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Index to Carrier Posts here

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:29 pm
by Kapyong
Gday all,

For ease of reference, here is my index of Carrier quotes that I have posted here :

Carrier's minimal Jesus theories (mythical and historical) :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&start=130#p14503

Carrier's Background Elements to Christianity :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&p=14642#p14642

Carrier's Background Context to Christianity :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&p=14925#p14925

Carrier on The Sperm of David :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&start=130#p14498

Carrier on Born of Woman :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&start=130#p14501

Carrier on the Ascension of Isaiah :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&start=140#p14513

Carrier on Jesus ben Ananias as model for Jesus Christ :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&start=170#p14586

Carrier on 1st C. CE Messianism (and four 'Jesus Christ's) :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&p=14594#p14594

Carrier on Brother of the Lord :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&p=14620#p14618

Carrier on the structure of the Sermon of the Mount :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&start=240#p14784

Carrier on Pliny and Tacitus :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&p=14793#p14793

Carrier on Acts as Historical Fiction :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&start=310#p14912

Carrier on the Mystery Cults :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&p=14920#p14920

Carrier on Hebrews 8:1-5 :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&start=430#p15314

Carrier on The Logos son-of-God called Jesus
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=687&p=15411#p15410


Updated :
So far I calculate I have posted 66 pages, of a 696 page book (including all indexes etc.) which is about 9.5% of his work.
I probably won't quote much more



I really think this book is a valuable work on this subject with a defensible methodology, and am inspired to help Carrier spread the word about the Jesus Myth.

I've decided 10% is the limit, so I have room for quoting a little more, perhaps even from suggestions here - should I perhaps do Carrier on Josephus or Carrier on the Rank-Raglan Hero type ? Carrier on Acts ? Requests welcome...

Kapyong

Re: Does anyone have On the Historicity of Jesus yet?

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:56 pm
by Bernard Muller
to Kapyong,
The passage on Rank-Raglan heroes type would interest me a lot. On Acts also. But that`s your decision.
Cordially, Bernard

Re: Index to Carrier Posts here

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:58 pm
by neilgodfrey
Kapyong wrote: I've decided 10% is the limit, so I have room for quoting a little more, perhaps even from suggestions here - should I perhaps do Carrier on Josephus or Carrier on the Rank-Raglan Hero type ? Carrier on Acts ? Requests welcome...

Kapyong
Hate to be a killjoy but my understanding of the 10% rule is that that is the amount one is allowed to copy for personal use only; universities in Australia ensure that 10% or one chapter copied for student use only is not made publicly accessible to comply with copyright law. :cry:

Fair Use Rule about Carrier

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 5:37 pm
by Kapyong
Gday all,
neilgodfrey wrote:
Kapyong wrote: I've decided 10% is the limit, so I have room for quoting a little more, perhaps even from suggestions here - should I perhaps do Carrier on Josephus or Carrier on the Rank-Raglan Hero type ? Carrier on Acts ? Requests welcome...
Kapyong
Hate to be a killjoy but my understanding of the 10% rule is that that is the amount one is allowed to copy for personal use only; universities in Australia ensure that 10% or one chapter copied for student use only is not made publicly accessible to comply with copyright law. :cry:
You're correct about that - but after some thought and research now I think the 10% rule is not applicable here as I'm not doing for personal use.

What seems to matter is the Fair Use rule, which applies here, and doing some searching online I found this site from the US about the Fair Use Rule :
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
(And assuming Australian law is similar.)
Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair.

1.The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work
There is no particular limit by number, but each use is decided on merit.

Here is my analysis of how I'm doing by the rules above :

1.The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

My posts are clearly for non-profit educational uses.

2. The nature of the copyrighted work

My posts' nature are to inspire and provoke scholarly debate.

3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

So far it is 6% by pages used, and estimated about 5% or less of all subjects covered.

4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

My posts have actually spurred at least 2 users to consider buying the book.


So I don't think I would fall foul of Fair Use, and neilgodfrey's warning not withstanding, I will go ahead with a little more, probably Carrier on Acts next.


Kapyong

Re: Does anyone have On the Historicity of Jesus yet?

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:17 pm
by MrMacSon
.
A couple of things that support posting of excerpts from Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus is
  • a/ many here have the book or ordered the book before the tread started, and
    b/ as Kapyong notes, some have been inspired to buy the book since the thread started.
It can be :)

Re: Does anyone have On the Historicity of Jesus yet?

