In the comment thread of my last post, some of us mentioned that it’s hard for us to understand the point of view of Christians who believe the Bible can be inspired by God, without holding to the doctrine of inerrancy. unkleE left the following comment:
How is it that in everything else in life – whether it be ethics, or politics, relationships, science, history, law, even disbelief – we are willing to make decisions based on non-inerrant evidence and reasoning, but when it is belief in God we require inerrant evidence? I reckon your first thought might be that the stakes are so much higher. But that logic applies to disbelief as well. If we applied that logic, no-one would be an atheist because they didn’t have inerrant knowledge for that conclusion. You would not have any belief either way until you gained inerrant knowledge.
He then suggested that I might want to do a post on this topic (you’re reading it!), but there were also a couple of other comments that I think are worth including here. nonsupernaturalist said this:
My answer would be that ethics, politics, relationships, science, history, and law do not involve supernatural claims. When someone makes a supernatural claim, the standard of evidence required by most educated people in the western world to believe that claim is much, much higher than a claim involving natural evidence.
Let’s look at “history”. If someone tells me that most historians believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon or that Alexander the Great sacked the city of Tyre, I accept those claims without demanding a great deal of evidence. However, if someone claims that the Buddha caused a water buffalo to speak in a human language for over one half hour or that Mohammad rode on a winged horse to heaven, I am going to demand MASSIVE quantities of evidence to believe these claims.
I think that most Christians would agree with my thinking, here, until I make the same assertion regarding the bodily Resurrection of Jesus. Then Christians will shake their heads in disgust and accuse me of being biased and unreasonable.
No. I am not being biased and unreasonable. I am being consistent. It is the Christian who is being inconsistent: demanding more evidence to believe the supernatural claims of other religions than he or she demands of his own.
And it isn’t just supernatural claims. Most educated people in the western world would demand much more evidence for very rare natural claims than we would for non-rare natural claims.
Imagine if someone at work tells you that his sister just gave birth to twins. How much evidence would you demand to believe this claim? Probably not much. You would probably take the guy’s word for it. Now imagine if the same coworker tells you that, yesterday, in the local hospital, his sister gave birth to twelve babies! Would you take the guy’s word for it? I doubt it.
So it isn’t that we skeptics are biased against Christianity or even that we are biased against the supernatural. We are simply applying the same reason, logic, and skepticism to YOUR very extra-ordinary religious claim that we apply to ALL very rare, extra-ordinary claims, including very rare, extraordinary natural claims.
And Arkenaten said this:
I cannot fathom how you can disregard something like Noah’s Ark as nonsense and yet accept that a narrative construct called Jesus of Nazareth could come back from the dead.
Personally, I feel very much the same way that nonsupernaturalist does. The first part of unkleE’s question that I’d like to address is his statement about nonbelief:
If we applied that logic, no-one would be an atheist because they didn’t have inerrant knowledge for that conclusion.
I think this depends on what one means by “atheism.” I’m not really interested in trying to determine what the official definition of the term is; rather, I’d like to make sure we’re all talking about the same thing within the confines of this discussion. When I refer to myself as an atheist, I simply mean that I don’t believe any of the proposed god claims that I’ve encountered. I’m not necessarily saying that I think no gods exist, period. And if I were to say that, I’d give the caveat that I could easily be wrong about such a belief. This notion of atheism, the position that one hasn’t been convinced of any god claims, is often referred to as “weak atheism” or “soft atheism.” Personally, I think that should be everyone’s default position. No one should be a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Christian until he or she has been convinced that the god(s) of that particular religion exist(s). If we didn’t operate in this way, then we’d all immediately accept the proposition of every religion we encountered, until its claims could be disproven. This would make most of us Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, pagans, and atheists all at the same time. Obviously, that’s ridiculous. So on those grounds, I don’t agree with unkleE’s assertion that we would need inerrant information to not believe something.
Furthermore, when it comes to the claims of Christianity, I can accept or reject them completely independently of what I think about the existence of god(s). Many times, discussions about the evidence for and against Christianity slide into discussions about whether or not a god exists. People bring up the cosmological and teleological arguments. While those discussions can be important, I think they are really just distractions when we’re talking about a specific religion. I’m okay conceding that a god might exist, so I’d rather focus on the pros and cons of Christianity to see if it could possibly be true. After all, it could be the case that God is real, but Christianity is false.
unkleE’s comment started like this:
How is it that in everything else in life – whether it be ethics, or politics, relationships, science, history, law, even disbelief – we are willing to make decisions based on non-inerrant evidence and reasoning, but when it is belief in God we require inerrant evidence?
