The Inanna Banana

Right away Carrier shows that he hasn't paid attention to other writings I have done about him. He appeals to the "crucified" Sumerian goddess Inanna; I already replied to this here, years ago, when I noted the deficiencies of this argument:

Innana was not exactly crucified, and was worshipped as the queen of heaven and goddess of love already at the time the referred event happened -- unlike Jesus, who didn't have much in the way of such an advantage. "Crucified"? In no sense -- she was hung on a stake after being killed (via "the death stare" by the judges of the underworld, whom she had tricked the gatekeeper to get in to see), and also brought back to life -- vindicated! -- which means in this context that Jesus could only have been brought back to life and vindicated also. Finally, even if we stretch that to "crucified" we still don't have hundreds of years of history behind the practice and the consideration of it as shameful and disgusting, the death of slaves and rebels. The comparison to Innana is off three bases.

So Carrier's first reply only validates my point: A crucified deity would require a vindication to be worshipped. And here, I do not require that "Inanna was really resurrected" since Inanna's death and revival occurred in the world of the gods -- not in the mundane world of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

Update, 5/05: Carrier responds to this portion by obsessively focusing on the irrelevant and gliding over the key problem for his thesis noted:

Holding protests that Inanna wasn't really crucified. But being humiliated by being stripped naked and killed and nailed up in shame amounts to the same thing to any reasonable observer. The story itself emphasizes the humiliation of it. Holding asserts without evidence that such treatment was not a humiliation in ancient Sumer, but it seems clear that Inanna was treated that way in the story precisely because it was humiliating to strip someone naked and hang their shamed corpse in public view.

As can be seen once again, Carrier is not above patent misreadings and diversionary tactics. The "not crucified" protest was made against Carrier's original statement in which he said, "But crucified deities were not absurd to the Sumerians, who worshipped the crucified Innana..." Now Carrier is trying to backpedal from this blatant error by retreating into the judgment that it "amounts to the same thing." It terms of shame and humiliation, I agree -- the point is not that it was not shameful and disgusting to the Sumerians, as Carrier falsely puts into my words, but rather that Inanna's particular death did not have the same factor of implication that Jesus' death did. Inanna's time did not have hundreds of years of history of slaves and rebels being associated with the punishment by the going political concern. No one was going to look at Inanna and say, "Oh, she was hung up. That means she must be a slave and a rebel." Carrier's excursus into the shame of hanging corpses is a misguided tour, for I am not claiming that "what was done to Inanna wasn't humiliating to Sumerians" but that the comparison he made, originally, to Jesus, simply isn't adequate.

Carrier also tries to weasel his way out of the point of Inanna's prior reverence by arguing:

But so was the God who had already proclaimed in his ancient oracles the vindication of his humiliated Son and Christ, so the advantage was the same.

But this is nothing more that the same error Carrier repeats again and again, circularly assuming that persons who recognize Jesus as this "God" in the first place! In other words, he assumes that the people being evangelized must be Christians! Finally, Carrier erects the straw man that there was no more evidence that Inanna was "really vindicated" by resurrection than Jesus was. And that was exactly my point: if people could believe she was vindicated without "irrefutable evidence," then so, too, Jesus. However, he skates right over what defeats this analogy: I do not require that "Inanna was really resurrected" since Inanna's death and revival occurred in the world of the gods -- not in the mundane world of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Believing that Inanna was vindicated in the world of the gods requires no more evidence than a radical Muslim requires to believe that he really will get 72 virgins. Jesus' resurrection, unlike Inanna's resuscitation, is claimed to have happened in the space-time continum to one who would not be accepted as a god; whereas Inanna was already a god, and what she endured took place in the heavenlies, beyond (and beyond the need for ) rational proof. Moreover, no one went around claiming that you had to believe in Inanna's return to life for salvation, and thus there was no need to test her story.

