That’s right! My new book, years in the making, is currently being printed and now available for pre-orders: The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus. This is the formal academic sequel to On the Historicity of Jesus. And the official description is spot-on: More than a decade has passed since peer-reviewed studies began questioning the […] The post The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus Is Now Available for Pre-Order! appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.| Richard Carrier Blogs
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
When people think of Ireland’s national sports, Hurling and Gaelic Football often take centre stage... The post Gaelic Handball: Ireland’s Ancient Sport Hidden in Plain Sight appeared first on Experience Gaelic Games.| Experience Gaelic Games
In August 2025, a Journal of Human Evolution study concluded that the Petralona skull is at least 277,000 years old and classified it as Homo heidelbergensis| Grunge
Manda Scott, Any Human Power. This long and weird novel focuses on a single British family who recognise that the world is swiftly being destroyed by those in power and decide to create a grassroots movement to promote true democracy. It’s narrated from the point of view of the grandmother, Lan, who in fact dies at the … Continue reading 20 Books of Summer, #18 and #19: Any Human Power and Helm| Laura Tisdall
Septuplets are seven siblings born at the same time; a septennium is a period of seven years; and September is the… ninth month of the year. What gives? As you may expect, “sept” is a prefix with Latin roots that means “seven,” and it didn’t end up at the beginning of the word “September” by accident. The month of September was originally part of the Roman republican calendar, which was used in ancient Rome for hundreds of years before the debut of the Julian calendar in 46 BC...| History Facts
Previously I summarized why I am not convinced by Nina Livesey’s thesis, in her new study The Letters of Paul, that all his letters were forged in the second century (Are Paul and His Letters a Second Century Fabrication?). There I already summarized why. But last time I provided more detail on why I am […] The post Do Paul’s Letters Look Fake? appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.| Richard Carrier Blogs
Previously I summarized why I am not convinced by Nina Livesey’s thesis, in her new study The Letters of Paul, that all his letters were forged in the second century (Are Paul and His Letters a Second Century Fabrication?). There I mentioned I have never been convinced by arguments that Paul did not exist, not […] The post Can We Doubt Paul Existed? appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.| 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 […] The post Are Paul and His Letters a Second Century Fabrication? A Critical Review of the Livesey Thesis appea...| Richard Carrier Blogs
It’s easy to assume waffles are a recent invention after cooking them (or having them cooked for you) on electric appliances your whole life. But waffle irons are far older than one might expect. All you need to make a waffle is metal, heat, and batter, and ancient Greeks had all three at their disposal. Ancient Greeks (and later, ancient Romans) used a pair of cooking irons (flat or patterned metal plates with long handles) over a fire to cook a batter of flour and either water or goat...| History Facts
Famously, Google used to have a practice dubbed “20% time”: about one day a week, engineers were {expected ⊻ encouraged ⊻ permitted ⊻ tolerated ⊻ known} to work on something other than their nominal work; something they themselves chose. Circa 2011, not long after I joined Google, I pitched a 20% project idea to my… Read more| Wade Tregaskis
Reading SwiftData vs Realm: Performance Comparison reminded me of an anecdote from my days working on Shark, at Apple. I don’t really remember the timing – sometime between 2006 and 2010 – but presumably around 2006 as I recall it was when Core Data was still relatively new. For whatever reason, there was a huge… Read more| Wade Tregaskis
After ten years of pretty much ignoring the arguments in the peer-reviewed studies on the question of Jesus’s historicity, Bart Ehrman has tried again to “respond” to their findings—and again proves he never really reads these studies and doesn’t know what they say. Indeed, he is stalwartly refusing now to read the actual studies and […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
This page is part of my history series where I share supplementary activities for Story of the World history chapters. If you aren't using Story of the World, you can still use this page: Just skip over the "While Reading Story of the World" section, and browse my suggestions of books and activities for learning about the Phoenicians. | Imaginative Homeschool
This is a collection of videos to expose students to an overview of ancient history, organized in a way that they could be used as a spine or as supplements for another spine or curriculum. It's a bit unpolished as yet, and I'm hoping to add more resources to go with the videos (like free printables and such as I find them), but I wanted to get it up, unpolished or not, so that people can start to use this if they want. | Imaginative Homeschool
In Epic of the Earth: Reading Homer’s “Iliad” in the Fight for a Dying World, award-winning author, Edith Hall argues that the classics can help us understand the long history... READ MORE| Yale University Press
To help make ends meet and help you understand the origins of Christianity better than the Christians themselves would ever let you if they had their way, every season I’ll post three books from my long-standing recommendations list, and review and discuss their value. And here’s how you can help: I am an Amazon Associate. […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
