Apparently now Richard Carrier has his own Gospel. The video above illustrates just how off-target mythicism is in relation to the evidence. The suggestion that the Gospel of Mark is the first inkling of a biography of Jesus ignores the narrative that Paul clearly takes for granted – as well as the indications in Mark that he is telling a story that has been told before.
The idea that Mark is just an updating of Moses, Elijah, and Elisha stories is simply Tom Brodie’s unpersuasive framework (which fits some material, but turns into nonsense if you try to crowbar all the Gospel material into it).
Carrier also claims that Mark is intentionally writing in a “low Greek” dialect, similar to what Mark Twain did, in an effort to convey that the last shall be first.
He then moves on to his standard “dying and rising” mystery cult stuff. What he says about the Essenes is particularly odd. His view of Paul thinking that Christianity was an impressive cult that he should join and become a leader in, but then ought to make it more successful by letting non-Jews in, is not at all compatible with the evidence – so much so that it is laughable. His assertions about Paul claiming to know about Jesus only by supernatural means has been debunked repeatedly. Carrier accepts on faith, despite the evidence to the contrary, that a “new guard” will appear that will consider his view equally plausible to others proposed by mainstream – and even less mainstream – scholars.
See my articles on Thomas Brodie’s approach to the Gospels, and Carrier’s approach to Mark, on the Bible and Interpretation website.
I’ve responded seriously to Carrier’s claims on repeated occasions, but he continues to simply dismiss his opponents (or offer a deluge of verbosity that never gets at substantive matters in a persuasive manner). And so perhaps this time I should simply add him to the meme that Steve Caruso and Robert Cargill made popular a few years ago, and which I shared here on this blog back in 2013:
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