Did Jesus Exist? by Bart Ehrman

You were saying Carrier was a "hell of a scholar", and you were playing up his statistical analysis techniques.How the fuck can you say you were downplaying it?

The fucking post title has Carrier using the word "evidence".Just not particularly strong evidence, to Carrier.You did not tell us this when I bought up Romans 1:1-4.You just kept saying that I had no evidence.Years ago, I showed Robert M Price admitting to "strong" evidence in another area.You kept saying that I had no evidence.You are the troll with one trillion disruptive posts.

You seem to be quite evasive, when it comes to giving us all a nuts & bolts reason for why 99 percent of historians disagree with you.Your earlier quip about not knowing whether Jewish historians being single, seemed to be part of an effort, on your part, to sidestep the issue of whether mainstream historians are doing work in a really fucked up way, or - conversely - if you are fairly wack in your ability to analyze evidence.

I need to keep things slow and limited, when talking to you and that substanceless clown with 5 quadrillion posts.SLlllllllloooooowwwwwwww......ly goingHow about you try to exegate Romans 1:1-4(My phone spell check kept changing exegate to execute)(Don't execute the text anymore than you have evaded it)(It might take 1000 posts to get to all your other evasions, since you offered to discuss evidence back around post 475)

You seemed to be complaining about those with theological degrees having too much influence in historical conclusions.I believe Richard Carrier has been making some noise on a distinction between those with theological degrees and those with historical degrees.Back in post 479 (?), I quoted Richard Carrier, who was quoting Robert M Price.Price has a PhD in Systematic Theology and that's not all. He has another PhD in a separate theological field.Price was quoted to show two possible interpretations experts reached on the text of Romans 1:1-4.Carrier (a historical doctorate holder) responded that one of the two (standard) possible interpretations is far more unlikely than the other.The unlikely interpretation is consistent with the AHISTORICAL JESUS theory.The other interpretation (which is the massively accepted one) is, in Carriers view, an interpretation that would - in actuality - function as a refutation of the JESUS NEVER EXISTED theory.The double-theologian Doctor Price then felt he had to pick the unlikely interpretation to save the JESUS MYTH theory.Carrier hated his conclusion for multiple reasons.The historian Doctor Carrier offered his own idiosyncratic exegesis of Romans 1:1-4.Soooooooooo...Why is the historian right and the theology major wrong?Why is Doctor History better equipped to interpret the text than Dr Theology?

I'm not so sure a doctor of Theology is limited on most historical issues.How can you justify the Gospels endless stories involving supernatural "demons" with any sort of historical or scientific consensus with regards to the existence of (for example) ghosts?Ghosts are rejected because all 30,000 scientific tests have resulted in results consistent with a more materialistic interpretation of the evidence.(I happen to feel UFOs offer the greatest challenge to materialism, but I still feel the UFO "evidence" does not quite rise to the level of observation-accurate standards to affect a paradigm shift)Ghosts being accepted as historical fact (they aren't!) have the added advantage of being consistent with both Jewish and Islamic religious beliefs.Infact Islam demands a belief in Angels, as a requirement of the faith.Hindus have supernatural beliefs, too.Why can you explain a scientific consensus, which supports a materialistic interpretation, of evidence studied, when you complain of theological bias influencing the conclusions?Why does the historian not show a spiritual bias?Theologians seem to leave most, but not all, of their beliefs at the door, if you look at the consensus view of most fields.A massive consensus is almost a guaranteed guarantee that theological considerations just aren't at play - AS A GENERAL RULE

I think historians are guided by the results.StudiesStudiesStudiesEndless hashing out.Endless debate.Exceptions come in when there is an issue little studied. There are also tentative issues, when one has, like, a zero percent chance of being aware if a possibility. Tentative issues are also at play when it comes to detecting forces and events. Scientific Astronomy can't hope to come close to parsing out Dark Energy's constituents.

