How Did Christianity Really Start? 

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It's always a pleasure to listen to Dr. Carrier. He sounds confident but he readily acknowledges the limits of what can be know to us today, due to the nature of, or lack of, evidence. EVIDENCE Just the fact that he puts that at the center of his presentation sets him apart from so many other scholars.

My favorite "Christians" are the ones who quote Paul to refute a teaching of Jesus. Epic threads there

Dr Carrier is always gold. Too many professors in this field that actually don't do any research but just pull out their info from a very biased pool of information and works from other people. Anything outside the narrative they learned at university they think is a crank theory.

"On the Historicity of Jesus" is one the best books on early Christianity I've ever read. I learned so much. Ir's refreshing, richly annotated, compelling, honest and fair

I suspect "Mark" began life as a street play in one of the major Jewish population centers. Alexandria, Ephesus, Antioch, take your pick. Because it very much reads like a play, with all the dramatic beats, scene changes, the Greek chorus of speech, all of it is structured exactly like a play.

I still think the biggest takeaway of this debate, while we argue over "born of a woman" and James' real or fictional kinship, is that the evidence is so little, so fragmentary, so illusionary, that the whole existence of Jesus is built on hazy mirages. Which totally undercuts the idea that god sent Jesus here to save humankind, if god couldn't bother to provide evidence for Jesus's most basic aspect. (The entrance to heaven is not through good works nor accepting Jesus, it is just being so incredibly credulous.)

I really appreciate how Dr. Carrrier took a minute to stress understanding how speculating works and is used in academic discussion. This setting of the framework opens the door for a much broader and necessary discussion of the topic in the best traditions of what free thought and free expression have to offer. This also discourages absolutism regardless from what quarter it tries to emerge.

Carrier is just simply the best in every way. Honest, humble and incredibly logical in his approach. We need more Carrier's in the scholarly community and even more, we need more people in general to listen to his reasoning. ❤️

We need more of Dr Carrier!

Whoa, a live in person interview! haha Love listening to Dr Carrier. It's honestly in a way beautiful and fascinating how and why these things happened the way they did back then, but it's really unfortunate what's become of it all, particularly in the US. Conservative evangelicals are literally 2000 years removed from whatever better spirits motivated people throughout much of history, but unfortunately there's also a dark shadow lurking in that history that they ring a little too true with. The persecutorial history of it - which was arguably there from the start too. It's like competing visions of utopia or something. I feel like we need to co-opt this and make a new modern revelation for Christians today. Sadly I don't think anyone would "know" for centuries, kind of like Christianity's origins. But again, I feel the anthropological version of these events make it more true in a way, a very human striving for something better, in understanding and for life. It's like they were trying, and you can see what they were trying to do, which is great. But how that all gets confused with and mixed into divinity over the centuries, and then you have people calcified into painful world views that deny facts and truth. I feel like atheism in a way is Christianity 2.0, since we study the Bible more than they do and even apply much of it's core teachings better than they do as well. I guess history is just gonna keep hissing. Oh well. Thanks for the interview and post.

If you have a hard time imagining how cults operated centuries ago, looks at how they emerge an operate in modern times. Take Scientology, for example.

This would be a great miniseries

get this guy for another AMA live!

Dr Carrier is ALWAYS top notch.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to be in a small group (about 10) interviewing Dr. Carrier. Because he is not affiliated with a university presently, the Christian apologists try to put him down. Hello!! He is a Ph.D. in a specialty more than capable to present authoritative information on this subject.

Wow .. fantastic explanation. And emphasizing that we don't really know. The humility of a true scientific scholar. Very admirable! I've bought two of his books and will continue to support him.

Nice to hear from Dr. Carrier! A very important thing worth reemphasizing is that any timeline is extremely speculative. It’s not crazy to think that Mark was written in the early second century. At the other end, when Paul was writing is extremely speculative as well. We know Paul is pre-Jewish war, but the only other reference to anything datable in Paul is a mention of Aretas appointing a governor of Syria which is something legitimate historical sources suggest almost certainly never happened. Without that additional anchoring it’s impossible to link Paul to anything else. Furthermore, Galatians is the one book where the claim that Paul was persecuting Christians then joined the movement fully over a decade later, but when you recognize that Galatians 1 and 2 may have been seriously tampered with (which Marcion’s version of Galatians strongly suggests) that timeline of Paul preaching for many many years before ever meeting the Jerusalem church led by Cephas gets called into doubt. The idea that Paul was even a persecutor of Christians is even possibly called into doubt. Taken to the extremes it’s not totally outside the realm of reasonable speculation to think that Paul could have been an active Christian decades before the 50s or even before the 30s in the 20s or earlier, and Mark could have been written between 100 and 110 making it almost two to three human lifetimes between Cephas and Mark. Carrier cited the consensus in his presentation of the dates, but the consensus is highly speculative. The bottom line is that establishing a credible timeline is extremely hard.

