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 
Hi Jon, I am really appreciating the opportunity to discuss things with you. I hope I don’t overstay my welcome!
”I think you overstate the scholarly support it has. For starters, I think the Minimal Facts argument overstates some of the scholarly agreement. ….. the MF argument is not based in scholarly support for the resurrection, but instead scholarly support for elements that proponents argue are best explained by a resurrection. This is not the same as saying scholars support the historicity of the resurrection.”
I think you have jumped to a conclusion I didn’t make here. I have never mentioned “minimal facts”, nor any joint work of Habermas and Licona (I wasn’t even aware there was one), just the paper by Habermas I referenced. And I hope I never said there was scholarly support for the historicity of the resurrection, for I certainly don’t think that. In fact, I did say ”My impression is that until the last decade …. few “critical scholars” argued for the resurrection as a historical fact”
One of the things I have appreciated about your discussion here is your differentiation between historical evidence and personal belief, e.g. you may not believe in Jesus, or believe that he did miracles, but you recognise the historical evidence for his life and death. I make that clear distinction too. And in discussion here, I try to stick to establishing the historical evidence. I recognise that most people here are non-christians, so I generally only discuss my beliefs when asked questions.
So it is with my statements on the resurrection. I have tried to steer clear of arguing why I think it is true, restricting myself, as much as possible, to evidence. And so I think it is right until shown otherwise that according to Habermas, and confirmed by my more limited reading, that the majority of scholars do indeed accept what you call the “minimal facts”.
”I think he pretty persuasively dismantles the pro-resurrection arguments in that piece.”
I gained a different impression. That’s why he made the statement that either belief or disbelief could reasonably be held.
”I think it is ungracious to suggest that Flew’s views were due to age and an enfeebled mind, but I struggle to reconcile what he said with some other facts.”
He said the book represented his thoughts. I have read many, many accounts and assessments, and I think it is only fair to allow him to self identify. But Flew’s state of mind is not important – I simply mentioned him to support my contention that dismissing the resurrection without having looked seriously at both sides is foolish. I don’t, and didn’t ever, suggest that you have personally been remiss in that way.
”I specifically asked him about this and he confirmed it. I understand you have no way to verify whether I’m telling the truth”
I am perfectly happy to accept your word for it. In fact, I find it very interesting that you did this.
”we have no way of knowing what his methodology is, who counts as a relevant source on the topic “
I think we need to be very careful what accusations we make here. If an astronomer makes thousands of observations of the moons of Jupiter and on that basis, presents the hypothesis that there is an as yet undiscovered moon that explains some perturbations in the paths of the visible moons, and then publishes a paper, we don’t expect him to include all the photographs in his paper – one is enough as an example, and the publisher would refuse too many – and we would be very careful of insinuating he was a fraud because of that. And if we asked for his (or her) data, it would be quite reasonable if they refused and said “collect your own data.”
Now I know you haven’t accused Habermas of anything, but many people do. I think we have to say that a respected philosopher publishing in a respected academic journal did the work fairly, unless there is some significant evidence of malpractice. In any case, if anyone wanted to argue about some details of his choices, what difference would it make? Unless he has been totally dishonest, the figure might change to 70% or something, which changes nothing. If anyone things the “real” answer is very different (say 30%) then they could easily repeat his work.
Finally, my own reading confirms something like his figures. Most christian scholars would presumably accept these facts. But so do most sceptical scholars I have read, as I have already noted.
I think this whole matter is a bit of a criticism of sceptical commenters. For many, if they don’t like the conclusion, attack the messenger, e.g. Flew or Habermas. The correct way if someone disagrees with Habermas is to do the work to show him wrong! Why has no-one done that?
”How many biblical scholars are non-Christians?”
And here, I’m sorry to say, is another example of poor methodology. What would anyone think if someone argued similarly about evolution vs creationism? All the universities appoint evolutionists, creationists don’t get a chance, and Michael Behe only held onto his job under some strict conditions. So we can legitimately doubt evolution because of that bias?? (Just so you know, I accept evolution. This is just a counter example.) No, the right way is to do the research if you want to show someone is wrong. And that is exactly what evolutionists say to IDers!
