Captain DadPool on Who Is Inventing Workarounds: Historicists or Mythicists?
Youtuber Captain DadPool recently published a short video (Responding to Godless Engineer’s Recent Attacks) that so aptly captures the backwards methodology of defenders of the historicity of Jesus it will be productive to analyze. Especially as it supplements...Did Jesus Even Exist? Bart Ehrman’s Latest Take
Bart Ehrman has almost entirely avoided discussing “the historicity question” for years (I continually catalogue everything, and my responses, in Ehrman on Historicity Recap; some people have mistaken an article on his blog on this as recent, but in fact...John MacDonald’s Bizarre Defense of a Historical Jesus
A few months ago, secular philosopher John MacDonald (a Vice President of Internet Infidels) wrote an article for The Secular Web, titled “Jesus Mythicism: Moral Influence vs. Vicarious Atonement—and Other Problems,” which he bills as “in part a...Chrissy Hansen on the Pre-Existent Jesus
It’s the growing consensus in Jesus studies now that the first Christians believed Jesus was the incarnation of a pre-existent celestial being. Even Bart Ehrman has gotten aboard this trend (see Bart Ehrman on How Jesus Became God); and even Larry Hurtado, who...Gesù Resistente, Gesù Inesistente
I have successfully produced several debates on the historicity of Jesus with qualified PhDs (live and online; see: Crook; Evans; Goodacre; Waters; and twice now with MacDonald; in Akin and Horn, Horn has multiple masters degrees). But I have long wanted to get one...The Curious Case of Gnostic Informant: Reaction vs. Research
There was a recent internet storm over Gnostic Informant’s (Neal Sendlak’s) attack video “Refutation of Richard Carrier & the Church of Mythicism,” which is so disjointed and inept (and until its subsequent editing, slanderous and...M. David Litwa, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the Problem of Incompetent Scholarship
I recently did a show with Godless Engineer on M. David Litwa’s bizarrely ignorant declarations about the obscure apocryphon The Ascension of Isaiah. You can watch that instead if you prefer video conversation as a medium. But I will expand the essential points...That Useless McGrath Interview
I’ve had a lot of queries about what I think of the recent MythVision interview of Christian apologist James McGrath (12 August 2022). I’m kind of over him, to be honest, because he’s had ample chance to honestly engage with the peer-reviewed...List of Historians Who Take Mythicism Seriously
There are legitimate reasons to doubt Jesus existed, even as a mundane man whose legend became exaggerated (which is, definitely, always plausible too). These reasons have survived peer review—twice. And yet a common fallacy deployed against this fact is that...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....Chris Hansen on Jesus from Outer Space
Chris Hansen has claimed for years now to be composing a book for peer review that debunks my peer-reviewed monograph On the Historicity of Jesus. I have been waiting for that. But since it seems to not be forthcoming anytime soon, I may as well start addressing their...On Jonathan McLatchie’s Objections to Jesus Mythicism
Last week I addressed a lame Christian apologist’s travesty of an attempt to denounce and villify doubts that Jesus existed (On Paul Krause’s Objections to Jesus Mythicism). This week I will address a more competent attempt, by another Christian apologist,...On Paul Krause’s Objections to Jesus Mythicism
An interesting exchange just occurred at MerionWest. Peter Clarke wrote a decent essay on why it is becoming more acceptable to doubt the historicity of Jesus than scholars tend to let on, which Paul Krause answered with “In Reply to ‘Jesus Mythicism Is...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...Debating the Authenticity of Daniel: Methodological Analysis of Sheffield’s Case
I shall here critically analyze Jonathan Sheffield’s new attempt to defend the authenticity of Daniel (which I published Saturday). We’ll then discuss it on MythVision this October 2 (10am PST / 1pm EST). Thoughtful or constructive comments are strongly...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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