He spent the first 20% of this session decrying amateur contributors without doctorates etc and then other scholars like Erhman. I am reminded of a pertinent saying "Blowing out someone else's candle won't make yours burn any brighter". Everything after that, ironically, was pure opinion.

This is why we tell fairy tales to children to keep them secure and feel safe.😍

I could not get past 12 minutes into this episode, because your guest would not start discussing what he brings to table, just telling us why we should not accept everyone else’s findings.

Paul initially targeted early Christians with persecution, but realizing he couldn't eliminate them all, he took a different approach. He used a mixture of false information and Pagan beliefs to divert their faith from God, aiming to distance them from Jesus's message and keeping Jews from accepting it. Despite the Jews not embracing Jesus and Pagans maintaining their own beliefs, the question remains: Why did Paul orchestrate these actions? And why have various Christian-related atrocities been committed over time? Answering this question is crucial for the sake of understanding why Paul's actions led to these issues.

Skrbina is a total nobody which considers himself so important. Comparing himself to Ehrman Price and Carrier is an embarassment for such a dim light he is.

Paul saying I'm not lying always gets me.

Thanks! I'm working my way through the back catalog.

No virgin birth No fall of man No sacrifice on the cross Each responsible for their own lives - words and deeds Restored the altered covenant standards to what they were to start with

15+ minutes in and this guy continues to wag his lips at us about how awesome he is compared to Bart Ehrman? I’m sorry, im not interested in opinions. 5 years ago, at my rock bottom, I stumbled upon one of Ehrman’s books and my life changed immediately! Why? Because I was raised on opinions- be it my evangelical mother, preachers or Christian school teachers, from masturbation to abortion, they all had one. And it involved being “Right”. This guy sounds just like them. Yes, at my bottom, homeless and late stage alcoholic, I read Bart’s book and you know what it did? Provided stats and facts. Allowed me to have the power of Choice for the first time ever. At 43 I left Christianity and have never looked back. I don’t need another mans opinion. I need facts, just the facts. Thank you for your show. I’ll stick with supporting Dr Bart Ehrman. Oh and in case you were wondering- 5 years clean and sober and a life beyond my wildest dreams.

All proceeds from this episode go to helping Dr. Skrbina purchase an extra vowel.

Despite all his qualifications, you do not need a PhD, to speculate as heavily as this guy does. This is in the category of "Ancient Aliens".

are u on apple podcast? i dont seem to be able to find u there ~

I am trying to suspend judgment on this guy, but I don't really care for the PhD waving (which isn't a PhD in history, theology, ancient Greek, etc.) and it seems to me the last thing you can evaluate in terms of the existence of Jesus (divine or not) is the motive for one advancing the existence of Jesus.

Starts at 13:00, after he dogs everyone for 12 minutes about not being Basicly "really" scholarly or qualified,, including even Richard Carrier,,,

A mother does not need a PHD to raise a child, a humans does not need a Degree to find the truth. Graduates have already been indoctrinated by education. So let’s get this right.

A horrible on going crime to humanity actually

His best evidence Jesus existed is his unproven theory that this kernel of truth is needed for Pauls lie. His best evidence is his own reasoning. This guy calls himself a scholar and philosopher, but can’t see how circular this is 🤯

If Jesus existed, he then did die. No miracles. No rising from death. Death is a irreversible process. This author's math education makes him a strong, logical thinker. I will read his book.

What I want to know is why do people want to destroy the idea that a man named Jesus ever lived. If people want to believe it, let them...how does it hurt you?

Sadly, look how many well intentioned people were denied access to their own spiritual connections based on truth and maybe even deprived of consciousness immortality due to the power grab and greed of our fellow mankind

Is it possible that the disciples didn't write down things because of 2 reasons: 1) They were illiterate 2) They believed the end of time is coming any minute and there's no use in writing ?

Actually the elephant in the room that overpowers everything is the fact that there was a massive religious power vacuum that occurred when Rome destroyed the Jewish world, there became this obvious religious power vacuum that nobody mentions or talks about in the context that I'm expressing it right now it was a massive power vacuum in the world of religion and that made it very easy for Christianity to come along

In the near-death experience many people have said that they have been in the presence of Jesus. How do you explain that?

Only just found this channel, and am really enjoying it. Is there a similar one for Islam and Judaism?

