Litwa Carrier Bible Christ

For those who have been following the arguments for and against the position that Jesus was a completely mythical person, you might be aware of some of the discussions that have been sparked by M. David Litwa and Richard Carrier. For those who have not, then one might summarize things as a bunch of drama that doesn’t matter. I figured it was worth discussing some of the recent interactions that have taken place via a number of YouTube videos among the channels that have participated in the discussions about the historicity of the Bible, the historicity of Jesus himself, and the various texts that are discussed when making those arguments.

The biggest reason that makes me want to discuss what is happening is that I believe all sides are poorly engaging each other, either making unfounded claims and errors or bringing up so much vitriol that it becomes impossible to clear-headedly analyze the evidence one way or the other. I won’t pretend that I am some perfect saint in these matters, but I have watched the debate from the side, so I believe I can referee to some degree.

1. Intro
2. Ascending Arguments
3. Vitriol
4. GI’s Video–Beginning
5. GI’s Video–The Good
6. GI’s Video–The Questionable
7. GI’s Video–The Bad
8. Conclusions

Intro

Before I do, let me give some background. Richard Carrier is probably the most prominent defender of the thesis that Jesus was not a historical person, but instead he was the result of visionary experiences and exegesis from the Old Testament, and the transformation of the original idea of a heavenly messiah into a historical figure was a process (as opposed to a conspiracy). His main book arguing the topic, On the Historicity of Jesus (hereafter OHJ) was published through an academic press, so it has deserved more attention by the academy than other versions of the Jesus myth hypothesis. M. David Litwa was, until recently, a research fellow in early Christian studies at the Australian Catholic University. Both of these scholars have been presenting their work and ideas on a number of YouTube channels devoted to New Testament and religion studies, namely MythVision, Gnostic Informant, and History Valley.

I believe the takeaway from watching the videos with Litwa and Carrier should be that they are very much worth listening to. They are experts in their fields who articulate their ideas clearly and in a way that a lay audience can understand. However, they do come to very different conclusions on Jesus’ history, and this has caused the friction that has been blowing up across the channels mentioned above, and elsewhere.

Litwa criticized a bit of Carrier’s thesis in How the Gospels Became History, and Carrier responded on his blog. In some ways, it’s odd that there is the level of animosity between them, given that they agree on so much; Litwa is not a mythicist, but his books show why the Gospels and Christian traditions about Jesus are legendary and dripping with mythological archetypes. This is something Carrier praises elsewhere.

More importantly for recent discussions, Litwa went on History Valley, hosted by Jacob Berman, and claimed those arguing that the Ascension of Isaiah, an apocryphal text from the second century, showed that some Christians believed in a heavenly Jesus who dies and is resurrected in the sky, is misinformation. I say recently, but that video was released in February. It was only more recently that Carrier, both on another YouTube channel (Godless Engineer) and on his blog responded to Litwa’s accusations.

With Carrier’s response came a lot of remarks that were divisive, especially when calling Litwa an apologist and a liar who undermines everyone with a PhD. This has caused many to draw battle lines, and plenty of folks accuse each other of ill will depending on which side of the history-vs-myth debate they find themselves on. That can be seen in summary and in detail in the recent video from Neal of Gnostic Informant.

The personal drama shouldn’t matter to the actual answer of the question of Jesus’ historicity, but it’s in the way. It’s also showing how all sides are making unforced errors that create heat instead of light. So, I will try to take some space here to say, on the facts, who was right about a number of points related to the mythicism debate, and how each of the players in the drama could have done better. I don’t think much of anyone can walk away and say they did everything right.

But before I do, let me state here what might be my conflicts of interest. I have been a backer of Carrier’s work for some time, and that can be seen even in Carrier’s OHJ, since he mentions my contributions in a few places. I’m also one of his Patreon patrons. Conversely, I’m a patron of M. David Litwa as well, including helping fund his return to the US (he was let go from his position in Australia for no seemingly good academic reason), I have several of his books, and I also think he is an excellent scholar. For the YouTube channels, I have been on MythVision, Gnostic Informant, and History Valley numerous times, and I would like to say I am friends with the channel hosts, though I wouldn’t want to impose too much of them by claiming I’m their ‘bud’–unless they want to say otherwise. I am also a patron to MythVision and Gnostic Informant. So, in terms of financial backing, I have money on all the horses. Nonetheless, I find Carrier’s arguments for mythicism the more persuasive at this time, but with the caveat that I have no certainty in the matter. The evidence on the subject is some convoluted that it is reasonable to take a position on either side of the debate. I am only dogmatic that there is a debate worth having. (Carrier is also not certain of Jesus’ non-historicity, but he is certainly its strongest proponent.)

So, with all that, let’s dive into the original debates about the Ascension of Isaiah between Litwa and Carrier, who had the better points and facts in their favor, and then move onto everyone else’s responses.

Ascending Arguments

The Ascension of Isaiah (hereafter AoI) is in two parts, the first known as the martyrdom (§1-5), the latter the actual ascension (§6-11). For the mythicist case, the interesting sequence is in the ascension proper, wherein the prophet Isaiah is taken up through the levels of heaven, seeing the glorious state of things above the earth, learn about God’s great plan, and watching the descent and ascension of Jesus himself. We also find the forces of evil existing in the upper atmosphere. the description of God’s plan is that Jesus will disguise himself to blend into the lower levels of heaven, until he reaches the firmament (the barrier between the upper and lower realm in the sky) and then appear as a mortal. Then, he will be killed by Satan and his followers. Finally, Jesus will be resurrected, be seen in his original, glorious state and return to the highest heaven.