Jesus of Nazareth Millenarian Prophet by Dale Allison is about what my view is.I only have the three decade old edition, where Allison did not think Jesus ever considered himself the messiah.Allison has apparently changed his view, in the updated edition: he feels Jesus considered himself a messiah, in some form.I have evolved in that direction independent of the scholar/historian I tend to agree with the most.Allison is in the apocalyptic school: as is Ehrman, Tabor, and others.The non apocalyptic school is about as strong in the number of historians. The Jesus Seminar promoted a non- apocalyptic Jesus.There is a lot of debate among historians.Alot of uncertainty.There are infeed issues that aren't looked at, by many scholars/historians, that might be overlooked. Allison, like me, feels Jesus was a vegetarian. It is an issue not often looked at.So I feel historians tend to get things wrong, when they aren't looking. They do succumb to traditional views - that perhaps can be ultimately traced back to theological institutions, like the nearly 2000 year-old Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church.But the question of the Non-Existence of Jesus issue has been around for a long time.It has not been overlooked nor has it been ignored. Many feel it has only recently surfaced, but it existed as an issue the entire 29th century.It happens to be a very falsifiable theory. I think is has essentially been falsified.The Jesus Myth theory gets resurrected, but it is a dead man walking.Historians wonder if they should say, "We debate many things. ..assuming the debate does not center around an-already falsified theory".It could probably apply to the Jesus Myth theory, honestly.Carrier and Price are trying to implement a resurrection. I wish them all the luck in the world. They need it.

Theodoric was the one who refused to engage the Romans 1:1-4 evidence.And it was much worse than a person with 125 posts disrupting a discussion of evidence.He both promoted Carrier, multiple times in this thread...ANDIgnored the fact that Carrier admits that the quantitative statistical analysis of Romans 1:1-4 counts it as evidence.(Carrier still feels his idiosyncratic reading is correct, do he ultimately ditched the evidence in the end, sort of)Carrier and statistical techniques are required to reduce the impact of evidence which - most would say - falsifies his theoryTheodoric just says:Still no evidenceThen attacks meHe is a piece of shit

The post title says it allIf he can call me a hateful insult, like troll, then I can use choice words to describe his utter despicable disruptive behavior

Who the fuck ever said anything about a miraculous Christ?Percy was the last one.Now you have.Why do you address this to me?

That is one interpretation.Most would say EvC is packed with people with a fundamentally unscientific mindsetEvC is packed with posters who don't even struggle with their complete, total lack of critical thinking skills.I am not great at debating techniques, and one expert on debating critiqued me a few years back.But you guys are hopeless.You refuse to follow an argument or datum to it's logical end.You refuse to engage with evidence you don't want to respond to.You only want to debate the evidence you feel is weak enough to destroy.(The reason why miracles and the supernatural keeps getting brought up, when historians have already rendered that type of evidence generally lacking and thus have ALREADY pushed it to the side)(Percy and now Tangle have brought it up)(Tangle has talked about nothing but the supernatural, but it is not what we should be bringing up. It is off topic)

The quest for the historical Jesus generally does not deal in miracles (there are vision type issues, that are relevant to the Historian, but it is not interpreted as supernatural by the historian, so far as I know).This is a debate ONLY on whether Jesus existed as a man.Miracles and the supernatural should not be allowed to be discussed in this thread.(The only exception that should be allowed is if one points out what historians and science have concluded, via studies)This is a strawman that is being set up by dishonest posters, and it is designed to disrupt the discussion

It is very much a set of verses that alone probably falsifie the JESUS DID NOT EXIST theory.And Carrier and Price know it is a challenge to the theory.They are very honest about it.They don't bring in strawman arguments.They confront the issue.The JESUS DID NOT EXIST theory is - essentially - admitted to be false, if proponents of the theory ignore Romans 1:1-4 text.Carrier said it counts as evidence for historicity.He said this verse (Romans 1:3) should be scored as twice as likely to be penned, by Paul, when he penned it, if Jesus was a historical man, verses a non-existent person who never lived.

He said one should always be honest in debate, and absolutely avoid the tactic of ignoring an opponents stronger arguments, while only responding to weak ones, then claim to have actually responded.He clearly considers that worse than no response at all.If character and integrity were all that won an argument, then Carrier would carry the day, every day.It is too bad he is very probably wrong, ultimately, on the larger Jesus Myth debate, because his debate tactics are often exemplary examples of the best behavior we can ask for.He prefaced those remarks to his debate with fellow Jesus Myther, Robert M Price.Both clearly have a scientific mindset. Both are stand-up characters. Their good character alone could almost creat a personality cult of a faction of followers. Honestly.Both have to deal with Romans 1:1-4You can tell both know it isn't pretty.It is downright ugly for the Jesus Myth theory.But at least they are honest and use sound methodology. Sound arguments with a sober admission that the consequences are severe - for the JESUS NEVER EXISTED theory - if Paul was writing to early Jesus-following communities who understood him to be a man.Romans 1:1-4Romans
Chapter one
Verses one to four
+Not to ignore)