Why Am I So Angry At Michael Paulkovich?

That's what some people want to know. I'll keep trying to explain. (Some people have urged me to just let it all go. Hahaha. Haha. Hahahaha. No, I won't be doing that.)

I suppose it can't hurt to keep repeating, near the beginning of each of these rants, what many people seem to keep overlooking: not only am I an atheist, I'm far from certain that Jesus ever existed. I'm not criticizing Paulkovich for saying that Jesus never existed, I'm criticizing him for not knowing his ass from a hole in the ground about ancient Judea and Galilee and the question of Jesus' historicity, while trying to pass himself off as some sort of expert.

Actually, I'm angrier at the people who publish Free Inquiry than I am at Paullkovich. Someone described Paulkovich's article about "the 126 silent historians" as a striking example of sloppy thinking and sloppy research. But I don't think that what Paulkovich did here was research at all. Him posing as a researcher, and Free Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism continuing to stand behind him, is an insult to all actual researchers in ancient Greek and Latin, including the sloppy amateur ones like me. Sloppy research would have been if he had actually studied the writing of some ancient writers, and then drawn some dubious conclusions from that study. Mis-translated a few Greek and Latin words, not understood some obvious issues of context, things like that. In the case of 40-some of his 126, it's obvious that he didn't study their writing because there is no writing left to be studied. If he had actually read the Latin version of the story of Jason and the Argonauts, or another writer's book on architecture, or the Satyricon, the only surviving work of Petronius -- the same Satyricon upon which Fellini based his movie of the same name -- or the half-dozen verses of love poetry which are all that remain of the work of another writer on his list of 126, etc, etc, he would have known that there was no reason to expect to find Jesus mentioned in those works, and furthermore, he would've realized that anyone who was actually familiar with those writers would know that it was ridiculous to look for mentions of Jesus in their work. He would've realized that he'd be exposing himself as a charlatan posing as someone who'd done some research.



If he had taken the trouble to actually do some research into the extent of all the surviving work of ancient Greek and Latin authors, he would've realized that there are barely 126 historians among them, let alone 126 who mentioned Judea or Galilee, let alone 126 who would've mentioned a wandering preacher with all of 12 followers, who was one of the many people Pontius Pilate had crucified. He would've learned that apart from the Bible and some of the Old and New Testament Apocrypha and the Dead Sea Scrolls and Josephus, there's very little surviving ancient writing of any kind from that time and place, and that it's very big news among actual contemporary historians whenever any little scrap of more is found.

I'd really like to know just exactly how Paulkovich came up with that list, and where he got the notion that it was a list of 126 HISTORIANS. I'm picturing him gathering information from sources like jesusneverexisted dot com and the blogs and books of some of the wackier mythicists. There's simply no way he could've come near anything resembling a reliable reference work, or conferred with anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Roman Empire and its literature, and still come up with that list. Perhaps he thinks that most people familiar with ancient Greek or Latin are a part of the Plot. I'm just speculating here. It's actually very difficult for me to imagine just how that list of 126 names came to be, and just exactly how Paulkovich came to believe that historical writing from all 126 of them had survived.

And yes, there is also the little detail that it is extremely well-known, even among mythicists, that 4 of the people on his list, Josphus, Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny the Younger, actually do mention Jesus and/or Christians.

And that the first 3 of those 4 actually are historians, quite unlike most of the 126, showing that the rate of "silence" of ancient historians about Jesus is actually rather low.

And yes, there is also the little detail about how Paulkovich bases his assumptions about what would have had to have been written about Jesus if he'd existed, on the Bible's claims about Jesus. That is to say, if Jesus had really healed all of those people and risen from the dead and so forth, more people would've noticed. Either Paulkovich is being inconsistent here in looking for evidence of a supernatural Jesus, or I have been wrong in assuming that Paulkovich is an atheist who doesn't believe in the supernatural. Whatever. At this point of silliness I don't much care anymore. But to some people, this assumed inconsistency apparently is a big deal.

And of course all of this still leaves the question untouched of how those responsible for the publication of Free Inquiry managed to miss all of this.

