2012-03-21 Ehrman Trashtalks Mythicism (Richardcarrier - Info) (10035)

Ehrman Trashtalks Mythicism
BY R ICH AR D CAR R IER / ON MARCH 21, 2012 / 348 COMMENTS
Yesterday Bart Ehrman posted a brief article at the Huffington Post (Did Jesus Exist?) that essentially trashtalks all
mythicists (those who argue Jesus Christ never actually existed but was a mythical person, as opposed to historicists, who
argue the contrary), indiscriminately, with a litany of blatant factual errors and logical fallacies. This is either the worst
writing he has ever done, or there are far more serious flaws in his book than I imagined (Did Jesus Exist? The
Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth). Amazon just reported that it shipped my copy of his book yesterday as
well, so I will be able to review it soon.
I am puzzled especially because this HuffPo articleas written makes several glaring errors and rhetorical howlers that I
cannot believe any competent scholar would have written. Surely he is more careful and qualified in the book? I really hope
so. Because I was expecting it to be the best case for historicism in print. But if it’s going to be like this article, it’s going to
be the worst piece of scholarship ever written. So stay tuned for my future review of his book. For now, I will address this
brief article, not knowing how his book might yet rescue him from an epic fail.
Attacking Academic Freedom
I won’t address his appeal to the genetic fallacy (mythicists are all critics of religion, therefore their criticisms of a religion
as myth can be dismissed) or his sniping at credentials (where he gets insanely and invalidly hyper-specific about what
qualifies a person to speak on this subject [which as one reader pointed out is the no-true-Scottsman fallacy]), except to
note that it’s false: mythicist Thomas Thompson meets every one of Ehrman’s criteria–excepting only one thing, he is an
expert in Judaism rather than Christianity specifically. And I know Ehrman knows of him. So did he just “forget” when he
says he knows of no one who meets his criteria? Or is he being hyper-hyper specific and not allowing even professors of
Jewish studies to have a respectable opinion in this matter? As Thompson’s book The Messiah Myth introduces the
subject, “the assumptions that the gospels are about a Jesus of history…are not justified.” He says (my emphasis) that “a
historical Jesus might be essential to the origins of Christianity,” but is not essential to the construction of “the gospels” (p.
8), not even the sayings in them come from a historical Jesus (pp. 11-26).
Thompson allows the possibility of a historical Jesus, but concludes that the “Jesus” of the New Testament is mythical, and
calls for renewed study of the question of historicity generally. In his introduction to a recent anthology on the topic, which
includes works by mythicists alongside historicists, Thompson (as co-author) concludes that “an unquestioning acceptance
of the New Testament figures of Jesus, Paul and the disciples as historical can at times be shown to ignore and
misunderstand the implicit functions of our texts” (p. 8 of Is This Not the Carpenter? The Question of the Historicity
of the Figure of Jesus) and the possibility that Jesus didn’t exist “needs to be considered more comprehensively” than the
dismissive attitude of historicists (like, as it happens, Ehrman) has allowed (p. 10). Currently all we have, Thompson
concludes, is “a historical Jesus” who “is a hypothetical derivative of scholarship,” which “is no more a fact than is an
equally hypothetical historical Moses or David.”
That’s a prestigious professor of biblical studies. Is Ehrman really pooh-poohinghis qualifications? Because if he is, this
article becomes a massive case of foot-in-mouth. Because in it, Ehrman commits some glaring factual errors that entailhe is
either the one not qualified to discuss this subject, or one of the sloppiest and most careless writers on earth. I’ll get to that.
But first I must remark on the significance of all this. Ehrman intimates that any professor who entertains this hypothesis will
be fired or otherwise never hired, that he will in effect suffer career persecution. He does not say this with sadness, but with
glee, satisfaction even. Indeed Ehrman’s own article represents a variety of this persecution: ridicule and the slandering of
credentials. Thompson may have only felt free to be honest about his views after he retired, when no one could fire him or
persecute his career. I personally know a few professors who themselves also feel this way: they do not touch this topic
with a ten foot pole, precisely because they fear the kind of thing Ehrman is doing and threatening. They do not want to lose
their jobs or career prospects and opportunities. They do not want to be ridiculed or marginalized.
This makes Ehrman’s observation that no mythicist presently has a professorship (a distinction he did not make, but I am)
a self-fulfilling prophecy: since Ehrman has all but explicitly stated that professors in “accredited institutions” do not have
academic freedom, that indeed Ehrman opposes that freedom, verbally and institutionally, and endorses persecuting,
verbally and institutionally, any who dare exercise it, who else do you think is free to challenge the consensus on this issue?
Obviously, only outsiders can. The fact that that is what he observes is therefore not an argument against the merits of
mythicism, but against the merits of attacking academic freedom.
Few other issues have this problem. You can challenge the consensus on almost anything else in Jesus studies, but this is
sacrosanct, and if you dare, “we’ll ruin your career.” Such is Ehrman’s message. The fact that he then finds this a mark
against mythicism betrays his circular reasoning. No, Dr. Ehrman, it is a mark against mainstream scholarship. You are
acting like it is a religion, with dogmas that cannot be challenged, lest you suffer the consequences. Just imagine all the
professors who find some mythicist theories plausible, reading your article. You have just successfully intimidated them into
shutting the hell up. Or at least, apparently, you hope to have. That’s not admirable. And it’s not how an institution that
values the pursuit of the truth should behave.
The only people who should be in danger of losing their careers in the field, and who should be criticized as such, are those
who persistently fail to follow sound and defensible methods, or persistently demonstrate dishonesty or incompetence
(James Tabor I fear might be going down that road; time will tell). Taking a controversial position and arguing a
controversial theory does not rise to that level (much less merely considering or discussing it as a possibility). Thus, you
should not attack mythicists as a group, for merely sharing a common position or theory, as if there were no distinctions
among them as to capability and quality of work. That’s defending a dogma, not a method. Rather, you should attack
particular and demonstrable failures of method and competence. And not just claim incompetence, but prove it. Anything
else is just special pleading and ad hominem. To do it in the guise of shaming anyone who would dare side with us by
denouncing in advance their competence and sanity and implicitly threatening their jobs only makes this despicable rather
than merely fallacious.
I’m told Ehrman might make a cleaner distinction between quality and crank mythicism in his book. But many more people
will read this article than his book. It’s therefore irresponsible of him to cast this nuance to the wind.
Factual Mistakes
An example of proving a specific instance of incompetence is to identify a factual error that no one who claims to be an
expert on the issue in question could possibly have made. There are many other errors one can make, which don’t rise to
that level, but I mean here errors of a very exceptional kind. Ehrman commits several, which I find astonishing, given his
competence generally (his works in Jesus studies and textual criticism are among the best available, and I have and will
always recommend Jesus Interrupted as the book anyone should read who wants to get up to speed on the current
consensus in New Testament and Early Christianity, being a perfect parallel to The Bible Unearthed, which plays the
same role for the Old Testament). A single error would be a minor lapse; but four in one brief article is a trend.
Perhaps these aren’t mistakes, and just very, very, very badly worded sentences. When I receive his book in a few days
I’ll be able to check. Possibly he does a much better job there, and gets his facts right. We’ll see. But for now, I have to
address this article…
Mistake #1: Ehrman says “not even … the most powerful and important figure of his day, Pontius Pilate” is “mentioned in
any Roman sources of his day.” False. Philo of Alexandria was a living contemporary of Pilate, and wrote a whole book
about him (or rather, against both Sejanus and Pilate, documenting the ways they had persecuted Jews contrary to prior
imperial edicts, cf. Schürer and Eusebius, History of the Church 2.5, who had read this book), which we don’t have (it is
one of the missing volumes of the Embassy to Gaius), but we do have Philo discussing one event involving Pilate in another
book we do have, written in the 40s A.D., probably while Pilate was still alive, in his retirement (Philo, Embassy to Gaius
299-305).
We also have discussions of Pilate in Josephus’ Jewish War, written in 78 A.D., the same distance from Pilate’s life as the
earliest Gospels are assumed to be from Jesus. But perhaps Ehrman is being hyper-specific again and only talking about
contemporary attestation, although that would be disingenuous, since it is precisely this kind of early secular reference to
Pilate that we don’t have for Jesus, and Ehrman is trying to say Pilate is an example of a famous person for whom we don’t
have this–but, alas, we do. But even if we assume the disingenuous limiting of relevance to texts composed in “his day” we
have Philo. If Ehrman is being hyper-specific as to his use of the word “Roman,” that would be even more disingenuous (as
Philo’s cititizenship would hardly matter for this purpose; and at any rate, as a leading scholar and politician in Alexandria
and chief embassador to the emperor, Philo was almost certainly a Roman citizen).
Forgetting (or not knowing?) that Philo attests to Pilate’s service in Judea is a serious error for Ehrman and his argument,
because the absence of any mention of Jesus or Christianity in Philo is indeed very odd. In fact, the loss of his book about
Pilate’s reign is a very curious omission–even though Christians preserved over three dozen other books of his, amounting
to nearly 900 pages of multi-columned small type in English translation, Christians chose not to preserve the book on
Pilate, and that despite preserving other volumes in the very same treatise. Why? Maybe the loss was just accidental (I
suspect it was because no mention of Jesus was in it, but obviously we can debate that). Christians were evangelizing in
Alexandria during Philo’s lifetime. If Acts is to be believed, Jewish leaders were very concerned to oppose this and took
active effort to persecute Christians. If that is at all true, we can be certain Philo knew of Christians and their claims and
stories, and thus knew of Jesus. He was a leading scholar, who wrote on various Jewish sects, and a significant political
figure plugged into the elite concerns of Alexandrian Jews, who even chose him to lead their embassy to the emperor of
Rome. (He also made regular pilgrimages to Jerusalem: Philo, On Providence 2.64.)
The only explanation for why Philo never mentions Christianity is that it was not as important to Jews as Acts depicts, but
was a tiny fringe cult of no significant interest to the Jewish elite. And that is an important conclusion. Mythicists will say
he doesn’t mention Jesus because there was no Jesus, but that does not explain why he doesn’t mentionChristianity.
Certainly, if Jesus was as famous and controversial as the Gospels and Acts depict, then Philo’s lack of interest in either the
man or the threatening and grandiose claims made about him becomes improbable, but if we accept that the Gospels and
Acts hugely exaggerate his fame and importance, then Philo’s disinterest goes back to being probable again. The
consequence of this is that you must accept that Philo’s silence argues against the existence of Jesus as depicted in the
Gospels. One must therefore conclude the Gospels substantially fictionalize the story of Jesus. I don’t think Ehrman
disagrees with that conclusion, but he loses sight of it in his attempt to mock the importance of this kind of evidence, the
silence of external sources.
But that is not the extent of his mistake.
Forgetting (or not knowing?) about Philo (or
even Josephus) mentioning Pilate is bad
enough. Worst of all is the fact that Ehrman’s
claim is completely false even on the most
disingenuous possible reading of his
statement. For we have an inscription,
commissioned by Pilate himself, attesting to
his existence and service in Judea. That’s as
“Roman” an attestation as you can get. And it’s
not just contemporary attestation, it’s
eyewitness attestation, and not just eyewitness
attestation, but its very autograph (not a copy
of a copy of a copy of a copy, but the original
text, no doubt proofed by Pilate’s own eyes). And that literally carved in stone. How could anyone not know of this, who
intended to use Pilate as an example? Even the most rudimentary fact-check would have brought this up. And one of the
most fundamental requirements of Ehrman’s profession is to check what sources we have on Pilate, before making a claim
that we have no early ones. Ehrman thus demonstrates that he didn’t check; which is an amateur mistake. I’ve occasionally
made errors like that, but only in matters of considerable complexity. We’re talking about something he could have
corrected with just sixty seconds on google.
The lack of comparable inscriptions erected by any Christian churches or any wealthy convert at any time throughout the
first century is indeed a curious thing. It can be explained (apocalyptic expectations, poverty, humility, the extremely small
size of the movement). But it is still a fact, and it is not disingenuous to at least concede that we don’t have this or any
comparable evidence. Explaining why we don’t have any evidence (like we have for Pilate: an inscription; a neutral
contemporary text, and a neutral near-contemporary text) does not permit us to ignore the fact that we still don’t have it.
And where evidence is missing, the possibilities multiply. Again, this entails things about early Christianity (whatever
explanation you have for this lack of evidence, you must then accept as true about early Christianity as a whole, and that
means accepting all the consequences of that fact as well).
So this certainly does not prove Jesus didn’t exist. Because we can retreat to the hypothesis that he was not anywhere near
as famous as the Gospels portray, and the Christian movement not anywhere near as large as Acts implies. But Ehrman
didn’t make that valid argument; he made the invalid argument instead, and premised it on amateur factual mistakes.
Emotion seems to have seized his brain. Seeing red, he failed to function like a competent scholar, and instead fired off a
screed every bit as crank as the worst of any of his opponents. Foot, mouth.
This is simply not how to argue for historicity. It’s a classic example of boner mistakes made by historicists, which calls into
question their competence to speak on this issue. Usually I see this claim made of Socrates or Alexander the Great, for
each of whom we have vastly more contemporary attestation than we do for Jesus, despite actual claims to the contrary
made by Jesus scholars who incompetently didn’t bother to check. Thankfully Ehrman didn’t makethat foolish a mistake.
But making the same mistake in using Pilate puts him right in their company.
Mistake #2: Ehrman actually says (and I can’t believe it, but these are his exact words):
“
With respect to Jesus, we have numerous, independent accounts of his life in the sources lying behind the
Gospels (and the writings of Paul) — sources that originated in Jesus’ native tongue Aramaic and that
can be dated to within just a year or two of his life (before the religion moved to convert pagans in
droves). Historical sources like that are pretty astounding for an ancient figure of any kind.
He actually says we have such sources. We do not. That is simply a plain, straight-up falsehood. I can only suppose he
means Q or some hypothesized sources behind the creedal statements in Paul or the sermons in Acts, but none of those
sources exist, and are purely hypothetical. In fact, barely more than conjectural. There is serious debate in the academic
community as to whether Q even existed; and even among those who believe it did, there is serious debate about
whether it comes from Aramaic or in fact Greek sources or whether it’s one source or several or whether it even goes back
to Jesus at all. The background to the creeds and sermons are even more conjectural (the creeds might go back to Aramaic
sources, but none attest to a historical Jesus in the required sense of the term; and the sermons almost certainly do not go
back to Aramaic sources, but are literary constructions of the author of Acts, writing in a Semitized Greek heavily
influenced by the Septuagint; see Proving History, pp. 184-86 and Richard Pervo’s The Mystery of Acts, just for
starters).
So what Aramaic sources do we “have,” Dr. Ehrman? Do tell. And on what basis do you conclude they were written down
“within just a year or two of his life”? How can you be so precise? I can only assume this is an allusion to the origin of the
creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 (whose origin some scholars date to the formation of the cult), which we do not have in
Aramaic, and could have originated in a Semitized Greek (and therefore we cannot becertain it began in Aramaic; and it
certainly is not the words of Jesus). But when did it originate? When did it originatein that form? (Since it is not a given
that it hasn’t changed; it obviously did, since Paul has added to it, attaching a reference to his own revelation at the end;
how many other changes did it undergo on its way to him?) More importantly, that creed contains no reference to Jesus
living on earth, having a ministry, or doing or saying anything in life. All it says is that scripture says he died, was buried,
and was resurrected (it notably does not say anyone witnessed this, or when it happened or by whom, e.g. it does not say
Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate, a key component oflater creeds) and only then this Jesus appeared to some people
(in a fashion I know Ehrman himself agrees is not relevant to this debate: because a historical Jesus did not “appear” after
his death, but a cosmic, revelatory Jesus, a product of the apostles’ imagination).
The fact that Jesus is not said to have appeared or taught or done anything at allbefore he died is not something to just
brush under the rug. Nor also the fact that the only source being given for his death and burial in this creed is scripture,
whereas the source for his “subsequent” (post-mortem) ministry is given as seeing him, and that only in “revelations”
(Galatians 1:11-12, which then must be the same as all the others: 1 Cor. 15:5-8). Likewise, note that many mythical
godmen “died, were buried, and resurrected,” or a near enough equivalent, thus Paul stating such a creed no more attests
the historicity of Jesus than it attests the historicity of Osiris (or Romulus or Hercules or Inanna or Zalmoxis or Bacchus or
Adonis and so on; Osiris is the only one of these who was explicitly “buried,” but similar stories were told of all these
others, e.g. Hercules was burned on a pyre, and certainly before Christianity: see Not the Impossible Faith, chapters 1
and 3). None of this entails Jesus didn’t exist, but it certainly allows the possibility. If Ehrman doesn’t see that, then he is
not being objective or reasonable.
Thus when he touts this conjectural, non-existent, uncertain-to-be “Aramaic” source (in fact he says sources, so we even
have multiple imaginary attestation!), which in fact argues as much for the non-existence of Jesus as otherwise, as being
comparable to a slam-dunk confirmation of his historicity, this is some very slipshod argument indeed. Had any of his
opponents pulled that trick on him, he would not be at all kind in pointing out how fallacious it is. But alas, he cannot see
that he is committing the very same fallacy, and in his effort to attack his enemies, has become just like them. That he
actually says we have this conjectural, non-existent, uncertain-to-be “Aramaic” source is, by contrast, profoundly
incompetent writing. I am certain he did not really mean to lie. In his emotional pique, he just didn’t proof his own article
and thus didn’t notice how badly he misspoke. But that suggests he is driving on emotion and not reason or any careful
process.
And yet one could easily mistake him for lying. Because he actually says of this conjectural, non-existent, uncertain-to-be
“Aramaic” source that “historical sources like that are pretty astounding for an ancient figure of any kind.” You mean, not
having a source is pretty astounding for an ancient figure? Stated correctly, his sentence makes no sense (there is nothing
astounding about not having a source). Thus, it seems as if he really did intend the readers of his article to believe we have
this source he is talking about (and indeed, many a layperson will make this mistake in reading it, and I fully expect to have
people repeating to me that “Dr. Ehrman said we have multiple Aramaic documents dating to just a year or two after Jesus
attesting his existence,” requiring me to correct them, an annoying phenomenon I usually have to deal with from mythicists,
not proper scholars like Ehrman).
Altogether, these two sentences from him look more crank than anything he accuses mythicists of. A hypothetical source
we don’t have is simply not “pretty astounding.” Indeed, if that’s the standard, then we have vast quantities of sources for
other ancient persons. Really, if we get to count “hypothetical” sources like that, then in fact don’t we have such sources for
all historical persons attested in antiquity?
Mistake #3: Ehrman says “we do not have accounts of others who were born to virgin mothers and who died as an
atonement for sin and then were raised from the dead (despite what the sensationalists claim ad nauseum [sic] in
their propagandized versions).” Taken strictly literally, this sentence is true. But that is misleading, and therefore
disingenuous. As such, it amounts to a straw man (at least of many mythicists; some few mythicists, the more incompetent
of them, make that specific claim, but attacking only the weakest proponent of a position is precisely what makes this a
fallacy). No competent mythicist makes this claim. Rather, they claim that virgin-born gods were a common phenomenon in
the region at the time and dying-and-rising gods were a common phenomenon in the region at the time (in precisely the way
these were not anywhere else, e.g. in ancient China), and so for Jews to suddenly start claiming they have one, too, looks
pretty easily explained in terms of standard theories of cultural diffusion. (See my chapter on the origins of Christianity in
The End of Christianity, ch. 2, pp. 53-74.)
Ehrman appears to be denying this, and as such is making himself look like a crank again–in fact like an ignorant Christian
apologist spewing contrafactual propaganda. That makes him at the very least guilty of really terrible writing. What I
suppose he means to say is the disingenuous, strictly literal thing, but as I already noted, that would be fallacious and thus
logically incompetent. Religious syncretism is the process of combining ideas from several sources, often the most popular
or useful ideas in the air, into a new whole, making for a new religion. All religions are produced this way. Christianity
therefore certainly was as well (it would go against all prior probability to claim otherwise, and against all the evidence as
well). Judaism had a prominent component of sacrifices atoning for a nation’s entire sins, a belief in the holy spirit making
Jewish kings into the sons of god (see Not the Impossible Faith, chapter 9), and a tendency toward ascetic denigration
of sexuality. Paganism had a prominent component of dying-and-rising savior gods, who likewise offered ways to cleanse
their followers of sins and thus procure them entry into paradise–not necessarily by their death, but always in some way,
and in many cases through baptismal rituals long predating Christianity’s adoption of the same or similar ritual (see The
Empty Tomb, p. 215, n. 210); and pagans had many traditions about virgin born sons of god. Note what happens when
you combine the Jewish side with the pagan: you get Christianity. This is actually almost certainly what happened, and
thus should not even be in dispute.
This does not equate to concluding that Jesus was a fictional person; rather, even if he was historical, the attribution to him
of the properties of pagan deities had to come from somewhere, and cultural diffusion is the obvious source. Ehrman
appears to be denying even that latter fact, which puts him at the far extreme of even mainstream scholarship. He is
implausibly implying that it’s “just a coincidence” that in the midst of a fashion for dying-and-rising salvation gods with sin-
cleansing baptisms, the Jews just happened to come up with the same exact idea without any influence at all from this going
on all around them. That they “just happened” to come up with the idea of a virgin born son of god, when surrounded by
virgin born sons of god, as if by total coincidence. (Can you imagine it? They independently think up the idea, then go
preaching around Gentile cities and discover there are all these other virgin born sons of god…why, golly gee, what a
coincidence! See Not the Impossible Faith, pp. 76-78, near the end of chapter 2, where Perseus is an example
recognized even by early Christians as being “virgin born”; and to which can be added, in some traditions, the virgin birth of
Romulus: Plutarch, Life of Romulus 3; Ra, in the tradition that had him born of the virgin Neith; Dionysus, in the tradition
by which Semele is impregnated with a potion; etc. [Update: For more accurate treatment of these and other
examples see my new article on Virgin Birth])
So does Ehrman mean we have no precedent who satisfied all those attributes at once? (A straw man.) Or does he mean
we have no precedents for any of those attributes individually as available material for syncretism? (A false claim, of the
most incompetent kind.) Either he is engaging in patently illogical argument, or disturbingly incompetent reporting. Neither
makes him look like he’s the one to trust in this debate. Again, this makes him look like the slipshod crank.
Mistake #4: This might not be a mistake, so much as an allusion to an argument in his book: he says “prior to Christianity,
there were no Jews at all, of any kind whatsoever, who thought that there would be a future crucified messiah.” He knows I
have presented ample evidence refuting this, both as to the fact of it (Daniel 9:26 says a messiah will die, and the pre-
Christian Melchizedek scroll explicitly identifies this passage as being about the messiah, or at least a messiah who would
cleanse the world of sin), and also by demonstrating its irrelevance, since even Ehrman cannot deny later Jews taught and
believed in a future messiah “son of Joseph” who would be killed by his enemies (as attested in the Talmud and other
Judaica), and they certainly didn’t borrow this idea from the despised heretical sect of Christianity, which means the idea
was not anathema to Jews and could easily be conceived by them (and likely predates Christianity, since both Jews and
Christians imagining the dying messiah’s father as named “Joseph” seems otherwise a remarkable coincidence, but that
need not be supposed to make my present point).
On all these points, see my essay The Dying Messiah. I can only presume Ehrman builds some sort of argument against
my case in his book, which from our correspondence I predict will be fallacious (making a straw man of my evidence,
selecting scholarship that agrees with him and ignoring scholarship that agrees with me, etc.). But in this article, to make so
adamant an assertion, knowing full well there is a respectable case to be made to the contrary, is again crank behavior, not
reasoned scholarship. Once again he is acting exactly like the worst of those he denounces.
His mistake here is two-fold, in fact, since it does not merely consist of a factually questionable assertion, and one that does
not entail the conclusion he wants even if the assertion were true (since imagining a murdered messiah was possible for
Jews, he cannot mean to argue Christians wouldn’t have invented it, when later Jews clearly had no problem inventing one),
but he leverages it into a whopper of a logical fallacy: a self-contradictory assertion. Ehrman says “the messiah was to be a
figure of grandeur and power who overthrew the enemy” (certainly, that was the most common view; but it is a fallacy of
hasty generalization to assume that that was the only view, especially since we don’t know what most of the dozens of
Jewish sects there were believed about this: see Proving History, pp. 129-34). From this fallacious hasty generalization,
Ehrman then concludes “anyone who wanted to make up a messiah would make him like that.”
Now, I want to pause for a moment and perform a brief logic test. Before reading on, read that last quotation again, and
ask yourself if you can see why that conclusion can’t be correct. Why, in fact, what he is suggesting, what he predicts
would happen on mythicism, is impossible.
Answer: the only kind of messiah figure you could invent would be one who wasn’t like that. Otherwise, everyone would
notice no divine being had militarily liberated Israel and resurrected all the world’s dead. This means the probability of that
evidence (“anyone who wanted to make up a messiah would make him like that”) on the hypothesis “someone made up a
messiah” is exactly zero. In formal terms, by the Bayesian logic of evidence (which I explain inProving History), this
means P(~e|h.b) = 0, and since P(e|h.b) = 1 – P(~e|h.b), and 1 – 0 = 1, P(e|h.b) = 1, i.e. 100%. This means that if
“someone made up a messiah” we can be absolutely certain he would look essentially just like Jesus Christ. A being
no one noticed, who didn’t do anything publicly observable, yet still accomplished the messianic task, only spiritually
(precisely the one way no one could produce any evidence against). In other words, a messiah whose accomplishments
one could only “feel in one’s heart” (or see by revelation, as the Corinthian creed declares; or discover in scripture, as that
same creed again declares, as well as Romans 16:25-26).
This means Ehrman is definitely failing at basic evidential logic. This is one respect in which my book Proving History will
school him.
Ehrman’s Only Evidence
Ehrman lists only one single item of evidence for Jesus’ historicity that survives basic review: the fact that Paul once refers to
having met “James the brother of the Lord” (Galatians 1:18-20; Paul also mentions a generic “brothers of the Lord” in1
Cor. 9:5). Ehrman slightly misrepresents the evidence when he claims that Paul met “Jesus’ closest disciple Peter,” since
Paul never once calls Peter a “disciple” (in fact, no such term appears anywhere in Paul’s letters), and never mentions him
being close to Jesus at all, much less his “closest.” But Paul does say he met the brother of the Lord, and mentions
“brothers of the Lord.”
However, Paul does not say “brother of Jesus,” but “brother of the Lord,” which can only be a cultic title (one does not
become the brother of “the Lord” until the person in question is hailed “the Lord,” thus the phrase “brother of the Lord” is a
creation of Christian ideology). Yes, he may have earned that cultic title by actually being the brother of Jesus. But he could
also have earned it by simply being a baptized Christian. Since all baptized Christians were the adopted sons of God, just
as Jesus was (Romans 1:3-4), Jesus was only “the first born among many brethren” (Romans 8:29), which means all
Christians were the brothers of the Lord (or rather, all baptized Christians were, as there is evidence to suggest one did not
become adopted until baptism, e.g. Romans 6:3-10, and Christians were not baptized right away, they had to undergo a
period of initiation first). Though true in that sense, possibly one was not allowed to use that specific title until they had
achieved full ascension through all the grades of initiation, and thus it was a title of rank, since there is evidence in Clement
of Alexandria that one did not become fully a son of God until ascending several levels of initiation.
But one can question at what time that multi-stage process was begun, and exploring that would be too lengthy a
digression. It’s enough to test the hypothesis that every Christian would be called brother of the Lord. The fact of it is true:
as just shown, all Christians were brothers of the Lord, by their own religious conceptions; there are numerous passages in
Paul that confirm this: Romans 8:15-29, 9:26; Galatians 3:26-29, 4:4-7; and Christians explicitly taught that Jesus
himself called all of them his brothers in Hebrews 2:10-18, via a “secret message” in the Psalms (Psalms 22:22). They
had obvious inspiration from what they regarded as scripture, the Psalms of Solomon 17:26-27, which Paul appears to
reference, and which predicted that the messiah would gather a select people and designate them all the sons of god (and
thereby, his brethren).
This is hypothesis (1); the alternatives are (2) that only actual brothers could use this title, even though all Christians were
brothers of the Lord, which would entail some policing of the use of the phrase, which is not in evidence in Paul or (3) such
policing was done, but to secure the title as one of rank and not actual biological kinship. Notably, (2) and (3) both require
a practice of policing the use of the exact phrase, to prevent other brothers of the Lord from calling themselves or each
other Brothers of the Lord. The probability that (1) or (3) is true is greater than the probability that only (1) is true, and only
on (2) is this phrase evidence of the historicity of Jesus. So if we ignore (3) and only focus on (1), our conclusion against
(2) will be even stronger when we include the possibility of (3).
So what happens when we compare (1) against (2)? Hypothesis (2) requires there to have been policing of the cultic title
so that only biological brothers could use it or be referred to by it. Hypothesis (1) does not require that ad hoc
assumption. This means (1) is the simpler hypothesis. It therefore has the greater prior probability (see Proving History,
pp. 80-81). Furthermore, (1) is actually in evidence (we know all Christians in Paul’s time were brothers of the Lord in
cultic fact, as all the passages above prove), whereas (2) is not (not one time in all of Paul’s letters does he ever say or
even imply that this phrase means only biological brothers). (1) is therefore the most probable hypothesis. Which therefore
means this phrase is not evidence for the historicity of Jesus. In Bayesian terms, this means: given the background evidence
(the facts pertaining to Christians regarding themselves as all sons of God and thus brothers ofthe son of God), (1) has
greater prior probability, and greater net consequent probability (since on [2] the probability can’t be zero that we would
have better evidence against [1], whereas on [1] the evidence we have is 100% expected). [This conclusion could change if
we verify that the claims in the Gospels (and subsequent sources) that Jesus had brothers are true, but that would first have
to be done.]
The one argument left is to suggest that if (1) were true, it would be redundant of Paul to mention that James was a brother
of the Lord (that would not, however, be the case in 1 Cor. 9:5), and redundant expressions are less probable (i.e. they are
unexpected). But this fails a basic test: Paul often calls people “brother” along with their name even when the context makes
this redundant (Philm. 1:1, 1 Thess. 3:2, Philp. 2:25, 2 Cor. 2:13 and 1:1, 1 Cor. 16:12 and 1:1, Romans 16:23).
That he would on rare occasion use the complete phrase “brother of the Lord” would not be unexpected. The more so if
Peter had a brother named James, as that would require Paul in this instance to distinguish the apostle James from James
the brother of Peter, in which case saying just “brother” wouldn’t do, necessitating the full epithet “brother of the Lord,”
i.e. not of Peter (because Paul says he met with “Peter” and no other apostle except this James).
[Nevertheless, after discussing this in comments, I do agree we should allow that his use of the phrase here nevertheless has
some probability less than 100%, since it is not assured that he would have used it here. So we have to break the matter
down into all competing explanations and work the numbers for each. And to argue a fortiori (Proving History, pp. 85-
88) we might even lower that probability a lot, making this evidence for historicity rather than against. But these reasons are
precisely why these conclusions have to be debated and not assumed.]
It is also entirely possible that “of the Lord” (tou kyriou) was a later scribal addition, aiming to turn this James into the
brother of Jesus by harmonization with the Gospels and later legend. These kinds of harmonizing and retrodictive
emendations to the text of the NT were common, and assuming they haven’t occurred in cases, like this, where they are
most likely, is a dangerously weak platform to erect a theory upon (see the slideshow for my debate with J.P. Holding on
the textual reliability of the NT, linked in Debates & Interviews and my post on Pauline Interpolations). Since this is
literally the only evidence Ehrman has that Jesus existed, the weakness of it should be alarming to him, not cause for
arrogant displays of unshakable certainty.
What’s Left?
Ehrman might answer “we have the Gospels” and “we have Paul relating sayings of the Lord” and “we have second century
references” but none of these hold up, as he perhaps knows when he admits there is a lot of mythmaking in the Gospels, for
example. But one myth is as good as another. To say that the Gospels contain a lot of myth, therefore they “can’t” be
entirely myth, is not valid reasoning. They might contain a historical core, they might not. That has to be determined, and is
at least an honestly debatable question. As Dr. Thompson admitted. I think on full analysis they come out as completely
mythical (most of the attempts to argue otherwise fail on basic logic, as I demonstrate in Proving History, chapter 5). That
should at least be a respectable position, even if Ehrman or anyone disagrees with it.
The second century references, meanwhile, cannot be shown to be independent of the Gospels (e.g. the reference in
Tacitus, even the Testimonium Flavianum, even if it were completely genuine–and it’s not–says nothing that could not
have simply been read out of a Gospel or gotten from any other Christian source relying on one), or to derive from any real
source at all (e.g. the Infancy Gospels). And like any other mythic being, the Gospels would not be the earliest versions of
the creed; many mythical demigods “died and were resurrected,” some were even “buried” or hung or burned or cut to
pieces; that doesn’t make them historical. Thus, in Paul, that Jesus was created out of the “seed of David” (in fulfillment of
prophecy) and “born of a woman” are claims that could just as easily be made of any mythical demigod (all of whom were
born of a woman, and some of whom were “magically” born from the seed of their fathers, like Perseus, or even, as in the
case of Dionysus, their previous corpses). They also said things–none of which were historical. Paul himself only identifies
two sources for his sayings of the Lord: scripture and revelation (e.g. 1 Corinthians 11:23 in light of Galatians 1:18-20).
No historical Jesus is needed there.
That leaves nothing.
Obviously, saying all this is by no means sufficient to demonstrate that Jesus didn’t exist. There is still evidence to debate
and logic to test. But it ought to be sufficient to demonstrate that this is at least a respectable theory to consider. As long as
it is considered competently and with due attention to facts and logic and productive peer debate, why not?
“
[For a follow up to this post see McGrath on the Amazing Infallible Ehrman. For my reply to
Ehrman’s response to this review see Ehrman’s Dubious Replies (Round One). And for my subsequent
critical review of Ehrman’s book see Ehrman on Jesus: A Failure of Facts and Logic.]
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348 comments
C JO • MARCH 21, 2012, 3:41 PM
Regarding the supposed Aramaic sources, I think he’s talking about Semitisms in Mark. Not just the actual
transliterated Aramaic, but constructions in Greek that follow Semitic word-order and idiomatic phrasing. He
may be following Maurice Casey, who I think also claims that this must be evidence that Mark had sources
from Jesus’ lifetime or shortly after (I haven’t read Casey’s book).
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 21, 2012, 4:52 PM
That would be fallacious, of course (Semitized Greek was a whole spoken and written dialect
at the time; I cite the references in Proving History). Thus Semitisms do not prove an
Aramaic source. And, again, even if Mark (who actually exhibits poor knowledge of Judea
and Judaism; we know this because Matthew so frequently corrects him) were somehow
using an Aramaic source, that does not mean the source was written, or singular, or early, or
not itself as fabricated as any other Gospel. I discuss all of these methodological issues in
Proving History. Thus, if Casey argues what you say, it’s one more example of the bankrupt
methodology in Jesus studies that I wrote Proving History to expose.
R E P LY
S TEV EN BOLLIN GER • MAR C H 29 , 201 2, 7:00 AM
(HTML is not my strong suit. I still haven’t figured out that citation code.)
Richard, you said:
“Just FYI, my book is much better. It improves on that chapter in every way”
Noted. And I also have no reason to doubt your rave reviews of Ehrman’s earlier books. It’s
just that, to be perfectly honest, I don’t know whether I’m going to be reading that many
recent books — in ANY field. I’m not an academic. One of the reasons I dropped out of
grad school 20 years ago, dropping plans to get an MA and a PhD in German literature, is
that I realized I would have to spend more time reading new scholarly work than primary
texts. And I’m all about the primary texts. And volume 2 of the MGH Scriptores and and an
edition of Claudian (reprints of pre-copyright editions) just arrived from Amazon. And I’m
working hard on learning Greek and Hebrew.
All that by way of explaining why, although I find the historicist/mythicist doohicky very
interesting, I probably won’t be delving into the fray and keeping current quite as if I were an
actual Biblical scholar.
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 29 , 2012, 9 :54
AM
Steven Bollinger:
“
(HTML is not my strong suit. I still haven’t figured out that
citation code.)
Just FYI (for everyone), the codes are above the comment input
box. The relevant ones are ‹i› (for italics) and ‹blockquote› (for
indented text; you don’t need to include the cite=”” attribute). You
write that code before where you want it to apply, and then where
you want it to end you wrote closing tag, ‹/i› or ‹/blockquote›,
respectively.
(As to your other remarks, I definitely know what you mean. I have to
take the same perspective on countless other issues myself.)
R E P LY
N I G E LT H E B O L D T O T H E P O W E R O F N I G E LT H E B O L D • M A R C H 2 1 , 2 0 1 2 , 4 : 0 0
PM
Ah, hell. I’m just reading Ehrman’s Jesus Interrupted and enjoying the fuck out of it. He seems to be
reasonable, for the most part. I wonder if this is his blind spot, a kind of sentimental longing for his fundamentalist
roots?
In any case, he tacitly admits several times in the book that there is very little evidence for a factual Jesus, even
though he doesn’t explicitly admit it.
R E P LY
Ehrman’s Jesus Interrupted is awesome. In fact, I’ve loved everything of his I’ve read so
far (e.g. if you loved JI, you’ll love Forged). And I can vouch for it. He’s almost always
right, and when he’s not, he’s at least reflecting the widest consensus or erring in a
respectable way. So, yeah, don’t by any means take my article as reason not to voraciously
consume his books. JI at the very least should be on everyone’s bookshelf.
But yes, this has to be his blind spot. I suspect he is suffering from intellectual impact trauma:
he’s so sick of reading all the complete tripe there is out there (all the truly terrible mythicism,
which vastly outnumbers anything worth reading), that his brain is locked in outrage mode,
which has sent him off the handle. Or, of course, it could be that he is engaging in system
justification (he fears what would happen to him if he showed any signs of coming anywhere
near us on this, so he has to prove he’s not by taking the most extreme position possible and
attacking us as ruthlessly as he can get away with; just as closeted gays will beat up “out”
gays to (a) prove they aren’t gay and (b) to justify their acceptance of the hatred of gays; and
likewise all manner of social control attitudes, which are reinforced by convincing people they
need to reinforce them for their own good).
R E P LY
MR C LA W • MARCH 22, 2012, 5:51 AM
Hi Richard.
I enjoyed the article. Thanks.
I too have enjoyed Bart’s books. God’s Problem takes a mature look at the biblical
approaches to suffering and evil – and points out that there is no consistent all-encompassing
view. Forged, Jesus Interrupted and Misquoting Jesus were all good too.
I have read some mythicist books. I agree with you that the claim that Jesus never existed
needs serious evaluation (there appears to be virtually no evidence for the historicity of Jesus
and a host of miraculous coincidences between the Gospel narratives and the tributes of
dying/resurrecting godmen).
However, I feel that much of the writing I have read on the matter is somewhat poorly
written. For instance, Freke & Gandy (possibly the worst offenders!) clearly have a new-
aged agenda to push, and take valid pagan comparisons to Jesus and mash them all together,
fudging the gaps, to make them *look* like a consistent narrative. They are also guilty of
assuming that *everyone* from antiquity was a pagan following the same sects at any given
time, and of lumping all contemporary non-orthodox Christian sects together as a single
‘gnostic’ group (even though we know many rival Christianities existed – Ebionites,
Docetists, Arians, Marcionites, etc with quite differing beliefs).
The best it seems we can say about Jesus is that he may have existed; he may not have
existed.
Certainly the level of importance attached to him in NT scripture is a gross exaggeration of

any possible historical figure (hence the lack of evidence); and clearly much detail of the NT
stories has been grafted on from previously-extant pagan and Jewish spiritualism.
Bart’s argument – that he’s made before – that one can infer historical evidence from Q, or
from areas where all the Gospels agree on a point (e.g. that Jesus was executed) is, to that
extent, a bad one. It was easily the weakest part of Jesus Interrupted.
I would counter that several authors have since taken on the mantle of writing Sherlock
Holmes books since the death of Conan Doyle; all these different authors agree that Holmes
lived on Baker St in London. Using Bart’s logic we can therefore conclude that Holmes was
a historical individual and really lived on Baker St. Hell, we even have a a tonne of Holmes
pseudo-historical ‘evidence’ just down the road from where I work (next to Baker St). The
same can be said of James Bond and countless other fictional figures for whom we have
multiple authors in agreement on at least some biographical points. Inferring ‘historical’ info
from differing texts, written at different times, that agree on one or two nuggets is just not
good enough, and Bart should know that.
In the case of Jesus, all the loose agreement between texts means is that there was likely a
pre-existing narrative (spoken or written) that established a pseudo-biography. This may
have been Q, it may have been another document; it may have been oral tradition. It doesn’t
prove that the stories in the NT have historical bases; and without (reasonably)
contemporary, attesting, neutral evidence we can’t seriously derive any more.
Can you, or any of your readers, point me in the direction of some interesting, academic
books that look at the historicity/mythicism of Jesus (other than Thompson’s Messiah Myth
referenced in your article) in a mature and reasoned fashion, rather then the sensationalism of
many popular mythicist tomes?
Thanks,
Chris
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 22, 2012, 10:12
AM
Mr Claw: Can you, or any of your readers, point me in the direction

of some interesting, academic books that look at the
historicity/mythicism of Jesus (other than Thompson’s Messiah Myth
referenced in your article) in a mature and reasoned fashion, rather
then the sensationalism of many popular mythicist tomes?
Earl Doherty’s Jesus Puzzle is the only one really worth reading (as it
argues a coherent thesis throughout, in a systematic and scholarly way; his
follow-up book is much worse in this regard, so I don’t recommend it,
except as a giant appendix to his first one). Robert Price’s The
Incredible Shrinking Son of Man ranks next, although I have some
problems with it (more than I do with Doherty: as to the latter, see my
review, esp. the last section which summarizes those problems).
R E P LY
JA SON GOER TZ EN • MAR C H 22, 2012, 9 :51 AM
I would like to second Richard’s review of Ehrman’s other work, with one caveat: “Jesus:
Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium” is not nearly as well argued as Jesus
Interrupted, Forged, or The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.
His own reconstruction of what the historical Jesus was (probably) like relies on a lot of
fallacious reasoning, and several unjustified assumptions he doesn’t seem to be aware that he
is making.
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 22, 2012, 6 :32
PM
Jason Goertzen: I would like to second Richard’s review of

Ehrman’s other work, with one caveat: “Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet
of the New Millennium” is not nearly as well argued as Jesus
Interrupted, Forged, or The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. His
own reconstruction of what the historical Jesus was (probably) like
relies on a lot of fallacious reasoning, and several unjustified
assumptions he doesn’t seem to be aware that he is making.
That’s a worthwhile point. I would still cite that book as representative of

what’s most likely true if mythicism is false. But even then it could do with
a revision as to its methods, along the lines, and for the reasons, I develop
i n Proving History (where many of the “criteria” he relies on, for
example, are shown not to hold up logically in the way they are used).
R E P LY
TH OMA S A TWA TER • MARCH 23, 2012, 9 :47 AM
Way back up to the beginning of this thread:

