Just some random stuff today:
- I’ve lost track of all the many pods and vids in which I’m interviewed or featured. But I shall try to link to more of them in notes like this as they come up. Anyone who knows of others from this year, please add them in comments.
- Kim Ellington conducted a great interview with me on my historicity of Jesus research, and a little on the intersection of history, philosophy, methodology, and epistemology, for The Humanist Hour (Episode 161).
- Related to that and expanding on it is my interview by a renowned Jewish creationist and biblical literalist, Nehemia Gordon, in episode 13 of his show Hebrew Voices. I help him “sort out the genuine pagan influences on Christmas, from modern-day myths” that often stem from “dodgy scholarship.” We touch on Tammuz & Inanna, Isis & Osiris, Mithra, and discuss ancient comments by Philo, Justin, Plutarch, Euhemerus, Plato and more.
- I spoke at a rally on the capitol steps of Boise, Idaho for this year’s National Day of Reason, on behalf of the Treasure Valley Coalition of Reason. The video is now available (and I have provided a rough transcript here). My speech is an amusing and rousing demonstration that our Christian legislators are simultaneously trying to outlaw Sharia Law and enact Sharia Law—and don’t know how democracy works, or the point of the Constitution, or that what they are doing is precisely what the Founding Fathers feared and denounced.
- It’s well known that Luke used Josephus as a color source for his Gospel and Acts (see bibliography in OHJ, pp. 267, n. 26; and my summary of only some of the evidence here). In a new article, Lena Einhorn extensively collects even more evidence & bibliography on this (so those interested in that subject will find a lot of use there). But she discusses it in the context of her defense of a separate thesis: that Jesus was actually crucified under Claudius in the 40s, not under Tiberius in the 30s. This will be of interest to those who noticed that I document that there actually were early Christians who thought that (OHJ, Ch. 8.1). Of course, Einhorn’s thesis doesn’t argue for an actual crucifixion (she is presuming that it was an actual event), and as such it just as well supports the fact of Christian disagreement over when to place that event (and possibly the existence of lost Gospels that did).
Somewhat off-topic. I have a question but I was thinking it would be easier to layout this way than to try to ask outright. Anyway, given that Luke and Josephus have much in common, and given that the TF seems to be inspired by Luke’s gospel, we have the following possibilities to account for this: (1) Josephus and Luke both used a common source. (2) Josephus used Luke (listed only for the sake of logical possibility). (3) Luke used Josephus AND a later forger used Luke’s gospel to create the TF (and coincidentally used Luke instead of using Mark, Matthew, John, Paul’s letters or creating the passage de novo). Option three seems like the most ad-hoc and improbable one up there. GJ Goldberg has suggested the common source option and has some arguments for it, and I think I am bound to agree. However, he also argues that this prior source was written by a Christian hand. Anyway, what do you think about that hypothesis?
(1) Violates Occam’s Razor. The common source problem doesn’t explain Luke’s mistakes, some of which are based on peculiar decisions of order made by Josephus. Plus, that theory requires positing an additional unknown entity: a third unevidenced document. Which also by remarkable coincidence has all the same material shared between Luke and Josephus (why should there be so much in Luke that is also in Josephus?). So it’s prior is low as a hypothesis. It requires too many ad hoc assumptions.
(3) Is not ad hoc. You have invalidity merged three separate hypotheses in order to claim it’s one complex hypothesis. That’s dirty pool logic-wise. They are completely separate hypotheses. The TF status as forged was established separately (no one knew it derived from Luke), and it is internally obviously a Christian invention (that’s not an ad hoc assumption; the probability Josephus wrote the TF as-is is virtually zero from internal evidence alone). The reliance of Luke on Josephus was also established separately, on separate evidence, which excluded the TF by prior proof (not by ad hoc assumption). Then, after that happened, the dependence of the TF on Luke was discovered separately. The interpretation of that discovery must take into account what has been previously proved (Luke’s reliance on Josephus and the TF not being by Josephus).
That third hypothesis then lends itself to the trifold question: (1) Did Josephus (or whoever) use a different Gospel than Luke but which Luke used? (2) Did Luke derive his Gospel from the TF in Josephus? (No matter who wrote the TF) or (3) Did someone insert the TF using Luke as guideline?
(1) Is far too ad hoc (too many improbable and unevidenced assumptions). It is so obviously dependent on Luke, that we do not need to posit an imaginary and conveniently-similar third document to explain its content. (2) Is too improbable on two counts: (a) Luke’s account is far too complex to have been based on the outline of the TF, because its order of events follows from his fleshed out narrative that links to his whole Gospel; whereas the TF author far more evidently has just taken bullet points from Luke and kept them in the same order, while leaving a lot out that doesn’t make any sense to anyone who hadn’t already read a Gospel—that is, we can explain that order in Luke as resulting from his narrative structure, and his structure makes sense of everything on the list; we can’t explain that order in the TF by any other means than supposing it’s a bullet list stripped from Luke’s narrative (because there is no other reason for that order to be so consistently replicated there, and the elements make little sense in the absence of Luke’s fuller narrative). And (b) the vocabulary of the TF is more Lucan than Josephan (or anything else), which is less probable on any other hypothesis than influence from Luke.
That leaves (3).
Good stuff there. I really liked the paper by Einhorn. I was an ahistoricist before finding your work, and since running into it I’m pretty much on the line between simple ahistoricism and mythicism. At this point, I think positions like hers are the best bet the historicist has — “The reason you can’t find Jesus is that you’re looking in the wrong place.” I’d love to see a similar examination of the idea that he existed a century earlier, under King Alexander Janius. Of course, arguments like that from historicists don’t help the theists very much …
The Nehemia interview was great. It had the feeling to me of a case study in the intended effect of the outsider test of faith. He of course is not invested in Christianity to start with and despite having strong related beliefs, as he interjects during the interview, he is quite happy to analyze it as an outsider. Refreshing indeed.
Dr Carrier
can you recommend any books or youtube videos which explain and critique criterion’s such as
multiple attestation
criteria of embarrassment
criteria of dissimilarity
thanks
I give a full treatment, with cited bibliography of scholarship on those very criteria, in Proving History.
Hi Richard
Quick question on Hell! I know, not the cheeriest of topics, but you’re one of few I trust on these issues.
Why is the Valley of Hinnom/Gehanna considered the destination of the wicked in the Bible?
I have only found that Pagans were worshiping the god Moloch here and the Jews didn’t like this so cheerily they slandered this area.
Thanks!
Jon
Side Question: Do you ever think the Christians could be right about Hell?
I haven’t investigated that specific question. But the place to start is Alan Segal’s Life After Death.
P.S. No.