I have been researching the latest, of a never ending, round of pop-research on the issue of the historical Jesus and Jesus mythicism. Some Atheists have really taken to the utterly radical view that not only was Jesus not the son of God, God incarnate, etc. but never even existed as a person.
In particular, I have been looking into Michael Paulkovich and Raphael Lataster. In this case, I ran into an article written by historian, Atheist and polyamorous dog Richard Carrier, “Lataster on the Historicity of Jesus Being a Debate Among Atheists,” Freethought Blogs.
Carrier notes that Raphael Lataster is “an Australian doctoral student in religious studies” and has written a work on:
…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.
About this take on the issue, Carrier notes, “It’s a good point.”
Moreover:
Lataster clarifies that we are talking not about the Christ of faith but whether we can reconstruct a plausible, mundane historical Jesus (in other words, that the only theses being debated here are those of secular nonbelievers in the expert sphere)…he explains in detail why this is in fact only a debate among atheists, and why we should just ignore Christian apologists altogether…he outlines…how he will analyze it as a neutral party.
It appears to be a case of “take our word for it—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—as we Atheists will come to conclusions based upon our views alone and will report back to you: we call this being neutral.
Well, of course it is a good point to only pay attention to those with whom you already agree and will say that which want to hear. However, it is a bit more nuanced and Carrier notes:
Unfortunately, atheist academic monographs defending historicity don’t exist. The only two so far written this century, by Bart Ehrman and Maurice Casey, were neither published by academic presses, nor underwent any formal peer review…[and Carrier’s own] On the Historicity of Jesus, which was published by an academic press and did pass formal academic peer review. His own result is historicity agnosticism…Lataster operated independently.
The issue of historical agnosticism is an interesting one and a conclusion to which Lataster claims to come via mathematics:
Lataster’s case for his own agnosticism is that Bayesian reasoning soundly shows that there is no evidence that can be trusted enough to sway the conclusion either way, it’s all unsalvageably tainted or problematic…agnosticism is the most he can find any defense of.
No, Lataster’s own result is historicity agnosticism as there is no evidence that can be trusted enough to sway the conclusion either way. But then how, pray tell, can he write books titled “There Was No Jesus, There Is No God” and “Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate among Atheists”? This is not in the least bit agnostic but denotes a positive affirmation of both God’s non-existence and Jesus’ non-existence which means that he must prove both.
A section of Richard Carrier’s article is “Why Will Critics Not Be Honest about This Debate?” and he focuses solely on “the first review on Amazon.” It is fascinating that the comments section to a book seller’s website has, apparently, the hub of scholarly debate—or something. In fact, Carrier obviously pulled up the Amazon page and picked the very first thing he saw therein. In any regard, Carrier take the reviewer to task and refers to the person as “a certain atheist enthusiast…a Price, Loftus, and Myers fan” which, let us face it, denotes rather low hanging fruit.
Carrier points out that the atheist enthusiast claims that Raphael Lataster’s book “offers little that is not available elsewhere” but that Carrier “can assure you, some of its content has indeed not appeared elsewhere: many of Lataster’s observations and approaches are novel.” This is true as Lataster is a conspiracy theorist in the most literal sense as his modus operandi is as follows. If a historical text references Jesus then he merely asserts that Christians must have inserted a reference to Jesus into the text in which He should have been mentioned.
Conversely, if a historical text does not reference Jesus then he merely asserts that Christians must have deleted a reference to Jesus as the text must have been problematic, embarrassing, etc.
Interestingly, Richard Carrier notes that “resort to lying” as he claims the atheist enthusiast did, “is an increasingly common tactic employed by even atheists who defend historicity.” Well, the term “Now you know how I feel” comes to mind.
Well, in the end Carrier states that when Raphael Lataster “completes his Ph.D., will add his name to the growing number of us with full academic credentials who are admitting the emperor has no clothes.” Yet, they are not merely saying that the emperor has no clothes but are claiming to know that there is no emperor. They do this without positive evidence and under the guise of being unbiased and coming solely to agnostic conclusions.
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