So same here. Historical method should iron out most of the factual biases across the full set of scholars. And there are many sceptical scholars – Casey, Ehrman, Sanders and the Jesus Seminar (from memory) all accept there were visions, Fox, Grant believe the tomb was empty, and there are many others whose views I don’t know. Further, who are we calling “christian”? Crossan and Borg might call themselves christian, but most christians wouldn’t think so.
Further, the examples you give of Enns and Licona (I didn’t know about the latter) being dismissed (and I could add Anthony Le Donne, Bruce Waltke, John Schneider, Michael Pahl, James McGahey and others) certainly show that some colleges force views on their staff, but it also shows that some, perhaps many scholars, refuse to be bound by this. Anyone who wants to make an accusation about all this needs to do some decent research!
So I think it is a pointless game, trying to classify and dismiss scholars because of our assessment of their beliefs. And the best way around it is to do what I try to do. I don’t worry so much about what the total group of scholars thinks. Rather, I try to read reputable people on both sides of the question. So I read Casey, Ehrman (I recently read 4 of his books one after the other), Grant, Jesus Seminar, Fredriksen, Vermes, Sanders on the non-christian side, Wright, Bauckham, Evans, Keener, Dickson (‘cause he’s an Aussie), Hurtado, Charlesworth, Powell on the christian side, plus Crossan, Borg, Spong on whatever side you’d place them. I reckon I have a fair idea of the balance by reading that lot!
” I think proponents of the MF argument try to extrapolate too much from that and leave people with the impression that scholars agree that all of Jesus apostles physically “saw” a resurrected Jesus.”
I don’t recall seeing anyone argue that. But I can say quite definitely I haven’t argued that. I try to be very careful in what I argue. In my experience, it is atheists who haven’t read much NT scholarship that misunderstand. Too often I make carefully worded summaries of the middle ground of scholarly opinion on the historical “facts”, with quotes, only to get mocked by sceptics. When I produce more evidence, they too often jump to saying something quite irrelevant like “But I bet they never believe in ghosts and zombies walking around and flying off to heaven!” which of course I wasn’t saying. The mockery becomes a way of avoiding the scholarly consensus.
So I appreciate that you haven’t done that. But I hope I have argued a case for even you to take a more even-handed view of the evidence. Thanks a lot.
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Hi Ron, it depends on what you think “God-breathed” means. I wonder if you have assumed it means what the inerrantists think? But I think the evidence points to a different meaning.
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@ Unklee
Defintion:
Wiki.
So, once more, who are these historians that claim the biblical, Jesus of Nazareth was a genuine historical character?
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Hi Nate, I think I will try to draw my contribution to a close, to avoid going on too long.
”You believe that he occasionally intervenes in this world, but it’s not to the degree that it resolves questions about his existence. At least, I think this is how you view it — let me know if I’ve misunderstood.”
I think more than occasionally – Keener estimates from surveys that 300 million christians alive today claim to have experienced or observed a healing miracle. Most can’t be tested of course, but quite a few have been. So they may not resolves questions about God on their own, but they are strong evidence I believe.
”To me, that means that natural explanations should always have precedence.”
If they are the best explanation. That is the question we are discussing, so I don’t think the answer should be assumed.
”I agree with you that I’m drawing a conclusion about the event, just as you are. But I don’t agree that my conclusion requires faith”
Don’t get too stuck on the word “faith”, for I didn’t really know what word to use. But you’ll recall I put it in inverted commas, and gave a definition: ”going beyond the evidence”. All I’m saying is that unless something is absolutely proven, which virtually nothing is, then we all go beyond the evidence to draw a conclusion. The only way to avoid that is to not draw a conclusion and say “I don’t know either way.”
