Nomad,

Well, your last post contains your worst misrepresentations and exaggerations yet. Once again, I don't take your (non-) response to my arguments seriously at this point. That is the only reason your gross misrepresentations don't offend me. I've paid far more attention to Secweblurker than yourself in this thread because you've shown that you don't want to engage the recent arguments I've made. Instead you want to wave your hands and resort to misrepresentation and exaggeration. Anyone is free to look at my posts in the other thread to see if I have "no evidence" to back up my conclusions or whether I haven't appealed to any scholars in support of my view. It's very easy to label someone's argument mere speculation, but it's another thing to refute the argument and show that it lacks any attention to the evidence. At least SWL has attempted to refute my arguments at great length and in detail. My last several posts have been full of citations, attention to both primary and secondary sources, and arguments rather than mere assertions. Your last post shows either that you haven't read these posts or that you're unwilling to address them.

After this I give you the last word.

****

Part 1 of 2.

NOMAD: Oh come on Earl. Do you offer any evidence at all that the Romans would not allow a crucified man to be buried in Jerusalem c. 30AD? No.

EARL: An utter misrepresentation. First, I've argued that the burden of proof falls on the traditionalist to show that Jesus was buried, not on the skeptic who can merely examine the traditionalist's case to see if it's reasonable. Second, I've argued that the matter would have been left up to Pilate, not abstract Roman procedure. The discussion then turned to Pilate's character, and I quoted the sources (such as Josephus and Philo) that describe Pilate as overly cruel, merciless, and careless regarding Jewish law. SWL then gave us the background on Sejanus and Tiberius, and I criticized his account in detail. Anyone is free to check this. See my March 28, 2001 07:45 PM and March 29, 2001 08:57 PM posts in the thread on Jesus' burial (http://www.infidels.org/electronic/forum/Forum6/HTML/000195-2.html ). Third, I've quoted a number of sources on Roman expectations regarding crucifixion. The fact that Jews had their own customs, and that the Romans would not have wanted to cause a riot among the Jews is only a background point that may or may not have applied in any single case, just as the facts that a few decades later the Jews revolted against Rome leading to the Temple's destruction, and that the procurators tended to be anti-Semitic are background points that don't by themselves show that in any particular case the Romans treated the Jews harshly. Fourth, I've argued that the evidence is simply insufficient to establish a confident conclusion as to Pilate's character, which is the only crucial matter as to whether Jesus was buried. Fifth, I've argued that we have little reason to believe Jesus was in fact executed on Passover, since Mark had theological reasons for dating the crucifixion to this time, and therefore we can't know that Pilate really would have had an exceptional problem controlling a Passover mob.



NOMAD: Do you offer any evidence that Jesus was left on the cross? Or thrown in a common grave? Or that Joseph of Arimathea was fictional? Again, no.

EARL: Bald misrepresentation. Again, my discussion of the burden of proof issue shows that I wasn't aiming to establish what did in fact happen to Jesus' body, but only to show that the traditionalist's account is not true beyond a reasonable doubt. As someone who obviously finds Jesus' burial a very important matter have the burden to present a reasonable case. I've attacked your case rather than established an independent case to show that Jesus was left on the cross or thrown into a pit. I don't claim to know what happened to Jesus' body, because I regard the evidence as insufficient to warrant a confident belief on the subject. But I do find the traditionalist case made by you and SWL to be insufficient to warrant an affirmation of your claim that Jesus' burial is historically "certain" or probable. Therefore I had no obligation to offer evidence that Jesus was in fact left on the cross or thrown into a common grave. You have totally misconstrued my strategy, and are now attacking a strawman. See Part 2 of my latest reply to SWL on the burden of proof.

As to Joseph's fictitiousness, see simply every single post of mine in the thread on Jesus' burial. If, though, by "evidence" you are asking me for something like an admission by Mark that Joseph is a fiction, or an ancient record stating the names of the council members at the time, then no I don't have "evidence" in this sense. But neither do you have "evidence" in this sense that Joseph was historical. I've rebutted your reasons for thinking Joseph was historical. For example, regarding the view that Mark would not have appealed to a Jew for having Jesus buried--this is an argument rather than a piece of "evidence" in your sense--I pointed out an alternative reason as to why Mark would have wanted the person who buried Jesus to have been a Jew: to guarantee Jesus' burial out of adherence to Jewish law. I will reply to your point about John's independence below.



NOMAD: Do you denonstrate that anything recounted about the burial of Jesus in Mark or Paul was so outrageous or extraordinary that we should not believe the accounts?

EARL: Again, simply see my last several posts for numerous reasons to doubt the plausibility of Mark's trial and burial accounts.



NOMAD: Well, you don't deal with Paul at all, and you offer no more than speculation about Mark's version of events.

EARL: Another misrepresentation. I do deal with Paul very briefly, which is all the attention he deserves on the subject of Mark's burial narrative. Paul's use of the term "burial" is so vague as to be compatible with any number of burial stories, including Roman burial in a common grave. Moreover, I pointed out that according to Paul he got his gospel not from oral tradition but from a vision. See my February 01, 2001 01:34 AM post, where I ask "Why didn't Paul appeal to the empty tomb argument in favour of Jesus' resurrection? Nomad said the "burial tradition" goes back to Paul, but at most the single word "burial" goes back to Paul, and this term is susceptible to a figurative rather than a literal interpretation given 1 Cor.15:3-4, that Paul received his information on the gospel from the scriptures, and Gal.1:11-12, that Paul received the gospel by a private vision rather than a public tradition. In any case, none of the details from the gospel accounts are found in Paul."

Or see my February 01, 2001 12:16 PM post where I say "Check the Greek on "according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor.15:3-4). "Kata" can mean "as we learn from" as, for example, in Rom.10:2: "their zeal is not based on [kata] knowledge" doesn't mean that their zeal is not "in fulfillment" of knowledge. Rather their zeal is not informed by knowledge, as Paul says his gospel was informed by the Scriptures. Or take 2 Cor.4:13, "It is written: 'I believed; therefore I have spoken.' With [kata] that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak." Paul is not talking here about a fulfillment of scripture. Rather he's suggesting that his followers learn from the verse he quoted (Psalms 116:10), as Paul learned from the scripture in developing his gospel. See also Rom.11:28, 1 Cor.3:8; 7:40; 9:8; 15:32, and other similar verses. Notice that Paul nowhere discusses the idea that his gospel fulfilled any particular prophecy."

The issue here isn't whether my points about Paul are true, but whether I addressed Paul in the first place, and thus whether Nomad has committed a misrepresentation. Obviously I did address Paul's mention of the word "buried," and therefore Nomad has misrepresented me.

As to whether I offered only "speculation" as to the plausibility of Mark's burial account, that's just your opinion, isn't it? And you haven't addressed at all my massive three-part post to SWL, have you (or the one I just posted, the two-part April 09, 2001 03:35 PM post)? Although, I don't appreciate SWL's often sarcastic dismissals, at least he's taken the time to go through my recent posts in detail. Obviously we disagree on the issues, but at least he didn't just wave his arms and proclaim that everything I've said is just "wild speculation" or "anti-intellectual." He's even agreed with one of my arguments against Brown.



NOMAD: Do you demonstrate that John was dependent on Mark? No. You merely assert it.

EARL: The first non-misrepresentation of your post. Congratulations. Indeed, I haven't supported at all the point about John's dependence on Mark. But my position here is hardly arbitrary or circular, as you suggest below. I follow Crossan's complex reconstruction of John's relation to Mark. See, for example, "Who Killed Jesus?" 20-22, 100-105. Here's a summary of Crossan's position: John is "independent of the Synoptics for the miracles and sayings of Jesus but not for the passion and resurrection stories" (22). This has nothing to do with the mention of Joseph in both Mark and John, as if that were the entire case for John's dependence, as you appear to suggest below. One reason why Crossan thinks John used Mark is John's use of certain Markan literary techniques, such as intercalation and triplication in John 18:13-27.

There is at present no scholarly consensus on this matter. As Crossan says "there was a consensus on dependence in the first third of this century; in the next third there was a consensus on independence; and in this final part of the century there is no consensus one way or the other" (21). This is reflected in the Oxford Companion to the Bible: the writer notes that "Since roughly the middle of the twentieth century support has been growing for the view that the basic tradition underlying John's gospel may be historically more reliable than previously acknowledged." Yet the author can conclude only that "It is now thought possible that John drew more or less independently on common Christian sources about the life and teaching of Jesus" (374), hardly a confident declaration.

In any case, as Crossan notes, the idea that John copied and edited Mark in the same way as did Matthew and Luke is not the only dependence model (21). Most scholars date John to the end of the first century or the beginning of the second, decades after Mark. Do we know that John's community was totally isolated from the other Christian communities? Even if John did not have Mark right in front of him when he wrote his narrative, he may have had a general understanding of the views of other Christian communities, and wrote his Passion narrative to deal with these in his own distinctive fashion. John's narrative of the Passion may simply have been based on oral tradition that was influenced by the synoptic gospels. This is, by the way, exactly the way Brown explains the Gospel of Peter's commonalities with the synoptics. As John Meier writes, "...our canonical Gospels not only come from ongoing oral tradition, but also generate ongoing oral tradition. It is also affirmed, quite rightly, that oral traditions did not die out the day after a canonical Gospel was published. But the writing of the canonical Gospels did change the situation. The canonical Gospels - long before they were definitively recognized as 'canonical' - were regularly preached on at worship, studied in catechesal schools, and cited strictly and loosely by patristic authors; and so increasingly they lodged themselves in the memory of individual Christians and whole communities. Inevitably they 'contaminated' and modified the oral tradition that existed before and alongside themselves" ("A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus," 131).

