Adventures at the Society of Biblical Literature Conference, Part 2: Starting Out
The SBL national conference was massive. Held jointly with the AAR (the American Association of Religion) it occupied the entirety of the enormous Denver Convention Center and seven hotels, each with multiple floors filled with massive ballrooms the size of small...Adventures at the Society of Biblical Literature Conference, Part 1: The Westar Encounter
I attended the SBL conference in Denver this month and spent several days engrossed in observing panel presentations and voting on new motions for the Westar Institute. I’m a member of the SBL and a Westar fellow. But I’ve rarely been able to afford to...Catholic Apologist Eats Own Foot: Film at Eleven
One of the most insurmountable errors in the Bible, being both a historical inaccuracy and a contradiction, is the conflicting dates given to the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. This goof is so terrifying to Christians they have destroyed hundreds of trees and...From Raised to Revenants in the Ancient World
In honor of Halloween, here is a fun and informative sample of some weird things said and believed about the risen dead in the ancient world. Rising from the Dead? Always Creepy Tons of heroes, superheroes, gods, and lucky lads rose from the dead in ancient pagan...Killing Crankery with Bayesian Reasoning: The Kooky & Illogical Postflaviana Review
Joseph Atwill is a crank. His acolytes at Postflaviana are cranks. They are all conspiracy theory nutcases who prefer wildly, implausibly complex interpretations of history that insist Shakespeare was a black Jewish woman, the writers of Jane the Virgin may have...A Baptist Goofs His Reading of Tacitus and Suetonius
Reformed Baptist Josh Sommer has attempted to rebut my peer reviewed paper on the Testimonium Taciteum in Suetonius and Tacitus: Christians or Chrestians? The paper he is talking about is “The Prospect of a Christian Interpolation in Tacitus, Annals...How the Jehovah’s Witnesses Website Manipulates Readers on the Historicity of Jesus
I’ve been asked about it a lot. So here’s a handy guide to all the tricks pulled by the Jehovah’s Witnesses on their website (JW.org) aimed at fooling people into being sure some Jesus behind the Gospels really existed. I didn’t dive into the...Why Christians Are Terrified of Probability Theory
A few years ago Strange Notions published a strange editorial by statistics professor William Briggs, called Bayes Theorem Proves Jesus Existed (And That He Didn’t). I say strange, because it’s weirdly dishonest, incompetent, and irrational coming from someone...Five Bogus Reasons to Trust the Bible
Sean McDowell (yes, son of the Josh McDowell of Evidence That Demands a Verdict fame, now in a co-written new edition) has been Tweeting some eye-rolling propaganda to miseducate the public and keep conning Christians to stay in the fold. Just like all other fake...Exposing the Jesus Myth in Spanish!
Chilean scholar David Cáceres González is slowly translating select blogs of mine into Spanish. It’s pretty cool and well worth letting any Spanish speaking folks know about who might be interested. Spread the word! The site is Mitos o Historia. The translator...More Asscrankery from Tim O’Neill
I’ve already documented that the amateur rage blogger Tim O’Neill is a hack and a liar in the Gullibility of Bart Ehrman & the Asscrankery of Tim O’Neill. How he responded to being caught lying and screwing up basic facts of history illustrates...See Me Speak in Irvine Next Month!
In Irvine, California, on Wednesday August 8, I’ll be speaking on “How Christianity Began without a Real Jesus.” I’ll also be discussing what it was Christians in the beginning were actually dying for (when they even were; hint: it wasn’t...Then He Appeared to Over Five Hundred Brethren at Once!
Christian apologists will often throw a tantrum and kick up hay over the notion of “mass hallucination.” That’s impossible! Never documented! Absurd on its face! And they’ll especially bring up “the more than five hundred brethren”...So What About Caligula? How Do You Know HE Existed!?
It’s getting hilarious now. N.T. Wright himself, that total hack with no history degrees everyone praises as a great historian (and by “everyone” I mean Christian fundamentalists), has now declared: “Jesus is as well established as a figure of...A Test of Bayesian History: Efraim Wallach on Old Testament Studies
An interesting article has been published under peer review, which tests my concept (developed and argued in Proving History) that all historical reasoning is already in fact Bayesian (historians just don’t know it), by applying it to the analysis of a major...Get Dr. Carrier’s Latest!
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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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