Richard Carrier and the Mythical Jesus (Part 2): Sophomoric Silliness in Bible Reading

In my last post, I began to look at Richard Carrier’s claims that Jesus probably never existed and that the Gospels were, in fact, a myth. I noted that several problems with those claims: not only did he fail to even properly define “myth,” his interpretation of various biblical texts smacks of wooden literalism and rather juvenile comments. In this post I want to focus on a number of comments/interpretations Carrier makes concerning certain biblical passages that are, let’s just say, silly.

In my third post, I will focus on some of his specific claims regarding why he thinks Jesus wasn’t a historical figure. But as far as this post goes, this should give you an indication as to why 99% of biblical scholars don’t take Carrier seriously. No one who wants to be taken seriously would make the kind of silly and sophomoric claims Carrier does in his lectures.

Poisoning the Well: Monsters from Outer Space!
One of the things that characterizes Carrier’s lectures is his propensity to ridicule various biblical passages with the maturity of a sophomore in high school. I alluded this tactic in my previous post in regard to how Carrier described Matthew 27:52-53’s claim of resurrection. Whether one believes it or not, saying that the Gospels are claiming a zombie hoard overran Jerusalem—well, let’s just be kind and say that is silly, and inaccurate, and displays a willful ignorance of the first century Jewish concept of resurrection. Such a depiction might get chuckles from your fellow pot heads and drinking buddies, but in reality, but it’s not going to impress anyone who is serious about trying to understand what the Gospel writers are actually talking about.

But Carrier doesn’t limit his sophomoric quips to Matthew 27:52-53. He makes sure it is on display throughout his lectures. Take, for instance, how he describes the resurrection account itself, specifically the description of an angel rolling away the stone from the tomb. According to Carrier, Matthew claims that a monster from outer-space came down and paralyzed the guards with a death ray. No, I am not making this up. That was Carrier’s take on the stone being rolled away. Again, that might get a chuckle from a sophomore smoking a joint, but it is, for all practical purposes, just plain stupid.

Poisoning the Well: Magic Sky Trees, Zombie Shells, and a 3-Hour Eclipse!
At one point he makes reference to Exodus 15:25-26. Now in that story, soon after the Hebrews cross through the Red Sea, they make their way into the wilderness come to Marah, only to find the water there was bitter. And so, they begin to complain that they don’t have anything to drink. The text then says that YHWH showed Moses a (depending on your translation) tree, log, or wood, and then Moses threw it into the water and it became drinkable.

To be clear, whether one believes that actually happened is beside the point. What I want to draw attention to is the way Carrier describes this scene: he characterizes it as Moses taking “the magic sky tree” and throwing into a pool to cure people. This isn’t that hard to pick apart: no, there is no mention of a “magic sky tree,” and no, there is mention that drinking the water “cured” anyone.

And then there is Carrier’s take on what Paul says in II Corinthians 5:1-5, where Paul is using the metaphors of an earthly tent (to describe our current existence in this present, corruptible existence, including our bodies) and a heavenly dwelling (to describe the age to come and being transformed at the future resurrection). One cannot help but realize Paul’s metaphor echoes the tents in which the Hebrews dwelled in the wilderness, and then eventual temple itself. Hence, this current age is transitory, like tents in the wilderness, and the new creation and future age will be permanent.

Apparently though, Carrier doesn’t quite get metaphor. Instead, he claims that Paul is saying that God has “resurrection bodies” just waiting in heaven, “like empty zombie-shells to inhabit.” I will simply state the obvious: anyone who honestly thinks that is what Paul is saying is someone that you should not take seriously.

Carrier also mocks Mark 15:33 for claiming that there was a three-hour-long eclipse on the day Jesus was crucified. There is just one problem: Mark 15:33 doesn’t claim there was a three-hour-long eclipse. He simply says, “darkness came over the land.” Maybe there was a storm with dark clouds; maybe Mark is uses a bit of metaphor here—but the point is Carrier is mocking Mark 15:33 for saying something it obviously doesn’t say.

I will be kind and just say here that such comments do not reflect well on Carrier. If someone is going to challenge a consensus scholarly view (i.e. that Jesus was a historical person), and that someone fills his lectures with claims that the Bible talks about zombie hoards, monsters from outer-space, magic sky trees, zombie-shells, and eclipses that last for three hours—let me kindly suggest that you not take that person seriously.

