Originally Posted by Chris Hallquist

[Chris Hallquist has been an atheist blogger for over six years, which makes him like ninety in internet-years. Back in the day, he wrote some stuff for the Internet Infidels, and his critique of William Lane Craig has been included in their "Best of the Modern Library." He also wrote a book which is now out of print, and is writing another book which isn't yet in print. He has a masters degree in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, but hates academic philosophy. You can email him at challquist (at) gmail (dot) com. He rarely tweets, but you can also use @UncredibleHallq to yell at him.]

Tim and Lydia McGrew have also gained a bit of notoriety for taking a Bayesian approach to defending the resurrection of Jesus. Yet here are the assumptions they make (with scarcely any argument):

"Our argument will proceed on the assumption that we have a substantially accurate text of the four Gospels, Acts, and several of the undisputed Pauline epistles (most significantly Galatians and 1 Corinthians); that the Gospels were written, if not by the authors whose names they now bear, at least by disciples of Jesus or people who knew those disciples – people who knew at first hand the details of his life and teaching or people who spoke with those eyewitnesses – and that the narratives, at least where not explicitly asserting the occurrence of a miracle, deserve as much credence as similarly attested documents would be accorded if they reported strictly secular matters.5 Where the texts do assert something miraculous – for example, Jesus’ postresurrection appearances – we take it, given the basic assumption of authenticity, that the narrative represents what someone relatively close to the situation claimed."

It doesn’t seem to even occur to them that they might need to invest actual effort arguing these claims.......And actually, it screws up their entire Bayesian set-up. The proper way to set up the question from a Bayesian point of view isn’t to assume the Gospels are mostly true and then ask the probability of it all happening in a non-miraculous manner. Rather, the question they should be asking what the probability is that people would tell stories like the ones in the gospels even if no miracles happened. And given all the crazy stories people tell, that second probability is pretty high.

What’s striking about all this is the problems with these arguments are problems you find in apologists who no one takes seriously, including Josh McDowell. The Bayesian framework doesn’t do anything to correct for the problems, it just creates a distraction from them.

Originally Posted by Tim and Lydia McGrew

Claim #1

We have a substantially accurate text of the four Gospels, Acts, and several of the undisputed Pauline epistles, most significantly Galatians and 1 Corinthians.

Claim #2

The Gospels were written, if not by the authors whose names they now bear, at least by disciples of Jesus or people who knew those disciples – people who knew at first hand the details of his life and teaching or people who spoke with those eyewitnesses.

Claim #3

Regarding Jesus’ postresurrection appearances, the narrative represents what someone relatively close to the situation claimed.