Atheists’ Skepticism as Better Explanation?

I’d say 85% of my four years in a Catholic high school fit the “unquestioning, insufficiently skeptical, overly trusting” model quite well. I did have one religion teacher who went over some interesting ground, and was an engaging speaker. But ultimately I found his answers unconvincing.

“For my part, I’m going to ask another question of my own here: Skeptics, could you tell us where it was that you acquired your impression of the church as being unquestioning, insufficiently skeptical, overly trusting?”

From the churches themselves; or rather, from the members and leaders of those churches. I don’t think this necessarily applies to all churches, though, and it definitely doesn’t apply to every individual religious person. And I don’t think the reason they’re like this is because they’re religious. In fact, I feel the same way about many atheist organizations.

Ridicule and mockery is what I have encountered from many “internet atheists.” They define faith in a way that is foreign to what we Christians truly believe. I am thankful as a Christian that I have not seen as much of that rhetoric here, though some still like to frame or paint the picture that way. In my street evangelism here on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, I have had some tremendous philosophical engagements over competing worldviews (not everyone is drunk on Bourbon Street). While there are some I meet that are less than cordial. others are fascinated to encounter a “street preacher” who can engage them on an intellectual level not seen or heard in many churches. Those who are on the other side I hope will admit that what Tom writes is of the “informed” Christian rather than the ignorant. We want to engage, we want to dialogue, that is what we are commissioned to do, and we do it out of a sincere love and concern for others. No matter how “corny” or “mushy” that may sound.

” I have strong reason to believe the Bible is generally true, which leads me to believe that the Bible is true in its specifics as well. ”

Then how do you explain things like the very strong countervailing evidence for things like the Exodus account, a la Israel Finkelstien and others?

Pofarmer,

Yes, you are describing what sometimes happens in a faith journey. I highly recommend the work of Professor James W. Fowler (1981). Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning. Professor Fowler found in his research that since movement through the stages of faith development entails a continual reassessment of a person’s faith, sometimes the result is leaving a faith community or religious affiliation. But this reassessment usually results in an affirmation of the tenets and beliefs of one’s faith, while discarding beliefs that are found to be untrue, and a deepening of commitment to and understanding of one’s faith and community of faith. This is what is meant by turning points.

Jenna, this comment
“So, my request to my atheist interlocutors is this: Don’t judge Christians or Christianity unless and until you really have an understanding of what mature, committed, knowledgeable Christians know and believe.”

It seems that christianity as whole can’t figure out who these knowledgeable people are so how do you expect atheists to figure it out? Your brand of christianity or one of the many thousands of others? As I am very familiar with the LCMS Lutheran church, they won’t even pray alongside other denominations lest they be seen to approve of other denominations. They are convinced they are the only mature, committed, knowledgeable christians out there. I’m sure many others are the same.

Regarding key words in the heading: atheists, scepticism and better explanation:

First up, atheism is just a denial of a claim. I don’t think of myself as an atheist as a descriptive label. I am just a normal guy. I don’t think the default is any particular religion. I am just not any particular religion. And if someone makes a claim, I weigh it up with evidence and reasoning.

Secondly, we all have some degree of scepticism. We accept some claims, we reject others. And we all accept a degree of methodological naturalism or else we would be in a mire of incredulity. If normal guys like me are not “struck in the heart” or “touched” by God apparently the way other theists are (in many cases), evidence and reasoning is the only basis we can discuss such things. But one thing science teaches us, the more we really want something to be true, the more sceptical we should be of it.

Finally, we need to agree what is meant by “better explanation”. I do sense a strong need in people to have explanations for why there is a world, what is ultimate morality, where are we going, etc. People are eager for accounts that give explanatory closure. The scientific mindset is the opposite of this and welcomes uncertainty, paradox and open-endedness. A “better explanation” is one that is more likely to give an accurate rending of of reality warts and all, as opposed to one that promises explanatory closure but has little evidence of truth. The better our rendering of reality, the better we can make judgements on what to do about it.

In my experience with theism mainly the evangelical variety and street spruikers, the last point is the antithesis of what I see as the usual Christian marketing approach.

Tom,
I would totally agree that the diversity in doctrine is not nearly as extreme as the “40,000 denominations” superficially imply.
But “all of these churches believe basically the same thing about the Bible…” seems to be an exaggeration as well. Sola scriptura vs. Catholic tradition for example can hardly be called “basically the same” belief about the Bible or can they?

Tom,

Skeptics, could you tell us where it was that you acquired your impression of the church as being unquestioning, insufficiently skeptical, overly trusting?

My impression of the church’s approach to knowledge of reality is fundamentally summarized in John 20:29:

Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are those that have not seen and yet have believed.

I do not feel this approach to knowledge is ever correct. Rather, in my view, the Son of God should have blessed Thomas more than those who had not seen because Thomas questioned hearsay and demanded more evidence.

The church follows the Bible’s lead and teaches that doubt is morally less desirable while faith is morally desirable. If this were reversed, I would no longer find religion unquestioning, insufficiently skeptical, or overly trusting

Skeptics, could you tell us where it was that you acquired your impression of the church as being unquestioning, insufficiently skeptical, overly trusting?

Sure, if you accept the writings of people 2000 years ago in your holy book as enough evidence that supernatural events happened (miracles) and yet you dismiss the same types of claims from other religious traditions that contradict yours you are insufficiently skeptical and overly trusting of your particular religion.

My post was about how skeptics have made claims about Christianity that have no basis in reality.

Your post essentially consisted of an argument akin to “no we don’t”.

Some or all of them may have spent an unhealthy amount of time in unhealthy, unquestioning church environments. If they’ve got a wrong impression of Christianity, it could be because Christians have given them that wrong impression.

First I am willing to bet that many of those unhealthy church environments would themselves state your brand of Christianity is unhealthy and wrong. My point is I have no reason to think any “Christianity” is correct.

Please, fill me in on what the right impression is and then I will explain why it is not a skeptical position.

All of these churches believe basically the same thing about the Bible and Jesus Christ, especially his resurrection, and our need for rescue from our sins through Jesus Christ.

And they don’t agree on some very important issues, what is required for salvation for instance.

If you want to worry about anything, worry about the churches that are rejecting the realities of historic Christianity while retaining the name.

Why would I worry about that? I think they are just as wrong as you are. That is an internal dispute, but what it points to is the lack of a proper foundation for Christian belief. If you had a proper foundation there is no reason for people within the fold to come to those conclusions.

We must follow the evidence, and reason, and so on.

Reasoning has some troubling problems and insufficiencies in the philosophical naturalist’s framework, and, that too weighs in as evidence, as reasoning, and so on. Reason itself may be evidence. Or illusion. Or something else. I often doubt my friends, in fact, I often doubt all sorts of things. Our intellectual and existential eyes lead us.

Many Atheist’s claim of No-God on the world outside of their own Self, their claim of No-God on Reality rather than on their own or on Man’s “ability to know” is a worldview – a claim upon reality – which comes by thoughtful reflection, reasoning, and experiencing life, and so on. While I disagree with their conclusions, the reasons I do are, as is theirs, thoughtful, reflective, and weighed. Comment #28’s stereotype of reason’s absence in those who one disagrees with is thus very incoherent to the way I see most of these decisions being arrived at. “….the process of trying to critically assess that evidence or that reasoning seems to be absent…”

Well, I guess we’ve seen Theists make the same unfortunate and sophomoric “you’re unthinking” or “your reasoning seems to be absent” sort of moves in these kinds of threads.

Oh well.

That says more about the person making the comment than about those the comment is aimed at.

C.S. Lewis offered this on Faith, Doubt, and Reason:

“In one sense Faith means simply Belief – accepting or regarding as true the doctrines of Christianity. That is fairly simple. But what does puzzle people – at least it used to puzzle me – is the fact that Christians regard faith in this sense as a virtue, I used to ask how on earth it can be a virtue- what is there moral or immoral about believing or not believing a set of statements? Obviously, I used to say, a sane man accepts or rejects any statement, not because he wants or does not want to, but because the evidence seems to him good or bad.

Well, I think I still take that view. But what I did not see then- and a good many people do not see still- was this. I was assuming that if the human mind once accepts a thing as true it will automatically go on regarding it as true, until some real reason for reconsidering it turns up. In fact, I was assuming that the human mind is completely ruled by reason. But that is not so.

