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I'll read along.

I'm going to pick-up a copy of the book and read along, I'll follow the discussion an put my thoughts in where I think they may add to it.

Wow, it's too bad I don't have $31.50 I want to drop and don't do Kindle, which would be $19.99. I've seen a little of the discussion so far and it looks raucous, which isn't bad. But I wish there could be some way of rank-ordering the points that bear most heavily on the case Carrier is making. These are the ones that stand at the gate and must be proved in Carrier's favor in order for entrance into the realm within, with all its swirling allusions and parallels and excitement, to seem like a good step to take.

DWill wrote:I wish there could be some way of rank-ordering the points that bear most heavily on the case Carrier is making. These are the ones that stand at the gate and must be proved in Carrier's favor in order for entrance into the realm within, with all its swirling allusions and parallels and excitement, to seem like a good step to take.

At 1.3, Myth Versus History, Carrier describes the claim that “the early Christians preached a celestial being named Jesus Christ” as the most plausible mythicist theory. This claim about the early Christians is readily proved, and appears to entail the mythicist hypothesis that Jesus was invented.

I hope it is not one of these "shock to get sold" books. there is something called continuity in the history of the Church, "tradition" in it's authentic sense: which means there can be no surprises in the history of the Church. Everything has been already questioned or thought of.

BcharaK wrote:I hope it is not one of these "shock to get sold" books. there is something called continuity in the history of the Church, "tradition" in it's authentic sense: which means there can be no surprises in the history of the Church. Everything has been already questioned or thought of.

Intriguing thoughts BcharaK.

I suppose that means you support young earth creationism and flat earth theory using your wonderful "no surprises" principle?

On the one hand, Eccles did say there is nothing new under the sun, but then Jesus Christ allegedly surprised a few people by popping back from the grave.

And since "everything has been already thought of", we have no need to develop new innovative technology, we can just read the Bible and nod and dribble.

I would like to join in on the discussion because I have read this and the previous book in the series (Proving History) and found both interesting, and also because my name came up in the discussion.