Good to see Richard mentionning the Dead sea scrolls and the sect of Qumran. Many reputed and well known scholars who were committed to translate the first manuscripts of’Qumran became mythicist or sceptics. And when you read and study the scrolls, there are obvious reasons to go this way.

we need more richard carrier material

Dr. Carrier, I just got your big book, Historicity of Jesus, and about half-way through. I've been following this topic by binge-watch RU-vid posts and reading some other (also great) books, so I figured I knew a lot. Finding out so much more. Just reading now about the other writers of the first century whose works often seem to be missing the 'vital years. when perhaps they didn't notice Jesus whatsoever. Thanks for all your work.

Carrier is Platinum certified 🏆 The average lifespan was 40 years, and Mark's gospel is written 40 years after. This is the first time we hear of a physical Jesus, not that one couldn't have existed, but by this time Myth is applied and creates a new version of the religion

Didn't your friend Gnostic Informant do a hit piece on this guy?

IF this jesus died to forgive sin, why is there still sin?

I’d never really considered that before, Paul is promoting ‘The Christ’ as an abstract concept, it’s not until the book attributed to Mark that they attempt to ‘flesh out’ the abstract into a real person.

Not just mythicists, i think most people without a theological commitment to say otherwise will say that we don't know how exactly the core myths or Christianity got started. Not because they are hard to explain but because there are too many explanations. The apologist then says "well, if you don't provide a competing explanation, then you can't argue against me". The sceptic gives their explanation. The apologist then argues that the explanation is "ad-hoc", "speculative" or "arbitrary" To which the sceptic says "well, yeah, but that doesn't mean it's not a better explanation than yours" If I woke up to find a pineapple on my window sill with a note attached saying that it was placed there by a flying purple centaur called Geoffrey, I think that I would be justified in believing that the note was not truthful without giving much thought to an alternative explanation. Any explanation that i invented would be in some sense more ad-hoc than accepting the explanation on the note but that doesn't make it necessarily less plausible

So many things I have learned from you.Doctor richard carrier about my catholic church history And also from learning more history of the romans ❤keep up the good work

It will take some decades yet to people accepting this is all myth and Roman politics. There's a strong emotional and cultural attachment really hard to deal with, even in the academy.

Good stuff. Nice and short.

Excellent. Thank you.

Just to let you know I love your channel. Thank you for all your information. We love this. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Thank you Dr. Carrier.

Dr carrier thanks I Went to the catholic church Look around at the way the place was set up Recently I had downloaded a p d f vitruvis's book on architecture Things started coming together I listened as the priest talked about the special mysteries And remembered that this is a mystery religion On another day , the priest named off the zodiac Referring to people in the bible I. Could see they were talking about the zodiac

Richard is one of my favorite persons I. This subject

Love Dr. Carrier explaining things

Very good exposition, Dr. Carrier Derek, I hope you have him on again.

I am a huge fan of Dr. Carrier , I was too nervous to go meet him when he was in Rochester but perhaps next time. I wonder sometimes if the Jerusalem church existed at all. Also, James the Brother of the Lord is a huge mystery what exactly is going on there. Thanks Derek and Dr Carrier for this most fascinating convesation.

Interesting information.

My "Origins of Christianity" professor told the class that 1st century Christianity was like 21st century politics: chaotic, divisive, tumultuous, even underhanded at times. I wonder if that is the scholastic consensus or his own interpretation. Any ideas?

If you read all the surviving gospels. There were likely to be more that didn't survive. You have to realize that each and everyone is a take, based upon personal perspectives and beliefs, on the myth. The four were picked by people with their own perspectives and beliefs over the others. None are true. If these stories were based upon a real human being that human being wouldn't recognize any of these stories as his. Great video. Great presentation. Great location. One of the requirements of most religions is to be humble. Yet the greatest proponents of faith are the least humble. And the people who hold no stock in faith generally are the most humble. They readily profess when they are not sure. Where doubt lies. What is conjecture. Rely only on facts and evidence and still hold they could be wrong for not understanding them correctly. People of faith are willing to kill for circular logic because they are invested in it. Who is the more moral? Who does the most good?

18 minutes but so dense with info, that was great. Paul and his bags of cash, I can just see it.

