Indeed. We get confused a lot. He specializes in the Italian theatre. AI sometimes conflates our work.

https://www.rmc-cmr.ca/en/history/richard-carrier

…a form of Christianity unrecognizable to any other form.

Not at all. It looks almost exactly like the Christianity sold by Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism. While its most peculiar oddities (like you focus on) are no weirder than the weird oddities of Pentecostals, Ethiopians, Assyrians, Catholics, or Mormons.

That the Positive Christian platform was almost line-by-line identical to Martin Luther’s is demonstrated by Avalos in The Christian Delusion. And it goes further than he shows, as it shared the same raving anti-semitism and anti-Catholicism and bizarre conspiracy theories as Martin Luther promoted. It develops its own direction on some things (so it’s opposite to Lutheranism in a few details), but no more radically than Luther did.

Note that the Nazi sect is also taking what Paul said to its natural conclusion: he said loyalty to the state is identical to loyalty to God (Romans 13) and that’s what the Nazis were selling (that serving the state was serving God, that their platform was God’s, not that it was “above” God’s); and he said the Jewish stuff should be chucked (so chucking Paul, the Jew, is a natural consequence of taking him seriously).

Indeed chucking the OT was already a common outcome of Paul’s position, producing Marcionism; the Nazis just took this to its inevitable conclusion: that even Paul is too Jewish (which follows from Marcionism, e.g. Marcion credits creation with a Demiurge, the OT god, and Jesus with defeating him, whereas Paul regarded Jesus as the Demiurge, a contradiction: consistent Marcionism thus would have had to chuck Paul eventually).

The Aryanization of Jesus is simply another natural outcome of “chucking the Jewish stuff” and justifying Martin Luther’s antisemitic program and conspiracy thinking. But antisemitism began quite early (it’s already in the NT, and became increasingly standardized from the second to fourth century, by then the mainstream Christian ideology). So that can’t even be blamed on Luther. He just brought it to the perfected state adopted into Nazi Christianity.

As for Stalin, he wasn’t just an atheist, but an anti-humanist. Nothing he did he did because of atheism. It was all powerseeking and politics of control. It’s fair to say he didn’t believe any religions true, but millions of Christians don’t really believe it either but just pretend to and use it as needed (e.g. the Neocons; Tom Holland; Donald Trump; a lot of high-level biblical scholars; and over 2 million American Christians).

Atheism wasn’t a substantive ideology for Stalin the way Christianity is to those who profess it even when they don’t believe it. Stalin’s ideology was secular but not humanist. Nonbelieving Christians’ ideology is not secular but sometimes humanist (Holland) and sometimes anti-humanist (Trump). Even though all are, technically, atheists.

IMO, we should just be open and honest secular humanists: humanist atheists. They’ve never had a Stalin or a Trump for a reason.

If Hitler was a Christian then he practiced a form of Christianity unrecognizable to any other form. Martin Luther recognized Jesus was Jewish but Positive Christianity recast Jesus as an Aryan warrior against Jews, they removed Paul’s Epistles, they removed the Gospel of Matthew, they removed the Old Testament, and Positive Christianity placed loyalty to the Third Reich above God.

Politicians in a myriad of eras created anti-Semitism as a scapegoat.

Stalin was an atheist who destroyed the vast majority of churches, mosques and in his territory. The only religious institution he didn’t systematically destroy was the Russian Orthodox church but that was political. He has lines that are anti-theist.

That there are weird or antisemitic sects of Christianity does not absolve them of being Christianity. The entire Nazi program against the Jews was line-item-by-line-item identical to Martin Luther’s. The Nazis replicated Luther’s program against the Jews. That does not mean Protestantism is not Christianity or Martin Luther was not a Christian.

So you’re not going to get Hitler out of being a Christian any more than you can get Martin Luther out of being a Christian. Christians need to own their antisemitic legacy, not try to hide it behind specious semantics.

I know. Isaac Newton didn’t believe in the conventional Trinity since he saw Jesus in the Gospel of John remark the Father is greater than him.

Positive Christianity dejudaized Christianity, they removed the Old Testament and removed Paul’s Epistles.

The evidence for Jesus and Old Testament figures I gave such as Galatians, Corinthians, the Tel Dan stele, the Mesha stele and other things are legitimate.

This is mostly mistaken or impertinent propaganda.

