Jesus from Outer Space

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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GakuseiDon
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Re: Jesus from Outer Space

Post by GakuseiDon »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Aug 21, 2020 8:29 pm
GakuseiDon wrote: Fri Aug 21, 2020 8:08 pm While Carrier is obviously adopting a terminology to generate laughs from his audience, he isn't doing the case of mythicism any favours if his listeners start to use the same terminology when discussing the ideas with people who understand ancient beliefs in their context. It seems he is looking for notoriety rather than going for respectability.
In this evident use of irony "to generate laughs from his audience", I don't see great difference between Richard Carrier and Voltaire or Diderot or D'Holbach. If you attack Carrier on his anti-Christian use of irony, then you should have the same identical problems with these great philosophers, accordingly.
Do you think he will use terms like "super amazing space alien temple" and "true space Priest for the space temple" in his book Jesus Christ from Outer Space? Should he, in your opinion?
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Re: Jesus from Outer Space

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GakuseiDon wrote: Fri Aug 21, 2020 10:59 pm Do you think he will use terms like "super amazing space alien temple" and "true space Priest for the space temple" in his book Jesus Christ from Outer Space?
The man is rich of surprises.
Should he, in your opinion?
I am a simple person. For me, a mere label doesn't change the nature of the object being so labelled.

What I hope to read is more Carrier's thoughts about Ascension of Isaiah and a detailed discussion of his private dialogue with prof Bermujo-Rubio. In addition, I would like to know the Carrier's reasons for "Mark" euhemerize Jesus in first place, all points left unexplained by Carrier in OHJ to not make minimal mythicism too much specific on a particular instance of the paradigm.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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maryhelena
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Re: Jesus from Outer Space

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Giuseppe wrote: Fri Aug 21, 2020 11:40 pm
GakuseiDon wrote: Fri Aug 21, 2020 10:59 pm Do you think he will use terms like "super amazing space alien temple" and "true space Priest for the space temple" in his book Jesus Christ from Outer Space?
The man is rich of surprises.
Should he, in your opinion?
I am a simple person. For me, a mere label doesn't change the nature of the object being so labelled.

What I hope to read is more Carrier's thoughts about Ascension of Isaiah and a detailed discussion of his private dialogue with prof Bermujo-Rubio. In addition, I would like to know the Carrier's reasons for "Mark" euhemerize Jesus in first place, all points left unexplained by Carrier in OHJ to not make minimal mythicism too much specific on a particular instance of the paradigm.
Now that would make a good public debate....the anti-Roman Jesus arguments of Bermejo-Rubio and the outer space arguments of Richard Carrier.....
Last edited by maryhelena on Sat Aug 22, 2020 1:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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maryhelena
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Re: Jesus from Outer Space

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This might be an interesting read - unfortunately the download is simply the conference timetable.

https://www.academia.edu/34374939/_The_ ... _June_2017


FERNANDO BERMEJO-RUBIO, UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA, MADRID

The Jewish Scriptures in the Gospels’ Construction of Jesus: The Extent of a Literary Influence and the Limits of Mythicism

================
Added later - as the above article is not available - this one gives an overview of the argument of Bermejo-Rubio. For those who may be interested. :)

https://www.academia.edu/8156663/_Has_t ... 2013_19_57_

“Has the Hypothesis of a Seditionist Jesus Been Dealt a Fatal Blow? A Systematic Answer to the Doubters”
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maryhelena
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Re: Jesus from Outer Space

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It seems Carrier's new book, Jesus from Outer Space, is to get an improved cover design. :)


RICHARD CARRIER APRIL 14, 2020, 11:32 AM


I actually contributed to a debate over that material in a book that will at some point appear in Italian (with entries by me, Price, Bermejo-Rubio, and one other colleague of his). My contribution to that will also appear (suitably reedited) in my next English language book, Jesus from Outer Space (which will have an improved cover design instead of the mock-up currently shown there).

Bermejo-Rubio’s book essentially defends the zealot hypothesis (that Jesus was a violent revolutionary, and the Epistles and Gospels whitewash this fact). Which is one of the most fringe positions to take in the historicity market. His methodology is also mind-bogglingly illogical. Those works at least went through academic presses (which I presume are peer reviewed?), but without an English edition, it’s hard to evaluate them, and they won’t get much traction in the field, which is a shame. I can only barely skim in Spanish, so I can’t review them with justice. I could only interact with Bermejo-Rubio’s English summary, which will appear in print, so far as I know, only in Italian translation.

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/5085

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GakuseiDon
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Re: Jesus from Outer Space

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maryhelena wrote: Sat Aug 22, 2020 1:53 pm It seems Carrier's new book, Jesus from Outer Space, is to get an improved cover design. :)
Oh dear. What do you bet it will have Jesus either in a space suit or as an alien on the cover, posed in Leonardo Da Vinci-like style? There's already lots of pictures like that:

Image
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Jesus from Outer Space

Post by Joseph D. L. »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 8:57 pm
GakuseiDon wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 2:26 pmCarrier's response:

To the contrary, “outer space” is more accurate terminology. It is anachronistic to use “heaven” when translating ancient texts as today we mean by the word “heaven” at an alternate dimension that has no physical place in this universe; whereas they meant by the word what we mean now by…outer space. Literally. The physical space above the earth that contains the moon, planets, and stars, exists a measurable (and flyable) physical distance from us (and is, indeed, inhabited by extraterrestrial beings). I explain and demonstrate this in the Preface to my new book Jesus from Outer Space. You cannot understand what ancient peoples, and early Christians, were saying, if you do not understand this.