For example, my reason is perfectly convinced by good evidence that anesthetics do not smother me and that properly trained surgeons do not start operating until I am unconscious. But that does not alter the fact that when they have me down on the table and clap their horrible mask over my face, a mere childish panic begins inside me. In other words, I lose my faith in anesthetics. It is not reason that is taking away my faith: on the contrary, my faith is based on reason. It is my imagination and emotions. The battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other.

When you think of it you will see lots of instances of this. A man knows, on perfectly good evidence, that a pretty girl of his acquaintance is a liar and cannot keep a secret and ought not to be trusted; but when he finds himself with her his mind loses its faith in that bit of knowledge and he starts thinking, “Perhaps she’ll be different this time,” and once more makes a fool of himself and tells her something he ought not to have told her. His senses and emotions have destroyed his faith in what he really knows to be true.

Or take a boy learning to swim. His reason knows perfectly well that an unsupported human body will not necessarily sink in water: he has seen dozens of people float and swim. But the whole question is whether he will be able to go on believing this when the instructor takes away his hand and leaves him unsupported in the water-or whether he will suddenly cease to believe it and get in a fright and go down.

Now just the same thing happens about Christianity. I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it. That is not the point at which Faith comes in. Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

The problem for the pure skeptic is that he must claim – to be pure – a complete absence of presupposition.

Which is impossible.

Even when it comes to sight itself.

This is why Philosophical Naturalism and Theism are equally pure in their skepticism.

scbrownlhrm:

I deliberately avoided using phrases like “you’re unthinking” or “your reasoning seems to be absent”, because I don’t think those statements are generally true about Christians. Plenty of Christians are generally reasonable and use reason in determining their religious opinions.

The same is true of many Muslims, or Mormons. The same is even true of many conspiracy theorists, and it was true of the pre-Socratic philosophers, and Aristotle. These people are not idiots, they are perfectly capable of using reason, and they all do use reason, and yet they come to different and completely incompatible conclusions.

There is a difference between using reason and assessing that reasoning critically. If you look at Muslim or Mormon apologetics, you’ll see them citing evidence and creating reasoned arguments in favour of their positions. To them, their reasoning seems convincing, but as an outsider, you’ll be able to find holes in their reasoning that they haven’t even looked for. Their reasoning hasn’t been informed by a process of constantly asking what an opponent would make of it; and so they unwittingly make assumptions which seem sensible to them but which you, as a Christian, would dispute. It’s not that they’re unintelligent, or unthinking; they’ve just failed to look at some part of their own argument with a critical, outsider’s perspective.

As an outsider to Christianity, I see Christian apologists doing the same thing. There’s always some point in their reasoning process where they make an assumption favourable to their own position, possibly without even realising it, because that assumption seems perfectly sensible to them. And while using those assumptions, they reason perfectly well, and then they have a bunch of arguments that seem solid to them, and they wonder what these atheists are going on about when they say that Christianity isn’t skeptical. But they haven’t put themselves in the outsider’s shoes, and tried to poke holes in their own arguments, or thought about what kind of test they could do to see if their position is right or wrong.

As for the C S Lewis quote: Christians, to me, seems more like the example he gives of a man too eager to trust an attractive woman. He holds certain ideas about that woman’s personality, and when her actions are incompatible with those ideas, he rationalises them away; he tries to think of a good reason for her doing whatever she did, or if he can’t think of one, assumes she must have one anyway, because he knows what a good and intelligent and loving person she is. Meanwhile the outsider goes with the simpler explanation, which is that she is not the kind of person he thought she was.

The Christian approach to the problem of evil or the problem of divine hiddenness is similar. Horrific suffering exists in the world, and we see several seemingly malevolent actions attributed to God in the Bible, and it’s not easy to reconcile with the Christian belief in God’s omnipotence and benevolence. The simplest answer is that God is not the kind of person you thought he was; and maybe he doesn’t exist at all.

This process of rationalisation might seem more reasonable to me if God was like the anaesthetist, or the swimming instructor, from Lewis’ other examples. But if you start doubting that your anaesthetist exists, or if you see people around you drowning in the pool while the swimming instructor does not intervene, then something is badly wrong. At that point, it probably is time to start reassessing your opinions of them.

The Bible is the historical record of Christ’s life and teachings.

No, that is the claim. There is no corroborating extra-biblical evidence that confirms anything of the sort. No contemporary writings or other evidence supports this claim. And there is a large amount of evidence that events in this ‘historical record’ did not and could not have happened. In short I do not believe the Bible is a historical record and since I don’t I view it as historicity I put it in the same category as other religious writings. Just because Christianity claims the Bible is historical does not make it so.

Second, as a historical record, it is the best attested ancient text in world history. Its historicity is multiple orders of magnitude better than any other ancient text in existence.

That is just ridiculous. There are nuggets in the Bible that can be confirmed to be true, the idea that because some things in the Bible can be confirmed to be accurate does not therefore confirm the outlandish accounts of the supernatural. No respected historian would ever make such an argument. On top of that many ‘historical facts’ described in the Bible can be confirmed to be completely at odds with other historical information.

Otto,

You simply are wrong about the Bible and it’s historicity. Your are wrong that it’s in the same category as other religious writings and, it seems, you’re not interested in finding out the truth about it either.

Andy,

You are basically in the same boat as Otto. (see Tom’s comment above.)

Bill,

“You are wrong”…is not an argument.

Otto,

I already made my argument. Your rebuttals are simply uninformed and badly miss the point. All of the claims Tom and I made are verifiable. Thus, you are wrong is as much as is necessary at this point.

Tom,

Andy, on your statement “none of that is true,” you’re simply misinformed. What I said there is historically uncontroversial.

You have completely misrepresented what I wrote, I pointed this out to you, and now you are still completely misrepresenting me.
But ok, if you want to have it that way, then by all means enlighten me:
– How much of the *GOSPELS* (which is what I was talking about, as I have pointed out twice) was written by people that witnessed the events themselves?
– Please show me ONE attestation to the events described in the *GOSPELS* (which is what I was talking about, as I have pointed out twice) that was written by a person who witnessed the events himself.
– Show me the archaeological evidence that confirms the events described in the *GOSPELS* (which is what I was talking about, as I have pointed out twice) and say “yes, I think that is better than what we have for ancient text´s like Julius Caesar´s The Civil Wars” (I´d also be curious to see if you can find even just a SINGLE historian who agrees with that).

As usual, per Andy’s post, with the secularists and the Bible it’s always special pleading. No respectable ancient historian has any doubts that they have solid verifiable historical knowledge about the Greeks or Romans or Egyptians. Yet none of the sources they have for these cultures even approaches the historicity of the sources we have for the events of the New Testament. Instead, we get a bunch of “yeah, but, whatevers” from the nonbelievers. Historical facts are historical facts. That they relate to Christianity does not differentiate them from facts about the Greeks or Romans or Egyptians.

BillT,

As usual, per Andy’s post, with the secularists and the Bible it’s always special pleading. No respectable ancient historian has any doubts that they have solid verifiable historical knowledge about the Greeks or Romans or Egyptians. Yet none of the sources they have for these cultures even approaches the historicity of the sources we have for the events of the New Testament.

No, it is not special pleading, I am apparently simply a complete moron. But since you are so well informed here and seem so utterly certain that the New Testament is a much better source than anything we have about the ancient romans or greek, then please enlighten a fool like me:
– How much of the gospels was written by people that witnessed the events themselves?
– How many attestations to the events described in the gospels are available that were written by a person who witnessed the events themselves?
– Where are the countless pieces of archaeological evidence like coins, statues, inscriptions etc.pp. that confirm the events described in the gospels?

There are sources about ancient Rome and Greece where the author was a witness to the events himself, and his claims are confirmed by others that also witnessed the events themselves (including people that are sympathetic, neutral and hostile towards the author) and where there is further plenty of archaeological evidence that confirms the key claims being made by the text.
Since the New Testament is “orders of magnitute better than this”, then the answers to your questions above should be truly impressive, I´m looking forward to see them.

Andy,

I think Tom covered a bunch of this in his #35, #36, #43 and #46 and Jenna’s #50 has excellent sources listed. Getting a complete and reasonable understanding of the historicity of the NT isn’t possible in a blog post. If you’re really interested you’ll inform yourself.

