Okay, So What about the Historicity of Spartacus?

[Warren Stupidity]

It’s always something. First it was, “We have better evidence for Jesus than for the contemporary emperor Tiberius.” Matthew Ferguson annihilated that one. Then it was, “We have better evidence for Jesus than for Alexander the Great.” Which I annihilated in On the Historicity of Jesus (pp. 21-24). Or it was, “We have better evidence for Jesus than for Socrates.” Which I also annihilated in OHJ (Chapter 8.2, “The Socrates Analogy”). Or it was, “We have better evidence for Jesus than for Pontius Pilate, the guy who allegedly killed him.” Which I’ve also annihilated. And then it was, “We have better evidence for Jesus than for Julius Caesar.” Which I just annihilated. Now the claim going around is, “We have better evidence for Jesus than for Spartacus,” the enslaved gladiator of Thrace (now mostly Bulgaria) who led a nearly successful slave revolt against the Romans in Italy in 73-70 B.C.

Just like Julius Caesar (as I explained in my last post about this), and everyone else in these comparisons, when it comes to determining the probability of historicity, Spartacus differs from Jesus in two respects:

First:

Spartacus belongs to a different reference class. He is not a worshiped deity whose only narratives are extensively mytho-fantastical. Spartacus does not belong to any myth-heavy reference classes at all (significantly sized sets of claimed historical persons most of whose members are mythical). Jesus does. See Chapter 6 of OHJ. I use the one significantly sized set we have for Jesus (high-scoring Rank-Raglan heroes: Element 48, Chapter 5.3), but Jesus actually belongs to several myth-heavy sets (worshiped deities, mystery-cult saviors, dying-and-rising demigods, culture heroes, heavenly founders: e.g. Elements 31, 36, 46, 47, Chapter 6.1-2, etc.). Spartacus belongs to not even one.

Spartacus actually belongs to a reference class of mundane military foes fighting a literate record-keeping nation’s armies, a class in which most members by far are historical. So we don’t even need more evidence to confirm he existed. We can trust it’s just very likely he did, because in such cases (in such sets of persons), every time we can check, it turns out it usually is the case that these people existed.

This is the first problem with trying to compare Jesus with ordinary people (OHJ, Chapter 6.2 and 6.5). Ordinary people are not usually mythical. There is little reason to have made them up or to have Euhemerized them (OHJ, Element 45). Ordinary people are not worshiped celestial gods with astonishing supernatural powers and suspiciously convenient names (Jesus means “Savior”), rapidly surrounded by wildly egregious myths, to serve as reified authorities for promoting certain cultural and religious norms. One must heed that distinction.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/7924#more-7924

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Why does it even matter?

If I quit believing that Spartacus existed, would they quit believing that Jesus did?

[Warren Stupidity]

3. I find the whole subject of historicity interesting.

Carrier is using statistical probability analysis to get at an objective answer to what we know about our past.

[Igel]

4. And then applying it to a sample of one

to resolve the probabilities into 0 or 1.

I think he and believers also need to sit down to look at some assumptions that they sharply diverge on but which unless resolved prevent mutual comprehension.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. well no, the probabilities are beysian - they are confidence levels, such as 95% certain

Julius Caesar existed, not binary values.

You can't get believers to do objective analysis as they start not from an assumption of ignorance but from an assumption of knowledge. They are demanding proof their god-man didn't exist, not trying to apply objective standards for historical existence to their god-man. There will never be "mutual comprehension" in this area, unless skeptics suddenly discard skepticism or believers lose their faith. However the facts are that methods of historical analysis outside of biblical studies suddenly aren't applicable inside that special domain.

[struggle4progress]

6. Although he calls himself a historian, Richard has a surprisingly tenuous grasp

on the history of ideas

The field, of historical problems with the old Jewish texts, or with the Christian ones, has been rather thoroughly ploughed since the eighteenth century; and one is now unlikely to find well-informed intellectually-honest people who could make much of a case that We have better evidence for Jesus than for Alexander/Pilate/Tiberius/Socrates/Spartacus

Richard's actual contribution to our knowledge -- by "annihilating" such claims, in whatever dusty corner he found them stowed safely away -- might be roughly comparable to loudly predicting today that the Edison's electric lamp would eventually replace whale oil lamps: the work has already been already done and that particular controversy has already lost all its interest