Mr Claw: Can you, or any of your readers, point me in the direction of some interesting,
academic books that look at the historicity/mythicism of Jesus (other than Thompson’s
Messiah Myth referenced in your article) in a mature and reasoned fashion, rather then the
sensationalism of many popular mythicist tomes?
What about the work of G. A. Wells? E.g., his “The Jesus Myth” (Open Court, 1999).
How does the work of Wells fit into the controversy about the historicity of Jesus bar
Nazareth?
Thanks,
Thos. Atwater
R E P LY
PM
I believe Wells is now an agnostic (he argues there might have been a
Jesus, but that we can know nothing significant about him, that the NT
Jesus is so embellished with legend as to conceal what if anything could
have been true about him). So perhaps not strictly a mythicist. I also do
not rely on Wells, because his command of ancient history is not good
enough to prevent him making little mistakes (I give an example in Herod
the Procurator), which runs the risk of causing him to make big mistakes.
The best works to read (though I still have problems with them) are
instead Doherty and Price (see upthread), which are not sensationalist
(although Price leans on humor a lot, he is not a hyperbolic conspiracy
theorist).
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • MAR C H 25, 201 2, 4:41 P M
Richard, you say of Ehrman:
“[mythicism] has to be his blind spot. I suspect he is suffering from intellectual impact trauma:
he’s so sick of reading all the complete tripe there is out there (all the truly terrible mythicism,
which vastly outnumbers anything worth reading), that his brain is locked in outrage mode,
which has sent him off the handle”
It’s true, there is some truly awful mythicism. The website jesusneverexisted.com, for
example, seems to be very popular. As they announce in their name, they repeat the same
offense Ehrman makes, saying: The discussion is over, the question is answered, nothing to
see here, move along. and then they compound it with some truly eye-rolling, teeth-grinding
non-scholarship presented as facts.
But since when does anyone address any position by attacking the dumbest people who hold
it? If I critiqued Jerry Falwell or Benny Hinn instead of Aquinas or Karl Barth, and then
claimed that I had made a serious critique of Christian theology, people would think I was
very silly. And they’d be right. But somehow when historicists point out the mistakes the
dumbest, most tinfoil-hat-wearing mythicists are making, they seem to get away with claiming
that they have said something significant about mythicism.
I keep hearing about how brilliant (some of) Ehrman’s books are. But I’ve read several of his
articles, and I’ve seen him being a talking head on the freaking History Channel, and it’s hard
to believe one of his books could be worth my time.
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 26 , 2012, 4:54
AM
Steven Bollinger:
But since when does anyone address any position by
“
attacking the dumbest people who hold it?
I do not think it’s wrong to attack dumb arguments. What’s wrong is to

attack only those and then claim to have won the whole argument. Only
the latter is a straw man fallacy. The former, if combined with attacking
the smartest arguments, is just being thorough (or entertaining or useful, as
the case may be). And in his book (Did Jesus Exist?) it appears he does
that properly (or at least makes an honest attempt to). It’s only the article
that conflates things.
One can also attack dumb arguments and only claim to have refuted the
dumb arguments (e.g. my investigation of Jerry Vardaman’s claims).
Which is a useful thing for us to do, since often people do want to have an
expert evaluation of some dumb things, particularly when they are used by
mainstream Christian apologists to argue their case. Thus, I don’t mind
Ehrman distinguishing good mythicism from bad and attacking both, each
on its own terms.
I keep hearing about how brilliant (some of) Ehrman’s books are.
But I’ve read several of his articles, and I’ve seen him being a talking
head on the freaking History Channel, and it’s hard to believe one of
his books could be worth my time.
I confess many of his public interviews are not what I’d call scholarly
precise. His books (like Jesus Interrupted or Forged) should not be
judged based on that. They are more measured and thorough, have the
requisite references, and are usually correct (and all that without falling
into the trap of being dull).
R E P LY
Richard, you said:
“I do not think it’s wrong to attack dumb arguments. What’s wrong is to attack only those
and then claim to have won the whole argument.”
The latter is what I’m objecting to. Acting as if the worst mythicist arguments somehow
represent all of mythicism better than the best mythicist arguments. And it seems to me that
we mythicists are assailed with that sort of shoddy debating not only by Ehrman but by many
scholars of high reputation and secure tenure generally. And we atheists often are treated the
same way by reputable tenured people claiming to represent “moderate” religious views —
or at least the “moderate” authors of Huffington Post. Judging by the “moderates'” remarks
about atheism, atheism and fundamentalist religion are equally bad and very similar in many
ways, and the supposed conflict between science and religion is a myth no older than the
19th century. (I’m not making any of this up.)
I suppose I will finally have to give some of Ehrman’s books a look. *grumble murmur
grumble*
R E P LY
S T E V E N B O L L I N G E R • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 6 : 4 0 A M
I can’t do it! I can’t buy any of Ehrman’s books! I was in a bookstore yesterday and paged
through several of them and simply couldn’t see anything I needed in a book. I already
something about textual transmission, more than the lay audience Ehrman’s books seemed
aimed at.
So instead I ordered a copy of Sources of the Jesus Tradition, edited — very badly edited,
Richard says — by that Hoffman guy whom Richard calls “a dick.” If I like Richard’s chapter
on Bayes’ theorem enough I’ll consider getting his new book, Proving History.
R E P LY
Just FYI, my book is much better. It improves on that chapter in every

way (clarity, ease of reading, less clunky, answers more questions,
explains things better, etc.). In a sense, that chapter was more of a test
run; the full show, with all the kinks and bugs worked out, is the book.
R E P LY
I’m very sorry, I posted the following in the wrong place, hit the wrong reply button. Let’s try
this again:
(HTML is not my strong suit. I still haven’t figured out that citation code.)
Richard, you said:
“Just FYI, my book is much better. It improves on that chapter in every way”
Noted. And I also have no reason to doubt your rave reviews of Ehrman’s earlier books. It’s
just that, to be perfectly honest, I don’t know whether I’m going to be reading that many
recent books — in ANY field. I’m not an academic. One of the reasons I dropped out of
grad school 20 years ago, dropping plans to get an MA and a PhD in German literature, is
that I realized I would have to spend more time reading new scholarly work than primary
texts. And I’m all about the primary texts. And volume 2 of the MGH Scriptores and and an
edition of Claudian (reprints of pre-copyright editions) just arrived from Amazon. And I’m
working hard on learning Greek and Hebrew.
All that by way of explaining why, although I find the historicist/mythicist doohicky very
interesting, I probably won’t be delving into the fray and keeping current quite as if I were an
actual Biblical scholar.
R E P LY
AM
[I left both comments up; they fit in both places]
Steven Bollinger:
“
(HTML is not my strong suit. I still haven’t figured out that
citation code.)
Just FYI (for everyone), the codes are above the comment input
box. The relevant ones are ‹i› (for italics) and ‹blockquote› (for
indented text; you don’t need to include the cite=”” attribute). You
write that code before where you want it to apply, and then where
you want it to end you wrote closing tag, ‹/i› or ‹/blockquote›,
respectively.
(As to your other remarks, I definitely know what you mean. I have to
take the same perspective on countless other issues myself.)
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • AP R IL 2, 201 2, 1 0:1 4 AM
Richard, I’ve finished Sources of the Jesus Tradition. I just read the whole thing front-to-
back as printed, despite your suggestions in your review:
http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2011/05/sources-of-jesus-tradition.html and I didn’t
hate Hoffmann’s pieces as much as your review led me to think I might. In fact I didn’t hate
them, period. Although I found his attitude of “Jesus fatigue” to be quite remarkable for a
founder and leader of the Jesus Project. If I had been Procurator of the CSH in 2008, such
fatigue would automatically have ruled Hoffmann out as the leader of the project. You
wanted someone who was excited by the question of Jesus’ historicity, not fatigued by it. It’s
easy for me to imagine how such fatigue might lead one to behave like a dick to other
members of the project. I’ve read a bit of Hoffmann’s blog in which his “Jesus fatigue” crops
up again. Strange, very, very strange that a leader of something like the Jesus Project should
suffer from such an ailment. It’s the very last characteristic such a leader should possess.
Doncha think? Still, speaking as someone who knows neither you nor Hoffmann personally,
and therefore of course is missing a lot, I find both your work and his impressive enough that
it seems a great shame that the two of you dislike one another so much.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 4, 2012, 5:39 PM
Which is ironic, since the whole JP and 2008 conference was Hoffmann’s
baby. Neither would have happened had he not worked to create them.
And he was outraged when it was canceled and fought to get it reinstated
under another organization. So he is clearly not really all that fatigued.
I also do not see fatigue as a plausible explanation of his subsequent

behavior, which was not fatigued or disinterested, but outright paranoid
and bizarre.
And it was only that that caused me to get the hell away from him. Before
and even during the 2008 conference I thought Hoffmann was awesome
and doing great work and I was looking forward to continuing to work
with him (and he was similarly enthusiastic about me).
Then he went insane.
IMHO.
R E P LY
M A R K I T A LY N D A — I T ' S S P R I N G A F T E R T H E W I N T E R T H A T W A S N ' T• M A R C H
21, 2012, 4:03 PM
This is peculiar.
The review of Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus starts out “In the absence of any original manuscripts of the books of
the New Testament…” and Ehrman points out that the supposed eye-witness accounts were written in the 2nd
century (IIRC) and that while historical records talk about Christians, they don’t talk about Christ–stating that
Christ the myth could have been the source of the Christ cult.
R E P LY
R EGI N A LD SELK I R K • MAR C H 21, 2012, 5:55 P M
Note that Ehrman’s current article says sources, not manuscripts or documents.
R E P LY
And to say we “have” those “sources” is false. I am convinced this is just

really bad writing (as I explain in the article). And it’s going to create a
huge public mess I’m going to have to constantly correct people on (since
everyone who reads it is not going to take away what he actually meant).
That annoys me.
R E P LY
J. J. R A MSEY • MAR C H 21, 2012, 4:46 P M
“
Yes, he may have earned that cultic title by actually being the brother of Jesus. But he could
also have earned it by simply being a baptized Christian.
If that’s the case, then why does Paul in 1 Cor. 9:5 distinguish between “brothers of the Lord” and the apostles
and Cephas? Are we to presume that the latter two are not baptized Christians?
The second century references, meanwhile, cannot be shown to be independent of the Gospels
“
…
Except maybe that passing reference “brother of Jesus called Christ, James his name.” Yes, I’ve seen the
argument that Josephus “really” wrote “brother of Jesus, James his name” and that this Jesus was the “Jesus, son
of Damneus” mentioned later on in the text, but this requires that the purported original text be needlessly
confusing. The James that would be a brother of Jesus, son of Damneus would also be a son of Damneus
himself, and it would have been trivial for Josephus to have just written “James son of Damneus” instead of
“brother of Jesus, James his name” if he really wanted to refer to James son of Damneus. There’s anold thread
from IIDB that shows what a mess the argument for interpolation can be.
“
in the midst of a fashion for dying-and-rising salvation gods with sin-cleansing baptisms …
Name names please, and give details. Between Acharya S and Kersey Graves on the one hand, and the
criticisms of J.Z. Smith on the other, I see little reason to give this credence on its face.
Ehrman may have made some screw-ups, but I have yet to see a case built to support Jesus’ ahistoricity that
didn’t end up mired in ad hockery or pseudohistory. (And, yes, I’m including David Fitzgerald in that.) Seems to
me like a historical Jesus is sort of like Churchill’s democracy, the worst of all options, except for all the others.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 26 , 2012, 6 :28 PM
J. J. Ramsey:
“
Why does Paul in 1 Cor. 9:5 distinguish between “brothers of the Lord” and
the apostles and Cephas? Are we to presume that the latter two are not
baptized Christians?
The sentence reads (in effect) “like the other apostles and Christians, even Cephas?” (lit.
“like the other apostles and brothers of the Lord and Cephas,”hôs kai hoi loipoi apostoloi
kai hoi adelphoi tou kuriou kai kêphas). Obviously he is not saying Peter (Cephas) is not
an apostle; likewise, he is not saying Peter is not a Christian, either. He starts with his own
category (apostles), then generalizes to the whole brotherhood (brethren), then zigs back for
rhetorical impact to the most particular example of all, “even Peter,” who is both an apostle
and a brother, just like Paul is.
(In a similar same fashion, in 1 Cor. 1:1 and 2 Cor. 1:1 Paul says he is an apostle and
Sosthenes or Timothy is their brother, but this in no way means Paul is not also their brother.)
“
Except maybe that passing reference “brother of Jesus called Christ, James
his name.”
Ehrman is probably aware of my refutation of that (which is scheduled to appear as “Origen,

Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200,”
Journal of Early Christian Studies 20.4 (Winter 2012)). The words “called Christ” is
almost certainly an accidental scribal interpolation of an interlinear note (someone just wrote
“the one called Christ” above the line; or in the margin, with a place marker). At any rate,
Josephus is a first century source, not second. Since I find the evidence adequately
conclusive that Josephus never mentioned Jesus (in neither passage where Christ now
appears), and I know Ehrman may be considering that possibility, I did not attribute to him
any argument from Josephus. (Maybe he makes one in his book, I haven’t gotten there yet.)
Since he didn’t make the argument in the article, I didn’t respond to it.
“
This requires that the purported original text be needlessly confusing. The
James that would be a brother of Jesus, son of Damneus would also be a son
of Damneus himself, and it would have been trivial for Josephus to have just
written “James son of Damneus” instead of “brother of Jesus, James his
name” if he really wanted to refer to James son of Damneus.
Actually, James is not the protagonist in that story, Jesus is. The execution of James is only
mentioned because it explains why Jesus was then appointed to replace Ananus–as
punishment for killing Jesus’ brother. The very awkward construction (“the brother of Jesus,
for whom the name was James, and some others”) calls the reader’s attention to the fact that
this is a story about Jesus, to which his brother’s name is practically incidental (the “others”
are so incidental they don’t even get named; James at least gets named to draw attention to
his importance to the story: it is his execution that causes Jesus to gain the office of High
Priest). In context it is not that confusing (indeed, the Christian hypothesis is even more
confusing–except to a Christian reader–for a number of reasons I outline in my article),
except that one might expect “ben Damneus” to have appeared where “called Christ” now
does.
Although that isn’t necessary (a reader who started asking who this Jesus is gets their answer
very shortly, producing a nice literary device of tension ending in a surprise irony), it’s actually
quite likely the passage originally did say that, the one being replaced with the other by
mistake. If the text originally read “brother of Jesus ben Damneus,” then the scribe who
mistakenly thought “called Christ” written above it indicated an erroneous omission would
conclude that a common scribal error called dittography had occurred (which resulted in an
uncompleted haplograph): the previous scribe skipped from this Jesus to the “Jesus ben
Damneus” a couple lines down and started copying, realized he had made a mistake,
stopped, and wrote the intended correction above the line before continuing with the correct
text (we have countless examples of this kind of error in surviving manuscripts of all kinds,
even biblical manuscripts). Since “ben Damneus” and “called Christ” can’t go together
(whereas the dittograph would be self-evident, once an error had been assumed), the scribe
who mistook this for a correction would have omitted “ben Damneus” and written in its place
“called Christ” when producing his copy.
“
[re: dying-and-rising salvation gods with sin-cleansing baptisms] Name
names please, and give details. Between Acharya S and Kersey Graves on the
one hand, and the criticisms of J.Z. Smith on the other, I see little reason to
give this credence on its face.
Thus illustrating why bad mythicism annoys me. Their popularizing so many bullshit analogies
leads people like you to think they are all bullshit analogies. They are not. There are many
valid ones, which can be competently proven from good sources. I cited references in the
article (see NIF, chs. 1 and 3; baptisms, ch. 16, with TET, p. 215, n. 210; short answer:
Isis cult and Bucchus cult both involved dying-and-rising salvation gods and baptismal rituals
of symbolic death and rebirth that abolished the weight of the recipient’s sins; it’s likely other
cults did as well, we just don’t have enough sources for them). Thus, bad mythicism only
makes my legitimate work harder, and ultimately falsely discredits mythicism by a device you
would normally expect from a Stalinist disinformation campaign.
Basically, stop reading them. Read, instead, what I just referred you to (and the sources cited
therein).
R E P LY
J . J . R A M S E Y • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 4 : 3 6 P M
“
Obviously he is not saying Peter (Cephas) is not an apostle
Fair enough, although you still haven’t justified your claim that Christians actually did use
“brothers of the Lord” in the way that you claim. As I pointed out in a post on the “McGrath
on the Amazing Infallible Ehrman” thread (which at the time of writing is still awaiting
moderation), the context of 1 Cor. 9:5 seems more consistent with the “brothers of the Lord”
being privileged members of the Christian community, especially those who are entitled to live
off the resources of other Christians (see verses 9:4,6-14).
“
Actually, James is not the protagonist in that story, Jesus is.
No, Jesus son of Damneus is just another relatively minor player in the struggle between the
“most equitable” Jews who willingly abide by Roman-imposed laws, e.g. not assembling a
sanhedrin without the procurator’s consent, “insolent” people like Ananus, and outright rebels
like the Sicarii.
Come to think of it, your scenario has other problems. Officially, Ananus’ crime is that he
unlawfully assembled a sanhedrin, and while he was punished by losing his position as high
priest (a position that he didn’t even have for very long), there’s nothing indicating that he had
suffered further. That’s easy to explain if the ones that Ananus had killed were undesirables
that the authorities didn’t care much about. According to your scenario, Ananus had killed a
brother of an aristocrat, yet got off relatively lightly. No imprisonment, no execution, nothing
like that.
“
Isis cult and Bucchus cult both involved dying-and-rising salvation gods and
baptismal rituals of symbolic death and rebirth that abolished the weight of
the recipient’s sins
So your examples are (1) the wife of another god, Osiris, who, as J.Z. Smith pointed out is a
god who died but didn’t rise, and (2) Bacchus, the friggin’ wine God?
R E P LY
PM
J. J. Ramsey:
I have addressed everything you ask regarding interpreting Gal. 1:19/1

Cor. 9:5. If you think something remains unanswered, then please re-read
the thread here and that of the companion post on McGrath. There are
likely many things there now that weren’t there when you submitted your
comment. (As you might be able to tell, so many comments were posted
that it is taking me a great deal of time to get through them all.)
“
RC: Actually, James is not the protagonist in that story,
Jesus is.
JJR: No, Jesus son of Damneus is just another relatively
minor player…
First, I was speaking of the Jesus in the line we are discussing (and not
assuming a priori that it’s ben Damneus). In other words, Josephus
names James there obliquely, making clear from his odd construction that
the protagonist of the story is Jesus, whose brother is being killed. That is,
a reader of the Greek would see that the story has something to do with
Jesus, the name of his brother being little more than an afterthought.
Second, this entire section is a sequence of stories explaining the

succession of Jewish priests. Josephus goes from one priest to the next.
So Jesus ben Damneus is not a minor player, but the very point of
Josephus’ narrative, just as Ananus is; because Ananus succeeded his
predecessor to the high priesthood, and Jesus ben Damneus succeeds
Ananus to the high priesthood (and he comes up again later in Josephus’
narrative), and Josephus is narrating the succession of men in that office.
(Which succession was obviously very important to Josephus, being that

he is writing a lengthy narrative about it; that you find it uninteresting is not
something you can project back on to him.)
“
Officially, Ananus’ crime is that he unlawfully assembled a
sanhedrin, and while he was punished by losing his position
as high priest (a position that he didn’t even have for very
long), there’s nothing indicating that he had suffered
further.
My explanation does not entail or require that he did.
“
That’s easy to explain if the ones that Ananus had killed
were undesirables that the authorities didn’t care much
about.
And they may well have been. Christians weren’t the only such people.
Josephus is clearly not even interested in their crimes or why they were
killed. He is only interested in explaining why Jesus succeeded Ananus
(indeed, why he did so so quickly, after Ananus had served only a few
months).
“
According to your scenario, Ananus had killed a brother of
an aristocrat, yet got off relatively lightly. No
imprisonment, no execution, nothing like that.
First, Jewish law did not exempt the elite from execution for crimes (nor in
all cases did Roman law). Second, if I had a nickel for every elite who got
away with killing a rival under dubious legal circumstances, I’d be a rich
man. Google Kangaroo Court. Third, Ananus didn’t kill him. The
Sanhedrin did, in consequence of a trial under Jewish law. The execution
was thus in fact fully legal. It just violated a Roman procedural rule. How
many elite officials, even today, violate procedural rules, even getting
people killed (I can list a dozen examples in Iraq and Afghanistan in just
the last ten years) and do no time for it? And this is a high sight more just
age than then.
“
So your examples are (1) the wife of another god, Osiris,
who, as J.Z. Smith pointed out is a god who died but didn’t
rise, and (2) Bacchus, the friggin’ wine God?
First, please tell me exactly, where does J.Z. Smith discuss Osiris, much
less the sources on his resurrection?
Second, what does Bacchus being a wine god have anything to do with
the matter?
You seem to be ignoring here what I said about syncretism in the very
post you are here commenting on, and what I said further in comments
above.
R E P LY
H A P P Y H ER ETIC • MARCH 21, 2012, 4:54 PM
I was delighted that you responded Dr. carrier. I thought the case that Bart made in the HuffPo article was
beneath him. Having read Jesus interrupted, I was expecting more than an emotional diatribe against mythicists.
I just purchased his book, and look forward to cracking the spine.
HH
R E P LY
H A P P Y H ER ETIC • MARCH 21, 2012, 4:56 PM
F’ing spell check…. The first sentence should read, “I was delighted that you responded Dr.
carrier.”
R E P LY
JOH N • MARCH 21, 2012, 5:00 PM
Though I lean towards a historical Jesus, I’m keeping an open mind about the mythical vs. historical Jesus
debate, and find mythicist arguments thought provoking.
On the question of Paul’s meaning of “brother(s) of the Lord” (1 Cor. 9:5; Gal. 1:19), I find it strange that
Cephas could be considered a “pillar” (Gal. 2:9) and “of repute” (2:2) like James, yet, unlike James, not also a
“brother of the Lord” (1 Cor. 9:5).
It seems natural enough that there was a system of ranking within “Jewish Christianity” (like there is in the Dead
Sea Scrolls), but it strikes me as odd that someone could be a “pillar” and “of repute” but not a “brother of the
Lord.”
In most cases, when Paul uses the word “Lord” (when not quoting the OT), he means Jesus, especially in
Galatians. The first time he uses it is in 1:3, and he means Jesus. The second time is the James reference (1:19).
So prior to 1:19, the only other “Lord” he has mentioned is Jesus.
These and other reasons make me lean towards seeing James as a natural “brother of the Lord.”
R E P LY
Answered downthread.
(I never said Lord did not mean Jesus, so I don’t understand the second half of your
objection.)
R E P LY
BEA C H BU M • MARCH 26 , 2012, 5:06 PM
It’s actually quite simple:
It’s actually quite simple, Paul doesn’t witness an historical, or Gospel, Jesus as evidenced by
his never mentioning anything of an earthly life or ministry of this character in his epistles.
Furthermore, all those references to the all too few, vague, and cryptic epistle verses by
apologists, clearly show the weakness of the historicist’s position. As the claim that James is
a brother is countered by James in his own epistle (James 1:1), when given the chance to
identify himself as such and thereby substantially increasing this epistle’s authority, he doesn’t,
and then Jude identifies himself as James’s (as in Mk 6:3) brother (Jude 1:1) but yet a servant
of a Lord just as does James. Why doesn’t this James describe himself as a brother of Jesus
or at least of Jude? Could it be that being the brother Jude wouldn’t add authority to the head
of the Gnostic brotherhood like being the blood kin of deity born to a virgin? Clearly showing
that these authors, pseudonymous as they are, know nothing of the supposed relational claims
to the son of a virgin and this is in the books of the Bible.
Optionally, one might claim that this pseudonymous epistle is attributed to some other James,
but why? There would be no reason to include it in the canon if he’s not Jude’s brother nor
Jesus’s brother, except that he is the head of the Church of God, a Gnostic brotherhood, and
this epistle was garnered for use in the Bible.
Besides, the Epistle of James reads like an instructional monograph describing expected
ethical behavior of members of an organization. An organization conceptually similar to, say,
Brethren of the Lord, a brotherhood of apostles, or monks. Keep in mind that originally,
reading the Bible was off limits to laypeople. In fact, readers then were as common as
dentists are today. These books were meant to be preached, not read. They didn’t call them
hidden (apocryphal) writings for nothing. Why else would an epistle of a James not claiming
to be the brother of Jesus be included in the NT canon if not as instructional to a priesthood?
Also, the claim that “born of a woman” means a human birth is countered by both the
context, Gal 3:16 to 4:31 within which the shift is from mystical to allegorical, and the 12th
chapter of Revelations and the babe born to the woman in the spiritual realm.
But, here is something into which one can sink one’s teeth.
Along with Paul not being a witness to a historical Jesus, he also claims that neither James,
Cephas (Peter), or John (the pillars of their organization) have witnessed the Gospel
character either. Putting the lie to the whole of the Gospels and the claim of Christianity, the
Nicene Creed.
Here is how it works. First, Paul claims that he is just as much an apostle (2 Cor 11:5) as
James, Cephas, and John whom he calls the Pillars (Gal 2:7-9), because he has had a
scripturally prompted revelation just as those Pillars have (1 Cor 15:1-8). That is, he has just
as much authority as James, and the others. If James, et al., had been disciples, that is
followers, of an historical Jesus as claimed in the Gospel fictions, Paul would have no claim to
an apostleship based on the authority of a mere revelation from scripture (1 Cor 15:3) or his
Damascus Moment as James and the Pillars would still have more authority as the Gospel
character’s Disciples, but they don’t. Neither do the Elders of the Jerusalem(?) synagogue to
whom Paul presents his gospel, good news, when summoned along with Titus, who could
have been circumcised by those Jewish elders who served James, et al.
This clearly shows that neither Paul, James, Cephas, nor John had witnessed a Gospel Jesus
according to Paul’s Epistles. Then, since these Epistles are considered the oldest works of
the NT from which it can be shown much of the rest of the New Testament is derived,
paralleled, or at least have been redacted to reflect a consistent (or, in some cases, a counter
attack putting Peter over Paul, see: Acts vs Gal.), narrative, this house of cards falls away to
nothing in short order.
R E P LY
R I C H A R D C A R R I E R • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 5 : 1 1 P M
Beachbum:
“
As the claim that James is a brother is countered by James
in his own epistle (James 1:1), when given the chance to
identify himself as such and thereby substantially increasing
this epistle’s authority, he doesn’t, and then Jude identifies
himself as James’s (as in Mk 6:3) brother (Jude 1:1) but yet
a servant of a Lord just as does James. Why doesn’t this
James describe himself as a brother of Jesus or at least of
Jude?
To be fair, the historicist could reasonably say that those epistles were
written by (or forged in the name of) a different James and Judas than
Jesus’ brothers (most likely James the Pillar, one of the top three dogs in
the Church, and the Disciple Judas, son of James). Since I think that’s
likely even on mythicism, I have to give them that one.
“
Keep in mind that originally, reading the Bible was off
limits to laypeople.
That was a medieval Catholic notion (and not as enforced as has been
claimed). In antiquity, all Christians were laypeople in this sense. Although
there is evidence they had secret doctrines reserved for higher ranks
(which were probably never written down), the epistles of Jude and
James are not likely to be those. These are letters used as essentially
bylaws and inspirationals, and would be publicly read to a congregation.
“
Along with Paul not being a witness to a historical Jesus, he
also claims that neither James, Cephas (Peter), or John (the
pillars of their organization) have witnessed the Gospel
character either.
He doesn’t quite say that. As you note, in 1 Cor. 15:3-8 he clearly says
(even if some interpolation has occurred there) that they had seen what he
saw, and before he did. But of course it does clearly mean they saw
visions on isolated occasions, just like he did. He doesn’t mention anyone
ever seeing Jesus in any other way. But that is not as conclusive as
explicitly saying no one saw Jesus in any other way; nevertheless, we have
no reason to expect him to (since he would not have to gainsay a claim
made only long after he was dead). So this point is not a conclusive proof,
but is evidence for mythicism.
R E P LY
B E A C H B U M • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 ,
11:15 PM
Richard:
Oh, I agree that it is most likely James head of the

Brotherhood, head of the Church of God. What other
James had that significance. It is not a brother of Jesus
as that would have been the claim in the first verses
had that idea, that power play, been available to the
authors.
“(most likely James the Pillar, one of the top three

dogs in the Church, and the Disciple Judas, son of
James)…”
Except that the author of Jude’s claims in 1:1 that this

literary Jude is a brother of James.
When I said reading the hidden writings were “off

limits” I didn’t mean to infer it was enforced as much
as beyond the capability of the laity who didn’t have
access to the skill, writings, or in some cases the
language.
And finally, I shouldn’t have used the word “claim.” I

confess. Only, when Paul equates his authority with
that of James, John and Cephas he is effectively telling
the Galatians he has had the prerequisite vision
required to be an apostle on par with the Pillars, as I
see it. But, and this is my point: these pillars were
apostles, not disciples, not followers, merely teachers,
preachers. One cannot be a follower of a platonic
entity. One can only tell of the vision, the revelation.
One can only preach the good news. By not using the
word disciple, anywhere that I have found in the
earliest works, the epistles, Paul is calling them
preachers not followers, and by claiming his vision
equates his authority to theirs he is claiming his vision
gives him the highest authority he mentions in his
epistles.
Thanks for your insights.
RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH
28, 2012, 6 :33 PM
Beachbum:
“
“(most likely James the Pillar, one of the
top three dogs in the Church, and the
Disciple Judas, son of James)…”
Except that the author of Jude’s claims in

1:1 that this literary Jude is a brother of
James.
(Again, if that’s even authentic. Historicists don’t need

to insist it is.) Names often repeat in a family, so it’s
possible Judas would have a brother and father named
James; it’s also possible that this Judas is the brother
of a different James than wrote the letter of James; and
so on.
Note I’m not defending any of these theories; I’m just

noting that a historicist can explain this data without
reducing the probability of historicity.
“
When Paul equates his authority with that
of James, John and Cephas he is
effectively telling the Galatians he has
had the prerequisite vision required to be
an apostle on par with the Pillars, as I see
it.
And IMO, you are correct on that.
Likewise:
“
But, and this is my point: these pillars
were apostles, not disciples, not followers,
merely teachers, preachers. One cannot
be a follower of a platonic entity. One can
only tell of the vision, the revelation. One
can only preach the good news. By not
using the word disciple, anywhere that I
have found in the earliest works, the
epistles, Paul is calling them preachers
not followers, and by claiming his vision
equates his authority to theirs he is
claiming his vision gives him the highest
authority he mentions in his epistles.
I agree. However, this is not a slam dunk argument.

Because historicists have responses to it. Their
responses are weighed down a bit by their
improbability, but don’t sink to the bottom from it.
Long story short, I think this is evidence that ticks the
scale a little toward mythicism, even if not a lot.
ALLUS IV EATH EIS T • AP R IL 28, 201 2, 7:08 P M
“
“These and other reasons make me lean towards seeing James as a natural
“brother of the Lord.” ”
What is in question is the meaning of “brother,” by genealogy or fraternal order.
R E P LY
BIBLEN AME • MARCH 21, 2012, 5:22 PM
Fantastic article, thank you. I was confused when I saw Ehrman’s article, and I do hope that the book is better
than that tripe, but this cleared up some things.
R E P LY
MA R TIN R OLF E • MARCH 21, 2012, 5:24 PM
Bart Ehrman’s piece at HuffPo is creating a dust up. I first heard about it morning over at Jerry Coyne’s web-
page. I am decidedly glad to see that you have offered this take down. I have read nearly all of Ehrman’s works
that target a general audience and have enjoyed all of them to date. I eagerly await this one as well. I fall into the
mythicists’ camp, and am also a regular listener of Robert Price aka the Bible Geek podcasts. Price has on
several occasions taken care to explain the mythicist’s position and offered a take-down of the historical Jesus–
because the consensus of scholars says so paradigm.
I am putting off reading this post for the weekend. I want to be able to take time and care to digest it. Also I’m
looking forward to your upcoming visit to Madison, WI Freethought Festival 2012.I took your advice and
registered last evening.
R E P LY
R YA N S W A N S O N • M A R C H 2 1 , 2 0 1 2 , 5 : 2 6 P M
Very nice smack down. I submitted this to fark, and it is going green at 10:28 on the geek tab.
R E P LY
DA VESMI TH • MAR C H 21, 2012, 5:28 P M
In an old youtube debate I saw somewhere, Hitch said he believed there was an person named Jesus, and he
gave a reason I found compelling.
There was no particular reason for Jesus to be from Nazareth since it would be more natural to have Jesus
borne in Bethlehem. Instead, the Bible goes to great lengths (e.g. tax on all the land) to have Jesus born in
Bethlehem to fulfill the prophecy. Why twist the story like that to have Jesus from Nazareth if you’re just making
up myth from whole cloth?
This is not to argue for the historicity of the biblical Jesus, but that there may have been a person (long since lost
from history) about whom the bible was based.
R E P LY
davesmith: There was no particular reason for Jesus to be from Nazareth…
Hitch’s argument was fallacious (but does reflect a real argument legitimate scholars have
made, so Hitch couldn’t have known better). See “Nazareth” in the index toProving
History.
R E P LY
LAN DON H EDRICK • MARCH 21, 2012, 5:59 PM
Richard,
Ehrman is somewhat careful to separate the cranks from the serious scholars in his book. He spends a chunk of
chapter one trashing Acharya S and Freke & Gandy so that he can set them aside and deal with the more
serious folks (Wells, Price, Doherty, Thompson, and yourself). He even says that the more serious mythicists are
worth taking seriously.
Here’s (part of) what he says in the book about Pilate:
“What archaeological evidence do we have about Pilate’s rule in Palestine? We have some coins that were
issued during his reign (one would not expect coins about Jesus since he didn’t issue any), and one–only one–
fragmentary inscription discovered in Caesarea Maritima in 1961 that indicates that he was the Roman prefect.
Nothing else. And what writings do we have from him? Not a single word. Does that mean he didn’t exist? No,
he is mentioned in several passages in Josephus and in the writings of the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo
and in the Gospels. He certainly existed even though, like Jesus, we have no records from his day or writings
from his hand. And what is striking is that we have far more information about Pilate than about any other
governor of Judea in Roman times. And so it is a modern “myth” to say that we have extensive Roman records
from antiquity that surely would have mentioned someone like Jesus had he existed.
It is also worth pointing out that Pilate is mentioned only in passing in the writing of the one Roman historian,
Tacitus, who does name him. Moreover, that happens to be in a passage that also refers to Jesus (Annals 15). If
an important Roman aristocratic ruler of a major province is not mentioned any more than that in the Greek and
Roman writings, what are the chances that a lower-class Jewish teacher (which Jesus must have been, as
everyone who thinks he lived agrees) would be mentioned in them? Almost none.” (pp. 44-45)
Regarding the fact that Philo doesn’t mention Jesus:
“He never mentions Jesus, but we would not expect him to do so, as Christianity had probably not reached his
native Alexandria by the time of his death in 50 CE, whatever one thinks of the mythicist view of Jesus.” (p. 57)
I guess you disagree with him about whether Christianity had reached Aleaxandria by that time.
But, what is the relevance of your claim that “Philo’s silence argues against the existence of Jesus as depicted in
the Gospels”? Presumably you mean: It argues against the idea that there was a person who did the things that
the Gospels say. But why is that relevant to the debate between mythicists and historicists? Ehrman isn’t
defending the view that Jesus did the things the Gospels say. He’s defending a view which says that there was a
historical Jesus who was relatively unknown during his lifetime.
It looks to me like you and Ehrman are pretty much on the same page regarding the evidence for Pilate, though.
He did not forget about the references in Philo or Josephus. He did not forget about the inscription. He must
have just meant something very specific in his short article.
Regarding the speeches in Acts, Ehrman thinks that there is oral tradition underlying those which go back several
decades. He presents some of the evidence in his book (p. 109-113)
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • MAR C H 26 , 201 2, 7:23 P M
Landon Hedrick:
“
What he says in the book about Pilate…
…is all correct, facts and logic. I’m glad to see that. Thanks. That is how to correctly make
the argument. (Although he perhaps could emphasize how the Gospels make Jesus vastly
more famous than he could possibly have actually been: famous not only throughout all Judea,
but even all Syria [Mt. 4:24], with thousands of people following him, even hailing him en
masse at the gates of Jerusalem, and at whose death the sun went out for three hours, and so
on.)
“
“[Philo] never mentions Jesus, but we would not expect him to do so, as
Christianity had probably not reached his native Alexandria by the time of his
death in 50 CE, whatever one thinks of the mythicist view of Jesus.” (p. 57)
That seems massively improbable. How could Christians have evangelized the whole Aegean,
Galatia, and Rome, but not Alexandria, which is almost immediately adjacent to Judea? That
would surely have been among the very first places they went. That Acts doesn’t discuss the
Christian mission there (not even in the 50s) can only be because it’s author only documented
Paul’s missions (and those within Judea), not those who evangelized Alexandria (and thereby
converting Apollos, who, at least Acts claims, then left Alexandria to evangelize, which would
entail the mission was already market-saturated in his home town: Acts 18:24), or its author
lacked sources for them or interest in them (e.g. we know from his own letters that Paul
evangelized Arabia, yet Acts doesn’t even mention this for some reason; likewise, 1 Clement
reports that Paul evangelized Spain, yet Acts never covers that, either).
It would be peculiar of Ehrman to accept an invalid argument from silence here, when he
correctly dismisses equally weak arguments from silence elsewhere (surely, no sources for
Jesus, entails an even less probability of sources for the first missionaries to Alexandria).
Unless Ehrman has sources he cites that verify the mission to Alexandria was inexplicably
delayed twenty years?
“
[The silence of Philo et al.] argues against the idea that there was a person
who did the things that the Gospels say. But why is that relevant to the
debate between mythicists and historicists?
It refutes the premise that there can’t have been massive legendary development of the gospel
narrative; by proving in fact there was. And if you can invent the sun going out for three hours
in front of millions of witnesses, you can invent a man seen by mere thousands.
I must reiterate, this does not prove he was invented. It only refutes one of the most common
arguments that he couldn’t have been.
My reason for bringing it up is that Ehrman’s intemperate and error-filled dismissal of all
arguments from silence, saying in effect that we would always surely not even have any
evidence of a famous man like Pilate, is irresponsibly hyperbolic (and, of course, miseducated
every reader by its various factual falsehoods, which I had to correct even if they weren’t
intended). Thus, as I said in the article above:
“
But Ehrman didn’t make that valid argument; he made the invalid argument
instead, and premised it on amateur factual mistakes. Emotion seems to have
seized his brain. Seeing red, he failed to function like a competent scholar,
and instead fired off a screed every bit as crank as the worst of any of his
opponents. Foot, mouth. This is simply not how to argue for historicity. It’s a
classic example of boner mistakes made by historicists, which calls into
question their competence to speak on this issue.
In short, miseducating the public with atrociously inaccurate wording and omissions is simply
a serious fail.
And as I said in my reply to McGrath:
“
Ehrman is actually destroying the very argument McGrath is here trying to
rehabilitate: that such silences are indeed significant. In precisely the way I
state, and McGrath affirms: they argue “against the existence of Jesus as
depicted in the Gospels” and we therefore must “conclude the Gospels
substantially fictionalize the story of Jesus.” That conclusion does not follow
if we accept what Ehrman says about silences in other sources. Do you see
the problem? Ehrman is actually attacking the very premise of McGrath’s
own argument. I do not believe Ehrman intended to do that, but in his
intemperate zeal to mock arguments from silence, he didn’t even notice that
he was attacking himself.
“
Regarding the speeches in Acts, Ehrman thinks that there is oral tradition
underlying those which go back several decades. He presents some of the
evidence in his book (p. 109-113)
Good to know. I’ll cover that in my future review. (I actually think that may be correct in
some cases, when stated in that specific way. But that fact doesn’t support the historicity of
Jesus.)
R E P LY
LA R R Y • MAR C H 28, 201 2, 7:23 P M
meh, problem here is that Acharya S is far better than she gets credit for. She certainly
showed Carrier wrong on the Luxor issue and Carrier refuses to admit he made the sloppy
and egregious errors that Acharya pointed out. He’s just jealous.
http://www.freethoughtnation.com/contributing-writers/63-acharya-s/665-is-jesuss-
nativity-an-egyptian-myth.html
Anyway, Errorman made some really sloppy and egregious errors of his own with Acharya’s
work too as pointed out here:
The phallic ‘Savior of the World’ hidden in the Vatican

http://freethoughtnation.com/contributing-writers/63-acharya-s/669-the-phallic-
savior-of-the-world-hidden-in-the-vatican.html
Ehrman accused her of making stuff up – that’s libel and defamation and he can be sued for it
because he was wrong as her blog proves. Dr. Price commented there too saying Errorman’s
book is a “hack job,” which it is.
R E P LY
AM
Larry:
“
She certainly showed Carrier wrong on the Luxor issue and
Carrier refuses to admit he made the sloppy and egregious
errors that Acharya pointed out.
Just one error. Which had no significant effect on my conclusion.
I like how you invent the myth (within a matter of days!) that it was many
errors, and egregious ones, and that therefore she wasn’t even wrong.
“
The phallic ‘Savior of the World’ hidden in the Vatican…
Ehrman accused her of making stuff up – that’s libel and
defamation and he can be sued for it because he was wrong
as her blog proves. Dr. Price commented there too saying
Errorman’s book is a “hack job,” which it is.
He can’t be sued for what he actually said, since he didn’t actually assert
that she made this up. He only expressed doubts about the claim’s
authenticity. However, what Acharya then does (in that article you link
to) is a beautiful example of what she should have done in the first place:
all of those references should have been in her footnotes/endnotes with the
original claim. This is what a proper scholar would do. Why didn’t she do
it the first time?
But now finally doing what she should have done before, what she
accomplishes is perhaps to show that Ehrman didn’t even check. Which if
true would be a good example of how Ehrman is not doing good work on
this issue. If he wishes to argue against the claim, he should be arguing
against these other sources, or at least making an effort to check them by
doing what she did, or by contacting the Vatican Museum (which if he
did, I would expect him to say so, since that would be significant to his
point).
However, nothing Acharya presents makes any case for this being a
statue with any connection to Christianity (much less Peter). To the
contrary, it all establishes it as a pagan statue to Priapus (the Vatican
Museum contains many non-Christian artifacts).
R E P LY
K R I SMA GLI ON E • MAR C H 21, 2012, 6 :01 P M
“
This makes Ehrman’s observation that no mythicist presently has a professorship (a distinction
he did not make, but I am) a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I’m wondering what disqualifies Robert Price from this observation. He certainly has a professorship in a
relevant field, and he may not be an outright mythicist, but he most definitely considers Jesus’s historicity an open
question, and I believe that he leans strongly towards mythicism.
R E P LY
Price is a professor at CFII, which is not an “accredited” institution (I am unaware of his

holding a prior professorship, but do correct us on that if otherwise). Notice how many
requirements Ehrman packs into his statement, he unloads every conceivable one he can think
of, as if to gerrymander every mythicist out of qualifying. Maybe Ehrman is a Republican? (<-
-that's a joke.)
R E P LY
H ELEN A C ON STA N TI N E • MAR C H 21, 2012, 6 :07 P M
At first I couldn’t tell if this piece of whining quote mining was being written by Ken Hovind or Ben Stein–but I
see its Carrier–oh well.
I wont waste much time:
If any academic could actually argue convincingly that Jesus never existed, they would not be expelled, but
would have their career made–just as if any biologist could actually disprove evolution, it would mean the Nobel
Prize.
1. The text as displayed at the HuffPo is a sentence fragment–clearly there is an editing problem there, so neither
you nor I nor anyone except Ehrman and anyone he has shown his original text to knows what that is supposed
to say. To call this editing mistake an argumentative or factual mistake is like pointing to yourself and saying,
“Come and look at the idiot.”
2. Q is hypothetical in the same way the big bang is hypothetical (and I could sight web sources that deny the big
bang too). The independent Biblical witnesses are Paul, Q, other sayings material preserved in Thomas, Mark,
The source of the Gospel of Peter, and a group of sources used by John which used to be called the signs
source.
3. You concede that the point you pick out of Ehrman is correct, but the you claim it argues agaisnt a straw-
man. Except it isn’t. I’ve seen plenty of cranks make exactly that claim on the internet. It is especially common to
see people claim all of those things about Mithras, and then claim that Jesus was just a myth based on Mithraism,
despite the fact that Mithras was none of those things and was founded after Christianity (Dec. 25 was the
birthday of Sol Invictus–i.e. the traditional date of the Solstice in the Roman calendar prior to their contact with
Greek astronomy–which was later synched up with both Mithras and Jesus).
4.This is so desperate, I don’t even know how to approach it. The passage of Daniel you mention might well be
one which early Christians found meaningful when they looked to their scripture to figure out what had happened
when their movement suffered the disaster of the death of its leader. But they wouldn’t have looked to it, or to
many other LXX texts if they had not had a leader and if he had not died in some unexpected, dramatic,
devastating way, would they? We know that the NT text is largely a meditation on the Jewish scriptures. What
on earth does that have to with the historicity of Jesus?
R E P LY
helenaconstantine: If any academic could actually argue convincingly that Jesus never
existed, they would not be expelled, but would have their career made–just as if any
biologist could actually disprove evolution, it would mean the Nobel Prize.
The analogy is false, because history has nowhere near the evidence and certainty that
science has. That’s why there is so much disagreement allowed among historians. (Normally.
This one issue appears to be verboten for some reason.) This is especially the case for
ancient history, due to the vast loss of data, and even more especially for the origins of
Christianity, for which we have among the least data of any major ancient event.
By contrast, for example, the evidence confirming the holocaust is so incredibly vast,
holocaust denial is understandably crank; whereas for the origins of Christianity we don’t
have even a billionth of a drop of that kind of evidence, for any position on historicity, which
again is why there are so many contradictory conclusions about Jesus allowed, and not
derided as crank.
Thus there will never be the kind of “Nobel Prize” winning evidence for any conclusion
about Jesus (and not only because there is no Nobel Prize for history). Certainty willnever
be had. Which is why it is so bizarre for someone like Ehrman to act the contrary. He should
know better.
The text as displayed at the HuffPo is a sentence fragment–clearly there is an editing

problem there, so neither you nor I nor anyone except Ehrman and anyone he has
shown his original text to knows what that is supposed to say. To call this editing
mistake an argumentative or factual mistake is like pointing to yourself and saying,
“Come and look at the idiot.”
Can you quote what you claim to be a sentence fragment? I don’t know what you are talking
about. (Authors do write sentence fragments, BTW, even intentionally sometimes, so your
weirdly desperate conclusion does not follow even from the premise.)
Q is hypothetical in the same way the big bang is hypothetical
That isn’t even remotely true. That’s why many mainstream scholars, whom even Ehrman
respects, argue (and persuasively) that Q does not exist. That is a widespread and legitimate
debate in NT studies, in precisely the way Big Bang skepticism is not. You are thus once
again resorting to false, even absurdly hyperbolic analogies, which does seem to be a
common trope for histrionic historicists.
You concede that the point you pick out of Ehrman is correct, but the you claim it
argues against a straw-man. Except it isn’t. I’ve seen plenty of cranks make exactly
that claim on the internet.
You evidently don’t know what a straw man argument is. Like I even said in the original post:
“attacking only the weakest proponent of a position is precisely what makes this a fallacy.”
It is especially common to see people claim all of those things about Mithras, and then
claim that Jesus was just a myth based on Mithraism, despite the fact that Mithras was
none of those things and was founded after Christianity (Dec. 25 was the birthday of
Sol Invictus–i.e. the traditional date of the Solstice in the Roman calendar prior to their
contact with Greek astronomy–which was later synched up with both Mithras and
Jesus).
It’s ironic how you get the facts wrong in the very act of (correctly) pointing out how others
get the facts wrong. That’s gotta be like some sort of Dadaist art or something.
First, yes, Mithras is often used wrongly as an example of a dying-and-rising god (there is no
evidence he died; his “passion” enacted some other kind of struggle by which he gained
victory over death for his followers), and the Roman-era mystery religion based on Mithras
probably began at the same time as Christianity (Beck’s case is pretty sound that it was being
formed at the same time Paul was evangelizing). But Mithras is a Persian deity worshipped
for at least a thousand years before Christianity (you seem to be confusing the mystery-cult,
with the Persian religion it drew on), so it is disputed whether his birthday was December 25
before Christianity; more accurately, we mean the Winter Solstice, which was December 25
according to the Julian calendar in the time of Pliny or shortly before (not “before
Roman…contact with Greek astronomy”), when it became fixed at that date in many cults
ever after (many gods were born on that day, in fact most solar deities were). The solstice
became December 21 only when the Gregorian reform realigned the calendar with the
solar cycle in the Middle Ages, it having drifted from the 25th back to the 21st between
Julius Caesar and the Council of Nicea, and Pope Gregory chose the latter as the reset point.
Either way, you are right that Mithras and Christianity were assimilated to the birthday of pre-
Christian solar deities (principally Sol Invictus and ANE equivalents), this happening to
Mithras before it was then done to Christianity.
But it doesn’t matter, because December 25 was never the birthday of Jesus until a 4th
century decision was made to make it so, and that’s the relevant point. I agree people who
make a big deal out of this as a basis for arguing mythicism have their chronology backwards.
But that doesn’t de-legitimize the parallels that do exist. You can’t argue “some parallels are
nonsense; therefore all parallels are nonsense.” That’s a fallacy of false generalization.
The passage of Daniel you mention might well be one which early Christians found
meaningful when they looked to their scripture to figure out what had happened when
their movement suffered the disaster of the death of its leader.
That’s not the issue. The question Ehrman is addressing is: did pre-Christian Jews imagine a
dying Christ? (It is that which he is denying). Since a pre-Christian Jew wrote in Daniel
about a dying Christ, the answer is yes. End of story. The evidence in the Dead Sea Scrolls
just proves the point further.
But they wouldn’t have looked to it, or to many other LXX texts if they had not had a
leader and if he had not died in some unexpected, dramatic, devastating way, would
they?
There is too much to explain here, but the short of it is that the Daniel passage predicts when
the Christ will die, and by one obvious (in fact, the most obvious) interpretation, the math
works out to be in the vicinity of 30 A.D. Either that’s a coincidence, or…
We know that the NT text is largely a meditation on the Jewish scriptures. What on
earth does that have to with the historicity of Jesus?
Ehrman wants to argue that Christians would never invent a dying messiah, because (1) no
Jews imagined such a thing; (2) if no Jews imagined such a thing, no Jews ever would imagine
such a thing; ergo, (3) the only way the Christians could end up with a dying messiah is if they
actually had one (i.e. a claimed messiah who died); ergo, (4) Jesus existed.
Now, both premises in his argument are false. Jews did imagine such a thing (in Daniel and
the Melchizedek scroll; so premise [1] is false); and even if they didn’t, they could imagine
such a thing (as the “Christ ben Joseph” legends prove; so premise [2] is false). Therefore (3)
is not established, therefore (4) is not established. All this accomplishes is that it eliminates
one of his arguments for historicity. It does not prove mythicism (as that would be a fallacy
fallacy, i.e. concluding that because his argument is fallacious, that therefore it’s conclusion
false). But I do not say it does.
R E P LY
SS12 3 • MAR C H 21 , 201 2, 6 :09 P M
I believe his wife is a Christian. Do you suppose he was trying to conjur up something for her, even of it involved
a stretch or two?
I haven’t read any of his books yet, but I love listening to him speak.
R E P LY
I doubt that. If he does have a believing wife, and she hasn’t left him over everything else he’s
written up to this point, siding with mythicism (or even just allowing it as a possibility) would
hardly be likely to make a difference. BTW, I don’t like people speculating on scholars’
marriages. Ehrman’s views are Ehrman’s. His wife is not relevant to this conversation.
R E P LY
SS12 3 • MAR C H 21 , 201 2, 6 :1 4 P M
I must add, this is strange. Doesn’t seem like something he would write.
R E P LY
JON A S • MARCH 21, 2012, 6 :20 PM
I’m a big fan of Ehrman. I also find the mythicist position compelling. I think it’s a testament (heh) to how weak
the historicist case is that when I’m reading Ehrman’s books it’s rare that anything stands out in the facts he
presents as incompatible with the mythicist case. Quite the contrary: In most of his books when he does insert a
statement that assumes there was a historical Jesus, I sometimes find it a little jarring. It seems out of place with
all that he writes in the rest of those books about the NT wording being freely changed in the early years, about
alternative scriptures floating about, and so on. It was especially jarring in “Forged” when he went on a small
diatribe about how the mythicist position is not held by serious people. In a book about how forgery in early
Christianity was the norm, it almost struck me that he had to pause and reaffirm his (dare I say) faith in the
historicity of Jesus lest one be misled by, well, the rest of the book.
I was very interested when I read he was doing a book-length treatment of the matter. I thought maybe he had
very good reasons to scoff at the mythicists but simply didn’t get into it in his other books because it wasn’t the
main point he was trying to make. I find the historicity question fascinating, and if Ehrman presented a solid case,
I was willing to be persuaded (having a historical figure at the core is more interesting to me, but I currently find
the mythicist position more compelling).
So I went to buy the book for my Kindle and…no Kindle version.I was disappointed, but some of his books
have been delayed on the Kindle before, so I figured I’d just have to be patient…
Then I read this review of his article summarizing his book. This doesn’t sound like the solid case I was hoping
for. This doesn’t sound like I’m going to read the book and come away understanding how correct Ehrman was
for scoffing at the mythicicsts. This more sounds like Ehrman has lost most of his former Christian faith but wants
to hold on to a small part of it, that he wants to believe there was a good man who inspired many people and
was thought to be the son of God and the Messiah by many at the time.
While I can empathize with that, it shouldn’t be the basis of his argument. This is very disappointing. I’ll probably
wait for the full review of the book before buying it. Perhaps he foolishly let someone ghost-summarize the book
for the Huffington Post article and it will turn out not to be representative of the book.
One can hope, right?
R E P LY
By all accounts here, the book is better. And at my own glance, I think it is, too. But my
review will take maybe a week to produce.
R E P LY
A U STER I TY • MAR C H 21, 2012, 6 :24 P M
I’m actually kind of embarrassed for him about the “messiah was to be a figure of grandeur and power who
overthrew the enemy” line. That is so blatantly illogical I didn’t even need to stop and think about it; it just
immediately jumps out at you.
I had planned on buying his book as I would very much like to hear the best possible case for Jesus’s existence,
but after reading his blog I may wait for some reviews first. In addition to that line it just seems more of the usual
weak tea I’ve heard before. I say that as someone without strong convictions either way, so, Mr. Ehrman, if you
are reading, I hope you did better than that in the book.
R E P LY
I just got my copy today. I won’t be able to get to it today, I have too much to do. But at
first glance it looks more calm and reasoned than his article, but his endnotes and
bibliography are very light, and that worries me (it suggests there will be a lot of unsourced
arguments from authority). It’s also longer than I expected (360 pages), which I consider a
good thing.
Even if it’s terrible, it might still be the best case in print. Because all previous ones are pretty
weak overall, in fact there really hasn’t been a book dedicated to interacting with mythicist
arguments; at best it gets a couple of pages in this or that text on historicity. So you might still
want this, even if only as a solid collection of the standard responses, and as representative of
the historicity establishment as a whole.
R E P LY
BEN S C H ULDT • MAR C H 21, 2012, 6 :28 P M
Y u no hav ur “Come at me, bro!” image on this post:

http://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/2012/3/21/e3f5481e-9960-4070-b0b0-1b83909126a5.jpg
R E P LY
MIKE • MARCH 21, 2012, 6 :34 PM
Just an FYI-
Ehrman is scheduled to be on the Think Atheist Radio Show / Podcast (this Sunday, I think) to discuss his new
book. I’m pretty sure at least one of the people involved with running that site is a fan of yours and into
applications of Bayes’s Theorem. Given that, it wouldn’t be surprising if your new book comes up in
conversation.
R E P LY
LEEMYERS • MARCH 21, 2012, 6 :35 PM
Quibble, I believe “mythicists are all critics of religion, therefore their criticisms of a religion as myth can be
dismissed” is an ad hominem circumstantial fallacy, not a genetic fallacy. This seems especially true considering
his comment “what better way to malign the religious views of the vast majority of religious persons in the
western world, which remains, despite everything, overwhelmingly Christian, than to claim that the historical
founder of their religion was in fact the figment of his followers’ imagination?”
That seems to me a textbook example of an ad hominem circumstantial fallacy
R E P LY
leemyers: Quibble, I believe “mythicists are all critics of religion, therefore their
criticisms of a religion as myth can be dismissed” is an ad hominem circumstantial
fallacy, not a genetic fallacy. This seems especially true considering his comment
“what better way to malign the religious views of the vast majority of religious
persons in the western world, which remains, despite everything, overwhelmingly
Christian, than to claim that the historical founder of their religion was in fact the
figment of his followers’ imagination?” That seems to me a textbook example of an ad
hominem circumstantial fallacy.
I don’t think the second statement is false, so it wouldn’t be an ad hominem fallacy. (Apart
from falsely generalizing in its implication, it is false only in a manner Ehrman doesn’t digress
on, i.e. that it doesn’t work, precisely because the Ehrmans of the world will go to bat for the
Christians and shame-trash anyone who tries it, but shaming is only a fallacy in the other
respects I describe in my article, and is not the argument being made here; moreover, I
believe many mythicists do have this motivation and delusionally really do think the approach
works, so Ehrman is not off base in calling them out, he is only off base in attributing this to
all mythicists).
Rather, the first statement is a genetic fallacy because it presumes that an argument against
religion is invalid merely because it comes from an unbeliever. He is thus presuming that all
arguments that originate from that source are false or unsound. That’s the genetic fallacy.
Indeed, even given the nefarious motive alleged (to “malign” a religion) it would be a genetic
fallacy, since even someone who intended to malign a religion is not necessarily making false
statements about it (i.e. I can often malign something by telling the truth). This is why you
have to refute the argument first, and not use “motivation” as that refutation. You might
appeal to motivation to explain why someone uses a refutable argument, but such an
explanation can never itself be a refutation of an argument.
R E P LY
R . J. MOOR E • MARCH 22, 2012, 3:43 PM
One might point out that there are also plenty of axe-grinding atheists who want there to be a
historical Jesus, one who is divergent with mainstream Christian norms (Jesus was a
hermaphrodite communist, etc.) or an embarrassment to Christians (i.e., Jesus was a fraud, a
sorcerer, a criminal).
On top of that, by far the largest axe-grinders in the historicity of Jesus are the theists, so I am
not sure what the point of Ehrman bringing up the kooks is. Much of what passes for ‘Bible
scholarship’ is just as ridiculous as the worst crank-mythicism.
R E P LY
R OB • MARCH 21, 2012, 6 :41 PM
Ehrman only says that Josephus does not mention Pilate. I think you have misunderstood.
R E P LY
R OB • MARCH 21, 2012, 6 :48 PM