You’ve not said anything about the diverse beliefs of actual Christians in the 20th century and thus why, indeed, Hitler was definitely a Christian (as in contrast to Neopagan or Atheist, as some other leading Nazis were, or Muslim or Hindu, as some people Hitler ranted against were).

See No, Hitler Wasn’t a Pantheist.

Otherwise, Catholics are also idolators. Still Christians. Jewish Christians (Peter, James) predate the Epistles of Paul and did not adopt their theology but merely allowed it. Still Christians. There are modern sects that likewise cling to Torah and reject Paul. Still Christians. Marcionites rejected the Torah as demonic. Still Christians. Anyone is a Christian who holds Jesus Christ as God’s representative and savior, and affirms his resurrection as ensuring eternal life for those who believe (or for those who ritually unite themselves to the spirit of Christ).

Basically any “religion stemming from the life, teachings, and death of Jesus of Nazareth” is Christianity. And that encompasses an extremely diverse range of sects with highly diverse ideas about scripture.

Hitler wasn’t Christian. Jesus is Jewish and the Third Reich stripped away Jesus’ Jewishness, recast him as an Aryan warrior against Jews, they removed Paul’s Epistles, they removed the Old Testament and placed loyalty to the Third Reich above God. Nazis weren’t Christians but idolaters.

Jesus is accepted as a history figure in scholarship since Galatians documents Paul knew Peter and other Apostles who in turn knew Jesus, Corinthians writes the resurrected Jesus appeared to Paul, Peter, the twelve Apostles, 500 others, Paul wrote Galatians and Corinthians, and Paul wouldn’t lie since he was a zealous persecutor of Christians until his road to Damascus, the Epistle of Clement and other documents write the Romans executed Paul for worshipping Jesus, and worshipping Jesus was very dangerous until the foundation of the Roman Catholic church. Paul made a radical change from persecutor to martyr. People don’t die for a religion they don’t believe in.

The Tel Dan stele and the Mesha stele display King David and the House of David existed, support passages in 2 Kings 8:28-29 and other 2 Kings passages about King Hazael, Jewish kings Jehoram and Ahaziah, Moabite king Mesha turning against Israel, worship of Yahweh in ancient Judaism and other things, the Kurkh Monoliths are evidence King Ahab existed, that displays King Omri existed, the Sennacherib Prism writes the Assyrian empire burned dozens upon dozens of walled, fortified Jewish cities with huge military forces, write about Jewish king Hezekiah, bullae with the names of priestly families such as Asayahu and Immer, bullae writing “Hezekiah son of Ahaz and King of Israel”, and the House of David under Hezekiah was not as strong as the United Monarchy under King David and King David. Hezekiah had dozens upon dozens of walled, fortified Jewish cities that the Assyrians burned, & there would be countless regular cities, backwater cities and settlements the Israelite kingdom ruled. The United Monarchy was stronger than Hezekiah’s kingdom especially since the United Monarchy ruled much larger territory with Israel and Judah. The Tel Dan stele, the Mesha stele, the Sennacherib Prism, bullae with the names of priestly families and other things are evidence King David and the House of David existed.

The United Monarchy ruled larger territory but splintered into Israel and Judah with idolatrous kings such as King Omri, King Ahab and King Ahaz exacerbating the splintering.

You are evidently trying to ignore the fact that you have been refuted. Because nothing you just said is remotely relevant to what we were discussing.

“Christianity” was not defined by Jesus. The word does not exist in any NT text except Acts and 1 Peter, where it isn’t defined, nor do either quote Jesus. In fact Acts says “Christian” was a word assigned to Christians by non-Christians. In Greek it means “partisans of Christ,” as in, anyone who claims Christ as their leader or exemplar. Hence the word in English refers to anyone who claims to follow Christ as their savior.

Mormons are Christians. Episcopalians are Christians. Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians. Evangelicals and Catholics are Christians. Not a single one of those groups adheres to New Testament Christianity. They all ignore substantial amounts of its teachings (including directly from Jesus). They all add teachings not included. And they all change or reinterpret teachings contrary to what they originally were.

So you can’t claim someone who does those things isn’t a Christian—unless you wish to admit that no one is a Christian. No Christian religion remains anywhere on Earth. It died out thousands of years ago.

But then you have to come up with a new word for all these people calling themselves Christians. That of course is legerdemain. You can’t change what things are by changing what you call them.

