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Browsing Posts published by Albert McIlhenny

The Ehrman-Carrier Controversy 4: Beaten by a Nose

If there is one thing that Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier agree upon, it is that The Christ Conspiracy by Acharya S is an absolutely awful book. In fact, a bone of contention, as mentioned in the last post in this series, is that Ehrman said it was awful, gave a few examples of why it was awful, and then moved on while Carrier thought he should have dwelt upon its awfulness through many pages until every last ounce of its putridness had been exposed to sunlight and dissolved into the morning mist. Of course, the problem for Carrier is that some people confuse his position with that of Acharya S; the problem for Ehrman is that some people confuse his position for that of Carrier. Both are false but the latter is more false than the former.

Carrier, in attempting to demonstrate Ehrman is “incompetent” and “a hack” (nothing personal, mind you), latched onto something Ehrman wrote about D. M. Murdock (aka Acharya S) to demonstrate he understands the writings of the queen of Jesus mythicist conspiracy theorists better than Ehrman. On that I would agree; but then so do I but I don’t consider it a badge of honor. Carrier has had battles in the past with Murdock and has spent much time and verbiage trying to demonstrate why Murdock’s version of Jesus mythicism is garbage while his is brilliant. I have had to study Murdock’s books in order to summarize her charges, evaluate her evidence, and respond to her books for other Christians. Ehrman probably read her first book in preparation for Did Jesus Exist?, came to the conclusion she was nuts within three pages, and lightly read the rest for the lulz.

The dispute about Murdock in the Carrier/Ehrman exchange centers on what Murdock wrote concerning a certain statue of a penis-nosed rooster allegedly housed in the Vatican. The conversation begins with Murdock stating some fascinating things about the name “Peter”:

“Peter” is not only “the rock” but also “the cock,” or penis, as the word is used as slang to this day.

Fascinating because every reference work on English slang mentions the use of “peter” for a penis developed in the mid to late nineteenth century with the earliest confirmed reference from 1902. If the Greek word for rock (petra) were used for a penis, it would be an odd choice since the gender of the term is feminine. This is why it was changed to a masculine ending (Petros) when applied to the Apostle. It is even more confusing since Paul refers to Peter as Cephas, a transliteration of the Aramaic word for rock (keypha) and there the connection falls apart even further. If any of these were used as slang words for a penis in the ancient world, such evidence is not provided by Murdock but merely assumed because of a slang that first appears within the last two centuries in modern English.

Murdock then adds to the fun by citing a series of nineteenth century quacks (Godfrey Higgins, T. W. Doane, Madame Blavatsky) along with a contemporary one (Barbara G. Walker) for support for her claims of Peter’s mythological status. My personal favorite is when she cites Blavatsky to show Peter was unknown to Justin Martyr in the second century:

In addition to the canonical gospels, the Christianized Peter tales were not in existence at the time of Justin Martyr (100-165), who, as Blavatsky relates, “writing in the early part of the second century in Rome, where he fixed his abode, eager to get hold of the least proof in favor of the truth for which he suffered, seems perfectly unconscious of St. Peter’s existence!! Neither does any other writer of any consequence mention him in connection with the Church of Rome, earlier than the days of Irenaeus, when the latter set himself to invent a new religion, drawn from the depth of his imagination.”

Never mind that Peter was mentioned by Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch prior to Justin and that Peter was mentioned by Justin (twice) in the Dialogue with Trypho. When crackpots get on a roll, they can’t be bothered with little niceties like fact-checking.

At some point Murdock then infers something about Peter and homoeroticism within patriarchal cults and quotes Walker as follows:

The cock was another totemic “peter” sometimes viewed as the god’s alter ego. Vatican authorities preserved a bronze image of a cock with an oversize penis on a man’s body, the pedestal inscribed “The Savior of the World.” The cock was also a solar symbol.

At this point Murdock goes off to chase other tangents and the reader is left to make what they can of the mess she left behind.

So what was she trying to infer here? The argument seems to be … Peter is an Apostle … Peter is associated with a rooster crowing … “peter” is a slang word for penis … there is a statue of a rooster-man with a penis for a nose … therefore … what??? This sequence, like much of her book, is a series of often dubious claims pulled from frequently questionable sources and thrown up to form an impenetrable wall of ignorance that the light of common sense cannot breech. The current case of Peter is a perfect example as by the end we have a mangled sequence of non sequiturs with her audience left to decipher the tea leaves and figure out her intent. This pattern is frequently repeated: does she really think the pyramids were not built by Egyptians as tombs but were celestial computers for refugees from Atlantis? Does she really believe academia is controlled by a secret Freemasonic brotherhood led by the pope? It does seem that way but your guess is as good as mine.

It is such “deep-from-within-the-recesses-of-a-padded-room” outbursts that make any alleged misunderstanding on Ehrman’s part quite understandable. Ehrman, having read the sequence outlined above (almost certainly for the first time) probably became glassy-eyed and began mentally recalling the theme from The Twilight Zone before parenthetically quipping:

There is no penis-nosed statue of Peter the cock in the Vatican or anywhere else except in books like this, which love to make things up.

It turns out a statue of a penis nosed rooster does exist although it certainly has no relation to either Peter or Christianity. It is an example of a Priapus, a minor but popular god related to fertility often connected to various figures with oversized penises in various forms. D. M. Murdock, atop her perch at her website, cackled about complaining that she never said the statue was of Peter and Carrier agreed (the enemy of my enemy is my friend?) and seized upon the fact that a bronze apparently does exist even though Ehrman technically was correct stated no such bronze statue of Peter existed.

