonished at how strangely pointless so much of what is passing for apologetics is. Instead of getting into New Testament apologetics I found most of the online discussion revolved around creationism which while all very interesting, is hardly the place to start when looking at historicity with regards to evidential apologetics.

I would propose this and perhaps I could get my hands on the book and maybe a couple of his papers. We will just have to see how this goes, too many times I've had to chase arguments like this in circles.

Grace and peace,
Mark

Malcolm Muggeridge once said, "all new news is old news happening to new people."

Richard Carrier and his followers are the "new people" and as such, these old arguments which aren't really taken seriously by experts in the pertinent fields, are news to them.

 

[mark kennedy]

Malcolm Muggeridge once said, "all new news is old news happening to new people."

Richard Carrier and his followers are the "new people" and as such, these old arguments which aren't really taken seriously by experts in the pertinent fields, are news to them.

Well, my opinion after years of study is that the historicity of Scripture has a highly credible written record that is incomparable to anything from antiquity. There is nothing else like it, it's a living witness since it's been in the custody of living people it's entire history. Simon Greenleaf wrote a short book on the historicity of the New Testament offering tests used to weigh the truthfulness of testimony used in municipal courts in his day. He was uniquely qualified to do this kind of work since he literally wrote the book on evidence and was one of the founders of the Harvard Law School where he served as Dean. These where the criteria:

• Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forger, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise.
• In matters of public and general interest, all persons must be presumed to be conversant, on the principle that individuals are presumed to be conversant with their own affairs.
• In trials of fact, by oral testimony, the proper inquiry is not whether is it possible that the testimony may be false, but whether there is sufficient probability that it is true.
• In proceeding to weigh the evidence of any proposition of fact, the previous question to be determined is, when may it be said to be proved? The answer to this question is furnished by another rule of municipal law, which may be thus stated: A proposition of fact is proved, when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence.
• The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, their honesty; secondly, their ability; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances. Let the evangelists be tried by these tests. (Greenleaf, Testimony of the Evangelists)

I have no problem pursuing actual evidence but a thesis that the Gospels are really just some kind of a mystery religion has no basis in anything I can recognize as actual evidence. Still I'm intrigued, just not impressed with what I've seen so far.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Athée]

I did some looking around and watched a Carrier video on the historicity of Jesus, highly suppositional and some pretty fundamental errors. For instance, the cursing of the fig tree, the tree was infertile or otherwise defective. The proper thing to do was to cut it down and burn out the roots before it infects another fig tree. It wasn't the season but their were leaves and the fruit appeared on the fig tree before the leaves, this one had nothing. There should have been green buds. This is his big evidencial argument proving the Gospel accounts are mythology? This guy does a 700 page book on the Gospels and he did no research on fig trees or manuscript evidence?

What's more I don't know where he gets his ideas about the dating of the Gospels or what random second century writings have to do with anything. I caught maybe half a dozen similar misconceptions, we have nothing from the people who Peter wrote 2 Peter to. Really? Do you think there was a stationary store on every corner? Scrolls were kind of expensive and the reason the Scrolls were so prolifically copied was because invariably the churches made copies so they could be taken to other churches and read to the congregation. We have manuscript evidence of Matthew and Mark going back to the first century.

He's really not bringing anything all that new, apparently this is what passes for academic validity in modern circles. Carrier seems oblivious to actual Christian apologetics:internal, external and bibliographical testing. I know your a humanist and an atheist but it's fascinating that your actually interested in this sort of thing. I have had a hard time getting Christians interested in actual evidential apologetics let alone skeptics. If your really interested in the historicity of the New Testament I would be happy to pursue the subject matter with you.

Apologetics was one of the first things I was interested in pursuing after becoming a Christian. I was astonished at how strangely pointless so much of what is passing for apologetics is. Instead of getting into New Testament apologetics I found most of the online discussion revolved around creationism which while all very interesting, is hardly the place to start when looking at historicity with regards to evidential apologetics.

I would propose this and perhaps I could get my hands on the book and maybe a couple of his papers. We will just have to see how this goes, too many times I've had to chase arguments like this in circles.

