Switch89

I am currently writing a book. What follows is a draft of a chapter I wrote rebutting the "arguments from Jesus" -- Christian apologetic arguments which are about Jesus. Comments, Criticisms, Corrections and Suggestions are more than welcome.


Introduction

No one person has ever been the inspiration for as many arguments for God as Jesus of Nazareth. Christian apologists have claimed they can prove his resurrection, that Jesus miraculously fulfilled hundreds of prophecies, etc. Non-christians have responded to these claims, with millions of words being exchanged between both sides of the debate.
Before we begin, I want to make the point that our sources for Jesus are a very poor line of evidence for those trying to prove that he was the son of God. We do not know who wrote the gospels , and scholars are very uncertain about when they were written .
Furthermore, the gospel accounts of Jesus are unlikely to be even roughly reliable accounts of what happened. Take a look at Matthew 27:51-53, which describes the corpses of the saints rising from their graves and being seen by many after Jesus’ resurrection. Many other fantastic events are described in the gospels (Earthquakes, Unnatural darkness surrounding Jesus’ death, etc.). And yet no historian within one hundred years of Jesus’ time saw fit to record these fantastic events . The gospels writers did, of course, but there were many other well known historians (Philo, Plutarch, Ptolemy, Appian, etc.) who apparently remained ignorant of such incredible happenings . The only reasonable explanation for this is that these events did not take place.
I am not claiming that Jesus did not exist, that he wasn’t crucified, or that he wasn’t a man of some local renown. I am simply claiming that the gospel accounts are gross exaggerations of his life. We know this because the historians of the time would not have overlooked reports of saints rising from their graves, an unnatural darkness, or anything else of the sort.
I think that most of the arguments for the Christian faith can be dismissed on these grounds alone. However, many Christian apologists try to argue that we have methods of establishing what is likely to be historical within the gospels, so I will take them on when necessary.

Lunatic, Liar or Lord?

The Christian author C.S. Lewis famously argued that Jesus, by claiming that he was the son of God, must have been more than just a “good moral teacher” as many agnostics and atheists have labeled him. According to Lewis, someone who taught the way Jesus did could not have been crazy, and that someone who was claimed to be the son of God would have been wicked to say so if it were not true.
This argument, although popular amongst Christian apologists today, is transparent and feeble. How do we know that Jesus claimed he was god? Only by the gospel accounts, which are unreliable. In fact, New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman believes that Jesus never called himself the son of God .
Besides, many people have been proclaimed gods and messiahs by their followers in spite of their insistence to the contrary . This could easily have been the case with Jesus. Secondly, it is not difficult at all for wicked preachers to lead their followers into believing that they are self-sacrificing, holy men. The National Geographic special Inside a Cult documents a cult leader who had sex with many of his female members and yet was still revered by their husbands .

The Jesus Prophecies

It is commonly argued that Jesus fulfilled hundreds of Old Testament prophecies concerning the messiah, and that it is wildly improbable for him to have actually fulfilled all of these unless he actually was the messiah.
Here are some examples of these prophecies:

Prophecy: Psalms 109:2
"They have spoken against me with a lying tongue"

Fulfilled: Matthew 26:60
"The chief priests... sought false witness against Jesus"

Prophecy: Psalm 41:9
"Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me."

Fulfilled: Mark 14:10
"Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them." (All of these verses are from the King James Version).

As you can see, these are simply Old Testament verses which happen to describe things similar to what happened in Jesus’ life. Most of these Old Testament passages do not even declare themselves as prophecies.
But suppose we concede that the gospels record Jesus fulfilling lots of messianic prophecies. It does not follow that these things actually happened, and since the gospels should be treated as unreliable sources (as I have argued previously), these prophecies probably were not fulfilled to the degree claimed. The gospel writers would not have needed to be dishonest in order to do this. If they had made up their minds that Jesus was the messiah, they may have written about him fulfilling certain prophecies because they felt they knew he had fulfilled them. In other words: Christian today may believe that Jesus is the messiah because he fulfilled the messianic prophecies, but maybe the gospel writers felt that since he was the messiah, he must have fulfilled the messianic prophecies.
Christian apologist Louis Lapides raises an interesting objection to this:

“When the gospels were being circulated, there were people living who had been around when these things happened. Someone would have said to Matthew, ‘You know it didn’t happen that way. We’re trying to communicate a life of righteousness and truth, so don’t taint it with a lie.’”

