Adventures at the Society of Biblical Literature Conference, Part 2: Starting Out
The SBL national conference was massive. Held jointly with the AAR (the American Association of Religion) it occupied the entirety of the enormous Denver Convention Center and seven hotels, each with multiple floors filled with massive ballrooms the size of small...Timothy Keller: Dishonest Reasons for God (Chapter 7)
I began my critique of Keller’s The Reason for God with an exposé of everything up through Chapter 1, then Chapter 2, then Chapters 3 through 5, and Chapter 6. Here I will cover Chapter 7. Next will be Chapter 8. I’ll continue to other chapters in future...Timothy Keller: Dishonest Reasons for God (Chapter 6)
I began my critique of Keller’s The Reason for God with an exposé of everything up through Chapter 1, then Chapter 2, and Chapters 3 through 5. Here I will cover Chapter 6 (and next 7). I’ll continue to other chapters in future installments. In these two...Toronto, Regina, Michigan, Milwaukee: Make Your Plans & Get Tickets Now!
I’ll be speaking across numerous cities this year after July. Four at least are ticketed events, so you should make plans now (see below for what that entails). Don’t worry, though. They’re totally affordable. But do not expect video of these events...Timothy Keller: Dishonest Reasons for God (Chapter 2)
I began my critique of Keller’s The Reason for God with an exposé of everything up through Chapter 1. Here I continue with Chapter 2. Next I’ll cover Chapters 3 through 5. I’ll continue to other chapters in future installments. Here the same themes...The Rain Miracle of Marcus Aurelius: A Case Study in Christian Lies
This September, Mythicist Milwaukee will be putting on Mythinformation Con IV, always a fun and excellent conference. You’ll definitely want to go this year. Some of the Mythicist Milwaukee team traveled to Italy recently, and among much else, took some...Why Do We Still Believe in Q?
Q is a hypothetical Gospel. The letter Q stands for Quelle, German for “Source.” It has long been a popular hypothesis, and it serves a lot of agendas well. But there is no evidence whatever for it. Q never existed. And there is no rational reason to believe it did....Desperately Searching the Epistles for Anything That Attests a Historical Jesus
In my book On the Historicity of Jesus, I covered pretty much every possible verse in the Epistles that any expert has ever tried to claim proves Jesus really lived. You can check yourself: it has a complete scripture index (pp. 661-71). And Chapter 11 rakes the whole...David Marshall’s Bizarre & Dishonest Defense of the Historicity of Jesus
Liars disgust me. And David Marshall flat out lied about my work on public radio. He should be ashamed. But Christian apologists rarely are. They lie with impunity. The ten commandments be damned. Today I’ll briefly discuss that show, then detail what’s...Brief Note on Euhemerization
This is just a brief note for those interested in my thoughts on Tim Widowfield’s article “What Is Euhemerism?” about what he thinks are confusions regarding the terminology of “Euhemerization.” For the context, see my article...Did the Apostles Die for a Lie?
Do we have good evidence that Paul or any of the original twelve Apostles died for their belief in the risen Jesus? Nope. Nevertheless, Justin Bass claimed so in a lecture you can view online (Evidence of the Apostles’ Martyrdom). I may eventually write a...Speaking in Melbourne! (The One in Florida, Near the Spaceships)
I’ll be speaking on why we know the Gospels are myths—with many amusing and entertaining examples, and a smattering of literary theory–in Melbourne, Florida, on Friday, May 13 (2016), at 6:30pm, for the Humanist Community of the Space Coast, the...Why the Smart Money Is on the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife Being a Forgery
I was going to do a news roundup of several new developments in ancient manuscript studies, until one of them turned out to be a roller-coaster ride down a rabbit hole filled with all manner of twists and turns. The subject? The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife. The other...Notes & Interviews
Just some random stuff today: I’ve lost track of all the many pods and vids in which I’m interviewed or featured. But I shall try to link to more of them in notes like this as they come up. Anyone who knows of others from this year, please add them in...In Which James McGrath Reveals That He Is a Fundamentalist Who Has Never Read Any Contemporary Scholarship in His Field
The title of this article is a joke. Sort of. But maybe not as much as you think. As I’ll show. Because James McGrath has added another entry to his bizarrely uninformed critique of On the Historicity of Jesus, and this time is the most...Get Dr. Carrier’s Latest!
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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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