After ten years of pretty much ignoring the arguments in the peer-reviewed studies on the question of Jesus’s historicity, Bart Ehrman has tried again to “respond” to their findings—and again proves he never really reads these studies and doesn’t know what they say. Indeed, he is stalwartly refusing now to read the actual studies and is only doing a video critique of my popmarket summary. Like an amateur. And he is getting everything even in that wrong. Which is a spectacular own goal. This is practically the Platonic ideal of the entire field’s response to our studies to date: punching themselves in the face. It’s like they don’t even realize people actually check things—so they’re going to find out every mistake Ehrman made. Which simply burns his rep as anyone worth trusting on the subject.

Catching Up

Ehrman’s two new articles, Why I Don’t Enjoy Reading the Mythicists and Fundamentalist Apologists: Christian and Mythicist, are void of any discernible factual arguments (they just complain about how reading peer-reviewed monographs is too hard to do and we’re all just crazy). But his weekend lecture (which mostly consisted of just him reading his slideshow) was a long farce of armchair mistakes, getting even basic facts wrong. Since pretty much everything he now says was already refuted ten years ago in the books he won’t read, I won’t go into detail, but just summarize his mistakes and cite where they are already refuted. And since he makes no response to those refutations (nor to anything in my Ehrman on Historicity Recap), his current claims are already dead in the water. He hasn’t recovered them from already being proved wrong. He’s just repeating false claims. Which tells you enough to know you simply can’t trust him as an authority on this question—he literally doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

And this is what I mean by that: Ehrman never references, or seems to know what is in, the formal studies of Carrier or Lataster, even though Lataster’s study, published by Brill, is specifically a critique of Ehrman’s still-only book on this subject (which came out before our studies and thus is not a response to them); and even though my study specifically refutes the claims Ehrman is now making—already, ten years ago. Instead, he inexplicably only responds to my pop-market summary, even though that won’t contain any of the scholarly details he needs in order to vet the statements made there (those are referenced through its concordance to the original study—its version of footnotes, ignoring which is tantamount to ignoring all the footnotes). This is not the behavior of a professional, or anyone taking this seriously. It’s as if I tried to prove Ehrman is wrong about something in Forged without consulting the very excellent formal study it merely summarizes, Forgery and Counterforgery. Ehrman knows that would be inappropriate, and he would be incensed if someone did that. Well, then, he should be angry with himself that he did that to us. While for you the question remains, that you now have to ask: Why did he do this?

If historicity really is defensible, why can’t it stand up against the formal studies refuting it? Why does Ehrman have to avoid those, and try to critique only a summary? This does not make the historicity of Jesus look defensible. It makes it look like it’s indefensible, “therefore” something has to be done to hide that fact, by avoiding every solid critique, and beating down only straw men. This is why he conceals the fact that over forty scholars now agree mythicism is plausible, acting instead like it’s just a handful of us.

1. Yes, Paul Believed Jesus Was a Human

It’s all the worse that Ehrman doesn’t even read the pop-market summary competently. As a recurring case in point, his slides and lecture keep saying our theory is that Jesus was not “human,” and therefore evidence, for example, that Paul believed he was “human” refutes our theory. We are quite thoroughly explicit that our thesis is that Jesus was human—indeed, a mortal, Jewish man—when he was killed in the sky. So Ehrman doesn’t even know what our theory is. How then can he have anything competent to say as to its merits? This would be like me critiquing Ehrman for defending the Gospels as reliable history, as if I didn’t know that is not what he argues (he agrees they are mostly myth). Wouldn’t he be annoyed if I did that? So why is he doing it to me? Did he abandon the Golden Rule along with his Christian faith?

This mistake I already dealt with years ago in Can Paul’s Human Jesus Not Be a Celestial Jesus? But it was already dispatched in our books. In OHJ (pp. 532–33):

[T]he only facts constituting Christian belief [at the start were] that Jesus is now Lord because he was given a human body formed of Davidic seed and then appointed to supreme heavenly authority at his resurrection (which presupposes his death). This is all compatible with minimal mythicism.

And yet in Paul:

We’re not told how anyone knew that, or who his parents were, or where he was born, or anything
else that would make this a definite statement of earthly existence in human history (and not, e.g., just a doctrine of heavenly incarnation).

Paul says Jesus was made “like” a human (Philippians 2), not “was” a human, but we agree he means “in order to die Jesus had to be clothed in a human body,” a “flesh-and-blood body to abuse and kill” (p. 570; cf. pp. 547, 575, 592, etc.). And that body was indeed from the flesh of David (JFOS §8; OHJ §11.9). Hence we differ from Ehrman solely on where this happened, not whether they thought it did happen: minimal mythicism proposes an “incarnation, death, burial and resurrection in a supernatural realm” (p. 53). This is explained very early in JFOS: “He was imagined to have descended from the farthest reaches of outer space to assume a human body” (p. 31; cf. pp. 172–73, 204). The fact that Ehrman doesn’t know this indicts him as not competent to judge our theory. He could have been competent to do that—he has the competence to do this competently—he just chose not to. Why?

Since we do not argue what Ehrman is “rebutting,” that “rebuttal” has no effect on our theory. All the evidence he cites here doesn’t apply to us. The question is why he doesn’t know that.