Wait. Or is he saying that Josephus is not mentioned? I can’t tell what the hell Ehrman is
saying with that sentence fragment.
R E P LY
No, Josephus very definitely does mention Pilate (and Ehrman knows that). So he certainly
was not saying that.
R E P LY
ALETH EA H . C LAW • MAR C H 21 , 201 2, 6 :52 P M
Hey Richard, there’s a historicist person calling you out over here on PZ’s thread.
R E P LY
Alethea H. Claw: Hey Richard, there’s a historicist person calling you out over here on
PZ’s thread.
Tell him to come over here. This is where I am.
R E P LY
GSH ELLEY • MAR C H 21 , 201 2, 7:31 P M
This is a shame, though not surprising given what I have previously heard him say on the matter. I am still going
to hope that the book will address the actual points of the mythecists, rather than strawman versions, or the
selected weak points of the “cranks”
So, either way, I will look forward to your review, though I imagine it will get the same kind of criticism as we
are seeing over at Pharyngula, from people who start off with the view that Jesus was a historical figure and that
this has ben demonstrated beyond any doubt so assume anyone who comes to a different conclusion must be an
ideologically driven crank who is ignoring the evidence.
R E P LY
F • MAR C H 21 , 201 2, 7:49 P M

Ehrman done been replaced by a replicant pod-person? Or did someone at huffpo play random word jumble
with his article?
I don’t do a lot of heavy traffic in history, but I don’t particularly recall Ehrman as an unreasonable sort. And
everyone here seems to report rather the opposite. So, weird. Maybe we can just hope that the article doesn’t
inspire a lot of bad internet factoid references. But here I wait for them to come.
R E P LY
MSMI TH • MAR C H 21, 2012, 8:44 P M
In Galatians 1:18-20, if “James, the brother of Lord” is a title for a baptised Christian and does not refer to a
sibling of Jesus, then why is Cephas (Peter, who appears in the same passage) not also described as a “brother
of the Lord”?
R E P LY
MSmith: In Galatians 1:18-20, if “James, the brother of Lord” is a title for a baptised
Christian and does not refer to a sibling of Jesus, then why is Cephas (Peter, who
appears in the same passage) not also described as a “brother of the Lord”?
Because it’s not necessary. Paul doesn’t always put “brother” with every Christian he names
in his letters. It’s just a matter of literary style, no different than saying “I only met with Peter,
unless you count brother James.” To say “I only met with brother Peter, unless you count
brother James” is overly fastidious and thus bad style (from the way good writing appears
throughout the period, it can be concluded that schools taught to avoid parallel structure
unless it served a specific purpose, aesthetically or logically).
There might be a deeper meaning intended (like that hypothesis (3) is correct and this is a
rank of some kind; or more likely than that, IMO, it means this James was not an apostle,
and thus Paul is saying this is not the same James as in Gal. 2:9, 12: see Trudinger’s article
“Heteron de tôn apostolôn ouk eidon, ei mê iakôbon: A Note of Galatians 1:19” inNovum
Testamentum 17.3 [1975]: 200-202; to which the rebuttal by Howard ibid. 19.1 [1978]:
63-64 doesn’t actually make any valid argument), but that would only up the probability
further (hence my remark originally about the effect of ignoring (3)).
R E P LY
ALEX • MARCH 21, 2012, 8:45 PM
Sooooo … will there be an e-book version of your new book?
And thanks for this great reply; I was reading Ehrmans article, and was quite baffled. I’m thinking, maybe it was
… forged?
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 22, 2012, 11:42 AM
Yes, there will be digital versions of my book eventually. It usually is delayed a few months
after the print release.
R E P LY
JOH N • MARCH 21, 2012, 9 :33 PM
Beautiful reply to Mr Ehrman’s shocking rant. I read Mr Ehrman’s The New Testament . . . and was very
impressed with it. If I remember correctly, he wrote that there are no sources for the period of Jesus. I was
shocked to read his comments on that in his HP rant, which you addressed very well.
The tone of the criticism was so shrill, so tantrumism, that I was at first sure I was misreading it. The more I read
I thought this couldn’t be the man whose videos I’ve watched, who said history is about evidence. His use of
arguing from authority almost unseated me I was so surprised. At that point I thought, hello, plate tectonics,
sometimes a more fitting interpretation of the evidence comes along that contradicts all the established ideas held
by tenured academics.
It was an embarrassing expression of pure emotional outrage. That suggests to me that he may have a very
strong emotional attachment to believing that Jesus existed. It’s a shame. It is very hard to be objective about
something you have a deep emotional attachment to.
R E P LY
A LEXA N DER JOH A N N ESEN • MAR C H 21, 2012, 10:05 P M
How odd; my comment vanished? (And I wasn’t saying anything stupid as far as I can tell?)
R E P LY
alexanderjohannesen: How odd; my comment vanished? (And I wasn’t saying

anything stupid as far as I can tell?)
To everyone to whom this may have happened, you can always email me, and tell me the
user ID you used, and that will clue me in to check the spam folder (which is normally so
packed every day I haven’t time to vet it, but if I have a specific user id I can search them,
and rescue anything that got there by accident).
In this case, however, your comment did indeed vanish. It’s not in the trash or spam. It was
just never transmitted (I have no way of diagnosing why, though). Sorry!
(But also, everyone, be aware: I have full moderation turned on, so your post won’t “post”
until I approve it; sometimes that can seem like it “vanished,” as it might take me a day or two
to get to it, so wait at least two days first. So far, full moderation has greatly improved the
quality and consistency of comments posted, so I am definitely sticking with it.)
R E P LY
F R E D E R I C K SPA R K S • MAR C H 21 , 201 2, 1 1 :1 0 P M
Thank you Richard. I also scratched my head over that claim of Aramaic sources from within one or two years.
And how about this doozie of an analogy:
It is also true that our best sources about Jesus, the early Gospels, are riddled with problems. These were
written decades after Jesus’ life by biased authors who are at odds with one another on details up and down the
line. But historians can never dismiss sources simply because they are biased. You may not trust Rush
Limbaugh’s views of Sandra Fluke, but he certainly provides evidence that she exists.”
R E P LY
CAMERON • MARCH 21, 2012, 11:15 PM
“Ehrman says “not even … the most powerful and important figure of his day, Pontius Pilate” is “mentioned in
any Roman sources of his day.” ”
In fairness to Ehrman, he mentions Philo’s reference as well as the archaeological evidence you cite. It’s also
clear, in the book at least (p 45-46), that Ehrman is talking about the period that Pilate served as governor of
Judea.
News outlets like HuffPo are generally lousy places for religious commentary, so I’m not surprised to see that
Ehrman presented his case in a very truncated form.
I am curious to read your review of the book, however, since Ehrman addresses your despised messiah
argument directly.
R E P LY
AN N E C. H AN N A • MARCH 22, 2012, 12:14 AM
I’m interested to see you mention the Pilate Stone as solid support for the existence of Pilate, because I
remember reading something recently (which, frustratingly, I cannot locate anymore) that suggested that the
stone isn’t in fact a terribly good piece of evidence. The argument was along the general line that the extremely
fragmentary nature of the inscription allows people to see in it what they expect to see (Pontius Pilate), and that a
particular alternate reading having nothing to do with Pilate makes far more sense in context and is far more
likely to match the actual complete text.
I’m hoping that with your superior familiarity with the field maybe you’ll be able to dig up the arguments on the
subject and give your take on them. I don’t really have a dog in this fight, not being a historian of any kind
myself, I just find the discussions fascinating, and I’d like to know what’s actually true.
I’ll be awaiting with interest your response to Ehrman’s newest book.
R E P LY
Anne C. Hanna: I remember reading something recently (which, frustratingly, I cannot

locate anymore) that suggested that the stone isn’t in fact a terribly good piece of
evidence. The argument was along the general line that the extremely fragmentary
nature of the inscription allows people to see in it what they expect to see (Pontius
Pilate), and that a particular alternate reading having nothing to do with Pilate makes
far more sense in context and is far more likely to match the actual complete text.
If you or anyone finds that argument (especially if it’s in print), do post the source here. I’d
love to read it. But I doubt it’s a good argument. The inscription is indeed fragmentary, but
there is no other plausible reconstruction, particularly given the location where the stone was
found.
R E P LY
AN N E C. H AN N A • MARCH 22, 2012, 1:25 PM
I really wish I could find it, but I’ve searched my browser history to no avail, and I don’t
think any of the books I’ve read recently fit the bill. :/ Sorry I’m throwing around vague
insinuations rather than being able to be specific, but maybe somebody else will be able to
put their finger on it.
R E P LY
No worries. Maybe someone will find it eventually. I don’t think it’s

crucial.
R E P LY
BEN • MARCH 22, 2012, 12:43 AM
“Answer: the only kind of messiah figure you could invent would be one who wasn’t like that. Otherwise,
everyone would notice no divine being had militarily liberated Israel and resurrected all the world’s
dead. This means the probability of that evidence (“anyone who wanted to make up a messiah would
make him like that”) on the hypothesis “someone made up a messiah” is exactly zero.”
lmao, I noticed that, too. It’s like he doesn’t know how make believe works. Ehrman is really good in general
and for some reason you get him talking about how mythicism can’t be true and he starts making no goddamn
sense.
R E P LY
MA L099 • MARCH 22, 2012, 1:14 AM
“despite what the sensationalists claim ad nauseum in their propagandized versions”
Could you put a [sic] in there? The fact that a biblical scholar apparently doesn’t know Latin sickens me, and the
fact that you left it in there without comment doesn’t make it better…
R E P LY
Wow, I totally missed that. You are quite right. Certainly, it’s ad nauseam. I’ve made the
same mistake myself, thoughtlessly (by simply emulating others without checking). But we
certainly ought buck that trend. Thanks for the catch.
R E P LY
STEWA R T • MAR C H 22, 2012, 1:51 AM
The serious things that need to be said have been; the only “Q” we can be certain ever existed is the TV series
made by Spike Milligan, which would go a long way to explaining some parts of the New Testament.
R E P LY
BA DGER 3K • MARCH 23, 2012, 4:50 PM
You forget “Q: the winged serpent” (1982) and the inventor of James Bond’s gear (played
by Desmond Llewelyn).
I’ve gotten the sample from the iBooks store last night and read the first 20 pages (of 52),
and it seems like it’s the same as his HuffPo piece (from what I remembered, if someone has
a link to it anywhere but HuffPo I’ll read it – I refuse to patronize that website in any fashion).
I was not impressed with what I read so far.
R E P LY
AM
You might not be able to judge by the first twenty pages. That will be
summary, to which the rest of the book would be qualification and
nuance. Although his summary should still be accurate and clear and not
make misleading statements about what is to follow.
R E P LY
F • MARCH 23, 2012, 6 :18 PM
In Cleveland, the “Q” is a stadium.
[re: upthread – ed.]
R E P LY
MA R ELLA • MARCH 22, 2012, 2:48 AM
Ever since I heard Ehrman saying on a podcast that we have as much evidence for the existence of Jesus as we
do for Julius Caesar I knew he couldn’t be trusted on this issue. He then went on to use the argument from
authority (no proper people espousing this idea). He clearly has an emotional investment in the existence of Jesus
for reasons I do not understand, I guess as a former fundy he just can’t make that final step. It’s very
disappointing because he really is great on other topics.
R E P LY
Marella: Ever since I heard Ehrman saying on a podcast that we have as much
evidence for the existence of Jesus as we do for Julius Caesar…
Holy shit. Did he actually say that? This is evenworse than the same claims made for
Socrates and Alexander the Great. I mean we have Cicero’s letters for Christ’s sake. And
that’s just the tiniest tip of the iceberg (before we even get to inscriptions, coins, statues, the
many extant books about him or that mention him written by his contemporaries and near
contemporaries, and, again, Caesar’s own writings).
That is not the way to defend historicity. It makes him look like an idiot. If he did say that, I
certainly hope he doesn’t say it anymore.
BTW, on this see my discussion of the evidence for Caesar crossing the Rubicon (just one
event), in Sense and Goodness without God IV.1.2.5, pp. 242-47 (supplemented by The
Rubicon Analogy).
R E P LY
BA DGER 3K • MARCH 23, 2012, 4:56 PM
I remembered that from an old Infidel Guy show that Reginald Finley did with him, but I
may be wrong. I have all of them saved on my hard drive, and if I can find it, I can probably
get it for those interested (not sure of legality in posting it, but it was freely distributed at the
time). At the time, he also dissed Robert M Price as if he never heard of him when they had
recently had some kind of debate/conversation/contact – it’s been a few years. I couldn’t find
it in a quick search, so I’ll probably have to go back over my archived material and hope it
stands out. Those two things caused me to lose some respect for him.
R E P LY
R U P I C A P R A • MARCH 30, 2012, 4:37 PM
The Julius Caesar comment can be found here starting at about 2 minutes
in:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRx0N4GF0AY
R E P LY
R Y A N • MARCH 22, 2012, 3:02 AM
I’m just a bit confused about all of this – I love history but I’m not a historian or scientist, but something that’s
always bothered me, is what makes something a good “source” of information.
How do you verify something that happened 2000 years ago? Surely you have to take everything with pinch of
salt?
R E P LY
ryan: I’m just a bit confused about all of this – I love history but I’m not a historian or
scientist, but something that’s always bothered me, is what makes something a good
“source” of information. How do you verify something that happened 2000 years ago?
Surely you have to take everything with pinch of salt?
There is no single answer to that question, since it varies by case and category. The short
answer pertains to the governing logic (which I describe in Proving History): for any given
source x, if the prior probability that x is reliable when it reports fact y is higher than the
converse (which you would determine categorically; e.g. recovered government documents
and physical inscriptions have a high prior here; hagiographies a low one), then the x is a
“good” source if y being true makes the content of x more likely than y being false would.
The degree to which it is “good” will then be a measure of how far these probabilities
diverge. In the case where the prior is against reliability, a large enough divergence in the
second case can still overcome that and establish x as a “good” source on y, and again the
degree of reliability depends on the divergences. How this works out mathematically I explain
in the book. How this is applied to particular cases (e.g. how we assign the probabilities) is
then a function of field-specific background knowledge (i.e. you have to ask an expert, who
will rely on a conjunction of highly probable premises based on expert knowledge of human
behavior and past precedents in the relevant context).
R E P LY
TH E SQU EA K I N G • MAR C H 22, 2012, 3:44 AM
From the Article:
“
It is true that Jesus is not mentioned in any Roman sources of his day. That should hardly count
against his existence, however, since these same sources mention scarcely anyone from his time
and place. Not even the famous Jewish historian, Josephus, or even more notably, the most
powerful and important figure of his day, Pontius Pilate.
Surely this is saying (in a badly written way) that Pontius Pilate and Josephus don’t mention Jesus, rather than
“Roman sources of [Jesus’s] day” don’t mention Pontius Pilate?
You point out sufficient evidence for Pilate, that surely Ehrman must be aware of it; I think the problem is with
the phraseology and / or editting of Ehrman’s article, rather than Ehrman claiming there is no evidence for Pilate.
R E P LY
The Squeaking: Surely this is saying (in a badly written way) that Pontius Pilate and
Josephus don’t mention Jesus, rather than “Roman sources of [Jesus’s] day” don’t
mention Pontius Pilate?
No. Pontius Pilate left no writings; and I am sure Ehrman believes Josephusdoes mention
Jesus (that has been much debated; I have an article on it coming out in a peer reviewed
journal soon).
What Ehrman is saying is that no third party mentions Josephus (e.g. even though Tacitus may
have used Josephus as a source, he never says he does, nor says anything about Josephus,
for example regarding his role in helping the Romans win the Jewish War; of course, the
problem with that is that we don’t have more than a fraction of what Tacitus said about the
Jewish War, his Histories being very fragmentary, so he may well have mentioned Josephus,
but that’s a separate matter, since we still don’t have that mention even if it existed, and that
would be Ehrman’s intended point). Or, of course, Pilate.
On Josephus, he’s in essence correct, if we only count things written while Josephus was
alive. I had thought the first external mention of him was in Origen, over a century later; but in
the previous edit of this comment I said I hadn’t checked if there was any more obscure
mention before that, and Martin Hagstrøm did us a favor and subsequently adduced
two: Suetonius and Cassius Dio, although Dio was a contemporary of Origen, so really one,
and Suetonius and Josephus at least had overlapping lives even if Josephus was probably
dead by the time Suetonius wrote; also, we know of contemporary works that did mention
Josephus while he was still alive–Josephus himself refers to them and even describes some of
them–but they don’t survive. But even all that aside, this example is disingenuous again.
Because there is one problem with using Josephus as an example: we obviously have
attestation to his life and existence because we have his own writings. If we had the actual
writings of Jesus, and could vet their authenticity the way we have Josephus, then there would
be no contest as to Jesus’ existence. Thus Josephus is a terrible example for Ehrman to
use here.
But you are right, he just wrote very terribly. Because as someone reports upthread, he does
get the facts on Pilate right in his book.
R E P LY
MAR TIN H AGS TR ØM • MAR C H 26 , 201 2, 4:06 P M
Thanks for a great article (and ensuing discussion).
Josephus was mentioned by Sueton (Vespasian 5,6), »and one of his high-born prisoners,
Josephus by name, as he was being put in chains, declared most confidently that he would
soon be released by the same man, who would then, however, be emperor«.
He was also mentioned by Dio Cassius (Book 65, 1, 3-4), although that may be too late a
source for your purpose, »[…] These portents needed interpretation; but not so the saying of
a Jew named Josephus: he, having earlier been captured by Vespasian and imprisoned,
laughed and said: “You may imprison me now, but a year from now, when you have become
emperor, you will release me”.«
Let that be a lesson to all Josephus-deniers.

R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 4 : 3 8
PM
Awesome. Thanks for that. I updated my comment on this earlier to

reflect this data. Yes, Dio is a contemporary of Origen, so over a century
away; Suetonius almost certainly wrote a decade or so after Josephus
died, but they were contemporaries (Suetonius would have been in his
twenties or thirties when Josephus completed the Antiquities).
R E P LY
JA C OB A LIET • MARCH 22, 2012, 5:52 AM
This is a good quality, thorough refutation of Ehrman. He has become a disappointment to many who are thirsty
for serious work on the historicity of Jesus.
R E P LY
Well, refutation of his article. Not his book.
R E P LY
A N DR EA • MARCH 22, 2012, 6 :11 AM
The essential problem I see with declaring that Jesus Christ was a historical figure is that there are vanishingly
few Christians who accept that their supposed messiah was one more primitive “teacher” who was sure that the
world was going to end and did no supernatural acts whatsoever. There is no purpose in discussing *this*
character, especially when discussing the validity of religion. The Jesus Christ that Christians believe is not this
character; they believe in a magical man/god that did supernatural acts, that gathered a Roman legion’s worth of
people several times just outside of Jerusalem and the Romans didn’t notice, that is the blood sacrifice for other
supernatural nonsense.
To me, this desperate search for a historical Jesus is little more than a strawman argument, one created to hide
the fact that all religions are human made stories and no more valid than the flying spaghetti monster. Yes, all
myths may have had some kernel of basis in reality, but all that does is confirm that humans like to use reality to
make up stories around, just like fiction about Jack Bauer or Darth Vader or Raoul Duke.
As much as I have liked Ehrman’s books up to now, I seriously wonder about him and his making such massive
errors. Is this the return to religon by an agnostic man seeing his mortality?
R E P LY
andrea: One thing to consider is that Ehrman and other scholars have an interest in system
justification: they have fought hard to get secular scholarship on the bible accepted by the
Christian community (even fundamentalists have to give it a nod, even as they argue against
it), and there may be a fear that if secular scholarship embraces this theory, that they will lose
their influence and “respectability” with that crowd. That’s not really a valid concern; but it
can be a strong motivation to someone who doesn’t realize it’s wrong. It would be as if
evolution should be attacked by scientists simply because science will then be rejected by
Christians; yes, Christians who find evolution appalling are driven to disdain and reject
science and scientists because science defends evolution, but evolution is simply true and
scientists are committed to defending the truth; they are not obligated to make themselves
respectable to Christian fundamentalists. I think the secular Jesus studies field has lost sight of
this fact. It’s still too beholden to the funding and status that is connected to Christians who
would be “offended” by the conclusion that Jesus didn’t even exist. This would happen even
among many liberal Christians, who actually are okay with the non-miraculous Jesus of
secular scholarship, because then they can try to defend the “he was still a great teacher and
we should heed his wisdom” position. They won’t even have that fallback if Jesus didn’t
even exist. Hector Avalos has said a lot about this problem, including why liberal Christians
are a part of that problem as I just suggested, in The End of Biblical Studies, which is an
excellent work everyone should read.
R E P LY
OPH ELIA BEN S ON • MARCH 22, 2012, 6 :18 AM
I’m reading the book, and he does say “we have” – it brought me up short too. “We whut?”
R E P LY
DA VE • MARC H 22, 2012, 6 :36 AM
I am currently reading Ehrman’s book and I can say that he does not make mistake 1, as he discusses Philo and
the inscription in relation to Pilate.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 22, 2012, 9 :46 AM

That’s a relief.
R E P LY
C H U C K MESSEN GER • MAR C H 22, 201 2, 7:1 5 AM
Richard: I love all your analysis – very cogent.
My question: what is your take on the historicity of Jesus? Could you spell out, briefly, what you currently think
– where the balance of current evidence points? Perhaps with associated probabilities?
R E P LY
Chuck Messenger: You will have to wait for my book on that, On the Historicity of Jesus
Christ. But this present article gives you a good idea of where that will be going. I would
only add that I think something like what Doherty argues is true (I don’t agree withevery
element of his thesis, and most of what he argues I do not deem necessary to his thesis and
therefore I don’t necessarily oppose or endorse it, since I haven’t bothered with it). Anyway,
my old review of his original book is Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument
to Ahistoricity.
R E P LY
C I P H ER • MAR C H 22, 201 2, 7:1 6 AM
I was a little shocked as well while reading it. I kept thinking, “Wait, did I understand him correctly?”
Those bits about source texts and lack of precedent were especially troublesome. Surely he’s aware of recent
archeological evidence demonstrating a Jewish precedent for the concept of a suffering and dying messiah?
If I had to guess, I’d say he’s having some form of the stereotypical “crisis of faith”. He’s had a bit of a hard time
defining himself to others over the years, as it is – agnostic, deist, etc. Also, he comes from that world. Perhaps
he’s experiencing some sort of rebound, perhaps occasioned by a personal crisis, or simply the need to belong
or to return to his roots… whatever the reason(s), it looks like the result isn’t going to be pretty.
R E P LY
cipher: Surely he’s aware of recent archeological evidence demonstrating a Jewish

precedent for the concept of a suffering and dying messiah?
That’s highly debatable, though. It’s not what I would consider strong evidence. (For those
not in the know, I believe Cipher is referring to the Revelation of Gabriel, a fragmentary
text carved in stone from just before the Christian period.)
As to your psychological thesis, I’ve speculated more than I should already. It’s all just
guessing anyway.
R E P LY
C IP H ER • MARCH 22, 2012, 1:53 PM
(For those not in the know, I believe Cipher is referring to the Revelation of Gabriel, a
fragmentary text carved in stone from just before the Christian period.)
I was referring to the Revelation of Gabriel. I was having a senior moment and couldn’t for
the life of me remember its name!
That’s highly debatable, though. It’s not what I would consider strong evidence.
No, of course. I’m aware there are differing opinions – but it’s possible evidence. He’s
saying there’s no evidence.
As to your psychological thesis, I’ve speculated more than I should already. It’s all just
guessing anyway.
Agreed – but the signs are there. Let’s just leave it at this – if you hear he’s gone back to
some form of belief, don’t be surprised.
R E P LY
PM
cipher: [re: the Revelation of Gabriel is highly debatable / not strong

evidence.] No, of course. I’m aware there are differing opinions –
but it’s possible evidence. He’s saying there’s no evidence.
That’s a valid point. It reflects his hyperbole. It’s one thing to say there is
insufficient evidence (which would force him to think about what
insufficient means); another to insist that it’s absolutely entirely and
utterly impossible.
R E P LY
MC BEN D ER • MAR C H 22, 201 2, 7:1 9 AM
This is very disappointing. I’ve just started reading Ehrman recently (I read Misquoting Jesus, Jesus Interrupted,
and Forged all in the past week), and greatly enjoyed his work, although I did notice quite a few offhand
remarks even in those books where he basically asserted without question that a “historical Jesus” existed. I
suspect him of a bit of wish-thinking here, which is disappointing because on so many other things he seems to
get it exactly right (of course, I’m no expert, so perhaps I shouldn’t be making such a judgment), but this
particular logic seems really shoddy.
I’ll be very interested to see your review of this more recent offering, Dr. Carrier; I probably won’t pick up a
copy just yet…
R E P LY
mcbender: I did notice quite a few offhand remarks even in those books where he
basically asserted without question that a “historical Jesus” existed.
I wouldn’t criticize him for that. In those books he is summarizing the consensus view (and,
when he says so, his own views), and that is the consensus view. So there is nothing wrong
with him saying so.
One could pick any statement he makes in any book and find some professor somewhere
who has published a peer reviewed article arguing against it. Ehrman isn’t obligated to say so
or list all of those, unless the article in question is very convincing and therefore must be
addressed.
To an extent consensus must be generated first, but of course no one reads most articles and
books published, so consensus can’t be generated unless an article or book is widely read
and debated in the field, which requires scholars like Ehrman to notice and make mention of
them and discuss them, so the process can begin. But many articles and books (even peer
reviewed) are just too poorly argued to warrant that attention; and when someone is only
outlining the consensus, really the only contrary position one should mention is any there may
be in the latest peer reviewed work on the issue.
But in this case there has not been any (no one has published mythicist arguments through any
peer review process I know of, apart from at the Journal of Higher Criticism which
Ehrman doesn’t trust for that reason–a bit of a circular argument, I know, but it is a valid
concern that they only appear there). I have been working to change that. But until I do,
Ehrman is within his rights to say that the current consensus is that Jesus historically existed.
But saying that that consensus can’t possibly be wrong is not valid reasoning (and saying
only unemployable lunatics would even consider it is simply appallingly bad reasoning),
particularly given the actual state of the evidence.
R E P LY
MC BEN DER • MARCH 22, 2012, 12:36 PM
Hmm. I wasn’t aware that the mythicist view was underrepresented in the peer-reviewed
literature; that does make it significantly less egregious. Perhaps I’m just surprised by his
making this argument when, as far as I can tell, the body of his work suggests that the
documents we have are (at the very least) insufficiently reliable to draw a conclusion one way
or the other on the “historical Jesus” question.
I’m an engineer, not a historian, so I probably shouldn’t be passing judgment one way or the
other on this question really.
R E P LY
There is a certain dogmatic bias (reflected throughout Ehrman’s article)

that could stymie even the attempt to get an article through peer review,
and would discourage scholars from even considering the theory in the
first place (much less far enough to actually produce an article on it). Thus
the absence of such articles is not as telling as it would be for other
disputes.
R E P LY
SH U N K W • MAR C H 22, 201 2, 7:38 AM
The original Huffington Post article was complete rubbish. Thanks for submitting a factual rejoinder to the
original mythical article. Wonder if HP will pick up on this like they did the original article. I doubt it.
R E P LY
P LU TO A N I MU S • MAR C H 22, 201 2, 7:44 AM
“We do not have accounts of others who were born to virgin mothers and who died as an atonement for sin and
then were raised from the dead.”
Ehrman might as well have added, “who was also left-handed and played ping-pong on Tuesdays.”
R E P LY
C O M P U L S O R Y A C C O U N T 7 74 6 • M A R C H 2 2 , 2 0 1 2 , 7 : 4 8 A M
Maybe the HuffPo article was pseudepigraphal?

R E P LY
F • MARCH 23, 2012, 6 :32 PM
I, for one, found that to be amusing.
R E P LY
I GN OR A N C E • MAR C H 22, 201 2, 7:55 AM
“But if it’s going to be like this article, it’s going to be the worst piece of scholarship ever written. So
stay tuned for my future review of his book. For now, I will address this brief article, not knowing how
his book might yet rescue him from an epic fail.”
Hello Dr Carrier,
This seems uncharitable on your part. Considering that the article you wrote for professor Hoffmann’s anthology
was savagely rejected, it could be prudent not to throw stones if you’re in a glass house
(http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/play-mythty-for-me-dr-carrier-carries-on/).
Obviously I can’t compare a book with an unpublished contribution, but in any case, both are written, so the
article is still in the game.
R E P LY
Ignorance: Considering that the article you wrote for professor Hoffmann’s anthology
was savagely rejected
I don’t know what you are talking about. That article was accepted (Hoffmann approved it
enthusiastically and published it in that anthology).
Perhaps you are confusing this with Hoffmann’s subsequent flight into seeming insanity? It
was only after I criticized that anthology that Hoffmann wrote the trash piece you link to, even
though I have documented evidence he did not have any of those opinions before I criticized
his book.
R E P LY
F • MARCH 23, 2012, 6 :37 PM
[Re: upthread – ed.] How is the statement, qualified as it is, uncharitable? It’s perfectly
sensible.
Your conclusion, on the other hand, does not follow, and sounds like a standard passive-
aggressive “warning”.
R E P LY
K A C Y R A Y • MARCH 22, 2012, 8:02 AM
Great post. Thanks.
R E P LY
DA N • MARCH 22, 2012, 8:07 AM
Why did Ehrman get pissed off at mythicism in general? If I may be allowed to speculate: some years ago an
amateur mythicist (the Infidel Guy) “interviewed” Bart Ehrman for an internet radio show supposedly on the
historical Jesus and about Ehrman’s turn to agnosticism. But they spent the entire time debating the topic, with
the said mythicist making a complete fool of himself since he knows nothing about historical Jesus studies, and
Ehrman getting agitated while correcting the mythicist time and again.
Bart Ehrman may have had a grudge with mythicism since then.
R E P LY
Dan, I think you could be right: that’s the “intellectual impact trauma” I was talking about
upthread. If Ehrman surrounds himself and immerses himself in the crap, his outrage is natural
(I can’t stand it myself, which is why I simply don’t engage it much at all, because I have
serious work to do, I don’t need to spend all my time correcting other people). But he ends
up lashing out with too broad a brush that way, conflating all the crap with the rarer but better
work, and conflating a crap argument for a theory, with the theory itself. These are common
fallacies that many historians make (not just in this debate). All I can do is call them out. As
I’ve done here.
R E P LY
F • MARCH 23, 2012, 6 :49 PM
It could be the experience you mention, or it could be that a lot of popular mythicism is crap.
And when people are inundated by crap, they sometimes go so far as to have a complete
reversal of thinking. Consider any social/political movement, say environmentalism. Some
supporters are so loud, stupid, and annoying that others who can’t stand their idiocy decide
that the whole idea is bad rather than recognizing that there are mouthy stupid people who
support good ideas with bad reasoning, woo, or generic bafflegab, and that this in no way
changes the standing of the idea itself. For some people at some times, it’s the “easy way”.
R E P LY
AM
That’s a good observation, F. That’s kind of what I had in mind with the
“intellectual impact trauma” idea. But your example adds an important
nuance.
R E P LY
BER N A R DA • MARCH 22, 2012, 8:50 AM
Your point 3 applies to Hercules too, who was tortured to death but arose to sit by his father Zeus.
Unfortunately you didn’t mention Apollonius of Tyana who lived at about the same time as the supposed Jesus
and whose story is about the same.
R E P LY
bernarda: Apollonius of Tyana who lived at about the same time as the supposed Jesus
and whose story is about the same.
That example is problematic because all our relevant sources postdate Christianity by nearly
two centuries, and thus we cannot prove the influence wasn’t the other way around.
R E P LY
OPH ELIA BEN S ON • MARCH 22, 2012, 8:51 AM
I found one place where he said it. Post here:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/03/what-ehrman-actually-says/
R E P LY
Thanks for those quotes, Ophelia. I haven’t gotten my copy yet. But I see he is indeed
throwing the whole kitchen sink into it, of all the hypothetical, conjectural sources ever
proposed by anyone, all together in one big jumble as this amazingly vast body of “evidence”
we (don’t) have. The irony is that his argument is fallacious anyway. There were no doubt
numerous different texts about Hercules that came to be merged in later retellings. That does
not make Hercules historical. Or consider Deuteronomy, which purports to be by Moses (it’s
not) and to contain the sayings (of God) as related by Moses (it doesn’t), yet almost certainly
came from multiple sources that were merged into this one document. In no way does that
make it historically true, even in one tiny bit. We likewise have multiple sources merged into
one document in Genesis (hence there are two contradictory creation accounts in it, for
example). But that doesn’t make Genesis true. And so on.
A second problem is that not having the source documents is key, because we want to know
what exactly was in them, vs. what was added or changed in the documents we do have.
Possibly the source documents (if they even existed; possibly the “sources” were just random
collections of oral tales and verbally transmitted homilies and fables, not actual documents)
portrayed Jesus as even more clearly mythical than our Gospels do. For example, Thomas
Brodie pretty much demonstrates this for Luke-Acts (The Birthing of the New
Testament, supported by Helms in Gospel Fictions and Pervo in The Mystery of Acts),
which he proves was based on an earlier version that clearly was entirely made up (it is
basically just a rewrite of 1 and 2 kings, casting Jesus in the central role instead of Elijah and
Elisha); the author of Luke-Acts then “dressed it up” with more historical sounding data and
phrases to make it appear “true.” Or imagine if the earliest version of the gospel story began
“and the following was revealed to Peter in a vision,” which then the later Gospel authors
simply left off. And so on. Thus, we can’t support any theory on documents we don’t have,
because we don’t know exactly what was in them. This makes his argument irresponsible at
best.
R E P LY
OPH ELIA BEN S ON • MARCH 22, 2012, 9 :57 AM
That’s certainly how it strikes an outsider, Richard. The book does seem very circular at
times (a lot of times, sad to say).
R E P LY
IGN OR A N C E • MARCH 24, 2012, 12:36 AM
And Charles Freeman does not???
R E P LY
AM
Ignorance: And Charles Freeman does not???
Due to formatting issues I have to set threads to break, so you should

note that this statement might end up so far from the comment you are
responding to no one will know what you mean. Please provide context
(e.g. a quote). Otherwise we have no idea what you are saying. Just FYI.
R E P LY
R H U BA R BTH EBEA R • MARCH 22, 2012, 9 :02 AM
I loved all of Ehrman’s books, particularly “Jesus Interrupted”… with the exception of the final chapter, which
seemed a begrudging non-explanation explanation of why he still believed in a historical Jesus of some kind. I
was hoping he would get around to writing a full treatise on the matter, and hooray, he has!
As a layperson, I find Ehrman’s attitude as displayed in his Huffington Post article to be odd.Of all the writers
I’ve read so far (and sadly I’m behind on your stuff, Richard, but I’ll catch up soon, promise), Ehrman seemed
the most adroit in patiently disassembling the Jesus of faith for those of us who are interested in such matters but
can’t devote our entire lives to such study. For him to now insist that we all still need to accept that there is a
Jesus of history or be thought cranks and bad thinkers, all I can do is scratch my head. I thought I was following
YOUR train of thought, Ehrman!Why should it matter if I believe there was some ancient guy at the root of all
the myth? Only the myth is compelling. Only the myth impacts my life as a 21st century person.
The thing I hope to learn from Ehrman’s new book is if the “real Jesus” he’s about to reveal is, in any sense,
interesting enough to study.
R E P LY
R EBEC C A • MARCH 22, 2012, 9 :11 AM
Great article, and I’m much looking forward to the full review. Could you clarify something re “according to
scripture” in 1 Cor. 15:3-8? Which scripture is Paul talking about? I’ve always thought it was a reference to the
“fact” that Jesus’ death and resurrection were prefigured in the Old Testament scriptures, eg Isaiah 53:12; but
are you saying Paul was referring to gospels written about Jesus? The latter is how I first read your comment,
but I wasn’t so sure on second reading. Neither interpretation actually affects your point, I’m just interested.
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • MAR C H 22, 201 2, 7:1 2 P M
Rebecca: Could you clarify something re “according to scripture” in 1 Cor. 15:3-8?

Which scripture is Paul talking about? I’ve always thought it was a reference to the
“fact” that Jesus’ death and resurrection were prefigured in the Old Testament
scriptures, eg Isaiah 53:12; but are you saying Paul was referring to gospels written
about Jesus? The latter is how I first read your comment, but I wasn’t so sure on
second reading. Neither interpretation actually affects your point, I’m just interested.
Regarding the first question, scholars are undecided. The question is complicated by the fact
that (a) the earliest Christians regarded as scriptures many texts that didn’t end up in the OT
canon, and many of which we don’t even have any more (or have complete) and (b) they
were using manuscripts that said different things than ours now do (this is evident in the
second century debates, where Christian apologists sometimes quote passages of the OT that
read significantly differently than the text we now have; likewise, texts of the OT recovered at
Qumran show a number of variants not otherwise attested, and those are just a fraction). The
most recent suggestion is that the scripture Paul means is the Revelation of Gabriel. But
that is unfortunately too fragmentary to be conclusive.
Regarding the second question, this is something often overlooked when people read the text
in English in the “traditional” understanding. In the Greek, Paul says each thing iskata tas
graphas, where kata usually means “according to” in the sense of a source, e.g. one would
say “according to Josephus, Pilate was a terrible person,” usingkata. The same word can
also mean “according to” in the sense of “in conformance with” (as in, “in conformance with
the law”), and as such is here traditionally taken as meaning “in fulfillment of,” but that
presupposes what is not in evidence: that the events were confirmed to have happened
independently of the scriptures (making that a circular argument). On a plain reading of the
text, he is saying he was told (as Romans 16:25-26 confirms) that scripture said these things
had happened. One would more commonly say “as scripture had foretold” or some such
thing if the other meaning were intended. That does not rule out the other meaning, but one
must present a case for it; otherwise the natural meaning of the text is a reference to a source,
not a fulfillment, as that passage in Romans confirms.
R E P LY
JA MESSWEET • MAR C H 22, 2012, 9 :25 AM
I found Mistake #2 the most baffling. I am an abject layperson when it comes to the historical Jesus question,
and even I knew that was a false statement.
I think it would be very hard to ever prove that there were not one or more historical Jesuses (Jesii?) on which
the tall tales are based. But 1) clearly if such a man (or men) (or woman?) did exist, the Biblical Jesus bears very
little relation to him/her/them; and 2) again admitting my status as an abject layperson, I’ve seen nothing that I
would remotely consider to be strong evidence of such an individual. The most convincing evidence I have seen
has all been entirely circumstantial, not to mention amenable to alternative explanations.
There’s a lot of weird details in the Gospels that would make a lot of sense if the authors were making a tortured
attempt to reconcile Jewish prophecy with a historical figure… but then again, there are a lot of weird details in
e.g. the new Star Wars movies that would make a lot of sense if Lucas was making a tortured attempt to
reconcile his desired storyline with a historical figure, but in that case we know the REAL explanation is that he
was making a tortured attempt to reconcile his crappy new fantasy world with the much awesomer fantasy world
he invented thirty-odd years ago.
Pretty much all of the other evidence I have seen seems to be of the form of taking some ancient manuscript and
either a) assuming its authenticity even in the face of evidence to the contrary, b) reading into it things that it
doesn’t really seem to say, or c) taking some detail far too seriously than is warranted. But again, I’m no expert,
so maybe I am wrong…
R E P LY
R IZZO • MARCH 22, 2012, 9 :56 AM
Yeah I read that article yesterday and I thought it was just as full of holes as you. No Roman sources for Pilate,
what? It was worse than the usual HuffPo drek.
R E P LY
DA LA ZA L • MARCH 22, 2012, 10:23 AM
Very interesting post. I must say I was also very puzzled by Ehrman’s HuffPo post, because he seemingly
contradicts some of the other stuff he says in his books (Jesus Interrupted and Jesus, Apocaliptic Prophet of the
New Millenium, notably). More importantly, I’ve always been kind of puzzled by Ehrman’s strong defense of a
historical jesus, given all the evidence (mostly lack thereof) he presents in his books.
I mean, he mentions the lack of contemporary sources outside of Christianity, he mentions the religious context
of apocalypticism, he mentions the similar religious themes in the region at the same time period and he mentions
all the contradictions about Jesus’ life found in the gospels. I would imagine anyone at that point would just say
“nope, not a whole lotta evidence that this Jesus fellow actually existed”. But he doesn’t. If I understand his
claims, he thinks that Paul offers strong evidence for a historical Jesus, but in the same breath points to the fact
that Paul is virtually mute about Jesus’s life and deeds, and focus only on his death and resurrection narrative,
including theological commitments that seem to be at odds with some of the gospel traditions (like Matthew, for
instance).
Then there are the supposed meetings of Paul with Peter and James the brother of Jesus, but these are very brief
(and apparently ambiguous) notes, and could have easily been fabricated (by Paul, or interpolators) to lend
support for Paul’s theology (which he explicitly claims come from personal revelation, rather than through the
direct apostolic line). Are these strong evidence for a historical jesus? Apparently Ehrman thinks so, but that has
always been surprising to me.
After reading some of Ehrman’s books, I was left with the feeling that, ASSUMING JESUS EXISTED, he
would probably look like the reconstructions reported in his books (ie, failed jewish apocalyptic prophet, etc.).
However, I haven’t seen what is the overwhelming evidence in support of this assumption. Maybe Ehrman thinks
that BECAUSE a very reasonable historical jesus CAN be reconstructed, it provides evidence that there was
one?
R E P LY
R IC H AR D TH E ILLOGIC AL C AR R IER • MAR C H 22, 201 2, 1 0:38 AM
Hey Richard, why don’t you just debate him. I am sorry but its funny that you are one of the only <2 of
historians that actually thinks Jesus was a myth.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 22, 2012, 6 :27 PM
Richard The Illogical Carrier: Hey Richard, why don’t you just debate him.
That may occur later this year.
(BTW, I love the lame fake ID and email address. Snazzy.)
R E P LY
TR U TH SP EA K ER • MAR C H 22, 2012, 11:18 AM
Really disappointing. I expected better from Ehrman.
Personally I don’t find the question all that interesting. Someone made up the character of Jesus in the books that
became the New Testament and put words in his mouth. Whether or not it was based on a real person just
doesn’t seem that important to me.
R E P LY
ELLE • MARCH 22, 2012, 11:23 AM
“Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers
and Cephas?”
In this question Paul seems to be citing specific people (the apostles and Cephas) in order to set an example.
What are the odds of him citing the whole Christian community (the Lord’s brothers, and not THE Lord’s
brothers) while writing to a specific christian community?
Or am I misinterpreting something?
R E P LY

