People who call Richard a Crank dont realise he has 4 Degrees from two of the best Universities in the World,moreover,his evidence is peer reviewed and published in top Journals ..so his evidence is in the main stream of Ancient History

I find Carrier's honesty and transparency refreshing. He definitely knows his stuff.

A great talk. I am coming to appreciate Richard Carrier more and more.

"If you look at any book, like the Quran or the Book of Mormon for example, when you look at these silly stories you wouldn't believe them." As a recovering Mormon that is music to my ears.

I just read Carrier's article on why Daniel is a forgery. Brilliant and easy to understand writing with appropriate citations. I love this guy because he is smart, articulate and intellectually honest with his material. I suggest it for anyone with an interest in the "prophesies" of the Old Testament.

One of the most fundamentally relevant researches of our times regarding the true origins of Christianity....

This was fantastic

Basically, Christianity is ancient Jewish fanfiction gone wild.

Q: What is the internal temperature of a Tauntaun? A: Lukewarm

When I read Luke's gospel, it struck me very clearly as a rebuttal to Matthew's, so I have since been surprised at the apparent scholarly consensus that the two works were written about the same time and uninformed of each other. Needless to say, I was interested to hear in the early minutes of this lecture that some scholars actually do view Luke's gospel the way I read it.

Years ago when I read Acts I found a passage that reminded me of the Iliad. I knew I wasn't misguided...

Why videos of Richard Carrier have always such a poor sound.

so when I was 8-10 I was a baby expert on Greek mythology, plus the Roman and Norse equivalents-Loved the stuff. So then when I was eleven Mom encouraged me to read the bible which I found to be choppy, poorly written in parts and then I finally got to the New Testament and was like HUH? this was the same bad Xmas fairy tale written 4 times and obviously each time contradicted itself. I was flipping back n forth and thinking wow-that is just wrong that they keep changing the story. How is this nasty, boring, contradictory book considered holy?! How can they think it was god’s word and written by god’s holy hand? And I came to the conclusion that these people who would argue to the death at me had CLEARLY never read this book. It took me a year to get thru it myself because it was so boring in so many places. I put it down for long periods to gulp down dozens and dozens of other books. But I kept it up until the very end. I didn’t realize most of them were only hearing cherry picked passages at their churches. Rarely did the preachers bring up stoning bad children-and non-virgins.

Lol , so many angry christians in the comments.

Looking forward to reading the forthcoming book on the historicity of Jesus; always find Richard Carrier crystal clear, intellectually rigorous and rather engaging in his enthusiastic, boyish way. I wonder, though, if it would make much difference to the future of Christianity if he can "conclusively" demonstrate for all to see that it is built on fictional foundations. Christians, like all religious people, have always believed what what they want to believe, irrespective of reality. Where I live (Sweden) most Christians seem quite happy with the non-historicity of Jesus. I've even heard a priest declare openly at the Christmas midnight service that St Mathew's account of the nativity is a fairy story. None of this made any difference to his deep belief in Christianity, or, as far as I could tell, to the congregation's, The meaning of the story is mythic. As some chappie recently said (I forget his name): If you could reason with religious people, there wouldn't be any religious people.

Great historian of our time

Wow, the idea that the authors of the books of the Bible were reacting to each other makes sense. Almost like they were just people, and would have acted like people.

Oh to have a time machine and go back and check all this stuff out. For me, the sheer fact we have so little info on Jesus himself from non Christian sources gives me great cause for doubting any of it actually happened. We know humans have a great propensity for mistakes and seeing things that aren't there, .. and then telling others the amazing things we saw. Say something with enough conviction, and others will buy it, ..from past experience I even include myself. We are all gullible to a certain extent. All religions are cults that have just taken root.IMHO.

Brilliant lecture -- thank you for sharing.

Sadly, whenever I see the name Homer I think Simpsons first, Classical Greece second.

Please understand that Luke (fictional himself) has claimed that he is writing history. There's the lie.

Why does God, creator of all the heavens, galaxies and countless planets including everything from the ant to the blacks, Asians and Jews, decide to show himself at that point in history? Moreover, why would he appear to favor one of his created people (The Jews) over another? Could this be a rallying cry of an oppressed people? if a smartphone was in every hand could the Bible story be told?

This is all so amazing. A real eye opener.It seems to show apologists really dont care about the truth That is, their obligated to, at the very least, to bring up these objections even if it isto reject them without argument.

Good presentation. I've gone through Richard Pervo's 'The Mystery of Acts' and for an introductory book, I found it amazingly thorough and detailed, viewing Acts from many different perspectives.......of course the conclusion is obvious - Acts is either entirely, or almost entirely fiction (but that we shouldn't blame Luke for this - he wasn't trying to write history). This just adds more fuel to the fire, an historical fire in which Acts can quite happily burn as far as history is concerned.

I am looking forward to using this video, especially the part about Paul as Odysseus to teach about the logical fallacy of "false analogy." The more you focus into the details of the comparison, the less Dr. Carrier's case holds up. Since most long-distance travel in the ancient world used naval transportation, so it only makes sense that 1) Shipwrecks occur 2) How else can you describe being in a shipwreck without using the language of describing the sea 3) How else can you survive a shipwreck if not by clinging to wreckage? 4) If you are on an island, you will have to get a new ship to continue your journey. It is not sound logic to assume too that just because the Odysseus myth is mythical that its shared properties with Paul makes the Acts account mythical as well. Not sound logic, but it will make a great example for my students! Thanks Dr. Carrier, you've given me some great logical fallacy examples. Keep it up.