Just some brief answers. Generally, I believe it’s accepted at least 3 of the 4 Gospels were written by eyewitnesses. Richard Baulkham’s “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” is considered the seminal work on this subject. However, consider this. The seminal work on D-Day was written by a non-eyewitness 60 years after the event. Good history is good history. Eyewitness attestation, throughout the stories and people mentioned in the Gospels and NT are too numerous to count. As far as archeological findings, there have been no archeological findings that dispute the narrative of the NT and large amounts that back it up.

BillT,
This is the claim you have made:
“No respectable ancient historian has any doubts that they have solid verifiable historical knowledge about the Greeks or Romans or Egyptians. Yet none of the sources they have for these cultures even approaches the historicity of the sources we have for the events of the New Testament.” [emphasis mine]

And all you have to offer to support it is this:

Generally, I believe it’s accepted at least 3 of the 4 Gospels were written by eyewitnesses. Richard Baulkham’s “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” is considered the seminal work on this subject.
and:
As far as archeological findings, there have been no archeological findings that dispute the narrative of the NT and large amounts that back it up.

1. So three out of four are eyewitnesses (that is not “generally accepted” by historians at all btw), cool, for Julius Caesar´s “The Civil War”, everything was written by an eyewitness (and that is generally accepted by historians), so Julius wins that round.
2. You can point to no written attestations by other eyewitnesses (and there are none), but for “The Civil War” there are several – written by friends, enemies and neutral observers wrt to Julius Caesar. So Julius wins this round as well (by Knockout this time).
3. So there are “large amounts” of archaeological evidence that confirm the NT? Now that is interesting, name the best three you can think of and we´ll compare it to what Julius has to offer (although he has already won anyway since #1+2 were not even a contest)

Otto, please read what I wrote. I was very specific about what secular historians’ consensus together with believing historians.

Secular consensus may be that a historical person named Jesus existed in that time an place. So what…you are claiming they believe he did wondrous things implying they believe he did miracles. I don’t think secular scholars believe that so I am asking you to cite a source. That should not be a problem should it?

And apparently Tom it is OK for you in your post to to question whether we (and me personally) have done the investigation into Christianity but as soon as I question whether you have investigated skepticim and what the skeptical position is… that means I think you are an idiot. So I guess using that logic I should assume you think I am an idiot since you used the same question on me. (btw, I don’t think that I am pointing out your contradiction in thought).

My other remark was not dismissive, I answered your question as to where I got the idea Christianity is not skeptical. I think you apply special pleading fallacies to your arguments and you do not accept other miraculous claims based ancient texts. Nothing you have said has refuted that point.

Corroboration in the Bible is not tautological. It’s not one document. It’s a collection of documents, written by different people from different perspectives, corroborating one another in ways that mere collaboration never would have produced.

All the people that wrote and edited the Bible wrote from the perspective of Jewish and Christian belief. They had a dog in the fight and skin in the game. There is no outside corroboration from anyone that did not share that faith but could have written about the events and people. These are people who were recording history at that time and place, people who were recording the doings of other ‘prophets’ and religious figures, and they were doing so from an outsiders perspective. None of those people ever mentioned Jesus or any of the events ‘recorded’ in the bible. The Bible says that Jesus was extremely famous in and around Jerusalem at that time, why did those historians ignore such a famous man?

If you don’t think I have done my homework you are mistaken.

Tom,

Not to mention I said this to Andy. “Getting a complete and reasonable understanding of the historicity of the NT isn’t possible in a blog post.”

And then Andy, I tried to give you a general understanding of the type of information available to be studied, not a comprehensive list of all that there is. I think we get it Andy. You’re not interested in things that upset your carefully cloistered viewpoint. That’s ok. It’s your life after all.

No, but sometimes for the uninformed it can help persuade them to go look some things up.

And now I am uninformed to you, I guess again you called me an idiot and were dismissive of me. Its OK when you do it but if anyone questions you and your supposed knowledge it is an ad hominem attack.

Remember how in your post you were wondering where us atheists would get the idea that people were not allowed to question the claims of Christianity? Well Tom look in the mirror…anybody who would apparently question you is “uninformed”…i.e. ignorant. Believe it or not Tom there are many scholars who take issue with apologists arguments that you put forth with the same types of questions I have posed…are you going to answer their questions by just dismissing them as uninformed as well?

Patterns develop.

When the Skeptic states that X is a poor explanation for Y *after* you’ve informed him that X isn’t the Christian explanation for Y, clearly he is, as Bill T alludes to in another direction, not interested in things that upset a carefully cloistered viewpoint.

As noted, for skepticism to be *pure* and *clean* – the skeptic must claim to have no presuppositions.

But that is impossible.

Literally.

Logically.

Perception and reason are unavoidably peculiar on said presuppositions.

But then so are so many things.

This is why the whole spectrum – from the philosophical naturalist to the Theist to the Christian to everything in between – are equally *pure* and equally *clean* in their skepticism.

Tom,

Best three archaeological evidences for the NT?

The crucified man.
The Pilate stone
The pool of Bethesda
84 confirmed, mostly local-knowledge details in Acts; widely considered to be confirmatory of Luke’s historical acumen, since he wrote both Luke and Acts; therefore also carrying over into support for Luke.
Minute historical accuracy related to names in the Gospels

(5 is equal to 3 for large values of 3)

I can see the relevance of the Pilate stone, the crucified man is very thin in terms of evidential quality because it only confirms that crucifixion was indeed practiced back then. But anyway, if you compare that with the archaeological evidence for “The Civil War”, like:
http://www.romancoins.info/VIC-Historical1.html
These pieces of evidence and incredibly numerous and they are very easy to interpret – there are for example 47 B.C. coins that struck in Antioch (when Caesar´s army liberated it), with the inscription “year two of the era of Caesar”. There are also plenty of inscriptions and statues that are very easy to interpret and confirm the key events described in “The Civil War”.
So, overall, do you indeed claim that the archaeological evidence for the Gospels is better than it is for any other ancient source like “The Civil War” and not only better but rather even orders of magnitude better, and that this is historically uncontroversial?

Just trying to keep you on your toes there Otto.

Oh I get it. Instead of admitting you were wrong in your argument you want me to believe you did it on purpose to see if I was paying attention.

What a load of manure.

Yep Otto, you’re certainly the perceptive one.

I think the confusion is over what BillT means by historicty. My guess is that what he meant by this is not what Andy is thinking.

Sorry, if that was confusing Melissa. I did begin this with a specific reference to the text. Perhaps historicity is too broad a word but I specifically used it in reference to the text and explained further in #52.

You still have not answered the questions Tom,

What remarkable things did Jesus do that Secular historians accept as accurate?

Why did non-christian contemporary historians to Jesus fail to acknowledge anything concerning Jesus despite the Gospel claims that Jesus was very famous?

Why do you keep dodging these basic questions?

Otto,

I really question your assertion that “Jesus was very famous” in a way that Julius Caesar, for example, was “famous” in his own time. Jesus was a rabbi from a very small town (Nazareth) in a small country where all communication took place by word of mouth. He was not a ruler or a government official or a wealthy person or a military general or anything like that. His Jewish and Roman rulers considered him to be a social and political nuisance and a threat to their power. What makes you think that the word would get around, mouth to mouth, about Jesus in such a way that he would draw the attention of contemporary secular historians (any more than what several sources report about him)? You are drawing a false analogy here.

I ask you the question I asked Andy earlier: Are you trying to convince Christians that we don’t have enough to “go on” to be Christians or are you explaining to us why you are not a Christian? There is a big difference.

BillT,

As I explained previously, which you continue to ignore, my claim that the the Bible is the most reliable ancient text is based on two standard historical points of reference. It has orders of magnitude more manuscript copies available for study than any other ancient text.

The mere number is completely irrelevant. If there are two documents A and B, both written in the year 100, and we have:
– 10000 copies for A, but the earliest complete one is from the year 783, and the earliest fragments are from the year 554.
– 20 copies for B, the earliest complete one from the year 233 and the earliest fragments from the year 133.
Then the documentary evidence for B is better.
The ~10000 latin Vulgates for example do exactly nothing to increase the reliability of the NT.
Feel free to look for a historian who disagrees with that.

Also, the time between the original and the first manuscript copies of the Bible available is orders of magnitude shorter than time between the original text and the earliest manuscript copies of any other ancient text.

