James Valliant’s Bogus Theory of a Roman Invention of Christianity
It took me a long time to suffer through Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity by James Valliant and Warren Fahy. But my verdict is now in. Its thesis is bogus. Its method of argument is tediously amateurish. And its only significant evidence...All the Fantastical Things in the Gospel according to Mark
I’ve often noted that even the very first Gospel we know of (the one eventually source-credited to someone named Mark), despite often being described as the least fantastical or the most mundane narrative of Jesus, is in fact wildly fantastical, and does not...Behold Babylon USA!
No. This isn’t an article about the U.S. Supreme Court allowing Presidents to break the law (you can find my thoughts on that here and here). Nor is it about that cute little town in southern New York. Rather, this is an article about How We Are All...Myths & Legends of the Christian Catacombs
While working on other projects, it came to my attention that there are still a lot of myths and legends circulating about the so-called “Christian catacombs” under the city of Rome (or rather, under its suburbs, as cemeteries within the proper city walls...Debunking John Davidson’s “Pagan” America
Did you know we’re all pagans? That’s right. America is majority pagan. We worship Ishtar and the Onion God and have cool-ass pagan festivals featuring palm fronds and sacred orgies. Public feasts in every town distribute meat and mead, blessed by pagan...Did Paul Write Philemon?
The mainstream consensus is that only seven letters of the thirteen attributed to Paul in the New Testament are authentic: 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, Romans, Philippians, Galatians…and Philemon; while the rest are either forgeries (Ephesians,...Was Daniel Dennett Wrong in Creative Ways?
The great cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett passed away this year. And shortly after, Cameron Bertuzzi interviewed a Christian apologist, Bob Stewart, on his channel Capturing Christianity, regarding “Daniel Dennett’s Philosophical...Allen’s New and Illogical Theory of the Testimonium Flavianum
I recently read a new article by David Allen, “A Model Reconstruction of What Josephus Would Have Realistically Written about Jesus,” in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 18 (2022), which tries to argue that Josephus really did write...Jesus from Outer Space Now Available in Greek and Polish!
My popular market summary of my academic study of Jesus, Jesus from Outer Space, is now available in Greek and Polish translations. Follow the links for details and to buy one. These are not available in the Americas by normal channels, but special ordering at a brick...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...Was the Entire New Testament Forged in the Second Century?
There have been two really weird and unexpected turns in mainstream peer-reviewed scholarship lately: multiple independent studies are redating the entire Bible—Old Testament and New—far later than consensus imagines. What’s Up with the Old...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...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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