2. Yes, An Imaginary Jesus Preached Things

Ehrman does the same ignorant thing again when he argues Jesus “preached” things (Paul even quotes him!), “therefore” Jesus existed. But we already refuted that a decade ago (JFOS, pp. 147–50, 184; summarizing OHJ, §11.6–7). Even after we eliminate all the “sayings” and “instructions” that were invented later (often by ascribing to Jesus the teachings of other people, like Paul, or even by outright fabrication, like all the speeches in the Gospel of John, and even, as mainstream scholars agree, most of the Sermon on the Mount: OHJ, pp. 465-68), Paul says he received sayings from revelation, not a historical Jesus. He even quotes a conversation with Jesus he personally had in his head, as if it were real.

So we cannot argue from a quoted saying to “it came from a historical man.” We can’t argue that even if Jesus existed. Moreover we have abundant evidence that the earliest Christians believed Jesus spoke to them not only through direct revelation, but also through the scriptures (see The Original Scriptural Concept of ‘The Lord’ Jesus). So we have no way of getting from “there were sayings” to “they came from a real person.” Paul simply never says any of them came from Jesus before he died, much less from anyone who sat at his feet. Hence our point is that this is evidence that does not exist. Ehrman has not responded to this refutation. He just keeps repeating the false claim that we have evidence that these sayings came from a real person. But we don’t. So he is just ignoring the facts. Why?

This is just a circular argument. And experts are supposed to know better than to rely on those.

3. Yes, The Eucharist Sounds Like a Revelation

We already gave evidence that Paul’s description of Christ’s inauguration of the Eucharist came by a vision, not a real event. And many experts agree with us on this—in fact more now. I’ll bring this up in my next book, The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus, going to press now and due this Fall, but just off the top of my head, those who agree it’s likely ahistorical include: Gerd Lüdemann, Robert Funk, Marcus Borg, Leon Morris, Clarence Craig, Hyam Maccoby, Paul Achtemeier, Helmut Koester, Nikolaus Walter, Francis Watson—and Afetame Alabi, authoring the very best case to date, and citing fifteen more scholars concurring; and to that of course we must add the dozens scholars who agree Jesus might not have existed. So Ehrman is the one falsely reporting the state of this question. Why?

There is no need to rehash that. Ehrman simply ignores it all and thus keeps asserting things already refuted, without recovering them from that refutation. He doesn’t even mention, much less answer, all our evidence for this being a revelation that Paul is describing and not a real event. But if you care what the evidence is, you can catch up on what Ehrman is ignoring in OHJ §11.7 (referenced in JFOS, pp. 48, 131, 193). Or check out Alabi or my forthcoming study. The bottom line is that Ehrman cannot establish the contrary—so at best we cannot claim to know whether Paul here means revelation and not history. And that’s that.

4. Yes, Paul Shows No Knowledge of a Human Betrayal

Paul never says Jesus was “betrayed.” He repeatedly says he was “handed over” by God, not men. Ehrman agrees with me on that. Yet he still lists this as evidence for an earthly Jesus. But there is no indication Paul had ever heard of this being an earthly event. There’s no Judas killing himself, for example (the “twelve” are still intact to receive a vision of Jesus after Peter: JFOS, pp. 67–68; OHJ, pp. 312–14, 324–25, 560; and Proving History, pp. 151–55). This is again ‘evidence for historicity’ that simply does not exist (see Did Judas Exist?). We cannot tell that any story of human betrayal or earthly deliverance was known to Paul.

5. Yes, 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16 Is Probably Fake

The preponderance of evidence establishes these verses were inserted by someone after Paul died. Even at best, the evidence is enough to not be sure Paul wrote them, which alone removes them as evidence. And yet we can be even more certain than that (JFOS, pp. 44; OHJ, pp. 567–69). There is even more evidence of this than I mention in There Is No Logically Sound Case Against Interpolation in 1 Thessalonians 2. Yet Ehrman simply ignores all of it.

But…why are we ignoring evidence in this debate? And why is it always the historicists who are ignoring evidence in this debate? Ehrman does not even tell his students that this passage is widely doubted in the field. He appears to be concealing evidence, rather than arguing against it. Why? And why would you trust someone who repeatedly does this to you?

6. Yes, Crucifixion Was Not Distinctly Roman

This is fully established by literally all the peer reviewed scholarship on the words for crucifixion. And I cite it all, so Ehrman has no excuse not to have consulted it so as to know what he is talking about (OHJ, pp. 61–62, 534, where I and they adduce a ton of evidence of Jewish and other non-Roman crucifixions). Instead Ehrman just keeps making the already-refuted argument that Paul and his congregations can only have understood a crucifixion by Romans (see Things Fall Apart Only When You Check). This is again simply not evidence. So why is he still using it? Worse, like an internet amateur, Ehrman doesn’t even know I cited leading scholarship on this—so it is not some “mistake” I made. It is literally the consensus of every expert who has written studies on this point. He is the one who is mistaken.