Elle: In this question Paul seems to be citing specific people (the apostles and Cephas)
in order to set an example.
No, he is arguing that no one should complain if he has a wife to feed, and his argument is
that “don’t all other Christians get to have wives? Why is it only me and Barnabas who
can’t?” (the gist of 1 Cor. 9:5-6). The actual issue, in context, is that Paul was accused of not
working for the money he takes from his churches, and the implication is that he and his
entourage have to support their wives (or be able to, should they take a wife). Thus a “loose”
translation of verses 5-6 is “Don’t we have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as all other
apostles and Christians do, even Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have to labor for
our keep?”
R E P LY
H ON ESTC H R I STI A N • MAR C H 22, 2012, 1:02 P M
Richard,
is it possible to prove that anyone from 1st century palestine existed, who was not a Roman ruler?
R E P LY
honestchristian: Is it possible to prove that anyone from 1st century palestine existed,
who was not a Roman ruler?
Yes. We have the burial ossuaries of several figures, for instance. Plus tons of inscriptions
attesting to people. Etc. We have early historians covering the area and period who used
sources of mixed reliability but out of which we can often make a good case for many
people’s historicity. Etc. We have writers like Philo. Etc. And so on.
You might be assuming axiomatically that historicity is to be doubted without sufficient proof,
but that’s a fallacy. Historicity is to be believed or doubted based on the prior probability,
which depends on a reference class. So, for example, mythic demigods tend not to be
historical, so initial doubt is warranted, and the burden is on the case for historicity (don’t
mistake that for saying historicists bear the burden presently, since they have already met that
prima facie burden, and therefore the burden is now on the rebuttal side, i.e. the mythicists);
whereas, mundane historical actors (e.g. Judas the Galileean or Justus of Tiberias, as
reported in Josephus) tend to be historical, so initial trust is warranted, and the burden is on
anyone who would deny it. And the burden is greater, the higher the prior probability either
way. The logic of this is detailed in Proving History.
R E P LY
STEP H • MAR C H 22, 2012, 1:07 P M
It is surprising you write such a long piece full of confident and complicated mistakes and assumptions,
responding to a very very brief article by Ehrman introducing his book. I have not read Ehrman’s book yet. It
has been shipped from the bookseller but has not arrived yet. I will reserve judgement until I have read his book.
However in your very long blog post you completely misrepresent several things, Casey included. For example,
you cite Philo, De Prov. II, 64, to show that Philo ‘made regular pilgrimages to Jerusalem’. This passage
survives only in Armenian, which in general does not provide reliable tradition. Moreover, the passage does not
say that he ‘made regular pilgrimages’ at all. It only says that he went via Ascalon, and it is perfectly consistent
with the common view that he went only once.
You also attribute to Ehrman numerous things which he does not say. For example, ‘You can challenge the
consensus on almost anything else in Jesus studies, but this [i.e. the existence of the historical Jesus] is
sacrosanct, and if you dare, “we’ll ruin your career.” Such is Ehrman’s message.’ Ehrman does not say this. It is
moreover a conspicuous falsehood, since lecturers and professors in independent British universities who have
academic tenure, cannot be dismissed for holding inconvenient opinions. Lecturers and professors in
independent universities in the Antipodes are appointed to permanent positions without tenure but they cannot be
dismissed either, for holding inconvenient opinions, whatever they are.
In the comments, CJO speculates that Ehrman may be following Casey on Aramaisms, which we will find out
when we have his book. Your response demonstrates that you have not has not read Casey’s learned arguments
in the monographs Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel (CUP, 1998) or in An Aramaic Approach to Q (CUP,
2002), or his summary for general readers who cannot read Aramaic in Jesus of Nazareth (T & T Clark, 2010).
It is completely unacademic and typically presumptuous to imagine that you have refuted work which you have
not read.
Maurice Casey’s forthcoming book, due to go to press in June 2012 (with T&T Clark), contains a detailed
refutation of all the major mythicist mistakes. The title has not yet been agreed upon.
R E P LY
steph:
It is surprising you write such a long piece full of confident and complicated
“
mistakes and assumptions, responding to a very very brief article by Ehrman
introducing his book.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother. It was the extreme irresponsibility and disinformation of that
article that compelled me to publish a response, so that people who read that article but not
the book won’t be misled by it.
“
“
I will reserve judgement until I have read his book.
As to the book, you certainly should. As I state repeatedly in my article, I am doing the same.
My article here is only a corrective to his article, not his book.
“
For example, you cite Philo, De Prov. II, 64, to show that Philo ‘made
regular pilgrimages to Jerusalem’. This passage survives only in Armenian,
which in general does not provide reliable tradition.
I don’t know why you assume (a) Armenian “does not provide reliable tradition” or (b) that
therefore someone (?) fabricated this statement so as to fool us into thinking Philo (an
observant Jew) made pilgrimages to Jerusalem.
This is precisely the kind of baseless “evidence dismissal” that I am sure annoys Ehrman
when mythicists engage in it. That historicists would then do the same thing just when it suits
them ought to be embarrassing.
“
Moreover, the passage does not say that he ‘made regular pilgrimages’ at all.
It only says that he went via Ascalon, and it is perfectly consistent with the
common view that he went only once.
He says he went to make “the prayers and sacrifices,” which implies he was an observant
Jew, i.e. he went every time the law required. This was not Islam, where one was expected
to make just one pilgrimage; if you observed the Torah law regarding sacrifices, you went
every year, or as near to as you were humanly able. (I don’t know what you mean by “the
common view”; did you have a specific scholar in mind?). Many diaspora Jews could not do
this (although even many of them will still have made more than one trip throughout their
lives), but Philo was near enough that he could, and by his casual reference to observing the
sacrifices and prayers, he does not appear to regard this as a singular or remarkable occasion
(apart from, perhaps, the route he took). One could argue there is at least a possibility that he
really did go only once, but the evidence does not assert that, so we cannot rest on it as a
fact; it would only be a conjecture. And probability weighs against it.
“
“
You also attribute to Ehrman numerous things which he does not say. For
example, ‘You can challenge the consensus on almost anything else in Jesus
studies, but this [i.e. the existence of the historical Jesus] is sacrosanct, and if
you dare, “we’ll ruin your career.” Such is Ehrman’s message.’ Ehrman does
not say this.
I didn’t say he said it. I said he “intimates” it (my exact word).
“
It is moreover a conspicuous falsehood, since lecturers and professors in
independent British universities who have academic tenure, cannot be
dismissed for holding inconvenient opinions.
But they can be persecuted (their papers and books can be rejected by peer reviewers or
editors, they can be swamped with committee assignments and other excess responsibilities
to push them to retire, they can be given the worst selections of classrooms and hours and
offices, they can be passed over for conference invitations, they can be ridiculed and
marginalized, etc.). And tenure is a vanishing benefit in the U.S.; in fact, it is generally not
available to younger scholars who would otherwise be the ones most likely and able to
challenge a consensus (not having staked a reputation on arguing otherwise, nor having been
enculturated in all the academic dogmas). Tenure will have been given to scholars who prove
they won’t rock this boat to begin with. And thus tenured professors are the least likely to do
it, even apart from the way it can result in pressures and hardships they would prefer to
avoid.
“
In the comments, CJO speculates that Ehrman may be following Casey on
Aramaisms, which we will find out when we have his book. Your response
demonstrates that you have not has not read Casey’s learned arguments in
the monographs Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel (CUP, 1998) or in An
Aramaic Approach to Q (CUP, 2002), or his summary for general readers
who cannot read Aramaic in Jesus of Nazareth (T & T Clark, 2010). It is
completely unacademic and typically presumptuous to imagine that you have
refuted work which you have not read.
I don’t claim to have refuted it. I referred to my book, which references other scholars who
have published the case regarding the problem of distinguishing hypothetical Aramaic sources
from Semitized Greek (in short: they often look the same). My other points are correct: even
if we proved an Aramaic source behind Mark, that does not prove it was written “within one
or two years” of when Jesus is supposed to have died; and even if it were, that would still not
prove it was true. Moreover, it would not tell us what exactly that source said (a point I
illustrated with examples upthread).
“
Maurice Casey’s forthcoming book, due to go to press in June 2012 (with
T&T Clark), contains a detailed refutation of all the major mythicist
mistakes. The title has not yet been agreed upon.
I will certainly want to read that. Please notify me here or by email when it comes out or is
available for pre-order.
R E P LY
STEP H • MAR C H 23, 2012, 12:12 P M
Carrier:
You are extraordinarily confident in your opinions. Casey doesn’t do what other scholars do
regarding the problem of distinguishing hypothetical Aramaic sources from Semitized Greek.
His methods of exploring historical plausibility are not based on ‘an Aramaic source behind
Mark’. Casey has done a lot of original research, and judging his work by anything else you
have read on the same subject is completely inadequate, not least because all such work was
written earlier, when the Aramaic of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the like was not available for
scholarship to make original use of it.
Any competent scholar would read genuine cases for historicity before leaping to conclusions
and generalising about such work. It is hardly sufficient to read Casey’s refutation alone. It is
just a reflection of lazy incompetence that you cannot be bothered reading his learned
monographs on Aramaic.
I do not assume that the text is unreliable because it is Armenian. My conclusions are based
on detailed scholarly arguments, in texts which you appear not to have read. I do not indulge
in evidence dismissal as you have done in one single blog post. ‘Common view’ reflects the
majority of scholarship, not ‘one single scholar’. You have made extraordinary assumptions
about Philo which have no basis other than suggestions made by sources such as Josephus
that Jews went as often as humanly possible.
Secondary traditions about Philo began in the patristic period, long before there was any
Armenian tradition. For example, Eusebius relates a tradition that Philo became acquainted
with Peter in Rome (Eus. H.E. II, 17). Eusebius then argues that the Therapeutae were
Christians. From a historical point of view, it should be obvious that all such traditions are
secondary story-telling. It was the second millenium before these traditions were further
developed in Armenian Christianity. Armenian traditions include the attribution to Philo of De
Sampsone and De Iona. Do you seriously imagine he wrote such things? You don’t say why
you interpret De Prov II, 64 as you do, especially not why you imagine that it means that
Philo went every year, let alone why you believe that. You assume the reliability of a second
millenium text because it is convenient to your belief, despite overwhelming evidence
demonstrating its unreliability, yet you reject the historicity of Jesus because it conflicts with
your belief that Jesus the Jew didn’t exist, ignoring recent scholarship on history and making
assumptions about what it contains.
You attribute things to Ehrman does not say. I did not say you said he said those words. You
are imposing ideas he has not declared. It is dishonest to assume he meant was he has not
said. Where is your evidence for bullying of mythicists holding academic posts? Have you got
an academic post? Your discussion on the persecution of lecturers and professors bears no
relation whatever to the academic environment which I have encountered in England or in the
Antipodes. There are occasional problems, as Professor Casey and Professor Crossley have
found in having careers as New Testament scholars from a non-religious perspective. But
these have no reasonable relationship to the scenario which you appear to have invented off
the top of your head.
A competent scholar does not need to have special emails delivered with notification of
publications. I’m surprised at your bossy demand. I suggest you read all his original scholarly
monographs before you read his refutation. That’s the logical order of a genuinely critical
mind. You’re severely under-read. I do not run erands for bloggers.
R E P LY
PM
“
steph My conclusions are based on detailed scholarly
arguments, in texts which you appear not to have read.
Like?
“
A competent scholar does not need to have special emails
delivered with notification of publications. I’m surprised at
your bossy demand.
Asking for you to source your claims is an inappropriate demand?
R E P LY
PM
steph: Casey doesn’t do what other scholars do regarding the

problem of distinguishing hypothetical Aramaic sources from
Semitized Greek.
That’s precisely the problem, and why his conclusions are logically invalid
(not invalid as to what claims he makes about Aramaic).
You seem not to understand what I am saying. I am saying Casey did not
even consider the alternative hypothesis that his Aramaicisms are in fact
Semitisms. For example, pp. 139-140 of Aramaic Sources: he argues the
use of plural for “sabbath” indicates an Aramaic source; wrong, it is how
the Septuagint Greek operates, and Mark is using Septuagintal Greek (in
fact, sometimes even by direct quotation or derivation, a fact Casey also
overlooks: see The Empty Tomb, pp. 158-61). Casey even admits there
that Semitized Greek also used the pluralized word. Yet it doesn’t occur
to him that this would be as good an explanation for why Mark is using it,
as there being an Aramaic source would.
That is what I am talking about. Casey doesn’t even attempt to argue

against what I just said. Yet what I just said is obviously correct, as many
a scholar has pointed out (as I reference in my book). There are many
other flaws in his arguments (some pointed out by his reviewers). I am
just highlighting one to illustrate what I mean, and why it doesn’t matter
what Casey’s expertise is, since the error is the same no matter who
makes it, expertise makes no difference. And many scholars have said
this, I’m not alone (again, see Proving History, pp. 185-86). Indeed, his
entire attempt to re-interpret the Son of Man is a clear failure and doesn’t
make sense on how Mark constructs his Gospel (that reviewer points this
out; as have many others: see Proving History, pp. 150-51). I don’t
think you honestly are aware of any of this.
R E P LY
STEP H • MAR C H 24, 2012, 1:00 P M
Source my claims?! Oh come on Carrier – you bossily asked me to email you when Casey’s
book is released because you are too lazy or haven’t the ability to keep up to date. I
informed you of the probable forthcoming date. But you’re not even willing to read his
learned monographs and perhaps you don’t have the language or historical skills of an
Aramaist, Aramaic being the language of first century Jewish environment and therefore fairly
fundamental for historical Jesus enquiry. You blatantly demonstrate your ignorance of
published scholarship on textual criticism, preferring to believe against reason, in the historical
reliability of a second millenium document. You are not even aware of recent historical critical
scholarship and learned monographs which you haven’t or cannot read so you cannot interact
with them at all.
R E P LY
PM
steph:
“
Source my claims?! Oh come on Carrier – you bossily asked
me to email you when Casey’s book is released because you
are too lazy or haven’t the ability to keep up to date.
Oh, my bad. I thought you were back-referencing something else. It

didn’t occur to me someone would get into a snit over a polite request.
Since you have descended into vitriolic name calling and are ignoring my
every argument, we’re clearly done here.
R E P LY
STEP H • MAR C H 24, 2012, 4:50 P M
This is completely inaccurate from beginning to end. For example, on pp. 139-40 of Aramaic
Sources of Mark’s Gospel, Casey pointed out (with however sources in the original
languages, as I cannot do here), ‘The rendering of the singular shabbata with the plural tois
sabbasin had been normal for a long time. It arises from the fact that the ending of the
Aramaic shabbata may be assimilated to a Greek n.pl., and this is especially well illustrated at
LXX Exodus 16.29. Here the Hebrew singular hashabbata is rendered with the Aramaizing
plural ta sabbata, and the purely grammatical nature of the plural is shown by the explicitative
addition of the singular ten hemeran tauten in apposition to ta sabbata. It follows that, in
passages like these, no-one has misunderstood anything. Rather, the plural form ta sabbata,
used of a single sabbath, entered Jewish Greek because Aramaic was the lingua franca of
Israel. So Josephus, who often uses to sabbaton in the singular, also has kata de hebdomen
hemeran, htis sabbata kaleitai (A.J.III,237; cf I,33; XII,4; XIII,12). Hence the use of tois
sabbasin by Mark’s translator for the singular shabbata, the ending of which would
encourage him to use the plural rather than the singular through the normal process of
interference.’ His argument that Mark was translating an Aramaic source is not dependent on
this word at all, but on an argument of cumulative weight which you do not discuss.
Price and Lowder do not discuss Casey’s work, which they are not competent to do as they
are not competent Aramaists. They simply invent a wayward theory of Mark inventing things
without any historical reason, and make it up as they go along. Matthews’ review of ‘an
important study that deserves to be considered very seriously’ is not the impression you give.
I cannot of course respond to any criticisms you make in a book which is ordered but not yet
received, but your lack of competence in Aramaic is not encouraging for anyone who makes
up their mind on the basis of evidence and argument. Why do you not offer proper scholarly
discussion?
You demonstrate that you haven’t read the complete work with the developed arguments
and evidence. You make assumptions instead from your own misrepresentation of a selection
of text. I suspect you googled it from a secondary source. I am very well aware of all of this
and I am also aware of authors published subsequent to this scholarly monograph published
in 1998. And not surprisingly so is Maurice Casey who also takes these things into account
and engages with them. Price isn’t an Aramaist. Neither is Lowder. Are you? I don’t think
so. I think you are being dishonest.
R E P LY
PM
steph:
“
His argument that Mark was translating an Aramaic source
is not dependent on this word at all, but on an argument of
cumulative weight which you do not discuss.
You’re still missing the point. The cumulative weight of a hundred zeroes
is zero. If every instance is a Semitism, then it is not evidence of an
Aramaic source. I was just giving one example of what I mean. Casey
does not address this possibility. One does not need to be an Aramaicist
to see the failure of logic here.
(And I did not reference Price or Lowder, so I don’t know why you bring
them up. In my book I reference well-known scholars of the bible; both
as to the Aramaicism vs. Semitism logical error, and also as to Casey’s
implausibilities in trying to interpret “Son of Man” as indicating an Aramaic
source, a conclusion that seems resoundingly rejected by every other
expert I know, and yet is a crucial component of his so-called
“cumulative” case.)
R E P LY
STEP H • MAR C H 25, 201 2, 7:51 AM
You are still missing the point. You still haven’t read his academic arguments to see why he
believes in written Aramaic sources behind parts of the synoptic Gospels, not just general
Semitisms. You shouldn’t dismiss learned arguments of cumulative weight like this. Casey
does address this possibility and has demonstrated in his arguments why it is invalid. You
used one example but you completely misrepresented it. And you’re dismissing his argument
without taking all of his evidence into account. You linked to ‘The Empty Tomb’, Price and
Lowder, in your response to me as evidence against Casey. I have that book here on my
desk. What experts are you referring to? Unfortunately many scholars are not competent
Aramaists and his work has to be interpreted. Of course his work is rejected by all
fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals, who are determined to believe that ‘Son of
man’ in the Gospels is derived from Daniel 7, a view which is still attractive to more liberal
Christians because it derives what they think of as a Christological title from Scripture.
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 1 1 : 4 0
AM
steph:
“
You are still missing the point. You still haven’t read his
academic arguments to see why he believes in written
Aramaic sources behind parts of the synoptic Gospels, not
just general Semitisms.
No, you are missing the point: other scholars have done this. And I cite
them in my book.
Moreover, you keep assuming I haven’t looked at Casey’s arguments,

when in fact I have. In most instances he does not make any case for them
being “not just general Semitisms”; that thesis simply isn’t even one he
properly considers. In nearly every instance, what he sees as a translation
from an Aramaic source, can equally be a translation from an Aramaic
thought. In fact, there is rarely any way to tell the difference (because
they represent exactly the same process, which has exactly the same
effect). One of the few arguments of his that would entail otherwise is his
Son of Man theory, that Jesus meant just “people” and not himself as an
eschatological being (since this theory requires Mark not to have
understood the Aramaic). But that theory is false: it has been rejected by
most scholars I know, because it is easily proved that Mark means an
eschatological being, and means us to understand it to be Jesus (as part of
Mark’s theme of the “messianic secret”). Again, I discuss the evidence
and cite the scholars on this point in my book.
“
You linked to ‘The Empty Tomb’, Price and Lowder, in your
response to me as evidence against Casey.
Now I know you aren’t paying attention. I have only ever referred to
pages in my articles in that book; I have not referred to any pages in
theirs. I don’t know what instance you are talking about, but since I never
did what you claim, I can be fairly certain you aren’t being a careful
reader at this point. And since I know I cited Proving History on this
point (because it is there that I cite the scholars who undermine Casey),
you must be very confused.
R E P LY
ERIC • MARCH 22, 2012, 1:24 PM
Richard,
You say,
“
“Likewise, note that many mythical godmen “died, were buried, and resurrected,” or a near
enough equivalent, thus Paul stating such a creed no more attests the historicity of Jesus than it
attests the historicity of Osiris (or Romulus or Hercules or Inanna or Zalmoxis or Bacchus or
Adonis and so on; Osiris is the only one of these who was explicitly “buried,” but similar stories
were told of all these others, e.g. Hercules was burned on a pyre, and certainly before
Christianity: see Not the Impossible Faith, chapters 1 and 3).” No competentmythicist makes
this claim. Rather, they claim that virgin-born gods were a common phenomenon in the region
at the time and dying-and-rising gods were (in precisely the way these were not anywhere else,
e.g. in ancient China), and so for Jews to suddenly start claiming they have one, too, looks
pretty easily explained in terms of standard theories of cultural diffusion. (See my chapter on
the origins of Christianity in The End of Christianity, ch. 2, pp. 53-74.)”
I assume you have read the Boyd Eddy book The Jesus Legend. They have responded to a large portion of the
entire Jesus Myth hypothesis. Of course, they don’t agree with your presuppositions. So that will always play a
large role.
Anyway, they quote J.Z. Smith when he says,

“The category of dying and rising gods, once a major topic of scholarly investigation, might now be understood
to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous
texts. This rejection of the existence of a “dying and rising gods” pattern among ancient Mediterranean religions
have become a virtual consensus over the last half century- see J.Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods” 4:521,
quoted in Boyd Eddy, The Jesus Legend, pg 143.
I am really surprised to still see comparisons between Inanna or Zalmoxis or Bacchus or Adonis and so on;
Osiris and the Jesus story.
As Boyd and Eddy note, “Similarity is not the same thing as sameness. Parallel terms do not equate to parallel
concepts.” (pg 142).
It seems when we try to say the early followers of Jesus would be so quick to borrow from other mystery
religions/paganism, we run into what is called the false cause fallacy. This fallacy occurs when someone argues
that just because two things exist side by side that one must be the cause of the other. What evidence do you
really have that these things existed side by side (they were a a common phenomenon in the region at the time)
let alone caused a bunch of Second Temple Jews such as Paul to borrow from them. I was reading books dated
as far back as the 70’s and 80’s that refuted this (such as Hengel’s work).
And just wondering: Do you disagree with T.N.D. Mettinger, a Swedish scholar, professor of Lund University,
and member of the Royal Academy of Letters, History, and Antiquities in Stockholm, who wrote one of the
academic treatments of the dying and rising gods in antiquity. He says:
“
“The death and rising gods were closely related to the seasonal cycle. Their death and return
were seen as reflected in the changes of plant life. The death and resurrection of Jesus is a one-
time event, not repeated, and unrelated to seasonal changes…… There is, as far as I am aware,
no prima facie evidence that the death and resurrection of Jesus is a mythological construct ,
drawing on the myths and rites in the dying and rising gods of the surrounding world. While
studied with profit against the background of Jewish resurrection belief, the faith in the death
and resurrection of Jesus retains its unique character in the history of religions. The riddle
remains.” (The Riddle of the Resurrection: Dying and Rising God’s in the Ancient Near East,
2001, pg 221.).
Thoughts?
R E P LY
Eric:
“
I assume you have read the Boyd Eddy book The Jesus Legend. They have
responded to a large portion of the entire Jesus Myth hypothesis.
Yes. And Price’s response to them in The Christian Delusion (ch. 10) is in all essentials
correct. Their view is simply not mainstream (which illustrates the issue I raised in my article:
we let this radical work by Boyd and Eddy pass as respectable even if incorrect scholarship,
but vilify the other side as unemployable lunatics, which is a major malfunction of scholarly
objectivity).
“
Anyway, they quote J.Z. Smith when he says…
Try actually reading Smith. Don’t trust what Boyd and Eddy “quote mine” from him. All
Smith argues is that one particular case of the dying-and-rising god mytheme (the Zagreus
cycle) is a debatable scholarly construction and not really factual. He does not address any of
the other cases. Therefore it is irresponsible to draw a “hasty generalization” from just this
one case being wrong (even if it is; I haven’t examined it, since I don’t rely on that case).
“
I am really surprised to still see comparisons between Inanna or Zalmoxis or
Bacchus or Adonis and so on; Osiris and the Jesus story. As Boyd and Eddy
note, “Similarity is not the same thing as sameness. Parallel terms do not
equate to parallel concepts.” (pg 142).
The first statement is a straw man (no one is claiming they are the same). The second
statement is either false or inane (parallel terms may or may not equate to parallel concepts;
that’s why you have to examine them case by case).
What “Inanna or Zalmoxis or Bacchus or Adonis and so on; Osiris” etc. (Romulus as well)
illustrate is a common mytheme: a son of god who dies and is resurrected. This is a mytheme
not found anywhere else (like China). It is therefore a cultural peculiarity of the ANE and
Mediterranean. That is why it would be anextremely improbable coincidence if Jews
started claiming to have one of those and didn’t get the idea from that cultural fad. Down
right impossible, in fact; the probability of such a coincidence is that low.
Notably, this is clearly a fad (so many resurrected sons of god in this era and region; zero in
any other cultural regions, like China), yet all these gods are different from each other in many
ways; yet many also share improbable similarities (e.g. Osiris, Romulus, and Bucchus were all
torn apart, a very unusual way to die or be disposed of; thus it is extremely improbable that
this idea didn’t migrate by diffusion among them–the most likely pathway is Osiris belief
influenced Bacchus belief through Greek contact with Egypt, then Bacchus belief influenced
Romulus belief through Italian contact with Sicily andMagna Graecia). No one finds that a
dubious hypothesis; everyone agrees it’s pretty obvious. But the moment you suggest any
such thing for Jesus, everyone gets all in a rage, like ‘ol handless Luke Skywalker, “No!!!
That’s not true! That’s imposssssibbble!”
The key thing here is that focusing on the differences is irrelevant. Romulus, Bacchus, and
Osiris are very, very different deities attached to very, very different religions. Yet they share
so many similarities the probability is astronomical that these cults did not influence each other
to some extent; and all of them reflect a common trend toward revering resurrected sons of
god all across the Mediterranean. Jesus fits perfectly into that trend, every bit as much as
Romulus does, or Bacchus does, or any of the other resurrected gods.
“
Do you disagree with T.N.D. Mettinger…
Mettinger never examines that issue (of whether Jesus has any links to mystery cults). I
suspect he tacked that bit you quote onto the end of his conclusion about a completely
different period (a thousand years before our period of interest) in order to get the book
through peer review; otherwise, he is just repeating the consensus as told to him, not having
examined the matter. In support of the first thesis are the peculiar code words he includes
(“as far as I am aware” and “prima facie”) and the rather pandering expression “faith in the
death and resurrection of Jesus retains its unique character in the history of religions” (a
statement that would be true of every religion whatever; e.g. “faith in the death and
resurrection of Romulus retains its unique character in the history of religions” is just as true; it
is therefore a meaningless statement, and thus looks smartly chosen by Mettinger to quell the
bile of his peer reviewers while actually not saying anything substantive).
When you read what Mettinger’s actual analysis says (and not that final paragraph), he
meticulously proves that the mytheme of dying-and-rising gods actually existed at least a
thousand years before Christianity, that it was reproduced in several cults across the region,
and that all attempts to argue otherwise are baseless.
Importantly, he was studying the earliest roots of the mytheme, and thus studying it when it
was still a component of agriculture cult, before the rise of the mystery religions, which
transformed communal agro-salvation into the personal salvation of initiated adherents (that is
an innovation that first appears among the Greeks, as early as the Classical period or before,
unless there is evidence to trace it further back in other regions, like Egypt; I have not
bothered to check since it isn’t relevant, all we want to know is what was going on at the time
Christianity began, not trace its thousand year backstory; as admirable as a study like that
would be–I’m just saying it isn’t relevant to the issue at hand). By the time of Christianity, all
these deities had been transformed into personal salvation cults, and though the mytheme
originated in an agricultural context, it no longer had that sole or primary meaning, but before
the common era had become universally regarded as a metaphor for personal salvation;
once every major nationality had one of these savior gods, the Jews were the last culture to
get one, and theirs we call Jesus.
R E P LY
JAMES F . MC GR ATH • MAR C H 22, 201 2, 1 :25 P M
I’ve shared some thoughts in response to your response on my blog:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/03/responding-to-richard-carriers-response-to-
bart-ehrman.html
R E P LY
I have at long last found time to read that, and have now replied: see McGrath on the
Amazing Infallible Ehrman.
R E P LY
H U SKY 5 4 • MAR C H 22, 201 2, 1 :48 P M
Your appeal to Thomas L. Thompson is, quite frankly, laughable. Thompson, and the entirety of the
Sheffield/Copenhagen school has consistently and convincingly displayed their inability to be able to effectively
read the pertinent texts and archaeological evidence surrounding these issues. A marquee example of this is the
way in which the biblical minimalist school has chosen to eisegete the Tel Dan inscription, an Old Aramaic
inscription from the 9th century BCE that offers extra-biblical evidence for an historical David.(The inscription
itself contains the phrase ‫ביתדוד‬, which those in the minimalist school have chosen to render as things such as
“chamber pot,” in order to avoid the much more likely reading of “house of David.”) Furthermore, the minimalist
suggestion that the biblical text is entirely a creation of the post-exilic period is betrayed by the linguistic,
philological, epigraphic, and paleographic evidence available. Those of us who are trained in historical Semitic
linguistics are fully aware of the development of not only the Hebrew language, but other pertinent Semitic
languages as well (e.g., Aramaic, Ugaritic, Moabite, Akkadian, etc.). When one truly looks at the textual
evidence, it is patently clear that the minimalist stance is purely untenable. This is also why I would strongly
hesitate to call Thompson “prestigious.” “Notorious” might be the word you’re really looking for.
So, no I do not see Ehrman’s lack of mention of Thompson as being hyper-specific, but aware of the fact that
the Sheffield/Copenhagen school is notorious for their fringe – and in most cases highly unlikely – stances of
these types of issues. This is no exception.
Secondly – your suggestion that Philo is a Roman source is a straw man. Philo was Greek living under Roman
rule. Not only that, but Philo was from Egypt. You’ve done a brilliant job at misrepresenting Ehrman, as well as
not really knowing what qualifies as a “Roman source.” Josephus is also not a ROMAN source. While these
two men were Roman citizens, they were by no means Romans, nor should they be considered “Roman
sources.” (The fact that they worked during the Roman Period is a different point altogether.)
Concerning the Pilate Stone – the inscription itself was ACTUALLY commissioned by Herod the Great – who
wasn’t even a Roman citizen. Ergo, not a ROMAN source.No trained Classicist would ever consider any of
those sources as Roman. Roman era =/= Roman.
But it was a nice try, friendo.
Your explication of Ehrman’s “Mistake #2” is entirely based off of assumption. Without having read his book,
and by basing your suggestions off of a HuffPo article intended to be a TEASER for his book where he treats
these things more fully is deceptive at best. Your classification of First Century Christian writings as “scripture,”
moreover, while synchronically correct, is really anachronistic. As someone trained in “ancient history,” I would
expect you to have a better understanding of the canonization process that led to the Bible as we have it today.
While the Gospels and writings of Paul (among other Christian epistles) eventually became scripture, this is not
how they were initially conceptualized by their original audience. To call these texts “scripture” is nothing more
than rhetoric you’re using as an attempt at more or less castrating those who would appeal to those texts as
containing reliable historical data.
Concerning the apparent “Mistake #4” – you display your profound eisegetical abilities in the way in which you
read Dan 9:26 and 11Q13. Those of us who actually work in the original languages know that the Hebrew ‫משיח‬
is never used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to an eschatological savior figure (see J. J. M. Roberts, “The Old
Testament’s Contribution to Messianic Expectations,” The Bible and the ANE,Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,
2002, 376-389.). This also includes your reading of 11Q13. The Qumran community anticipated both a priestly
and a Davidic messiah – neither of which were to be tortured and killed.
So really, you’ve done a great job at setting up your OWN straw men, by poorly marshaling the evidence
yourself.
R E P LY
Husky54:
“
“
Your appeal to Thomas L. Thompson is, quite frankly, laughable. Thompson,
and the entirety of the Sheffield/Copenhagen school has consistently and
convincingly displayed their inability to be able to effectively read the
pertinent texts and archaeological evidence surrounding these issues.
That’s not a common opinion. Indeed much (even if not all) of his work on the OT narratives
and backstory is now the mainstream consensus. I wonder if you actually know what he has
argued, since your reference to David suggests not. Thompson established the ahistoricity of
the patriarchs, not David. He questions how much we canknow about David, not his
existence per se. His treatment of the Tel Dan Stele is often mischaracterized by critics (he
has only made perfectly reasonable statements about the Hebrew language, in which he is
indeed an expert, and explains reasons why we can’t be excessively certain about the
meaning: see The Mythic Past, pp. 203-04, for what he actually said).
(It should also be noted that I do not necessarily agree with all that Thompson argues
regarding the Gospels or Jesus, either. My only reason for mentioning him is as a counter-
example to Ehrman’s claim that no established professors of biblical studies have advocated
the possibility that Jesus didn’t exist.)
“
Furthermore, the minimalist suggestion that the biblical text is entirely a
creation of the post-exilic period is betrayed by the linguistic, philological,
epigraphic, and paleographic evidence available.
That’s not the minimalist thesis. The minimalist thesis is that the redactions that we have
are the creation of the post-exilic period, not that all of their content is.
“
So, no I do not see Ehrman’s lack of mention of Thompson as being hyper-
specific, but aware of the fact that the Sheffield/Copenhagen school is
notorious for their fringe – and in most cases highly unlikely – stances of
these types of issues. This is no exception.
That would be irrelevant even if true. They are still respected professors at accredited
institutions. And it’s also not true. Many of their positions as a whole have become part of the
mainstream synthesis, and Thompson’s conclusion on the patriarchs is now the prevalent
view. If the standard were to reject every scholar who has made some arguments that did not
become universally accepted, then neither Ehrman nor any other scholar is qualified to talk
about anything whatever.
“
Secondly – your suggestion that Philo is a Roman source is a straw man.
Philo was Greek living under Roman rule.
(a) That isn’t at all relevant and (b) Philo was (as I argued) almost certainly a Roman citizen,
not just “a Greek living under Roman rule” (am I to suppose you regard Mexican Americans
as not Americans but “Mexicans living under American rule”?). If all you mean to say is that
Philo was not a descendant of Italians or a native speaker of Latin, then we’re back to (a).
“
Not only that, but Philo was from Egypt.
I don’t know what you mean that to imply. I already addressed this in my article as far as the
relevance of his geographic and institutional proximity to the facts. And I can’t imagine what
else you mean. Are you saying something like that Californians aren’t Americans because
they are from California?
“
Josephus is also not a ROMAN source.
Here we know for a fact Josephus was a Roman citizen; he was also a friend of the imperial
court and a resident of Rome. So if Jews can’t be Romans, then I guess Jews can’t be
Americans, either?
(And, again, the distinctions you are desperately trying to draw are wholly irrelevant–they
have nothing whatever to do with the issue of whether they can attest someone’s historicity or
not.)
“
Concerning the Pilate Stone – the inscription itself was ACTUALLY
commissioned by Herod the Great
I’m curious to know how you know that. Please provide a source. Particularly since Herod
the Great had been dead since long before Pilate was even a man–which would make this a
pretty neat trick.
“
– who wasn’t even a Roman citizen.
Yes he was.
“
No trained Classicist would ever consider any of those sources as Roman.
Roman era =/= Roman.
Then you are not a trained Classicist. Since you clearly don’t know what you are talking
about.
“
Your explication of Ehrman’s “Mistake #2″ is entirely based off of
assumption. Without having read his book, and by basing your suggestions
off of a HuffPo article intended to be a TEASER for his book where he treats
these things more fully is deceptive at best.
As I said in the article, more people will read his HuffPo piece than his book. So it certainly
matters what he says in it and how. It is irresponsible to make misleading or false statements,
even in a teaser. Knowing full well his book would qualify or alter each statement (assuming it
does in every case), it was his responsibility to say that in each case, rather than writing a
screed declaring absolute certainty and the complete absence of any nuance. Accuracy and
clarity is a requirement of short articles every bit as much as books.
“
Your classification of First Century Christian writings as “scripture,”
moreover, while synchronically correct, is really anachronistic.
I can only assume you mean the Psalms of Solomon (the only thing I called scripture other
than the OT). That’s Jewish, not Christian. It was regarded as scripture by Christians (this
was before the OT canon formed).
“
As someone trained in “ancient history,” I would expect you to have a better
understanding of the canonization process that led to the Bible as we have it
today.
Foot, mouth.
“
Those of us who actually work in the original languages know that the
Hebrew ‫ משיח‬is never used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to an eschatological
savior figure (see J. J. M. Roberts, “The Old Testament’s Contribution to
Messianic Expectations,” The Bible and the ANE, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,
2002, 376-389.).
That’s an opinion about the original composition, not the later interpretation. You evidently
don’t understand the difference. Hence my reference to the Melchizedek pesher, which
shows that the word in Daniel was interpreted that way by some pre-Christian Jews.
Moreover, we don’t even need that to know that Jews could interpret it that way (as all
Jewish speculation shows regarding scriptural references to the messiah, both in the Dead
Sea Scrolls as a whole, and in later texts as well).
“
This also includes your reading of 11Q13. The Qumran community
anticipated both a priestly and a Davidic messiah – neither of which were to
be tortured and killed.
You evidently didn’t read the link. That is not a scroll about the “priestly and Davidic”
messiahs. You are thinking about a different argument from a different set of Dead Sea
Scrolls (e.g. 4Q521) that some scholars have made (but that I did not, since I regard that
matter unresolvable on present evidence). I am talking about the Melchizedek scroll, which
speaks of an eschatological savior who will atone for all sins on a great “day of atonement”
predicted to occur at the end of Daniel’s timetable (the seventy periods of seven years), and
it says this Christ is the dying Christ spoken of in Daniel and the dying “atoning” servant
spoken of in Isaiah 52-53 (as I explain in my blog, also linked in my article).
“
So really, you’ve done a great job at setting up your OWN straw men, by
poorly marshaling the evidence yourself.
I think this actually describes what you just did.
R E P LY
JU LI EN R OU SSEA U • MAR C H 22, 2012, 9 :11 P M
“
“ Your classification of First Century Christian writings as
“scripture,” moreover, while synchronically correct, is really
anachronistic.
I can only assume you mean the Psalms of Solomon (the only thing I called
scripture other than the OT).
I don’t think he refers to that as he puts it next to (with in my understanding) his criticism of
Mistake #2 and then talks about Mistake #4 whereas your post only talks of the Psalms of
Solomon after Mistake #4, not between #2 and #4.
I think instead that he misread you and he thinks that the two times* when you use the word
scripture in the text of Mistake #2 that you are referring to NT texts as scripture whereas you
are just referring to Paul’s reference to scripture in 1 Cor. 15:5-8 (unless I misunderstood
what you wrote).
*:
“
All it says is that scripture says he died, was buried, and was resurrected
…
Nor also the fact that the only source being given for his death and burial in
this creed is scripture
PS: looking forward to your review of his book and to your debate later this year (if it
happens and becomes available online).
R E P LY
PM
Julien, you’re probably right. He mistook those two other occasions as

references to the NT (!) when in fact obviously they were to the OT (as
then constructed).
R E P LY
JON H • MARCH 22, 2012, 2:02 PM
Really enjoyed this post Richard, but I’d also like to point out that James F. McGrath has a pretty worthy
rebuttal of your points over at his
blog:http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/03/responding-to-richard-carriers-
response-to-bart-ehrman.html
I’d be really interested in your take.
R E P LY
As noted upthread, I’ll be getting to that in due time. Although from one example quoted
upthread already, it doesn’t look like his reply is all that worthy.
R E P LY
BR Y A N • MARCH 22, 2012, 2:08 PM
Dr. Carrier, you sound like a creationist railing against the consensus held by biologists As a former Christian
apologist, I would know…
I have to say, I don’t find your argument against the “James brother of the Lord” passage very convincing. It
seems a bit strained. It’s certainly not the most natural reading of the text.
R E P LY
Bryan: It’s certainly not the most natural reading of the text.
It would be if all we had were Paul’s letters. That’s the danger of bias. You have been
reading it only the one way for so long, you can’t see it any other way. But when you step
outside of those ruts, it actually doesn’t make as much sense in the traditional reading. It’s
actually more natural to read it my way.
Imagine if this weren’t Christianity (imagine there is no Christianity, you’ve never heard of it, it
never existed), but some other ancient religion, Ridianism, the worship of a cosmic dying-
and-rising demigod Ridian. And we knew nothing at all about it except from seven letters
from one leader of the forgotten cult, named Paul. Imagine these letters are identical to those
we have, but everywhere that it talks about Jesus it talks about Ridian instead as being the
Christ and the Lord whose cosmic body they all “live in” and who reveals himself unto them
from the heavens and about whom they find messages hidden in their ancient holy books.
Then imagine we learn from these letters that Ridian, the Lord, declared that all who follow
him are his brothers and they all call each other brothers and that they, just like he, are
officially adopted by God as God’s sons, Ridian being only the firstborn. And then Paul says
he met with an apostle of this religion named Peter, the first one Ridian had appeared to in a
dream, “and of the other apostles I met no one, except James the brother of the Lord.”
Would you “naturally” conclude that James was the biological brother of Ridian (even though
these letters never once mention Ridian having a family or even ever being on earth, the only
way anyone appears to ever know anything about him is by mystical revelations and ancient
holy books), or instead would you conclude that Paul is merely referring to the fact that
James, like Paul, is an adopted son of God and thus another brother of the Lord Ridian?
I think the answer is pretty obvious. If you can actually put your mind in the right objective
position to grasp the analogy.
That’s why it’s important to strictly frame the matter in terms of probabilities, as I did in the
article. That way your cognitive biases (your faulty “intuition”) aren’t deciding what you
should believe, reason is.
R E P LY
ADDIS ON H ART • MARCH 22, 2012, 2:12 PM
Some straightforward questions. Why does it matter to you to demonstrate the non-historicity of Jesus? What
motivates such a colossal waste of energy and time? You can’t prove your case, and it’s such a fringe position
that only you and a relative handful of others take any of this seriously. What is the psychological motive here?
I’m not interested in any “pursuit of the truth” or “undoing a massive propagation of delusion” bullshit. What in
particular makes you so hot and bothered about this? What went wrong in your life to make you this way? What
are you trying to prove to yourself or others — that you’re smarter or more scholarly than all those who have
studied this for years before you popped up, or what?
Sorry, but I’m really mystified.
R E P LY
addisonhart:
“
Why does it matter to you to demonstrate the non-historicity of Jesus?
Because I was paid to.
“
What motivates such a colossal waste of energy and time?
Because a lot of people are interested in the question. Enough to pay me to look into it. What
motivates them is the same thing that motivates any interest in any question about history.
Indeed, you can pick any article in any history journal and declare it a colossal waste of time
and wonder why anyone bothered. My dissertation adviser’s favorite example was a guy
who wrote his dissertation on ancient dolls. Dolls!? Who cares? Well, he did. And in fact so
did a lot of people, who find the question of what kinds of toys kids played with in antiquity
(and what it tells us about gender roles and other social facts of the time) very fascinating.
I think the question of whether Jesus actually existed (and thus how and why Christianity
actually began) is way more important than knowing about ancient dolls. And yet I often cite
the dolls study as an example of historical work I consider interesting and valuable that no
one would have thought to undertake had some guy not been really interested in it. (No one
paid him. To the contrary, he paid to do it. He even had to fight for it and defend it as an
acceptable object of study.)
You can’t prove your case…
“
How do you know? Have you checked?
Granted, if I deemed it unprovable (or, rather I should say, undecidable) then that is the
position I would be taking now, and the position I would be demonstrating in my next book.
Likewise if I found the converse true (that his historicity is provable), I’d be doing that.
“
and it’s such a fringe position that only you and a relative handful of others
take any of this seriously.
If that were an acceptable reason not to investigate a question, no progress could ever be
made. Every consensus challenging conclusion is a fringe position at its origin. If the
consensus is never challenged, it can never correct its errors. That would no longer be
scholarship. It would be a religion.
R E P LY
TY P EC A STER • MAR C H 22, 2012, 2:12 P M
Thanks for this post – I avoid HuffPo, so I hadn’t seen Ehrman’s article.I’ve also enjoyed his work to date, and
this seems out of character.
The whole issue of the historical Yeshua has fascinated me for some time, although there’s many works on the
topic that I just haven’t had time to read. My general feeling is that there was, most likely, an actual individual
(completely human, of course, I’m not even a little bit theistic) that most of the stories are based on, although
most of the stories are theological fictions based on many sources other than that person’s actual life or
teachings.
The one issue I’d be fascinated to hear your opinion on relates to things in the stories that probably shouldn’t be
included if there wasn’t a historical Yeshua behind it somewhere. Specifically, the acknowledgement that he was
Galilean rather than Judean, and the story of how he started his career as a follower of John the Baptist.Neither
point would seem to be needed for a purely mythical Jesus, and would detract from the narrative that anyone
constructing a myth (intentionally or not) would want to establish. This seems to be a reasonable argument, at
least, and I’d very much appreciate your comments about it.
R E P LY
I address both questions in Proving History (check “John the Baptist” and “Nazareth” in
the index).
R E P LY
MOE • MARCH 22, 2012, 2:48 PM
Your list of “mistakes” is misleading, Dr. Carrier, since you claim 3 and 4 as mistakes but then desribe them as
not really mistakes, sort of, maybe, etc.
Disengenous at best.
R E P LY
It’s not disingenuous when you say what you are actually saying. I don’t think you know what
that word means. Since I was explicit about my not being sure in each case whether the
mistake was of fact or of writing or of logic, there can be nothing disingenuous.
R E P LY
MATTH EW • MAR C H 22, 201 2, 3:30 P M
Richard,
I’m curious about something; would you possibly be interested in a written debate over the historical Jesus with
a scholar like Ehrman or Maurice Casey? I was just thinking that having the most qualified experts on the subject
debate over it would be an excellent way to inform people who lack the knowledge that you have. I was thinking
of a book between either you and Ehrman or you and Casey. If you debated Casey, maybe Ehrman and Bob
Price can weigh in or if you debated Ehrman, maybe Casey and Price could weigh in. I am thinking that this is
something you could do after your next book On the Historicity of Jesus Christ is published.
R E P LY
Yes. I would even prefer that to an oral debate, because it would be so much more useful
and productive. But I don’t have time to arrange such things. If anyone else undertook the
task of making it happen (e.g. someone for Internet Infidels or Biblical Interpretation
anywhere else) I would gladly participate.
(Although you are right, it would be better after OHJC is published, since then I wouldn’t be
blindsiding Ehrman with the evidence he doesn’t consider, and we could cut past all the
wordy preliminary sharing of data and get right to the core of where our disputes actually
are.)
R E P LY
BR IA N • MARCH 22, 2012, 3:39 PM
Richard, this is a great read. I loved history as a kid, and if I had time, it’s one of the things I’d love to really dive
into, as well as philosophy, mathematics, quantum mechanics, etc…
Any idea when Proving History will be released on Kindle?
BTW, I am enjoying your book Sense and Goodness. I will probably have to pay it another read, as I only get
moments on the train or whatever to read it, so some points I sort of don’t. Parts remind me of functionalists like
Hume. You’re an empiricist, something I favour. What do you say if someone accuses you of being a logical
positivist? I think that you can avoid the charge of holding a self-refuting axiom (assuming you’ve ever had that
charge mentioned) by saying it’s an empirical conclusion, not an axiom. Anyway, I’ve probably made no sense.
R E P LY
Proving History should manifest on kindle in a couple of months. No idea exactly when.
Logical positivism: I explain I have combined Ayer (the last best positivist) with Polanyi (the
only anti-positivist with something truly useful to say), to produce a post-positivist
epistemology.
BTW, you made sense to me. And you’re right. My demarcation axiom of meaning is
empirically refutable and therefore does not have to be self-validating. My epistemology
builds on basic empiricism, which I explain a little in my critique of Rea and my blog on the
foundations of knowledge.
I also of course think the positivists were wrong to dismiss metaphysics and ethics not
because their principles were mistaken, but because their application of them was, i.e.
metaphysics (properly reconceived) is entirely compatible even with Ayer’s own positivism,
as is an objective morality (e.g., as I prove in chapter 14 of The End of Christianity).
R E P LY
BR IA N • MARCH 25, 2012, 2:30 PM
Thanks for your reply Richard. I meant to write ‘foundationalists’ like Hume. As in
philosophers who build their theory of knowledge on a foundation. My bad.
I’ll need to read those links.
R E P LY
C H R IS ZEIC H MA N N • MARCH 22, 2012, 4:55 PM
You may be interested in this: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/03/responding-to-

