Raphael Lataster, an Australian doctoral student in religious studies, has published a book recently, Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate among Atheists, examining the debate over the historicity of Jesus by focusing only on what atheist and agnostic experts are saying, and not Christian believers—regarding the latter as too biased to consider; since any good arguments they have should be as convincing to experts who aren’t believers anyway, so really we should only be looking at the debate among atheists.
It’s a good point. Unfortunately, atheist academic monographs defending historicity don’t exist. The only two so far written this century, by Bart Ehrman and Maurice Casey, were neither published by academic presses, nor underwent any formal peer review. But Lataster works with what the academy has given him. And so he surveys the merits of those two books anyway. And compares them with mine, On the Historicity of Jesus, which was published by an academic press and did pass formal academic peer review. His own result is historicity agnosticism. And a lot of serious criticism of how the academy has handled this debate, judging by the only two books it has produced so far in defense of what the academy often claims should be so well demonstrated as to be irrefutable.
I was commissioned to write a foreword and afterword to the book, and to read the manuscript and provide any advice I had towards its improvement or the correction of any obvious errors or omissions. Lataster operated independently. He did not necessarily heed all of my advice. Whatever remains in the book is now his responsibility to defend. But I will make some comments on the matter below. In particular, I discuss in his book’s afterword what I expected critics will attempt to do, like attack its tone rather than its content—or lie about its contents. That process has already begun…
Why Will Critics Not Be Honest about This Debate?
So far the first review on Amazon tries to tank its rating with a biased critique lacking all substantiation of its claims. By a certain atheist enthusiast by the handle living42day, a Price, Loftus, and Myers fan, who only ever gives full five stars or only one or two stars to any book they review (perhaps a sign of a black and white thinker who suffers from ambiguity intolerance?). Their critique does not support any of its assertions. They say this book “offers little that is not available elsewhere,” even though nowhere has it been all brought together and compared, the actual point of the book (I also can assure you, some of its content has indeed not appeared elsewhere: many of Lataster’s observations and approaches are novel). They also say that “Lataster…refuses to engage some of [Ehrman’s] most important arguments,” without ever saying what those supposedly omitted arguments are. That’s some handy trickery there.
The only thing this critic says that comes even close to saying what those “most important arguments” omitted were, is when they claim Lataster’s “discussion of Josephus’ second passage about Jesus (which mentions ‘the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James’)” is somehow inadequate. They never say how or in what way it is inadequate. They say it “fails to present the best arguments concerning this important piece of evidence,” but never say what those “best arguments” are. This is curious, because Ehrman’s book never preseents even one argument for this passage’s authenticity. Much less an “important” one. Ehrman simply asserts it is authentic. The critic also says they have more examples than this. Then presents none. So, we have an example that is false (there are no arguments for this passage in Ehrman’s book). And phantom additional examples they can’t list. Right.
In fact, Lataster devotes six pages to this passage (pp. 176-80 and 341-42). Ehrman devoted a single paragraph to it: p. 58 of DJE; after that, just a few sentences scattered across the book simply asserting the passage is authentic. And Ehrman never presents any arguments for its authenticity, nor ever even mentions what the arguments have been against its authenticity! Seriously.
So we have a critic who is a liar. Just as I predicted would happen.
This critic also thinks the “possibly, therefore probably” fallacy is deployed here, but doesn’t understand the logical point being made: that there are many alternative explanations of the evidence that have to be ruled out before you can assert one over the others. And no one has adequately addressed this fact. Not even Ehrman—who completely ignored the peer reviewed literature on this; Lataster did not: he cites it. This is especially shocking, as Ehrman even cites key articles in his book (e.g. Paget’s famous treatment), but never mentions what they say on this one issue, even though they agree with Lataster that agnosticism might be in order. Notably, neither can Ehrman have discussed my peer reviewed journal article on it, as it came out the same year as his book. So this critic doesn’t seem to realize that the most recent peer reviewed work on this passage has refuted its authenticity. Lataster does know that. And summarizes the results of this most current scholarship (my article in turn discusses what Paget says on the point).
This critic also says “Lataster fails to meet the standard of correctly representing the arguments of his opponent,” but never gives any example of this ever happening. They vaguely claim “Lataster totally ignores what Ehrman says” against various mythicists, but that’s both untrue and irrelevant. For Lataster is only concerned with what Ehrman says in defense of historicity, not in attack against mythicist arguments that even Lataster does not support; and when it comes to things Ehrman says about arguments Lataster does regard as having enough merit to consider, Lataster does address what Ehrman says about it, explicitly or implicitly (it doesn’t matter which).
So this critic is falsely misrepresenting the content of Lataster’s book. Again. Just as I predicted would happen.
They do this again when they say, “With regard to Ehrman’s book, the central chapter of Ehrman’s book is one entitled ‘Two Key Data for the Historicity of Jesus'” yet Lataster, they say, “totally ignores what Ehrman says in this chapter.” Then they never say what those two key data are. Curious. Because Lataster devotes quite a number of pages to them both. Which means claiming he “totally ignored” the chapter is a stone cold lie. Those two arguments are, BTW, (after charitably making them better than Ehrman presented): (1) “Paul knew Jesus had a brother” (which Lataster devotes dozens of pages to, in various places throughout his book) and (2) “Jews wouldn’t invent a crucified messiah” (which Lataster devotes several pages to as well). See especially pp. 69-87, where Lataster even quotes Ehrman’s words and arguments (and rebuts them in detail) from the chapter Lataster is supposed to have “totally ignored.”
So, this critic is, again, a liar. Just as I predicted would happen.
Why do our critics have to lie? That you have to lie to rebut us? That would normally suggest we are right. And you have nothing.
This resort to lying is an increasingly common tactic employed by even atheists who defend historicity. I’m justifiably pissed off by it.
This critic’s lies don’t stop. They admit, “Paul says almost nothing about the historical Jesus (a point no one disputes),” a savvy concession, but then claims Lataster “tries to avoid dealing with the Galatians passage about James that Ehrman discussed at length in his own book (which Lataster neglected to mention).” Holy. Shit. Batman. Lataster devotes almost a dozen pages to this (pp. 71-72, 268-72, 371-74). Including addressing Ehrman’s mention of it.
So that’s three stone cold lies so far. Plus several misrepresentations of the truth.
This critic also says Lataster’s “claims in defense of Bayesian reasoning are less than convincing,” but never says what about it wasn’t convincing. I hear this a lot from people who don’t understand basic math concepts. They conclude it “isn’t convincing,” so as to not admit what they really mean, which is that “I didn’t understand it.” And that’s not the same thing. I’ll assume the critic isn’t “lying” here, but just doesn’t want to admit what actually happened, and so is being “creative with words.”