But this argument is wrong on two counts: First of all, Matthew probably was not written within the lifetimes of these eyewitnesses. Secondly, cult psychology has shown us that people are able to believe things in spite of what those outside the cult say (More on this later).

The Resurrection

Christian apologist William Lane Craig offers four facts which he believes show that Jesus was raised from the dead . I will list them and explain why he believes that these facts can be trusted, even if the rest of the gospel narratives cannot be:

1. Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea.

Craig argues that because Joseph was a member of the Jewish court that condemned Jesus, it is highly improbable that this was a Christian invention. I do not dispute the fact that Jesus was buried.

2. Jesus’ tomb was found empty by his followers.
In my judgment, the most persuasive argument for this is the fact that women discovered the tomb rather than men. Craig notes that, in light of the way women were viewed in ancient times, it would have been far more becoming to have the male disciples discover the empty tomb. In light of this fact, it is unlikely that this story was an invention. So I conclude that the women did discover an empty tomb, although they may have gone to the wrong one, or perhaps a follower of Jesus stole his body (I’ll defend this position once I explain Craig’s facts).

3. Different individuals and groups experienced appearances of Jesus after his death.

This is another fact I completely agree with. Craig believes that these experiences were real, since it is unlikely that so many would have the same hallucination. He also criticizes the hallucination theory because it only accounts for the experiences of the risen Jesus and not the empty tomb.


4. The original disciples maintained belief that Jesus had risen from the dead despite having every predisposition to disbelieve.

Craig argues that the Jews had no belief in a dying-and-rising messiah, and that “Jesus’ execution as a criminal showed him out to be a heretic, a man literally under the curse of God (Deut. 21.23).” I disagree. I believe that after Jesus’ death, his disciples were in complete shock. In order to figure out how to deal with this situation, they turned to scripture. They found passages like Psalm 16:10, which says that God will not let his Holy One see corruption , and Daniel 9:26, which predicted that the anointed one (“messiah”) would be executed. In short, the first Christians did not have “every predisposition” to disbelieve. Even if they did have every reason to disbelieve, cult psychology has proven that cult members will make up great rationalizations in order to avoid facing reality, as we will see further on.
Craig concludes by noting that the resurrection hypothesis has great explanatory power and that it is therefore to be preferred over naturalistic explanations, which usually involve two or more hypotheses. So he believes that the resurrection is the simplest explanation to account for all the data.
In response to this argument, I believe that the disciples’ experiences of the risen Jesus can be accounted for by visions and that the empty tomb can be explained by either 1) The women going to the wrong tomb or 2) A crazed follower of Jesus stealing his corpse.
Craig contends that the “wrong tomb” hypothesis is implausible because the Jewish authorities would have produced the body of Jesus to scotch such rumors . However, the disciples did not begin preaching publicly until fifty days after Jesus’ death . How can we be sure Jesus’ corpse was even recognizable at this point? Secondly, the disciples may not have abandoned their faith at the sight of Jesus’ corpse. We know from studies in cult psychology that people will continue in their faith in spite of all evidence to the contrary! As one psychologist put it,

“[Cognitive Dissonance Theory] has shown how individuals cannot easily dismiss a belief or attitude they hold, even when the attitude is directly contradicted by evidence or events. People will sooner adopt farfetched ideas to explain events than relinquish their preconceptions.”