To piggy-back off the comments I just made, I don’t necessarily require inerrant evidence to believe in God. I think the necessity for inerrancy comes from the kind of god being argued for. The Abrahamic religions teach that there is one God who is supreme. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, completely just, etc. I know there are sometimes caveats placed on those labels. For instance, can God create a rock so large that he can’t lift it? Arguments like that illustrate that being all-powerful doesn’t mean he’s outside the laws of logic. And the same goes for all-knowing. It’s sometimes argued that he knows all that can be known… perhaps there are some things that can’t be known? The waters can get muddy pretty quickly, so I think it’s best to refer back to the religion’s source material (the Bible, in this case) to learn more about the characteristics of this god.
In the Bible, God seems to be big on proofs. When God wanted Noah to build an ark, he spoke to him directly. Noah didn’t have to decide between a handful of prophets each telling him different things — God made sure that Noah knew exactly what was required of him. The same was done for Abraham when God wanted him to move into the land of Canaan, and when God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac. When God called Moses to deliver the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, he also spoke directly to Moses. And on top of that, he even offered additional proofs by performing signs for Moses. And when Moses appeared before Pharaoh, God again used signs to show Pharaoh that Moses did indeed speak on God’s behalf. Miraculous signs were used throughout the period of time that the Israelites wandered in the wilderness. And we can fast forward to the time of Gideon and see that God used signs as evidence then as well. Throughout the Old Testament, signs were given to people to show God’s involvement and desires. There are even examples where God punished those who listened to false prophets who hadn’t shown such signs, such as the man of God who listened to the instruction of an old prophet who was actually lying to him. God sent a lion to kill the man (I Kings 13:11-32).
The New Testament is no different. Jesus and his apostles perform all kinds of miracles as evidence of Jesus’s power. When the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Satan, he pointed out how nonsensical that would be, showing that such miracles were intended as a display of God’s approval (Matt 12:24-28). And the Gospel of John also argues that these miracles were intended as evidence:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
— John 20:30-31
Not only did Jesus and his disciples use miracles to make their case, they also appealed to Scripture. Throughout the New Testament, you find references to the Old: “as it is written,” “as spoken by the prophet,” etc. That in itself doesn’t necessarily make the case for inerrancy, but it at least shows that they expected the scriptures to be accurate.
If God cared so much during the time periods talked about in the Bible, why wouldn’t he care just as much today? How can Jesus say that “not one jot or tittle of the law will pass away” if God’s not really all that concerned about how accurate the “jots” and “tittles” are? And yes, like unkleE said in his comment, I do think the fact that the stakes are tremendously high on this question makes it that much more necessary to have good evidence. While the Bible gives us countless examples of those who received direct communication from God or one of his representatives, we find ourselves living in a time when we’re surrounded by competing claims about which god is true, and which doctrines are the right ones. I used to believe that the one tool we had to cut through all that noise was the Bible. It was the one source we could go to to find what God wanted from us. And we could trust that it was his word because of the amazing prophecy fulfillments that it contained and that despite its length and antiquity, it was completely without error. In other words, I thought it was a final miracle to last throughout the ages. And because of its existence and availability, we no longer needed individuals who went around performing miracles and spreading the gospel.
That’s how I saw the world. Of course, since then, I’ve discovered that the Bible doesn’t live up to that high standard. I have many other posts that deal with its various problems, so I won’t try to detail them now. But I simply don’t see how the God portrayed in the Bible, a god who is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, etc, would inspire individuals to write down his incredibly important message to all of mankind, yet not make sure they relay it completely accurately. It doesn’t always agree with itself, it contains historical and scientific mistakes, and sometimes it advocates things that are outright immoral. It’s understandable why a number of people would fail to be convinced by such a book; therefore, it would be impossible for an all-loving and completely just God to punish people when they’re merely trying to avoid the same fate as the man of God who trusted the old (false) prophet.
Finding Truth 
It would be an interesting exercise.
I am sure Original Sin and Prophecy had something to do with it, but I am no biblical expert.