Although if one isolates Murdock’s sentence from its context, it does not overtly state a connection between Peter and the statue, certainly such a connection is implied by the overall context of the discussion. She has already inferred Peter was mythical, that he corresponded to pagan figures, that his name was associated with the penis, that he was associated with the rooster, and then she brings up a penis-nosed rooster headed bronze sculpture. If indeed she was not attempting to connect Peter to that bronze, then why did she bring it up in the first place? Without some alleged connection to Peter, it has no part in the discussion and sticks out like a sore thumb … or at least a sore penis. Indeed the statue was being connected to Peter the apostle, however incompetently and, given the discussion above, insanely, and Ehrman was right for considering the whole thing rather much of a “howler.”

Another point should also be made here. It certainly was not necessary for Ehrman to track down whether such a bronze figure of a penis-nosed statue existed. Anyone who has read The Christ Conspiracy knows it is full of the most incredible nonsense. How is someone like Ehrman to react when he reads Murdock’s explanation of why her ideas are not better accepted among scholars:

It is clear that scholars have known about the mythological nature of the Bible, yet they have gone to immense lengths to hide it, including using sophisticated language, like the priestly counterparts who have utilized the dead language Latin to go over the heads of the uneducated masses. It is possible that any number of these scholars are also Masons or members of some such secret brotherhood who are under the blood oath. Or they may merely be products of their occupation, in that many universities and colleges are under the dominion of the fraternities and the grand master, the Pope, i.e., the Catholic Church.

Just in case you missed the “wooo” factor of the above statement concerning the pope and secret Masonic blood oaths, Murdock stated earlier in the book that “unbeknownst to the masses, the pope is the Grand Master-Mason of the Masonic branches of the world.” Such nonsense as this or her infatuation with the penis nosed rooster is worthy of nothing but scorn and that is exactly what Ehrman supplied. Yet, for some unknown reason, Carrier decided to fight this particular battle even though it had absolutely nothing to do with anything Ehrman objected to in his own work.

With his treatement of Murdock (and the “bad mythicisists”) out of the way, the discussion will move next time to Ehrman’s treatement of someone both find more interesting: Earl Doherty.

Related Articles:

Carrier’s review of Ehrman’s book

Ehrman’s reply to Carrier’s review, Pt. 1

Ehrman’s reply to Carrier’s review, Pt. 2

Carrier’s reply to Ehrman’s Reply, Pt. 1

Carrier’s reply to Ehrman’s Reply, Pt. 2

Bart Ehrman, Ehrman-Carrier Controversy, Richard Carrier , , , ,

Questionable Sources: Godfrey Higgins

Godfrey Higgins was a nineteenth century Freemason who authored some of the most bizarre gibberish ever foisted upon an unsuspecting public. Living at a time when Orientalism was becoming important as a movement, Higgins fashioned himself an expert on all things religious, linguistic, and historical despite being manifestly unqualified on all counts.

His magnum opus was the two volume work Anacalypsis that spanned over 1500 pages with each seemingly more ridiculous than the one before it. Almost any claim, no matter how absurd, might be found within its pages from the colonization of Egypt by black buddhists from Asia to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet corresponding to the names of trees in the British Isles. Pagan parallels to Jesus were a given, of course, as well as the tidbit that Ireanaeus, the archfoe of Gnosticism, was actually a Gnostic. His evidence: there was a zodiac on the floor of a church in Lyons where Ireanaues was bishop in the second century. Of course, since we know of no second century churches in Lyons (or anywhere else), it is difficult to imagine what zodiac he had in mind.

Higgins would rightly be a forgotten figure were it not for some recent supporters of pagan parallels using him as a source for their own claims. He appeared in the original Zeitgeist transcript (since removed from the film’s website but still online here) and was used as a source by D. M. Murdock (aka Acharya S). In fact, the canard about Irenaeus was one of the “howlers” that Bart Ehrman, in his recent Did Jesus Exist?, took from Murdock’s The Christ Conspiracy as evidence she could not be taken seriously. One could say the same for Higgins. Each a crackpot for their own age.

Pagan Parallels / Zeitgeist, Questionable Sources , ,

The Ehrman-Carrier Controversy 3: Good and Bad Mythicists

One of the strangest areas of the exchange between Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier revolves around Ehrman’s curt dismissal of figures such as D. M. Murdock (aka “Acharya S”) and the duo of Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy. In his initial review, Carrier seems agitated that Ehrman did not spend more time on their type and instead dealt primarily with Carrier, Doherty, and Price:

Almost none of this 361 page book is a critique of the “bad” mythicists. He barely even mentions most of them. Indeed, if he mentioned Atwill even once it was in passing at best, and for the few authors he spends any time discussing (mainly Murdock and Freke & Gandy), he is largely dismissive and careless (indeed, his only real refutation of them amounts to little more than nine pages, pp. 21-30). I was hoping for a well-researched refutation of these authors so I could recommend this book to students, so they could see what sound scholarship looks like and to correct the errors in their heads after reading authors like these. But this book simply doesn’t do that.

Why it is that Carrier thinks Ehrman should waste his time refuting in detail the most bizarre ends of Jesus mythicism is a mystery. Ehrman obviously looked at a number of Jesus mythicist authors, dismissed those he considered completely outside anything resembling an attempt at real scholarship with a few examples of their incompetence, and concentrated on those who attempted sober arguments against Jesus’ existence. I suppose he could have gone over every one of their errors but then it would be a 1000 page book of endless minutiae that merely beats the theme of overall incompetence home until the whole thing becomes a great bore.

It seems as though Carrier thought Ehrman should waste his time cleaning up Jesus mythicism from its most cranky adherents. Sorry, but that is not the job of a scholar who is not part of the movement. If Carrier wants them dealt with, let him write that book. As Ehrman put it himself in his reply:

One of the things Carrier laments is that I don’t deal with the various mythicists all at length – even (this is a special point he presses) those who cannot be taken seriously (he names Freke and Gandy). My view is that there is no reason to take seriously people who cannot be taken seriously: a few indications of general incompetence is good enough.

