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Richard Carrier - Wrong About History Again

1/29/2014

5 Comments

 
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Yesterday, as I sat at home enjoying a day off because of the snow, a friend of mine sent me a link to an article by Richard Carrier entitled “Christianity Was Not Responsible for American Democracy.”  This article was intended to be included in the 2010 book The Christian Delusion edited by John Loftus, but was instead published on the book’s accompanying website.  Carrier’s claims sparked a lot of interest among atheists, and he was asked to give a speech on this topic at the 2013 convention of the National Atheist Party.  Carrier later published the transcript of that speech on his blog under the title of “That Christian Nation Nonsense (Gods Bless Our Pagan Nation).”  And it is rumored that he will be publishing similar material in Loftus’ next book Christianity is not Great which is slated to be published at the end of this year.  I will eventually be writing a point-by-point critique of Carrier’s claims, but I would like to take just a moment to point out some of the more obvious flaws in his position which show that he is just as wrong in this area of historical research as he is in denying the existence of Jesus.


Carrier’s article is his attempt to refute the claim that “The Ten Commandments are the foundation of Western morality and the American Constitution and government.”  To do this, he claims instead that America was founded on the principles of Solon who established democracy in the city of Athens.  According to Carrier, Solon is “our true hero, the real man to whom we owe all reverence.”  Carrier claims that all of the foundational components of the American system of government were instituted by Solon, and that he even gave a list of ten commandments which are a much better match to the American system than the Ten Commandments of Moses. 

The great irony of Carrier’s praise for Solon is that there is less evidence of him being a real, historical figure than there is for Jesus Christ whose existence Carrier vigorously denies.  As far as I know, there is not a single, first-hand account of Solon ever even existing much less of his writing a list of ten commandments or a constitution of government.  Most of the information that we have about him comes from Herodotus (who wrote more than a century after Solon’s death) and Plutarch (who wrote nearly 600 years after Solon).  Carrier claims that Solon’s importance to America is confirmed by what John Adams wrote about him in his Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, but even Adams admitted that it is impossible to know anything for sure about this character known as Solon.

As the laws of Solon were derived from Crete and Egypt, were afterwards adopted by the Romans as their model, and have by them been transmitted to all Europe, they are a most interesting subject of inquiry; but it is not possible to ascertain exactly which were his, which were those of Epimenides or Theseus, or what was, in fact, the constitution of Athens. (emphasis mine)

Carrier’s list of the ten commandments of Solon comes not from Solon himself but rather from Diogenes Laertius who lived 800 years after Solon’s time.  Laertius in turn claims to have obtained this list from the writings of Apollodorus who was only about 400 years removed from Solon.  But as delicious as all this irony is, it is merely incidental to Carrier’s claim.  Even if he said that Solon didn’t exist, it is still possible for Carrier to claim that the founders modeled the American system of government on a system of laws which they thought had been written by Solon.

To show that Carrier is wrong in this claim, all we have to do is follow Carrier’s own advice and read John Adams’ Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America.  I just provided a quote from this book in which Adams admitted that he didn’t know anything for sure about the laws of Solon, but let’s look at a few other things Adams had to say about Solon.  For example, immediately after the above quote, Adams continued by discussing the fact that there were 21,000 voters in Athens, but then he pointed out that:

At the same time, there were ten thousand freemen, consisting of foreigners and freed slaves, and four hundred thousand souls in actual bondage, who had no vote in the assembly of the people.

Then Adams continues his criticism of Solon by noting that:

the title of king was preserved to the high-priest, so the person presiding over the religion of each tribe was called philobasileus, king’s friend, and was always appointed from among the nobly born, eupatridæ. Thus religion was always in the hands of the aristocratical part of the community.

Thus we see that this man – whom Carrier calls “our true hero” and “the real man to whom we owe all reverence” – established a government in which more than 90% of the population had no right to vote and in which the high-priest was the king.  Oops. So much for Solon being the foundation of American ideals.  I guess Carrier must have skipped over that part when he was reading the works of John Adams.  And I guess he also skipped over the part where Adams blamed Solon for the ruin of the entire nation.

he put all power into hands the least capable of properly using it; and, accordingly, these, by uniting, altered the constitution at their pleasure, and brought on the ruin of the nation.

Indeed, Adams could have been writing about Carrier himself when he wrote that:

our author nowhere recollects the checks to the popular government of Athens, which, however, was never at any one moment so popular as his project. He nowhere recollects, that there were ten slaves to one citizen; that the education of the citizens, therefore, was superior to that which is possible in any nation that has not slaves. He nowhere recollects, that the whole of religion was saved in the hands of the nobly born, which gave a few families such an influence as no part of Christendom now affords an example of, not even in Catholic countries. He nowhere recollects, that the whole people were divided into ranks, and all magistrates taken out of the higher ranks. He nowhere recollects the senate of one hundred, and afterwards of five hundred, appointed by lot, which formed the council of state, which had the constant charge of political affairs, and particularly the preparation of business for the assembly of the people. He nowhere pays a sufficient attention to the court of Areopagus and its important powers, and the persons of whom it was composed. All the archons out of office were members for life. He nowhere recollects that a single representative assembly, being necessarily few, are more liable to corruption than even a collective assembly, who are many. He nowhere recollects that Solon’s institution was at last ruined by allowing to the fourth class of citizens an equal vote in the assembly of the people; a terrible warning against all such projects of government. These important checks, which gave such vast weight to the aristocratical part of the community in the government of Athens, have no equivalent in our author’s plan.