Ehrman also falsely claims I base the Jewish practice of crucifying the convicted entirely on one passage in Deuteronomy. He also gets wrong what that passage says. Ehrman declares “it’s not part of the Jewish law anywhere that says victims of stoning have to be crucified.” Well, foot in mouth, sir. Mishnah law (Sanhedrin 6.4)—actual Jewish law, which I (and all scholars on this) quote to the point—explicitly says it is. So Ehrman is the one making factual mistakes here, demonstrating that he literally knows nothing about the evidence and scholarship on this, and didn’t even lift a single finger to find out. He just declared me wrong from the armchair. Like a crank.

Ehrman’s reading of the verse in Deuteronomy is also wrong. You can check the original Hebrew yourself. It says any man convicted of a capital crime is to be crucified, because the conjunctive vav in legal texts implies an imperative, not a conditional (making the LXX conjunctions consequential rather than conditional). This is why Rashi outright says Deuteronomy instructs “thou shalt” hang such people, and therefore “all those who have to be put to death by stoning must afterwards be hanged.” Ramban concurs. Chizkuni concurs. The Talmud concurs (Sanhedrin 46b). And on and on. Ehrman is simply wrong.

But the real question you have to ask is: why didn’t Ehrman check before confidently declaring a falsity like this, thereby falsely impugning me of error? If he had checked OHJ like a competent scholar is supposed to, then he’d have seen my citations of Samuelsson, Halperin, Fitzmyer—even my own study of Jewish burial law—and thus realized I’m simply following the experts on this. And if he still doubted all this, he could check those studies, and would then have found that the evidence proving him wrong here includes Mishnah law, Talmudic law, Rabbinical commentaries, historical and vocabulary studies, even Josephus (“Let him who blasphemes God be stoned to death and hung during the day,” AJ 4.202).

Update: Prepare to be outraged. While researching another matter I discovered the fact that Ehrman himself not only admitted the Jews “sometimes” performed executions “by crucifixion” (“Jesus’ Trial Before Pilate,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 1983, p. 125), he even cited two scholars confirming this (C.K. Barrett and Jean Juster). So he knows what he claimed in his recent class is false.

7. Yes, We Have Evidence of Doubting Christians (Yet Didn’t Expect Any)

I make an even stronger case for this point in my book due out this Fall (extensively expanding on my preliminary findings in Did ‘Docetism’ Really Even Exist?), but I already addressed it ten years ago:

• We don’t expect Christians to have preserved any text doubting or challenging the historicity of Jesus. So we cannot argue from the absence of them now. Yet we do have hints that there were Christians who had not heard of an earthly Jesus and even protested the idea (OHJ §8.12).
• Paul would not mention this because the idea that Jesus was earthly did not exist yet for him to react to. So it is illogical of Ehrman to cite Paul’s silence, much less to expect us to have Paul saying “Jesus was crucified in space,” since had he ever written that, it would have been omitted from all editions we have access to. But he would be unlikely ever to have to written it, since everyone he was writing to already knew that, and no one existed yet who was contesting it.
• And Paul’s letters are indeed rife with evidence he himself had never heard the contrary (OHJ §11).

None of which evidence Ehrman even mentions, much less rebuts (and yet he should know we have it: JFOS, pp. 33, 49, 157, 160–63, 170, 179; OHJ §11). He is again simply repeating an argument we already refuted. And he’s just ignoring that it was refuted.

Why does defending historicity require ignoring all the evidence against it and pretending—indeed even falsely claiming—it does not exist? Ask yourself that. Again.

8. Yes, The Talmud and Epiphanius Attest a Different Chronology

Jewish Christianity in the East appears to have placed Jesus a hundred years earlier than Western Christians. This is a fact, not a factual “error” (OHJ §8.1). Attempts to claim otherwise I refute in my forthcoming Obsolete Paradigm. But the data is already available to anyone. It’s not something I made up. Ehrman just “claims” (without any explanation or evidence) that I am “misreading” the Talmud and Epiphanius, but I already disprove that in the study he is supposed to be answering (just more so in the sequel). He never responds to any of the evidence I present.

Ehrman first confuses himself here. His slides correctly quote JFOS as saying 75 BC (the time of Alexander Jannaeus in which the Babylonian Talmud, and Jewish Christians in the same region according to Epiphanius, placed the execution of Jesus) is “almost a hundred years before the Romans even took control of Judea” (though Ehrman leaves out the rest of that sentence: “and a full hundred years before Pontius Pilate was put in charge of it”). Ehrman wonders if this is a typo because 75 BC + 100 would get 25 AD (actually 24 AD), but live, in the lecture, he misread the quote, skipping the word “almost.” The Romans took over Judea in 6 AD, which is over 80 years later, which is indeed “almost” 100 years, as I make clear by noting a “full” 100 years then brings us to the time of Pilate (in the 20s AD). Ehrman’s mistake here evinces a lazy carelessness that typifies his entire approach to this subject and its scholarship. Ehrman even calls this a factual mistake—but I’m the one who is correct. The factual mistake is his.

