Johnny Skeptic

What I meant was that Roger considers that he has a comprehensive knowledge of Biblical scholarship. He has not directly said that at this forum, but that is surely what he believes. You at least have to admit that he has a lot of knowledge about Biblical Criticism and History.

I would sure like to know why Roger believes that the Gospels were written in the 60's CE, especially the book of John.

Typical of fundamentalist Christians, Roger has a convenient habit of avoiding replying to arguments that he knows he will have difficulties dealing with. He must be unaware that his posts at this forum seldom if ever cause any skeptic to become a Christian. Perhaps the person who he is interested in convincing the most is himself.

darstec

I think the whole vast field of antiquity is based upon supposition. Recently I researched the average lifespan of the first century person. I've heard lots of people say that it was about 35 -- 40 years of age. There is one site from the University of Texas in Austin that had a few graphs which indicated that a 40 year old could expect to live another 30 to 39 years. The graphs were confusing but that website is used frequently by Fundamentalist to argue a long lifespan for the writers of the gospels.

However I read a few archaeological surveys where they actually dated the bones of the graves and came up with an average of about 25 years for males and 22 years for women and an insignificant number much older than that. Those articles were published on the BAR site but have been taken down. So which is it? And how do they arrive at their opinion?

It is sort of dating the NT testament works. We can find all kinds of dates by scholars and diploma mill scholars yet few of them give any really specific reasons. For instance one key to a late date is the use of Rabbi as an attribution for Joshua. Some claim that is a second century designation. But we never learn why. So much of it is assertion. But both of our sides do it.

Toto

The Rise of Christianity (or via: amazon.co.uk) can be browsed on Amazon or Google books.

Stark is a social scientist, not a historian, and he uses statistics in a social science manner. He starts with the assumption that Christianity started in the first century, and takes what appears to be a reasonable guesstimate of the Christian population in the fourth century when Constantine became Emperor, and extrapolates back, assuming a constant rate of growth. He then checks this against other historical data, and uses it to confirm his model of how new religions grow in their early years. He does not think that it is possible or necessary to have accurate census-type data; he is only concerned with broad trends and with the implications of his model of religious conversion.

I suspect that World Christian Trends accepts the claims in Acts that Stark explicitly rejects as "not statistics," but a rhetorical exercise (p. 5).

Johnny Skeptic's correspondence with the authors of WCT from 2003 is on Theology Web here. (A trip to that site always makes me glad we don't have avatars.)

Minimalist

But Josephus didn't.

BTW, although I disagree with him most of the time, I have always found Roger to be a gentleman. That should count for something. I have run across many theists who lack his grace.

--End of editorial.--

Johnny Skeptic

My word, you are quite a successful ferret, Toto. I would not have been able to find that. Thanks very much. I took on a whole herd of fundies for many months, including James Holding. I quoted Stark extensively, and I finally got Holding into a corner where he basically agreed with Stark's estimates. His explanation was something like "So what? I was only trying to make a 150% case out of a 100% case." Isn't that cute?

By the way, although Stark is a social scientist and not a historian, many of the sources in his extensive bibliography are historians, for instance, Robin Lane Fox. Wikipedia says that "Robin Lane Fox (born 1946) is an English academic and historian, currently a Fellow of New College, Oxford, Lecturer in Ancient History at Exeter College, Oxford and University Reader in Ancient History."

Johnny Skeptic

I know. Let me put it another way. Matthew 4:24-25 say "And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan."

Now are you going to tell us that other intinerate healers enjoyed that kind of reputation? If they did, why didn't their reputations endure?

According to dastec, elsewhere Roger has not been polite on some occasions. I will bet that in private, Roger has spoken scornfully about skeptics on many occasions, no doubt placing them in league with the Devil. Surely Roger believes that you deserve to go to hell. At the Theology Web, on one occasion, Roger told me something like "That is nothing more than a slur." One of the definitions of the word "slur" in Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary is "an insulting or disparaging remark or innuendo: ASPERSION b : a shaming or degrading effect." My remarks most certainly did not fit that description. All that I had said was basically this:

Skeptics are better able to follow the evidence wherever it leads than Christians are. Christians believe that if they became skeptics, and it turned out that Christianity is true, they would go to hell. Skeptics believe that if they became Christians, and it turned out that people become dust in the ground, they would not end up any worse than they would if they had remained skeptics.

At this time, meaning at 9/17/07, I would like to add that it is much more likely that a person will follow the evidence wherever it leads if he does not perceive any substantial risks in doing so if it turns out that he is wrong.

Toto

Stark may cite historians, but his method is sociology. It's a different mind set.

Let's drop the personal comments about Roger, pro or con. Thanks.

Johnny Skeptic

But even if you took all of Stark's own appraisals out of chapter 1 in "The Rise of Christianity," what would be left from historians would be good evidence that the first century Christian church was quite small. As far as I know, many historians have stated that they endorse "The Rise of Christianity," and are impressed with it. Since Stark has written over 50 books, I assume that he has become an amateur historian of some note. What makes a person a good historian, a degree in history? Fundamentalist Christians dispute even the top skeptic historians.

Ray Moscow

No, read what I wrote again.

It's not that the supernatural "cannot occur", only that it is the least probable scenario.

Outside of the religious context, fortune telling or making psychic predictions is usually considered a magic trick and is not taken seriously by most rational people. Why? Because they know that these things are not very probable and usually (well, just about always) turn out to be fake.

Whether one calls it "supernatural" or "magic", it is the same thing.

Minimalist

Fine.