TedM

The passion and strength of the testimony is what I think affected growth. I disagree with you and Habermas thas the testimony had to be by people claiming to have literally seen a literal Jesus.


Let's take a look..

Is he talking about eyewitnesses to the resurrection or just simply to him as a historical person? I doubt that Moreland is talking about the resurrection here. In fact, there is a very inconsistent tradition about Jesus' resurrection appearances: The gospels have very different accounts of appearances, the most startling to me is the lack of a clear strong tradition of an earthquake at the tomb and both the existence and location of the ascention.

All of his other comments appear also to be directed to eyewitnesses of a historical Jesus PRE-crucifixion, not Post.

I see no need to continue on this matter. I allow for the possibility that some of the early Christians believed they actually had seen Jesus resurrected, though I suspect such appearances were really more of the visionary, dream or insight kind.., driven by strong emotions..

ted

Johnny Skeptic

Well, you are in a distinct minority. If you enjoy holding to minority positions and disagreeing with top Christian scholars, that is your choice. Of course, you will agree with Habermas on other issues whenever you feel that its suits you to do so.

Now please, Ted. Moreland said the following:

"Fourth, if the New Testament picture of Jesus was not based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, how could a consistent tradition about him ever have been formed and written?�

Johnny: Part of the tradition was definitely the Resurrection.

“Assume that no eyewitnesses controlled the tradition about Jesus prior to the time the Gospels were written. Assume further that the scattered early believing communities were so caught up with the living 'presence' of the resurrected Christ speaking to them through prophetic utterances in the church assemblies that they lost almost all interest in the historical Jesus as he really was. Then there would have been almost as many Christologies or portraits of Jesus and his significance as there were believing communities.�

Johnny: As Moreland said, “Then there would have been almost as many Christologies or portraits of Jesus and his significance as there were believing communities.�

Johnny: Obviously Moreland is talking about if there hadn’t been any post-Resurrection appearances, many Christologies and portraits would have emerged, but of course they didn’t.

“Further, why would the churches tie themselves to four written sources if they could hear Christ 'speak' afresh to them in their assemblies and if they felt free to make up sayings and stories about Jesus to meet the needs of their life setting?� Eyewitness apostolic control over the tradition is the best explanation for the emergence of a consistent, written portrait of Jesus."

Johnny: Moreland most certainly is not talking about a historical Jesus here. I can get Dr. Robert Price to contact Moreland for further clarification. Would you like for me to do that? I doubt it based upon what you have said. I suspect that you don’t want me to have Robert Price contact Moreland because you know that you will embarrass yourself. If you will not accept my offer to get it from the author himself, then your integrity will be compromised even in the opinions of some of the Christians in this forum.

I suspected that you would withdraw. You know that you cannot successfully contend against top Christian scholars.

As you wish. Even most Christians will reject your arguments. Since you can’t even get expert corroboration from your fellow Christians, you have lost this debate. Remember, the texts say that pride goes before the fall. In your pride you set yourself up against Christian scholars who have “studied to show themselves approved unto God as workmen that don’t need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,� reference 2 Timothy 2:15.

Toto

We argue against the theories of "top Christian scholars" all the time here. Very often their scholarship seems to be clouded by their theology.

Peter Kirby dissected Habermas here.

Amaleq13

What "consistent tradition"? The one created by later authors rewriting an earlier version of a story? Not only does that not require eyewitness testimony, it argues against it for any of the rewrites. There really isn't much of a "consistent tradition" between Paul and the Gospels beyond the name Jesus, a crucifixion, a resurrection and some appearances (with inconsistent details on the latter).

There doesn't appear to be any good reason to assume there weren't given Paul's complaint about folks teaching "another Jesus" and "another gospel" (2 Cor 11:4).

TedM

Many scholars believe that the earliest testimony was of a spiritual resurrection.

I stand corrected. I hadn't read Morelands opinions closely enough. What's interesting is that what he says 'would have' happened DID against his implication, as Amaleq13 pointed out. Paul refers to 'revelation' for his views on circumcision. Moreland is speculating about the degree to which people would have had post-resurrection messages from Jesus. He's guessing Johnny. My sense is that the original Jewish sect was pretty focused on honoring God through righteousness by keeping the Laws and awaiting his imminent return and were therefore not real receptive to some wild new concepts not supported by their scriptures.

The things is, we don't really have much early evidence on the resurrection appearances other than Paul's, which sound like they could very well be of a spiritual nature, and the gospels-which have inconsistent traditions one would not expect if they were literally true (ie, the earthquake, the locations of appearances, differences with regard to the ascention), and the two possible references by eyewitnesses to the resurrection appearances we have are 1 Peter and 1 John, which both refer to the resurrection, but not physical appearances. The gospel of Peter has angels and a 100 foot tall Jesus but no literal appearances in the parts that remain. The gospel of John definitely has literal appearances but the author isn't clearly identified as John. In other words, the testimony to eyewitness appearances is questionable.

