Nate is either not reading this thread or doesn’t want to give an opinion regarding Unk’s statements that we should follow the “majority scholarly opinion” on the Empty Tomb…but not on the historicity of the Pentateuch.
Just haven’t had time to keep up with all the comments as they’ve been coming in.
To your question, I don’t really have a strong opinion. Here’s why:
I didn’t read every single comment all the way through. It seems to me that the discussion is primarily hanging on a difference of opinion over the word “overwhelming”. I think Ark’s use of it is pretty justified based on the limited amount of knowledge I have on the topic. However, if I had used that term and unkleE asked about the 90% benchmark, I probably just would have revised the statement to “majority” instead of “overwhelming majority”. Not saying Ark should have done that, though. It’s just the tactic I probably would have used to move past it.
Also, it seemed like the two sides were talking past each other at times. It seems like the argument is mostly revolving around a side issue — unkleE has already said that he doesn’t have a strong opinion about whether Moses was a real person or not. So to me, the more interesting question is why the historicity of Moses doesn’t affect his believe about Jesus and the NT. What does he make of the transfiguration story, for instance?
However, if I had used that term and unkleE asked about the 90% benchmark, I probably just would have revised the statement to “majority” instead of “overwhelming majority”.
I had considered it, because ”a majority” can be 51%, but I saw as much trouble down that path if I backpedaled, especially knowing full well unklee’s penchant for exactitude with wording,
Maybe the only qualifier I could have added would have been to exclude scholars like Kitchen and the Fundamentalist crowd who are pretty much regarded as nothing but oddities in this arena these days.
Besides I had already read Broshi’s statement/comment ”in the world” and picked up on the other references to overwhelming, and based on the prime focus of the Pentateuch, the Exodus, I felt overwhelming was a fair call – I mean, it isn’t my word, I simply lifted the term.
The issue here for unklee is, I feel, one of maintaining a measure of credibility. I doubt he cares two hoots to be among a hostile audience. I believe, as did Shane Warne ( he’ll know who I am talking about), he thrives in such a situation.
I recently read him on a more conservative Christian site and he was, to an extent , arguing the toss with the host there. Much as he does here.
As I speculated in my previous comment, this looks like it’s eventually going to be an awkward situation to try to salvage with the likes of Craig, Habermas and Licona etc looking for a different line of work perhaps!
What a pleasant thought 🙂
Completely different topic. Have you ever listened to Alan Holdsworth? I dug out his album Velvet Darkness.
You should give it a listen. Amazing jazz fusion guitar.
I agree, arguing over “overwhelming” is a bit petty, unless unkleE is making the case that it’s really more like 55% to 45% or something, where there may be a majority, but it’s by a lot.
Who does the math anyways? so if you put an exact figure on it, it could be easily disputed, because you havent considered this group or that, so your figures are off.
it’s a generalization. lots more are on one side than the other.
even something like 75% to 25% is overwhelming, so no the argument is trying to be over semantics rather than points – at least as I see it.
for a lot christians, the majority means nothing, as the bible says “few there be that find it (‘truth’). but unklee isnt like that sort, rather he often points to the scholars, and says we should listen to them… except here, that is.
I personally dont know the figures or even really care. if all the scholars think that the existence of a person named jesus proves or even lends great credibility to a demi-god, born of a virgin and worker of miracles named jesus, then i’ll not side with them, just as I would not side with anyone who believed zues was involved in the battle of troy, or that muhammad rode on a winged horse…
And no, I’m not familiar with Alan Holdsworth — I’ll check him out!
William said:
rather he often points to the scholars, and says we should listen to them… except here, that is.
I don’t know that “except here” is quite accurate. I think he accepts the consensus, but he sees this as putting him in a different place than where Ark and John wind up when they accept the consensus. It’s kind of like the way many people claim “middle class” even if they don’t actually fit within the official boundaries. Or like how two very different people can both claim to be politically moderate.
Either way, both camps here would agree that the Bible’s account of the exodus and conquest of Canaan did not happen. Maybe there are some grains of truth buried in there, but most of it has been mythologized. For the kinds of Christians you and I used to be, this would have been outrageous.
Either way, both camps here would agree that the Bible’s account of the exodus and conquest of Canaan did not happen. Maybe there are some grains of truth buried in there, but most of it has been mythologized. For the kinds of Christians you and I used to be, this would have been outrageous.
For the fundamentalist it is outrageous, but Dave made an interesting point about what he believes is the un-tenability of the middle ground for someone like unklee.
Consider, we have two camps: OT & NT filled with highly qualified scholars and if the majority of scholars in the OT camp, worldwide, consider the Pentateuch and the Exodus Historical Fiction exactly where does this leave the NT?
Let’s remember that the New Testament is supposed to fulfillment of prophecy that begins in Genesis,
So the character cannot trace his origins to ”Adam”.
We now know there are serious doubts about the House of David – so Jesus roots are in doubt once more.
Then there is the prophecy in Isaiah, which we know was directed at King Ahaz and had nothing to do with anyone called Yeshua Ben Josef.
So here we have three major ”prophecies”, two most definitely fiction and the other, King David, a question mark hangs over.
And we haven’t even got to the New Testament yet!
As has been pointed out – as Moses is more than likely a work of fiction just who was with ”Jesus of Nazareth” in the Transfiguration. Or is this simply another plot device?
In all honesty I see no way to resolve this.
I wonder, are there any degrees on offer for plain old-fashioned common sense and deductive reasoning?
I don’t really buy that Josh. I mean, I do think you mean what you’re saying, but I doubt that you actually require faith as much as you think.
Nate-
I get what you’re saying in this comment. On a lot of levels it makes sense. But, I feel the hope that there will be reconciliation and redemption is on a different level than playing video games and having sex. It seems so ingrained in so many of us to yearn for something better. While I do what I can now I continue with the faith that something monumentally better than my attempts will right the wrongs we have done to each other.