Crossan's view of John's development is consistent with the widely held view that John was written by more than one author over a long period of time. See, for example, http://www.afi.org.uk/New%20Articles...witnesses.html :

Professor R.W.Rogerson an Anglican clergyman and a Canon Emeritus of Sheffield Cathedral, in his recent work An Introduction to the Bible writes:

"The conviction has grown that the Gospel was not written by a single author, but is an outcome of a long process of growth in which the distinction between author and redactor/editor was not clear. This conclusion militates against the traditional view that the author was the apostle John, the son of Zebedee, and the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23)." (An Introduction to the Bible, pg. 122).

The New American Bible after reaching the same conclusion further demonstrates why John's Gospel was authored by more than one individual. For example chapter 21 seems to have been added after the gospel was completed; for it exhibits a Greek style somewhat different from the rest of the work.

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary whilst discussing this issue notes that:

"The author of John 21 clearly does not identify the Beloved Disciple, who is the source of the Johannine tradition, with John the son of Zebedee. John 21:2 refers to "the (sons) of Zebedee", whereas 21:7, 20 refer to the Beloved Disciple."

The New Jerome Commentary proceeds to outline further difficulties in asserting that the author of the fourth gospel could be John, son of Zebedee. For instance a passage in Mark (10:39) indicates that both brothers (sons of Zebedee) would suffer martyrdom, yet John 21:20-23 asserts that the Beloved Disciple did not die a martyr's death as Peter did. Also the " developments in Christology and the realized eschatology of the Fourth Gospel are well beyond what would be likely for a Galilean fisherman".

Likewise, Graham Stanton a Professor of New Testament Studies also points out that "if the Beloved Disciple belonged to the circle of disciples of Jesus from the beginning, why does the first reference to the beloved disciple come only at 13:23?" (The Gospels and Jesus, pg. 124).

Maurice Casey in his most recent book Is John's Gospel True? discusses the views that are generally championed by the Evangelical Christians and proves "beyond all reasonable doubt" that these views are demonstrably false. He finally concludes that "the Gospel was written by several people when anonymous and pseudepigraphical compositions were normal". (Is John's Gospel true? Pg.176)

Finally, it is also important to note that some early Christians were very suspicious of John's Gospel due to the fact that it is very different from the Synoptic gospels and its popularity with Gnostic and heretical groups. (The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, pg. 946).



NOMAD: The simple truth of the matter is that you have drawn on a 20th Century theory about Jesus not being buried,

EARL: The date of a theory's origin is logically irrelevant to its truth. You are appealing to tradition and popularity once again, a logical fallacy.



NOMAD: a theory put forward ONLY because it negates the need to wonder about the empty tomb when we get to the question of the resurrection.

EARL: Hardly. Your fallacy here is ad hominem, as if you know of a hidden motivation behind the presentation of an argument. You are being most uncharitable to your critics on the issue of Jesus' burial. Perhaps they argue against the burial's historicity because they find the traditional Christian account unconvincing. Have you shown otherwise? You've claimed that my arguments, for example, are "anti-intellectual" "wild speculations," but you haven't actually replied to my most recent posts in the thread. It's easy to hand wave.



NOMAD: In other words, your theories are theologically driven, and do not even attempt to make us of actual methods of historical studies.

EARL: LOL. I have no theology, and therefore I cannot logically have theological motivations. Your claim that I haven't even attempted to use the historical method is just nonsense, as anyone can see by reading my posts in the thread. I've dealt with the primary and secondary sources; I've dealt with a number of modern critics, such as Raymond Brown; I've offered numerous citations and a large number of complex deductive arguments to support my conclusions, as opposed to arguing by assertion, as SWL has often done. Again, you are free to disagree with my analyses, but your claim that I haven't even offered arguments that would, for example, be at least formally acceptable to historians is just a misrepresentation based perhaps on your failure to read my recent posts.

I don't see that your arguments for Jesus' burial are based on a whole different methodology than my own. On the contrary, you've quoted modern scholars, and so have I; you've made logical deductions and inductions, and so have I; you've tried to get behind the primary sources, and so have I. For example, you argue that Jesus' execution was carried out on Passover, and Pilate would have wanted to avoid a riot at this time and bury Jesus. I pointed out that we can't be sure Jesus was buried on Passover, and that the coincidence of Jesus' death with the moment the Jews slaughtered the lambs is more easily explained in terms of literary fabrication than divine predestination. Both are valid arguments based on evidence, Nomad. You have not at all shown that I haven't even used the same methodology as historians. Your assertions here are hand-waving and nothing more. Deal with my arguments as SWL has done, and I'll take your findings seriously.



NOMAD: So now you know why I have not taken your wild speculations seriously. I have looked for actual supporting evidence, and instead what I see is one speculation built on another. Let's look at some examples:

EARL: What do you mean by "evidence," Nomad? Do you mean hard evidence? There is NO hard evidence for Joseph's historicity or that of Jesus' burial. All the evidence is open to interpretation and objection. For example, you have pointed to Paul as strong evidence of Jesus' burial. But Paul notoriously doesn't give ANY historical details in his account of Jesus' life or death, and he goes out of his way to say that he didn't derive his gospel from any man but from a vision. The evidence is very meager for the historicity of any event in Jesus' life as recounted in the NT. You may "see" my arguments as speculative, but you haven't replied directly to my recent posts, so your argument here is just a bare assertion. I could just as easily call speculative your appeal to Paul and your reading of the gospel narrative details into his mere use of the word "buried," a term consistent with hundreds of scenarios, including that of the death and resurrection of a thoroughly mythical being.



NOMAD: Was Joseph of Arimathea a Marcan invention? If he was, then John must have known about Mark.

EARL: False. Part of John's narrative could have been taken from an oral tradition influenced by the synoptic gospels.



NOMAD: But does John depend on Mark for anything in his Gospel except for the existence of Joseph? No.

EARL: False. Read Crossan's reconstruction. According to Crossan, the entire Passion narrative in John (arrest, trial, death, burial, and resurrection) and the addition of John the Baptist at the start of John were influenced by Mark (or synoptic-based oral tradition).



NOMAD: Yet you want to assert that John depends on Mark on this one point!

EARL: Your most blatant misrepresentation so far. As you pointed out, I haven't argued my claim that John depended on Mark at all (until the present post), so how on Earth could I have contended that the basis for the Johannine dependence theory is merely the parallel appearance of Joseph or Arimathea? You assertion is absurd. Show where I contended that the evidence for John's dependence on Mark is merely the reference to Joseph of Arimathea in both gospels or admit you have grossly misrepresented my position not to mention contradicted yourself. Oops, too late, you do so in the very next sentence. Why you left this absurd assertion in your post is therefore beyond me.



NOMAD: Actually, you said that John depends on Mark for his Passion Narrative, yet you failed to demonstrate this on any point EXCEPT on the question of Joseph of Arimathea.

EARL: Now you're catching on. You give me too much credit. You correctly pointed out above that I haven't attempted to demonstrate John's dependence on Mark AT ALL (until the present post), whether in relation to Joseph or otherwise. I failed to support my point regarding Johannine independence. I'm not remotely ashamed of this, though, because my posts instead have focussed on DOZENS AND DOZENS of other relevant issues. My failure to address John was hardly due to any inability to do so. No one can be expected to address every single relevant point in a matter of several posts. I've now addressed the point, however.



NOMAD: Sheesh Earl. This kind of circular reasoning could get you laughed out of the business.

EARL: You've contradicted yourself. Since I hadn't attempted to defend my claim that John depended on Mark or the synoptics AT ALL until the present post, I COULD NOT POSSIBLY have argued that John's dependence for the entire Passion narrative is proven just by the appearance of Joseph or Arimathea in both gospels. Your assertion here is a ludicrous strawman contradicted by your own accurate comment above (perhaps the only one in your entire post): "Do you demonstrate that John was dependent on Mark? No. You merely assert it." If you can't keep track of your own arguments, how can I expect that you've kept track of mine?



NOMAD: To put it simply, you fail to address evidence, and instead offer speculations.

EARL: And you have failed even to address my most recent posts (my March 29, 2001 08:57 PM post, my three-part April 05, 2001 07:09 PM post, and of course the two-part one I just posted on April 09, 2001 03:35 PM), and have instead waved your hands in the air like you just don't care, so that SWL has had to do all the work. Instead of engaging my recent arguments, you've settled on blatant misrepresentations of my position and strawman arguments. And that's why I've stopped taking YOU seriously on this matter.



NOMAD: You offer no evidence in support of your speculations beyond your own assertions. On what basis can we be expected to take what you say seriously?

EARL: I've offered at least as much supporting evidence against Jesus' burial as you've offered for it, and this is evidence of the same kind and with the same methodology (attention to primary and secondary sources, including modern scholars, and reasoned arguments). To call my recent massive posts full of mere "assertions" is just plainly false. Anyone can simply look at those posts and see that I attempt to argue rigorously for my position, not relying on mere assertions.



NOMAD: Try this. Paul does not depend on the Gospels, and he tells us that Jesus was buried. You failed to address this point at all.