For so much preemptive trashing of Dr. Carrier and Dr. Price and the importance of his distinct education.. his argument is so weak. If this is the argument and evidence you can achieve by being a PhD and current professor- I’ll pass. Derek handled this so well and wouldn’t let anyone talk trash about all of our favorite, amazing “grandpa Price”.

Skrbina seriously accused Dr. Price of being in it for the money? Not only is that insulting, it just doesn't make any sense.

I get the feeling that early Christians wanted to emphasize to the Romans that they were not rebellious like those troublesome Zealots. Consider the famous phrase "render unto Caesar".

Thanks for this Derek and David!

Skrbina doesn't seem to understand the reason behind Carrier's use of Bayes' theorem. In using Bayes' theorem, Carrier attempts to base the discussion of Jesus' existence on rational likelihood, rather than on faith. He's not doing it because he enjoys mathematics - which is how David seems to interpret it.

The true religious Believers believe in the word faith, that's like taking the easy way out then you don't have to question anything when you have it takes all their fears away of the unanswered questions.

Oh wow y’all struck a nerve! The amount Christians in the comments trying to defend their mythological stories is actually very sad. This was a very interesting interview, and I love how everything was broken down into Lamens terms. Thank you for all you do to help find and share the truth about this dangerous cult.

Listening to this again. The image that popped into my mind was the scene from Life of Brian where John Cleese's character asked the question, "so what have the Romans ever done for us?" Hilarious!

For those of you old enough, David’s explanation reminds me of the M*A*S*H episode “Captain Tuttle” where they made him up based on a number of other people.

The good Doctor would be more credible if he didn't the first 12 to 15 minutes, dismissing everyone who disagrees with him. If he's sure of his position, he doesn't need to insult, or downplay anyone to add credibility to him

Did this discussion ever happen the discussion that you proposed?

thx for sharing this❤

Let me get this straight. Paul preached against Rome, yet the Romans allowed him to spread his message *within the city itself for two whole years* while living in his own private rented house. Something's not right here. 🤔

Probably the reason that the gospels exist without any evidence of authorship has more to do with people not wanting to be identified the gospels were probably written by people who did not want to be fingered for having written those pieces therefore no author is ever given, fear of persecution as there was no First Amendment

What about all the books they found in caves like the book off Maria Magdelena and Thomas?

🤣 Unbelievable how vain "Dr David" starts off with his interview...."Blowing out someone else's candle won't make yours burn any brighter" comes to mind.....

I was surprised the video didn't include an ad for whatever liquor Dr. Skrbina is drinking.

The main problem I have is when he is hypothesizing about Paul’s motivation for fabricating the story and describing the Jesus character. He is making the mistake that many others make in lumping the Pauline epistles in with the Gospels. The Jesus he describes is not the one depicted in the later Gospels and would not easily support his Pauline motive hypothesis. Whatever Paul’s motives were the writers of Gospels clearly had other motives. Paul might have wanted to create propaganda against Roman authority but whoever wrote the Gospels did not.

Academics and other commentators like to come up with a thesis. They can't just say "We don't know".

They’re ignoring the POLITICAL ramifications of the GOSPELS

David: you make good compelling arguments on merit. I advise against criticizing others based on degrees and arguments from authority. It’s a spurious way of arguing. Your arguments would be good or not good based on be quality of your ideas and rhetoric, nothing more or less. In my experience degrees only indicate interests, at most, not competence, even at researching and writing.

Dr. Bob's favourite phrase is 'We'll never know'. In that he's almost certainly right. But that doesn't sell books. You're tempted to come up with solutions which cover everything where none is possible. Careers and bookdeals demand answers to things that are probably unanswerable.

Back then there were all kinds of self proclaimed prophets

Paul wrote emotionally, making his readers believe he was a slave to the Christ and was torn in his actions and beliefs. Make them identify with spiritual struggle. It wasn't about one man, but the one chosen to be The Christ.

We know that the character Saul / Paul was the main driving force behind behind the start of Christianity. Can someone please tell me of any extra Biblical evidence that this Paul was a real person ? Yes someone wrote some letters, but who was it ?

The standard explanation for why his followers didn't write things is because they were expecting the end times. The 900+ followers of Jim Jones at Jonestown did write things, or record things with a tape recorder?, which is how we know what happened.

It’s crazy how people always project…… after all that noise about how other critics aren’t qualified to write for the position of opposition, because of lack of college degrees and therefor research knowledge/experience, when he actually gives his position it is all completely speculation, and ‘you can imagine…’ based on absolutely ZER0 research or knowledge or insight. This man is an expert on his own imagination.