For the earliest NT fragment (which contains nothing but a few verses out of John 18 btw), the timespan to the original is estimated to be 30 years. By “orders of magnitude”, you must mean at least two (else it would just be an order, not orderS). So, what you are claiming here is that for all other ancient documents, the timespan between the earliest fragment and the original is 30 years * 100 = 3000 years.
Are you sure you want to go with that or do you want to try again?

The documentary evidence for the Bible is actually good. However the way you are stating your case is as if you had a million dollars in your bank account (quite impressive!) but rather claim “I have a trillion dollars in my bank account!” – sounds impressive, but it is ridiculous on the face of it. Also, try to find a historian who would say with a straight face that the documentary evidence for the Bible makes it a better source of historical knowledge than The Civil War or a comparable book.

Jenna,

I am not the one claiming that Jesus was famous. The Bible does

Matthew 4:24-25

24 News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. 25 Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis,[g] Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.

Matthew 21:6-11

6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna[b] to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”[c]
“Hosanna[d] in the highest heaven!”
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

The bible proclaims he did many healings and miracles for very public people at the time and I am asking why no historian at the time recorded this event, or any event or anything having to do with Jesus what so ever?

There were historians at the time that could have and would have taken notice but they didn’t. Did the Bible (as historically accurate as Tom and others claim) overstate the case? As Matthew states “the whole city was stirred” so it was quite the event, even for people that didn’t know him.

But apparently no historian took notice…that’s a bit odd don’t ya think?

Tom,

Benny Hinn is a healer and an Exorcist…does me saying that mean I think Benny Hinn actually heals people and exorcises demons? I don’t think Mr. Borg was saying he actually thought Jesus healed or demons were exorcised. Just that in Mr. Borgs opinion that is what people knew him for.

Try again…what remarkable deeds did Jesus do that secular scholars accept as historical.

Tom,

(Oh, yeah–#59.)

By this I presume you mean:
“Really now. If we gave you references to websites approaching the full range of support we have, would you study it?”
That depends. The amount of available material here is more than could be read in a lifetime so I like to use a heuristic to see whether it might be of potential interest for me.
There is one (and only one) story in the NT for which I am reasonably certain that I have seen pretty much all evidence and arguments for and against the claim that it reliably describes historical events – and that is the Nativity of Jesus as described in Luke and Matthew. And based on that, I would not invest the time to read a long text about the historicity of a biblical story written by someone who has studied the nativity accounts and concludes that they reliably describe historical events (because I would consider him or her to be too biased to write about issues of biblical historicity in an at least somewhat objective manner). So, to answer your question, I would consider studying a source your recommend about this issue, but with this qualification.

Andy,

I’m out at the moment but will respond

You seem to think that “secular historians” in Jesus´time are something like modern day journalists and news reporters, on the lookout for current events to report for the sake of the historical records.

Yes there were people like that. People that took notice of events and reported on them, including fringe religions.

Philo of Alexandria (c.20 B.C.E.- c. 50) He lived before, during and after the time of Jesus and reported on Jewish sects at the time. He had strong ties to Jerusalem, his family was connect to the royal house of Judea. When Jesus’ fame spread all over Syrian, when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem and then drove the money changers from the Temple, when he was very publicly crucified and was then resurrected and ascended into Heaven and Jerusalem experienced earthquakes, supernatural darkness and dead holy people emerged from graves to walk around the city he was around…yet Philo said nothing about any of this.

This is one example. There are other historians at the time that could have taken note of Jesus and all the amazing things he did according to the Bible…especially if all of this is true. C’mon, these are real honest to goodness miracles…not those fake ones from other religious traditions…SOMEBODY from outside of the faith should have noticed something…!!!

Tom if the question you want answered is the one Andy referred to then provide your link and I will look at it…I don’t know why you are being so enigmatic about it.

Jesus’ activities in his ministry were notorious (famous) within his community and beyond, and as a result of his “fame” as a healer, people came from far away to seek healing. Can you find any contemporary reports from secular news gatherers (because these were then current and not historical events) that this was not happening? Can you refute the gospel testimony based on any outside authority?

Jenna, if Jesus was notorious within his community and beyond why did no one else take notice of him that recorded events at the time? These were pretty interesting events…chasing all the money changers out of the temple..? That is something that should have been news in the area…and that isn’t even the most amazing of the events…dead people crawling out of graves…?

Does the fact that nobody else noticed prove they didn’t happen? No…but I have a hard time accepting these thing as “historical” without the corroboration that something was going on, especially when I have been reading all day about how accurate the Bible is historically.

Mercy! This is (largely) a bitter set of comments.

“Jenna, if Jesus was notorious within his community and beyond why did no one else take notice of him that recorded events at the time? ”

Like Paul? Now can we move away from the appeal to silence?

It shows that Lincoln didn’t issue an Emancipation Proclamation (U.S. Grant wrote two volumes on the Civil War and omitted that trivial[?!] fact).

Tom if you want to dishonestly equate the historicity of the Emancipation Proclamation (as if there is no evidence from very diverse sources of this) and the historicity of the events described from 1 source with no outside the faith contemporary corroboration of anything (even non-supernatural events), regarding Jesus, then I will excuse myself from this conversation because it will have become painfully apparent you have no integrity in dealing with these issues. You asked in your post why we atheists don’t feel like Christianity is skeptical? Well a failure to adequately address issues like this is a fine example. The Bible makes some pretty extraordinary claims, I know you agree with that statement because it is, I am sure, one of the reasons you are a Christian. The fact that you want to claim the historicity of the unprecedented, unique and fantastic events of Gospels is nearly unassailable and at the same time claim it is not surprising that nobody in the area (other than those in the faith) took notice is just not believable…it is unconscionable and preposterous. Arguments like this is why young people are leaving the faith at unprecedented levels. Religious claims are not going to get the deference you are used to going forward so you better figure out a better way to address issues like these. Christians aren’t stupid, neither are kids and neither am I…acting like my questions are unreasonable aren’t going to make them go away.

Tom,

Oh. Adding stereotyping to the rest of your epistemological filter set, I see. Or is it guilt by association? Some authors came to conclusions you don’t like about a historically challenging passage. Therefore all authors writing on the NT are not worth listening to.

I honestly do not see any way at all, really none whatsoever, how you could have misread my comment to mean this. I would clarify what I wrote but since what you read out of my comment has literally nothing whatsoever to do with what it in my opinion expresses – I have no idea how.

“I did not “equate” the historicity of the Emancipation Proclamation with the historicity of the Bible. I used it as an illustration of how the argument from silence could mislead.”

It can mislead, I don’t think it is misleading in this case though, I think it is telling.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence…unless one would expect to find evidence. It still doesn’t prove it didn’t happen, but it is a huge red flag that needs to be properly addressed.

“Billy, Paul did not write at the time of Jesus, nor did he witness anything reported in the Gospels. He states all his information regarding Jesus came from revelation (not that I believe him but that is besides the point). My question has specifically to do with historians that lived and reported at the exact same time as these purported events took place. Their silence is deafening.”

Again, silence does not constitute a formal argument. What it does provide is a blank canvas upon which a person can paint a pet theory of their liking. But if we are going to play this game then allow me to present my argument from silence that is based upon this fact: there are no extant accounts of the body of Jesus having been found.

As arguments from silence go that one is surely a stronger one than yours. Why? The answer is two fold.

Firstly, I would not expect the life of an itinerant preacher to be of much interest to historians of the time – at least not until Christianity had actually begun to gain some traction in society. Frankly, Jesus was in their eyes a failure. And much like last years runner-up on X-factor, no one remembers a failed messiah. But you apparently think there is some strong argument to be found amongst all that silence.

Secondly, I would expect the enemies of the early followers of Christ to be very motivated to drag the half-rotten corpse of Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem so all could gather around to see the glory of risen Christ for themselves.

Moving on – Tom has already mentioned Galatians but I think it’s worth expounding on the point I was trying to make because you are in error. Galatians is an extraordinary document because in it Paul testifies that he met with Peter and James, the brother of Jesus, in Jerusalem three years after his conversion. I think it is reasonable to trace his conversion to some time around the mid 30’s. Later in the document he makes a surprising admission: 14 years on (it’s debatable as to whether this is from his conversion or from his meeting with Peter and James) he returns to Jerusalem to meet with Peter, James and John, the so called pillars of the burgeoning Christian community, in hope that they would corroborate his version of events. That Paul was experiencing some doubts is quite an admission – possibly quite a damaging one.