I Love how easy this kzfaq.infoUgkxvAj3godqGAIP5rApM1laH767JGtPG1-h carrier is to adjust from my friend to me taking turns holding the baby! It provides great support on my back too! This has definitely made shopping easier! I always get asked where I get it too!

Thank God Richard Carrier appeared

One of the biggest questions were who wrote Luke & Acts? I've heard many good arguments that it could have been Polycarp but one also cannot overlook it's similarities with what we have left of the Gospel of Marcion

I often wonder if it was ever meant to be taken seriously, maybe it was all written as a "novel " ???

The best question - for me - was posed at 1:07:33, 'If you were to witness something that has a very small probability, naturalistically, would you doubt your senses or would you believe it?' I, like Dr. Carrier, 'was convinced by religious experience.' This is a story too long for this forum, but the experience led me to give 7 years of my life to Pentecostal 'Holiness.' Although that's all behind me, I'm still left to wonder about that /those experience(s). As yet I'm not convinced they can be explained as just hallucinations. But, Dr. Carriers response gives me at least a path to follow in trying to determine their true nature; notably what were the surrounding circumstances? I'm not looking to justify the Christian or any other religious explanation for the phenomena; I'm long past that. My goal is to try to answer the question that still haunts me decades after the fact: 'What was that?' I suspect that many people remain in the 'Faith' despite logic and evidence on the strength of similar events. I know that I was, so I'm slow to dismiss them all as either dishonest or dupes or lunatics.