It's a Crying Shame

Beyond this Carrier admits that yes, Jesus' death was indeed one of extreme humilation; yes, it "was the ultimate disgrace and embarrassment." But as an answer he resorts to a perfectly lame excuse, one which we will se repeated time and time again as his arguments progress: The idea that "just because many people find some idea repugnant does not mean everyone does," a vague appeal to diversity which is as much as admission that he has no evidence to speak of to the contrary, and thus is forced to resort to a desperate appeal to unknown and undocumented persuasions, as in, "maybe there were some people who disagreed". Let me say more of this since it will be brought up by Carrier again and again. He attempts to argue for a dichotomy in values between the ancient elite and the ancient everyday man, such that they would not have held the same disadain for a shamed person. This dichotomy is entirely false. There is no evidence for a different view by the lower classes; Carrier merely will contrive a difference based on imposition of modern values and a modernist appeal to cultural diversity (not that there was no diversity of any kind among the ancients; simply not to the degree or nature of our own) as well as an implicitly circular argument that this must have been the case, for otherwise indeed Christianity could not have succeeded. There is no analogy in reality for such a difference; other honor and shame societies, including modern ones like Japan, offer no such dichotomy between their upper and lower classes. Indeed, commentators like David Pryce-Jones have pointed out that it is the fact that the "common man" of such societies shares the honor values of the "elite" -- this, in spite of being oppressed by that very elite, very hard and very often -- that make it so difficult for those socities to be reformed. As he writes (emphasis added):

Like all Arabs, Iraqis live in what anthropologists call a shame society, and this generates common values that all can share, to that extent acting as a social glue. The key to motivation in such a society is the acquisition of honor that brings high status to the individual, and conversely the avoidance of shame that is a guarantee of low status. To complete the anthropologists' schema, Westerners live in a guilt society, whereby whoever does something wrong feels conscience- stricken about it, even if nobody ever finds out what he did. On the shame-honor scale of values, the individual who does wrong need feel bad only if he is discovered. If he gets away with it, he can congratulate himself on his cleverness. What can look like lying or dissembling on the part of Arabs, or in contrast boasting, is often prompted by the shame-honor calculus invisible to the outsider.

In this culture, honor implies victory and triumph, while defeat brings unmitigated shame and disgrace. In that spirit Saddam likes to assert that the 1991 Gulf War was a famous victory worthy of constant celebration. In that same spirit, the Egyptians have built a museum in Cairo in the pretense that the 1973 war was a famous victory, when in reality the Israelis were ultimately in a position to annihilate the Egyptians on the near side of the Suez Canal, and capture Cairo on the far side. Attempting to convert the reality of defeat into the illusion of victory, Palestinians on the West Bank have built shrine-like models of the sites where suicide bombers have done their work, complete with mock-ups of dead Israelis.

Constructing a heroic biography for himself, depicting himself all over Iraq in the poses of a ruler fit to be compared to the greatest in history, and defying the might of the United States, Saddam knows he can count on the appeal to honor. A strong man earns applause because he is capable of deeds the weak could never even contemplate. Utterly bewildering to Westerners, the spectacle then arises of people coming to admire the tyrant who oppresses them. Promoting hierarchy and obstructing trust, shame-and-honor values appear to be the main obstacle to democracy in the Arab world. Usually, Islam is considered a more significant obstacle to democracy; it has separatist aspects, to be sure, but its vision of equality and justice may reasonably be considered democratic....

Originally from Pakistan, Hala Jaber is a journalist with experience of the Muslim and Arab world. In an article in a British newspaper, she has explained that Iraqis, including Shias, "fight not to save Saddam Hussein but to defend their honor." The desecration of honor, she goes on, is "an unforgivable sin in Iraq's culture." Writing from a London address to another British newspaper, someone by the name of Ahmad al- Abdallah is a typical voice from the Arab street, conceding that Arab rulers are all tyrants who resort to torture or deportation of their minorities, only to conclude, "So what is left to them is honor." Saddam's deputy and vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan justified suicide bombers with the words, "This is a battle of honor, dignity, and every single Arab shares that honor with us." The Arab press is giving the impression that Iraq has virtually won the war. Whoever feels dishonored cannot be talked out of it, or reasoned with. Shame sears the soul, and it has to be wiped out and avenged in a public way that all can witness and appreciate. No cost is too great for this end. That is the wellspring of the fanaticism we are witnessing.

