A Christian Response by Stephen J. Bedard
Peter Clarke, in his article, summarizes Richard Carrier’s argument for the Jesus Myth Theory with a third point. It is a response to the argument from embarrassment that uses details that are not helpful to the story as evidence for historicity. The response is this: But the premise of this argument is false because there … Read More “Responding to Richard Carrier’s Jesus Myth Arguments: Part Three” »
I am continuing to respond to Peter Clarke’s summary of Richard Carrier’s case for the Jesus Myth from this article. The second argument is this: Jesus only appears as a real person in texts that are highly mythological, i.e., the Gospels. This basically means we only have one book that talks about Jesus as a … Read More “Responding to Richard Carrier’s Jesus Myth Arguments: Part Two” »
Peter Clarke, in an article, provides a summary of Richard Carrier’s argument for Jesus not being a historical figure. I am going to respond to each part separately. The earliest Christian literature—in particular the letters of Paul—never places Jesus in history; instead, he is only ever seen from revelation. For example, Paul has no knowledge … Read More “Responding to Richard Carrier’s Jesus Myth Arguments: Part One” »
If Jesus really existed, where is all of the archaeological evidence? Not textual evidence but monuments, coins, and other artifacts from Jesus’ lifetime that prove Jesus was a historical figure? There are some early archaeological evidence for Jesus, but not during his lifetime. This article by Peter S. Williams shares some of that evidence. Is … Read More “Where is the Archaeological Evidence For Jesus?” »
If Jesus never existed as a historical figure but was only a spiritual symbol, you would expect that there would be evidence of the early church seeing Jesus as ahistorical and then gradually historizing him. But that evidence is not there. I have spent a lot of time demonstrating that the New Testament presents Jesus … Read More “Jesus Myth and the Early Church” »
It would be nice if there was a universally accepted amount of evidence for how we determine if someone mentioned in ancient literature was a historical person. Unfortunately, there is not. My experience from talking to Jesus Mythicists is that no amount of evidence would ever be acceptable as sufficient. Even if dozens of new … Read More “How Much Evidence For Jesus Do We Need?” »
Those who are skeptical of the historical existence of Jesus point to the lack of textual evidence from his enemies. Of course we have texts by Christians, people who have a strong theological bias, but where is everything else? Well, who were the opponents of Jesus according to the Gospels. They were the Pharisees, the … Read More “Where Are the Hostile Witnesses to Jesus?” »
Some Jesus Mythicists see arguments for the existence of Jesus as being based on Christian belief. Christians are forced to grasp at any hope that Jesus might have been real or else their faith falls apart. However true that statement may or may not be, responses to the Jesus Myth come not just from Christian … Read More “An Atheist Challenging the Jesus Myth Theory” »
Back in 1917, an author named J.M. Robertson wrote a book called The Jesus Problem: A Restatement of the Myth Theory. I thought I would go through his book and respond to some of his ideas. You might think there is no point responding to a book written over a hundred years ago. Why not … Read More “Approaching the Jesus Problem” »
I recently watched this video of Richard Carrier on the MythVision Pod. Richard Carrier is considered to be one of the top scholars in support of the Jesus Myth Theory. The question he is responding to is the comparison of Jesus to other gods of myth. Apologists (rightfully) point out the close time between the … Read More “Richard Carrier Comparing Jesus to Other Gods” »
