Josephus Archives • Richard Carrier Blogs

Hansen’s Contribution to the James in Josephus Debate

Richard Carrier — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 23:06:24 +0000

There is a valuable new study by Chrissy Hansen, “Josephus and the Murder of James: An Argument Against Some Common Wisdom,” in the new journal Studies of Biblical Interest 2 (2025). I don’t agree with its conclusion but I think it’s a quality study worth considering. Here I’ll explain what I mean. The Eristic Upshot […]

The post Hansen’s Contribution to the James in Josephus Debate appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

T.C. Schmidt on James in Josephus: Apologetics vs. History

Richard Carrier — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 17:08:31 +0000

After Exposing T.C. Schmidt’s Oxford Apologetics for the Testimonia Flaviana altogether (and his fellow Christians failed to rescue him), I now shall address his appendix on my case against Josephus referring to the Christian Jesus when relating the execution of a certain “James, brother of Jesus.” For those who want to catch up on my […]

The post T.C. Schmidt on James in Josephus: Apologetics vs. History appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

Exposing T.C. Schmidt’s Oxford Apologetics for the Testimonia Flaviana

Richard Carrier — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 12:40:00 +0000

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 objective of this book is to convince people that the Testimonium Flavianum, a fawning paragraph about […]

The post Exposing T.C. Schmidt’s Oxford Apologetics for the Testimonia Flaviana appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

Allen’s New and Illogical Theory of the Testimonium Flavianum

Richard Carrier — Fri, 10 May 2024 16:03:36 +0000

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 ‘something’ where we now have the Testimonium Flavianum but that it has to have been […]

The post Allen’s New and Illogical Theory of the Testimonium Flavianum appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

Goldberg’s Attempt to Rehabilitate the Testimonium Flavianum

Richard Carrier — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 15:54:27 +0000

Did Josephus write his paragraph about Jesus by slavishly copying Luke? No. In my Ongoing List of Updates to the Arguments and Evidence in On the Historicity of Jesus I maintain a section on Josephus, and as of now it simply summarizes and references my article Josephus on Jesus? Why You Can’t Cite Opinions Before […]

The post Goldberg’s Attempt to Rehabilitate the Testimonium Flavianum appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

Reading Josephus on James: On Valliant Flunking Literary Theory

Richard Carrier — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 23:02:01 +0000

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 literature: ancient historians, philosophers, orators, propagandists, mythographers, hymnists, epistolators, and the like. All this literature […]

The post Reading Josephus on James: On Valliant Flunking Literary Theory appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

Should We Assume Jesus Was Historical? The Mythvision Carrier-MacDonald Debate

Richard Carrier — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 04:52:17 +0000

Dennis MacDonald and I have discussed the question of Jesus’s historicity many times over the years. These are among the most important kinds of discussions to have, as MacDonald isn’t a Christian apologist and actually agrees the Gospels are almost entirely mythographical and not works of history. So we can cut past most of the […]

The post Should We Assume Jesus Was Historical? The Mythvision Carrier-MacDonald Debate appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

“What Did Josephus Mean by That?” A Case Study in the Relationship between Evidence and Probability

Richard Carrier — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 01:05:26 +0000

I recently engaged a friendly debate with Dennis MacDonald on the MythVision podcast regarding the historicity of Jesus. Much of which was the usual stuff expected of a serious, expert, secular discussion of that question (follow the link to watch). I might blog about it in future as well, as I did last time in […]

The post “What Did Josephus Mean by That?” A Case Study in the Relationship between Evidence and Probability appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

Antonio Piñero: Raving Historicist

Richard Carrier — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 20:30:53 +0000

Para una edición en español del siguiente artículo, consulte Antonio Piñero: El historicista vehemente at Mitos o Historia. -:- Antonio Piñero is sort of the Bart Ehrman of the Spanish-speaking world. He has made a public spectacle of attacking Jesus mythicism and defending the historical existence of Jesus to worried audiences across the Latinx world, […]

The post Antonio Piñero: Raving Historicist appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

99 Problems & the Truth Ain’t One: Q&A on the Inspiring Philosophy / Godless Engineer Historicity-of-Jesus Debate (Part II)

Richard Carrier — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 19:39:59 +0000

For the gist of this two-part series see the intro of Part I. That part covered the first of two videos spanning the 2018 debate between YouTubers Godless Engineer and Michael Jones. Here I dive into the second of those (you can watch them online: Part 1 and Part 2). In Part I I responded […]

The post 99 Problems & the Truth Ain’t One: Q&A on the Inspiring Philosophy / Godless Engineer Historicity-of-Jesus Debate (Part II) appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.