”It’s just an acceptance of the natural order, which has been demonstrated to us over and over.”
Everything is either proven by evidence or goes beyond the evidence. The only question is which step beyond the evidence is the most probable. And that is what we are arguing about. In most cases, the natural explanation will be best, but in some cases, e.g. some modern day healings, and the resurrection, I think the non-natural explanation is better. But as I’ve said before, I have already come to the conclusion that God exists and Jesus is his ”son” and you haven’t. That makes all the difference.
As an interesting thought experiment, I came up with these questions:
1. What is the probability that a person would resurrect naturally?
2. What is the probability, if the christian God exists, that he would resurrect a random person?
3. If the christian God exists, what is the probability that he would resurrect a first century Jewish prophet?
4. If the christian God exists, what is the probability that he would resurrect his incarnate “son”?
Different people would think different ones of those questions was the relevant one. You would choose #1, a new ager might choose #2, a Jew might choose #3, but I think the correct question is #4. I suggest those questions help us all see that in many of these arguments, the two “sides” are fighting on different grounds.
Thanks again.
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UnkleE
Such as the scholarly consensus surrounding Moses and the Exodus for example, a topic for which you refuse to engage at any meaningful level.
Maybe people would extend more respect if you demonstrated a willingness to honestly engage this topic and its relevance and impact to your steadfast belief in the historical veracity of the New Testament character, Jesus of Nazareth?
For someone who generally goes out of his way to point to scholarly consensus, who claims to make every effort to reduce the mount of personal bias you exhibit, has been at pains in the past to state you always try to view the middle ground and prefer not to align with extreme views on either end of the spectrum, can you at least explain your reason for considering the Moses/Exodus its lack of relevance to your faith especially as, by all accounts, the character Jesus of Nazareth believed here was historical veracity for Moses and the Exodus etc?
If you would prefer not to engage me on this topic perhaps you would like to make a general reply to the others here so they can get an idea of how you harmonize the crucial OT events/characters with Jesus of Nazareth?
Thanks.
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1. What is the probability that a person would resurrect naturally?
2. What is the probability, if the christian God exists, that he would resurrect a random person?
3. If the christian God exists, what is the probability that he would resurrect a first century Jewish prophet?
4. If the christian God exists, what is the probability that he would resurrect his incarnate “son”?
I would like to add #5
5. What are the chances the resurrection story was made up , like 99% of religious stories during that time ?
Bingo
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Hey unkleE,
Thanks for the reply. We still see the issue differently, but I think much of it has to do with the point you made about the different approaches people take to the question:
We agree! 🙂
Anyway, I don’t really have much else to add on that topic. I haven’t had a chance to revisit some of the comments you made earlier yesterday. I’ll try to go back through those this weekend, in case there was something I wanted to respond to. As always, thanks for taking the time to weigh in on all this stuff! That’s not a dismissal, btw — just wanted to make sure I got that in there while the thread’s still going on.
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Jon,
Just wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed reading your comments these last few days. You’ve obviously put in a lot of research on these topics — do you have a blog, website, YouTube channel, etc? Just wanted to make sure I could follow along in case you regularly post somewhere.
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Jesus believed that the Hebrew god Yahweh is the Creator God. If Yahweh does not exist, Jesus was wrong, proving that he (Jesus) was not a god. Until UnkleE proves that Yahweh exists and is the Creator God, his entire argument falls flat.
The weak link in UnkleE’s argument is his assumption that evidence for a Creator is evidence for Yahweh.
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So what evidence would Christians give for the existence of Yahweh?
I would bet that the first evidence they would attempt to give would be alleged prophecies about Jesus in the OT. However, I would point out that Jewish scholars can give very strong rebuttals that these “prophecies” are merely Christian misinterpretations of the passages in question, and in some situations, blatant—sloppy or intentional—mistranslations of the original Hebrew.
So where would they go next? Prophecies in the OT? Really? Please present one. The Book of Daniel? Fraud! That the city of Tyre would never be rebuilt? Fail!