Great video! JFOS is also an excellent read! As the impending X-tian Theocracy looms large, it’s Imperative that Dr. Carrier and Jesus Mythicism be promoted in more mainstream media outlets. Nuclear Armageddon needs to remain terrifying, not the party bus with Jesus at the wheel.

Just wanted to say thanks for the shorter video. You have so many that are really long and I'm having to watch over multiple sessions.

Got to get this book too!

Peter felt uncircumcised Gentiles were unclean and not worthy of sitting together whereas Paul was furious that such restriction was preventing Gentiles from turning to God. James as the head of the first church in Jerusalem had to strike a compromise between the two gave his ruling that circumcision is not a requirement for the Gentiles (Acts 15:19). However, he was firm for Gentiles to follow the laws of Moses in sexual morality, slaughtering of animals, prohibition of consuming blood etc. (Acts 15:20). He further directed that laws of Moses to be read on the Day of Sabbath (Acts 15:21). However, Paul didn't follow these directives in his church at Antioch (present Turkey) and went ahead in developing his Pauline Christianity which Roman emperor Constantine later adopted for the Roman Catholic religion.

Isn't Paul being a Pharisee dubious? He makes that claim, yet his familiarity with Hebrew scripture seems tenuous to put it politely.

Where does Dr. Carrier see James in all this? Secondary to Cephas as the younger brother of Jesus that was drawn into the sect as he grew up?

Before watching your first video of mine, I'm here because I love your cast with Prof Dave, and I'm a true history nut...well, Antiquity, for the most part. But, yeah, I'm here to see if I'll sub and love (money). I'll give you 5 videos chosen on my likes. Usually I'm not wrong on this, but I feel like this is gonna be a good ride. Thank you for the content (I have seen), and I appreciate you, and those like you, always.

We already know how christianity started. Haven't you seen Life of Brian? lol Carrier's Not the Impossible Faith is a really good look at the early days of the religion.I do like the idea that Q was just the collection of peschers that Mark used.

Could you say more about the absence of information that would've been drawn from Mark in Paul's letters? An online, free, source would be nice at this point, thanks.

That was great Derek, and Dr. Carrier. I learned a lot. Yes I heard Dr. Carrier say it is speculation. But My picture of the real situation in 30 ce is more illuminated.

As he mentions this is speculation. It still doesn't work for me. It doesn't feel like a complete picture without considering the many other revelations, acts and gospels which were never canonized. Having said that it's probably as good as any others. I think Price mentions his opinion that some of the Gnostic gospel were written first. Also, many (maybe not a majority) don't accept the commonly held timeline of scholars of when the Gospels were written pinning Mark to after the 2nd Temple destruction 120-130 AD. Be glad to hear other opinions on this.

awesome show Derek, i notice you never try to debunk or criticize judaism,any reason why?

The Dr. Carrier drinking game: Take a shot every time he says "peer reviewed"!😜

So many gullible people choose to believe anything and everything. Then act as though one is mad for not sharing their delusion!

thanks for the speculation dr C!

Question: How did Christianity start? Answer: Two guys walk into a bar….

There is an old agada midrash about how (and why) simon peter invented chirstianty.

very interesting ,thank you

Excellent presentation.

It's a good hypothesis in that it tracks with what we see in modern cult formation. When Peter goes to Antioch he is said to have had a crew of 12-16 people. I'm not even sure he needs to have been mimicking the Qumran people. He was a cult leader in charge of an organization, he'd have needed functionaries regardless. The internecine squabbles between Peter and Paul also offer a kind of plausibility. It places Paul as the upstart convert with big ideas who butted heads with the founder and who was kicked out/left of his own volition. Possibly with whatever following he had accrued. If you throw flesh and blood Jesus into the narrative, it basically means that no modern christian is "really" christian. They're Paulites. Peter would have been the one with an actual idea of what it is Jesus wanted. He'd have gone off to Antioch, waiting for the Jesus rapture or whatever. While Paul is running around making up his own version of Jesus to sell to potential converts. Ignore that Peter guy, Jesus already came back and he wants you to chill with all this anti-Rome business. So even if there was a flesh and blood Jesus. The Jesus that christians are thinking about today still never existed. He and his ideas were a fabrication of Paul mixed with whatever pre-existing jewish messianic tropes the hypothetical real Jesus had adopted. It's kinda funny, advocating for flesh and blood Jesus, mythological or not, is not a great position for christians to put themselves in. They would be better off with a celestial Jesus. At least that would be non-falsifiable so they could maintain some sense of plausible deniability around these apparent contradictions. Kinda like all the QAnon nincompoops running around talking about revelations from god about Donald Trump winning and then having to back peddle real hard in hopes that people eventually forget how comically wrong they were. All that aside, in one of the live streams from Israel, Derek and Neal talked about how seeing the region really gave the whole Jesus narrative a sense of verisimilitude. I wonder if that sense of "yeah, there could have been a guy wandering around here" doesn't equally apply to Peter? As in, what if the verisimilitude is coming from Peter rather than Jesus?