How the World Made the West tells the story of surprisingly complex relationships of contact, trade and competition among small city states around the Mediterranean and Middle East starting around …| Unsolicited Feedback
Written by Bill Griffiths, Head of Programmes & Collections and Alex Croom, Keeper of Archaeology. During the Roman period Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site was an incredibly diverse place, with soldiers, and civilians from right across the Roman Empire based… Read more The post Africans on Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site first appeared on Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums Blog.| Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums Blog
Keeper of Archaeology, Alex Croom takes an in-depth look at the Lead Shrine, on display at Segedunum Roman Fort & Museum.| Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums Blog
HEGEMON – HΓEMΩN – “Head Guide” of the Garden EPIKOUROS* of SAMOS (c. 23rd-24th Jan. 341–270/69 BCE) The Sage KATHEGEMONES – KAΘHΓEMΩNHΣ – “Guides” POLYAINOS* of LAMPSAKOS (c. 345–286 BCE) Guide and PhilosopherMETRODOROS* of LAMPSAKOS (c. 331/0–278/7 BCE) Guide and PhilosopherHERMARKHOS* of MYTILENE (c. 325–250 BCE) Guide and Philosopher *The founder and his allies are called HOI ANDRES – OI ANΔPEΣ – “The Men“ DIADOKHOI –...| Twentiers
Family forms Emmanuel Todd, The Explanation of Ideology: Family Structures and Social Systems (Blackwell, 1985, French original from 1983) was written a long time before the author became a promine…| Magistra et Mater
According to myth, Roman inflation ends Roman empires. According to me (and a barrage of evidence), I'd like to see someone try to prove it.| Armarium Interreta
Peter Brown‘s fascinating Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD chronicles the changing conceptions of wealth and treasure in late antiquity and the first centuries of Christianity. For our 2020 series in the rise of money (we also spoke to Thomas … Continue reading "146* Peter Brown on wealth, charity and managerial bishops in early Christianity (JP)"| Recall This Book
I’ve just been re-reading Kate Cooper, “Closely watched households: visibility, exposure and private power in the Roman domus”, Past and Present, 197 (2007), 3-33 (10.1093/pastj/gtm012). It made me…| Magistra et Mater
In Iraq, archeologists unearthed million-year-old weapons in an ancient, lakebed. The find was different than most archeological discoveries. Here's how.| Grunge
Hiking solo in Boulder, Colorado, November 2024. This felt incredibly appropriate because at the time Tepper published this book, she had lived all her life in Colorado, and, but for the mentions o…| Laura Tisdall
This is a collection of videos to expose students to an overview of ancient history, organized in a way that they could be used as a spine o...| imaginativehomeschool.blogspot.com
The record-setting action role-playing game "Black Myth: Wukong" pulls from some fascinating real-life Chinese mythology. Here's what it's based on.| Grunge
The volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 famously destroyed Pompeii and killed thousands. But some details of the ancient disaster don't make sense.| Grunge
Herculaneum, like it's neighboring city Pompeii, was destroyed and buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. Here's what happened to the bodies.| Grunge
Exploring ancient Egypt has never been more fun! Enjoy these Ancient Egypt Activities for kids and more homeschool history lessons.| You ARE an ARTiST!
Did you know we’re all pagans? That’s right. America is majority pagan. We worship Ishtar and the Onion God and have cool-ass pagan festivals featuring palm fronds and sacred orgies. Public feasts in every town distribute meat and mead, blessed by pagan priestesses in ancient regalia, to all the townsfolk, at public or patriot expense. […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
The mainstream consensus is that only seven letters of the thirteen attributed to Paul in the New Testament are authentic: 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, Romans, Philippians, Galatians…and Philemon; while the rest are either forgeries (Ephesians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and 2 Thessalonians) or misattributions (Hebrews is often listed as a fourteenth […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
There are thousands of crappy videos in aid of dubious projects. So I generally have to be paid to care about any of them. And lo, my latest hire: to examine what’s going on with Stardusk’s half-hour video Protectors, Providers, Nazis and Prostitutes on his channel Thinking-Ape. Considered one of the founding members of the […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
Just a quick note to announce the publication of a couple of things. First, the report on the workshop that Michael Wuk and I ran in May, Reading Classics Online, which was published on the Council of University Classics Departments Education blog. Second, I wrote a piece for Times Higher Education on the barriers thatContinue reading More on digital reading: barriers and approaches (in Classics)| Making Digital History
While preparing next year’s book and reading and thinking about the one I just reviewed (Margaret Williams on Early Classical Authors on Jesus), I have evolved in my thinking about the rhetorical sense behind the “persecution” section in the Epistle of 1 Clement, and realized I should spell this out more coherently in an article, […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