I am reminded of Trent Reznor's lyrics in the song "Head like a hole", when discussing fundamental Christianity. "God money, I'll do anything for you." God money, just tell me what you want me to." "God money, nail me up against the wall." "God money, don't want everything he wants it all, etc, etc. 'Gods money not looking for the cure." Gods money not concerned about the sick among the pure." "God money, let's go dancing on the back of the bruised." "God money's not one to choose." Seems apt.

Can't believe he simply admits that there was a historical Jesus where Paul based his hoax....

It’s always interesting to hear a different take on the origins of Christianity. I think he slightly misrepresented Dr Carrier though. He’s not just in the “Jesus game”. He writes on other aspects of history and philosophy.

I thought judas and Mary had writings that the Vatican locked away. Or did someone else write about their story?

Very much enjoyed… thank you

So let me get this straight. Paul wanted to overthrow Rome but hardly spent anytime there.

Richard Carrier is not even close to a one-trick-pony! He does careful scholarly work. I want him to not pull punches, but he doesn't want to misspeak.

About credentials, Paul also came from a oppressed group. There is a type of weight in this. That not all debaters can bring to the table. Often the more privileged people are in denial of oppression even when educated.

8:30. A little strange that he draws skepticism against Ehrman because he is a professor and against Price because he isn't. (though I think Price once held a faculty position)

i am from Christian culture and recently thought "why have i not read The Book?" Have now- took as long as it took and open to your thoughts. Thank you

I have written a book and I went to get it published by Publishing world South Africa.They said good things about my book and that they believed it would be a good sell but they asked me to contribute 50% to the publication of the book,I asked God and the answer was no and so my book was not published.Now whether I keep everything the same or add other things I have learned through the years too it and if it get published in maybe 20 years what would people say.Will they say the book was already written by 2015 or will they say the book was written and published in 2043?Who is to say those apostels did not write down the scriptures way before the people learned about it?

Trying to listen for the what the essence of the video is, I keep thinking of Bruce Willis in The Fifth Element, racing back to Earth to stop the thing, and the president is on the line with him, talking about nothing much at all, and Bruce says: "Mr. President, any idea when you're going to get to the point?"

I'd like to preface this by saying that although I had a Christian education, I have been completely atheist for 55 years since my early 20's. My understanding is that there was a period when christianity was starting to take hold, but was viewed with animosity by the Romans, and although it may not have been the official Roman stance, Christians were getting killed because of it - the same as people get killed nowadays for belonging to the wrong cult - or being of the wrong colour, etc. As lot of the problem was that Christians did not have a unified belief - largely due to the fact that they were following many different gospels that gave them different stories about Christ. The Gospel of Judas came to light fairly recently. Google tells me ... "Although lost for centuries, the Gospel of Judas was known to have existed because it was mentioned by St. Irenaeus of Lyon, who condemned it as a fiction in ad 180. However, a Coptic translation (c. 300) of the original Greek text was discovered in a codex found in Egypt in the 1970s." I have also heard it suggested that Christianity would have died a natural death if the Romans hadn't tried so hard to stamp it out. Bishop Iranaeus took it upon himself to give Christians a set of literature that would tell a reasonably harmonious view of the life of Jesus, and he condemned all the gospels that fell outside of that harmonised version of Christ, as being apocryphal, and told everybody that the story to follow was in Matthew, Mark, Luke & John - though even they don't tell the story identically. Are other apocryphal gospels still in existence? I know that Matthew starts off by giving the lineage of Christ by tracing who begat whom, all the way from Abraham to Joseph, who was married to Mary, the mother of Christ - except that if she was impregnated by the Holy Ghost (allegedly), Joseph wasn't related to Jesus, so the lineage falls a bit flat. However, the gospels were records of the life of Christ *_outside_* of the writings of Paul, and while your talk was compelling, you said very little about them. I have heard (I'm not a Biblical scholar) that they were published more than a lifetime after the death of Jesus, which is plenty time for the story to be embellished - but they didn't have mass-production presses in those times, so the published gospels were probably copies of other hand-written copies, rather than simply stories that had been passed on verbally, and preserved in no more than memory. In fact, their mere existence for so long after Christ testifies to there having been some continuing interest by somebody in the Christ story. There must have been written documents (gospels) which did not have the political agenda that Paul had. What I'm getting at is that the gospels weren't simply passed on by word of mouth, preserved in no more than living memory - so I don't feel that your claim that there were no non-Paul-generated texts to offer evidence of the life of Christ. There must have been.