richard-carriers-response-to-bart-ehrman.html
Also — whatever the Journal of Higher Criticism’s strengths and weaknesses may have been during its existence
— it was not a peer-reviewed journal.
R E P LY
C H R I STOF ER P I ER SON • MAR C H 22, 2012, 10:11 P M
Richard,
Excellent response to Ehrman! Thoroughly enjoyed it.
I wrote about this on my own blog, but as I’m a humble amateur rather than a professional, I couldn’t even try to
come close to your precise and intellectually robust reply. My main point in the debate, which I’ve participated
in in various forums for just about 10 years (though not being a pro, my interest ebbs and wanes, frankly) is that
the Jesus we talk about when we talk about Jesus is the character from the gospels and legend, not the historical
one that character may or may not have been based upon. And by “we” I mean everyone who talks (or ever
talked) about Jesus whether they believe he was the Son of God or not–i.e., whether or not they were or are
Christians.
But I also think that whether or not one considers oneself a Christian will tend to have a huge influence on one’s
stance toward this question. A self-identified Christian is much more likely to have problems with the idea that
Jesus was never a real person. It’s built into their belief systems. It’s built into their values, even. To a lot of
Christians, Jesus remains real even today–and I mean literally today.
There’s probably a type of logical fallacy this hypothesis of mine typifies. Of course I wouldn’t argue that all
historicists are Christians. I was one myself–albeit an extremely casual one–for a brief year or two after I began
to realize I was not a Christian and was probably more of an agnostic or even atheist. (I’ve since settled on
atheist.) I think I was one because it’s a fundamental of Western culture, which is similarly shaking off a
childhood and adolescence of more or less intense association with Christianity. (Not that my association with it
was ever all that intense, to be clear.)
An interesting writer on the stickiness of Christian ideology in Christ studies is Jonathan Z. Smith of the
University of Chicago divinity school. Interestingly enough, he’s a Jewish Marxist atheist. He came to
comparative religion via the study of the taxonomy of grasses. Interesting story. Do you know him? I highly
recommend his Drudgery Divine. For nonspecialists like me, it can feel like drudgery to get through Smith’s
dense prose, but his main point is that scholarship into questions like what the early church was like and what
Jesus himself was like is virtually all filtered through Enlightenment-era (when High Criticism came on the scene)
Protestant and Catholic ideology, to the exclusion of all other modes of interpretation. This might explain why
Professor Ehrman and the club of historicists find attacks from outside that narrow purview “extreme.”
R E P LY
MAR C US R AN UM • MAR C H 22, 2012, 10:21 P M
I heard Ehrman saying on a podcast that we have as much evidence for the existence of Jesus as we do
for Julius Caesar I knew he couldn’t be trusted on this issue.
Jesus’ version of the “gallic wars” is gonna be a blockbuster, for sure.
R E P LY
MITC H • MARCH 22, 2012, 10:23 PM
“Forgetting (or not knowing?) that Philo attests to Pilate’s service in Judea is a serious error for Ehrman and his
argument, because the absence of any mention of Jesus or Christianity in Philo is indeed very odd. In fact, the
loss of his book about Pilate’s reign is a very curious omission–even though Christians preserved over three
dozen other books of his, amounting to nearly 900 pages of multi-columned small type in English translation,
Christians chose not to preserve the book on Pilate, and that despite preserving other volumes in the very same
treatise. Why? Maybe the loss was just accidental (I suspect it was because no mention of Jesus was in it, but
obviously we can debate that). . . The only explanation for why Philo never mentions Christianity is that it was
not as important to Jews as Acts depicts, but was a tiny fringe cult of no significant interest to the Jewish elite.
And that is an important conclusion. Mythicists will say he doesn’t mention Jesus because there was no Jesus,
but that does not explain why he doesn’t mention Christianity. Certainly, if Jesus was as famous and
controversial as the Gospels and Acts depict, then Philo’s lack of interest in either the man or the threatening and
grandiose claims made about him becomes improbable, but if we accept that the Gospels and Acts hugely
exaggerate his fame and importance, then Philo’s disinterest goes back to being probable again. The
consequence of this is that you must accept that Philo’s silence argues against the existence of Jesus as depicted
in the Gospels. One must therefore conclude the Gospels substantially fictionalize the story of Jesus.”
I’m not trying to defend Ehrman here (You didn’t even touch his claim that Pontius Pilate was “the most
powerful and important figure of his day”? What self-restraint!), but rather I take issue with the above passage
on its own. For someone who prides himself on his logic (see “Proving History”), you’ve botched it here. Either
that, or you’re being disingenuous; I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt, appreciating your candor in the
comments as I do, and treat it as an error. You tell us Philo’s book on Pontius Pilate is lost – you assume
Christians did not preserve it because it contained no mention of Christ – then you state outright that “the only
explanation for why Philo never mentions Christianity is that it was not as important to Jews as Acts depicts.”
You cannot assume Philo never mentions Christianity when one of the most likely places for him to do so is
within a text not extant; that’s obvious in itself. But furthermore, your grounds for this assumption are
unfortunately weak; is it not far more likely that they would have left uncopied or destroyed a text which
portrayed Jesus in an unflattering way, as Philo almost certainly would have done? Particularly if they were
willing to insert testimonia of Jesus’ existence into documents which otherwise did not mention him, as you seem
to think? You admit that why it is lost is up for debate, but nevertheless proceed with these poor assumptions
and this faulty logic, which become all the more heinous when you conclude that “The consequence of this is that
you must accept that Philo’s silence argues against the existence of Jesus as depicted in the Gospels.” We can
prove no silence of Philo, no “lack of interest”; we “must” not do anything, except perhaps brush up on our
Quellenforschung before we lead “freethinkers” astray.
R E P LY
Mitch:
“
You didn’t even touch his claim that Pontius Pilate was “the most powerful
and important figure of his day”? What self-restraint!
Good point. Is there an emoticon for amused chuckling?
“
You tell us Philo’s book on Pontius Pilate is lost – you assume Christians did
not preserve it because it contained no mention of Christ – then you state
outright that “the only explanation for why Philo never mentions Christianity
is that it was not as important to Jews as Acts depicts.” You cannot assume
Philo never mentions Christianity when one of the most likely places for him
to do so is within a text not extant; that’s obvious in itself.
I indirectly acknowledged that possibility in my article (the question would then become why
Christians chose not to preserve it or ever even make mention of it), but it isn’t relevant to my
argument at that stage, since we can’t argue for historicity from a document we don’t have.
Thus if Philo did mention Christianity or Jesus somewhere, we have no idea if that mention
supported or opposed historicity. It is therefore of no account. All we can be sure of is that
Christians were uninterested in it, as were all critics of Christianity for at least three hundred
years.
“
But furthermore, your grounds for this assumption are unfortunately weak; is
it not far more likely that they would have left uncopied or destroyed a text
which portrayed Jesus in an unflattering way, as Philo almost certainly would
have done?
Like, say, reporting that he didn’t exist?
Do you see what I mean? Even if his report was negative, we still don’t know if it supported
or opposed historicity (if any such mention even existed).
That’s problem number one.
Problem number two (which pertains to your second argument) is that his books were still
known and read by Christian apologists like Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius (including
the missing ones we know of). Yet usually when something slanders Jesus (at least in any
novel way), apologists published rebuttals, knowing full well others have access to it and will
cite it against them constantly, necessitating a response, and not just a response, but one
published widely enough that all their cohorts can make use of it. Thus we have Origen’s
rebuttal to Celsus, Eusebius’s to Hierocles, and so on. Yet when Philo’s books are
mentioned, no one mentions him disparaging Jesus or offers a rebuttal to defuse the damage it
would have caused to the movement. Christians didn’t actually control all transmission of
documents until the Middle Ages; by then anything damaging said by Philo would have been
used by pagans like Celsus and Hierocles and other critics, necessitating a rebuttal, or have
been read by Christians, inspiring a rebuttal (likewise if it was positive or neutral, it would
have been quoted far and wide in support of their claims).
That’s why the most likely explanation of the loss of Philo’s book on Pilate is that it didn’t
mention Jesus at all, as then it would never come up in any debate or ever be of interest to
anyone before the Middle Ages, whereas it would be perceived as embarrassing enough to
ditch the book once they had the option to (there is evidence similar decisions were made
to cut out sections of other books, but that’s a whole other story, and again, we can’t use
that as evidence for either side, since a removed section could have attested a historical or
nonhistorical Jesus or neither; all we can know is that it didn’t say anything that caught
anyone’s interest, whether Christians or their critics, until the Middle Ages, when most of
these decisions were made).
“
Particularly if they were willing to insert testimonia of Jesus’ existence into
documents which otherwise did not mention him, as you seem to think?
I don’t think it. I and most experts know it. But this happened only very rarely (in fact, as far
as deliberately, I know of only one instance: the Testimonium Flavianum; and that happened
to only one manuscript, the one at Caesarea, which became the ancestor of all the
manuscripts we have now). Unlike the crazy mythers, I don’t countenance any kind of
centralized cabal at the Vatican (or Alexandria or anywhere else) pulling a Stalin on the entire
corpus of antiquity. Insofar as things like that happened to non-Christian literature, it
happened exceedingly rarely (and obviously didn’t happen to Philo, as otherwise we’d have
it). This is notable, because doctoring happened with remarkable frequency to Christian
literature. I suspect this was because that held authority for doctrine, whereas non-Christian
sources did not. Conversely, before their domination, Christians couldn’t get away with
doctoring their enemy’s literature, whereas when they were in control of it, they no longer
needed to. The effect of this dilemma would be to make the exceptions exceedingly rare.
And lo and behold, that’s what we see: only one clear case.
(And that was to cover a silence, not an attack. We know this because Origen makes no
rebuttal to Josephus, nor did Celsus use Josephus against him; whereas if Josephus had said
something bad, Origen would have had to answer it, since he uses Josephus against Celsus
otherwise, and if his own prized source supported his opponent, that would be a boner move
on his part, he would have had to defuse it with a rebuttal; and indeed, as much as he was
motivated to rebut Celsus, he would certainly be as motivated to rebut the even more
important author, Josephus.)
R E P LY
WILL • MARCH 22, 2012, 11:12 PM
Hi Richard. I was reading through McGrath’s response to your review of Ehrman’s article and found this quote:
‘Carrier describes as “Ehrman’s only evidence” Paul’s reference in Galatians to having met “James the brother
of the Lord.” He attempts to sow doubt about the meaning, but the phrase is clear. There is no evidence for any
Jews in Paul’s time speaking of God having a brother, and so the most natural reference is to Jesus being the
Lord here, as indeed Paul refers to him often with this title. Carrier then follows mythicists like Earl Doherty in
trying to suggest that “brother(s) of” can mean the same thing as “brother(s) in.” But the two phrases are
obviously distinct in meaning, and based on the evidence available, it was not the custom in this time to refer to
Christians in general, or a specific subset of Christians, as “brothers of the Lord.”’
I’m sure you address this in your upcoming books, but I was wondering if you could comment on this distinction
between “brother OF the Lord” and “brothers IN the Lord”.Does this linguistic distinction carry the weight that
McGrath suggests? How would you address this point?
thanks for your time.. I know you’ve got your hands full as the critique of Ehrman is bringing on the hordes
But you continue to exhibit clarity, logic and honesty in your replies. keep it up homie.
R E P LY
Paul never once uses the phrases “brothers in the Lord” or “brothers in Jesus” (or “brothers
in Christ”). So why does McGrath think this is what Paul would say?
McGrath seems to be confusing descriptions with epithets. See, for example, Romans 16:8-
19, where Paul is describing the virtues of various brethren, but not once calling them by the
appellation brother (or sister), except in verse 14, which conspicuously omits “in the
Lord/Christ” despite that being commonly used in the other sentences. By contrast, Paul
refers to Christians as brethren frequently (I gave many examples). So there is no evidence he
ever used or would ever use the phrase “brother in the Lord/Christ/Jesus.” He uses “in” only
when describing properties of a Christian, not to describe them as a Christian. He likewise
uses “in Christ” as a way to describe the security of salvation (he means it literally: Christians
are physically within the body of Christ and so will be saved along with it, see The Empty
Tomb, pp. 144-47), for example Romans 8:1 and Romans 12:5 and 2 Cor. 5:17. Again,
these are descriptive remarks. He is not here calling them Christians, and accordingly, does
not here call them brethren, but simply describes the fact of their being in Christ.
One does not become a brother in Christ; that theologically and metaphysically would make
little sense. As an adopted son of God, whom Jesus himself called his brother, you were a
brother of Christ, same as any physical brother would be. You could become this by entering
in the body of Christ by having faith in Christ (Gal. 3:25-29), but this made you a brother of
Christ same as it made you a brother of Paul; all were equal heirs. To suggest otherwise is to
insist that Paul defied all conventions of the Greek language and chose to avoid the natural
expression “brother of” for some reason, without any evidence he ever did, or would.
The logic of this is obvious in precisely the way McGrath’s logic is not (if the Lord said you
were his brother, you were the brother of the Lord; why would it ever occur to any speaker
of Greek to think or say otherwise?). Instead he makes the sorts of ridiculous claims that bad
mythicists do: “it was not the custom in this time to refer to Christians in general, or a specific
subset of Christians, as “brothers of the Lord.”” Custom of the time? Based on what? We
only have the letters of Paul. How does McGrath know what the custom of the time was,
except by reference to the letters of Paul? In fact Paul twice refers to Christians as brothers
of the Lord, unless McGrath circularly assumes he doesn’t. Thus, circular arguments, and
generalizations based on no evidence, purporting to know the contents of sources we don’t
have, to arrive at a conclusion contrary to obvious logic. That’s bad argument 101.
I also notice McGrath’s first argument also makes no sense. I have not yet read his essay
(I’m trying to get through approving all the comments submitted to mine first, then I’ll look at
the websites people referred me to). But the quoted argument is confused. I never said
“Lord” didn’t mean Jesus; I said it can only have meant Jesusafter Jesus was called Lord,
which is only a construct of Christians. He seems to think I said Lord meant God, which
makes no sense from the passages I cited and what I said, wherein Christians are the
adopted sons of God, not his brothers. This is another thing I get from McGrath a lot: he
doesn’t pay close attention to what I actually say. Somehow McGrath just skimmed what I
said and assumed I said something else, not even noticing that I couldn’t possibly have meant
“being the adopted sons of God, Christians became the brothers of God,” which is self-
contradictory. Perhaps his mistake is in still running in the ruts of assuming Jesus is God in the
mindset of the early Christians? (Which is false. Jesus was an appointed agent of God–his
adopted son–he was not identical to God.) I don’t know. Anyway, he is not properly
responding to anything I actually said, and until he does, he’s boxing with shadows.
R E P LY
WILL • MARCH 24, 2012, 9 :17 PM
hey thanks so much for that detailed response.. that clears up alot for me with the James
issue..
R E P LY
GILGAMES H • MARCH 25, 2012, 11:33 AM
Richard,
I am a bit confused when you say “Paul never once uses the phrases ‘brothers in the Lord’ or
‘brothers in Jesus’ (or ‘brothers in Christ’).” However, it seems he does.
In Philippians 1:14 (also cf. Philemon 1:16) Paul uses the phrase “brothers in (the) Lord”, the
definite article being excluded. Colossians 1:2 also uses “brothers in Christ”, though this is a
disputed letter of Paul. I think I can follow your argument otherwise, but it seems your
statement is inaccurate or at least needs modification. Otherwise, I am grossly misreading the
Greek.
R E P LY
PM
Paul did not write Colossians. (It also isn’t clear if Col. 1:2 says “brothers
in Christ” or “greetings to you in Christ,” since Greek didn’t often include
punctuation; it could also be read as “brothers faithful in the Lord,” in an
attempt to echo Phil. 1:14; but since this is post-Pauline, it doesn’t matter
either way.)
Philemon 16 does not say he is a “brother in the Lord”; it says “he is a

brother beloved especially to me and how much more to you in both the
flesh and the Lord” (emphasis added). In other words, Paul is not saying
Onesimus magically became the biological kin of Philemon, but that he
became beloved to Philemon (this is more hopefully stated than factual;
Paul is trying to persuade Philemon of this) in two different respects:
physically (i.e. in the usual way) and spiritually (i.e. as a Christian and a
member of the same body of Christ).
Philippians 1:14 doesn’t say “brothers in the Lord” either, it says
“brothers have confidence in the Lord.” Some (but not all) English
translations disguise this fact. Read in context it’s the obvious meaning.
R E P LY
GILGAMES H • MARCH 25, 2012, 5:19 PM
Glad to be corrected. Thank you for the clarification.
R E P LY
SA WELLS • MAR C H 23, 2012, 2:43 AM
Richard, do you think there’s any leverage to be had from this argument:
We now know there’s no historical Adam, no historical Noah, no historical Abraham and no historical Moses,
as the things they supposedly did and the events they supposedly took part in — never happened. Why then
should we assume that a historical Jesus, as the events described in the Gospels are no better evidenced than the
events described in Exodus – which we now know didn’t happen?
I’m a bit worried that it will turn out Biblical studies is still full of people who think there was too a historical
Abraham and Moses etc… which would depress me.
Keep up the good work!
R E P LY
SAWells: Richard, do you think there’s any leverage to be had from this argument?
We would need to specify in what respect Jesus is relevantly like those other religious heroes,
and then examine the complete reference class (i.e. whatever criteria you assign for inclusion,
you then have to apply them to all reported persons and thus collect every example, not just
the ones you list). Then you can ask what the frequency is that inclusion in that set entails
historicity.
But that only gets you what is called the prior probability. You then have to look at what
evidence we have for Jesus, that’s different from the evidence we have for (let’s say) Moses.
And that examination might greatly alter the probability, even making his historicity probable.
I explain all this in Proving History. No one properly does this. Because Jesus studies has
no valid method (as I also show there; indeed, every expert in the field who has specialized in
its methods has come to this conclusion, so it’s not just me saying it). The correct method has
yet to be applied to the evidence. I will do that in On the Historicity of Jesus Christ.
R E P LY
ELLE • MARCH 23, 2012, 3:01 AM
“I will certainly want to read that. Please notify me here or by email when it comes out or is available for pre-
order.”
Speaking of Maurice Casey, what are your first thoughts after reading this introduction to his 2010 book “Jesus
of Nazareth”?
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/12/23/jesus-historians-get-an-earful/
He seems to criticize both mythical and theological views, while standing with Ehrman when he believes that
Jesus can be best understood as an apocalyptic prophet expecting the imminent end of the world (a position also
supported by a chapter in “The Christian Delusion”) and addressing several points made by you and other
secular historians in the past (the probability of bereavement visions as explanation for the resurrection, the fact
that the story of the empty tomb was probably a later developnent, etc.)
Take a look at his take on the resurrection (there are several parts, this is the first one)
http://www.equinoxpub.com/blog/2011/04/caseys-jesus-1-apologetic-works/
What do you think?
R E P LY
Regarding Jesus Historians Get an Earful from Maurice Casey I have no need of
comment. It’s just boiler plate. I actually agree with almost everything he says, even about
mythicists; and the last paragraph is already adequately undermined by what I argue in
Proving History (chapter 5), except the bits I obviously agree with (Jesus was seen in
visions and the empty tomb is a legend).
As to Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? Casey on Jesus, that page is not sufficiently
relevant to the historicity debate to slog through it here. Although on a skim it looks like I
mostly agree with him, and I’m glad to see a mainstream academic speaking out against
conservative extremism in Jesus studies. I’m always glad to see Ehrman doing the same.
R E P LY
DON A LD • MARCH 23, 2012, 5:36 AM

what created semiticised greek? when the hebrew torah was translated into greek was this the cause? the
sentences in greek were following the pattern in hebrew language?
R E P LY
donald: What created Semiticised Greek? When the Hebrew Torah was translated into
Greek was this the cause? The sentences in Greek were following the pattern in
Hebrew language?
Sort of. A better way to put it is that bilingual Jews evolved into speaking and writing a
dialect of Greek that was very Aramaicized, the way way you might say English was
“Americanized” after the Revolution (and thus looks different than British English, even as
regards spelling and sometimes sentence structure), only stronger (the differences are
somewhat greater; although not quite as extreme Yiddish, which is a Semitized dialect of
German; Semitic Greek is somewhere in between, but Yiddish is still a good example of the
kind of thing the Jews did with Greek).
Part of it was from influence by the Septuagint itself. The Septuagint is a translation into
Greek of the Hebrew bible, which then came to be read, privately and aloud, especially but
not only in diaspora communities (e.g. fragments were found even in the possession of the
hyper-conservative Jews at Qumran), to the extent that, like the influence King James English
had, Jews started talking that way and writing that way. But even without the influence of the
Septuagint, any Hebrew who spoke Greek would tend to speak a Semitized Greek, because
that is how his or her mind translated it, and the way usually their Jewish teachers spoke, and
the way Hebrew texts were translated into Greek (a common way to learn a language is by
reading, or hearing read, translations of your familiar native books and stories into the target
language). The extent to which you Semitized your Greek would reflect the extent to which
you cultivated formal learning (Paul, for example, adopts a high style that is not as Semitized
as Mark, who, like Mark Twain, adopted a low style, which would sound less pretentious
and more familiar to commoners).
R E P LY
ERIC • MARCH 23, 2012, 6 :50 AM
Richard,
You say:
“Yes. And Price’s response to them in The Christian Delusion (ch. 10) is in all essentials correct. Their view is
simply not mainstream (which illustrates the issue I raised in my article: we let this radical work by Boyd and
Eddy pass as respectable even if incorrect scholarship, but vilify the other side as unemployable lunatics, which is
a major malfunction of scholarly objectivity).”
Richard, I find this to be funny. You say Boyd and Eddy’s work is radical and not mainstream? I find it
interesting that we have scholars like Bauckham and Craig Evans endorse the book. Are they radical as well?
So they endorse the book as respectable? I have seen you use Evan’s work before. So is it radical and not
mainstream because they don’t agree with your presuppositions and they deconstruct the entire methodology
behind the Jesus myth view? And if Price is so on target, why does he thank them for taking his work seriously?I
have already read responses to the Christian Delusion (including your chapter as well). And what qualifies as
being objective? You and Price are totally objective in your writings?
You also say:
“Try actually reading Smith. Don’t trust what Boyd and Eddy “quote mine” from him. All Smith argues is that
one particular case of the dying-and-rising god mytheme (the Zagreus cycle) is a debatable scholarly
construction and not really factual. He does not address any of the other cases.”
Richard, I don’t care how many other cases there are.
What are our primary and secondary sources for these supposed other cases? And if there are sources, I am still
looking for evidence that these things existed side by side (they were a common phenomenon in the region at the
time). And even if they did exist, what evidence do we have Second Temple Jews such as Paul and others had
access to them and would be so quick to copy the Jesus story from such a motif? Or is this pure speculation?
Looking forward to the debate with Ehrman
R E P LY
Eric: You say Boyd and Eddy’s work is radical and not mainstream? I find it
interesting that we have scholars like Bauckham and Craig Evans endorse the book.
Are they radical as well?
Hell yes! They are fundamentalists! (The “creationists” of Jesus studies; but Old Earth
Creationists, since they take scholarship seriously enough to do some good work, e.g. Evans
on Jewish messianism.) For example, see Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 6
(2008), which illustrates how extreme Bauckham is relative to mainstream Jesus studies. And
for how radical Craig Evans is (he’s in the camp of NT. Wright) see his debate with Bart
Ehrman, in which he practically defends the inerrancy of the Gospels (a radical view
compared to mainstream scholarship).
As to your question, you are confusing radical scholars with radical theories, which indeed is
exactly what my article warns against. Just because that specific Boyd-Eddy thesis is radical
and implausible and certainly false, does not mean every single thing they have ever argued is.
More importantly, as radical as they are, and as rejected their positions on many things are
by mainstream scholars, they are still treated as respected scholars and not attacked as
incompetents who should be ridiculed and persecuted by their peers. This is precisely my
point as well. These guys are advocating theories just as ridiculous to Ehrman as Ehrman
regards mythicism, yet he does not treat them the way he treats mythicists.
“
“
And if Price is so on target, why does he thank them for taking his work
seriously?
That question is profoundly unintelligible.
“
And what qualifies as being objective?
Applying the same standard equally. Exactly as I said (in the very line you quoted). So try
reading what I said again. It already answers your question.
“
Richard, I don’t care how many other cases there are.
Translation: “I don’t care about facts.”
“
What are our primary and secondary sources for these supposed other cases?
I provide them extensively in Not the Impossible Faith, chapters 1 and 3. And that isn’t
even a complete reference list. More is provided in the scholarship I also cite there. There
has since appeared another good article on a related theme (translation fables as popular
pagan resurrection belief: Richard C. Miller, “Mark’s Empty Tomb and Other Translation
Fables in Classical Antiquity,” Journal of Biblical Literature 129.4 [2010]: 759-76).
“
And even if they did exist, what evidence do we have Second Temple Jews
such as Paul and others had access to them and would be so quick to copy
the Jesus story from such a motif?
First of all, there was nothing “quick” about it. The Jews resisted this trend longer than any
other local culture (they were the last to adopt the mytheme as far as I know). Second, Judea
was not in any conceivable sense isolated from the Roman world, not only because of tons of
Gentile neighbors (in the Decapolis, Caesarea, Tyre) and traders (Jews traded with the
outside world quite a lot, ports being one of the main loci of cultural diffusion in every culture)
and conquerors (the Seleucids occupied Judea for centuries and even tried forcing pagan
religions on them), but also because most Jews lived in the diaspora, and thus in the very
cities where all these pagan religions were preached and practiced, and those Jews returned
to Jerusalem every year to mingle and spread news and ideas with Palestinians (as illustrated
in Acts 2:9-11, for instance). The Jews also lived in exile among resurrected-god-
worshipping foreigners throughout the period between the first and second temple, and even
celebrated resurrected deities before that: Ezekiel 8:14 attests that Innanna-Tammuz cult was
practiced in Jerusalem itself.
R E P LY
STEVEN C A R R • MAR C H 23, 201 2, 7:09 AM
BART
‘Moreover, aspects of the Jesus story simply would not have been invented by anyone wanting to make up a
new Savior. The earliest followers of Jesus declared that he was a crucified messiah. But prior to Christianity,
there were no Jews at all, of any kind whatsoever, who thought that there would be a future crucified messiah.
The messiah was to be a figure of grandeur and power who overthrew the enemy. Anyone who wanted to make
up a messiah would make him like that. Why did the Christians not do so? Because they believed specifically
that Jesus was the Messiah. And they knew full well that he was crucified. The Christians did not invent Jesus.
They invented the idea that the messiah had to be crucified.’
CARR
This makes no sense to me.
If Christians invented the idea that the Messiah had to be crucified why is it impossible for a crucified Messiah to
have been invented?
After Bart carefully explains why Jesus did not tick any of the boxes that needed to be ticked by the Messiah, he
explains that Christians believed specifically that Jesus was the Messiah.
Why? How?
According to Bart’s logic, Christians could believe Jesus was Elijah returned, Melchizedek, the Son of God,
Enoch returned, anything at all was possible, but the one thing Bart’s logic rules out is calling him the Messiah.
Have I understood Ehrman correctly?
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • MAR C H 23, 201 2, 8:02 AM

http://thewrongmonkey.blogspot.com/2012/03/its-settled-not.html
R E P LY
Regarding that dense, paragraphless post you link to, I don’t know why its author thinks I
“didn’t realize that [Ehrman] was firmly of the opinion that Jesus existed.” It was no secret
that Ehrman and I have been in communication about our competing views for half a year
now, and I even helped him with finding materials and assessing mythicist literature while he
was writing the present book. And if you read through comments above, you’ll find many
atheists were well aware of (and even annoyed by) his position on this for many years now.
So there is no surprise over that. The surprise is at the sloppiness and intemperance of his
HuffPo article, which is uncharacteristic of his evenness and accuracy elsewhere.
But I love their identifying the no-true-Scotsman fallacy in Ehrman’s article. I feel kike they
scooped me! I should have thought of that.
R E P LY
I’m the author of that dense post. I did not say that you, Dr Carrier, had not known
previously about his position on the historicity of Jesus. I said that many of his fans had
overlooked this. Less importantly, it’s not completely paragraphless: there are six paragraphs
in it.
I’m new here and I don’t see any way to reply specifically to your reply so I’m replying to
my own original post. Hope I’m doing it right.
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 24, 2012, 6 :13
PM
Ah, my bad. Sorry I misunderstood that remark. And kudos to you for
the no-true-Scottsman reference.
I’d still want more paragraph breaks.
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • MAR C H 24, 201 2, 6 :43 P M
I really can’t honestly take a lot of credit for spotting the no-true-Scotsman fallacy in
Ehrman’s article. I spend a lot of time among other atheists commenting on articles in
Huffington Post’s Religion section — that readers’ comments section is the biggest and
liveliest meeting place for atheists I know, by the way — and some days, every second
sentence in the atheists’ comments is “No true Scotsman.” Anyone who’s spent as much time
there as I have has developed highly-honed no-true-Scotsman-spotting faculties. It’s in the
air, and the water. Those readers’ comments are also where I first followed a link to your
blog. Before yesterday I’d heard your name but never read any of your work. I’m glad I
clicked on that link, you’re impressing me so far.
I’m afraid my sentences and paragraphs may actually grow still longer and more convoluted
as the decades roll by. It’s nothing personal. In my defense just allow me to point out that I
don’t write nearly as atrociously as Ronald Syme or the later Henry James.
R E P LY
Y I • MARCH 23, 2012, 9 :05 AM
Richard, both you and Ehrman are among my most respected scholars in this field. You should go toe-to-toe
with him on this topic anyways. That’d be really interesting.
R E P LY
C H R IS • MARCH 23, 2012, 10:04 AM
As a teenager and “bible believing” Christian, I took a course at college on the origins of the gospels and I was
absolutely shocked to learn about the NT from scholars rather than preachers. I’ve read numerous Bart Ehrman
books and found them fascinating. I am definitely an amateur on this whole subject, but I have never heard an
explanation of why Paul never quotes Jesus yet is happy to correct James and Peter on doctrine, as an equal.
The new testament provides very little detail of the man Jesus and what he said. I believe that the question is not
so much was there a teacher that could fit some of the description of a historical Jesus, but did Paul believe in a
historical Jesus?
Thanks for an interesting conversation, which I have chanced upon from Jerry Coyne’s blog. I’ve ordered
Richard’s forthcoming book rather than Bart’s.
R E P LY
DAVID MARS H ALL • MARCH 23, 2012, 11:39 AM
I am inclined to dispute the claim that no such pattern (flexibly described, as you do) can be found in China. The
popular goddess Miao Shan was daughter of a king, was killed, and raised to life because of her kindness. The
parallel is arguably closer. In Journey to the West, furthermore, Tai Zong descends into hell, though he has not
quite died, and is brought back. He is emperor, also son of the founder of the Tang.
I just wrote a response, a bit off the cuff, to your arguments, entitled “Carrier vs. Ehrman: Drama Queen
Smackdown.”
We will, of course, follow this conversation with great good humor. To me its a peripheral argument, though, and
I don’t plan to waste much time on it.
R E P LY
David Marshall: The popular goddess Miao Shan was daughter of a king, was killed,
and raised to life because of her kindness.
But dating to when? Not antiquity. Miao Shan didn’t even exist as a deity untilthe 10th
century, long after Nestorian Christians entered China. China also did not have a belief
in hell or reincarnation until the Buddhists imported it, and the earliest known version of the
Miao Shan tale appears from a Buddhist source. And that version does not in fact involve a
resurrection (Miao Shan never actually dies in the story; she is snatched away by a divinity
before her murderers can find her). We do not hear of the resurrection version until later still.
Tai Zong is likewise a mediavel Buddhism-influenced tale (7th century).
Why didn’t it occur to you to check any of this? Do you see how you are defending
historicity by acting exactly like the sloppy mythicists who pay no attention to chronology?
Why do you start acting exactly like them the moment you desperately need to defend the
contrary thesis? This isn’t the only time historicists do this. It is a very curious thing.
(I should also add: and in what respect is either of these examples a son of god or a savior
deity? If we limit the trend to dying-and-rising savior demigods, these examples fail to apply
altogether, and yet there were numerous dying-and-rising savior demigods in the West, thus
a trend existed in the West that did not exist in the East; whereas when we allow all
resurrection tales to count, there are literally dozens in the West [see Not the Impossible
Faith, chapter 3], and only two in the East, and both are late medieval and thus post-date
both Buddhist and Christian influence, so again we have a downright fascination with
resurrected heroes in the ancient West, and none in the ancient East.)
R E P LY
ALETH EA H . C LAW • MAR C H 23, 201 2, 3:48 P M
Something I’ve been wondering about, and asked at PZ’s place, but I’d like your take on it. Where is the
mythicist/historicist boundary located? Is there a recognised intermediate position?
Is a mythicist someone who says that JC never existed at all? Or someone who says the stories were possibly
based on a real person, like Robin Hood & King Arthur? Or that the myths actually were based on a known
real person, but there’s such a ludicrous amount of totally unrelated myth accreted on that it’s really all myth
anyway, like Santa Claus?
I’m pretty sure that academic historicists don’t say the gospels are all true, so where do they cut off? Which
parts of the story can one reject before crossing the border into mythicism? There was a Jewish preacher – did
he also have to be named Yeshua, or have disciples, or be crucified, or be a carpenter from Nazareth and/or
Bethlehem? If you look at the Nicene creed, which bits can one say no to, and still be a historicist?
R E P LY
Alethea H. Claw:
“
Where is the mythicist/historicist boundary located? Is there a recognised
intermediate position? Is a mythicist someone who says that JC never existed
at all? Or someone who says the stories were possibly based on a real person,
like Robin Hood & King Arthur? Or that the myths actually were based on a
known real person, but there’s such a ludicrous amount of totally unrelated
myth accreted on that it’s really all myth anyway, like Santa Claus?
The term “mythicist” is usually used to refer to those who propose the first of these, although
many might still be “agnostic” with regard to the other possibilities (as opposed to adamantly
against them).
Otherwise, someone who is “adamant” that Jesus existed, but that we can know nothing
substantive about him (because, e.g., the Gospels are completely fictive), is not denigrated as
a mythicist. Dennis MacDonald, for example.
It’s kind of like the same “policing” behavior in the godist community: for most it’s okay to be
unsure about Jesus, as long as you believe in some God. But take the next step, to atheism,
and now you are a crazy immoral commie whom no one would dare vote for or invite for tea.
Indeed, even agnostic is almost okay. Many an occasion I have seen theists try to insist I’m
an agnostic and not an atheist, so they can justify liking me. Because I just can’t possibly be a
nice, rational person if I’m a full-on atheist. If I’m an agnostic, maybe. That at least keeps my
foot in the “acceptable” door.
I have seen the same behavior from historicists regarding mythicism.
“
I’m pretty sure that academic historicists don’t say the gospels are all true, so
where do they cut off? Which parts of the story can one reject before crossing
the border into mythicism? There was a Jewish preacher – did he also have to
be named Yeshua, or have disciples, or be crucified, or be a carpenter from
Nazareth and/or Bethlehem? If you look at the Nicene creed, which bits can
one say no to, and still be a historicist?
That’s very similar to the question posed and explored by Lindsay in his chapter in Sources
of the Jesus Tradition.
My answer is the one above: this is policing behavior. It’s okay to challenge some things, but
you can’t upset the whole applecart. That’s just too far. Now you’re a crank. Where the line
is drawn is illogically just precisely there: whether you will countenance the mere possibility
that there was no Jesus at all. As long as you reject that one premise, all is forgiven and you
can be welcomed into the fold as safe to converse with and employ.
R E P LY
STEWA R T • MAR C H 24, 2012, 12:26 P M
Not sure where in the thread this will show up (and it’s also possibly too obvious to merit
saying), but in relation to crossing a line of untouchability with the acceptance of the
possibility that there really was no such person, there must be some element there in most
cases of “as long we keep his existence as a person unquestioned, we haven’t killed the
possibility that all or part of the rest is/was also true.”
R E P LY
ALETH EA H . C LAW • MAR C H 24, 201 2, 4:26 P M
Thanks, Richard. It seems pretty weird to me, like a shibboleth – especially your example of
MacDonald. That one’s a big WTF?
Functionally, Santa Claus never existed even if Nicholas the bishop of Myra did. The stories
are still all myth, so what does that tiny kernel even matter? Existence, non-existence, why
even care? It’s all academic – which is to say, it’s a perfectly fine pursuit for those interested
in ancient history, but a puzzling point to make such a huge fuss over.
I’m fairly new to your work, and will read your book and Ehrman’s JI on your
recommendation. Is your position analogous to agnostic atheism – Jesus cannot be shown
either way to have existed, or not to have existed – or do you go further and say he actually
didn’t exist? That is, not even in the minimal sense of Bishop Nick, since we all acknowledge
that jolly fat Santa doesn’t exist.
R E P LY
PM
My position is in between: I say more probably than not a historical Jesus

didn’t exist, but there is still a non-vanishing probability he did. In On the
Historicity of Jesus Christ I will spell out in detail just what probabilities
I think are possible on present evidence.
R E P LY
ELLE • MARCH 23, 2012, 4:26 PM
“Even if it’s terrible, it might still be the best case in print. Because all previous ones are pretty weak overall”
Your list of recommended books on the origins of Christianity mentions “the best work on the historicity of
Jesus”.
Which one would that be? Does it resort to the same flawed arguments you so often address?
Or did you just mean a book which gives the most probable portrait of Jesus, in case he actually existed?
R E P LY
I was referring to the best available books that evaluate the evidence for Jesus (e.g. Van
Voorst, Theissen, pro; Doherty, con) and that relate to the question by discussing the
merits of the evidence (e.g. Helms, Brodie, Avalos) or its essential background (e.g. Fox,
Matthews). I have only mentioned a few examples. All the books there are relevant to
understanding how to resolve the question, IMO.
R E P LY
MIK EY B • MARCH 23, 2012, 8:29 PM
I am a fan of Ehrman and I can say from skimming the Ehrman book at the bookstore that it is quite cogently
argued in a rather breezy non-dogmatic function. It has rather the tone of a Shakespearian scholar combating the
Oxfordians on the so called authorship controversy by poking gaping holes in the arguments. Part of his claim is
that by the most clear inference from the gospels, Paul and other NT writings is that Jesus existed despite how
much midrash, mythmaking and theological rhetoric may be added to the writings, so denying the obvious
inference that Jesus existed amounts to the proverbial throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
He is of the Schweitzer interpretive school – Jesus was a 1st Century apocalyptic prophet. He takes strong issue
with the notion that Paul was influenced by some form of middle Platonism, that Platonism itself had any real
influence in 1st Century Palestine, since it was one of many philosophies and one primarily confined to
philosophers and intellectuals. He also takes strong issue that there is any evidence that the so called mystery
cults of dying and rising gods even actual existed, so could not even have influenced early Christianity even in
principle. He thinks the Testimonium Flavium issue is debatable but ultimately irrelevant to the overall case of
whether Jesus existed or not. He also thinks that notion that Jesus was God was foreign to 3 of the 4 gospel
writers including Paul so could not be a factor. He thinks the gospels themselves represent multiple attested
sources whether Q existed or not, since Luke and Matthew have unique material to both and Mark and
evidence seems to suggest that John cannot be for example in any way be completely based upon Mark.
In short he seems to suggest that presuppositions required for many versions of the mythic position such as
Platonism, mystery cults in 1st Century Palestine, gospels formed from pure midrash, etc are tenuous at best,
and even though undeniably much of the gospel material does reflect theology, rhetoric and yes made up stuff,
underlying all of this is a historic kernel of truth – the historic Jesus. He seems to suggest that the mythic position
better resembles an Oxfordian conspiracy theory than a rational case, and that accepting Jesus existence is not
tatamount to declaring him the Son of God. His own position seems to be that Jesus was an apocalyptic 1st
Century prophet who mistakenly thought the world would end, whose ethics seem closer to the paranoia of Glen
Beck than Martin Luther King, not exactly the Jesus evangelicals would advocate.
I don’t know if this accurately reflects Ehrman’s position – it is the gist of what I think I read. I will say that the
book seems pretty persuasive. I am pretty agnostic about the whole Jesus existed debate, so would be open to
a vigorous fact based counterargument. Actually I think ultimately the question maybe in the end is unknowable.
Not being a scholar or an expert in this debate, I will say that Ehrman did not come across anything like as
dogmatic as he appears in the article. His reasoning could be mistaken, but the book struck me as the position
he honestly believes based upon the evidence and not by dogmatism.
R E P LY
MikeyB: Thanks for that brief review. That seems to be the common impression: the article
was intemperate and sloppy; the book, not.
I agree with your analogy. Indeed, most mythicism is far more crazy than the Oxfordian thing.
The problem is that there is a difference between (to pick a different analogy I’m more
familiar with) pyramidiocy, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, legitimate consensus
challenges on the construction of the pyramids (like the concrete theory, which may turn out
to be false, but was not crank and was pursued using proper methods). So, too, Jesus
mythicism. For the article to completely erase that distinction is, as I said, irresponsible.
“
He takes strong issue with the notion that Paul was influenced by some form
of middle Platonism, that Platonism itself had any real influence in 1st
Century Palestine, since it was one of many philosophies and one primarily
confined to philosophers and intellectuals.
That’s an example of the kind of thing that looks incompetent to me (although maybe he is
just naively rebutting something some mythicist said). There is no need of full-blown
Platonism, one needs only the common theological zeitgeist, which was influenced by
Platonism (and Stoicism), and this is demonstrable in numerous Jewish writings. Of course
even full-blown Platonism is evident in Philo, and clearly was not unique to him (since he
mentions other Jews making similar arguments, as if it was commonplace) and there are many
demonstrable similarities between Philo and Paul and their theology and metaphysics. The
fact that Platonic-Orphic notions are found in all the other salvation cults lends strong prior
probability to it being found in Christianity, too. And it clearly did influence Paul (see my
discussion in The Empty Tomb, pp. 142-47).
“
He also takes strong issue that there is any evidence that the so called
mystery cults of dying and rising gods even actual existed, so could not even
have influenced early Christianity even in principle.
It would be astonishingly incompetent of him if he said that. I have to assume you misread
him.
“
He thinks the Testimonium Flavium issue is debatable but ultimately
irrelevant to the overall case of whether Jesus existed or not.
It’s relevant insofar as, if it is false, then it refutes the number one argument historicists always
use against mythicism. That doesn’t exactly make it irrelevant.
“
He also thinks that notion that Jesus was God was foreign to 3 of the 4
gospel writers including Paul so could not be a factor.
This may be a semantic fail. That Jews did not call demons and angels gods is mere
semantics; they were still cosmic beings with supernatural powers, and not humans. Likewise,
Jesus was a preexistent heavenly being given by God all the supernatural powers of God
(Philippians 2:6-8; 1 Cor. 8:6, 15:24-28; 2 Cor. 4:4), and it’s clear all Christians regarded
him as “the firstborn son of God in heaven” who communicates to us by mystical means. By
any actual sense of the word, that’s a god. That Jews did not call it a god is irrelevant to the
point, since that simply reflects naming taboos unique to their culture. If Ehrman doesn’t grasp
this distinction, that would make him look sloppy or incompetent to me.
“
He thinks the gospels themselves represent multiple attested sources whether
Q existed or not, since Luke and Matthew have unique material to both and
Mark and evidence seems to suggest that John cannot be for example in any
way be completely based upon Mark.
That’s illogical. It requires the premise that none of those authors made anything up. Which is
a false premise (since he cannot maintain that a lot of the Gospels is made up, but no one
made anything up). Since he must accept the premise that these authors made things up, then
he cannot reject the claim that Matthew added to (and altered) Mark, and Luke to Matthew
(and Mark), and John to Luke (and Mark). That leaves only one actual source: Mark. And if
Mark made everything up…
So obviously it matters if Q existed. Of course, even if Q existed, it may simply indicate that
Q was the original Gospel, and Mark just selected some material from it, and Matthew and
Luke more. Which would still leave us with only one source: Q. A source we don’t have.
And again, if the author of Q made everything up…
R E P LY
STEVEN C A R R • MAR C H 24, 2012, 1:08 AM
On page 132 of Ehrman’s book, Ehrman says mythicists resort to interpolations too readily.
Doherty is hardly alone in thinking that 1 Thessalonians 2 contains interpolations.
Ehrman might disagree and claim Paul really did think God was bringing down the wrath of God upon Jews, but
he can’t get away with claiming Doherty is simply crying ad hoc interpolation for this text.
In fact, it is Ehrman who comes up with ad hoc claims on page 124 that Romans 1:18 is at all relevant to 1
Thessalonians 2 ’18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness
of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them,
because God has made it plain to them…..’
There is nothing whatever in Romans 1 which says this pasage is about God’s wrath on Jews.
It is about pagans.
This is just ad hoc proof-texting by Ehrman, taking one occurence of the word ‘wrath’ and claiming it explains
another occurence of the word ‘wrath’ in another passage, when they have nothing to do with one another.
So to sum up, Ehrman accuses Doherty of crying interpolation ad hoc, when it is perfectly legitimate scholarship
to maintain that 1 Thess. 2 contains interpolations.
And then Ehrman produces an ad hoc proof text to try to shoehorn the passage in Thessalonians into Paul’s
theology.
This looks bad to me.
R E P LY
Steven Carr: On page 132 of Ehrman’s book, Ehrman says mythicists resort to
interpolations too readily.
As a generalization, that may be true. I find some myth proponents rely on hypothesized
interpolations too much (e.g. Price arguing that the whole of 1 Cor. 15:3-8 is an interpolation;
although some of it may be, that all of it is is a stretch). It’s not that they aren’t right that there
could be interpolations (which is always a problem that must weaken our certainty; as in the
“brother of the Lord” example I give in the original article), it’s just that they shouldn’t have to
depend on them to make a case, unless they can make a strong enough case that many
experts would agree with them (the example you cite is one such, cf. my Pauline
Interpolations; the evidence is very strong there, and most experts agree; indeed I find it
odd if Ehrman is actually trying to defend that one).
Case in point: I don’t think mythicism can rest on assuming “of the Lord” in Galatians 1:19 is
an interpolation; that it could be does weaken historicism, but does not make it improbable.
The way to think of it is this: if there weren’t so much evidence of harmonizing and dogma-
reinforcing interpolations in the NT, then the probability of this being an interpolation would
be extremely small; but there is that background evidence, which entails the probability is
much higher in this one case than it would otherwise have been. And any increase in that
probability, decreases the probability of historicity (although by how much is a different
matter).
Contrary case: the evidence that “the one called Christ” is an interpolation in the Josephus
passage about James is extremely strong, in fact to a near certainty given all the evidence we
have (as I demonstrate in “Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus,
Jewish Antiquities 20.200.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 20.4 (Winter 2012)).
Obviously, the historicizing church was keen on adding historicizing interpolations, not the
reverse, so obviously the evidence against historicity is going to consist of many examples of
historicizing interpolations, not the other way around. It is fallacious to then say that that is a
mark against it, when in fact it’s exactly what we should expect if historicity is false. (It’s also
expected if historicity is true, however, which is why these interpolations do not refute
historicity but only subtract from the evidence for it and thus only reduce its probability, a
distinction Ehrman might be struggling with).
Another problem I have encountered with Ehrman before, and maybe it happens in his book
(many historicists make this same error) is that they obsess on rebutting incidental
arguments, and then conclude they have rebutted essential arguments. Case in point: in no
way does Price’s case for mythicism depend on 1 Cor. 15:3-8 being an interpolation; he
merely makes an incidental case that it could be. It is fallacious to then say his case for 1 Cor.
15:3-8 is weak, therefore his case for mythicism is weak. Doherty shoots himself in the foot a
lot by setting himself up for this: he defends hundreds of incidental claims that go against
mainstream views, and historicists have a feast on those incidentals and conclude his case for
mythicism is weak, simply because they failed to dig out the signal from the noise. That’s why
I think his Jesus: Neither God Nor Manis a much worse book than Jesus Puzzle, as the
latter is far more focused on the signal and less on the noise (although it does have some, e.g.
his reliance on speculations about the tradition history of Q, which is wholly unnecessary for
his case), whereas the former is almost all noise, and finding the signal is something of a
chore.
R E P LY
STEVEN C A R R • MAR C H 24, 2012, 10:29 AM
Amazingly, after Ehrman waves around invisible early sources as representing stuff going back to just after Jesus
died, he then claims on page 238, that even if Phillipians 2 predates Paul, ‘it does not represent the earliest
Christian understanding of Christ.’
Because Ehrman has to deny that Jesus was thought of a as a god, he denies that anything which predates Paul
must represent early Christian thought, if the picture of Jesus it presents is not one he is selling, while he
simultaneously has to invent oral and written sources for the Gospels which go back to early Christianity and
predate Paul.
If you read the book, you can see Ehrman rewriting history, moving sources around in time, to build up a picture
of a Jesus he can sell to himself.
R E P LY
True, that would be special pleading, if Ehrman maintains 1 Corinthians 15 is evidence of

historicity because it predates Paul, but Phillipians 2 isn’t evidence even though it also
predates Paul.
R E P LY
BA DGER 3K • MARCH 24, 2012, 12:14 PM
I just started reading it (I had enough of my check that I could afford the $10 ebook price). In the second
chapter (where he starts to lay out the evidence for Jesus that people have accepted), he brings up Tacitus as a
credible source that a historical Jesus existed. He does mention that Tacitus could have been repeating
information that he learned from Christians, then assumes (at the end of that section) that that means the
information is true. What? Am I completely bonkers in thinking that the only thing that tells us is what Tacitus
believed? If Tacitus reported that Hercules was killed on a pyre in some city (sorry, I forgot the details), would
that indicate that it was true? We don’t read Heroditus and assume that what he wrote was true, so why do it
here? Is this another case of Special Pleading?
I haven’t come to any final conclusions (and may never, who knows), but I do lean toward the mythicist
position, but even when thinking the apocalyptic prophet hypothesis had serious merit I saw this argument as
flawed. Am I wrong?
R E P LY
GILGAMES H • MARCH 24, 2012, 2:58 PM
Hi Richard,
Prof. James McGrath has written some response to your rebuttal.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/03/responding-to-richard-carriers-response-to-
bart-ehrman.html
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/03/wonka-vs-mythicists-plus-the-historical-
jesus-unicorns-and-atlantis.html
The latter link is more a link-farm.
It seems James thinks Ehrman made no mistakes in his article, or any mistakes are the fault of the editor. I
imagine you will want to respond in kind.
R E P LY
I will eventually. Maybe tomorrow or Monday. I’m trying to get through all the comments on
my page first, before going to other pages. And there are a lot!
R E P LY
A plea that professors of Christian theology and New Testament studies who are NOT certain that Jesus
existed, but have not said so publicly for fear it would damage their careers, be outed. Preferably by themselves
— that of course would be the most dignified way — but otherwise by people to whom they have confided their
unorthodox views. Betraying private confidences is a serious thing, of course. But a systematic pattern of lying,
affecting an entire academic discipline or two, is VERY serious. Think it over. I plead at more length here:
http://thewrongmonkey.blogspot.com/2012/03/i-accuse-you-you-cowardly-closeted.html
R E P LY
There is, I should note, a difference between a scholar who suspects Jesus didn’t exist, and
one who fears even to investigate or consider it. In my experience there are more of the latter
than the former, precisely because there are more of the latter than the former.
In short, they don’t want the grief. So they aren’t going to touch it. That might change as
Ehrman and I are now making the debate more visible to them. But for an analogy, there are
topics I won’t go near because I don’t want to be sucked down a hole of vast research and
debate, so I declare them either unresolved or I side with the consensus, trusting that the
odds are that will be correct (that doesn’t mean it always is, only that the odds are it is). I
decided to do this for the controversy over dating the Gospels, for example, because I
found it fruitless for what I was doing to delve any further. And that’s not even a lightning
rod issue (I have no fear of doing it; I just have better things to do with my time). Imagine if
my chances of tenure, my institutional reputation, my access to privileges of status were all in
the balance as well. Then, unless I were unusually ballsy (I am, but not everyone is), I might
just avoid it, or just rubber stamp what Ehrman says without actually checking it carefully–
because if I criticize him, I will be perceived as defending the mythicists, and that’s bad, so I
had better never admit he ever made a mistake in his argument against mythicism.
Keep your eye on the scholars who weigh in on this, or who don’t. How many will admit he
made some mistakes? How many stay a mile away from the whole debate altogether? Then
you’ll know.
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • MAR C H 24, 201 2, 6 :55 P M
“Imagine if my chances of tenure, my institutional reputation, my access to privileges of status