In chapter 11 of the ascension, there is a sequence where Jesus is born to Mary and Joseph, does deeds, is killed, and then the resurrection and heavenly ascension takes place. It is here that one would say: the AoI has Jesus being born, so even this text has Jesus on earth. The mythicist case is that some Christians believed Jesus only died in the heavenly realm, so this text cannot be part of that evidence, since it flatly contradicts that.

However, Carrier notes that the story of Jesus’ time on earth in this “pocket gospel” story is strangely out of place (OHJ pp. 39, 42-45). One can find others agreeing that this pocket gospel was a later insertion, such as noted in the Jewish Encyclopedia. However, more recent scholarship has tried to argue against the idea that the AoI is a largely redacted document (cf. Knight, Ascension of Isaiah, 1995). On the other hand, the manuscript tradition of the AoI is convoluted in some important ways. Perhaps the most obvious big difference is that the Latin and Slavonic versions of the AoI do not have the martyrdom section at all, nor do they have what we see the pocket gospel that is best attested in the Ethiopic versions of the text. It is hard to say that the text is a whole if you can find versions of it with just one part.

Carrier’s arguments that the text is a composite is in-line with a scholarly tradition, and he gives several arguments for his conclusions. However, one can find scholars arguing against Carrier’s position, though those works are before Carrier’s book and thus are not addressing Carrier’s arguments. If one wanted to prove Carrier wrong, one would need to address his points. I will note that Carrier’s arguments are evidence-based, including both the manuscript traditions for the AoI, the discourse style of the text and its abrupt changes, and the internal disagreements between the pocket gospel and the description of Jesus’ divine mission given earlier in the ascension. So, if one were to argue against Carrier, one needs to address his points.

This then gets to Litwa’s response. First, Litwa went into the AoI in his How the Gospels Became History, pp. 38-39. He says that Carrier failed to address the points of an Italian scholar and commentator on the AoI, Enrico Norelli. However, Norelli is one of the sources in Carrier’s book (though not by name; Carrier cites the series Norelli is writing in: Corpus Christianorum: Apocryphorum vol. 7, 8. When Carrier responded to his on his blog, he did not know what arguments from Norelli Litwa thought out-did Carrier. What was the sucker-punch to Carrier’s thesis? Litwa didn’t say, and Carrier didn’t remember what Norelli argued. So no one in the audience can know what those arguments were based on what Litwa and Carrier had said up to this point.

As for the video interview Litwa did on History Valley, he suggests that Carrier didn’t even know of Norelli’s work. That is factually false, since one can see the Corpus Christianorum volumes cited in OHJ pp. 36 n.1, 39 n. 3, 48 n. 11. When Carrier responded on Godless Engineer, he also responded to what was supposed to be Norelli’s arguments that the pocket gospel is original to the text. Similarly, when Litwa claims that it’s mythicists who don’t like the pocket gospel, therefore it’s an interpolation, that is not true either. Again, scholars a century earlier were arguing that the AoI is highly doctored, including the pocket gospel, and this was well before mythicists like Carrier were using it to argue their case.

However, what is true is that there is no particular citation of Norelli’s arguments about the pocket gospel being original to the AoI, which Litwa does cite. I also note, in Carrier’s first response to Litwa, Carrier doesn’t seem to know what Norelli’s arguments are. In a comment, Carrier says that he doesn’t have a copy of Norelli to do an examination of the arguments, though he did go over it years earlier. So, Litwa is correct that Carrier did not address Norelli’s arguments about the pocket gospel, and in 2020, several years after OHJ was published, Carrier didn’t have a clear memory of what Norelli argued, let alone directly responded to it.

But conversely, the recent video on Godless Engineer and in his more recent blog post, Carrier not only says he knows Norelli’s arguments, but he quotes the occasional word from it (he has “Cathars” and “indications” in quotes, suggesting this is taken from Norelli). So Carrier knows the arguments and responds to them. And now Carrier says it is Litwa that hasn’t read Norelli, because Norelli also shows (as noted also by other scholars) that the first five chapters (the martyrdom) are a later add-on, not original to the AoI. The reason this is important is because Litwa uses material from the martyrdom to support what is said in the pocket gospel, which shows the AoI is not a Cosmic Christ-only document. If the martyrdom isn’t original, using it to support the pocket gospel as original to the text is to use an interpolation to support another supposed interpolation. If Norelli is actually saying the martyrdom is late, then Litwa should either address that argument; if Litwa is unaware that there is good reason to think the martyrdom is an add-on, then he might not have actually read Norelli, since he is unaware of a fairly well-known issue with the text (as it has been discussed in the scholarly literature for over a century).

Here’s the deal: Carrier did not directly respond to Norelli’s arguments in OHJ. Litwa, on the other hand, may not have read Norelli at all. Litwa claims Carrier never read (or even knew of) Norelli, and Carrier claims Litwa hasn’t actually read the very same book.

So, who is right, and who has ready Norelli actually? It’s kind of ridiculous that I need to check if the two scholars arguing about the book have actually read it, but there is only one way to settle this: go find the book and read through it. Now, I don’t have a copy, it’s very expensive, and it’s in Italian, so this isn’t an easy thing to just buy and read at the beach. But, I’m in Boston, I have plenty of university libraries, so I took a trip to Boston College, found the volumes on the AoI, and looked at the references given by Litwa, by Carrier, and searched through the contents for other insights. And here are the results.

Carrier has now read the section on the pocket gospel, characterized the arguments of Norelli, and noted their failings. For example, Norelli does use testimony about the Cathars as support for the originality of the pocket gospel (on p. 538). I will also note, Norelli’s arguments are mostly to refute R. H. Charles in 1900, and those are not the arguments Carrier uses for questioning the originality of the pocket gospel. Therefore, using Norelli to refute Carrier, as Litwa has done, is faulty, since it does not address Carrier’s reasons. This makes one suspect that Litwa did not read Norelli to see if his points were applicable against Carrier.

