{"id":24874,"date":"2014-06-25T12:15:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T16:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=24874"},"modified":"2014-06-25T12:15:43","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T16:15:43","slug":"review-of-two-mythicist-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/06\/review-of-two-mythicist-books.html","title":{"rendered":"Early Reviews of Richard Carrier’s On The Historicity of Jesus Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Loren Rosson has reviewed<\/a> two books which offer two different mythicist theories \u2013 one in relation to Muhammad, one in relation to Jesus. The former is Robert Spencer\u2019s Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam\u2019s Obscure Origins<\/a>\"\"<\/em>, and the latter is Richard Carrier\u2019s On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt<\/a>\"\"<\/em>.<\/p>\n

On the one that interests me more (although both interest me), Rosson seems to me to make great efforts to be not only fair but sympathetic as he seeks to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Carrier\u2019s arguments. But there definitely are weaknesses, and here is an example of Rosson\u2019s discussion of one example:<\/p>\n

Finally, a word about Gal 1:19, which in Carrier\u2019s view is \u201cthe only real evidence\u201d historicists have from Paul\u2019s letters. He argues that James \u201cthe brother of the Lord\u201d is fictive kinship language rather than biological, as Paul wants to distinguish Christians generally from apostles specifically (p 590), which means of course that he\u2019s not referring to James the pillar. It\u2019s not a convincing argument. Paul would have little reason to bring up a lesser non-apostolic James in the context Gal 1-2, as such a figure would be beneath mentioning. Paul is referring to the apostle James who in fact is the biological brother of Jesus, and who has to be acknowledged, because he\u2019s a thorn in Paul\u2019s side being a rival authority in the Antioch incident as it now bears on the Galatian situation.<\/p>\n

This was a point made by Zeba Crook in his recent debate with Carrier, to which Carrier later\u00a0responded<\/a>\u00a0online:<\/p>\n