So what evidence is there for the existence of the ancient Hebrew god, Yahweh?? If Yahweh is no more real than Baal, Zeus, and Jupiter, the entire Christian belief system crumbles and falls to pieces.
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This is where things get a bit tricky for Christians, as they must look to the Ugaritic texts. This is where you find the origins of the Israelite religion.
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Yes, Ark, the similarities between the Hebrew religion and the ancient Ugaritic religion of the Syrian coast (Canaanites) are fascinating. Here is an excerpt from an article on this subject:
“One way to illuminate this relationship between Ugarit and Israel is to return to the principal Ugaritic deities and to examine their biblical analogues.23 The head of the Ugaritic pantheon, El, also appears in the Bible. His name (and its variant Elohim) is generally used as a term for God, but in a few passages it serves as a proper name. Thus, Psalm 82 begins: “God [Elohim] has taken his place in the Assembly of El, in the midst of the gods [elohim] he holds judgment.” Similarly, Isaiah 14:13 (although in a polemical context) speaks of the “stars of El,” and Deuteronomy 32:8 (following the reading of a Dead Sea scroll and the Greek text) of the “sons of El.” In Exodus 6:2–3 a distinction is made between earlier and later names of the god of Israel: “God [Elohim] spoke to Moses, and he said to him: ‘I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shadday, but by my name, Yahweh, I was not known to them.’” The title “El Shadday,” often mistranslated “God Almighty,” means “El of the Mountain,” or “El, the One of the Mountain.” In the Ugaritic texts El lived at the “cosmic mountain” that was the source of fresh water, and the biblical epithet reflects this mythology. Moreover, like El, the god of Israel presided over the assembly of the gods, as in 1 Kings 22:19 and Job 1–2.”
There is currently no clear proof that the Hebrew religion grew out of the Ugaritic religion, but, it is quite possible that they share a common Levant history. What is, therefore, a very possible conclusion: The Hebrews were…CANAANITES.
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Here is the source for the above excerpt:
http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-90
So, so, so many similarities between Yahweh/the Hebrew religion and the gods and religion of the Canaanites; a fact hidden from humanity for thousands of years until the Ugarite texts were uncovered last century in Syria.
Wow.
Yahweh: an ancient, mythical Canaanite deity who lived on a great mountain whom Jesus believed was, in some fashion, his “Father”.
Oops.
Jesus made a mistake.
Jesus was not God.
Jesus is still dead.
There was no Resurrection.
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Yes, I read this a while back.
Based on the dating of the Ugaritic Tablets it can be shown the Canaanite( Ugarit) and the Israelite religion overlapped at some point.
That the Israelites were Canaanites is agreed and has shown to be so by the likes of Finkelstein and Dever.
The archaeological evidence is fairly clear. There was no Moses no Egyptian captivity no Exodus.
As the foundational tenets of Christianity can be found to have likely derived from Mithraism so too some of the basic elements of the early Israelite religion can be found to have derived from the Ugaritic religion.
The ramifications of this for Christianity and Christians like Unklee are fairly obvious to anyone who has an ounce of integrity and is prepared to follow the evidence.
Sadly , cherry picking for Christians in this regard has become somewhat of an art form.
However, we do know which way it is going and eventually discussions such as this will be prefaced with : Remember when…?
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Even if we accept UnklE’s claim that the evidence for the Resurrection is sufficient for any reasonable person to believe it or disbelieve it, the evidence AGAINST the existence of Yahweh tips the balance dramatically in favor of those who disbelieve this very extra-ordinary ancient claim.
I suggest that Christians such as UnkleE not be allowed to continue asserting the baseless assumption that evidence for a Creator is evidence for the ancient Ugaritic/Hebrew god, Yahweh.
The existence of Yahweh himself must be put forward.
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Hi Nate, thanks again for your friendly welcome and discussion. Obviously there is more we each could say, but it is always good to draw a line somewhere. I’m happy to close here, or to read anything more you wish to say. Have a good day/week/month until we meet on another blog post!