You don’t have to buy it, but that faith and clinging to it has given me life in situations I’ve not felt there was anywhere else to turn. It’s real for me. Not something I can prove to anyone else, but real to me.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. Though, with the thousands of comments between unk, et al I don’t know why you started with me 😉
Very funny and very apropos short videos regarding the lunacy of the Christian belief system. As I was watching the last one, in which it shows starving children that for some reason the Christian God doesn’t have the time to help, I thought of Josh and his comment about how he continues to believe in Jesus primarily because the world would be too cruel and ugly without his faith.
This thought hit me. Which is more disturbing?
1. A world that is governed by natural selection, dog eat dog, but, I and other like-minded humanists have the opportunity to make a difference by being kind and helpful to others
or
2. A world governed by an all-powerful, all-knowing, “loving”, perfect God, who for some reason, chooses to be a cold-hearted, lazy son-of-a-virgin, sitting on his Father’s right hand on some throne on the outer reaches of space, watching day after day as millions of little children starve to death, suffer from disease, are raped, and murdered.
I consider the second scenario a true horror story.
“you did not address how the evidence for a middle view affects your doctrine.”
Hi Dave. I can answer this quickly – not much.
1. My belief in Jesus is based on the NT, not the OT, so I can accept whatever scholars say about the OT without it affecting my christian belief.
2. The NT already teaches quite clearly (IMO) that we are in a new covenant and the old covenant has ceased for those of us in the new. So the laws, even the Ten Commandments, don’t apply to christians. Not all christians agree with this, but I think it is very clear. So I don’t need the Law to know how to live.
3. But this doesn’t make the OT irrelevant. We can only understand Jesus and ideas like the kingdom of God, Messiah, last days, etc, if we understand the OT, as scholars like NT Wright, EP Sanders and Maurice Casey make clear. So it is important – but it doesn’t matter to understanding those ideas if parts of the OT are myth, fictionalised history or accurate history. What matter is the culture Jesus lived in and spoke into which was built on the OT.
“This is how I feel as well, but we probably have a different opinion on which parts are real and which parts are embellishments.”
Probably not. As I said, it doesn’t matter to me so I can accept what the scholars say – though with some agnosticism since ideas can be easily overturned in this field by just one discovery.
“Since your god has been very subtle and has revealed himself slowly through nature, legends and history, hopefully he will not be too upset if some of us are confused and uncertain of his existence.”
I hope so too. But I believe he judges by our intentions (=”hearts”), and I think those who have familiarity with Jesus will generally respond to him eventually if their intentions are right – but of course “respond” is a very unspecific word.
“I agree about evidence, but shouldn’t we only believe to the extent that the evidence allows? Using words like faith or unfaith does not make much sense to me.”
Depending on how you use these terms, I don’t think we could live life the way you say. Take marriage. I had good evidence I would be happy with my wife for the rest of my life, but I certainly didn’t have certainty. Yet I made that choice, and 48 years later (in a few weeks!) we are still very happy. So how did I go from probability to decisive action, ie a proposal? Whatever it was, it wasn’t much different to the same way I went from reasonable evidence about Jesus to a lifetime commitment to following him.
“It seems like the argument is mostly revolving around a side issue — unkleE has already said that he doesn’t have a strong opinion about whether Moses was a real person or not.”
Hi Nate (and William), you have commented on this, and I thought it might be good to explain why I put a lot of time into this question. You are right that it wouldn’t normally be important to me, but on this occasion it was, for several reasons.
1. Ark made a very definite statement as if it was undisputed fact, but offered little to justify it. He has made similar statements before, to the effect that it is now certain that Moses didn’t exist and nothing in the stories was historical. Such statements get repeated with great certainty on the internet, and I knew enough about the subject to know they were overstatements. So I decided to push back, because even if those things are true, there isn’t a clear consensus yet, and he was overstating what the common view was – e.g. even Finkelstein agrees there could have been a Moses, he believes we just don’t know anything about him.
As well as my next two points, the discussion flushed out some other quite unjustified viewpoints, particularly from John, especially (1) his claim, repeated several times, that Kitchen, Hoffmeier, Dever, Enns hadn’t produced one singe peer-reviewed paper between them (once someone can say that about some very distinguished, albeit perhaps a little old now, scholars, it is hard to believe anything such a person ever says again!), and (2) the amazing view that only archaeology counts and history and documents are not very important (John dismissed study of documents with “He reviews texts, that’s all” – another statement that shows John cannot be trusted in assessments he makes).
2. But there was more in my mind, and it was this. Ark has stated again and again that he won’t take any notice of christian scholars, certainly not evangelical christian scholars. I could give you half a dozen examples, but this one will suffice:
“If these people are christians, and evangelical to boot – like Kitchen – then surely it must be as plain as the nose on your face that there is going to be a fairly large dollop of presupposition served up before they even pick up a trowel, open an ancient scroll or examine a single hieroglyphic?”
Now this statement might be fine except he continues to make a couple of suppositions – (1) that the peer review of publications and the historical methods employed cannot and do not reduce bias, and (2) that non christian scholars have no biases themselves. But (1) works to a reasonable, though not perfect degree, and it is obvious (not least from Ark himself) that atheists can easily have biases just like anyone else. But imagine the howls if I’d dismissed a scholar simply because he was atheist!
But Ark and John dismiss strong, respected scholars simply because they are christians, and his agenda becomes a little clearer – to ignore any christian scholar if he can get away with it. But it gets worse!
3. Ark wrote: “if the majority of scholars in the OT camp, worldwide, consider the Pentateuch and the Exodus Historical Fiction exactly where does this leave the NT?” He infers in that comment (go back and read it) that the possibly ahistoricity of parts of the OT reflects on the historicity of the NT. I don’t think any historian of the NT would make that enormous leap, but Ark manages to do it. How could a possibly legendary story back one and a half millennia before somehow change the historical facts about events in first century Palestine? But now finally comes the main reason why I pursued this matter as I did.