I also argue that it isn’t out of the question to suppose that one or a few of Jesus’ followers stole the body. The standard Christian response to this is that it could not have happened because of the guards present at Jesus’ tomb. As evidence that guards were present, they cite Matthew 28:15, which reports that the Jews believed that the guards at Jesus’ tomb had fallen asleep. The argument is that Matthew would not have felt the need to respond to this if it were not true, and that the fact that Jews responded to the Christians by saying that “The guards fell asleep” shows that the Jews acknowledged both an empty tomb and that guards were present.
I find this argument misunderstands several things: First of all, Matthew probably did not write his gospel within the lifetimes of those who knew Jesus. So the Jews who alleged that the guards fell asleep probably never knew anything about the situation firsthand. Secondly, that the Jews who launched this allegation recognized the empty tomb and the presence of guards means nothing. They may have just accepted some parts of the story, for the sake of argument, and then tried to show how the Christians’ “evidence” did not necessarily imply a resurrection.
This brings me to the appearances of Jesus. I think the passion of the first disciples can be taken as good evidence they believed they had experienced something supernatural (although whether they actually did is another matter). I think that what the earliest Christians experienced was not the risen Jesus, but simply religious visions of him.
Besides the resurrection accounts, there are many reports of visions from within the early church . This is no coincidence: Studies have shown that individuals who join cults often have schizotypal tendencies , and that schizotypal personalities are more prone to hallucinations and “anomalous perceptual experiences” . In fact, one study has shown that, in an altered state of consciousness, the individual hallucinating will see a holy man but not recognize him at first . Compare this to the reports found in Luke 24:36-53 and John 20:11-13, in which a follower of Jesus sees him but does not recognize him at first. In short, not only can we expect that earliest Christians were just the sort to have visions, but we can also see that some of the reports we have of their visions are completely consistent with the hallucination hypothesis (although I do not know how accurate these reports are).
As for the fourth fact, “The original disciples maintained belief… despite having every predisposition to disbelieve”, I think that the discovery of an empty tomb, as well as the hallucinations the disciples had, would have been more than enough to convince them of Jesus divinity and to motivate them to dedicate their lives to spreading his message.
The only way that Craig can criticize the account I have given is by arguing that his theory, that Jesus was raised from the dead, is to be preferred because it is simpler than proposing a theory to account for the empty tomb and proposing an independent theory to account for the post-mortem appearances of Jesus. I think the “simplicity” of Craig’s theory is only skin deep. My account of Craig’s “four facts” involves well known and well documented cultural phenomena, while his account proposes a God which intervenes in human affairs, which I have yet to see any convincing evidence of. Craig’s objection is easily refuted by the “UFO Enthusiast” parable I gave in Chapter 3.

The Not So Impossible Faith

A popular internet apologist, J.P. Holding, has advanced an argument that Christianity was, culturally speaking, so “against the grain” that it could not have succeeded unless the evidence of the resurrection had been overwhelming.
Holding presents many factors which he thinks, without the powerful evidence of the resurrection, would have prevented Christianity from spreading. For example, Holding argues that a crucifixion was a humiliating death which would have been repulsive to most pagans. This is silly and ignores the reality of so many gods worshipped at the time: For instance, the god Attis died by castration .
Addressing Holding’s general point, we can show that there were lots of things about Christianity which primed it for success. Historian Edward Gibbons outlines five reasons he sees as responsible for the success of early Christianity :

1. The inflexible, and, if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses.
2. The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that important truth.
3. The miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive church.
4. The pure and austere morals of the Christians.
5. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman empire.

Of the Jewish communities in the Roman Empire, J.G. Davies writes,

“To these synagogues were also attached a not inconsiderable number of ‘God-fearers’, pagans who were attracted by the monotheism and way of life, but who refused to take the final step of being circumcised and acquiring Jewish citizenship.”

Here we see that Christianity already had a great number of potential pagan converts who would have been receptive to the Apostle Paul’s teachings (which did away with circumcision and much of Jewish law).
As for all of the “embarrassing” teachings of Christianity, a movement called Gnosticism was underway at the time of the rise of Christianity, and it regarded material things as evil . A religion that went against the “wisdom of this world” would not have been out of place in the mindset of this time.
Overall, I do not see Christianity as being the socially unacceptable faith that Holding makes it out to be. However, his argument is a little more in-depth and multisided than my summary of it. Those who wish to learn more about it may wish to visit his website, Tektonics.org, and also to read the secular response to Holding: The book “Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn’t Need a Miracle to Succeed” by Richard Carrier.

Toto

My first comment is that this would be a lot easier to read with more formatting. You seem to have copied and pasted from a Word document and lost some line breaks. (If you need help in editing it, PM me.)

Secondly, you need some footnotes.

Thirdly, if you are going to quote anyone on the reasons for the success of Christianity, you need to reference Rodney Stark's Rise of Christianity.

thedistillers

Holding's argument is apologist tripe. Even if we assume for the sake of the argument that Christianity was so "against the grain" as you say, why would it stop people to become Christians even without any evidence for the resurrection? Some people will believe whatever you can think of, in whatever social context, for whatever reason.

