Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Appearing in San Francisco

The San Francisco Atheists have asked me to give an encore presentation of my discussion of J.P. Holding and my book Not the Impossible Faith in San Francisco (California). This will be in the banquet room at Schroeder's (240 Front Street, when you walk in just head all the way to the back room) on the Saturday of May 30 (2009) at 6pm. It's open to the public, but you will be expected to buy a drink or meal from the hosts (and please tip generously). I will be selling and signing books afterward, but be advised, supply is limited! For what this talk will be about, see Appearing in Berkeley.

9 comments:

freethoughtguy said...

Looking forward to it. We have a Facebook site for the event too.

Philip said...

Dr Carrier

I wish you all the best in your talk, I hope it goes well, I promise I will finish your book soon, it does look incredibly interesting.

I do have a question for you, my apologies for going off topic but I was unsure where to post it, if this needs directing to another thread I will glady do so.


In all my reading so far about the myth of Jesus there is one thing still bothering me that does not make sense.

Why do the Gospel writers refer to Jesus as "Jesus of Nazareth" when Nazareth, as far as I know, did not exist in the time Jesus was supposed to have lived or indeed the time the Gospel writers were around? From what I have gathered so far the site of Nazareth was a graveyard for a nearby town of Japha up until Japha was destroyed by Emperor Vespasian's army in 67AD.

The earliest reference I can find of the place is towards the end of the 4th cenutry when it finally was put on the pilgrim trail.

How would the Gospel writers have known about this place if it supposedly didn't exist or is it possibly this part was inserted later into the Bible?

I would be very interested to hear any views you have on this and I apologise again for going completely off topic.

Kind regards

Philip

David B Marshall said...

Pretty sleazy, Richard. You can't win the argument, so you misrepresent my points, attack my character and call me names on your blog. I can see why you discourage your fans from reading our exchange for themselves.

I've posted a response to your blog below on the God Delusion site, where I was first introduced to (and began poking holes in) your arguments. But I'd be happy to post a rebuttal here, too, if you let me; and then do what damage control you may.

Running Writer said...

Hi Richard,
Any update on the Historical Jesus research you are carrying out? When can we expect a first draft etc?
Regards,
Jacob

Landon Hedrick said...

It would be nice if a Biblical scholar would read and review this book. That way you could get more exposure and your fans would get a sense of how well the arguments stand up to other scholars.

Richard Carrier said...

Philip1978 said... In all my reading so far about the myth of Jesus there is one thing still bothering me that does not make sense. Why do the Gospel writers refer to Jesus as "Jesus of Nazareth" when Nazareth, as far as I know, did not exist in the time Jesus was supposed to have lived....

That is debated and still not the consensus view. Until more scholars are convinced, I'm not going to base any conclusion on the premise Nazareth didn't exist. The earliest reference is a Jewish (not Christian) inscription that dates 2nd-4th century that essentially claims the town took in priestly refugees when the temple fell (which means it existed pre-70). Salm attempts to discredit this, but I'm not convinced. No one else seems to be either.

As to why assign him that town, Matthew claims it was based on a scripture. We don't have all the scriptures today the Christians were using then, so that may be the case. Various scholars (not all of them mythicists) have proposed various other theories (generally involving the term as an epithet that had some other meaning in Aramaic but was transformed into a geographic label). I'll say something about it in my book, which I'm still working hard at finishing.

Richard Carrier said...

Dave M said... Pretty sleazy, Richard. You can't win the argument, so you misrepresent my points, attack my character and call me names on your blog. I can see why you discourage your fans from reading our exchange for themselves.

Why did you post here then? Don't you mean to be responding to a completely different blog post?

Why don't you post comments there taking specific quotes from that blog post and explaining why they are in error?

That would be better than making vague denunciations and snide remarks.

You can repeat material you may have posted elsewhere. I otherwise don't have time to galavant around other blogs and threads. If you're concerned about anything I have said on this blog, please respond to it on this blog, and let's have a sound dialogue. But please post it under the correct thread (which I assume is the one I just linked to above).

Richard Carrier said...

Jacob Aliet: Still plugging away. Donors will be notified in a few weeks of the book's progress.

Landon Hedrick said... It would be nice if a Biblical scholar would read and review this book.I'd love that. If you can make it happen, by all means do.

David B Marshall said...

Snide remarks? I like that, considering the tone of your attempted rebuttals. They're not just "snide," they're nasty. By contrast, I have generally satisfied myself with demonstrating your errors. In my post here, all I do is accurately describe what you wrote.

Anyway, my response to your blog is on the forum for the God Delusion on Amazon. (The discussion forum called "Richard Carrier vents." I thought of calling it, "Richard Carrier has a hissy fit," which is probably more accurate . . . ) I don't think you'll find it "vague."

I'll also post a full account of the exchange, with a detailed refutation of your "biogenesis" and "spreads by the sword / succeeds by force" claims on my web site, christthetao.com, perhaps later today.