I already know that. I will give that answer to the question: "Why?" 1- Because they wanted it to be true. 2 - Because they could not accept that there was no resurrection and that they believed in vain. 3 - In order to gain power and spread that lie to the world and thus rule and liquidate all those who think differently...etc.

I usually believe the guy with his baseball cap 🧢 on backwards when it comes to such serious issues…

It's forever fascinating to watch Christians both practising and ex , focus so much of their time and effort on what is to others, obviously a fictitious narrative devised and implemented by very human creators/authors.

My question is what if the Jesus' followers were illiterate and, therefore, weren't able to write anything down? I know later writing were attributed to four of them, but were they the true authors? Nero lived just after Jesus "death". Why did he make it such a point to torture and kill so many people, those who said they were followers of Jesus? Why did he feel that they posed such a threat to him and his empire? These questions also need to be addressed.

God also says. If you turn your back on Him. The truths will become lies and lies will become truths. He will let you destroy yourselves if that’s what you want. But you won’t like it.

Thing is motive is always thr most difficult to prove, for instance you dont have to prove motive in a court of law, it can help but you dont HAVE to have it

One of the million dollar questions for me is why didn’t Jesus write anything I know he was able to write and read why did he not write not one book in the Bible or not write one piece of papyrus scribe anything that’s one of the main problems that I have

Robert Eisenman found enough historical evidence of James to write a thousand page book on him. So James must of been a real person.

By starting out from the NT, it’s more likely that Pauls first motives was to impress the sadducees in Jerusalem, and by handling the Jewish people for Rome, reaching a career as a powerful man. By his own initiative he started to attack Jesus-messianics in Jerusalem. Then by getting the approval of the high priests, he went further, but on his way got a collapse of some sort and that changed his mind. So, as he might have realized to be militant didn’t work out, to reach his goal, as a Roman citizen and probable Herodian, he wanted to side directly with the Roman elite. By joining them in the pursuit of a message that finally would end the messianic rebellion against Rome, still while doing all this, he could build up an heroic image of himself as a brave man, knowing fully well he always was protected by Rome.

Skribina needs to make HIS case before he tears down other people's works.

I would love to read the book thank you for the video

In Plutarch's text Isis and Osiris at some point he says, that after the Titan wars, Typhoon left riding a donkey and that he has children the Jerusolimus and the Judeus. I think that the donkey represents the lower instincts of human nature and he was basically trying to give us a warning message of where the danger is coming from. Remember that he was a priest of Delphi too and very aware of what was going on within the Roman empire then. I have the suspicion that the collapse of the Roman empire was by design and a power grab from the inside. Also noone ever talks about the holocaust of the Greeks and Romans that refused to be Christianised. Alaric later on was deliberately sent to mainland Greece by secret arrangement with Constantinople to raise down Delphi etc etc etc... Not the only attempt of totally wiping out the old world view... And the old world view was pretty.... Philosophical... It was creating free spirits... But how can you rule the world when there's a production of very conscious people... Then the Middle Ages arrived...🙃

Dismissing other people's credentials doesn't enhance your own.

Skrbina is 100% right on one point. That whether Paul or others did it, someone or some people invented the narratives and divinity stories of jesus whether he existed or not and that key point seems to always be avoided by scholars.

If, as is postulated, Paul’s intent was to create a masses-driven anti-Roman Empire movement, isn’t it ironic that 3 centuries later Constantine co-opted this movement by making Christianity the Empire’s official state religion? It’s that historical fact, more than any other reason, that made Christianity so enduring.

why is it that nobody I’ve heard or read don’t mention James Valliant and Warren Fahey? there book is very thorough and convincingly!!!

Perplexing. I clicked on this video to hear this fellow’s hoax theory,not for irrelevant character assassination of fellow skeptics. Don’t choke on those sour grapes,David.

This book could even be a lot smaller: there is no evidence... full stop. No idea why I should read this...

31:30 how could Paul make up the story when he was well after the 4 gospels?