EARL: As pointed out above, this is a blatant misrepresentation of my position. I have discussed Paul as opposed to "failed to address this point at all." Paul does indeed not depend on the gospels, but his account also contains not the slightest historical detail of Jesus' life. His use of the word "burial" should not be read through the lens of the gospel narratives which came later. Paul says explicitly that he didn't get his gospel from any man, but rather from the scriptures and a private vision (Gal.1:11-12, 1 Cor.15:3-4).



NOMAD: John and Mark both tell us about Joseph of Arimathea. Yet you merely assert that John depends on Mark. Since there is no evidence that John depends on Mark (or any of the Synoptics for that matter) for anything, your assertion requires some supporting evidence.

EARL: Done. See above.



NOMAD: The Jewish burial practices for the dead include burial of the dishonoured.

EARL: And this required general Jewish piety and sensitivity to criminals as creatures of God, as pointed out by the rabbi Joseph Hertz, whereas Mark portrays the whole Sanhedrin, including therefore Joseph of Arimathea, as a pack of criminals. That's a contradiction that YOU have failed to address because you have failed to address all of my recent posts in the other thread. I've also addressed this issue of an honourable vs. dishonourable burial, and YOU have failed to address my discussion of the issue, because you have failed to address my recent posts.



NOMAD: This is a well established truth. I offered additional examples by showing that even Judas, Ananias and his wife (Acts 5) were buried. Again you failed to address these points.

EARL: That's because your point is absolutely irrelevant. Did I claim anywhere that Jews never buried criminals? What does the burial of one criminal in one situation have to do with the burial of another in a completely different situation? In the case of Ananias, his wife and Judas the Romans weren't AT ALL involved, were they? Neither was the Son of God who alone has primarily heavenly rather than merely human associations (see Part 2 of my most recent post in the burial thread). And of course there's the blatant implausibility of the account, that as soon as he was accused by Peter Ananias dropped down dead (Acts 5:5). And when his wife entered and was likewise accused, she too miraculously dropped dead (5:10). Scholars are very careful in taking historical information from Acts, for obvious reasons. Plus there's the fact that Luke doesn't describe the details of the burial itself, whether the two were at all mourned for or buried in their ancestors' grave, which means, according to Secweblurker and the scholar he cites, McCane, that we don't know if the two were buried honourably or not. Luke specifies in Acts 5:7 that "three hours" had past between the burying of Ananias and his wife's entrance. Enough time for an honourable burial? And how much time passed after the wife's death? Enough for an honourable burial? Luke doesn't specify.

Regarding Judas, I'm unable to find where in the NT Judas is said to have been buried. Matt.27:3-5 says that Judas felt remorse, returned the money and hanged himself, and that the chief priests used the blood money to buy the field as the burial place for foreigners in fulfillment of a nonexistent prophecy. The contradictory account in Acts 1:18-19 says that Judas himself bought the field to reward himself for his wickedness, and fell into the field where his intestines spilled out. I can't find any reference to Judas' burial, let alone to the details of such a thing indicating whether the burial was honourable or dishonourable. In any case, I consider Judas an anti-Jewish fabrication of the early-Christians.

So consider your point dealt with.



NOMAD: You said that I relied on Raymond Brown, and while this is true, I have offered supports from the likes of Rudolf Bulttmann and Michael Grant, neither of whom could be considered friendly to Brown or Christianity. For your part you have offered no one to support your theories at all.

EARL: This is a gross and truly baffling misrepresentation. All anyone has to do is go through my posts and look at the various scholars I cite to back up the various points I've made. These include Raymond Brown (whose interpretation of Joseph as a pious Jew rather than a Christian I use to show the burial's verisimilitude short of historicity), Crossan, Britannica, the Oxford Companion to the Bible, the Catholic Encyclopedia, DeLashmutt, three or four separate scholars on Philo, Spong, Mack, Josephus, the Jesus Seminar, Joe Zias, Joseph Hertz, Frank Daniels on the timing of Passover, the Jews for Judaism site, and Shea who quotes a host of other scholars. In my most recent post I cite Robert Bucklin and Walter Chandler who also quotes from a host of sources, including Edersheim, Mendelsohn and the mishnah. And in the present post I cite a number of scholars on John. Is there some rule that an entire theory has to be supported by other scholars? If that were the case, there would be no originality. But most of my points can be seen as syntheses or extensions of Crossan and the Jesus Seminar, tied up with points made by the other scholars I cite. Your claim that I've "offered no one to support" my theories "at all" is obviously groundless. My arguments have been well supported by attention to both primary and secondary sources. There has been no formal difference between your methodology and mine.



NOMAD: Agreed, but the evidence we have for this event is not unclear, and we have three (at least) independent sources for the events as I have reported them.

EARL: And I find only one independent source for the burial narrative, Mark. John can be considered based on the synoptics at least through oral tradition, and Paul gives no detail whatsoever regarding the burial. I've never denied that Jesus might have been thrown into a common grave or garbage pit. Paul is certainly not any independent source on the "events" of the burial, since all he does is use the single word "buried," at best evidence regarding an event not "events." Moreover, he says he didn't get his gospel from an oral tradition but from a personal religious experience and the scriptures.



NOMAD: From your end we have exactly zero sources to support your theories.

EARL: Other than the 20 or so I listed above, you mean.



[This message has been edited by Earl (edited April 10, 2001).]

Part 2 of 2.

NOMAD: Theories without evidence are at best mere speculation, and when those speculations are driven by a theological motive (in your case to refuse to address the question of what happened int he aftermath of Jesus' death),

EARL: "Refuse to address"? What planet are you living on? What have I been talking about in my super-long posts, how to bake cookies? See my arguments on the burden or proof to understand why I haven't attempted to demonstrate just what did happen to Jesus' body. My strategy has evidently gone right over your head. I've opted for a different set of terms in explanation of it in Part 2 of my most recent post in the other thread. In short, I consider myself a juror and you and SWL the attorneys who must prove the traditional case true beyond a reasonable doubt. Failing that, I consider myself justified in rendering a "Not buried" verdict. My verdict is relative to the failure of your case, not to some absolute perspective on the Truth of what happened to Jesus' body. On that matter I remain agnostic because I don't think the evidence warrants a confident belief either way, whereas regarding the traditionalist case as offered by you and SWL I conclude that Jesus was not buried. My arguments go, then, towards showing reasonable doubt in the traditional Christian case for Jesus' burial, not towards showing what probably did happen to Jesus' body independent of your case. That's been my strategy.



NOMAD: then we have a genuine example of theologically (or ideologically) driven historical studies.

EARL: The theological motivation could only be your own, Nomad, since you're the only one with a theology. Moreover, you're the only one with an intense and religiously crucial interest in believing that Jesus was buried. You're the one who identifies himself as a Christian who accepts a certain traditional view of Jesus' supreme importance. You're the one who believes we should worship Jesus. I don't do any of these things. At best, Christianity for me is a hobby not a religion. So you're the one wants everyone to believe Jesus died, was buried and resurrected. I don't accept the supreme importance of the historical Jesus, and I don't much care whether Jesus was buried or not. I simply find the traditional Christian case for Jesus' burial not true beyond a reasonable doubt.



NOMAD: So do not patronize me and say that I am driven by theology. Would you say the same of Bulttmann, or Grant, or Lane Fox? Try to be serious, and then I will treat your ideas seriously.

EARL: I didn't say that your arguments for Jesus' burial are driven by theology. I said that your absolutist language regarding the historical "certainty" of Jesus' burial is necessarily justified by theological rather than historical concerns. For you Jesus MUST NECESSARILY have been buried, because the Catholic Church and the bible say so, and your personal experiences of God have given you reason to trust the Christian tradition. Mere historical arguments, especially when dealing with the very ancient past, NEVER yield certainty regarding the details of a particular event. We can be reasonably certain about the existence of certain people, general outcomes of wars, broad locations of events, equipment and so forth used by certain cultures (found through archeology), but regarding very specific events we are left only with probabilities. Jesus' burial certainly falls into the latter category. We don't even have certainty regarding the existence of an historical Jesus, in my opinion, let alone anything in particular that happened to him, although I would grant for argument's sake that Jesus probably did exist and was probably executed under Pilate. The rest is up for grabs.



NOMAD: Allow me to help you understand what I mean by wild speculations. You have no evidence to support your ideas.

EARL: I've provided evidence of the same sort and in the same way that you have. I've quoted numerous sources. I've offered arguments to back up my claims, as opposed to mere assertions. Why don't you explain the way in which you allegedly have offered "evidence" whereas I've offered "none"? Anyone can simply look through my posts in the other thread (http://www.infidels.org/electronic/forum/Forum6/HTML/000195-2.html) to see whether I've dealt in "anti-intellectual," "wild speculations" lacking "any evidence."



NOMAD: The theories you put forward run directly counter to the evidence we do have, including evidence that comes from three independent sources. Further the evidence offered is of a highly embarrassing nature to the early Church (for all of the reasons listed in my posts, as well as SWL's).

EARL: And I've countered this very point in extensive arguments about the alternative explanation for Joseph's Judaism, namely his use as a way of guaranteeing Jesus' burial in accordance with Jewish law. The more pious and influential as a Jew was Joseph, the more the early Christians would have been assured that he managed to get Jesus buried against all Roman expectations. Here I've simply repeated the Jesus Seminar's view, so this "theory" of mine is supported by scholars.



NOMAD: Your failure to address this evidence with more than your own theorizing (sans evidence)

EARL: Besides the Jesus Seminar (especially Crossan), you mean. Also, do you have some rational objection to creative thinking?



NOMAD: is the sure fire methodology of the conspiracy nut crowd. Normally you are more rational than this Earl. Your dogmantism on this point is unfortunate.

