Resurrection -- Jesus Christ -- Richard Carrier -- Evidence -- Analysis -- Contradiction -- Comparison -- Dying and rising gods -- Hallucination.

The keystone of Christianity is Jesus’s physical, bodily resurrection. Present-day scholars can be significantly challenged as they forage through voluminous documents on the resurrection of Jesus. The literature measures well over seven thousand sources in English-language books alone. This makes finding specific sources that are most relevant for specific scholarly purposes an arduous task. Even when a specific book is relevant, finding the parts of the book that are most relevant to the resurrection rather than other topics often requires additional effort. A Thematic Access-Oriented Bibliography of Jesus’s Resurrection addresses these challenges in several ways. First, the bibliography organizes more than seven thousand English sources into twelve main categories and then thirty-four subcategories, which are designed to help you find the most relevant literature quickly and efficiently. Embedded are pro and con arguments which support efficient access through brief annotations and then annotate the diversity and complexity of the field of religion by including sources that represent a diverse range of views: theistic (e.g., Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.), agnostic, and nontheistic. The objective of this bibliography is to provide convenient access to relevant sources from a variety of perspectives, allowing you to browse or find the one source accurately and with ease.

From the author’s Introduction: As this book’s subtitle has it, it’s a “potpourri.” That expression can be defined as “a mixture of dried petals and spices placed in a bowl to perfume a room.” But, having just published—at New Reformation Press—a little culinary masterpiece (A Gastronomic Vade-Mecum), I am thinking in terms of the secondary definition: “an unusual or interesting mixture of ingredients.” Either way, you will surely enjoy this collection of essays. They are unusual and interesting—and they will perfume your thinking as to ultimate issues. A sampling of essays in the present collection: • Resurrection and Legal Evidence • Did Jesus Physically Rise from the Dead? • Chronological Contradictions in the Gospels? • A More Consistent Application of Literary “Higher Criticism” • A Short and Easie Method with Postmodernists • Law & Morality: Friends or Foes? • Demon Possession: A Brief Commentary • Transhumanism? • Muslims As Two-Faced • The Stereotypic Clergyman • On Innovative Theologians • Racism in American Lutheranism • Do Christian Children lose Contact with Reality? • Those Who Have Not Heard the Gospel: A Construct • Terrorism and Revolution: Are They Ever Justified? Professor Montgomery, who is an American, British, and French citizen and who resides in Strasbourg, France, is a polymath, the author of more than 60 books in 5 languages, and a world-renowned defender of classic Christian faith. His credentials include: • Ph.D. (U. Chicago), D.Théol. (U. Strasbourg, France), LL.D. (Cardiff U., Wales), plus 8 other academic degrees. • Professor Emeritus of Law and Humanities, University of Bedfordshire (U.K.); Distinguished Professor-at-Large, 1517: The Legacy Project (California, U.S.A.); Director, International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism and Human Rights (Strasbourg, France). • Barrister-at-Law (England and Wales); Avocat à la Cour (Paris); Member of the California, District of Columbia, Virginia, and Washington State bars, and the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States; Certified Fraud Examiner. • Honorary Chairman, Academic Board, International Institute for Religious Freedom, World Evangelical Fellowship. Websites: www.jwm.christendom.co.uk, www.apologeticsacademy.eu, www.newreformationpress.com/jwm-books, www.newreformationpress.com/jwm-audio

John Warwick Montgomery is considered to be one of the foremost living apologists for classical, biblical Christianity. A renaissance scholar with a flair for controversy, he lives in France, England and the United States. His international activities have brought him into personal contact with some of the most exciting events of our time: not only was he in China In June 1989, but he was In Fiji during its 1987 bloodless revolution, was involved in assisting East Germans to escape during the time of the Berlin Wall, and was in Paris during the revolutionary “days of May” 1968. He has had personal contact with world leaders such as President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and English Prime Minister Tony Blair. He has been centrally involved in evangelical and Lutheran church affairs such as the Wenham conference on the authority of Scripture and the inerrancy controversies in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. His public debates with atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Bishop James Pike, death-of-God advocate Thomas Altizer, and situation-ethicist Joseph Fletcher are historic. His wife is the internationally-celebrated orchestral harpist Lanalee de Kant. Dr. Montgomery is the author or editor of more than fifty books in five languages. He holds ten earned degrees, Including a Master of Philosophy in Law from the University of Essex, England, a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, a Doctorate of the University in Protestant Theology from the University of Strasbourg, France, and the higher doctorate in law (LL.D.) from the University of Cardiff, Wales. He is an ordained Lutheran clergyman, an English barrister, an avocat au Barreau de Paris, France, and is admitted to practise as a lawyer before the Supreme Court of the United States. He obtained acquittals for the “Athens 3” missionaries on charges of proselytism at the Greek Court of Appeals in 1986 and won the leading religious liberty cases of Larissis v. Greece and Bessarabian Orthodox Church v. Moldova before the European Court of Human Rights. Professor Montgomery’s autobiography offers an opportunity for the reader to meet one of the most fascinating figures in the contemporary church—to understand how he attained his influence in so many diverse areas of modern life—and to comprehend the Christ-centered philosophy of life that has motivated all of his activities. This autobiography manifests the author’s willingness to speak frankly about those with whom he has agreed and disagreed and is lightened with his well-known sense of humour Readers have a remarkable—and unique—treat in store for them.

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.

This revised edition corrects the numerous typographical and other minor errors listed in "Typos List for On the Historicity of Jesus" at richardcarrier.info/archives/8551

Professor Wells argues that there was no historical Jesus, and in thus arguing he deals with the many recent writers who have interpreted the historical Jesus as some kind of political figure in the struggle against Rome, and calls in evidence the many contemporary theologians who agree with some of his arguments about early Christianity. The question at issue is what all the evidence adds up to. Does it establish that Jesus did or did not exist? Professor Wells concludes that the latter is the more likely hypothesis. This challenge to received thinking by both Christians and non-Christians is supported by much documentary evidence, and Professor Wells carefully examines all the relevant problems and answers all the relevant questions. He deliberately avoids polemic and speculation, and sticks so far as possible to the known facts and to rational inferences from the facts.