Grace and peace,
Mark

I would recommend the book, even if only for the bibliography, it is amazing! I'm not sure his argument is compelling but his presentation of historical Infor. Arion from the period is very interesting and worth the read. Also as he says the way he has laid out the case it is very easy to pick out elements to falsify

 

[anonymous person]

Well, my opinion after years of study is that the historicity of Scripture has a highly credible written record that is incomparable to anything from antiquity. There is nothing else like it, it's a living witness since it's been in the custody of living people it's entire history. Simon Greenleaf wrote a short book on the historicity of the New Testament offering tests used to weigh the truthfulness of testimony used in municipal courts in his day. He was uniquely qualified to do this kind of work since he literally wrote the book on evidence and was one of the founders of the Harvard Law School where he served as Dean. These where the criteria:

• Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forger, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise.
• In matters of public and general interest, all persons must be presumed to be conversant, on the principle that individuals are presumed to be conversant with their own affairs.
• In trials of fact, by oral testimony, the proper inquiry is not whether is it possible that the testimony may be false, but whether there is sufficient probability that it is true.
• In proceeding to weigh the evidence of any proposition of fact, the previous question to be determined is, when may it be said to be proved? The answer to this question is furnished by another rule of municipal law, which may be thus stated: A proposition of fact is proved, when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence.
• The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, their honesty; secondly, their ability; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances. Let the evangelists be tried by these tests. (Greenleaf, Testimony of the Evangelists)

I have no problem pursuing actual evidence but a thesis that the Gospels are really just some kind of a mystery religion has no basis in anything I can recognize as actual evidence. Still I'm intrigued, just not impressed with what I've seen so far.

Grace and peace,
Mark

Excellent Mark. Very useful. I shall add this to my collection of resources.

Have you taken a look at doubtingmerle's arguments for thinking we have no idea what the gospels looked like early on? The thread can be found here: Are there credible witnesses to the resurrection?

 

[mark kennedy]

Excellent Mark. Very useful. I shall add this to my collection of resources.

Have you taken a look at doubtingmerle's arguments for thinking we have no idea what the gospels looked like early on? The thread can be found here: Are there credible witnesses to the resurrection?

No but it's pretty obvious he doesn't know how the Scriptures were produced and how they were copied. We have some 30,000 extant manuscripts with nothing but normal text variation which always happens when copies are made in the ancient world. None of the doctrines or histories are effected and trust me, I've tracked down a lot of them. The Scriptures are a credible witness, better preserved then any documents from the first century and literally in the custody of a large community of Christians their entire history.

The entire New Testament was actually complete before 70 AD, not one of the writers mention the destruction of Temple. Surely that would have been a very big deal since all the Apostles were Jewish. There is also the close proximity of the writings to the actual event which in a discipline called 'bibliographical testing', puts the Scriptures ahead of anything from the first century.

Over 200,000 changes have been found in the existing manuscripts.

A pretty typical claim, rather easy to dismiss:

It should be mentioned, however, that the 200,000 textual variants contained in the NT, "represent only 10,000 places in the New Testament. If one single word is misspelled in 3000 manuscripts, this is counted [by Biblical scholars] as 3,000 variants" (Geisler, 1986, p361). For instance, the word "Deid," which we know is "Died" could have appeared in over 3000 manuscripts, which would thus account for 3000 variants out of a total of 200,000 variants. Norman Geisler stated that "Textual scholars Westcott and Hort estimated that only one in sixty of these variants has significance. This would leave a text 98.3% percent pure." This means that out of the total number of variants within the New Testament, the text is 99% accurate and clean from any major doctrinal errors. (The Historical Reliability of the New Testament)
​

By and large people have no idea how the New Testament was written, or the Old Testament for that matter. The church would get a copy of a letter from Paul and later other epistles and the gospels, they would make a nearly exact copy and did that for centuries before professional clerics had the means to collect large numbers of scrolls. Text variation is negligible and certainly they didn't accumulate over time. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered the oldest copy of the Masoretic Text (Hebrew Old Testament) was from the tenth century AD. When they finally got around to disclosing what was discovered from the finds it turns out the only differences were normal, negligible text variation.

Frankly I think they are putting us on, it's been a while since a fielded what I considered a legitimate argument against the credibility of Scripture, and it's not like there are none. The Scriptures stand up very well under close scrutiny and honest scholarship. The problem isn't the evidence, the problem is with modern bias and naturalistic assumptions. What they don't like are the miracles and they wouldn't believe if they saw one right in front of them.

Watch out, then, that what was spoken by the prophets does not happen to you: ‘Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish; for I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.’” (Acts 13:41)​

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[mark kennedy]

I would recommend the book, even if only for the bibliography, it is amazing! I'm not sure his argument is compelling but his presentation of historical Infor. Arion from the period is very interesting and worth the read. Also as he says the way he has laid out the case it is very easy to pick out elements to falsify

Arion was a kitharode in ancient Greece, a Dionysiac poet credited with inventing the dithyramb: "As a literary composition for chorus dithyramb was the creation of Arion of Corinth," (Wikipedia)
​

From what I'm getting it's just a musical score, more theatrics then anything else. I think he would be hard pressed to make an effective argument equivocating Aion and Jesus.

