Public Zoom on Inanna and Other Resurrected Gods
Quick notice: I discussed the possible evolution and diffusion of resurrected god ideology in the ancient West, in a live public Zoom. The video (mostly just audio over slides) is now archived here (with the slides here but they are only useful with the...Stephen Carlson’s Definitive New Study of Papias
A few years ago an extensive new study of the early Christian author Papias was published by Stephen Carlson titled Papias of Hierapolis Exposition of Dominical Oracles: The Fragments, Testimonia, and Reception of a Second-Century Commentator (Oxford University Press,...My Monthly Recommendation: Sarton and Lehoux on the Whole Sweep of Ancient Science
To help make ends meet and help you understand the ancient origins of modern science better than Christians would ever let you if they had their way, each season I shall discuss a selection of books from my long-standing recommendations list on ancient science. And I...Exposing T.C. Schmidt’s Oxford Apologetics for the Testimonia Flaviana
There is a new book published by Oxford University Press that is a travesty of Christian apologetics undeservedly snaking the respectability of, well, Oxford University: T.C. Schmidt’s Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ. The rhetorical...The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus Is Now Available
That’s right! My new book, years in the making, is currently being printed and now available for pre-orders: The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus. This is the formal academic sequel to On the Historicity of Jesus. And the official description is spot-on:...Ammon Hillman Is Not Telling You the Truth: The Gospels Do Not Describe Pedophilia, and No One Was Getting High on Vaginas
There is a classicist named Ammon Hillman (a.k.a. David Hillman) who wrote a decent dissertation on ancient pharmacology and then went on to make absurd claims about the Gospels and early Christianity that verge into pedophilia and an obsession with genitals. And yes,...Do Paul’s Letters Look Fake?
Previously I summarized why I am not convinced by Nina Livesey’s thesis, in her new study The Letters of Paul, that all his letters were forged in the second century (Are Paul and His Letters a Second Century Fabrication?). There I already summarized why. But...Can We Doubt Paul Existed?
Previously I summarized why I am not convinced by Nina Livesey’s thesis, in her new study The Letters of Paul, that all his letters were forged in the second century (Are Paul and His Letters a Second Century Fabrication?). There I mentioned I have never been...Are Paul and His Letters a Second Century Fabrication? A Critical Review of the Livesey Thesis
Biblical historian Nina Livesey has produced one of several recent mainstream studies questioning the authenticity of all the letters of Paul: The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship (Cambridge University Press, 2024). The...Bart Ehrman’s Latest Weird Attempt to Refute Mythicism
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...My Monthly Recommendation: Gospel Fictions, The Power of Parable, and the Dionysian Gospel
To help make ends meet and help you understand the origins of Christianity better than the Christians themselves would ever let you if they had their way, every season I’ll post three books from my long-standing recommendations list, and review and discuss their...My Monthly Recommendation: Greek Science and The Forgotten Revolution
To help make my own ends meet and help you understand the ancient origins of modern science better than Christians would ever let you if they had their way, each season I shall post a selection of books from my long-standing recommendations list on ancient science,...Statistical Stylometrics: The Good, the Bad, and the Horrid (Part 2: Pliny and Galen)
A couple of weird peer reviewed studies recently came out arguing from statistical stylometry that (1) Galen (the famed second century Greco-Roman medical scientist) did not write most of the works attributed to him (which would be a major thing because we have some...Statistical Stylometrics: The Good, the Bad, and the Horrid (Part 1: Paul)
Stylometrics (or “stylometry”) is the study of authorial style. To determine common authorship (or conversely, forgery) it looks at obvious things like preferred idioms, grammar, vocabulary, and valencing (how words are used, what they mean), and things...Is Gynocentrism a Thing?
I was hired to critique a popular video in the manosphere, Traditionalism and Feminism, the Great Gynocentrisms of Our Time. It’s 12-years old but still being commented on and at 60,000 views and counting. Its host, Barbarossa (or Barbar), is no longer active...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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