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Richard Carrier

Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus Hardcover – April 24, 2012

by Richard Carrier (Author)

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This in-depth discussion of New Testament scholarship and the challenges of history as a whole proposes Bayes's Theorem, which deals with probabilities under conditions of uncertainty, as a solution to the problem of establishing reliable historical criteria. The author demonstrates that valid historical methods-not only in the study of Christian origins but in any historical study-can be described by, and reduced to, the logic of Bayes's Theorem. Conversely, he argues that any method that cannot be reduced to this theorem is invalid and should be abandoned. Writing with thoroughness and clarity, the author explains Bayes's Theorem in terms that are easily understandable to professional historians and laypeople alike, employing nothing more than well-known primary school math. He then explores precisely how the theorem can be applied to history and addresses numerous challenges to and criticisms of its use in testing or justifying the conclusions that historians make about the important persons and events of the past. The traditional and established methods of historians are analyzed using the theorem, as well as all the major "historicity criteria" employed in the latest quest to establish the historicity of Jesus. The author demonstrates not only the deficiencies of these approaches but also ways to rehabilitate them using Bayes's Theorem. Anyone with an interest in historical methods, how historical knowledge can be justified, new applications of Bayes's Theorem, or the study of the historical Jesus will find this book to be essential reading.

Print length

344 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Prometheus
Publication date

April 24, 2012
Dimensions

6 x 0.94 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1616145595
ISBN-13

978-1616145590
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"[C]arefully exposes what happens when sound methodology meets biblical studies. . . . Proving History is a brilliant lesson in the proper proportioning of belief to evidence. Even minimal attention to Bayesian probability theory reveals just how much of Jesus scholarship confuses ‘possibly true’ with ‘probably true.’ The only miracle Richard Carrier has left to explain is why so few appreciate that extraordinary claims require extraordinary support."
-Dr. Malcolm Murray, Author of The Atheist’s Primer

"Carrier applies his philosophical and historical training to maximum effect in outlining a case for the use of Bayes’s Theorem in evaluating biblical claims. Even biblical scholars, who usually are not mathematically inclined, may never look at the ‘historical Jesus’ the same way again."
-Dr. Hector Avalos, Professor of religious studies, Iowa State University, and author of , The End of Biblical Studies

About the Author

Richard C. Carrier, an independent scholar with a doctorate in ancient history from Columbia University, is the author of Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith; Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn’t Need a Miracle to Succeed; and Sense and Goodness without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism. He has also contributed chapters to The End of Christianity, edited by John W. Loftus; Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth, edited by R. Joseph Hoffmann; The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, edited by John W. Loftus; and The Empty Tomb: Jesus beyond the Grave, edited by Robert Price and Jeffery Lowder.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Prometheus; Illustrated edition (April 24, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 344 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1616145595
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1616145590
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.33 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.94 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #676,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #579 in Historiography (Books)
- #1,265 in New Testament Criticism & Interpretation
- #1,387 in Jesus, the Gospels & Acts (Books)

Customer Reviews:
119 ratings

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4 star		21%
3 star		12%
2 star		4%
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Douglas E. Floto

Ouch!

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2019

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This book made my head hurt, but in a really good way. Though its a tough read for a layperson, it does make a good argument for a rational method to test historical claims. Way to go Dr. Carrier! It’s a very thorough treatment of the subject, but man, there’s some serious dead-horse flogging going on. I recommend a lot of coffee, but, whatever it takes, soldier on! It’s really worth it.

For works like this, reading it as an eBook is the best option because you have immediate access to a dictionary and to on-line reference sources. I’m off to read the companion volume now!

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

An excellent survey of the state of Jesus studies

Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2016

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An excellent survey of the state of Jesus studies, the problems with its methods, and a promising solution. As a mathematician, maybe I'm biased, but I think every field of inquiry--even in the humanities--benefits from becoming "mathier." And, as Carrier points out, the underlying framework of Bayes' Theorem is already present in all correct historical reasoning: it can only get better if historians use it consciously, rather than unconsciously.

One criticism I have is the way the author has occasionally misrepresented the difficulty of the material. Carrier has often said that this book requires some math, but that it's only "sixth-grade math." That isn't really true: certainly, you can plug numbers into the Bayes' formula and calculate the answer without knowing any more than that, but to really follow some of the arguments he makes in the book requires much more understanding of probability theory.

11 people found this helpful

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J. McJakome

Not for the complete novice, but a very good tool for historians and historiographers.

Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2016

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As a trained historian [though not practicing] I give the author and the text high marks for organizing in a more scientific way the historiographic methods that I learned in a way that was almost more art than science. This particular work is very heavy on formulae, which would make it a bit difficult for the casual reader. The formulae are part of the Bayes Theorem which is thoroughly explained with both formulae and textual explanation. The difficult parts can be read around, especially if the reader has some grounding in historiography, critical thinking, and possibly in civics, anthropology and sociology.
The reason why these would be helpful is that the core of the discussion is in how to correctly assess or evaluate evidence and understand it in context. For lovers of history, it is necessary to have some experience weighing different interpretations of historical events. A keeper.

4 people found this helpful

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A. J. Doherty

Bayes' Theorem and the brain in a vat hypothesis

Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2015

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Dr. Carrier makes an interesting case for the view that any valid methodology of historical analysis reduces to the proper application of Bayes' Theorem. He further argues that knowledge should be understood non-factively (although he does not use this terminology) such that knowledge does not entail truth, but only that which is very probably true. Probability is understood subjectively, i.e. in terms of degrees of psychological certainty. Dr. Carrier devotes the final chapter of his book to defending this subjective account of probability in the context of Bayes' Theorem.