If fact, there is even stronger evidence that Litwa didn’t read the the mere 3.5 pages of Norelli that he cited. Again note that, in the video on History Valley, Litwa says only mythicist (his wording is imprecise, by Litwa clearly means mythicists) who don’t like the pocket gospel called it a later add-on. But if Litwa had read Norelli, he would have seen Norelli was already responding to a scholar from over a century ago who was not a mythicist, but a well-esteemed scholar from a traditional religious background. The only way Litwa can say scholars have not doubted the authenticity of the pocket gospel, and only modern mythicists do and say the AoI is highly edited, is if Litwa never knew about this debate. And if Litwa didn’t know about it, then he couldn’t have read Norelli who directly discusses it. In other words, Litwa’s ignorance can only exist if he didn’t read Norelli’s section on the pocket gospel at all.

Also, Carrier is correct that Norelli supports the idea that the martyrdom section is a later addition to the AoI (see Corpus Christianorum, Vol 8, Ascensio Isaiae, p. 46). Norelli says:

[D]obbiamo concludere che l’AI non e un’opera unitaria, e distinguervi almeno due parti: 1-5, piu 11,41-43; e 6,1-11,40.

[W]e must conclude that the AI is not a unitary work, and distinguish at least two parts: 1-5, plus 11.41-43; and 6.1-11.40.

(Translation by Google)

So far, Litwa’s claims are factually incorrect about Carrier’s case. Additionally, Carrier argues that Litwa is not aware of the scholarship on the subject, especially concerning the manuscript differences and the integrity of the text in terms of the martyrdom being an original part of the AoI rather than a later addition. This appears to be correct. And since Litwa doesn’t engage with Carrier’s arguments from his book on why the pocket gospel is a later interpolation, there is really no way to use Litwa’s stance as persuasive. He is mistaken on the key facts of the matter, and his knowledge of what his primary scholarly source, Norelli, says is very shallow, so much so that I doubt Litwa has read beyond the couple of pages he cited in his book. In fact, because Litwa never mentions Norelli’s arguments about anything, it is possible that Litwa only found the Excursus in the Corpus Christianorum volume’s table of contents, and perhaps looked at enough to see it argues for the pocket gospel being authentic. At the very least, nothing gives confidence that Litwa has deeply read the Norelli volume, let alone in a way that can respond to Carrier’s current arguments.

So, points for Carrier.

Vitriol

If this were where things ended, then we could move on. Litwa was wrong in substantial ways, and Carrier’s arguments have gone unanswered, while also finding scholarly support for his views.

But that is not where things end. Because Carrier found Litwa’s arguments to be uninformed, Litwa must be, according to Carrier, a terrible scholar or a liar. First off, Carrier is inconsistent in calling Litwa incompetent and was “bullshitting”. Elsewhere Carrier notes that Litwa does good work on his blog, including Litwa’s recent course on the mystery cults and how Christianity is like them.

This also runs counter to Carrier calling Litwa’s work “apologetics”. For example, Carrier says:

I think he’s just being lazy and irresponsible, and resorting to armchair apologetics rather than sound methodology—because that’s his training, which is a pervading problem with the field of Jesus studies

Link

Here, not only is Carrier suggesting that Litwa is trained as an apologist, but so are those in the field of Jesus studies generally. While there are things one can critique in Jesus studies, to cast the net this wide is to just insult everyone in the field. It’s also absurd to say Litwa is an apologist, given his views on the Bible and Christianity. He has said in numerous interviews that he thinks the Book of Acts is mid-second century, that Luke is using Marcion’s Gospel, that Christianity is a mystery cult, and most of his recent publications is about the so-called heretics of the past and treating them like another legitimate branch of Christian theology rather than a group to condemn. None of this is consistent with Christian apologetics, but of good scholarship. I can’t confirm, but I don’t think Litwa is even a Christian–I’ll gladly be corrected.

Carrier also accuses Litwa of being a liar, largely because Carrier thinks that the mistakes Litwa made could not be honestly made if Litwa really had read OHJ and the scholarship on the subject at hand. I try to hold to a high definition of lying, wherein the person knowingly tells you something they believe is false in order to convince you to believe the untrue thing without a redeeming moral reason. That excludes honest mistakes. Now, Carrier states that Litwa has not even read OHJ, since if he had, then Litwa would not be saying the things he did. Let us note, though, that Litwa does cite pages from OHJ in his own book on the Gospels, and Litwa addresses particular points from OHJ. I do think Carrier is correct that Litwa does not address the case Carrier made well, but that is different from not reading OHJ at all.

What is more likely is that Litwa did not read Carrier’s book thoroughly. It’s very easy for Litwa to have checked to see if, for example, Carrier responded to Norelli’s arguments by looking at the bibliography of OHJ and finding that Norelli’s name is not there. That would be Litwa checking, but the failure to note Carrier did cite Norelli is because of the citation method Carrier happened to use. The fact that the Norelli volume is not in the bibliography is a mistake on Carrier’s part and no one else’s. So, Carrier is correct that he used Norelli, but Litwa can honestly say he checked; he just didn’t look at every possible page to see if it somehow was there even if it’s not in the bibliography or index. That seems like a reasonable mistake, not a fraudulent one.

However, it is a mistake of laziness. Had Litwa read Carrier’s arguments in OHJ, he would have seen the citations of the Norelli volume in the footnote. Which actually indicates something pretty darn bad: Litwa didn’t read Carrier’s arguments about the AoI. If Litwa had, he would have known Carrier uses the sources Litwa says he doesn’t, and he would have seen that Carrier doesn’t just declare this or that verse as a interpolation without evidence but based on several lines of evidence and prior scholarship, none of which Litwa addresses. So I have to doubt Litwa has read either OHJ’s discussion of the AoI as well as the Norelli volume. That is unprofessional, lazy scholarship.

