jon-eli

Actually, this isn't exactly true, since in Mark's gospel Jesus isn't born of a virgin, and nor does he ascend. And Ehrman has other "criteria of authenticity," as he likes to call them. One of those criteria stipulates that a tradition is not historical if it is supernatural; Ehrman, like many other scholars, rejects the supernatural a priori.

I agree that the search for the historical Jesus is almost utter insanity, and I agree that Ehrman represents all that is mainstream and cheesy about HJ scholarship; but one must give credit where credit is due... so I'm just pointing out that Ehrman is not completely credulous.

Hamlet

Admittedly I don't know much about W.L. Craig's work on the resurrection of Jesus, but from what I have read he usually doesn't claim that it's a pretty good historical fact that Jesus rose from his tomb; rather, he claims that it's a pretty good historical fact that Jesus' tomb was empty. Pretty big difference. Craig thinks he has arguments to show that the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead is the best explanation, but that hypothesis is a further inference that is based on, but not a part of, the historical facts.

jon-eli

I think this is the canonical article detailing Craig's case:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...ocs/tomb2.html

It's not a bad read, it's just incredibly wrong. I don't think you'll regret reading it.

Steven Carr

What does the Bible claim about the credibility of witnesses who agree on the main points of their testimony, but whose testimony differs in the details?

Mark 14
For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together.
And there arose certain, and bare false witness against him, saying,

We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands.


But neither so did their witness agree together.


You can even now hear Craig scoffing at the idea that these witnesses had to be generally reliable.

Look, Craig would probably say. These witnesses agree on the main point that they heard Jesus say 'I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands.'

Craig would then claim this was a multiply , independently attested fact, and there was no collusion because the witnesses did not agree together.

A shoddy argument, that even the Biblical authors take for granted is false....

aa5874

Don't you understand that multiple-attested does not mean that all authors must have written about the same event? Once more than one author wrote about any event, it is multiple-attested.

Now, it is a flawed and erroneous methodology to ignore or remove information that clearly shows Jesus was non-historical. If all the supernatural elements of Homer's Achilles was ignored or elliminated, then Achilles may have been deduced to be a figure of history.

Authors of the NT, the church writers and even non-canonical writers wrote that Jesus was born of virgin, without sexual union, this information is extremely vital in making a determination of the historicity of Jesus.

Why do think I should give credit to people who carry out a cheesy search of utter insanity?

jon-eli

I do in fact understand this. What isn't being understood is the context of what I said. Go back to my first post, read it, read your response to it, and then read my second post. If you still can't figure out why your attack is misplaced, then you are so completely out-of-phase with reality that I will officially give up on reasoning with you.

I agree.

All information is vital. If you take individual data and insist that they by themselves prove something, then you are on terribly shaky ground; just as shaky as that which the HJ quest rests on.

Because it is polite. You were misrepresenting Ehrman's position, and regardless of whether I agree with him or not, I think he deserves to be accurately portrayed. And that goes for everyone.

dog-on

All this tells me is that PHD's are given out too easily...

show_no_mercy

How can there be four "independent" sources when there's a "synoptic problem"? The synoptic problem precludes "independence"; if Matt and Luke are modifying Mark then that's only two independent sources: Mark and John.

jon-eli

I think there's a tendency to confuse multiple-attestation with multiple, independent attestation. Matthew has unique material, as does Luke, as (supposedly) does Q, and triple-tradition material originates with Mark. Plus noone seems to be really sure how John fits into the equation, and where there's overlap, that gospel tends to be treated as an independent witness to tradition. I'd have to reread Ehrman to know what the heck he was on about, but from memory I think he insisted that when Matthew, Luke or John copied something Mark wrote, then they were implicitly giving their support to its accuracy. That's the multiple-attestation thing in a nutshell. But as you know, it's fairly bogus reasoning.

JoeWallack

JW:
The Christian Bible itself provides independent sources attesting to the fact that there were independent sources disputing independent sources attesting to the fact that Jesus was buried and rose from a tomb and later appeared to a select group of people:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Mark_16

OCD (orthodox Christian Dogma) subsequently forged an ending to "Mark" attesting to the fact that Jesus was buried and rose from a tomb and later appeared to a select group of people. Congratulations, now OCD has impeached its credibility.

"Matthew" and "Luke" copied from "Mark" without attribution. Not independent. Their supposed resurrection sightings differ significantly because they did not have that part in "Mark" to copy from.

I'm afraid it's even worse than that:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Matthew_28

So "Matthew" testifies that the likely real historical witnesses, the guards and The Jews, testified that Jesus was not resurrected.

Since Craig is a Bible scholar, by not revealing any of the above he has stepped far over the line of intellectual honesty and decency, using his platform as a popular author to disseminate much that he surely knows is incomplete and misleading information. The benefit of the doubt is now exhausted. Despite his pretense at scholarship, Craig has proven himself, by this omission, to be someone not in the least interested in truth, but only in using whatever means are necessary to convert as many Skeptics as possible.

It is Craig's lack of intellectual honesty that is the problem here. He is abusing his public trust, and so a response is warranted which publicly shames him for his despicable absues of that trust.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page