Very nice overview of Bayes Theorem and Historical Jesus

[_sock puppet]

Yeah he's human but that's irrelevant to his argument and its validity but I do understand your point. I wish he was a little more reasonable as such but he's not. I still find his argument fascinating and his use of Bayes theorem very intriguing because of how I can now have a better tool to analyze my belief system. That is why I'm so turned on with Bayes theorem not necessarily Richard carriers materials or his attitude.

Likewise, so was Joseph Smith human. Would you say that Joseph Smith's indiscretions were irrelevant to the state of his character?

Not a very close parallel, I suggest. Smith demands our belief in all kinds of stuff that depends on his word alone, such as the First Vision(s), the appearance of Moroni, the discovery of gold plates and so on ... followed by a string of revelations vouchsafed by God. If we think he is a deceiving philanderer who lied to his wife, his personal credibility is thereby greatly diminished, and that is crucial to our belief in his claims.

Carrier may not be a nice person - indeed he may be rather horrible (I don't know). But if he puts forward arguments based on reasoning from historical evidence, we would normally have no problem in finding ourself evaluating the claims largely independently of his character. There are quite a lot of historical scholars out there who are not at all nice people.

(Of course if there are signs of gross dishonesty, we would evaluate the evidence he puts forward with extra special care. But does Carrier show signs of that?)

NB that I am not at present inclined to adopt what I gather are Carrier's vies about the historicity of Jesus.

Also, JSJr was with his Mormon religion trying to tell people how to live, and it smacks of hypocrisy when he himself would secretly violate the strictures he was shoveling at others to follow. If Carrier were trying to advance historical conclusions arrived at other than by Bayes Theorem, while espousing the view that historians all should use the BT methodology, then Carrier would be stained by hypocrisy as JSJr is blackened to the core by it.

[_Jersey Girl]

Not a very close parallel, I suggest. Smith demands our belief in all kinds of stuff that depends on his word alone, such as the First Vision(s), the appearance of Moroni, the discovery of gold plates and so on ... followed by a string of revelations vouchsafed by God. If we think he is a deceiving philanderer who lied to his wife, his personal credibility is thereby greatly diminished, and that is crucial to our belief in his claims.

Carrier may not be a nice person - indeed he may be rather horrible (I don't know). But if he puts forward arguments based on reasoning from historical evidence, we would normally have no problem in finding ourself evaluating the claims largely independently of his character. There are quite a lot of historical scholars out there who are not at all nice people.

(Of course if there are signs of gross dishonesty, we would evaluate the evidence he puts forward with extra special care. But does Carrier show signs of that?)

NB that I am not at present inclined to adopt what I gather are Carrier's vies about the historicity of Jesus.

Also, JSJr was with his Mormon religion trying to tell people how to live, and it smacks of hypocrisy when he himself would secretly violate the strictures he was shoveling at others to follow. If Carrier were trying to advance historical conclusions arrived at other than by Bayes Theorem, while espousing the view that historians all should use the BT methodology, then Carrier would be stained by hypocrisy as JSJr is blackened to the core by it.

Oh geez.

I wasn't attempting a parallel between Carrier and Joseph Smith. That was an allusion to apologetic defenses.
Because, former apologist.

[_Chap]

Yeah he's human but that's irrelevant to his argument and its validity but I do understand your point. I wish he was a little more reasonable as such but he's not. I still find his argument fascinating and his use of Bayes theorem very intriguing because of how I can now have a better tool to analyze my belief system. That is why I'm so turned on with Bayes theorem not necessarily Richard carriers materials or his attitude.

Likewise, so was Joseph Smith human. Would you say that Joseph Smith's indiscretions were irrelevant to the state of his character?

Oh geez.

I wasn't attempting a parallel between Carrier and Joseph Smith. That was an allusion to apologetic defenses.
Because, former apologist.

I suppose I must have been misled by that word "likewise".

But was my observation so far from relevant to what you said?

Not a very close parallel, I suggest. Smith demands our belief in all kinds of stuff that depends on his word alone, such as the First Vision(s), the appearance of Moroni, the discovery of gold plates and so on ... followed by a string of revelations vouchsafed by God. If we think he is a deceiving philanderer who lied to his wife, his personal credibility is thereby greatly diminished, and that is crucial to our belief in his claims.

Carrier may not be a nice person - indeed he may be rather horrible (I don't know). But if he puts forward arguments based on reasoning from historical evidence, we would normally have no problem in finding ourself evaluating the claims largely independently of his character. There are quite a lot of historical scholars out there who are not at all nice people.

(Of course if there are signs of gross dishonesty, we would evaluate the evidence he puts forward with extra special care. But does Carrier show signs of that?)

NB that I am not at present inclined to adopt what I gather are Carrier's views <typo corrected> about the historicity of Jesus.

My point was that if you make the kind of claims that Smith made, character is key to credibility. If you write on the kind of things Carrier does, character may still affect whether you want to be around him, but it is much less relevant to whether or not you feel like saying "Yup. I think Carrier is right" .

(Which by the way I don't)

[_Jersey Girl]

Chap,

We're coming from two entirely different places. Trust me, we are.

[_Chap]

Chap,

We're coming from two entirely different places. Trust me, we are.

I am not overly distressed. No doubt we shall both come out of this without major trauma.

[_Jersey Girl]

Chap,

We're coming from two entirely different places. Trust me, we are.

I am not overly distressed. No doubt we shall both come out of this without major trauma.

I suspect so. Either that or it's the cats again.

