Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists

496 Pages·2015·2.89 MB·English

by  Raphael Lataster

Table of Contents
FOREWORD
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY CLARIFICATIONS
Why Me? Why This?
Which Jesus?
A Debate Among Atheists
The Problem
1. THE CASE FOR HISTORICITY: EHRMAN
A (Mostly) Wonderful Start
Madness: The Gospels and the Folly of the Hypothetical Source
Beyond the Gospels
The Problem of Paul
2. THE CASE FOR HISTORICITY: CASEY
Poisoning the Well
‘Method’
Why the Gospels Ought to Be Trusted, but Only When We Feel like It
After the Case
Even Worse than Ehrman: Offensive and Facetious
3. THE CASE FOR AGNOSTICISM: LATASTER
Introduction
Methods: The Criteria of Authenticity vs. Bayesian Reasoning
The Sources: We All Know They’re Rubbish
Paul: The Untold Story
Conclusion
4. THE CASE FOR MYTHICISM: CARRIER
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Problem
Chapter 2: The Hypothesis of Historicity
Chapter 3: The Hypothesis of Myth
Chapter 4: Background Knowledge (Christianity)
Chapter 5: Background Knowledge (Context)
Chapter 6: The Prior Probability
Chapter 7: Primary Sources
Chapter 8: Extrabiblical Evidence
Chapter 9: The Evidence of Acts
Chapter 10: The Evidence of the Gospels
Chapter 11: The Evidence of the Epistles
Chapter 12: Conclusion
CONCLUSIONS
APPENDICES
Appendix 1: My Conversation/Washington Post Article
Appendix 2: Replies to Dickson, Bird, and McGrath
AFTERWORD
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jesus Did Not Exist

A Debate Among Atheists

RAPHAEL LATASTER

with

RICHARD CARRIER

Copyright © 2015 Raphael C. Lataster

All rights reserved.
FOREWORD
By Richard Carrier

Why This Book Exists

In early 2014 I published On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have
Reason for Doubt. It passed professional peer review. It was published by a
major, well-respected academic press that specialized in Biblical Studies,
Sheffield-Phoenix, the publishing arm of the University of Sheffield. And it is
the first book of such tested merit to argue that Jesus probably did not exist. It
argues instead that Jesus began life as a revelatory archangel, and was
transferred to human history decades later through the writing of myths for
educational, missionary, and propagandistic purposes. This would have
proceeded, in both cause and procedure, much like the invention of the life and
teachings and miracles of Moses, whom the mainstream Academy now concedes
probably did not exist.

Now late in 2015, the book you hold in your hand, Jesus Did Not Exist: A
Debate Among Atheists by Raphael Lataster, contains the first thorough and
expert treatment of my argument in print.[1] In fact his chapter summarizing my
book is the best brief summary I have read anywhere. One could skip directly to
that chapter just for that purpose. And his book as a whole is the first analysis of
its argument from anyone of graduate status or above in a relevant field that does
not ignore or lie about its contents. Its motivation is evident from its author’s
argument: Biblical studies is inhabited by experts too close to the material to
approach so controversial a question critically. Someone who hasn’t settled their
careers and access to grants and conference invites on there being a historical
Jesus is indeed needed, to look objectively at what’s going on.
That there is a problem is widely acknowledged within the field itself. It has
been remarked on by numerous observers, from John Crossan, who would write
the famous line describing most historical work on Jesus “a disguise for doing
theology and calling it history, doing autobiography and calling it biography,
doing Christian apologetics and calling it academic scholarship”, and who then
ironically did pretty much the very same thing himself, to James Crossley, who
has argued that historians keep constructing a historical Jesus that conveniently
agrees with who they want Jesus to have been, even writing two whole books on
the point: Jesus in an Age of Terror and Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism.[2]
That the problem is even more extensive than this is demonstrated by Hector
Avalos in The End of Biblical Studies. These are all leading insiders, well
qualified in the subject.

This is why it can be useful to have your methods and approaches observed and
critiqued by someone who hasn’t been raised and taught on a body of old
Christian faith assumptions repackaged as a consensus unconnected from its
previous theological origins. You can’t see the hall of mirrors you are trapped in.
But they can. Someone, though, who nevertheless has sufficient qualifications to
evaluate your field informedly and skillfully. Lataster is a doctoral student and
teacher in ‘Religious Studies’, a field that more than prepares someone to
approach religions, religious claims, and religious scholarship with skill and
insight. If someone in that position finds serious problems with the way your
field is doing its work, you should at least listen. And consider what they have to
say.

I concur that Lataster has done a good job of outlining the evidence and
arguments and what its weaknesses may be on both sides. I do not necessarily
agree with all of his arguments, assertions, and approaches. But I agree they all
deserve to be taken seriously. And I do mean all. Do not commit the
embarrassing fallacy of finding some few weak arguments or claims and then
dismissing the rest because you can dismiss those. Remove those if you must, if
any you find. Blot them out with a magic marker even. Then read and confront
what remains. Because you cannot erode a mountain of strong points by
removing any mole hills of weak points adorning it. The mountain remains.
Answer it.

From my own experience, I can predict the games many will play. Some will
just outright lie about what Lataster actually argues in this book, or not even read
the book and criticize it in total ignorance of its actual contents, based on their
imagining of what it must have said. Some will even lie about having read the
book, even though their ignorance of its actual contents betrays them. A note to
the wise: skimming or owning the book, is not reading it. Don’t become a liar
for Jesus. Or for the secular Academy. Actually read the book. Actually take it
seriously. Actually respond to its strongest and most relevant points, not its
weakest or most irrelevant ones.

Another way critics will respond to the weak and irrelevant as an excuse to not
address the relevant and the strong, is to attack Lataster’s tone, or his dialect in
English, or their feeling insulted by his opinions or assertiveness, or some such
triviality. This is as pathetic as saying you don’t have to respond to a book that
uses English spellings instead of American. Don’t be that person. Address the
facts as stated. Don’t waste yours or anyone’s time complaining about an
irrelevant choice of vocabulary that offends you. Don’t answer enraged with
emotion. Answer with sound reason and a deep care for a true representation of
the facts. Someone’s choice of idiom is irrelevant. Their opinions of you are
irrelevant. Though your being criticized will make you feel insulted, don’t let
your indignance generate a vomit of words as your rebuttal. Let your logic and
attention to facts attend to the actual substance of what is being said. Ignore the
rest. And ask yourself, at each point of disagreement you deem crucial, “Why is
he wrong?” Allow for the possibility he isn’t.

Though we don’t share the same opinions and conclusions on all points, readers
of this book will notice that a lot of Lataster’s ideas were inspired by my work in
On the Historicity of Jesus and its prequel Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem
and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, a dependence on both he openly
acknowledges. He doesn’t always reference where a thought or idea came from,
and I don’t deem it necessary for him to, especially as this is written as more of a
popular book, and he has developed similar and original ideas independently as
well. Just be aware that this book is largely a development on those books, and