Given the above, Carrier's further hypotheses of an "oppressed and disgruntled" citizenry tells only half the story. The above makes it clear that in such a society, the values of honor and shame remain intact, and popular support for the governing powers continues, in spite of the oppression -- and Rome did not treat its lowest classes, even slaves, as badly on an institutional level as Iraq's Hussein regime treated its people.

Indeed, if anything, it is among the elite that the transvaluation from shame-orientation to guilt-orientation would happen; the first signs of the transition occur in Greco-Roman literature among writers and philosophers with the leisure for contemplation. (See item here, specifically, comments on the Greek tragedians.) Carrier's case for a dichotomy in shame-value is a fabrication and a contrivance, and runs contrary to what evidence we do have, both ancient and modern. And here is a point worth noting, in light of Carrier's repeated comment that Christianity didn't attract any of the scholarly elite -- in fact, this is hypocritical in light of Carrier's other later demands implied for no specific evidence; if we wish to play that game, why not argue that Christianity did convert some of the scholarly elite at the beginning, just not those from whom we have any writings left? If Carrier wants to play that game, then so can we.

Update, 5/05: In a section titled, "Crucifixion and Class Warfare" Carrier tries to effect damage control for the sake of his absurd position that those crucified would not be disdained by any but the elite, by claiming that this isn't what he argued, bit rather, that, "certain members of ancient society would not regard the humiliation of an innocent man as shaming him, but as an insult to his honor--the exact opposite of what Holding argues." It is hard to believe that Carrier is so insensate that he does not see that "insult to honor" and "shaming" are synonymous! Carrier then claims that he limited his claim "to a very particular cross-section of people, which I carefully define" -- and so he did: anyone who was an elite is "in", anyone who is not, is out. It is no surprise now that Carrier fumbles and bumbles his way out of this absurd error by retreat into vagueness, as he now refuses to offer a detailed correction of what he really meant.

In all of this it has never been argued that "certain people in antiquity did not regard humiliated martyrs as disgraced, but as insulted by unjust treatment...." I agree that this is the case, but that for these martyrs to be so regarded, defended, or revered required some sort of indiactor for reversal of sentiment, like a resurrection. Under my scenario, the only people who would ever have defended the honor of Jesus (absent a resurrection) would have been a very tiny band of disciples, at most -- with no one else joining in on the same terms.

Like an American provincialist, Carrier merely claims that it "does not matter" what the Japanese or Iraqis do (even though their socities operate on the very same agonistic principles, and even as he admits, from the other side of his mouth, that defense of honor is common to all these societies!), and pomps that he presented plenty of evidence to the contrary, and scholars agree with him (but you don't need the specifics), so there too, nanny nanny boo boo. But in terms of countering examples, the pickings are slim and vague, thus: Likewise, Holding seems not to know that hundreds of thousands of Saddam Hussein's own people gave their lives fighting against him for decades--a far cry from "coming to admire the tyrant." I am well aware of such persons (though Carrier does not give a specific example) but Carrier is oblivious to the governing principle here: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Like the Pharisees who one minute wanted to kill Jesus, but the next minute warned Jesus that Herod was out to kill him and he'd best get out of Dodge, this is a matter of, "I'll fight Saddam to my dying day -- unless Iran attacks, then I'll fight them and not him. And when we're done with Iran, I'll get back to fighting Saddam." It does not require at all sharing or accepting Saddam's values; it requires a settling of priorities, of cost and benefit analysis. Carrier's vague references to revolts and protests are a cover for his inability to critically analyze the particulars in terms of an agonoistic dialectic. My point, that he cannot simply make vague appeal to diversity as a retort, remains unrebutted and indeed is only made stronger by Carrier's continued vagueness.

Proud to be a Mercenary

Further on, Carrier stretches for the irrelevancy:

Ancient literature (by far most of it written by the rich and well-connected) is full of disgust towards the humiliating professions of prostitute or slave, and yet there were still people willing to choose the life of a hooker or slave. There were even sacred prostitutes within some cults.

