Hereinafter is a discussion I had with an Atheist who calls themselves “Ignorant Amos” as an online pseudonym on an issue I have been researching; the results of which you can find at my “Raphael Lataster” section.
The discussion ensued due to Ignorant Amos posting a comment on an article which read:
Raphael Lataster, an Australian doctoral student in religious studies, has published a book recently, Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate among Atheists, examining the debate over the historicity of Jesus by focusing only on what atheist and agnostic experts are saying, and not Christian believers—regarding the latter as too biased to consider; since any good arguments they have should be as convincing to experts who aren’t believers anyway, so really we should only be looking at the debate among atheists.
This lead me to write the article Richard Carrier on Raphael Lataster’s Jesus Did Not Exist – A Debate among Atheists.
I replied as follows to Ignorant Amos and it lead to a series of exchanges that turned out to be informative even though, oddly enough, he constantly claimed that I was not understanding him and I did likewise as I thought that I did understand and kept replying directly:
Sadly, Lataster is a conspiracy theorist and I mean that in the most literal sense. His modus operandi is to merely assert that if a historical text references Jesus then Christians inserted Him into the text since He was absent from a portion where He should have been mentioned. Conversely, if a historical text does not reference Jesus then merely asserts that Christians deleted Jesus from the text because it must have said something unflattering about Him.
That is surely not the way to do scholarship.
I will post the rest of the discussion as it occurred.
Ignorant Amos:
“Sadly, Lataster is a conspiracy theorist and I mean that in the most literal sense.”
With your first sentence you display level of ignorance beyond reproach and I mean that in the most literal sense. Now when you can back up your moronic assertion in that sentence with evidence, I’ll be less likely to treat you like a moron and might even address the remainder of your comment.
Ken Ammi:
Well, friend, you seem to be replacing reasoned discourse with childish taunting. My statement was an encapsulation of Lataster’s modus operandi based on that which he has to say about the manner whereby he goes about reaching his conclusions.
Ignorant Amos:
I am dealing with your first sentence, if and when you clarify it with substance I might look at your assertion of his modus operandi in due course.
What is your assumption of his conclusions? Where do you place Lataster’s position on the issue under discussion and why do you disagree to the point of it being a conspiracy?
Ken Ammi:
I personally conducted research on documents written 70 AD to 200-250 AD and chronicled 205 texts that reference Jesus. The number refers to the texts themselves and not to the number of times that Jesus is referenced in each text. Counting each reference would take us well beyond the 205 total. Furthermore, the number refers to the texts and not to each manuscript behind each text. Counting each manuscript would also take us well beyond the 205 total.
My evidence is here.
Ignorant Amos:
What ta f[***] has any of that got to do with my questions? You asserted that Lataster is literally a conspiracy theorist. What conspiracy is it that he holds and produce evidence that rebukes this said conspiracy? Then we might move on to whatever else you think you have discovered with your extensive list of references to a Jesus character. Heads up….hundreds of thousands of references to Sherlock Holmes over a period of less than 150 years is no verification of his existence.
But please, let’s focus on your Lataster straw man.
Ken Ammi:
Friend, please mind your manners. You seem to be implying that history cannot be done since historical references to a supposedly real person may be correlated to literary references to a supposedly fictional character—this is what is known in logical as a category error. What this has to do with my questions is that you asked for my “assumption of his conclusions” and thus, my reply was relevant to that. Now, I already elucidated the conspiracy and will reiterate that it is “His modus operandi is to merely assert that if a historical text references Jesus then Christians inserted Him into the text since He was absent from a portion where He should have been mentioned. Conversely, if a historical text does not reference Jesus then merely asserts that Christians deleted Jesus from the text because it must have said something unflattering about Him.” Here is one example: with regards to Tacitus, Lataster simply asserts that “the phrase in the middle of” the key text of Tacitus “could also be a later Christian interpolation.” Well, “could also be” is not evidence, it is inventing a conspiracy. He then follows this conspiracy to the point of claiming that a historically key portion of Tacitus is missing but he does not bothering to note that other portions have also been lost that have nothing to do with Jesus. He also mentions that Robert Drews “theorises…pious fraud” and simply goes with it.
Again, this is not evidence, this is conspiracy theorizing.
Ignorant Amos:
“Friend, please mind your manners.” Friend, it is in frustration with your “look over there, squirrels” approach that has me peeved and frosty here, so less of the tone trolling and answer my question, or don’t, we can let the lurkers decide. You know the one, the one I’ve asked you in a number of different ways now, that is to actually define what Lataster’s position is, but for some reason you are avoiding defining it. Perhaps it is a reading comprehension issue, or perhaps I haven’t made my request clear enough when I say… You asserted that Lataster is literally a conspiracy theorist. What conspiracy is it that he holds and produce evidence that rebukes this said conspiracy? So let me try again one more time. Let’s start in simple terms with the first bit.
Please define the “conspiracy” that you are asumming Lataster is literally asserting?
Once we can clear up this major confusion we can move on to the rest of what is wrong with your comments. Sound good?
