lpetrich

I'd originally posted on him in Sad Apologetics from Famous Catholic Apologist Peter Kreeft. I quoted from what he had written on JC's resurrection in this post and this post; I will now critique it in more detail, in what I think is a more appropriate place.

Kreeft considers these possibilities:
(1) the resurrection really happened
(2) the apostles were deceived by a hallucination
(3) the apostles created a myth, not meaning it literally
(4) the apostles were deceivers who conspired to foist on the world the most famous and successful lie in history
(5) Jesus only swooned and was resuscitated, not resurrected.

Yet there is the possibility that Jesus Christ had been a myth, but that might be an extension of (3). And even possibility (1) does not necessarily demonstrate the truth of Xianity.

Kreeft rebuts the swoon theory by taking the Gospels entirely at face value, which I'm not sure is quite fair; if there was a historical Jesus Christ, then the Gospels can still be part-mythological.

He also does the same to the hallucination theory, using arguments like "hallucinations do not eat". However there is nothing intrinsically impossible about several people having dreams that were stimulated by other early followers having such dreams; such dreams could include Jesus Christ eating. The dream theory would also explain the numerous discrepancies in the resurrection accounts; they were separate dreams.

Kreeft's attempted rebuttal of the fakery theory is rebutted by the abundant history of pious fraud. Has Kreeft ever inquired into how many fakers of saints' biographies and relics had been exposed in their lifetimes? And the Roman authorities had charged the early Xians with denying the official gods of the Roman Empire, not of believing their specific beliefs; those authorities would not have cared about them if they had worshipped those official divinities. Kreeft makes a big fuss about their being persecuted, but the fact is, Roman persecution of early Xianity was half-hearted and off-and-on.

The argument "If they made up the story, they were the most creative, clever, intelligent fantasists in history, far surpassing Shakespeare, or Dante or Tolkien. Fisherman's "fish stories" are never that elaborate, that convincing, that life-changing, and that enduring." is absolute hooey; is Kreeft very familiar with the stories of other religions?

When making the argument that someone would have claimed to have seen no resurrection, Kreeft fails to realize that rigorous fact checking was not very common before modern times, and even in this age of instant information access over the Internet, such fact checking is not as common as it ought to be. The same applies to the argument that early Xianity's critics could have deflated the early Xians' claims by showing JC's body. But they would have found some way to get around that, as have the numerous predictors of JC"s second coming upon JC not showing up when expected.

He starts his rebuttals to mythicism with claims that the Gospels are psychologically deep and terse, while myths are psychologically shallow and verbose, which are presented without any attempt at support.

He also swallows whole the traditional attributions of the Gospels' authorship; complete with the presumption that they had chronicled JC independendly. That is contrary to modern scholarship, in which Matthew and Luke contain word-for-word copies of Mark, and Matthew and Luke include material from a now-lost source, "Q".

The argument that there is not enough time for a myth to develop is contradicted by numerous cases of myths emerging about people when they were still alive, and sometimes overshadowing the real facts of their careers. Snopes is full of present-day mythology.

And as to the testimony of women, this wasn't a court of law. And pagans tended to have more respect for women than Jews at that time, as Richard Carrier has noted.

His argument that the Bible repudiates mythicism in 2 Peter 1.16, "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." is absolute hokey. One would expect them to state that their message is The Truth, rather than something they made up.

Kreeft quotes William Craig's arguments, including the argument that the Gospels described Jesus Christ's "human weaknesses". However, claiming that JC had imperfections is grave heresy in traditional Xianity; that was a big objection to the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ". JC's disciples could have been depicted as cowards for dramatic contrast, like brave Odysseus and his cowardly men.

Craig also argues that Acts was written before Paul's death, and that JC's prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem were not inserted after the fact. Both doubtful at best; Paul makes no mention of the (to him) future destruction of Jerusalem.

As to Craig's argument from copying, that only applies to later copies; before Constantine, copies of Xian documents were much rarer than afterwards, and in their early stages, they could have been rewritten without many people noticing it.

