Galatians 1:19, Ancient Grammar, and How to Evaluate Expert Testimony
In Sense and Goodness without God I discuss the evidence ladder (section II.3): reason (logic and mathematics), empirical science, personal experience, historical facts, expert testimony, plausible inference, and pure faith. I show that faith is too unreliable to have...Reading Josephus on James: On Valliant Flunking Literary Theory
History as a field is primarily dependent on literary theory (at least the kind following historical models rather than aesthetic), because most evidence relevant to reconstructing history is textual, and the most crucial category of textual evidence is works of...Rome vs. China: What Made the Difference?
It’s often asked, why did the Scientific Revolution occur only in Europe and not China? By which I shall here mean what I explain in my book The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire as the normalization of effective scientific methods across (at least literate)...A Trivial Digression on the Crucifixion of Prometheus
Before the rise of Christianity, indeed even before Christianity adopted a crucifix as a symbol (which didn’t happen for at least one and probably two or three centuries after it began), there was a well-known painting in antiquity depicting the god...Doing the Math: Historicity of Jesus Edition
I am a Bayesian epistemologist. And in line with the independent findings of the philosopher of history Aviezer Tucker, I developed and applied under peer review a way to model historical reasoning with Bayes’ Theorem (method, in Proving History; application, in...Debating the Authenticity of Daniel: Methodological Analysis of Sheffield’s Case
I shall here critically analyze Jonathan Sheffield’s new attempt to defend the authenticity of Daniel (which I published Saturday). We’ll then discuss it on MythVision this October 2 (10am PST / 1pm EST). Thoughtful or constructive comments are strongly...Debating the Authenticity of Daniel: A Discussion with Jonathan Sheffield
In May I published How We Know Daniel Is a Forgery and discussed a debate on the topic involving my Anglican friend Jonathan Sheffield, who has now produced an attempt at a rebuttal, his best case for Daniel being authentic after all. We have arranged to engage a...The Second Return of Piñero: A Sad Tale of a Man Who Can’t Read
Antonio Piñero, the Spanish language clone of Bart Ehrman, has tried taking a stab at critiquing my book Jesus from Outer Space, after still never having read On the Historicity of Jesus. I don’t think I’ll bother addressing the monotonous entirety of his...Why A Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism Is Probably True
I have written a few times on my worldview as a whole—my “philosophy of life.” To be viable I believe any worldview must consist of a complete, consilient, coherent, evidence-based account of the six foundations of knowledge: epistemology (which...Jesus and the Problem of the Fraudulent Reference Class
Several students and patrons have lately asked me a similar question. Apparently the new fad is for Christians to go around insisting Jesus is so historically unique that he cannot be subsumed under any other reference class by which to estimate any prior odds on any...The GCRR eConference on the Historical Jesus: A Retrospective
Last weekend the Global Center for Religious Research hosted a plethora of live online talks from various scholars and enthusiasts on the subject of the historical Jesus (myself included), mostly from the position of doubt. They ranged from the crank to the superb,...How Do We Know the Apostle Paul Wrote His Epistles in the 50s A.D.?
I’ve been asked this question enough that it warrants its own article to bookmark: why are we so sure Paul’s Epistles were written in the 50s A.D.? Because his letters rarely mention any datable fact, could fit many different periods of history, and have...Mark Goodacre on the Historicity of Jesus’s Execution
In the chapter “Prophecy Historicized or Tradition Scripturalized? Reflections on the Origin of the Passion Narratives” in New Testament and the Church (T&T Clark 2015), Mark Goodacre examines the question still debated in mainstream New Testament...Ehrman on Historicity Recap
This is a summary of the current state of the debate after the mini blog war between myself and Bart Ehrman over his latest book, Did Jesus Exist?, which attempted to argue against various scholars (both legitimate and crank) who have concluded, or at least suspect,...Postgame on My Pastor Damon Richardson Debate
Yesterday I debated Pastor Damon Richardson, “the Urban Apologist,” on the Dagger Squad Show (18 June 2021). The topic: “Did Jesus Exist?” You can still purchase access to view the archived video of it by emailing a request to the host Brother...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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