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UnkleE: “Having said all that, I am more inclined to say I believe in the resurrection because I believe in Jesus, than to say I believe in Jesus because I believe in the resurrection.”
Until UnkleE begins to question the existence of the Christian god, Yahweh/Lord Jesus, we will never convince him that his worldview is false based on objective evidence. His feelings and perceptions about the invisible being whom he believes resides inside his “soul” is too strong to even consider the possibility that his worldview is false.
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… His feelings and perceptions about the invisible being whom he believes resides inside his “soul” ARE too strong to even consider the possibility that his worldview is false.
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One of the main reasons I left evangelical Christianity and became a Lutheran was because I never “heard” Jesus speak to me “in my heart”. I got tired of hearing all the Christians around me talk about how Jesus was always “leading” them, “moving them”, and speaking to them in a still, small voice.
So if you are a Christian who believes that a Being inside your body is keeping a running conversation with you all day long, every day of your life; a Being who is always there when you are down; always a source of comfort in your times of need, and then some skeptic comes along and tells you that that being/person doesn’t exist; that when he died 2,000 years ago, he stayed dead; that the voice you are hearing in your head is just your imagination, why would you ever believe them?
That’s the problem.
How do you convince someone that their invisible best friend does not exist?
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Spengler,Venkman and Stanz?
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If I thought i saw bigfoot in the woods, I can imagine that it would be hard for someone who wasn’t there, to try and convince that I saw something else, even though if someone told me that they saw bigfoot in the woods, i’d think they had really seen something else.
So I can also see how people who feel like they’ve witnessed a real miracle, or who feel like God is really with them somehow, would be difficult to sway.
When I believed, I thought God was with me, but I never thought he spoke directly to me. I never claimed to hear his voice. Once many of the issues were spread plainly in front of me, the idea of consistency, fairness and reason compelled me to question my feelings of God’s “presence.”
Is he anymore present than Anne Frank or George Washington? For me, the answer was “no.”
And those times where i felt like prayers had been answered, i seldom shared them as evidences or proofs for God, because even then I realized that they could easily appear to be just coincidences, which is what I’d assume would be the case if someone from a religious background I disagreed with shared a similar story.
Maybe I haven’t witnessed what UnkleE and others have, but I’d bet that we’ve all witnessed people who’ve been wrong and who’ve believed things that are false, and I’d bet that none of us has witnessed a 3 day dead body return to life and fly off… so, this is why i have a hard time understanding why it’s more reasonable to believe stories about a 3 day old dead body coming back to life and flying off.
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😆
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Historians and experts can only tell us what they think might be historical within the pages of the Bible. They can’t tell us anything about a theoretical deity. So you would still have to take a step of “faith” and pick and choose your own theology and your own version of “God”.
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Spengler, Venkman and Stanz?
“Venkman” sounded vaguely familiar but the other two did not. I thought maybe they were famous psychologists. Then I googled it.
Very funny, Arkster!
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Nate…
How could they not have hung onto it? I mean, the OT is the entire premise to the Christian story. Christianity does not make sense except in light of the OT origin story. Originally, Christianity was just a sect within Judaism. It only gradually grew apart from Judaism as they had more success with Gentiles than with Jews.
The OT was “scripture” to Jesus, Paul and the apostles. They might have been able to leave behind some parts of what we now call the OT — they obviously did not incorporate books like Enoch, and some canons differ on some books — but the OT it not severable from Christianity.
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Thanks Jon, that works for me. I knew that Jesus’s earliest disciples and Paul would have viewed it that way. As far as the later bishops who weighed in on which books were legitimate, I wasn’t sure if they had different criteria. Your reasoning makes sense to me, though.
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So why do you think Marcion was able to get away with it ( for quite some time) and even produce his own gospel?
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Ok, so I’m going to try and answer my own question: “How do you convince someone that their invisible best friend does not exist?”
1. Is it possible that the “still, small voice” you hear speaking to you or “leading” you is just YOU?
Think about this: How many times have you been in a church or in a denomination in which two different leaders/factions in the church/denomination both claim that God has “led” them to two very different conclusions on an issue?
I saw this a lot in evangelicalism. Isn’t that a strong indication that “God” has nothing to do with it. These “voices” were just people convincing themselves of their own desired plans of actions.