But when this critic says it is “not true” that “questioning Jesus’ historicity is…increasingly afforded scholarly credibility,” that looks very much like a lie: since this century began, experts have in fact increasingly afforded it scholarly credibility. Not only have the fully bona fide experts who publicly admit to their historicity agnosticism increased (to now seven fully credentialed experts), not only have fully qualified peer reviewers passed, and a well-respected academic biblical-studies press published, a book arguing for the conclusion (my book was published at the University of Sheffield), a major milestone of increased “affording of credibility,” but historicist Paul Davies himself has now recently said, in a trade journal for the field, that “a recognition that [Jesus’s] existence is not entirely certain would nudge Jesus scholarship towards academic respectability.”
So, liar, or just ignorant of these facts? Either way, a factually false criticism.
Amusingly, despite slagging the book off with a single star rating, this critic still admits that “Lataster does offer some valuable insights as well” and “does make some important points in his discussion of methodology.” Indeed, “He correctly points out the weaknesses of the criteria of authenticity (something that various scholars have long acknowledged),” a concession that is amusing—long acknowledged, yet Ehrman still uses them wholly uncritically? What do you think explains that? This critic also admits that “careful readers of Ehrman’s book will notice that he studiously avoids laying out the mythicist position in a way that would allow readers to understand its strengths” and thus “Ehrman could have done a far better job in that area,” thus agreeing with Lataster’s own findings. Likewise this critic admits, “Casey’s book should never have been published.” The very same conclusion Lataster demonstrates—and demonstrating it is far more respectable than this critic merely asserting it, yet this critic thinks demonstrating it is a mark against Lataster’s book! You figure that one out. It’s beyond me.
This critic also insists “Lataster should have either chosen a better historicist book to review or else moved on without discussing a second example,” but there are no other historicist books to review, and he can’t avoid discussing the second one, because there are only two books by fully qualified experts in the field to review, and the fact that half the product of the academy on this subject is so awful even this hater has to admit it is “a book that lacks real merit” is itself an extremely telling fact that needs to be noted and demonstrated. Just as the fact that critics can only rebut us by lying needs to be. Because that is actually starting to become one of our best arguments for our case.
This critic also, of course, says my book he read and “found of no real value,” so those of you who have read my book, I am pretty sure, will right away have a good idea of the amount of shit this critic is filled with.
Ironically, this critic further announced, “let me do what Lataster should have done,” and direct people to the books of Robert M. Price. Even though not one of those does what this critic falsely claimed Lataster’s book failed to do: extensively analyze Ehrman’s book in defense of historicity. So this critic says Lataster’s book sucks because it didn’t do a thing, then says a better book therefore is a book that also didn’t do that thing. This is funny even unto itself. But it’s all the more enraging when you realize that the claim that Lataster’s book “didn’t do that thing” is a full on lie. Price’s books are fine for their purpose. But none of them do what Lataster’s book does. Nor was any of them published by an academic press under peer review, as mine was. Nor is any of them as comprehensive and as focused as I endeavored mine to be. But readers can judge that for themselves. I, too, recommend the listed books by Price.
This critic is annoyed that Lataster and I point out that our critics “have either ‘ignored’…or ‘lied about’ what” mythicists have argued and claims this “dismisses so arbitrarily the works of others.” But in fact I have extensively documented both the errors and the lies told by such persons as Bart Ehrman and James McGrath. They are liars. I have demonstrated this. With evidence. If you don’t believe me, examine that evidence for yourself: for McGrath and for Ehrman (Exhibit A and Exhibit B).
I’d like to see more honest reviews show up at Amazon. So please, all who read Lataster’s book (and those who want to read Lataster’s book: do procure a copy for the reading), and put in a sincere rating on Amazon, with commentary that actually justifies the rating you assign. I don’t care what the rating is. Just as long as it matches your reasons, and your reasons are honest, and not false claims to fact. That is the least any decent person should be able expect.
Here Is a More Helpful Description of Lataster’s New Book
My Foreword describes the book and the reasons for it and what I’ve observed and concluded since my own book’s publication, including after dealing with its critics (those who have adequate qualifications, e.g. McGrath and Waters), and one item of possible evidence it didn’t address. A detailed table of contents follows. At the end of the book is my Afterword surveying what this book just accomplished and what the academy should do next. Then two appendices address the debate on this that Lataster previously had with the academy himself, sparked by an article he wrote for the Washington Post, including more scoffery from James McGrath. In between we get five sections (and then a conclusions section): one on preliminary details, one on Lataster’s reasons for beginning this debate as an agnostic, and one section on each of the three books to be compared: Ehrman’s, Casey’s, and mine. This includes various kinds of criticisms of my own book and style. Lataster is not my Huxley. He just finds that so far, no book compares with mine in quality, thoroughness, and seriousness. Obviously I agree. But more tellingly, as I just showed, the insufficiency of Ehrman’s and Casey’s books are agreed even by the Amazon customer who wants Lataster’s book to have one star. And despite their dismissal of mine, anyone who just skims the footnotes of my book will see the difference—in quality, thoroughness, and seriousness.
Lataster’s first section, on preliminary details, covers four points: (1) First Lataster tackles in advance the inevitable fallacy of refusing to read Lataster’s book merely because he is supposedly unqualified (he’s not, but those who already recognize that’s a fallacy, Lataster even explicitly says can skip to the next portion; I concur). (2) Second, Lataster clarifies that we are talking not about the Christ of faith but whether we can reconstruct a plausible, mundane historical Jesus (in other words, that the only theses being debated here are those of secular nonbelievers in the expert sphere). (3) Third, he explains in detail why this is in fact only a debate among atheists, and why we should just ignore Christian apologists altogether. (4) Fourth, he outlines the problem before us and how he will analyze it as a neutral party.
The second section surveys the merits and failures of Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist. The third, Casey’s Jesus. The fourth, Carrier’s Historicity. His principal problem with Ehrman is Ehrman’s extraordinary reliance on hypothetical sources, rather than actual evidence. He finds even Ehrman found little actual strength in any evidence beyond the Bible (despite some handwaving that Lataster confronts). Then he addresses Ehrman’s attempts to argue for historicity from the Epistles of Paul (even devoting twenty pages to that). His principal problem with Casey is that his book is a rambling cherrypicked madness. But everyone seems to agree on that (except James McGrath, apparently, which tells you a lot about the merit of his opinions in his debate). Lataster’s case for his own agnosticism is that Bayesian reasoning soundly shows that there is no evidence that can be trusted enough to sway the conclusion either way, it’s all unsalvageably tainted or problematic, including the strange silence of Paul in his Epistles. Then, for my book, Lataster surveys and evaluates it chapter-by-chapter.