Cornelius, The Gospel of Mark and the Passover Plot Richard Carrier’s expectation, if not impelling hope, seems to be that, if he sufficiently denies, debases, debunks and deconstructs the Gospels, Jesus will cease to exist. Or something. He has already gone on record as denying the existence of Jesus, so, I assume he will make the world safe in some way. Assuming that Islam will not rush in to fill the vacuum he intends to create. Speaking only for myself, of course, but all his research and formulations tend to reinforce the divine nature of the Gospels as literature. Of course, I tend to see all literature as being inspire, but it seems to me that Carrier is suffering from the misapprehension that Jesus is a product of the Gospels, generally, and, probably, Paul’s inventions, in particular. That proposition suggests to me a certain “wag the dog” approach to the issue that sets aside the cross as the existential structure from which the narrative organization originates. The cross is what places Jesus in history and the resurrection is what impels the witness into narrative and the narrative into scripture and the scripture into a post-graduate project and revenue stream for Richard Carrier. I mean, this guy keeps complaining that God won’t communicate with him and his entire personal balance sheet is a material measure of the rewards of a profound personal relationship with God. But that’s just me. Irony is just one of the elements of literature that seems to be lost on Carrier. Now, Carrier’s premise that Luke/Acts are contrived but not history in the post-Hegelian sense of the word, or history in the conventions of Antiquity sense of the word is largely correct. Acts, in particular, seems to have been initially conceived as something of an amicus brief for Paul’s defense in Rome when Paul was first confined in Caesarea in 59. This gave Luke the opportunity to interview all the various players in the life of Jesus not included in the Gospel of Mark, which was available to him as a guide in his research, As I understand it, the Greek Luke employs suggests that his ultimate audience was the Equestrian class and the narrative itself, in both Luke and Acts, is sympathetic, if not complementary, to his Roman market and the various conventions he employs (that Carrier painstakingly points out) were intentionally employed precisely to engage the sympathies of the Roman legal system and to present Paul at the greatest possible advantage. It is not improbable to expect that this presentation would have included various addendum of Paul’s writings which would have emphasized Paul’s constructs of Christian stewardship which essentially endorsed the extension of the political status quo as a reflection God’s Will. The Apocalypse of Jesus and John the Baptist was a Jewish destiny and not Rome’s. And, of course, Acts ends before Paul’s execution, when the exercise becomes moot. One of the people Luke probably interviews for Acts is Cornelius, who mentioned briefly at 36min12sec. which Carrier brushes aside as someone Peter was sent to save. First of all, this is a pivotal moment in Christianity, the moment when a Jewish cult begins to transform itself into a universal message, Galatians is a direct result of this moment, the instant Christianity becomes gentile. The first nine chapters of Acts is a process of identifying a Christian doctrine, which occurs within 18 months of the cross, and consolidating this doctrine as the universal standard, which occurs with the conference of Paul with Peter, James and John in Jerusalem. Acts 10 is the moment when this doctrine, outlined in Acts 10: 34 - 43, is transmitted beyond the boundaries of Israel. It is important to understand that Cornelius is the same centurion mentioned in Matthew 8 and Luke 7 and that he, Cornelius, was justified Solo Fida BEFORE Peter visits him at his home in Caesarea in 40: for this reason , Cornelius (and his household) are the only people invested by the Holy Spirit before baptism in the Bible, In fact, this event is sometimes referred to as the Second Pentecost. The significance of this event, in part, is that Christian doctrine is being transmitted independent of, and before the missionary, of Paul. While is it evident that Carrier’s characterization of the political dynamics of the nascent movement were not as harmonious as depicted in Acts, the issues centered around how to assimilate Gentiles, but this doctrine was settled law, so to speak. In the final analysis, Carrier fails at his task to disrupt this doctrine in spite of the elaborate fan dance of his literary deconstruction. However, the evidence is that Peter’s visit to Cornelius resulted in an exchange of information during the three day debriefing that manifests today in The Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Peter. Let me begin with the Gospel of Peter. I am not making a brief for the Gospel, per se, which seems to be a 2nd Century creation, However, there are elements in the Gospel that appear in various ways in Matthew and Luke, in the first place, and, in the second place, could not have occurred in the purview of Peter at the time. In fact, none of the Roman content in all of the Gospels was available to the Disciples because they had gone to ground and would not resurface until after Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb. In fact, the purity laws prevented the Jews from entering the Praetorium during the Passover, as John makes clear. Nevertheless, elements of the Gospel of Peter began circulating among the Roman soldiers before Mary arrives at the tomb, in particular the actual moment of resurrection, itself. Cornelius was one of the eyewitness to these events and provided Peter details which became part of Peter’s general narrative and incorporated by Matthew and Luke in their versions as it accommodated their purposes. For me, the most authentic element of the Gospel of Peter is the exchange between one of the condemned men and the Roman soldiers, when the thief taunts the guards with the innocence of Jesus and the guard returns the taunt by promising to extend his suffering by not breaking his legs. This is so typical of the economics of soldiering it could have occurred yesterday in Ft. Benning. And, of course, this is one of those moments Luke reconfigures the moment to suit his own purposes. But the most important result of the meeting between Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10 is the creation of the Gospel of Mark by Cornelius. The narrative arc of the Gospel of Mark begins at the moment when Jesus appears above the Roman military horizon as a potential insurgent. As NT Wright observes, there were a number of self-appointed Messiahs crucified in the century before Jesus and a number in the century after, including the Zealots whose insurrection led to the destruction of Jerusalem and Massada. The difference is the resurrection, the report of which began to circulate through the Roman legions before the sun came up on the first Easter and arrived in Rome long before either Peter or Paul made the trip. Spies for Rome and Herod began to assemble intelligence dossiers on Jesus as soon as He came up out of the Jordan and were available to Herod at the time of His arrest and interrogation by both Pilate and Herod. It is hard to say how forma Herod’s intelligence system was, but the Romans were expert in crucifixion,, engineering, war making and bureaucratic record keeping. The evidence is that Cornelius had extensive eyewitness reports on the activities of Jesus long before His arrest and that these individual reports were strung together with Peter’s witness by the mechanism of ‘immediately’ as a substitute for the date-time group of the bureaucratic time line. Cornelius probably had a huge amount of material on Jesus, including his own experience of the resurrection, that he was able to assemble from Roman and Jewish sources after his interview with Peter and the result is the Gospel of Mark. Commentators all observe that Mark is written for a Roman audience and that the syntax of the Greek is crude, lacking the fluency of Luke or the literary complexity of Matthew that Carrier details. Well, the fact is that Mark is probably a translation from the bureaucratic Latin in which the original documents were recorded and the working tongue of Cornelius, who fought and communicated in Latin professionally, In addition, Cornelius did not write for a Roman audience, per se, but wrote an idiomatic report for other soldiers in much the same way a member of an occupying military might write a tourist guide for fellow soldiers visiting the territory. For example, the details of Jewish purity traditions in Mark 7, which are left out of Matthew, have that anthropological voice characteristic of the foreign guide pointing out customs of the local populace to visiting firemen. Cornelius didn’t need to be reminded of Jewish customs when Peter arrived at his home, which even Peter was amazed to admit “I don’t belong here” or words to that effect. Finally, it would not surprise me if the autograph of Mark was a codex, as the assembled dossier on Jesus would have contained numerous pages of loose papyrus and it was just easier to bind it all together on one edge and the technique stuck. This autograph was completed sometime between 40 and 45 CE, at which point John Mark, returned from his abortive mission with Paul and Barnabus, took the text to Alexandria and began the process of copying and transmission, which is why his name is associated with the Gospel. The reason why Cornelius doesn’t take credit for it is because it is a document of sedition and would have gotten him crucified. In fact, the Gospel takes a great deal of trouble to establish the chain of custody of Jesus’ corpse and then very carefully excludes any of the details found in Matthew, Luke and the Gospel of Peter from the narrative except the arrival of Mary Magdalene at the tomb. I believe that Mark 16:8 ends the Gospel because it, the Gospel, was originally intended as an aide memoir for Roman soldiers telling their version of events around campfires and in home churches throughout the Roman empire. The real Passover Plot doesn’t involve the swoon theory so popular among Muslims and Jewish antagonists, but the secret among the Roman soldiers as to the source of the Gospel of Mark and the war story of the resurrection which was circulating in the Roman legions before 40 CE.

Some myths take forever to die out...

Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Marge says "yes".

When I was in Catholic school, I was taking notes one day, the nun was walking around while lecturing and noticed that I had written "Ax of the Apostles"! She was not amused!

The one thing both Ehrman and Carrier agree on is there's no way to prove the resurrection or supernatural powers of Jesus.

It's time to go eat and drink,,,, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Of course there is no eastern jewish (aramaic/hebrew/greek) source Q. The gospels were written in Rome. There is some stoicism (Seneca) and some parts of the family life of Nero in the gospels. The gospels are not only build on the Old testament and the jewish apocriphe writings. There must be some pure roman source(s) too. Good job done by Carrier.

You don't need a PhD to know that humans don't resurrect or turn water into wine. You do need a PhD to make it look like it's not absurd to claim such nonsense is possible.

