Para una edición en español del siguiente artículo, consulte El regreso de Piñero.

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Last month I found serious faults in Antonio Piñero’s mistreatment of my book On the Historicity of Jesus and its thesis, including his lack of basic knowledge in subjects like mythography or the text of Josephus (see Antonio Piñero: Raving Historicist). He has now responded on his blog, in a two part series, “¡Esto no se acaba nunca! Sobre la pretendida inexistencia histórica de  Jesús de Nazaret” (“It Never Ends! On the Alleged Historical Non-existence of Jesus of Nazareth”; you can read that in Spanish as Part 1 and Part 2; I will be working from the English translation of David Cáceres González, host and author of the Spanish website Mitos o Historia).

Dishonesty

I’ve repeatedly documented how dishonesty typifies historicists in the academic community. And this should be a scandal. Their peers should not be endorsing that behavior but condemning it, as it discredits the integrity and professionalism, and reliability, of their entire academic field. Piñero instead continues the tradition of not telling the truth, abrogating all professional responsibility when addressing theories they don’t like.

In my original response to Piñero I documented several specific mistakes he made, and cumulatively documented one general, persistent mistake: none of his remarks pertain to what is actually argued in my book. He often gets entirely wrong what is and isn’t in my book, and reveals he is unaware of what arguments it contains. All of which demonstrates he did not read that book. And yet he represents himself to his readers as having done so; and now in his response even insists he did; which really catches him in a lie, as the evidence I presented of his complete ignorance of the contents of my book demonstrates. This is, indeed, deeply unprofessional behavior.

The bottom line is that Piñero deceived his readers into thinking he had read and reviewed my book himself, and that what he was saying about it was true. And he continues to maintain this lie, even now, even after being caught with abundant examples of his saying numerous false things about my book, without even any awareness they were false. This dishonesty should be a disgrace to him and his profession. Why he persists in doing this, only his conscience knows.

Summary of Charges

Here are the specific examples of Piñero’s dishonesty, error, and incompetence that I documented:

1. Piñero claimed my book confused the magical Gospel Jesus with the ordinary real Jesus that historicists believe lies behind those legends. In fact no peer-reviewed defense of mythicism engages any such confusion. I very carefully dismiss the legendary Jesus and only focus on the plausible reconstructed Jesuses of secular scholarship. Piñero thus made a false statement to his audience.
2. Piñero claimed no early Christians believed Jesus was a deity. But Bart Ehrman already proved otherwise; as did I, in the book Piñero didn’t read. So Piñero made a claim already refuted in my book, and widely refuted in extant scholarship, and did not address any of our evidence or scholarship to the contrary, because he incompetently didn’t know any of that evidence or scholarship existed, because he didn’t read my book—or evidently any recent book on this question.
3. Piñero “assumes” the gospel had pre-resurrection eyewitness sources, even though Paul (our earliest source) never once mentions any, and every time Paul does list the sources Christians received the gospel from, that is conspicuously never one of them. Piñero never addresses this problem, he doesn’t even seem aware it exists, despite it being fundamental to the mythicist critique of historicity. Which means Piñero doesn’t even know what the mythicist critique of historicity is.
4. Piñero bases his case on “a series of rhetorical questions” like “why build the Gospels with so many gaps, inconsistencies and contradictions between them?” or “why give [Jesus] brothers and sisters?” and so on, which I noted “entails he actually doesn’t know how those questions are answered even by mainstream historians of Jesus—even less, contemporary peer-reviewed mythicists (none of whom argue, for example—as Piñero weirdly assumes here—that the Gospels were all written by the same sect or even author).” In other words Piñero doesn’t even know what the arguments in On the Historicity of Jesus are, and his “response” doesn’t even respond to its arguments at all.
5. Piñero falsely claimed no Jew would “bother” arguing with a sect whose leader never existed, and Judaism has “always” admitted Jesus existed. There is no evidence either statement is true. We have no Jewish responses at all until the Middle Ages. So no one knows what Jews were saying, much less every argument any Jew ever advanced. And Jews would have responded to claims of a fabricated messiah for all the same reasons they would respond to any heresy evangelizing their peers. And we actually do have indirect evidence that some Jews of the time were not so sure of the historicity of Jesus, exactly contrary to Piñero’s claim. All of which is discussed in my book that Piñero didn’t read and thus is simply not responding to but dishonestly representing himself to his readers as answering.
6. Piñero claimed critics of Christianity would and could have proved Jesus didn’t exist if that were the case. That is false. By the second century no Jew could know, much less prove, Jesus didn’t exist; all witnesses and documents to find that out by would have been lost or inaccessible by then. Which would leave only one effective rebuttal to attempt against Christians: to claim Jesus was more likely a huckster or really a failure only aggrandized in legend, because abundant, citable evidence existed that those sorts of fellows were common. This point is also discussed in my book that Piñero didn’t read and thus is simply not responding to but dishonestly representing himself to his readers as answering.
7. Piñero falsely claimed my book did not answer the question “How could Paul have visited his brother?” That is a lie. My book extensively answers that question. And Piñero showed no awareness of what my book’s response is, and consequently he presents no rebuttal to it, no demonstration that it is invalid or wanting. Once again, Piñero doesn’t even know what my book argues, and has no rebuttal even to offer. He instead dishonestly implies to his readers that I had no answer to his question.
8. Piñero falsely claims that the Testimonium Flavianum (the Christian-edited paragraph in Josephus that describes the Gospel Jesus) can be re-edited to reveal a “negative” passage and that this “negative” passage “follows” and thus refers to, and thus is a part of, Josephus’s accounts of other false messiahs. In actual fact, Josephus does not relate any of those accounts of false messiahs until far after the TF (nor all in one place). There is also nothing in the edited TF that can honestly or accurately be described as “negative” in any way relevantly akin to those other passages which clearly are. But the biggest mistake here is Piñero’s not even getting correct what the content of Josephus is. He simply makes a completely false statement, demonstrating his incompetence and lack of expert knowledge in this matter, demonstrating his opinion regarding the TF is unreliable and uninformed.
9. Piñero claims the Gospels contain content that looks like their authors were “struggling” to paint Jesus as a godman, and that this therefore indicates a real Jesus lies behind the myths. But all non-existent mythical persons had narratives about them that have all the same or analogous content that Piñero sees as “struggling.” So his inference is uninformed by any actual knowledge of ancient mythography. In actual reality, none of the content he is talking about is indicative of the reality of any hero in antiquity. Piñero would know this if he had actually read the book he claims to be responding to; but since he didn’t, he has no rebuttal to offer against that book’s actual argument. It is therefore dishonest of him to claim to his readers that he does.
10. Piñero falsely claims a “1 in 3” chance Jesus existed is a “minimal” chance Jesus existed. It’s actually a respectably high chance Jesus existed. And that’s easily proved with even a rudimentary understanding of comparative odds. So there is no excuse for Piñero to have claimed this.
11. Piñero falsely claims I only “argue in passing” several fundamental points that in fact I devote seven hundred pages of heavily cited and footnoted text defending. This is a seriously dishonest misrepresentation of my scholarship.
12. Piñero falsely claims my case against the reliability and usability of the “method of criteria” in Jesus studies is “novel.” In fact it is based on every peer reviewed study of those methods, every one of which concurs with me that the method is deeply flawed and unreliable. Piñero thus doesn’t even know I extensively cited other scholars proving these points, and further proved them myself. (This is accomplished in the methodological precursor to OHJ, my book Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, which Piñero does not appear to even know exists, despite my explicitly referring to it almost a hundred times in OHJ.)
13. Piñero claims there are “serious flaws of method” in my book but never gives even a single example of that being the case. Which is because he never read my book, so when he claimed to have found flaws of method in it, he was lying. This should not be acceptable behavior in any profession.
14. Piñero falsely claims my book “does not take into account the countless studies that show that there are sections of the Gospels that undoubtedly contain historical data” and “does not take into account” any “critical analysis of the Gospels.” In fact I do both in OHJ (including by reference there to PH), extensively. So there is no other way to explain this statement than that Piñero simply chose to lie about what is “not” in my book. This should discredit him as an academic. It certainly wholly discredits any opinion he has about my book. His is a wholly uninformed opinion; and worse, Piñero chooses to tell lies to his readers instead of actually addressing how I did take into account “critical analysis” and “studies that show” historicity can be extracted from the Gospels.
15. Piñero falsely claims that if we were to abandon all the methods I show invalid, “any possibility of doing ancient history would collapse.” In actual fact I demonstrate several methods remain that are sufficient to do ancient history and support all sound conclusions in any field of history. Since I do this explicitly in both OHJ and PH, which I reference repeatedly in OHJ as also explicitly doing that, this constitutes another lie Piñero is telling his readers. Any academics who believe in professional honesty should be outraged by this behavior.
16. Piñero falsely claims I “hardly take into account the documents themselves,” when in fact OHJ devotes hundreds of pages to them; “nor,” he falsely claims, “what are the best possible explanations for the historical data they undoubtedly offer,” where he presents not a single example of any “best possible explanation” I fail to take into account anywhere. Since he admits he never read my book, it’s obvious why he can’t do that: he is simply lying when he says I “don’t” do any of this in OHJ. He had no knowledge of what I did or didn’t do in OHJ. He chose to make up a falsehood about it, instead of actually finding out. That is deeply unprofessional and unethical.
17. Piñero falsely claims “religious myths almost always crystallize around a historical personality that is reinterpreted and idealized.” Anyone familiar with ancient mythography, and with the later analogs to early Christianity (such as Mormonism and Islam; the Luddites and Cargo Cults; and the like), all of which is covered in the book Piñero did not read, would know this is a false statement. Religious myths often crystalize around a non-existent hero-founder; and in cases that are most analogous to Christianity, usually do. Piñero doesn’t know I demonstrate this with evidence in OHJ, because he did not read OHJ. Nor does he himself display here any knowledge of the pertinent mythography or historiography of historicized non-existent people, the very thing you need to know to make reliable statements about this.
18. Piñero falsely claims that in OHJ I argue Jesus must be mythical because Christianity itself “must be false in principle, since their God is false and all [similar] cults are false.” I never make any such argument. Piñero is thus again lying to his readers about what is in my book. No academic should find this behavior from him respectable.
19. Piñero falsely claims historicity is a simpler hypothesis than the mythicism I defend as likely in OHJ. He is thus unaware of all my evidence to the contrary in OHJ. Because he did not read OHJ. So he does not have any rebuttal to all the demonstrations I make that historicity requires numerous ad hoc suppositions mythicism does not, and requires more improbable suppositions than mythicism does. He thus has no rebuttal to any argument in my book. He doesn’t even know any of the arguments in my book.
20. In fact at no point does Piñero ever address any actual argument, evidence, or content of either peer-reviewed book I published on this.

