Both. That will be explained in the book itself. But I am planning to do a show on it at MythVision to go over what we mean by a hybrid monograph and why. So stay tuned for that.

Is the sequel to OHJ still going to be a peer-reviewed monograph, despite the change in publisher? Or will it be more of a pop-market book?

Yes, the mystery did leak in some other sects, whether substance or doctrine.

If not too much trouble and it comes easily to you, would you be so kind as to write the odds form of Bayes Theorem with numerical values to illustrate two common statements –
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
and
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Or tell me to figure it out myself if you find this lazy request annoying. I have had extraordinary difficulty with Bayes Theorem, possibly because of having studied ordinary statistics of instrument calibration least squares fits quite a lot and it may have set my mind in its ways.

The evidence we have points to trance and incubation, and sychoztypal shamanism.

Everything else is an unknown and thus can’t be declared. But something like a special substance could hardly escape mention. And with the other evidence there is no need to expect this as an additional technique. So its probability is low.

Your science course makes clear that many ancient Greek and Roman scrolls were lost to us because Christian copyists disapproved of them or did not understand their importance.

Even nowadays Allegro’s book was banned for a long time. I could only find one copy in the whole vast Toronto Public Library and that was in science fiction reference. (for many reasons, thank goodness for s-f)

Your description of the severed ear story as symbolic of transfer of atonement authority to Jesus from the Temple elite is very interesting. Thanks. You seem to have a deep understanding of the ideas underlying the NT. If only they were reasonable as well as understandable.

It has been said that morality with no support from revelation is not certain (Jordan Peterson). Yet if we made up the NT, then we can make up a morality, and unencumbered by obsolete stuff. I see that you have done this and hope to someday read your book. I think that a story needs to appeal to a wide range of people, from poverty-stricken and uneducated, to football fans, not just to intellectuals. Some people want to submit, to worship, to believe in a supernatural.

There were no drug laws in antiquity.

Everything was legal.

But to argue early Christians used a particular drug (there were many then, not just shrooms), you need evidence. And there is none. All the evidence indicates they used nonpharmaceutical triggers (incubation, trance, and scizotypality).

On your other questions:

I can’t see how it can be construed to be opposed to paying.

That’s my point exactly. Their reinterpretation of this evidence is convoluted and circular.

Luke is obviously describing false accusations, not preserving a lost memory of true ones.

So, yes, as you observe, that amounts to Luke saying the same thing as Mark.

Note that Matthew did something similar, having the Jews falsely accuse the Disciples of stealing the body, as a converse way of saying the opposite (that the body was not stolen, ergo rose from the dead). So once Mark invented the idea of false accusations (but with an obscure reference to 2 Cor. 5 and 1 Cor. 15 in Mark 14:57-59), later redactors of Mark came up with what they thought were better ways to portray that, by inventing more easily understood false accusations.

I mostly was impressed by Jesus curing the ear which Peter cut off. I wonder whether He re-attached it or just stanched the bleeding.

Luke says he healed it (no particulars).

But even Luke does not have anyone arrested for it. The other authors didn’t even see the need for the healing. The backstory to that is as I discuss: it’s a symbolic allegory about the end of the temple cult (it’s the moment when authority to atone transferred from the priests to Jesus).

I was wondering what the probability might be of any evidence whatsoever existing for the use of amanita, when it was illegal, and if used, probably that would never be revealed except to the most advanced initiates, who might be introduced to its use. I think that is what “mystery” meant? And subsequently there would be more than a thousand years of repression by church authorities who would not want it thought that Christianity was a vision/fantasy instead of the real thing, God and miracles on Earth, that one could get help from. That is, maybe it would be surprising if any evidence of amanita use in the early church is extant, even if it was used. And of course, vanishing likelihood of (false) evidence of use if it was not used. So to me the ratio seems to be 0/0. Maybe I am not making sense, am pretending to be scientific, when I just mean I don’t think you will find their stash, if any.

I have been reading your book on the militant or non-existent Jesus.

p.81 Bermejo-Rubio and Tommasi: Here one finds a claim that Jesus opposed paying the Roman taxes, citing “converging” Mark 12 and Luke 23:2 — I don’t understand. Mark 12’s “Render unto Caesar … ” is famous and I can’t see how it can be construed to be opposed to paying. In Luke 23:2, the temple elite is trying to get Pilate to prosecute Jesus and they claim He opposed paying taxes to Caesar, which seems to be false witness. I have not noticed anywhere that Jesus contradicted what He said in Mark 12 about paying Roman taxes. In Luke 20:25 one finds the same thing as in Mark 12.

It is possible that Jesus often spoke against paying the tax, but that was not reported in the Bible, and only his response to the posse sent to trap him was published. But why suppose that? Maybe if one believes to have seen an underlying pattern of resistance read between the lines?

If Mark was a fictional account that was created to promote a philosophy of peace, and there was no historical Jesus, then I guess one can only take the story as it is and not meaningfully wonder about what a non-existent Jesus was really like.

I never did think that the swords were anything but defence against highwaymen, along with the other practical things such as purse and scrip, mentioned as contrast to the earlier begging-bowl phase of evangelism. I mostly was impressed by Jesus curing the ear which Peter cut off. I wonder whether He re-attached it or just stanched the bleeding.

I think I am mostly remembering how I first reacted to these details, and I have a feeling that you and most people gathered the same general impression.

It would just be “the probability of the existence of evidence for something.”

All Bayes’ Theorem is is the formula for deriving an epistemic probability, no matter what it is an epistemic probability of.

But maybe I am not understanding what you mean.

Normally, “the probability of the existence of evidence for something” is simply the likelihood, P(e|h) and P(e|~h), the ratio between which is called The Bayes Factor and multiplies by the Prior Odds to get the Final Odds. P(e|h) is “the probability of the existence of evidence e if the hypothesis being tested is true” and P(e|~h) is “the probability of the existence of that same evidence e if the hypothesis being tested is false (and therefore something else caused that evidence to exist).”

I assume you meant something else. But let me know.

Since you don’t need drugs to hallucinate (countless religious cultures do without it), much less any specific drug (ergot and cannabis were just as common, and ethylene available at some locales), there is no logical argument that the Christians likely used any. You need evidence they did. There is none. To the contrary, the evidence indicates they used more typical hallucination triggers (incubation and trance behaviors are well attested, and match the known behaviors of still-current congregations, like Shakers and Pentecostals; and the indicators for natural schizotypality in apostles like Paul is quite strong, and likewise its role in religious movements still to this day). So there is no way to argue they were shrooming just because they could have. It’s bad logic. And it’s neglectful of the actual evidence or indeed even the concept of evidence.