I'm confused on one point. You say that Acts is fiction, but you also say that Luke is lying. These seem like incompatible claims--if it's fiction, it's not making claims about what actually happened, so it can't be lying. Can you clarify what you meant by these two claims?

this guy is the top man on the planet

37:19 Paul doesn't rise from the dead. Acts 14:19-20 says the people stoning Paul _thought_ he was dead, so they threw him out of the city. Then "while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city" again. The author does not indicate that he thought Paul was actually dead. No one in the text calls it a miracle and no one is said to be amazed. No one thanks God. The impression you get is that Paul either faked it or was unconscious. To say Paul is actually resurrected is dishonest and trying too hard to compare him to Jesus. 18:52 Hundreds _do_ accept Christ after hearing one sermon. I've been to christian services in Africa where literally hundreds of people accept Christ at one time (eg, open-air Reinhard Bonnke meetings). This is not something that can be considered impossible. 20:35 Why would the Romans think Jesus was an escaped convict when they saw him die, and even checked that he was dead? Jesus' post-resurrection appearances were more like angel visitations (walking through walls, appearing and disappearing). If people claimed to see Jesus afterwards, it would seem more likely that the Romans figured they were desperate people hallucinating or making up stories. I don't think police did a manhunt for Elvis after people claimed he was alive. There's some great information in the video, but some of the arguments are surprisingly sloppy.

The obvious question with these debunkers: were you there? In person? And if not -- certainly not in Dr. Carrier's case -- all this verbiage amounts to just another historical fabulation.

1:07:22 Sums it up so well. Acts (and the Bible in general) has the same probability of being true (ie extremely low probability) as the Koran, Book of Mormon, Scientology, Greek mythology, etc.

Dr. Richard Carrier and the limits of the theology of probability A problem with Richard Carrier’s general premise is that God fits into the box of Carrier’s invention, a conceit common with Muslim apologists. While Islam is a Gnostic construct, Carrier presents a construct based entirely on a reflection of his narcissism. Which is characteristic of the new atheist. The constant appeal to what is probable obviously provides enormous comfort to him, but, but definition, God operates outside the boundaries of probability. More to the point, God defines probability: the usefulness of science is precisely that it responds to these limits and recoils from approaching, much less crossing, this epistemological horizon. In particular. Carrier’s premise fails in the face of the Gospel of Mark and the collateral evidence that: (1) Cornelius the centurion was the author of the Gospel (and not John Mark); (2) Cornelius was an eye witness to the resurrection; (3) the report of the resurrection was beginning to circulate in the Roman legions before Mary Magdalene arrived at the empty tomb; (5) this report became the basis for the Gospel of Peter and had proliferated throughout the Roman legions before either Peter or Paul got to Rome; (6) both Roman authorities and Herod began to assemble an intelligence dossier on Jesus after he appear above the Roman military horizon; (7) Cornelius wrote the Gospel of Mark soon after he debriefed Peter as described in Acts 10. which is to say, the Gospel of Mark was on the market around 40 CE before or contemporaneous to Galatians; (8) Cornelius substituted Peter’s testimony for the elements of the Gospel of Peter while transmitting this eyewitness account to Peter; (9) Cornelius augmented Peter’s testimony with eye witness reports from the Roman dossier on Jesus, which manifests as the Messianic Mystery while the frequent employment of “immediately” (or words to that effect) represent a substitute for the date-time group of each report from the field; and (10) John Mark became the custodian of the autograph and took it to Alexandria for systematic copying and distribution, which is how his name became associated with it (for issues of discretion, Cornelius kept himself free of this association). There are a number of characteristics of the Gospel which tend to indicate this origin. First of all, the Greek is reported to be crude, with a liberal employment of the “historic present” which would reflect the stenographic nature of the initial composition. In addition, Latin was Cornelius' first tongue, in which he fought, trained, garrisoned and conducted business as a military bureaucrat: the intelligence dossier would have been maintained in Latin. Cornelius had an idiomatic command of Aramaic, given his engagement in the synagogue at Capernaum, Finally, he would have had a pedestrian, at least, grasp of Greek in self defense when dealing with his Equestrian masters, but without much facility in composition, The result in the crude syntax of Mark. In addition, while the theology, ontology and epistemology of Peter in the narrative of Mark originates with Jesus (as does Matthew, John and Paul), the ontology and epistemology of Cornelius, the narrator, is the same as Jesus, which is to say, YHWH. As a combat veteran, (which pretty well defines the essential role of the centurion), Cornelius had a direct and personal acquaintance with YHWH, an experience in common with the modern veteran of Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam, as well as the first responders on 911 at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. It is the nature of Duty. It is this relationship that informed Cornelius’ involvement with the Jewish God: he heard the stories of Abraham, Joshua and Gideon, and recognized the element common to his own experience. In addition, the theology of Cornelius was DUTY, in the Duty, Honor, Country sense of the word, a discipline missing in Richard Carrier’s sheltered existence. Cornelius expresses this theology in Matthew 8:9 and he recognizes a commitment to a similar theology in Jesus. One of the reasons why the Gospel of Mark seems to many commentators as strange bordering on weird is because it isn’t a Jewish perspective in any sense of the word. Cornelius saw Jesus like a soldier on a mission, In many ways, the Gospel of Mark can be seen in the same genre as the narrative accompanying a Congressional Medal of Honor, awarded posthumously. In many ways, Jesus was both Abraham, delivering the sacrifice, and Isaac, the sacrifice and Cornelius understood this before the Disciples did. Faithful unto Death. There were 500 Roman soldiers who were witness to various phases of this drama and the Gospel of Mark goes to a great deal of trouble establishing the chain of custody after Jesus was declared sufficiently dead for Roman purposes to release the corpse. For the purposes of the Gospel, Jesus becomes a Jewish problem after He is released to Joseph of Arimathea because, even as late as 40 CE, any Roman possible collusion in His resurrection would amount to sedition. And all the while, the story of the resurrection was driving the expansion of Christianity throughout the Roman empire by way of the soldiers. As important as Paul’s personal missionary was, especially in the development of a coherent epistemology, it doesn’t begin to explain its vitality outside of the Eastern rim of the Mediterranean. Something else what happening and it occurred far beyond the horizon of probability.

