My review of Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Jesus"

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Diogenes the Cynic
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Re: My review of Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Je

Post by Diogenes the Cynic »

MrMacSon wrote:Some people don't like Carrier's application of them.
The objections I've heard usually come from people who don't understand it.
Paul E.
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Re: My review of Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Je

Post by Paul E. »

Peter Kirby wrote:
MrMacSon wrote:Some people don't like Carriers application of them.
They should preface their comments with, "I realize that this has absolutely fuck-all to do with anything but a debate over definitions, but..."
I would generally agree, although it may make a difference when presenting a definition to a lay audience. I haven't read his book so I don't know how he presents it there, but I've seen a couple of his presentations on youtube, and in those, he presents Euhemerization as something that sounds as though it is common jargon in the field that has a set meaning that corresponds to a common religious trend in the first century. I don't know if he's using the term "properly" or not, or whether he is careful in the book to say he is using his own definition, or whatever. But if there is some debate in the field, or if he is using a somewhat idiosyncratic definition or something like that, but not explaining that to a lay audience, it could be seen as somewhat misleading, I suppose. Just a thought...

(BTW, I just registered after having lurked here for some time. Great work, all around. Your efforts are appreciated.)
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Re: My review of Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Je

Post by Peter Kirby »

Paul E. wrote:I would generally agree, although it may make a difference when presenting a definition to a lay audience. I haven't read his book so I don't know how he presents it there, but I've seen a couple of his presentations on youtube, and in those, he presents Euhemerization as something that sounds as though it is common jargon in the field that has a set meaning that corresponds to a common religious trend in the first century. I don't know if he's using the term "properly" or not, or whether he is careful in the book to say he is using his own definition, or whatever. But if there is some debate in the field, or if he is using a somewhat idiosyncratic definition or something like that, but not explaining that to a lay audience, it could be seen as somewhat misleading, I suppose. Just a thought...

(BTW, I just registered after having lurked here for some time. Great work, all around. Your efforts are appreciated.)
Seems like a fair point. I haven't really been watching his Youtube videos. Thanks for chiming in.
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Re: My review of Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Je

Post by cienfuegos »

maryhelena wrote:
GakuseiDon wrote:Richard Carrier has responded to my second question. I've quoted it below (my bolding):
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/arc ... 1#comments
  • You don’t seem to understand how words originate.

    People mean euhemerizing is historicizing because that is the only distinctive thing Euhemerus did. They don’t mean euhemerizing is rationalizing. Rationalizing is called rationalizing. It isn’t distinct to Euhemerus. Rationalizing the gods was already a popular thing before he came along (it was fundamental to the presocratic allegorists for example; the Epicureans even full on atomized them and turned them into ordinary space aliens). So atomizing gods wasn’t named after Euhemerus any more than rationalizing them was.

    What Euhemerus did that is distinctive to him and thus his name is how he rationalized the gods: not by allegorizing them (one of the other theories Plutarch rejects) nor by atomizing them, but by historicizing them. Consequently any historicizing of a God is doing what Euhemeris did. It does not matter how magical you make the historicizing. It’s still doing what Euhemerus did that was different from most everyone else enough to get attached to his name. And what his doing inspired others to do after him, some more magically than him, but that’s their own spin on the idea that came to be named after him. And it’s thus what was done to Romulus and Osiris, for example. Ahistorical deities, turned into historical ascended godmen. Jesus is just one more instance of that trend.

    There is no “mainstream” use of the term that excludes magically historicized gods like Romulus and Osiris. That’s something you are just making up out of nowhere, based on a linguistic convention that doesn’t exist, by selectively choosing which uses of the word to look at and which to ignore. Such anachronistic and over-fastidious use of language is a common Christian apologetics tactic, playing games with words to try and deny things they don’t want to be true, that I expose in OHJ (e.g. hyper-defining messiah so messianism didn’t exist before Christianity; hyper-defining resurrection so resurrection didn’t exist outside Judaism; and so on).

