An Enlightening Conversation between Richard Carrier PhD and Godless Granny

This is an extremely enlightening conversation that occurred on a livestream between Richard Carrier and Godless Granny.  “The Historical Jesus” has been ‘quest[ed]’ for—to borrow an expression from Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965)—since the days of Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768). This quest hasn’t turned up much… if indeed anything! I think that it is high time that we call this failed quest off, as it is beginning to appear as futile as a wild goose chase.

Richard Carrier explains that the documentary evidence that we would expect—were Reimarus’s historical Jesus a reality—really isn’t there. Carrier goes on to hint that perhaps certain documents from the ancient past were either doctored or destroyed, because the lack of Jesus’s being mentioned in these same documents could not easily have been explained. Documents that most likely would have mentioned a historical Jesus—if such a personage actually existed—have, quite conveniently, not come down to us. Documents that would have mentioned a historical Jesus, if such a person actually existed, are, extremely conveniently, no longer extant.

To reiterate: I personally am not a Mythicist. However, paradoxically, I do not believe that much—if indeed anything—can be known historically about the Jesus character presented to us in the New Testament. My position is a tad paradoxical: a historical Jesus, in all likelihood, existed, however we are unable to know much, if anything, about him historically. To me there is enough that we can distill from the fictional writings of the New Testament such that a historical Jesus becomes more likely than not… however, from these same fictional writings we are not able to distill any history concerning the doings of this same Jesus character.

Ciarán Aodh Mac Ardghail (Ciarán Mc Ardle) is a digital creator from Ireland. Here is his linktree. Here is his YouTube Channel. Here is his LinkedIn. Here is his Instagram.

A List of Jesus's in the Time of "Jesus"

Thanks to Ignorant Amos (who isn't ignorant) for this list of Jesus's:

Maybe the historical Jesus was a real person, but given the nature of the so-called evidence no one can possibly know objectively.

Or a montage of real people, plural.

In the New Testament alone, there are at least four individuals named Jesus.

The Jesus worshipped, and another three individuals named Jesus, who are Jesus Barabbas, Jesus son of Eliezer, and Jesus called Justus.

Josephus mentions a few Jesuses [Jesus', Jesus's, Jesi?] too.

War
2:566 Jesus, son of Sapphias – Governor of Tiberias.
3:450 Jesus, son of Shapat – Principal head of a band of robbers controlling Tiberias.
4:160 Jesus, son of Gamala – Best esteemed, with Ananus ben Ananus, of High priests.
4:459 Jesus [Joshua] son of Nun.
6:114 Jesus, no patronym – High priest, deserts to Vespasian.
6:300 Jesus, son of Ananus – Common man prophesied destruction of the temple.
6:387 Jesus, son of Thebuthus – One of the priests, desert s to Titus.

Ant.
03:049 (& numerous other instances) Jesus [Joshua] son of Nun (successor of Moses).
11:298 Jesus, (son of Eliashib), brother of John – friend of governor Bagoses.
12:237 Jesus, brother of Onias III – High priest.
15:322 Jesus, son of Phabes – High priest.
17:341 Jesus, the son of Sie – High priest.
18:063 Jesus, no patronym – Condemned to cross by Pilate. He was [the] Christ. [Christian interpolation]
20:200 Jesus, brother of Jacob – Called the Christ.
20:203 Jesus, son of Damneus – High priest.
20:213 Jesus, son of Gamaliel – High priest.
20:234 Jesus, son of Josadek – High priest.

Life
1:066 Jesus, son of Sapphias – Governor of Tiberias.
1:105 Jesus, no patronym – Captain of those robbers in the confines of Ptolemais.
1:178 Jesus, no patronym – Brother of Justus of Tiberias.
1:193 Jesus, son of Gamala – High priest & Josephus’ friend.
1:200 Jesus, no patronym – Galilean at head of a band of 600, sent to depose Josephus.
1:246 Jesus, no patronym – Owned a house big as a castle. Governor of Tiberias?

Apparently, Jesus was the sixth most popular name at the time.

The English name Jesus, from Greek Iēsous, is a rendering of Joshua (Hebrew Yehoshua, later Yeshua), and was not uncommon in Judea at the time of the birth of Jesus. Popular etymology linked the names Yehoshua and Yeshua to the verb meaning "save" and the noun "salvation". The Gospel of Matthew tells of an angel that appeared to Joseph instructing him "to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins".

There's a handy coincidence.

The Elephant in Richard Carrier’s Room: A Lesson for NT Scholarship By Joseph Atwill

I co-edited the book "Varieties of Jesus Mythicism" with my friend Dr. Robert M. Price. In comes Dr. Richard Carrier, also a friend of mine and peer-reviewed author of a very important book on Jesus mythicism. These two friends of mine have personalities that are almost opposite of each other. Bob is a gracious person when it comes to disagreements. By contrast Dick is, well, a dick. :-) He's someone who holds no punches such that there were authors who didn't want him included in our book, despite being the first peer-reviewed author of an important peer-reviewed book on Jesus Mythicism.