There is little motivation for Ehrman to concentrate his efforts on the “bad mythicists.” His book is aimed at making the case for a popular audience that Jesus mythicism is a dead end. He pointed out that certain authors should never be taken seriously, gives a few examples why, and moves on to more serious proponents.

Even stranger is Carrier’s assertion that he had hoped Ehrman’s book could have been recommended to students to demonstrate the poor quality of the arguments of the “bad mythicists.” This turns reality on its head as if Ehrman were the young scholar who should be dealing with lesser lights with Carrier the established expert. By combining this with his disappointment that this was not “a book I could recommend as the best case for historicity”, Carrier seems to have lost touch with reality. It is Jesus mythicism that is the fringe movement in need of an academic defense. Ehrman is not writing this book to make a scholarly case as Carrier’s position is not taken seriously among scholars; his is a popular book designed to explain to an uninformed audience why it is not taken seriously. In this sense, it occupies a similar position to his earlier Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code which similarly explained at a popular level why the assertions made by Dan Brown were complete nonsense.

I think it is perhaps more the case that Carrier is upset because, in the end, he suspects Ehrman does not take his ideas seriously. He is probably right on that point but, as I have pointed out in previous posts, Ehrman often doesn’t take ideas seriously that do not coincide with those of Bart Ehrman. More to the point, however, is that lots of other scholars also do not take Carrier’s ideas seriously. In fact, almost no one outside the New Atheist tour circuit takes his ideas seriously. The simple fact is the Jesus mythicist position reached its height in the late nineteenth century and has had little traction with scholars since Albert Schweitzer bulldozed it a century ago.

Now that I have given some indication of the general features of the exchange, I will begin turning to the specific cases discussed in their exchanges next time.

Related Articles:

Carrier’s review of Ehrman’s book

Ehrman’s reply to Carrier’s review, Pt. 1

Ehrman’s reply to Carrier’s review, Pt. 2

Carrier’s reply to Ehrman’s Reply, Pt. 1

Carrier’s reply to Ehrman’s Reply, Pt. 2

Bart Ehrman, Ehrman-Carrier Controversy, Richard Carrier , , ,

The Ehrman-Carrier Controversy 2: The General Tone

When viewing the treatment of Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier, one thing stands out: Ehrman was far more civil to Carrier than the latter was to Ehrman – a rather strange turn of events considering the professional record of accomplishments is completely one-sided in Ehrman’s favor. Yet this is sort of behavior is not unusual within the loud and cranky world of the “New Atheism” where those who are experts in the history of religion have scorn piled upon their work by cranks and quacks of all sorts if they do not unswervingly follow the New Atheist party line. I have the feeling Ehrman is only now beginning to realize he has entered a world where conspiracy theories are always the first option. Welcome to the internet, Dr. Ehrman.

The differences in civility were quite telling for all concerned. Ehrman went to great lengths to separate those mythicists who attempted to give an academic presentation (Carrier, Robert M. Price, Earl Doherty), despite thinking their position is completely untenable, from those who are cranks from the outset (Acharya S, Freke and Gandy) with whom he was completely dismissive. In other words, Ehrman treated Carrier as one of the more serious of the Jesus mythicists although his conclusion was that his arguments could not withstand serious scrutiny. While I will grant you that Ehrman does not take the Jesus mythicist position seriously (but then neither does almost any other scholar in any related field) and he probably thinks the whole thing is more than a little nuts, he nonetheless treated Carrier respectfully.

Carrier, in his review, reacted as anything but an academic whose views were being challenged. His demeanor was one of an adolescent who had never been properly disciplined by his parents and was used to throwing hissy fits when he did not get his way. Rather than soberly challenging Ehrman’s claims, he framed them within an unsightly heap of polemic that included the following:

  • Filled with factual errors, logical fallacies, and badly worded arguments
  • Lousy with errors
  • So full of errors that they will badly mislead and miseducate the reader
  • Commits so many mistakes that Carrier has to substantially and extensively correct them
  • Misinforms more than it informs
  • Worse than bad
  • Readers will come away with more false information in their heads than true
  • Ehrman makes Carrier’s job as a historian harder, because now Carrier have to fix everything Ehrman screwed up
  • Officially sucks

Keep in mind this comes from a self-published blogger barely out of graduate school and aimed at a scholar who actually has earned the title of a “world renowned author whose books and articles have received international attention” that Carrier has applied to himself. If you want someone to treat your work with respect, it is always a good first step to treat theirs in the same manner – particularly when they have a track record you could not match in your dreams. Instead, Carrier unleashed a stream of invective towards Ehrman as though the latter was a blogger rival who might be drawn into a protracted struggle where he could be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of Carrier’s verbiage and the endless twaddle of his fanboys’ comments. Since Ehrman has openly stated he would not cooperate by wasting further time on Carrier and his mindless yesmen, it has only succeeded in giving the impression that the whole bunch are in need of gainful employment or a more productive hobby.

Certainly, it appears Ehrman was more than a bit annoyed at Carrier’s demeanor in his hit piece posing as a review. In his reply, he pointed out:

As many readers know, Richard Carrier has written a hard-hitting, one might even say vicious, response to Did Jesus Exist. I said nothing nasty about Carrier in my book – just the contrary, I indicated that he was a smart fellow with whom I disagree on fundamental issues, including some for which he really does not seem to know what he is talking about. But I never attacked him personally. He on the other hand, appears to be showing his true colors.