    There is no utility in that tactic. Semantics cannot change reality. And you need to deal with reality. Not fuss uselessly over what it is called.
I don't plan to respond back. Carrier's defining Euhemerizing as "Ahistorical deities, turned into historical ascended godmen. Jesus is just one more instance of that trend" is not correct, according to any definition that I am aware of. However, my criticism is more of a nitpick than a problem with his theory. Still, very strange he keeps getting the definition right ("gods are turned into historical men") and the application wrong ("gods are turned into historical ascended godman")
GDon, once one accepts as a premise of Euhemerism that it includes the notion that 'gods are turned into men' - then it is a quibble over details of what the character and history of that man was.

To my mind, it is Carrier's definition of Euhemerism that has to be challenged - ie. did Euhemerus state that the origin of the Olympian gods was in heaven? From what I've read it seems the position of Euhemerus was the opposite. i.e. the origin of the Olympian gods was earthly as mortal men.

Now, Carrier can, of course, use his own definition of Euhemerism - what he cannot do is deny the scholarly definition of Euhemerism - a definition that would allow historicist theories a greater place in his calculations than he would want. i.e. normal man Jesus deified after death - no need for his celestial Jesus historicized theory to account for the gospel story.
maryhelena and gdon: I just can't see why you keep beating this dead horse. It is very simple:

Zeus is worshiped as a celestial god, never existing as a human.
Euhemerus comes along and says, wait, there are no celestial gods, Zeus really did exist but was really just a great king deified (E. is wrong, though, Zeus doesn't actually exist as either god or man--neither god nor man, right?)
E. creates a biography for Zeus.


Carrier is saying: Jesus was worshiped first as a celestial god, never existing as a human.
Mark (or whoever) comes along and says, yes, Jesus is in heaven but he also came to earth at a point in real time as a human. (Mark is wrong, though, Jesus never existed as either a god or man--neither god nor man.)
Mark (or whoever) creates a biography for Jesus.

GDon is worried that people will think wow, Carrier makes a mistakes in that Mark, unlike Euhemerus, accepts the existence of Jesus as a God. maryhelena is correct, this is just trifling semantics and not a serious criticism.

The point is this:

In both cases, the celestial being was believed to exist, but did not.
In both cases, someone created a human biography to explain the contemporary belief in the celestial being.
In both cases, the being in question existed as neither god nor man (according to Zeus and Jesus mythicists)

I do think GDon has a point that Carrier's use of the term is more broad than usual (Mark believed Jesus was a god come to earth, not just an ordinary human like King Zeus). I am not sure that he has made his point that it disqualifies Carrier's use or that anyone will be turned off because they will immediately be turned off by his use of term that probably 99% of humanity does not know exists.

EDIT: I have understood maryhelena as confusing euhemerism with deification or apotheosis. I may have misread her, but her comment to GDon seems to sensing a weakening of his resolve on that point. Euhemerism is not: a historical person existed, his or her deeds glorified and exaggerated, and eventually the historical person is lost behind a process of deification that exalts the historical person to deity status.
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Re: My review of Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Je

Post by maryhelena »

cienfuegos wrote:
maryhelena wrote:
GakuseiDon wrote:Richard Carrier has responded to my second question. I've quoted it below (my bolding):
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/arc ... 1#comments
  • You don’t seem to understand how words originate.

    People mean euhemerizing is historicizing because that is the only distinctive thing Euhemerus did. They don’t mean euhemerizing is rationalizing. Rationalizing is called rationalizing. It isn’t distinct to Euhemerus. Rationalizing the gods was already a popular thing before he came along (it was fundamental to the presocratic allegorists for example; the Epicureans even full on atomized them and turned them into ordinary space aliens). So atomizing gods wasn’t named after Euhemerus any more than rationalizing them was.

    What Euhemerus did that is distinctive to him and thus his name is how he rationalized the gods: not by allegorizing them (one of the other theories Plutarch rejects) nor by atomizing them, but by historicizing them. Consequently any historicizing of a God is doing what Euhemeris did. It does not matter how magical you make the historicizing. It’s still doing what Euhemerus did that was different from most everyone else enough to get attached to his name. And what his doing inspired others to do after him, some more magically than him, but that’s their own spin on the idea that came to be named after him. And it’s thus what was done to Romulus and Osiris, for example. Ahistorical deities, turned into historical ascended godmen. Jesus is just one more instance of that trend.