I was surprised to hear Dr. Skrbinas’ observation regarding the absence of earlier writings from Jesus’ followers, and why didn’t they write anything? After reading Misquoting Jesus by Ehrman, my understanding is it was likely they were not literate nor scribes. Why develop this theory if this is the case, historically? Also, regardless of Paul’s motives. Even if he had his own self interested in mind, it does not invalidate the accounts of his personal conversion and the impact it had on his life to share it, and get the word out. Yes it can affect the credibility of his writings too especially for the skeptic in us today, but it doesn’t disqualify his claims. We need to be careful about these ah-ha theories. Here is also quote from Ehrmans’ book, Heaven and Hell, A History of the Afterlife from Chapter 8, regarding to support my earlier point. "For one thing, there are problems with the dates of these works. It is now widely acknowledged that the earliest Gospel was Mark, written around 70 CE; the last was probably John, around 90-95 CE. If, as just about everyone thinks, Jesus died around 30 CE, this would mean that the very first surviving accounts of his words come from forty to sixty-five years after he spoke them. To complicate matters further, the Gospels were not produced by Aramaic-speaking lower-class, uneducated persons living in Palestine (such as Jesus’s disciples); they were written by highly educated Greek-speaking Christians of two generations later, living in other regions of the Roman Empire.4 How did these authors know what Jesus actually said? Almost certainly they had sources of information. Most of these would have been oral traditions. That is, the authors of our Gospels heard stories of what Jesus had said, so many decades earlier, by people who had been repeating his words year after year for forty or sixty years. "

Speculation speculation speculation....no facts, citations or seemingly any real knowledge of the time. And he dares to dig at others motives or credentials.

One theory I heard was that Romans wrote the bible. It made a lot of sense when the motive and linguistics were explained.

I’m not a scholar but I have followed several of these brilliant NT scholars you’ve had on your show. I love it, because I have known since I was a kid that this had to be a fictional story. In my mind though, I feel that maybe it was someone like Philo of Alexandria, who was a proud Greco-Roman Hellenized Jew living in Alexandria at the times, that composed these fictional stories and based it off of the first century failed messianic movements. Lots of the characters sound familiarly like the characters in the messianic movements. The dates of 6CE & 66CE are crucial dates in that in 6CE the Census of Quirinius birthed the initial revolt, the virgin birth of Jesus being symbolism (the name Mary literally translates to ‘rebellion’) for the movement and fourth philosophy that led to the First Jewish-Roman War of 66CE, which was the same year Halley’s Comet was seen in the skies. One of the accounts by Roman historian Cassius Dio depicts Armenian King Tiridates, with magis, traveling to Rome following a celestial body. The historical account sounds somewhat identical to the nativity story of the magi following a star to meet a king. The death of the messianic movements evolved into a continuation of the movement but through a spiritual resurrection ideology. It seems as though that the allegorical stories were taken out of context and a new Christian movement evolved into one where they believed the stories to be literal truth rather than allegory.

It gets even deeper - when you question the existence of Moses My introduction to Acharya S. (Dorothy Milne Murdock) was via this great two-part interview: Part 1 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/prVxjZR9kpbMl6c.html Part 2 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h9hyedqZp7PLqmw.html Which led me to one of her extraordinary treatises … “Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver”

Honestly,I don't want to live my whole life digging in the black hole trying to find something.....

The trumpers are creating a similar story about their cult leader, trump. Let’s see in a few hundred years what comes out of that. 😂

GOOD WORK BREDREN!! just keep going this same direction dont be scared

A few points: no surprise that the disciples of Jesus wrote nothing since they were all illiterate. Agreed, Jesus was crucified as an active and leading opponent of Roman rule. This is the core premise of Hyam Maccoby's book Revolution Judea and dovetails nicely with Skrbina's views on the subject.

My question is who were the architects of the Nicean Crede and the ones who assembled the Bible...good info! Thank you for bringing this information to light. What motivated Constantine to convene the Council of Nicea?

It seems like Bart may need to be careful because of the kids and parents at Chapel Hill.

Weather you believe it or not, religion is on its way out. It's irrelevant in today's madness. Faith has never filled a empty belly maybe a empty head. 🤕

Was there mostly oral stories passed on in the early years?

Derek, I wouldn't bother bringing this guy back.

Got to say that I've thought basically the same sort of thing for a long time. Book written 50-100 years after the fact that were written to publicise a new religion are going to be dubious at best, but don't think this guy presented his case very well. As to Ehrman and Carrier, well they want to be taken seriously so they have to work with what can be shown and although this theory is very plausible, I'd say it has to be something along these lines, there can be nothing to back it up unless you can find something that shows Paul as being a con man. Basically we need something like when Hubbard said “You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.”

The author is to be admired for having the courage to open his mouth.

The one question I have is that this gentleman claims that there isn't any collaborative writings at the time, has this gentleman ever had access to the Vatican library?