Still, the one thing this bit of nastiness has shown me is that even though I seem to stir up controversy everywhere I go and with everything I write, I really don’t like conflict. I would much prefer that we all simply get along and search for truth together. But alas, the world does not appear to be made that way. And I seem to be a lightning rod for criticism. This morning I woke up to the old Stealer’s Wheel song in my head, “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.” It’s a good place to be, stuck in the middle, when there are so many outlandish options to the left and right.

While Ehrman painting himself as standing in the middle ground between Christian and atheist radicals is grossly inaccurate (there are many non-fundie Christians and far less extreme nonbelievers among Biblical scholars and Ehrman is clearly to the left of center), his point about Carrier’s conduct is spot on. Carrier has acted like a complete ass towards someone who has real accomplishments in the field where Carrier wants to be taken as a serious scholar. Instead of acting as sucyh, he resorted to arrogant posing to prove to his fans (and perhaps himself) that he, the world-renowned Richard Carrier, deserves to be taken seriously.

Astonishingly, Carrier not only tried to justify his boorish behavior but also attacked Ehrman for pointing it out:

Ehrman does appear to want to hide the substantive errors and mistakes and fallacies I document, and one strategy he uses to do that is to deflect it all by reframing the debate as being about personal attacks and my being mean to him (when he was so nice to me). This of course has nothing to do with what really matters and just serves the purpose of trying to convince people that all my substantive points about his scholarship are really just personal attacks and since personal attacks are fallacious (being the fallacy of ad hominem), all my points can be dismissed as fallacious. Which may be the first time I’ve ever seen an actual ad hominem fallacy used to rebut a non-existent ad hominem fallacy. He attacks me personally, by claiming I attacked him personally, which I didn’t, and has the gall to then say (correctly) that personal attacks can be ignored as fallacious. Yeah. Think about that for a minute.

Not only is the above tirade complete nonsense and a total mischaracterization of what Ehrman actually wrote, but Carrier’s own posts prove it! At no point does Ehrman state Carrier’s points can be dismissed because of his personal attacks. What Ehrman actually wrote on the topic (apart from the earlier quote above) was:

Carrier, as many of you know, has written a scathing review of Did Jesus Exist on his Freethought Blog. He indicates that my book is “full of errors,” that it “misinforms more than it informs” that it provides “false information” that it is “worse than bad” and that “it officially sucks.” The attacks are sustained throughout his lengthy post, and they often become personal. He indicates that “Ehrman doesn’t actually know what he is talking about,” he claims that I speak with “absurd” hyperbole, that my argument “makes [me] look irresponsible,” that I am guilty of “sloppy work,” that I “misrepresent” my opponents and “misinform the public,” that what I write is “crap,” that I am guilty of “arrogantly dogmatic and irresponsible thinking,” that I am “incompetent,” make “hack” mistakes, and do not “act like a real scholar.”

Most of his review represents an attempt to substantiate these claims. Some readers may find the overblown rhetoric offensive, but I have no interest in engaging in a battle of wits and rhetorical flourishes. I would simply like to see if the charges of my incompetence can be sustained.

Thus Ehrman is clearly drawing a line between the objections Carrier raises and the showboating antics in which he frames them and then states he will engage the latter without returning fire on the former. In other words, Bart Ehrman is claiming to be an adult. He will answer the reasonable objections but refuses to sink to Carrier’s level of behavior. As for Carrier not attacking him personally, most people reading that review would disagree. Of course, since the “New Atheists” as a whole seem predisposed to name calling, perhaps Carrier’s sensitivity to what is and is not a personal attack has been shaped by the wide-eyed fanaticism of his fanboys.

The point of Ehrman not summarily dismissing Carrier’s points because of his childishness is further illustrated by the fact that Ehrman does answer them. If he had made the claim that Carrier’s points could be summarily dismissed because of name-calling, he would not have bothered responding. Moreover, Carrier himself implicitly acknowledges this point by spending two lengthy blogposts attempting to neutralize Ehrman’s replies. The blogger doth protest too much, methinks.

Now that we have examined the general demeanor of the two participants in the controversy, we will turn next time to Ehrman’s strategy in engaging Jesus mythicism.

Related Articles:

Ehrman’s preview article to his book at the Huffington Post

Carrier’s “review” of Ehrman’s pre-book article

Carrier’s review of Ehrman’s book

Ehrman’s reply to Carrier’s review, Pt. 1

Ehrman’s reply to Carrier’s review, Pt. 2

Carrier’s reply to Ehrman’s Reply, Pt. 1

Carrier’s reply to Ehrman’s Reply, Pt. 2

Bart Ehrman, Ehrman-Carrier Controversy, Richard Carrier ,

The Ehrman-Carrier Controversy 1: General Remarks

April 30, 2012 2 comments

With the web abuzz with the warring posts of Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier, and with Ehrman’s already stated purpose not to engage Carrier and his confused minions of Jesus mythicisim further, it might be a good time to examine the fallout of this exchange. I obviously agree with Ehrman (and almost every scholar on the subject of every persuasion) that Jesus existed. But I have also noted Ehrman’s tendency to frame discussions in such a way as to overlook key elements that could lead to other conclusions, his sleight-of-hand maneuvers to negate such concerns, and his summary dismissals of those with whom he disagrees as though disagreeing with Bart Ehrman is enough to prove their unpreparedness for the debate.