were all in the balance as well”
So it’s okay to be a liar or a coward as long as you get a lot of perks for it? For Republicans,
maybe. I’m sorry, your reply has not lent me more sympathy for liars and cowards.
Imagine if tenure, reputation and privilege were all given as rewards for honesty and guts!
I’m angry! Can you tell?
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • MAR C H 25, 201 2, 7:53
AM
Steven Bollinger: So it’s okay to be a liar or a coward as long as
you get a lot of perks for it?
Reputation, happiness, and livelihood are not perks. They are some of the
fundamental requirements of life.
Imagine if tenure, reputation and privilege were all given as rewards

for honesty and guts!
If only. But not.
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • MAR C H 25, 201 2, 9 :07 AM
Perhaps an overly-acute sense of moral outrage lingers in me as a remnant of my Protestant

upbringing.
Anyway, it’s clear you have no plans to out any secretly-mythicist people. And that’s fine. I
take it that you’ve been dealing closely with academics in what Ehrman calls “the relevant
fields” for much of your life. I haven’t attended a university in 20 years, and in that time I
haven’t even attended as many as a dozen academic lectures in person. I don’t know the
people involved personally. I only developed a closer interest in Biblical studies and related
fields in the past two years as a result of the readers’ comments on the Religion section at
Huffington Post. (The comments are usually much more interesting than the articles
themselves.) My education has been mostly autodidactic. I had taught myself Latin earlier,
now I’m working on my Greek and Hebrew and other ancient languages. Why take
anybody’s word about what is in any text, why accept anyone’s spin on a given text, when
you can learn the language and read it yourself?
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • MAR C H 26 , 201 2, 1 1 :51 AM
Richard, you wrote:
“for an analogy[to the silence of academics the historicist/mythicist debate], there are topics I
won’t go near because I don’t want to be sucked down a hole of vast research and debate,
so I declare them either unresolved or I side with the consensus, trusting that the odds are
that will be correct (that doesn’t mean it always is, only that the odds are it is). I decided to
do this for the controversy over dating the Gospels, for example, because I found it fruitless
for what I was doing to delve any further.”
But surely you must see that this analogy is less than perfect. On the one hand, you decided
that it would not be the best use of your personal time and resources to delve into the debate
over the dating of the Gospels, and you publicly announced this and explained that your
comments on this matter were not to be understood as reflecting more than your
understanding of the general scholarly consensus. On the other hand there is a widespread,
systematic suppression of a question, and widespread systematic bullying of any and all who
dare to discuss it, bullying behavior which we would quite rightly condemn in young children.
Biblical studies and theology claim to be disciplines like other academic disciplines, and in
many ways that claim is fully justified, but their behavior concerning this one question does
not measure up. Concerning this one question, academia has not advanced very much in two
centuries.
I’m not the only one who’s used the term “closeted” to describe some academics. Above in
the comments you’ve pointed out how professors who are secretly mythicists may publicly
atteck mythicism to protect themselves. like gays who publicly are homophobic. How much
longer can this closet door remain closed?
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 4 : 0 9
PM
That’s all a valid point.
R E P LY
DAVID MARS H ALL • MARCH 24, 2012, 6 :52 PM
Richard (on Chinese dying and rising gods)
“But dating to when? Not antiquity. Miao Shan didn’t even exist as a deity until the 10th century, long after
Nestorian Christians entered China.”
But you didn’t say antiquity. I was responding to what you actually said.
In any case, the chance that the Religion of Light inspired these ideas is remote. Jing Jiao was not terribly
influential by that time, if it ever was, among Han Chinese.
“And that version does not in fact involve a resurrection (Miao Shan never actually dies in the story; she is
snatched away by a divinity before her murderers can find her).
Actually, in most versions, she does die, descends into hell, and transforms the place as Psyche was said to. And
then she is resurrected.
“We do not hear of the resurrection version until later still. Tai Zong is likewise a mediavel Buddhism-influenced
tale (7th century).”
Probably later. I said Journey to the West, not Tai Zong himself, the historical character.
“Why didn’t it occur to you to check any of this? Do you see how you are defending historicity by acting exactly
like the sloppy mythicists who pay no attention to chronology? Why do you start acting exactly like them the
moment you desperately need to defend the contrary thesis?”
You’re scatting, Richard. I don’t need to check this because I know the facts. Apparently you delayed posting
my comments until you could do a little searching, but didn’t do enough. You should have at least googled
“Journey to the West,” if you didn’t know what I was talking about, when I mentioned Tai Zong.
“(I should also add: and in what respect is either of these examples a son of god or a savior deity?”
Miao Shan is generally identified with Guan Yin, the greatest Chinese “savior deity,” technically a bodhisattva.
She’s everywhere in East Asia.
R E P LY
David Marshall:
“
But you didn’t say antiquity. I was responding to what you actually said.
James, yes I did. I wrote “dying-and-rising gods were a common phenomenon in the region
at the time (in precisely the way these were not anywhere else, e.g. in ancient China)”
(emphasis added). Can you please start reading what I write? (Or stop trying to make post
hoc excuses for your mistakes, whichever is the case here.)
And that is a lame way to avoid the issue, anyway. It should be obviously invalid to argue that
a phenomenon post-dating Christian influence in China represents an independent trend. The
point of my argument is that people don’t just spontaneously come up with dying-and-rising
savior demigods. If you don’t get that point, you need to start thinking harder and reading
more carefully. Because this is getting annoying.
Actually, in most versions, she does die, descends into hell, and transforms the place as
Psyche was said to. And then she is resurrected.
Yeah. And my point is, those changes to the story long post date even the 10th century
original story (which was Buddhist), and thus are even more likely inspired by Christian
competition (as Buddhists started vamping up their myths to match the intriguing ideas that,
after many, many centuries, they heard from Christians).
In short, neither independence, nor the existence of a trend, can be established here. It is
therefore a shit example, and you should never have resorted to it.
Especially since this kind of chronological gaffe is exactly what you say mythicists shouldn’t
do. Yet here you are doing it.
Miao Shan is generally identified with Guan Yin, the greatest Chinese “savior deity,”
technically a bodhisattva.
You are playing semantic games. You do not achieve salvation by worshipping her. She is
therefore not a savior deity in any relevant sense of the term. Nor is she a demigod (the
daughter of God).
Again, such semantic tricks are the very thing you accuse mythicists of. Yet here you are
doing it, too.
You should have at least googled “Journey to the West,” if you didn’t know what I was
talking about, when I mentioned Tai Zong.
I actually knew all about that. I was only talking about the earliest versions of the relevant
tales (Zong’s tour of hell in this case), since that was all that mattered to my point. Again, you
are desperately ignoring what I actually said, and grasping at straws, and fabricating mistakes
I didn’t make, to try and rescue yourself from admitting to having made a boner mistake
that’s just as bad as the worst we get from any mythicist.
Someday, maybe, you’ll learn to admit a mistake, instead of spinning yarns and excuses.
And possibly, on the day after that, you’ll be less certain of Jesus’ historicity.
R E P LY
R US S ELL D OW S ETT • MAR C H 24, 201 2, 9 :37 P M
I have really enjoyed & admired many of

Ehrman’s audio books but felt frustrated
when he asserted the historicity of JC but
Provided no arguments/ evidence to back
Up his claim. Now it appears he has done
just that, can’t wait to read it, I hope it is not
As flawed as his article!
R E P LY
R OBER TO P ER EZ- F R AN C O • MAR C H 25, 201 2, 1 2:04 AM
I have finished reading Dr Ehrman’s book, and I smell at least three or four rats. Thus, I look forward to reading
both your review and Mr Doherty’s review of the book.
In the meantime, a question.
Dr Ehrman seems to have too much riding on Paul’s claim to have met Peter and James (which he goes go great
lenghts to identify as the carnal brother of Jesus).
I remember reading somewhere that Paul may have made up or embellished his contact with such prominent
early apostles as a way to bolster his credentials with early Christians.
My question is: do we know of any non-Pauline reference to a meeting between Paul and Peter and/or James?
R E P LY
No. (Unless you count Acts, of course; or some apocryphal fictions composed in later
centuries.)
R E P LY
BOBWA H LER • MARCH 25, 2012, 12:28 AM
Richard,
Thanks for taking the time to write this. Talk about interpolation! Ehrman literally wrote the book on it. Maybe
“brother *of the Lord*” is an emendation. Ehrman’s “Orthodox Corruption of Scripture” is far more important
as a contribution to the story of Christianity than perhaps all his other works combined. Most of those, as you
know, just rehash each other (“God’s Problem”? He must have had a college tuition bill for a kid due, or
something).
I once sent him an early draft of something I wrote on mystic saviors and he wrote back, “Nothing I don’t
already know about.” This after just telling me he had never heard of the line of living Masters that forms the
backbone of my work.
Have you read Robert Eisenman? What he establishes as the working m.o. in the first century between the
Jamesian Christians at Qumran and the Pauline Jerusalem Church is more important than anything going on in the
mythicist genre as regards what to make of Pauline Christianity, pro or con, real or fake. You don’t even need to
ascertain whether Jesus existed or not at all (I am open on it) to see that Pauline Christianity is a phony teaching
built on Paul’s jealousy of James and Peter’s fame. For that alone, the debate about Christian origins should
center on his work, not Ehrman’s or Couchoud’s or Doherty’s. The easily discovered orthodox corruptions of
scripture in favor of Pauline sacrificial atonement are legion. I suggested to Ehrman that he conduct a survey, for
example, to see how many incidents of removal of evidence for saviors other than Jesus there were from the
New Testament, and he agreed that might be interesting. I have personally found perhaps a few hundred such.
The NT is a POLEMIC, not a record. It argues a dead savior for all time, not a gnostic series of them (the real).
John the Baptist was Jesus’ MASTER, and James, his SUCCESSOR. (Unless Jesus is fictitious, which means
drop him and insert James directly.) NONE of the miracles happened, except perhaps a few healings.Most are
teachings of mysticism, as walking on “water”, for instance. This is meditation, as it occurred in “fourth watch”
(many of the events are at NIGHT, you may notice, because most devotees meditate at night, when it is easiest).
I wrote a book on the mystic Jesus called “Saviors, Beyond Qumran, Nag Hammadi, and the New Testament
Code”. It is available at Amazon, or you can have it absolutely free as a pdf through email. (sahansdal, Yahoo
dot com).
There is so much more to all this than you know, it will blow your ever-lovin’ mind, Richard. Go to RSSB.org
for a list of FORTY FIVE titles written by or about perfect living Masters of the RSSB line in India (Radha
Soami Satsang Beas). Several are line by line exegesis of gospel accounts by a real Master.
No one ever seems to notice that Jesus’ work was strictly limited to REAL TIME salvation of the immediate
contacts in his life (John 6:40, 9:4-5 “sent US” C. Sinaiticus, 12:35-36, 14:6-7, 13:1, 17:11).
R E P LY
bobwahler:
“
(“God’s Problem”? He must have had a college tuition bill for a kid due, or
something).
No, I think there’s a more plausible backstory to that. He was being accused of abandoning
Christianity because of his work in textual criticism, which he repeatedly insisted wasn’t true,
he lost faith because of his struggle with the argument from evil, not his work on the bible. But
evangelical critics wouldn’t let up, so he wrote a book about it for the same reason I wrote
most everything I do: so he could stop answering questions about it and explaining himself
over and over again, and just refer people to the book instead. “Asked and answered” as
they say. I think he talks about this in one of his other works, I can’t recall which (possibly
Jesus Interrupted).
“
Have you read Robert Eisenman?
I’ve even met him. I found him to be a bit of a loony (read my account of himat the
Amherst conference). But that’s just IMO. I also find his published theories to be
poppycock. Sorry. But it’s just as crazy and conspiracy-theory and tea-leaf-reading Da
Vinci code as any mythicist thesis (which makes him an example of someone who seems
even crazier than the worst mythicists yet is treated with respect by Ehrman and the academic
establishment–because he at least plays their game of insisting Jesus existed, just not anything
else mainstream scholars agree with.)
And I don’t hold much merit in theories that require too manyad hoc assumptions (like Paul
being driven by jealousy of Peter and James’s “fame,” for example). That just goes beyond
what we can ever really know. Likewise all the many other things you propose. This is just
not how to argue for mythicism.
R E P LY
MA R C K L • MARCH 25, 2012, 3:38 AM
As an outsider who came to this page out of curiosity, from pharyngula, I have a question about the conventions
of biblical scholarship.
Obviously, some people in this field believe in a literal, physical resurrection of Jesus. For instance, by following
a couple of clicks, I discovered that the McGrews, whom Hoffman considers “respectable” experts on theuse
of Bayesian statistics, have written articles using statistical analyses of ancient texts to “prove” that the
resurrection occurred.
So, in this circus of historical biblical studies, do “respectable” scholars who believe the supernatural stories from
the NT come to conferences in clown suits, and do they submit manuscripts full of CAPITAL LETTERS and
!!!!!, or do they pretend to have a serious, fact-based approach to the questions of NT studies?
R E P LY
Or to put it another way: why does Ehrman treat those guys (who believe in literal
resurrections) more respectably, but not mythicists?
R E P LY
JA MES F . MC GR A TH • MARCH 25, 2012, 4:05 PM
I have no idea who the McGrews are. Why not actually read some works of New Testament
scholarship written by mainstream scholars, rather than use examples of people who are
doing apologetics for their faith rather than (or at least in addition to) historical study?
R E P LY
PM
Although I quite agree with James, I have to remind him that “mainstream
scholars” include a lot of people doing apologetics for their faith
(Bauckham, Evans, Davis, Boyd, Eddy, Wright, Brown, etc., etc.). Do
we dismiss all their work as crank? If not, then why should we behave
that way toward equally qualified and competent mythicists? (Whereas if
we should dismiss all their work, why? Just because they have crazy
fundamentalist views and use their scholarship to defend them?)
I realize this doesn’t apply to the McGrews, who have no competence in

our field (and make abundant factual errors in their treatment of it). But
the McGrews aren’t the only ones Marcki could have mentioned.
R E P LY
MA R C K L • MARCH 25, 2012, 6 :16 PM
The relevance of the McGrews is that Hoffman, whom I infer IS a mainstream historian,
considers them respectable, but not Carrier.
R E P LY
AM
If that is all you meant, then you should know that many of us think
Hoffmann is a nutter (see my discussion in my post and subsequent
comments here). So his opinion doesn’t carry much weight with his peers
anymore, nor is it reflective of the field.
R E P LY
JAMES F . MC GR ATH • MAR C H 26 , 201 2, 8 :07 AM
I suppose I would distinguish between someone who occasionally or even frequently allows
their presuppositions to sway their judgment, but on the whole uses mainstream academic
methods, and someone who does not in fact use scholarly methods or does so only when it
suits them.
Stephen Jay Gould apparently allowed his (in my view admirable) opposition to
racism to skew his evaluation of some data. That doesn’t make him a crank, in my view,
it makes him human and thus fallible, like the rest of us.
I wrote a blog post recently in which I suggested that “scholars” and “apologists”
represent poles on a spectrum rather than absolute categories. I’d be interested to
know whether you think that’s on the right track.
R E P LY
R I C H A R D C A R R I E R • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 1 : 2 2 P M
Insofar as you mean everyone can err (no matter their qualifications and
commitments), I fully agree. I myself have. And I seek to correct myself
when I do, as we all should. Insofar as you mean apologists and scholars
have different but equally valid methodologies, then I don’t agree (but I
don’t think that’s what you meant anyway). Your point in the bottom link
was hard for me to fathom.
I would frame it differently: the correct position is to commit yourself to

error-correcting methodologies, which entails committing yourself to
finding out what methods those are (and that includes studying all the ways
people, and thus we, can err, and how to detect it when it happens, even
in our own work). The more one satisfies that condition truthfully, the
better. The matter of different perspectives or dogs in races and all that
simply doesn’t matter. Any error that could arise by being in any particular
position or committing to any particular theory, will always be found out
eventually if you employ error-correcting methods. You will be self-
critical, responsive to criticism, and able to detect valid criticism, and you
will aim to test your theories in the arena of debate, and revise them as
you learn.
That is what we should all aim for, whether scholar or apologist or

anywhere in between.
R E P LY
ELLE • MAR C H 25, 201 2, 7:35 AM
@Richard Carrier
“This may be a semantic fail. That Jews did not call demons and angels gods is mere semantics; they were still
cosmic beings with supernatural powers, and not humans. Likewise, Jesus was a preexistent heavenly being
given by God all the supernatural powers of God (Philippians 2:6-8; 1 Cor. 8:6, 15:24-28; 2 Cor. 4:4), and it’s
clear all Christians regarded him as “the firstborn son of God in heaven” who communicates to us by mystical
means. By any actual sense of the word, that’s a god.”
I think Ehrman is saying that Mark and Matthew do consider Jesus as a supernatural being (obviously above the
human level, but subject to God), while only John thinks of Jesus as God himself (as he states clearly at the very
beginning of his gospel)
Take a look at these quotes from an interview:
“To illustrated the differences between the Gospels, Erhman offers opposing depictions of Jesus talking about
himself. In the Book of John, Jesus talks about himself and proclaims who he is, saying “I am the bread of life.”
Whereas in Mark, Jesus teaches principally about the coming kingdom and hardly ever talks mentions himself
directly. These differences offer clues into the perspectives of the authors, and the eras in which they wrote their
respective Gospels, according to Erhman.”
“In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is not interested in teaching about himself. But when you read John’s gospel, that’s
virtually the only thing Jesus talks about is who he is, what his identity is, where he came from,” says Erhman.
“This is completely unlike anything that you find in Mark or in Matthew and Luke. And historically, it creates all
sorts of problems because if the historical Jesus actually went around saying that he was God, it’s very hard to
believe that Matthew, Mark and Luke left out that part. You know, as if that part wasn’t important to mention
— but in fact, they don’t mention it. And so this view of the divinity of Jesus on his own lips is found only in our
latest gospel, the Gospel of John.”
Also:
“But if Matthew and John were both written by earthly disciples of Jesus, why are they so very different, on all
sorts of levels? Why do they contain so many contradictions? Why do they have such fundamentally different
views of who Jesus was? In Matthew, Jesus comes into being when he is conceived, or born, of a virgin; in
John, Jesus is the incarnate Word of God who was with God in the beginning and through whom the universe
was made. In Matthew, there is not a word about Jesus being God; in John, that’s precisely who he is. In
Matthew, Jesus teaches about the coming kingdom of God and almost never about himself (and never that he is
divine); in John, Jesus teaches almost exclusively about himself, especially his divinity. In Matthew, Jesus refuses
to perform miracles in order to prove his identity; in John, that is practically the only reason he does miracles.”
(Jesus, Interrupted, Chapter 4)
The statement “In Matthew, Jesus teaches about the coming kingdom of God and almost never about himself
(and never that he is divine)” may be debatable, but given the context I believe he means that the author didn’t
think of Jesus as God himself in the way John does (which seems to essentially be a prefiguration of the Trinity).
What do you think?
R E P LY
Elle:
“
I think Ehrman is saying that Mark and Matthew do consider Jesus as a
supernatural being (obviously above the human level, but subject to God),
while only John thinks of Jesus as God himself (as he states clearly at the
very beginning of his gospel)
Yes, quite so: John’s theology is a highly developed one of much later Christians, not that of
Paul’s generation.
But how does this distinction matter for the mythicism debate?
R E P LY
H U SKY 5 4 • MAR C H 25, 201 2, 2:33 P M
Regarding Thomas L. Thompson, you said that my comments are not common opinion.They actually are – and
regarding the nature of the scholarship within the field of Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East, you’re
pontificating OUTSIDE of your field.You’re not trained in Semitic, and really have very little ability to critique
scholarship on the subject. (Note, furthermore, your CV, where you list the languages in which you are trained
as German, French, Latin, and Greek.I see no Semitic languages listed there. So, how about you stay in your
own field, big guy.) Thompson is a part of the larger Sheffield/Copenhagen school which HAS argued what I
stated in my original post. You display your own ignorance on the issue when you state that Tel Dan is in
Hebrew (“…he has only made perfectly reasonable statements about the Hebrew language…and explains
reasons why we can’t be excessively certain about the meaning…”). Tel Dan is Old Aramaic, and the
construction /bytdwd/ is not difficult to understand – or at least, for those of us actually trained in those
languages, with an ability to actually critique the scholarship. So – yes, notorious is a better descriptor of
Thompson than prestigious.
And again, if you really knew the scholarship in the field, then you’d know that the mythical nature of much, if not
all, of what happens in Genesis has been around for years, thanks to the work of people such as Noth, Alt,
Gunkel, etc.
Regarding Philo as a Greek speaker living under Roman Rule – it is absolutely relevant.Philo is not a Roman
source. That fact is not up for debate. Philo not only was not Roman, but wrote in Greek. By your logic, Paul –
as a Roman citizen – would be considered a Roman source, which is something that I’m sure you wouldn’t
consider kosher. Your point in bringing Philo up was to try and prove Ehrman to be incorrect in his statement
that there are no Roman sources attesting Pilate. Your attempt to make Philo a Roman source is a feeble attempt
at countering that claim. “Roman source” implies Latin as the source language, most likely originating from some
kind of Roman oversight – not from a Jew writing in Greek living in Alexandria. So yes, it’s very relevant.
Josephus was also a JEW, writing JEWISH history, writing in Greek. Again, not a Roman source.
And I just love the assumptions you make – literally based on zero evidence – concerning the Pilate stone and
how Pilate “no doubt” collated the inscription himself. This goes far beyond the available evidence as you try to
force your point.
Regarding your comment “Then you are not a trained Classicist. Since you clearly don’t know what you are
talking about.” >> I have consulted real classicists – who actually have been able to procure tenure track
positions and are not just regurgitating other people’s scholarship as popular literature – who vehemently
disagree with you. But it’s a nice way for you to just write off the evidence contrary to your point.
Regarding how you use the term “scripture” to bias your argument – apparently you’ve already forgotten what
you wrote:
You state: “All it says is that scripture says he died, was buried, and was resurrected (it notably does not say
anyone witnessed this, or when it happened or by whom, e.g. it does not say Jesus was crucified by Pontius
Pilate, a key component of later creeds) and only then this Jesus appeared to some people (in a fashion I know
Ehrman himself agrees is not relevant to this debate: because a historical Jesus did not “appear” after his death,
but a cosmic, revelatory Jesus, a product of the apostles’ imagination)…The fact that Jesus is not said to have
appeared or taught or done anything at all before he died is not something to just brush under the rug. Nor also
the fact that the only source being given for his death and burial in this creed is scripture, whereas the source for
his “subsequent” (post-mortem) ministry is given as seeing him, and that only in “revelations” (Galatians 1:11-12,
which then must be the same as all the others: 1 Cor. 15:5-8)…In other words, a messiah whose
accomplishments one could only “feel in one’s heart” (or see by revelation, as the Corinthian creed declares; or
discover in scripture, as that same creed again declares, as well as Romans 16:25-26).”
Your response to my point about the Hebrew ‫ משיח‬leaves much to be desired. As someone who is clearly not
trained in Dead Sea Scrolls studies, I can’t expect you to really be able to effectively parse out this data, so
allow me to lay it out for you. Given the fact that the scrolls were most likely composed at Qumran, and given
the fact that one must take into consideration the full corpus of Pesharim taken from Qumran when attempting to
exegete them – it should be fairly easy to see (when one takes into consideration the broader use of the term
‫ משיח‬at Qumran) that texts such as Pesher Habakkuk are also necessary when attempting to analyze these data.
Had you any understanding of some of the prevalent theories concerning the situation of the Qumran community,
and how the Hebrew ‫ כרת‬was used both in Daniel and in the DSS, then you would know that they used it
primarily to refer to being cut off – that is, excluded from the religious community. Regardless, there is nothing in
11Q13 that suggests your reading of it (not that you can actually read it in its original language, by the way – and
I might also note how fragmentary the text in question is, another important fact that you failed to mention). In
fact, you explicitly stated: “(Daniel 9:26 says a messiah will die, and the pre-Christian Melchizedek scroll
explicitly identifies this passage as being about the messiah, or at least a messiah who would cleanse the world of
sin)” – none of which is actually true. I’ll go ahead and quote 11Q13 for you here:
11Q13 2:18 And “the messenger” is the Anointed of the Spir[it,] of whom Dan[iel] spoke, [“After the sixty-two
weeks, an Anointed One shall be cut off ” (Dan. 9:26). The “messenger who brings]
11Q13 2:19 good news, who announ[ces salvation”] is the one of whom it is wri[tt]en, [“to proclaim the year of
the Lord’s favor, the day of vengeance of our God;]
11Q13 2:20 to comfo[rt all who mourn” (Isaiah 61:2). This scripture’s interpretation:] he is to inst[r]uct them
about all the periods of history for eter[nity … and in the statutes of ]
11Q13 2:21 [the] truth. […]
11Q13 2:22 [… dominion] that passes from Belial and ret[urns to the Sons of Light …]
11Q13 2:23 […] by the judgment of God, just as it is written concerning him, [“who says to Zi]on ‘Your divine
being reigns’ ” (Isaiah 52:7). [“Zi]on” is
11Q13 2:24 [the congregation of all the sons of righteousness, who] uphold the covenant and turn from walking
[in the way] of the people. “Your di[vi]ne being” is
11Q13 2:25 [Melchizedek, who will del]iv[er them from the po]wer of Belial. Concerning what Scripture says,
“Then you shall have the trumpet [sounded loud in] all the land [of …” (Leviticus 25:9, modified).]
I’m sure you’ll notice that the citation of Dan 9:26 is in brackets – meaning that it’s being reconstructed here. So,
the reference you seek isn’t even actually attested in the scroll due to a big fat lacunae. And, that’s not even to
mention the fact that 11Q13 does not reference a suffering/saving messianic figure. You’re eisegeting the
Hebrew ‫ כרת‬either way.
Furthermore, there’s no such thing as a “different set of Dead Sea Scrolls.”While 11Q13 and (your example)
4Q521 were found in different caves, they are of the same corpus.
You’re not a Scrolls scholar. You’re not a Semitist. You’re not really even that much of a Classicist. It’s no
wonder you’re an author of popular fiction.
R E P LY
R I C H A R D C A R R I E R • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 1 2 : 0 7 P M
Husky54:
I never made any claims to being a Semitic scholar. I spoke only of the logic of arguments
(which has nothing to do with expertise in any language) and of what other experts say who
are Semitic scholars. You keep ignoring this and making irrelevant attacks on my expertise.
Which just makes you look like an ass.
Your attempt to make the term “Roman” relevant to anything Ehrman actually argued is even
more lame and ridiculous than McGrath’s, and betrays your lack of objectivity or
seriousness.
You clearly don’t know that a dedicatory inscription on a monument funded by Pilate himself
(the inscription is a dedication from PIlate to Tiberius) would not have gone forward without
Pilate’s own proofing of the text to be carved (and Pilate would have seen the carved text on
a near daily basis). For you to attempt to argue the contrary simply betrays your lack of
understanding of the evidence and the ancient world, and your complete lack of concern for
even wanting to.
You evidently don’t understand that Paul himself said the death, burial, and resurrection of
Jesus were learned from scripture (the OT). You seem to be implying I said this. No, Paul
said this.
Your attempt to re-translate (what, Daniel?) on the use of “cut off” is not only lame (like a
fundamentalist, you dismiss context as if it didn’t matter to how a word is translated), it
contradicts all established scholarship on this passage, and obvious evidence (like that the
Septuagint clearly indicates killing is meant, and ancient Jews knew their Hebrew and
Aramaic better than you do). Indeed, the Melchizedek scroll links the Daniel passage to the
Isaiah passage in which the death of the person described is entirely explicit, up to and
including a declaration of his burial.
Your attempt, likewise, to challenge all published scholarship on this scroll, by suggesting
the reconstruction is incorrect, is likewise ridiculous. Every expert concludes there is no other
passage that can complete the fragment except one of the two Christ verses in Daniel 9 (and
it doesn’t matter which one it is, since both are adjacent verses constituting the same passage
and speaking of the same person). (It is only further obvious by the context: that passage
speaks of a death ending sin, as does the Isaiah passage it is immediately linked with in the
scroll, and the Melchizedek scroll fragment itself begins by talking about a final atoning for sin
on a specific day the calculation of which in the scroll matches the numbers calculated in that
same passage of Daniel.)
You also evidently don’t know that the verse in Isaiah linked to Melchizedek in “11Q13
2:19-20” is the beginning of the suffering servant passage.
And your attempt to hide (with completely impertinent semantics) your mistake in thinking the
Melchizedek scroll contains a reference to the two messiahs (Davidic and priestly), when in
fact that’s in different scrolls (exactly what I actually said), simply proves to me you are
simply a jackass who isn’t at all interested in honest debate on this issue.
R E P LY
Carrier:
“
the Melchizedek scroll fragment itself begins by talking about a final atoning
for sin
The scroll fragment begins with this:
“
(…) And concerning what Scripture says, “In this year of Jubilee you shall
return, everyone f you, to your property” (Lev. 25;13) And what is also
written; “And this is the manner of the remission; every creditor shall remit
the claim that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it of a neighbor who is
a member of the community, because God’s remission has been proclaimed”
(Deut.15;2) the interpretation is that it applies to the Last Days and concerns
the captives, just as Isaiah said: “To proclaim the Jubilee to the captives”
(Isa. 61;1) (…) just as (…) and from the inheritance of Melchizedek, for (…
Melchizedek) , who will return them to what is rightfully theirs. He will
proclaim to them the Jubilee, thereby releasing them from the debt of all their
sins. He shall proclaim this decree in the first week of the jubilee period that
follows nine jubilee periods.
Then the “Day of Atonement” shallfollow after the tenth jubilee period,
when he shall atone for all the Sons of Light, and the people who are
predestined to Melchizedek. (…) upon them (…) For this is the time decreed
for the “Year of Melchizedek`s favor”, and by his might he will judge God’s
holy ones and so establish a righteous kingdom, as it is written about him in
the Songs of David ; “A godlike being has taken his place in the council of
God; in the midst of divine beings he holds judgement”
While there is definitely an atonement for sin, there’s no hint of Melchizedek dying in order to
accomplish it. Heck, at this point, we don’t have any dying at all at this point.
Carrier:
“
“
It is only further obvious by the context: that passage speaks of a death
ending sin,
You mean this passage?:
“
(The …) is that whi(ch …all) the divine beings. The visitation is the Day of
Salvation that He has decreed through Isaiah the prophet concerning all the
captives, inasmuch as Scripture says, “How beautiful upon the mountains are
the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who
announces salvation, who says to Zion “Your divine being reigns”.” (Isa.
52;7) This scriptures interpretation : “the mountains” are the prophets, they
who were sent to proclaim God’s truth and to prophesy to all Israel. “The
messengers” is the Anointed of the spirit, of whom Daniel spoke; “After the
sixty-two weeks, an Anointed shall be cut off” (Dan. 9;26) The “messenger
who brings good news, who announces Salvation” is the one of whom it is
written; “to proclaim the year of the LORD`s favor, the day of the vengeance
of our God; to comfort all who mourn” (Isa. 61;2)
Apparently, the messengers who claim that “Your divine being reigns” are being cut off, but
there’s no indication here that their deaths somehow end sin. There’s an atonement
mentioned earlier, and deaths mentioned later, but nothing saying that these deaths atone for
sin. Indeed, this passage doesn’t seem to identify the “anointed” in Daniel with anyone that
we’d recognize as acting as the Anointed One, the Messiah. If anyone is being messianic
here, it’s Melchizedek, who is proclaiming Jubilee and delivering from the power of Belial.
Yet the anointed in the verse from Daniel are only identified with the messengers proclaiming
the reign of Melchizedek, which the scroll calls a “diving being.”
“
on a specific day the calculation of which in the scroll matches the numbers
calculated in that same passage of Daniel.
The scroll itself does not appear to be making that kind of numerical argument.
R E P LY
PM
J. J. Ramsey:
“
Carrier: the Melchizedek scroll fragment itself begins by
talking about a final atoning for sin
Ramsey: While there is definitely an atonement for sin,
there’s no hint of Melchizedek dying in order to accomplish
it. Heck, at this point, we don’t have any dying at all at this
point.
The “hint” is when it says this Melchizedek is the Christ who dies in Daniel
9 to end sin and the servant who dies in Isaiah 53 to atone for sin. It’s
clever of you to ignore that, and just quote a different section of the scroll
and go “Whuh? I dun see nuttin.”
(I could also point out that the “lot of Melchizedek” and “lot of Belial” [the
web translation renders this loosely as “predestined,” disguising the actual
meaning] are also references to the Yom Kippur atonement lottery, in
which both are killed, sacrificed, one to atone for sin, the other to carry
the sin; Also, the scroll says the day of atonement will occur after a period
of time essentially identical to that stated as being when the Christ will die
in Daniel 9; and so on; add all that to the fact that the scroll says
Mechizedek “will atone for all the sins” at that designated time, and there
really is no other meaning to take from this scroll.)
“
Apparently, the messengers who claim that “Your divine
being reigns” are being cut off, but there’s no indication
here that their deaths somehow end sin.
That messenger goes on to be killed (53:8-9) and thereby atones for all
Israel’s sins (53:8-12). The Christ who dies in Daniel also ends sin (9:24).
That is why the scroll says that this messenger is the Christ who dies in
Daniel 9.
The remaining context makes clear that Mechizedek is meant (although

not that it matters, since either way we still have a Christ dying to atone
for all sins on a Great Day of Atonement predicted to occur in a specific
year in Daniel that clearly was believed not yet to have come in this scroll,
and that’s all that matters for my point against Ehrman.)
“
The scroll itself does not appear to be making that kind of
numerical argument.
Sigh. I feel like I’m teaching kindergarten.
The scroll says “He shall proclaim this decree in the first week of the
jubilee period that follows nine jubilee periods. Then the Day of
Atonement shall follow after the tenth jubilee period.” A Jubilee is 49
years. Ten Jubilees is 490 years. Daniel 9:24 says the end of sin will come
in 70 x 7 years. Gee. Let’s see. What do you think 70 x 7 equals? Wait. I
want you to guess. Can’t guess? Scratching your head? Get a calculator.
I’ll wait. Got it yet? Right. 490 years.
R E P LY
Wait a minute …
I wrote (in a post in moderation as of this writing),
“
Apparently, the messengers who claim that “Your divine being reigns” are
being cut off
But that’s assuming that the text is actually quoting the part about being cut off. Yet the
extant text doesn’t have that. You write, “Every expert concludes there is no other passage
that can complete the fragment except one of the two Christ verses in Daniel 9,” but all that
means is that some part within Daniel 9:25-26 is being quoted, and we don’t know which
part. And, no it’s not the least bit clear that a “death ending sin” is discussed here. There is
atonement, certainly, but in the absence of an actual quote of Daniel 9:26, no indication that
anyone is about to die, except perhaps for the wicked. Come to think of it, there is enough
counting of weeks in the extant text that Daniel might be quoted just for a numerological
purpose after all. Another translation fills in the gap by quoting from Daniel 9:25 rather than
9:26: “Until an anointed, a prince, it is seven weeks.” To the extent that the scroll has much of
a flow at all, that particular quote flows with the rest of the text at least as well as Daniel 9:26.
I have to wonder why you linked to a translation that doesn’t clearly mark which parts are
actually translations of the extant text and which parts are attempted reconstruction to fill in
the gaps.
R E P LY
PM
It doesn’t matter which part is being referenced (and I already referred to

the scholarly disagreement about which it was, so don’t act like this is a
surprise). It’s the same Christ spoken of in both. Thus when the scroll
says this is that Christ, it means the whole narrative about that Christ is
being applied, not some isolated verse. As to why I linked to that online
version, that’s because it was the only one I knew that was online and
therefore available to anyone. Don’t worry, I have scholarly commentary
on it on my desk with the complete mark up and notes.
R E P LY
J. J. R A MSEY • MAR C H 29 , 2012, 4:28 AM
“
The “hint” is when it says this Melchizedek is the Christ who dies in Daniel 9
to end sin …
As I pointed out in a later post, the scroll doesn’t say that Melchizedek is the Christ who dies
in Daniel 9. That’s you filling in the gap with your own ideas. All we know from the scroll
itself is that it says “And the messenger is [the ano]inted of the spirit about whom Dan[iel]
spoke,” and then there is a lacuna. There are only a couple verses from Daniel that would fit,
but we don’t know what the author quote, and given that he quotes Scripture way out of
context, there’s no reason to assume that he would quote the part about someone being “cut
off.” Furthermore, there’s no indication, either in Daniel or the scroll of an anointed one dying
to end sin. That too is you filling in the gap with your own ideas.
“
“
… and the servant who dies in Isaiah 53 to atone for sin.
There’s no indication of an allusion to the suffering servant passage itself. Verses Isaiah 52:7
and 61:2-3 are quoted out of context, and there’s no indication that the quote from verse
52:7 is supposed to be an allusion to later verses in Isaiah 53.
“
(I could also point out that the “lot of Melchizedek” and “lot of Belial” [the
web translation renders this loosely as “predestined,” disguising the actual
meaning] are also references to the Yom Kippur atonement lottery, in which
both are killed, sacrificed
And I could also point out that on Yom Kippur, the lottery selected goats on behalf of “the
Lord” (apparently identified here with Melchizedek) and one for Azazel (apparently identified
with Belial). There’s no indication of humans dying here, let alone anointed ones.
“
Sigh. I feel like I’m teaching kindergarten.
Yeah, as I pointed out in my later post, there does seem to be some numerology after all.
“
It doesn’t matter which part is being referenced (and I already referred to the
scholarly disagreement about which it was, so don’t act like this is a
surprise). It’s the same Christ spoken of in both.
This is Daniel 9:25-26 (NRSV):
“
Know therefore and understand: from the time that the word went out to
restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an anointed prince, there shall
be seven weeks; and for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with streets
and moat, but in a troubled time. After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one
shall be cut off and shall have nothing, and the troops of the prince who is to
come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood,
and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed.
It’s not clear at all that the “anointed prince” and the later “anointed one” are one and the
same. They are separated by sixty-two “weeks,” which appear to really be years. Also, the
expert opinion seems to be that the “anointed prince” was originally referring to either
Zerubbabel or high priest Joshua, and the later “anointed one” is referring to the high priest
Onias III.
“
… not some isolated verse.
The scroll repeatedly jumps around the Hebrew Scriptures quoting verses out of context to
shoehorn Melchizedek into them. Use of isolated verses is very much what we see.
“
As to why I linked to that online version, that’s because it was the only one I
knew that was online and therefore available to anyone.
Yet I found other, better, less misleading ones, thanks to, you know, Googling. If you are
going to make an argument that depends on you filling in the gaps in a certain way, you ought
to be upfront about it.
R E P LY
AM
J. J. Ramsey:
“
“
As I pointed out in a later post, the scroll doesn’t say that
Melchizedek is the Christ who dies in Daniel 9.
And as I said, the contextual evidence shows that indeed it does, and that
even if it doesn’t, it still says there is a dying Christ and that he will (per
Isaiah) atone for the sins of Israel on the Great Day of Atonement that will
occur at the end of the 490 year period.
“
There are only a couple verses from Daniel that would fit,
but we don’t know what the author quote…
Again, you don’t seem to understand. It does not matter what the
author quoted. What the scroll says is that the Christ spoken of in Daniel
9 is the “messenger” spoken of in Isaiah 52-53 and the one who will be
“the visitation” on “the Day of Salvation” at the end of the 490 days. The
rest follows from seeing what is said in those passages. Pesherim do not
function by quoting the entire passages they refer to. They only quote one
line or phrase to indicate to the reader where to go to read the rest. When
we do that, it becomes clear why this author was linking them and what he
was saying by doing so.
“
Furthermore, there’s no indication, either in Daniel or the
scroll of an anointed one dying to end sin. That too is you
filling in the gap with your own ideas.
Again, you are not paying attention.
Daniel says an end will be made of sin on that day (9:24: “seventy sevens
are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to
put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting
righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy
Place”), all of which is triggered at the beginning of the last seven-year
period when the Christ dies (9:26).
The scroll then says this Christ is the same figure as the one who dies to
atone for the sins of Israel in Isaiah 52-53.
Thus, the scroll is connecting Daniel’s Christ’s death with the atonement,
by using Isaiah to interpret Daniel.
That is what the pesher says. It’s not my own idea. I’m just saying what
the pesher itself says.
“
Verses Isaiah 52:7 and 61:2-3 are quoted out of context,
and there’s no indication that the quote from verse 52:7 is
supposed to be an allusion to later verses in Isaiah 53.
Again, pesharim do not “quote out of context.” They quote to indicate

context. Since they didn’t have verse numbers and numerical citation
methods like we do, they operated like this: they will say “the guy talked
about where it says this, is the same guy talked about where it says this,”
in each case giving just enough of a quotation that a reader can find the
passage referred to, and then read the entire section there.
And Isaiah 53 is a continuation of Isaiah 52: they are the same passage
(they did not divide passages by numbers; that is our doing).
“
And I could also point out that on Yom Kippur, the lottery
selected goats on behalf of “the Lord” (apparently
identified here with Melchizedek) and one for Azazel
(apparently identified with Belial). There’s no indication of
humans dying here, let alone anointed ones.
Yes, in the Yom Kippur ceremony, animals die as substitutes for humans
(that was the whole point of the Isaac episode). But the scroll is implying
humans will be substituted back for the animals: Belial will die, and
Melchizedek will die, the latter thereby atoning for sin. Now, as I also
said, it is possible the scroll’s author means Melchizedek will arrange the
sacrifice, but in that case the sacrifice he arranges is that of the Christ in
Daniel 9, who is the Servant in Isaiah 52-53. The scroll is very explicit
about this. It’s just that this doesn’t make as much sense of all that the
scroll says (e.g. Melchizedek is not Yahweh, so “lot of Melchizedek”
can’t mean Melchizedek is Yahweh).
“
It’s not clear at all that the “anointed prince” and the later
“anointed one” are one and the same.
Really? That’s what you’re going with? That’s how desperate you are to
deny the obvious, that you are now acting like a Christian fundamentalist
and making the Bible say exactly the opposite of what it obviously says
and what everyone in history has until now understood it to say? That
pretty much shows which of us is correct here. That you have to stoop to
that…
By contrast, we have Daniel 9 being linked to Isaiah 52-53, in each of

which there is a person who dies and an end of sin by atonement. The
scroll’s author would not have linked the two passages but for that
commonality. Add to that that the scroll says the end of sin and atonement
will occur at the same time Daniel does (after 490 years), and there really
is no way your desperate re-interpretation can possibly be correct.
“
Yet I found other, better, less misleading ones, thanks to,
you know, Googling. If you are going to make an argument
that depends on you filling in the gaps in a certain way, you
ought to be upfront about it.
I was (I actually stated every ambiguity relevant here). You are the one
making issues out of the text that aren’t relevant.
R E P LY
J. J. R A MSEY • MAR C H 29 , 2012, 5:18 P M
You claim that pesher does not quote out of context, even though the way the quoted
passages are linked to Melchizedek makes no sense when context is taken into account.
You say I’m like a fundamentalist because I find it credible that two anointed ones spaced
over sixty years apart are not the same person and then point to a common critical
interpretation to bolster my case.
I suppose that I could put up another long response, going point-by-point, but it’s getting
tiring, and you are already putting up red flags.
R E P LY
J. J. Ramsey:
“
You claim that pesher does not quote out of context, even
though the way the quoted passages are linked to
Melchizedek makes no sense when context is taken into
account.
To the contrary, they make perfect sense.
You are just being stubborn and refusing to listen.
“
You say I’m like a fundamentalist because I find it credible
that two anointed ones spaced over sixty years apart are
not the same person and then point to a common critical
interpretation to bolster my case.
Now I have no idea what you are talking about. What do you mean by
“two anointed ones spaced over sixty years apart”? When did that come
up here? And you have yet to cite a single scholar as supporting anything
you have argued against me, so what you mean by “a common critical
interpretation” remains mysterious.
R E P LY
J. J. R A MSEY • AP R IL 4, 2012, 3:32 P M
“
“
What do you mean by “two anointed ones spaced over sixty years apart”?
Sorry, that should be 60 x 7 seven years apart, or to be precise 62 x 7 years apart. My bad.
I was a bit slow to figure out what exactly the “weeks” meant.
“
When did that come up here?
Good grief! It’s in my quote of Daniel 9:25-26, NRSV translation. The JPS translations
render the text in a similar fashion. It’s the translations that try to render Daniel 9 as messianic
(e.g. the NIV) that have only one Messiah after 69 “weeks,” rather than an anointed prince
after seven “weeks” and an anointed one 62 “weeks” after that.
“
And you have yet to cite a single scholar as supporting anything you have
argued against me, so what you mean by “a common critical interpretation”
remains mysterious.
Ehrman himself got it from Louis Hartman. As for me, I first found it in a more humble source:
a HarperCollins Study Bible, and as far as I can tell, Hartman is not one of its contributors.
Judging, too, from the JPS translations, that critical interpretation is indeed common.
Speaking of red flags, I found this in your blog post on the “Dying Messiah”:
“
Already we have two OT passages that explicitly predict the humiliation and
death of the messiah (Daniel 9 and Psalms 89)
I looked up Psalms 89. The gist of it can be summarized as, “Hey God, you’re great and
mighty and all, but do you remember that covenant you made with David? The one where he
was supposed to proper and have his royal line last forever? Now you’re letting him get
eaten alive! He’s dying out here! What’s up with that?” (And just to avoid the ambiguity, I
mean “eaten alive” figuratively.)
And this, also from the Dying Messiah post:
“
The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, which was originally composed in the
1st century A.D., actually inserts “messiah” right in Isaiah 52:13 (“Behold,
my servant, the messiah…”), thus confirming this “servant” was already
being interpreted as the messiah by Jews decades before Christianity began.
It’s interesting to compare the original Suffering Servant passage with the paraphrase from
the Targum:
52:13, NRSV: See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be
very high.
52:13, Targum: Behold, my servant the Messiah shall prosper, He shall be exalted and
extolled, and He shall be very strong.
So far, so good for you. I’ll also note that the author of the translation capitalizes “He” when
the pronoun refers to the Messiah, not just when it refers to God.
53:3, NRSV: He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted
with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held
him of no account
53:3, Targum: His visage shall not be the visage of a common person, neither his fear that of a
plebian; but a holy brightness shall be His brightness, that every one who seeth Him shall
contemplate Him.
53:4, NRSV: Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted
him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
53:4, Targum: Although He shall be in contempt; yet He shall cut off the glory of all the
wicked, they shall be weak and wretched. Lo, we are in contempt and not esteemed, as a
man of pain and appointed to sickness, and as if He had removed the face of His Shekinah
from us.
53:5, NRSV: But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon
him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
53:5, Targum: Therefore He shall pray for our sins, and our iniquities for his sake shall be
forgiven us; for we are considered crushed, smitten of the Lord, and afficted.
The Targum’s take on Isaiah 53 is almost unrecognizable in some places. Also, the Messiah
doesn’t seem to be doing any suffering here. The closest thing I see to that, and the one thing
I might expect you to jump on, is this passage, which does not appear to correspond with a
passage in Isaiah, FWIW: “He shall build the house of the sanctuary, which has been
profaned on account of our sins; He was delivered over on account of our iniquities, and
through His doctrine peace shall be upon us, and through the teaching of His words our sins
shall be forgiven us.
The phrase “delivered over” in another context might refer to being delivered over to
enemies, but that doesn’t seem to mean that here. Still, you can cling to that straw if you
want. If anything, though, this Targum looks more like support for Ehrman’s position that the
Messiah was expected to triumph, rather than suffer or die for sin.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 4, 2012, 6 :11 PM
J. J. Ramsey:
“
Sorry, that should be 60 x 7 seven years apart, or to be
precise 62 x 7 years apart. My bad. I was a bit slow to
figure out what exactly the “weeks” meant.
That doesn’t help. What “two anointed ones” are you talking about that
are hundreds of years apart?
“
that try to render Daniel 9 as messianic (e.g. the NIV) that
have only one Messiah after 69 “weeks,” rather than an
anointed prince after seven “weeks” and an anointed one
62 “weeks” after that.
I don’t know who you are reading. Try the leading expert: Lacocque.
The text says “there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks,” not
“seven weeks.” The same anointed one is meant in both verses. This is
obvious in the LXX. And again, the Jews who translated the LXX knew
Hebrew better than you do (and better than the translators of the RSV,
apparently, which I suppose is your source; try the ASV, KJV, NIV, and
the Vulgate…Jerome being yet another person who knew Hebrew better
than you do). This is obvious from the original intended meaning (this was
supposed to be Onias III, not two different guys).
“
Ehrman himself got it from Louis Hartman.
Got what from Hartman?
“
I looked up Psalms 89. The gist of it can be summarized as,
“Hey God, you’re great and mighty and all, but do you
remember that covenant you made with David? The one
where he was supposed to proper and have his royal line
last forever? Now you’re letting him get eaten alive! He’s
dying out here! What’s up with that?” (And just to avoid
the ambiguity, I mean “eaten alive” figuratively.)
Verse 44 is not figurative: it says the Christ’s days are cut short.
“
It’s interesting to compare the original Suffering Servant
passage with the paraphrase from the Targum
That was already done in the comments. I didn’t claim the Targum
passage supported the dying messiah theme, but that it supported a
variant reading of this passage that recognized it as about the Christ. In
other words, it is evidence that some pre-Christian Jews were already
seeing this as a messianic passage. It thus corroborates what we see in the
Melchizedek pesher, which does not cite this Targum, but the original
Biblical text; yet like the Targum, it too clearly recognizes it as messianic.
R E P LY
J. J. R A MSEY • AP R IL 5, 2012, 4:25 AM
“
“
The text says “there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks,” …
That’s one reading. Another, seen above in my quote of the NRSV translation of Daniel
9:25-26 and in a JPS translation, is that “there shall be seven weeks” is the end of one
sentence, and “and sixty-two weeks” begins another. If you simply didn’t not agree with the
reading, that would be one thing, but you act as if you never even heard of it, despite it being
fairly common.
“
Verse 44 is not figurative: it says the Christ’s days are cut short.
I thought that you’d misinterpret “eaten alive” by taking my colloquialism literally and
complaining that there’s nothing in Psalm 89 about someone being eaten while still alive. It
appears that you found an entirely different way to miss the point.
“
That was already done in the comments. I didn’t claim the Targum passage
supported the dying messiah theme, but that it supported a variant reading of
this passage that recognized it as about the Christ.
It’s pretty clear from the Google cache of your Dying Messiah blog post that you meant
for the Targum to be an example of Jews associating the Suffering Servant with the Messiah.
That’s especially clear when you begin by discussing the Talmudic interpretation of Isaiah 53
as being about how “the messiah was expected to endure great suffering before his triumph,”
and then segued from this to the Targum by saying, “But one might claim that this, being a late
text, could reflect a late belief. Well, for such doubters we have even better evidence to add.”
It’s only after McGrath brought up the issue of what the Targum actually said about the
Messiah that you brought up the matter yourself in the comments, and then later altered your
blog post to make a note of it.
As for you seeing a quote from Isaiah 52:7 in the Melchizedek scroll as a reference to the
Suffering Servant passage Isaiah 52:13-53:12, well, one might judge the plausibility of this by
reading Isaiah 52-53 for oneself.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 9 , 2012, 5:32 PM
J. J. Ramsey:
“
That’s one reading.
That’s the Jewish reading, as proved by the Septuagint translation. This

