Carrier maintains that Paul hallucinated a spiritual heavenly being who was not flesh and blood and did not live on earth.He derives this he maintains from what Paul writes in his letters. But in fact in his letters Paul teaches that Christ was of the seed of David pertaining to the flesh, and was born of a woman for instance.In Hebrews which Carrier cites it says Christ partook of flesh and blood in order to be like his brothers.I provided links giving examples of Paul's teaching on this.
If then Christ was a descendant of David and born of a woman, Paul did not teach he was a non human being out in space.

So your missing premise is that what Paul wrote(what he taught) is precisely what happened? He couldn't have taken his hallucination and intended for others to believe it as real?

This unspoken premise is why I originally questioned you about the gospels not being written until decades after the events. It's also why I questioned you about why you believe Paul's words were all true. What makes you believe Paul didn't take his hallucination, and present it as something slightly altered then stated it as factual?

Unless he can show that in fact these novelists were writing about real people doing fictional things he can not say it is the same genre.

Your words don't quite make sense. Are you saying that Carrier is presenting Paul as a fictional person? Or is he saying that the similarities between Paul's story and other stories of the time are too stark to be ignored? Does his logic rest squarely on the idea of genre? And if you can show a separation between genre's, he no longer has a point? My gut tells me something is amiss. I'm sure Carrier is capable of making such a silly mistake, but from what I've read of his work, that's very unlike him.

Do you have a quote of his actual claim? The words he uses?

What I'm saying Interbane is that Carrier's thesis simply doesn't fit because he has bought Earl Doherty's thesis and misinterprets Paul's writings to conclude that the early Christians had this spiritual being in outer space belief.
Paul wasn't the first Christian so the first Christians already had beliefs about Christ.
Carrier takes from Paul's referring to appearances by Christ after his death, to various people that these must have been similarly hallucinatory visions and that they would have believed the same thing as he maintains Paul did.

The hallucinations thesis is very hard to sustain based on what can be known medically.If Jesus didn't actually exist and was not crucified under Pilate why would anyone hallucinate a resurrection of someone who neither existed was crucified died or was buried? Why would so many diverse people at different places and times hallucinate such a thing?
Besides, for all his touted academic ability he is forced to explain away Tacitus and others, and concoct an implausible explanation of Josephus' reference to James the brother of Jesus as being not a physical but spiritual brother.
He accepts Paul's writing but this notion of spiritual brother can not be squared with references to James and Jesus by Paul.
Who's jumping through hoops here?
On his talk about Acts. I was just clarifying for Geo what I was talking about.It's not as Geo rightly pointed out what he is dealing with in Sense and goodness.If you want to find the reference to ancient novels it starts about 12 minutes into his talk on Acts on youtube.Having said it doesn't fit historical standards he says it fits the genre of historical fiction novels.

But this genre is entirely fictional whereas Acts has Paul a real person traveling to and founding real churches.
Nothing at all real happens in a fictional novel.It can not be the same genre. Carrier is on a mission to debunk Christianity but his standards are sloppy and unprofessional in his desire to do this.

Let's all settle this argument once and for all in the Thai Women Chat room.

Hi ant,
What I've discovered is that in the world of booktalk debate no argument is ever settled once and for all. A strange phenomenon to be sure!

Flann 5 wrote:Hi ant,
What I've discovered is that in the world of booktalk debate no argument is ever settled once and for all. A strange phenomenon to be sure!

We are emotionally committed to our worldviews

Flann wrote:But this genre is entirely fictional whereas Acts has Paul a real person traveling to and founding real churches.
Nothing at all real happens in a fictional novel.It can not be the same genre

Fictional novels can and do talk about real places as well as real people. That they are fictional means that portions of the story are fabricated, not necessarily every single part.

Flann wrote:The hallucinations thesis is very hard to sustain based on what can be known medically.If Jesus didn't actually exist and was not crucified under Pilate why would anyone hallucinate a resurrection of someone who neither existed was crucified died or was buried? Why would so many diverse people at different places and times hallucinate such a thing?