4. Ark and John have both made comments on my blog that show that they don’t care for the views of the best NT scholars, and I can point anyone to them. I have twice asked them about these comments, and they have each twice declined to repudiate them, so I am assuming they still hold to them (and I will be pleased if they now repudiate them).
Ark refused to accept the views of some of the leading NT scholars, even non-believing ones like Casey and Sanders, quite the opposite of the “high” stand he has been making here, and stated that he preferred just two scholars whose views are on the fringe of NT scholarship. John refused to accept the views of archaeologists (the same discipline he rates so highly on this discussion) who unanimously say that Nazareth was certainly a small village in Jesus’ day, and instead preferred the views of people with no relevant qualifications and no archeological experience.
So why the big difference? I will propose the hypothesis that both Ark and John only pretend to value the views of scholars. Their real agenda is to disparage all christian scholars, and even non-christian scholars holding views they don’t like. If they can find good scholars to support their view (as here) they will use them, but if they can’t, they will go against the scholars.
So that is what I was intending to investigate with this thread. As you have noted, I don’t care all that much about the Pentateuch, but I do care about the NT. And now their inconsistency is clear for anyone with eyes to see. If I ever see either of them make any statements against the prevailing view of NT scholarship I can cut and paste relevant sections of this discussion to show how their views change with the situation.
I feel the discussion has been well worthwhile on all four levels, and that is why I pursued what may have seemed as a minor matter. I would have been happy to discuss the Pentateuch, but this was actually much more important.
Thanks Nate for the opportunity. I think I will be taking a break shortly. 🙂 There will doubtless be some comment on what I have written here, but I don’t plan on reading it. If there is a mea culpa please let me know, but otherwise I don’t really need to read or say any more.
If you read the comment above to Nate, you will see I am exiting this thread. I feel I have shown how wrong you guys are in some of what you have said, but even if that wasn’t clear, there is no point in locking horns any more and going over the same things said more and more strongly each time.
I decided I wouldn’t hold my breath any longer waiting for a response about your different attitudes to scholars between the OT and the NT.
Ark, I don’t suppose I will be discussing anything with you again, which will probably be of benefit to all, not just you and I. I wish it could be different, but after so many attempts by both of us, it clearly can’t. But you gave your word at the start of this discussion that you would be courteous, and I am pleased to be able to thank you for keeping your word (I am happy to overlook a few recent comments that go close to the line!) Now I am closing the discussion, you can feel free to give yourself free reign (though I won’t be reading it, so please consider Nate), but I kind of hope you found courtesy a nice feel. 🙂 I have no hard feelings, I honestly wish you well.
John, I don’t really have much more to say to you except I appreciate that you were generally courteous too. Thanks and best wishes to you too.
Exit stage left. Everyone please resume your conversations.
“Unklee, if it will help you rest at ease, I wasn’t holding my breath a moment.”
Hi Makagutu, this has indeed put my mind at rest. It seems we are both happy to leave things as they are. I like to leave the customers satisfied, so life’s good! 🙂 Thanks and see you later maybe.
Yes, you are perfectly correct, I have no respect whatsoever for the views of any christian biblical scholar insofar as they pertain to the matter at hand and while they hold a Christian perspective. None.
But then it must be noted I have no respect for any investigative scholar of any stripe that has a desire to maintain any sort of attempted credibility for the supernatural aspects of religious text which is , as we all know – even you, if you are honest enough to admit – riddled with fraud and other,erroneous nonsense
You have, once again, prepared and served a sumptuous apologetic meal over numerous courses, and I must complement you on your choice of whine. Excellent vintage.
That you apparently hold the Old Testament in scant regard, especially when it (or any serious investigation of it) threatens your precious New Testament demonstrates the level of intransigence you are prepared to dig in your heels in its defense.
Yet for all your hand waving dismissal of the Old Testament you have fought tooth and nail over an issue of numerical exactitude and semantics.
This suggests you are ether fibbing a little regarding your lack of concern over the scholarly view whether the Pentateuch is historical, or you have been ”point scoring” simply to be bloody- minded.
Either one does not strike me as very honest or , excuse the phrase, Christian..
Yes, I have noted that now and then some who ”take-on” unklee in such a head to head discussion fall foul of enthusiasm at times, and slip up a little with the information presented.
I think this comes about because of the smoke and mirrors technique which you deftly employ to frustrate your ‘adversaries’.
This is the point of apologetics. You are good at it. That is not a compliment.
Baffle with bullshit. After all, what else is there? Verifiable evidence? I don’t think so, do you? No, of course not.
So then, surely the ultimate goal is truth? That we want honesty, truth and fact to triumph over vacuous religious posturing; the likes of which, Kitchen,Craig, Licona and Habermas etc are renowned for?
If you or anyone else has to work so damned hard to squeeze out even a tiny drop of moisture from the dried out rag of religion then surely there is more afoot than is healthy?
You want to disregard Old Testament scholarship that lays it bare to the bones but hang on to so – called New Testament experts who, not too long ago would have been hung drawn and quartered; and I am not sure if I am being metaphorical either.
What are you going to do when there are a dozen experts like Carrier?
How are you and the likes of Kitchen going to react when the minimalists dig up more evidence in Israel disproving the biblical tale outright – and they are almost certainly going to if history is any judge and especially with the advancements in technology.
The expert scholars you continually cite are constrained on so many levels that for them to buck the trend is almost certain to end in career suicide for many of them. Therefore to make any overt statements that might likely deprive them of a living, they will think twice.
Look at what happens to many Pastors who lose their faith
.No god – no job. Or continue to live the lie.
A church minister on the dole! Sounds crazy even to write it out.
