There Is No Logically Sound Case Against Interpolation in 1 Thessalonians 2
In the extant text of 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul is made to say: For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: you suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the...The Incompetent Crankery of the Israel Only Movement
There is a strange little fringe movement, including in its ranks even atheists and other nonbelievers, that attempts to make the bizarre argument that Christians should abandon their religion because “the Bible” says the entire Christian gospel concluded...The Bible Actually Permits Abortion and Condemns Homosexuality
There are two common modern myths about the Bible, one conservative, the other liberal. The liberal myth is that the Bible never condemns homosexuality. In fact it clearly does, both in the Old Testament and the New. The conservative myth is that the Bible condemns...New Testament Studies for Everyone: Join This Quick & Valuable Course Online!
No matter the time of year, either Easter or Christmas or some other Holy Day is coming! Learn how to critically examine the Book that these celebrations almost loosely aren’t based on. The best fake news ever. Master how to debate and understand the Christian...Establishing the Biblical Literalism of Early Christians
Usually I don’t have to argue this because it’s obvious. But there are a few who have attempted to contend that early Christians—say, before the fourth century—never took the Gospels as factually true reports of events but only as allegorical...Adam’s Burial in Outer Space
In On the Historicity of Jesus I cite the Revelation of Moses establishing not only that Jewish lore held that the Garden of Eden was located in outer space (roughly in the vicinity of, if not in fact on, Venus or the Sun, depending on which geocentric scheme they...Open Thread On the Historicity of Jesus
Upon request I am creating an open thread here for any continued scholarly Q&A on my book On the Historicity of Jesus (published under peer review by Sheffield-Phoenix) and its thesis—that at best there is only (but still possibly as much as) a 1 in 3 chance...N.T. Wright Demonstrates the Bankruptcy of Christian Apologetics in Under Nine Minutes
On the Ask NT Wright Anything show, Justin Brierley recently read a write-in question that challenged Anglican apologist N.T. Wright on a claim he’s made that I’ve thoroughly debunked: his claim that women would never be invented by the author of Mark as...Is Jesus Wholly or Only Partly a Myth? The Carrier-MacDonald Exchange
Last year Dennis MacDonald and I had a moderated conversation on the PineCreek channel regarding the plausibility of Jesus never really being a person in history. MacDonald is famous for proposing the Gospels construct myths about Jesus partly from Homeric and other...There Are No Undesigned Coincidences: The Bible’s Authors Are Simply Changing Up Their Sources
Years ago Christian apologist Lydia McGrew resurrected a long dead argument in Biblical studies, called the Argument from Undesigned Coincidences, particularly in her book Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts. The gist is that we can...Why Did Mark Invent an Empty Tomb?
I have written on this question in many different places. Here I collect excerpts from, or summarize, several of the most important. You’ll find further material and expanded arguments, with evidence and footnotes and cited scholarship, in my contributions to The...Come See Marketing the Messiah!
I’m one of several luminaries interviewed for this new, amusing, and fascinating documentary about the origins and development of Christianity and how much it was about marketing different fictional versions of the Christ (whether Jesus existed or not). Details...What Did Paul Mean in Romans 1:3?
Tim O’Neill is at it again, on Twitter this time, making false claims about my work, and about the Epistles of Paul. The item of contention again is my proposal that when Paul said Jesus was “made from the sperm of David” (which is literally what...Mark’s Use of Paul’s Epistles
Many studies have argued the Gospel that came to be labeled “according to Mark” based some of its content on the Epistles of Paul. Here I’ll discuss this scholarship and its evidence. “Mark” is of course the earliest Gospel we have any...This Is How We Know Christianity Is a Delusion
In researching another article I came across an old piece by Mark McIntyre. On his blog Attempts at Honesty, back in 2011, he wrote a brief piece dismissing New Atheism with the argument that “their unbelief is not due to the lack of evidence but the suppression...Get Dr. Carrier’s Latest!
About the Author
Richard Carrier is the author of many books and numerous articles online and in print. His avid readers span the world from Hong Kong to Poland. With a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University, he specializes in the modern philosophy of naturalism and humanism, and the origins of Christianity and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, with particular expertise in ancient philosophy, science and technology. He is also a noted defender of scientific and moral realism, Bayesian reasoning, and historical methods.
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