Anyone who pretends it’s otherwise is thus demonstrating their commitment to modern dogmas and their fear of ideas that make them uncomfortable, rather than logic or historical accuracy. And it is high time to stop coddling them.

I recall that some people in the evangelical Christian circles in which I grew up believed that Heaven was located in a black hole ("up there") while Hell was well and truly located at the center of Planet Earth ("down there"). I asked my (pastor/missionary) parents about this, and they seemed to prefer more of an "alternate dimension" interpretation, as mentioned by Carrier in the highlighted section above, but they had nothing personal against the more literal interpretation of "up" and "down" in the Bible, and acknowledged it was possible. (I think my mom may have actually thought that way at some point in her life; I remember her observing that we cannot detect what lies beyond the event horizon of a black hole, so..., you know..., it could be....)

In truth, the "heavens" which the ancients imagined bears little resemblance either to the Outer Space into which our astronauts are launched or to the kind of Alternate Dimension my parents contemplated. They imagined layers of tangible reality stacked on top of a firmament, and they were wrong.

It may be worth noting that, despite the title of the book, its cover depicts neither Outer Space nor the Heavens (or, alternately, it depicts a weird combination of the two of them). Concentric varicolored circles? That is not Outer Space. A spherical planet floating in a sea of night sky? That is not the Earth imagined by the ancients.
Also how is such terminology applicable to the Jewish cosmogony in which the sky (day and night sky) was a firmament of some crystalline material? Or Mithraism in which the night sky was the cape of Mithras himself?

In Egypt, what we would call "outer space" was really the goddess Nut stretched out over Geb. Would Carrier think calling this "outer space" would be anachronistic? Because that's not how the Egyptians thought about it.

What about the cosmogony of Homer and Hesiod? Is there also a great chain of gold that stretches from Olympus to the Underworld that all creation hangs on? Please, "Dr." Carrier. Help me out here.

Carrier is the one projecting his own anachronisms onto these texts and beliefs, all in an attempt to mock and discredit them for his own agenda. His PhD should be revoked.
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Re: Jesus from Outer Space

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maryhelena wrote: Sat Aug 22, 2020 1:53 pm It seems Carrier's new book, Jesus from Outer Space, is to get an improved cover design. :)
I have canceled the order, then, just in time, expecting the new cover design. I don't like when a book doesn't reflect totally the intentions of his author.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Re: Jesus from Outer Space

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maryhelena wrote: Sat Aug 22, 2020 1:53 pm It seems Carrier's new book, Jesus from Outer Space, is to get an improved cover design. :)


RICHARD CARRIER APRIL 14, 2020, 11:32 AM


I actually contributed to a debate over that material in a book that will at some point appear in Italian (with entries by me, Price, Bermejo-Rubio, and one other colleague of his). My contribution to that will also appear (suitably reedited) in my next English language book, Jesus from Outer Space (which will have an improved cover design instead of the mock-up currently shown there).

Bermejo-Rubio’s book essentially defends the zealot hypothesis (that Jesus was a violent revolutionary, and the Epistles and Gospels whitewash this fact). Which is one of the most fringe positions to take in the historicity market. His methodology is also mind-bogglingly illogical. Those works at least went through academic presses (which I presume are peer reviewed?), but without an English edition, it’s hard to evaluate them, and they won’t get much traction in the field, which is a shame. I can only barely skim in Spanish, so I can’t review them with justice. I could only interact with Bermejo-Rubio’s English summary, which will appear in print, so far as I know, only in Italian translation.

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/5085

I should have included the quote Carrier was referring to in the above quote. So here it is:


JOHN OLDMAN APRIL 13, 2020, 9:23 PM

There are two recent books that defend the historicity of Jesus:

“La invención de Jesús de Nazareth”, by Fernando Bermejo-Rubio
“Aproximación al Jesús histórico”, by Antonio Piñero (a friend of Bermejo-Rubio).

Both are in Spanish, not English. In case you can read Spanish, it would be great if you write a review of them.

It seems a great pity that a forthcoming book in which both Carrier and Bermejo-Rubio outline their theories is in Italian.

Unfortunately, Bermejo-Rubio's book, mention above, is in Spanish. Amazon translate gives this:

Amazon: In the time of Emperor Tiberius, a Jew preaching the arrival of the kingdom of God was crucified in Jerusalem by order of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate. This was the beginning of a process that would end up presenting Jesus as a divine being. The continued glorification to this day requires a thorough exercise of examination and study from critical thinking. Can reality be distinguished from the inherited narrative? Do the Christ of tradition and Jesus have anything in common that historical research reveals? How do you explain the divinization of the character in the Mediterranean basin of the 1st century? Is it possible to find a meaning for the proliferation of works on the "Historical Jesus"?
After extensive research that enjoys international dissemination and impact, Fernando Bermejo Rubio responds in an illuminating way to all these questions. In The Invention of Jesus of Nazareth, the historian of religions makes both the figure of Jesus and the cultural construction that underlies the Christ of faith.


https://www.amazon.co.uk/invenci%C3%B3n ... 851&sr=8-1

The invention of Jesus of Nazareth. History, fiction, historiography (Spanish Edition) Kindle Edition

'invention' seems a strange way to go about supporting a historical Jesus....maybe the translation might not be a good translation of the Spanish......
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maryhelena
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Re: Jesus from Outer Space

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