You don’t ”like” discussing such matters with me because I push and in the end there is no answer you can provide. This is not your fault, but the fault of your religion. It is a fraud.
The bottom line: There is no genuine evidence for what you or any Christian, Jew, or Muslim believes.regarding god belief.
Nothing.
And that is a fact. It is the overwhelming incontrovertible truth.
You still have not revealed your position on divine inspiration. Would your god inspire someone to write historical truth with non-truths mixed in? From your response I am just going to guess that you don’t think the Bible is divinely inspired, at least not in the way that the majority of Christians think it is.
Depending on how you use these terms, I don’t think we could live life the way you say. Take marriage. I had good evidence I would be happy with my wife for the rest of my life, but I certainly didn’t have certainty. Yet I made that choice, and 48 years later (in a few weeks!) we are still very happy. So how did I go from probability to decisive action, ie a proposal? Whatever it was, it wasn’t much different to the same way I went from reasonable evidence about Jesus to a lifetime commitment to following him.
Congrats on 48 years. I wonder if you would have made that same leap to propose to your wife if you had never met her and had nothing but some old newspaper clippings describing her.
josh, I think that “yearning for something better” is an inherent mechanism that is supposed to make us “go on” or work harder or strive to survive in this life. It is supposed to keep us from stagnating.
but this is merely my own opinion.
It could point to needing a god or redemption. it could even argue for both, but if it is both, then I feel like it becomes a moot point, and we’re back to other proofs and evidences. and for the bible, it’s just not looking good from my perspective.
Deism holds that God does not intervene with the functioning of the natural world in any way, allowing it to run according to the laws of nature. For Deists, human beings can only know God via reason and the observation of nature, but not by revelation or supernatural manifestations (such as miracles) – phenomena which Deists regard with caution if not skepticism.
That’s me except Spinoza might have the better answer. At least Einstein thought he did.
“I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind…
“You still have not revealed your position on divine inspiration. Would your god inspire someone to write historical truth with non-truths mixed in? From your response I am just going to guess that you don’t think the Bible is divinely inspired, at least not in the way that the majority of Christians think it is.”
Hi Dave, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that’s what you were asking. Yes I do believe the Bible is divinely inspired, and I think I believe that in the way most christians I know believe it, though maybe not like people in the southern states of the US. I think God inspired, i.e. gave the impetus to and gave ideas to the writers, but didn’t dictate or force things on them. “God breathed” in 2 Tim 3:16 means, I think, God breathed life into the writings rather than he breathed them out – both meanings are possible but there are some good reasons to prefer the former.
So God respected the individuality, culture and knowledge of the writers and didn’t overwrite that. So he started with myth (they wouldn’t have understood any other way) and gradually moved to history, as in the CS Lewis quotes that you have seen. I don’t think we have to see “non-truths” in there – after all, what is a non-truth in the genre of myth, or fictionalised history or parable?
“Congrats on 48 years. I wonder if you would have made that same leap to propose to your wife if you had never met her and had nothing but some old newspaper clippings describing her.”
Thanks. Well I did in the case of Jesus! 🙂 And I’ve never regretted it! But “never met her” and “some old newspaper clippings” may be a little unfair. And the difference in detail doesn’t make any difference to the point I was making, that we don’t in real life make all our decisions based only on evidence and no “faith”, trust or risk, which is what you seemed to be saying.
I’d like to weigh in on all the recent discussion with unkleE.
First, thanks to everyone for keeping things reasonably civil. I really do appreciate that.
Sometimes I’m accused of being too “middle-of-the-road” and trying to see the best in everyone. I generally think this is a good thing, but I understand the criticism. Nevertheless, I feel like this discussion has illustrated my view nicely. I don’t agree with the statements that assign base motivations to unkleE, nor do I agree with the statements that do the same against Ark, John, etc. Instead, I think this just shows how difficult it is for all of us to be completely objective.
Ark, John, etc do value truth. I have no doubts about that. When they are skeptical of Christian scholars, it’s not because they embrace their biases and are just trying to stack the deck unfairly against Christianity. They’ve just become wary of the Christian agenda and seen how Christian scholars in the past have been very loose with the facts to hang on to their belief structure. They’re also very aware of the horrible things some people have done because of faith. It’s hard to blame them for being wary of Christians, considering all that. At the same time, I don’t think unkleE is wrong to point out this potential area for bias. He’s quite right to suggest that just because a scholar is a Christian does not mean he or she would be dishonest with the evidence. Personally, I think Peter Enns is a good example of a reliable Christian scholar. He’s faced some real blowback from other Christians for not toeing the party line — that’s a good sign that he’s trying to be objective.
In other words, Ark, John, etc are honestly looking for truth, and they’re trying to look at the facts objectively. So even if they get something wrong at some point, it would be from an honest mistake, not from some underhanded motivation.
I feel much the same about unkleE. His beliefs have changed over time, based on evidence. That’s a clear indication that he’s interested in the facts and is open-minded. I don’t believe he enters into these conversations just to win an argument. When I see a Christian blog trash atheism, I usually feel like atheism is being misrepresented. As an atheist, I feel an obligation to jump into the conversation and try to defend my position, rather than let a straw man be ripped apart. I think unkleE views it the same way. He sincerely believes Christianity is true. So when he sees people like us talking about how wrong it is, he feels obligated to step in. How can we fault that?
So I appreciate both sides taking the time to discuss these issues, and I really appreciate the effort to discuss it respectfully. I don’t think any of us are very far apart on what the facts are — it’s just the question of how to interpret those facts. That’s why Ark can state that problems in the OT create problems for the NT, unkleE can state that they’re two separate things, and both of them be completely right. They’re each just talking about slightly different things. Ark’s mainly focusing on the doctrinal implications, especially in regard to prophecy and inspiration, while unkleE is referring to the historical quality of each.