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Ark … seems uncleE is fulfilling your prediction of turning tail and running when things get too pointed. 😉
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Will ANY Christian reading this post have the courage to defend the existence of their god, Yahweh???
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What truly needs to made crystal clear – and for the likes of unklee to recognise – is the fact that, even if there really was a Yeshua Ben Joseph he is so far removed from the character we read of in the bible as to be a different individual all along.
It is like writing a brief life story of Nate as we all know him ( based on his own writing) then unklee taking those writings and sticking Nate in a Cape, blue suit and red underpants and claiming he was really someone called Supernate! A man who got zapped by Gamma rays, run over by a bus and came back to life. Unfortunately there is not a single witness to any of these events.
I am perfectly serious, this is how ridiculous Unkee’s argument really is and by putting it in these terms I hope everyone else here will see this too.
The supposed agreed upon historical ”facts” pertaining to Jesus of Nazareth still include the Empty Tomb scenario, and unklee seems intent on dragging this so called historical ”fact” in the light at every opportunity.
However, there is no archaeological evidence for such a tomb so what on earth is this fact based on? The gospel tale?
Roman history is against the tomb straight away and there is evidence as to what happened to prisoners such as ‘Jesus’: a common grave if he was lucky.
And even if we had a smelly itinerant Jewish rabbi running around Galilee for a couple of years so what?
There were several. Josephus mentions a few.
We have no idea who wrote the gospels and it is simply hand-waving to give the bible the benefit of the doubt regarding the ”names of these ”authors”.
And what about all the other ”genuinely inspired by god” gospels that did not make the cut?
So, in truth, all we have is an bare-bones story of some eschatological Rabbi with no contemporary evidence who may or may not have lived during the first three decades of the first century and was crucified by the Romans for sedition.
And that’s it, as there are no records to clearly state how Christianity got off the ground, or where and when it started.
If this was all cut and dried the likelihood is, Christianity would have proved its veracity and that of it’s supposed founder, the Lake Tiberius god man , Jesus Christ or died out relatively early on as did many of its contemporaries.
Yet because of Rome’s intervention it succeeded where others failed.
This does not in any way speak to its veracity only the political acumen of the Emperor and the Church.
The onus, as always, is for the Christian to back his or her claim with evidence.
If they cannot then all they have is faith and this can be dismissed with impunity.
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I don’t know what you mean by “verifiable.” Do we have verifiable evidence for the existence of Plato? Mohammed? Do we have verifiable evidence that Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him? Do we have verifiable evidence that Brutus killed Julius Caesar?
If you really do care a great deal about the consensus of scholarship, as you suggest, then the overwhelming consensus on the historicity of Jesus should be a very significant fact. Can you find a list of 5 working scholars (in directly relevant fields, not “philosophy of religion”) who don’t accept the historicity of Jesus. Can you find 5 peer-reviewed papers from working scholars in relevant fields that endorse mythicism? You basically have Carrier (who has not managed to find academic employment, have his idea published in academic journals or persuade almost any scholars), Price (an enjoyable fellow who is also not employed in academia or publishing mythicism in academic journals) and Avalos (philosophy of religion), plus some non-academics. I’m sure I’ve missed a few, but the point is made.
The simplest explanation for the textual evidence and the early Christian group is the existence of an apocalyptic Jewish preacher named Jesus. Until you come up with a more persuasive hypothesis, backed by the evidence, quibbling over whether it is “verifiable” is silly.
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Unklee
You cited a Habermas paper that explicitly talked about the minimal facts argument and you cited the resurrection debates of WLC, who uses his own variation on the minimal facts argument for his position. You may not have used the words “minimal facts”, but it’s difficult to cite Habermas and Craig on this issue without referring to the minimal facts argument.