The points that Litwa missed are important, but if someone is quickly trying to figure out Carrier’s case for Jesus mythicism, then what I see in Litwa’s reporting is consistent with that. However, it is not consistent with getting into the details, such as if two people arguing about the Q document might discuss each particular word in the Greek texts of the Gospels. Basically, I think Litwa thinks so little of the Jesus myth hypothesis, he is not learning what he could from Carrier’s book to address the arguments point-for-point. When dealing with a fringe topic, that’s not unreasonable. For example, I have delved into debunking the Electric Universe pseudo-science, but I have not read all of the papers from such proponents and all the different flavors of EU. Why? Because I can find, easily, things that make EU false without a deep-dive. Why dig deeper into something that’s found to be faulty with ones basic physics knowledge?

However, the analogy does not hold well here, because Carrier is an expert in ancient history and religion, his work was published by an academic press, and Litwa is supposed to be addressing Carrier in his own peer-reviewed work. This is supposed to be taken seriously by scholars; that’s why academic presses exist with their review processes. This isn’t to say peer-review equals correct, but it does mean if something gets through such reviews and is published, it should be treated as something to consider in depth, much more than a rando’s arguments about the flat earth. And even when debunking a psuedo-science or pseudo-history, you have to have read the arguments the pseudo-scholar makes so you can directly counter it. I did what with Electric Universe junk, but Litwa did not address a single point Carrier made about the AoI. That Litwa failed to get into Carrier’s arguments is a failing on his part. But it’s not the same thing as lying.

Moreover, to say Litwa was lying about the details of the AoI because he was wrong about the details is also faulty. Again, Litwa could have read one part of the commentary on the AoI by Norelli, found that said what he wanted to hear, and then ran with that, thinking “Carrier debunked”. After all, Litwa went to the top source on the subject, saw that it was against Carrier’s thesis, found that Carrier didn’t even cite it in his bibliography, and now Litwa has every reason to think Carrier has failed to respond to the best work out there. That he missed Norelli being cited but not by name is an understandable error, and it leads to the others. Had Litwa gotten into the details of Norelli’s work, including on the integrity of the text and if the martyrdom was an add-on or not, it would have helped make the case that he properly investigated the subject. Most importantly, Litwa should have used Carrier’s and Norelli’s arguments about the pocket gospel critically. One does not just say “he said so, therefore you’re wrong!” That is lazy scholarship, and especially so if the source you cite has no relevant points against what your opponent says. The entirety of Carrier’s arguments about pocket gospel in the AoI go unanswered. Yes, Litwa should have done better. But one can be wrong and not be a liar. One can be lazy and not a liar. But one cannot be lazy and say they have done good scholarship.

I am taking some time here to defend Litwa from being called a liar, though it requires also “throwing him under the bus”, but this is because of a larger history. It’s worth noting that Carrier calls many of his critics liars. This includes eminent scholars like Bart Ehrman. Again, I agree with Carrier’s responses to Ehrman’s mistakes (Carrier cites evidence and scholarship for his assertions), but the venom in the response isn’t helping make the case.

Worse still is Carrier calling numerous people “mentally ill” or “insane”. He called the late Maurice Casey “insane” multiple times, as well as his student, Stephanie Fisher. Carrier said that James Charlesworth was “crazy” because Charlesworth made a bad argument about the supposed person being called the “Beloved Disciple” in the Gospel of John. That’s a quick jump to calling someone mentally unwell because of an argument about an esoteric point about the mysterious figure in a story. That would be like Star Wars fans calling each other mentally ill because they disagreed about who Rey’s real parents were (before Rise of Skywalker came out), or for a more real-world example, the opinions about the murder-mystery in the first season of Serial, and who did or didn’t kill Hae Min Lee–if you think Adnan Syed did or didn’t kill her, you’re not insane for thinking so. Similarly, if Charlesworth made a bad argument about the Beloved Disciple’s identity, that doesn’t make him clinically unwell.

He has also referred to Robert Eisenman and R. Joseph Hoffman as “insane”. And not just ‘insane’ in a hyperbolic fashion, but “literally insane.” Recently, because Neal of Gnostic Informant was critical of Carrier, again Carrier called his critic “mentally ill”. Too many people are getting a diagnosis from Carrier to be a coincidence. It’s also strange for Carrier to call his critics “insane” one moment and then wonders why people in the academy do not dialogue with him and his arguments. Who would want to debate with Carrier if this has become a normal way for him to respond to critics? Moreover, using such language is not just impossible to dialogue with, it’s disparaging to those with mental illness. If you don’t like someone’s arguments, even if those arguments are bad, to use this phrasing is ableist. At the very least, Carrier should not be making medical diagnoses from the armchair.

Carrier should stop these sorts of insults for his own good, frankly. Even if he is right on all substantial points, it makes listening to him more difficult, even impossible. After all, it’s hard to accept criticism if the person telling you you made a mistake that you’re insane for even making the argument. Why even engage with someone that talks to you like that? Even for observers, it makes it difficult to rationally address the arguments when there are fire bombs like this being thrown. It’s also pushing folks into tribes, as one person insults another.

This leads into what I have seen with the recent video by Neal from Gnostic Informant, which was also after some Facebook interactions that were also heated, including throwing around the terms “liar” and “mentally ill“. I think the environment made by Carrier is making it hard for those who have liked him and even agreed with him before to not want to deal with him any more.

Which leads into Neal’s video about Carrier is mythicism.

GI’s Video–Beginning

Before starting the video, the thumbnail gives away Neal’s current thinking about Carrier and his position, depicting him as a circus clown. In the video, Carrier’s voice in put into the mouth of the Joker from the 1960s Batman TV series. Clearly, an unfavorable depiction. Neal will also compare Carrier’s arguments and rhetoric to the pseudo-historian, Ralph Ellis. Low blow!