That’s twenty serious failures in competence and acts of unprofessional, unethical dishonesty. And that was the entirety of my critique of his treatment of OHJ. What has Piñero to say in his defense? Pretty much not a single thing. He does not even mention most of these criticisms. And the few he even mentions, he makes no intelligible or relevant reply to.

The Harrumpher’s Fallacy

Piñero leads with a classic “Harumpher’s” fallacy, complaining about tone rather than substance, while also demonstrating his incompetence with the English language. Nowhere in my article do I call him a “lunatic” as he avers. The adjectival preposition “raving” in modern English does not mean insane, but vehement, charged, passionate (just Google examples: “raving historian”, “raving congressman”, “raving fan”). As Merriam-Webster makes clear, you have to add the noun “lunatic” for the word to refer to a lunatic. And as Dictionary.com explains (which is based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary), “raving” simply means “talking wildly; delirious; frenzied.” Not “insane.” But many dictionaries do mislead on this (not making clear the actual requirements of usage in practice), so you can’t be a mere “dictionary translator” and be competent at reading English. But this incompetence at English triggered him into resorting to fallacious handwaving about tone, rather than addressing any actual substantive criticism. And as this once again does not respond to anything I actually said, it requires no further reply.

The same thing happens when Piñero, again, falsely claims I said he “consider[s] that the entire work of Carrier is ‘shit’ (or rather in the language he uses ‘I shit on his work’).” That is nowhere in my article. Indeed, this grossly incompetent mistranslation of my English makes no sense, as the actual meaning of what I did say should be clear in context to anyone actually reading what I said. I wrote: “He doesn’t know any examples. He’s just making shit up about me and my work.” The context is about Piñero “inventing” things about my book that aren’t true (or that he never checked to even know if they were true). Which is what the phrase “making shit up” in English means: inventing things (again, you can Google endless examples); not “shitting on” (advice to Dr. Piñero: the English phrase for “shit on” is shit on; and you won’t find it in my article).

Piñero then turns to another completely non-responsive argument: defending himself against the accusation I never made that he is incompetent in “New Testament studies.” Piñero even admits this isn’t a claim I ever made. Instead he is only worried someone might “think” it: “Someone may feel—hopefully not,” Piñero says, “that Carrier is subliminally claiming that I am generally ignorant on New Testament issues (this is certainly not what he says; but I know that people think it does say so, deep down).” What people think that? Piñero never says. How does he know they think that? Piñero never says. Since I never made this argument, and I already linked to his website that contains his full cv documenting his credentials in “New Testament Philology,” I hardly need respond. True, a doctorate in philology is not exactly the same thing as in history, but then most New Testament scholars lack degrees in history. We could make a more nuanced critique out of that, I think, but in my response to Piñero I didn’t, so I’ll skip this irrelevant part of his rebuttal and move on.

Next Piñero returns to the Harumpher’s Fallacy by complaining it is rude of me to call him ignorant. I did not, of course, call him ignorant tout court; nor even of philology, the field he persistently defends his credentials in for no reason. I said he was ignorant of “early Christianity’s context and the mythicist thesis,” and I did not merely say this, I documented it with examples. Piñero at first only responds to this by continually appealing to his philology degrees and publications, even though neither of those two things I mentioned is a subject in philology. Which is a classic Red Herring fallacy.

What Did I Say About James?

Only after all that (which verbosely amounted to 2300 words in Spanish!) does Piñero get to actually responding to anything I actually said. He starts with my point about his book’s claim that my book did not have an answer to the question, with respect to Paul’s declaration in Galatians that he visited “James the Brother of the Lord,” “How can Paul visit the brother of a ‘mythical construct’?” Note that a real historian—someone honest and professional—would tell his readers how my book answers that question (and do so correctly), and then offer a rebuttal. In other words, they would explain why they are not convinced by what I argue. They would not represent to their readers that I didn’t have any answer to the question at all, such that merely stating the question is adequate rebuttal to what I argued. That is dishonest and irresponsible. It is also unprofessional.

Piñero, caught in this deception, now tries to save face by attempting to do what he was caught not doing in his book: actually articulate what my answer to that question was, and actually explain why he thinks it is inadequate. Yet he still doesn’t get right what I argue; nor offers any actual rebuttal to it. He does not even seem to know what my argument consists of, as he does not seem to know what he needs to rebut. But let’s see what I mean so you get the right idea of what I’m saying here.