That's not hard at all to sustain. You don't need "many" people having the hallucination. All you need is a single David Koresh, and everyone else will claim they saw the same thing. This is not a stretch. It is how things happen in real life. It is an acceptable, plausible scenario that has real instances as examples.

As far as hallucinations are concerned, how do you explain the five hundred foot talking carrot that some people hallucinate? Are you saying their hallucinations are "hard to sustain medically" because no instance of a five hundred foot tall talking carrot is known? Of course not. People can and do hallucinate fictional entities of all shapes and sizes, in all venues, with all sorts of variations. This meshes with modern medical understanding.

As a disclaimer, I'm not agreeing with Carrier here. I don't know if he's right or not. What I'm saying is that you haven't shown his ideas to be wrong. They could be wrong, but you haven't shown that. You're appealing to the wrong things, and forming non-sequiturs.

Flann wrote:Besides, for all his touted academic ability he is forced to explain away Tacitus and others, and concoct an implausible explanation of Josephus' reference to James the brother of Jesus as being not a physical but spiritual brother.

Are you saying that because Josephus and Tacitus mentioned James and Jesus, that they were therefore referring to real people? If you simply accept this as the case, referring to this or that as support, you're ignoring the vast number of incidents where noteworthy scholars refer to false things, and quite often. Carrier's position is not at all implausible, but is accepted by many scholars.

As far as Josephus is concerned, I thought his works had been transcribed? If the oldest document we have isn't the true original manuscript, from his hand, then you cannot trust it. There is no way around this point, it is set in concrete. You cannot triangulate to any point of greater truth unless you have the original. The words of Josephus will always and forever be suspect because of this, and it has nothing to do with the motive of anti-theist anti-jesus scholarship.

Even then, more doubt is cast on Josephus' writings when you consider that he could be merely repeating what he'd heard through the grapevine, and the grapevine would be ringing with news of Jesus from the Koreshian followers who claim to have seen him, but really didn't.

This isn't preposterous stuff Flann. This is how people behave; they fabricate stuff, they hallucinate, they write down word of mouth as if it's factual, they follow delusional visionaries. These things are not only real, they are an inseparable part of humanity. We do these things, have done them all across history, and will continue to do them. Of course there were people having visions in that time. Of course there were people following delusional visionaries. Of course there were people having hallucinations. These things are commonplace, and to say they didn't happen is the preposterous stance.

ant wrote:We are emotionally committed to our worldviews

Not all hope is lost! I've been emotionally committed to many things in the past, and have been brutally torn away from them. The cure is proper method. When you use proper method, the wheat is separated from the chaff in spite of what you desire to be true. You both should try it. It's depressing and frustrating, but reliable.

ant wrote: We are emotionally committed to our worldviews

That's a good point ant.
And yet one is undoubtedly true and the other false.
There you see! Interbane has come back with his 500 foot talking carrot analogy!Did somebody measure it?
O.k then. I think I've made my case on this and you disagree.So I'll leave it at that. It might have been a real, advanced alien species of carrot visiting us earthlings though!

I think I've made my case on this and you disagree.

Sure Flann.

The cure is proper method. When you use proper method, the wheat is separated from the chaff in spite of what you desire to be true.

Theory laddenness

You both should try it

I think your inductive reasoning is just that - inductive.

I think your checks and balances for your inferences are based on induction as well.

I think your justification is based on circular reasoning, induction justifying induction.


I think your still a mess but just don't realize it.

Hi Interbane,
I feel I'm having to repeat myself a lot and it just gets a bit wearying. As an historian Carrier accepts Josephus on James. I'm just taking Carrier on his own premises. He also acknowledges that these novels are entirely fictional.
I don't mean to be disrespectful and appreciate your taking the trouble to respond. It is never ending it seems, so I have to end somewhere.