That’s a trivial example, but still illustrative (he should not be making a mistake like that). But there is a far more important example: Ehrman also misstates my position as “the original Christians in Jerusalem…believed that Jesus was crucified in 75 BC,” but that’s not my position: my position (if he had ever actually read it) is that there were later Christians who believed that (we have this confirmed by two independent sources: that’s why we believe Epiphanius on this, because he describes the exact same group attacked in the Talmud, so they corroborate each other). And that does not necessarily mean the “original” Christians, but only some Christians of the second or third generation—possibly even later, but early enough to evince a liberality of when to place Jesus in history that is only likely if there was no actual history (like our revered Gospels) constraining their choice. I also have no idea why he thinks any of this involved “Jerusalem” Christians—we’re talking about Christians across the Jordan (JFOS, p. 12).

Ehrman thus doesn’t even understand the argument he is supposed to be responding to. Yet ironically (in Reading the Mythicists) he blames our having too many facts for him to check as his reason for not checking them. But he can’t even get right a single page of our ideas. “Original” Christians? No. “Jerusalem” Christians. No. That some Christians changed the century Jesus died “disproves” historicity? No. We made none of these claims. So why does he think these are the claims we made? Indeed, supposedly, the “only” claims we made!

Ehrman also doesn’t know what Epiphanius said, or why historians agree the Talmud also dates Jesus to the 70s B.C., referencing the same sect as Epiphanius (ideologically and geographically). And he also does not appear to understand the difference between Jewish Christianity (Nazorianism) and Gentile Christianity (Ehrman also misspells Nazorians as Nazareans, confusing a different sect Epiphanius talks about, the Nasareans). And he does not appear to understand why the Babylonian Rabbis would be keen to debunk only an immediate Jewish threat to their faith—hence why they never mention the Gospel Jesus or its chronology, only this completely different one, because it was the one poaching their turf.

You might be starting to notice that not knowing what he is talking about is a growing theme here. And now he explicitly admits this is because there is “too much” peer-reviewed literature to read. But if the historicity of Jesus can only be maintained by not knowing what you are talking about, maybe it’s time to stop believing in it?

On top of all that, somehow Ehrman mistakes me for arguing all this did happen in the 70s BC, and thus Paul wrote in the 50s BC (and then argues against those ideas). But I have never argued either of those things (see How Do We Know the Apostle Paul Wrote His Epistles in the 50s A.D.?). My argument is that the looseness with which later mythographers could date Jesus is (weak) evidence he wasn’t historical (for reasons I lay out in OHJ §8.1, none of which Ehrman mentions or responds to—because he keeps refusing to read the actual study). In other words, my position is: “Maybe the Eastern gospel that placed Jesus under Jannaeus is just as fabricated as the Western gospel placing him under Pilate” (JFOS, p. 13).

So why does Ehrman think I argue Paul wrote in the 50s BC? Or that Paul’s Jesus was killed in the 70s BC? I can’t fathom. This looks like another gradeschool failure at reading comprehension—confusing my reporting a mere possibility with what I think is actually the case—more evidence of Bart Ehrman’s egregious carelessness as a scholar that casts his entire judgment into doubt; just like when he falsely claims I said the verb ginomai “doesn’t mean born” when in fact I said it “can mean” that (JFOS, p. 162, 173), and in result Ehrman ignores and thus never mentions or answers what I actually argue about that.

This constant stream of disinformation about what I do or don’t say or argue is one of the reasons you should conclude Ehrman is completely unreliable on this subject.

9. Yes, Paul Never Mentions Anyone Seeing Jesus Before He Died

Ehrman asks you to read the text. So, read it:

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ** and then ** he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve [etc.] (1 Cor. 15)

Honestly. Mic drop, I guess? Paul also omits any “preaching” of Jesus before his death in Romans 16:15–26 (the preaching of Jesus comes only from revelation and scripture) and Romans 10:14–15 (only Apostles ever heard Jesus preach, not the people: and Apostles are elected by revelation: Galatians 1, 1 Cor. 9:1). And so on. This is all in the study Ehrman is ignoring (OHJ, §11). He’s literally just ignoring all the data. Instead, Ehrman fails at reading comprehension and confuses “Paul never says anyone saw Jesus before he died” with “Paul says no one saw Jesus before he died,” refutes the latter (which I never said) and doesn’t understand that that cannot refute the former. Why?

10. Yes, The Church Controlled Almost All Document Selection

This is so mainstream a fact it is astonishing to see Ehrman try denying it. The exceptions he lists actually prove the rule—as I already discuss in my study that he still won’t read (and that he thus doesn’t know he has to reply to now: OHJ §8.4, 8.3, 8.12; likewise Element 22, pp. 148–52). Where are the documents of the doubting opponents of 2 Peter and Ignatius? Golly. All gone. Where are the letters of Paul that Paul refers to but we don’t have? What did they cut between 1 Cor. 8 and 1 Cor. 9? And so on. The list of conveniently missing stuff that we know existed is quite long.

Ehrman also goofs again here, misquoting JFOS as saying “only” when in fact it said “nearly the only” writings that survived were controlled by the imperial Church (p. 33), thus concealing from his students that I actually discussed the very documents he presents, as if I forgot about them. I even point this out (because I’m psychic!): “One might object and say, ‘Well, they didn’t destroy the collection at Nag Hammadi’. But the collection at Nag Hammadi is late” etc. (JFOS, p. 167). Which makes this argument from Ehrman a textbook example of disinformation. And if you have to use disinformation to win an argument, you have already lost that argument.