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:23 pm
by neilgodfrey
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for open access and am aware of most of the research that supports the arguments for it. I'd just hate to see anyone caught foul of the law. (Some people know of my own personal experience where I experienced the effects of a mix of personal vindictiveness with the blind motions of legal processes even though I had broken no law at all and have always been a stickler for abiding by legal obligations in this area.)

Re: Does anyone have On the Historicity of Jesus yet?

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:29 pm
by neilgodfrey
There's a difference, too, between copyright issues for tenured academics and others who are more likely to look forward to royalties and a necessary part of their income. If in doubt I've found it good practice to seek the author's or publisher's permission (and keep a public record of these exchanges.)

I like the system of some musicians. They make their music available online and ask for a donation in return for anyone downloading their work. Of course there are always going to be those who ignore that and a few who are unable to afford anything, but many people really do like to give something. (It's even how some cults are partly funded -- give stuff away for free and rely upon the good nature of most people to give something in return. :-)

Re: Does anyone have On the Historicity of Jesus yet?

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:30 pm
by MrMacSon
I think it's a valid issue, Neil. I PMed Kapyong about it. I think he is being responsible in the way he has addressed it.

Forums like this are ideal for open discussion of new or thorough approaches to significant issues, as Carrier's tome is.

Re: Does anyone have On the Historicity of Jesus yet?

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 7:16 pm
by toejam
The problem of fluidity in 2nd Temple Judaism... How much is too much? How much is not enough?

Reading Carrier's book, a thought struck me (yes, one happens every now and then!).

This is not an argument for or against mythicism or historicism, just an observation that seems to dog both parties...

Carrier's case requires a lot of fluidity and flexibility within pre-Christian Judaism in order to say that there were Jewish groups who were expecting a 'suffering Messiah'. Ehrman and co. typically downplay this and remind us that most if not all Messianic cults were not expecting a 'suffering Messiah' but something more along the lines of a victorious king, priest or general. They use this as an argument for historicity suggesting that it was only after Jesus' execution that his followers then flipped back into the OT and found passages that sounded like what happened to Jesus and only then made claims about their being Messianic prophecies (and wrote the gospels with this in mind, having Jesus fulfill a shit load of previously-unthought-of-as-Messianic prophecies). Ehrman and co. point out that these OT references were not intended to be Messianic prophecies (e.g. Daniel 9, Isaiah 53 etc.).

Carrier and co. on the other hand suggest that such passages were already being used as Messianic prophecies and were then part of the seed that gave birth to the narrative. The problem they have is that there are really only scant references - Carrier suggests the Dead Sea Scroll 11Q13 and some Talmud references, but these are somewhat vague little one-off references, and nothing like the fleshing out of a full doctrine to have us say with confidence that this is what Jewish Sect X believed. On top of that the Talmud is dated to centuries after Christianity so Carrier is forced to argue that non-Christian Jews at those times would not have come up with this and that shows that they were pre-Christian... But is that convincing?

Here's where my problem of fluidity comes in... If the Jewish groups were as fluid as Carrier requires, couldn't the same be said then of the post-Christianity non-Christian Jews? Maybe they were influenced by the Christian declarations of prophecies of a suffering Messiah that they too started to think that that is what they were, even if they rejected that Jesus fulfilled them.

This problem cuts both ways obviously, because if later Jews did come to think that a suffering Messiah is expected from pesher interpretations, then what prevented earlier ones? Is the lack of Christian influence the only thing that prevented them?

Carrier on Acts as Historical Fiction, part1

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 7:55 pm
by Kapyong
Gday folks,

Thanks for your comments gents, I'll do a little more quoting of Carrier, but will probably stop before I hit 10% - which is the only figure mentioned in any semi-relevant context. Here is Carrier on Acts as Historical Fiction :

Carrier on
Acts as Historical Fiction
Part 1

"The book of Acts has been all but discredited as a work of apologetic his­torical fiction.1 Nevertheless, its author (traditionally Luke, the author of the Gospel: see Chapter 7, §4) may have derived some of its material or ideas from earlier traditions, written or oral. But the latter would still be extremely unreliable (note, for example, the condition of oral tradition under Papias, as discussed in Chapter 8, §7) and wholly unverifiable (and not only because teasing out what Luke inherited from what Luke chose to compose therefrom is all but impossible for us now). Thus, our best hope is to posit some written sources, even though their reliability would be almost as hard to verify, especially, again, as we don't have them, so we cannot distinguish what they actually said from what Luke added, left out, or changed.