Switch89

Hey Toto,

I'll try to go back and edit it. I do have footnotes, but they were lost when I pasted it here. If anyone wants to know where I got my information, I'll be more than happy to answer.

As for "The Rise of Christianity", it is a fairly expensive book, and so I don't think I'm going to have a way to get a hold of it.

spamandham

May I suggest a blog instead of a book? A good wordpress blog is easy to make, and cheap. If your ideas are found to be popular, then write a book.

While it's true that most of the so-called prophecies were not intended as prophecies originally, and have been interpreted very loosely, it's also true that the Matthew, Luke, and John (and to a lesser degree Mark), were attempting to show the fulfillment of prohecy in their fairy tale stories. Sometimes, we have to wonder what prophecies they are even talking about.

Matthew ...
"So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."

What prophecy are you referring to dear Matthew?

Switch89

I already have a blog and a website:

http://aigbusted.blogspot.com
This my blog which mainly debunks creationism, but I also post on atheism. I mentioned the possibility of writing a book and found that my readers responded to it positively.

http://www.godriddance.com
My website on atheism. I've had lots of positive feedback on it.

razlyubleno

I hope my comments don't come across as too critical. You seem to have neutrality as a default position, which is valuable and praiseworthy. And you address arguments very steady-handedly, and with civility. I find a lot to like.

But my first comment is that you need more reference citations. This is de rigueur in academia, and to be upheld.

Is this true? If so, it deserves a little more elaboration. By "would not have overlooked reports," is that to say they would have reported miracles? Or that they would have investigated miracles, found them to lack credibility, and consequently would not have reported them. The implication here is not quite clear to me.

Here it should be briefly explained that in Mark, the earliest gospel, not once does Jesus ever say this of himself. It is implied by the writer, but Jesus never utters such words himself. This would make the transition smoother into your next point, about people claiming things for their spiritual leaders which the leaders never claimed for themselves.

Also, what is the target audience for your work? Juxtaposing the one true Lord and Savior against sexually-deviant cult leaders, is unlikely to win praise in certain quarters.

Hundreds? I never thought the case was so expansive! Anyone who claims this is surely in the minority. Or severely retarded. Do we know of any famous Christians who claim this? Or is it best to rephrase it, so it's popularity is not overstated?

You might discuss the context of the verses. That the context doesn't agree with how they are used by Christians, strengthens your case. It's also worth pointing out that these verses could apply to anyone's life. I have been lied about, and betrayed by close friends. Does this mean I am likely the messiah? Pfft. I wish.

Christians cannot seem to distinguish between prophecies, and messianic prophecies. As you've pointed out already, not every Psalm is a prophecy, but it's worth pointing out also that not every prophecy is messianic.

Or because they were writing Midrashim.

This is a good point, but is slightly awkwardly stated. It doesn't really carry full force.

As opposed to the numerous other inventions? The works either had a purpose or they didn't. Purpose as history? If so, then Jesus probably rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, was born of a virgin, harassed by Herod the Great, and so on, and so on. Otherwise, what was the purpose? If as Midrash, then treat it as Midrash, as having allegorical, metaphorical purpose, eschewing history wherever convenient. The empty tomb serves a function in the story. If it served no function, there'd be a stronger case for leaving it on the historical checklist, but as is, it must be crossed off.

But not many people experienced the empty tomb, did they?

Miracles are superficially simple. They surreptitiously beg even more questions, though.

I'd elaborate on this with an example, for those people who don't know what CD is. The standard text-book example, I think, is the child whose mother says "I love you," and then later hits the child. This forces reconciliation between the child's understanding of love, and that the child is being hurt by someone who loves him. It's too uncomfortable to retain the contradiction, so an explanation needs be sought, but without giving up either of the contradictory notions (it's easier to expand a system of belief, than built it up from scratch).

I'm reminded of something said by James McGrath on his blog. You might find it interesting to your case:
Please to not be denying the existence of God to make your argument, lest your audience dwindle precipitously.

Holding responded to Price with this (tektonics.org.nyud.net:8080/lp/nowayjose_CC3.html):
The link is an archived copy of the original article. And I am infuriated that I have to strip the head of the link in order to post it! (But it works, so in your face, blasted parsing algorithm!) And I have 3 posts; this should allow me a 60% chance to post a link, no?

