I have updated my course on Questioning or Defending the Historicity of Jesus to account for the reception it’s had this past year. And now I’m offering it again over the course of June, which means this new class starts under two weeks from now (details and registration here).

Description:

This course discusses the best arguments for and against the historical existence of Jesus (as the putative founder of Christianity), and we will proceed step-by-step through ways to approach them and evaluate them. Working from the first peer reviewed academic book extensively arguing Jesus might not have existed, taught by the author himself, you will learn how to distinguish good arguments from bad, and about the background and context of the origins of Christianity as a whole.

This is the best opportunity to ask Dr. Carrier, who holds a PhD in ancient history from Columbia University, all your questions about his controversial research and the historical(?) figure of Jesus. Main issues to cover: understanding the complex background to the origins of Christianity (unit 1, OHJ chs. 4, 5, & 7); comparing the competing theories of how and why Christianity began (unit 2, OHJ chs. 1, 2, & 3); understanding the Gospels and Acts as mythology and whether historical facts about Jesus can be extracted from them (unit 3, OHJ chs. 6, 9, & 10); and exploring the arguments for and against evidence for a historical Jesus in the authentic Epistles of Paul and literature outside the New Testament (unit 4, OHJ chs. 8, 11, & 12).

Also included will be discussion and examination of responses to Dr. Carrier’s book since its publication, a task that had not been possible in prior offerings of this course.

The required course text we will be working through chapter by chapter is On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, although I will be providing additional readings for free (such as from defenders of historicity). You should order OHJ now if you want to work from a print edition (although e-formats are available).

Be aware that although the audio edition of OHJ is complete, it incorporates footnote commentary into the main text (and verbally describes diagrams and tables), so it won’t whisper-connect with kindle. You have to manually match up audio sections with locations in the book. In the audio, each book chapter and section is stated out loud, so you can always re-find your place from there, but the audio chaptering couldn’t be made to line up with all of those. This is inconvenient, but programmers for the whisper feature just didn’t consider the book technology used in scholarship when they designed it.