So what we have is Paul, former persecutor of the early followers of Christ – a man feared by them (cross reference with Acts if you wish), meeting with some of the apostles on two occasions. That is gold.

But what does any of it matter? This is not about the quality of the documentary evidence. How many sceptics would be convinced if tomorrow we unearthed indisputable eyewitness accounts and a piece of the “true cross”? I suspect that for some it would make no difference because there are more powerful objections under the surface. Perhaps it’s as simple as a world-view like naturalism lacking a framework for talking about God being anything more than a trick of the mind or an act of mendacity. Which is fair enough, I guess. But it does make these arguments somewhat redundant.

Luke did. He was a top-notch historian, as attested by the previously-mentioned dozens of attesting archaeological finds corroborating him.

Three other gospel writers did. That makes at least four historians/biographers who did notice this remarkable figure.

Of course my question was why didn’t historians outside of the faithtake notice, of anything related to Jesus. And I don’t mean confirming miracles, I mean just confirming his existence. But again you fail to answer my question and choose to answer the one you want to answer instead.

And we know the Gospel writers borrowed heavily from each other, in this day and age we would call it plagiarism. Please don’t act like these were 4 different accounts all completely separate and independent from each other. To top it off the Gospels were written long after the fact…even they are not contemporary to the events.

They may have considered Jesus to be just another Messiah figure, not worth mentioning, for there were others around that time.

Exactly my point, many of those “failed messiahs” they did mention…

but Jesus, known far and wide in Syria (according to the accurate recording of the Bible in your opinion) the guy who healed the sick including public figures…the guy who came riding into Jerusalem with throngs around him “stirring the whole of the city”…the guy who single handily chased all the money changers from the temple (no small feat as the temple market was quite large), who was publicly tried and executed in front of the masses (during passover no less) whose death was tied to earthquakes and dead people climbing out of their graves, who appeared to many after death…

…no historian outside the faith in Jerusalem thought to even write a a passing note, not a sentence. But failed messiahs who did not have a 1/4 of a resume do get mentioned… And that doesn’t bother you in the least? Really?

It doesn’t make sense Tom.

Tom,

I was making assertions, yes, but with respect to #59 I was asking a question and awaiting an answer.

And I thought I did answer your question. I didn´t mean to offend. My time is finite and even if I would spend my entire life reading only about this issue, I couldn´t read all the available material (not even close to all actually given how much has been written here). That´s why I use some criteria to decide what to read and what to skip. And the standard I use here seems to be not unreasonable to me, wrt to the Nativity stories (and only with regards to them, I don´t claim to know much about any other NT story), my opinion is very well informed – I have studied the essential readings on this issue (and if you´ve studied Brown´s The Birth of the Messiah (arguable the most important scholarly treatment of it), you know how much time it takes to study that book alone). And again, I´m not saying that authors who reach conclusions about it that I disagree with are stupid or anything like that, but for my taste and based on my opinion, they are too biased wrt issues of biblical historicity.
I use a similar selection procedure to decide what to read for every issue. That´s why I very quickly stopped reading Victor Stenger´s works for example – he has very interesting things to say, is a great writer and I don´t consider him to be the stupid at all (quite the opposite), but he is too biased for my taste.

My best recommendation is that you look up J. Warner Wallace’s Cold-Case Christianity. If you don’t want to spring for his book (though it’s really entertaining, as well as informative in surprising ways), you can find a whole host of good stuff on his website. I recommend you click on the “Writings” menu item and then select the topic of greatest interest.

Alright, I´ll check it out.

Otto and Andy and Ophis have similar presupposed conclusions and they each have demonstrated rather bizarre rationalizations to justify such commitments. In #140 we see it as #141 untied 140’s pre-committed rationalization willing to misuse Scripture. Andy demonstrated the same kind of presuppositionalism in another thread with his own carefully cloistered (false) viewpoint in which he finds *evidence* against the Christian explanation’s predictive power on Knowledge by using Scripture the way Otto did in #140 despite being informed that he had given a *non*Christian approach to a question, thereby rationalizing away the evidence against his own version of “model A vs. model B”. Ophis continues in failing to show Skepticism’s freedom from presuppositions, and also fails to justify the skeptic’s conclusion that Peter’s epistle describing his own eyewitness experience is (apparently?) unquestionably fraudulent. These sorts of basic and fairly general demonstrations by the supposedly “free of presuppositionalism” thinking of the “Skeptic” reveal tainted waters.

No assertion is free of presuppositions about all sorts of things, from mind to matter to everything in between. The skeptic has placed himself in the uncomfortable position of counting such as “somehow” unclean.

Which is why the Christian’s skepticism is as pure and as clean as is the Naturalist’s as is the Skeptic’s as is the….. as is the….

scbrownlhrm:

“Ophis continues in failing to show Skepticism’s freedom from presuppositions,”

I’m not sure why there’s a problem with my failure to demonstrate something that I have not asserted. If you want to know anything at all about the world, you must make some minimal assumptions, such as the existence of the outside world and some more-or-less consistent effect of that world on our senses. I haven’t denied this at any point. I try to minimise any assumptions and biases I might have without completely removing the ability to make any inferences at all about the world. I don’t claim the ability to do this perfectly, but I make the attempt.

You seem to be on the verge of full postmodernism, saying that we all make some sort of assumptions and so all views are equally valid. That amounts to giving up on trying to establish what’s true, which eliminates the possibility of establishing Christianity as being more true than any other belief.

“…and also fails to justify the skeptic’s conclusion that Peter’s epistle describing his own eyewitness experience is (apparently?) unquestionably fraudulent.”

I didn’t refer to Peter’s Epistle, because you’re the first one to bring it up in this thread. I at no point described anything as “unquestionably fraudulent” or anything to that effect. I addressed the possibility of us having eyewitness accounts in my last comment (that was in relation to the Gospels, but it applies equally to 1 Peter). While 1 Peter, unlike the Gospels, does contain an internal claim of authorship, that still makes it no better than several apocryphal documents which I anticipate you would not accept.

Frankly there doesn’t seem to be anything in your response to me that bears any strong relation to what I’ve actually said.

Ophis and Andy,

Presuppositions matter and, of course, the Non-Theist has a few, as does the Christian. Post-modernism is, as Philosophical is, unable to cash out their own IOU’s. Humean lines just fail and nothing better has ever been given by the Non-Theist. That’s just a point of “rationalization” which we find the Skeptic freely embracing despite the costs. It’s not an argument, rather, it’s merely an example of where the Skeptic’s regress does a worse job than the Theists in assuring us of the stability of this or that truth predicate.

It’s simply an example of the sorts of the thought process over there inside of the Skeptic’s “better method”.

Peter is just one more “thing” in a pile of eyewitness events which go unaddressed as other (false) points are instead put forth, like #140. Andy, your model of the Fall vs. Evolution in another thread misrepresented “model A” (the Christian’s accounting) and you then set that next to “model B” (your accounting) and you then rationalized that B trumps A based on that basic/generalized “comparison”. You did *not* just set up B, rather, you brought in A and made the comparison. Had you *only* appealed to B and the current state of affairs, that would be fine. But you *did* bring in A *and* your handling of A was of a fallacy.

It’s easy to be skeptical of non-real and made up things. Like that on Andy’s part and like #140 on Otto’s part. Uncritical handling of Scripture seems to be very common by the Skeptic.

As for Peter’s claim of an eyewitness inside of historicity, I’ve only seen (ever) the trivial and the pre-supposed emerge to discredit it and all without success. But such lines emerge on the skeptic’s side with just a bit too much frequency to allow them to claim some sort of un-biased thinking or some sort of “better approach”.

As noted in the comment, these are all basic and general examples of *uncritical* rationalizations going on by the supposedly critically thinking skeptic.

Small or Grand, Subtle or Bold, examples are examples. Such is just pointing out a few basic, simple, general *un*critical thought processes.

That’s all this is – a few examples. I’m sure there will be more in the future.

On both sides.

The claim of the Skeptic that *his own* Skepticism is free of metaphysical baggage and bad-thinking is, so far, a rationalization against the evidence.

Ophis,

You see.

Accepting Christianity’s (or every! other!) proposition -cause X number of dead folks said so.

As if that’s the whole show.

It’s easy to be skeptical of such fallacies.