Of course not one whit of this has anything to do with claiming that a hooker or a slave was somehow divinity incarnate; nor does it have anything to do with convincing others to acclaim them divinity; nor is there any corresponding benefit or need to fulfill (hookers and slaves had to do what they did, or they would not eat, and could be killed!), despite the attempt to make "justice and contentment" such a need as noted above. Carrier speaks of those who "chose" the life of a hooker or slave, but gives no example from the period in question, much less does he show that the choice was made where survival was not at stake. His point that "to be a gladiator was a shameful embarrassment among the rich" is even more irrelevant, as he even admits that fame and fortune could come to such people (where there would be NO such benefit accrued to a dead crucified man). His example of Attis, likewise, I have already responded to in the same place:

As for Attis, good point -- do you see a church of Attis today? The Attis cults fit the Sabbatai model, although they also did have the advantage of being in a time when the body was considered by many to be base and evil. Under such considerations castration was arguably not absurd at all. In any event there isn't any parallel here to Christianity, which did not die off, and had much worse to defend itself on.

(By "Sabbatai model" I mean that this belief system collapsed into non-existence. It also changed radically in an attempt to survive, borrowing Christian ideas; see here. It is therefore yet another example that validates my point: If Christianity were untrue, it would either have died out and/or thoroughly revamped itself, as the religion of Attis did. I would further add that Carrier offers no grounds to suppose that the Attis cult "commanded a very large following," much less does he provide any documentation in terms of numbers, or even an estimate, or show that the Attis cult experienced any sort of relevant growth.)

Indeed, the Attis cult's idea of castration was merely a logical extension to the belief that the body needed to be freed from itself. Contemporaries would ridicule it on the grounds that it cut off (literally) the ability to procreate, and thus enjoy the benefits that went with it -- particularly offspring who would preserve honor for the family and care for the aged parent. Attisians might retort that they saw no need to burden a descendant with a body either, and that for support in old age, they'd help each other. Their version of the solution is short-sighted and perhaps impractical, but it is still within the confines of the social and philosophical system of the average person of the day. This is simply not the case where Christianity is concerned.

Update, 5/05: Somehow Carrier invents the idea that I argue here that "the fact that Christianity outlawed the Attis cult into extinction as evidence for the inability of Attis cult to survive". I said nothing at all about Christianity outlawing anything; indeed I said zero about the means whereby the Attis cult died out, and thus Carrier's charge of non sequitur is a straw man. Carrier also ignores a clear link to an item on the cult which shows that it critically revamped itself -- not because of being outlawed, but because no one found it competitively desirable -- and fails to deal with the critical problem of the mainstream Christian system not doing the same in the face of adversarial conditions (unlike heretics). Carrier's charge that Christianity "did revamp itself, quite often throughout its growth" is completely without substance with the particularhe cites of James or Peter versus Paul.

I noted as well that Carrier failed to prove that the Attis cult "commanded a very large following," but stamps his feet and retorts that he "cited several scholarly sources on the subject, which include surveys of the literary and archaeological evidence demonstrating it had a considerable, visible presence" -- which he then (quietly) says was "at least in the tens of thousands". Really now? Tens of thousands, out of 65 million? In terms of Carrier's further diatribe appealing to his 18th chapter, this was discussed on TheologyWeb here, in which a group and I debunk his claims of Christian numbers as low as the Attis cult's.

Red and Moreover Smelling of Fish

In a second section, Carrier addresses, "How Converts Differed from Critics." It is claimed that I omit two facts from consideration:

First, the early Christians were in a significantly different social position than those who most looked down on the form of Christ's death, and they had known and credible reasons not to share the elite view when it came to Jesus; Second, among some Jews there was a certain expectation that the Messiah had to be humiliated, as a part of God's plan to secure his triumph, and therefore these Jews would not find a crucified messiah repugnant--to the contrary, it would be exactly what they were looking for.