2. Isn’t it possible that your experiences of remarkable answered prayers are nothing more than random chance? Is there any statistical evidence that Christians have higher health recovery rates, lower accident rates, lower death rates, etc., than other groups of people? I don’t think so.
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Arkenaten
I’m only speculating here, but I think it’s probably because Marcion’s views were so radically different. Marcion thought Jesus was an entirely different God, one who had defeated the OT God. His version of Christianity was explicitly discontinuous with the OT.
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@Jon.
I know.
But the point I was trying to make was how/why did the church allow it for so long? And also, that so many people followed him/his version which included churches and all the paraphernalia I believe?
What was it that sparked a ”witch hunt” against him?
Further, Marcion didn’t even believe Jesus was a Jewish Messiah.
This seems to lend more credence that this character – JC – was simply mythological and not a real historical person at all for how could Marcion have been so mistaken/wrong about the character Jesus of Nazareth if the evidence was there for all to see?
It makes no sense that he would change Jesus background etc so entirely as if he was real and there was evidence for this then he would look like a bloody fool trying to pass Jesus off as not a Jewish Messiah. And yet he was believed and had quite a large following by all reckoning
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Did any of you living in the US see the PBS interview last night with the author of the book, “The End of White Christian America”? It was fascinating. The United States is no longer a predominately white, Protestant nation as of 2008. Here is a link to a video of the interview if you want to see it:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/authors-eulogy-white-christian-america/
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I didn’t see it, but I’ll check it out. I heard this author on the Diane Rehm Show (NPR) last week, though. Really interesting program:
https://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2016-08-29/the-rise-of-the-alt-right-movement-and-its-place-in-this-years-presidential-campaign
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“I think whether the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal is or not, doesn’t really matter, because it presents issues fro me either way.
if it’s real …..
If it’s not real …..”
I think you are still missing what I am saying. The evidence of archaeologists, historians, literary experts, anthropologists, etc, is that the OT starts with myth and ends in interpreted history. Myth doesn’t necessarily mean “not historical”, though it often probably is, but that isn’t what’s important. The important point is that it usually contains cultural truths that are foundational for the people. I have just written a post on this that my help you see where I am coming from – Myths, legends, history and truth.
So the prophets of Baal story had a meaning and told truths that were important to the Jewish people. It likely had some historical basis, possibly very flimsy, possibly it actually happened, but we can never know and it isn’t really important. So instead of using the dichotomy of real/unreal, we need something more subtle to asses it.
“And along with that, isn’t there ample historical evidence that people can sincerely believe falsehoods, that people can be mistaken?”
Of course! I don’t think I have said anything that would lead you to think I wouldn’t agree with that? But it can be as true of sceptics as believers. The only way forward, I think, is to start with the consensus of historians and then build from there. That is what I try to do. That is how I respond to the resurrection, and the prophets of Baal, and to the history of Stonehenge.
The difficulty on this blog comment section is that many sceptics want to start with a biased view of history by being very selective in their choice of experts. We ought to be able, as Nate and I generally can, to agree on the starting facts based on the consensus of experts, and discuss our conclusions from there. But it happens far too little.
Thanks for the opportunity to discuss these things.
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“The difficulty on this blog comment section is that many sceptics want to start with a biased view of history by being very selective in their choice of experts. ”
unkleE, you live in a glass house too. Put the rock down. 🙂
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Arkenaten
I don’t know. Was the Church in early-to-mid 2nd century in a position to disallow heresy? I’m not sure what they could have done beyond criticizing and excommunicating Marcion. Does that count as a witch hunt?
As far as his followers, obviously he had some, but how many people were there and how large was it as a percentage of the overall number of Christians? I don’t know. I’m not sure we have great data on the number and composition of Christians at many points in the first few centuries.
Right, that is consistent with his belief that the Jewish scriptures were about an evil god and that his new “good” God had sent Jesus to save people from that evil God. He believed Jesus was a savior, just not the savior of the Jewish scriptures.
I don’t think this follows at all. Marcion’s canon included (most of) Luke and only removed some of the more “Jewish” elements of the book. Marcion didn’t deny Jesus, he just had a more gnostic view of the purpose of Jesus. Tertullian wrote, “Marcion laid down the position that Christ, who in the days of Tiberius was, by a previously unknown god, revealed for the salvation of all nations…”
On the contrary, the idea that a crucified man could be the Jewish messiah was seen as a “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles”, so reinterpreting him (to, remember, distant audiences) was not only plausible but pretty well in line with what Christians had been doing for the previous century.