Literary Shaping and Fig Trees
Having said all that, I found it extremely interesting that in his lecture regarding how he believes the Gospels are not historical, Carrier spent a lot of time talking about the literary shaping of the Gospels. And, believe it or not, a lot of what he said in this regard is actually true: the Gospels are highly stylized literary works. As an English Literature major, this is one of the things I get most excited about when reading the Gospels. The way the narratives are shaped and crafted is just plain cool.

And to his credit, Carrier shows a number of examples from the Gospels that show this very thing: parallelisms, allusions to Old Testament figures and stories, inclusios, and chiastic structure. Granted, I found some of his attempted literary claims to be not convincing but that is beside the point. The point is that he really did cover a number of valid literary observations.

The problem with everything he said was this: he seemed to think that the literary shaping of the Gospels somehow meant that they were not historical.

For example, Carrier points to Mark 11:12-26. In this passage, as Jesus is going into Jerusalem, he curses a fig tree because it had not yielded any figs. He then goes into Jerusalem, to the temple, and proceeds to pronounce judgment on it (most think he is “cleansing” the temple—no, he is condemning it). After that, the next day, the disciples find that the fig tree is withered.

Now Carrier correctly sees that the two fig tree episodes that bookend the temple incident really serve to highlight Jesus’ actions in the temple. Simply put, the fig tree represents the temple, and just as the fig tree withered because Jesus cursed it, so too will the temple be destroyed because Jesus condemned it. In both incidents, neither the fig tree nor the temple was “bearing fruit.” Incidentally, Jesus explicitly states the temple would be destroyed in Mark 13—and eventually it was in AD 70.

Curiously, though, Carrier then simply dismisses the entire thing as unhistorical because, well, everyone knows you can’t just curse a fig tree and have it wither!

For the sake of argument, let’s say Mark “made up” the story of the fig tree—let’s say he made it up because he wanted to creatively highlight the purpose of Jesus’ action in the temple. This would be an example of the kind of literary artistry the Gospel writers engaged in, as I mentioned in my previous post. The purpose of the “fig tree bookends” was to help illustrate the significance of Jesus’ action in the temple. To say that there was no historical Jesus who disrupted the temple, simply because “fig trees don’t wither when cursed” is shockingly tone-deaf.

Incidentally, I got a kick out of Carrier’s sophomoric observation regarding Mark’s comment that there were no figs on the fig tree because “it wasn’t the season for figs.” He said: “Even if you had that power to, like, curse fig trees and wither them to their very roots, you wouldn’t do it to a tree for no reason—like, for not bearing figs out of season, that’s the dumbest thing to do.”

If that is not a clear example of reading the text with a wooden literalism of the most ardent fundamentalist, I don’t know what is.

Such wooden literalism can also be seen in regard to Carrier’s comments on Jesus’ actions in the temple itself. Carrier rejects this could even happen. Why? Because the actual temple complex was over a dozen acres, filled with hundreds of people, and even an armed battalion. Therefore, it would be simply impossible for Jesus to overturn every table and disrupt every place of mercantile activity over a twelve-acre span.

Someone needs to tell Carrier that the Gospel writers are free to engage in a little bit of hyperbole—people do it all the time. Muhammad Ali didn’t literally shake up the entire world. The Gospel writers are not suggesting that Jesus literally shut down the entire temple complex. Scholars understand that he probably did a symbolic prophetic action in the temple—no one (apparently except Carrier) thinks the Gospels are claiming Jesus literally shut down the entire twelve acre complex.

Chiasms, Inclusios…and Carrier is Soooo Close
Amazingly, in the middle of his take on the literary shaping of a number of passages in the Gospels, Carrier states something that is so entirely true that it undercuts the very premise that the Gospels are not historical. When talking about “ring structures” like chiasms and inclusios, Carrier states that this literary shaping technique is sometimes used in histories when they are not chronological. Let’s be clear: that is 100% correct!

In fact, that’s exactly what we find going on in the Gospels—they are not laying everything down in strict chronological order. The only reason we think Jesus’ ministry lasted for about three years isn’t because of anything we find in Matthew, Mark or Luke. They all only mention one Passover—the one when he was crucified. They are not trying to give a strictly chronological timeline of Jesus’ ministry. They are summarizing Jesus’s ministry within their own literary structures. Incidentally, it is the Gospel of John that mentions three Passovers.

