Well, John the Gospel writer met Jesus.
Plato met Socrates. Or made him up.
There are two (well kinda three, one is of John the Baptist)mentions.
"* Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: …"* is not doubted by any reliable scholar. **
"About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared."
*Of the three passages found in Josephus’ Antiquities, this passage, if authentic, would offer the most direct support for the crucifixion of Jesus. The general scholarly view is that while the Testimonium Flavianum is most likely not authentic in its entirety, it originally consisted of an authentic nucleus with a reference to the execution of Jesus by Pilate which was then subject to interpolation.[6][7][8][9][11]
James Dunn states that there is “broad consensus” among scholars regarding the nature of an authentic reference to Jesus in the Testimonium and what the passage would look like without the interpolations.[10] Among other things, the authenticity of this passage would help make sense of the later reference in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 where Josephus refers to the stoning of “James the brother of Jesus”. A number of scholars argue that the reference to Jesus in this later passage as “the aforementioned Christ” relates to the earlier reference in the Testimonium*
John did not copy, and that Gospel is generally considered to come from that Apostle. Perhaps not directly.
Not quite, in fact the weight of scholarly opinion now say that that Gospel came from Johns followers in Ephesus. There’s little doubt they took his reminiscences and assembled that Gospel. How much of it is Johns words is another thing altogether- some scholars think most of it is.
There’s another big difference between Smith/Moroni or Hubbard/Xenu and Paul/Jesus, beside the inconvenient fact that communities of Jesus-followers predate Paul’s letters: as far as I know, neither Moroni nor Xenu are claimed to have appeared to anyone else. Smith and Hubbard never appealed to other witnesses to verify their stories. On the other hand, Paul names witnesses who were still alive to corroborate his story. If Jesus was made up, it would have required a much larger conspiracy than just Smith or Hubbard working by themselves.
Some folks might wonder exactly why that is “the correct process”. Arbitrary decree tends not be very convincing. My father is a professional historian with over 30 books and 100 articles on his CV. I’m fairly sure that he’s never written anything that mentioned Bayes’ Theorem. I would doubt that any of his colleagues have written much of anything using Bayes’ Theorem either. I have read a fairly large number of history books in my day and have never encountered any historian using Bayes’ Theorem to argue for or against the historicity of anything.
Bayes’ Theorem is a mathematical formula that gives the probability of one event, based on the probability of other events. Self-evidently, it can only be used in cases where there are numerical probabilities. Probability is defined numerically for events such as flipping a coin or drawing a card from a deck. In those cases, there are a known number of outcomes, all equally likely, and one outcome is chosen randomly. This allows the calculation of a number of the probability of an event.
For a question of whether a particular ancient figure existed, or anything like that, there is no numerical probability. There is no definition of probability for such a case. Without numerical probabilities, Bayes’ Theorem cannot be used. It’s like saying that you’ve used Chi-Square tests to determine that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays. What on earth would it even mean?
It sounds like you are critiquing the book without even reading it. Publishing a full book to make a case isn’t exactly “arbitrary decree”, and is isn’t really fair to complain that the case isn’t convincing without giving it full consideration.
Carrier makes a compelling case that whether or not a historian is explicitly applying Bayes’ Theorem, they must consider prior probabilities when evaluating evidence. Essentially if you are not considering the probability that the evidence would exist if a given hypothesis were true vs. the probability that the evidence would exist if the hypothesis is false, you are not using a sound methodology for evaluating the truth of your hypothesis. That is the essence of Bayes Theorem.
Your link didn’t work. Here’s another:
I note several detailed critical reviews by mathematicians whose critique boils down to, “when it comes to probability, Carrier’s flat wrong.” I suggest that perhaps Carrier has not, perhaps, described the correct process.
And to clarify, Carrier doesn’t say that a sound methodology requires numeric probabilities, only that the probability of the two events are compared. Bayes theorem just provides an easy way to formally perform that comparison.
For example, he claims that if there is a compelling case that a certain piece of evidence would be equally likely whether or not a hypothesis were true then that particular piece of evidence can’t be used to evaluate the truth of that hypothesis.
He shows cases where other historians use un-sound methodologies when evaluating such evidence.
Many readers of the book, including the pre-publication scholarly reviewers of his work do think he described the correct process.
Could you find the most compelling critique that supports the claim that he is flat wrong and quote it here?