I’d be interested to hear Dr. Carrier’s take on the book “the sacred mushroom and the cross”.

This is a question I've had over the years since I began to believe that Jesus was not an historic person. I tried to figure out how this all started.

Paul is founder of todays Christianity

Why were my honest thoughtful comments deleted??

Oh my goodness I agree with Richard carrier about something.

So great!

The origins of Christianity is in Egypt

So, to put it concisely, Peter had a small cult based on a vision. Paul had a small cult based on his own vision. Some believers wrote a story about what they had heard as cult members, based on what they believed was true. Each writer took the original story and changed it just enough to reflect their own views. Paul started enlarging his cult following by letting in people who were restricted from entering Peter's cult, so Peter's cult pretty much died out. The various stories and beliefs took off from there and were eventually codified by a small group of bishops of the cult, allowing just enough of Peter's ideas and just enough of Paul's to be able to gather the most smaller cults under their flag. Is this the gist of it? I am a mythicist myself, after hearing and reading about the various religions and possible beginnings of Christianity. I have never heard it put so succinctly before. If this is true (whether we will ever know for sure is doubtful) then Christianity really is no better than Mormonism, with the exception being that Jesus' church grew up organically where Mormonism was started by a conman.

It makes no sense whatsoever anymore. That's the good thing about educating oneself. But, hey! it's always nice to hear about Dr. Carrier.

I love how people point out the “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law…“ To say that Matthew was Torah observance. However, that is at the beginning of the sermon on the mount. At the end of the sermon on the mount, he states “for this sums up the law and the prophets.“ In Matthew, Jesus did not come as Torah observant, rather he came with a new law. Unless there’s something in there that I’m missing…

Richard Carrier definitely does NOT know how Christianity started.

People can read the scriptures until they are blue in the face. But understanding will never come their way. Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus said in response: “I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to young children. Young children are teachable meek hearted ones. The Christian Congregation got its start at Pentecost 33 C.E. The historian Luke records it in his writings of the Acts of the Apostles.

I've heard Dr. Carrier discusses, possibly in this video (and others), in simple terms on why religion (Christianity) can form in this social/political environment. Can you explain or point to a video?

"I think in the beginning..." would be a better opening line for the Bible.

yeeeeeeeeeee Carrier

Richard Carrier is vastly underrated

Oaul tells a story based on "The Book of the Palaces" afaik. Thats about the only image of the devine realm he has for reference. I think it also important to note he only reveals this "vision" after being questioned by Apollo of Alexandria.

Thanks

Does anyone know offhand where in the authentic Pauline letters Paul explicitly or implicitly credits Peter for being the founder of Christianity? I just don’t have time to read through all of the letters right now because I’m moving, but I’m really interested in knowing to which passage or passages Dr. Carrier is referring. Thank you in advance!

The main error of some of the early sects was to see the teachings of Jesus as a continuation of old Jewish beliefs, whilst in fact they were completely original.

Would it be mythisism if say Mark inputed a story back on a historical person that looked something a bit like the story he wanted to write?

Paul persecuted the church until he realized that converts would support their apostles financially. The Jewish market was saturated with these self proclaimed apostles. So Paul decided to take it to the gentiles.

It's a wrong assumption that Christianity have started with Christ's Apostles, because from the Orthodox perspective, the Church is a straight continuation of Temple-Judaism, as the branch which have accepted the Messiah and continued as the successful one when the other branches have collapsed after destruction of the Temple. Also, the uniqueness of Christian theology have nothing to do with rejection of the Judaic tradition, because the Christian Scriptures does include the Septuagint, but it has all to do with a specific understanding of the Septuagint, due to specific branch of Temple-Judaism from which the Church have originated, and most importantly, due to the messianic fulfilment.

the anointed krst child tradition seems to go way way back ... to the red lady of Paviland & beyond ... it's the one story that keeps resurrecting time & time again .. almost like it's eternal ..

So when he says you don't see any of the gospel stuff in Paul. Where can we read about the differences between what Paul was talking about and the gospel?