Piñero admits now (again, he did not say any of this in his book) that my book argues “that James was like all believers,” all being “brothers in the messiah” (his words). To be precise, only baptized Christians were considered Brothers of the Lord, as I document in Element 12 of Chapter 4 in OHJ, and further in Chapter 11.10. But for all intents and purposes we can say that would have been most Christians Paul referenced or wrote to, and certainly anyone Paul refers to as “brother” or among “the brethren.”

What is Piñero’s response to the extensive evidence I present for this? Nothing. He doesn’t even mention any of this evidence or that my argument was based on that evidence. Instead, he responds by simply asserting that “it is absolutely wrong” to conclude as I do because we “have all the data on the fleshly brothers of Jesus in the New Testament and in early Christianity until the 4th century,” meaning, the later legends of Jesus having real brothers. Once again, Piñero doesn’t know I actually addressed all of that evidence, too. He doesn’t even know what I said about it. And he thus has no rebuttal to what I actually said. Piñero is here once again proving he did not read my book. Not even after getting caught lying about having read it!

It seems as if Piñero read some summary of what’s in my book somewhere, which didn’t exactly get right what I said (for example, he doesn’t seem to know about the role of baptism and spiritual adoption establishing Christians as Brothers of the Lord, or why that’s relevant, or all the evidence there is confirming it), and which didn’t mention any of the arguments or evidence I offered regarding it, including how I dealt with the later legends of Jesus having “actual” brothers. Piñero thus has no knowledge of what arguments he needs to rebut. Because he didn’t read them. And consequently, he says nothing in rebuttal to what I said.

For this point, Piñero himself “sets aside” (for the sake of argument) the passage in Josephus mentioning James being a brother of Jesus. Yet, again, he does not appear to know that I extensively discuss that evidence in OHJ and have pretty strong arguments against even its authenticity (pp. 337-42), but also against its utility (Josephus does not say, and would not be likely to know, whether “brother” here meant biological or spiritual, so Josephus even if he said this gives us no usable data about that).

What does Piñero say about my arguments against the rest of the evidence he is referring to now (but never describes)? Not one thing. I extensively show in OHJ that there is no brother of Jesus in the original history of the church, from Acts 2 onward, where thirty years of the Church’s public history are covered, yet never once does any brother of Jesus come up, much less one named James. Piñero’s response? Nothing. He does not even know I argued this. He instead lies again, by giving his readers the false impression I said nothing about this (such that he mistakenly thinks merely citing “evidence” in “the New Testament” that a real brother James existed is a sufficient rebuttal, even though I already refuted all that evidence—a fact he does not know, because he still has not read my book).

Likewise, what does Piñero say about my demonstration that even the Gospels knew of no “James, brother of Jesus” who even became a Christian, much less a “pillar” of the Church? Nothing. What does Piñero say about my demonstration that no one knew of a James as an actual brother of Jesus and member of the Church until late in the second century—before that, Clement knew of no such thing, Paul (without our circular presumption to the contrary) never refers to such a thing, not even Ignatius or Papias or any other earlier author refers to such a thing, nor do we find it anywhere in the New Testament? Nothing. What does Piñero say about my demonstration that the idea that there was a real brother of Jesus named James (as opposed to the mythical one in the Gospels, who is not any of the Jameses Paul would later meet in Acts) appears only to have arisen in later, and wholly mythical hagiography? Nothing. (See OHJ, Chapters 9.3 and 11.10, and p. 310, 327-30, 453-56, 528-29.)

In short, Piñero still has not responded to my book. At all.

What Did I Say about Jude?

Piñero doesn’t even know I discussed the one and only item of evidence he even mentions as basing his rebuttal on (though it never refers to James): “another piece of evidence, unless I’m mistaken, for the real existence of Jesus,” Piñero says, “is the report that Domitian condemned to death children of [cousins?] ​​of the Nazarene” because Domitian was “frightened that they might incite a rebellion against the Empire,” since “they were relatives of a seditious rebel against Rome, i.e. Jesus!” This is very garbled and inaccurate (as we’ll see shortly), demonstrating yet again that Piñero literally does not know what he is talking about. But once again he would know better if he had read my book. Because it extensively covers this evidence, and unlike Piñero, correctly describes it.

And yet, Piñero insists, “According to Carrier, Domitian must also have been carried away by the myth” that Jesus existed. That is another lie about my book. I do not make that argument in it at all but a very different argument altogether. Piñero thus here demonstrates once again that he does not even know what I argue in my book. And instead of finding out, he makes up something that I argued in it, that I never argued in it. Thus proving he has not read it and that he is still lying about what’s in it.