EARL: Ad hominem.



NOMAD: SWL disagrees with Brown? Perhaps you could show me where.

EARL: All from his April 07 2:34 AM post: "Firstly, Pilate doing this doesn't necessarilly mean it's a habit. It could of course be a pragmatism concerning the Passover when a riot would be hard to put down. Even if this were the case, Joe of A. could himself be coming from the Sanhedrin just to make absolutely sure the body is buried because of the risk on Passover. Or Joe of A. could be a sympathizer who specifically WANTS the body for some reason. I consider the 3rd option most likely with Shea….. Hence, I go with option 3 as most likely. I don't accept Brown's scenario...."

And from later on, "Well you see, Brown isn't really that concerned with sticking to Mark's script. But I suppose that he could respond that Joseph is just being sent by the council to make the burial secure given the volatile circumstances. Or Brown could say Joe of A. is afraid because the practice of burial of crucified criminals is NOT normal. I forget off-hand if that's what he argues. Like I said, I don't buy Brown's scenario anyway, and Joseph being a secret disciple/sympathizer explains his fearfully approaching Pilate."

And in response to my argument that "This implausibility in Mark tells against Brown's interpretation of Joseph's historicity. If Jesus was buried according to Jewish law to avoid a riot with the Jews, there would have been no need for a Joseph of Arimathea" SWL replies "I'm in agreement with you here. There would have been no need on Brown's scenario. That's not to say Joe of A. definitely wouldn't have been there ensuring burial. This could be the case particularly because the Sanhedrin had little experience with giving people over for crucifixion."

And later on, "But none of this speculation so typical of Earl really rules out Joe of A. still being afraid in asking Pilate for the body (not that I agree with Brown's scenario)."

And later on, "If Earl knows anything about Jewish law, he knows that Joe can steal eat the Passover. I agree that Pilate would have been MORE LIKELY to take care of it himself, had Joe of A. not been a sympathizer and secured the body at his own personal expense, but Brown could always argue that Joe was just sent by the Sanhedrin to ensure dishonorable burial according to Jewish custom - which is what he does argue in his Catholic Biblical Quarterly article."



NOMAD: I think you would do better to start offering some evidence to support your theories, or they will remain mere speculations Earl.

EARL: Thanks for the advice.




[This message has been edited by Earl (edited April 09, 2001).]

My 2 cents worth is that Christianity offered a lot of things to the regular person in Rome. I think that during that time period that religion and politics were inseperable. The Jewish religion which was dominated by harsh laws that must be adhered to left much to be desired. It isolated a jew and forced him to stand out among Secular Rome. Circumcision and eating restrictions made it very easy to identify a Jewish person.

Jesus freed them from the strict enforcement of those laws. By doing so opened the door a bit wider for everyone to get into heaven, not just the practicing Jews. Jesus made everyone equal. He also pushed the notion that there is a God above the Emperor and that even the emperor will some day be judged. I feel that these novel ideas were extremely appealing to the intellectual free thinkers of the day. It was a subversive and revolutionary movement that climaxed when Constantine fa-ound Jaysus, Probably much like agnostics and atheists on these boards today that feel oppressed by christian dogma, only less evolved and Jesus was the biggest of them all. It is them that perpetuated the religion within Rome and expanded it to a point where it was politically smart to side with them. It was empowering and very attractive to the masses. After that, I don't think it is too hard to understand that the religion which is independant of the Roman Govt. would survive. In fact, with the collapse of Rome, I would believe that people would look for some continuity, some common denominator to tie people together. What could be better than a religion that most of Rome accepted at that time. I would even predict(but can't support) that christianity's growth accelerated after the fall of Rome.

Non christians/jews in Rome didn't have much to be happy about. I feel it was as much of a political revolution as the birth of a religion. I believe it ended up changing and contributing to the demise of the Roman Empire. It robbed power that the government had over the people and gave it to God who can be interpreted many different ways by different people.

Whatcha think?

David

[This message has been edited by dmvprof (edited April 10, 2001).]

Hmm... so Christianity came from where exactly max? And when did it start?

Well at least you have modified your earlier question that had Christianity "taking off" within days of Jesus' death. Now you simply ask where it came from and when did it start.

As to the exact date of when it started we can only guess. There are no contemporaneous records of Jesus and the events that surround him. All we have are some legendary writings that appear 20 - 100 years after his death. So we could guess that Christianity "started" sometime after he died (though we can't really show it), and that claims and stories surrounding Jesus were passed around as part of oral tradition during that time period. Some time later Paul writes about issues concerning Jesus and belief (though offering little to no support for the more fantastic aspects surrounding Jesus's birth or supposed acts). Years later, the writer of Mark writes down some of the stories. Years after that, Matthew and Luke write down the stories, significantly embellished. John writes even later.

This seems to be where Christianity "came from".

Once again. testimony is evidence. And when it comes to the things that people did and said in history, all we will ever have is testimony. On the basis of what you have just said here, we cannot know anything at all about what happened in our past.

Sure testimony is evidence. However, the core testimony concerning Jesus is all about the miraculous things he purportedly did. If you could cite even general support for miraculous events that are accepted as true by historians based on testimonial evidence this would help your case greatly. Otherwise your just comparing apples and oranges and perhaps hoping that no one will notice.

Do you have evidence that Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address? Or that Napoleon really was at the Battle of Waterloo? I understand that many Americans do not know very much about history, or how it is studied, but such absurd reductionism and extreme scepticism as you have shown here would make the study of history impossible.

Er nice try, but no cigar. Since when do the Gettysburg Address or the Battle of Waterloo get addressed on the same level as a man being born of a virgin, healing people with a mere touch and rising from the dead? Did I miss some new historical investigation technique? Please provide support for these types of events being considered on equal par among historians. Provide support that they even should be.

I really wish theists would stop with all the dancing around the core issue here in hopes of clouding their real claims under the umbrella of normal historical investigation. This isn't about whether an interant preacher gained a following in ancient Palestine, or whether he walked from here to there. This is about whether this preacher did many miraculous things and was a God incarnate. Do believers really think that being obtuse about such things will prevent us from noticing?

What I want to know is how you or any other Christian separates myth, legend and supersition from historical facts. What is your criteria?

To support your beliefs you have offered the following:

1. The endurance of people's belief in a claim (Which supposedly discounts Elvis sightings, ghosts, NDE's, Bigfoot, Virgin Mary statues weeping and bleeding, channelers, pyschics, tarot card readers, etc. But also demotes Christianity since Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zorastrian beliefs have endured much longer.)
2. The endurance of the claim itself (which would demote Christian claims since there are many claims that have lasted longer)
3. The claim being reported more than once (for which the miracles of Sai Babba, Indian spiritual experiences, reincarnation experiences, Aborigine experiences, Eskimo native spiritual experiences, Buddhist spiritual experiences, Mormon claims of Golden Tablets, ghosts, NDE's, pyschics, channelers, tarot card readers, etc. would all qualify as well, perhaps even better.)
4. Inexplicable/odd/strange behaviour makes a claim more likely to be true (which would include a great many things it would seem)

I did not say it was miraculous. I said it was unique. That has been my point all along through two threads now.

Opps so we have to add:

5. The uniqueness of a claim or happening makes it more likely that a claim is true. (Aren't all happenings in some way unique?)

It would be helpful if you could expound upon these criteria so that I could understand why you think meeting any or all of these criteria make a claim, no matter how fanatastic, more likely to be true.

Thus far no one has addressed what happened in the first 300 years max, and that was the opening question of the thread. I will ask it again and if you do not have an answer, that is alright.

Well your original post didn't seem to deal with that question. But putting that aside, I am still trying to understand what you want an explanation of. You characterized Christianity as a great "taking off" that occurred within days of Jesus' death, but I have heard no argument that the basic presumption of your question is even true, therefore its quite difficult to address it. You have now asked for an explanation of where Christianity came from and when it started. I have given my take on that. I'll wait to see if that addresses your question sufficiently.

I agree that both of these religions are remarkable. But again, Islam needed military conquest, and Christianity could not do this when it was officially illegal in the Roman Empire. Hinduism does not rely upon the belief in any events written at the time they occurred. It also does not depend on the miraculous events that surrounded any individual.

In order to acheive "military conquest" a good number of believers must already exist in order to have a military. Christianity seem to acheive this pretty quickly with the state sponsored favoritism under Constantine. Could you explain the tremendous explosion of belief in the teachings of Mohammad prior to any military conquests for Islam? Could you explain how Hinduism began or how it has endured so long among so many. (If you are unable to explain its endurance, should I consider this as evidence that Hinduism must be true?)

I agree that Hinduism does not seem to depend on the "miraculous events that surround any individual". Is this another criteria you use for distinguishing historical truth from myth and legend? I'll attempt a wording for it.

6. The miraculous events surrounding a particular individual are more likely to be true than various miraculous events surrounding many different individuals.

Now perhaps you can expound upon why this is a reasonable criteria and why it would make a thing more likely to be true.

madmax: Is longevity a sign that particular claims must be true?

You are changing the subject here. I want to know what happened, and we are beginning with the assumption that the resurrection did not take place. On that basis, why did this particular story last when others have not? Assume the story is false. Then tell me why it did not die out like every other false story you have listed (and hundreds or thousands of others we could no doubt come up with).

Well actually I'm trying to determine the criteria you use for determing the truth of claims. If your going to claim that certain mythological type events did indeed happen then I need to know how you distinguish Christian mythology from all other mythologies.

