Raphael Lataster

{{atheism|1}}
'''Raphael Lataster''' {{lived|1984|}} is an [[Australian]] [[secular]] teacher of religious studies,<ref name="AmazonRLBio">[http://www.amazon.com/Raphael-Lataster/e/B00G15TLJO Amazon.com author bio for Raphael Lataster].</ref> and [[author]] of books and articles questioning the [[Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ|historicity of Jesus]] and asserting Christ myth theory, especially ''There Was No Jesus, There Is No God'' (2013),<ref name="Deseret">"[http://national.deseretnews.com/article/3060/forget-santa-claus-virginia-was-there-a-jesus-christ.html Forget Santa Claus, Virginia. Was there a Jesus Christ?]", by David Gibson, ''Deseret News'', Dec 19, 2014.</ref><ref name="AmazonTWNJ">''[http://www.amazon.com/there-was-Jesus-God-Philosophical/dp/1492234419/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 There Was No Jesus, There Is No God'' at Amazon.com].</ref><ref name="CH">Christopher Hartney, [https://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=Monotheism=asrr_2014_0005_0001_0171_0174 review, ''There Was No Jesus, There is No God: A Scholarly Examination of the Scientific, Historical, And Philosophical Evidence and Arguments for Monotheism'' by Raphael Lataster], ''Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review'' 5, no. 1 (2014): 171-174.</ref> and ''Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists'' (2015), with [[Richard Carrier]].<ref name="AmazonJDNE">''[http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Did-Not-Exist-Atheists-ebook/dp/B017YB4D82/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists'' at Amazon.com].</ref>

Lataster identifies his main research interests as including "philosophy of religion, Christian origins, [[logic]], [[Bayesian|Bayesian reasoning]], [[sustainability]], and alternative [[god]]-concepts such as [[pantheism]] and [[pandeism]].<ref name="AmazonRLBio"/> Lataster's PhD thesis analyses arguments for the existence of God by philosophers like [[William Lane Craig]] and {{wpl|Richard Swinburne||.}}<ref name="Sydney">[https://web.archive.org/web/20141218235212/http://sydney.edu.au/arts/religion/postgraduate_research/student_research.shtml#Lataster Current Postgraduate Research Projects], ''University of Sydney'' (as of December 18, 2014).</ref>

Lataster passed his Master of Arts (Research), undertaken in the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney, with Distinction,<ref name="Sydney"/> has published numerous articles,<ref name="Sydney"/> and in 2015 received a teaching award, the Dean's Citation for Excellence in Tutorials in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of the University of Sydney.<ref>[http://sydney.edu.au/arts/teaching_learning/awards/past_winners.shtml Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Excellence in Teaching Awards: Current and Past Winners], ''University of Sydney''.</ref>

==''There Was No Jesus, There Is No God''==
''There Was No Jesus, There Is No God'' was published on September 2, 2013,<ref name="AmazonTWNJ"/> and was for a time the bestselling book in the atheism category (ranked 10<sup>th</sup> on September 5<sup>th</sup><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/12764|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130905230031/http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/12764|title=Amazon Best Sellers: Atheism|author=|date=|archivedate=5 September 2013|publisher=}}</ref> and ranked 12<sup>th</sup> in July 21<sup>st</sup> of the following year<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/12764|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140721123906/http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/12764|title=Amazon Best Sellers: Atheism|author=|date=|archivedate=21 July 2014|publisher=}}</ref>), displacing [[Richard Dawkins]]' ''[[The God Delusion]]''. The book questions the existence of [[Jesus]],<ref name="Deseret"/> and was positively reviewed in academic theological journals, including reviews by religious studies scholars Carole Cusack (one of Lataster's mentors)<ref>Carole M. Cusack, review of ''There Was No Jesus, There Is No God: A Scholarly Examination of the Scientific, Historical, and Philosophical Evidence & Arguments For Monotheism'', by Raphael Lataster, ''Literature & Aesthetics'' 23, no. 2 (2013): 105.</ref> and professor Chris Hartney. In the book, "Lataster re-presents and amplifies the arguments that the fictional dimensions of Jesus are foundational."<ref name="CH"/> Hartney found that Lataster "does more than most to argue that Jesus did not exist,"<ref name="CH"/> and that Lataster "goes through the numerous arguments that demonstrate that the story of Jesus must have taken place" and "does a good job of dismissing all these."<ref name="CH"/>

==''Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists''==
''Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists'', was published November 12, 2015, with [[Richard Carrier]].<ref name="AmazonJDNE"/> The book was positively reviewed by atheist author David Fitzgerald, who wrote that the book "doesn’t just inform and invigorate the debate – arguably, it settles it." Fitzgerald additionally notes Lataster's excoriation of [[Bart Ehrman]], "taking Ehrman to task over his misuse of that same evidence, double standards, outright errors, and most of all, what he terms "Ehrman’s Law," his propensity to uncritically appeal to hypothetical sources (a tendency shared by all too many historicists)."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.raphaellataster.com/musings/JDNE-review-DavidFitz.html|title=Jesus Did Not Exist reviewed by David Fitzgerald - Raphael Lataster|author=Raphael Lataster|date=|publisher=}}</ref>

==''Questioning the Historicity of Jesus''==
''Questioning the Historicity of Jesus'' was [https://brill.com/view/title/54738? published July 2019 by Brill] and as its summation states it moved "beyond the mainstream scholarly scepticism over the Christ of Faith and considers if there is sufficient evidence to establish the existence of the more mundane Historical Jesus."  It concluded that many relevant sources are unreliable as historical documents and a good number of Historical Jesus arguments "appeal to sources that do not exist."  In August 2019 he did a blog also called [https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/questioning-jesus-historicity Questioning the Historicity of Jesus]

