Saturday, December 15, 2012

Did Jesus Exist? with Richard Carrier and me on Unbelievable?

Premier Christian Radio's Unbelievable? with Justin Brierly today featured a discussion about the historicity of Jesus with Richard Carrier and me. You can listen here:

Unbelievable? Did Jesus Exist?  Richard Carrier vs. Mark Goodacre
Richard Carrier is the world's foremost proponent of the "mythicist" view of Jesus - that he never actually existed as a historical person. He explains his theory that St. Paul only ever spoke of Jesus in the spiritual realm and that the Gospels are "extended parables". Mark Goodacre is NT professor at Duke University. He contends that Carrier's mythicist view is extrememly far fetched and the evidence for the historical Jesus is beyond reasonable doubt.

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macroman said...

Dr Goodacre,

I think you said to Dr Carrier that Paul started off with the Jesus tradition he received from Cephas et al, but when his authority was challenged he switched to saying he learned everything directly by revelation. It seems to me that makes sense if the challenge was "that stuff that Cephas teaches is rubbish, why should we believe Cephas or you when you repeat it" and Paul answers "I am NOT channeling Cephas. I taught this stuff before I every spoke to Cephas because I got it direct from the Lord".

But since the challenge seems to comes from the Cephas camp, that doesn't make much sense, does it?

So is your view something like: 1. Paul started teaching Cephas-compliant Jesus tradition 2. Paul introduced something not from that tradition and was challenged "This ain't what Cephas teaches, this doesn't meet the standard". 3. He responded, "Of course it's not from Cephas, and I have been teaching it before I ever spoke to Cephas (a little white lie, in your view?), and it's as good as (or better, to be blunt) than Cephas-stuff, since I got it directly from the Lord".

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