Not the Impossible Faith cover art

Not the Impossible Faith

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Not the Impossible Faith

By: Richard Carrier
Narrated by: Richard Carrier
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Not the Impossible Faith is a tour de force in that genre, dissecting and refuting the oft-repeated claim that Christianity could not have succeeded in the ancient world unless it was true. Though framed as a detailed rebuttal to Christian apologist J.P. Holding (author of The Impossible Faith), Carrier takes a general approach that educates the listener on the history and sociology of the ancient world, answering many questions like: How did Christians approach evidence? Was there a widespread prejudice against the testimony of women? Was resurrection such a radical idea? Who would worship a crucified criminal? And much more.

Written with occasional humor and an easy style, and thoroughly referenced, with many entertaining "gotcha!" moments, Not the Impossible Faith is a must-listen for anyone interested in the origins of Christianity. Richard Carrier, PhD, is an expert in the history of the ancient world and a critic of Christian attempts to distort history in defense of their faith.

©2009 Richard Carrier (P)2013 Pitchstone Publishing Ancient Bible Study Bibles & Bible Study Christianity History Religious Studies Rome World Witty Resurrection Ancient History Ancient Greece

Listeners also enjoyed...

 On the Historicity of Jesus cover art
Hitler Homer Bible Christ cover art
The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire cover art
Sense and Goodness Without God cover art
Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith cover art
Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All cover art
Proving History cover art
Jesus, Interrupted cover art
Forged cover art
Guns, Germs and Steel cover art
Did Jesus Exist? cover art
Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism cover art
The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament, Volume 1 cover art
How to Defend the Christian Faith cover art
Lost Christianities cover art
God - the Failed Hypothesis cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Even as a non academic I found it superbly interesting. A real insight into the early Christian world.

super interesting insights and view of history

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The enjoyment of the work is magnified by the wonderful performance. Now for his next book.

Richard does it again. So lucid.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book is a rebuttal of J.P.Holdings book The Impossible Faith. As usual Carrier has done a vast amount of research and put each point forward clearly, exposing the many errors, bad research and misrepresentation of sources that Holding has presented.

Excellent research.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Richard Carrier's thorough scholarship and strong arguement makes you wonder why apologists like JP Holding keep trying to get up and take more punches when they should be throwing in the towel already.

What a Thorough Rebuttal Looks Like

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I’m a great fan of Carrier.. watch his vids, buy his books, like the message and I’ve gradually been more and more engaged with the whole topic of Christianity, it’s development, history, impact on the world. As an atheist, I always just ignored something that’s obviously nuts on so many levels. I now realise that I should couch the last sentence as ‘Christians and other religions make unsubstantiated claims that require greater evidence for me to ‘believe’. And this book is full of such evidence against a Christian apologist. Great detail and a sense of historical place is to be found in this book.

So why 3 stars? Simply because it’s too couched in a framework of a debate he’s having with someone else. This ruins the narrative for.. constant references to Holding this, holding that just detracted from the experience for me. I found this more and more annoying over time. I wish this had been written with generic titles, so we could avoid constant reference to someone else, which for me made the argument somehow more trivial.

Carriers voice is what it is. I like it and I’m very used to it after so many YouTube viewings, so that was ok.

One other point.. because it’s framed as a rebuttal to a specific claim from a specific person, I listened to this virtually randomly. Not an issue, buy fell free to skip around if you wish, it doesn’t detract.

Enjoy Carrier, but...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.