A Bayesian Analysis of Kate Loveman’s Pepys Diary Thesis
Last week I began a three-part series with A Bayesian Analysis of Susannah Rees’s Ishtar-in-the-Manosphere Thesis. Today I will continue with the second random selection from my test set, Kate Loveman’s “Women and the History of Samuel Pepys’s...A Bayesian Analysis of Susannah Rees’s Ishtar-in-the-Manosphere Thesis
As an ongoing project I’ve selected three articles at random from among credible open-source journals in order to analyze their arguments in a way that makes clear their Bayesian structure, and what grasping this about them can tell us about sound historical...Empirical Logic and Romans 1:3
Paul’s statement in Romans 1:3 that Jesus had “come of the seed of David according to flesh” is one of the most commonly cited pieces of evidence for Paul believing Jesus had been an actual man walking around Palestine (see Argument from...Dennis MacDonald’s Change of Position
I mentioned in my last article (What I Said at the Brea Conference) that I first became aware there that Dennis MacDonald has switched from saying that doubting the historicity of Jesus was improbable but at least plausible, to insisting it’s not even plausible....What I Said at the Brea Conference
Earlier this year I presented at the Pacific regional Society of Biblical Literature conference. My paper’s title in the program was, “Field Update on the Case Against the Historicity of Jesus: Recent Peer-Reviewed Publications For and Against.” Which is now...The Backwards and Unempirical Logic of Q Apologetics
I’ve explained before what “Q” theory is and why it is implausible and should have been abandoned by the Biblical Studies field decades ago (see Why Do We Still Believe in Q?). In short, we can prove conclusively that Luke used Matthew as a source (the...Galatians 1:19, Ancient Grammar, and How to Evaluate Expert Testimony
In Sense and Goodness without God I discuss the evidence ladder (section II.3): reason (logic and mathematics), empirical science, personal experience, historical facts, expert testimony, plausible inference, and pure faith. I show that faith is too unreliable to have...Reading Josephus on James: On Valliant Flunking Literary Theory
History as a field is primarily dependent on literary theory (at least the kind following historical models rather than aesthetic), because most evidence relevant to reconstructing history is textual, and the most crucial category of textual evidence is works of...Doing the Math: Historicity of Jesus Edition
I am a Bayesian epistemologist. And in line with the independent findings of the philosopher of history Aviezer Tucker, I developed and applied under peer review a way to model historical reasoning with Bayes’ Theorem (method, in Proving History; application, in...How to Correctly Employ Bayesian Probabilities to Describe Historical Reasoning (Jesus Edition)
I recently did a quick forty minute debate on the historicity of Jesus with Canadian Catholic (with James Is Tired capably moderating), which was remarkably content-rich for such a truncated timeline. The overall takeaway was that Canadian Catholic wasn’t...Debating the Authenticity of Daniel: A Discussion with Jonathan Sheffield
In May I published How We Know Daniel Is a Forgery and discussed a debate on the topic involving my Anglican friend Jonathan Sheffield, who has now produced an attempt at a rebuttal, his best case for Daniel being authentic after all. We have arranged to engage a...Jesus and the Problem of the Fraudulent Reference Class
Several students and patrons have lately asked me a similar question. Apparently the new fad is for Christians to go around insisting Jesus is so historically unique that he cannot be subsumed under any other reference class by which to estimate any prior odds on any...Postgame on My Pastor Damon Richardson Debate
Yesterday I debated Pastor Damon Richardson, “the Urban Apologist,” on the Dagger Squad Show (18 June 2021). The topic: “Did Jesus Exist?” You can still purchase access to view the archived video of it by emailing a request to the host Brother...Come See Me & Others Speak at the 2021 International eConference on the Historical Jesus!
The Global Center for Religious Research (GCRR) is hosting the 2021 International eConference on the Historical Jesus next month, July 24–25. I will be among the presenters. Registration is super affordable, only $15. Which is even discounted for GCRR members (a...Why You Should Not Believe the Apostle John Wrote the Last Gospel
This month I have been showcasing how apologetics is fundamentally bankrupt methodologically. It depends on fallacious reasoning, held up as sound and professional, yet which adheres to the methods of no actual legitimate academic field—except those very fields...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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