So, thank you for explaining the kind of literary techniques that histories like the synoptic Gospels sometimes use. Unfortunately, though, Carrier seems to forget this fairly quickly, for as he is showing an example of the chiastic structure to the entire book of Matthew, he points to the chiastic structure as proof that the Gospel of Matthew “is clearly mythical.”

Truly astounding. Carrier is trying to have his mythical cake and eat it too.

Lazarus
The final example of absurdity from Carrier’s YouTube lectures came in the middle of what otherwise would have been actually an interesting discussion regarding who the “Beloved Disciple” was in the Gospel of John. Most people simply assume that it is a reference to John himself. Carrier brought up the fact, though, that there actually is a certain amount of scholarly debate on this, with some scholars (like James Charlesworth) thinking it might actually be Thomas, whereas others think it actually is Lazarus.

To make a long story short, Carrier makes the case that the Beloved Disciple might be Lazarus—and I’ll admit, it is an intriguing possibility. Just consider that the Beloved Disciple “saw the grave clothes” and immediately believed, and then at the end of the Gospel we are told that some thought that the Beloved Disciple wasn’t going to die. Given the fact that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, well, those two things would make more sense if the Beloved Disciple was, in fact, Lazarus.

In the midst of all that, though, Carrier just couldn’t contain his snarkiness. After making the case that Lazarus was the Beloved Disciple, he went out of his way to make fun of the biblical scholar James Charlesworth for not thinking Lazarus was the Beloved Disciple, and for saying that it couldn’t be Lazarus because Lazarus had just been raised and probably was still too weak to run to the tomb. Carrier then said, “That’s the kind of argument that should never pass peer-review!”

As it turns out, Charlesworth did make this comment—it amount to about two sentences in a 400+ page book that analyzed the entire scholarly debate over the identity of the Beloved Disciple. For his part, Charlesworth argued it was Thomas. But the point is even scholars occasionally make a stupid comment. For Carrier to jump on that one comment and joke about how the entire book should never pass peer-review is rich with irony: Carrier is mocking Charlesworth for two sentences about how Lazarus might have been too weak to run to the tomb, and yet Carrier routinely peppers his presentations with claims about how the Bible talks about monsters from outer-space, magic sky trees, and zombie hoards.

Pot, meet Kettle-that-is-floating-in-the-deepest-abyss-of-a-black-hole.

…And Lazarus was Jesus’ Boyfriend (but don’t worry, it’s myth-fiction)
And oh, Carrier also claimed Lazarus was Jesus’ boyfriend. How did Carrier come to this conclusion? Well, we are told this disciple was “the one whom Jesus loved,” and that at the Last Supper, this disciple was “lying in the bosom” of Jesus. Therefore, Carrier concludes they were cuddling at the Last Supper and clearly were in love.

Now, let’s be clear: no real scholar believes that. If Carrier was a real scholar, he’d know that the Greek phrase in question simply means “reclining at his side”—as in he was sitting next to Jesus. I’m sure Carrier said it for really one reason: to offend Christians. I’m not offended. I just find it stupid.

In any case, Carrier claimed the Lazarus figure was just mythical anyway. In fact, he came up with a very imaginative explanation where the Lazarus figure came from. He pointed to Luke 16:19-31, where Jesus tells the parable about the rich man and Lazarus, and claimed that Lazarus was just a character in a parable. (Here Carrier couldn’t help but point out that Lazarus was “cuddling in the bosom of Abraham,” and hence in the afterlife was apparently Abraham’s lover). He then claimed that the writer of John’s Gospel took that parable and turned Lazarus into the fake historical boyfriend of the fake historical Jesus in his own fake historical account of Jesus.

I will say this about Carrier: he’s imaginative!

But no, all of that is silly nonsense.

Conclusion

What does any of that have to do with proving Jesus wasn’t a historical figure? Absolutely nothing. It is all just silly and sophomoric drivel. Carrier loves to complain that most scholars haven’t read his book. Well, after watching a number of his presentation, all I can say is, “Can you really blame them?” If you want your book to be taken seriously, claiming the Bible speaks about outer-space aliens, zombie hoards, magic sky trees and how Lazarus is Jesus’ lover in life and Abraham’s lover in the afterlife—well, that’s probably not a smart thing to do.

With all that out of the way, in my final post, I’ll finally take a look at Carrier’s actual claim that Christianity was started by Hellenistic Jews who took pagan myths about dying-rising gods and combined them with their worship of an archangel named Jesus…and then a generation later decided to turn Jesus into a historical figure.