The rare few things that escaped destruction (such as by hiding them in a pot at Nag Hammadi) are mostly later texts, scant, and none of the stuff Ignatius and 2 Peter were talking about. And not a single item from the first hundred years of the religion. You cannot argue from the silence of documents you don’t have. And Ehrman does not have any of the first century documents that the surviving Church didn’t want him to. So he cannot make assertions about what they “didn’t” say. The fact is, the only stuff from then that survives is what was chosen and edited by the same historicist Christians who later took over the Empire and outlawed all heresy (the one undeniable fact documented by many experts now). That even includes things Paul wrote: everything he wrote that they didn’t like, we don’t have (like his actual first letter to the Corinthians).

Frankly this is a dumb apologetic hill for a modern scholar to die on. So I don’t know why he’s doing it.

11. No, Paul Never Refers to Anyone Being a Disciple

Paul does not know Peter (or anyone) is a disciple. He believes Peter is, instead, an Apostle, one who received election by revelation (1 Cor. 15, 1 Cor. 9, Gal. 1). There are no disciples in Paul’s letters. To simply assume some apostles he refers to are disciples is a circular argument. Which is not a serious argument. It’s disingenuous apologetics. Why do we need disingenuous apologetics to defend historicity, but do not need it to defend mythicism? Once again, ask yourself.

12. No, The Word “Ministry” Is Not in Romans 15

This is the biggest face-palm. Ehrman actually claims that Romans 15:8 (the 5:8 on his slide is a typo) has Paul say Jesus “ministered” to the Jews, as in a Gospel “ministry.” It does not. As anyone who checked a reliable translation would know: those all say “servant” rather than “minister” for a reason. Because the word is deacon, which means attendant, not “preacher.” Ehrman would know this if he would read the actual study he is supposed to be responding to. I have a whole page on this (OHJ, pp. 571–72): “It means (in this context) doing God’s will,” probably “by relaying God’s will.”

In other words, Paul is talking about the fact that Christ’s revelation came first to the Jews (1 Cor. 15, Gal. 1; Romans 9:33). That does not require an actual earthly ministry, as we already noted above. To the contrary, Paul appears to believe it means a celestial one (revelation): hence only the Apostles (“those sent,” apostelein, the verbal form of the noun) heard Jesus preach, not “the Jews.” The Jews could only hear it if those Apostles preached it to them, because Jesus, evidently, did not (Romans 10:14–15: OHJ, p. 554, 572). So there is, again, no evidence here. Paul simply does not say Jesus preached to anyone other than by revelation, much less before his death (his “ministering” to the Jews began after that).

This is another example of scholars forgetting to check their own Bible before quoting it, and thus being duped by Christian apologetical translations rather than reading what the text actually says in the Greek. Ehrman is supposed to know better. That he doesn’t is why he is still (by his own choice and behavior) not qualified to have a credible opinion on this topic.

13. No, Paul Does Not Mention That Happening on Earth

Ehrman claims that Paul says Jesus was on Earth in Philippians 2:5–8 (check: no such thing is ever said there), Galatians 4:4 (nope), and in Hebrews (nope: OHJ §11.5), even 1 Peter (nope: §11.3). He then cites 2 Peter. A known, late forgery. Why he is citing that as evidence escapes me. Even he knows that can’t count as evidence here—because it’s fake. But you know what that fake letter is evidence of? Christians who were denying the historical Jesus it stumps for (OHJ, p. 351). The very thing Ehrman said didn’t exist. Oops. He should have read the study he intended to rebut! I say more about this in Obsolete Paradigm, because there is even more triangulating evidence for this than I have previously documented, which I present there. But this point was already made in OHJ.

14. No, Tacitus & Josephus Are Not Usable Evidence

Neither probably ever mentioned Jesus (the evidence is quite strong that they didn’t, and Ehrman never addresses any of that evidence: see Josephus on Jesus and Blom on the Testimonium Taciteum and Margaret Williams on Early Classical Authors on Jesus).

But the more pertinent point is that even if they did, that is of no use to us, because neither can be established to be independent of the Gospels (OHJ §7.1, §8.9–10), and so they cannot corroborate them. And a lot of mainstream scholars agree with me on this now: see Margaret Williams and even, by the gods now, Chrissy Hansen—oh, and Ehrman himself, who said “the information” in Tacitus “is not particularly helpful in establishing that there really lived a man named Jesus” because he was just repeating post-Gospel Christian “hearsay” (Did Jesus Exist, pp. 54–56), exactly my own point; and he says the same of Josephus, who for the same reason “does not ultimately matter” as evidence (pp. 64–65), yet Ehrman does not tell his students in his lecture either, but instead falsely claims this is evidence Jesus existed.

That all includes Josephus’s alleged reference to Jesus’s brother: that definitely was not in Josephus originally (numerous independent peer reviewed studies argue this now—but Ehrman doesn’t check the literature). But even had it been we cannot establish Josephus knew or cared that that designation was fictive and not biological. It therefore does not support historicity even if authentic. And yes, Ehrman is supposed to know this (JFOS, p. 203). So that he doesn’t even mention it (much less rebut it) counts again as him concealing and evading the truth. Which no one with an actually defensible position would need do.