I think he means Maltese, not Maltans (13th. minute). But this is very informative. I learned a lot from it.

In one of the infinite multiverses Dr. Carrier is a reknowned Christian apologist

Great talk but poor sound quality ASUSUAL.

Thank the Universe for my Australian life, few apologists ,few guns, few gangs, few filthy cities and few Karens , and an aged pension that is comfortable.Million dollars houses mostly empty is common .

21:50 Can't agree with that. Let's take Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, for example. The latter is a nominally historical account (mimicking the style of Chinese dynastic records), but is infamous for its bias. The former is mostly mythmaking - but does capture the Societal conflicts in Japanese prehistory. We can't know all of the specifics, but it's fairly obvious Amaterasu is a stand-in for the prevailing Yamato state and Susano-o for the absorbed Izumo faction. Thanks to Archaeology we know that Izumo had a massively impressive Grand Shrine, where Susano-o was revered. We know that they did bury hundreds of swords - they've been discovered, as stated in the myths. And we know that their ruling class became the central Priest class within the Yamato power structure, as a sort of compromise / negotiated truce. The myths in Kojiki are clearly depicting societal level interactions... not unlike the concept behind Hetalia. I believe this can be carried over to Western Pagans as well. The way certain gods fight, the way gods are adopted... how they're adopted, the treatment they get after adoption, the syncretization of differing religions tells a valuable story between cultures. Because the conflicts are represented symbolically, it's oft been observed that the Kojiki is more honest and less biased than the Nihon Shoki. As Cambridge' 4 Volume History of Japan noted, the Kojiki becomes more valuable as a historical source because the subjects are symbolically depicted (and therefore the writers don't have to self-censor), vice the heavily propagandized Nihon Shoki which must carefully toe the lines of their masters.

Uh... love me some Richard Carrier, but he isn't called God or rise from the dead in Acts 14. It says that he is called thought to be a God by the Greeks when he heals a man, but not in a similar way. They call him Hermes, because he speaks for the Gods. He is then stoned for blasphemy. The chapter explicitly states that he ISN'T dead, but that he is thought dead and leaves later.

Carrier's statement here that the Peter and Paul (and their respective communities) were in opposition to each other contradicts his claim that 1 Clement wasn't written in in the 90s but rather in the 60s of the first century. Because 1 Clement teaches that both Peter and Paul taught essentially the same gospel message and that upon their deaths they went to heaven. I suppose this apparent contradiction in Carrier's view could be resolved if his views on the re-dating of 1 Clement is a relatively recent position which he came to accept after his lecture in this video (which seems to have been given 2014).

A small correction, the shipwreck is in "2" Corinthians, not the 1st. 32:29

I just thought of an interesting parallel: There's a poem that's popular among Christians called "Footprints". It tells of a dream where a person is walking and talking with Jesus. The story shows that humans have problems, and doubt their faith, but then their faith is restored at the end. The purpose of the poem is to convey instructions about faith. It's not meant to be taken as something that literally took place. The particulars of the story are just tools to convey a message. I wonder if that's how Acts and the Gospels were intended to be received.

I have studied Church history since 1980. I am more of a Christian now than then. The Fire of the Holy Spirit Burns in me Hotter than ever. This guy needs to go back and study some more.

Isn't it also very strange that all the 1st century sources that could refute this claim are lost to us and we only have a handful of non christian sources that mention christians and even then we can show that these references were inserted into the record much, much later? This religion isnt acting as though its legitimate in its claims

How do you answer Christians who retort that people like Paul had no motive to make up a different religion, to be persecuted for their “new” beliefs, and to die and be martyred for those beliefs. So Paul just hallucinated is the answer?

I go back & forth on whether Carrier is right & Jesus never existed. There is plenty of embarrassment in the gospels where they have to bend over backwards to explain something they could have just left out if Jesus was completely fictional. I kind of like Einhorn's idea that Jesus was the Egyptian of 20 years later, & the anachronisms are from the gospel writers putting him back in peaceful times to separate him from the violent rebels of the 50s. _BUT_ if you move him in time & make up most of his biography & all his miracles and crucifixion _and_ we don't know the Egyptian's name, isn’t that pretty much the same as making him up in the first place?