I also wanted a clear, unambiguous definition of what you are claiming did happen so that I can give you my take on how it happened. "How" something happened is very difficult to answer before "what' has been defined and clearly supported as an actual happening.

What is the good evidence that you have that proves that Cicero existed or said anything? How about Hannibal? How about any peasant from any era before the invention of the printing press? What is your definition of good evidence, and does anything meet that criteria?

What did Hannibal or Cicero or any one else you have in mind do that we have no reasonable expectation to believe can truly happen? Are claims of the extraordinary the same as claims of the ordinary as far as your concerned? If so, on what criteria will you apply your attempted analogy here? Can you show that miracles can actually occur? It would greatly help your case if you could.

If your only claim is that Christianity began at some point, and then grew in membership over the decades, then thats not much of a claim.

I am sure you are aware that people can disagree about anything. I have even heard of scientists that say that evolution is bunk. I don't believe them, of course, but they exist.
Now, when an expert in the field of history believes a thing to be true, do you reject it? If many experts believe the same thing? If so, why? I think Layman hit the nail on the head when he equated debating with sceptics about history is a lot like debating with YEC's about evolution and the age of the earth. It is very frustrating to argue with a person that has no real evidence or supports for their claims.

I think its very frustrating that theists lop fantastic claims together with normal claims and then complain because people instinctively treat them differently. I think its frustrating to debate with theists as they are often unclear as to what "many scholars" are actually saying but instead put their own interpretation on what they say, and then disregard those other scholars as "fringe" because their views don't happen to jive with Christian beliefs. I think its frustrating when theists don't realize that historical science is an inexact science at best, yet put much more stock or certainty in it than any historian ever would. I think its frustrating that theists don't understand just how much reasonable doubt exists for all of their contentions.

If you want to make an analogy that miraculous events are as probable as other events and should be viewed under the same umbrella of historical research then you'll be required to show that it should be. A consistent verification of miraculous powers would be sufficient to establish this. If you can't support the analogy, then you are being dishonest when you continually attempt to use it.

After that, if you want to make a distinction between Christian mythology and other mythologies then we'll need proven criteria to use as a reference.

If your not concerned with miracles at this time or don't believe they can be proven historically, then I am at a loss to understand why you continually attempt to interpret the evidence and put forth judgement criteria that seems to do just that.

I am not asking for decisive, just highly probable. Do you have any evidence to support your beliefs?

Which beliefs are speaking of?

In 1943-44 how would you determine that such a thing was actually possible max? Almost no sane person thought such a thing was actually taking place.

Er.. I couldn't determine it and neither could you. Your scenario only had 1 person giving me this information. What would you do? Start killing people and invading a country based on the word of a single witness? How many witnesses would it take before you were convinced enough to engage in all out war? A dozen? A hundred? You would require no empirical evidence at all before engaging in battle and killing people? ( And just FYI, we didn't join WWII just because 1 person or even a hundred people told us that there were attrocities being committed.)

So... you would believe him or not?

And I am sure you would like it to be that simple. Just believe or not believe with no level or degree involved. Unfortunately this doesn't jive with reality. People believe things to a degree which will dictate what they will do with that belief.

In any case, I have already answered this question as "perhaps". Would I bet my life on it or engage in all out war because of mere testimony? Extremely doubtful. Would I rest my life on testimony that included acts that I have no reason to believe can actually occur. Well I hate to say never, but how about the preverbial ol "when pigs fly" as a standard? (And hey, who knows, its possible that pigs could some day fly.)

This analogy doesn't work either. We only have one testimony, with no independent sources to confirm it. With the Gospel accounts we do have this.

So were relying on number 3 of your criteria for determing if a thing is true or not, regardless of how fantastic that claim may be? Interesting.

The Book of Mormon starts off with the testimony of 3 people who attest to an angel delivering the golden tablets and another eight people attesting to the tablets themselves. Many people attest to having near death experiences, many others experiences of past lives. The numbers of Indians who will attest to being able to communicate with their spirit guides or with their dead ancestors might surprise you. You should do some research on paranormal happenings. The multiple attestation for ghosts is quite large. (See http://paranormal.about.com/science/paranormal/ for testimony on ghosts and whole assortment of other paranormal phenomenon like reincarnation, Egyptian Gods, channelers, psychics, etc. . Christianity hardly has any lock on fantastic claims.)

As for actually having independant sources, you have yet to prove this. As far as I know all gospel accounts are based on the same legend and written decades after the supposed events. Even Layman admits that the writers of the gospels are not eyewitnesses. So what you really have amounts to little more than second-hand hearsay and hardly the independent attestation you like to tout so much.

Just look at all the nonsense from Earl. It reads like something from Oliver Stone, but has absolutely no supporting evidence. It runs counter to all of the evidence we do have, and rests on multiple speculations that cannot be supported.

Huh? Reasonable possibilities should be accounted for. As I have said before, we know people have lied about fantastic claims, we know people have made things up, therefore this is the simplest and most obvious conclusion to arrive at until such time as the fantastic claims can be supported and known to actually be possible. Unless your able or willing to show that miracles are possible or even probable, it is completely reasonable to believe they are not.

Yet he claims it is believable. If we wanted to treat history like that, then I think in the very near future people are going to say that Lee Harvey Oswald was a fictional character too. After all, there is nothing spectatular, extraordinary, or supernatural about the things Earl wants to dispute, nor is there anything supernatural about any of the premise of this thread. Do we really want to be so sceptical of history that we just throw up our hands and say that we don't know anything, we can't learn anything, and we shouldn't even try? This kind of attitude strikes me as highly anti-intellectual, and especially odd to be coming from sceptics who claim to rely on science and the knowable for what they believe.

I haven't closely read Earl's stuff (though I did skim it) to know what your objection is. Earl seems to be quite knowledgable and seems to put forth some plausible ideas about what might have occurred. That is how historical criticism is often done because of the lack of hard evidence. He seems to be using history to quite an extensive extent, his interpretations just happen to disagree with conclusions you would prefer, which is understandable. Rather than resort to ad hominem or straw men attacks, it may be a better to actually show where and why Earl's reasoning is not reasonable This will help your case much more I think.

When you use words like possible, what are you ruling to be impossible?

Nice try, but this almost borders on dishonesty. Its a simple fact that I know certain things are possible. I don't know that miracles of any kind are possible. This is not the same thing as a positive claim that they are impossible. If you wish to demonstrate that they are possible please do so. All of this could be concluded if you just would.

As for curses and such, do you have multiple independent attestation to such things? Especially dating from the Pharoah's?

So you call a single person's testimony a lie? On what basis? Just because it disagrees with your beliefs? If you contend that a person is a liar regarding experience with other Gods then I suggest you adhere to your own criteria and prove that person a liar. Of course multiple attestation certainly exists for fantastic claims and I have listed some as have others.

Concerning the Egyptians, the historian Paul Johnson writes, "But what is beyond argument is that every single aspect of Egyptian life, as it manifests itself by its survival, was enclosed in a pervasive religious context." And similarly, "It is probably true to say that, from first to last, there was no such thing as secular high art in Egypt.... The Egyptian craftsman did not perform for the human eye, but for the divine." Medicine, map making, astronomy, - all of it was a testament to the Gods that they believed in. Some of those Gods are still worshipped even today.

As for the curse on the Tomb of King Tut, 21 people associated with that find died of unnatural causes.

In addition to this, your own inability to support reliable, multiple, independent attestation will continue to make your attempted argument here nonexistant.

On the other hand, is it possible to accept some miraculous claims, but not others? Or must we do an all or nothing, up or down vote on every single claim ever made?

If you want to accept miracle claims based on mere testimony then you may do so. If you could just show us that miracles can actually occur (rather than just being a mere curiosity or metaphysical possibility) then we all eagerly await your evidence.

Come on max. Setonius is the only one to tell us this story. He has major butt kissing motivation with Caesar. Even in the story he does tell us, Vespasian himself seems to be pretty surprised by the healing, and no one makes much more of it than this. (IOW, it never happens again). I hope your powers of discernment and differenciation are better than this.

Oh my, so Seutonius is not reliable? I'd argue on what basis you'd call Seutonius a liar, but since he's not reliable, I guess well have to throw out any of the supposed extra-biblical support he gives for the existence of Jesus as well. As for my powers of discernment and differenciation, I believe they are far better than yours as you do not seem to see any difference between miraculous claims and non-miraculous ones.

Well, I do not see any other testimony from anywhere else, but at the same time, I cannot rule it out automatically. After all, extraordinary things do happen, and maybe the men were healed. Do you have evidence that they were not?

Nope. I don't have evidence that such thing can happen, nor do I stand up and make positive claims that they don’t happen. If your going to stand up and say that they have and/or do happen, then you are expected to providence to support that claim. But at least your open to the possibility of miracles through the power of other Gods and beliefs. That’s something.

Were the writers there? Did they interview witnesses? Do their writings date from the same period in time? Do we have any cooberating evidence from an independent source? (BTW, we are getting very far off topic here. I am hoping to learn what you believed happened in the Roman Empire 30-300AD. I hope you can offer some ideas).

As soon as you clarify exactly what your looking for, what happening it is that you want explained, and you give support for that happening to have actually occurred, then I may be able to take a stab at it. (Assuming my current explanation is not sufficient to address whatever it is that you are seeking.)

If you would only support the criteria you list here for your own claims they might mean something, but you haven't yet done so. They are nothing more than Christian propoganda to me.