Ken Ammi:
Let us try it this way friend: 1) “You asserted that Lataster is literally a conspiracy theorist. What conspiracy is it that he holds”: this was answered before you even asked it and the conspiracy pertains to his assertions about how Christians somehow had access to all relevant documents and destroyed some or and added info into others. This is “the ‘conspiracy’ that” I am “assuming Lataster is literally asserting.”
2) “produce evidence that rebukes this said conspiracy?” my evidence is my citation of two centuries worth of documentation. It is not up to me to somehow prove a negative to the likes of “I know that Christians did not engage in a mass conspiracy because…” rather, it is up to Lataster to provide something more than inventing conspiracy theories based on nothing (“could also be” and “pious fraud”) two millennia after the fact.
Ignorant Amos:
It Looks like I’m going to have to cut to the chase and just tell you flat out. Lataster is NOT a mythicist. “this was answered before you even asked it and the conspiracy pertains to his assertions about how Christians somehow had access to all relevant documents and destroyed some or and added info into others. This is ‘the ‘conspiracy’ that’ I am ‘assuming Lataster is literally asserting.’” Are you asserting that early Christians did not destroy, interpolate, forge, adulterate and bastardise early Christian texts? Because if you are, you are living on cloud cuckoo land. Can you be specific about Lataster on which documents he is claiming were destroyed or added info into others (interpolated) that is not a consensus with scholars in the field? A citation would be nice, or are you just imagining stuff? “my evidence is my citation of two centuries worth of documen tation. It is not up to me to somehow prove a negative to the likes of ‘I know that Christians did not engage in a mass conspiracy because…’” There is your straw man right there…”“I know that Christians did not engage in a mass conspiracy because…”, who has suggested that there was a “mass conspiracy” among Christians? Your two centuries lit of documents ain’t worth squat because they are not independent sources and they rely on previous texts. No one is denying that there were Christians about in the mid first century and that is all any documents can attest to with any reliability. In the same way the documents from the end of the 18th century claiming Ned Ludd was the founder of the Luddite movement, though he never existed, or John Frum was the central figure of the cargo cults of the Pacific Islands. “…rather, it is up to Lataster to provide something more than inventing conspiracy theories based on nothing (‘could also be’ and ‘pious fraud’) two millennia after the fact.” By this comment it is clear that you are not very well read on this subject you’ve taken it upon yourself to attack. First, “could also be” is another way to say “interpret differently” and we already know there is different ways of interpreting religious texts, the evidence for that is colossal. Mythicist’s like Carrier, Price and Docherty give citation and context for their particular interpretations that are every bit as plausable as any other and in most cases, more reasonable. As for “pious fraud” not being a reality, seriously? Just Google “pious fraud” and you’ll get half a million results. Even the early Christian patriarchs adm itted to pious fraud, so there is nothing unusual about that malarkey. Pious fraud has been recognised as a problem way back to the earliest days of the Christian cult’s. So, given that different interpretations and pious fraud are well demonstrated in the history of the Christian religion, it is actually up to YOU to prove that where the mythicist asserts a different interpretation or a pious fraud, they are erroneous. Good luck with that, because scholarly luminaries such as Bart Ehrman and Maurice Casey failed miserably. But, and here is the rub. Lataster is just giving his support that the thesis of the best mythicist arguments looking at the evidence is at least as probable as any other thesis, so their arguments should be examined by the guild and not brushed of as c rank on the fringe. His position is that the current evidence must lead the impartial observer to a position of historical Jesus agnosticism, ergo, your accusations of Lataster as a “conspiracy theorist” are wholly unfounded. You’d do well to pick up a copy of Lataster’s book in order to educate yourself on his actual position and not your straw man of his position. You can read the foreword by Carrier and the first chapter for free here…
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jesus-Did-Not-Exist-Atheists-ebook/dp/B017YB4D82
I will await your reply with some expectation…
Ken Ammi:
Friend, Lataster seems to fence sit so as to go whichever direction is convention at the time and I have been having a discussion with him about this. For example, in one interview he claimed that Paul held to a celestial/heavenly Jesus and not a historical one and that Paul claims to have only gotten info on Jesus directly from God: these claims are 100% inaccurate. Now, I did not claim that he was a mythicist: he is NOT a traditional mythicist but asserts that Jesus was a historical person who was later mythologized. I already provided you a citation to a specific document but you are appearing to dismiss it without consideration due to your invented criteria pertaining to something to do with “a consensus with scholars in the field.” As I noted, Lataster needs to substantiate his conspiracy theory with more than “just imagining stuff” rather than having you ask me to prove a negative. In fact, I never claimed that there was no Christian manipulation of texts whatsoever: my point was that Lataster employs his conspiracy as a tool whereby to seek to discredit any and every document which would be inconvenient to his view (whichever view he is taking at any given time). Now, you misrepresent my list as they are not all dependent on other sources and that is simply irrelevant in any case as much of what we as assured to know about history is hardly ever a firsthand account by an eyewitness.
You are simply reading way too much into what I am stating so as to puff up your replies. I never denied the existence of “pious fraud” but employed the term as used by Lataster in his attempt to, in turn, puff up his empty asserting of conspiracy which lacks actual evidence: the sort that you should be demanding of him, by the way.
Well, this is where the discussion ended and I hope it was, in one or another way, instructive.