Well, at least Paulkovich didn't claim that there were newspapers in ancient Jerusalem, and that big stacks of them are still lying around, along with detailed records of every criminal case which came before Pilate -- all very suspiciously free of any mention of Jesus. There actually are some people, aside from the religious believers in Jesus' miracles and resurrection, who are running around making claims about Jesus and the historical record which are even more ridiculous than Paulkovich's. (Unless I'm giving him too much credit, and he actually does make such claims in his book. I haven't read his book.)

There's nothing particularly unusual about Paulkovich. There are very many people talking and writing about the historicity or lack of historicity of Jesus without having more of a clue on the subject than he does. It's mysterious to me that so much energy is expended flapping their gums about it, and such a tiny fraction of that much energy learning about what they're constantly yapping about. It's mysterious, and it makes me angry. And it makes me that much more angry when we're talking about people who claim to value rationality and free inquiry and knowledge and solid research so highly.

It's Even Worse Than I Thought

Since I've criticized Free Inquiry so emphatically for publishing Michael Paulkovich's article "The Fable of the Christ," complete with his notorious list of 126 "historians" who according to him should've been expected to have left behind some written accounts of Jesus if Jesus had existed -- Most of the 126 weren't historians. Over 1/3 left no writing which has survived to our time. And 4 actually did mention Jesus and/or Christians. -- I thought it would only be fair to check and see if Free Inquiry had issued a retraction and/or apology for having published such extraordinarily fact-free prose posing as non-fiction on an historical topic.



It seems they haven't. On the contrary, they've moved Paulkovich's article to the non-subscription section of their website for the "edification" of a broader public.

But wait, there's more: I had simply assumed that this one article was a case of Free Inquiry having let one slip through the cracks. A case of them having been bamboozled by a bozo. Even the best of us is sometimes fooled by a fool. But the blurb at the bottom of Paulkovich's article describes him as "a frequent contributor to Free Inquiry."

Which means either that they don't check the blurbs any more carefully for falsehoods than the articles, or that he actually is a frequent contributor.

Which would make not just Paulkovich, but also Free Inquiry officially hopeless, a clown car of a train wreck of a travesty of a fucking brain-dead joke.

The New Atheists Are A Herd Of Turnips!

Yesterday I became embroiled in an online discussion about the New Atheists. I asserted that they constantly show a near-total lack of knowledge of topics which they nevertheless constantly discuss: historical topics having to do with religion. A rather bright person challenged this assertion of mine, and I quickly backed down and said that I should have said that New Atheists do this, not "constantly," but "occasionally."

Upon reflection, I think I was much too quick to back down from my claim that New Atheists "constantly" display an appalling lack of knowledge on historical topics which they nevertheless constantly discuss. Let me review some evidence (And before I do let me state to whom I'm referring when I say "New Atheists." I mean Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, other authors who treat religion similarly, and their fans):

In addition to his bronze age goat herders meme (By the way, Dick, it's "goatherds," not "goat herders." "Goatherds," just like "shepherds"), Dawkins recently tweeted that Trinity College in Cambridge had produced more Nobel Prize winners than "the entire Muslim world." He did not respond to the tidal wave of responses to his tweet which pointed out cultural bias in the awarding of Nobels and in others things. It was rather shocking that such an elephant in the room needed to be pointed out to someone like Dawkins, yet, here we are. We now know Richard a little better.

The subtitle of one of Hitchens' most popular book refers to how religion allegedly "ruins everything." Clutch your pearls, ladies, I'm about to make a very indelicate comparison: Hitchens' entirely indiscriminate and therefore entire senseless use of the term "everything" reminds me of its misuse by the Nazis: you may have seen photographs of Nazis carrying or hanging signs reading "Die Juden sind an allem schuld," which translates to "Everything is the Jews' fault."

There's the fearmongering Islamophobia which was spread by Hitchens and continues to be spread by Harris, Dawkins, PZ Myers and other New Atheists, which routinely refers to Islam as if it were a unified political and cultural unit. It's true that Islam strives to a unit, but Muslims have waged war against other Muslims without cease since not long after Muhammad's death. Islam has not formed anything remotely resembling one united political entity since the 7th century.

There's Harris' characterization of Islam, while being interviewed by Chris O'Donnell on MSNBC, as currently "going through its medieval stage," a conceit which, besides being as quaintly 19th-century as Harris' borrowing of Mills' utilitarianism, again refers to all of Islam, all 1 billion Muslims, as one entity at one stage of development, and implies that the crude aggression of ISIS is inherently characteristic of Islam, when it's as clear as can be that the vast majority of Muslims oppose such aggression, not to mention that almost all of the people currently fighting ISIS are themselves Muslims. Clearly, some things can never be clear enough to be clear to some people.

There's Victor Stenger's 2-word response to being informed that there were some drastic historical inaccuracies in one of his anti-religious tirades -- the same 2-word response often heard from fans of Dawkins when it's pointed out that the oldest parts of the Bible were written in the Iron Age, mostly or entirely by city dwellers, and that those of the Israelites who were rustic raised more sheep than goats: "So what?"

There's Free Inquiry, New Atheism' flagship publication, publishing Michael Paulkovich's utterly ahistorical assertion about 126 ancient authors who should've mentioned Jesus if he'd existed, but didn't. And not having issued a retraction.

A small portion of the above might be dismissed as something which occurs only occasionally, but all together, it shows a clear tendency, an inherent trait: New Atheists don't know Jack Q Shit about history, and they're determined to remain ignorant about it. They claim to be ushering in a new age of enlightenment, to be mounting a strong challenge to religion. They're doing neither. They're not the people to be representing atheists. They're not the intellectual descendants of Epicurus, Hume, Marx, Twain, Nietzsche and Russell. They are turnips, and intelligent atheists ought to join with others in mocking and deriding them.

Free Inquiry Has Reached The Level Of Journalistic Seriousness Of The National Enquirer

That's the real story I've been covering in several of my recent posts about Michael Paulkovich and his 126. (I've been picturing mash-ups of Paulkovich's thesis and the movie 300:



A reader commented on the first of my posts about Paulkovich, asking how a recent article in World News Daily Report would fit into this discussion. I replied that it would fit about as well as an article in the National Enquirer entitled "I Had Bigfoot's Baby!"

Immediately after I had made this reply, I realized that the article in World News Daily Report actually fits in perfectly well in the story I'm covering. The reader's comment helped to crystalize, in my mind, what the real story is here. This really isn't so much about Paulkovich. There's nothing unusual about people asserting absurd things having to do with Jesus and claiming to be serious scholars. That sort of thing has been going on for about about as long as there have been Christians, and the Internet is chock-full of both claims by believers that they've found rock-solid evidence that Jesus existed, and claims by others that they've found rock-solid evidence that he didn't. Myriad self-published books by both categories of numbskulls can be found on Amazon.

The real story here, the thing that should be upsetting more of my fellow atheists than it seems to have upset so far, is that, by publishing Paulkovich, Free Inquiry has attained the level of journalistic seriousness, responsibility and reliability of entities such as World New Daily Report and the National Enquirer. (If, that is, they hadn't reached that level some time ago.)

I know I've said the following repeatedly over the course of the past week and a half, and it must be getting monotonous to those who've been carefully following everything I've written, but it's clear that many people have only been skimming my stuff -- and there's nothing wrong with that! It's a great big world and there's too much good stuff for anybody to read it all -- and some people assume that it's mostly Christians, maybe even mostly fundies, who have problems with Paulkovich. I've said the following repeatedly lately, but I'm repeating it now because it underscores the point I'm trying to get across about Paulkovich and Free Inquiry:

Not only am I not a Christian, I'm an atheist. Many of the mainstream academics in Biblical studies and related fields are also atheists. Almost all of those academics, atheist or not, believe that Jesus existed. (A non-supernatural Jesus in the case of the atheists, of course, to whose biography they believe the supernatural stories were added, the way that the story about the cherry tree was added to George Washington's biography.) Most of those academics tend to regard people who have doubts about Jesus' existed as hopelessly ignorant. I HAVE DOUBTS ABOUT JESUS' EXISTENCE and therefore am subject to a fair share of scorn from the academics, many of whom, because of those doubts, would put me into the same category as Paulkovich. My issue with Paulkovich is NOT that he does not believe Jesus existed. It's also not that he suspects that there is something fishy about the mainstream academic position of Jesus' existence. It's that he makes ridiculous claims about ancient authors who, he says, should've mentioned Jesus if he'd existed, but didn't. His list of 126 names includes many people who have had no writing survive, so Paulkovich didn't study it. Most of the rest wrote things which had nothing to do with Judea or Galilee, which makes it seem like Paulkovich didn't study their work either. A couple of the people on his list died before 1 AD, so... There are people on Paulkovich's list who wrote only about medicine, or historical subjects centuries before Jesus' time, or they wrote fiction, etc, etc, so... There are maybe a dozen who could conceivably had reason to mention Jesus or Christians but didn't, but it's not actually surprising to me that none of them did. AND UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE I'VE ACTUALLY READ A LOT OF THIS STUFF. Oh, and lest I forget: 4 of Paulkovich's 126 actually did mention Christians. As, of course, did a whole lot of others who are not on his list.

My issue with Paulkovich is that he writes sheer absurdity that would've gotten a F on any good history exam, and calls it historical research, and my issue with Free Inquiry is that they published some of it, and, unlike World News Daily Report, they don't have a disclaimer explaining that they are a fake news publication offering satires of news.

Historians And Scientists Shouldn't Be In Conflict

Some languages don't even make a distinction between the two. In German, for example, history is one of the Wissenschaften, one of the sciences. But back here in the English-speaking world, there is this tension between the sciences and the humanities. I don't know whether this tension flares up and then cools down again from time to time, or whether I've just been more aware of it at some times than at others.

The tension which is making me tense at the moment is between some New Atheists who are also scientists on the one hand, and anyone with a passing familiarity with ancient history on the other. The main bone of contention is Jesus and his historicity, and a prime example of the problem has popped up in the work of Michael Paulkovich, which I have discussed in 2 previous blog posts, here and here. Paulkovich is presenting a thesis which wouldn't get a passing grade from any competent high-school history teacher: that 126 ancient writers, who should've been expected to mention Jesus if he existed, do not mention him. More than 1/3 of those 126 people actually left no writing behind. Although Aulus Gellius and Dio Cassius are often very useful to historians in that they quote or mention so many other writers whose works have vanished, if a chapter in Gellius quotes 10 writers, a serious writer counts that as the writing of 1 writer, Gellius, not 11, 10 plus Gellius.



And I'm giving Paulkovich the benefit of the doubt in assuming he knows Gellius or Dio from a hole in the ground, because, although more than a few of the 126 names are known to us today only via those two authors, most of the 126 who are known to us as authors would've had no reason whatsoever to mention Jesus: they're physicians or geographers or poets whose subject matter happened centuries BC or epigrammatists or grammarians, or what remains of their writing is a few lines with no connection to anything east of Athens... In short, the list of 126 names is a really spectacular mess, and you don't have to be an expert in ancient history to suspect that it is.

If the 126 names were in a random reader's comment on the Internet, it'd be bad enough, but too common to warrant my going on about it for several blog posts. But Paulkovich published this mess in Free Inquiry, where prominent scientists like Richard Dawkins -- who's absolutely brilliant when the subject is biology, in case you hadn't heard -- have been published lately, but not, one suspects, respectable historians. "Free" here apparently means "free from fact-checking" on historical subjects, although the New Atheists are always, quite rightly, pointing out the benefits of things like peer review in the natural sciences.

Are they aware that peer review is also in place in disciplines such as history, even when the historical subject is Jeebus? If they're aware that such historiographical peer-review exists, they're sure not acting like it. They're definitely not interested in benefiting from it.

They don't want to learn about ancient history. And yet they feel perfectly well-qualified to discuss it. And so we get things like this list of 126 names, and Dawkins' description of the authors of the Old Testament as "Bronze-age goat herders" (they're referred to as "goatherds," Richard, you simp), and Dawkins making all sorts of ignorant statements about 1 billion Muslims as if all 1 billion were the same in any way, without having felt any need to have read the Koran first, and apparently without feeling any embarrassment over saying publicly that he has no plans either to read the Koran or to stop making blanket condemnations of billions of individuals.

I don't know how widespread this gulf of historical ignorance is. I can only hope that the ignorance on historical topics of New Atheists like these is so obvious that most of the general public who hear Dawkins & Co shooting their mouths off will be able to spot it without my help, and draw appropriate conclusions about New Atheism, and rags like Free Inquiry..

If they're not able, well then, that's what I'm here for. And you, too, if you've been able to follow me this far.

126 Writers Who, According To Michael Paulkovich, Should Have Mentioned Jesus If Jesus Existed

[PS, 21. November 2016: I'm a mythicist. I'm not sure whether Jesus ever existed. I mention this because some people seem to assume that my issue with Paulkovich is that I believe Jesus existed. No, my issue is that I don't think Paulkovich has proven anything about Jesus. At all.]



Here we go, here's Paulkovich's list, reproduced as he gave it, complete with quirky renderings such as "Cassius Deo" rather than the more familiar "Deo Cassius," and "Halicarnassensis Dionysus II" rather than "Dionysus of Halicarnassus."

Aelius Theon, Albinus, Alcinous, Ammonius of Athens, Alexander of Aegae, Antipater of Thessalonica, Antonius Polemo, Apollonius Dyscolus, Apollonius of Tyana, Appian, Archigenes, Aretaeus, Arrian, Asclepiades of Prusa, Asconius, Aspasius, Atilicinus, Attalus, Bassus of Corinth, C Cassius Longinus, Calvisius Taurus of Berytus, Cassius Deo, Chaeremon of Alexandria, Claudius Agathemerus, Claudius Ptolomaeus, Cleopatra the Physician, Cluvius Rufus, Cn Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, Cornelius Celsus, Columella, Cornutus, D Haterius Agrippa, D Valerius Asiaticus, Damis, Demetrius, Demonox, Demosthenes Philalethes, Dion of Prusa, Domitius Afer, Epictetus, Erotianus, Euphrates of Tyre, Fabius Rusticus, Favorinus, Flaccus, Florus, Fronto, Gellius, Gordius of Tyana, Gnaeus Domitius, Halicarnassensis Dionysus II, Heron of Alexandria, Josephus, Justus of Tiberius, Juvenal, Lesbonax of Mytilene, Lucanus, Lucian, Lysimachus, M Antonius Pallas, M Vinicius, Macro, Mam Aemilius Scaurus, Marcellus Sidetes, Martial, Maximus Tyrius, Moderatus of Gades, Musonius, Nicarchus, Nicomachus Gerasenus, Onasandros, P Clodius Thrasea Paetus, Palaemon, Pamphila, Pausanius, Pedacus Dioscorides, Persius/Perseus, Petronius, Phaedrus, Phillipus of Theesalonica, Philo of Alexandria, Phlegon of Tralles, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Plotinus, Plutarch, Pompeius Saturninus, Pomponius Mela, Pomponius Secundus, Potamon of Mytilene, Ptolomy of Mauretania, Q Curtius Rufus, Quintilian, Rubellius Plautus, Rufus the Ephesian, Saleius Bassus, Scopelian the Sophist, Scribonius, Seneca the Elder, Seneca the Younger, Sex Afranius Burrus, Sex Julius Frontinus, Servilius Damocratus, Silius Italicus, Soranus, Soterides of Epidaurus, Sotian, Statius the Elder, Statius the Younger, Suetonius, Sulpicia, T Aristo, T Statilius Crito, Tacitus, Thallus, Theon of Smyrna, Thrasyllus of Mendes, Ti Claudius Pasion, Ti Julius alexander, Tiberius, Valerius Flaccus, Valerius Maximus, Vardanes I, Vellius Paterculus, Verginius Flavius and Vindex.

Okay. Let's start with those on the list who, contrary to Paulkovich's assertions, actually do mention Jesus or Christians: Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius and Tacitus. There is of course a passage in the manuscripts of Josephus, which praises Jesus to the point of calling him god-like, which is now generally agreed to be an interpolation. Some scholars, apologists, mostly, agree that it is an interpolation but insist -- unconvincingly, in my opinion -- that the original narrative still mentioned Jesus at that point. Be that as it may, Jesus is mentioned in another passage in Josephus having to do with his brother James. Some say that the passage in Tacitus describing Nero's cruel treatment of Christians actually has to do with followers of Chrestus, not Christus. I maintain that "Chrestus" is simply a misspelling. [PS, 6. November 2014: the spelling "Chrestus" occurs in Suetonius (Divus Claudius 25,4), not Tacitus. Thanks to Tim O'Neill for bringing this error to my attention.] 4 who mention Jesus or Christians, that leaves 122 names on Paulkovich's list.

Next are the 47 people whose writings Paulkovich cannot have studied, as he claimed, because none of their writings survive: Albinus (assuming Paulkovich is referring to the Albinus who was procurator of Judea in Nero's reign), Ammonius, Alexander of Aegae, Apollonius of Tyana, Attalus, Bassus of Corinth, Chaeremon of Alexandria, Claudius Agathemerus, Cleopatra the Physician, Cluvius Rufus, Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, Didius Haterius Agrippa, Damis, Demetrius the Cynic, Demosthenes Philalethes, Domitius Afer, Epictetus, Fabius Rusticus, Favorinus, Gnaeus Domitius Afer, Justus of Tiberias, Pallas, Marcus Vinicius, Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus, Moderatus of Gades, Thrasea, Palaemon, Pamphile of Epidaurus, Pompeius Saturninus, Pomponius Secundus, Rubellius Plautus, Saleius Bassus, Scopelian, Scribonius, Sextus Afranius Burrus, Servilius Damocrates, Soteridas, Sotion, Statius the Elder, Aristo, Crito, Thrasyllus of Mendes, Tiberius Claudius Pasion, Tiberius Julius Alexander, Tiberius, Vardanes I, Lucius Verginius Rufus and Vindex. That leaves 74.

Aelius Theon is known only as the author of exercises for orators. Alcinous wrote a manuel of Platonic philosophy for teachers. Lesbonax died before Jesus, if he lived, was full grown. All of the several Lysimachus' died before Jesus would've been born, as did both Scribonius', father and son. Silius Italicus is known for a poem about the 2nd Punic war, Valerius Flaccus for Jason and the Argonauts. Flaccus is Valerius Flaccus. From Sulpicia, 2 lines of erotic verse survive. Soranus was a gynacologist. Archigenes, Arataeus, Pedanius, Celsus and Rufus were also physicians. Frontinus wrote one famous book about aqueducts and another about military strategy. Florus wrote an epitome of Livy. We're down to 57 names on Paulkovich's list. Only 2 funeral orations survive from Polemon. 4 books by Apollonius Dyscolus survive, 1 each on syntax, adjectives, conjunctions and pronouns.
55.

Ptolomy is that extremely famous mathematician and astronomer whose authority on one point Copernicus overturned. Why does Paulkovich consider him to have been an historian? Your guess is as good as mine. Columella wrote on agriculture, Cornutus on Greek mythology, D Valerius Asiaticus wrote a letter to the police about a stolen pig, Erotianus wrote a book which leaves it unclear whether he was a physician who loved polished grammar or a grammarian who greatly admired Hippocrates. 50. That leaves 4 epigrammatists, 4 mathematicians, 2 more geographers, 9 people I've never heard of (Typos by Paulkovich?), and 31 more people who might have written a total of 5 pages between them about the entire history of Judea and Galilee, 5 pages which very suspiciously contain no mention of Jesus!

And many non-Christian writers before AD 300, Paulkovich's cut-off point, who do mention Jesus or Christians, who are not on his list.

As an atheist, I long for a much better class of atheists, atheists writing about history who are not historically illiterate.