Note that my book did not do what Lataster attempts, and in fact no book to date has, which is what makes Lataster’s contribution novel: I did not survey and compare my book to either Ehrman’s or Casey’s (as neither was published yet, and even by now I’ve only critiqued their books online, and not comparatively). Neither has anyone else. Including, as noted above, Robert Price (not that we should have expected him to). So if what you are looking for is a professional three-way comparison from someone experienced but neutral on the debated topic, so far, Lataster’s is the only book in existence doing that. I will add, in fact, that one of the merits of this book is that his survey in it of my book, accomplished in under a hundred pages, is the best short summary of my book’s contents and argument you will find anywhere.
As I state in its Foreword, I do not necessarily agree with every claim and argument Lataster makes. But insofar as there are any flat out errors, I suspect they are minor. And the third-party comparative case has utility for those who want to start out with a basic orientation in this debate. The most you might worry is whether the harsh criticism Lataster has for Ehrman’s and Casey’s books are too extreme. But if you do ever actually take the trouble to read their books, I am confident you will find that, at least overall, it is not. Whatever else you might disagree with, I’d be curious to know. I may even concur with you. In the end, I think Lataster even goes way too easy on the case for historicity. And yet agnosticism is the most he can find any defense of. Which, especially when he completes his Ph.D., will add his name to the growing number of us with full academic credentials who are admitting the emperor has no clothes.
I’m going to make a wild guess that the reviewer Living42day is, like me, an atheist who used to be a Christian, and who, when he became an atheist, still had some fondness for the religion he left behind. Sometimes it’s hard to totally give up on the mythology, because it’s so compelling as a story. I suspect the reviewer views the historicity of Jesus in a similar way – as something he can hold onto from his religious past. Sometimes it’s difficult to completely let go.
I’m not so sure. Atheists who are rabidly hostile to mythicism usually have other motives, although not always easy to discern (apart from professors, who have more material, honor-based, or institutional motives). Sometimes they think it’s “embarrassing” (like having holocaust deniers among us, giving us a bad name; usually these same persons don’t care about sexists and racists and transphobes among us giving us a bad name, but whatever). Sometimes it’s hero worship (The Ehrman can never be wrong; how dare you question The Ehrman). And sometimes something else I can’t pin down. I’d be interested in exploring this, i.e. getting at why certain atheists are so hostile to mythicism. But I don’t think any study subjects would sit still long enough for a critical interview probing motivation.
Hi Richard,
No doubt I will read Lataster’s book. I have some doubt about your interpretation of Philo about Joshua son of Josedec of Zech 6:11-12.
Stephan Huller (an apparent mythicist) does insist that you have failed the proof that Philo did name ‘Joshua’ his archangelic Logos.
For example, he writes something/a> along these lines. He seems clearly an expert in ancient languages so I’m uncomfortable in having to defend your case against his, especially when it is pointed that you are based on an uncorrect translation. In Zech 6:12 Joshua would be really distinct from the guy hailed Anatole.
A possible counter-argument (by me) is that if Philo did mention Melchizedek as possible allegory of the Logos (and we know that Melchizedek was adored as celestial archangel at Qumran), then it would be expected that if Philo did allude to Joshua as potentially symbolic of his Logos, then there was a pre-christian cult of a Jesus archangel. But this would be a non-sequitur…
My second argument (by me) would be this, too:
1) in Zech 6:12, for his original author, Joshua son of Josedec is simbolic of the distinct future messianic figure hailed Anatole (even if he is not the same guy hailed Anatole)
2) It’s evident that Philo denies the humanity of the presumed man hailed Anatole (not the humanity of Joshua son of Josedec), because the entity hailed Anatole is really the archangelic Logos.
3) therefore: the logical inference is that for Philo now (even if he didn’t wrote so in an explicit manner) the man Joshua son of Josedec becomes simbolic of the messianic archangelic Logos.
By applying your argument of the extreme improbability of a coincidence, in conclusion Philo is evidence that the name ‘Jesus’ was the best name for the mere human form of the archangelic Logos.
I would like know:
1) Do you think that Philo did name ‘Jesus’ his archangelic Logos beyond any reasonable doubt ?
2) How do you reply against these critics that claim that your insistence on the link Philo/Jesus is overstated and betrayes the real ‘Achilles heel’ of mythicism (that there was no real evidence of a pre-christian archangel named Jesus, since even an expert of angels & demons like Philo did no mention of it in all his works and this is surprising) ?
3) if you concede this point to your critic (that Philo is no evidence, etc), how do you change your general Bayesian reasoning on the entire question of historicity?
I apologize for the lenght of the post. Very thanks.
Giuseppe
Philo doesn’t name him. He identifies him with an OT figure that the OT names. It is impossible Philo didn’t know what the passage he quoted named the figure in it.
I’ll remind you again that this conclusion is also confirmed by any alternative requiring an extremely improbable coincidence (OHJ, pp. 200-05, cf. pp. 203-04 = OHJ, Element 40). You can’t fight against such an enormous improbability.
That’s simply not true.
Philo is using the Greek OT as his standard (he knew the Hebrew, but trusted the Greek as its interpretation, and only quotes the Greek).
I am an expert in ancient Greek.
6:11 kai lêpsê argurion kai chrusion kai poiêseis stephanous kai epithêseis epi tên kefalên iêsou tou iôsedek tou hiereôs tou megalou
6:12 kai ereis pros auton tade legei kurios pantokratôr idou anêr anatolê onoma autô kai hupokatôthen autou anatelei kai oikodomêsei ton oikon kuriou
6:13 kai autov lêmpsetai aretên kai kathietai kai katarxei epi tou thronou autou kai estai ho hiereus ek dexiôn autou kai boulê eirênikê estai ana meson amphoterôn
6:11 and take silver and pieces of gold and make crowns and lay [them] upon the head of Joshua [the son] of Jehozadak, the high priest
6:12 and say to him this, “The Lord Creator says, ‘Behold the man: the name for him [is] Anatole, and he will rise up [= Anatelei] from below and build the house of the Lord
6:13 and he will obtain excellence and sit down and rule upon his throne and there will be the priest on his right and peaceful counsel will be between them both.
The other persons present are then identified as honored by this (vv. 14-15) and as going to fulfill it by building the new temple (as history records they did, and this Joshua ben Jehozadak indeed sat upon the holy see as its first high priest, just as Zechariah is made to predict in this chapter). There is no one else present to be describing as the Anatole who will be the first to sit upon the throne of the new temple. The passage is unmistakably talking about the high priest being here honored. And Philo makes this doubly clear by going on to say that the Anatole is indeed the Son of God (that’s what Jehozadak means) and indeed the High Priest. So Philo absolutely knows that the Anatole is the Son of God and High Priest being spoken of in this section, and that is unmistakably the Joshua described as both; no one else is so described. This is in fact what led to this reading (the Logos is the Son of God and High Priest; this passage refers to a Son of God and High Priest). Nor would it have made any sense for the original author to mean someone else, since the original author is trying to describe how the first high priest, Joshua ben Jehozadak, came to govern the temple cult (a fact in itself that’s supposed to be remarkable as at the time there was no temple to rule over). So the original author is also intending this Jesus (the historical Jesus ben Josedek) to be the Anatole, the man who will “rise up” from the dust to be the first to take command of the newly built temple.
