Raphael Lataster - Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists

By Richard Carrier

Why This Book Exists

In early 2014 I published On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt . It passed professional peer review. It was published by a major, well-respected academic press that specialized in Biblical Studies, Sheffield-Phoenix, the publishing arm of the University of Sheffield. And it is the first book of such tested merit to argue that Jesus probably did not exist. It argues instead that Jesus began life as a revelatory archangel, and was transferred to human history decades later through the writing of myths for educational, missionary, and propagandistic purposes. This would have proceeded, in both cause and procedure, much like the invention of the life and teachings and miracles of Moses, whom the mainstream Academy now concedes probably did not exist.

Now late in 2015, the book you hold in your hand, Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists by Raphael Lataster, contains the first thorough and expert treatment of my argument in print. In fact his chapter summarizing my book is the best brief summary I have read anywhere. One could skip directly to that chapter just for that purpose. And his book as a whole is the first analysis of its argument from anyone of graduate status or above in a relevant field that does not ignore or lie about its contents. Its motivation is evident from its authors argument: Biblical studies is inhabited by experts too close to the material to approach so controversial a question critically. Someone who hasnt settled their careers and access to grants and conference invites on there being a historical Jesus is indeed needed, to look objectively at whats going on.

That there is a problem is widely acknowledged within the field itself. It has been remarked on by numerous observers, from John Crossan, who would write the famous line describing most historical work on Jesus a disguise for doing theology and calling it history, doing autobiography and calling it biography, doing Christian apologetics and calling it academic scholarship, and who then ironically did pretty much the very same thing himself, to James Crossley, who has argued that historians keep constructing a historical Jesus that conveniently agrees with who they want Jesus to have been, even writing two whole books on the point: Jesus in an Age of Terror and Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism . That the problem is even more extensive than this is demonstrated by Hector Avalos in The End of Biblical Studies . These are all leading insiders, well qualified in the subject.

This is why it can be useful to have your methods and approaches observed and critiqued by someone who hasnt been raised and taught on a body of old Christian faith assumptions repackaged as a consensus unconnected from its previous theological origins. You cant see the hall of mirrors you are trapped in. But they can. Someone, though, who nevertheless has sufficient qualifications to evaluate your field informedly and skillfully. Lataster is a doctoral student and teacher in Religious Studies, a field that more than prepares someone to approach religions, religious claims, and religious scholarship with skill and insight. If someone in that position finds serious problems with the way your field is doing its work, you should at least listen. And consider what they have to say.

I concur that Lataster has done a good job of outlining the evidence and arguments and what its weaknesses may be on both sides. I do not necessarily agree with all of his arguments, assertions, and approaches. But I agree they all deserve to be taken seriously. And I do mean all. Do not commit the embarrassing fallacy of finding some few weak arguments or claims and then dismissing the rest because you can dismiss those. Remove those if you must, if any you find. Blot them out with a magic marker even. Then read and confront what remains. Because you cannot erode a mountain of strong points by removing any mole hills of weak points adorning it. The mountain remains. Answer it.

From my own experience, I can predict the games many will play. Some will just outright lie about what Lataster actually argues in this book, or not even read the book and criticize it in total ignorance of its actual contents, based on their imagining of what it must have said. Some will even lie about having read the book, even though their ignorance of its actual contents betrays them. A note to the wise: skimming or owning the book, is not reading it. Dont become a liar for Jesus. Or for the secular Academy. Actually read the book. Actually take it seriously. Actually respond to its strongest and most relevant points, not its weakest or most irrelevant ones.

Another way critics will respond to the weak and irrelevant as an excuse to not address the relevant and the strong, is to attack Latasters tone, or his dialect in English, or their feeling insulted by his opinions or assertiveness, or some such triviality. This is as pathetic as saying you dont have to respond to a book that uses English spellings instead of American. Dont be that person. Address the facts as stated. Dont waste yours or anyones time complaining about an irrelevant choice of vocabulary that offends you. Dont answer enraged with emotion. Answer with sound reason and a deep care for a true representation of the facts. Someones choice of idiom is irrelevant. Their opinions of you are irrelevant. Though your being criticized will make you feel insulted, dont let your indignance generate a vomit of words as your rebuttal. Let your logic and attention to facts attend to the actual substance of what is being said. Ignore the rest. And ask yourself, at each point of disagreement you deem crucial, Why is he wrong? Allow for the possibility he isnt.

Though we dont share the same opinions and conclusions on all points, readers of this book will notice that a lot of Latasters ideas were inspired by my work in On the Historicity of Jesus and its prequel Proving History: Bayess Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus , a dependence on both he openly acknowledges. He doesnt always reference where a thought or idea came from, and I dont deem it necessary for him to, especially as this is written as more of a popular book, and he has developed similar and original ideas independently as well. Just be aware that this book is largely a development on those books, and thus repeats a lot of whats in them (though by no means all). His intention, apart from building on the direct analysis from his Masters thesis, is to look at all three books lately published on this issue and summarize and compare them: mine taking the negative (that Jesus probably didnt exist), and two taking the positive (that Jesus certainly did exist), which appeared immediately before mine, one by the late Maurice Casey, under the title Jesus: Evidence and Argument Or Mythicist Myths? , and the other by the eminent Bart Ehrman, under the title Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth . It has to be admitted that those two books dont come out well by comparison with mine. Reflecting the arrogance and negligence plaguing the field as a whole, neither was published under peer review. No book dedicated to defending the historicity of Jesus has ever passed peer review. Not because none could. But because in their arrogant presumption, no one has ever thought it necessary. But you cant win this argument from the armchair. You have to vet your arguments for logical and factual accuracy, answering to qualified peers. You need to care about whether they hold up, rather than assume they must because You cant be wrong.

Because unfortunately that is all that has so far happened from the Academy on this question. Our arguments are either assiduously avoided and never talked about, or the equivalent of preacher-pulpit Christian apologetics is deployed in defense of the faith. A reasoned, informed secular rebuttal is missing. Even from the secular ranks of the Academy. I keep assembled all the rebuttals to my thesis and my responses to them under the heading List of Responses to Defenders of the Historicity of Jesus on my blog. Almost all of them are either from amateurs or from experts writing before they had access to my book (and thus do not count as rebuttals to it, but rather it to them). In fact only two rebuttals to my book exist from the Academy itself, neither in print nor peer reviewed, and both from Christian apologists: the liberal James McGrath (a non-Evangelical Christian, whose PhD in, presumably, New Testament Studies, is vague as to the extent of its training in historical methods and ancient history), and the conservative Kenneth Waters (an Evangelical Baptist minister whose only qualification is a PhD in Theology, not in history, ancient or otherwise).