Carrier recently reviewed our mythicist book. He liked some chapters and trashed some others. So I wrote a defense of it, LINK. He did write a blurb for our book though:

Mainstream experts mostly already agree the miraculous Jesus didn’t exist, but what about a merely human Jesus? This anthology usefully exhibits the full gamut of doubting even that, from the absurd to the sound. Some contributions are not credible, but some are worth considering, and several are brilliant, indeed required reading for anyone exploring the subject. The book will be absolutely necessary for any future Jesus mythicist scholar. - Dr. Richard Carrier, peer-reviewed author of On the Historicity of Jesus.

Having previously been called a "doofus" when it comes to Bayes Theorem, I know the sting of a review by Carrier. In my defense I myself had a peer-reviewed paper published on Bayes Theorem at Internet Infidels, where the vice-President said it was one of the best papers he ever had the pleasure of reading and approving! Carrier still has not responded to it, but if he does, he may overwhelm me with words and links galore, burying me in so much work I won't be able to respond to it all, if I do. Yet, I'm sure I have basically refuted his case. No, Bayes is not the tool for assessing miraculous claims, which by their very nature are impossible to take place in the natural world, by means of the natural world. I have argued that Bayes cannot and should not be applied to claims which are nonsense, and that miraculous claims in the ancient Biblical past are all nonsense! They are all nonsense because there is absolutely no credible evidence for any of them. Lately I offered some additional thoughts on Bayes.

By the way, I want to know about the peer-review process when it comes to Carrier's book on Jesus. Please tell us Dr. Carrier! If anyone takes a minute to search for it, there are varying methods and goals in peer-review. What is not promised is that the book is setting forth something true and factual. It only means, at best, that an author has dealt with all of the most important objections.

I know that Sheffield Phoenix Press is a highly esteemed scholarly liberal book publisher. I also know publishers want provocative books that sell well (despite any claim otherwise), since money is indeed a factor. This is not to impugn Sheffield Phoenix Press, and its editors, or any of its authors, including Carrier, since it's very significant that a mythicist got a book published by this publisher! [Atheist scholar Hector Avalos also published two books with them]. But peer-review does not mean the particular reviewer (or committee) thinks what Carrier wrote is true. Yes, we should definately read what Carrier writes. We just don't need reminded that his work was peer-reviewed so often, nor does it mean Carrier's particular treatment is the end of all Jesus mythicism studies, or that Carrier gets to be the hall-monitor for every mythicist who writes on the same subject.

As I said in an earlier post, I don't care much at all with how the Jesus character originated. What I know is that the Jesus in the four gospels did not exist. I said so in my Preface. I also said each and every one of the theories presented in the book are possible. That's my starting point. Possibility is good enough.

With that in mind I'm posting what Joe Atwill sent me in response to Carrier. I did not solicit it, but I welcome it.

The Elephant in Richard Carrier’s Room: A Lesson for NT Scholarship
By Joseph Atwill

Richard Carrier has written a critique of two of the parallels I discussed in the chapter I wrote for "Varieties of Jesus Mythicism." SOURCE I wish to respond.

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In Defense of "Varieties of Jesus Mythicism"

I knew this anthology of ours would suffer from the criticisms of the uninformed and the informed. So let me share the back-story of how it came to be, and how it was envisioned, in order to stave off some unjustified criticisms. Here's a link that introduces the book, which includes the contents, blurbs, and something about the authors. Here's an Amazon link to it.

Robert M. Price and I had talked about doing such a book earlier, and I knew he had been working on it with other contributors. Then he shot me an email on Nov 23, 2019, saying:

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About the Contributors to the Book, "Varieties of Jesus Mythicism"

Hypatia Press is currently sending out defective books, ones that did not include a section describing the authors. They have been informed of their mistake and are correcting it. So here is that missing section below:

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Our "Varieties of Jesus" anthology is in the house!

I received my copies today! Get yours now!

My Talk at the GCRR e-Conference on the Historical Jesus

The conference was fantastic! You should attend other virtual eConferences put on by the GCRR! You should also help support what it does by becoming a member.

Below is the first part of my talk, in note form. The rest of my talk was a summation of why reasonable people shouldn't believe any of the miracles in the Bible. Hint: There's no objective evidence for any of them.

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Finalized Table of Content of "Varieties of Jesus Mythicism"

Here is Bob and I for a program we did together in 2007.

Here we are in about 2007.