"But that project has not gone well. Really only one underlying historical source has been confirmed with any probability, and that's Josephus,2 who said nothing about Christ or Christianity (see Chapter 8, §9). Luke simply used him for background material. All the other sources we can discern in Luke are literary, not historical. Those include what may have been a now-lost hagiographical fabrication, essentially a rewrite of the Elijah—Elisha narrative in the OT Kings literature, but now casting Jesus and Paul in the principal roles. That is not what we would call a historical account—its sources are not eyewitnesses or historical memory, but the OT (as a liter­ary model) and the imagination of the author reworking it. Thomas Brodie argues that this evident reworking of the Kings narrative starts in the Gos­pel of Luke and continues to Acts 15, indicating either that Luke wove this literary construct into his story or used an underlying source text, a previ­ous Gospel, that covered both the acts of Jesus and the acts of apostles in one book. So Luke took either this source text or his own literary idea (or perhaps an early draft) and inserted more stories, thereby expanding it into two books, using material from Mark, Matthew, and perhaps other now-lost Gospels (see discussion in Chapter 10, §6), as well as some of the Epis­tles of Paul, and then continued the story from Acts 15 to 28 (which portion may have its own similar source-text or may be Luke's own invention).3

"The remaining sources we can discern are not hypothetical, because we actually have them. For example, Dennis MacDonald has shown that Luke also reworked tales from Homer, casting them with new characters and giv­ing them new outcomes as it suited him. For example:
The shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul share nautical images and vocabu­lary, the appearance of a goddess or angel assuring safety, the riding of planks, the arrival of the hero on an island among hospitable strangers, the mistaking of the hero as a god. and the sending of him on his way [in a new ship].4
"Paul himself says he was shipwrecked three times, and at least once spent a day and a night adrift (2 Cor. 11.25). Luke may have been inspired by this remark to invent a story about it, borrowing ideas from other famous ship­wreck narratives (including those in Jonah, the Odyssey and the Aeneid). Acts rewrites Homer several other times. Paul's resurrection of the fallen Eutychus is based on the fallen Elpenor.5 The visions of Cornelius and Peter are constructed from a similar narrative about Agamemnon.6 Paul's fare­well at Miletus is constructed from Hector's farewell to Andromache.7 The lottery of Matthias is constructed from the lottery of Ajax.8 Peter's escape from prison is constructed from Priam's escape from Achilles.9 And so on.

"The author of Acts used many other literary sources as well. For exam­ple, the prison breaks in Acts share themes with the famously miraculous prison breaks in the Bacchae of Euripides.10 But the source Acts employs the most is the Septuagint. For example, while MacDonald shows the over­all structure of the Peter and Cornelius episode is based on a story in Homer. Randel Helms has shown that other elements are borrowed from the book of Ezekiel, merging both models into one: both Peter and Ezekiel see the heavens open (Acts 10.11; Ezek. 1.1); both are commanded to eat something in their vision (Acts 10.13; Ezek. 2.9); both twice respond to God, 'By no means, Lord! (using the exact same Greek phrase, medamos Kurie: Acts 10.14 and 11.8; Ezek. 4.14 and 20.49); both are asked to eat unclean food, and both protest that they have never eaten anything unclean before (Acts 10.14; Ezek. 4.14).11 Obviously the author of Acts is not recording historical memory here. He's assembling a story using literary structure and motifs from sources that have little or nothing to do with what actually happened to Peter or Paul. And he is doing this all to sell a particular (historically fabricated) account of how early Christianity abandoned the requirement of Torah observance, one that made it seem approved even by Peter all along, complete with the confirming approval of divine revelation—when in fact we know from Paul (in Gal. 2) that Paul was for a long time its only advo­cate and was merely tolerated by Torah observers like Peter, often contentiously. In just the same way, Acts 15.7-11 'pretty much puts Paul's speech from Gal. 2.14-21 into Peter's mouth', the exact opposite of what Paul tells us actually happened.12