Turning to objections, he claims that if one accepts accounts of Julius Caesar, why not also accept accounts of Jesus Christ, which he claims are much better-dcumented? Richard Carrier has shown that it's the other way around. And does Kreeft also believe what Suetonius says, that Julius Caesar's soul was seen in heaven for seven days as a comet?

As to claiming that we trust documents all the time, Kreeft revealed that he is very selective about the docuemnts he trusts; he does not trust Philostratus's biography of Apollonius of Tyana, let alone the sacred books of religions other than his.

WinAce

How reasonable is it to suspect that someone who looked like Jesus inspired the whole idea (or that, perhaps, someone other than Jesus was mistakenly executed on account of looks in the first place, and when the original just came out of hiding again...)?

Granted, the latter option would probably have made the Romans execute him again, or something...

Diogenes the Cynic

This list of options is a strawman. To accept any of these possibilities is to accept the assertion that any apostles ever made this claim in the first place. There is no good reason to believe that the appearance narratives weren't simply the fictional inventions of those who wrote the Gospels (Paul's appearance formula vague as to the nature of the appearances and is hearsay anyway). There isn't really even a particularly compelling reason to believe that the apostles themselves were not fictional creations.

Discussing the appearance narratives as if the need to be "explained" is to assume the defenders' own conclusions....that they are accurate descriptions of a historical event. Using internal details of the narratives to try to prove their accuracy is completely circular. It's like trying to prove that superman can really fly because look how high above those buildings he is on that comic book cover.

CJD

When we start dating events in history BS (Before Superman) and AH (Anno Hêrôis), then maybe your point would be better taken.

Seriously, though, it may be circular, but consider the purpose of such an argument. Clearly, Kreeft's arguments presuppose something. Everybody's does. As it is, numbers 1, 2, 4, and 5 all require the employment of the ancient texts. This is unavoidable. Kreeft might merely say, "According to the pertinent texts, 1, 2, 4, and 5 can be ruled out. 3 can be ruled out too, if one means to argue that the texts promulgate a mythical Christ event."

It amounts to this: one cannot employ the relevant ancient texts to discredit the event as numbers 2–5 attempt to do. Taking away the text from critics like yourself, what have you to say in this matter? Other than "na-ah"?

CJD

Diogenes the Cynic

I'm not quite sure I follow you. I haven't tried to use the text to discredit itself. I'm saying that Kreeft is debunking strawmen. None of the options 2-5 are actual arguments used by skeptics (at least not by educated skeptics). They are imaginary objections created by apologists solely for the purpose of knocking them down. The most plausible option is one that is conveniently left off the list....that the Gospel accounts are pure fiction. The assertions made within them do not have to be "explained" by skeptics any more than we have to explain how superman can fly. The "witnesses" in the appearance narratives are fictional creations in themselves.

I don't quite understand what you mean by "taking away the text" from critics like me, we're not the ones who have a burden of proof, and our ability to "discredit" these stories as historical does not rely on internal criticism anyway. We do not have to grant the Gospels any default credibility whatsoever as representing genuine history.

pharoah

What's interesting to me is all of the issues that he chooses to ignore:

• Matthew's claim of the resurrection of the saints.
• The 3 days and 3 nights discrepency.
• The Markian account of the resurrection is almost certainly spurious.
• The various discrepencies among the gospels of the events within the crucifiction week.

I really believe that most of these apologetics are written more to shore up the uncritical faithful than to truly convince skeptics.

CJD

I'm not talking about burden of proof; I'm merely speaking of the art of reading. You may not lack in this area — but many a poetasting skeptic does (not to mention their counterpart Internet apologists).

Pharoah is exactly right. Whatever Kreeft's intentions (and they ought to be fully examined if possible; like, for example, does he aim his argument above against mythicists or those who treat the texts as 'basically reliable'?), his arguments will only serve to combat those whose starting point is that this guy Jesus did exist, he had disciples, and others in time wrote about it.

Indeed, he doesn't have to face the "most plausible option … that the Gospel accounts are pure fiction." The burden is not his (or any other religionist's). Why? Tradition, history, text, reason. All you have is reason and a merry band of skeptics akin to Nietzsche's madman. Will this 'lightning and thunder' require time? Or will the madmen fade into non-existence?

CJD