Contents:

Foreword by Richard C. Miller

Preface “The Jesus of the Gospels Didn’t Exist” by John Loftus 

Introduction  “New Testament Minimalism” by Robert M. Price

Part 1 Varieties of Jesus Mythicism

1 Why Mythicism Matters, by Dave Fitzgerald. 

2 Jesus, by Barbara G. Walker 

3 Dying and Rising Gods, by Derreck Bennett.  

4 Christianity is a Western Branch of Buddhism, by Michael Lockwood 

5 The Roman Provenance of Christianity, by Joseph Atwill.

6 Pauline Origin of the Gospels in the Wake of the Jewish-Roman War, by R.G. Price 

7 Under the Mushroom Tree, by Michael Hoffman 

8 Star-Lore in the Gospels, by Bill Darlison 

9 The Mythic Power of the Atonement, by Robert M. Price

10 A Sacrifice in Heaven: The Son in the Epistle to the Hebrews, by Earl Doherty

11 The Jewish Myth of Jesus, by Stephan Huller 

12 Jesus: Pre-Existent and Non-Existent, by Robert M. Price 

13 Mark's Gospel: A Performed Play in Rome, by Danila Oder

Part 2 Mythicist Rejoiners to Biblical Scholars

14 Is There a Man Behind the Curtain? A Response to Bart Ehrman, by Robert M. Price

15 A Rejoinder to James McGrath’s Case for Jesus, by Neil Godfrey.

16 Everything is Wrong with This: The Legacy of Maurice Casey, by Tim Widowfield.

Announcing The Blurbs for Our Anthology "Varieties of Jesus Mythicism."

Dr. Robert M. Price and I have co-edited a new anthology, titled "Varieties of Jesus Mythicism", published by Hypatia Press.

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The essays contained within this anthology draw their readers out on a provocative adventure, a quest certain to yield many treasures. Yet, this quest is altogether different than that described by Albert Schweitzer in his landmark work The Quest of the Historical Jesus over a century ago. Despite the seeming nobility, such an academic pilgrimage to uncover the originary kernel of the Gospels, now having played out for decades in the halls of academia, has proven little more than a fool’s errand. We now face the obvious: these cultic tales are not and were never given as historiographical “footage” of live first-century events in time and space.

-- Richard C. Miller, Ph,D, author of Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity, 2014.

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The New Testament Jesus did not exist, but was there a historical figure on whom the legend was based? This anthology will adjust your assessment of the probability. It's a rollicking ride through a biblical battlefield.

-- Dan Barker, co-president of Freedom from Religion Foundation and author of Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists.

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For a long time mainstream Bible scholars have known that the gospels are not, in fact, reliable histories of Jesus. Even so, there is a consensus that Jesus existed, and doubting that he was a real person is seen as eccentric or fringe. But respected secular scholars—not beholden to what Hector Avalos has called the ecclesial-academic complex—have questioned that consensus. This new anthology is a welcome addition to the growing library of works that invite close inspection of the issue. These essays explore the diverse amalgam of theologies and superstitions in the ancient world, showing that the origins of Jesus-belief are far more complex than devout scholars have been willing to grant. The previous Loftus anthologies have thoroughly documented the falsification of Christianity—and this one adds dramatically to the case against it.

-- Dr. David Madison, author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief.

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The expert arguments in this book seek to understand how Christianity could have begun without a historical Jesus. All these Mythicist authorities; make very compelling arguments for their respective theories. Which one is correct? Can all of them be correct? Let us think of each contribution as being a description of an evolving thread of religious traditions. If each thread intertwined—at various times and in various places--with all the other threads of tradition described in this book, it should be possible to produce a “grand unifying theory” of how the various forms of earliest Christianity began. Reading this book will be sine qua non for any scholar seeking to trigger a paradigm shift by showing how all these threads braided together to create a Christianity that did not begin at any single point in space or time. This book will be absolutely necessary for any future Jesus mythicist scholar.

-- Frank R. Zindler, author of The Jesus the Jews Never Knew (2003).

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Mainstream experts mostly already agree the miraculous Jesus didn’t exist, but what about a merely human Jesus? This anthology usefully exhibits the full gamut of doubting even that, from the absurd to the sound. Some contributions are not credible, but some are worth considering, and several are brilliant, indeed required reading for anyone exploring the subject. The book will be absolutely necessary for any future Jesus mythicist scholar.

- Richard Carrier, Ph.D., author of On the Historicity of Jesus.

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This is an important and intellectually adventuresome collection of articles, well worth considering, reflecting the wide spectrum of views of those challenging the traditional conservative paradigm on the historicity of Jesus.

-- Russell Gmirkin, author of Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible.

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Of all the books written on Jesus mythicism, there are just a rare few that are scholarly and that hope to contribute something new to your understanding of the new testament texts. This book checks both boxes, and is definitely a must read for all those who want to keep up with mythicist thinking today.

-- Nicholas Ryan Covington (on Amazon) 5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read Mythicist Anthology.

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When Dr. Price was asked about our book at the the GCRR e-Conference on the Historical Jesus, he said, "it's sure to be a classic."