Last time we looked at Carrier’s approach and found it to be a very appropriate one.  Judgements, whether educational judgements or historical ones or whatever, are made according to criteria that have a qualitative and quantitative dimension.  Making this explicit is important because we want to get beyond “gut feeling” judgments like “this feels like … (Part 6) Blogging Through Richard Carrier’s new book “The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus (2025)”

There is a current push, in all disciplines really, to push toward reliability of conclusions, showing your reasoning is based on sound logic. For example, we want to be able to explain why a child received a B grade in Social Studies so that we don’t simply claim the child’s project felt like a “B” … (Part 5) Blogging Through Richard Carrier’s new book “The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus (2025)”

In this chapter, one thing that caught my eye was Carrier rejecting the Q source as a supporter of Jesus’ existence.  He writes: One of the most ineffectual versions of this approach is to defend the historicity of Jesus on the basis of non-existent sources, like ‘Q’ or ‘M’ or ‘L’ or the ‘Signs Gospel’, … (Part 4) Blogging Through Richard Carrier’s new book “The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus (2025)” 

This chapter is The Inadequacy of Critical Responses So Far. In this chapter Carrier responds to some of the responses to his work.  In general, he concludes: The most typical maneuvers are to (1) misstate an argument and rebut that, rather than any actual argument in either study; or to (2) restate the evidence or … (Part 3) Blogging Through Richard Carrier’s new book “The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus (2025)” 

Chapter 2 is called Updates, Developments, Trendline: What I’ve Published, New Developments, Has Any Background Knowledge Changed? Here are a couple things that stood out to me: 1. But it also includes a more direct comparison with the Hellenistic Osiris cult as a proof-of-concept. We know from Plutarch that Osiris was also publicly preached as … (Part 2) Blogging Through Richard Carrier’s new book “The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus (2025)” 

POST UPDATED! The modern incarnation of the Christ Myth theory, the idea that Jesus was originally thought to be a celestial being who was later Euhermerized or put in stories on earth, is generally thought to be inaugurated by Earl Doherty’s “The Jesus Puzzle,” and dealt with under peer review by Carrier and Lataster.  In … (Part 1) Blogging Through Richard Carrier’s new book “The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus (2025)” 

Previously, I looked at Plutarch’s Parallel lives and how the dead crucified Jesus on the cross converting the Roman soldier seems to be derived from the dead crucified Cleomenes III converting onlookers in Plutarch.  There is much such parallelism in the bible, such as John the Baptist and Jesus imitating Elijah and Elisha, as well … Conclusion: The Trials and Death of Jesus

Last time we looked at the Gospels viewing the destruction of the temple in 70CE as divine punishment for the Jews collaborating with the Romans to wrongfully kill Jesus. This was thought in the light of the two angels sent to Lot / Sodom and Gomorrah to test the people, after which the city was … (2/2) Jesus the Angel: Christ Myth Theory

Helen Bond argues that Mark views Jesus’ death as the reason the temple was destroyed in 70 CE.  Bond notes in Mark, Mark thinks the temple was destroyed in 70CE because of sin and the Jewish leadership killing Jesus, like the first temple fell to the Babylonians because of sin.  Many thought the Jewish elite … Jesus the Angel

It has long been suspected by New Testament scholars that there was a now lost Q source which contained sayings by Jesus found in Matthew and Luke that did not come from Mark, and may have been very early. The earliest layer of these sayings seems to be a collection of Cynic-like sayings, which as … A “Q” For All Seasons: How Sayings Attributed To Jesus Became The Story Of Jesus