People call themselves Christians because they believe they follow Christ, even though not a single one does in your sense. So “your sense” clearly isn’t what they or anyone means by the word. They mean what they mean by the word. That is simply what a Christian is nowadays. It is what the word has come to mean. And you can’t change that.

It is foolish to try and hide your history with word games anyway. Nazis were, by and large, as Christian as anyone. And all that they did that we loathe was built on centuries of Christian ideology. There is little substantial difference between Hitler and Martin Luther, other than that Hitler had more advanced technologies and a nation-state to do his will, and thus could accomplish things Luther had only longed for.

I will respond one final time. I believe that it is crucial for readers to understand why you insist that Jesus, His apostles, and their disciples in the oldest historical records not be allowed to define what Christianity is and is not—not be allowed to define their own terms and meanings and to set the boundaries of the Faith themselves. You must hold that right-to-define instead, despite obviously being unaware of the import and application of so elementary a Christian foundation as the Golden Rule, which a first-grader in a genuinely Christian family would be taught at home and in the church community. The Golden Rule was clearly beyond Hitler’s grasp as well, and that of many others like him; available only to children and the childlike as Jesus Himself said would be the case. (Jesus said that few would be saved, not many; and applied this “many” to those who called Him “Lord” as well.) Rome, or the Evangelicals, or the Mormons, or Martin Luther (who was indeed a source and justification for Hitler’s hatreds), or some other historical sect or ahistorical cult or theology must instead be your defining exemplars—anyone or anything except Jesus, and the most ancient Christian Faith and those who have imperfectly but seriously adhered to it (whom you must pretend don’t exist). This is essential not only to your beliefs but to justify the attitudes and the outcomes that are common to your own faith (system of belief and enslavement—if Hitler is insisted upon as a Christian than no one should hesitate to describe Atheists as people of faith, especially since everyone serves somebody, as Bob Dylan sang, even if it is only themselves). This colors the attempt to be an objective historian as surely as being a devout Roman Catholic or devout (“radical”) Muslim does—and quite sad when the fruits of these determined biases throughout your faith have cost others as much as they have, and undoubtedly will even more in the future, just as unfaithful “Christians” have and will.

Let us be very clear here: In terms of the most ancient Christian historical record, Hitler was not a Christian by any possible conception of that term that is historically faithful in antiquity; no more than Vlad the Impaler was. It’s just that Atheists need Hitler to be a Christian so badly, given the outcomes of their own most impactful world leaders in such a short span of history. In addition to the appeal of an Apostle to someone who had become a Christian and was the owner of an escaped slave, who then also became a Christian, found in the New Testament book of Philemon, and additional instruction that obedient slaves should gain their freedom if they can (strange how you mentioned none of these parts of the New Testament), and the ancient Christian, Clement of Alexandria, arguing specifically (contrary to your interpretation) that the Mosaic Law taught “not to wrong anyone belonging to another race, and bring him under the yoke, when there is no other cause to allege than difference of race, which is no cause at all, being neither wickedness nor the effect of wickedness … We admit that the same nature exists in every race, and the same virtue” (see Acts 10:34-35 and Galatians 3:28 in the Bible), below is the summary spirit of anti-semitism, racist bigotry, and enslavement that you refer to as voiced by another prominent, ancient Christian, describing what changed in becoming a Christian because of who they were as a people in how they lived, including in that respect. None of this was written anywhere near recent times, and the degree that others claiming to be Christians have departed from that Holy Spirit in which this writer below was discipled, very much out of character for his time and place in the world, to that degree they have departed from that same Faith (see Jude 3-4 in the Bible). I have already specified examples of those who, on the whole, have not departed from its essence—and across many centuries of time. Many have died at the hands of the Catholics and the Protestants as well as political regimes, including some at the hands of the US as a result of their non-resistant refusal to fight–in Alcatraz and in Leavenworth, along with the Native families that were burned to death at Gnadenhutten, Ohio:

“…We who formerly delighted in fornication now embrace chastity alone; we who formerly used magical arts dedicate ourselves to the good and unbegotten God; we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions now bring what we have into a common stock, and share with everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies…”

Thank you for correcting the text of Table Talk. Hopefully it is as certain as it is possible to be now, with no additional German text discovered at some point that comports more with the French edition.