@HansMustermann
I don't think I agree,
Well, considering that you don't even have to read a book to clear that out -- Carrier said his position in several lectures, some of which are quite readily available on YouTube -- insisting to make up some strawman in your imagination, based on some half-understood Wiki paragraphs from a whole different text, and then disagree with reality for not fitting that thing you imagined... well, I guess you can. It's not sane or smart, but you can
but in any case this gives me the opportunity to expound the problems I have with Carrier, and others who share his view.
I am strongly in sympathy with those who state that the evidence we have for Jesus is inadequate. I think it is in fact sufficient, but I agree that it is sparse.
But Carrier has created a story of great complexity about the origin and alleged incidence of myths, and their gradual transformation into "historical" accounts. This is
harder to believe than the existence of an executed itinerant messianic preacher in Galilee; therefore it requires
as much or more evidence; and that is what is lacking. Carrier writes
Christianity, as a Jewish sect, began when someone (most likely Cephas, perhaps backed by his closest devotees) claimed this [celestial deity] “Jesus” had at last revealed that he had tricked the Devil by becoming incarnate and being crucified by the Devil (in the region of the heavens ruled by Devil), thereby atoning for all of Israel’s sins. [...] It would be several decades later when subsequent members of this cult, after the world had not yet ended as claimed, started allegorizing the gospel of this angelic being. By placing him in earth history as a divine man, as a commentary on the gospel and its relation to society and the Christian mission.
Now in my view that is more improbable than the supposition that Jesus was a real man to whom supernatural abilities were added later, as has happened so often to heroes of the past. At all events, Carrier's speculations as much require evidence as any others. You are, it goes without saying, aware that if a theory lacks evidence, that is not an argument in favour of a competing theory, in the absence of evidence for it as well.
So it is not legitimate, if want of evidence is the criterion, to reject the historical Jesus, only to construct an even less credible celestial Jesus in his place.
Err... I know you know the real Occam's Razor from other threads, so I'm not entirely sure why you have to come up with a nonsensical replacement based on ease of belief. Why not just go with the real thing, that actually stood the test of time and science, instead of some version that's so trivial to demolish that I wouldn't even use it as a strawman? The fact is:
- ease of belief doesn't even factor into whether something is true or false. It's easier to believe that God made awe-inspiring sunsets and cute kittens with whiskers, than to learn about diffraction, refraction, biology and evolution, but that doesn't make the science version false. It's easier to believe Newtonian Mechanics than General Relativity -- most people don't even start to understand the latter, much less believe what it says -- but the fact is that your GPS still works based on the latter anyway. It's easier to understand and believe Newtonian Mechanics than Quantum Mechanics, but several components in your computer still work based on the latter. Etc.
In fact, judging something based on ease of belief is just another wording for the appeal to incredulity fallacy, which is a fallacy for a good reason.
- What the ACTUAL razor says is "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity", or various later more precise wordings of the same. And you'll notice that it's not above how easy it is to believe but about NUMBER OF ENTITIES involved in that explanation. Regardless of whether some are easier to gloss over, or whatever.
And the fact is, for any stories in the gospels to be based on a real Jesus, you're implicitly postulating a LOT of extra entities for each of them: all those guys involved in that oral transmission, all the way between Jesus and gMark at the very least.
You NEED some guy, let's call him Tom, who saw and heard Jesus say some opinion, who then told exactly that to Dick, who then told exactly that to Harry, who then told exactly that to gMark. That's the only way for it to be actually based on something that actually happened.
And they're all necessary for that explanation to work at all. You NEED all three of Tom, Dick and Harry, for that chain to be there at all. If even one of them in that chain is missing, then you don't actually have any base for that episode being based on a real Jesus. If Tom is missing, then what you're left with is that Dick made it all up.
And that's, I suspect, why the HJ crowd prefers to do appeals to incredulity than use the real Occam's Razor. Because at the end of the day, just about any particular HJ reconstruction is failing Occam's Razor. In fact, it's an epic fail. Shaka when the walls fell, kinda fail. It needs at least HUNDREDS of extra entities, to work at all.
- now let's go back to the other part of Occam's Razor: "entities must not be multiplied
beyond necessity". If two hypotheses explain the same data equally, go with the simplest one, sure. But if they don't explain the same data, go with the one that actually explains it, no matter if it's more complex or invokes more personal incredulity.
In a nutshell, Carrier thinks that his version explains the existing data better than a HJ. That's why he makes a more complex theory.
Now, as I've said before, I'm not 100% convinced that his explanation is clearing the p>0.5 hurdle, to say the least. But I understand why he goes the extra mile.