Here is what Piñero would know, and thus would instead have responded to, had he actually read the book he falsely claims to have read:

Hegesippus recorded at least one other apocryphal tale about the family of Jesus, which can confirm neither historicity nor myth: the story that the grandchildren of his brother Jude (whom only ‘some said’ had been the brother of Jesus) were hauled into the court of Domitian (in the 80s or 90s [A.D.]), because Domitian was afraid of the Second Coming of Christ (historically, a wholly implausible motive) and had commanded that all Davidic heirs be slain (even though the very notion that anyone thought there would be Davidic heirs to slay by then is not believable). This story contains a number of implausibilities and does not look like anything we would credit as true. It also looks like it wasn’t originally a story about Christians, but messianic Jews. In the core of the tale itself, no Jesus is ever mentioned, and the ‘Judeans’ hauled into court are never said to be anything but Jews expecting a messiah to come at the end of the world. This had apparently been converted into a story about Domitian persecuting, and then ending the persecution, of Christians. But from other sources we know only of Domitian persecuting Jews, and only those in his own household.

On the Historicity of Jesus, pp. 330-31.

And, in fact, in the story we have, Domitian did not kill these people. He decided they posed no threat and let them go (why does Piñero not know this?). And that story never mentions Domitian being concerned about any Jesus in connection with them at all (exactly contrary to what Piñero claims—again, why does he not know this?). There is no Jesus in that story, in fact. Nor, actually, a Jude. Hegesippus himself adds those inferences, that these people were connected to Jesus and Church history, or that they even included anyone named Jude. The story itself contains no such connection or references.

To see what I mean, here is what our source (Eusebius) actually says (with my comments in brackets):

Hegesippus relates these facts in the following words:

Of the family of the Lord there were still living the grandchildren of Jude, who is said to have been the Lord’s brother according to the flesh. [Note Hegesippus admits it is only “said,” by some unnamed source, that these were relations of Jesus] Information was given that they belonged to the family of David [not, take note, to the family of Jesus], and they were brought to the Emperor Domitian by the Evocatus. For Domitian feared the coming of Christ [which is actually just the word “the Anointed” in Greek, as in, the Jewish Messiah; the word “Jesus” never appears in this account and there is no indication Jesus is ever meant by it] as Herod also had feared it. And he asked them if they were descendants of David [not, take note, if they were related to Jesus or any previous messianic claimant; in this narrative Domitian does not appear to know of any previous historical claimant to worry about, Jesus or otherwise], and they confessed that they were.

Eusebius, History of the Church 3.19-20

Domitian then asks them about their wealth and social status and they prove both to be meagre. Domitian then turned to questioning their political ideology:

And when they were asked concerning Christ and his kingdom [remember, that just means the Jewish Messiah and Jewish Messianism generally; there is no indication of any connection to Jesus here], of what sort it was and where and when it was to appear, they answered that it was not a temporal nor an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly and angelic one, which would appear at the end of the world, when he should come in glory to judge the quick and the dead, and to give unto every one according to his works [which describes a common type of Jewish Messianism, not particular to Christianity, as I document in OHJ, in Elements 3 through 9 in Chapter 4; examples of it are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls]. Upon hearing this, Domitian did not pass judgment against them, but, despising them as of no account, he let them go, and by a decree put a stop to the persecution of the Church.

Ibid.

And with that last remark we return to the Christian propaganda being added in by Hegesippus. Because there is no evidence of any such decree, and it is not referenced in any apologetic literature that would not have failed to refer to it had it actually existed. To the contrary, that literature is all unanimous that Domitian only persecuted Christians; which is also likely false, but surely not anything they would say if he had issued a decree to the contrary. And none of the narrative up to that point had ever referenced any concern about Christians or “the Church,” but only Domitian’s concern about Davidic ancestors and Jewish messianism generally.

In fact we know from reliable sources (not Christian apologists, much less ones demonstrably prone to repeating absurd legends as if they were historical facts, like Hegesippus) that Domitian only notably persecuted Jews, not Christians. The original Domitilla story, for example, had nothing to do with Christians. Christians loved taking stories not about them, and rewriting them as having been about them, to invent a history for themselves—the famous Rain Miracle story being only another of many examples one could cite. It’s quite beyond dispute that ancient Christians were liars (OHJ, Element 44, Chapter 5). And it’s fairly clear the same exact thing has happened here.

It’s obvious that the core narrative Hegesippus has likewise fabricated a Christian version of never involved Christians, only Jews. That’s why it never mentions Jesus or Christians or Christianity at all, not even indirectly. Domitian only worried about their descent “from David,” not any connection to Jesus; and only asked after the type of their Jewish messianism, not about any connection with Christianity or any executed rebel for that matter. And the Christian details Hegesippus adds to the beginning and end of this otherwise-unrelated tale are all implausible or even demonstrably bogus. There is simply no way, therefore, to use this as evidence for the historicity of Jesus. Every component of it that could be, is a fabrication or sufficiently suspect to be; the rest, wholly unrelated to Jesus.

Piñero offers no response to this. Because he does not know this is what I argued—not that Domitian himself was taken in by the Christian myth. Because Piñero did not read my book. Therefore we know he is lying when he continues claiming that he did. Which is especially pathetic at this point—we caught him lying about this, and yet he still can’t be bothered to check what is in my book so as to actually respond to it. Instead, he just doubles down on lying about it. This is disgraceful. Such unethical behavior fully discredits any opinion he can ever express on the subject.

Random Walk

Piñero’s response only gets more confused and illogical from there.