I don’t know why you are bringing up Melchizedek in this context. Philo does not link the Logos to that figure in the passage he links that figure to Joshua ben Jehozadak. Are you saying Philo also links the Logos to Melchizedek somewhere else? Or are you claiming that Joshua ben Jehozadak cannot also be Melchizedek? Because obviously the latter: they can both be the same person (just as Jesus can also be Immanuel and the Archangel Michael). So I think you are confused. Read the section I have on Melchizedek in OHJ.
No, the original author is talking about an actual contemporary person, the first high priest of the second temple, who was in fact named Joshua ben Jehozadak. That was a real person (unless Zechariah is a forgery creating this very legend). See OHJ, Element 6 (pp. 81-86). But Philo is saying that original meaning isn’t correct, that it’s real meaning was the mystical one he then lays out.
It’s the same figure in Zech. 3, also there called the Anatole in the Greek text.
3:6 kai diemarturato ho aggelos kuriou pros iêsoun legôn
3:7 tade legei kurios pantokratôr ean en tais hodois mou poreuê kai ean ta prostagmata mou phulaxês kai su diakrineis ton oikon mou kai ean diaphulaxês kai ge tên aulên mou kai dôsô soi anastrephomenous en mesô tôn estêkotôn toutôn
3:8 akoue dê iêsou ho iereus ho megas su kai hoi plêsion sou hoi kathêmenoi pro prosôpou sou dioti andres teratoskopoi eisi dioti idou egô agô ton doulon mou anatolên
3:6 And the Angel of the Lord protested solemnly unto Jesus, saying,
3:7 “The Lord Creator says this: ‘If you will walk in my ways, and if you will guard my commandments, then you also will judge my house, and if you will keep watch even over my open courts as well, then I will also give you dwelling in the midst of those who stand by.
3:8 So hear now, Jesus the High Priest, you and those near to you who sit before you, because these men are observers: because, behold, I will lead forth my servant the Anatole.”
Verse 9 and 10 then says what for: to begin the temple atonement rituals again, and thus cleanse Israel of its sins by the first Yom Kippur (in the new temple that shall be built and that this Jesus shall be the first high priest of, as in fact he was).
Here what is happening is the Angel of the Lord (Satan, in tradition, per verse 2) is coronating Jesus at God’s command to be elevated from the dust to the high priesthood, to resume the new cult when the new temple is built (this was the hope, and probably already in the planning, of the Jews in exile at the time, lobbying the Persian court for the favor, which of course Cyrus then awarded, as history records). He is called the Anatole because he will rise up from his exiled humble state to that exalted state. The Angel (whether Satan or not) is grumbling at this, but nevertheless conveying God’s promise of this. The men sitting by are to be the witnesses of what God says, that he will lead Jesus forth as the Anatole, to restart the second temple and its cult. There is of course no other “servant” present or named who God could be referring to here but this person he asks to follow him loyally and do his bidding, Jesus. And what will he lead this Anatole to do? Restart the temple cult (vv. 9-10). That’s the second temple, the one indeed historically started by this Jesus, Jesus ben Iosedek. So, obviously, that’s who God is talking about.
Once Philo changed the meaning of Anatole from what Zechariah meant (the rising first high priest of the second temple) to the Logos, this verse now takes on a different meaning for Philo as well: this scene does, after all, take place in heaven (the scene is evidently Jesus has been brought up to be crowned in heaven before God and his angels), and a high priest in heaven is exactly whom Philo identifies as the Logos.
I suppose if you need that convoluted thesis to get to my conclusion, have at it. But it’s really not necessary. Occam’s Razor gets us to the much simpler conclusion above.
It’s silly to call this the Achilles heel of mythicism. Because I don’t even use it in the mathematical calculation of its probability!
It’s only function is shoring up the prior probability by securing certainty that a historical man wasn’t “needed” for the cult’s theology (though one already wasn’t present in Paul’s theology at all, since the “man” he describes is the Logos described by Philo, with many of its peculiar attributes, regardless of whether Philo or anyone had named the Logos Jesus). But one can shore that up with other arguments (as I do in Ch. 12). This is just icing on the cake, that prevents naysayers from harrumphing at the more general points made in Ch. 12.
Though it is telling that people think it’s the Achilles heel of mythicism. It means this evidence has them running scared. They must think that if I am right (and I am), mythicism is all but proved in their hearts. And that terrifies them. So they have to attack it.
I would say that their problem is in fact their dogmatism, the source of their panic. That same dogmatism prevents them from seeing the arguments in Ch. 12 as already sufficiently reasonable to reach the conclusion of the book; but their dogmatism is not powerful enough to overcome this one additional argument. Hence their fear at it.
They should probably confront that fear, and the reasons for it, instead of trying to deny reality.
The reality is unmistakable.
I haven’t read Lataster’s book yet, but it’s interesting to hear where he ended up. I wonder if mythicism position is too hard to reach. ‘Proving the negative’ isn’t easy case to be made, after all, and it’s much more easier to defend historical agnostism. Could this be the reason why increasing number of scholars are calling themselfs agnostic instead of mythicist?
Should this be phrased differently? Should people who think agnostic position is best call themselfs ‘agnostic mythicists’, or ‘agnostic historisists’. Like in the link is described for agnostic atheism: http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Atheist_vs._agnostic#Combining_terms
This isn’t topic related. More about your note concerning funding. There are times I can’t stop and take the time to read a lengthy post and I end up missing the ability to participate in comments. Have you considered doing a youtube channel where you maybe do companion vids or other content? I would likely sub for a small amount per video in that instance. Those are easier to consume without being focused directly on it for me. I’m broke myself so I can’t promise much but that is something that might give you another income stream. You might consider having an option for patrons to comment on topics that are closed on the forums as well. Obviously I don’t know much about what would work for you or how you could implement that but these are things I could see people having some interest in. I hope you get all you need to live a comfortable life and it gives you more freedom to focus on projects you enjoy etc.
Thank you for the suggestion. But alas, this won’t be my thing.
Unfortunately, video is not my medium. I do not have the skills, equipment, or talent for it. And it’s less capable a medium for my purposes, because my modus is to be thorough and careful, and talking-heading can be neither of those reliably enough to suit me, at least given my abilities.
YouTube comments are also useless, I’m sorry to say. They are a wasteland of trolls and children, and never useful or productive. The reason I close comments now even here after six days is because I don’t have time to continue moderating them. And I don’t have the funds to properly pay a moderator what the chore would be worth. And even then, management and moderation are time consuming enough here. I can’t imagine the added cost in time and annoyance trying to manage YouTube as well.
