https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzBGd8nA3jj_T2x4dENmaUdQeHc/view?usp=drive_web

(From InfidelGuy.com)

Only as humor. He isn’t a “believer” in any religious interpretation of Jesus. He’s just over-invested in his own pet theories about Jesus, and more concerned about saving face than discovering the truth; and ultimately, though an excellent textual critic, not a very good historian.

You have the thesis wrong. The Doherty thesis is not that Jesus was made up, but that he was believed to be a celestial being who communicated by revelation and secret messages hidden in scripture. The first founders of this belief had obvious authority, since they came first. That this was a big deal is revealed by Paul early in Galatians 1 where even he says newcomers who claim to receive revelations are to be shunned…only those who see Jesus can claim authority. Paul was fighting for his right to claim he saw Jesus (and not one of the false spirits even Paul is worried about).

The myth hypothesis is unncessarily complex. The simplest explanation is that there was a Jewish rabbi named Jesus who had a small cult following, made a little noise, pissed off the wrong people and got crucified for it. After he died, his followers couldn’t deal with it — they started generating stories about how he would come back to save them from their Roman opressors. The stories built up over time, Paul caught wind of them and they branched off into two directions: the Petrine version in Palestine and the Pauline version in the developed cities of Rome and Greece.

If we didn’t have so much early activity between Paul and Peter’s crew, the myth hypothesis might seem credible. But there’s no need for it. The simplest explanation is that there was a guy named Jesus. Ehrman wins. Scholarship wins. Dr Carrier, you lose.

Just to be clear, I have nothing against the possibility of Christianity being a deliberate creation (I even discuss the anthropological basis for such a theory in chapter ten of Not the Impossible Faith). But being possible is not the same thing as being presently provable. Moreover, just because there are plausible deliberate-invention theories, does not mean all deliberate-invention theories are plausible. There are many vastly more plausible deliberate-invention theories than Atwill’s. And those are two distinct points. That I think there are plausible deliberate-invention theories does not mean I think there are any provable deliberate-invention theories. We simply can’t know on the available data. Thus any theory we propose, to be probable, has to be flexible to account for different models of origin.

So sorry, I was traveling and not able to find time to get to this comment in the queue in time for that event. But it sounds like there should be an archived audio file of that show online somewhere.

You acknowledge this and say that this proves that even if Christ existed( this mindset by the professor of Jewish study’s that Ehrman is debunking) but this not likely. As you say that no ancient scholars mentioned Jesus or Christianity, that name gives it away, don’t you see that that the characterization of the cult that the gospels betray was really the Essene movement that the Romans were fighting, and that intellectuals mostly Jewish in the Herod camp and the Roman camp wrote those fake gospels trying to pass it off as Jewish Messianic Scripture.

That paul was a key player in creating a counter religion to Messianic Judaism, somewhere in the bible I forgiot where but will get back on the verse later, Paul salute all all in Caesars household and the littlest Herod and Epaphorditus who since Paul tells us he salutes all Caesars household he must be talking of Epaphorditus Neros secretary, whom Domitian executes for being a Christian(Helenized word for Messianic Jew) Paul even says that they heled him start his Christian community, these were just the people who could have wrote the gospels, tats why you scholars are still argueing over Q, because these documents was the story gathered to fake the peaceful messiah, when I found who these cpeople where who Paul was writing salutes too I knew that it was an attempt to create a false messianic Judaism with the Philo otherworldly celestial yeshua that I found out about from your book dr Carier Not The Impossible Faith.

And from your article here I conclude that the short length of time that Christianity sprouted up that it is not an organic myth but a constructed one and from the synoptic gospels and Q. And from your explaining the syencretization of the paegan with the jewish, some college of Herod appointed Jewish priest, erod and Roman appointed Sanhedrin pharisses put the Christian religion and the gospels and Jesus togather.

If we used Richard Carrier’s standard for determining who existed and who didn’t, 75% of all ancient Greek philosophers would instantly disappear into the Carrier black hole where sources must be within X number of years.

What do you think is my “standard” for determining who existed and who didn’t?

One was not stated in this article. So I’d be curious to know how you know what it is, or what you think it is.

Particularly given that the standard I have discussed elsewhere does not seem to be the one you assume I employ. Nor does the standard I elaborately lay out in my book Proving History.

By my actual standards, none of the conclusions you infer follow.