    There is no “mainstream” use of the term that excludes magically historicized gods like Romulus and Osiris. That’s something you are just making up out of nowhere, based on a linguistic convention that doesn’t exist, by selectively choosing which uses of the word to look at and which to ignore. Such anachronistic and over-fastidious use of language is a common Christian apologetics tactic, playing games with words to try and deny things they don’t want to be true, that I expose in OHJ (e.g. hyper-defining messiah so messianism didn’t exist before Christianity; hyper-defining resurrection so resurrection didn’t exist outside Judaism; and so on).

    There is no utility in that tactic. Semantics cannot change reality. And you need to deal with reality. Not fuss uselessly over what it is called.
I don't plan to respond back. Carrier's defining Euhemerizing as "Ahistorical deities, turned into historical ascended godmen. Jesus is just one more instance of that trend" is not correct, according to any definition that I am aware of. However, my criticism is more of a nitpick than a problem with his theory. Still, very strange he keeps getting the definition right ("gods are turned into historical men") and the application wrong ("gods are turned into historical ascended godman")
GDon, once one accepts as a premise of Euhemerism that it includes the notion that 'gods are turned into men' - then it is a quibble over details of what the character and history of that man was.

To my mind, it is Carrier's definition of Euhemerism that has to be challenged - ie. did Euhemerus state that the origin of the Olympian gods was in heaven? From what I've read it seems the position of Euhemerus was the opposite. i.e. the origin of the Olympian gods was earthly as mortal men.

Now, Carrier can, of course, use his own definition of Euhemerism - what he cannot do is deny the scholarly definition of Euhemerism - a definition that would allow historicist theories a greater place in his calculations than he would want. i.e. normal man Jesus deified after death - no need for his celestial Jesus historicized theory to account for the gospel story.
maryhelena and gdon: I just can't see why you keep beating this dead horse. It is very simple:

Zeus is worshiped as a celestial god, never existing as a human.
Euhemerus comes along and says, wait, there are no celestial gods, Zeus really did exist but was really just a great king deified (E. is wrong, though, Zeus doesn't actually exist as either god or man--neither god nor man, right?)
E. creates a biography for Zeus.


Carrier is saying: Jesus was worshiped first as a celestial god, never existing as a human.
Mark (or whoever) comes along and says, yes, Jesus is in heaven but he also came to earth at a point in real time as a human. (Mark is wrong, though, Jesus never existed as either a god or man--neither god nor man.)
Mark (or whoever) creates a biography for Jesus.

GDon is worried that people will think wow, Carrier makes a mistakes in that Mark, unlike Euhemerus, accepts the existence of Jesus as a God. maryhelena is correct, this is just trifling semantics and not a serious criticism.

The point is this:

In both cases, the celestial being was believed to exist, but did not.
In both cases, someone created a human biography to explain the contemporary belief in the celestial being.
In both cases, the being in question existed as neither god nor man (according to Zeus and Jesus mythicists)

I do think GDon has a point that Carrier's use of the term is more broad than usual (Mark believed Jesus was a god come to earth, not just an ordinary human like King Zeus). I am not sure that he has made his point that it disqualifies Carrier's use or that anyone will be turned off because they will immediately be turned off by his use of term that probably 99% of humanity does not know exists.

EDIT: I have understood maryhelena as confusing euhemerism with deification or apotheosis. I may have misread her, but her comment to GDon seems to sensing a weakening of his resolve on that point. Euhemerism is not: a historical person existed, his or her deeds glorified and exaggerated, and eventually the historical person is lost behind a process of deification that exalts the historical person to deity status.
I'm not about to repeat arguments already made in this thread.