Others are much more capable at that than me. So I leave that to those with the patience, gear, skills, and talents suited for it. I’m a writer. My niche is this: carefully thought out, hyperlinked blog articles. When I do do do talks that end up online, someone else provides the skillset, equipment, and costs of producing video of it (I’m in no control over that in fact), and I am being paid, a lot more than YouTube supporters could afford, for someone who wouldn’t be anywhere near as competitive in the market as others already are.
So really, my role is at best to provide researched written content, that skilled YouTubers, like Aron Ra or Matt Dillahunty or Rebecca Watson, or anyone else, can then make use of.
And with that in mind, certainly feel free to recommend to any YouTubers you like to consider using or summarizing or interacting with my blog work, in general or in each particular case that interests you. As long as I’m credited, I don’t mind.
The next best thing would be (and I know it’s not quite what you had in mind) to buy and listen to my audio books. Those are a lot of work and expense to produce. But they are the closest I come to doing alternative media, and there I have a hired studio and professional sound engineer, funded by my publisher, and I get compensated by subsequent royalties. So it’s not easily replicable.
Thanks, Dr. Carrier. It bothers me that Dr. Ehrman won’t respond to your fine book On The Historicity of Jesus. Frankly, I think it is embarrassing that scholars in the field will not respond to the work of other scholars.
There is an element of classism there (Ehrman won’t engage with people who speak the language of ordinary people—it’s “beneath his dignity”). But I think mostly it’s to avoid having to address the actual arguments and evidence, or to avoid bringing more attention to them. Their only options are admit we have a point, which they might fear is career or social-status suicide, or lie about what we’ve said; and we always catch them doing the latter, so most are rightly too afraid to try it (only McGrath still does; and then complains when I prove he’s lied). Honest scholars, meanwhile, are afraid as well, but not of us, but their peers.
“and not Christian believers—regarding the latter as too biased to consider”
Would that apply to Hermann Detering as well??
I don’t know his faith status. But it is indeed worth heeding scholars who go against their bias. Not that they can’t be wrong. But that their faith-based bias cannot explain their conclusion. There just aren’t many of those in this case. Thomas Brodie, for instance, is the nearest case that I am sure of (still a believing Catholic, yet concludes Jesus didn’t exist), and yet he has not presented a comprehensive case for ahistoricity (his memoir sort of summarizes his reasons, but not systematically, and not with much engagement with critics beyond generic points, so it isn’t very useful for Lataster’s purposes, unfortunately).
Hello Richard
why would mark make up the question
“are you the king of the jews” if pilate really never asked jesus this question?
did mark believe jesus was the king of the jews?
That’s a literary story, using the technique of irony: Mark is having Pilate accidentally admit that Jesus is the King of the Jews, meaning the Lord of the Kingdom of God. The same technique appears later when he has a Roman official (the Centurion) admit at the crucifixion that Jesus is The Son of God. He uses a converse technique in the same sequence when he has “false witnesses” proclaim that Jesus will tear down the temple (the author knowing that in fact the Romans will), when what they are quoting is the parable intended to communicate something greater, that Jesus will destroy the entire universe, and replace our thus-destroyed bodies with new ones (the general resurrection). The technique appears again earlier in the narrative when Mark has the Jews marvel at the work of his hands (miracles) and say “Is this not the carpenter?” The word actually being craftsman, a common word for the Creator. Thus they inadvertently admitted that Jesus was God’s appointed agent of creation (one of the few covert references to the cosmological truths behind the mundane narrative of Mark). And so on. Mark uses this device a lot (e.g. in his many reversals of expectation, such as having the least be first to discover the empty tomb, or to have a different Peter carry the cross after Jesus had earlier said the apostle Peter should).
Are you saying Philo also links the Logos to Melchizedek somewhere else?
So Margaret Barker, for example.
In this thesis of 2014 I read:
Most notably, Philo identifies Melchizedek as the logos, linking his royal priesthood and the delivery of bread and wine with his service to “the most high God” (Gen. 14:18) by way of an allegorical lesson. 79
(p. 14)
A note 79 says:
79 Al. Int. III 25.79-26.82; esp. 82. Fred Horton Jr. observes that Melchizedek has no priestly predecessor in the Torah; therefore, Philo’s identification of Melchizedek with logos seems fitting as Melchizedek is necessarily a “self-tutored” initiator. See The Melchizedek Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976), p. 59. Cf. also Josephus Wars of the Jews 6.10.1 where Josephus notes that Melchizedek was “the first priest of God”. See The Works of Flavius Josephus, trans. William Whiston (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publ., 1960).
In OHJ, p.78, note 39, I read:
Both Michael and Melchizedek were regarded as God’s celestial high priest in Jewish writings generally, thus they would have commonly been equated: Joseph Fitzmyer, ‘Further Light on Melchizedek
from Qumran Cave 1 1 ‘, in Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1971), pp. 245-67 (254-55). This would further link these figures to the pre-Christian Jewish theology of God’s Logos and celestial firstborn son also named Jesus (Element 40).
As my second argument goes:
1) Philo allegorizes Melchizedek as the Logos in Al. Int. III 25.79-26.82; esp. 82
2) Melchizedek was considered a celestial archangel at Qumran, too,
3) therefore: by applying your ”argument of the extreme improbability of a coincidence”, Al. Int. III 26.82 is alone independent evidence of a pre-christian tradition of an archangel named Melchizedek.
This serves to prove that your ”argoment of the extreme improbability of a coincidence” can be applied on the philonic Melchizedek successfully, therefore further corroborating/i> the intrinsic rationality of his use on the separate case of Anatole/Joshua, etc.
Obviously the problem in my argument is the validity of the premise 1.
So Al. Int. III 26.82
But Melchisedek shall bring forward wine instead of water, and shall give your souls to drink, and shall cheer them with unmixed wine, in order that they may be wholly occupied with a divine intoxication, more sober than sobriety itself. For LOGOS is a priest, having, as its inheritance the true God, and entertaining lofty and sublime and magnificent ideas about him, “for he is the priest of the most high God.” Not that there is any other God who is not the most high; for God being one, is in the heaven above, and in the earth beneath, and there is no other besides Him.” But he sets in motion the notion of the Most High, from his conceiving of God not in a low and grovelling spirit, but in one of exceeding greatness, and exceeding sublimity, apart from any conceptions of matter.
Some academics argue that Philo didn’t mean his archangelic LOGOS but the simple human reason when he wrote, about Melchizedek, the words:
For LOGOS is a priest,
____________________________
Independently from this, I see that John 19:5 confirms beyond any reasonable doubt your argoment of the extreme improbability of a coincidence:
Read p. 304-305 of this recent 2015 book.
