TedM

For purposes of this discussion you know enough--I am not assuming God has revealed the truth in the NT documents.


Would you agree that Jesus COULD HAVE attracted a lot of followers who thought he was the Messiah? If so, why not agree that his followers COULD HAVE kept belief alive after his death without needing literal resurrection appearances. I've already explained that the timing and nature of his death were DIFFERENT than the other Messiac claimants--in ways that would be very meaningful theologically to the average Jewish man. I think that is enough. You disagree. Fine. Let's leave it at that.


I totally agree, but your example is not valid. I was comparing 25,000 to roughly 7,530--a 3.31:1 ratio. Not a 1000:1 ratio. Big difference.


Sure, but if Stark couldn't find good evidence until the number had gone way past 25,000 then, what good is his evidence for 25,000?


True, but let me put it this way: All 4 gospel writers appeal to it, Paul appeals to it, the writer of Revelations appeals to it, and 1 Peter appeals to it. It isn't a lone appeal by some nut. Given the Messiah mania based on hundreds of OT scriptures, wouldn't you expect OT appeals by those that claim they have found the Messiah? Are you saying all the writers appealed to it but few actually believed it? Look at even a sample of the 450 examples I showed you and you'll see plenty of evidence that people didn't need overwhelming evidence for a Messiah to believe in one. Yet, Jesus' sacrifice during Passover would have been highly significant to get belief started.


I agree. No one is saying there wasn't confustion. Why do you think the NT authors were trying so hard to prove that Jesus was the one? WHy do you think the early Christians were persecuted by fellow Jews?

You are looking at this thing through black and white lenses or perhaps as though everyone back then would have reacted the same way to things. That's not reality and that isn't how people are.

But feel free to go on Starks assumptions without evidence if you want. Show me some real evidence from him and maybe I'll see the error of my thinking. The lack of evidence for the time periods in question is the problem I pointed out from my first post. Without that we are flailing about with arguments about what COULD HAVE happened, Stark included.

ted

Johnny Skeptic

As I said in my previous post, the examples that you gave could have served only to confuse people. Genuine predictive prophecy given by a loving God would most certainly not be anything remotely close to the confusing mess that we find in the Old Testament. Micah 5:2 alone is confusing enough to indicate that it was not divinely inspired. If you are saying that a good number of people in the 1st century might have been stupid enough and gullible enough to become Christians based upon grossly insufficient and confusing evidence, then I will agree with you, but only for purposes of this debate. You see, Ted, I can be tricky to.

Since you are so interested in Old Testament prophecies, do you believe that they were divinely inspired? I predict that you will be evasive and say something like "I am not assuming that Old Testament prophecies were divinely inspired." Trickery is not an admirable quality. I have never debated anyone but you who would not reveal their world view in detail. What are you trying to convince people to believe? Don't you care what people believe?

[quote=TedM] I agree. No one is saying there wasn't confustion. Why do you think the NT authors were trying so hard to prove that Jesus was the one?[/quote

For the very same reasons that so many people have dreamed up and believed so many other religions, because of lying and/or innocent but inaccurate revelations designed to provide the founders and other believers with emotional comfort. In your opinion, is Christianity any more valid than Deism?

What is your source(s) for this claim? Please cite external historical sources.

We are not talking about how people are now but how people were back then. I never said how everyone back then would have reacted. The issue is how the vast majority of people acted back then, and enough historians and sociologists agree with my arguments to at the very least conclude that the evidence is not conclusive one way or the other. I am willing to concede that for the sake of argument, but I assure you that most fundamentalist Christians will not because of the numbers indicated in the Gospels and the book of Acts. Their means of conducting research is taking the Bible at face value and trying to force history to agree. Isn't that you approach as well?

This is a two part debate. Rodney Stark is one part. You can dismiss his research if you wish, but millions of people do not, including a good number of historians and sociologists. The other part of this debate is your unsubstantiated guesses regarding how many ancient people became Christians in the 1st century. At the very least there is no way to logically conclude how many people in the 1st century accepted each Messiac claimant, regardless of how many claimants there were. Actually, the more claimants that there were the more confusing it would have been for people to conduct proper research. Have you even gone to a restaurunt with a sizeable menu and had difficulty choosing what to order? Or course you have. Eventually, Christians became numerous, but as Rodney Stark shows in 'The Rise of Christianity,' that was due partly to the weaknesses of pagan religions. In other words, it was a question of what there was to buy among the choices that were available in those days. Today, the selections in the world view super market are a good deal different than they were back then. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800's, advances in science and education have closely paralled a growing lack of interest in religion. If some God is out there, it would be a simple matter for him to clearly show himself. Would you object if he did? He would have nothing whatsoever to lose if he did so, and mankind would have everything to gain if he did.