That being said, I think Ehrman was rather shocked by the reactions of Carrier and the strange denizens of the “New Atheists” who once hailed Ehrman as a conquering hero and a potential ally in the “Jesus mythicist” camp. I think Ehrman genuinely saw Carrier as an intelligent young potential scholar who was wasting his abilities defending a position that was exposed as untenable a century ago. Depending on how much of his own PR he believes (and I think he believes a lot of it), Ehrman might even have entertained the idea that this corrective might have put Carrier back on track for a fruitful career in academia. Obviously, Ehrman has neither done much reading on Carrier’s blog in the past nor done much reading of the tone of discourse in the web atheist community. Despite maintaining the centerpiece of the movement is rationality, this claim is little more than a facade as large segments of it are rooted in ideologically motivated anti-Christian polemics. Their “rationality” is one that is assumed, not demonstrated, and deviance from the groupthink elicits shunning and character assassination no less vehement than one would find among hardcore Christian fundamentalists. This is hardly surprising as many were once Christian fundamentalists and have merely transferred their intellectual modus operandi to the opposing team.

Carrier’s frequently abusive characterizations of those who dare challenge him in the public arena, off the cuff psychological evaluations of those who return fire, and his release of tomes as blog posts defending his previous blog posts have become the butt of jokes for more level headed internet voices on the topic. This is certainly the case in the recent exchange with Ehrman as those outside the “New Atheist” subuculture are starting to see his recent rants as more than a little odd. Most significantly for Carrier, those inside acamdemia who have kept track of the affair now have a less than flattering image of him firmly planted in their minds. While Carrier’s tactless responses might have played well with his fanboys, it has only reinforced the image of Jesus mythicism as a position left to conspiracy theorists and other ideologues impervious to anything resembling historical or logical argumentation.

Carrier is quickly changing whatever impression he had as someone intelligent but misguided to someone who has veered into the claptrap end of the historical Jesus spectrum. In other words, he is now seen as a promoter of “woooo” out there with Acharya S, Freke and Gandy, Jordan Maxwell, and perhaps a few short steps from the guy with the gravity defying hair on the Ancient Aliens TV program. Please note that I am not saying he deserves such a classification but rather that his recent conduct in the controversy over Ehrman’s book has made him look just as bizarre as those mentioned. Given most academic historians and New Testament scholars who have kept track of this affair have never read his books or even have heard of him prior to Ehrman’s recent effort, their first impression of him is his recent blogposts, comments of those who have been doing battle with Carrie for some time, and the often delusional comments by Carrier’s fanboys. It’s not a pretty picture.

All of this may be a blow to Carrier as he despises the books by the “wooooists” and is preoccupied with gaining Jesus mythicism a respectable place at the academic table. At this point, I will not go into detail into the reasons why academics who have examined the arguments of Carrier and other mythicists have found them unpersuasive but merely will point out they have been dismissed as flawed and ideologically motivated. More pertinent to the discussion here is the things that have been pointed out about Carrier’s own conduct in putting forth his arguments. For example, while a graduate student in history, Carrier had an exchange with Christian apologist David Wood where the latter alleged some major deficiencies in Carrier’s grasp of philosophical issues. To this allegation, Carrier responded:

At the very least, Wood cannot argue against the fact that I am no less a philosopher than Aristotle or Hume. My knowledge, education, and qualifications certainly match theirs in every relevant respect.

The above assertion of being the superior to two of the greatest thinkers in the history of the world while having supplied nothing to the intellectual patrimony of Western culture is hubris to the point of being delusional.

Nor does it stop there as can be seen in his biography at his website where a rather inflated picture of his accomplishments are presented:

Richard Carrier is a world-renowned author and speaker. As a professional historian, published philosopher, and prominent defender of the American freethought movement, Dr. Carrier has appeared across the country and on national television defending sound historical methods and the ethical worldview of secular naturalism. His books and articles have also received international attention.

World-renowned? Published philosopher? His books and articles and have received international attention? Let’s see … he is only a few years out of graduate school, has not secured a tenure track position within academia, has not published anything of note within an academic journal in his field of study, has primarily written articles for atheist websites and publications along with his own blog, and his books were either self-published or published by an atheist press. Recognized experts in the field of history, philosophy, and New Testament studies have probably never heard of him. Any renown he has comes from the world of the blogosphere where the most anti-Christian elements of the secular web have heralded his every word. It appears that just as Ehrman might be reading his own publicity, so Carrier has been carried away by the hero worship of his fanboys. Well, at least Ehrman can claim his ego was inflated by actual accomplishments.

Having given some overall impressions of the dispute between Ehrman and Carrier, I will in posts to follow examine the specifics of the case in detail. In particular, I will look at the evidence presented for each of the claims made in Carrier’s review, Ehrman’s response, and Carrier’s counter-response. As one might guess, I was far more impressed with Ehrman than Carrier as the latter started to sound like a five year old trying to explain that his had was not really in the cookie jar to take a cookie. But that will wait till then.\

Related Articles:

Ehrman’s preview article to his book at the Huffington Post

Carrier’s “review” of Ehrman’s pre-book article

Carrier’s review of Ehrman’s book

Ehrman’s reply to Carrier’s review, Pt. 1

Ehrman’s reply to Carrier’s review, Pt. 2

Carrier’s reply to Ehrman’s Reply, Pt. 1

Carrier’s reply to Ehrman’s Reply, Pt. 2

Bart Ehrman, Ehrman-Carrier Controversy, Richard Carrier none

Questionable Sources: Barbara G. Walker

April 27, 2012 No comments

Among some supporters of “pagan parallels” for Christianity, one will occasionally find the name of Barbara G. Walker and her Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Walker seems especially popular among conspiracy theorists with feminist sympathies who cling to the long discredited thesis of an early wordwide matriarchal culture. Such fantasies as well as Walker’s own hostility to anything resembling traditional Christian doctrine makes her an instant hit those prone to accepting any sort of quackery so long as it attacks Christianity.

So how reliable is Walker? Well, in her field of expertise, she is apparently first rate. The problem is her field of expertise is knitting (I kid you not!). Although I am have no knitting experience, from the reviews I have read from knitting afficianados, her books in this area are among the best. Thus, if you want to learn about knitting, then by all means check out her work. However, her unquestioned knitting prowess hardly qualifies her as an authority in the study of mythology and ancient religions and here the results are not only dubious but downright putrid.