Giuseppe
So I still don’t understand why you bring up Melchizedek. Since you are not claiming that Joshua ben Jehozadak cannot also be Melchizedek, what relevance does Philo’s reference to Melchizedek elsewhere have to the passage we are discussing?
I’m not following your steps of reasoning from “Melch. as Logos was a pre-Christian idea” (which I’m pretty sure no one disagrees with) to “the Zech. quote Philo links to the Logos confirms that Jesus as Logos was a pre-Christian idea,” other than the arguments I have already made. That is, if your argument is different from mine, what exactly is it? Maybe you can draw a syllogism all the way through?
(And we can’t use John for this, as being too late.)
P.S. The notion that Philo didn’t think the Logos was an archangel is refuted by his literally calling it an archangel (and firstborn son of God, God’s agent of creation, God’s viceroy over the universe, the first Adam of the two Adam Genesis accounts, etc.). That he just meant reason in the abstract is untenable. Reason is a reified person for him. He speaks of Reason in no other terms.
Giuseppe:
Stephan Huller (an apparent mythicist) . . .
Huller seems to be the author of a book arguing for an unusual version of a historical Jesus.
The Real Messiah
The Vridar list you linked is of “Mythicists, Mythicist Sympathizers & Agnostics”, whatever that is intended to mean.
Hi Richard,
I see that an only-apparent ‘strong’ criticism against your view on Philo is very well described so:
It is this line from Zechariah 6.13: καὶ ἔσται ὁ ἱερεὺς ἐκ δεξιῶν αὐτου (and the priest will be at his right hand), where αὐτου (his) can really only refer back to the man named Anatolē. This means that Anatolē is not the same person as the priest (who is at Anatolē’s right hand).
.Zechariah 6.13 LXX makes the man named Anatolē and the priest two different persons
That criticism was made here.
I have made this counter-argument assuming the premise 1 (really, a reductio ad absurdum argument, I think):
1) according to a ‘strict’ (?) reading of Zech 6:13, the Ἀνατολὴ cannot be High Priest because ‘at his right hand’ there is one priest.
2) but for Philo the Ἀνατολὴ is the High Priest (he’s the Logos), even if Philo admits that ‘at his right hand’ there is already a priest.
3) therefore: the Philo’s argument can only be strenghtened if he reads Zech 6:12-13 as hailing the high priest Joshua son of Josedec as the Ἀνατολὴ. Viceversa, the Philo’s argument can only be weakened if he reads Zech 6:12-13 as denying a priori that the Ἀνατολὴ can be an High Priest (since the archangelic Logos is the supremest High Priest, for Philo, and therefore he cannot be called Ἀνατολὴ that isn’t a priori high priest per 1).
The most obvious solution of the otherwise absurd problem is that by definition of Ἀνατολὴ, the man hailed Ἀνατολὴ is entitled to have an assistant priest, even if he is [u]already[/u] a priest, according to the same LXX.
And Philo ensures that his Ἀνατολὴ, b[i][b]y definition[/b][/i], is [i]already [/i]High Priest.
The apologetical will of Philo makes precisely the point of OHJ: if Philo wants, by following strictly Zech 6:12-13, that ”at the right hand” of Ἀνατολὴ there is a priest, despite the Ἀνατολὴ, according to Philo, is already a high priest – indeed THE High Priest par excellence – then Philo could only be happy if the original author of Zechariah LXX had thought about Joshua son of Josedec as the best candidate for the entity named Ἀνατολὴ.
Note that – if I agree with your critics that the Ἀνατολὴ, in virtue of Zech 6:13-LXX, cannot be, by definition, a high priest since the Ἀνατολὴ has already a priest ”at his right hand” – then I should stop Philo himself from doing his allegory of the passage of the Septuaginta.
Because Philo himself insists that the Ἀνατολὴ has to be the High Priest (against the presumed– LXX-based premise).
As usual, I apologize for the excessive lenght of the post.
Thanks,
Giuseppe
Wow. That person doesn’t know the difference between a high priest and the priest who attends him?
That’s enough to tell you they don’t know what they are talking about.
(Obviously the only reason you designate a high priests is when there is another priest he outranks. But it is also well-known temple cult hierarchy. There were many priests below the high priest. The one who would sit beside him would be the next in highest rank.)
The evidence is already clear from the points I made (e.g. Philo says the Anatolê is the Logos because the Logos is the High Priest and the Son of God, and the only person in the passage called both of those things is Jesus; so it is simply impossible Philo thought he was someone else).
That is, if your argument is different from mine, what exactly is it?
For two reasons I have introduced Melchizedek.
The first reason (more speculative):
If Melchizedek was allegorized by Philo as the archangelic Logos (and Al. Int. III 26.82 would be evidence of this according to some scholars) then I see the repetition of a curious pattern in Philo: the only cases in which Philo allegorizes a biblical figure x as the Logos are ‘coincidentally’ just the cases where we have evidence (beyond Philo) that x is worshiped by some Jews as a heavenly archangel (respectively Melchizedek at Qumran and Christ Jesus by the first apostles as Paul). I wonder to what extent this is just a coincidence, and if Philo wasn’t really be trying to call Logos the two main ‘rival’ celestial archangels worshiped by some marginal Jewish sects. In that case I may mean Al. Int. III 26.82 as an independent evidence of the existence of a pre-christian archangel Melchizedek tradition.
The second reason (more useful):
A criticism of your argument I listen often is in short the Argument of Silence applied on Philo’s use of ”Jesus” as the Logos: he seems totally indifferent, everywhere in his books, about the name ‘Jesus’ given to his archangelic Logos. This indifference would be sufficient, as the logic goes, to confute your argument.
For a first example of this criticism, Philo was interested to ANATOLE, not to Jesus, therefore the name Joshua was ”used” by him coincidentally only as a mere collateral effect, not as the principal reason moving Philo to talk about ANATOLE of Zech 6:12.
For another example of this criticism, Stephan Huller insists that:
The point I am trying to make is that Philo has a very specific concept associated with ‘salvation’ and Yahweh being a ‘Savior’ which makes any attribution of the name ‘Jesus’ (= the salvation of the Lord’) with the Logos extremely unlikely. … In short if Jesus was the name of a god (and I have said over and over again that Philo regards ‘Jesus’ as a wholly human appellation) he would be a name for Yahweh not the Logos.
Or :
In On the Change of Names, Philo says explicitly “Jesus, salvation of the Lord, name of the noblest state” (Mut. 121). But as Moss notes there is a difference here between Philo and the Christian god. Philo understands Jesus to be a name of a human being which emphasizes or locates all salvation in a wholly separate divine being. For Philo Jesus doesn’t do the saving, the Lord does.
