James Tabor and the Mainstream Paul
James Tabor recently wrote two guest posts on Bart Ehrman’s blog in preparation for an academic conference on the historical Paul. One is better than the other, but both are illustrative of everything right and wrong about biblical studies as a...Baptism: It’s Pagan, Guys. Get Over It.
A very helpful patron just bought me an expensive but crucial new book on the origins of Christian baptism: Donghyun Jeong’s Pauline Baptism among the Mysteries: Ritual Messages and the Promise of Initiation (De Gruyter, 2023). It establishes what we have long...Please Help Get Me Some Fast Work to Buy a Home!
My family has been hit with the need to buy a house six months earlier than our financial plan, because our rental home is being sold. We may have to move within sixty days even. Which means we need cash for closing costs, stat! There are various ways you can help...Why I Think Theology Is Ridiculous: A Look at Thomas Ward’s Ideas about Divine Ideas
Baylor Theologian Thomas Ward has published and promoted a nice little book on an obscure niche of metaphysical theology called Divine Ideas. Ordinarily I wouldn’t waste a minute on this (because usually intersectarian debate is my idea of wasted lifespan). But...The Argument from Non-Locality
It is common to just assume God is timeless and spaceless. But I aver that’s logically impossible. You Have to Exist Somewhere to Exist at All If God has no location, then by definition there is no location at which God exists. And if there is no location at...That Phenomenally Stupid Article by Bill Cooke
The Center for Inquiry is clearly in sad decline. They just published a wildly incompetent article on Jesus mythicism by Bill Cooke, “Five Challenges to Christ Myth Theorists,” in their magazine Free Inquiry (44.5, August/September 2024). It was pretty...James Valliant’s Bogus Theory of a Roman Invention of Christianity
It took me a long time to suffer through Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity by James Valliant and Warren Fahy. But my verdict is now in. Its thesis is bogus. Its method of argument is tediously amateurish. And its only significant evidence...Epiphanius Is Hosed (And Other Things to Know about the Library of Alexandria)
What happened to the great and famed Library of Alexandria? There are many assertions. All are weak tea. The evidence never pans out as those making these assertions imply. So the most honest answer is the most frustrating one of all: “We really don’t...All the Fantastical Things in the Gospel according to Mark
I’ve often noted that even the very first Gospel we know of (the one eventually source-credited to someone named Mark), despite often being described as the least fantastical or the most mundane narrative of Jesus, is in fact wildly fantastical, and does not...How Far Left Is Too Left?
I’m a hardcore lefty. I still encounter people surprised by that. But I also often get asked how far is too far. Today I’ll paint that out for you. This will explain how far left I go—and why I don’t go further, and neither should anyone. At...Behold Babylon USA!
No. This isn’t an article about the U.S. Supreme Court allowing Presidents to break the law (you can find my thoughts on that here and here). Nor is it about that cute little town in southern New York. Rather, this is an article about How We Are All...Myths & Legends of the Christian Catacombs
While working on other projects, it came to my attention that there are still a lot of myths and legends circulating about the so-called “Christian catacombs” under the city of Rome (or rather, under its suburbs, as cemeteries within the proper city walls...Debunking John Davidson’s “Pagan” America
Did you know we’re all pagans? That’s right. America is majority pagan. We worship Ishtar and the Onion God and have cool-ass pagan festivals featuring palm fronds and sacred orgies. Public feasts in every town distribute meat and mead, blessed by pagan...Did Paul Write Philemon?
The mainstream consensus is that only seven letters of the thirteen attributed to Paul in the New Testament are authentic: 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, Romans, Philippians, Galatians…and Philemon; while the rest are either forgeries (Ephesians,...Was Daniel Dennett Wrong in Creative Ways?
The great cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett passed away this year. And shortly after, Cameron Bertuzzi interviewed a Christian apologist, Bob Stewart, on his channel Capturing Christianity, regarding “Daniel Dennett’s Philosophical...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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