But there is also a tonal dissonance, since Neal says that mythicism is plausible and mythicists have good points. It’s strange to compare Carrier to a clown, but to also say the “clown” makes good points and his thesis is reasonable.

I can understand having these two views at once: seeing Carrier as smart, but also being taken aback by his rhetoric, especially as he goes against virtually the entire field of biblical studies. However, I think Neal should either show that mythicism is completely implausible so it can be considered laughable and its proponents clowns (i.e., 1 in a million chance of being right), or the rhetorical imagery would need to be tamped down.

Still, Neal goes into the details of Carrier’s arguments in many places better than I have seen other professionals, so let’s examine the arguments there and not call Neal “mentally ill” as Carrier did. This will not be a point-for-point analysis, since the video is over an hour long, and this blog post is already getting long, but I will highlight a few categories of the video as good, less good, and not good.

GI’s Video–The Good

There is one thing in particular in Neal’s video that is a good corrective to those making the mythicist case and Carrier’s version in particular. That is also towards the beginning of the video and concerning the angel discussed by Philo of Alexandria. Carrier argues that Philo’s angel is very similar to the ‘angel’ Jesus as described in the Pauline corpus, and Carrier also thinks it’s possible that Philo gives us the info to tell us that that angel’s name in actually Jesus. There are video clips from John Gleason (Godless Engineer) and from a talk by Carrier saying, explicitly, that Philo called the angel ‘Jesus’.

That goes beyond what Carrier said in his book, and it is definitely beyond what the text in Philo says. At no point does Philo ever say that the angelic figure that is the Word of God and the Son of God is called ‘Jesus’. In OHJ pp. 200-205, Carrier argues that it is possible to conclude from the evidence that some believed in an angel named ‘Jesus’ based on reading the text of Zech 6:11-13 that Philo used, noting that Zech 6 is about the newly-crowned high priest Joshua (in Greek and Hebrew, Jesus as Joshua are the same name), and Philo is talking about an angelic figure, who elsewhere is called a high priest (i.e., On Dreams 1.215; On Giants 52). But this is a deduction on Carrier’s part, not a fact. I think Neal is correct to push back at Carrier from saying that Philo said there was an angel “actually named ‘Jesus'”. That is a deduction on Carrier’s part, not an explicit fact in Philo, and Carrier should have been more cautious in what he said. Or I should say, what Carrier said in that particular video. In OHJ, Carrier doesn’t say Philo called the angel “Jesus”, only that it’s easy to derive. Still, the mistake was made, and Neal was correct to note it.

From that point on, Neal argues that the deduction Carrier makes is faulty, but I’m going to look at that below.

GI’s Video–The Questionable

One of the things I have wished Jesus scholars to have done was explain the strange tradition that puts Jesus a century before … Jesus. That is, there are several Jewish and Christian sources that indicate some believed Jesus lived and died a century earlier than we see in the Gospel accounts. Neal does more to investigate the claims of Carrier than I have seen other reviewers of OHJ do, which means Neal is engaging the subject better than even professionals. However, the mistakes Neal makes undermines what we wanted to do, as we will see.

First, let us note the sources in question. Neal brings up several citations of a certain Jesus figure in the Talmud, both the Babylonian and the Jerusalem. I don’t know why Neal says mythicists don’t like to talk about the Talmud, since the Jesus it depicts is out of time, and that would seem to support the mythicist position that Jesus was placed into history. That different groups get different time periods for Jesus is less expected on historicity. And Carrier talks about this point for several pages in OHJ pp. 281-285.

But skipping past the non sequitur, Neal suggests three possibilities for why Jesus is placed in the time of Alexander Jannaeus (c. 127 – 76 BCE). One is that the scribe who wrote this down was mistaken. Second is that the Talmud is only talking about the Sanhedrin that was established by Alexander, so it’s not specific to a certain regal period. Third is that the Talmud moves Jesus to avoid persecution by the Christian authorities. Let’s consider the possibilities in order.

That there is a scribal error is unlikely because we find Jesus being described as under Alexander Jannaeus in multiple places in multiple books and in both Talmuds. That requires a coordinated error, which is no longer an error but a conspiracy. This will also skip past the fact that we have another source on this, which I’ll discuss below.

Second, that the text only means that it was the Sanhedrin established by Alexander is faulty because none of the story makes sense if this were true. In the Talmudic trial of Jesus, he is never handed over to the Roman authorities, as he was in the Gospel accounts; instead, he is tried and executed by the Jewish authorities, and most scholars say that this was impossible during Roman control of Judea–that the Romans had the monopoly on capital punishment at this time in Judea. In sources such as the Toledoth Jesu, a medieval counter-gospel, the timeframe is explicitly during and immediately after the reign of Jannaeus, and the trial of Jesus is during the time of his wife. In b. Talmud Sanhedrin 107b, we are told that Jesus was with Joshua ben Perachiah, who was the nasi in the 2nd century BCE. In fact, ben Perachiah and Jesus go to Egypt together to escape the wrath of King Jannaeus. Again, all of the contextual clues show that the story is placed in the days of Jannaeus. Neal’s way of interpreting the text is undone by looking at the details of the story.

Lastly, that the Talmud changed when Jesus lived to avoid persecution by the Roman Empire controlled by the Christians. This is an understandable fear for the Jews living under Roman dominion in the 4th/5th centuries when the Talmuds were put together. However, the fear of persecution from the Romans would only be notable in the Jerusalem Talmud; the Babylonian Talmud was, as the name suggests, composed in the vicinity of Babylon, under the control of the Persian Empire (specifically the Sassanid). Moreover, the change to the story is not a trivially small one, but the placing of Jesus a century earlier makes the tale completely different, because now it’s different people that Jesus interacts with (i.e., ben Perachiah) and under different political circumstances. This is not just a name-swap but a massive re-write.