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Constantine’s Bible by David L Dungan is an excellent historical view of how the Bible was formed . It answers a lot of questions here including questions about Marcion. It’s only 159 pgs long with 50 pages of reference notes. I highly recommend it !
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UnkleE: “The difficulty on this blog comment section is that many sceptics want to start with a biased view of history by being very selective in their choice of experts. We ought to be able, as Nate and I generally can, to agree on the starting facts based on the consensus of experts, and discuss our conclusions from there. But it happens far too little.”
I agree with UnkleE. We skeptics are biased…but everyone is biased to some degree…including Christians. I also agree with UnkleE that we should listen to consensus expert opinion. But what is a consensus? A simple majority? Is 50.5% a consensus opinion?
I prefer to use this definition of “consensus”: the opinion of the vast majority of experts in a given field of expertise. What is “vast”? I would say, at least 90%, but some may disagree. Bottom line, if 50.5% of experts in a field take one side on a position and 49.5% of experts in the field hold a contrary view, I don’t think it is wrong to side with the minority. However, if only a fringe (5-10%) of experts hold a position, you probably should be an expert yourself to disagree with the overwhelming majority opinion.
So when it comes to the Bible, using the definition of “consensus expert opinion” above, where do we skeptics and UnkleE disagree?
1. Does the consensus of experts believe that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead?
No.
2. Does the consensus of experts believe that Jesus ascended/levitated into the clouds/outer space? No.
3. Does the consensus of experts believe that Jesus was the product of the union of a god with a human virgin? No.
4. Does the consensus of experts believe that the disciples of Jesus truly did see a resurrected dead body? No.
So why does UnkleE accuse skeptics of rejecting the consensus opinion of experts? Is it because some of us reject the historicity of the Empty Tomb? Remember, Habermas’ data is based on a literature search beginning with articles published in 1975 (hardly current). And in this literature search, Habermas’ claims that 75% of scholars believe in the historicity of the Empty Tomb. 75% constitutes a majority, but not a consensus. But let’s give this one to UnkleE and Christians. Let’s agree to accept the Empty Tomb as historical fact. Only a Christian would see an empty tomb as proof of a resurrection. There are many possible, much more probable explanations for an empty tomb than that a dead guy came back to life by the power of a ancient Canaanite deity.
So what consensus expert opinion are we skeptics here on Nate’s blog rejecting??? I don’t see it.
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I don’t think it takes a scholar to recognize there was an empty tomb according to the Gospels. But what were the people thinking when they discovered the empty tomb ???
Let’s look at it again.
What did the women do after they found the empty grave ?
Luke 24:9-11 9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
What did Peter do ?
Luke 24:12 ” Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.”
Let’s check John
John 20:2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
It doesn’t appear they knew anything about Jesus’ Resurrection
And you ask why we are skeptical about a Resurrection ?
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“I very much feel that I fall into the “informed disbelief” camp.”
Hi Nate, yes, I think we understand each other here. We at least broadly accept what the historians say (when there is a consensus) and we disagree about how to interpret that. We could move on then to discuss our conclusions on that basis, but we both agree that we won’t do that now! 🙂
“But to me, this is exactly what we would expect to see if the Christian god weren’t real.”
Yes it may be, at least the first part (the OT). But (1) it equally fits with christian belief, so it is not a definitive criterion, and (2) the important bit is the NT, which I would argue is not at all what we’d expect if the christian God wasn’t real. But again, that’s for another day!
“I doubt that you ask this same question of the Koran or the Book of Mormon, so why focus on the Bible?”
Well it is obvious that I focus on the Bible in part because I grew up in that culture. But there are other reasons as well – christianity is the world’s largest religion, the christian God matches what the philosophical, scientific and personal evidence (expressed via the theistic arguments) points to about God, christianity makes much clearer and important historical claims, and the figure of Jesus is the only credible divine incarnation among them. Furthermore, I have read some of the Mormon, Islam and Baha’i scriptures and there are good reasons to rate them “lower” than the New Testament. So none of us can be totally even-handed, but I think christianity stands head and shoulders above any other religion on objective grounds. And accordingly, I don’t say they are all wrong and christianity is right, rather I say they are less right and christianity is more right.