Consider, for example, the aforementioned encyclopedia. When one checks her research for this volume, the results are, at best, surreal. Not only are the final results often ridiculous to anyone familiar with the topic being discussed but her cited sources have little in common with the assertions she makes using them. For example, the book opens with an entry for “A” for which Walker makes the following claim:

Babylonians called the Great Mother “A”, the Beginning; or Aya, the Mother of All things. Tantric sages called her birth-letter Alpa Akshara, “the letter A which is considered the ‘mother of all wisdom,’ and therefore all men of genius; all Bodhisavattas and Buddhas are said to have been produced by ‘A.

The source she uses for the Babylonian claim is a rendering of cuneiform tablets from a century ago that never mentions the goddess Aya (transliterated as “A”) as “the beginning.” In fact, the goddess is only mentioned in passing as the beloved of the sun god Shamesh. One suspects she inferred this from “A” being the first letter of the Latin alphabet (or the equivalent alpha in the Greek). However, the script is cuneiform and no such inference of order can be made. Moreover, the use of “A” was merely a transliteration of the goddess’ name and no claim was made for a cuneiform symbol. As foe the later claim, suffice to say the source refers to a sound in the Hindi language and not a goddess.

The book is full of such nonsense on almost every page. Some further examples (there is an almost inexhaustable supply)can be found within some reader reviews on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1CJOHT9LNR5BB

http://www.amazon.com/review/R5SQ89SQNRJI2

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1YBUGIJH2JFQF

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3V8SXOQR0CCHN

http://www.amazon.com/review/RTE0YY6V3RY8I

This should suffice to illustrate the problems with using this ideologically driven amateur as source material for the study of ancient religious traditions.

These days it appears Ms. Walker is something of an elder spokesperson for the fanboys of D. M. Murdock (aka “Acharya S”) and Murdock has endorsed her work and aided in publishing and promoting a collection of her articles. Why am I not surprised?

Questionable Sources ,

James as “Brother of the Lord”

April 26, 2012 1 comment

The reference in Galations 1:19 to James as “the Lord’s brother” (or, equivalently, “the brother of the Lord”) has long been the subject of debate. The division had long been with most Protestants insisting James was a biological son of Joseph and Mary while Catholic, Orthodox. and some Protestants saw another kind of kinship between James and Jesus that would preserve the belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity. The latter might follow an early tradition of James as the son of a previous wife of Joseph or Jerome’s claim that James was the cousin of Jesus. Such arguments usually paired with passages in the Gospels mentioning the brothers of Jesus (that included one named James) and they remain a point of contention to this day.

I will not at this time give the details of the competing theories and the the evidence each side presents. While this debate is certainly interesting, it is not the debate I am concerned with here. Instead, I will concentrate on a new debate relating to the same passage that is much more the topic of the day. You see, this passage presents a real problem for one group: Jesus mythicists. Given that almost no one but the most loony of mythicists (granted that “loony” is a relative term within this bunch) believes there was no Paul, one must explain how a mythical Jesus could have a brother who Paul had met.

The mythicists’ work arounds are completely ad hoc and just plain ridiculous. For example, some insist the term “the Lord’s brother” is akin to “brothers in Christ” but this fails because James is the only one in a group of Christians given that name. Why is he singled out? The obvious reason is that when Paul wrote that James was the “the Lord’s brother” he meant a biological kinship. There is no evidence the term “the Lord’s brother” is used to refer to Christians in general and the context rules against it. Hence, this theory is a complete failure.

At this point, the standard tactic seems to be that “brother of the Lord” referred to a special class of Christian that was more advanced than the run of the mill follower. This theory is even more ad hoc as it seems only to have arisen in an attempt to rescue the previous one. Moreover, the context of the passage in Galatians exposes it as absurd:

But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother.

Note that the James is being distinguished not from your average Christian but from fellow Apostles! Moreover, this group includes Peter (Cephas) whom Paul in the same letter identifies as the apostle to the Jews whereas he (Paul) was the apostle to the Gentiles. Are we to believe this advanced group of those identified as the “Lord’s brother” would not include the leaders of the Church? Was James some sort of “Super Apostle” complete with a red “S” on his robe? Would Peter not have been a slam dunk choice for this “special group”?

The obvious contrivance of such a theory betrays any ounce of historical perspective and even common sense. It is a completely artifical construction to avoid abandoning a theory which certain individuals on the web have invested much time and effort maintaining. It is little wonder that scholars of every religious persausion and no religion at all do not take the mythicist claims seriously. How can you when they advance arguments like this? Despite their claims at being “rationalists” and “skeptics”, there is nothing rational about their ideas. As for skepticism, it is, as mentioned earlier, a skepticism applied only to Jesus and nothing else.

Another tactic is to insist it is an interpolation. This one is advanced for every passage that demonstrate the mythicists’ arguments are untenable. They just declare it an interpolation and think that settles it. Well, it doesn’t. Claims of interpolation need evidence. There is not one piece of evidence that this passage was interpolated and there is no reason it would have been interpolated. It is just a nonstarter.

Some will then respond with the question “why doesn’t Paul call James the Lord’s brother elsewhere?” to which it can be answered “… because everybody knew in the Church knew him and didn’t need it explained.” Of course, then they counter “then why did he use it at Galatians 1:19?” and at that point we know they are not very familiar with the New Testament.