One slight point of disagreement that I have with Dr. Carrier concerns his remarks concerning the "brain in a vat" hypothesis - well known to students in undergraduate philosophy (particularly, theory of knowledge) classes. Dr. Carrier alleges that the BIV hypothesis is an instance of the "possible entails probable" fallacy. According to the BIV hypothesis, it is logically possible that one might really be a brain in a vat (with no physical body, and all of one's sensory experiences delivered artificially to one's brain via e.g. the super-computer of a malevolent futuristic neuroscientist - the counterpart of Rene Descartes' malignant demon of the Meditations). Dr. Carrier argues that unless one has some evidence for this BIV idea, one is justified in rejecting it as much too improbable to be taken seriously.

However contrary to Dr. Carrier's view (page 27) the BIV hypothesis does not fallaciously argue from possibility to probability. Rather, the conclusion drawn by radical skeptics is that one can't know that one has a physical body, and one can't know one is a BIV either - all one has is uncertainty with no greater probability for the truth of either hypothesis. As I explain below, this position of uncertainty is the one that is actually supported by a Bayesian analysis of the situation - not Dr. Carrier's view that the truth of the BIV hypothesis is very improbable.

If we apply Bayes' Theorem to the BIV hypothesis, we find that the probability that the hypothesis (h) that one is a BIV is true is 0.5. The prior probability that h is true, given all one's background knowledge (b) would seem to be 0.5, since one does not know how often one's being a brain in a vat explains the evidence of one's sensory experience.

The consequent probability of said evidence (e) given h and our background knowledge (b) is 1, since if h were true, one would have exactly the experiences that one does have (and even the strong feeling of certainty that one is not a brain in a vat, but rather that one has a real physical body).

Since the prior probability for h is 0.5, and the two priors must equal 1, the prior probability for ~h (i.e. that one is not a BIV) must also be 0.5. Lastly, the consequent probability that one would have the evidence one does have (one's sensory experience of seeming to have a body) given ~h and one's background knowledge is 1. One would have exactly the experiences one does have, if one were not a BIV.

So the probably of h given e and b is;

0.5 x 1, divided by [(0.5 x 1) + (0.5 x 1)]

which is:

0.5 divided by [0.5 + 0.5]

which is

0.5 divided by 1,

i.e. 0.5

In other words, from a Bayesian point of view, one ought to give as much credence to the BIV hypothesis as to the alternative "common sense" hypothesis (see e.g. G.E. Moore). In my opinion, this conclusion does not help the theist in any way since if one is a BIV then all of the information one has regarding an external world (in particular the Bible) is unreliable, and if Dr. Carrier's views are correct and unaffected by my comments here (ceteris paribus), all of his criticisms of historical method (in particular, regarding the historicity of Jesus) still pertain.

I highly recommend Dr. Carrier's book.

4 people found this helpful

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Barry Rucker

Extremely educational. Most highly recommended!

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2017

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Like everything Richard Carrier writes, this book is absolutely brilliant. It is densely packed with information, intelligent arguments and common sense. The bibliography and notes refer the reader to hundreds of worthwhile sources of further information, and I plan to read as many as I can obtain. This book takes concentration, and I must admit I didn't understand absolutely everything, but I understood most of it and it was great. It's among the best books I've ever read, and that's a lot of books.

4 people found this helpful

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Alan Wray

This is the "prequel", as it were, to ...

Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2015

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This is the "prequel", as it were, to the author's "On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt". It shares with that book the high erudition and clear-mindedness that is required in such a controversial subject. "Proving History" is more technical, more "academic" than its partner and is basically a long and detailed exposition of the application of Bayes' Theorem to historical analysis. The result is that many classical analysis techniques are completely subsumed and usually improved by Bayesian theory, giving a sound mathematical basis to such methods and moving historical study closer to the "hard" sciences in its use of statistical analysis. Much of the text is clearly aimed at professional historians and may be a slow-go for casual readers, but is nevertheless intellectually interesting. It certainly convinces one that the methods used in the second book are logically valid and thereby strengthens that book's otherwise startling conclusions.

4 people found this helpful

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John Harbord

This is an intreguing read with a very ambitious aim ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 19, 2016

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This is an intreguing read with a very ambitious aim. It is well structured and clearly argued, and the more you reflect on each issue the more appealing his claims become. It does not resolve all historical disputes. It does not pretend to. It makes it very clear that the method prescribed is not a cure all. What it does do is focus the mind on the nature of historical evidence and argumentation.

2 people found this helpful

keith jones

Math on JC.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2017

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It took a bit of time for me to get my head around the math. However for me it has changed how I review history.

2 people found this helpful

Post enlightenment

Rivetting account of how to break down a time worn ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 28, 2015

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Rivetting account of how to break down a time worn legend into its constituent parts and assign realistic probabilities to the legend. Result is it is more likely that JC was a fictitious character and less likely that the account is legend accredited to a historical person.

4 people found this helpful

Frank

Highly recommended

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 5, 2020

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Every academic and everyone who wants to argue according to the evidence and not off the top of their head should read this. Unfortunately standards of critical scholarship are declining fast in Western universities. Accepting Carrier's challenges will revive them.

Peter Marchant

I found the logic inexorable but the maths difficult yet ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2015

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I found the logic inexorable but the maths difficult yet I am sure this is a line of approach which must be accommodated in future. Extremely well written and well referenced.

2 people found this helpful

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