I would certainly look at any evidence offered, but I see no reason to confine miracles just to God, or to what is reported in the Bible. Angels and demons are said to have miraculous powers as well.

Angels and demons are part of Christian lore, so this means very little.

When we have multiple attestation from independent sources, this is generally seen to be more probably true than when we have one source. Recall my example of how courts value multiple witness testimony over single witness testimony.

We have multiple attestation for NDE's, psychic abilities, Indian spiritual experiences, reincarnation (See Ruth Simmons and Shirley Mclaine), Elvis sightings, and a host of other things arleady mentioned.

You have yet to show solid evidence of multiple witnesses for any claims. All you can show are anonymous writings that amount to nothing more than second hand hearsay. You have not established the identity of any witnessess at all, nor have you established any evidence they were sufficiently cross-examined for reliability.

You did not answer my question. Please try again.

Well I had thought the analogy obvious but apparently not. People do weird things. They have done them and will no doubt continue to do them. Is this supposed to serve as evidence of something?

On the other hand if you could provide actual names and data associated with the claims inherent in your question then I could at least avoid seeing it as an entirely fallacious, question begging query.

Again, you have not answered my question. The resurrection did not happen. The only testimony we do have, all of it independent, early, and from multiple sources, all acting within the lifetimes of the people who witnessed the events, and living in the city where they happened say the same thing.

Again, you have not supported the blatant assumptions that underly your query. Why should I explain events that you have yet to support? Which rich people? What were their names? Whom do you speak of? What was their character like? Where is the evidence they endured anything because of their beliefs?

Is this how most theists conduct historical research? It seems very sloppy to me.

As I have explained before, I accept that sceptics reject the Christian stories. I want to know what the sceptics story(ies) happen to be. Thus far I have not been able to examine very much.

Of course the fact that there isn't much in ancient history to "look at" might be the reason this escapes you. Certainly the details you seem to be looking for may very well be impossible to find. As an example, try to take up your own challenge for any other ancient faith you want to pick. Explain to us how it started, why it became popular, etc.

On the other hand I have read several posts in this thread that have put forth some very reasonable scenarios as to what could have happened during the early days of Christianity. If you disagree with those scenarios or claim that the fantastic scenario you want to believe it is true beyond a reasonable doubt, then please support that position with evidence.

Thus far we have not really had a discussion. I have found that most sceptics do not really think about these questions, and appear content to either not think about them, or to simply say they didn't happen as described, and leave it at that. This overall lack of genuine curiosity is astonishing to me.

No more astonishing than the propensity for gullibility among theists to believe in the ancient myths of people rising from the dead, demons possession, miracle-workers, and god-men born of virgins. I find your lack of skepticism equally bewildering given human history and the numerous examples of fraud, dellusion and trickery and the unsupported belief in miracles as real occurances.

Unique in that it lasted, in that it came from Jews, in that it took over the Roman world in what history considers to be an eye blink, in that it is based on actual historical claims dating from the the time the people lived, rather than the ancient past, and unique in that it is still among the most powerful forces in the world.

If you keep mixing issues it will only injure your credibility. The "taking over of the Roman world" has been explained numerous times and you have yet to say anything about it.

As for there being "historical claims", this only begs the question in that you have not yet proven that any claims you would make are indeed "historical". I have no reason to believe they are anything but the propoganda of myth and legend written by ancient peoples in order to obtain more converts.

Islam had extremely modest beginnings and very quickly took over a large portion of the world. It too is "among the most powerful forces in the world" and is growing in numbers as well. And?

Uniqueness, however, does not equal truth, but I would not mind hearing an alternative theory of what happened that makes sense.

A man started a movement in a time that was ripe for it. He was executed by the Roman authorities. Decades laters the myths and legends surrounding him grew and became a full blown religion. Again this happened at an opportune time. (The sacking of Jersalem, the death and dispersion of the Jewish population.) Makes perfect "sense" to me. Far more sense than a god-man and angels.

You missed my point again. If one story lasts, and none of the others do, then don't you want to know what makes it different? We have already assumed that it is not true. Now we just need to find out why it has held up (unlike Elvis, false Messiah's, ect.)

What do you mean by “held up”? If you mean it has continued to exist as a faith, Christianity is hardly the only faith that has “held up”. Christianity has a lot of power and wealth behind it. Christianity has a lot of devoted believers behind it and continually seeks new converts. Most people prefer to believe in some deity rather than not believe at all. Why should we be amazed as its continued existence?

None of the stories that underly these religions were based on anything more than remote antiquity. Cristianity dates back to the period right after Jesus died. This is unique. What happened?

2000 year old myths are “remote antiquity” as far as I am concerned. Who are you trying to kid? All faiths start somewhere. Whats so unique about that? Besides, your irrational bias towards beliefs that have not been written down is unwarranted. Indian beliefs are very old and have been orally past down through hundreds of generations. Aboriginal, African and Eskimo beliefs followed the same pattern. This seems to be little more than western style prejudice.

You are aware that many non-believers come to believe them as well right? In fact, outside of Jesus immediate circle, no one was a believer in the beginning. Today, billions claim to believe. How come on both counts (but especially in those first 300 years).

Is this the question you really wanted answered? People believe for many reasons, (See Michael Shermer’s book, “How We Believe”) People believe because of supposed spiritual experiences, because they want to, because it makes them happy, because it makes the feel fullfilled, because they believe in claims, etc. .

Outside of Mohammed’s initial circle, no one believed in Islam either. Outside of whomever started Hinduism, no one believed in the Hindu Gods either. Does this stuff really count as evidence to you?
Very strange.

There is nothing miraculous about reincarnation per se, and certainly nothing on the order of the miraculous claims for Jesus life. Once again, we are assuming these miracles are all equally false however. So please tell me, if you have any ideas, what has made Christiantiy the success that it is?

Egads. Nothing miraculous about reincarnation? A person dies and their spirit returns to inhabit another body? This is what you would call unmiraculous? Very strange.

But on the second part, your mixing issues again. At least keep your questions consistent. What made Christianity a “success” can have little or nothing to do with how it started. Constantine certainly made Christianity a success. This state sponsored favoritism continued on for many centuries, endowing Christianity with great power and wealth. The fanatical devotion of its believers and their evangelistic ideology also has helped a great deal as well.

Considering that there are at least 4 billion people that do NOT hold to Christian beliefs, your exuberance for it seems just a tad bit misplaced.

But Michael has already backed off on that point, and agreed that he is not really using multiple independent attestation of the same events. What he is talking about is not even close to what we are talking about so far as claims about a single man at a single moment in history. There really are no parallels to what we have on Jesus.

Ah so now were back to the uniqueness issue. Unfortunately you have yet to support why uniquenss = truth or even more likely to be truth. I suggest that you should try to stay more focused as all this flitting about from one argument to the next makes your reasoning very hard to pin down and evaluate.

This is cool. Do you understand the differences in the claims for each? And are the claims of any besides Christianty subject now, or ever in the past, to any kind of verification? In other words, when the disciples said the tomb was empty, people could go see for themselves that it was. Do we have anything like this in other religions? Ever?

Oh my, such question begging fallacies. Please provide evidence there ever was an empty tomb. Please provide evidence that anyone at the time even cared about such a thing to even have an inkling of a desire to go “look” at an empty tomb. Please provide evidence that the entire bodily resurrection concept was initially part of Christian beliefs and not something that develped much later as the legends grew. Please show beyond a reasonable doubt that any of these things actually happened.

Try to use more than your second-hand, hearsay “testimony” (the bible) as evidence, since mythological type writings like this aren’t very impressive to me. I don’t consider it much better than Homer telling me about ships like the Argo or the city of Troy.

Nomad: Yeah. On the other hand, how many contemporary writings do we have on the assassination of Julius Caesar? Or the death of Cleopatra? Pick an ancient event, and ask how much testimony we have on it from the period in question.

max: Just how much "testimony" do you think is necessary to believe a man was born of a virgin and rose from the dead?

Nomad: Could you please answer my questions?

Nope. I have no intention of doing your work for you. If this means something to you then you may look it up yourself. It means very little to me as it entirely question begging. Please prove that YOU actually have ANY testimony whatsoever rather than simple mythological stories that were written down decades after the supposed events.

Your gullibility for swallowing myths is quite a curiosity for me.

Fair enough. I only hope by this that you mean you will be open to revelation from God when you receive it.

Assuming any deity at all exists, I would be more than happy to hear from it. I extend an open invitation to any deity to come to my house for dinner. We could have a nice chat afterwards.

Not at all, and quite the opposite really. If the Muslim experience of God, or the Hindu or Buddhist, or whatever other religion made more sense then did Christianity, then I would embrace it. Thus far, they do not even come close however (and once again we are very far from the point of this thread).

Sure we are, but that’s okay. If Christianity makes sense to you, that’s great. It makes very little sense to me.

So I'm not sure what "testing" would be required. In the typical Christian worldview, all other deities, spirits, miracles, are false. (Or perhaps of the devil.)

nomad: Don't be so sure of this.

Well I did say “typical”.

Nomad: I will not belittle the exeriences of God claimed by these people. That would be pretty foolish and arrogant on my part.

max: It would also be arrogant to assume that they are experiences of the same God you believe in.

nomad: Are you saying that I do not know my own experiences and mind? How would you know this?

Not sure how you got from there to here, but the point is that it would also be arrogant for you to presume that they believe in or had an experience with the same God that you do.

Umm.. this is how science works max. If we cannot trust our senses and what they tell us (especially when multiple people experience the same thing), the what can we trust?