In Galatians 1:19, Paul is referring back to the early years of the Church and his meeting certain Apostles. There were two key leaders in the early Church named James: the brother of Jesus and the brother of John the Apostle. There might well be some confusion as to which James was being mentioned and Paul here clarified it by stating the other Apostle he met was James the Lord’s brother. In other places where James is mentioned by Paul, he quite clearly describes the living leader of the Church of Jerusalem and by then James, the brother of John, was long dead. Thus the inclusion here and nowhere else actually adds support to the biological kinship case. The fictive relationship case, on the other hand, contradicts the context and has no explanation why it occurs in this one instance.

It is amusing that those who claim there is no evidnce for Jesus accept a theory that not only has no evidence on its own, not only contradicts the evidence available, but was designed to nullify said evidence. It is driven purely by ideology and those supporting it appear all the more foolish for claiming some special status as rational observers. Perhaps we can award them the honor as “brothers of the crank.”

Anti-Christian Web , ,

Munching Popcorn While Watching the Intra-Atheist Fraticide

April 25, 2012 1 comment

Over the last few weeks since Bart Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Case for Jesus of Nazareth, I have been watching the spectacle of the “New Atheist” crowd throwing Bart Ehrman under the bus because he had the audacity to publish a book saying the existence of Jesus is an historical fact. The “Jesus Mythicist” crowd is now the most vocal and obnoxious part of the New Atheist movement as they hijack it in the name of crackpot conspiracy theories. It is now in the process of going wooo as it embraces all sorts of ahistorical blather in the name of hating the God they claim doesn’t exist.

All of this, of course, is disturbing to the likes of Ehrman who thought there were likely some reasonable people who had embraced unreasonable ideas. Ehrman is an agnostic/atheist but he realizes there was at least somebody those first century Christians came to believe was the Messiah. The mythicists, on the other hand, apply the standard that if you don’t have a video of the crucfixion, then Jesus didn’t exist. Even if you did, it would have been faked … they can do that in Hollywood, you know …. and, of course, this standard is applied only to Jesus. Among the New Atheists, radical skepticism flows in one direction … towards Jesus. If there is a claim that denies Jesus, then it is accepted at face value.

The focus of the debate began with Bart Ehrman writing a rather off-the-cuff article about his new book for the Huffington Post. Richard Carrier, who along with Robert Price are considered the “serious historians” among the mythicist crowd (they are the only ones known to have relevant doctorates), wrote a scathing review of Ehrman’s article. When he finally got a hold of Ehrman’s book, he dismissed it as worthy of the trash heap. All of this could easily be seen as an pure hubris considering Ehrman is a major league scholar and Carrier has yet to find an academic position. It also didn’t help that much in Carrier’s dismissal of Ehrman was just plain wrong as Ehrman was quick to point out in his own reply that pretty much took Carrier to the woodshed.

Of course, Carrier might well be madly working on a massive reply to Ehrman that the latter will just ignore. Ehrman by now realizes he was probably thinking too highly of them to expect anything resembling civility. They really don’t care about academic niceties. They are engaged in a life and death struggle with a Jesus they claim never existed but they have to get rid of him anyway. The more you read of them, the stranger it gets.

In the meantime, it is amusing to watch the atheists thrash each other for a change as Ehrman and other scholars do battle with the unbeliever’s version of backwater fundamentalism. Ehrman certainly wins in any fair judgement of the argument but for the mindless clones who accept nonsense like Zeitgeist and The God Who Wasn’t There, it won’t matter a bit. They are the mirror image of the fundamentalists they despise (many are former fudnamentalists) and display many of the same anti-intellectual tendencies despite their claims of rationality.

Anti-Christian Web , ,

Chuck Colson RIP

April 24, 2012 1 comment

Few Americans have understood the temptation of earthly power and the possibility of redemption through Christ as clearly as Chuck Colson. Those of us old enough to remember the Watergate era and the televised hearings it generated can remember Colson as the “evil genius” who ruthlessly spught to discredit political opponents while serving as special counsel to President Richard Nixon. In the time leading up to his trial, where he plead guilty to obstruction of justice for his involvement in the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, he became an Evangelical Christian.

I admit that when much of the attention was focused on his conversion in the late 1970s, I was a bit skeptical. Of course, I was not a Christian then either and had little understanding of how the Holy Spirit could work in a man’s heart and soul to lead him to new life. Many cynically expected the conversion as one of many engineered to help rehabilitate someone’s image before they returned to their old ways’ anew. The cynics, myself included, were wrong.

Chuck Colson remained faithful to the Gospel his whole life. I might disagree with certain of his beliefs but there is no doubt in my mind he desired nothing more than to serve the cause of the Gospel on earth in causes that defied categorization. While defending traditional moral values and taking conservative political positions, he also engaged in causes that were outside the boundaries for many Evangelicals. After his incarceration, he became an advocate for prison reform and founded the ministry Prison Fellowship. He also hosted the radio program BreakPoint and founded the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He was also controversial among some conservative Evangelicals for his crossing ecclesial boundaries to join with Catholics and other Christians in such statements as Catholics and Evangelicals Together and the Manhattan Declaration. Over the years, Colson received numerous honors including the Templeton Prize (he donated the $11 million dollars as well as all his money from speaking engagements to Prison Fellowship), numerous honorary doctorates, and the Presidential Citizens Medal from President George W. Bush.

Chuck Colson was a textbook example of how the Gospel of Jesus Christ can change lives. Once he led a life ruled by ambition but ended it ruled by the Lord. Anima eius et animæ omnium fidelium defunctorum per Dei misericordiam requiescant in pace.

