The Single Most Ridiculously Daft Thing Ever Posted On Huff

[merkavah12]

www.huffingtonpost.com/nigel-barber/if-jesus-never-existed-re_b_5883198.html

Paulkovich consulted no fewer than 126 historians (including Josephus) who lived in the period and ought to have been aware of Jesus if he had existed and performed the miracles that supposedly drew a great deal of popular attention. Of the 126 writers who should have written about Jesus, not a single one did so (if one accepts Paulkovich's view that the Jesus references in Josephus are interpolated).

Canard Number 1 sighted

Paulkovich concludes: When I consider those 126 writers, all of whom should have heard of Jesus but did not - and Paul and Marcion and Athenagoras and Matthew with a tetralogy of opposing Christs, the silence from Qumram and Nazareth and Bethlehem, conflicting Bible stories, and so many other mysteries and omissions - I must conclude that Christ is a mythical character

Canard Number 2 sighted

He also considers striking similarities of Jesus to other God-sons such as Mithra, Sandan, Attis, and Horus. Christianity has its own imitator. Mormonism was heavily influenced by the Bible from which founder Joseph Smith borrowed liberally.

...and that's number three. All in the first paragraph no less.

Folks, I hereby declare this the biggest uneducated tripe pile ever made by the Huffies, this year.

[wraggy]

I thought that I may see some reasonable comments on that article, but they were all trash on the first page, at least. I could not be bothered reading further.

Any way over at Secular Humanism.org one writer was less than impressed and let Donna know about it.

DonnaBianca

This is exactly the sort of article that should be widely propagated in print and online, so that as many people can read it as possible, and hopefully start coming to their senses about religion. If you were truly interested in promoting a secular society, you would not be hoarding valuable information like this and limiting it to paying subscribers only. I guess "Free Inquiry" is not so free after all, huh?

CTimeline

Sorry, but reading this I cannot wish this to be disseminated further. Lets give some broad comments regarding this silly, and repeated, amateur internet skeptic suggestion that because Jesus is not mentioned by contemporary historical sources that this indicates that he does not exist some extended consideration. (In a debate with Zeba Crook, the leading mythicists scholar, Richard Carrier has stated that this argument should not be given the weight it often is)

We need to realize that any person in antiquity who would not likely be recorded about in physical assets such as coins, epigraphs (etc…), that we are dependent upon literary documents to know about their existence. These are extremely rare from antiquity. We probably have less than .001% of all literature from Classical period currently extant.................

link

[bjorn]

An Open Letter To Michael Paulkovich And Free Inquiry may become a classic.

"It seems that your article in Free Inquiry is open to subscribers only. But I can see the header on the Free Inquiry website:

If the story of Jesus were true, ancient writers should have commented on it—yet 126 (and counting) who might have done so, did not.

And I would just love to see a list of those 126 (or more) writers. You see, I've been studying ancient history and literature for a long, long time, and had been under the impression that the number was more like 0. You obviously have a huge brain and know many things which I do not."

The rest is a gem, even if he is not aware of Euphrates being a stoic philosopher.

[wraggy]

Reddit has nearly 1800 comments on this article.
But with a few exceptions most are complete rubbish.

www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/2hvhmo/jesus_never_existed_says_new_report_that_finds_no/

[fortigurn]

Sept 30, 2014 13:12:00 GMT bjorn said:

An Open Letter To Michael Paulkovich And Free Inquiry may become a classic.

I have entered the fray there.

[fortigurn]

Paulkovich is on the run already.

[wraggy]

Oct 1, 2014 15:33:15 GMT fortigurn said:

Sept 30, 2014 13:12:00 GMT bjorn said:

An Open Letter To Michael Paulkovich And Free Inquiry may become a classic.

I have entered the fray there.

I could not find your comment. Which forum? Did you post under the name "Fortigurn"?

[ignorantianescia]

Isn't Steve Bollinger a commenter on HuffPo notorious for his ignorance about history ? I think he likes medieval conflict myths? Not that it means his open letter is bad, blind dogs and bones and all that.

And r/atheism should be forever cast away in a pit of darkness till the end of time together with a handful other horrible Subreddits.

[fortigurn]

Oct 2, 2014 7:24:30 GMT wraggy said:

I could not find your comment. Which forum? Did you post under the name "Fortigurn"?

Socrates, in the comments. Meanwhile:

Paulkovich consulted no fewer than 126 historians (including Josephus) who lived in the period

Someone needs to learn what 'consulted' means.

[jamierobertson]

I'm in. I wonder what the response will be...

[labarum]

This Paulkovich fellow seems to have generated a lot of press. It's kind of funny ... Richard Carrier completes his mythicist magnum opus and, apart from the mythicist fanbase and Christian apologists out to debunk it, the response has been ... [crickets]. This Paukovich guy writes a book promoting things as ridiculous as anything by Acharya S and he gets major media attention. Poor Richard must be fuming.

[fortigurn]

Oct 6, 2014 19:26:40 GMT labarum said:

This Paulkovich fellow seems to have generated a lot of press. It's kind of funny ... Richard Carrier completes his mythicist magnum opus and, apart from the mythicist fanbase and Christian apologists out to debunk it, the response has been ... [crickets]. This Paukovich guy writes a book promoting things as ridiculous as anything by Acharya S and he gets major media attention. Poor Richard must be fuming.

Which probably means Carrier will either jump on the bandwagon and ride Paulkovich's coat tails, or try to get ahead by criticizing his argument. I wonder which way he'll jump.

Oct 2, 2014 14:28:57 GMT jamierobertson said:

I'm in. I wonder what the response will be...

He seems to have done a runner.

[fortigurn]

Great mirth.

So that brings us to Paulkovich’s list: 126 ancient writers, 0 references to Jesus. The list has a few issues. Although everyone on it is indeed ancient, some are a little too ancient—as in, lived-a-hundred-years-before-Jesus too ancient (Asclepiades of Prusa, for example).

A great many of the writers are philosophers, some quite famous (Epictetus). Philosophers aren’t really known, now or then, for their interest in current events. Some writers are mathematicians, rhetoricians, satirists, poets, or epigrammatists (Martial). Unless we’re looking for an ancient limerick about Jesus, these are probably the wrong authors to be reading.

Fully fourteen of the 126 are doctors, including a dermatologist, an ophthalmologist, and a gynecologist (Soranus). We can first point out that Jesus was supposed to have a gift for healing, so he probably didn’t take his annual checkup seriously. Also, even if Jesus did visit a doctor or fourteen, and even if they kept records of the savior’s health, we could never have access to those records because, you know, HIPAA.