==Other activities==
Lataster has debated [[Apologetics|Christian apologists]], including [[Randal Rauser]].<ref>Randal Rauser, [http://randalrauser.com/2015/06/my-abortive-nuskeptix-conversation-with-atheist-raphael-lataster/ My abortive Nuskeptix conversation with atheist Raphael Lataster], ''The Tentative Apologist'', June 8, 2015.</ref> Rauser deemed the discussion "abortive", complaining of the standards of evidence insisted upon by Lataster, as well as personality differences. Lataster presented a program on the opening day of the 2015 Australian Historical Association Conference, "The Gospel According to Bart: The Folly of Ehrman's Hypothetical Sources."<ref>[http://sydney.edu.au/arts/history/docs/aha2015/AHA_conference_program_2015_updated_6_july.pdf 2015 Australian Historical Association Conference].</ref>

Lataster's December 2014 ''[[Washington Post]]'' article, ''Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn't add up'',<ref>Raphael Lataster, ''[https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/18/did-historical-jesus-exist-the-traditional-evidence-doesnt-hold-up/ Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn't add up]'', ''Washington Post'' Dec 18, 2014.</ref> drew contentious replies from figures such as Christian authors {{wpl|John Dickson (author)|John Dickson}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/12/24/4154120.htm|title=It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas … Mythicism's in the Air|author=John Dickson|date=December 24, 2014|publisher=Australian Broadcast Corporation|accessdate=14 March 2016}}</ref> and {{wpl|Michael Bird (theologian)|Michael Bird.}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16974|title=Yes, Jesus existed … but relax, you can still be an atheist if you want to|author=Michael Bird|date=December 30, 2014|work=On Line Opinion}}</ref>

Unsurprisingly, Lataster holds strong [[anti-vaccination|anti-vax]] views and promotes them at [https://okaythennews.substack.com/ Substack]

==Publications==
===Books===
*''There Was No Jesus, There Is No God'', 2013.
*''Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists'', Nov 12, 2015, with [[Richard Carrier]].
*''The Case Against Theism: Why the Evidence Disproves God’s Existence'', 2018.
*''Questioning the Historicity of Jesus: Why a Philosophical Analysis Elucidates the Historical Discourse'', Brill 2019.

===Articles===
* [http://www.raphaellataster.com/articles/christian-agenda-university.html Is There a Christian Agenda Behind Religious Studies Departments?], 2013.
* [https://www.academia.edu/3796646/Bayesian_Reasoning_Criticising_the_Criteria_of_Authenticity_and_Calling_for_a_Review_of_Biblical_Criticism Bayesian Reasoning: Criticising the ‘Criteria of Authenticity’ and Calling for a Review of Biblical Criticism], ''Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences'' 2013 '''5'''(2), pp.271-93
* [http://www.raphaellataster.com/articles/new-theologians-atheists.html New Atheists and New Theologians], ''Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review'', 2013 '''4'''(1)
* [https://www.academia.edu/26664790/The_Fourth_Quest_A_Critical_Analysis_of_the_Recent_Literature_on_Jesus_a_Historicity.html The Fourth Quest: A Critical Analysis of the Recent Literature on Jesus’ (a)Historicity], ''Literature & Aesthetics'', 2014, '''24''' (1); pp.1-28
* [http://www.raphaellataster.com/articles/lataster-dawkins-interview.pdf A Superscientific Definition of ‘Religion’ and a Clarification of Richard Dawkins’ New Atheism], ''Literature & Aesthetics'', 2014, '''24'''(2); pp.109-24
* [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11841-014-0436-y The Attractiveness of Panentheism—a Reply to Benedikt Paul Göcke], ''Sophia'', 2014, (53)3, pp.389-95
* [https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/18/did-historical-jesus-exist-the-traditional-evidence-doesnt-hold-up/ Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn't add up], ''[[Washington Post]]'', Dec 18, 2014
* [http://openjournals.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/LA/article/download/10028/9907 Pantheistic God-Concepts: Ancient, Contemporary, Popular, and Plausible Alternatives to Classical Theism], ''Literature & Aesthetics'', 2015, '''25'''; p.65; republished in ''Pandeism: An Anthology'' (2017), p.171
* [http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=imwjournal Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus aHistoricity Theories — A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources], ''Intermountain W Journal of Religious Studies'' '''6''' (1), 2015; 62-96
* [http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9464534&fileId=S1477175614000219 A Philosophical and Historical Analysis of William Lane Craig’s Resurrection of Jesus Argument], ''Think'', Cambridge University, 2015, '''14''' (39); pp.59-71
* [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/think/article/abs/its-official-we-can-now-doubt-jesus-historical-existence/065797C131D37B02B7E33E83D5CDA577 It’s Official: We Can Now Doubt Jesus’ Historical Existence], ''Think'', '''15''' (43), 2016, pp. 65-79
* [https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/LA/article/view/11431/10834# Bart Ehrman and the Elusive Historical Jesus] ''Literature & Aesthetics'', 2016, '''26'''; p.118-192
* [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/think/article/abs/defending-jesus-agnosticism/D4CA193A8C1BF5314B3ECB5EBCDD201F Defending Jesus Agnosticism] ''Think'' '''18''' (51), 2019, pp. 77-91
* [https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/questioning-jesus-historicity Questioning Jesus’ Historicity], ''Bible Interp'', Aug 2019
* [https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/when-critics-miss-point-about-questioning-jesus-historicity When Critics Miss the Point About Questioning Jesus’ Historicity] ''Bible Interp'', Aug 2019,

==References==
{{reflist|2}}
{{Down Under}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lataster, Raphael}}
[[Category:Atheists]]
[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Australians]]
[[Category:Anti-vaccination movement]]

Categories: Atheists, Authors, Living people, Australians, Anti-vaccination movement