aa5874

But, not only was it a fake parallel but this reveals a weak understanding of logics. There is just no logical parallel between the expectation of a resurrection and the expectation of having grandchildren.

ercatli

I certainly don't think that.

So bacht, if my "mental and emotional processes" explain my comments and beliefs, then I expect your mental and emotional processes explain your comments and beliefs also, and likewise with everyone else. This seems to me to have two implications:

(1) If that "fact" invalidates my beliefs and comments, then it invalidates everyone else's too, including yours. So why single me out for comment?

(2) If that is true, why are you discussing logic and truth? You ought to be discussing mental and emotional processes.

ercatli

(1) & (2) The Gospels were not put in libraries but many writers of the late first and second centuries identified them as non-fiction. How many do you know who identified them as fiction?

(3) Two of the Gospels make specific claims to be non-fiction:

Luke 1:1-4: "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught."

John 21:24: "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true."

Since the others are of the same form and cover the same events, one can assume they were not intended to be fiction either.

So these Gospels pass the tests I suggested and you ran with. How do we know the writers were telling the truth? Well we don't know. We can only use our critical faculties like for any other documents:

(i) They pass many historical tests, like multiple attestation, consistency with archaeology, relatively close to the events they describe (by ancient standards).

(ii) The processes alluded to in Luke and John conform fairly well with what later writers indicate and scholars today believe. Neither reference suggests a single author and source. "Luke" says he used many sources. "John" seems to be written by a community ("we know") based on earlier writings by John (whether the disciple or another John is not made clear).

(iii) There is no obvious reason why either author would be lying.

(iv) They take the form of ancient Graeco-Roman biographies (or via: amazon.co.uk)("bioi" for those who need the Greek) of real people.

And so it is no surprise that the scholars come to the conclusion they are not fiction. Have you any reason to think that they were?

ercatli

Doug, you have asked some good questions here, and made some good pints. I believe I have covered them already, but this might be a useful summary. I will try to be brief, but may not succeed!

I think a consensus is achieved when a majority of scholars come to the same conclusion, they state that this is now the general, consensus or prevailing belief, and only a few scholars contradict this latter statement.

I think showing some deference is a necessary start, but I think it means more. I read somewhere recently that our deference to scholars should be inversely proportional to our own knowledge and expertise. Just as I pretty much accept the advice of medical specialists, because I know little about modern medicine, so I need to not only defer to the experts, but get my facts and the interpretation of the facts from them. There are so many things they know about the language, customs of the day, other history, etc, that I will likely misinterpret many things without their advice. Of course I am still responsible for my choices in the end.

I think some people here confuse the two steps, (1) get the facts, then (2) draw one's conclusions. We need the experts to get (1), and some people seem to deny that. But when we get to (2), the experts are much less useful.

I think this is simply not true. There are some matters on which they cannot agree, but there are other matters on which they can. They mostly agree these days on the provenance of the Gospels (dates, locations where they were written, etc) and their usefulness as history (this doesn't mean they think everything in them is history, only that there is history in them that can be used). There are a bunch of facts about Jesus that are now accepted as historical by a majority. I could elaborate if you need it, but I can support all these statements.

You will be aware of the survey of 2000+ writings by NT scholars (Toto tells me it was done by Gary Habermas, but I found it elsewhere) that showed that 75% of them have concluded that Jesus' tomb was empty and that the disciples had some sort of experiences of Jesus after his death. One or both of these beliefs are held by sceptics like Gerd Ludemann, RL Fox, M Grant, the Jesus Seminar as well as other scholars. I think the same survey showed that the scholars also concluded that, whether the events (the empty tomb or the resurrection) actually occurred or not, belief in them was the starting point of the disciples' belief and the beginning of the church. That's how it got started.

That is what I meant regarding scholarship, so we agree here. But life isn't only scholarship, and we all have beliefs too.

It's an easy charge to make, but difficult to prove as well as difficult to refute. All I can say is that I have read many scholars make it clear that they aim for this, and how they use the normal historical method to achieve it as much as humanly possible. But that is why we need the consensus. There are many here making disparaging comments about established scholars, but just hanging out for Richard Carrier's book. But if the other scholars cannot be trusted because of bias, why should he be trusted? Because his conclusions agree with me/you??? There is safety in numbers and peer-reviewed numbers. That is the scientific and historical approach, and I for one uphold it, even though others don't appear to.

You are right, there are two possible meanings of the word 'scepticism'. It can mean a general feeling that we can actually know very little, translating into unwillingness to be convinced until the evidence is very strong. You make it sound scholarly, but it is in fact a philosophical position like any other, and cannot easily be proved. In fact to hold that it can be shown to be true is self-inconsistent.