For example, he pauses again to insist the Jews “never thought, nor could they think, of building a messiah from a mythical character.” Except we all know they did invent mythical saviors, readily: they invented Noah, Moses, David; they also invented prophetic narratives of non-existent messiahs, like the Messiah ben David and Messiah ben Joseph that entire futurist narratives were contrived of, in the Talmud and elsewhere (as I also discuss in OHJ), and the celestial “end times” messiah narratives of the mythical Melchizedek (at Qumran) and Michael (in the book of Daniel). Eastern Christians even fabricated a Jesus Christ who died in the 70s BC, in an entirely different way and place (OHJ, Ch. 8.1). So on what basis does Piñero think they “couldn’t” continue to do that? Or that they wouldn’t? He evidently has not read my extensive discussion of the contrary facts as to why the Jews of that time were precisely primed to want and need to do exactly that (OHJ, Elements 23 through 29, Chapter 5). Because Piñero didn’t read my book. So instead he just makes declarations to the contrary, citing no evidence whatever in support of his absurd generalizations about human beings (Jewish or otherwise) not being able to invent mythical heroes. That is not a competent rebuttal.

That Piñero doesn’t even know what my argument is in OHJ is revealed again when he says “all the fanatically religious Jews of the first century who expected a messiah started from the inescapable assumption that this messiah was a real man.” Indeed. My entire thesis is that the first Christians believed Jesus was a real man. (Why do historicists not understand this? Oh right, because they won’t read my book.) But they believed this the same way they believed Adam or Moses or Satan were real, or Gabriel or Michael. The notion of celestial messiahs is well documented in fringe Jewish thought of the very kind Christianity most resembles (see my discussions in OHJ of the Melchizedek scroll from Qumran and the book of Daniel, and Revelation). Even Piñero himself cited an example: the Jews Domitian was said to have interrogated told him they thought the Messiah was an angel who would descend from outer space in the future. Not some guy who was erroneously executed for sedition sixty years ago “gunning to return.”

So I nowhere argue in OHJ that Christians thought Jesus didn’t exist. They surely did believe he existed. They just didn’t believe he was on earth, until a hundred years or so later, after myths about him being on earth were written to allegorize their teachings (as was done with all other mythical saviors in all other savior cults of the time), and after one or more sects started regarding those myths as historical, decades later. That Piñero doesn’t even know what my thesis is is damning. He thus offers no rebuttal to my actual argument, but only to some fictional argument he inexplicably believes I made but never did.

Piñero similarly keeps asking me to read “the literature” on second temple Judaism—in fact, I extensively cite that literature in OHJ, and base almost every pertinent point I make on it. How does he not know that? Because he didn’t read it. Piñero then resorts to the fallacy of Argument to Authority, insisting I must be wrong because centuries of scholars have concluded otherwise. But this is not a rebuttal. To rebut a peer reviewed challenge to a scholarly tradition, you cannot circularly cite the scholarly tradition being challenged (that would end all scholarship, converting knowledge into dogma, and arresting all progress in understanding). The point of passing peer review is to establish that the consensus needs to be re-examined, and re-defended if need be, in light of that challenge—just as happened when the historicity of Moses was challenged. “But, hundreds of years of scholars have concluded differently,” was a completely fallacious, entirely circular argument. It had no merit then. It has no merit now. You have to meet your professional obligation to actually examine the peer reviewed challenge and what it consists of. The consensus must withstand critique, not ignore critique. Otherwise a consensus has no value.

That Piñero doesn’t even understand the challenge to the consensus that has been made (by two peer reviewed books now, mine and Lataster’s) is revealed most starkly when he tries to argue it’s “unfair” of me to say his book is “useless” only because it completely fails to address the actual arguments in On the Historicity of Jesus against his conclusions. He wrote “500” pages more than I addressed, he says. But he would know why that’s a meaningless argument if he actually read OHJ. What is demonstrated throughout its 700 pages is that everything in books like Piñero’s rests on assumptions that are false. Simply repeating those assumptions does not answer that challenge. At all.

Thus it does not matter what Piñero argues in those other 500 pages (and I did look to make sure); it is all refuted in OHJ and PH already. You cannot rebut a refutation by simply repeating the claims that were refuted. And this is why it is so outrageous that Piñero didn’t read OHJ (or PH) and never responds to any of their actual arguments in his book. And that is why his book is useless. It simply repeats information we’ve already heard, and arguments that have already been refuted. In a book that is supposed to be arguing for the historicity of Jesus he simply does not address any of the arguments against the historicity of Jesus! That makes it useless. We already have hundreds of books filled with Piñero’s assumptions. So we don’t need his. He could have fixed that by actually doing something that needs to be done, in other words actually doing his job: describing and addressing the latest peer reviewed challenges to those assumptions he fills his book with. Instead he chose to lie about it. And that is now the story of him.

