Johnny Skeptic

What evidence do you have of a general consensus regarding gospel authorship, where the writers got their information from, and what Jesus said about his death and resurrection? I do not see any way that Bible scholars can be reasonably certain that Jesus said specific things about his death and resurrection.

aa5874

You are logics are extremely weak. The biological factors needed for a resurrection and reproduction are not even remotely compatible.

And there are probably hundreds of millions of people DOCUMENTED with grandchildren and ONE questionable report of the Creator, the offspring of the Holy Ghost being raised from the dead after the third day when hundreds of millions of REAL people have died and have NOT been resurrected.

Toto

The parallel is still fake. If you wanted to make it parallel, B would have to be an event, such as "a grandchild is born."

The argument is that scientific investigation consisting of millions or billions of observations have shown that dead bodies never come back to life.

As a logical matter, this does not prove that a dead body has never come back to life. But as a scientific proposition, the likelihood of a body coming back to life is 0.

And if you want to argue that a body came back to life, you will need much better evidence than an ancient, anonymously written story.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to ercatli: What first century, non-bibilical sources do you have regarding the miracles that Jesus performed? The Gospels alone are not sufficient to confirm that Jesus performed miracles.

Doug Shaver

I read that post earlier with the intention of responding, but your argument was not entirely clear on first reading, and I did not have time to scrutinize it more closely.

I do get the impression, though, that you're doing your darndest to exercise some critical thinking about all this. I'll take another look at that post, together with this one and the one preceding, and have another go at addressing your concerns. It might take me a while; please stay tuned.

Toto

So you didn't have another source when you claimed this. The source is Gary Habermas, and there was no survey of scholars, just his so-far-unpublished survey of literature, presumably including every seminarian and theologian who has written on the issue. For reasons that I have posted in the past, it is quite clear that these historians are not following modern historical methodology.

Why do you keep bringing Michael Grant up? It can only be because you haven't read the cogent discussion of what is wrong with his claims.

Your idea of a decent discussion seems to be one in which no one challenges your bad logic and bogus historical claims.

Tharn

I am not (yet) prepared to say along with Toto that you are making this response in bad faith, but I am quite certain you made it without thinking it through. Apologetics teaches its disciples a series of techniques for "getting out of whatever jam you're in at the moment" but it does not teach you how to think clearly or consistently across a range of cases to arrive at truth. And this can be demonstrated fairly easily.

My assertion is that you (not the second-person general, I mean you, erclati, specifically) can, must, and do accept the level of evidence supplied for every claim except your pet religious beliefs. I have recently attended the open-casket funeral of a close family member. My cat passed away almost exactly a year ago. Yet here you are in this thread claiming what you would never have the stones to claim if someone suggested leaving my door open in case my cat comes back, or digging up my grandfather to double check to see if he's still dead.

If you had tried to form an argument about how induction works that was consistent with the way you and I and everyone actually use it (in other words, if you weren't arguing like an apologist), you would anticipate objections and give it a few mental "test runs" before hitting send. You would check a few examples of noncontroversial, everyday inductions you and I and everyone agree are valid and see whether your "parallel" argument affects them as well. "I wouldn't go out in this ice storm -- the roads are too dangerous!" "Fallacy! Fallacy! Prove with modal certainty that I will get in an accident! Let's see all the steps!"

I also note that you did not even bother to address the examples of your inconsistency I supplied earlier. Consistent christians (i.e. people who don't go in for Apologetics) will say they believe on faith. But all your arguments about "empty tombs" and "reliable documents" are and must be what you take to be parsimonious inductions from observations of past regularities. There is no argument you can make against induction that does not also apply to the very arguments you are insisting everyone else take at face value. You're shooting yourself in the foot here.

Your specious "parallel" also clearly fails because it subtitutes an indexical conclusion for a nomological induction. Did you understand the distinction I made between nomological possibility and logical possibility? Do you see now why demanding the latter when only the former is called for is disingenuous at best? If you don't understand what these terms mean, please ask.

I have no idea what this means, because I have no idea what a "natural process" is. What is the contrast class? At any rate, the conclusions are based on parsimonious induction, and there is nothing special about science that makes its parsimonious inductions qualitatively different from your everyday inductions about, say, whether it snowed last night, or who ate the last cookie, or what's causing that noise your car is making.

I do know what it means for a description to be parsimonious and lawlike, but the contrast class for "regular" is not "supernatural", it's "random".

I have no opinion on it at all -- how could I, when I don't have the foggiest idea what a "natural process" is?

