Link updated. Thanks!

That is not charitable. Charitable is understanding that only relevant characteristics matter. Saying the Gospels are different in irrelevant ways is not a valid rebuttal to what I said. You still don’t seem to understand this.

Moreover, you did not list these “50 characteristics” in the debate so there is no possible way you can honestly claim I was referring to them…I was referring to what you said in the debate and to what you said in the debate that was relevant to the debate. You still don’t seem to understand this, either.

The weakness of my argument lay in not effectively rebutting Richard Carrier’s own main argument. That, I admit. He happened to pick on one of my own least favorite verses in the New Testament, for one thing, asking a question I’ve been asking myself (somewhat idly) for decades. Nor is the Problem of Pain something I am inclined to give glib answers to, or pretend to be able to answer well at all — I find holes in most Christian arguments on the subject. That is why I don’t claim to have won the debate. But I certainly didn’t lose it.

Carrier first rebuttal:

“Now everything he says about the gospels is true of all kinds of faith literature in all religions. He picks on certain kinds of examples that look different from the gospels. But that’s special pleading. He’s picking certain examples through selection bias to make his argument.

“There are other examples that look more like the gospels, for example, the Book of Tobit. Or Plutarch’s biography of Romulus. Or Philostratus’ biography of Apollonius of Tyana. There are a lot of these examples of faith literature that look more like the gospels. And if you wanted me to sit down and research and find the most similar example, I could. But it’s not necessary. There’s plenty of examples LIKE THIS that have ALL the characteristics of the gospels.” (my emphasis)

I was pretty charitable in how I interpretted that gross error:

“During our debate in February, Richard Carrier accused me of “confirmation bias,” of cherry-picking texts that conformed to my analysis (summarized above, or see previous post for our actual wording). He mentioned fictional texts that he thought resemble the gospels more closely than the ones I had analyzed earlier, and accused me of confirmation bias for cherry-picking texts that conform to my analysis . He said these other texts, which he mentioned, shared ALL the characteristics of the gospels!

“This was a bold claim, since he obviously hadn’t read my analysis, which for one thing included one of the texts he mentioned — Apollonius of Tyana.

“I will not hold Carrier literally to “all” 50 characteristics — one must make allowance for hyperbole and oral glibness. But I will compare the four ancient works of fiction he mentioned, on each of 26 gospel characteristics related to historicity.”

I then did compare the gospels to the three above, plus The Golden Ass, which you also brought up in a related connection. I found that not only didn’t any of them share “all” the characteristics of the gospels, or even all the 26 historically-relevant characteristics I was referring to, none of them share so many as six to any serious extent.

So your claim was enormously mistaken. In fact, the error is so significant that I think it undermines your entire approach to the gospels. I would, however, take a look if you could name some other ancient fictional “faith” text that you think does better.

Meanwhile, Hector Avalos has taken a whole series of rather poorly-aimed shots at my second argument (and at me, and at Christian missionaries), on God, which you had little to say about, at Debunking Christianity.

I pointed out the many errors in his arguments, especially gross misreadings both of myself and of Emile Durkheim, beginning with this post:

http://christthetao.blogspot.com/2013/05/avalos-attacks-tact-and-me-and-yes.html

And then refine the argument, which I’m now calling Theistic Argument from Cultural Transcendence (TACT), in the following post.

I’m pleased that Avalos gave it a bit more of detailed challenge; I’m also pleased to find that, mischaracterizations and pique taken duly account of, the argument seems to come out stronger than ever. (Though apparently he plans to respond again.)

Sort of. That is certainly already the sub-text. The Judas revolt decades before was partly based on the notion that accepting Imperial rule was tantamount to paying tribute to two gods, which was idolatry; but that is precisely why the Jews are supposedly cornering Jesus here, because they already regard paying a tax with a coin that declares the man on it god (as coins then typically did) to be idolatry. So Jesus didn’t have to teach them that. He had to find a way around it. Hence there is more going on in this tale. It is more likely a post-hoc defense of the command of Paul in Romans 13:6-7, attempting to justify what Paul said in light of the fact that paying a tax with a coin that declares the man on it god feels like idolatry.

Indeed, I suspect it’s actually a veiled reference (or even deliberate response) to the redirected temple tax after the Jewish War: the tribute that was owed the temple every year by faithful Jews was then commanded to be paid to Rome instead, which was a major slap in the face. The pronouncement Mark puts on the lips of Jesus simultaneously defuses that outrage and condemns the Jews who reject Christ, who don’t understand that (as you rightly suspect) God is owed something other than money (whereas in the actual time Jesus would have been saying this, God was owed a deposit of an annual coin–and although certainly not a denarius, that still would have made Jesus’ pronouncement here confusing, since he seems to be distinguishing the rendering of money to a false god from rendering faith to the true god, whereas at the time one rendered money to both). On all this, see here.

Either way, notably, we can be reasonably sure Jesus never said this. On the second theory, this saying was invented after 70 AD, and on the first, it was certainly invented after the death of Jesus (if such there was). This is clear enough from the fact that Paul is completely unaware that Jesus said this, in a passage where he is advocating it, in a letter so near the end of his career it’s impossible he couldn’t have heard of Jesus saying something so elegant and authoritative on the point.

Apparently a major part of the thesis is, that Mark is fighting on two fronts against Messianic pretenders: in Jerusalem, the followers of the ‘martyred’ Simon ben Giora, and in Rome, Vespasian proclaimed by Josephus.

Spur of the moment thought here; does this relate to the “Render unto Caesar” story? I’ve always thought of it as a story arguing for non-aggression against the Romans, but might it also have the subtext of “sure, there’s the emperor, but don’t be so foolish as tho think he’s god”?
I.e. it’s not so much that you should give to Caesar what is Caesar’s (gold/material wealth), but more importantly, you shouldn’t give to Caesar what rightfully belongs to god (worship).

Am I barking up the wrong tree?

Thank you. I enjoyed Mason’s little book on Josephus and the NT. It would have been nice to read his translation, yes.