;-)

[_Kishkumen]

For my good friend kishkumen I must say I thoroughly enjoyed reading your response yes this is the idea discuss the issues I'm on a mobile device right now I shall return to this as I can maybe tonight maybe tomorrow night but thank you for giving your input I value everyone's input after all we're all just trying to learn what really is and what truth is this is simply awesome it's why I love this board

Thanks, Philo Sofee. I am glad you bring up these issues and I look forward to any response you may have to the issues I raised in my post. I remain doubtful that one can ignore the impact of things like genre and theological agenda when considering the historicity of Jesus as represented in the gospels.

[_Analytics]

....Either Bayesian reasoning is malarkey, the basic evidential weighing and reasoning of the traditional historical method is malarkey - or, Carrier is just inputing into Bayesian reasoning the radical fringe arguments of mythicism and using Bayesian reasoning to raise his credibility.

have a great trip!

mikwut

Well, I'm back with a great tan, a lingering hangover, and not quite 50% of On the History of Jesus listened to.

Regarding what you said above, Carrier's point isn't that the "traditional historical method is malarkey," but rather that it was incorrectly applied in this particular case. In general, his Bayesian approach is a clarification of the traditional historical method--not something contradictory.

More specifically, he's simply claiming that all of the evidence and background information needs to be considered. Then, two questions need to be asked: 1- if the historicity hypothesis is true, what's the probability it would have produced the sum total of all of this evidence? 2- if the mysticism hypothesis is true, what's the probability it would have produced the sum total of all of this evidence? In principle, this doesn't contradict the "traditional historical method", does it?

A main driver of his point is that in Roman Judea 2,000 years ago, there were in fact mysticist religions that were strikingly similar with the teachings of Paul. These religions featured saviors, sometimes named Jesus, that descended from the seventh level of heaven to the firmament in order to be crucified by demons and then resurrected. These mysticist religions aren't hypothetical--they really existed. So here is the question: how do we know Paul wasn't a mystic? It's easy to assume he was talking about the Jesus described in the gospels if you read four gospels before you read his epistles. But if you were familiar with mysticism rather than the gospels, would you just as easily assume he was talking about mysticism? That being the case, what was Paul really talking about?

That's basically the way Carrier phrases the question. It's conceivable that a historical Jesus was embellished with supernatural abilities and accomplishments. Likewise, it's conceivable that a mystic Jesus was embellished with an earthly history. In light of all of the evidence, which of those two conceivable hypotheses is more likely?

The novelty of a mystic Jesus is intriguing to me. Carrier is a bit of an arrogant prick and I don't particularly like aligning myself with him. But I find his arguments worthy of consideration.

[_richardMdBorn]

....Either Bayesian reasoning is malarkey, the basic evidential weighing and reasoning of the traditional historical method is malarkey - or, Carrier is just inputing into Bayesian reasoning the radical fringe arguments of mythicism and using Bayesian reasoning to raise his credibility.

have a great trip!

mikwut

Well, I'm back with a great tan, a lingering hangover, and not quite 50% of On the History of Jesus listened to.

Regarding what you said above, Carrier's point isn't that the "traditional historical method is malarkey," but rather that it was incorrectly applied in this particular case. In general, his Bayesian approach is a clarification of the traditional historical method--not something contradictory.

More specifically, he's simply claiming that all of the evidence and background information needs to be considered. Then, two questions need to be asked: 1- if the historicity hypothesis is true, what's the probability it would have produced the sum total of all of this evidence? 2- if the mysticism hypothesis is true, what's the probability it would have produced the sum total of all of this evidence? In principle, this doesn't contradict the "traditional historical method", does it?

A main driver of his point is that in Roman Judea 2,000 years ago, there were in fact mysticist religions that were strikingly similar with the teachings of Paul. These religions featured saviors, sometimes named Jesus, that descended from the seventh level of heaven to the firmament in order to be crucified by demons and then resurrected. These mysticist religions aren't hypothetical--they really existed. So here is the question: how do we know Paul wasn't a mystic? It's easy to assume he was talking about the Jesus described in the gospels if you read four gospels before you read his epistles. But if you were familiar with mysticism rather than the gospels, would you just as easily assume he was talking about mysticism? That being the case, what was Paul really talking about?

That's basically the way Carrier phrases the question. It's conceivable that a historical Jesus was embellished with supernatural abilities and accomplishments. Likewise, it's conceivable that a mystic Jesus was embellished with an earthly history. In light of all of the evidence, which of those two conceivable hypotheses is more likely?

The novelty of a mystic Jesus is intriguing to me. Carrier is a bit of an arrogant prick and I don't particularly like aligning myself with him. But I find his arguments worthy of consideration.

Assuming that there is something to the historical Jesus, which existed first, the oral stories of Jesus told by eyewitnesses or the Pauline epistles? Were the gospels written based on myth or the fact that the eyewitnesses were dying off and the early Christians wanted to preserve their stories.

[_EAllusion]

There's nothing wrong with Bayesian reasoning in scholarship like history per se. When I see it misused, there's usually a couple of problems at work in my experience.

First, people understate the vast base of background knowledge that forms our judgments, which is ironic given that this Bayesian reasoning here, and as a result, overvalue pieces of evidence they are talking about. Bayesian references end up being a fig leaf to obscure a shallow consideration of the total argument space. Ever read an evangelical apologist express the "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic" argument in Bayesian reasoning?

Second, people do a really poor job estimating probabilities at the margins and as a result sneak in highly illicit probability judgements that can affect downstream calculations. For example, when we find something intuitively unlikely, it's easy to accept a .001% probability instead of .000000000001% that it actually is. It's hard to put a number on a lot of things. We just don't make those fine distinctions well. That can matter in a complex enough stack.

Having read Carrier attempt a ridiculous Bayesian argument on a different subject not that long ago, he was guilty as sin when it came to the first problem. I'm not sure if it infects his other stuff, but I'd be willing to bet it does.