Miscellaneous

Debunking Zeitgeist 19: Astrological Ages

April 23, 2012 No comments

One of the most bizarre parts of Zeitgeist occurs when it deals with the precession of the equinoxes and the so-called “astrological ages.” Here the errors pile up rapidly as Peter Joseph displays his complete ignorance of the New Testament Texts, the history of ancient astronomy and astrology, and the nature of ancient pagan religions. The film begins its adventure into precession with the following claims:

Now, of the many astrological-astronomical metaphors in the Bible, one of the most important has to do with the ages. Throughout the scripture there are numerous references to the “Age.” In order to understand this, we need to be familiar with the phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes. The ancient Egyptians along with cultures long before them recognized that approximately every 2150 years the sunrise on the morning of the spring equinox would occur at a different sign of the Zodiac. This has to do with a slow angular wobble that the Earth maintains as it rotates on it’s axis. It is called a precession because the constellations go backwards, rather than through the normal yearly cycle. The amount of time that it takes for the precession to go through all 12 signs is roughly 25,765 years. This is also called the “Great Year,” and ancient societies were very aware of this. They referred to each 2150 year period as an “age.” From 4300 b.c. to 2150 b.c., it was the Age of Taurus, the Bull. From 2150 b.c. to 1 a.d., it was the Age of Aries, the Ram, and from 1 a.d. to 2150 a.d. it is the Age of Pisces, the age we are still in to this day, and in and around 2150, we will enter the new age: the Age of Aquarius.

There is so much failure in the above passage, one is at a loss where to begin but I suppose the sequential order of blunders is best.

Now, of the many astrological-astronomical metaphors in the Bible, one of the most important has to do with the ages. Throughout the scripture there are numerous references to the “Age.”

While the above is stated, the following list of phrases is containing the word “age” rolls across the screen:

  • I am with you always to the very end of the age (Matt 28:20).

  • either in this age or the age to come (Matt 12:32).

  • the harvest is the end of the age (Matt 13:39).

  • sign of your coming and the end of the age (Matt 24:3).

  • in this age and the age to come (Luke 18:30).

  • wise by the standards of this age (Corinthians 3).

  • on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come (Corinthians 10).

  • not only in the present age but the age to come (Ephesians 1).

  • in order that in the coming ages (Ephesians 21).

  • and the powers of the coming age (Hebrews 6).

  • king of the ages (Revelation 15).

  • of the former age (Job 8:8).

The above list does not even give complete sentences. It merely tosses out isolated phrases without any proper context so it is difficult to understand the reference. Once examined it is clear that the reference is to the fulfillment of Jewish messianic hopes or merely a reference to the distant past (a bygone age). There is not the slightest indication of any connection to supposed astrological ages.

Even worse, it seems likely that Joseph copied these from some other source without ever checking the context. Note that the first five passages from the Gospels and the last one from Job cite chapter and verse correctly but the others leave out the verse and in two cases cite the book incompletely as well! Apparently Peter Joseph was unaware the New Testament contains two letters of Paul to the Church at Corinth and the one containing the verses he quoted is titled “I Corinthians.” One mistake might be an accident but a sequence of identical mistakes when others were given correctly earlier and later gives one the impression this was taken from different sources and never verified. Reading the phrases in context only nails down this impression as Peter Joseph clearly had no understanding of the context.

In order to understand this, we need to be familiar with the phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes. The ancient Egyptians along with cultures long before them recognized that approximately every 2150 years the sunrise on the morning of the spring equinox would occur at a different sign of the Zodiac.

First of all, the Egyptians did not even use the zodiac until the Hellenistic period after they had been under Greek rule. Second of all, there is no indication anyone had discovered the precession of the zodiac prior to the second century B.C. It most likely was discovered by Hipparchus and he is in fact credited by Ptolemy with this discovery. Given Ptolemy was one of the greatest of Egyptian astronomer/astrologers and lived a few centuries after that period, it seems unlikely he would have praised him for this discovery if it had been known to Egyptians much earlier. Even worse, the use of the twelve sign zodiac only dates back a few centuries prior to the discovery of precession, so the claim of ancient Egyptian knowledge of such a system is quite laughable.

This has to do with a slow angular wobble that the Earth maintains as it rotates on it’s axis. It is called a precession because the constellations go backwards, rather than through the normal yearly cycle. The amount of time that it takes for the precession to go through all 12 signs is roughly 25,765 years.

This part is notable only because it does not contain a monumental blunder. One of the few such passages in the entire film. Of course, he was not dicussing anything related to religion.

This is also called the “Great Year,” and ancient societies were very aware of this. They referred to each 2150 year period as an “age.”

No they didn’t. As mentioned earlier, there was no understanding of precession until the second century B.C. They knew nothing of such a “Great Year” and did not refer to astrological “ages.” This entire section, a key element in their theory, is completely false. This is what happens when you rely upon nineteenth century quacks rather than historians of science and other scholars who have examined the evidence.

From 4300 b.c. to 2150 b.c., it was the Age of Taurus, the Bull. From 2150 b.c. to 1 a.d., it was the Age of Aries, the Ram, and from 1 a.d. to 2150 a.d. it is the Age of Pisces, the age we are still in to this day, and in and around 2150, we will enter the new age: the Age of Aquarius

I guess once he headed down the road to stupid, Peter Joseph just couldn’t stop at merely misinformed and decided to go full throttle to mindnumbingly moronic. The years he gives for the “ages” depends on a division of the sky that is entirely modern. In fact, it was set by modern astronmers in the twentieth century and thus would make a poor choice for addressing the issues of ancient astrologcial practices. In fact, under the division of the sky in use in the ancient world, Jesus would have showed up over half a millennium too early for any supoosed “Age of Pisces.” For example, Ptolemy, writing in the second century A.D., still declares the sun to be rising in Aries long after the “Age of Pisces” supposedly had begun.

Yet as bad as this section might be, it gets even worse when Peter Joseph attempts to apply these “astrological ages” to the Bible. But that will wait until next time as we have had enough absurdity for one post.

Debunking Zeitgeist none
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