IT’S OFFICIAL: WE CAN NOW DOUBT JESUS’ HISTORICAL EXISTENCE by Raphael Lataster might help as well:
(The article, for pay, is just a summary of the evidence presented in detail in the book.)
Curious. I searched on this out of a curiousity.
This review on the math by a person sympathetic is not encouraging that this is a good book or showing a good analysis
the review highlights many confusions in usage of terms, so it does not sound like it has show the proper analytical path, but sounds like it is using not well understood math to dress up a conclusion.
I’ve read some of Carrier’s blog posts, and some sections of his books posted online, but not any entire books written by him. What I’ve read has been unimpressive, to put it mildly.
First of all, Carrier’s writing tends to overflow with personal insults and innuendo, completely unworthy of anyone who wants to be seen as an academic. The snippets that you’ve already posted from him contain some examples, and there are countless others. As the top review here puts it:
And if Carrier really is so objective and fair-minded, why does he have such a thin skin? Why does he accuse scholars who hold alternative views of low motives? Why does he constantly poison the well by inserting the adjective “fanatical” before the noun “believers?” (And doesn’t he have other pejoratives in his storehouse, just for the sake of variety?) Why react so heavy-handedly to criticism here on Amazon, including from myself? (“Don’t read him! He’s an apologist, and therefore dishonest! He lost a debate in Alabama!”)… It is almost as if Richard knows, at some level, that he has built an impressive house of cards, but that any breath of critical analysis might blow it all away.
Secondly, it’s just a straightforward fact that he often says things that are untrue, or half true, or where he’s ignoring evidence that is fatal to his claims. The review that I linked to gives plenty of examples. Here’s another in-depth example of Carrier’s intellectual dishonesty: http://religionatthemargins.com/2012/04/the-death-of-richard-carriers-dying-messiah/ . Carrier cites particular sources and claims they say something. Readers who check those sources find them saying something entirely different. It’s happened over and over again. Check the other threads linked to near the start of this thread. There are plenty of examples there.
This article critiques the math in Proving History.
Huh? We have surviving coins issued for Alexander. Surely coinage counts for something when we’re discussing whether an ancient ruler really existed or not. And there are contemporary inscriptions mentioning Alexander.
The notion that we have “more sources” for Jesus than for Alexander only makes sense if you’re being quite restrictive about what counts as a “source”.
Just as an example, does the existence of Alexandria count as evidence for the existence of Alexander? I could see that cutting both ways.
Curious if you also read Carrier’s response to that review.
Now I have and my opinion is lower of Carrier for it.
Carrier responds to many of the reviews or other responses here:
List of Responses to Defenders of the Historicity of Jesus
Well that is certainly a substantive response. Thanks.
He’s also a Sagittarius. 
The thing is, how much proof I necessary. Heck, we have a president who was born several years after me, and was born in the most document-happy and literate time and country in known history - and people still think the documentation of his birth is insufficient.
Every piece of the puzzle is an element of proof. When the preponderance of pieces point to a conclusion - there was a Jesus, he was a wandering preacher who was very persuasive, and he left behind followers who doubled down on his heritage big time…
Josephus, for example - he made a point of writing about history of the Jewish people; so his point was NOT to write about Jesus, he was not a convert, and the majority of what he wrote was totally irrelevant to Christianity. The fact that he mentioned peripherally that there was a Jesus, and the passage was only somewhat embellished, is good evidence that the data is accurate. Not proof, mind you, but evidence. (Note Josephus also mentions other Messiahs, including several guerrilla liberation fighters - so he’s not concentrating on one religious character).
The same goes for everything else. The preachings that resulted (eventually) in the gospels and epistles created Christian communities within 20 or 30 years of the (alleged) crucifixion. (Heck, Saul was chasing Jewish Christians to Damascus around 40AD or so…) Remember that in those days, the communities, particularly of dispersed Jews, was small. Also - many of those went back to Jerusalem as close to annually as they could, so there’s no doubt they were up to date on the local news there. A complete fabrication would be awkward to get away with.
Whether Jesus performed miracles, rose from the dead, etc. is a matter of faith for ohers who have faith - but I would think there’s pretty close to zero doubt there was a person named Jesus, and he did preach in Judea at that time, and as a troublemaker for the temple hierarchy, was executed as a threat to public order.
The post confrims what ITR said " writing tends to overflow with personal insults and innuendo, completely unworthy"
it is the writing approach of the polemecist, not the analyst.
Nor was it to me convincing about any of the substance.
You seem quite impressed by him, it appears you like the polemics.