"Every other story in Acts is like this: a fictional creation, woven from prior materials unrelated to any actual Christian history, to sell a particu­lar point Luke wanted to make. Maybe there was some authentic source material behind some of what appears in Acts, somewhere. But how can we find it? From beginning to end Acts looks like a literary creation, not a real history. It was written to sell a specific idea of how the church began and evolved.13 It is clear 'the author of Acts wanted to stress the continu­ity of Judaism and Christianity, Paul's close relation to the other apostles, and the unity of the first believers' and thus had to 'subvert' the Epistles of Paul, especially Galatians.14 For example, we know Paul 'was unknown by face to the churches of Judea' until many years after his conversion (as he explains in Gal. 1.22-23), and after his conversion he went away to Arabia before returning to Damascus, and he didn't go to Jerusalem for at least three years (as he explains in Gal. 1.15-18); whereas Acts 7-9 has him known to and interacting with the Jerusalem church continuously from the beginning, even before his conversion, and instead of going to Arabia immediately after his conversion, in Acts he goes immediately to Damascus and then back to Jerusalem just a few weeks later, and never spends a moment in Arabia. And yet we have the truth from Paul himself.

"Clearly the author of Acts was not writing actual history but revision­ist history. Which we call pseudohistory. He simply made things up, with little real care for historical accuracy or fact. Besides what we've already seen, the most obvious example of this is Luke expanding Jesus' post-resurrection stay on earth to an incredible forty days of hanging out with his disciples and more than a hundred other believers in secret the whole while, teaching them daily—even more, apparently, than he could think to teach them while alive—and then flying up into outer space to the accom­paniment of angels (Acts 1.3-12). This is myth, not history.

"Burton Mack gives another example of how Luke's version of the his­tory of early Christianity in Acts is wholly unrealistic: 'Luke says that the standard sermon was preached to the Jews on the day of Pentecost and often thereafter, whereupon hundreds converted and the world became the church's parish overnight', but this is 'a story that does not make sense as history by any standard'. Not only in respect to its absurdly hyperbolic growth, but even just in the context of how people would really behave.15 As Mack puts it:
"No Jew worth his salt would have converted when being told that he was guilty of killing the messiah. No Greek would have been persuaded by the dismal logic of the argumentation of the sermons. The scene would not have made sense as history to anyone during the first century with first-hand knowledge of Christians. Jews, and the date of the temple in Jerusalem. So what do we have on our hands? An imaginary reconstruc­tion in the interest of aggrandizing an amalgam view of Christianity early in the second century. Luke did this by painting over the messy history of conflictual movements throughout the first century and in his own time. He cleverly depicted Peter and Paul as preachers of an identi­cal gospel. . . . That is mythmaking in the genre of epic. There is not the slightest reason to take it seriously as history.16
"In short, the narrative we have in Acts is so unrealistic, it cannot have been based on anything that actually happened. It's what Luke wishes to have happened, maybe what he wants people to believe happened; but it's cer­tainly not what happened, even in outline. And as for this instance, so for all others in Acts.

"This conclusion should not surprise us, since all other Acts literature written by Christians was wholly fabricated as well. The Acts of Peter, the Acts of Paul, the Acts of Andrew, the Acts of John and the Acts of Thomas all look substantially like the Acts of the Apostles in the NT, yet are obvi­ously not based on any kind of history. They are literary creations, telling stories the authors wanted, using known legendary characters (the various apostles after which they are named, plus in each its own cast of characters, some historical, some mythical, some invented to the purpose). There is really no reason we should privilege the Acts in the NT as somehow more historical or more reliable than any of these others, which were all written within decades of each other. Indeed for this very reason we should have presumed Acts to be fiction all along, albeit historical fiction, just like the Maccabean literature before it and other purported works of religious his­tory (see, again, Element 44). Prior probability favors no other conclusion.

"The literary coincidences in Acts are also too numerous to be believable history, and reflect the deliberate intentions of the author to create a narra­tive that served his purpose. For example, as Robert Price observes:
Peter and Paul are paralleled, each raising someone from the dead (Acts 9.36-40; 20.9-12), each healing a paralytic (3.1-8: 14.8-10). each healing by extraordinary, magical means (5.15: 19.11-12). each besting a sorcerer (8.18-23; 13.6-11), each miraculously escaping prison (12.6-10; 16.25-26).
"Similarly, just as Peter is sent by God to save Cornelius when Cornelius sends for him after a vision (Acts 10), Paul is sent by God to save the Mac­edonians "when a certain Macedonian man" sends for him in a vision (Acts 6.9-10).17 Luke makes Paul's story parallel Christ's as well: 'both under­take peripatetic preaching journeys, culminating in a last long journey to Jerusalem, where each is arrested in connection with a disturbance in the temple', then 'each is acquitted by a Herodian monarch, as well as by Roman procurators'.18 Both are also plotted against by the Jews, and both are innocent of the charges brought against them. Both are interrogated by 'the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin' (Acts 22.30; Lk. 22.66; cf. Mk 14.55; 15.1), and both know their death is foreordained and make predic­tions about what will happen afterward, shortly before their end (Lk. 21.5-28; Acts 20.22-38; cf. also 21.4).