15. No, Hebrews Never Says Jesus Was on Earth

Ehrman claims mythicism is refuted by Hebrews 1:6, 2:14, 2:17 and 5:7 (and 2:3, 4:15, 7:14, and 12:2). But he doesn’t even know we addressed all these verses in our formal studies he is supposed to read but refuses to. Accordingly, he has no idea that he was already refuted in this argument, and thus makes no reply to those refutations to recover any of this evidence.

As the study he is supposed to be responding to proves (e.g. OHJ, Ch. 5, elements 36–39), the sky is part of the “inhabited world” and therefore Heb. 1:6 (which does not say Jesus was led to Earth but only to “what is inhabited”) does not specify where Jesus went beyond that (hence this was fully addressed in OHJ, p. 546). For Ehrman to not mention what we already said about these verses, and thus not even try to recover them from our rebuttals, is unprofessional and not competent behavior.

Likewise Hebrews 2:17 (where Jesus’s flesh is “made” by God) and 2:14 (where it is explained why Jesus had to be made flesh): these just say Jesus briefly became a mortal man, which (as I already explained above) is part of our hypothesis and thus cannot be evidence against it. Likewise Heb. 5:7, on Jesus’s prayer in the flesh, never says where that happened or how it was known (OHJ, pp. 549, 561). This indicates that Ehrman doesn’t even know what our theory is so as to competently challenge it. He consistently seems not to know that ours is a theory of the incarnation, not a denial of it.

This is so extensively explained in our studies, and even in my popmarket summary (JFOS, pp. 32, 48, 153, 172–89), that I cannot explain how he still does not know what our theory even is. But that he won’t even try to find out signals he is phoning this in and thus has no competent judgment to consult in this matter. He doesn’t even want to have a competent judgment in this matter.

Update: Ehrman has responded (sort of) to only this one point in Does the Book of Hebrews Indicate Jesus Ever Came To Earth? A Response to Richard Carrier. But all he does there is agree with the point I did make (I am “absolutely right” that Hebrews never makes clear where any of this stuff happened), while (again) never addressing any of my evidence for the point he wants to deny (that the pervasive silence and ambiguity of Hebrews is a little weird). See comment below for more on this point.

16. No, Jesus Is Not Like Socrates

Ehrman ignores entire chapters even in the book he claims to be responding to (JFOS, chs. 5 & 6) and falsely claims we should presume Jesus existed just as we do Socrates, and that we have better evidence for Jesus than we do for Socrates. Both claims are not only false, I extensively prove them both false. And Ehrman simply pretends none of that evidence exists and wasn’t presented and just ignores it and repeats the refuted claim instead. Usually we only get disingenuous or incompetent behavior like this from the most embarrassing Christian apologists. But alas.

That he is wrong is obvious: in How Would We Know Jesus Existed? (expanded in JFOS) I show why the evidence we have for Socrates is way better than for Jesus (likewise all the other people Ehrman falsely claims the contrary of), and that is precisely the problem Ehrman is supposed to be addressing. Likewise in So What About Hannibal, Then? (also expanded in JFOS) I show why Jesus is not in the same reference class as men like Socrates—unlike Socrates, Jesus belongs to a reference class whose members are more typically non-existent, and so the initial presumption for Jesus is that he also did not. Ehrman has never responded to these—our actual—arguments. Why?

17. Yes, We Have Reason to Doubt the Gospels Had Sources

Ehrman’s tired old circular arguments for the Evangelists having “sources” on a historical Jesus other than Mark and their own imaginations (sources which don’t exist and for which there is no evidence they ever existed) is not something I need beat dead again. That was a core point of Lataster’s peer-reviewed refutation of Ehrman—which Ehrman is ignoring so thoroughly that he doesn’t even mention that that refutation exists. And this goes well beyond Mark Goodacre (who has proved not even Thomas is independent of Mark). Over a dozen scholars agree with him (I have bibliographies in OHJ, p. 269, and Obsolete Paradigm, p. 30). And even advocates of Q are not as sure as Ehrman claims (even quintessential Q scholar John Kloppenborg says it’s at best 50/50: see Why Do We Still Believe in Q?). This is even more the case for the fact that the Gospel of John is dependent on Mark (and Luke): that is the mainstream conclusion of most specialists now (the state of the field is summarized, with bibliography, in MacDonald’s Dionysian Gospel). Ehrman pretends none of this exists. He is dying on the hill of Christian apologetics here.

All the same follows for the fact that we have extensive evidence that the Gospels routinely fabricate sayings and stories (none of which Ehrman even discusses). Just for readily available examples see Robyn Faith Walsh and the Gospels as Literature, Mark’s Use of Paul’s Epistles, Can You Rebel Against Rome with Only Two Swords?, Michael Alter’s Exemplary Review of Undesigned Coincidences, Was the Entire New Testament Forged in the Second Century?, All the Fantastical Things in the Gospel according to Mark, Why Did Mark Invent an Empty Tomb?, and then MacDonald’s new Synopses and Shipwrecked Gospels, Crossan’s Power of Parable, Brodie’s Birthing of the New Testament, the Jesus Seminar’s Five Gospels and Acts of Jesus, and so on.