Finding Truth 
Gary said:
Just haven’t had time to keep up with all the comments as they’ve been coming in.
To your question, I don’t really have a strong opinion. Here’s why:
I didn’t read every single comment all the way through. It seems to me that the discussion is primarily hanging on a difference of opinion over the word “overwhelming”. I think Ark’s use of it is pretty justified based on the limited amount of knowledge I have on the topic. However, if I had used that term and unkleE asked about the 90% benchmark, I probably just would have revised the statement to “majority” instead of “overwhelming majority”. Not saying Ark should have done that, though. It’s just the tactic I probably would have used to move past it.
Also, it seemed like the two sides were talking past each other at times. It seems like the argument is mostly revolving around a side issue — unkleE has already said that he doesn’t have a strong opinion about whether Moses was a real person or not. So to me, the more interesting question is why the historicity of Moses doesn’t affect his believe about Jesus and the NT. What does he make of the transfiguration story, for instance?
LikeLiked by 2 people
@Nate
I had considered it, because ”a majority” can be 51%, but I saw as much trouble down that path if I backpedaled, especially knowing full well unklee’s penchant for exactitude with wording,
Maybe the only qualifier I could have added would have been to exclude scholars like Kitchen and the Fundamentalist crowd who are pretty much regarded as nothing but oddities in this arena these days.
Besides I had already read Broshi’s statement/comment ”in the world” and picked up on the other references to overwhelming, and based on the prime focus of the Pentateuch, the Exodus, I felt overwhelming was a fair call – I mean, it isn’t my word, I simply lifted the term.
The issue here for unklee is, I feel, one of maintaining a measure of credibility. I doubt he cares two hoots to be among a hostile audience. I believe, as did Shane Warne ( he’ll know who I am talking about), he thrives in such a situation.
I recently read him on a more conservative Christian site and he was, to an extent , arguing the toss with the host there. Much as he does here.
As I speculated in my previous comment, this looks like it’s eventually going to be an awkward situation to try to salvage with the likes of Craig, Habermas and Licona etc looking for a different line of work perhaps!
What a pleasant thought 🙂
Completely different topic. Have you ever listened to Alan Holdsworth? I dug out his album Velvet Darkness.
You should give it a listen. Amazing jazz fusion guitar.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I agree, arguing over “overwhelming” is a bit petty, unless unkleE is making the case that it’s really more like 55% to 45% or something, where there may be a majority, but it’s by a lot.
Who does the math anyways? so if you put an exact figure on it, it could be easily disputed, because you havent considered this group or that, so your figures are off.
it’s a generalization. lots more are on one side than the other.
even something like 75% to 25% is overwhelming, so no the argument is trying to be over semantics rather than points – at least as I see it.
for a lot christians, the majority means nothing, as the bible says “few there be that find it (‘truth’). but unklee isnt like that sort, rather he often points to the scholars, and says we should listen to them… except here, that is.
I personally dont know the figures or even really care. if all the scholars think that the existence of a person named jesus proves or even lends great credibility to a demi-god, born of a virgin and worker of miracles named jesus, then i’ll not side with them, just as I would not side with anyone who believed zues was involved in the battle of troy, or that muhammad rode on a winged horse…
LikeLike
I hear you, Ark. 🙂
And no, I’m not familiar with Alan Holdsworth — I’ll check him out!
William said:
I don’t know that “except here” is quite accurate. I think he accepts the consensus, but he sees this as putting him in a different place than where Ark and John wind up when they accept the consensus. It’s kind of like the way many people claim “middle class” even if they don’t actually fit within the official boundaries. Or like how two very different people can both claim to be politically moderate.
Either way, both camps here would agree that the Bible’s account of the exodus and conquest of Canaan did not happen. Maybe there are some grains of truth buried in there, but most of it has been mythologized. For the kinds of Christians you and I used to be, this would have been outrageous.
LikeLike
perhaps, nate. perhaps.
LikeLike
For the fundamentalist it is outrageous, but Dave made an interesting point about what he believes is the un-tenability of the middle ground for someone like unklee.
Consider, we have two camps: OT & NT filled with highly qualified scholars and if the majority of scholars in the OT camp, worldwide, consider the Pentateuch and the Exodus Historical Fiction exactly where does this leave the NT?
Let’s remember that the New Testament is supposed to fulfillment of prophecy that begins in Genesis,
So the character cannot trace his origins to ”Adam”.
We now know there are serious doubts about the House of David – so Jesus roots are in doubt once more.
Then there is the prophecy in Isaiah, which we know was directed at King Ahaz and had nothing to do with anyone called Yeshua Ben Josef.
So here we have three major ”prophecies”, two most definitely fiction and the other, King David, a question mark hangs over.
And we haven’t even got to the New Testament yet!
As has been pointed out – as Moses is more than likely a work of fiction just who was with ”Jesus of Nazareth” in the Transfiguration. Or is this simply another plot device?
In all honesty I see no way to resolve this.
I wonder, are there any degrees on offer for plain old-fashioned common sense and deductive reasoning?
LikeLiked by 2 people
“In all honesty I see no way to resolve this.”
God poofed it.
Works every time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nate-
I get what you’re saying in this comment. On a lot of levels it makes sense. But, I feel the hope that there will be reconciliation and redemption is on a different level than playing video games and having sex. It seems so ingrained in so many of us to yearn for something better. While I do what I can now I continue with the faith that something monumentally better than my attempts will right the wrongs we have done to each other.
You don’t have to buy it, but that faith and clinging to it has given me life in situations I’ve not felt there was anywhere else to turn. It’s real for me. Not something I can prove to anyone else, but real to me.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. Though, with the thousands of comments between unk, et al I don’t know why you started with me 😉
LikeLike
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very funny and very apropos short videos regarding the lunacy of the Christian belief system. As I was watching the last one, in which it shows starving children that for some reason the Christian God doesn’t have the time to help, I thought of Josh and his comment about how he continues to believe in Jesus primarily because the world would be too cruel and ugly without his faith.