"But Paul does almost everything bigger than Jesus: his journeys encom­pass a much larger region of the world (practically the whole northeastern Mediterranean); he travels on and around a much larger sea (the Mediter­ranean rather than the Sea of Galilee); and though, like Jesus, on one of these journeys at sea he faces the peril of a storm yet is saved by faith, Paul's occasion of peril actually results in the destruction of a ship. Like­wise, Paul's trial spans years instead of a single night, and unlike Jesus, veritable armies plot to assassinate Paul, and actual armies come to rescue him (Acts 23.20-24). While Jesus stirs up violence against himself by read­ing scripture in one synagogue (Lk. 4.16-30), Paul stirs up violence against himself by reading scripture in two synagogues (Acts 13.14-52 and 17.1-5).19 However, whereas Christ's story ends with his gruesome death (which had a grand salvific purpose, which could not be claimed for Paul's ultimate death, and which to end well had to be followed by a once-and-final resur­rection, something that could also not be claimed for Paul), Paul's story ends on a conspicuously opposite note: 'and he abode two whole years in his own hired dwelling, and received all that went to him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him', something even Jesus could not accomplish when he was in Roman custody (Acts 28.30-31). Thus Paul out­does Jesus even in that.

"Paul and Jesus also both die and rise again from the dead, yet unlike Jesus, Paul actually stomps right back into the city unmolested and contin­ues to publicly preach throughout the land, winning many more disciples for Jesus (Acts 14.19-21 and thereafter). In contrast, Jesus wins no new disciples after his resurrection and doesn't even try. And all this occurs immediately after Paul, also just like Jesus, is hailed as a god (Lk. 22.70)— and yet again Paul outdoes Jesus by humbly denying the claim (Acts 14.11-18). And in the end Paul, unlike Jesus, is sent to meet the emperor of Rome, something even Jesus did not accomplish. In other words, by Luke's account, Paul was vastly more famous and successful than Jesus.

"The extent of the parallels drawn between Peter and Paul, and between Paul and Jesus, are altogether improbable as history. Likewise, the account of Paul's conversion in Acts 9.1-20 is simply a rewrite of the Emmaus nar­rative in Lk. 24.13-35 (which, as we'll see in Chapter 10, §6, is obviously mythical): (1) Both stories feature a journey on a road from Jerusalem to another city (Emmaus: Lk. 24.13; Damascus: Acts 9.1-3); (2) both stories feature a revelation of Christ; (3) in Luke the revelation came as 'they drew near (eggizein the city where 'they were going (poreuein)' (Lk. 24.28), while in Acts the revelation came as Paul 'drew near (eggizein)' the city where 'he was going (poreuein (Acts 9.3); (4) in both stories Jesus appears and rebukes the unbeliever and instructs him, and as a result they become believers and go on to preach their newfound faith; (5) in both stories there are at least three men on the road together and yet only one of them is named (Paul [as Saul] in Acts; Cleopas in Lk. 24.18);20 (6) in both stories "the chief priests* of Jerusalem are the named enemies of the church (Lk. 24.20; Acts 9.1. 14); (7) in Luke God says Jesus had to suffer (Lk. 24.26), while in Acts God says Paul had to suffer (Acts 9.16); (8) both stories fea­ture blindness (Paul is blinded by the divine light of his vision in Acts 9.8; Cleopas and his companion's eyes are blocked from seeing that their fel­low traveler is Jesus in Lk. 24.16); (9) both stories end with this blindness being lifted (Acts 9.17-18; Lk. 24.31); (10) in Luke the visitation occurs on the third day (Lk. 24.21), in Acts the visitation is followed by a blindness of three days (Acts 9.9); and (11) in Luke the blindness ends after a meal com­mences (Lk. 24.30-31). while in Acts a meal commences after the blindness ends (Acts 9.18-19). "


Part2 follows ...