Watching the video that a commenter recently suggested to me I made a discovery.
The atheist Richard Carrier (pic) is one of the foremost exponents of the Christ myth theory or mythicism. He has even responded to what I consider the strongest argument on the part of secular exegetes about the existence of the historical Jesus.
Remember that we have said that there are seven genuine epistles of Paul. In one of the oldest Paul speaks of the ‘brother of the Lord’. Based on what Paul says in Galatians 1:19 another atheist exegete, Bart Ehrman, believes that this is the strongest argument for thinking about the historicity of a historical Jesus (that is, a Jesus without miracles to distinguish him from the Christ of dogma). Before reading Carrier, I did not know that the mythicists had answers to this argument.
Regardless of who is right, Ehrman or Carrier regarding Galatians 1:19, what impressed me most about one of the conferences of Carrier was what he says about Luke the Evangelist.
From our point of view, it is essential to know if the writers of the New Testament were Hellenized Jews or not. We have already seen that it is highly suspicious that the first gospel from the point of view of chronology, that of Mark, was written right after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. In case Mark was a Hellenized Jew, this smells like a Jewish psyop or subtle revenge on the Hellenes (whites in the Roman Empire).
Yesterday that I watched Carrier’s YouTube lecture ‘Acts as Historical Fiction’, in 23:49 I came across this quote from Steve Mason, a specialist on Josephus, who wrote his history of Judea before Luke wrote his gospel. Mason tells us:
Almost every incident [of Judean history] that [Luke] mentions turns up somewhere in Josephus’ narratives… [And the] coincidence… of aims, themes and vocabulary… seems to suggest that Luke-Acts is building its case on the foundation of Josephus’ defense of Judaism.
Since the gospels claim that Holy Family were Jews, and Paul was a Jew, finding out the ethnicity of the evangelists ought to be fundamental for us (as is finding out the ethnicity of the bishops of Constantine and the bishops of the following Roman emperors that destroyed the Aryan culture).
For a single video of Carrier explaining his work, see: here.