This thought hit me. Which is more disturbing?
1. A world that is governed by natural selection, dog eat dog, but, I and other like-minded humanists have the opportunity to make a difference by being kind and helpful to others
or
2. A world governed by an all-powerful, all-knowing, “loving”, perfect God, who for some reason, chooses to be a cold-hearted, lazy son-of-a-virgin, sitting on his Father’s right hand on some throne on the outer reaches of space, watching day after day as millions of little children starve to death, suffer from disease, are raped, and murdered.
I consider the second scenario a true horror story.
I’ll take the first.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Yes, I meant to say, “on”.
LikeLike
“you did not address how the evidence for a middle view affects your doctrine.”
Hi Dave. I can answer this quickly – not much.
1. My belief in Jesus is based on the NT, not the OT, so I can accept whatever scholars say about the OT without it affecting my christian belief.
2. The NT already teaches quite clearly (IMO) that we are in a new covenant and the old covenant has ceased for those of us in the new. So the laws, even the Ten Commandments, don’t apply to christians. Not all christians agree with this, but I think it is very clear. So I don’t need the Law to know how to live.
3. But this doesn’t make the OT irrelevant. We can only understand Jesus and ideas like the kingdom of God, Messiah, last days, etc, if we understand the OT, as scholars like NT Wright, EP Sanders and Maurice Casey make clear. So it is important – but it doesn’t matter to understanding those ideas if parts of the OT are myth, fictionalised history or accurate history. What matter is the culture Jesus lived in and spoke into which was built on the OT.
“This is how I feel as well, but we probably have a different opinion on which parts are real and which parts are embellishments.”
Probably not. As I said, it doesn’t matter to me so I can accept what the scholars say – though with some agnosticism since ideas can be easily overturned in this field by just one discovery.
“Since your god has been very subtle and has revealed himself slowly through nature, legends and history, hopefully he will not be too upset if some of us are confused and uncertain of his existence.”
I hope so too. But I believe he judges by our intentions (=”hearts”), and I think those who have familiarity with Jesus will generally respond to him eventually if their intentions are right – but of course “respond” is a very unspecific word.
“I agree about evidence, but shouldn’t we only believe to the extent that the evidence allows? Using words like faith or unfaith does not make much sense to me.”
Depending on how you use these terms, I don’t think we could live life the way you say. Take marriage. I had good evidence I would be happy with my wife for the rest of my life, but I certainly didn’t have certainty. Yet I made that choice, and 48 years later (in a few weeks!) we are still very happy. So how did I go from probability to decisive action, ie a proposal? Whatever it was, it wasn’t much different to the same way I went from reasonable evidence about Jesus to a lifetime commitment to following him.
Thanks.
LikeLike
“It seems like the argument is mostly revolving around a side issue — unkleE has already said that he doesn’t have a strong opinion about whether Moses was a real person or not.”
Hi Nate (and William), you have commented on this, and I thought it might be good to explain why I put a lot of time into this question. You are right that it wouldn’t normally be important to me, but on this occasion it was, for several reasons.
1. Ark made a very definite statement as if it was undisputed fact, but offered little to justify it. He has made similar statements before, to the effect that it is now certain that Moses didn’t exist and nothing in the stories was historical. Such statements get repeated with great certainty on the internet, and I knew enough about the subject to know they were overstatements. So I decided to push back, because even if those things are true, there isn’t a clear consensus yet, and he was overstating what the common view was – e.g. even Finkelstein agrees there could have been a Moses, he believes we just don’t know anything about him.
As well as my next two points, the discussion flushed out some other quite unjustified viewpoints, particularly from John, especially (1) his claim, repeated several times, that Kitchen, Hoffmeier, Dever, Enns hadn’t produced one singe peer-reviewed paper between them (once someone can say that about some very distinguished, albeit perhaps a little old now, scholars, it is hard to believe anything such a person ever says again!), and (2) the amazing view that only archaeology counts and history and documents are not very important (John dismissed study of documents with “He reviews texts, that’s all” – another statement that shows John cannot be trusted in assessments he makes).
2. But there was more in my mind, and it was this. Ark has stated again and again that he won’t take any notice of christian scholars, certainly not evangelical christian scholars. I could give you half a dozen examples, but this one will suffice:
“If these people are christians, and evangelical to boot – like Kitchen – then surely it must be as plain as the nose on your face that there is going to be a fairly large dollop of presupposition served up before they even pick up a trowel, open an ancient scroll or examine a single hieroglyphic?”
Now this statement might be fine except he continues to make a couple of suppositions – (1) that the peer review of publications and the historical methods employed cannot and do not reduce bias, and (2) that non christian scholars have no biases themselves. But (1) works to a reasonable, though not perfect degree, and it is obvious (not least from Ark himself) that atheists can easily have biases just like anyone else. But imagine the howls if I’d dismissed a scholar simply because he was atheist!
But Ark and John dismiss strong, respected scholars simply because they are christians, and his agenda becomes a little clearer – to ignore any christian scholar if he can get away with it. But it gets worse!
3. Ark wrote: “if the majority of scholars in the OT camp, worldwide, consider the Pentateuch and the Exodus Historical Fiction exactly where does this leave the NT?” He infers in that comment (go back and read it) that the possibly ahistoricity of parts of the OT reflects on the historicity of the NT. I don’t think any historian of the NT would make that enormous leap, but Ark manages to do it. How could a possibly legendary story back one and a half millennia before somehow change the historical facts about events in first century Palestine? But now finally comes the main reason why I pursued this matter as I did.
4. Ark and John have both made comments on my blog that show that they don’t care for the views of the best NT scholars, and I can point anyone to them. I have twice asked them about these comments, and they have each twice declined to repudiate them, so I am assuming they still hold to them (and I will be pleased if they now repudiate them).