isn’t my reading. It’s their reading.
(That’s also why the 62 weeks is repeated in verse 26, since if the
sentence ended after the 7 weeks in verse 25, it would make no sense to
then explain that what happens next happens after the 62 weeks, since
those 62 weeks have then already passed according to your reading;
whereas on the obvious reading, the reconstruction is what happens at the
seven weeks and the anointed one appears after the 62 additional weeks,
which explains the order of verses; that’s also why in verse 24 only one
anointed one is mentioned, not two; I also suspect the original meaning of
“Christ prince” in verse 25, otherwise a strange construction, means two
people, the Christ and the Prince, since those two are then mentioned
together again in verse 26. Confirming all this is Lacocque’s
demonstration that the original meaning the author intended was not two
sequential periods but two overlapping periods, in order to get the
timeline to match Onias III–so it really was supposed to mean “7 weeks in
parallel to 62 weeks: Jerusalem gets rebuilt at the 7 week mark and Onias
comes at the 62 week mark” but that interpretation entailed the rest of the
prophecy didn’t come to pass, which later Jews could not allow to be
possible, so they had to find some other meaning than that Onias was
meant, and the rest is history.)
It’s pretty clear from the Google cache of your Dying Messiah blog
post that you meant for the Targum to be an example of Jews
associating the Suffering Servant with the Messiah.
An example of associating the man there described with the messiah, yes.
I never said anything about the Targum talking about a dying messiah. I
only used it as evidence that the passage was understood by some Jews
then as messianic. You shouldn’t read into my words what isn’t there.
Especially since I made the meaning clear when asked about it (and have
now added a link to that so there can be no mistake).
As for you seeing a quote from Isaiah 52:7 in the Melchizedek scroll
as a reference to the Suffering Servant passage Isaiah 52:13-53:12,
well, one might judge the plausibility of this by reading Isaiah 52-53
for oneself.
I agree.
Of course, the scroll’s authors clearly saw they were the same (the one
who “brings the gospel” in Is. 52:7 is the “Christ” in Dan. 9:25/26, and the
only thing linking the two passages is an unjust death corresponding to and
end of sin, which happens later in the Isaiah passage). But the text is
already clear enough: the one who “brings the gospel” and “declares
salvation” in 52:7 is the “arm of the Lord” who manifests “salvation” in
52:8-12, and in 53:1 this “arm of the Lord” is identified as the “servant” in
52:13-53:12.
R E P LY
J. J. R A MSEY • AP R IL 10, 2012, 4:09 AM
“
That’s the Jewish reading, as proved by the Septuagint translation.
No, that’s your interpretation of a Jewish reading, and as a reading of a JPS (Jewish
Publication Society) translation would indicate, not necessarily the only or obvious way that a
Jew would interpret it. The Septuagint, while a potentially useful source, doesn’t prove
anything here. It’s merely a Greek translation of Jewish texts, and the style and quality of the
translations within it is known to vary, sometimes very literal, other places quite free. It is not
authoritative or the last word on anything, nor necessarily an indication of the “obvious
reading.”
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 10, 2012, 9 :59 AM
The JPS is a modern text. I’m talking about what ancient Jews
understood the text to mean (since those are the only ones who count for
the present point).
And my other points only corroborate what the Jewish translators of the
LXX demonstrate they understood; and likewise, Lacocque’s analysis
corroborates the same (and he is a leading expert on Daniel).
I must conclude you are just intent on gainsaying anything I say that tends
to challenge your assumptions. You cannot allow the text to read as I say,
so you refuse to admit it ever was or ever could have been read that way,
all evidence be damned, and you will just quote mine the scholars who
side with you and conveniently ignore the scholars who don’t, as if
arguments and evidence don’t matter, and aren’t relevant to deciding
between competing scholarly opinions.
If this is the kind of reasoning historicity must stand on, then as a logically
valid position, historicity is simply dead. The establishment just hasn’t
gotten the memo.
R E P LY
“
The JPS is a modern text.
The translation is a modern text, but it is translated by experts in the ancient texts being
translated, who ought to know quite a bit about “what ancient Jews understood the text to
mean.” The age of the translation itself is somewhat of a red herring.
As for the rest of your rant, well, an old saw about logs and eyes come to mind.
R E P LY
No, it’s not a red herring. When we are talking about how pre-Christian
Jews were reading the text, how pre-Christian Jews were reading the text
is our most important concern. (Moderns likewise have theological and
ideological agendas unique to our time that distort what ancient Jews
would have cared about or thought. For example, modern Jews are often
concerned to undermine Christian uses of OT scripture to defend their
Christ. That would not have been a Jewish concern before Christianity
even existed.)
R E P LY
“
“
When we are talking about how pre-Christian Jews were reading the text,
how pre-Christian Jews were reading the text is our most important concern.
And the LXX translators are only a subset of those pre-Christian Jews. The LXX is a
witness to a possible reading (at least if I take you at your word), but is hardly an
authoritative last word.
“
For example, modern Jews are often concerned to undermine Christian uses
of OT scripture to defend their Christ.
True, but that is not a particular concern of the translators of the NRSV, or of Louis F.
Hartman, who is Catholic. Indeed, the reading that I mentionedseems to be the majority
view among scholars.
R E P LY
That’s the point: we only need some pre-Christian Jews to see a text as
saying x to conclude that Christianity came from those kinds of Jews.
As to why the RSV translators deviate from most other translations, I

have not investigated their possible reasoning or motives (but all bible
translations deviate from each other to suit the interests and assumptions
of those making them, which is why we should always just return to the
original text). As for “majority view,” not of any specialists on Daniel
post-Lacocque, to my knowledge (Sandoval means by “mainline”
interpreters those published before Lacocque; check the dates). Sandoval
also points out why the old “mainline” interpretation can’t be correct (the
date ends up sixty plus years off). There are many other reasons why it
doesn’t work either (which I have enumerated in this thread already).
And it’s moot, since all we need is some Jews to see the text the obvious
way, even if others read it differently. And the Mechizedek scroll makes it
clear why the two passages are being linked, and therefore how its author
was reading Daniel (and his seventy sevens). That’s all we need know.
R E P LY
J. J. R A MSEY • AP R IL 1 0, 201 2, 7:06 P M
“
Sandoval also points out why the old “mainline” interpretation can’t be
correct (the date ends up sixty plus years off)
Actually, that’s not what Sandoval actually says. See here:
“
The majority theory, on the other hand, makes the seven weeks and the sixty-
two weeks consecutive. The advantage of this theory is that this arrangement
is more natural and straightforward. However, the sixty-two-week period is
sixty-seven years too long. Under this theory, one must assume the author
either did not know any better, or simply did not care. The Jewish historian
Josephus was thirty to sixty years off in his dating of events in Persian times,
[45] so it is equally reasonable to suppose that the author of Daniel was
similarly hazy about the chronology of those times.
You write:
“
And the Mechizedek scroll makes it clear why the two passages are being
linked, and therefore how its author was reading Daniel (and his seventy
sevens). That’s all we need know.
We’ve been through this already. The Melchizedek scroll doesn’t make its use of Daniel
clear at all, due to the lacunae. Indeed, a lot of what you’ve said about the scroll seems to
either be misleading (e.g. giving the impression that the extant text actually quotes Daniel
9:26) or highly improbable (e.g. the scroll doesn’t quote Scripture out of context, or that a
reference to Isaiah 52:7 is an allusion to the suffering servant passage beginning in Isaiah
52:13). I really have no reason to accept what you say about the scroll at face value.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 13, 2012, 8:01 AM
You are just arguing by assertion at this point. My previous comments

already stand as an adequate rebuttal.
R E P LY
WILL B • MARCH 25, 2012, 4:08 PM
Ehrman is a journeyman in ancient languages pertaining to the New Testament; and you’re right, he’s produced
some great books. But he does enlist ‘elitist’ sentiments and his often solipsistic attitude can be very
claustrophobic. I think he needs to consider that most of the fellow scholars he refers to as the final arbiters on
the New Testament are New Testament scholars, that is – they get paid to teach religion. As a general rule,
religion departments are the red headed stepsons at universities – so the joke’s on Bart. The truth is that there
are: 1) other religious traditions with scholarly critics of the historicity of Jesus; and 2) secular disciplines with
scholarly critics of historicity. Disciplines such as archeology, anthropology, history, classics, philology, ancient
languages, psychology – etc…many simply don’t care about the debates raging in this particular tea cup. They
don’t spend much time on it since many believe it’s wish thinking, period. I’m an environmental scientist and I
can tell you that almost to a person everyone I know in this field and in university research departments is either
agnostic or atheist; it’s endemic in academics. So Bart’s refuge in the low floors of his Ivory Tower appears to
resemble a monk riding a high horse of religious scholarship, but the horse’s hoofs are made of clay…sorry,
couldn’t resist.
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • MAR C H 25, 201 2, 5:1 4 P M
Bart’s agnostic too, Dude. The Jesus he says it’s certain exists was just a regular, non-
supernatural being who didn’t perform miracles and didn’t rise from the dead. And as far as
the position of “redheaded stepchild is concerned: I’ve seen a few Departments of Religious
Studies, and the digs seemed pretty lush. Not hurting for funding. On the contrary.
R E P LY
BR ETTON GA R C IA • MARCH 26 , 2012, 1:42 AM
So finally, what is Black Bart up to?
Maybe its all just a marketing strategy. Making a few sensationalistic and inflammatory remarks on video, is a
good way to … 1) generate lots of attention. And 2) sell lots of books. As evidenced by this very blog.
Then? If he’s smart, 3) he covers himself. By qualifying those remarks in his actual book.
Are his incendiary remarks, just sheer marketing strategy?

4) Or is his book just that bad?
R E P LY
G S H E L L E Y • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 5 : 3 6 A M
I re-listened to his interview on American Freethought Podcast. This one was about one of his other books (I
forget which), but they tangentially touched on the mythicist case.
Ehrman compared the people making the argument to Lee Strobel (who they had just mentioned) and said he
had often considered writing a book to refute the claims, but that his publisher didn’t want him to.
The only specific claim they mentioned was the one that Nazareth didn’t exist at the time of Jesus, and Ehrman
said that they had archeological evidence from the first century, so he didn’t know what they were talking about.
R E P LY
Ehrman is right about that (there are questions about the archaeology, but none fatal to the
conclusion that the location now called Nazareth was inhabited at the time; we also have
other external evidence that Nazareth was a pre-war Jewish town, since Jews continued
celebrating it in stone as one of the towns that took in priests after the temple was destroyed
in 70 A.D., and they wouldn’t have renamed it to satisfy Christians). So no good argument
can proceed from the premise Nazareth didn’t exist. There are, however, good arguments
that Jesus didn’t come from Nazareth, even if he existed. See “Nazareth” in the index of my
Proving History.
R E P LY
E R I C • M A R C H 2 7, 2 0 1 2 , 1 : 3 6 P M
Richard,
If you don’t mind, I would like to back up to the Mettinger quote I brought up before- comment #59: You had
responded to it. But I went back and looked at it a little closer.
Since I can’t afford to buy every book there is (and don’t have the Mettinger book), I did remember this from
Mike Licona’s The Resurrection of Jesus: A New HistoriographalApproach. Knowing you, you probably have
it.
This info was taken from pages 536-537. It is part of one gigantic footnote. Licona says:
“Perhaps the most recent treatment thorough treatment on the subject of dying and rising gods in the ancient
Near East is that of T.N.G. Mettinger (2001).
Mettinger states the scholarly consensus lay with the position that there was no clear motif of the dying- and-
rising god in antiquity. However, he takes issue with the consensus and argues that his recent research has led
him to a different conclusion.
“There is now what amounts to a scholarly consensus against the apparent appropriateness of the concept of
[dying and rising gods in the ancient Near Eastern world]. Those who still think differently are looked upon as
residual members of almost extinct species. The results of my investigation led me to challenge this scholarly
consensus and to disagree with a number of colleagues whom I greatly esteem.” (pg 7).
Licona goes on to say:
“Mettinger’s work is impressive. He argues that there are three fairly clear examples of dying and rising gods in
the ancient Near East (Dumuzi, Baal, Melqart) and possibly two others (Eshmun and Adonis). Mettinger arrives
at four conclusions as a result of his research:
1.“The world of the ancient Near East religions actually knew of a number of deities that may be properly
described as dying and rising gods” (217).
2.These examples listed “long before the turn if the Christian era, in pre-Christian times” (217).
3.“One should not hypostasize these gods into a specific type ‘the dying and rising god.” On the contrary, the
gods mentioned are of very different types, although we have found tendencies to association and syncretism.”
(218)
4.“The gods that die and rise have close ties to the seasonal cycle of plant life. The summer drought is the time
when their death can mourned ritually. The time after the winter rains and flooding may provide the occasion for
the celebration of their return. (219)
What about Jesus as a dying and rising god? Mettinger says the answer is beyond the scope of his study.
However, he makes the following notes:
“For the earliest Christians, “the resurrection of Jesus was a one-time event, historical event that took place at
one specific point in the earth’s topography. The empty tomb was seen as a historical datum (221). Whereas the
death and rising gods were closely related to the seasonal cycle with their death and return were seen as
reflected in the changes of plant life. The death and resurrection of Jesus is a one-time event, not repeated, and
unrelated to seasonal changes…… (221).
The death of Jesus is presented in sources as vicarious suffering as an act of atonement for sins. The myth of
Dumuzi has an arrangement with bilocation and substitution, but there is no evidence for the death of the dying
and rising gods as vicarious sufferings for sins” (221).
There is, as far as I am aware, no prima facie evidence that the death and resurrection of Jesus is a mythological
construct, drawing on the myths and rites in the dying and rising gods of the surrounding world. While studied
with profit against the background of Jewish resurrection belief, the faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus
retains its unique character in the history of religions. The riddle remains.” (The Riddle of the Resurrection: Dying
and Rising God’s in the Ancient Near East, 2001, pg 221.)
So a few questions:
1.You said before that Mettinger stated this last part here (the last paragraph) so he could get published? Is this
not a bit of stretch? Why could this statment not be based on solid research?
2.As of today, traditional or Orthodox Judaism still upholds the position that Jewish people are forbidden to
pray and worship anyone other than the God of Israel (Ex. 20:1–5; Deut. 5:6–9). Jewish followers of Jesus
refused worship (Acts 14:15) as did angels (Rev. 22:8–9). There are also references to the negative views of
gentile polytheism (Acts 17: 22-23; 1 Cor 8:5).
Gentiles were regarded as both sinful (Gal 2:5) and idolatrous (Rom 1:23). I am still trying to understand how
we would could really say Paul, a Pharisee (similar to an OrthodoxJewishposition today) or other Second
Temple Jews who recited Deuteronomy 6:4-9, “Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is our God, the Lord is one,”
quite regularly would really be so quick to copy some pagan motif.
3.So is this insistence to say that the Second Temple Jews would base the Jesus story off a dying and rising god
motif really based on strong evidence? I have your Impossible Faith book so you don’t need to keep pointing
me to it. It just seems that Mettinger’s work (and others) is not matching up with what you are saying. Or, are
you just admitting it is just a possibility and you are throwing it out there?
Btw, I will make sure to tell Evans and Bauckham that they are “fundamentalists.”
R E P LY
Eric:
“
You said before that Mettinger stated this last part here (the last paragraph)
so he could get published? Is this not a bit of stretch? Why could this
statement not be based on solid research?
You yourself quote Licona noting this: “Mettinger says the answer is beyond the scope of his
study”; likewise, Mettinger doesn’t analyze in his book anywhere any evidence or scholarship
pertaining to the Hellenistic mystery religions. So the question is, why would you assume he
engaged the solid research that he never mentions and says is beyond the scope of his study?
By contrast, I know (from reading scholars who do cover the Hellenistic mystery religions)
that the mystery cults took some of these agro-deities (and others like them) and turned them
into personal salvation deities; since Mettinger shows no sign of knowing this (or,
alternatively, deliberately plays dumb about it, take your pick), we can conclude he did not
research it, because his remarks otherwise entail he is ignorant of how these deities were
subsequently transformed (or, to avoid the scandal of having to defend the claim that they
did, he chose to just write a quick paragraph singing the uninformed party line…again, take
your pick).
“
“
As of today, traditional or Orthodox Judaism still upholds…
Let me stop you there. There were likely some three dozen sects of Judaism in antiquity,
many of which worshipped angels, practiced astrology, forgave pretended obeissance (i.e.
allowed members to pay cult to idols as long as they did it only in pretense to avoid
persecution), and all manner of other things “traditional or Orthodox Judaism” would regard
as bizarre or abhorrent. Thus, no conclusions can be drawn about what no Jews in antiquity
would do or countenance doing, from what “traditional or Orthodox Judaism still upholds.”
(On these other sects, see Empty Tomb, pp. 107-10.)
Moreover, we already know the Jews copied pagan motifs quite freely: the very idea of
resurrection itself is a pagan idea (see NIF, ch. 3), as is the idea of Satan as God’s divine
opponent (Paul even calls this Satan a god, in 2 Cor. 4:4, something your “traditional or
Orthodox Judaism” would find unimaginable), and the whole concept of an end-times
(complete with fire as the means of destruction). The elaborate Jewish demonology and
angelology is likewise a borrow from Zoroastrianism. Philo merged Jewish theology with
pagan philosophy quite freely. We have Jewish-Orphic poems, confirming even Orphic
theology was freely integrated into Jewish. Some Jews adopted astrology. I could go on.
“
So is this insistence to say that the Second Temple Jews would base the Jesus
story off a dying and rising god motif really based on strong evidence?
Yes.
To phrase it more correctly, Second Temple Jews found a way to adapt that idea to their
own belief system, just as they had done with every other thing they borrowed from
surrounding cultures and religions. In doing so, they transformed it, and made it acceptably
Jewish (within the immense variety and diversity of what then counted as “Jewish”) by
connecting it up to established Jewish premises and assumptions (this is how all new religions
arise: see NIF, ch. 4).
The order of diffusion is thus:
(1) Dying-and-rising agro-deities

(2) Adapted by Greeks into dying-and-rising personal savior deities
(3) Adapted by Jews into a dying-and-rising Jewish messiah
(3) differs from (2) in the same extent (2) differs from (1), but there can be no mistake that
adaptation and diffusion has occurred. It’s as obvious that (3) adapts (2) as that (2) adapts
(1). The only alternative explanation is an extremely improbable coincidence. A coincidence
that, ironically, your own premise entails is impossible: Jews thinking up what you deem to be
an un-Jewish innovation (which just happened by coincidence to match pagan religions all
around them) and enthusiastically adopting it. If you think they could do that, why would
simply adapting it from the pagans be any different?
And since proposing a magical Jewish ignorance of the motif all around them entails an even
more improbable ad hoc premise (as I already demonstrated upthread), that’s two
extreme improbabilities the alternative hypothesis requires.
R E P LY
S TEVEN C AR R • MAR C H 28, 201 2, 1 :06 AM
Have you seen page 97 of Did Jesus Exist where Ehrman goes into hyperbole about how many sources and
how early they are?
R E P LY
Not yet. But I’ll get there eventually.
R E P LY
WILL • MARCH 29 , 2012, 2:00 AM
I did notice that as well Steven. and i’m very much a novice to this field… but i know enough
to see when overly ad hoc interpretations and inferences are squeezed from the texts.. he
really seems to be pulling a rabbit from a hat with regard to all the pre-gospel sources (oral
and written) that he posits. Ehrman is obviously done some great work, but I think on this
issue his identity as a scholar -with a body of work that presupposes the HJ paradigm- will
keep him interpreting the data in that direction.. no matter how much such interpretations
overstep the evidence.. I think he sees himself as a mainstream crusader defending the middle
ground of NT scholarship from the extremes of left (mythicism) and right (fundamentalism).. i
don’t know if thats whats going on, but it’s just the feeling i get from reading this new book.
I’m eagerly awaiting Richard’s review of it.
R E P LY
R OBER T BUMBALOUGH • MAR C H 28, 201 2, 7:50 AM
Hello Dr Carrier and readers from Robert Bumbalough
I think Gal. 1:18-19 is more probably than not an interpolation-forgery because neither Tertullian or Irenaeus
new of this passage. The argument below is credited to Jake Jones IV who posted in into the Yahoo
Jesusmysteries group back in May of 2011.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JesusMysteries/message/58588
Dr Carrier, would you comment this sort of argument? Does this have merit in assessing a prior probability of
interpolation of the contentious brother of the Lord verse?
Best Wishes to All

*****************************************
In Galatians 1:18-20 it is stated that Paul made a trip to Jerusalem to meet with Peter and James there three
years after his conversion.
Here is the text. Galatians 1:18 to 2:1 (Young’s Literal Translation)
18then, after three years I went up to Jerusalem to enquire about Peter, and remained with him fifteen days,
19and other of the apostles I did not see, except James, the brother of the Lord.
20And the things that I write to you, lo, before God — I lie not;
2:1 Then, after fourteen years again I went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, having taken with me also Titus;
(RB: Note in verse 20 the redactor has placed a protestation of not lying in Paul’s mouth. Why would Paul have
to assure his readers he was not lying when the presumption of the faithful Galatians would have been that Paul
was a trusted religious teacher. Me thinks he doth protest too much.)
Tertullian, in Against Marcion 5.3.1, does not mention the alleged first visit of Paul to Jerusalem. cf AM 1.20.2,
cf De praescr. haer. 23,6f: (Neither does Irenaeus in AH 3.12.14.)
Here is Tertullian’s text.
But with regard to the countenance of Peter and the rest of the apostles, he tells us that “fourteen years after he
went up to Jerusalem,” in order to confer with them about the rule which he followed in his gospel, lest
perchance he should all those years have been running, and be running still, in vain, (which would be the case, )
of course, if his preaching of the gospel fell short of their method. ~ Tertullian AM 5.3.1
http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/anf03-35.htm#P7223_2090790
Notice that the first trip is unmentioned, even though that would have regarded the countenance of Peter, and
when Tertullian quoted from Galatians 2:1 the word “again” (palin) is missing.
This implies his text of Galatians did not mention it either, even into the early third century CE. If it had, Tertullian
would surely have used it against Marcion. It would have clearly implied that Paul was subordinate to the
Jerusalem authorities, something that Tertullian was very anxious to do. He didn’t, and this implies that he didn’t
have gal 1;18-20 or 2:1’s inclusion of the word ‘again’ (palin) to use.
Ireaneaus wrote of Paul’s and Barnabus’ trip to Jerusalem that Paul referencedin Gal. 2:1 when it would have
served his purpose of showing Paul subordinate to Peter and James to have referenced the alleged first trip after
three years mentioned in Gal 1:18
“14. This is shown in a still clearer light from the letter of the apostles, which they forwarded neither to the Jews
nor to the Greeks, but to those who from the Gentiles believed in Christ, confirming their faith. For when certain
men had come down from Judea to Antioch—where also, first of all, the Lord’s disciples were called Christians,
because of their faith in Christ—and sought to persuade those who had believed on the Lord to be circumcised,
and to perform other things after the observance of the law; and when Paul and Barnabas had gone up to
Jerusalem to the apostles on account of this question, and the whole Church had convened together, Peter thus
addressed them: “Men, brethren, ye know how that from the days of old God made choice among you, that the
Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the Gospel, and believe. And God, the Searcher of the heart,
bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as to us; and put no difference between us and them,
purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to impose a yoke upon the neck of the
disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that, through the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, we are to be saved, even as they.” ~ Irenaeus, AH 3.12.14
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.pdf
Thus, it is in all likelihood a later insertion designed to abet the notion that Pauldid go to Jerusalem as soon as
possible to submit himself to Cephas and James. “Again” was added to Galatians 2:1 at the same time by way of
harmonization. Tertullian apparently entions the visit of 2:1-10 as the visit, not the second visit. See Robert Price,
The Pre-Nicene New Testament, page 317, note K.
But the interpolator had a problem. The text of Galatians was already well known without the “first” visit. He had
to “thread the needle” in order to plausibly insert the new information into the text. When we examine the
passage carefully within the context of what was there before, we can see quite clearly that this is what he did,
and it was quite clever. The initial problem is that the earlier version had stated that “I did not mmediately consult
with flesh and blood…” confirming that Paul had gotten his gospel 100% from revelation, as in Gal 1:1. It would
be 14 years before he visited Jerusalem (Gal 2:1). Thus the plausible “three years” was chosen; not long enough
to make Paul independent of the Jerusalem apostles, but long enough to satisfy “not immediately.”
Paul was unknown in Judea, never having been seen in person. Galatians1:23-24. Thus, the “first” visit of Paul
to Jerusalem must have been a *secret* and that is why it had ever been heard of before. And this is exactly
what the interpolator posed. Paul was only seen by Cephas and James, it was the only way to preserve his
general anonymity! Can we imagine Paulsneaking in and out of Jerusalem in the dead of night, and hiding in
Peter’s dwelling through his alleged 15 day stay? Or should we imagine him wearing a
clever disguise, or should we imagine Paul cleverly exiting and entering in a basket? The only alternative to
subterfuge is that Paul walked in openly and freely, during his two week visit, the only Christians in Jerusalem
were Cephas and James! I find all of these scenarios rather less likely than the first trip was an interpolation. ~
(RB: Is this a generalization fallacy?)
But do we have any indication within the text itself that the passage was an interpolation, i.e. new material?
Indeed we do. We read in Galatians 1:20 “Now in this recounting, I swear before God: I am not lying!” Now,
why take an oath before God about the truth of what we are supposed to believe was an otherwise
unremarkable prosaic trip? It can only be that new information has been inserted into the text, and the oath is
meant to reassure the reader of the trustworthiness of the “secret” trip. (RB: Is it a fallacy to reach a conclusion
on the foregoing speculative argument?)
Now, it should not fail to be noticed that the proposed interpolation carries within it one of the most contentious
passages in the debate between historists and mythicists. That is “James the brother of the Lord” that isoften the
first test supporting the historical existence of Jesus. But this text is of little concern in it was inserted very late.
R E P LY
R OBER T BUMBALOUGH • MAR C H 28, 2012, 2:00 P M
Correction: Ireaneaus did know of Gal 2:1 having the word again (palin) in his version of the
text as is found in AH 3.13.3
“Then, fourteen years after, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking also Titus.
But I went up by revelation, and communicated to them that Gospel which I preached among
the Gentiles.”889
Jake was wrong. Please ignore the prior message’s allusion to Against Heresies, and the
section I cut and pasted above appears to have been drawn from Acts 15.
Of course that Tertullian or Ireaneaus did not refer to the alleged first trip does not mean they
did not have a text describing Paul’s alleged first journey, so any change to prior probability
of 1:18-20 being an interpolation would likely be too small to be worth crunching.
Best Wishes to All
R E P LY
RICHARD CARRIER • MAR C H 28, 201 2, 7:23
PM
Thanks for the follow up.
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • MAR C H 28, 201 2, 7:06 P M
Robert Bumbalough:
“
I think Gal. 1:18-19 is more probably than not an interpolation-forgery
because neither Tertullian or Irenaeus new of this passage. The argument
below is credited to Jake Jones IV who posted in into the Yahoo
Jesusmysteries group back in May of 2011. Dr Carrier, would you comment
this sort of argument? Does this have merit in assessing a prior probability of
interpolation of the contentious brother of the Lord verse?
Thank you for cross-posting the whole text of that (I am not a Yahoo Groups member and
do not dig through other threads for arguments anyway, so this is the best way to get me to
consider it; although I am familiar with similar arguments from Price against the authenticity of
Galatians as a whole).
I would prefer to see a peer reviewed article claiming this before taking it seriously. If it has
not gone through peer review, then I have to vet the whole thing myself, and that’s a huge
task (for example, I have not read the entire works of Tertullian and Irenaeus back to front
checking whether this specific claim holds up), and I don’t have the time to undertake a
thousand huge tasks like that. I have to be very selective as to which arguments I will vet and
reconstruct my own defense of.
Indeed I prefer to rely as much as possible on established or indisputable facts or peer

reviewed work. That doesn’t mean I reject all else as false, it just means I don’t think
mythicism should require anything else at this point.
So I can only briefly vet an argument like this…if I see too many things wrong with it, I see it
as inefficient to spend any more time examining it. And this has too many things wrong with it.
First, I know it was only an aside, but I don’t find very persuasive arguments like “Me thinks
he doth protest too much,” precisely because many a writer who finds himself in a corner
does indeed protest too much. Paul has clearly been accused of something, and he is very
keen to defend his account against that accusation. I don’t see his protests as out of joint with
the obvious aims and context of that chapter.
Second, Tertullian is not talking about “seeing” Peter but about Peter’s support of Paul’s
position on circumcision, and not just Peter’s, but all the apostles. Thus Paul’s previous visit
to Peter has nothing whatever to do with that, and so there is no reason for Tertullian even to
allude to it. Likewise Irenaeus.
Third, I do not find it implausible that Paul, then just one apostle among many, might have
visited Peter and James alone for only a fortnight. Particularly if Paul was avoiding the Jewish
authorities (who might have it in for him owing to his apostasy from their prosecution team
over to helping the prosecuted; Paul sometimes had to sneak around in Damascus, his own
home town, for much the same reason: 2 Cor. 11:32-33).
R E P LY
DAVID MARS H ALL • MARCH 28, 2012, 10:40 AM
Yes, I overlooked the word “antiquity” in your OP; a stupid mistake. You also misread a few of my comments,
and now seem loath to admit it. So who is unwilling to admit to errors?
And why are you pretending to know what you’re talking about, when it comes to China? Guan Yin / Miao
Shan most certainly is seen as a savior in the most relevant senses — indeed, as China’s favorite divine savior
for a very long time, also among Koreans and Japanese. And no, this cannot easily be attributed to Nestorian
influence.
But getting back to the main issue, here, I think you do Christians a favor, by drawing attention to pagan
analogies to the Gospel. I don’t agree entirely with the Nash line, that dismisses such parallels. Christians can, I
think, show stronger parallels that cannot possibly be ascribed to cultural influence in either direction. What this
shows is that the Gospel is universal, and fulfills truth in world cultures, not just among the Jews.
This includes China before the birth of Jesus.
So I just posted a fuller response to your argument, that takes us back to first principles, entitled “Richard
Carrier Proves the Gospel, by Accident,” at http://christthetao.blogspot.com/.
Credit should be given, where credit is due.
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • MAR C H 28, 201 2, 7:1 8 P M
David Marshall:
“
You also misread a few of my comments, and now seem loath to admit it. So
who is unwilling to admit to errors?
Since you have yet to point me to a single example, I can hardly have any idea what you’re
talking about here.
“
And why are you pretending to know what you’re talking about, when it
comes to China?
Because I read the texts by qualified scholars of ancient China. Do you have a Ph.D. in
ancient Chinese history? Have you published peer reviewed scholarship on this issue? If so,
please refer me to it.
“
Guan Yin / Miao Shan most certainly is seen as a savior in the most relevant
senses — indeed, as China’s favorite divine savior for a very long time, also
among Koreans and Japanese. And no, this cannot easily be attributed to
Nestorian influence.
You evidently don’t understand the difference between modern, medieval, and ancient China.
Or what I mean by savior deity.
And it’s amusing to see you insist this can’t be due to the influence of Christians evangelizing
the region for several centuries, when I’m sure you would make exactly the opposite
argument about Attis and Mithras cult in respect to Christianity.
(I’m not interested in your other argument, which you cover on your blog. It isn’t relevant
here.)
R E P LY
R . J. MOOR E • MARCH 28, 2012, 2:36 PM
As regards Nazareth, the Gospels are still wrong because they identify Nazareth as a city. It certainly was not.
This is akin to W.G. Devers identifying every tent-pole and ditch from the 9th century B.C. as part of ‘David’s
Jerusalem’, but in doing so he demonstrates precisely that the Bible is wrong because Jerusalem is clearly
described as a magnificent city.
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • MAR C H 28, 201 2, 7:39 P M
There are two things wrong with this argument.
First, Mark does not call it a city. Later Gospels do. That the later Gospels exaggerate or err
on this would not mean anything as to the existence of Nazareth. Nor would it even if Mark
had called it a city.
Second, “polis” did not mean “city” in the modern English sense. It was variously a legal and
a topographical term, not a reference to population size or construction materials. It typically
referred to a geographically fixed legal community in which one held citizenship. It could be of
any size (although economically speaking it would usually be at least a few hundred adults).
You might be thinking of the contrast with kômê, “village” or “hamlet” (e.g. cf. Mt. 10:11). A
kômê was distinguished from a polis either by the lack of a wall (which did not necessarily
mean a high wall; anything that stopped a wagon counted) or by the lack of a legal body
granting formal citizenship (inhabitants of a kômê might have held citizenship in a nearby polis;
in fact a kômê would often be regarded as part of a polis, in the way the suburbs of LA are
still regarded as LA). When we put that in mind, there is no evidence that Nazareth was not a
polis.
R E P LY
C H R IS • MAR C H 28, 201 2, 7:33 P M

I am friends with a Josephus scholar, actually he has a PhD but it’s in physics so he is an amateur Josephus
scholar, who has the website http://www.josephus.org & Gary Goldberg, PhD (physics) has studied Josephus
for years and is convinced Josephus wrote the TF but used a source document that the author of Luke also used
for part of his gospel. He spells out his argument on his site and oddly informs me he could care less if Jesus
actually existed & has NO interest in that subject. But Goldberg agrees with Louis Feldman, PhD, Alice
Whealey, PhD & what Dr. Feldman told me in a private Email is the most popular position today among
scholars; that what Josephus wrote about Jesus & his execution by Pilate was later glossed (changed) by a
scribe to make it read as if Josephus believed Jesus was the Messiah. Have you considered this position? It
seems then there are three TF positions. Josephus wrote it or he wrote it but it was altered to some extent or he
did not write it. But Goldberg’s position that Josephus used a source document & never interviewed anybody or
even injected his own memory is novel! Alice Whealey, PhD (who was suggested to me by Dr. Feldman) holds
that Josephus originally wrote “was believed by them to be the Christ/Messiah” or “was thought to be the
Christ” rather than “was the Christ” which some scribe later changed a bit & she mentions the Josephus word
used which denotes skepticism but I can’t remember now & too tired to go through her long book on Josephus
on Jesus to find it. I remember the Pines Arab version & Jerome’s copy were important to Dr. Whealey. But
how can see know with certainty. It’s probably just a good doctor’s opinion. And surprisingly, she argues
Origen likely didn’t have a copy of Josephus even though he quotes the brother of Jesus called Christ passage
several times. In another place she mentions Origen quotes Josephus but it is actually another historian & she
holds that he was using an author other than Josephus who actually quoted Josephus so likely Origen never
actually had a copy of Josephus.
It’s all interesting but I don’t really give a shit who wrote what:-) Just curious at times.
Also I’ve watched the video “The Big Bang Never Happened” & doubt it’s position. I find the big bang theory
the best argument. It is interesting that a number of PhD level scientists are interviewed or mentioned on this
video who reject the big bang. This video must be a bit old as several of these men are now deceased. We have
Fred Hoyle, Harold Arp, Geffory Burbidge & his wife Margaret who also has a PhD in Astronomy, Thomas
Gold, Herman Bondi & Chandra Wickramisinghe who did his PhD under Hoyle at Cambridge. It is Hoyle &
Wickramisinghe who also did several books supporting the view that life is older than the earth & comes from
outerspace via comets etc. I bought Evolution From Space in 1981 & thought it was crazy but then again…who
really knows if life began here or out there. Richard Dawkins says in his interview with Ben Stein on YouTube:
“Nobody knows how life began & it is possible it didn’t start on the earth”.
So it is interesting that no matter what the field, one can find PhD level experts who reject the most popular
theory. Human nature I suppose. And it makes life more interesting. Gives everybody something to ponder or
fuss about.
I read Ehrman’s new book & have his other books & as I sit here right now, I agree with Ehrman that a
historical Jesus likely existed & Erhman’s Jesus is almost a carbon copy of the historical Jesus Dr. Robert Miller
of the Jesus Seminar holds to be the likely candidate. But even as committed Christian scholar F. F. Bruce wrote
“the secular evidence is small & problematic” It seems that either side can’t make a case that is 100% certain if
we are completely unemotional & honest to ourselves. Indeed I recently read Bob Price saying “we will never
know with absolutely certainty until we find his skeleton” Actually that would destroy Christianity so Christians
would then need to heed the words of Paul who wrote that if Christ has not be raised “let us eat, drink & be
merry for tomorrow we die”.
Oh and I understand Acharya S leans toward Paul being mythological too & ALL of his letters are second
century forgeries. Any chance you give that any support?
Hope you are well & much success in the future.

I had posted on your blog before, but several years ago, and at the time you were working on your PhD.
Bravo!!!!!for getting it done! Having a PhD in a particular field is impressive & you deserve to be proud of a job
well done!!!
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 29 , 2012, 9 :05 AM
chris:
“
[That] what Josephus wrote about Jesus & his execution by Pilate was later
glossed (changed) by a scribe to make it read as if Josephus believed Jesus
was the Messiah. Have you considered this position?
I have examined it (and the scholarly surveys of why some scholars believe this, etc.), and
find it to be implausible. The arguments against it are strong (I list them in a footnote to my
article for JECS). And the arguments for it typically rest on a single premise: that the Arabic
version in Agapius derives from an earlier version of the passage in Josephus. We now know
that to be false: it derives, by a Syriac intermediary, from Eusebius, and thus represents a
corruption of Eusebius and not an earlier version of the TF. Since the premise is false, and the
scholars who assert the conclusion do so on this premise, their conclusion is fallacious. It is
therefore to be rejected. That combined with the evidence against anything being present at
the TF’s location entails the conclusion that no mention of Jesus was present here.
However, Goldberg is right that if some form of the TF was present, it would obviously
derive from a Christian or Christian Gospel, and thus not represent independent information
(or not verifiably independent information). Indeed, some scholars argue that all the evidence
that Luke used Josephus actually means Josephus used Luke (that is unlikely, but it is at least
arguable, since the evidence in each case is nearly the same), or that they shared common
sources. One of which could be a Gospel (like Mark), which Josephus may have read out of
his interest in Pontius Pilate and collecting stories about him. I think all of this is unlikely, but
not impossible; and if Josephus wrote any form of the TF, it’s probability increases
considerably (not least because the TF contains no information not in the Gospels, and
therefore does not appear to have any other source but them…it’s just that the more obvious
explanation for that is that it was written by a Christian).
“
That Josephus used a source document & never interviewed anybody or even
injected his own memory is novel!
I’m not sure how novel it is. I suspect it’s a point that has been made many times. It’s
certainly standard knowledge regarding the actual methods of ancient historians: it’s the very
thing they did (they were not meticulous like us and did not have the high standards and
practices we now do, and only rarely dug into things in the kind of detail we would like). This
has been shown in every book about ancient historical methods written in the last thirty years
(from Greek and Roman Historians: Information and Misinformation to From
Arrian to Alexander).
(BTW, Josephus can’t have used his own memory, since he wasn’t even born at the time the
events the TF relates happened.)
“
I remember the Pines Arab version & Jerome’s copy were important to Dr.
Whealey.
Whealey is actually the one who proves that the Arabic version derives from Eusebius. Her
argument is that Eusebius’ version originally had the “believed to be.” But that is improbable,
because it requires a massive conspiracy to doctor dozens of unrelated manuscripts
simultaneously, whereas the opposite thesis (that “believed to be” was added to one
manuscript in an attempt to make the passage more believable from a Jewish author, and that
this manuscript tradition is occasionally the one later quoted) explains all the evidence we
have.
“
In another place she mentions Origen quotes Josephus but it is actually
another historian & she holds that he was using an author other than
Josephus who actually quoted Josephus so likely Origen never actually had a
copy of Josephus.
That is also possible, but less likely (for reasons I detail in my article for JECS).
(The Big Bang is off topic, but again see my assessment.)
“
Oh and I understand Acharya S leans toward Paul being mythological too &
ALL of his letters are second century forgeries. Any chance you give that any
support?
No. For all his letters to be second century forgeries is very improbable and does not explain
their existence or content well at all. Paul is also not in the same category as a heavenly divine
being.
R E P LY
LA R R Y • MARCH 29 , 2012, 11:31 AM
Chris: “Oh and I understand Acharya S leans toward Paul being mythological too & ALL of
his letters are second century forgeries.”
That’s not at all what she says:
Apollonius, Jesus and Paul: Men or Myths?

