Jesus Studies by Dr. Carrier

Jesus Studies

Dr. Carrier has written On the Historicity of Jesus, proposing an origin of Christianity without a historical Jesus, which he summarizes in Jesus from Outer Space. He also wrote Proving History, on the failure of methodology in the study of Jesus and how to fix it; and Not the Impossible Faith, on the social and intellectual context of the rise and early development of Christianity; and in Hitler Homer Bible Christ he has collected his most important papers on the subject of history and biblical studies up to the year 2013. Plus chapters in Resurrection, The Empty Tomb, The Christian Delusion and The End of Christianity on whether historical evidence confirms Jesus rose from the dead, or whether the rise of Christianity was supernatural. Below are links to Dr. Carrier's other work on the historical origins of Christianity.

Buy Resurrection: Faith or Fact? for a debate between Carl Stecher and Craig Blomberg with chapters by Peter Williams and Richard Carrier analyzing who won.

Naturalism as a Worldview
Dr. Carrier's own worldview, evidence for which is also evidence against supernaturalist Christianity.

Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jesus? (2014)
Summary of my book On the Historicity of Jesus for The Bible and Interpretation.

Ehrman on Historicity Recap (2012)
Summarizes my online debates with Bart Ehrman over whether we can know Jesus ever actually existed.

Casey on Historicity (2014)
Extensive critical review of Maurice Casey's book defending the historicity of Jesus.

Responses to Defenders of the Historicity of Jesus (2014)
Complete and updated list of my replies to scholars attempting to establish Jesus existed.

Strange Notions Historicity Debate (2013)
Assessment and table of contents of my online debate with Catholic scholars on whether Jesus existed.

Resurrection FAQs
FAQs on Carrier's chapters in The Empty Tomb, addressing common responses to his arguments against the resurrection there.

Stephen Davis Gets It Wrong (2006)
Rebuttal to Stephen Davis' critical review of The Empty Tomb in the journal Philosophia Christi.

Luke vs. Matthew on the Year of Christ's Birth (2006)
Summary case against harmonizing the nativities of the gospels (abridgement of the full article).

Mark 16:9-20 as Forgery or Fabrication (2009)
Evidence and scholarship establishing that the current ending of Mark was not originally in the text.

On Musonius Rufus: A Brief Essay (1999)
How much is Jesus a poor imitation of the most famous Stoic philosopher under the Roman Empire?

Some Godless Comments On Jesus (2003)
Critique of attempts to portray Jesus as a brilliant Hellenistic philosopher ahead of his time, with discussion of the quality of evidence for what Jesus said and did.

Some Godless Comments On Jesus II (2004)
Elaborates in great detail on many issues raised by the first article (above).

Bayes' Theorem and the Modern Historian: Proving History Requires Improving Methods (2012)
Summary of the argument in Proving History for the trade periodical The Bible and Interpretation, on why Jesus studies needs to reform its methods, and learn Bayes' Theorem.

Bayesian Calculator (2012)
Brief explanation and automated calculators for using the logic of Bayes' Theorem to test claims about Jesus (or any claims about history).

With a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University, Dr. Carrier specializes in the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, particularly the history of science and the origins of Christianity. This page is dedicated to the latter, cataloguing his most important work online, more of which is listed at the Secular Web. He also discusses this subject on his blog: see entries indexed under Jesus [old | new], resurrection [old | new], and New Testament [old | new]. For his recommended readings on this subject, see Richard Carrier Recommends. Dr. Carrier is an Amazon Associate and earns from qualifying purchases following links on his website.

Dying Messiah Redux (2012)
Collects evidence and arguments that some pre-Christian Jews were expecting the messiah to be killed, inspiring Christianity.

The Will of God: 24 Evil Old Testament Verses (2011)
Collects the worst passages condemning the Bible as immoral.

On Paul's Theory of Resurrection (2008)
Formal debate with theology scholar Jake O'Connell on the merits of my "spiritual body" theory in The Empty Tomb.

Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story (6th ed., 2006)
In many respects outdated but still a useful collection of essays on the subject.

On Kersey Graves (2003)
Explains the essential reasons to distrust the information in The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors.

Brunner's Gottkönigs & the Nativity of Jesus (2004)
The Gospel Nativity stories are not copying an ancient Egyptian inscription at Luxor.

Did Jesus Exist? (2002)
Critical review of Earl Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle. Finds it is not proven, but nor is it inconceivable that Jesus didn't exist.

Luke and Josephus (2000)
Summarizes Steve Mason's argument that Luke drew material from (and thus post-dates) the work of Josephus.

Review of The Homeric Epics & the Gospel of Mark (2000)
Finds that Dennis MacDonald's thesis (that Mark emulated Homer) is more plausible than his critics might allow.

The Nazareth Inscription (2000)
An inscription on graverobbing doesn't confirm the resurrection of Jesus.

Review of In Defense of Miracles (1999)
Detailed critique (only partly updated in 2005).

You can take online courses in counter-apologetics, the historicity of Jesus, and historical method taught by Richard Carrier, Ph.D. See his Course Roster. Simple and affordable. One month long. Participate on your own time.

And for a growing and soon complete catalog of all evidence and arguments for and against the historicity of Jesus, as well as a configurable Bayesian calculator for determining the effect of evidence on any probability, get the C.H.R.E.S.T.U.S. app on Android or iOS.

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