Michael R. Jordan

...for the best explanation? I was reading the Ehrman-Craig debate and it seems to be quite troublesome for me as a student historian. I asked various professors but their answers were inept and said it was a tough area.

thoughts?

Michael R. Jordan

i really would like to change the title.

Toto

The usual formation of the "best explanation" of the evidence is that it avoids supernatural explanations. Supernatural explanations are too easy and are generally unverifiable.

Some people feel comfortable just ruling out supernatural explanations. Others are careful to say that they are not ruling out a supernatural force on a priori grounds, but still see no evidence of supernatural intervention.

If you give a link to the particular part of the Craig-Ehrman debate that prompts your question, it might help.

Also -
PM a mod to change the title.

lpetrich

There is the serious problem of how one would distinguish a supernatural event from a non-supernatural event. How would one distinguish a "real" revelation from a dream or a hallucination or even a pious fraud? And similarly for miracles.

I think that David Hume made some good arguments about miracles -- that one should only take an alleged miracle seriously if its non-occurrence would be an even bigger miracle, and also that miracles show a shyness effect, being much rarer in his day than in centuries past. And what was true in his day is even more true today. Where is the film footage of miracles as big as the parting of the Red Sea in the Bible?

Boro Nut

Not if they want to call themselves historians. The first rule of an historian is to confine oneself to things that have historically happened. If you missed it first time round buy a subscription to the History Channel. It repeats itself every 5 hours.

Boro Nut

douglas

http://www.holycross.edu/departments/crec/website/resurrection-debate-transcript.pdf#search='ehrman%20craig%20debate'

Michael R. Jordan

You are assuming the supernatural does not happen though. Can historians infer the past from the present?

gstafleu

If (a) we don't see it happen today, and (b) it goes against everything we do know about "how stuff works," then it is more reasonable to assume it did not happen than to assume it did.

Gerard

Amaleq13

That is precisely why one is entirely justified in ignoring such fanciful claims.

douglas

What do you mean by "ignore?" There is no doubt that people's mistaken belief in supernatural events, personalities, etch. has shaped history in a big way (During JC's time, they didn't understand much about the natural world, so everything must have seemed supernatural.) so I don't see how historians can ignore them.

And how many supernatural claims throughout history have spawned actual scientific discoveries, or have stretched our thinking beyond what we know at this moment?