But what really undermines all of these hypotheses is that there is also the mention of a group of Christians who believed Jesus was the last king of the line of David in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus. We see this explicitly in the writings of Epiphanius, Panarion 29.3, who describes the beliefs of the “Nazorians” who still followed Jewish laws and said Jesus is the Son of God. This is independent of the Talmud and even independent of mainstream Judaism, since these were Christians proclaiming Jesus as God’s son born in Bethlehem during Alexander’s reign. So, there is no way the scribes of the Talmud could have just happened to produce a chronological error identical to this Christian sect; nor would it make sense that they are all saying Jesus was actually killed by the Sanhedrin of Alexander and not the king himself, since Epiphanius is clear that Jesus was born specifically during Alexander’s reign; nor can it make sense that the date was moved to avoid Christian persecution because this was a belief of some Christians.

So while I am glad Neal did try to figure out some explanation for the placement of Jesus into the more distant past, he could have looked at these hypotheses more critically to see if they could fit the data. That he missed the testimony of Epiphanius in particular makes his research too shallow to act as an explanation.

So, we are back to the original issue: some Jews and Christians had their own narrative of Jesus living in an earlier century. There is no good explanation for this on historicity, at least not one I have found as of yet. There could be one, but this situation is more expected on mythicism, since a mythical Jesus placed into history can have different locations; when different people are inventing details, they are less likely to make up the same details. This is not so for a Jesus with a historical kernel placed into a well-known historical and political situation. As for why, on mythicism someone would specifically put Jesus during the time of Jannaeus, I have speculated on that elsewhere, and the hypothesis I suggest would explain both Jesus’ time under Pilate as well as under Jannaeus. But if this hypothesis is valid will require another discussion.

Let’s return to the angel described by Philo of Alexandria, who used Zech 6 for some of his exegesis (Confusion of Tongues 63). Neal says he can refute Carrier’s reading of Philo’s reading Zech 6 by noting the larger context of Zech 6 and the figures it describes. I found it difficult to follow Neal’s line of thought, since there are a number of digressions that were not relevant or not what Carrier argues (i.e., the word for ‘branch’ is where ‘Nazareth’ comes from; in fact, Carrier refutes the idea that Nazareth didn’t exist in ~30 CE). But let’s just take it as a given that Zech 6, in context, doesn’t describe Jesus as being the figure in question, but instead it is Zerubbabel . But that doesn’t matter to how exegesis is done by Christians and Jews at the time. The Christians took Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant completely out of its original context to describe the suffering Jesus had. The pesher method of the time was to take verses and combine them together to get new insights, irrespective of the original context. That is done in numerous documents in the Dead Sea Scroll collection.

And this removal of Zech 6:12 from its original context is what Philo does. He says that figure it talks about is no human at all, neither Joshua the priest nor Zerubbabel. Philo says that this verse is actually about a super-angel. So Philo is telling us that he doesn’t care what the original context was; it doesn’t matter. So going into why the text has to be about Zerubbabel is moot. Philo already has told us, for him, it’s not about a man named Zerubbabel.

The only thing that matter is: can one read the verse about the figure in Zech 6:9-13 and think it might be about a figure named Jesus. And that is a demonstrable ‘Yes’.

¹¹ Take the silver and gold and make a crown, and set it on the head of the high priest, Joshua [=Jesus] son of Jozadak. ¹² Tell him this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Here is the man whose name is the Branch [Gr., Rising], and he will branch out [Gr., rise] from his place and build the temple of the Lord.

Zech 6:11-12 (NIV)

One can read this and see, Joshua is given a crown and then told about being a part of the building of the Temple. Joshua is here seemingly called the Branch in the Hebrew, while this becomes a more ambiguous word in Greek (anatole, which can mean rising or east, depending on context). And it is this Branch/Rising verse that Philo cites. Philo then tells us that this figure is the Logos, the source of all light, and the high priest in the heavenly Temple. If Philo is telling us that high priest is being described here by Zech 6:12, and the only high priest mentioned in Zech 6 is Jesus, that seems like a reasonable deduction: Philo’s high priest is this high priest named Jesus.

Now, to me the better case is that Philo is ignoring the rest of the context of the verse and only cares about the ‘rising’ name of the celestial figure. Nothing in Philo’s exegesis connects to the original context of the rebuilding of the Temple, for example. This actually undermines both Carrier’s and Neal’s arguments–the context is completely voided by Philo for his own ends. In fact, the reason Philo brings up the name “Rising”/”East” is to compare how the word “Rising” can be either good or bad, as he gives examples from different stories in the Greek Torah (see sections 60-67). The exegesis of Philo isn’t about the Temple or Zerubbabel or Joshua, but about the theological (as well as semantic) spread of the Greek word for “rising”. Hence, this is part of Philo’s treatise on the confusion of tongues.

A small revision to Carrier’s thesis would be, someone who is already believing in the sort of exegesis Philo has done could return to the original text of Zech 6 and say, “hey, this is about someone named Jesus.” Also, because Philo says that the angelic figure of Zech 6 is a high priest, then seeing that the high priest named in Zech 6 is Joshua/Jesus should not noted. That is plausible that a reader could have said the angelic high priest is this named high priest, but it is not as strongly evidenced as Carrier has suggested–again, Philo never explicitly names the angel as ‘Jesus.’ Also, it means that Neal’s approach has no force, because the entire pesher method ignores the larger context. That is already what Philo has done here, it’s what Christians have done. It’s the normal thing. And because that context gets jettisoned, I don’t find Carrier’s arguments based on the surrounding details of the text as forceful as he makes it out. There is a reasonable extrapolation from the evidence, but it is not as factual as he said in the talk Neal highlighted.

