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...The Epistemological Endgame
One of the big issues in epistemology is the problem of infinite regress. “I believe the sun will rise.” “How do you know that?” “Because it always has.” “How do you know that?” “Because my memory and human records...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: Understanding Physicalism as a Philosophy
To help make ends meet and help you become a better philosopher, and thus a better citizen and thinker, every season I’ll post three books from my long-standing recommendations list, and review and discuss their value. And here’s how you can help: I am an...The Utter Destruction of the Fine Tuning Argument
Christopher Hitchens rightly said the argument from fine tuning is the best argument theists have, but only because it requires thought to figure out why it’s bullshit (whereas most Christian apologetics is obvious bullshit from the first moment you hear it)....Is Christianity Exploding in Asia? A Critical Thinking Test
If you go looking around you’ll find an endless barrage of Christian media claims that Christianity is exploding in popularity in Asia, and that this proves the power of Christ and the convincing truth of the Christian message. I won’t link to any examples...Conclusively Ending the Kalam Cosmological Argument
What makes the whole flat-earth debate so eye-rollingly insufferable is that it’s just nothing but easily refutable made-up bullshit. I tire of even having to talk about it. It’s like arguing whether viruses exist or the moon is made of cheese—like,...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...On the Strange Idea That Viruses Don’t Exist
It’s generally not worth the bother of engaging the anti-vaxx movement. In my personal experience, it is awash with lies, manipulative rhetoric, bad logic, and implausible conspiracy theories (which, as with all implausible conspiracy theories, tend to...A Continuing List of Examples of Alt-Righters Escaping Their Delusions
I am collecting stories of people who escaped secular delusions, like sexism, misogyny, racism, antisemitism, transphobia, or even, just more generally, alt-right, anti-feminist or “anti-SJW’ worldviews. These are the kinds of delusions that trap atheists....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...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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