Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Let's assume that we're leaving aside general philosophical questions here... right? We're not asking whether we're brains in vats or something. The evidence for ancient Christianity comes in two flavors: literary and documentary. That's it. You've got your books and you got your relics. That's what...

GakuseiDon wrote:More than one person has remarked that Carrier should have used BT on non-controversial questions of history, to build up a body of work that scholars can reference to gain confidence in BT's applicability. Then, only after that, use it on controversial questions.

That's a good point.

In fact, I believe that BT could be used to examine whether Paul's Jesus is 'earthly' or 'celestial'. Consider the following thought experiment: Prior Probability: reference class of people 'made of sperm' and 'made of woman' who were regarded as earthly or celestial, using the literature written a...

Peter, thanks for comments. The only problem here is that you don't seem to understand the concept of " a fortiori ." The whole point of it is to grant less-than-fully-reasonable premises in favor of the opposite conclusion and then make an estimate that way. When that estimate comes back...

I don't see any evidence in Paul or other early writings, either Christian or pagan, for the idea of a celestial being getting incarnated ('into flesh') and killed above the earth. There are three components of this: 1) "Celestial" being 2) Getting "incarnated" 3) "Killed a...

At this end point, let me emphasize here something I mentioned in my 'Review' section above: Carrier has blazed a trail here that I believe needs to be followed. He has spelt out the elements that he has used in developing his theory, and this makes it easy to engage his work. I'd like to encourage...

If Acts is a wholesale fabrication, however, written in total ignorance of what may have actually happened, then Acts might afford no evidence for either historicity or myth. This may explain Carrier's fairly cold reception of the hypothesis that the Acts of the Apostles were written post-Marcion, ...

Carrier finds the lack of interest in details of a historical Jesus -- Paul doesn't mention Galilee or Nazareth, Pilate, Mary, Joseph, nothing about the miracles Jesus did nor details about Jesus' life -- as 'unexpected, infrequent and improbable'. But Carrier has not looked at the wider literature...

In fact, I believe that BT could be used to examine whether Paul's Jesus is 'earthly' or 'celestial'. Consider the following thought experiment: Prior Probability: reference class of people 'made of sperm' and 'made of woman' who were regarded as earthly or celestial, using the literature written a...

So, is BT useful for calculating a probability on the historicity or ahistoricity of Jesus? I honestly don't know. I'm not sure how useful a collation of online "reviews" (about the use of math in Carrier's books) is. The honesty is appreciated, but it also shows that the neither the othe...