Ark refused to accept the views of some of the leading NT scholars, even non-believing ones like Casey and Sanders, quite the opposite of the “high” stand he has been making here, and stated that he preferred just two scholars whose views are on the fringe of NT scholarship. John refused to accept the views of archaeologists (the same discipline he rates so highly on this discussion) who unanimously say that Nazareth was certainly a small village in Jesus’ day, and instead preferred the views of people with no relevant qualifications and no archeological experience.
So why the big difference? I will propose the hypothesis that both Ark and John only pretend to value the views of scholars. Their real agenda is to disparage all christian scholars, and even non-christian scholars holding views they don’t like. If they can find good scholars to support their view (as here) they will use them, but if they can’t, they will go against the scholars.
So that is what I was intending to investigate with this thread. As you have noted, I don’t care all that much about the Pentateuch, but I do care about the NT. And now their inconsistency is clear for anyone with eyes to see. If I ever see either of them make any statements against the prevailing view of NT scholarship I can cut and paste relevant sections of this discussion to show how their views change with the situation.
I feel the discussion has been well worthwhile on all four levels, and that is why I pursued what may have seemed as a minor matter. I would have been happy to discuss the Pentateuch, but this was actually much more important.
Thanks Nate for the opportunity. I think I will be taking a break shortly. 🙂 There will doubtless be some comment on what I have written here, but I don’t plan on reading it. If there is a mea culpa please let me know, but otherwise I don’t really need to read or say any more.
LikeLike
Hi Ark and John,
If you read the comment above to Nate, you will see I am exiting this thread. I feel I have shown how wrong you guys are in some of what you have said, but even if that wasn’t clear, there is no point in locking horns any more and going over the same things said more and more strongly each time.
I decided I wouldn’t hold my breath any longer waiting for a response about your different attitudes to scholars between the OT and the NT.
Ark, I don’t suppose I will be discussing anything with you again, which will probably be of benefit to all, not just you and I. I wish it could be different, but after so many attempts by both of us, it clearly can’t. But you gave your word at the start of this discussion that you would be courteous, and I am pleased to be able to thank you for keeping your word (I am happy to overlook a few recent comments that go close to the line!) Now I am closing the discussion, you can feel free to give yourself free reign (though I won’t be reading it, so please consider Nate), but I kind of hope you found courtesy a nice feel. 🙂 I have no hard feelings, I honestly wish you well.
John, I don’t really have much more to say to you except I appreciate that you were generally courteous too. Thanks and best wishes to you too.
Exit stage left. Everyone please resume your conversations.
LikeLike
“Unklee, if it will help you rest at ease, I wasn’t holding my breath a moment.”
Hi Makagutu, this has indeed put my mind at rest. It seems we are both happy to leave things as they are. I like to leave the customers satisfied, so life’s good! 🙂 Thanks and see you later maybe.
LikeLike
unkleE “I feel I have shown how wrong you guys are”
I think this says it all ! It’s all about winning baby !!! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Unklee,
Yes, you are perfectly correct, I have no respect whatsoever for the views of any christian biblical scholar insofar as they pertain to the matter at hand and while they hold a Christian perspective. None.
But then it must be noted I have no respect for any investigative scholar of any stripe that has a desire to maintain any sort of attempted credibility for the supernatural aspects of religious text which is , as we all know – even you, if you are honest enough to admit – riddled with fraud and other,erroneous nonsense
You have, once again, prepared and served a sumptuous apologetic meal over numerous courses, and I must complement you on your choice of whine. Excellent vintage.
That you apparently hold the Old Testament in scant regard, especially when it (or any serious investigation of it) threatens your precious New Testament demonstrates the level of intransigence you are prepared to dig in your heels in its defense.
Yet for all your hand waving dismissal of the Old Testament you have fought tooth and nail over an issue of numerical exactitude and semantics.
This suggests you are ether fibbing a little regarding your lack of concern over the scholarly view whether the Pentateuch is historical, or you have been ”point scoring” simply to be bloody- minded.
Either one does not strike me as very honest or , excuse the phrase, Christian..
Yes, I have noted that now and then some who ”take-on” unklee in such a head to head discussion fall foul of enthusiasm at times, and slip up a little with the information presented.
I think this comes about because of the smoke and mirrors technique which you deftly employ to frustrate your ‘adversaries’.
This is the point of apologetics. You are good at it. That is not a compliment.
Baffle with bullshit. After all, what else is there? Verifiable evidence? I don’t think so, do you? No, of course not.
So then, surely the ultimate goal is truth? That we want honesty, truth and fact to triumph over vacuous religious posturing; the likes of which, Kitchen,Craig, Licona and Habermas etc are renowned for?
If you or anyone else has to work so damned hard to squeeze out even a tiny drop of moisture from the dried out rag of religion then surely there is more afoot than is healthy?
You want to disregard Old Testament scholarship that lays it bare to the bones but hang on to so – called New Testament experts who, not too long ago would have been hung drawn and quartered; and I am not sure if I am being metaphorical either.
What are you going to do when there are a dozen experts like Carrier?
How are you and the likes of Kitchen going to react when the minimalists dig up more evidence in Israel disproving the biblical tale outright – and they are almost certainly going to if history is any judge and especially with the advancements in technology.
The expert scholars you continually cite are constrained on so many levels that for them to buck the trend is almost certain to end in career suicide for many of them. Therefore to make any overt statements that might likely deprive them of a living, they will think twice.
Look at what happens to many Pastors who lose their faith
.No god – no job. Or continue to live the lie.
A church minister on the dole! Sounds crazy even to write it out.
You don’t ”like” discussing such matters with me because I push and in the end there is no answer you can provide. This is not your fault, but the fault of your religion. It is a fraud.