I already covered Ehrman’s circular reasoning here last time (Recap §5, §27, §28). But it was already dealt with in the studies he is ignoring as well (OHJ §7 and §10 and PH §5). Once again, Ehrman is complaining about summary statements, and not checking the peer-reviewed study being summarized, like an amateur—shamefully, because he knows better. The end result is that Ehrman is simply ignoring that he has been refuted, and is just repeating the same refuted claims—and not even telling his students what he is concealing from them when he does that. Ask why.

18. Yes, We Have Other Cosmic Crucifixions

It’s already illogical to insist there be several versions of a unique thing, so it is dumb to ask why we don’t have “other” celestially crucified gods. Obviously that’s the distinctive innovation that made Christianity its own religion. I have explained this before (in respect to Maurice Casey’s “Deficit of Hypothetical-Categorical Reasoning”). But it’s a point I already made in the original study that Ehrman still refuses to read (OHJ, Element 38, pp. 194–97; cf. Elements 34–37, pp. 178–193). Again, Ehrman is simply not responding to the study.

But this is also a lovely example of foot-in-mouth. Because since I published, it was noted to me by a reader that Ixion was crucified in the heavens, and we even have art depicting it (I cover this in Obsolete Paradigm). But I even open JFOS with the fact that Osiris was killed in space, and the method of killing hardly matters to the point here. That’s a precedent. So Ehrman’s claim that there are none is false. I should also note that OHJ (§3.1) already describes Inanna being crucified in the Underworld, which is pretty much the same thing: another realm of the cosmos than the lands of men.

So not only is it silly to insist we have “other” examples of a specific thing the Christians innovated before believing evidence they innovated it, it’s even sillier to do that when we have other examples of the thing. Ehrman’s argument is well dead here. He really should fact-check his own armchair assertions before resting his case for Jesus on them. He should have asked, “Wait. Do we have other examples of executions in divine realms and not human?” Instead of doing that—the competent thing—he chose to do the incompetent thing and act like an internet amateur making shit up on the fly. His students deserve better.

19. Yes, Dying Messiahs Were Already a Thing

Ehrman keeps trying to claim Jews would never come up with such an idea. That’s beyond false. And that point is already covered in OHJ (Element 5, pp. 73–81) and is agreed by almost all experts who discuss it now. Jews absolutely had pre-Christian notions of suffering and dying messiahs. I already called Ehrman out for his ignorance on this last time (Recap, §20). And because people kept trying to gaslight the world on this, I have an article proving this (again) that has passed peer review (again) and will be published in a forthcoming issue of a notable academic journal (stay tuned).

20. Yes, Paul Understood All Baptized Christians as Brothers of the Lord (and Mentions No Other Kind)

Here Ehrman simply ignores even the entire chapter on this in the summary book he amateurishly only responds to (JFOS, Ch. 9). Literally. He just makes a bunch of assertions already refuted in that chapter. And then makes no attempt to mention or address those refutations so as to recover from them.

This is the most dishonest way to argue, and I really cannot respect anyone who behaves like that. And neither should you. But this was also already thoroughly addressed in the actual study he is supposed to be responding to (OHJ §11.10), and here that really matters, because now his argument is riddled with errors he would have corrected had he actually read the arguments he is supposed to be answering:

• “Paul does not call James ‘a brother of the Lord’ but ‘the brother of the Lord’ (Galatians 1:18-19; he uses the definite article).” I already answered this inept armchair objection in the original study (OHJ, p. 589 n. 99). Paul repeatedly uses the definite article to refer to brothers in the church. I give numerous examples there. So in fact its use here supports my point.
• “Paul never uses the term ‘brother of the Lord’ for Christians,” rather, “they are ‘brothers and sisters’ of one another in the church.” This is precisely the error I extensively correct with abundant evidence in JFOS and OHJ: they are only “brothers and sisters of one another” because (as Paul painstakingly and repeatedly explains) they are all brothers of the Lord, having been adopted as children of God (and at least ten peer reviewed studies confirm this now, as I’ll point out in Obsolete Paradigm). Hence Jesus is “the firstborn of many brethren” (and as Hebrews adds, Jesus himself calls them that). So you cannot circularly assume 1 Cor. 9:5 and Gal. 1:19 are not examples of “using the term ‘brother of the Lord’ for Christians.” Ehrman is arguing in a circle again.
• “Paul uses this phrase, ‘the brother of the Lord’ to explain which James this was, since it was a common name.” This is actually my argument (but Ehrman will never tell you that for some reason). Paul’s grammar in Gal. 1:19 makes clear that the “brother” James was not an Apostle, but the “pillar” James was. Which entails Paul did indeed need to distinguish this James from that one exactly as I argued. (… Wait. How does Ehrman not know that’s my argument? Oh, right, he will never read the actual study.) Anyway, that is why Paul distinguishes that James as a non-apostolic Christian. I explained this in complete detail even in JFOS (Ch. 9) and so Ehrman is literally ignoring even the summary he is supposed to be responding to (but also the original study: OHJ, pp. 588–91), and in result does not respond to my argument at all. So I guess I win that argument by TKO.
• “If it simply meant ‘Christian'” then why would Paul “use this as a way to say which James this was if there were other followers of Jesus also named James.” Gosh. I wonder if I answered that question somewhere? I wonder if Ehrman will respond or even mention my answer? Nope. He just ignores the argument he is supposed to be responding to. The reason why Paul did this is obvious and I explain it plainly in both JFOS and OHJ. You know where. So if you want to view what Ehrman is hiding from you and learn why his reasoning is unsound, go hence.
• “Why would anyone suspect he is not talking about the actual brother of the Lord?” This is pretty inept to argue. Um, Dr. Ehrman, maybe because at that time no one knew there were any such actual brothers to confuse? The idea of biological brothers was invented a generation later. So obviously everyone would assume Paul meant what everyone knew: fellow Christians (in this case, of below apostolic rank), because that’s the only kind Paul repeatedly told them about.
• “Would we expect Paul to say ‘the biological brother of the Lord’?” Yes. And for the very same reason as Ehrman just stated (because now Ehrman is contradicting himself). If two kinds of Brothers of the Lord existed, one biological (which Paul never describes) and one cultic (which Paul describes repeatedly and often), then obviously Paul would have to specify which one he means here. That he doesn’t means Paul had no idea of there being two kinds—there is therefore only the one kind, the only one he ever talks about: baptized Christians. If he knew of the other, he would not say “biological,” of course; he would sooner say “according to the flesh.” And how do I know that? Because Paul does exactly that when he needs to distinguish fictive brethren from biological in Romans 9:3: “my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh.” If we expect that there, we should expect it anywhere else that same distinction held. Ehrman clearly did not think this through. Instead he denies anyone would ever say that. Ooops. Paul did. Proving, yet again, that Ehrman doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

That all leads to my favorite example of Ehrman really being bad at this, when he says “it would also not make sense for Paul to specify that one person he met was a ‘Christian’ in a list of people who were Christian.” This is a perfect example of Ehrman not even reading JFOS (much less the actual study). He literally does not know that I already refuted this argument. And I’ll just quote JFOS without comment on that. You’ll face-palm the moment you read it:

All were brothers of the Lord, but that was already known of apostles, so it never had to be said of them. Just as saying, “I met the Pope and a Christian named James,” in no way implies the Pope is not also a Christian. But if Paul also knew there are biological brothers of the Lord, he would need to make that distinction if ever referring to them; so that he never does, implies he knew of no such distinction needing to be made. And since the only Brothers of the Lord Paul explicitly attests knowing of are baptized Christians, we actually cannot take these two passages as evidence he knew of biological brothers. They are, again, too ambiguous to draw such a conclusion from. Maybe it’s what he means. Maybe not. We cannot know. So this evidence is also useless.

This is especially clear in my point for 1 Cor. 9:5, which Ehrman never tells his students: that Paul had to include non-apostolic Christians there because it was essential to his argument that he should get a privilege if even they did. Whereas this argument would fail if he meant the kin of Jesus, as he could not claim a privilege they were receiving. So Paul cannot mean biological brothers there.

“Nothing to See Here. Move Along.”

All of this is, in fact, an entirely disingenuous approach. Ehrman is just rambling through a random list of cherry-picked armchair complaints, badly researched, often fatally uninformed, and all of them already refuted ten years ago. He isn’t doing what he is supposed to be doing: arguing for any of the relevant probabilities being different than I found. He does not explain why we shouldn’t see the evidence as likely or unlikely, or as likely or unlikely, as leads to my conclusion. And yet that is the only way to refute my evidence-based case that mythicism is the more probable hypothesis, as it explains more evidence, makes the evidence we have more likely, and fits the precedents of comparable cases (of mythologized saviors and heroes). You know. The actual argument he is supposed to be refuting.

I have a brief on that (Doing the Math: Historicity of Jesus Edition). Go skim that. And ask yourself why Ehrman never rebuts any of it. He just engages in vague handwaving amidst flurries of dubious assertions. He never explains why any of the probabilities we are supposed to be arguing about should be any different than I find them. And he certainly never does so by rebutting the reasons I gave for my assignments. He instead deliberately avoids even finding out (much less mentioning, even less rebutting) what those reasons are. And that’s really the end of the debate. Ehrman has lost. And all he is doing now is blowing rank smoke and hoping no one notices.

Which proves Jesus did not exist. Because if he did, Ehrman should have a good argument for it by now. Ten years and no dice? That’s surrender. He just doesn’t want to admit it to you.

Unlike Bart Ehrman, when I teach this course (every month, as Questioning or Defending the Historicity of Jesus) I do not conceal evidence from my students, I do not straw man the opposition, I do not make excuses not to read them and thus get everything they say wrong. I make everything available and ask my students to take seriously the opposing arguments—which requires making sure that they know what they are. Ehrman won’t do this. Which tells you all you need to know about whether his opinion on this subject is worth the bother of even mentioning. But it also tells you all you need to know about the historicity of Jesus: the field simply cannot defend it. That’s why, ten years, and still all they have to offer you is disingenuous disinformation.