The gospel NEVER writes that Jesus or Christians needed to become Jews or Circumcised to become a Christian. Carrier is not correct is not correct. Yes, Luke, wants to correct the order of Matthew and Luke tell the reader that he is doing. Carrier is correct on the "Q" document. No evidence. Carrier is very correct on Luke is not a historian at all but a Gospel and Acts writer. Luke is writing stories about the Christian growth. it is not a complete history at all. Luke was not writing a complete history at all. It is key document about Paul and Peter's role in the Christian church history. IT is not a history book but the stories of Paul and Peter. Luke is trying to get the story straight by using sources but he did change what he thought he should do. It is NON- Fiction books. The history is accurate but hardly correct. Why does Carrier to jump to fiction as an assumption . Acts is very accurate on location and city locations. No one can say the stories are accurate or not since it is a subjective document since it comes from only one source with a small amount of validation from Paul's letter. Acts did happen since we have no other counters to the story line. Yes, novels and real stories are very much a like. Luke and Paul are well known to be in Jerusalem just like Paul states he was trained by a great teacher in Jerusalem. Acts does not rewrite any parts of Paul's letters. Paul conflicts with Peter were on table fellowship. Peter did not eat with gentiles and Paul tells his he is wrong in to his face. That is not about Hebrew traditions at all. Carrier is wrong about how he puts this together and is quite misleading. Paul and Peter in Acts 10 and 15 agree with what gospel message. Luke would have had a Greek OT books and that is why they are used in Acts 2-5. Luke uses the Greek OT books since Luke was a Greek speaker first. The Greek OT would be just what Luke would know. Carrier actually supports what Luke would have done. Nice job Carrier. Carrier reads into Luke and Acts so much that I just think he looks for similarities and then concludes they are just the same story but never thinks that stories many times read very similar and are in fact two different stories. WW2 battles sound a like - tanks and planes were used. Men died. battles were on land......... I could go on but you get the point. After a while Carrier just drones on. the process of a person calling to follow Jesus is about the same for 2,000 years. So they are all the same method but are very different people and time frames. With Carrier logic, there has been only one person converted and is repeated for over 2,000 years and the church is really only one person based on some Greek story. Carrier, when you add it all up, is just full of himself and proves nothing and creates fiction himself. Nice - what a joke. Maybe Carrier is just Luke in another body from 2,000 years ago and Carrier got his stories from a Greek writer named Bulchoi.

+Burnt Toast >>>>You seem to enjoy an elaborate story, but it seems to lack any evidence>>>Do you accept the common view in biblical scholarship that 6 / 13 of the canonized Pauline Epistles were forgeries?Do you accept all holy texts from all religions at face value, or just those for Christianity?

I like to think of it like monty python and the holy grail when they all split up to look for the grail lol

Cheap microphone. Poor acoustics. I couldn't listen to this for that reason. Such a shame because I really wanted to hear Richard carrier.

+Burnt Toast First of all, the Romans wouldn't have wasted an instant searching for Jesus because the practice at the time was to substitute the person in charge for the condemned prisoner, which is to say, the centurion or the entire guard mount, That's why the Roman soldiers went to the Jewish authorities, to establish an excuse for the lack of the corpse. Otherwise, a new corpse would have been manufactured in the person of a Roman substitute. This is also why neither Mark nor Luke mention the guard mount at the tomb: official Rome had a long memory: the mention of Sejanus as late as 70 could get you executed and Cornelius, the author of Mark, was very careful to avoid naming names that could have triggered reprisals and Roman due process, Tiberius ran Rome through Sejanus increasingly from 15 until he was condemned by Tiberius in 31 and executed. Tiberius died in 37. Tertullian wrote his APOLOGY in 180 or so and had no influence on Tiberius' proposal to the Senate. And a reason why his proposal failed was his failure press the flesh in Rome to lobby for it: the Senate rejected it because it wasn’t their idea. Politics worked back then pretty much the same way it does,today. I'm not interested in proving the Resurrection of Jesus which is firmly established, but in Cornelius as the author of Mark, who assembled the spy reports about Jesus as a potential insurgent that were collected before His arrest and woven into the narrative that included the testimony from Peter's debriefing described in Acts 10 into a fuller intelligence report on Jesus in 40, now called The Gospel of Mark. I don't have to prove the existence of the Gospel of Mark: even in your obtuse mind, it’s literal existence should be evident. However you want to characterize the intelligence that convinced Tiberius to propose Jesus as Deity is fine with me, but it would have included the Roman elements of what we now call the Gospel of Peter, which were transmitted to Peter by Cornelius in 40 and became part of Peter's standard stump speech in some way. But the Roman contents of the Gospel of Peter (which Peter would not have been privy to) began circulating among the two legions deployed around Jerusalem before Mary Magdalene discovered the empty tomb. I mean, it takes incredible credulity on you part to assume the Romans would have remained passive to this extra-rational event simply because Jesus was Jewish. Judaism perplexed them, generally, and there were 2000 soldiers as Pilate's body guard who participated in the torment of Jesus, all in good fun, so His existence was a given before His Resurrection occurred. The Romans endorsed all gods and religions as a practical manner, so long as the Emperor was officially worshipped above all others, a requirement the Jews were allowed to side-step as long as they prayed for the Emperor. There weren't any atheists or, in your case, anti-theist in Rome at this time. Tiberius didn’t need to be convinced that gods existed and Jesus most certainly cleared the bar in that respect. The intelligence Tertullian depended upon coming from Palestine came from the same Roman sources that produced the Gospel of Mark, most likely including Pilate's testimony (I have encountered a legend that Pilate petitioned Rome to elevate Jesus as deity, but Pilate's career after he was relieved as Proculator in 36 is obscure to me at the moment). The Gospel of Peter records the events in Mark 15 (as a proxy for all the Roman content in the Gospels) from the perspective of the soldiers who were there at the Cross, as part of the guard mount at the tomb and in their petition to the Jewish authorities. These experiences would have been part of the intelligence coming up through the chain of command, although they predated the creation of the oral tradition of the Gospel of Peter after 40, Maybe it would help you to rename these experiences the Gospel of Pilate, because it is under his watch in Palestine they first began to circulate and bubble up the Roman chain of command to Tiberius. There is nothing about the Resurrection that is rational, That is the nature of miracles. You sound like a Muslim who cannot imagine God doing exactly what God does. God broke into history specifically to demonstrate His extra-rational, supernatural nature and to validate the universal experience of His existence. Tertullian developed the doctrine of the Trinity, among other things. His fraud on the issue of Tiberius would have been exposed at that time by his many enemies and theological rival and ended his historical influence. The “history” he refers to was still intact when he wrote his Apology: Suetonius lost access to these official archives shortly after beginning his work on the 12 Caesars in 121, but Tertullian didn't and his reference to them was a challenge to contemporary skeptics to discover a "fish tale", No one did.

