The Global Center for Religious Research (GCRR) is hosting the 2021 International eConference on the Historical Jesus next month, July 24–25. I will be among the presenters. Registration is super affordable, only $15. Which is even discounted for GCRR members (a continuing perk of membership).
The two-day all-online conference is open to believers and nonbelievers. As they put it, “the purpose of this multidisciplinary virtual conference is to advance the socio-political, historical, hermeneutical, and philosophical understanding of the historical Jesus” by providing “an interdisciplinary platform for scholars, educators, and practitioners to present their research to international audiences from all different backgrounds.” GCRR is hosting this event “in order to shed more light on the varieties of Jesus mythicism in the hope that future researchers will not only comprehend (and perhaps empathize with) certain lines of reasoning, but they will also possess a more nuanced discernment of where they agree and disagree with some of the positions presented at this event.” And “because the conference is held online, scholars and students can attend from the comfort and safety of their own home at lower costs without having to worry about travel and lodging expenses.”
I will be presenting at 6pm (PST; though the conference schedule is in Mountain Time, so it lists my talk starting at 7pm accordingly) on Saturday the 24th, “Historicity: Dogma or Hypothesis, a Comparison of Methods.” I’ll survey the differences in methodological approach between a sound historical discernment of the truth in any historical claim (using the historicity of Jesus as an example) and apologetic or dogmatic defenses of a pre-chosen conclusion (whether it’s historicity or mythicism), and then run a Q&A. There will be an associated “handout” for my talk that I will put a link to in here once the conference begins.
Follow the conference link for more details; including full speaker list, schedule, and registration. More names may be added but already who’s on the schedule is worth watching:
- John Loftus, former protege of William Lane Craig, will survey the mainstream position that the Gospel Jesus is definitely a myth (a position with which even Bart Ehrman agrees, as do most bona fide Jesus scholars who aren’t fanatics or fundamentalists). Loftus I expect will do a solid job on that point.
- Tim Freke, an infamous amateur (and somewhat woo) Jesus mythicist, will say something on Jesus as a parable, which sounds like a position that also has mainstream support from historicists (e.g. John Crossan’s The Power of Parable) and mythicists (e.g. Thomas Brodie’s Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus). But I do not know what to expect from this. Freke is generally a crank, and some of his methodology in his published work will come under fire in my presentation (even if I don’t name him specifically).
- Frank Zindler will (I think) survey his usual position on rethinking the paradigm in this issue, which is generally well formulated, and comes from the perspective of a life-long scientific methodology expert from which historians have much to learn. It will probably be well worth reviewing; I tend to agree with it, even if not with his every argument outside of general principles.
- David Fitzgerald will speak on “Why Mythicism Matters,” and as, in effect, a journalist who has researched exactly that question more than anyone, he’ll certainly have interesting things to say on the matter.
- David Madison’s talk is titled “Theology Inflation and the Disappearance of Jesus,” and as he has a PhD in Biblical Studies, I expect this will usefully survey the very real fact that what even mainstream historians claim we can know about the historical Jesus has actually been steadily shrinking the last several decades, to now almost nothing in some cases (e.g. Dennis MacDonald thinks very little can be known at all, and Hector Avalos ended up even a historicity agnostic).
- Derek Bennett, well-known author of Addictus, will speak on “Resurrection and Apotheosis in Pre-Christian Antiquity,” which would only address the historicity of the resurrection, not the man, but I am keen to see how well he covers the subject (there is a lot that could be covered; the subject has been well treated by mainstream experts from Ava Chitwood to Richard Miller and of course myself).
They will all be running Q&A’s with the audience. So register now and come check this all out!
Your talk will be too late for me to watch live. Will it be recorded?
Thanks for the summary of who is who. It is very helpful.
I believe so but I don’t know if it will be public. I’ll ask. I can’t recall if the last year’s conference videos were only available to GCRR members, or registered attendees, or the general public.
According to the GCRR website, registered attendees will receive videos of all presentations.
Yes, GCRR says: “Each presentation will be recorded and given to all attendees free of charge. Those who do not purchase a ticket to the conference will be able to purchase a video subscription afterwards from GCRR so they can see the presentation recordings. However, only ticket-holders will be able to download the video files. The later subscribers will have to watch the presentations solely through the GCRR website.” Also, such archived video last time took a while in production (a month or two I think).