Well apparently you can trust second hand hearsay which would automatically be thrown out of any court of law in the land – and for good reason. It’s a very unreliable way to discover truth.

I trust my senses just fine. I don’t trust legendary writings from ancient, pre-scientific peoples concerning fantastic events that are not known to be possible. As for multiple people experiencing things, you have yet to support this with anything other than ancient mythological writings.

As I have said before, it is beyond my power to produce any and every kind of evidence demanded by other people. I can only offer my own testimony, together with the supporting evidence from other people and sources, then ask each to make their own judgement. I believe, however, that the only convincing evidence can be provided by God Himself, and that He will do this for everyone.

Well assuming your God exists, which I highly doubt, I’ll be waiting eagerly for it to present itself in a unambiguous manner. Until such time, my doubts are completely reasonable and my position far more logical to me than that of Christian believers.

In the meantime, when I meet a sceptic that tells me that "that didn't happen", then I will ask him or her to tell me what they think did happen.

And I’ll ask the same thing of Christians concerning all other Gods and faiths.

Thanks again for your time, and your answers max, and good luck in your quest.

No problem. I think all these conversations could be concluded if you would just provide evidence that we should view fantastic/miraculous type claims in the same manner as any other claim. If you could just provide sufficient evidence so that we (and historians) can accept this as a solid precedent or basis, then your goal of convincing people of the truthfulness of your beliefs would become easier.

As for my quest, I happen to be on a continual quest for truth. Its my hope that you are as well and that you don’t become so set in your own beliefs that you refuse to question them.

Take Care

Madmax

Still mistaking verbage for quality of assertions eh? Let's see what you've got Earl.

First, we have already done this in spades, and you have done nothing beyond story telling and speculation to refute it.

Three independent accounts of the burial is way more evidence than we have for almost any ancient historical event. Further, none of the stories offered are in any way extraordinary, making your desire to demonstrate hyper scepticism of the accounts highly question begging.

And I never disputed this. Interestingly, neither do the Gospels. What you have failed to establish is that Pilate would have refused to let the body be buried, and that is all that he had to do.

Since you have offered no reason why Pilate would refuse a request from a member of the Sanhedrin then there is no reason to doubt the account as reported in Mark and John.

Pilate's character is not the issue, merely one action: did he grant Joseph of Arimathea's request? There is no reason to doubt that he would have done this.

And this was among your most pathetic arguments Earl. Just because you can dream it up doesn't mean we should treat it as a serious possibility. In the absense of evidence, your extraordinary claim can be safely discarded.

Since every single thing in life is subject to a reasonable doubt (especially when talking about history) your minimalist standard will not fly here. Once again you want us to accept that because you can dream up alternative theories that we should treat them seriously. But without ANY evidence to back them up at all what we have from you is Oliver Stone style story telling. Period. Give us some evidence Earl, or admit that the reasonable and plausible historical account of the burial offered by the witnesses is the default position.

So when the great majority of trained historians (not theologians like the people you quote) tell you that the evidence is more than sufficient, you remain sceptical because...? When the account offered in the Gospels is plausible, involves no supernatural elements, and does not make extraordinary claims, you remain a sceptic because...?

Oh, right, you aren't going to bother to respond or defend your tripe.

Your rationalizations are no doubt convincing to the natives Earl, but I would expect your naturally inquisitive mind to be more discerning here.

Nope. I am pointing out that you are remaining sceptical of an issue for no reason better than to demonstrate that you can be sceptical.

Go back to my theory that Julius Caesar actually slipped in the tub and was not actually assassinated. That last bit was invented by Octavian and Mark Antony to further their own political ambitions.

As I said, just cause you can dream it up doesn't make it a rational position to defend Earl.

You mean your endless stream of verbose speculations? I've read them Earl. So far you have not done any better than to say that Joseph didn't exist because because Mark made him up (no evidence beyond speculation is offered), and John depended on Mark because you say John depends on Mark.

If I knew you were coming back to actually try and defend this, then I would tell you to do better.

Proving that John depended on Mark would go a long ways towards helping your case. Sadly, you do not even try (more on that below).

It is called multiple attestation, and it uses the criteria of embarrassment, and the fact that Mark and John both tell us this highly embarrassing story (confirmed by Luke and Matt, both of whom had no problem leaving other embarrassing details found in Mark out of their Gospels) is almost certainly true.

It would help if you actually understood the rules of evidence gather in the study of history. There have been a number of good threads on the subject, not to mention many books as well.

No, this is a piece of information that is so embarrassing, that as Michael Grant tells us:

"...the evangelists manifestly do (Grant's emphasis in original) include some unpalatable or even incomprehensible doings and sayings of Jesus, and incidents in his life. They include them because they were so indissolubly incorporated in the tradition that their elimination was impracticable; in other words, because they were genuine. Examples are: ...his burial by a Jew, a member of the hated Sanhedrin, without the participation of any of his own disciples."
(M. Grant, Jesus, [London, 1977], pg. 203).

See why I wish you would actually address my arguments with more than mere assertions and wild speculations Earl?

You mean you tried to psychoanylize a man (Mark) you have never met, nor could interview, so that he could defend his honesty and integrity? Or that none of the other Gospel writers could uncover his fraud?

Not good enough Earl. There is nothing extraordinary going on in Mark's story, so why doubt it? How much evidence would it take?

This is just plain wrong. In 1 Corinthians Paul tells us directly that he is passing on traditions that have been taught to him (during his 3 year stay in Jerusalem):

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

As both SWL and I have pointed out before, virtually all scholars (the JS included) agree that Paul received this tradition within 3 years of the event (and this is at least the second time I have told you this now).

Earl, you have tried to write off Paul by saying he is only talking about visions when clearly he is talking about a physical resurrection. You also speculate that he might be talking about a figurative burial, but do not bother to prove this. What am I supposed to think? I ask for evidence, and you offer more speculations. Do you see now why I get tired of your lines of argumentation? Or your scepticism for scepticism's sake?

Speculation is an argument without evidenciary support. You offer no evidence to support your thesis, making it, by definition, speculation. No opinions are needed here Earl.

Nope. You addressed it to SWL, and focused largely on his arguments. Further, for all your verbosity, you didn't offer any evidence in support of your speculations there either, so I didn't want to get dragged into yet another tail chase on your assertions.

Yeah, I know, and for what it is worth I think he was crazy to do it. He should have merely pointed out how you were spinning tales out of whole cloth and left it at that.

Earl? When you offer theories without supports (a spade), I call them theories without evidence or supports (spades). SWL is free to chase you around the block again and again, but I suspect he has grown tired of it.

(As an aside, what does disagreeing with Brown have to do with anything? I do not accept all of his theories either, but at least he identifies which theories have the most evidence in their support. Thus far your's haven't had any, and I am tired of trying to pin you down on this.)

This is oneof my favorite parts, since I have specifically asked you to link John to Mark. Instead, you merely assert that John was written late. If you come back to address only one point, I hope it is this one, because I do not appreciate the diversionary tactic. I half wonder if you even noticed what you were doing here.

Of course it is arbitrary and circular Earl. Worse, when I ask how you linked the two, you do no more than assert that John was written later than Mark. I already knew that.

This appeal to authority is laughable. Is this an argument, or did you just show that Crossan makes the same assertion that you did?

John depends on Mark because John depends on Mark! LOL!

Come on Earl.

First 13-14 have no parralel in Mark (bad start already). Second, Peter's denial has all the hallmarks of authenticity as well, since it is extremely embarrassing, and John's account looks as different from the Synoptics as does the rest of his passion narrative compared to the Synoptics. Special pleading does little to win an argument Earl. So much for verses 15-27.

Try this instead: (1)Peter really did deny Jesus, and it had to be reported in all four Gospels. Again, nothing extraordinary here, requiring extraordinary evidence. And (2) the burial account happened. Again, nothing extraordinary to report, so simple attestation from all four Gospels is sufficient evidence. Sometimes the simplest explanation really does work best.

When I have more time I think I will get into disassembling Crossan, but since this is all you gave me to look at I will leave it at this. Crossan resorts to special pleading and circular reasoning. This is not evidence, or supports of anything except someone on an agenda building mission.

There is no scholarly concensus on anything. The closest we get to such a chimera is that Jesus was buried in a tomb, and Crossan is in a minority of nearly one on this point.

This is his pathetic appeal to the Cross Gospel. As I said, I will address this more later. For the purposes of this thread you don't tell us much about it, so I will let it pass for now.

LOL! What would you like the Oxford Companion to say Earl? That John couldn't possibly have known about Mark or the other Gospels? How rash do you think he could be. So don't use the qualification of his statement as meaning much. If you want to show dependence of John on Mark, then show dependence. Your example above is pathetic (even for Crossan) in that it BEGINS with two verses that are UNIQUE to John.

Sheesh.

His model is so convoluted I don't blame you for not bothering to offer it. I will chalk this attempt on your part to a mere appeal to Crossan's authority, but if you want to pursue it in greater detail, then I hope you will be prepared to actually back it up.

Now for the funniest part. A long winded demonstration of a late authorship for John. Of course, it in no way demonstrates dependence on Mark, or Matt, or Luke, so what was the point here?

Did you answer this question? Let's see?

Yeesh. This is your worst example of special pleading yet. Is there evidence to back this up? Are you using conjecture again? Yep.

Do better (if you can). After all, if he did depend on Mark, we should have more than just the bare minimum of basic facts lining up right?