“more importantly, the only reason you’re able to think God might have used a book like this is because you’ve thrown out all the reasons not to! “
Well I can understand how you might feel, but really, I haven’t done anything like that. I keep saying, I think all opinions should start from facts, and on contentious matters, there will be a range of views on the facts, so we need to find a balance between the different viewpoints. It is that consensus of historians that I base my views on, and that consensus tells us that Noah was probably a devastating local Sumerian flood gradually written up into an epic myth (first Gilgamesh/Utnapishtim, then Noah) almost a millennium later. That is the broad consensus of scholars about Genesis 1-11. I equally accept the broad consensus on the rest of the OT. But none of that is important for my faith.
My faith in Jesus is based on the NT, and there I have “thrown out” very little. I accept that the birth stories are doubtful, I accept that there are discrepancies in accounts, but the basic picture of Jesus as a teacher, healer, exorcist, prophet, Messiah, and representative of God on earth, who was seen in vision after his death and quickly worshiped as divine, is well supported by scholars of all stripes. Non-believing scholars like Bart Ehrman (I have just finished reading his book on the subject) say he was an apocalyptic prophet who evoked a strong response. Believing scholars say he was that, but divine as well, and that the visions were real. I believe the latter is true. It is on the basis of believing in Jesus that I assess the OT and find it quite reasonable that it would be as the scholars say, with many doubts about the details. The OT is important for understanding Jesus, but (for me) not important for believing in him.
So I can only repeat, we both accept the facts, more or less the same, we both conclude differently from them, and I respect your conclusion even while disagreeing with it. But I still think the matters that began this post are not relevant in that disagreement because they can fit both your and my beliefs.
Sorry to go on a bit, but I’m hoping it is helpful in at least understanding where I’m at, even though you disagree. Thanks for you patience and tolerance! 🙂
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“I agree that WLC wins most of his debates. ….. I think those three were losses, because Craig was unable to take them outside of their comfort zones or make claims his opponents were unfamiliar with.”
Hi Jon, thanks for your thoughts. I’m not wanting to debate how good WLC is and I’m sure he doesn’t win everything, I was just pointing out that however much atheists disagree with belief in the resurrection, it has respectable support. Those who think a quick glib put-down is enough aren’t grappling with the evidence . (I’m not at all suggesting you did that.) For atheists, I think the starting point should be JJ Lowder’s paper.
“Flew became a deist, not a Christian. He said the evidence for the resurrection was “better” than for mother miracles, but he did not accept it as true.”
Yes, I know. But I was careful in my wording not to suggest he believed it, but simply that he thought it was well attested, even asking NT Wright to write a chapter on it in his “There is a God” book.
“I am very, very familiar with Habermas’ work. I would note that he has never published the data he cites as the basis for this claim. Never. It exists in a word document on his computer and I don’t believe even his co-author, Mike Licona, has ever seen it.”
I have heard this said many times, but what is your basis for it? I took the information from a paper that is freely available on the web. A slightly edited version of the same paper was then published in the peer-reviewed academic journal, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus in 2005. In it he answers some of your questions. Were you aware of this? If so, do you not trust peer-reviewed academic journals? I am at a loss to understand.
“Then there is the fact that “scholars who write about an empty tomb” is bound to be heavily weighted towards scholars who are predisposed to believe in an empty tomb, in much the same way that “scholars who write about Joseph Smith” are more likely to be Mormons.”
I am at a loss to understand this statement too. Is that a fact – one for which you have evidence? My own feeling is that it is quite wrong, but that is just an impression not a fact. My impression is that until the last decade, until NT Wright’s “The Resurrection of the Son of God” began to influence scholars, few “critical scholars” argued for the resurrection as a historical fact (it was argued as a faith conclusion), and most scholars said it was not a historical matter, while a few said it didn’t happen. So I don’t think you are right, but I could easily be corrected by factual information that contradicts my impressions.
Among the non christian scholars I have read, from memory, many accept that the disciples saw visions (Casey, Ehrman, Jesus Seminar, Sanders) and some accept the empty tomb (Grant, Fox). Habermas references a few others. So I think his results are interesting. I wouldn’t put much store on the exact figure of 75%, but what I think we can say is that even many critical sceptical non-christian scholars accept either the empty tomb or the visions, or both.
Thanks for the opportunity to explore these matters.
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