I just registered, and the registration fee is now US$15
I’m not sure what you mean. It was always $15 US. Did you catch a typo somewhere? (Let me know)
This sounds great. I will happily attend.
Any chance of adding, say, Dr. Robert M. Price and/or Dr. Raphael Lataster?
I assume they asked them (and many others) and got who they got. I don’t know. I’m just a speaker; I didn’t organize this conference.
Will Bart Ehrman guest?
Obviously not.
Registered, done! Thanks for informing us about this. Sounds very interesting.
I am a doctor, can some one stop and explain how Jesus was born from a virgin or how he raised the dead after 3 days after the cells died and the blood coagulated. It is not a coincidence that Angels and visions are not common since Psychiatry came to existence in early 1900 century
Note that the historicity theories that will most likely be discussed at this conference have nothing to do with Gospel mythology. No mainstream scholar believes Jesus was born of a virgin or rose from the dead. They all agree those are myths. The debate is whether behind the myths there is still some ordinary, mundane man, to whom those myths were later attached, or whether there never was even that.
Hi Dr Carrier, I can not help but accepting Dr Atwill theory in the Caesar’s Messiah. Otherwise, why are there many parallels between Jesus TRIUMPHANT entry into Jesuralem, Jesus and the fruit tree, sending an envoy to Jesuralem before the entry, Stones crying, destroying the temple and the thiefs…and TITUS. TOO many coincidental small details. who copied whom?…… thank you
That’s a fallacy of retrofitting. It’s an undisciplined seeing of anything in anything else even remotely similar. This can be done between any two texts in the world of sufficient word count. It therefore signifies nothing.
You need to employ a disciplined method of discerning when parallels are actually causally related, and when they are just due to common ways to describe similar things.
Moreover, any theory of why some content exists, must be compared to alternative theories of that content. And we already have far more excellent and provable explanations for the invention of the triumphal entry and its every detail. None of which has anything to do with the ubiquitous but completely unrelated Roman ritual of triumphal procession, much less a specific one (there were literally hundreds of such processions over hundreds of years under Rome).
To see what that story is actually based on, see my discussion of it and related scholarship in the peer reviewed On the Historicity of Jesus. Don’t ignore that in favor of incompetent amateur cranks making shit up.
And Atwill is indeed an incompetent, tinfoil-hat-wearing crank. See Atwill’s Cranked-up Jesus and Killing Crankery with Bayesian Reasoning: The Kooky & Illogical Postflaviana Review. Don’t be duped by his nonsense.
That’s not only tinfoil hat (it ignore alternative explanations of the evidence and is based on stretching the evidence implausibly), it’s also a non sequitur. Even if Mark intended that material parallel, it in no way supports Atwill’s thesis. For a sane and not lunatic use of such arguments, see the works by R.G. Price on the Gospel allegory of Mark thesis (e.g. Deciphering the Gospels). Meanwhile, see how Atwill’s methods are bogus and his grand theory not credible in Atwill’s Cranked-up Jesus.
If you want to understand the actual politics of this, you have to understand the actual politics of Christianity and Judaism at the time. See my survey of that context in Ch. 5 of On the Historicity of Jesus.
And remember that Mark, Luke, and John are all Gentile-faction attacks on Jewish (Torah-observant) Christianity after thhe Jewish War endeed Jewish treaty arrangements and goodwill with Rome. Matthew is an attempt to respond by that faction, but even he has to come up with some way to answer their point that Jews are now enemies of the state (so why be Jewish?). Once you understand all that (and the context per above), everything in the Gospels makes sense.
Before the War, there were even more obvious reasons for Paul to want to unify the Gentile and Jewish groups and get away from Jewish tendencies toward political violence. This is all explained in OHJ. None of this requires ridiculous unevidenced conspiracy theories contrary to all logic and evidence. See my article on Atwill for more on that point.
If Atwill or Price think they have any actual argument, let them act the proper scholar and get it passed peer review in the field. I did it. So they have no excuse—but for their case simply not making the cake.
Will you be doing any book signings or appearances in 2022?
Possibly. I really don’t know at this time.
But if I do, all in-person appearances will be announced in advance here on my blog and all my social media (Twitter and Facebook).
And I’m far more likely to if appearances are funded. In other words, if some person or group (or several working together pooling resources) pays my travel expenses and modest appearance fee. So I encourage anyone interested to lobby or fundraise for this.