Richard Carrier - The Hero Savior Analogy

[Vicki Q]

This is a bit long but the point is compelling.... to all but theists I imagine.

Hero Savior of Vietnam
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For it is no better than the evidence proposed for Hero Savior, and that falls far short of the burden that would have to be met to confirm the very extraordinary claims surrounding him.

There are a number of key differences:

Carrier is an ancient historian, and is failing to apply the same sorts of process he used to make historical claims in his doctorate, to Jesus history. He knows well that good history can be extracted from even bad documents, and that statements can be made that are near certainly correct about historical people and events from the ancient time period, using evidence no better than the Xian documents he is dismissing. He's done that process himself.

Furthermore, he uses the argument from silence in a modern context where it would be effective, to an ancient one where it is not.

He is also failing to understand that working with history of religion cannot be divorced from working with theology, and the nature of worldview. If the hero saviour claimed to do very unusual things, what was his worldview on how it worked?

In particular, he fails to deal with the question of how the Early Church arose from within Judaism with the belief set that it had. What caused the earliest Xians to radically change their mind on essential core beliefs?

Carrier's hero saviour has no explanation for his abilities, no context within which they operate, appears from nowhere and goes nowhere.

I've read Carrier's booklet on the rise of early Xianity, and found it totally unconvincing. Carrier has no evidence at all for his claims, contradicts the evidence we have, and fails to answer basic questions about worldview and context.

He would do well to continue to point people to Bart Ehrmann, who does make good arguments.