Bad lighting...bad sound...really poor judgement on the part of the cameraman all make for a very dull lecture.

Carrier claimed the following: >>Carrier says: >>No mention is made of any arms being taken (onto the Mount of Olives). Has Carrier ever read the New Testament? Jesus ordered swords to be purchased in Luke 22:36. They were delivered to Jesus in Luke 22:38. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives in Luke 22:39, and those same swords were used on the Mount of Olives in 22:50 to cut off an ear. Why does Prof Richard Carrier not know of this? . >>Carrier says: >>Jesus is not the high priest in any Gospel narrative Yet Hebrews 7 details how and why Jesus became High Priest. The explanation is complex, because Jesus was not a Levite and needed an excuse. . >>Carrier says: >>There is no revolt in the Gospels. Yet Mark 15:7 says, quote: “And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had made revolution with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection.” In what way is that not a revolution? . >>Carrier says: >>The only Jesus the Talmudic rabbis know about died >>before the Romans arrived in Judaea. Jesus is called Yeshu the Nazarene in five places in the Talmud (see Sanhedrin 43). In addition, the Jewish Encyclopaedia says: “the pseudonym ‘Balaam’ is given to Jesus in Sanh. 106b and Giṭ. 57a” So Jesus is to be found in the Talmud, under the name ‘Yeshu the Nazarene’ and under the pseudonym ‘Balaam’. Why does Richard Carrier not know of this? . >>Carrier says: >>The Vulgate Cycle misidentifies Vespasian as the son of Titus. Why does Carrier not know that the Vulgate Cycle has the opposite naming convention for the Flavian emperors, to that given by modern scholarship. (Vespasian and Titus have exactly the same names - Titus Flavius Vespasianus Augustus.) . >>Carrier says: >>The Vulgate Cycle (calls) Vespasian a leper rather than the emperor. Richard Carrier does not know that lepros (a leper) refers to someone with scales (of a fish). Thus Vespasian (ie: Titus) was being identified as a supporter of Christianity, because the symbol of Christianity was and is the fish (the Christian Ichthus). . Just what does Richard Carrier know, exactly? Ralph .

And the longest piece of the Christian Bible is acts not Matthew but Acts. And it's stephen's speech to his fellow jews and the sanhedrin.

Carrier is the GOAT

A depressing thought is that, 2,000 years from now, historians will be expected to give as much credence to printed collections of the idiotic Tweets of today's public figures as they do to the impartial, peer-reviewed, scholarly works of people like Carrier.

I used to ask myself What have the authors of the bible been smoking LSD????The answer to this question is no, nothing.. When one is bone stupid, one does not have to be on anything..

Can we be honest..Acts is so late (a boys own novel) that you could assume.. Paul invented Peter and acts makes a story

- ... would like to listen but the sound quality is quite poor .....

danieljivers Richard has proven nothing but the Heptadic text of the Greek copies of the synoptic gospels does refute Richards plagiaristic hypothesis.

This takes it a step too far! Mr. Carrier is reaching and degrading the legacy of Homer. Mr. Carrier’s education does not qualify him analytically adept. BTW I am Atheist. But I believe the Flavian Theory has more credibility than this drivel

A bunch of assumptions taken as truth smh no proof that Mark came first. The logic is "Mark has least details so it must have been written first!" That's the foundation of their assumption.

Carrier needs to create more great minds like his

Here is one symptom of the harmful effects of Ayn Rand's dialectic on the spiritual health of the American culture. The tension which sustains the paradox of We, the People and I, a Person, is what prevents the US Constitution from become moribund, It is the source of the continuing revolutionary nature of the document and its mechanisms and the reveals the nature of the fallacy of Antonin's static concept of "original design". Rand's dialectic reduces this paradox to dilemma and then forces a false choice between "We, the People" and "I, a Person". The irony is, of course, that Rand demanded slavish collective devotion to concept of the US Constitution as an expression of "I, a Person" in the name of individuality. A result of this dialectically enforced fallacy is the spiritually toxic American culture that causes a combat veterans to commit suicide every 20 minutes. www.npr.org/2012/05/22/153222485/i-vs-we-the-heart-of-our-political-differences

brilliant mind

Historians agree that Luke was a first rate historian.

Please remaster the audio. Take out the room. Please

It's kind of funny they call it Acts of the Apostles instead of just The Apostles. It begs the question cuz how can there be acts if there were no apostles.

People only believe what they want to believe without finding out for themselves. We all.are responsible for out own eternal destinies.I know where my hope rests A university cannot give you a faith in God and His word the Bible.

The shipwreck wasn't 1 Corinthians. It's 2 Corinthians.

Very interesting!

The historical Jesus was a 1st century king of E.dessa. Biblical: King Jesus Em Manuel of Judaea. Historical: King Izas Manu of E.dessa and Judaea. See book: Jesus King of E.dessa. Ralph

Question- Does anyone know of any other work of fiction that contains the type of details that Acts and the Gospels contain from ancient literature?

You use the term, 'Circumcision' as if it was a small thing.