In addition to this, aesthetic-type beliefs have always held attraction for certain groups. It's a personality thing, not a cultural thing.

spamandham

They would have reported them, just as Jospehus did on several occasions. This was the gullible pre-scientific world. Magic was perhaps universally accepted.

razlyubleno

Exactly. Even Tacitus recites popular folklorish things. These people are not comparable to modern historians.

Switch89

Hi razlyubleno,

I appreciate your comments very much. As for source citations, my original document has them, they did not transfer when I copied and pasted the document here. Tomorrow I am posting a draft chapter on my blog:
http://aigbusted.blogspot.com

There the source citations will show up.

"By 'would not have overlooked reports,' is that to say they would have reported miracles? Or that they would have investigated miracles, found them to lack credibility, and consequently would not have reported them. The implication here is not quite clear to me."

The historians of the time should have at least reported what folks were saying. If lots of people (besides the Christians) were going around saying that the dead rose from their tombs, I think we would expect to hear that this is what people were saying. Josephus and Philo (both Jews) definitely would have mentioned it, and interpreted it as signaling the beginning of the Eschaton.

"Juxtaposing the one true Lord and Savior against sexually-deviant cult leaders, is unlikely to win praise in certain quarters." Well, I'm not saying Jesus was a perv, but he could have been a shady character who was still reverred by his followers. I'm not expecting many christians to read this, though. Most are too set in their ways. The main readers will probably be atheists or agnostics who want to see certain arguments answered.

"Hundreds? I never thought the case was so expansive! Anyone who claims this is surely in the minority. Or severely retarded. Do we know of any famous Christians who claim this? Or is it best to rephrase it, so it's popularity is not overstated?"

Yes, Hundreds. I have a book by Herbert Lockyer called "All the Messianic Prophecies" and he claims lots of prophecies were fulfilled. Lee Strobel and Josh McDowell claim the same thing.

"You might discuss the context of the verses. That the context doesn't agree with how they are used by Christians, strengthens your case. It's also worth pointing out that these verses could apply to anyone's life. I have been lied about, and betrayed by close friends. Does this mean I am likely the messiah? Pfft. I wish."

Good points, I may do that.

As for your comments on the gospels being midrash/allegorical, I agree that they may be. However, I am not convinced of the Jesus Myth theory, so I am going to presume historicity to be on the safe side. As for Joseph of Arimathea, I have a creeping suspicion that he never existed, but I do not know how to counter Craig's argument, and, having read Jeffrey Jay Lowder's response to WL Craig on the empty tomb, I am willing to grant the assumption that Jesus did recieve a burial. It just seems more plausible that Jesus was buried. Besides, giving Christians assumptions like these does not help their case. Even if the tomb was empty and disciples were having experiences of the risen Jesus, a resurrection is not needed to explain the event.

Taking a look at Holding's objection:
"And this we have already answered: As for Attis, good point -- do you see a church of Attis today?"

I have not done much research on the attis cult, but when Carrier discussed this in his online book "Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False?" He said that the cult had thrived for centuries before it was deliberately choked out by the outlawing of other cults when Christianity took over. In any case, J.G. Davies noted that many pagans were attracted to Christianity but didn't join because of circumcision. So its hard for me to imagine people being too eager to join a cult which castrated! Nevertheless the cult did thrive for centuries, and if it had not required castration, and also perhaps been sponsored by the Roman government (as Christianity was in the fourth century) it might have succeeded. We just don't know. But the point still stands: A humiliating death would not have automatically driven people away from a cult.


"The Attis cults fit the Sabbatai model, although they also did have the advantage of being in a time when the body was considered by many to be base and evil. Under such considerations castration was arguably not absurd at all. In any event there isn't any parallel here to Christianity, which did not die off, and had much worse to defend itself on. Price would have done well, we may note, to have read all of my supplemental essays as well as the main one."

How does Holding not see "being in a time... when the body was considered evil" as something which would have promoted Christianity? The body being evil, the world being evil, material things being evil, all pave the way for a poor savior who was rejected by the world and humiliated (by the world's standards).

Secondly, it could be argued that the Attis cult had more to overcome. Being a christian meant you at least got to keep your balls.