 

[redleghunter]

Well, my opinion after years of study is that the historicity of Scripture has a highly credible written record that is incomparable to anything from antiquity. There is nothing else like it, it's a living witness since it's been in the custody of living people it's entire history. Simon Greenleaf wrote a short book on the historicity of the New Testament offering tests used to weigh the truthfulness of testimony used in municipal courts in his day. He was uniquely qualified to do this kind of work since he literally wrote the book on evidence and was one of the founders of the Harvard Law School where he served as Dean. These where the criteria:

• Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forger, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise.
• In matters of public and general interest, all persons must be presumed to be conversant, on the principle that individuals are presumed to be conversant with their own affairs.
• In trials of fact, by oral testimony, the proper inquiry is not whether is it possible that the testimony may be false, but whether there is sufficient probability that it is true.
• In proceeding to weigh the evidence of any proposition of fact, the previous question to be determined is, when may it be said to be proved? The answer to this question is furnished by another rule of municipal law, which may be thus stated: A proposition of fact is proved, when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence.
• The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, their honesty; secondly, their ability; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances. Let the evangelists be tried by these tests. (Greenleaf, Testimony of the Evangelists)

I have no problem pursuing actual evidence but a thesis that the Gospels are really just some kind of a mystery religion has no basis in anything I can recognize as actual evidence. Still I'm intrigued, just not impressed with what I've seen so far.

Grace and peace,
Mark

If you have not investigated the works of Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, I recommend them.

William Mitchell Ramsay - Wikipedia

You can find most of his tomes on line.

He was a theologian and archeologist. He investigated the historical claims of Luke and Paul by going to the actual Biblical locations. Prior to his discoveries most liberal theologians laughed off the Gospel of Luke and Acts as later forgeries. He put their skepticism to rest.

 

[mark kennedy]

If you have not investigated the works of Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, I recommend them.

William Mitchell Ramsay - Wikipedia

You can find most of his tomes on line.

He was a theologian and archeologist. He investigated the historical claims of Luke and Paul by going to the actual Biblical locations. Prior to his discoveries most liberal theologians laughed off the Gospel of Luke and Acts as later forgeries. He put their skepticism to rest.

Yes I'm familiar with his work, I read Paul, Traveler and Roman Citizen and it has some very interesting things about the first century cities Paul visited. Probably the best thing I've found by him was the Letter to the Seven Churches. He describes the Roman Road the circled the seven churches starting in Ephesus, going north to Smyrna...etc. Apparently Smyrna had a church that remained throughout the Byzantine empire, right up until 1400 AD. One of the things Luke is known for is his details, names, dates, places and when these details are checked they match the first century perfectly. The Carrier theories sound contrived by someone who never even bothered to read the books he chooses to dismiss as myth. He grossly misrepresents the testimony of Paul he admits Paul wrote and every time he mentions a passage or a message, he's wrong.

Ramsay is great, I've enjoyed his work for sometime. If your every interested in a really great book of Christian Apologetics I recommend Therefore Stand by Wilbur Smith. The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel is good to but Therefore Stand is one of the best documented books defending the resurrection I've ever seen.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Athée]

Arion was a kitharode in ancient Greece, a Dionysiac poet credited with inventing the dithyramb: "As a literary composition for chorus dithyramb was the creation of Arion of Corinth," (Wikipedia)
​

From what I'm getting it's just a musical score, more theatrics then anything else. I think he would be hard pressed to make an effective argument equivocating Aion and Jesus.

LOL... I am so sorry. That was an autocorrect of information , ot meant to be info Aion, my apologies.

 

[mark kennedy]

LOL... I am so sorry. That was an autocorrect of information , ot meant to be info Aion, my apologies.

Aion has more in common with string theory then it does any of the Gospel accounts. Both String Theory and Darwinian metaphysics go for this kind of chasing ghosts in the fog mysticism. Carrier's motivations seem dubious as well, he gets out of college with student load debt out his ears and takes a job working for atheists telling them what they want to hear.

Like I say I might end up looking into his book and I would, if I think he would substantiate something once in a while.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I did some looking around and watched a Carrier video on the historicity of Jesus, highly suppositional and some pretty fundamental errors. For instance, the cursing of the fig tree, the tree was infertile or otherwise defective. The proper thing to do was to cut it down and burn out the roots before it infects another fig tree. It wasn't the season but their were leaves and the fruit appeared on the fig tree before the leaves, this one had nothing. There should have been green buds. This is his big evidencial argument proving the Gospel accounts are mythology?