The one thing that isn't questionable is that people believed that jesus had risen. Some may really have had some kind of experience, but the accounts we aren't supportive of claims for literal appearances early on. Just later on.

ted

Johnny Skeptic

Let me clarify my position. Since Ted is a Christian, I was addressing my arguments according to what top fundamentalist Christian scholars and lay fundamentalist Christians believe happened. Most of them believe that eyewitness testimony largely accounted for the growth of the Christian Church in the 1st century. As a skeptic, of course I don't believe that that is what happened. Ted said "I allow for the possibility that some of the early Christians believed they actually had seen Jesus resurrected, though I suspect such appearances were really more of the visionary, dream or insight kind.., driven by strong emotions." Ted's problem is that for purposes of this debate it doesn't make any difference at all why people became Christians in the 1st century, only how many people became Christians in the 1st century. Hoping for a Messiah and believing that you got one are two entirely different issues.

In a previous post I said "There are not any good at all for any to assume that the Gospel writers did not dream up the claims of Joseph of Arimathea's tomb and Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem in order to agree with the Old Testament. It is important to note that the first written record of those claims did not appear for at least thirty-five years after the fact, possibily a good deal longer." Ted replied "That's true, they could have been made up. However, if people went to the trouble of making them up that is evidence that the culture was very interested in finding a Messiah." That only proves that a few New Testament writers were interested in making a connection between the following examples, not the general culture:

ISA 53:9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. MAT 27:59 And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,

MIC 5:2 But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. MAT 2:1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem

ZEC 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. JOH 12:14 And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written

Regarding the preceding, there obviously was a connection in the opinions of the writers of Matthew and John, (two people is most certainly not as Ted said “the culture�), but how many people agreed with their assessments?

The Britannica 2002 Deluxe Edition dates the composition of Matthew at c. 70 – 80 A.D. The encyclopedia also says that many scholars date the composition of John at around 100 A.D. We need to know when discussions regarding the examples that I mentioned first originated in the culture of that time. If they did not first originate a good deal before 70 A.D., then the pre-70 A.D. culture would have had precious few reasons for believing that their Messiah had come.

Some Christians and even some skeptics in this forum have suggested that Rodney Stark’s estimates are essentially guesses and that Stark did not intend for people to trust them to any great extent, but such is definitely not the case. Consider the following:

“The projections are also extremely consistent with Graydon F. Snyder’s (1985) assessment of all known archaeological evidence of Christianity during the first three centuries. Snyder determined that there really isn’t any such evidence prior to 180. He interpreted this to indicate that before then it is impossible to distinguish Christian from non-Christian culture in ‘funerary art, inscriptions, letters, symbols, and perhaps buildings……[because] it took over a century for the new community of faith to develop a distinctive mode of self-expression’ (Snyder 1985:2). That may be, but it must also be noted that the ‘survival’ of Christian archaeological evidence would have been roughly proportionate to how much there ‘could have been’ to start with. The lack of anything surviving from prior to 180 muct be assessed on the basis of the tiny number of Christians who could have left such traces. Surely it is not surprising that the 7,530 Christians at the end of the first century left no trace. By 180, when I project that the total Christian population firsts passed the 100,000 mark, there would finally have been enough Christians so that it is probable that that traces of their existence would survive. Thus Snyder’s findings are very compatible with my estimates of a very small Christian population in the first two centuries.�

“Michael Williams made me aware of Roger S. Bagnall’s remarkable reconstruction of the growth of Christianity in Egypt (1982, 1987). Bagnall examined Egyptian papyri to identify the proportion of persons with identifiably Christian names in various years, and from these he reconstructed a curve of the Christianization of Egypt. Here are ‘real’ data, albeit from only on area, against which to test my projections. Two of Bagnall’s data points are much later than the end of my projections. However, a comparison of the six years within my time frame shows a level of agreement that can only be described as extraordinary.

“Bagnall’s finding no Christians in 239 can be disregarded. Obviously there were Christians in Egypt then, but because their numbers would still have been very small it is not surprising that none turned up in Bagnall’s data. But for later years the matchups are striking, and the correlation of 0.86 between the two curves borders on the miraculous. The remarkable fit between these two estimates, arrived at via such different means and sources, seems to me a powerful confirmation of both.�

I have provided proof enough that Stark does claim that his estimates are reasonably close to the actual numbers of Christians at various time periods. Stark et al are formidable adversaries for those who claim a 1st century Christian Church of more than 10,000 people. I think that it is reasonable to assume that fundamentalist Christians are the people who are most likely to
oppose Stark’s research. I debated the size of the 1st century Christian Church with Christians at the Theology Web (including James Holding) for over two years in various threads that I started, so I should know that such is the case. I created quite a ruckus there that involved many thousands of views and many hundreds of posts for over two years. I eventually retired all of the Christians. Most of the arguments used by Christians in this forum were used by Christians at the Theology Web, so when I came here I was mostly already prepared in advance.

TedM

This is a false assumption.

They originate before 70AD. I already gave you a link which shows over 450 OT passages believed by Jews to have been Messiac. The OT passages themselves were 300-800 years prior. It is my understanding that the sources in this link come from midrash and other books which contain much information that pre-dated Jesus. It's that simple. I've given you this site, I've given you a site showing 16 messiahs in the 1st century--way more than other time periods it listed, and I gave you the evidence of the appeal by NT writers to OT passages and applications they made to Jesus (whether true or not is a different matter). ALL of those were to make my case for strong Messiah expectation during the time of Jesus.