Missing the Point

At one point Piñero responds to my remark that “Piñero weirdly assumes here—that the Gospels were all written by the same sect or even author,” by saying, “Where have I written that? Never. I don’t even consider it.” Note the word “here” and “assumes” in my remark. I did not claim Piñero says this, but that his one remark I am commenting on assumes it. That remark in question was Piñero’s incredulous query, “Why build the Gospels with so many gaps, inconsistencies and contradictions between them?” Which question is obviously answered, “Because the Gospels were written by different authors for different sectarian agendas.”

The only way Piñero can think his question “Why build the Gospels with so many gaps, inconsistencies and contradictions between them?” responds to anything mythicists claim is if he is assuming it’s not true that “the Gospels were written by different authors for different sectarian agendas.” Otherwise, his question does not address mythicism at all. So he can choose either “the Gospels weren’t written by different authors for different sectarian agendas” or “the Gospels contradict each other because they were written by different authors for different sectarian agendas” and therefore his question poses no problem at all for mythicism as a thesis, and thus there is no reason for Piñero to have asked it. He can choose which of those two chairs he wants to sit on; both render his question vacuous.

Similarly, when Piñero insists I am wrong about Paul preaching monolatry when he identifies Satan as a god and admits there are other gods but they are demons and fallen angels and thus to be spiritually fought rather than served, Piñero tries to insist instead that Paul is preaching “a monarchical and subordinationist monotheism.” I really don’t comprehend what he thinks the difference is between “subordinationist monotheism” (monoteísmo … subordinacionista) and monolatry. “Subordinationist monotheism” sounds to me like a synonym of henotheism in which only the Supreme God receives worship. Hence, monolatry.

So it looks like Piñero is trying to rebut me by agreeing with me. I can only assume he is confused and has entirely missed the point of what I actually said. He also ignored all the peer reviewed scholarship I mentioned supporting my point, which as I pointed out Bart Ehrman has summarized for the general public. The fact remains as I said it: Paul and all early Christians we know of regarded Jesus as a god in the popular parlance of the time, and simply chose as a matter of honor not to use that word for him, reserving it for the Supreme God whom Jesus serves and submits to. And you can’t understand early Christianity if you do not understand this.

As Bart Ehrman himself says, “The idea that Jesus is God is not an invention of modern times…it was the view of the very earliest Christians soon after Jesus’s death” (How Jesus Became God, p. 3). And he clarifies this does not mean they thought Jesus was identical to God the Father (as most modern Christians do), but that he was a subordinate deity, the Image of God, created by and in service to the Supreme God (much as, for example, the Jehovah’s Witnesses now do). And they believed worship was only owed to Jesus insofar as it is directed, through him, at the One he serves, and not in a way that treats Jesus as “equal to God” as Philippians 2 tells us Satan had demanded. A great deal of peer reviewed scholarship concurs with all these points (much of which I cite in OHJ, pp. 93-96, 105, and 189; Ehrman cites even more). So on what can Piñero base his contrary opinion, if it even is contrary?

In support of my “Piñero must not have gotten the point” thesis is that he says weird things here like “there was no problem between the Jews in accepting that the so-called gods existed, but that they were actually demons even though people called them” gods (which is simply repeating back at me exactly what I said) and “neither Paul nor any real Jew thought that demons were comparable to, for example, Dionysus or Hera,” which is a wholly perplexing sentence (what does comparable to mean?). They certainly did think they were identical (that what people called Dionysus and Hera were demons—or fallen angels, the two were not strictly identical). That does not mean they thought they had the same powers or honor as their mythologies pretended, but that’s not at all relevant to my point. So what is Piñero’s point? Beats me.

Another example of his not getting the point is when Piñero claims to “have also responded to” my “criticism” (which criticism?) “by arguing that the Gospels are non-falsifiable. Not a small group nor a single person could compose them as they are.” This is both a non sequitur (those two sentences make zero sense together) and also another demonstration that he didn’t read my book: nowhere in it do I claim “a small group or a single person” composed the Gospels. I very clearly and repeatedly say exactly the opposite. And what he means by their being “non-falsifiable” or how that responds to anything I said is beyond me. It sounds like he does not know I myself conclude in OHJ the Gospels are not, as such, evidence against Jesus existing. So this just looks like another confused failure by Piñero to even know what I argued, by continually refusing to actually read my book.

Likewise, after I just called him out for not even knowing about my extensive refutation of Methods of Criteria like the “Argument from Embarrassment” in Proving History (see pp. 124-69; which is, take note, 45 pages of material), Piñero now simply repeats his reliance on that Method, as if he didn’t know I’d already refuted such applications of it, or what he needs now to re-defend it against that critique, even though I just told him this. Indeed that point (and section in Proving History) I reference multiple times in OHJ, e.g. “the entire mode of ‘arguing from embarrassment’ like this is simply not sound, as I have already thoroughly demonstrated,” pp. 615-16, footnoting PH pp. 124-69; “this includes the ever-popular Criterion of Embarrassment, which I and others have demonstrated is simply incapable of extracting reliable history from the Gospels,” p. 400, footnoting that same section.

