Dispelling the “Anonymous Sources Are Kosher” Argument
I’ve been getting the same question a lot lately, which suggests an old Christian apologetic trend has risen from the dead and is making its rounds, zombie-like, across the internet: “I’m being told it was normal in the ancient world to publish...Simone’s Series on How to Read the Talmud: Boyarin and the Dying Messiah Concept
This is my second and closing article on Simone’s series On Reading the Talmud. For backstory see my first entry, Simone’s Series on How to Read the Talmud: Regarding Jewish Diversity. There I established Simone’s modus operandi as continually...Simone’s Series on How to Read the Talmud: On Jewish Diversity
My attention has been brought to a long series on my treatment of Jewish sources in On the Historicity of Jesus by a certain Simone (actual name unknown). The series is extraordinarily long-winded, almost entirely impertinent, and makes strange errors in vocabulary or...A Meteor Did Not Destroy Sodom
I still hear the myth repeated that “scientists” proved the ancient city of Sodom was in fact destroyed by a meteor, and this therefore became the basis of the Sodom & Gomorrah legend in the Bible. But that never happened. The science has been proved...Like, Can You Rebel Against Rome with Only Two Swords?
In my debate with Fernando Bermejo-Rubio, he defended the theory that Jesus can only plausibly have been historical if he was an armed militant who was later whitewashed as a pacifist. I argued that that might be plausible in concept, but not when we look at the...From Homer to Frontinus: Biased Translation Is Not Unique to Biblical Studies
I am often asked what the best Bible translation is. My usual reply is that there aren’t any. All translations are biased, they merely differ as to how or where. The best you can do is to read it in the original language (and I teach a course with a lecture on...No, the Original Christians Did Not Loot Egypt
So the big Carrier-Jabari debate went down last week. That all began with my article Some Problems with Modern Kemetic Mythology, which caught numerous catastrophic errors in the crank efforts of Jabari Osaze (who goes by Brother Jabari) to argue a confused...Four Representative Examples of Roman Attitudes Toward Infanticide
In my recent article on Orphans (What About Orphans, Then?) I mentioned the following: Contrary to lore, the ancients did not just chuck unwanted infants into the wilderness to starve. While “exposure” as this was called was legal until Christians got sterner about it...Did Christians Steal Their Religion from Egypt?
There will be an online special event next week: the night of the 23rd of December (a “pre” Christmas Eve!), I will debate Jabari Osaze on whether Christianity was stolen from Egyptian religion. This is an exclusive webinar event. Tickets are $30. This is...Saxton’s Weird Argument for 1 Thessalonians 2
A few months ago Deep Drinks hosted a debate, “Did Jesus Exist Historically? Godless Engineer vs Brave New History.” It was fairly boilerplate. As usual, the historicist (Elliott Saxton / Brave New History) failed to prep and didn’t know half of what...Interpreting 1 Clement’s Supposed Descriptions of Fabulous Murders
While preparing next year’s book and reading and thinking about the one I just reviewed (Margaret Williams on Early Classical Authors on Jesus), I have evolved in my thinking about the rhetorical sense behind the “persecution” section in the Epistle...Margaret Williams on Early Classical Authors on Jesus
Preparing my new volume on the historicity of Jesus for next year, I’ve found that one of the works published since my first volume that warrants attention in my new one is Early Classical Authors on Jesus (T&T Clark, 2022) by Margaret H. Williams (hereafter...How Textual Criticism Can Help or (Sorry) Hurt Your Cause
In both Classics as well as New Testament Studies, “textual criticism” is a tool for analyzing ancient texts through the lens of manuscripts, the data they present, and our accumulated knowledge of what often or rarely happened in the transmission of texts...What About Orphans, Then?
I get constant attempts to salvage something, some desperate crumb of Western moral decency or innovation, that can be credited to Christianity. They always end up mythical, or too trivial to impress. As I explain in No, Tom Holland, It Wasn’t Christian Values That...Things Fall Apart Only When You Check: The Main Reason the Historicity of Jesus Continues to Be Believed
After ten years of observing the field after publishing my academic study on the subject, I find there are generally only two reasons to remain confident in the historicity of Jesus: a desperate faith-based need to; and a disinterest in actually checking. The former...Get Dr. Carrier’s Latest!
About the Author
Richard Carrier is the author of many books and numerous articles online and in print. His avid readers span the world from Hong Kong to Poland. With a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University, he specializes in the modern philosophy of naturalism and humanism, and the origins of Christianity and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, with particular expertise in ancient philosophy, science and technology. He is also a noted defender of scientific and moral realism, Bayesian reasoning, and historical methods.
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