Tuesday 10 August 2010

Is this journal article by Richard Carrier real? [UPDATED]

A while ago I asked the web if a quote was real and eventually the good folks on the internet helped me out. I am hoping this will happen again. [UPDATE: the Internet saves the day again, see the bottom of this post (and/or the comments below)]

It's real.
Thanks NickM from the Internet
I'm after an article by Richard Carrier. Richard is a real life historian (Wikipedia after all cites an article from the NY Times about a movie to prove it) who denies the existence of Jesus (or that "it is very probable" he never actually existed) and so I wanted to read some peer reviewed journal articles by him. I am after one that for the life of me I can not find, but it is listed on a few places.

Wikipedia lists:
"Whence Christianity? A Meta-Theory for the Origins of Christianity." Journal of Higher Criticism 11.1 (Spring 2005).

Richards website lists:
"Whence Christianity? A Meta-Theory for the Origins of Christianity," Journal of Higher Criticism 11.1 (Spring 2005)

Richards CV on page 5 has:
"Whence Christianity? A Meta-Theory for the Origins of Christianity," Journal of Higher Criticism 11.1 (Spr 2005): 22-34.

Richard also cites himself a year earlier here, here and here:
Richard Carrier, "Whence Christianity? A Meta-Theory for the Origins of Christianity," Journal of Higher Criticism 11.1 (Spring 2004).

But the problem I see is that the Journal of Higher Criticism website says that "The final issue of the Journal (Volume 10, No. 2) appeared in fall, 2003." Even Wikipedia repeats this "The final issue of the journal (Volume 10, No. 2) appeared in fall, 2003."

So where is this article? Or even anything else in Volume 11 of the Journal of Higher Criticism? I have tried a few journal databases and they come up blank...

A bit of help... anyone?

UPDATE: 21st June 2012.
After Mike reposted this on his blog NickM found volume 11 of the Journal of Higher Criticism in five seconds. It seems that Berkeley has better journal database then the two Australian ones that I have access to. NickM has even offered to email the article out, as long as Mike and I update this, to which I am gladly doing. I hope Mike pulls through with his update as I would honestly like to read this article. Thanks NickM, today you have won the Internets.

UPDATE: 31st of July 2012
I had been away on holidays without a computer, so I couldn't update this sooner. NickM did send me the PDF of the Carrier article that I was after along with photos of the 2005 cover for the Journal of Higher Criticism, which is now up in this article (click for larger image). I don't think even a skeptic can deny the existence of Carriers journal article (or the whole journal). The people of the Internet can be really nice sometimes.

6 comments:

  1. RoyMonday, April 30, 2012

    Good find!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tim O'NeillWednesday, June 20, 2012

    Did you ever get a resolution to this?

    ReplyDelete
  3. ampersWednesday, June 20, 2012

    Hi Tim,

    Thanks for posting.

    So far the Internet hasn't come to my rescue. Earlier this year Carrier came out against Ehrman about his book on the historical Jesus and so I started posting links on blogs back to this article to see if any one Carrier's team could help me. I did get some page hits, but still I don't know how Carrier can cite this article when the Journal had been shut down...

    ReplyDelete
  4. MikeThursday, June 21, 2012

    Over at my blog, Nick Matzke has found evidence that a 2005 volume exists. See the first comment on this thread:

    http://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/looking-for-an-article/

    However, I am not sure anyone should consider an article from this obscure little journal as something that was peer-reviewed, at least in the sense that scholars understand peer review.

    ReplyDelete
  5. NickMThursday, June 21, 2012

    Hmm folks need to brush up on their research skills:

    http://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/looking-for-an-article/

    See comment #1.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ampersThursday, June 21, 2012

    The Internet comes through again! It hasn't let me down yet.

    Thanks Mike and NickM for solving this!

    Like I said on Mike's blog, it is strange the actual Journal's database claims to have stopped at volume 10 in 2003. This is yet again another example of wikipedia letting us all down with factual errors, I wonder if the same should be said about the journals own site...

    And Mike, I will say it again here: you shouldn't diss the whole journal, after all Barbara Thiering has contributed to it... :)

    ReplyDelete