It goes on a bit too often in the skeptic’s thought process.

Again, no arguments are given here…. just examples and illustrations.

Failed Messiahs who also led armed rebellions do get mentioned. I wonder why that might be?

Melissa, that is not the issue.

The issue is trying to make sense of the Biblical claim that Jesus was so famous that all of Jerusalem took notice…that he did unprecedented miracles and extraordinary events happened but the only people who took notice at the time they happened were the people in the faith. Where are the reports from his opposition? A man that makes headlines like that always has opposition and we would expect those events to be reported on.

Or maybe he wasn’t as famous as the Bible implies, but then that brings up issues with the accuracy of the Biblical reports. Either answer causes more issues with the story. The message Christianity seems to want to promote is that Jesus was extremely famous…just not THAT famous.

“Accepting Christianity’s (or every! other!) proposition -cause X number of dead folks said so.

As if that’s the whole show.”

I summarised the evidence given in this thread earlier (#150). It might not be “the whole show”, but it’s all that’s been presented here, in the attempt to show how skeptical and evidence-based Christianity really is. Since I wrote that, you have increased the number of citations of “dead folks” by one, by citing 1 Peter, and complained about unspecified presuppositions and rationalisations by skeptics.

Your comment suggests that you agree that this level of evidence should not be convincing to anyone. But we’re 160 comments in now, and nothing more than this has so far been given to back up Christianity’s skeptical and empirical credentials.

I summarised the evidence given in this thread earlier (#150)

The summary of which consisted of: “There are people who don’t believe the evidence you’ve presented therefor it’s not reliable.” Very impressive.

Ophis,

Yes, that’s what you said and just claiming that some people don’t accept the Gospels as eyewitness accounts isn’t an argument against that proposition. The case for that has been made quite convincingly. Richard Baulkham’s “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” is the seminal work on that subject and is widely accepted.

However, I did introduce a new argument after your #150 in my #152. Glad to get your take.

Balkham still confirms the eyewitness testimony of the Gospel accounts. His work is comprehensive and takes many things into consideration but his conclusion confirms the Gospels as eyewitness accounts..

Your view of Matthew and Luke as “corrupted” is without validity. The Gospel accounts all hold up on their own to examination of their content. And you seem to be trying to hold the Gospels to modern acedemic standards. They are 2000 year old historical accounts not modern research papers. They aren’t “corrupted” accounts in any way.

The Gospel accounts and Paul’s writings confirm the content of early chuch theology. Early creedal statements confirming Christ and his resurrection in the NT that date to within a few years of the crucifixion confirm this. There is no doubt what the early church believed. And they believed it with the eyewitnesses (both believers and non believers) to those facts alive and available to anyone who wanted to speak to them.

As far as travel its estimated a million people a year travelled the road along the Palestinian coast less than a days travel from Jeruselem. Travel was easy and safe and the Roman Empire kept it that way as that kept the money coming their way. Paul may have had some difficult moments but he quite successfully travelled extensively all over the region.

And growth of other religions can be explained by looking at them and the facts surrounding them. The growth of Christianity can be understood by looking at the facts surrounding Christianity. Trying to throw doubts about one with the other is just a red herring.

First, your contention that a majority of NT scholars don’t believe that the Gospels are eyewitness accounts is simply wrong. Balkham wasn’t the first to suggest that and his work confirmed the works of many others in the field. It may be the most comprehensive analysis and the current standard on the topic but he is among a large number of theologians that understand that to be true. It’s not a minority position by any means. Even a simple reading of the text reveals details that could only have come from someone who was there and that the texts were intended to be see as historical accounts.

Marcions gospel was disqualified from the cannon for many obvious reasons beyond what you suggest. It dating places it as a 2nd century work well ouside of the time frame of the other NT works, Its theology runs contrary to the theology of the NT and and was an idosycratic work written it fit Marcion’s own agenda. That isn’t the “same criteria” in any way.

The creedal statements in Corintians are accepted by 90% of all theologians, skeptical and conservative, to date within a few years of Christ’s life. That the early church accepted and practiced the same basic beliefs as we do today is utterly uncontrovercial and almost universally accepted.

Again, travel in the region was reasonably safe and easy. The Roman Empire made sure it was so and the historical reports and archeological findings confirm that. The million people who travelled the Via Mare were coming from all over the region. Corinth wad a major trading and commerce center. You don’t get to be that without safe travel. Your opinion that travel was difficult it without merit or evidence and in fact the evidence you did provide in Paul’s travels contradict that.

Red herrings regarding growth of cults like Mormanism have absolutely nothing to do with the growth of Christianity. Christianity is unique in its fact driven orientation. The claims of Christianity are astounding and the requirement that they be true in order for the faith to be valid are contained in the NT text itself. It defies basic common sense that people who could have verified its claims would not have done so. There simply isn’t another way to rationally understand these basic facts.

Melissa and Bill T,

Interesting points about the hyper-skeptic’s lack of evidence thus far for their assertions.

“First, your contention that a majority of NT scholars don’t believe that the Gospels are eyewitness accounts is simply wrong.”

“It’s not a minority position by any means.”

I’ve already given you a quote from the guy you cited showing that this is wrong. Here’s another:

“I have argued that, contrary to the view of the origins of the Gospels that has dominated New Testament scholarship since the rise of form criticism in the early twentieth century, there are good reasons to think that the Gospels as we have them are close to the way the eyewitnesses testified to what they had seen and participated in.”

http://richardbauckham.co.uk/uploads/Sermons/Canonicity%20of%20the%20Gospels.pdf#page=8

That’s two separate quotes now from the person you cited, agreeing that his position is in opposition to the dominant one. If even that isn’t good enough, then I encourage you to do the minimal research required to find out what the dominant position is.

“You take the basic attitude that this idea is something new and controversial that is in need of some special verification.”

I never said “new”. It is the traditional position of the church. But in the modern day, it is very controversial.

“Marcions gospel was disqualified from the cannon for many obvious reasons beyond what you suggest. It dating places it as a 2nd century work well ouside of the time frame of the other NT works, Its theology runs contrary to the theology of the NT and and was an idosycratic work written it fit Marcion’s own agenda. That isn’t the “same criteria” in any way.”

There was no NT in Marcion’s time. The NT is a product of orthodox theology, not the other way round. And there are other 2nd century documents in the NT, such as the Pastoral Epistles.

Matthew and Luke are adding things to fit their own agenda as well. They have added the virgin birth stories and post-resurrection appearances despite them being absent from their source. Those are major additions with theological significance, which some other early Christians would not have agreed with. So they’re changing Mark to fit an agenda, just as Marcion was accused of doing to Luke.

“The creedal statements in Corintians are accepted by 90% of all theologians, skeptical and conservative, to date within a few years of Christ’s life. That the early church accepted and practiced the same basic beliefs as we do today is utterly uncontrovercial and almost universally accepted.”

There was a huge variety of beliefs in the early Church. That letter itself explicitly addresses the fact that there is wide variation in belief at that early stage, particularly in beliefs related to the resurrection. It took centuries to firmly establish orthodoxy. Major points of Christian doctrine are absent from those creedal statements, so assuming that they reflect a modern understanding of Christianity is nothing more than anachronistically reading future beliefs into the past without evidence. And without a written record, how can we know whether those statements changed at all before Paul wrote them down?

“Your opinion that travel was difficult it without merit or evidence and in fact the evidence you did provide in Paul’s travels contradict that.”

The stories of Paul’s travels in Acts attests to the amount of time required to make that sort of journey, and to the inconvenience involved. How many weeks are you willing to take off work to investigate a new religion? How much money are you willing to spend? How much spare money and time do you think the average Greek peasant had 2000 years ago?

“Red herrings regarding growth of cults like Mormanism have absolutely nothing to do with the growth of Christianity.”

We’re looking at the growth of a particular new religion. What we know about the growth of new religions in general is obviously relevant. The alternative is to engage in wild speculation.

“Christianity is unique in its fact driven orientation. The claims of Christianity are astounding and the requirement that they be true in order for the faith to be valid are contained in the NT text itself.”

Be honest: out of the conversion stories you have heard people tell, what sort of proportion of them began with “I carefully investigated the evidence for multiple beliefs”?

“It defies basic common sense that people who could have verified its claims would not have done so. There simply isn’t another way to rationally understand these basic facts.”