I did not omit either of these points; they are desperate irrelevancies and red herrings by Carrier. Early Christians were NOT in any "different social position than those who most looked down on the form of Christ's death" -- this repugnance to crucifixion was a universal of the period; there were NO "different social groups" that had a different view; the agonistic tenor of the society allows no clearance for such a group to exist (and as noted above, no such dichotomy is found among other honor-shame societies); and above all, Carrier has yet to produce evidence (contrary to Hengel, deSilva, and others I have cited) that there was any group that didn't or wouldn't share this value-judgment about crucifixion, other than a nebulous, lame appeal to unsubstantiated variety as above. His appeal to a "disgruntled poor and middle class, who had grown disgusted with the fundamental injustices in their society and government," is modernist, individualist drivel: Every scrap of evidence shows that these classes would remain just as disgusted by crucifixion as the upper class; the society itself was agonistic and attuned to the values of honor and shame (my discussion of which, Carrier does not even touch). Pilch and Malina Handbook, 15] make the further point that the popularity of such venues as gladitorial combat points to a society within which the sort of authoritarianism we describe (as in Iraq) was an accepted norm. These venues were overwhelmingly supported by the very "disgruntled masses" whom, by Carrier's logic, ought to have been boycotting these spectacles en masse. They also speak relevantly of the value of "compliance" in this setting [33-4]:

Compliance is an integral part of cultural cohesion in societies in which strict adherence to social codes and patterns of living is demanded, enforced, and rewarded, and resistance is punished...Compliance also figures significantly in the code of honor and shame. Adhereence to the law, custom, and tradition is a matter of honor...disregard for or defiance of them is cause for shame...Thus, compliance should not be mistaken for passivity, for it represents the active upholding of and participation in a culture's value system which centers on respect for authority and tradition.

Look at All the People

Furthermore, Carrier's imaginations of "disgruntled masses" violates yet another norm of this world, in terms of "purposiveness" and "end orientation" [173-4]:

...the ancient world of the Bible thought in terms of effective ends and causes leading to the eventual satisfaction of the wants of the group. Only a very few in antiquity could ever contemplate immediate personal satisfaction. The many had to be patient. There was no focus on effective means in the ancient world because it was typically believed that no such means existed. The zero-sum nature of ancient economy -- the persistent belief that if some part increased, another part decreased -- led to a rather static productive and technological picture...Normal individuals did not "get ahead" in such societies; their hopes, dreams, and needs were perennially subordinated to those of their leaders, families, and communities.

Carrier is thus a perfect example of one who, as Malina and Neyrey put it from Mann, "imprison[s] themselves in the commonsense notions of their own society." They point particularly to O'Connor [Portraits of Paul, 14] as one who "imposes modern notions" when he suggests, even as Carrier does, that people of this day had a "feeling of frustration" by having their talents "blocked by circumstances beyond their control," and to Meeks as another example of one who anachronistically appeals to "loneliness, anxiety, and a need for mobility" and a reason why someone might join a first century church. The error Carrier perpetuates is that of using "pop psychology" to interpret the texts. There is no expression of individualism allowed in this context ("Maybe a crucified man isn't so bad"); rather, "No one really has his or her 'own' opinion, nor is anyone expected to." And: "Group-oriented persons assimiliate the expectations of those who have a superior role or status in their lives." [73] Even the appeals to "justice" are misplaced; as Malina and Neyrey note, "justice" [44f] in this day meant preservation of the customs and obligations' it meant "proper interpersonal relations and the obligations entailed in these relations" as well as "keeping agreements and performing duties." Justice meant piety. The impious claims of Christianity set it against then-present ideas of justice.

Absurdly, Carrier even appeals to John the Baptist, a man who was beheaded (an honorable form of execution, and hence used to execute Roman citizens, as opposed to crucifixion!) and still had followers! Carrier, in his usual dishonest fashion, tries to collapse both forms of death into a category of "embarrassment of execution" when the real issue is the specific form of execution. (His bland assertion that it "would have been no less likely had John been crucified" is ribald nonsense, again, contrary to every scrap of evidence available, as noted in the original article, and to which he has no evidence in answer. Moreover, John the Baptist wasn't the subject of an evangelistic movement, which makes the example of him even MORE irrelevant!)