But I didn't use it in that sense. I used "sceptical" to mean beginning with a view that the documents were not reliable, opposite to those who begin with a view that they are reliable. The best historians start with neither assumption, as M Grant explains in his book, and those are the ones I use, and the ones most respect by their peers. (I have given reasons why I come to this conclusion in a previous post).

Yes, I was a little unclear, I'm sorry - I was trying to be brief. What I meant was this. I have distinguished between scholarship leading to historical "facts" (obviously they are not proven beyond doubt, but are deemed to be probable), and opinions or beliefs, which are what we all actually base our lives on. Even with the same "facts", Michael Grant did not believe in Jesus whereas I do.

I am arguing that once the historians have determined (as a consensus) what is probably true and what is probably not, and what is uncertain, we are all at liberty to hold beliefs anywhere within the area of uncertainty, as we judge fit, but we are not really at liberty to deny any of the "facts" without either a very good reason or a denial of scholarship. Many here choose the latter, something that I have learnt during this discussion, and which surprised me.

Many times they say so. In fact a good historian should always state their assumptions and method. But more importantly, I judge them by their peers - as I outlined in this post. As I read, the same names kept appearing, and I could only conclude they were the mainstream. I have referred to that post several times, and asked people about their conclusions, and so far I don't recall anyone giving me any criteria they use for determining which scholars to trust, or showing any indication that they have tried to analyse the matter as I have tried to. What about you?

Best wishes

Toto

Please provide a reference to this.

The Historical Jesus industry has invented its methods to separate facts in the gospels from later embellishments. Once reason I don't trust their conclusions is that no historian in any other area uses these methods - the criterion of embarrassment or dissimilarity. (Another reason is that they cannot be shown to work.)

Because he uses the methods that actual historians use, unlike the theologians who think they are doing history.

You were not willing to listen to the reasons for denying the claims of fact.

ercatli

We have at least agreed on something, bro, but I'm getting confused with what your actual argument is. So I'll stick to one statement for now.

"Jesus turned water into wine" and "Jesus was raised from the dead" are alleged observations of events that, if they occurred, would be supernatural. How have they been scientifically investigated?

ercatli

Work it out for yourself using symbols for the items in the argument.

If A="a person comes back to life", then the first argument becomes:
1. A has never occurred
2. Therefore A can never occur.

If B="a person is my grandchild", the second argument becomes:
1. B has never occurred.
2. Therefore B can never occur.

The two argument are structurally the same, and they are both invalid logically. It doesn't matter what A or B mean, the important thing is the structure of the logic. "X has never occurred" can never lead logically to "X can never occur".

Even if the argument was logical, you cannot prove 1 is true because christians claim Jesus was resurrected. Of course I can't prove that to you, but if you are making the argument above, you have to prove your propositions, which you can't. So the argument fails on two counts.

ercatli

You told me where this came from, Toto, so why do you need a reference? But just to keep the customer satisfied, I came across the information in these places:

I first came across this on this blog.
That led me back to this blog.
That led me to this blog and this book (or via: amazon.co.uk).
Finally I arrived at this article by William Lane Craig, this debate between Craig and Bishop Spong, and this article by Habermas.

All of these (if I have referenced the correct URLs) discuss the information about scholars and the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances, and somewhere there I learned about Habermas' survey which you also mentioned.

These criteria are applications of aspects of the historical method. But I tend to agree with you and so do many of the scholars I read. These two criteria are rather weak and should be only carefully used. But as they tend to be used to "rule out" some sections as historical, ceasing using them would tend to lead to more sections being judged to be historical.

I see. So you are happy with Michael Grant, Robin Lane Fox and AN Sherwin-White (all classical historians) then?

Eh? Did you observe me stopping my ears and closing my eyes while reading posts on this forum? Or is it that I read your arguments but disagree with them, and this is what you are complaining about??

C'mon Toto, let's either have a decent discussion or stop. This petty squabbling and casting aspersions on other people's motivations in lieu of decent discussion is a waste of time.

jgoodguy

The problem is that historians must render a yes or no answer on the Historical Jesus. The Limbo Jesus that is possible by stating there is not enough primary evidence to render a decision is not sufficient. Secondary evidence of dubious quality must be used. The tools are only precise enough to render a probability.

spin

Why?

Why not?

Have a look at the available evidence for the historicity of Robin Hood and tell us if you think that a definitive response can be given on the issue. Or King Arthur.

What's primary and what's secondary in the issue of Jesus? Are the gospels, whose authors we don't know nor when they were written or where, considered primary or secondary sources? Is Paul who never met Jesus a primary source?

Quite often probabilities reflect the preferences of the staters of the probabilities. There's nothing wrong in judging that there is insufficient evidence where appropriate and sparing the world more meaningless probabilities.


spin