The main case against Q is that he was just Picard's version of The Great Gazoo from the Flintstones.

How would have Luke every had a chance to know the writings of Josephus? No explanation is given. Luke and Josephus were 30 years apart in time. Did Josephus have his books published some how? I bet Carrier has not explanation. Plank riding is the norm when a boat goes down, they did not have life jacket back in Roman days!! Carrier creates more historical ideas that are never supported. Bart Ehrman and any other experts would have a field day with Carrier comments. How about they corroborate each other - Josephus and Luke seem to know the same truths and therefore, Josephus seems to support Luke rather Luke copying Josephus at all. Carrier take makes a nice story but I would love to ask two or three question of Carrier and it would blow up Carriers ideas. 1) how does Luke know Joesphus' history? How do the Rome written Josephus get to Luke and then Luke weave a story around it in Acts.?? Seems like a major stretch. 2) Why do they not corroborate each other? Could not Luke and Josephus know the same history? 3) Why can not God use visions to create direction to people he needs to have follow him for the future of the church?? Paul is not raised from the dead, since the stoning did not kill Paul. Very wrong for Carrier in this case. Carrier takes similar ideas and jams them together. Not whole armies. What a strange way to be historical. What a bunch of crap!!! I would not take Carrier as anything truthful and I find him someone who would never get a PHD from the School of History. Just goes to show you a PHD does not mean they even know what they are talking about. Nice try Carrier but you are not fooling anyone.

luke was an outstanding historian just by being so flawed

+Burnt Toast Well, the issue isn't how incredible you find it: everybody thought it was incredible at the time. The reason why we are still discussing it 2000 years later is because, as improbable as it may seem, it actually happened and the Roman soldiers who were there are the reason why we know about it. >>>> Don't you think it would at least be possible for Tertullian to be lying about this?

Paul is Not as Odysseus but a similar ish like tale but with devilish corruptions. Nothing to do with Priam or Hector or Achilles.

Carrier says a next book might explore what the underlying historical thread to Luke's (obviously) revisionist "history" (historical fantasy) might be..... Please write the book Richie! Or someone out there write it! I need it for my own projects so I can proceed. Get to work, lazies! (And morono-apologists, please go sit down, shut up, and let the adults talk for a while. you had two thousand years of abuse. Give the honest thinkers a turn finally, fank you very much, not afraid of your threats anymore).

I don't take Carrier seriously because he makes special pleading regarding Apollonius and Pythagoras (historical characters with mythical biographies) and because he has not thoroughly contrasted the NT with Josephus. The latter narrates a very interesting series of events that begin at the end of Felix's tenure: 1) a false prophet takes a large crowd of followers from the wilderness into the mount of olives and promises the liberation of the jews, this man was ambushed and the crowd dispersed, but he escaped. 2) in this same period Josephus notes the existence of a "deluted sect in the wilderness" that was promising liberation. 3) the next year, allegedly another impostor is said to have been inviting crowds to follow him to the wilderness. This man is said to have been executed alongside his followers. 4) the next year, the zealots arrive in Jerusalem and start profanating the temple. They claim authority to name the high priest. These men are repressed by procurator Festus. 5) when Festus died, the high priest Ananus gathered an illegal sanhedrin and stones James son of Damneus for blasphemy against the temple. 6) the sicarii, the black hand of the zealots, kidnap Ananu's son and demand the release of their partisans. 7) a rivalry emerges between the aspiring intruders, the followers of James and Jesus sons of Damneus, and the official priests behind Ananus. A guy named Saulus, close to the herodians, is said to have taken side against the followers of James and Jesus. 8) the crowds reject the priesthood of Ananus, and revolts grow numerous from the stoning of James, Ananus and Jesus son of Gamaliel try to calm down the crowds, but they are slain by the zealots. 9) Josephus also notes the appearance in Jerusalem of a farmer named Jesus, that arrived 4 years before the war (exactly the time at which the false prophet and the impostor are supposed to have acted), preaching the destruction of the temple, and some nonsense about the bridesmaids and the bridegroom. This man is said to have been repudiated and humiliated by the authorities, and that he was interrogated by the roman procurator. This man was whipped "until his bones were laid bare", and is said not to have responded a word or cried during his torture. Please tell me that Josephus does not offer corroboration to gospel narratives.

Good stuff

There are many inacuracies in this video just like the other. You didnt had to become jew to enter original christianity, you just had to become Bnei Noah.

Christians, keep your head on straight, and don't take the church on its word. They are clueless. The Gnostics had the original tradition. Acording to the Gospel of Judas: 'Judas' was the self-sacrifice, turned into a 'traitor' to hide his successorship (Judas was James)... "The Bible says Saviors- Obadiah 1:21" on Amazon

Kenny I don't waste a lot of time with Richards ramblings because many can see in our present day all things Biblical are being fulfilled.. The Bible predicted crucifixion a thousand years before it was invented . The Word of God will never be overturned and the majority it says will not not choose Jesus Christ. The Bible speaks of those who will be beheaded and return with their Messiah and will judge the fallen. Angels and those on earth that persecuted them

With every slide it just gets more and more ridiculous. I thought I read the bible, nah

Nice. I have been against Q for awhile. Probably disagree on everything else, but hey common ground

Also, E.W. Bullinger may have been a hardcore believer, but his study bible is amazingly useful as it shows the literary structure (as the evidence of the divine design of the Bible, of course haha). But it shows structure and has a treasure trove of other useful things any scholar could use.. I wonder if Carrier has a copy.

If only it were so simple.