What Carrier needs to do is reference scholars who support his adaption of Euhemerism. Sure, he can reframe a theory so that it fits his own theory - but he needs to say that that is what he is doing. He has come close to this in a comment on his blog post on Euhemerism - referencing ''adaptive uses of what Euhemerus did''.

Why is this important? It's important because Carrier is proposing a theory of the ahistoricist/mythicist position that is itself questionable. Adding an 'adaptive use of what Euhemerus did' in order to support an already questionable theory adds confusion not clarity.
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Re: My review of Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Je

Post by GakuseiDon »

cienfuegos wrote:I do think GDon has a point that Carrier's use of the term is more broad than usual (Mark believed Jesus was a god come to earth, not just an ordinary human like King Zeus). I am not sure that he has made his point that it disqualifies Carrier's use or that anyone will be turned off because they will immediately be turned off by his use of term that probably 99% of humanity does not know exists.
Fair points. And as Peter Kirby pointed out, we are really only arguing over the definition of a word.

FYI: I'm planning to update my review to point to Carrier's explanation of his use of Euhemerism, as well as his comments on Tim Hendrix's critique on Carrier's use of BT, plus Peter Kirby's critique of my comments on adding Moses and OT Josephus into the historical side of the R-R scale.
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Re: My review of Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Je

Post by Dana Zikas »

MrMacSon wrote:
maryhelena wrote: Your mistaken
No, I'm not.
maryhelena wrote: - that is the whole point of Euhemerus - the origin of the Olympian gods was earthly - whether you want to say that origin was legend or history. The theory of Euhemerus regarding the Olympian gods is that their origin was earthly.
Yes, Euhemerus portrayed them as 'earthy' (for want of a better term).

But, previously, prior to Euhemerus, they were not portrayed as earthy.
maryhelena wrote:That is the direct opposite to what is the theory of Carrier. Carrier maintains that his Christ figure was of celestial origin prior to being historicized as the gospel JC ...
That is euhermism (aka euhemerization) -
  • "being historicized as the gospel JC" = euhemerization


Yes! Guiseppe and MrMacSon are right. Gdon and maryhelena are wrong!

Euhemerus' intentions and whatnot ARE NOT what euhemerizing IS. Euhemerizing is taking a god and CREATING an earthly narrative---
FOR WHATEVER REASON! UGH!!!!
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Re: My review of Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Je

Post by iskander »

Yes! Guiseppe and MrMacSon are right. Gdon and maryhelena are wrong!

Euhemerus' intentions and whatnot ARE NOT what euhemerizing IS. Euhemerizing is taking a god and CREATING an earthly narrative---
FOR WHATEVER REASON! UGH!!!!
We know next to nothing about Euhemerus . Only a visionary could find Euhemerus helpful for anything at all.
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Re: My review of Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Je

Post by MrMacSon »

Dana ikas wrote:
Yes! Guiseppe and MrMacSon are right. GDon and maryhelena are wrong!

Euhemerus' intentions and whatnot ARE NOT what euhemerizing IS. Euhemerizing is taking a god and CREATING an earthly narrative ---
  • FOR WHATEVER REASON! UGH!!!!
iskander wrote:We know next to nothing about Euhemerus . Only a visionary could find Euhemerus helpful for anything at all.
The perception is that Euhemerus wrote about gods as men, for whatever reason (eg. Zeus and Uranus).

That is, he anthropomorphized Gods ie. gave them human characteristics.
  • (Many things have been anthropomorphized in literature throughout history: trees, animals, robots, etc.)
'euhemerization' and 'euhemerism' are the terms given to this type of anthropomorphism ie. anthropomorphizing Gods.

Carrier proposes that the Pauline 'Christ' was a celestial one, and that the Synoptics reflect anthropomorphization of that celestial Christ as Jesus.

ie. the Synoptics reflect euhemerization of a celestial Christ as having human characteristics as Jesus.

This is also reflected in various texts such as Adversus Marcion and Against Heresies, as well as the Arian controversy first dealt with at the Council of Nicea.
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Re: My review of Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Je

Post by iskander »

It is impossible to think of gods without making them behave like men.
Is the book explaining the writings of Euhemerius?
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