Well, I think that’s enough for this blog post.  I have much more to say about Carrier’s claims, and I’ll likely write a post tomorrow about how John Adams specifically attributed the American form of government to the Law of Moses, but in the meantime, let me suggest that you take a moment to review my article entitled “We the People: The Biblical Precedent for Popular Sovereignty” as well as the article “Adams, Jefferson and the General Principles of Christianity.”

Click here to read part 2


5 Comments
Neil Mammen link
2/17/2014 12:55:02 pm

Good research, very well done.

Reply
Phen Adams
9/5/2014 03:52:17 pm

Three points:
1) The First Four Commandments directly counter the First Amendment. There's really no denying that, even with a fake argument from authority.
2) Only 43,782 people voted in the first presidential election in the United States (i.e. the rich white men). The population of the United State's was at least 2.9 million at that time, according to the census. That leaves about 98% of the people disenfranchised. Solon wins.
3) John Adams, a skilled lawyer, wrote that document in 1787, when they were trying to ratify the Constitution. As you may remember, early America was full of fundamentalist wannabe theocrats who wielded a great deal of power, especially the Puritans of New England. This suggests the document was more for propaganda than anything else, but even if it was sincere, Adams could simply have been wrong. That can happen.

Reply
Bill Fortenberry
9/11/2014 10:22:21 pm

Thank you for commenting, Phen. Let take a moment to explain a few things.

1) First, I must agree with you that the First Amendment would not have fit well with the laws of the nation of Israel at the time that those laws were given. However, this ammendment is perfectly consistent with what the Bible teaches about the change that God made in that law after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, religious liberty is a uniquely Christian concept that has been advocated by the Baptists ever since the Catholics rose to power in the fourth century. The very first publication on religious liberty in English was written by a Baptist preacher named Thomas Helwys in 1611, and it was at the insistence of the Baptists that Madison introduced the First Amendment in Congress. Historian George Bancroft once wrote that religious liberty was the "trophy of the Baptists." So what were the arguments that the Baptists used in defense of this liberty? Here's a taste from Helwys' book:

"Here is showed unto our lord the king that which we know he is not ignorant of, that Christ only sits upon David's throne to order it. And we the king's servants show it that the king might not be deceived by deceivers who would persuade the king that he has the same power over the church of Christ that the kings of Israel had over the church of the Old Testament ... which if the king shall suffer them to do, he shall sin against God in entering upon the kingdom of Christ, who only is the king of Israel (John 12:15), "whose power and sword are spiritual, whose tabernacle, temple and house is holy, made without hands," (2 Corinthians 3:17; I Peter 2:5; Hebrews 9:11) and therefore has given spiritual "gifts unto men, for the gathering together of the saints for the work of the ministry, and for the building up of the body which is his Church," and does not will nor require to have people commanded and compelled by an earthly sword or power as in the days of Hezekiah and Josiah, kings of Israel.

For that was an earthly or "carnal commandment." (Hebrews 7:16) And they had a worldly tabernacle made with hands and worldly ordinances and carnal rites (Hebrews 9:1, 2, 10). And therefore were the ordinances or laws commanded to be kept by a worldly power, and the tabernacle to be build by hands. But now we have a tabernacle "which the lord plight and not man" (Hebrews 8:2), and that carnal commandment is changed (Hebrews 7:12). And we have a comandment "after the power of endless life" (verse 16) unto the obedience which law no earthly king's power can cause or bring any man to obey any one thing, and the which tabernacle not made with hands no earthly power which consists only of strength of hands can cause to be built in any one part thereof. But all this is to be done only by the King of Israel's power."

http://books.google.com/books?id=_fGP4RgBUQYC&pg=PA39

2) According to the 1780 census, there were 2.78 million people in America. Of those only 575,420 were listed as "Negros" which comes to about 20%. Of the remaining 2.2 million a little more than half of them were women who were not prohibited from voting by the federal Constitution, but were often denied that right by the various state governments until the passage of the 19th Amendment. This leaves us with about 1 million, and about half of them were under the age of 16 and not eligible to vote. Thus, the number of free white males in America in 1780 was about 500,000. Now, if only 43,782 of them voted, then does that mean that the 91% who did not vote were disenfranchised?

http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p2-13.pdf

3) Adams wrote his "Defense" as an answer to the accusations made by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot which were widely accepted in Europe. Thus, the book was published primarily in Europe and, as far as I can tell, was never popular in America. It was read by various American leaders and intellectuals, but it was not widely published for the average populace on this side of the Atlantic as it was in Europe. Therefore, to claim that it was primarily propaganda begs the question of who was being propagandized and for what purpose.

Reply
Balthasar25
10/31/2014 02:04:42 am

Can you be any more disingenuous? What you attribute to John Adams in your last quotation is actually Adam's rebuttal to Nedham in chapter 6 of the Works of John Adams. "Our Author" being Nedham, not Adams or Solon. Adams discussed the form of government that Solon implemented in chapter 4 of the same collection. If you read that, you will see that what he attributes to Solon is very much like what Dr. Carrier suggests. You also are only discussing a very small piece of the evidence presented. Care to rebut the entire speech?

Reply
Bill Fortenberry
10/31/2014 08:33:26 am

If you'll notice, I did not state who Adams was responding to. I simply said that he could have been responding to Carrier when he wrote that paragraph, and this is a true statement. Nedham made many of the same errors that Carrier makes, and Adams' response to the former is just as applicable to the claims of the latter.


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    Bill Fortenberry is a Christian philosopher and historian in Birmingham, AL.  Bill's work has been cited in several legal journals, and he has appeared as a guest on shows including The Dr. Gina Show, The Michael Hart Show, and Real Science Radio.

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