The bottom line: There is no genuine evidence for what you or any Christian, Jew, or Muslim believes.regarding god belief.
Nothing.
And that is a fact. It is the overwhelming incontrovertible truth.
And truth is what one should aspire to.
Ark.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi UnkleE,
You still have not revealed your position on divine inspiration. Would your god inspire someone to write historical truth with non-truths mixed in? From your response I am just going to guess that you don’t think the Bible is divinely inspired, at least not in the way that the majority of Christians think it is.
Congrats on 48 years. I wonder if you would have made that same leap to propose to your wife if you had never met her and had nothing but some old newspaper clippings describing her.
LikeLiked by 4 people
josh, I think that “yearning for something better” is an inherent mechanism that is supposed to make us “go on” or work harder or strive to survive in this life. It is supposed to keep us from stagnating.
but this is merely my own opinion.
It could point to needing a god or redemption. it could even argue for both, but if it is both, then I feel like it becomes a moot point, and we’re back to other proofs and evidences. and for the bible, it’s just not looking good from my perspective.
have you considered deism?
LikeLiked by 1 person
William, “have you considered deism?”
Deism holds that God does not intervene with the functioning of the natural world in any way, allowing it to run according to the laws of nature. For Deists, human beings can only know God via reason and the observation of nature, but not by revelation or supernatural manifestations (such as miracles) – phenomena which Deists regard with caution if not skepticism.
That’s me except Spinoza might have the better answer. At least Einstein thought he did.
“I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind…
LikeLike
“You still have not revealed your position on divine inspiration. Would your god inspire someone to write historical truth with non-truths mixed in? From your response I am just going to guess that you don’t think the Bible is divinely inspired, at least not in the way that the majority of Christians think it is.”
Hi Dave, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that’s what you were asking. Yes I do believe the Bible is divinely inspired, and I think I believe that in the way most christians I know believe it, though maybe not like people in the southern states of the US. I think God inspired, i.e. gave the impetus to and gave ideas to the writers, but didn’t dictate or force things on them. “God breathed” in 2 Tim 3:16 means, I think, God breathed life into the writings rather than he breathed them out – both meanings are possible but there are some good reasons to prefer the former.
So God respected the individuality, culture and knowledge of the writers and didn’t overwrite that. So he started with myth (they wouldn’t have understood any other way) and gradually moved to history, as in the CS Lewis quotes that you have seen. I don’t think we have to see “non-truths” in there – after all, what is a non-truth in the genre of myth, or fictionalised history or parable?
“Congrats on 48 years. I wonder if you would have made that same leap to propose to your wife if you had never met her and had nothing but some old newspaper clippings describing her.”
Thanks. Well I did in the case of Jesus! 🙂 And I’ve never regretted it! But “never met her” and “some old newspaper clippings” may be a little unfair. And the difference in detail doesn’t make any difference to the point I was making, that we don’t in real life make all our decisions based only on evidence and no “faith”, trust or risk, which is what you seemed to be saying.
Thanks again.
LikeLike
Sorry, I forgot to attribute the Deism definition to wiki and the Spinoza quote to Goodreads
I haven’t finished my 1st cup of coffee yet. 🙂
LikeLike
I’d like to weigh in on all the recent discussion with unkleE.
First, thanks to everyone for keeping things reasonably civil. I really do appreciate that.
Sometimes I’m accused of being too “middle-of-the-road” and trying to see the best in everyone. I generally think this is a good thing, but I understand the criticism. Nevertheless, I feel like this discussion has illustrated my view nicely. I don’t agree with the statements that assign base motivations to unkleE, nor do I agree with the statements that do the same against Ark, John, etc. Instead, I think this just shows how difficult it is for all of us to be completely objective.
Ark, John, etc do value truth. I have no doubts about that. When they are skeptical of Christian scholars, it’s not because they embrace their biases and are just trying to stack the deck unfairly against Christianity. They’ve just become wary of the Christian agenda and seen how Christian scholars in the past have been very loose with the facts to hang on to their belief structure. They’re also very aware of the horrible things some people have done because of faith. It’s hard to blame them for being wary of Christians, considering all that. At the same time, I don’t think unkleE is wrong to point out this potential area for bias. He’s quite right to suggest that just because a scholar is a Christian does not mean he or she would be dishonest with the evidence. Personally, I think Peter Enns is a good example of a reliable Christian scholar. He’s faced some real blowback from other Christians for not toeing the party line — that’s a good sign that he’s trying to be objective.
In other words, Ark, John, etc are honestly looking for truth, and they’re trying to look at the facts objectively. So even if they get something wrong at some point, it would be from an honest mistake, not from some underhanded motivation.
I feel much the same about unkleE. His beliefs have changed over time, based on evidence. That’s a clear indication that he’s interested in the facts and is open-minded. I don’t believe he enters into these conversations just to win an argument. When I see a Christian blog trash atheism, I usually feel like atheism is being misrepresented. As an atheist, I feel an obligation to jump into the conversation and try to defend my position, rather than let a straw man be ripped apart. I think unkleE views it the same way. He sincerely believes Christianity is true. So when he sees people like us talking about how wrong it is, he feels obligated to step in. How can we fault that?
So I appreciate both sides taking the time to discuss these issues, and I really appreciate the effort to discuss it respectfully. I don’t think any of us are very far apart on what the facts are — it’s just the question of how to interpret those facts. That’s why Ark can state that problems in the OT create problems for the NT, unkleE can state that they’re two separate things, and both of them be completely right. They’re each just talking about slightly different things. Ark’s mainly focusing on the doctrinal implications, especially in regard to prophecy and inspiration, while unkleE is referring to the historical quality of each.
Sometimes it’s just one of these:
LikeLiked by 2 people
this has all been so very enlightening and entertaining for me.
thanks you guys a lot for what you do. 🙂
with a special shout out to Gary.
LikeLiked by 1 person