Umm... the Gospel of Peter so obviously uses the Synoptics and John that is not even funny. Would you like to go through the similarities? If so, start the thread, because it will obliterate the nonsensical view put forward by Crossan (alone) that GPeter predates everyone.

Good quote. I like it. On the other hand, I asked you if John used Mark (or any other Synoptic Gospel). Do you have any evidence that he did?

Yeah, I covered this off in my thread on dating the Gospels. On the other hand, if the scholarly community finds that it is more likely that John really was written early, this will be another theory from Crossan we will have to eject eh?

The question (again) was show dependence on Mark please. On the other hand, thanks for the info on John's authorship.

And this shows that John depended on the Synoptics how exactly? Or where you trying to help prove MY point here?

No Earl. I am demonstrating that we should not listen to a 20th Century invention just because someone can dream it up. I would have thought a sceptic would be more discerning than this. After all, isn't it the sceptics' job to point out legends that don't have any supporting evidence? The load of BS you have dumped on us on this subject alone should serve as a warning to all about excessive credulity.

Ahh... but there is no hidden motive Earl. The only scholar to take Crossan seriously on this point is Crossan (and possibly a couple of his friends in the JS) who begins with the premise that the resurrection didn't happen, then builds whatever theories he can to give credibility to his argument. Of course, he is still working from whole cloth, and this is why I have told you that I want some evidence to support your theorizing.

Perhaps they find the empty tomb too big of an obstacle to their other theories to allow it to remain.

Yes I have, although I have had some help.

It's easy for you to build a story out of whole cloth Earl. If you want me to reply to it, however, I begin by asking for supporting evidence. Even this wind bag post hasn't rectified that situation, since you have effectively abandoned the field when it comes to offering supporting evidence for your ideas.

Your ideas came out of Crossan's brain, and he does have a theological motive. The pity is that you did not appear to know this.

Oops... couldn't help but slip that last shot against SWL in there eh?

Complex argumentation and reasoning is not what I am looking for Earl. I want evidence to support your stories and theories. Thus far you haven't offered anything. That is disappointing, but not surprising. After all, I knew there was no evidence to help you out even before we started. See why I keep harping on the subject?

I don't want just your arguments Earl. I want to see evidence to support it. The Gospels offer plenty of evidence, and all on a very mundane and natural occurance. Your need to be sceptical is quite bizarre, and appears to be driven largely by a need to be sceptical. That is not good historical inquiry. It is, however, reasonably good story making, and wins you a place with Shakespeare and Oliver Stone.

The methods used by my scholars (especially multiple and independent attestation, and the criteria of embarrassment) are not subject to ideological manipulation. Your theory can only come from ideological motivations, as it requires us to depend on a variety of unprovable (and by consequence unfalsifiable) conjecture.

Umm.. no, the fact that Christians moved the Sabbath to Sunday demonstrates that the crucifixion occured on a Friday. Further, the ONLY evidence we have is that Jesus died on the Passover. Finally, there is nothing extraordinary about the date of his execution, so yet again you are being sceptical for the sake of being sceptical.

Maybe Julius really did slip in the tub eh?

Don't get confused Earl. The evidence (namely the Gospels) says that Jesus died on the Passover. Your hypothesis says that he didn't. But you do not have evidence, only conjecture.

Since you ignore the criteria used by historians, and build your theories out of whole cloth, what methodology do you think you were using?

Since you STARTED this thread stating that you would not reply to my post (presumably because you did not think I could) I was supposed to believe this bit because...?

How about starting with showing John depended on Mark? That would help your case at least so far as Joseph of Arimathea is concerned. You might even show that there is no possibility that a crucified man in Jerusalem could be buried (of course, archeology is against you there, since we already have a crucified man that was buried). You might show that Pilate releasing the body to Joseph was so improbable as to be effectively impossible. Any of these things would be a good start.

we can doubt anything we want Earl. Stay focused please. Normally we go with what has the MOST evidence. My something outweighs your nothing by default.

Notoriously? As in he was lying? Or just that you want to make a big deal of his silences, even when he is not silent (like on the question of was Jesus buried). I swear Earl, it is sceptics like you that could drive theists to drink. It wouldn't hurt if you could actually demonstrate that Paul was telling you a lot by his silences. Better still, when he isn't silent, but says that Jesus died, was buried and rose again, that you take him at face value until you have something to show he was lying.

Could have? Maybe? An oral tradition that might have been influenced? Nice speculation.

You didn't give Crossan's reconstruction (I don't blame you, since I wouldn't doubt that you couldn't follow his dizzying logic). Besides, what you did offer showed that Crossan couldn't even spot a unique passage in John, then actually said it shows how John depended on the Synoptics! Hmm... now if a Christian talked like this you would think he was a loon, no?

Since his assertion has as much support as yours did (IOW, none), we should consider this a support because...?

You did assert that John depended on Mark, and if you make me dig this up I will.

Umm... Earl? The ONLY place John and Mark line up is on the name of Joseph of Arimathea and the tomb. Peter's denial fits into John's Gospel perfectly, and shows no evidence of being copied from Mark at all (do you see them use the same words, or language? Nope).

Hopefully you see it better now.

All you have done is offered more assertions with out evidence Earl. This was the original problem, and now you have only compounded the problem. This is very tiring.

I keep waiting for you to offer something tangible to reply to. Interesting story telling ain't it Earl, and that has been the problem all along. I replied here only to help demonstrate my point further. My hope is that eventually you will try to produce something, although I remain confident that you will not be able to do that. After all, if Crossan couldn't do it, I suspect you can't either.

Making this detail all the more embarrassing to the evangelists, and therefore more likely to be true. Basic stuff Earl.

Now that my point is made, perhaps you will return and reply with something tangible.

We shall see.

Nomad

Holy shit you people are longwinded...

John F. Kennedy
"If you can't fit it into 1 page, you haven't thought about it enough."

Efficiency in communication is a nice quality.

DMVPROF: Holy shit you people are longwinded...

John F. Kennedy

"If you can't fit IT into 1 page, you haven't thought about IT enough."

Efficiency in communication is a nice quality.

[Earl's emphasis]

EARL: Your error is simple, dmvprof, and is found in the capitalized portions of Kennedy's quotation, the word "it." Kennedy's claim pertains only to the discussion of a single issue. Unfortunately, our discussion of the historicity of Jesus' burial branched out--as every single topic inevitably does--into dozens of sub arguments, which in turn brought up other sub arguments and objections. All of these had to be dealt with.

You seem to presuppose that the world is a simple rather than a complex place. Can you justify that presupposition in under 1 page?

As a rule, unnecessary repetition or attention to detail should be avoided. But I would deny that the broad scope of our debate was unnecessary. On the contrary, a short summary of a complex issue would not necessarily be worth reading or writing in the first place.

What you have done is made an assertion, dv, not an argument. Where is your evidence for this assertion? You see why I can't take you seriously? You have no evidence, just assumptions, assertions, and invalid constructs of epistemological fallacies. If you are going to construct a logical proof, then you can't just assert a major and minor premise in order to infer a valid conclusion! That's merely the process of establishing the validity of a statement by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning!

Nomad believes the gospel stories are literal truths purely out of his own personal whim, dv, so it is your burden to prove that his longwinded delusions do not constitute extant facts! Where is your evidence that his fantasies are not actual facts of literal existence? So far, you have not provided any and I do not hold my breath for you to do so anytime soon.

Sadly, you are among the worst offenders on these boards for not providing proof that a magical fairy god king trifurcated in order to establish a hopelessly convoluted and ultimately pointless mechanism to spiritual salvation the way Nomad asked you all not to assume happened when you were making your assumptions. Assuming it is not true does not constitute proof, but of course you can make your assumptions so long as you do not make any assumptions without providing your evidence!

By "evidence," I of course hold my definition up to the highest degree, just like Nomad, which is to say one two thousand year old myth written by an unknown author forty years after any and all alleged factual occurrences, which was then embellished by two other unknown authors decades later and turned into a childish, fear-based cult by a guy named Paul...

Please do not take this post off-topic again, as Nomad isn't finished repeating the same goddamned thing for the four thousandth time.

He keeps going and going and going...



(edited for - Koy)



[This message has been edited by Koyaanisqatsi (edited April 11, 2001).]

Toto

Earl - your posts were well thought out and not overly verbose. I felt like I was reading something of substance. I don't think that dmvprof's comment was aimed directly at you.

But Nomad seems to spend paragraphs saying the same things over and over: anyone who doesn't agree with Nomad's analysis is mentally deficient, and hasn't PROVED his point to Nomad's satisfaction. After reading Nomad's last post, I felt like someone had been hitting my head for a while.

I wonder if anyone has ever been persuaded by apolgetics?

LOL! We can all dream dmv.

Actually, welcome to my internet world. For some reason my topics never manage to stay under a page in length... maybe I'm just long winded (not that you will ever catch me admitting it).

As to your earlier post on what you think happened, I don't have too much of a problem with your ideas. Christianity, certainly far more than Judaism, was made for converting others to its religion, and worked hard to adapt and make itself as appealing as possible to people of many faiths. It also did offer a means of dedicating oneself to a god that was not the emperor (or even opposed the emperor).

At the same time, I would not blame Christianity for the demise of the Roman Empire. By the time of Constantine's conversion the Western (and still pagan) Empire was in a pretty decrepid state, and this was a large part of his reason for moving his capital to the more stable and economically viable East. The Eastern (or Byzantine) Empire went on to last almost another 1000 years, so I would have to say that even with Christianity as the official religion, it didn't seem to fair too badly.

Peace,

Nomad