Carrier as well seems to be under the illusion that "outrage" over the injustice of the crucifixion would somehow reverse the shamefulness of the experience in the eyes of others. That too is false; there would be no such thing as "popular reverence" because of this death (again, this is a shame-based society, not one in which nascent Martin Luther Kings would run around making passionate speeches to appeal to the individual; the example of Iraq above confirms this point). His appeal beyond this to "Jews and their sympathizers, who already had a tradition of revering humiliated martyrs" is yet another example of Carrier's dishonest methodology; in a note he gives the example not of persons crucified and then asked to be subject to worship, but of the Maccebbean martyrs (!) who were heroes fighting in favor of a common cause of political and religious freedom, already popular with the people (which does NOT apply to Jesus and to new converts). Carrier has been able to find absolutely no truly parallel example to the one at hand. (We will address his points about other issues in the chapters in question.)

To nail this matter further shut, let us ask a few questions as a sort of reductio ad absurdum. If Carrier is correct about the elite having different values from the "oppressed, disgruntled", then we are left with the rather nonsensical conclusion that the Romans and other cultures conducted elaborate status degradation rituals, and crucified people publicly (indeed, by the busiest roads), for the sake of inspiring a reaction of disgust from no one except a very small "elite"! We are also left with the conclusion that the mockers by the roadside (Matt. 27:39//Mark 15:29) were composed entirely of "elite" persons (even though Matt and Mark never say this), and that when we see passages like Hebrews 12:2, they should be revised to say, "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame he felt from the elite."

Update, 5/05: In what may or may not be a reply to this section -- it is not clear, since no quote or reference is offered -- Carrier objects that I "fallaciously shift the burden onto [him] when [I] protest against my factually true statement that there is no evidence that any elite scholars converted to Christianity in the first century. Holding insists he has the right to pretend that some did, only we have no evidence of it, but he has no such right." Since I am not quoted on this claim (it fits nothing I say precisely), there is little that can be said, for I do no such thing; it is worth comment that Carrier resorts to the "Acharya S" method of argumentation and says, Of course, by their very nature, elite scholars typically leave evidence of their existence, especially when their team ultimately wins control of the culture and has every reason to preserve its heritage, and so absence of evidence is evidence of absence in such a case, meeting the criteria of a valid Argument from Silence. Given just how much literature has indeed disappeared from the ancient world, including materials that by Carrier's conspiratorial logic were "of the culture" that "won control" (think Papias and Quadratus), the reductio ad absurdum Carrier is forced into is either admitting that this is a presumptive, unevidenced error, or else making an excuse that maybe Papias and Quadratus said things that were damaging to the "team". Either way Carrier's argument from silence concerning the non-coversion of elite scholars is worthless.

Horse Pushes Cart

In a third section, Carrier lays down again like a sacrificial lamb upon his foundation of supposing persons must have existed who didn't share this value-judgment about crucifixion, and then, has the nerve to say, even after providing no evidence for such people existing, that I have "no evidence any such person converted"! Somehow, despite what was offered by Hengel, deSilva, etc. Carrier has contrived some idea that scorn of the crucified was something limited to the upper class! This, again, is patently false, and it is clear that Carrier has little or no appreciation of the relevance of my points about this being an honor and shame setting. That this is so is further verified by this comment:

This is confirmed by the fact that the Gospel did not really preach a God crucified. No one converted thinking they were worshipping a defeated, disgraced god. To the contrary, from the very beginning the Gospel preached a God crucified and raised to glory. Many a potential convert could find that attractive.

And yet Carrier is oblivious to the point that it was the crucifixion as a shameful experience that made it entirely impossible that anyone would believe that the vindication had actually occurred! The most that could be gotten otherwise would be, "Yes, that would be nice if it were true, foolish Christian. But it is insensible and incoherent." In essence, Carrier once again validates my point: That Christianity could only have been accepted, had indeed there been sufficient reason to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead!