So, Carrier’s argument isn’t as strong as he depicts in OHJ, let alone in his talk. But Neal’s discussion doesn’t void the possibility Carrier is making, given the nature of pesher writing. So, it’s a mixed bag. I would side with Carrier that his deduction makes sense, and that Neal’s arguments don’t actually work, unless he directly contradicts Philo.

Continuing on, there is also a logic error on Neal’s part when he highlights that Philo says the angel is of “many names”, therefore one of those names is not Jesus. If the angel has many names, then that includes more names, not excludes. While one cannot say “the angel has many names, therefore one of those names is Jesus,” one cannot claim that Philo is excluding the possibility either. So, Neal is pushing too hard to say what Philo is not saying. It’s also worth noting: Jesus has multiple names and titles (i.e., Son of Man, Emmanuel), many of which are in common with the angel Philo describes (i.e., the Word, Son of God, First-born, Divine Image), and Neal agrees with that.

Also, when Neal says Carrier is lying about how to translate the name of Joshua’s father, that is not true. What Carrier did is take the name Jozadak [Yehozadak in NASB] and broke it into its roots to say “Jehovah the Righteous”. That is not a faulty thing to do when doing exegesis. For example, Hebrews 7:2 does the exact same thing with the name Melchizedek, breaking it into meaning “Righteous King”. Breaking down the names to try to extract more possible meanings is a normal mode of exegesis in Jewish and Christian literature. That Carrier does the same thing is not a lie at all–it’s a plausible reading of the text someone could have done in antiquity. So when Neal says Carrier has committed a “blatant lie”, that is wrong and should be retracted.

GI’s Video–The Bad

One place I would highlight where Neal allowed himself to not be critical was when he tried to debunk the Rank-Raglan hero mythotype and its density of non-historical people in it. In this 22-point list, those who have more than half of these features tend to be non-historical. In fact, Carrier argues that no one with more than half of the points is historical. That Jesus scores 20 of the 22 points, one of the highest scores of all, suggests he is more like mythical than real people.

Neal does his own digging, and he suggests that, actually, dozens of historical people fit the mythotype, so it cannot even make the non-historicity of Jesus a starting point. Neal says he did his own counting for Alexander the Great to say he had more than half of the points, but Neal isn’t clear which points Alexander does have and how he justifies that. There is a screenshot of his writing in the margins of Carrier’s book, but I don’t understand his notation, so it’s not obvious which points he is saying fit. But if I am understanding Neal correctly, he is giving points to Alexander that his stories do not confer. For example, Alexander is not spirited away to live in another country; and he is not spirited away to safety because there are no stories of attempts on his life as an infant, including in the highly-legendary Alexander Romance. Also, we are told several things about his childhood, including his taming of horses and his education under Aristotle. Again, even in the Romance, a number of his childhood details are given, yet none of them include attempts on his life while a child. So Alexander cannot have points 5-8 counted on the list, and that already removes 4 points that Neal seemed to count towards Alexander.

So, I have to question how Neal came to his conclusions. Considering Carrier actually addresses the claim that Alexander scores high on the list (OHJ p. 231 n. 193) and Neal is unaware of it, is undermining of Neal’s argument. That we don’t even know how Neal counts Alexander on the list is strange. I have to make this point: if you are going to make such a claim, you need to show your work.

However, when Neal says that 50 historical people fit the mythotype, he goes to some unspecified PDF as his source, which he scrolls through and stops for the occasional name. It’s hard to figure out who compiled this document, and it takes effort to see what sources were used in the footnotes. (As a general rule: if you don’t cite your sources, I’m inclined to look at the claims with suspicion) However, even a fast inspection indicates Neal should have known better than to use this PDF to refute Carrier. I will highlight two cases.

One is that the document says that Abraham Lincoln hits all 22 points, and it cites Francis Utley’s “Lincoln Wasn’t There, or Lord Raglan’s Hero” (1965). That’s a problem because those who cite Utley against mythicism haven’t read Utley. I can say that because I have, and the thing you realize reading it is that Utley is writing a satire or parody of shoddy folklorist work. This is part of a long tradition of skewering parallelomania and stretching methodology to the breaking point. For example, the early mythologists from Enlightenment France who saw the Sun as the source of all mythology had their work turned against them, showing how their efforts proved Napoleon was a Sun God, not a man. A similar thing was done to Max Mueller. If one takes a parody for actual belief or scholarship, then one cannot take their work seriously.

But to be fair to Neal, it’s unlikely he could have known about the nature of Utley’s pamphlet. I only read it years ago because it was coming up as a counter to those using the Rank-Raglan scale at all, and only then did I discover its tongue-in-cheek style. One cannot see that from a footnote. So, I don’t think Neal was at fault for believing this was a legit source.

However, there is another example that should have stopped Neal immediately from believing what he was reading. According to the document, Donald John Trump fits the Rank-Raglan scale. In fact, Trump gets all the same points Jesus did.

Just stop.

One of the major points of the scale is that the hero dies a mysterious death. AND TRUMP ISN’T DEAD. The dude’s on Fox News every other week! How could anyone consider the idea he died a mysterious, supernatural death, atop a high place, and left behind sepulchers, if he never even died?!?

That Neal didn’t pause to realize this is disheartening. Even with no training in biblical studies, he should have been able to call the bluff. But he didn’t, and that looks like motivated reasoning. And there is the sort of fast-play with the elements of the scale that show the writing of this PDF doesn’t care about facts. No one has claimed Trump had unusual circumstances at his birth; that some see him as the second coming or a christ isn’t the same as saying his birth had supernatural events around it (i.e., a virgin birth). Nor does Trump “go to” his future kingdom because he always lived in US (compare Jesus who fled to Egypt, or Oedipus who lived away from the city-state of Thebes). And no source said that Trump is God’s son. Not even the parody document this all comes from. And yes, it’s a parody, because the author, “Holy Ghost Writer” also has similar books for Kim Jong-Un.