(source)
Now, if Philo allegorizes Melchizedek as the archangelic Logos, then this fact would work as a valid counter-example against this kind of criticism: the evident indifference of Philo about the name ”Melchizedek” (he quotes him briefly only three times in all his works) does not refute alone the fact that:
– Melchizedek was considered a heavenly archangel at Qumran;
– Philo allegorizes Melchizedek as the Logos.
As about Melchizedek, so about Jesus. The indifference of Philo about the name ”Jesus” (as the Logos) in the rest of his work does not refute the fact that at least one time Philo have used that name impliciter (via ANATOLE) to allegorize his archangelic Logos.
But it is also well-known temple cult hierarchy.
Thanks for these answers. Even if you concede that point (that LXX Zech 6:13 prohibits the equation ANATOLE=high priest Joshua) then the logical result would be the impossibility for the same Philo of raising the equation Logos=ANATOLE, since the Logos is a high priest, THE High Priest par excellence, for Philo, against the premise that ANATOLE wasn’t such (hence the Reductio ad absurdum of that kind of criticism).
Now it’s all clear. Very thanks,
Giuseppe
Oh, now I see your point! Yes, both of those arguments are really good. Yes, I concur with your reasoning.
(I also notice the critics you are interacting with really don’t know what they are talking about—such as thinking any of us are saying Philo regarded the archangel Jesus to be God, or even “a” god. No, silly. Just an archangel. Like Michael and Gabriel and Satan and so on. There are many other examples like that in your quote. These people just aren’t paying attention to what our arguments are.)
dr carrier
in your opinion does mark and matthew make jesus 100 % co equal to yhwh when matthew has people doing proskinuos to jesus? or is matthew + mark seeing jesus as a lesser divine god than the high god yhwh?
“The technique appears again earlier in the narrative when Mark has the Jews marvel at the work of his hands (miracles) and say “Is this not the carpenter?” The word actually being craftsman, a common word for the Creator. ”
when you say “creator” are you referring to the jewish god yhwh ? so it is mark who is “christianize” even jewish questions to jesus ?
No, the Synoptics agree with Paul and the original Christians on this: Jesus is the archangel God tasked wth doing the actual creating. This was common Jewish theology, discussed extensively by Philo of Alexandria. In Christian thought (e.g. Phil. 2), God assigned Jesus his role as lord of the universe, until the end times. People worship God through his agent Jesus. Thus worship of Jesus is worship of Yahweh by proxy. This concept was actually not unusual even in Judaism, which had similar angels in that role (see Bart Ehrman’s latest book, which covers this).
Richard,
Now Peter Kirby argues that there is no way to show that the author of Zechariah identified the ἀνατολὴ with the high priest Joshua or some future being Jesus.
He writes:
Nope. The antecedent of the appositive phrase ἀνατολὴ ὄνομα αὐτῷ, grammatically, is ἀνήρ, the predicate nominative immediately preceding. This grammatical construction is commonplace (an anarthrous noun followed by an identifying appositive phrase). For instance, I have observed it frequently in Josephus’ Antiquities (… and when introducing people new to the narrative)
According to him, this would mean that the expression ‘Behold the man: the name for him is Anatole’ is introducing a totally new figure ever introduced before, therefore that new figure cannot be a priori Joshua son of Josedec (the figure just mentioned immediately before).
He writes, too:
As mentioned, this would be cinched if the text read, quite literally, “Behold the man” (Ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος). However, the translation is appropriate for John 19:5 but [not] so much for Zechariah 6:12. You see this kind of thing in biblical translations, where well-known phrasing from one verse will glide around other biblical verses and assimilate them to the well-known phrasing, even if it’s not necessarily the most suitable translation as-is. Here we have the anarthrous noun. That is appropriate for introducing a new person, with no definite reference.
(my bold)
If I understand well, as Peter’s argument goes, since Zech LXX 6:12 reads :
ἰδοὺ ἀνήρ Ἀνατολὴ ὄνομα αὐτῷ
and not (as Philo) :
ἰδοὺ ἄνθρωπος ᾧ ὄνομα ἀνατολή·
(note that John 19:5 has ἰδοὺ ἄνθρωπος , too)
then Zech 6:12 is not evidence that the ἀνατολή is Jesus son of Josedec.
But then, if Philo has ignored Jesus son of Josedec because he has read in LXX-Zech 6:12 ἀνήρ and not ἄνθρωπος, why did he quote partially Zech 6:12 by reporting instead: ἰδοὺ ἄνθρωπος (and not ἰδοὺ ἀνήρ) ?
Did Philo turn ἀνήρ in ἄνθρωπος because he wanted to identify precisely the high priest Joshua as the new figure hailed ἀνατολή , at the cost of correcting its source Zech 6:12 ?
I do not want to make mistakes, but I feel that just by virtue of the fact that, according to Peter Kirby, ἰδοὺ ἀνήρ serves to indicate the introduction of a new person (never mentioned before) while ἰδοὺ ἄνθρωπος serves to refer a person just mentioned, since Philo wrote ἰδοὺ ἄνθρωπος (and not ἰδοὺ ἀνήρ) then Philo would be evidence that he is reading LXX-Zechariah 6:12 just to the way that you interpret (the already mentioned figure Joshua == ἀνατολή).
What do you think?
I suspect that all this is hyper-defining apologetically the meaning of the words (fallacy of the false dilemma) but I would like listen your precise opinion, before.
Very thanks,
Giuseppe
There is no other figure in the scene.
Writers even then weren’t so dumb as to forget to mention people present in their stories that they are speaking about.
But again, Philo says the Anatolê is the Logos because the Logos is also the high priest and son of God. The only figure in the scene identified as a high priest and son of God in Zech. 6 is Jesus.
It’s absurd to conclude that he meant someone else.
The argument over the use of anêr is nonsense (like you point out, though Kirby is not a Christian apologist). Writers were rarely so obsessive in demarcating those words. They meant the same thing. Moreover, the Bible itself, even in the Greek, had countless variant readings (we can tell this even from the Greek text recovered at Qumran; as likewise the Hebrew there). So one cannot even assume Philo is the one altering the text. His text may indeed have read exactly thus.
Dr. Carrier:
No, the Synoptics agree with Paul and the original Christians on this: Jesus is the archangel God tasked with doing the actual creating.
Would you mind citing some Synoptic passages on this? Offhand, I don’t recall anything in the Synoptics supporting pre-existence of Jesus.
None of them discuss the cosmology of Jesus that directly. They are all writing allegorically (e.g. as I show with the withered fig tree pericope). Just as Paul says his “mother” is an allegory in Gal. 4.
For example, Mark’s passage with the carpenter (actually “craftsman”) remark is a mission allegory for Jesus being The Craftsman (and the Jews being blind to that fact). Or Luke’s passage that has Jesus reveal he was present eons ago to witness the Fall of Satan.
Some of these examples are covered in my book.