Carrier's final retort for this section is perhaps the most ironic, but also the most contorted. For years we have been told by Skeptics that the NT misused the OT; now, Carrier reverses that objection and claims that the "idea of a suffering, executed god would resonate especially with those Jews and their sympathizers who expected a humiliated messiah." What eludes Carrier here, however, is that Christian readings of passages that speak of the Messiah being "despised" were arrived at after the fact of Jesus' life and execution and were indeed an attempt to prove that Jesus' life was in accord with what the OT had foreshadowed. Actual Jewish expectation of a Messiah whom the world would despise and whom would be shamefully executed did not exist prior to this time, and Jews did not read the passages Carrier cites in terms of the Messiah being despised -- much less being crucified shamefully! As Glenn Miller reports here Messianic expectations were indeed varied, but the idea of a humiliated or suffering Messiah was practically non-existent, and for Carrier's purposes, appear in sources so late that their value is at best equivocal. The focus rather was on a Messiah who would be a tremendous success -- and moreover, would successfully rout the Romans, which Jesus did NOT do. Furthermore, this again would only work if it could also be believed that Jesus had been vindicated -- so that again, Carrier only further validates my thesis. Finally, as I noted (but which Carrier does not mention) the specific act of being crucified would NEVER have been anticipated as part of a "suffering Messiah" program, given Deut. 21:23 and the way it was interpreted at the time. Indeed, the very texts Carrier appeals to were never used for any Messianic model (like "I am a worm" or the texts from Wisdom of Solomon) unless Jesus himself did it, or the NT did later!

Let us in fact take a closer look at one of the WoS texts Carrier notes (but quotes only sparsely), starting with 2:12-22:

Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education. 13 He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord. 14 He was made to reprove our thoughts. 15 He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men’s, his ways are of another fashion. 16 We are esteemed of him as counterfeits: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father. 17 Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him. 18 For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies. 19 Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience. 20 Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected. 21 Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath blinded them. 22 As for the mysteries of God, they knew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless souls.

Far from being any sort of verification for Carrier, this text would imply that Jesus, if he were indeed just, ought to have been delivered from his punishment -- once again, verifying my point of the historical necessity of vindication for Christianity to succeed! Where passages like these are concerned, and Dan. 9:26, Carrier truly hits the heights of naivete if he supposes that all Christians had to do is say, "Oh yes, we know he was crucified; but he was also raised," and it would merely be replied, "Oh! OK! Can we be baptized now?" As with most Skeptical arguments, the actual final answer is, "It must have been that way with people being that stupid, because otherwise we wouldn't be here!"

Indeed, one wonders exactly how Carrier envisions missionaries presenting this whole affair. The kerygmatic speeches in Acts contain nothing about "justice and contentment" (Which is ironic, since Carrier will later reply to one of my points about appeals to evidence by claiming that these speeches say nothing about evidence!). Paul says that he "preached Christ crucified," not that he "preached justice and contentment, and oh yeah, some crucified Christ on the side" -- or vice versa. Does Carrier suggests that the missionaries came around with some message of "justice and contentment" first, and then, once the convert was won, threw in an "oh, yeah" and THEN mentioned the crucified guy? (The reverse is not an option for Carrier, but would be allowable for me.) Does he think these were preached simultaneously? (The NT evidence refutes this, as noted.) If he offers either of these options, why couldn't the ancients do as modern atheists do, and just absorb the moral message while discarding the rest, perhaps giving it some other basis like "because Jupiter would really approve" or "because it is right"? Carrier conveniently and wisely leaves the precise details of his kerygmatic mechanism unsaid.

Thus, Carrier's attempt to find a "flaw" in my reasoning fails. He reads Christian exegesis back into pre-Christian Jewish times, without regard for the fact that prior to Jesus, no one read any of these passages in terms of a shameful, humiliating death. Indeed, Josephus, who did see Dan. 9 fulfilled in Roman action in 70, does not "exegete" 9:26 or explain what the "cutting off" meant. Thus the soil was not in the least "prepared" as Carrier alleges (indeed, note that even Josephus' comments are "after the fact" of the war of 70, not a premonition of what is to come); there is absolutely no evidence of such "preparation" in pre-Christian Jewish tradition; and "after the fact" validations, especially when presented in the NT to those already believers, prove nothing in terms of what Carrier is trying to argue.