http://www.truthbeknown.com/apollonius.html
R E P LY
ERIC CH ABOT • MARCH 28, 2012, 8:04 PM
Richard,
You say: “Mettinger doesn’t analyze in his book anywhere any evidence or scholarship pertaining to the
Hellenistic mystery religions.”
Okay, but the Boyd/ Eddy book, The Jesus Legend, does cover quite a bit with the Hellenization issue/the
mystery religions. And Hengel did quite a bit with this in the past. You pointed me to the Price essay in the
Loftus book which I hope is better than the one he did in the Five Views of the Historical Jesus.Have you
personally read the Boyd Eddy book? Or, are you just dismissing it and thinking it holds the party line? They do
some pretty extensive research in that book.
Also, curious as to whether you have read Glen Miller’s work on this issue:
http://www.christianthinktank.com/copycatwho1.html
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 29 , 2012, 9 :15 AM
Eric Chabot:
“
Okay, but the Boyd/ Eddy book, The Jesus Legend, does cover quite a bit with
the Hellenization issue/the mystery religions. And Hengel did quite a bit with
this in the past.
Neither of which are Mettinger. So this is moot to the point we were discussing.
“
You pointed me to the Price essay in the Loftus book which I hope is better
than the one he did in the Five Views of the Historical Jesus. Have you
personally read the Boyd Eddy book? Or, are you just dismissing it and
thinking it holds the party line? They do some pretty extensive research in
that book.
Also, curious as to whether you have read Glen Miller’s work on this issue:
http://www.christianthinktank.com/copycatwho1.html
I have read both.
They commit all the fallacies I have already listed in my original article above and in
comments here. (Like ignoring how syncretism works; tearing down straw men; selectively
quoting only the scholars that agree with them but omitting those that don’t, as well as
omitting actual primary evidence that refutes the scholars they do quote; mentioning one
version of a myth that lacks an element, but curiously not mentioning other versions of the
same myth that have that element; refuting false cases and concluding they’ve refuted all
cases; etc.) It is for this reason that I regard these scholars as unreliable. They are not being
honest with me, or even themselves.
R E P LY
R . J. MOOR E II • MARCH 28, 2012, 9 :09 PM
Your command of Greek and Levantine archeology is far and above mine, and your argument sounds perfectly
valid. Thanks for your response, Dr. Carrier.
R E P LY
LA R R Y • MARCH 29 , 2012, 11:24 AM
Errorman said: “[There is no penis-nosed statue of Peter the cock in the Vatican or anywhere else except in
books like this, which love to make things up.]”
So he certainly does imply that she made this up. That’s a smear, libel and defamation.
I read all of your Luxor blogs and I disagree with you. Several other scholars I know disagree with you too. You
certainly made sloppy and egregious errors that Acharya exposed but you simply refuse to admit. It’s obvious
that you’re incapable of ever acknowledging that she may be right about anything. When it comes to the work
by Acharya S/Murdock you simply are not reliable and are not to be trusted at all. You are prejudice against her
and that much is as transparent as glass for all to see.
Anyway, the phallic ‘Savior of the World’ hidden in the Vatican thing was simply an aside in her book. Her
work doesn’t stand or fall on this issue. It just shows the low level that Ehrman stooped to smear her.
He was wrong on every point about her book. He just raised a bunch of strawman arguments in order to do a
huge hand waving dismissal of her entire body of work that he never read. She is apparently already working on
a 2nd edition to Christ Conspiracy. Care to offer a peer review? BTW, I’d much rather see you guys working
together, at least at some level, instead of fighting against each other. You’re always going after her – she’s done
nothing to you beyond respond to your attacks so, just stop it.
R E P LY
Larry:
“
So he certainly does imply that she made this up. That’s a smear, libel and
defamation.
Not necessarily. The statement has to be literally false to count as libel. Saying “books like
this love to make things up” is not literally false (unless one can prove in court that no books
like this make anything up, or that nothing in Acharya’s book is made up, which would be
near impossible to prove, especially considering how freely she speculates everywhere
throughout).
At best she might have a case in arguing that he says she made a false claim (as to the
statue’s existence), that he could reasonably have known his statement was false (as any
basic research would have revealed her claim at least had merit), and that this libels her
competence as a historian (in which case she wouldn’t even have to prove damages, insofar
as writing about history is her profession). But I’m not sure the costs and hardships of taking
such a claim to court would even make it worth pursuing (even assuming she was sure to
win). She might have an additional hurdle if she is deemed a public figure, since then she must
prove actual malice, and not merely the making of a false statement (i.e. she’d have to prove
he knew the claim was false, and not merely that he incompetently assumed it was true).
“
I read all of your Luxor blogs and I disagree with you
And you have what degrees in what fields?
“
Several other scholars I know disagree with you too.
Like who? And disagree with me on what exactly?
“
You certainly made sloppy and egregious errors that Acharya exposed but
you simply refuse to admit.
Like what?
“
It’s obvious that you’re incapable of ever acknowledging that she may be
right about anything.
Except that I did.
“
You’re always going after her – she’s done nothing to you beyond respond to
your attacks so, just stop it.
Why? Are we not supposed to criticize scholarship we find to be in error? How can progress
ever be made if no scholar can ever be criticized or challenged on anything they say?
R E P LY
GER A LD F ITZGER A LD • MARCH 29 , 2012, 3:20 PM
One aspect of the “James the brother of the Lord” issue that I haven’t noticed you addressing yet, at least not
here, is how it plays into the overall tone of the passage.
It seems to me like the whole point of the passage is to denigrate James and Cephas and to elevate Paul, and in
that context it seems very strange to add a symbolic designation that could only be honorific, affectionate or
expressing comraderie, whereas it would seem far more natural if it were just a reference to a well-known
mundane fact.
This seems especially so since, as you point out, Christians were very frequently called in the NT corpus
“brother,” “a brother,” “my brother” or “our brother,” but never (except possibly in these two places) “brother
of the Lord”. So if calling James “brother” only meant to identify him as a Christian, then adding “of the Lord”
was clearly not the norm and could only have further emphasized that identification, which would seem the
opposite of Paul’s intention here.
All through chapter 2 he keeps referring to James & Cephas not straightforwardly as leaders and pillars, but
rather as people of reputation or thought to be pillars, and in 2:6 says explicitly that he doesn’t share those
opinions of their stature.
He ends by pretty much repudiating Cephas, James and even Barnabas for their hypocrisy. And in 2:12 isn’t he
basically linking the “men from James” with the ψευδαδέλφους (false brothers) he introduced in 2:4?
I’m having a hard time seeing why he would use the appellation the way you suggest in the context unless it were
meant to be bitterly ironic.
R E P LY
gerald fitzgerald:
“
It seems to me like the whole point of the passage is to denigrate James and
Cephas and to elevate Paul
Not Gal. 1. Gal. 2 has some backhanded tone against them, but the verse in question is in the
context of Gal. 1, where Paul’s aim is to answer some accusation (he never states what that
accusation was exactly, but it probably relates to the topic of Gal. 2) that he was relying on
human traditions for his gospel, and not direct revelations from Jesus. Someone had evidently
claimed that Paul got his gospel from some Christian(s) in Judea or Jerusalem, and Paul’s
response is to swear up and down that he had never even gone there, much less met any one
there, until three years after he received his gospel, and even then he only met with one dude
(Peter), unless you count this one other dude (James). But no one else in Judea had ever
even seen him, until fourteen years later, and it was only then that some in the Peter faction
started claiming Paul’s gospel was inauthentic, and he defends himself against that charge in
Gal. 2 (by claiming he at first had a full endorsement from Peter and James).
However, Paul certainly does not want to imply any affection or intimacy in the case, since it
is crucial to his argument that he is not the buddies of these Jerusalem Christians (that in fact
he never even went there until years later, and no one there, but these two, had ever even met
him until more than a decade later). Thus he would use the most formal and non-intimate form
of identification and address possible. Peter he simply identifies as an apostle (his Aramaic
name-form being enough to single him out, being clearly the only apostle so named), James
he simply identifies as a brother of the Lord. It’s unclear if Paul means this James was not an
apostle, although that is a valid reading of the text. Possibly he means only “I met no other
apostle except brother James” simply for rhetorical variation, but avoids the intimate
abbreviation “brother” and inputs the coldly formal pleonasm instead, possibly even to
emphasize his lack of intimacy with James.
“
adding “of the Lord” was clearly not the norm and could only have further
emphasized that identification, which would seem the opposite of Paul’s
intention here.
To the contrary. Paul has to emphasize that these were Christians (thus apostles/brethren),
since that’s the point of his argument (that he hadn’t spoken to any Christians in Judea). And
using just “brother” would be an endearment, implying intimacy (the more so if he said
“my/our brother”), which is very definitely not what he wants to imply. Thus his last remaining
option is to be coldly formal about it.
“
in 2:6 says explicitly that he doesn’t share those opinions of their stature.
No, he is there implicitly agreeing with those opinions (although perhaps in a passive
aggressive way); rather, what he says there is that he doesn’t think their having this stature
makes them better than him, since all Christians are supposed to be equals. (Paul is clearly
dealing with the fact that everyone shares that opinion of them, so he can’t possibly hope to
succeed in changing that opinion. He therefore takes the only available alternative: pointing
out that that opinion is irrelevant.)
“
He ends by pretty much repudiating Cephas, James and even Barnabas for
their hypocrisy. And in 2:12 isn’t he basically linking the “men from James”
with the ψευδαδέλφους (false brothers) he introduced in 2:4?
Not repudiating, chastising. He is saying the pillars did not side with the false brethren, but
instead accepted Paul and his gospel, and after that they seemed to backslide on that
agreement, under pressure from the false brethren, and it is this that Paul admonishes them
for. Throughout, the obvious assumption is that the Galatians respect these guys more than
Paul, so Paul needs their support, and is here struggling to insist to the Galatians that he has it,
and anyone who has claimed otherwise has just not heard the whole story (which Paul then
tells in Gal. 2).
R E P LY
MIC H A EL • MARCH 29 , 2012, 4:10 PM
You can hear Bart E compare Jesus and Julius ceasar wrt evidence on YouTube. Ehrman vs Reg Finley, audio
of a radio interview.
Also you hear Ehrman pretend to never have heard of Robert Price, in a transparent attempt to show price has
no academic credibility, and then a bit later has to admit he has heard of him.
He says something like, of course I believe Jesus existed, I wrote a book about what he said and did. Which
might be a clue about his approach.
R E P LY
I can’t speak as to the rest, but I don’t think Ehrman was being disingenuous in not
remembering Price. I have often forgotten the exact names of scholars I’ve read, until
something reminded me. And it would be silly to think that you have to know someone to
consider them a credible academic. There are thousands of scholars Ehrman would deem
fully credible academics in this field, most of whom Ehrman could not name. And he would
not find this surprising. We can’t all know each other, much less have read everything we’ve
all written.
R E P LY
@BLAMER • MARCH 29 , 2012, 5:42 PM
The answer is easy; check wikipedia. Or obtain the qualifications necessary for swaying academic consensus.
A man existed, did earthly deeds, was one of many claiming to be an incarnation of the Creator Godand
Savior described in the Jewish Bible, and was executed in the usual way.
Historians and academics know that Jesus was a man. That man is profoundly different to the character of
miracle and divine nature that New Testament teachers claim to “know” and those who believe them have in
mind.
R E P LY
I let this comment through to serve as an example of the kind of comment I am inclined not to
approve. It makes no argument, just a series of assertions, which completely ignores all the
argument preceding it and in the post it is responding to. As a rule, I will allow this sort of
thing the first time, but not its continuation (see my comments policy). Make arguments, not
assertions, and address what has been said. Failure to comply will result in comments being
rejected. Consider yourself warned.
R E P LY
ERIC CH ABOT • APRIL 1, 2012, 8:58 PM
Well Richard, interesting comments about the Boyd/Eddy book and Miller article. I will get back you on some
of your points later this week. But a few things:
1.You say on comment #111:
“Neither of which are Mettinger. So this is moot to the point we were discussing.” Do you understand that
Mettinger’s thesis is that there are 3 and perhaps as many as 5 cases of dying and rising gods that predate Jesus
in the Ancient Near East? This was the scope of his thesis. But in the appendix, he wishes to go beyond his
thesis and comment on whether the Christians borrowed from these and he does provide a few reasons for
rejecting that thesis (see my quotes from him previously). Furthermore, if you notice what Mettinger says: He
emphasizes that Jesus’ resurrection may be profitably studied against the background of JEWISH resurrection
beliefs (not pagan mythology).
And yes, I am well aware of the different sects of Second Temple Judaism. But I seem to not understand your
points given that Paul makes it clear he was a Pharisee and we see that it is in his texts a rejection of polytheism,
other gods, etc. When we read 1 Cor 8:5-6, is Paulaccepting a Hellenistic view of God? Is he telling his
audience to fit Jesus into their gods? Unless I am missing something, I also don’t see in this passage thatPaul is
abandoning Jewish monotheism for paganism.
2.Notice the following article by Paul Eddy called Was Early Christianity Corrupted by ‘Hellenism’? at
http://www.ukapologetics.net/hellenism.htm
“Although Judaism and early Christianity were affected by the surrounding culture in certain ways, they diligently
guarded their religious beliefs and practices from Hellenistic pagan influences, even to the point of martyrdom.
We now come to the heart of the issue. The historical and archaeological evidence shows that both Judaism and
early Christianity carefully guarded their religious views from the surrounding Hellenistic culture. For example,
with regard to Judaism, the archaeological work of Eric Meyers on the city of Sepphoris in first-century Upper
Galilee reveals that, in spite of wise-spread Hellenistic influence on various cultural levels, the Jewish people
maintained a strict observance of the Torah.
“When it comes to early Christianity, it is clear that the religious influences are Jewish rather than Hellenistic
paganism. The essence of the Christian Gospel is nothing more nor less than the fulfillment of all the Old
Testament covenantal promises through the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. It is the climax of the history of
Yahweh-God’s dealings with the Jewish people through a series of covenants, culminating in the New Covenant
of Jesus Christ. It is a Jewish worldview that dominates the Gospel, not that of paganism. Gregory Dix’s
conclusions on the question of the Hellenization of the Gospel confirm this claim: the central core of the Gospel
consists of “a Jewish Monotheism and a Jewish Messianism and a Jewish Eschatology; which is expressed in a
particular pattern of worship and morality.”
This conclusion does conflict with what used to be a popular view of Christian origins in the early twentieth-
century. This view, held by a group, of critical scholars known as the ‘History of Religions School,’ claimed that
many early Christian beliefs and practices were actually borrowed from Hellenistic pagan ‘mystery cults.’ In
recent years, however, this view has largely been abandoned by the scholarly world. The evidence now
demonstrates that early Christianity is best understood as arising from the Jewish thought world. “
So after reading this, am I to understand that you are still a strong advocate of the ‘History of Religions School?’
And am I to understand you don’t cite select scholars to support your views?
R E P LY
Eric Chabot:
“
But in the appendix, he wishes to go beyond his thesis and comment on
whether the Christians borrowed from these and he does provide a few
reasons for rejecting that thesis (see my quotes from him previously).
But he examines no evidence or scholarship on the mystery religions or the dying-and-rising

god cults in the Hellenistic. That’s my point.
“
He emphasizes that Jesus’ resurrection may be profitably studied against the
background of JEWISH resurrection beliefs (not pagan mythology).
The coyness of which I already addressed earlier. I actually agree Jewish religion (including
resurrection belief and eschatology–although both were Jewish borrows from pagan
Zoroastrianism) is crucial to understanding the Christian version of the dying-and-rising savior
son-of-god mytheme. To suggest that the dying-and-rising savior son-of-god mytheme itself
is not as crucial betrays either ignorance of the Hellenistic evidence on Mettinger’s part, or his
deliberate avoidance of controversy.
“
And yes, I am well aware of the different sects of Second Temple Judaism.
But I seem to not understand your points given that Paul makes it clear he
was a Pharisee and we see that it is in his texts a rejection of polytheism,
other gods, etc. When we read 1 Cor 8:5-6, is Paul accepting a Hellenistic
view of God? Is he telling his audience to fit Jesus into their gods? Unless I
am missing something, I also don’t see in this passage that Paul is
abandoning Jewish monotheism for paganism.
Don’t move the goal posts. I was speaking of your blanket generalization about Jews, not
Paul specifically.
If you are now changing the subject to Paul specifically, then you must first recognize that the
dying-and-rising savior son-of-god mytheme was adapted into Judaism by Peter, not Paul;
Paul was merely persuaded of it by a revelation, which caused him to abandon his strict
Phariseeism–including the Torah law, a far more radical departure from Jewish expectations
than believing in a pagan-like resurrected divine savior.
And no one is saying Paul “abandoned Jewish monotheism for paganism.” Rather, he (or
rather Peter) found a Jewish way to accept pagan ideas as compatible with core tenets of
Judaism (the same way previous Jews had done in adopting resurrection and eschatology and
demonology and angelology and a Devil and a firey hell, and so on, from pagans before).
“
The historical and archaeological evidence shows that both Judaism and
early Christianity carefully guarded their religious views from the
surrounding Hellenistic culture.
Except we know that’s not true. From the dozens of cults we have evidence of (and I cited
where I list examples and references), Judaism was wildly diverse in its adaptation of
Hellenistic concepts, religious and philosophical, as it had done before with Zoroastrianism.
The existence of conservative Jews (or even towns) in no way argues that all Jews held the
same resistance–and even the conservative Jews failed to make themselves wholly immune
(as again their ready adoption of several core concepts from Zoroastrianism proves).
This is just one giant fallacy of false generalization. And I have already listed countless
examples of why it doesn’t hold up. As just another example, the widespread use of
sorcery by Jews, even in the Holy Land, despite it being a death penalty offense: finding few
or no examples of open sorcery in Sepphoris, for example, would in no way argue against
this, because it was always a fringe pursuit, just as Christianity was, and just as every other
divergent sect was (e.g. at Qumran and beyond). So the evidence is going to be next to nil.
That does not permit a false generalization that there wasn’t any; because we have enough
evidence to prove there was plenty.
“
The essence of the Christian Gospel is nothing more nor less than the
fulfillment of all the Old Testament covenantal promises through the long-
awaited Jewish Messiah.
This entails a catch-22: either a dying-and-rising personal-savior son-of-god was an obvious

“fulfillment of all the Old Testament covenantal promises through the long-awaited Jewish
Messiah” (and therefore already Jewish and thus not a unique Christian development, contra
Ehrman) or it was borrowed from pagans (where it existed widely and publicly all around and
among the Jewish towns and diaspora communities). Take your pick.
Indeed, falling on your sword and picking option 1 will actually just slide you right back onto
the blade of option 2, since insofar as any dying-and-rising personal-savior son-of-god could
be read out of “all the Old Testament covenantal promises” is by being inspired to look for it
by the pagan zeitgeist promoting it. Otherwise, its appearance at only that time in history is a
hugely improbable coincidence.
“
It is a Jewish worldview that dominates the Gospel, not that of paganism.
That’s a false dichotomy. Syncretism simply doesn’t work this way. Obviously Christianity is
a Jewish religion, and thus “a Jewish worldview dominates” it. That has nothing whatever to
do with how pagan concepts were used to modify and adapt that Jewish worldview.
Christianity is a syncretism of Judaism and paganism, not a replacement of Judaism with
paganism.
Thus “a Jewish Monotheism and a Jewish Messianism and a Jewish Eschatology; which is
expressed in a particular pattern of worship and morality” is the Jewish component, and the
dying-and-rising personal-savior son-of-god is the pagan component. Likewise the use of
baptism to cleanse the individual of sin or other spiritual obstacles to entering paradise (which
was adopted from pagans into Judaism before Christianity, and Christianity picked it up from
there).
“
In recent years, however, this view has largely been abandoned by the
scholarly world.
That’s not really true. It’s what fundamentalists want to be true, and usually it’s
fundamentalists who are cited as saying it’s true, and some secular scholars have been duped
by it, but there is no informed consensus that matches this conclusion.
The fallacy here is conflating the whole program of the “History of Religions” school withall
possible claims of Hellenistic influence on Judaism and the origins of Christianity. One
does not have to accept the former to conclude that many of the latter claims are true. It’s
simply a red herring to talk about the “History of Religions” school. That simply becomes a
lame excuse to refuse to talk about the evidence.
R E P LY
R US S ELL D OW S ETT • AP R IL 1 0, 201 2, 5:02 P M
Richard, I am currently reading, ” Jesus A very Jewish Myth” 3rd edition by RG Price. I found his take on
Josephus and the TF very thorough & convincing although I tend to think of more sinister motives for the
interpolation than he does. I will need to reread Ehrman’s effort on the TF in the light of Price’s arguments but I
did notice that both men failed to mention Josephus’ antecedents when discussing the plausibility of the TF.
Surely the facts that his father, Matthias, who was born in the census year of 6CE and was from a high ranking
priestly family, A Pharisee, I think, is extremely relevant to the question of how much Josephus was likely to
know about Jesus, had he existed. My instinct tells me that had Jesus existed Josephus would have known a
very large amount of intimate detail about the man and his activities just from table-talk, within the family, alone.
Also consider his teenage flirtation with contemporary religious sects that would have operated cheek by jowl
with an emergent Jesus sect. To me, that this man demonstrates so little knowledge of Jesus is more astounding
than the silence in the works of Philo.
R E P LY
I disagree. Christianity was far more fringe and insignificant than you are assuming. See
chapter 18 of Not the Impossible Faith (particularly the case of Pliny the Younger). There
were dozens of fringe Jewish cults even in Judea that Josephus never mentions, and
Christianity was maximally unsuccessful in Judea. It was mainly a tiny urban diaspora
movement. Josephus would not likely encounter them any more than you would be likely to
stumble across a Rastafarian, much less chat about them over dinner with anyone (even if you
were a Bible Belt Southern Baptist missionary and politician hell bent on routing all the
heathens), or write about them or know much about them. And IMO you will likely know
more about Rastafarians (or chat about them etc.) because you have a modernist interest in
foreign religions and international history that Josephus did not share. Moreover, even those
who knew things about Christians would not likely know the details of their origins or founder
(just as an average modern is unlikely to know such things about Rastafarianism), and they
would be even less likely to ever imagine an occasion to mention them in their writings even if
they did know such things (or even if they did not).
In all, I do not think much can be made of Josephus’ silence except to conclude that
Christianity was so small a movement it was socially invisible–as invisible as the dozen or so
other Jewish sects Josephus doesn’t ever mention–and Jesus (if he existed) did nothing at all
significant enough for barely anyone to notice or care about.
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • AP R IL 1 4, 201 2, 5:56 AM
Some people say, “I’m not going to brag[…]” and then proceed to brag. Not me. I’m going to brag: I was on to
this guy sooner than the rest of you, put off by his smugness and hucksterism. Smugness is never anything but the
calling card of stupidity, and hucksterism, well, you all probably already know what that is.
I don’t want to read Did Jesus Exist? but eventually I may have to, for the same reason I eventually had to read
the Bible and the Kritik der reinen Vernunft: not for any charm or depth inherent in the text, but because they
were so important to others that I had to read them just to keep up in discussions.
Did Jesus Exist? is available in limited preview on amazon:com: you can read some but not all of the pages
there. I just finished reading most of the Introduction and the Conclusion there, and if possible they’re even more
obnoxious than Ehrman’s blurb on HP. I’m cautious with words like “certain,” words which imply absoluteness,
much more cautious than, oh, say, Bart Ehrman, but just those few pages at the front and the back of Ehrman’s
latest book make it seem fairly certain that he never actually entertained the question in the book’s title. Rather,
he had always “known” that Jesus existed, and that no “sensible and educated” person doubted it for a moment,
and when he recently learned, to his horror, that a great many people do doubt it, he set out to set them straight.
Hence this book, for the writing of which it was at no time necessary to ask himself whether the mythicists might
be right.
What a hick! What a bigot, already knowing what’s what and not about to let experience or knowledge change
that. He reminds me of the professors and statesmen in Brecht’s Leben des Galilee who decline to look through
Galileo’s telescope at the night sky because they already know from the Bible that they will not see what Galileo
is telling them they will see, and the Imam in Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, who spends his time in exile in the West
inside a room with no windows, and when he must leave that room for any period of time he is surrounded by
his followers to his front, back, left and right, to make sure that his eyes are never insulted by a glimpse of the
wicked West. Ehrman is the enemy, not just of mythicists, but of anyone in favor of things like free inquiry.
C’mon now. Nobody here thinks that Ehrman ever introduced anything new into Biblical studies, do they? He
went from conforming to conservative evangelism to conforming to liberal New Testament studies, including its
“shocking” tendency to agnosticism. And maybe someday he’ll “shockingly” jump that boat for the mythicist
camp, where he’ll parrot mythicist positions and continue to trample and break the bones of people unwittingly
standing between him and the cameras of documentary filmmakers.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 18, 2012, 10:50 AM
I assume you meant to say “hack” and not “hick.” The latter doesn’t make any sense.
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • AP R IL 1 8, 201 2, 6 :42 P M
I meant “hick.”
I meant “Don’t let the credentials fool you, folks, on the inside this man is still a back-woods,
gap-toothed, snake-handling hick. He’s just hunkered down and speaking tongues in a
differnt holler now. And not necessarily a classier one when it comes to earnest
sophistication.” That’s what I meant.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 19 , 2012, 8:52 AM
Then I don’t think that insult was justified by the evidence you presented.
R E P LY
K R IS • APRIL 19 , 2012, 10:55 AM
I don’t think anyone, least of all Ehrman, is claiming that he introduced anything new to
biblical studies. He’s always been very clear that his aim is to introduce mainstream biblical
scholarship to audiences who would normally not be exposed to it. That’s a perfectly
admirable goal in my view, and he does it well overall, so I don’t see any need to denigrate
him for it.
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • AP R IL 1 9 , 201 2, 1 0:56 AM
Maybe I got a little carried away. (Or a lot.) Let me try again:
It seems to me that Ehrman sometimes is less than entirely fair and forthright. For example,
when he wrote a piece about Gnostic Gospels for the mostly-lay audience at Huffington Post
in order to plug the book he co-wrote with Plese: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-
ehrman/didnt-make-the-bible_b_905076.html or talked about those texts on a History
Channel program, he referred to them as representing an “alternative Christianity” which was
violently put down in the 4th and 5th centuries by the Roman Empire allied with what
emerged as what we think of today as mainstream Christianity. He did not mention that some
of these “alternative” Gospels he listed off were written during, or even after, the 4th and 5th
centuries.
He didn’t say that these other Gospels were competing with the 4 ones since canonized, and
so he could always plead innocence when many HP readers inferred that people like Origen
and Constantine had banned and destroyed them and prevented them from joining the canon,
when some of them hadn’t been until long ofter the Orthodox canon was already established.
Of course, it was more sensationalistic to let them infer such things. Of course, I can’t prove
sensationalistic intent.
Similarly, I can’t prove that Ehrman meant for many readers to read his new book and
equate people like you and Price with Holocaust deniers and people who thought the moon
landings all took place on Hollywood film sets. He never specifically makes those
comparisons with you or Price. But it’s not surprising that some people are putting serious
non-historicists — never mind just mythicists, or just the less-competent mythicists — into
that category of nut in the wake of Ehrman’s book. Certainly Ehrman will insist that he didn’t
mean for people to draw such conclusions. Perhaps he’ll even mean it, who knows.
I can’t prove anything that would stand up in court. But I think I see a clear and very
unpleasant pattern, in which Ehrman writes and says things which can be very easily
misconstrued, whether it’s to sensationalize the subject matter of one of his books — another
example: suggesting, without ever getting terribly specific, once again maintaining plausible
deniability, that textual variants in Biblical manuscripts are mountain-sized, when they look
more like molehills to me — or to defame opponents or potential future opponents, or with
some other purpose which has nothing whatsoever to do with the advancement of learning,
and everything to do with the rise of Bart D. Ehrman.
Maybe I’m completely crazy. Or maybe I’m just exceptionally perceptive.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 19 , 2012, 2:36 PM
Steven Bollinger:
“
It seems to me that Ehrman sometimes is less than entirely
fair and forthright.
That I will agree with: because it must be that or else he was marvelously
sloppy and incompetent in his treatment of mythicist writings and even
mainstream evidence and scholarship. It has to be one or the other.
Neither is flattering to him.
But IMO even being a lying polemicist (the worst possibility here) does
not make him a hick by any definition of the term, even by hyperbole. Just
saying.
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • AP R IL 1 9 , 201 2, 4:1 5 P M
Richard Carrier:
it must be that [Ehrman sometimes is less than entirely fair and forthright] or else he
was marvelously sloppy and incompetent in his treatment of mythicist writings and
even mainstream evidence and scholarship. It has to be one or the other. Neither is
flattering to him.
As I said, his behavior this go-round with historicism/mythicism seems to me to be of a piece

with his behavior earlier when introducing subjects such as the dating of Gnostic Gospels and
the extent of Biblical manuscript variations to a lay audience. (Add the extent of changes
made to the received text in the edition of the KJV to that list of subject, and vague mentions
of nefarious political motives for those changes.) There’s a consistency of misleading
statements without any outright, and therefore clearly impeachable errors.
Also, Ehrman strikes me as being the very opposite of sloppy or incompetent. Just my
superficial impression, unsupported by any personal contact with the man. But it’s very hard
for me to imagine that all of things could have been due solely to inadvertant misstatement and
sloppy work.
I must say, I had not anticipated such vehement rejection of my use of the epithet “hick.” I
think my using that word distracted from the actual subject of Ehrman, and I apologize for
that.
R E P LY
Like devout Catholics who are scientists, one can be a credulous

defender of dogma using fallacies and poorly researched arguments, while
in every other area delivering competent and careful research and logically
sound arguments.
Ehrman is more likely acting like this, not defending a religious belief but
an academic view he regards as sacrosanct, against villains he regards as
nefariously motivated incompetents incapable of being right. Thus, he
doesn’t do careful research here, because he honestly believes they must
be wrong and he must be right. He is in effect rationalizing his belief, by
finding reasons to believe he is correct, even though that belief was not
actually formed based on any of those reasons–rather than following the
evidence where it leads or being suitably self-critical.
That may be delusional. But it’s not dishonest.
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • AP R IL 21 , 201 2, 6 :04 AM
Richard Carrier
“one can be a credulous defender of dogma using fallacies and poorly researched
arguments, while in every other area delivering competent and careful research and
logically sound arguments”
I know this very well. A beloved uncle of mine is a brilliant mechanical engineer. A lot of my
basic education in science occurred at his house, both talking to him and reading Scientific
American. He subscribed for a long time and he didn’t throw the back issues away. The
same uncle is also a creationist born-again Christian. He’s not a young-Earth creationist, but
rather, one of the sort who get a lot of mileage out of Bible verses like 2 Peter 3:8: “But,
beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day.” (I haven’t spoken with him about the fact that 2 Peter is
now widely regardeed as pseudepigraphical.)
So I’m well acquainted with how one and the same person can be both highly-rational and
dogmatic. I daresay that many if not most of us are very intelligent in some areas and very
unintelligent in others.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter to me whether the things to which I object in Ehrman’s
behavior are the result of blind spots or conscious deviousness. For one thing, we can’t ever
really know for sure, barring telepathy, which I assume you don’t believe in any more than I.
For another, the behavior does the same amount of damage either way.
And as far as credulously defending things goes, you and others may well be defending
Ehrman based to some degree on not wanting to believe his intentions are less than
honorable. It would be perfectly natural if your previous high opinion of him clouded your
judgement of his current behavior and its motivation.
R E P LY
It’s more that I don’t see evidence of him being deliberately dishonest
here. Unlike what I do see in some cases with certain Christian apologists,
where there is no other credible explanation for certain things they do and
say but that they are being deliberately dishonest.
R E P LY
S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • AP R IL 22, 201 2, 8:26 AM
Sincere self-deception can lead to very obvious errors which may look like shameless lies,
and dishonesty can be very skilled and subtle and hard to spot. Again, we lack telepathy. It’s
true, I haven’t read any of his books all the way through, but I have read several of his
articles and seen several of his interviews, and before Did Jesus Exist? he already struck me
as untrustworthy. Competent, yes, but always skewing his remarks toward a personal
agenda.
For example, I don’t know whether you’ve spotted this from your viewpoint closer to
established academia, but from where I’m standing it seems clear that many if not most
laypeople who’ve heard of him assume that Ehrman is quite unusual in being both a Biblical
scholar, an actual well-established professor in the field, and an agnostic, and that his
positions prior to Did Jesus Exist? were quite daring, shaking things up in academia. As you
and I both know, it’s been a long time since an agnostic Biblical scholar has been a shocking
phenomenon, and Ehrman’s positions mostly run pretty close academic consensus.
It’s hard for me to believe that Ehrman was never aware of this false image of him as a rebel
and an outsider in his field. But I never saw him do anything to correct this false image, just
as, as I mentioned upthread, I’ve never seen him correct the false notions about the dating of
some Gnostic Gospels which many people have gotten from his work.
It’s conceivable that an author such as Ehrman could be completely out of touch with the part
of his audience which only reads him in the mainstream media or sees him on TV, and
therefore completely unaware of widespread misconceptions for which he was responsible.
On the other hand, it would have been very simple for Ehrman to make clear to a lay
audience that his positions were not outside the academic mainstream, and that some of the
Gospels he was describing were written after the canon was well-fixed. He doesn’t so much
as mention their dates: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/didnt-make-the-
bible_b_905076.html And then ends up the article referring to “the earliest Christians.”
Sloppy? Or sloppy like a fox? A see a pattern of statements which might give his colleagues
no occasion for objection, but which consistently misleads a wider public, and is very
plausibly deniable. That’s a very subtle tightrope of deception to walk, but I believe I see it.
Sloppiness is not nearly so consistent. Sloppiness looks more like randomness. I don’t see a
Poisson distribution here.
Nota bene, I said deception, not dishonesty. It could well be instinctual rather than deliberate.
I was thinking of instinctual behavior upthread when I used that unfortunate four-letter epithet
beginning with h. Poor people living in hollers or trailers parks often must rely on instinctual
and sometimes ruthless craftiness if they want to survive, let alone thrive. I don’t blame them
a bit for it. Of course, if one of them rises to an influential position in academia, they’re freed
from the need for such desperate behavior. And in fortunate cases also actually freed from
the behavior.
Of course, Did Jesus Exist? is objectionable both to academics and to many of Ehrman’s
fans, or in many cases actually former fans. And so it’s break with his previous work both in
your opinion, that it was first-rate, and in mine, that it lead a large atheist audience around by
the nose.
(Full disclosure of my paranoid-nutbag credentials: I believe the Holocaust happened, I

believe climate change is being caused by humans, I believe the Apollo moon landings were
real, and I think the “specacraft” that caused all the hullabaloo in Roswell in 1947 was a
weather balloon. But I’m not convinced that Oswald acted alone, nor that significant numbers
of Federal employees and contractors didn’t participate in JFK’s assassination. [Including
LBJ? Yeah, could be.] I think Oliver Stone is crazy most of the time, but I don’t think Mr
X’s story in JFK is farfetched.)
R E P LY
MI C H A EL MA C R OSSA N • AP R IL 19 , 2012, 2:30 P M
I second that Richard’s objection to “hick”.
R E P LY
S O C R A T I C G A D F LY • A P R I L 2 4 , 2 0 1 2 , 3 : 2 5 P M
I don’t have a Ph.D., but I do have a subject-level masters, and, Ehrman’s claims surprise me indeed, as does
the relative vociferousness, as I’ve actually exchanged a couple of emails with him re the historicity issue. (I’m in
neither “camp” but I think the possibility of at least the ahistoricity of the Jesus presented in the Bible
[Thompson] or even Jesus period is high enough to deserve academic discussion. That said, there’s Option 3 …
“Jesus” was historical, but the Pharisee crucified by Alexander Jannai. That gives a century plus for a myth to
develop around a historic person.
Of course, at the same time, Carrier and Ehrman are dueling book authors; Ehrman’s comment may be in part a
defense of his book; ditto Carrier. And, in the background both PZ and Hoffmann are advancing their own
agendas to boot.
R E P LY
JON A TH A N • APRIL 25, 2012, 9 :43 AM
Stop using ‘fallacy’. Also, stop naming these supposed fallacies. It’s driving me crazy.
R E P LY
R I C H A R D C A R R I E R • M AY 2 , 2 0 1 2 , 8 : 0 8 A M
He who does not learn to think well, will not think well. And he who does not care to learn to
think well, will not learn to think well.
R E P LY
R O B E R T B U M B A L O U G H • M AY 2 , 2 0 1 2 , 8 : 3 2 A M
Hello Johathan. The fallacy you’ve made by asking Carrier to stop it with the pointing out of
and naming fallacies because it drives you crazy is called appeal to emotion.
Its hard to be a good thinker, arguer, and writer.
R E P LY
J O N A T H A N • M AY 3 , 2 0 1 2 , 1 0 : 5 8 A M
slippery slope fallacy
R E P LY
J O N A T H A N • M AY 1 6 , 2 0 1 2 , 8 : 5 4 A M
To Robert. Well, not really. I never said “because it’s driving me crazy.” I may have perfectly
good reasons for asking someone to avoid talking like that. I wonder what Susan Haack’s
reasons were:
“Maybe we should start by dumping those hundreds of “critical thinking” books, with their
over-emphasis on identifying fallacies, and encouraging teachers and students to read John
Locke’s extraordinary essay on The Conduct of the Understanding”
– Susan Haack, http://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/1207
R E P LY
P • AP R IL 25, 201 2, 7:32 P M
Richard “The Aircraft” Carrier gets schools and made to look like a petulant 5th grader
http://ehrmanblog.org/fuller-reply-to-richard-carrier/
Welcome to the world of real scholarship, you big, hulking, hulk you.
R E P LY
The reality is quite the reverse.
R E P LY
R O B E R T B U M B A L O U G H • M AY 2 , 2 0 1 2 , 9 : 1 6 A M
@P No True Scotsman Fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman_fallacy
R E P LY
JON STEI N A R • AP R IL 26 , 2012, 6 :17 AM
What we have of Tacitus is fragmentary and even dubious in a sense, since you mention that as a source.
Have you read a document named: Tacitus and Bracchiolini? It tells of how those books were found and claims
that some of those 16 books (I think) are forgery. I recommend the reading. The the latest 5 or six not forgeries
in that sense were found in a monastery and dated to the 15. century. Those include the famous reference to
Chrestus /Christos.
Not my point though.
Those books are all in chronological order but missing some years. Those years are ca. 29-32AD. Maybe Pilate
was mentioned there and even more significant “happenings”. The lack of these years may by some be called
unfortunate and for others maybe fortunate.
Just wanted to add that snippet.
R E P LY
R O B E R T B U M B A L O U G H • M AY 2 , 2 0 1 2 , 1 1 : 0 0 A M
Hello Dr. Carrier. Were wealthy, educated elite persons of late first or early second century Roman empire
generally conversant in Hebrew or Aramaic? How were those people taught to compose essays or descriptive
narrative reports regardless of language?
R E P LY
There were plenty such persons. Rabbis, for example. Members of the economic elite among
Jews in Palestine and some among the diaspora (like Philo). Some scribes. Etc. How
Hebrew schools taught composition we don’t know. But many of these people mastered
Greek as well (like Paul, Josephus, etc.), and we know all the authors of the NT had done
so, so we know they were taught Greek methods of composition, which we know a lot
about. Since we don’t have any Aramaic or Hebrew documents from early Christianity, how
they were composed is already unknown. But we have comparanda: a ton of Jewish
apocrypha and legends and fabrications in Hebrew or Aramaic (the book of Daniel is a good
example, likewise Tobit, Enoch, etc.).
R E P LY
K E N T O N F O R S H E E • M AY 6 , 2 0 1 2 , 6 : 5 4 P M
Hi Richard,
My best friend Ben says, “The fact that the authors of Matthew and Luke had to devise a way to explain how it
is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in spite of growing up in Nazareth strongly suggests that there was a
historical Jewish teacher at the root of the belief systems.”
What is the mythicist position on this?
R E P LY
R I C H A R D C A R R I E R • M AY 7, 2 0 1 2 , 7 : 3 0 P M
See “Nazareth” in the index to my book Proving History.
R E P LY
K E N T O N F O R S H E E • M AY 7, 2 0 1 2 , 7 : 4 4 P M
Thanks, will do!
R E P LY
A N D R EW VI C ER O Y • JUN E 3, 201 2, 1 0:1 7 P M
The ‘no true Scotsman’ thing goes all the way back to when Ehrman was on Infidel Guy years ago and he went
off about Robert Price and got very emotional asking what degrees he has and what books he’s written and
where he teaches. Reggie remarked at the end of the show (and I was thinking it too) that he committed the
NTSF. Ehrman also busted out the “brother of the Lord” argument. That was years ago…
R E P LY
C OR N ELIUS • S EP TEMBER 6 , 201 2, 1 1 :44 AM
If we used Richard Carrier’s standard for determining who existed and who didn’t, 75% of all ancient Greek
philosophers would instantly disappear into the Carrier black hole where sources must be within X number of
years.
To name a few:
Protagoras
Socrates (known from 3 or 4 main sources all 30-40 years after his death – not many reliable facts, but shows
he was historical: Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and the 4th source is a comment by Aristophanes; perhaps scholia
have more, all of which disappear as sources using Carrier’s logic)
Pythagoras
*Practically all of the ancient Greek philosophical schools and their heads such as Diogenes the Cynic, Zeno of
Elea and so on.
*Most of the philosophers mentioned in Diogenes Laertius virtually vanish in the Carrier wormhole.
*Countless painters, sculptors, and architects in antiquity who are mentioned in only one source centuries later
(usually Pausanias). For example Pausanias is the main (reliable) source for events such as the First Messenian
War (mid 8th century BC) when he wrote in the 2nd century AD! According to Carrier’s criteria the war
shouldn’t even exist! Not to mention what Carrier would do with ancients who had similar names (e.g. Aristocles
of Cydonia (sculptor) and his grandson Aristocles of Sycion… not to mention Aristocles of Cydonia was also
called Aristocles of Sycion – Carrier would immediately through both under the bus claiming they were the same
legendary person).
———
It’s one thing to compare Iamblichus’ Vita Pythagorae and say that none of the episodes are historically
authentic, it’s quite another to claim that Iamblichus’ narrative is an amalgam of various legends and mathematical
superstitions put together to create Pythagoras. That’s the difference between Ehrman and Carrier. And no,
Ehrman is not out to warn anyone trying to encroach the “sacrosanct” topic of Jesus’ existence as if it were a
religious dogma – he is simply trying to end the absurdity of the mythicist position and supposed evidence of it.
Ehrman’s annoyance with the people who so vehemently propel the mythicist position is similar to other
scholars’ frustration when the fringe conspiracy theorists come around such as Anglo-Saxon historians who have
to deal with those denying the existence of people such as the chronicler Asser (Smyth).
No, dear Dr.Carrier, the mythicist position is not only fairly attacked by Ehrman, but nobody should even claim
the arguments put forward, especially here, are any kind of convincing support.
Oh, by the way, Thomas L. Thompson’s views are completely dismantled by the rest of the scholars – David’s
existence (Beth David inscription), United Monarchy (Menander of Ephesus apud Josephus) and so on.
Mythicism is just a push in the opposite direction of scholarship.
R E P LY
R I C H A R D C A R R I E R • S E P T E M B E R 7, 2 0 1 2 , 1 1 : 4 3 A M
“
“
If we used Richard Carrier’s standard for determining who existed and who
didn’t, 75% of all ancient Greek philosophers would instantly disappear into
the Carrier black hole where sources must be within X number of years.
What do you think is my “standard” for determining who existed and who didn’t?
One was not stated in this article. So I’d be curious to know how you know what it is, or
what you think it is.
Particularly given that the standard I have discussed elsewhere does not seem to be the
one you assume I employ. Nor does the standard I elaborately lay out in my book Proving
History.
By my actual standards, none of the conclusions you infer follow.
R E P LY
K W AME AJAMU • F EBR UAR Y 1 8 , 201 3, 1 2:01 P M
Hello Dr. carrier, I want to say that this Christ thing is nothing but disguished, not so disguished king worship,
just like the other ancient states in the meditteranean. and I have Joe Atwill coming on my Blogtalk radio show
feb 23, at 8pm eastern, and Dr. Robert Eisenman coming onthe 20th of feb 8pm eastern, the call in number
is(347)838-9066, please call in with questions, and I hold out an invitation to you dr carrier to come on my
show as well to talk about your new books.
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 26 , 2013, 6 :57 P M
So sorry, I was traveling and not able to find time to get to this comment in the queue in time
for that event. But it sounds like there should be an archived audio file of that show online
somewhere.
R E P LY
K W AME AJAMU • F EBR UAR Y 1 8 , 201 3, 1 :22 P M
I am not advocating Joe Atwills theory here, but from rading your blogs here debunking Ehrmans article in
HuffPo, I don’t see why you don’t have room for Christianity being purposely created. You say Philo does not
mention Christ and he does mention Pon Pilate, and that means that Christianity was too small to get on the Elite
Jewish agenda. Then if Christianity could have existed and just be too small to be noticed then Christ could have
existed and just been too none important to be noticed.
You acknowledge this and say that this proves that even if Christ existed( this mindset by the professor of Jewish
study’s that Ehrman is debunking) but this not likely. As you say that no ancient scholars mentioned Jesus or
Christianity, that name gives it away, don’t you see that that the characterization of the cult that the gospels
betray was really the Essene movement that the Romans were fighting, and that intellectuals mostly Jewish in the
Herod camp and the Roman camp wrote those fake gospels trying to pass it off as Jewish Messianic Scripture.
That paul was a key player in creating a counter religion to Messianic Judaism, somewhere in the bible I forgiot
where but will get back on the verse later, Paul salute all all in Caesars household and the littlest Herod and
Epaphorditus who since Paul tells us he salutes all Caesars household he must be talking of Epaphorditus Neros
secretary, whom Domitian executes for being a Christian(Helenized word for Messianic Jew) Paul even says that
they heled him start his Christian community, these were just the people who could have wrote the gospels, tats
why you scholars are still argueing over Q, because these documents was the story gathered to fake the peaceful
messiah, when I found who these cpeople where who Paul was writing salutes too I knew that it was an attempt
to create a false messianic Judaism with the Philo otherworldly celestial yeshua that I found out about from your
book dr Carier Not The Impossible Faith.
And from your article here I conclude that the short length of time that Christianity sprouted up that it is not an
organic myth but a constructed one and from the synoptic gospels and Q. And from your explaining the
syencretization of the paegan with the jewish, some college of Herod appointed Jewish priest, erod and Roman
appointed Sanhedrin pharisses put the Christian religion and the gospels and Jesus togather.
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • F EBR UAR Y 26 , 201 3, 7:02 P M
Just to be clear, I have nothing against the possibility of Christianity being a deliberate
creation (I even discuss the anthropological basis for such a theory in chapter ten of Not the
Impossible Faith). But being possible is not the same thing as being presently provable.
Moreover, just because there are plausible deliberate-invention theories, does not mean all
deliberate-invention theories are plausible. There are many vastly more plausible deliberate-
invention theories than Atwill’s. And those are two distinct points. That I think there are
plausible deliberate-invention theories does not mean I think there are any provable
deliberate-invention theories. We simply can’t know on the available data. Thus any theory
we propose, to be probable, has to be flexible to account for different models of origin.
R E P LY
P OR K BOR G BON D • APRIL 12, 2013, 2:37 PM
The proof in Paul’s letters can’t be narrowed down to two quotes. Paul is constantly on the defense in his
epistles. While he’s off evangelizing throughout Rome, his congregations are getting word of angry Palestinian
Jews who claim Paul has been teaching them loads of crap. Paul recognizes that the others — Peter and James
— have more credibility than he does. He acknowledges this. Even later, when Luke writes Acts, Luke tries to
white-wash the whole thing and make it seem like they’d always been in agreement. And this is all going on just
a decade or two after the supposed death of Jesus. And there are already early tribes of Jewish Christians like
the Ebionites and Nazarenes. We know Peter existed, that his views differed radically from Paul’s, and that he
was martyred in Rome. It’s breathtakingly absurd to think that all these people are bickering over the teachings
of a man who would’ve been alive just a few years earlier but in fact never truly existed — he was just
fabricated. How can you believe this, Dr. Carrier? There’s a reason no serious scholar of early Christianity takes
this idea seriously.
The myth hypothesis is unncessarily complex. The simplest explanation is that there was a Jewish rabbi named
Jesus who had a small cult following, made a little noise, pissed off the wrong people and got crucified for it.
After he died, his followers couldn’t deal with it — they started generating stories about how he would come
back to save them from their Roman opressors. The stories built up over time, Paul caught wind of them and
they branched off into two directions: the Petrine version in Palestine and the Pauline version in the developed
cities of Rome and Greece.
If we didn’t have so much early activity between Paul and Peter’s crew, the myth hypothesis might seem
credible. But there’s no need for it. The simplest explanation is that there was a guy named Jesus. Ehrman wins.
Scholarship wins. Dr Carrier, you lose.
R E P LY
RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 16 , 2013, 8:40 AM
You have the thesis wrong. The Doherty thesis is not that Jesus was made up, but that he
was believed to be a celestial being who communicated by revelation and secret messages
hidden in scripture. The first founders of this belief had obvious authority, since they came
first. That this was a big deal is revealed by Paul early in Galatians 1 where even he says
newcomers who claim to receive revelations are to be shunned…only those who see Jesus
can claim authority. Paul was fighting for his right to claim he saw Jesus (and not one of the
false spirits even Paul is worried about).
R E P LY
TOBIA S DE GOEDE • APRIL 15, 2021, 4:21 PM
I cannot resist saying that Eherman is now no longer a Christian but has now become a Jesusist instead
R E P LY
R IC H AR D C AR R IER • AP R IL 1 5, 2021 , 7:05 P M
Only as humor. He isn’t a “believer” in any religious interpretation of Jesus. He’s just over-
invested in his own pet theories about Jesus, and more concerned about saving face than
discovering the truth; and ultimately, though an excellent textual critic, not a very good
historian.
R E P LY
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Richard Carrier is the author of many books and numerous articles online and in print. His avid readers span the world from Hong Kong to
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origins of Christianity and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, with particular expertise in ancient philosophy, science and technology. He
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2012-03-21 Ehrman Trashtalks Mythicism (Richardcarrier - Info) (10035)

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2012-03-21 Ehrman Trashtalks Mythicism (Richardcarrier - Info) (10035)

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Ehrman Trashtalks Mythicism

BY R ICH AR D CAR R IER / ON MARCH 21, 2012 / 348 COMMENTS

Attacking Academic Freedom

That leaves nothing.

A PPEA RING IN W ISCONSIN HITLER IN SAN FRANCISCO

RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 21, 2012, 4:52 PM

S TEV EN BOLLIN GER • MAR C H 29 , 201 2, 7:00 AM

Richard, you said:

RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 29 , 2012, 9 :54

RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 21, 2012, 4:46 PM

MR C LA W • MARCH 22, 2012, 5:51 AM

Certainly the level of importance attached to him in NT scripture is a gross exaggeration of

RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 22, 2012, 10:12

Mr Claw: Can you, or any of your readers, point me in the direction

JA SON GOER TZ EN • MAR C H 22, 2012, 9 :51 AM

RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 22, 2012, 6 :32

Jason Goertzen: I would like to second Richard’s review of

That’s a worthwhile point. I would still cite that book as representative of

TH OMA S A TWA TER • MARCH 23, 2012, 9 :47 AM

Way back up to the beginning of this thread:

RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 24, 2012, 1:44

Richard, you say of Ehrman:

RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 26 , 2012, 4:54

But since when does anyone address any position by

I do not think it’s wrong to attack dumb arguments. What’s wrong is to

S TEV EN BOLLIN GER • MAR C H 26 , 201 2, 7:26 AM

Richard, you said:

RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 28, 2012, 2:31 PM

Just FYI, my book is much better. It improves on that chapter in every

S TEV EN BOLLIN GER • MAR C H 29 , 201 2, 7:03 AM

Richard, you said:

RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 29 , 2012, 9 :57

[I left both comments up; they fit in both places]

S TEVEN BOLLIN GER • AP R IL 2, 201 2, 1 0:1 4 AM

RICH ARD CARRIER • APRIL 4, 2012, 5:39 PM

I also do not see fatigue as a plausible explanation of his subsequent

Then he went insane.

21, 2012, 4:03 PM

R EGI N A LD SELK I R K • MAR C H 21, 2012, 5:55 P M

And to say we “have” those “sources” is false. I am convinced this is just

J. J. R A MSEY • MAR C H 21, 2012, 4:46 P M

RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 26 , 2012, 6 :28 PM

Ehrman is probably aware of my refutation of that (which is scheduled to appear as “Origen,

RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH 28, 2012, 4:36

I have addressed everything you ask regarding interpreting Gal. 1:19/1

Second, this entire section is a sequence of stories explaining the

(Which succession was obviously very important to Josephus, being that

My explanation does not entail or require that he did.

H A P P Y H ER ETIC • MARCH 21, 2012, 4:54 PM

JOH N • MARCH 21, 2012, 5:00 PM

RICH ARD CARRIER • MARCH 22, 2012, 1:56 PM

BEA C H BU M • MARCH 26 , 2012, 5:06 PM

It’s actually quite simple:

Oh, I agree that it is most likely James head of the

“(most likely James the Pillar, one of the top three

Except that the author of Jude’s claims in 1:1 that this

When I said reading the hidden writings were “off

And finally, I shouldn’t have used the word “claim.” I

Thanks for your insights.

RICHARD CARRIER • MARCH

28, 2012, 6 :33 PM

Except that the author of Jude’s claims in

(Again, if that’s even authentic. Historicists don’t need