I also point out there in OHJ that “I have already refuted all such arguments elsewhere (such as for the historicity of the crucifixion of Jesus, his origin at Nazareth, his baptism by John, his betrayal by Judas, and so on),” though of course also noting that “that alone does not make these facts unhistorical; it only makes it impossible for us to know whether they are historical.” And yet Piñero offers no rebuttal. He just quotes his book as not addressing any of the peer reviewed challenges to his methodology that I quote and cite (least of all mine), and in no way rehabilitating his Method from any of those critiques. He simply doesn’t even know those critiques exist in the peer reviewed literature he is supposed to be up to date on. Even after I just told him they do, and where to find them. Why?

Even more perplexing is when Piñero responds to my calling his list of rhetorical questions stupid (about why certain tales ended up told in the Gospels) by noting that “Those stupid questions were already asked exactly as they are by Charles Guignebert.” Guignebert has been dead for almost a hundred years. So we can be pretty sure he didn’t ask those questions in response to my books’ answering them. My books were published in 2012 and 2014. I said these were stupid questions because they are already answered in my books. “But, Guignebert asked them,” does not answer that criticism whatsoever. So again it seems Piñero literally didn’t understand what I said or how or why his questions were stupid. Indeed, not only did he fail to grasp that obvious point, he goes on to close his Part 1 with a final Harumpher’s Fallacy by complaining that I called him stupid (“like asshole in English”). I didn’t. Though I can now see how one might think he is, if I am the one who has to explain to him the difference between Antonio Piñero and a question he asked. Do I need to diagram the noun in my sentence and explain how adjectives modify nouns? Surely a doctorate in philology does not need that done for him.

Josephus Said What Now?

Finally, Piñero tries to recover from his disastrous mishandling of Josephus, by insisting that the fact that the Testimonium Flavianum (or TF) does not come after the accounts of false messiahs as Piñero falsely claimed it did “does not invalidate the argument at all.” Um. Yes. It does. It entirely invalidates your argument. Piñero again claims “the mention of Jesus is negative,” indeed, “very negative” (!), now referring to what he inaccurately describes as a “statistical” study by Feldman that I happen to know does not rebut any of the evidence I just refuted this claim with—but which Piñero doesn’t cite anyway, so evidently he doesn’t want you to even know what study he is citing, and he doesn’t describe anything it argues, so he doesn’t want you to know how it supposedly answers anything I said either. There simply is no negative version of the TF. That’s pure fantasy. It doesn’t matter who invented that fantasy. All Piñero has here is a bluff. “But Feldman bluffed first” is not an argument that helps him here.

Likewise, Piñero again claims the TF “is placed in a series of [accounts of?] individuals who did great harm to the Jewish people,” but neither of the “individuals” he can mean here are Jews (they are, rather, Pontius Pilate and a priest of Isis), so there is no relevant pattern the TF fits into. Pay close attention here. Piñero had falsely argued that the TF should be interpreted negatively because it was placed among negative depictions of Jewish messiahs. That is simply not true. I caught him making a serious mistake that demonstrates he knows very little about the text of Josephus. Now he is trying to pretend he said something different, that the TF was placed among mere negative events, which actually don’t match the TF’s content at all. But that’s actually what proves the TF does not belong there. Piñero does not respond to any of my arguments demonstrating that point; or to any of my arguments refuting his claim that we should assume a negative meaning in its mere vocabulary. Piñero just flees the field of battle altogether, pretending he still has an argument left, but who knows what it is.

Conclusion

So that’s that. Piñero did not really respond to any of my criticisms. He ignored them, or everything I presented in their defense, and just reasserted the same claims I already proved false, a lie, or illogical. Meanwhile, Piñero claims “all the criticisms of [Carrier’s] book that I present” are “supported by the criticisms of other ‘peers’ of Carrier’s evaluations, which I have also taken care to read.” Yet Piñero cites not a single example of this being the case. He names no such peer. He identifies no example of any argument he made appearing in their work.

This is exactly the kind of irresponsible behavior I called Piñero out for in the first place. In his book, Piñero did not quote or cite or credit any reviews of my book at all, as a responsible scholar would do if he really was basing his opinions on those reviews. Indeed, a responsible historian would admit to his readers that he did not read my work at all and was simply blindly trusting other reviewers of it, were that the case. But we’ve already established Piñero won’t be honest about that. But even apart from that, a responsible historian would have directed his readers to the reviews he relied on, and have cited and quoted actual arguments from those reviews; not make up entirely new arguments even those reviews don’t contain, represent those new arguments as his own and not someone else’s, and then after being caught doing that, claim he got those new arguments “from reviews” he can still neither quote nor identify.

This is why historicity is a bankrupt position. It’s mostly only people like Piñero who really trouble to defend it anymore. A defensible position would not need to be defended with lies, errors, fallacies, and bluster. So the fact that that’s all they have, tells you who’s no longer tracking the truth in this debate. And all of this you can verify yourself: you can look at what Piñero said, and then read On the Historicity of Jesus and see for yourself how he is lying about its content, is wholly ignorant of its content, and is responding to none of its content. Then ask yourself why he needs to behave this way.

-:-

Piñero has since taken a stab at instead critiquing my pop-market summary, Jesus from Outer Space. See my article The Second Return of Piñero: A Sad Tale of a Man Who Can’t Read.