The evidence is multiple, though, most being surveyed in Sean McDonough’s Christ as Creator: Origins of a New Testament Doctrine (cited in OHJ). Unfortunately too expensive to buy, you could get it through your local public library using InterLibraryLoan. More accessible, and likewise covering a lot of the evidence, Simon Gathercole’s The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (who was used also by McDonough).
More to the point, the Synoptics do not imagine Jesus as identical to God but as his sent emissary and viceroy. Exactly as Paul does, and the Christians before him did. The equation of Jesus and God did not happen until at least seventy years after the religion began.
Oops, I see my question was already answered in the discussion. Apologies for carelessness.
Thanks for the serious answer to a silly question. I asked impulsively, as I was glancing over the thread after having read it previously. I had forgotten the context was discussion of Mark 6:3.
Giuseppe, thanks for linking the discussion at Biblical Criticism & History Forum. I haven’t read it all, it’s up to over 90 pages now. But what I have read raises lots of interesting points.
Here’s an issue that seems to belong at the beginning of the inquiry. How confident can we be that Philo, in Confusion of Tongues 62, is alluding to Zechariah, or to scripture at all? Is it odd that Philo says he has “heard”, not “read”? Is that a common idiom for Philo, or anyone else, to use for alluding to scripture?
No, that language is common. It doesn’t indicate any particular transmission vector (for a while scholars thought such language, being common in antiquity, meant no one read silently, that they only ever read aloud or heard texts read, but that was soundly debunked).
Philo knew scripture well. He was the most renowned authority on it of his day. There is no plausible way he wouldn’t know the whole verse he quotes a fragment of. And we know for sure he did, because his argument for why that verse is to be read the way he says, involves citing evidence that is in the passage but not his quote (e.g. that the figure there identified is both a High Priest and the Son of God).
Yale professor Christine Hayes makes an interesting point about Zechariah 6 in one of her YouTube lectures. (Start at 15:37.)
(I’ve reproduced phonetically Hayes’s pronunciation of the name spelled “Zerubbabel” in the English translations I’ve looked at.)
“At some point, however, it seems that the Persians got rid of Zerubbavel. . . . So Zechariah’s prophecies seem to be adjusted to refer solely to Joshua. . . . Although chapter 6 in particular seems to refer originally to Zerubbavel, it is altered so that it now depicts Joshua as a shoot or a branch from Jesse’s stock . . . It says that Joshua shall rebuild the sanctuary.”
Hayes is talking only about the Hebrew text. She doesn’t mention the LXX version of Zechariah 6.
I think modern English translations generally use the Hebrew text. For 6:13, I find that some, like NRSV, agree roughly with LXX. “There shall be a priest by his throne . . .” Others, like NASB, have “He will be a priest on His throne . . .”
Hayes’s allusion to the sanctuary suggests that Zerubbabel was deposed before it was completed, making Zechariah 4:9 a failed prophecy. That suggests that the early chapters of Zechariah, like Daniel 11, were written by a contemporary of the events at issue.
Interesting I suppose. But I won’t exhaust time to examine that thesis because it can’t have anything to do with how Jews of Philo’s day were reading the text. And only the latter matters for my use of it.
I have finally finished reading “Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists (Lataster/Carrier, 2015). I enjoyed the book, although I have 2 quibbles:
(1) Lataster writes “The evidence Carrier used in deriving the crucial prior probability was basically that the Gospels portray Jesus in a way that is typical of entirely fictional characters. That doesn’t mean that Jesus didn’t exist, but it does mean that a low prior is justified and we would thus require extra evidence (quantitatively or qualitatively) than normal to be convinced of his historical existence (pg. 388).”
This comment by Lataster is absurd. Even if the Gospel of Mark is a literary narrative that doesn’t reflect the events in the life of the historical Jesus, this still doesn’t make more probable the theory Jesus didn’t exist. Maybe Mark wanted to write a narrative piece of eschatological or apocalyptic writing depicting historical figures he knew like John The Baptist, Pilate, and Jesus caught up in events at the end of time. After all, Acts is also a piece of historical fiction that is largely fictional but still about people that existed.
(2) The Rank Raglan mythic hero archetype has nothing to do with the mythicist/historicist debate, because all Jesus’ high score on the Rank Raglan criteria might mean is that Jesus had legendary material added to his biography to make him imitate someone like Oedipus who scores on virtually every category of the Rank Raglan scale (portraying Jesus as greater than Oedipus, like the way the Gospel of John portrays Jesus as greater than Dionysus cf. on Dionysus and Jesus see Dennis MacDonald’s new book).
The natural reference class for Jesus is ‘purported Jewish messianic figures’, and they all exist.
Except we know Jesus belongs to a narrower class they do not. Fully addressed in OHJ, Ch. 6.5, “Alternative Class Objection.” Rather like saying Betty Crocker belongs to the reference class of TV celebrities, 95% of whom exist. Wrong math. Betty Crocker belongs to the reference class of TV celebrities who are corporate mascots. Less than 50% of whom exist.
And this consequence can’t be avoided by dividing the attributes, so as to sneak the telltale ones into e and hide them from b, to get the 95% prior you wanted. Because then the data you snuck back into e drops the posterior back below 50% as soon as you reintroduce it. Which you are logically required to do. See “Betty Crocker” in the index of OHJ and, again, Chapter 6.5, but also Chapter 6.2 which explains how the math actually works when you try to arbitrarily pick reference classes and pretend the others don’t exist.
We can’t hide from data. It all goes in. The results can’t be avoided.
“…this still doesn’t make more probable the theory Jesus didn’t exist.” — Yes, it does. You seem to not grasp the distinction between binary and probability reasoning. Yes, “Maybe” Mark did something else. But you can’t get from “maybe” he did to “probably” he did, without frequency data. How probable is it that Mark did what you think, as opposed to what I think? That is a frequency: how often is what I say, what happened to people like Jesus; vs. how often is what you say, what happened to people like Jesus. That gives us a ratio. Which gives us the frequency. Which gives us the prior probability. This is fundamental to the logic of probability. Exactly the opposite of “absurd,” it is logically necessarily always the case. Of everything.
Hence again, I fully include the possibility that Rank-Raglan heroes are mythologized real persons, just as you suggest. I still find the frequency of that happening, is less than 1 in 3, even at best. Because I couldn’t find actual cases of it happening more often than that (and honestly, not even as often as that). That’s why the RR class is relevant: for the same reason that belonging to it makes the prior probability that Dionysus or Osiris existed low, it makes the prior probability that Jesus existed low. But only the prior. Actual evidence of their existence, can easily overcome that prior.
One cannot disregard evidence tending toward myth. When it usually means myth…it usually means myth. The only question is, how often. And answering that question only gets you to the prior. Not to the actual probability Jesus existed. The prior is not the posterior. The posterior is the combination of the prior and the logical consequences of the evidence particular to Jesus.