There's 2 different types of Christianity the Western Christianity and the Biblical Christianity

Christianity: Islam Versus Jesuism Let's go over some terminologies to clear up misunderstanding. But before we do, we should always remember that, even according to the Bible, Christianity comes with a set of Apostolic Traditions. Unfortunately in the past, some tried to link Paul's particular Tradition to the disciples in Jerusalem, making you think that Jesus' disciples got Trinity from Jesus' mouth. Yet Paul himself never preached or meant Trinity even when addressing his flock with the "Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost" greetings, and he also acknowledged two Traditions: One for the Circumcised(Jewish Christianity) see Acts 15:22-31, and the other for the Uncircumcised(Gentile Christianity). So without further ado, let's clear up the air! New Testament: A Legal Instrument which indicates that the "Pax Romana" has fallen to God as the Dominions Of Caesar Augustus, the fake Son Of God, Have become the dominions of Christ(Pax Christus), the True Son Of God. Christianity: The belief that Jesus is the Messiah(Christ) foretold in the Hebraic Oracles-Torah, Prophets, Psalms... Jesuism: The so-called Apostolic Tradition with the Belief that Jesus is the Son Of God and the second person of Trinity. Islam: Another Christian Tradition for the Circumcised from Jewish Christianity claiming to be the true Apostolic Tradition which can be tracked back to the Council Of Jerusalem in Acts 15:1-29 The Gospel: Not a written text so the Gospel of Matthew, John, Marc or Luc are nothing but a misnomer. There is but one Gospel. See Acts 17:1-29 The Copyist who slapped "New Testament" on the back of our current corpus is well aware that the Vandals, the Lombards, Huns, Goth, or Wisgoth who sacked Rome did it on God's directives which ushered in a first revolution. It is therefore understood from antiquity that God gave the believers the Roman Empire as a gift so that they may have hands free to implement His Covenant(See the 7 sleepers of Ephesus... Paul's Epistles where he contrasts freedom under Caesar Augustus and Freedom under Christ(Messiah). So there are two genuine revolutions in History: The Fall Of Pagan Rome and the Fall of Pagan Mekka... The American and French Revolutions are nothing but counter-revolution to subvert God's plan for our planet. There are Anti-Christ revolutions. More in: The Council Of Jerusalem and the Partition Of Christianity Into Two Apostolic Traditions: Islam For the Circumcised and Jesuism For The Uncircumcised Catholic Trinitarians

I’d like to hear Dr Carrier’s possible scenario timeline that the Paul character was a double agent for Rome. Mission; to wage peace throughout the realm with Psyops, psychological warfare operations. The Client? Titus Flavius, and/Or Domecian Flavius. A juuish counter revolutionary, 007 version that would be most entertaining….and plausible.

There is way too much "might have been....could have been" for me. He sells books though, so good luck to him.

Could the argument be made that original Christianity wasn't Jewish - rather Hellenistic?

👍🏼

IMHO: 1) the Abiru wandered around and borrowed nuggets from a bunch of religions 2) which had either problems or opportunities: an Avatar (Buddha, Krishna etc.) and Miracles (Book 4 of Yoga Sutras, Mithra etc.). It is possible Paul/Josephus (thanks Ralph Ellis) tried to put together a Grand Unified Concept of Everything, but avatars and miracles are the problem. Easy to speculate that Aliens and Satan can throw miracles around too. Not to mention that Time is an artificial construct...

Not to take anything away from the value of Carrier’s shining a realistic spotlight on Christian origins, but what about the value of the stories as they were passed down and further developed over the centuries. Let’s say that enlightened Christians who are in the know are aware that historical Jesus is just a shaky assumption, or even a questionable belief. There still could be value and some degree of transcendent “truth” or wisdom in the tradition. But they would need to let go of historical assumptions as dogma.

I URGE AGAIN.... MV should do your own version of PBS's, "From Jesus To Christ".

It is quite straightforward and clear that the entire fairy tale involving Jesus and the Galilean peasant fishermen is, in fact, an invention of Mark. Just read Galatians; Peter Cephas does not appear to be a simple, Aramaic-speaking fisherman. This other Cephas, present in Paul's writings, seems quite capable of speaking Greek and preaching, just like Paul, to the Hellenistic Jews and likely to the Gentiles too, even competing with Paul.

What is the evidence that Paul's letters date from the 50s, 1 Clement from the 50s-60s, and the Gospel of Mark from c. 70?

And Christians today strongly cling to the belief that all the New Testament is the inspired Word of God!!

Carrier is doing exactly what Jesus said that he would do. And he is doing it. The Bible says that one day we, including Carrier will go to our knees and confess that Jessus is who He says that He is. And we will do it. You will have no choice. I will do it also.

If Peter was the leader of the apocalyptic sect, what then was the roles of James as leader of the Jerusalem Church