And even with the count, Trump is at 11, so not more than half. Skipping over the fact that even with a parody book and fudged counting of points on the scale, Trump still doesn’t fit more than half of the criteria! To count this as disproving the Rank-Raglan scale is a demonstrable lie. It’s straight-up gaslighting.

If an incredible claim comes along, and you believe it without checking because it fits what you want to be true, then you are likely using motivated reasoning. That Neal didn’t treat this claim critically and notice the source is most likely a joke, nor did he carefully examine any of the claim and see that they don’t fit the criteria, indicates Neal has tunnel vision going into this. Had he taken his time and took a critical approach, I doubt he could have just accepted what this PDF says.

But even when Neal is not using another person’s writings as a source, I feel he is running hot and fast and missing important details that undermine his claims that Carrier is a clown.

For example, I’m at a loss concerning Neal’s statements about 1 Corinthians 11 and the Lords Supper. Neal is adamant that this was a historical tradition and not a revelation. Neal even asks, where in the text does it say anything about it being a vision. But that is precisely said by Paul: 1 Cor 11:23: “I received from the Lord…” The line is even in the slide that Neal shows in his video. That Neal didn’t see this is a sign of tunnel vision, and that is likely again due to motivated reasoning.

But why the motivated reasoning? After all, Neal has had Carrier on before and has praised him, and Neal even used to be a mythicist. I think this is, in part, because of Carrier’s behavior towards other scholars, especially in writing, as noted above. In particular, the attack on Litwa is upsetting, because Neal and Litwa have done a lot of videos together, including helping create a course on the mystery cults of antiquity. Carrier coming out and insulting Litwa in such a way is driving away people like Neal, even though Neal is sympathetic towards Carrier’s views, especially on Christianity and religion generally, and even on the Jesus of history specifically.

Conclusions

This blog post started with claims against mythicists by M. David Litwa. I showed above that not only was Litwa factually wrong on every major point of the scholarship on the AoI, but Litwa shows that he didn’t not read the sources he cited, let alone the arguments by Richard Carrier. Litwa failed as a scholar here.

This happens a lot when people engage mythicist arguments. Plenty of people who argue for the Jesus myth hypothesis do a terrible job, especially when they are using non-scholarly, out-of-date books, some older than my great-grandparents. But the lazy responses to mythicist literature that has been published by academic presses or in academic journals is unacceptable. And I think the book OHJ makes the best case for the position.

I think Richard Carrier is both the best and worst advocate for the Christ Myth Theory.

Factually, I find far more often than not, the evidence is as he suggests, and his deductions reasonable. He is certainly good at arguing the case, and in debates he is very able in responding, even when there are completely different starting premises than is normal (i.e., his dialogue/debate with Jack Bull). However, in written form in particular, he is all fire and brimstone. I also find the anger in these responses above and beyond what Carrier had done in the past; for example, when responding to critics of his book/article Not the Impossible Faith, he didn’t use any of these insults. When he definitively proved that the micro-inscriptions imagined by Jerry Vardaman didn’t exist, Carrier didn’t call him crazy, insane, or a liar–and the claims by Vardaman were completely disassociated from reality, worse than any claim I’ve seen from scholars critical of Jesus myth theory. With Jesus mythicism, a harder claim to maintain than what he defended in his previous books, Carrier is coming in hot. Over and over he calls his critics stupid, liars, or insane. That is not a good look for someone in a minority viewpoint calling everyone names, and it looks exactly like the behavior of the sort of crazed conspiracy theorist that Carrier is trying to distinguish himself from.

Yeah, a conspiracy theorist says everyone is against them, except the true believers. Everyone else is uninformed, or stupid, or trying to deceive. Carrier is falling into that kind of verbiage, even if he insists his theory about Christian origins is not a conspiracy theory. But when one talks like a conspiracy theorist, outside observers are going to make deductions from observations.

And one can see the effect it is having on those trying to discuss the topic of Jesus myth theory. As noted above Neal was a mythicist at one point, was (and I think even still is) a fan of Carrier’s work on ancient history and religion, but the sorts of attacks Carrier had on Litwa, a good scholar and friendly person towards Neal, will only lead to tribalism. And with tribalism, we get motivated reasoning and make logical and factual errors. We can’t think critically if we are on the defensive.

So, here I believe Carrier is failing to make his own case, even though he has the facts on his side in this particular debate. It’s a Pyrrhic victory at best. If he continues to be combative in this way, he is going to guarantee that his theories will remain fringe. It will also make it harder for others who want to build upon his work to be taken seriously. And if Carrier’s rhetoric is just putting everyone on the defensive, then real progress, both among scholars and laymen, will be stopped.

Again, I will note, I think that Carrier’s hypothesis about the early Christian movement has enough merit, in my mind, to be the best explanation for Christian origins. But with the weakness of the evidence in any direction, there is going to only be any sort of recognition of the validity of his hypothesis if he makes people want to engage him. And I also agree that his work has not been addressed properly by other academics; but if it’s clear, nearly a decade after OHJ’s publication, that most scholars won’t even deal with Carrier, then Carrier ought to change his tactics for his own sake.

But in this conclusion, I must also say, that pretty much everyone involved in the recent debate has things they could have done better. Litwa should more deeply engage Carrier’s thesis and the arguments he actually provides; his shallow evaluations of the evidence undermine the credibility of his opinions on the subject. Others listening to Carrier and Litwa have also been driven into corners to get ready to fight, verbally, and it leads to name-calling and less than stellar arguments.

We can all do better.