Perhaps I am reading into what you wrote, but I was trying to respond to the arguments of the sources you cited. If you agree that academic acceptance of the crucifixion and claimed appearances don’t imply academic acceptance of a resurrection, then we’re fine and on the same (or a similar) page.
I agree.
I agree with this, too, and I try to be very careful to say that I do think he has a large collection of papers that address this topic. My main question is about the methodology. I suspect that, if he released the data, it would show his results were less robust than he argues. There are many ways this could be the case — or not the case! — but no ways to check without the data.
Well, if 50% of his papers were from Liberty University and similar fundamentalist seminaries, how do you think that might affect the outcome? If he counted explicit claims of historicity, but discounted papers that implicitly (but not explicitly) discounted historicity, how would that affect the outcome? If he had 3,400 sources, but only 10 of them explicitly discussed the historicity of the empty tomb, how would that affect the claim? You get the idea.
The issue of Christian vs non-Christian is not poor methodology. Many Christian universities explicitly require faith statements of their professors and students and those academics are not allowed to reach conclusions outside of their theological commitments. Again, if you did a survey of academic literature on some Mormon historical claim, I’d bet you would get a lot more papers from BYU than from elsewhere and papers from BYU would be a lot more sympathetic to a pro-historicity conclusion than non-Mormon academics. If a view of the Koran is widely accepted among Muslim scholars and not widely accepted outside of Muslim scholarship, then you have to consider the possibility that the theology is directing the scholarship rather than the scholarship directing the theology.
These are massive potential sources of distortion. This doesn’t mean conclusions reached by Christian scholars are discredited at all — most of the best biblical research has been done by Christian scholars! — but the disproportionate contributions of theologically driven and restricted academia cannot be ignored.
Again, I think the narrow list of minimal facts is probably widely accepted, but there is a pretty wide range of interpretation of what exactly things like “appearances” means, and (for example) Craig stretches the consensus interpretation to his own benefit.
I agree!
And likewise, I appreciate the thoughtful conversation.
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When Bart Ehrman is asked about the claim that “the majority of NT scholars” believe in the historicity of the Empty Tomb, his reply is:
“That is probably true. But the majority of NT scholars are believing Christians, so such a claim is not very useful evidence.”
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Jon, thanks for your response. I think maybe we have probably reached a point where we may finish up, unless you have some more matters to raise?
We have reached some sort of understanding and agreement on scholarship and the resurrection (i.e. that many scholars accept either the empty tomb or the visions, or both) but going from there to the resurrection itself is a matter of history for only some scholars and either a matter of disbelief/belief or agnosticism for many. Just a couple of brief points:
1. Habemas’ paper doesn’t mention the word “minimal” and doesn’t make any argument – it just reports findings. I think people use the results of the paper to make the MF argument.
2. Your hypothetical of 50% from Liberty wouldn’t constitute a questionable methodology, but a complete misrepresentation. If anyone thinks an established scholar is really a fraud, let them offer evidence, if not then it is best to accept the results of peer-reviewed academic papers. I don’t think you are accusing him of that, but if it is something more minor, then the results won’t change much, surely?
3. I know that some universities require conformity to faith statements, but how many are like that, and how many enforce it? I don’t know. Do you know? (I would be interested to know.) But Habermas said it was “critical scholars” and I presume that wouldn’t include many in that situation. In any case, I have outlined how I balance my reading and citing, and I think it is fair to say that almost all I have read accept the visions, though maybe less accept the empty tomb. My point here hasn’t been to press anyone to believe in the resurrection, but (1) to clarify the historical evidence and (2) to argue that dismissal of that evidence is just as tendentious as using it to argue for the resurrection. That isn’t a bad thing, but it isn’t a neutral objective thing either.
Thanks again. I appreciate you have done a lot of reading on NT history and it is both pleasant and informative to see what you have to say. Thanks.
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Jon, just out of curiosity, who are your favourite sources for all this, who do you read? When you say some of the best scholars are christians, who did you have in mind?
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Confirmation bias: a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one’s beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one’s beliefs.
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