Then the existence of any religion other than Christianity defies basic common sense, especially the ones in modern times. As much as you dislike the comparison to newer religions, they prove that the ability to investigate and discredit a religion’s claims doesn’t necessarily prevent its growth.

“The “burden” of this discussion belongs on you. If they aren’t first hand historical accounts, what are they?”

Anonymous accounts written for the purpose of promoting a religious belief.

That purpose is given in John 20:31. The Gospels contain no internal attribution; there is no contemporary external attribution; the external attribution that does exist does not cite the source of information for that attribution; the descriptions in those attributions are incompatible with what we can reliably infer about the development of the synoptics, demonstrating the unreliability of those attributions; the probable level of education of the apostles is incompatible with them writing anything of the length and quality of the Gospels; misattribution of religious writings was common in early Christianity.

scbrownlhrm:

“There’s nothing peculiar about Caesar or the N.T. or ancient Macedonia – or what have you.”

Let’s hold them all to the same standard then. If some non-Christian miracle is claimed by an ancient witness, and that witness is otherwise generally reliable, should we believe in this miracle?

Ophis,

If your “inferred” claim that “It’s true -cause the bible” were all there was to the Christian paradigm’s truth claims, or any other religion’s paradigm juxtaposed to their texts, or what have you, you’d have a point.

But, it isn’t.

So you don’t.

One would think the Skeptic would know that – carrying on as you are about Christian claims.

But you didn’t.

So again you don’t.

Sort of like your goings thus far with Bill T etc.

Your imprecise, uneven, and hyper-skeptical approach here is – still then – quite telling.

Friends,

I wish to point out that in the academic community of historians and historical researchers, consensus among scholars is neither sought nor desired. So this talk of a “consensus” among biblical scholars and historians is really nonsense. It’s not like scholars sit around a huge table and vote on what history says. In fact, certain scholars are recognized and respected because of the scope and depth of their research, the cogency and relevance of their research methods and the wisdom and credibility of their analysis, not because they are popular or they agree with the rest of the scholarly community. So, if anyone claims to have knowledge of a scholarly consensus about XYZ, we are safe to disregard their claims as a sort of pseudo-academic ad populum argument or false appeal to authority where none exists, expect, of course, for the Holy Scriptures themselves.

Bill T,

Other historicity with items that close to the real event are considered a gold find. 50 years? G-R-E-A-T!

The uneven and hyper-skeptical treatment of the N.T. when compared to other sorts of history.

Peculiar.

And scb’s comment above is right on target. It’s special pleading for those critiquing the NT. Regular historical standards need not apply.

This has already been mentioned by several other commentators but let me reiterate it with a few examples.

Even though it does not adhere to so-called modern standards, the New Testament, does unequivocally emphasize the importance of evidence based eyewitness accounts. For example, in his introduction to the Gospel of Luke, the author (Luke) writes:

1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. (NIV)

Luke as an historian shows a keen interest in eyewitness testimony and evidence. For example, when we look at The Book of Acts, Luke’s sequel to his gospel, it’s very apparent that he was a very good historian. His detailed descriptions of historical people and events, as well as of the geography, customs and culture of the eastern Mediterranean in the first century AD demonstrate that Luke was a very accurate historian who highly valued evidence.

Archaeologist Sir William Ramsay wrote,

“Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy…this author should be placed along with the very greatest historians.”

(William M. Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 1915, pg 222)

And classicist A.N. Sherwin White wrote concerning the historical accuracy of Luke’s account in Acts,

Any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.

(A.N Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament, 1963, pg. 189)

Other New Testament writers also emphasized evidence and eyewitness accounts. For example, John tells us:

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us… (I John 1:1-4, ESV)

And Peter writes:

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (1 Peter 1:16, ESV)

Furthermore, Biblical writers did not automatically eschew reason for faith, rather they valued reason and in fact used it in teaching and defending their faith.

For example, Jesus taught us, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart… all your soul and… all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)

And in the book of Proverbs we’re urged to seek wisdom, understanding and knowledge like it was silver or hidden treasure. (See Proverbs 1 & 2)

Peter takes the role of reason defending faith even further. In I Peter 3:15, he writes, “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord… always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”(ESV)

The Greek word for defense is apologia. It is a legal term that was used ancient law courts which referred to the arguments that a lawyer would give on behalf of a client who was a defendant in either a civil or criminal court case. For example, in Plato’s dialogue, The Apology, Socrates who is representing himself in a criminal trial in the Greek city state of Athens, gives an apologia, or a reasoned defense, on behalf of himself before the Athenian court.

Modern conceit based on ideologically driven chauvinism is not a sufficient reason to reject historical evidence from ancient times.

BillT,

Re your #101. Seems you’re trying to make my point for me. The Bible has both the most manuscript copies and the shortest time gap from the original to the first existing copies. Just to get the facts straight. The total number of manuscript copies numbers near 25,000. The gap between the originals and the first manuscript fragment is around 10 years as new fragments were introduced year or two ago the earliest dating into the first century.

To compare this to another ancient text, “For Caesar’s Gallic War (composed between 58 and 50 B.C.) there are several extant MSS, but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some 900 years later than Caesar’s day.”

Again, the number is first of all not surprising (because for many centuries, the scribes that created new copies were almost exclusively Christian monks, and they were strongly biased towards copying religious literature, particularly the NT – sometimes even going as far as bleaching the pages of valuable and rare manuscripts to make room for yet another copy of the NT) and also irrelevant.
Regarding the timespan between original and oldest copies, the earliest known fragment of a NT text is not 10 years but rather around thirty younger than the original (and this fragment is literally just the size of a business card and contains nothing but a few verses out of John 18), and the oldest complete copies are some copies of the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus – that´s very good but not orders of magnitude earlier than all others, not even a magnitude earlier, it might not even be the shortest timespan at all (I just checked and for some works by Herodotus and Homer, the timespan between original and earliest extant copy is about comparable to the NT, I didn´t search exhaustively but I doubt that the NT actually holds the record here unless you can provide a scholarly source for this claim).

And, like you said, these facts verify the accuracy of the text (to 99+%).

But you provided this as a claim that supports the historical truth of the claims being made in the Bible, and the documentary evidence has nothing to do with whether the claims that are made in the Bible are actually true.

As for your question as to how do we know it’s true, that requires some thought. Since we know that the Biblical text we have is accurate we also know the story in it was the same story that began the Christian faith. We also know that Christianity grew rapidly in it’s early days…..

Christianity did grow rapidly, but only among the gentiles and only starting in the 2nd century. Christianity was a complete failure among the Jews:
Throughout the first century the total number of Jews in the Christian movement probably never exceeded 1 000 and by the end of the century the Christian church was largely Gentile.
– which I find much easier to explain assuming that Jesus was not as impressive a miracle worker as the Gospels claim he was, if he was – why did only a handful of Jews believe in him then?

So, if the story isn’t true, how could this happen. How do thousands of people all over the region become Christians believing the (rather unbelievable) facts in the NT. Travel was reasonably easy and safe and anyone could have gone to Jerusalem and fact checked the entire story. In fact, we can be sure (given this remarkable story) that they did. And after they did, they were still Christian and Christianity continued to grow rapidly.

I can easily turn this around and say that the people that did not have to travel to Jerusalem because they actually lived there, the people that had by far the best access to the evidence and the people that included many of the actual eyewitnesses, overwhelmingly did not convert to Christianity – Christianity was an enormous success among the gentiles but also a spectacular failure among the Jews.

Ophis,

I’m merely commenting on some of the various examples laced throughout this thread of “the skeptic’s” imprecise thinking, Non-Christian straw-men, and uneven, hyper-skeptical (special pleading) treatments.

Such sloppiness reveals unfortunate emotional commitments to presuppositions as sourcing such uncritical rationalizations levied as “arguments”.

#192

I believe the evidence to be true beyond any reasonable doubt. My job as a Christian is not to defend the Gospels against opinions about it but to explain (witness) to why it is believable to ME.

Careful with labels like “beyond any reasonable doubt” – it´s the highest standard of evidence there is, so you are setting the bar very, very high for yourself. Also, if your conclusions are “true beyond any reasonable doubt”, then no one can reasonably disagree with them – you are quite literally saying that people that disagree with you on this can only do so by being unreasonable ;-).

BillT,

Andy just a quick historical fact. You’re wrong about the gap between the originals and first copies. It is 10 years. You’re behind the curve here as I explained.