I do, however, know what a parsimonious description is. And the most parsimonious description of the behavior of corpses even if "supernatural processes" (whatever the hell those are) exist is that "supernatural processes" cannot be relied upon to have ever resuscitated even a single corpse. Parsimonious descriptions can have ceteris paribus clauses, but only in terms of defined variables known to affect outcomes. If, for example, Presbyterian ministers (and only Presbyterian ministers) had the ability to make an incantation to revive corpses, then this observation set will be accounted for in your parsimonious description. But it's epistemically grotesque to incorporate bare logical possibilities that maybe, randomly, Presbyterians might be able to bring dead squirrels back to life for no reason into your general description. You can, must, and do form beliefs on the basis of what you hold to be *likely* to happen, not what you hold to be "a barely logically possible thing that might randomly happen".

Once again, I'm going to insist you make sure your barrels aren't pointed footward before you pull the trigger. "Oh sure, sure if only natural processes are operating earlier documents are more reliable than later ones. But the question is, can you *prove* that a miracle is *not* making your earlier document unreliable?"

On the contrary, as you can see I have made no metaphysical claims in this thread at all. Indeed, I am adamant that I don't even understand what "natural" or "non-natural" mean. However, I have made some very simple and noncontroversial claims about properties of descriptions -- e.g. consiliency vs. aberrance, simplicity vs. complexity etc.

IMO nontheists do themselves a disservice when they agree to play the Apologists' metaphysics game, when we can simply talk about observations and parsimonious descriptions, which everyone does every minute of every day (even if they don't have the philosophical training to realize that is what they are doing every time they predict the result of a future observation like "I shouldn't dress in sandals in Minnesota in December".)

Actually, it is obvious to you, when you step back from "the jam your claim is in at the moment" and attempt to formulate a response consistent with the responses you can, must, and do make when not arguing over a cherished theological point. Upright apes who squiggle things on paper -- especially anonymous ones -- make honest mistakes or tell baldfaced lies all the fucking time. Dead bodies are never ever ever observed to come back to life even from "supernatural forces" (whatever those are). So presented with a tension between two sets of observations (mistaken or lying all the time vs. never once ever) about whether one particular event occurred, the honest, parsimonious thing to do which does the least damage to your description is to side with the stronger induction.

Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following Scriptures:

Matthew 4:23-25

"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. 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."

Those claims would be major headlines in any century, and in any geographic area, and well beyond by word of mouth. There is no way that Jesus could have performed many authentic miracles over a widespread geographic area without attracting the attention of the Roman government, who surely would have conducted investigations. There is no way that the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate could not have been aware of what was going on right under his nose, and "throughout all Syria"

Are Jesus' miracles mentioned anywhere in Syrian history in archaeology or copies of ancient texts? I assume that they aren't.

How many other first century people in the Middle East do you suppose went about Galilee, Syria, and elsewere performing lots of miracles for three years? If Jesus was the only one, he would surely have been a big news story that Pontius Pilate would had to have known about.

The Ten Plagues in Egypt would have also been big news stories in Egypt and in surrounding countries, but only the Old Testament mentions them. If the Ten Plagues occured, that would have been the end of Egypt as a major power in the Middle East. There is no historical evidence that that happened.

Most Christians place great emphasis upon faith, but a number of Scriptures also put great emphasis upon tangible, firsthand evidence. Consider the following Scriptures that emphasize faith:

Matthew 14:28-31

“And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

Matthew 17:20

“And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

Mark 16:14

“Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.”

John 20:24-29

“But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

Hebrews 11:1

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Consider the following Scriptures that emphasize tangible, firsthand evidence:

John 2:23

“Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.”

John 3:2

“The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”

John 10:37-38

“If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.”

John 11:43-45

"And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him."

John 20:30-31

“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”

The second group of Scriptures, which emphasize tangible, firsthand evidence, contradict the first group of Scriptures, which emphasize faith. Logically, it is not possible to promote faith "and" tangible, firsthand evidence.

Those texts show that some people would not accept Jesus based upon his words alone, and that he provided them with tangible, firsthand evidence that convinced them to accept his words. Even after the Holy Spirit supposedly came to the church, in the NIV, Acts 14:3 says "So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders." Considering that Jesus had performed many miracles in front of thousands of people, including many miracles that were not recorded, and had appeared to hundreds of people after he rose from the dead, and had criticized his disciples for their unbelief, and that there were thousands of surviving eyewitnesses who were still around, and that the Holy Spirit had come to the church, I find it to be quite odd that God provided even more tangible, firsthand evidence. In my opinion, this brings into question the truthfulness of the claims.

Petergdi

Let's see if you have any point by trying an analogy:

There were a number of holy men in British India who were famous for their teaching and miracles. The reality of their miracles is irrelevant - the fact that they were famous for them can not be disputed. Let us suppose we had only a few thousand of the most famous and important British books surviving from the 17th-19th centuries including a few specifically about India. Would these people be likely to be mentioned by name as teachers and miracle workers in any of them?

Peter.

ercatli

G'day jgoodguy, welcome to the discussion. I don't get any impression that historians are under any such compulsion. Can you provide some examples of historians who do this? Thanks.