Update 5/05: Carrier tries to evade his misuse of WoS by claiming that I am "reading the words of the wicked and mistaking them as advice to the righteous..." My point relies not in the least on these being words to the righteous; Carrier is blowing smoke and flashing mirrors, as if the wicked would somehow not share the value that "if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies." In other words, even the wicked know that vindication is required. I have not missed any point other than the one that Carrier is trying to rape out of the text.

Further on, Carrier finds it strange that I

...ask what kerygma I imagine the Christian missionaries taught, even though I explicitly discuss this in several places, and never do I mention "justice and contentment" in such a context. It is hard to fathom what Holding is even talking about here.

No, Carrier's multiple mentions of the thirst of the people for justice and their disconent must have meant something else. But Carrier can't hide behind this as his too-oft repeated value which made Christianity attractive (for by saying what lacked, he implies that the lack was fulfilled, incontrovertibly). Carrier tries to dodge this by claiming that yes, he admits that "the Christian kerygma was from the very beginning...that Christ died for our sins and rose again and all who join him will be saved" but then tries to sideline his primary player on the field due to mortal injury by quietly acknowledging that he also argued that "the moral and material benefits of membership are among the reasons" people joined. So in other words, Carrier is still evading the rest of my critical questions: He now admits that no, he does not think that the missionaries came around with some message of "justice and contentment" first, and then, once the convert was won, threw in an "oh, yeah" and THEN mentioned the crucified guy, or that these were preached simultaneously. But then, why couldn't the ancients do as modern atheists do, and just absorb the moral message while discarding the rest, perhaps giving it some other basis like "because Jupiter would really approve" or "because it is right"? Carrier still conveniently and wisely leaves the precise details of his kerygmatic mechanism unsaid. We are left with a vague notion that the "justice and contentment" aspect of Christianity must have been subconsciously appealing (even as the same material benefits were available elsewhere).

In a section titled, "Jewish Idea of a Suffering Savior" Carrier spins even further into the abyss. Against my point that the alleged "messianic OT passages" he cited were never used of pre-Christian Jews, Carrier retreats into the embarassing response that I can't prove that they were not so used, and that the existence of "many diverse Jewish sects and views that do not survive in the record" means that there could have been such a group (but not that there was enough diversity in the scholarly elite for some of them to have been Christians, for some unspecified reason). I think this response speaks for itself in terms of how far Carrier has been backed into a corner.

Further Carrier erects yet another argument for me since he cannot rebut the one actually made:

Holding foolishly proclaims that all Jews expected a messiah who "would successfully rout the Romans," even though the pre-Christian book of Daniel, a book written by Jews, says exactly the opposite: "the Christ shall be utterly destroyed yet there is no judgment upon him," and then a ruler would come and destroy the Temple (as the Romans did).

I nowhere say "all Jews"; I said that this was the focus of Messianic expectations (an ideology, not people). In terms of Daniel, I have already noted that the one Jewish writer who saw Romans in Daniel was Josephus, and that he carefully sidestepped an exegesis of the critical verses (9:25-26), and Carrier has absolutely nothing to say about this. It remains that if anything, it is clear that Daniel 9:25-26 was ignored in terms of Messianic expectation, according to the textual, historical, and conceptual evidence. If Carrier thinks otherwise, perhaps he can explain why tens of thousands of Jews died following people who fought Roman power, since by his account they believed that they were going to lose.

Carrier concludes by offering Is. 52-53, another text that we have no evidence of being interpreted messianically prior to Jesus. His mere pompous posturing to the effect that surely Jews existed that believed this, because they must have, merely demonstrates the bankruptcy of his position, especially in terms of support from actually available data. I would conclude by noting that if he thinks this is how Jews would indeed interpret Is. 53 -- in terms of someone shamed who ought to be revered -- he needs to familiarize himself with exactly how Jews of today look at the passage, particularly, anti-missionaries. It will give him a stark lesson in what people will do to avoid such a conclusion, exactly as we would say would be done with these passages.

In conclusion on Point 1: