History for Atheists

The story often told about Hypatia of Alexandria was that she was a great scientist, rationalist and scholar who was brutally murdered by a mob of Christians who hated her knowledge and learning, with her death ushering in the Dark Ages. But this story is mostly nonsense and the real history is far more complex and much more interesting. Contrary to the myths, she was not a modern-style scientist, she was far from an atheist or what we would regard as a rationalist and her murder was due to the complex city politics of her day, not some hatred of science and scholarship. Further Reading Alan Cameron, “Hypatia: Life, Death, and Works” in Wandering Poets and Other Essays on Late Greek Literature and Philosophy, pp. 37-80, (Oxford, 2016) Thony Christie, “Hypatia – What do we Really Know?”, Renaissance Mathematicus, 2019 Maria Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria, (Harvard, 1995) Peter Gainsford, “Cosmos #3 – Hypatia and the Library”, Kiwi Hellenist, 2018 Christopher Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict (John Hopkins, 1997) Spencer Alexander McDaniel, “Who was Hypatia Really?”, Tales of Times Forgotten, 2018 Edward J. Watts, Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher, (Oxford, 2017) Bryan J. Whitfield, “The Beauty of Reasoning: A Reexamination of Hypatia of Alexandria”, The Mathematics Educator, Vol.6:1 (1995), pp. 14-21

My guest today is Dr Philipp Nothaft. Philipp is a Fellow of All Souls Oxford and a historian specializing in astronomy, astrology and calendars in late antiquity, the Middle Ages and early modern Europe. He’s also the author of a key paper on the question of why Christmas falls on December 25th, which is our main topic today. It’s often claimed in pop history that Christians stole a pagan feast day and made it into Christmas, and this is a version of a thesis scholars developed in the late nineteenth century. But Philipp and several other recent scholars have bolstered an alternative theory that seems to fit the evidence better, as he’ll discuss with me today. Further Reading Steven Hijmans, “Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas”, Mouseion, Series III, Vol. 3, 2003, pp. 377-98 and his monograph Sol: Image and Meaning of the Sun in Roman Art and Religion Vol. 1 (Brill, 2022). Thomas C. Schmidt, “Calculating December 25 as the Birth of Jesus in Hippolytus’ ‘Canon’ and ‘Chronicon’” Vigiliae Christianae Vol. 69, No. 5 (2015), pp. 542-563. Philipp Nothaft, “Early Christian Chronology and the Origins of the Christmas Date: In Defense of the ‘Calculation … Theory'” Questions Liturgiques, 94 (2013), pp. 247-65.

My guest today is Professor Ken Dark. Ken is Visiting Professor at King's College and formerly Professor of Archaeology and History at the University of Reading. His archaeological work has focused on Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Era, but, as he and I will discuss, this led him to study sites in Nazareth which will be the focus of our discussion today. His analysis of these sites is the focus of his new book Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth (Oxford University Press, 2023) which draws on several papers he has published based on his examination of sites and finds in Nazareth. In today’s conversation we talk about the evidence regarding the town of Nazareth in Jesus’ time and, of course, eventually get to Rene Salm's crackpot theory that there was no such town in Jesus' time. This is a theory so stupid that even most Jesus Mythicists reject it, but it still has currency among far too many non-believers. Ken Dark will help us to understand why it’s complete nonsense. Further Reading Dark, K., Archaeology of Jesus' Nazareth (Oxford University Press, 2023) Dark, K., Roman-period and Byzantine Nazareth and its Hinterland (Routledge: London, 2020) Dark, K., The Sisters of Nazareth Convent - A Roman-Period, Byzantine and Crusader Site in Central Nazareth (Routledge: London, 2021) History for Atheists: Jesus Mythicism 5 - The Nazareth "Myth".

Both conservative Christians and many atheist activists point to 1Corinthians 14:34-35 and note how Paul forbids women to speak in church. The Christians do this to maintain that women should not preach and cannot be pastors or priests. The atheists usually do so to hold this up as evidence that Paul was a misogynist and Christianity is inherently sexist. But did Paul really write this? And was it Christianity which made the Greco-Roman world less egalitarian or was it actually … the other way around? In this interview, I speak with Dr Joseph A. P. Wilson of Fairfield University and explore these questions. (Note to listeners: my apologies for the clicking in the background at various points in this conversation. It seems it was feedback from my headset’s mic.) Further Reading: Joseph A. P. Wilson, “Recasting Paul as a Chauvinist within the Western Text-Type Manuscript Tradition: Implications for the Authorship Debate on 1 Corinthians 14.34-35”, Religions, 2022, 13(5), p. 432 Ally Kateusz, “Women Leaders at the Table in Early Churches”, Pricilla Papers, Spring 2020, Vol. 34, No. 2. https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/women-leaders-table-early-churches/ Dr Ally Kateusz on Early Christian Women: https://allykateusz.org/

Some atheists and even some prominent scientists claim that the Black Death was caused or at least made worse by a wholesale massacre of cats ordered by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. But is this true? And where did this strange story come from?

My guest today is Sebastian Major, writer and presenter of the excellent "Our Fake History" podcast. Sebastian recently presented a three part episode on the Galileo Affair, debunking the many historical myths surrounding Galileo. He did a fine job, but he also took on board some criticisms I had of what he said. And so he was also happy to come on "History for Atheists" to discuss Galileo, how hard it is to get complex history right and some thoughts about the persistence of bad history in the popular sphere. I highly recommend Sebastian's work on "Our Fake History" and would encourage everyone to subscribe and listen to Sebastian's work: https://ourfakehistory.com/ On Galileo, there is my three part interview with Thony Christie which goes into what really happened and why in some depth. And there is also my article on the theological background and some myths about the 1633 trial: https://historyforatheists.com/2022/0...

The idea that all the traditional holidays and festivals of the year are “pagan” in origin and were simply “stolen by the Church” is one that has permeated popular culture and is repeated without question in newspaper, magazine and online articles. Unfortunately, many anti-theistic polemicists cannot resist a chance to get in a jab at any aspect of Christianity being “really pagan”, so every October we see supposed rationalists parroting pseudo history about the “pagan origins of Halloween”, with no sign of any fact-checking, let alone engagement with scholarship. In fact, the claim that Halloween is “pagan” is largely a nineteenth century myth.

My guests today are David Hutchings and James C. Ungureanu, co-authors of Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity and How the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World. David is a physicist, science teacher and writer and James is a historian of science and religion. In this interview we discuss their book and the origin and impact of the Conflict Thesis - the pervasive but erroneous idea that religion and science have always been in conflict down the ages. To buy the book: Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity and How the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World . And for debunkings of many of the myths the Conflict Thesis is founded on, see History for Atheists: The Great Myths.

Every year fundamentalist Christians, New Agers, neo-pagans and many atheists loudly agree that Easter was not originally a Christian feast and was a pagan fertility festival stolen by Christianity. Unfortunately, despite what endless memes and pop history articles claim, this idea is complete nonsense. So is the claim that Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny are also originally pagan. Easter, Ishtar, Eostre and Eggs

My guest today is Derek Lambert, the presenter of the excellent Mythvision video channel. Derek has been kind enough to have me on his channel several times over the last two years to discuss atheist bad history in general and Jesus Mythicism in particular. But today we are going to hear from Derek about his very interesting personal journey regarding his thoughts and conclusions about the historical Jesus. As he’ll detail for us, Derek began as a fundamentalist Christian, lost his belief, became an atheist and also became a Jesus Mythicist, coming to believe that there was no historical Jesus at all. But Derek displays an interesting combination of rigorous examination of the evidence, intellectual honesty and a remarkable open-mindedness. So he is always open to other people’s views, generous in consideration of alternatives and unstinting in following where the evidence seems to lead. As a result of listening to and engaging with a wide range of scholars, Derek has come to reject Mythicism and now concludes that a historical Jesus most likely existed. And I was surprised and rather flattered to discover during our conversation that my articles on History for Atheists had something to do with this transition. We also discuss why he found Mythicism appealing and why he feels this fringe idea has a hold on many atheists despite being rejected by almost all scholars. So please enjoy my fascinating conversation with the always enthusiastic, upbeat and very interesting Derek Lambert. https://mythvisionpodcast.com/ https://historyforatheists.com/jesus-mythicism/

The historical myths surrounding the emperor Constantine, his conversion to Christianity and the claim he created the Bible at the Council of Nicaea are persistent and continue to be propagated in popular culture, despite being total nonsense. Unfortunately, leading atheists also perpetuate these silly ideas, with everyone from Richard Dawkins to Joe Rogan insisting that Constantine was not really a Christian, that he pretended to convert for political reasons and that it was he who set the canon of the New Testament. It is a sad testament to the poverty of these atheists’ historical knowledge that their understanding is stunted at the level of the airport thriller, The Da Vinci Code. In this latest podcast episode, I look at the actual historical evidence and show how the caricature of history presented by these public anti-theists is hopelessly wrong. Further reading David L. Dungan, Constantine’s Bible: Politics and the Making of the New Testament (Fortress: 2007) Bart D. Ehrman, The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World, (Simon & Schuster: 2018) Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, (Penguin: 1986) Peter J. Leithart, Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom (IVP Academic: 2010) Paul Stephenson, Constantine (Quercus: 2009) The Great Myths 4: Constantine, Nicaea and the Bible

My guest today is Associate Professor Ted McCormick. Ted is a specialist in intellectual history and the history of science at Concordia University in Canada. He examines the intersections between science, technology, economy and empire in the early modern era. Recently, he has taken an interest in how the concept of “the Enlightenment” has been taken up as something of an ideological cause by some popular writers. In particular he has critiqued the way the Enlightenment has been portrayed by Steven Pinker in his books The Better Angels of Our Nature and, particularly, his more recent work Enlightenment Now which Pinker has subtitled “The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress”. As a historian of the Enlightenment, Ted has serious problems with the way Pinker – a non-historian – characterises the Enlightenment and the rhetorical purposes to which he puts his version of history. Ted has also provided a list of selected reading on aspects of the Enlightenment.

My guest today is the historian of science, Thony Christie. Thony is an independent scholar based in Germany who also the author of the superb Renaissance Mathematicus blog. His knowledge of the history of Early Modern science is vast and so he is the perfect person to give us a detailed overview of what happened and, more importantly, what did not happen in the dispute between Galileo and the Catholic Church. Thony and I spoke for almost two and a half hours on this subject, so I’ve edited our conversation into three parts of about 50 minutes each. In this, the first part, we discuss the common myths that seem to be accepted by many people, and certainly by many atheists, about what happened in the Galileo Affair. Thony gives a detailed background to Galileo’s early career and the social and scientific context in which he worked. Thony's detailed, 52 part series of articles on the beginnings of modern astronomy is also a great resource: “The Emergence of Modern Astronomy – A Complex Mosaic”. And Thony has also provided an extensive recommended reading list. Finally, here is the translation of Cardinal Bellarmino's "Letter to Foscarini" which we discuss in our conversation and which is crucial for an understanding of the critical issues of the Church's approach to science and to the interpretation of the Bible.

My guest today is the historian of science, Thony Christie. Thony is an independent scholar based in Germany who also the author of the superb Renaissance Mathematicus blog. His knowledge of the history of Early Modern science is vast and so he is the perfect person to give us a detailed overview of what happened and, more importantly, what did not happen in the dispute between Galileo and the Catholic Church. Thony and I spoke for almost two and a half hours on this subject, so I’ve edited our conversation into three parts of about 50 minutes each. In this the third and final part of our conversation we get to the climax of the story of Galileo: the 1632 publication of his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems and his resulting trial before the Roman Inquisition. Thony's detailed, 52 part series of articles on the beginnings of modern astronomy is also a great resource: “The Emergence of Modern Astronomy – A Complex Mosaic”. And Thony has also provided an extensive recommended reading list. Finally, here is the translation of Cardinal Bellarmino's "Letter to Foscarini" which we discuss in our conversation and which is crucial for an understanding of the critical issues of the Church's approach to science and to the interpretation of the Bible. Finally, here is the translation of Cardinal Bellarmino's "Letter to Foscarini" which we discuss in our conversation and which is crucial for an understanding of the critical issues of the Church's approach to science and to the interpretation of the Bible.

My guest today is the historian of science, Thony Christie. Thony is an independent scholar based in Germany who also the author of the superb Renaissance Mathematicus blog. His knowledge of the history of Early Modern science is vast and so he is the perfect person to give us a detailed overview of what happened and, more importantly, what did not happen in the dispute between Galileo and the Catholic Church. Thony and I spoke for almost two and a half hours on this subject, so I’ve edited our conversation into three parts of about 50 minutes each. In this second instalment Thony talks about the career of Galileo, his sudden rise to fame and the beginnings of the controversy that would eventually lead to his trial before the Inquisition. Thony gives a lot of context to help us understand what actually happened and has a lot of fun debunking myths along the way. Thony's detailed, 52 part series of articles on the beginnings of modern astronomy is also a great resource: “The Emergence of Modern Astronomy – A Complex Mosaic”. And Thony has also provided an extensive recommended reading list.

What was the Great Library of Alexandria and why does it feature in some anti-religious rhetoric? In this second part of a two-part episode, we will look at how the Great Library came to an end. And then examine how the myth that it was "burned down from Christians" arose and why this story is nonsense.

What was the Great Library of Alexandria and why does it feature in some anti-religious rhetoric? In this first part of a two-part episode, we will examine some of the misconceptions about the Great Library, look at what it was and - more importantly - what it was not. And in the upcoming second part, we will explore how the Great Library came to an end and the enduring myth that it was burned down by a Christian mob.

What was the Great Library of Alexandria and why does it feature in some anti-religious rhetoric? In this first part of a two part episode, we look at what the Great Library was and - more importantly - what it was not, and why many claims made about it don't fit the historical evidence. In the upcoming second part, we will examine how the Library came to an end and the enduring myth that it was burned down by a Christian mob.

Cambridge University historian Dr Seb Falk joins History for Atheists to discuss his book "The Light Ages" and misconceptions about science in the Middle Ages. His book is available from various vendors and comes highly recommended: https://www.sebfalk.com/the-light-ages​

Why do almost all scholars accept that a historical Jesus most likely existed? An overview of the reasons behind the consensus that there probably was a historical, human preacher behind the later stories of Jesus. For more on Jesus Mythicism and its problems, see: https://historyforatheists.com/jesus-mythicism/