TedM

Yes. I am saying that. The evidence is that a good number of people believed very confusing passages in the OT to apply to a future Messiah BEFORE Jesus came.


Though I think it is irrelevant to this discussion at this point in my life I don't think the 'prophecies' for a Messiah were divinely inspired. I think they reflect hopes for better days.

Paul says he did, and it makes sense because Christianity claimed a Messiah had come--the one that Jews had killed. The earliest Christians appear to have been Jews since their leaders were in Jerusalem, and preceded Paul. Paul says Jesus was Jewish. Paul ends some epistles with an Aramaic word: Maranatha, which means Lord, come. Aramaic is the language said to have been spoken by Jesus and his disciples. These are all evidences for what I've said.

Good. I didn't think you were before.

No, but I don't dismiss the bible as containing historical information which is sometimes accurate--especially when we have no other sources.


I don't have much opinion about his numbers later on because I haven't looked at his evidence. He may well be correct. My concern has always been the numbers YOU come up with for prior to 100AD based, apparantly, on argumentation and generally fringe interpretations of documents regarding persecution by Nero, and ignoring the writings of Paul and Luke and my arguments regarding Messiac mania.

Simple question: Does Stark provide EVIDENCE --not arguments, but EVIDENCE for numbers prior to 100AD? If not, then he is guessing based on argumentation. If you prefer his arguments fine. How about a nice summary of what they are (for pre 100AD) on his side and mine so we can wrap this up? If not, let's wrap up anyway. I've presented nothing new here other than to say why many people might have accepted confusing attributions of Messiac prophecy to Jesus.

I've given reasons why Jesus was different. Luke and the gospel writers attest to a following. It's the one that survived in the long run. He's the only of the claimants I know of that was claimed to have lived after his death. Claimed fulfillments of OT prophecy--some very specific. All good reasons to consider that the people preferred Jesus over the others--which would spur fast growth. Confusion itself leads to arguments which leads to stronger opinions for some people for whom being right is almost as important as survival itself: Confusion leads to growth.

Anyway, like I said not much is new here so why don't we just wrap it up. If you'd like to sum up our arguments for/against fast early growth (pre 100AD) that would be nice, but I understand if you don't want to. I don't because it takes time. From what I recall most of mine are listed above and yours are counter arguments to mine, and also I think include the idea that a 'spiritual' resurrection wasn't 'enough' to spur fast growth, and the writings about persecution by Nero aren't talking about a lot of people and the early 2nd century writings could be talking about a small group too.

ok, take care,

ted

Johnny Skeptic

I would like to rephrase what I said to read "If you are saying that 'all' of the people who became Christians in the 1st century might have been stupid enough and gullible enough to become Christians based upon grossly insufficient and confusing evidence, then I will agree with you, but only for purposes of this debate.


If Paul persecuted Christians, why do you assume that there had to be a lot of Christians in order for him to want to persecute them? Please cite external evidence regarding the trial of Jesus.

There is no evidence how many early Christians were Jews. If there was a Messianic Jewish movement consisting of thousands of Jews in the 1st century, what happened to them in subsequent centuries?

[quote=TedM] Good. I didn't think you were before.

[quote=JohnnySkeptic] This is a two part debate. Rodney Stark is one part. You can dismiss his research if you wish

If you don't dispute Stark's estimate of 7,530 Christians in 100 A.D., then you don't mind agreeing that the early Christian Church in 100 A.D. had a membership about the size of three good size high schools, which was a very small group of people indeed and a minute fraction of the total number of people in the Roman Empire. Historically, very small groups of people have believed in all kinds of outlandish things, some even more outlandish than Christianity. You are not the ideal person for me to debate these issues with. It is fundamentalist Christians who I oppose, not people like you. I do not object to people like you, but I do object to fundamentalist Christians' attempting to legislate religion. This thread is about the size of the 1st century Christian Church. The vast majority of fundamentalist Christians believe that the size of the 1st century Christian Church (as I showed with quotes from Habermas and Moreland) was mainly accounted for by the testimony of eyewitnesses, not for the reasons that you cited. There are many hundreds of books written by Christians that emphasize the importance of eyewitness testimony.