I extended that to say/speculate that with such strong Messiac expectation there would not have been a strong need for the claims of seeing Jesus to have been literal. You disagree. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.


You quote Stark IF 7,530 'left no trace', why couldn't 25,000 leave no trace? He's got to do better than that. Show my WHY 7,530 wouldn't leave a trace but 25,000 would be expected to have left a trace. If he can't do that his argument is worthless.


Again, I haven't read Stark, but if he isn't finding the evidence he needs in archeology until the population reaches 100,000, then why couldn't it have reached 100,000 in 100AD, based on archeology alone? In other words, the archeological evidence is WORTHLESS for his regressions back to 100AD!

If he is talking about a time in which the numbers are already over 100,000 Christians then that might be good for assessing the LATER numbers, but it isn't for the earlier. In fact, he DISMISSES this other guys' early numbers!

NOT the EARLY time periods. That's where it falls flat on its face. As has been pointed out many, many times to you 40% growth may work well for periods of time with actual evidence, but to use that pct for times which are missing evidence amounts to no more than a wild guess. 20% may have been more accurate. Let's say there were 100,000 in 180AD as Stark projects. Going back using 40% to 100AD and 50AD yield roughly 1679 and 131 respectively. Obviously Stark didn't use 40% going back, he used something else. If you use 20% you get 16,777 and 5497 respectively. See? When you play around with numbers you get very different amounts, so how does Stark go back in time without archeological evidence? BY PROJECTING BASED ON GUESSWORK! This, as you can see, leaves a lot of room for error during those first 100 years..

It appears that you like what Stark came up with even though there is little evidence to support it, and you want to use it to justify very small numbers that fit in with your own theories about how Christianity developed--theories that are AGAINST the little evidence that does exist and are based on argumentation which is unlikely. You've already modified your position to accept the concept of Messiah mania, but appear to be unwilling to allow that to explain growth in the face of a non-literal resurrection. I guess we'll have to just agree to disagree on that.

I really encourage you to look at the Messiac expectation issue closely as well as the evidence we have that Jesus was believed to have fulfilled OT passages for the Messiah. This, in the absence of real solid evidence, is my main argument for why Christianity probably did start up fast as the clues in literature we do have suggests.

I'm done discussing this issue with you because I see it going nowhere really fast and I'm not up for doing this for another 2 years.

ted

andrewcriddle

Bagnall's analysis is evidence of the growth of Christianity in the 2nd half of the 3rd century (after 239), which is a period in which Stark's figures are IMO roughly plausible. (See earlier comments by me on this subject.) Part of the problem is the question of how far it is valid to project this analysis backwards and assume that Christianity grew at the same rate in the 2nd century as in the late 3rd.

Andrew Criddle

Johnny Skeptic

Ah, yes. I just saw in your public profile that your belief is that "God is all that is good but has not revealed himself formally, life is a gift." Now which God do you mean? Unless I know more about you, I cannot adequately address your beliefs. Most public profiles in this forum tell exactly what people believe, but your public profile is vague. Why is that? What is your purpose in being at this forum? Is it your position that plagues and tsunamis are gifts?

Even if the passages were considered to be Messiac, out of all of the claimants around how can anyone construct a reliable statistical model that estimates how many people accepted which claimants? Some claimants initially attracted a good deal of followers, but some did not.

It in fact has much to do with Stark. He and a lot of other experts dispute your arguments.

If one rabbit eats some corn in a 25 acre corn field, traces of the rabbit would be difficult to find, but if 1,000 rabbits ate some corn, evidence of their presence would not be difficult to find.

The more people that you have, the more evidence they leave, and the evidence left by Christians was conspicuous by its absence for some time, expecially in the first century.

As do your estimates, which are in fact based more upon guesswork than Stark's estimates.

You just don't get it. Messiac expectation does not automatically equal Messiac acceptance. There are plenty of examples of Messiac expectations that died on the vine. Regarding "..........the evidence we have that Jesus was believed to have fulfilled OT passages for the Messiah," you have only showed that a few New Testament writers believed that Jesus fulfilled OT passages.

Here at the Secular Web there are over 70 articles on Messianic prophecy. Many of the articles indicate that the prophecies would have served only to confuse people. If there was no Joseph of Arimathea, that would have been confusing. The same would have been the case if Jesus’ birthplace could not have been reasonably proven. Since Jesus did not become ruler in Israel as Micah 5:2 predicted, that would have provided more confusion. Since Isaiah 53 did not predict the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus, that would have provided more confusion.
If there was no evidence that Jesus rode on a donkey, that would have provided more confusion.

Johnny Skeptic

It is a question of who is best able to estimate the size of the early Christian Church in 100 A.D. I'll go with Stark and a good deal of corroboration from other scholars. Stark aside, I don't see any good reasons to conclude that more than a very small group of people became Christians in the 1st century.