Debating Israel Only with Jason DeCosta
Next Sunday (October 18th) I’ll be debating Jason DeCosta on his version of the Israel Only theory, which purports to “fix” all the problems I found before in The Incompetent Crankery of the Israel Only Movement (discussed on MythVision years ago)....How Bad Methodology Led to Some Bad Ideas from R.G. Price and David Oliver Smith: Part 2 (Smith)
Yesterday I started this two part series explaining what I am doing and why (so please catch up there), and went through an extended example from R.G. Price. Today I will finish with the second example, now from David Oliver Smith (channeling Robert Eisenman). And I...How Bad Methodology Led to Some Bad Ideas from R.G. Price and David Oliver Smith: Part 1 (Price)
I have often noted or even used good ideas from amateur scholars like David Oliver Smith and R.G. Price (not to be confused with Robert M. Price). I even named Price in my original study of the historicity of Jesus as among the few amateurs doing work worthy of...James McGrath Has Now Defamed Me and Lied about My Work in a Professional Journal. Will the Field Do Anything About It?
Christian apologist James McGrath published a brief review of The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus in the latest Booklist Issue of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament. We know from precedent that McGrath is not a reliable operator. See my entry for...
Speaking in Atlanta This Sunday … and Tabling in Huntsville This October
Atlanta might be my only public talk this year (IRL). But I will also be attending and tabling (not presenting) at the Rocket City Reason Con this October in Huntsville, Alabama (so if you want to meet there and get a book signed, check that out; it’s going to a...
The Infamous Missing Third Fragment of Mark Was a Prank!
So, the story began with a debate between Dan Wallace and Bart Ehrman in 2012. Yes. It’s been fourteen years. But anyway. I first covered this in 2012 under Amazing Proofs of Jesus! and updated it in 2017 in an article about how not to be duped by myths like...Let’s Be Honest about Why You Are a Christian or a Muslim: Your Forebears Murdered Their Way into Your Mind
This is another updated extract from Sense and Goodness without God that I’ve removed from its future edition (coming soon) because it’s an unnecessary use of wordcount there. So I am preserving a revised version of it here for posterity and utility. It is...New Journal Publication on Jewish Expectations of a Dying Messiah
I just published a major new article in a peer-reviewed journal, the Canadian-American Theological Review: “Did Any Pre-Christian Jews Expect a Dying-and-Rising Messiah?” It will be the lead article in vol. 14, their delayed 2025 issue (print copies are...Prophecy and History: Some Pointers
I am near to completing my forthcoming rewrite of Sense and Goodness without God (which I will be retiring soon, so if you want to collect the original edition before it goes out of print, better get it now!). And one of the things I am doing is removing things that...Recommending Another Loftus Trilogy in the Philosophy of Religion
While my Three Recommendations in Godless Epistemology were of books I added to my Recommendations in Philosophy list, I wanted to post three more recommendations that veer too far to be suited to that particular list for reasons I explained last time: I don’t include...How Many Ancient Books Did the Christians Throw Away?
How much have we lost? That’s a question I get asked a lot. I have often ballparked it at over 99%. But I decided to dig in to some real numbers to see what percentage can actually be backed by evidence. And I found we can actually calculate, by multiple...Problems with the Bilby Thesis
Historian Mark Bilby is proposing a new thesis about dating the Gospels (and other NT texts) in an experimental study that, as of this publication at least, is at Zenodo (an open research archive), titled Neologismata, Volume 1: Proofs of New Testament Redactions...The Last Three Objections to Jesus Being a Myth
In my recent update on the “Jesus Myth” debate, in The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus, I note that, now, the best reason to be sure Jesus didn’t exist is that everyone who insists he did has to strangely ignore a lot of evidence (even...Recommendations for Getting Up to Speed on Ancient Israel, Ancient Forgery, and Ancient Society
I’ve been running a series reviewing my three recommendations lists, and today I’m switching again to Origins of Christianity. And check this out, because if I can bring Amazon over three grand in sales in a month I get a bonus (alas, yes, Amazon; but only...Ken Dark on the Historicity of Jesus
In my last article (on The Historicity of Nazareth) I mentioned in the course of a mostly positive review of Ken Dark’s new book (Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth) that he completely shits the bed when it comes to arguing that “surely” Jesus existed to...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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