I discussed Nero at length. I showed that a good deal of scholarship disputes that Nero persecuted, as Tacitus claimed, a “vast multitude� of Christians. I will post my arguments again about Nero if you wish.

Paul says nothing at all about how many Christians he persecuted. Which writings of Luke are you talking about that have anything to do with numbers of Christians?

The Romans left the Greek churches alone in the 1st century, and many Christian scholars claim that Paul’s missionary journeys across the Mediterranean and his letters to those churches resulted in a rapid increase in the of members in the Christian Churches across the Mediterranean. I said this because you offered your own statistical model that showed an early increase and then a decrease in the number of Christians. Christians will contest that with you, and I remind you that it is Christians who I am most interested in opposing, not people like you.
David Barrett and Todd Johnson wrote a book titled ‘World Christian Trends.’ They estimate 800,000 Christians in 100 A.D., or over 100 times Stark’s estimate. About a year ago I contacted Todd Johnson and we exchanged a number of e-mails regarding the size of the 1st century Christian Church. He said that he discussed the issue with Stark and that Stark’s statistical model is plausible, but that Paul’s missionary journeys across the Mediterranean likely accounted for a much larger number of Christians than Stark’s estimate. I wanted to ask him why he concluded that Paul’s missionary journeys resulted in large increases in the number of Christians, but he told me that he was too busy to exchange any more e-mails. Some of the Christians at the Theology Web used the same argument, but it didn’t get them anywhere. I told them that the establishment of a church by no means indicates its size in subsequent decades.

Now there you go again with your Messiac mania argument. As I told you before, we don’t know how many people followed which claimants, and the more claimants that there were the more confusing it would have been to pick one of them, thereby reducing the number of people who could have accepted each claimant.

How many is many people? If you agree with Stark’s estimate of 7,530 Christians in 100 A.D., that is fine with me, and it suits my arguments just fine as I mentioned earlier. It is reasonable to assume that 7,530 Christians in 100 A.D. indicates far fewer Christians in 40 A.D., 50 A.D. etc.

[quote=JohnnySkeptic] At the very least there is no way to logically conclude how many people in the 1st century accepted each Messiac claimant, regardless of how many claimants there were.

There is no reason to take Luke literally. In ‘The Rise of Christianity’ Rodney Stark says the following:

“As Hans Conzelmann noted, these numbers are only ‘meant to render impressive the marvel that here the Lord himself is at work� (1973:63). Indeed, as Robert M. Grant pointed out, ‘one must always remember that figures in antiquity…..were part of rhetorical exercises’ (1977:7-8) and were not really meant to be taken literally.�

Jonathan Roth, Ph.D., ancient history, San Jose State University, told me in an e-mail that “history was considered literature and meant for entertainment. Tacitus is always thinking about making his stories more interesting and readable.� There are not any good reasons at all not to assume that Luke did the same thing.

There is no automatic correlation that can be made between numbers and truth. Islam might one day overtake Christianity in total membership. It is now growing faster than Christianity and has over 1 billion members. In addition, Christianity had about a 600 years head start. Especially during the last 100 years, atheism, agnosticism and Deism have had dramatic increases in membership.

There are perfectly good secular reasons for the eventual large size of the Christian Church. Rodney Stark says the following:

Regarding benefits in the here and now, Stark say the following:

“Moreover, the fruits of this faith were not limited to the realm of the spirit. Christianity offered much to the flesh as well. It was not simply the promise of salvation that motivated Christians, but the fact that they were greatly rewarded here and now for belonging. Thus while membership was expensive, it was, in fact, a bargain. That is, because the church asked much of its members, it was thereby possessed of the resources to ‘give’ much. For example, because Christians were expected to aid the less fortunate, many of them received such aid, and all could feel greater security against bad times. Because they were asked to nurse the sick and dying, many of them received such nursing. Because they were asked to love others, they in turn were loved. And if Christians were required to observe a far more restrictive moral code than that observed by pagans, Christians – especially women – enjoyed a far more secure family life.�

“The dynamics of stigma and sacrifice have the following direct and formal consequences (Iannaccone 1992). First: ‘By demanding higher levels of stigma and sacrifice, religious groups induce higher average levels of member commitment and participation.’ Second: ‘By demanding higher levels of stigma and sacrifice, religious groups are able to generate greater material, social, and religious benefits for their members.’�

Regarding benefits from the weaknesses of Paganism, Stark says the following:

“Henry Chadwick assured his readers that ‘Paganism was far from being moribund when Constantine was converted to Christianity’ (1967:152), and E. R. Godds noted that in the fourth century paganism began ‘to collapse the moment the supporting hand of the State [was] withdrawn from it’ ([1965] 1970:132). I quote these two distinguished scholars to illustrate the general agreement among historians that paganism was brought down by Christianity and that the conversion of Constantine was the killing blow – that paganism declined precipitously during the fourth century when Christianity replaced it as the state religion, thus cutting off the flow of funds to the pagan temples.�

So, Ted, there was a religious super market of sorts, and people who became Christians chose the religion that was most acceptable to them based upon the choices that were available to them at that time. Historically, a sizeable majority of people have always chosen to follow various religions designed to provide them with emotional comfort, and if Christianity hadn’t come along they would have chosen another religion. For thousands of years before the founding of Christianity, the God of the Bible turned his back on most of the world regarding his specific existence and will, and exclusively promoted Judaism, but only within a relatively small geographic area. Now does that make any sense to you? Is that how your generic God works?

That doesn't make any difference for the purpose of estimating of how many Christians there were in the 1st century. The uniqueness of a claim by no means indicates how many people accept it.

A few New Testament writers believed in fulfiments of OT prophecy, possibly borrowing from one another, but there is no evidence that their beliefs were accepted by more than a relative handful of people in the 1st century. You use the large number of OT prophecies as evidence, but if Jesus did not fulfill any of the prophecies, the more unfulfilled prophecies that there were the more reasons people would have had for not believing that he had fulfilled them. If a person tells one lie, their reputation would not become nearly as discredited as it they told hundreds of lies.

I just proved otherwise. In addition, the Bible says that God is not the author of confusion, so Christians will reject your arguments, and they are the only people who I am interested in opposing, mainly due to their political power.

I stand by my previous arguments.

TedM

Thanks for your response. You may be correct on your numbers estimates. I've given reasons why you might not be based on things I know or believe to be reasonable, but I too don't really know for certain. I could debate a number of points you brought up in this last post--particularly with how hope and faith overcome reason even among very intelligent people but it would just get into the same kinds of issues, so for now I'll bid you farewell on this subject.

take care,

ted

Johnny Skeptic

Yes, hope and faith can overcome reason even among very intelligent people, but that is not what Christians claim, and it is they who I oppose, not people like you. Your arguments actually support skeptic arguments against the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Thanks for the help, but I am sure that Christians will not thank you.

Hope and faith sometimes overcome logic and reason, but your claim that confusion leads to belief is not valid. The more Old Testament prophecies that Jesus did not fulfill, the more reasons that people would have had not to accept him.

You assume that your abilities to examine ancienty history are better than those of Rodney Stark and a good deal of corroborative scholarly sources. Stark's Bibliography in 'The Rise of Christianity' is twenty pages long. That does not include all of the books that his corroborative sources have read. Stark got a Pulitzer Prize nomination for the book, so his reputation speaks for itself.

Ted, the simple truth is that Stark et al are much more aware of Messiac mania than you are, and they are much better able to assess what it led to in the 1st century and in subsequent centuries than you are.

TedM

Nah, strong Messiac hope would more likely lead people to focus on the perceived fulfillments and not the unfulfilled ones..

ted

Johnny Skeptic

Not at all. The Old Testament prophecies predicted tangible fulfillments, not spiritual fulfillments. For instance, Micah 5:2 predicted a tangible ruler of Israel, but Jesus did not become ruler in Israel. In those days, people could check things out much easier than we can today, and when they checked things out there was not likely tangible evidence of even one single fulfilled Old Testament prophecy. Faith is non-tangible, but Old Testament prophecies all promised tangible things and events. At any rate, like I said before, it is fundamentalist Christian theology that I oppose, and your arguments oppose that theology too.