Josephus and Jesus: an Informal Review of Schmidt's New Argument - Ad Fontes
I had my doubts.| Ad Fontes
I had my doubts.| Ad Fontes
There is a classicist named Ammon Hillman (a.k.a. David Hillman) who wrote a decent dissertation on ancient pharmacology and then went on to make absurd claims about the Gospels and early Christianity that verge into pedophilia and an obsession with genitals. And yes, your intuition is working here: all his weird theories about this are […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
Biblical historian Nina Livesey has produced one of several recent mainstream studies questioning the authenticity of all the letters of Paul: The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship (Cambridge University Press, 2024). The others are by David Trobisch (for Fortress) and Markus Vinzent (also for Cambridge University Press), neither of […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
Continuing from Review 2 . . . Thomas C. Schmidt asserts that Josephus portrayed the followers of Jesus in a negative light by writing that they “received truisms with pleasure” (according to Schmidt’s translation). I have demonstrated in the previous post that Schmidt’s “truisms” is a mistranslation. The correct translation can only be “true things” … Continue reading "“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 3 – “received with pleasure”"| Vridar
Continuing from Review 1 . . . Who am I to discuss the meaning of an ancient Greek word? This is something new for me so I must justify this foray. Up until this year I only had a self-taught level of understanding of koine Greek (the Greek of the New Testament) and would never … Continue reading "“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 2 – ‘a teacher of . . . truisms’"| Vridar
Continued from Review 3 . . . And when it is pointed out that, after all, we are talking about texts written in Koine Greek (and so the language ability is pretty important), and that . . . requires a lot of study, all this if one wishes to make some kind of soundly-based judgement … Continue reading "“Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence” – Review 4 – ‘he led astray many’?"| Vridar
Many readers by now will have heard of a new book, freely available, arguing that the first century Jewish historian Josephus really did write a passage about Jesus. The book has been discussed on public forums, blogs, youtube channels, other websites, etc. If you happen not to have heard about it,| Vridar
One of the most persistent reasons any Christian remains stuck in that delusion is that they are really bad at thinking their way out of any false position. Christians are prone to deciding what to believe based on groupthink, cult-think, and intuition (otherwise known as emotion in lieu of reason). But they are very good […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
Last week I published an eristic analysis of an exchange of videos between Rationality Rules and Capturing Christianity, on Which Is ‘Rational’: Theism or Atheism? This time I will analyze a previous Capturing Christianity video, “Why Theism Best Explains Reality (philosophy nerds, get in here!)”, featuring the content creators Tim Howard and Kyle Alander defending […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
Revelation was used widely in the early church, then doubted in the East in the fourth century, but eventually accepted again. This article explores the reception of Revelation in the biblical canon.| Text & Canon Institute