I don't think that you are being fair to his argument. He's talking about how stories in Mark are parables that fit a complex narrative structure, not an historical document. Even if it were the case that one should cut down defective fig trees, that doesn't really affect his main point.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[mark kennedy]

I don't think that you are being fair to his argument. He's talking about how stories in Mark are parables that fit a complex narrative structure, not an historical document. Even if it were the case that one should cut down defective fig trees, that doesn't really affect his main point.


eudaimonia,

Mark

But if what Carrier is talking about is Mark 5 there is a solid narrative and nothing indicating a parable. A parable will most often start of with the kingdom of heaven is 'like', all parables have some kind of 'like' or 'as' in the immediate context. The same holds true for figurative language, Jesus says he is the bread of life but when you look at the context he was comparing himself to the manna that came down from heaven and the miracle of the loaves of bread. The narrative in Mark 5 starts with Jesus crossing Galilee and a multitude greets him, he is on his way to help a 12 year old girl who was in some kind of a coma and on the way the old woman with the bleeding issue touched him as he passed. The fact that the girl was 12 and the old woman had the bleeding issue was clearly coincidental with no basis of comparison to anything figurative except if you assign an allegorical relationship arbitrarily.

He makes it clear that he considers the Gospels to be fraudulent but makes no effort to qualify that statement.

As far as the fig tree there was a practical reason the tree was cursed and it wasn't because Jesus was mad at the tree. Since it had leaves it should have had buds but because they weren't there it meant something is wrong with the tree. This isn't an original argument, he is echoing an argument from Bertrand Russell in his lectures and book about why he was not a Christian. You would think after 6 years it might have occurred to Carrier to consider why the tree was cursed and it takes nothing more then knowing something about fig trees. Why Jesus cursed the tree was evident and he treats the passage with indifference assigning allegorical interpretations seemingly at random.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Eudaimonist]

But if what Carrier is talking about is Mark 5 there is a solid narrative and nothing indicating a parable.

You are still not being fair to his argument. He gives reasons for seeing Mark 5 as having a meaning as part of a larger context. It doesn't depend on First Century horticultural practices.

Rather, it depends on an understanding of story-telling structures used in those days, such as Inclusio. He talks a bit about this from 22:40 to 33:00. The whole video is worth watching.

Even if cursing fig trees actually made sense, that doesn't really address his argument.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[redleghunter]

Like I say I might end up looking into his book and I would, if I think he would substantiate somethi

I think I remember seeing the Carrier book next to this one, on the Barnes and Noble 95% off table.

 

[mark kennedy]

You are still not being fair to his argument. He gives reasons for seeing Mark 5 as having a meaning as part of a larger context. It doesn't depend on First Century horticultural practices.

That's the whole problem, he is not taking anything in its historical context. He dismisses the cursing of the fig tree as something out of Harry Potter which I think is foolish. Most importantly, this man hasn't done his research and he is not even making an original argument. It sounds like he is playing to atheists and mimicking the banter they have been engaging in around the dinner table.

Rather, it depends on an understanding of story-telling structures used in those days, such as Inclusio. He talks a bit about this from 22:40 to 33:00. The whole video is worth watching.

I enjoyed watching it, the sandwich parody is fanciful nonsense.

Even if cursing fig trees actually made sense, that doesn't really address his argument.

He doesn't have an argument. He is making random associations and playing to an audience that simply enjoys the levity and disdain. His work is far from scholarly and yet another dismissal of the Scriptures of history based on a preoccupation with naturalistic assumptions.

One of the things that jumps out at me is that he says history should never be chronological, what he misses is Hebrew and Christian history always is. If we heard a news story about something that happened during a terrorist attack we would never discount the news story as being fraudulent because it's chronological, we would discount it if it jumps around arbitraily. The man lacks substance. Agree or disagree with the Scriptures but by dismissing them in the casual and shallow way he does, he begs the question of actual evidence on his hands and knees.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[Eudaimonist]

Most importantly, this man hasn't done his research

*facepalm*

He has done a huge amount of research.

he is not even making an original argument.

He doesn't claim to be completely original, and originality is only a plus for artists, not for historians.

It sounds like he is playing to atheists and mimicking the banter they have been engaging in around the dinner table.

Except that he has a Ph.D. and has done peer reviewed research.

Have a nice day

Have a super day.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[mark kennedy]

*facepalm*

He has done a huge amount of research.

His evidence are random comparisons and ridiculous mischaracterizations. The lack of evidence in his arguments are telling.

He doesn't claim to be completely original, and originality is only a plus for artists, not for historians.

He failed to mention that he got his argument concerning the cursing of the fig tree from Bertrand Russell. This guy is a PHD and he doesn't bother to cite his source? That doesn't show a high degree of academic integrity.

Except that he has done far more research.

He is doing little more then mocking the Scriptures, apparently that plays well with atheists.

Grace and peace,
Mark