So P52 is no longer the oldest known fragment of a NT text?
Citation needed.

You description of what kind of copies exist is off, too. Fragmentary copies in the 1st/2nd century, entire books in the 3rd century, complete NT copies by the early 4th century. It’s an utterly remarkable textual record unlike anything else in existence.

Again, the earliest complete copies are mid 4th century – and that makes the timespan between oldest complete copy and originals very much comparable to some works by Herodotus and Homer (and probably many others as well because I only checked this briefly).
Also again, this is not in any way relevant for the claim you originally made – you provided this as evidence for the alleged superiority of the Bible as a source of historical information compared to literally everything else, and the documentary evidence has nothing to do with whether what the text says actually happened or not.

Andy,

Here. To be fair the final publication has been delayed since this was written. And your right, mid 4th century is more accurate for the complete NT manuscript. This might interest you though from the above: “we have as many as eighteen New Testament manuscripts from the second century and one from the first. Altogether, more than 43% of all New Testament verses are found in these manuscripts.” So these fragments are significant both historically and for their content and sets Biblical textual history apart from other ancient texts.

BillT,

Here. To be fair the final publication has been delayed since this was written.

That´s not a good sign, if it was indeed already ” dated by one of the world’s leading paleographers” in early 2012, it should have long been published since then.

This might interest you though from the above: “we have as many as eighteen New Testament manuscripts from the second century and one from the first. Altogether, more than 43% of all New Testament verses are found in these manuscripts.” So these fragments are significant both historically and for their content and sets Biblical textual history apart from other ancient texts.

Again, I can happily grant you that the documentary evidence is superior to everything else (although certainly not by orders of magnitude, not even by one order of magnitude ). However, that is simply completely irrelevant for how reliable the text is as a source of information about history. What matters for this would be things like independent and contemporary corrobation from other writers, archaeological evidence and so on and so forth. And I´m not saying that the Bible doesn´t have that (well, the Gospels indeed do not have independent and contemporary corrobation from other writers but what the hell), all I´m saying is that there other ancient documents that are more reliable as sources of information about history, because there is far more high quality evidence that confirms their claims.
And as I also mentioned, that is not at all surprising, even if one assumes that Christianity is 100% true – it would still be completely ridiculous to expect to find more evidence that confirms the claims about the life of Jesus than evidence that confirms the claims about the life of someone like Julius Caesar, and it is in fact the other way around.

However, that is simply completely irrelevant for how reliable the text is as a source of information about history. What matters for this would be things like independent and contemporary corrobation from other writers, archaeological evidence and so on and so forth.

Andy,

To paraphrase Jenna “The credibility of our witnesses (the Bible) has not been impeached but any historical or archaeological source. If that’s not good enough for you then, hey, it isn’t.

Evidence for the claim of Caesar’s 3rd announcement isn’t present.

Clearly then “the rest” is nonsense.

Not sure why then I learned so many specifics about Caesar in high school.

Must’ve been before this new uneven special pleading surfaced…..

Hope I donut looze mi daploma….

Andy,

You misunderstood.

It’s just not about the reliability of Scripture. It’s about the reliability of a particular flavor of skepticism.

There are no arguments here.

Merely observations of your treatment of texts as compared to general treatments.

You inferred that either the O.T. or Scripture in general or the N.T. specifically is unreliable based on the Exodus. The theme here is Scripture – not the Exodus – and you levy the Exodus as evidence against reliability. In other words, you took the Exodus and used it as some sort of “weight against” scripture. You did the same with the birth of Christ in the standard nativity scene ascribed to it. Perhaps you have evidence against foreign travel (wise men etc.) and so on. You didn’t specify.

Nazareth was recently discovered, and, the O.T. texts have more than average weight on their side despite your subtle inference of the opposite:

“The great names of Archaeology, including Dr. Flinders Petrie, Dr. William Albright, Dr. J.O. Kinnaman, Ira M. Price, Professor Sayce of Oxford, and Sir William Ramsey have gone on record to say that archaeology confirms the accuracy and reliability of the Bible. Dr. William Albright, who was not a friend of Christianity and was probably the foremost authority in Middle East archaeology in his time, said this about the Bible: “There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament.” Let me quote Dr. J.O. Kinnaman, who spent some 40 years in research work in and about Palestine: “Let me say that of all the thousands of artifacts that have been discovered by the archaeologist, varying from an inscribed jug handle to the complete edition of the Synoptic Gospels, not one thing has ever been discovered that contradicts or denies any word of the Bible, but the artifacts, without fail confirm, illustrate, illuminate, and fill in the gaps of narrative events and historical continuity…..

“Seeing this topic relates to a tremendously important archaeological find concerning Nazareth, what about Nazareth?……

“Skeptics have been asserting for a long time that Nazareth never existed during the time when the New Testament says Jesus spent his childhood there. Nazareth is not mentioned in the Old Testament, by the apostle Paul, by the Talmud (although 63 other Galilean towns are cited), or by Josephus (who listed 45 other villages and cities of Galilee, including Japha, which was located just over a mile from present-day Nazareth. Dr. James Strange of the University of South Florida is an expert on this area, and he describes Nazareth as being a very small place, about 60 acres, with a maximum population of about 480 at the beginning of the first century. Strange notes that when Jerusalem fell in A.D. 70, priests were no longer needed in the temple because it had been destroyed, so they were sent out to various other locations, even up into Galilee. Archaeologists have found a list in Aramaic describing the 24 “courses” or families, of priests who were relocated, and one of them was registered as having been moved to Nazareth. This shows that this tiny village did, in fact, exist at that time. In addition, there have been archaeological digs that have uncovered first-century tombs in the vicinity of Nazareth, which would establish the village’s limits because by Jewish law burials had to take place outside the town proper. Two tombs contained objects such as pottery lamps, glass vessels, and vases from the first century. Renowned archaeologist Jack Finegan, in a book published by Princeton University Press, stated, “From the tombs…it can be concluded that Nazareth was a strongly Jewish settlement in the Roman period. McRay exclaims: “There has been discussion about the location of some sites from the first century, such as exactly where Jesus’ tomb is situated, but among archaeologists there has never really been a big doubt about the location of Nazareth. The burden of proof ought to be on those who dispute Fits existence.” Now we have further confirmation of its existence.”

Further, there are these issues with the New Testament as already linked:

“Laymen who do not understand historical method sometimes demand sources for the life of Jesus outside the New Testament–as if a document’s being later collected into an anthology somehow impugns its historical credibility! Never mind; what we now see is that there are such sources, but that the most important ones are not those which came later than the New Testament documents, such as Josephus or Tacitus’ testimonies, but rather those which came before the New Testament documents were written and were used by New Testament authors.”

And:

“The idea that the abundance and age of the manuscripts of the Gospels is evidence for their historical reliability is a misconception fostered by popular Christian apologetics. It’s true that the New Testament is the best attested book in ancient history, both in terms of the number of manuscripts and the nearness of those manuscripts to the date of the original. What that goes to prove is that the text of the New Testament that we have today is almost exactly the same as the text as it was originally written. Of the approximately 138,000 words in the New Testament only about 1,400 remain in doubt. The text of the New Testament is thus about 99% established. That means that when you pick up a (Greek) New Testament today, you can be confident that you are reading the text as it was originally written. Moreover, that 1% that remains uncertain has to do with trivial words on which nothing of importance hangs. This conclusion is important because it explodes the claims of Muslims, Mormons, and others that the text of the New Testament has been corrupted, so that we can no longer read the original text. It’s awe-inspiring to think that we can know with confidence that when we pick Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, for example, we are reading the very words he wrote almost 2,000 years ago. But, as you say, that doesn’t prove that what these documents say is historically accurate. We could have the text of Aesop’s fables established to 99% accuracy, and that would do nothing to show that they are true stories. After all, they are intended to be fables, not history. People in the future would say something similar about the Joe narratives, no matter how many copies existed. Now, as you point out, the Gospels are intended to be history. That is the import of your comment that the Gospels “are historical” even if they are not true. That is to say, the Gospels are of the literary genre of historical writing. They are not of the genre of mythology, fiction, or fable. This is an extremely important insight. Something of a consensus has developed within New Testament scholarship that the Gospels are closest in genre to ancient biographies…”

There’s more, but this is not to argue reliability but rather is merely to show that your one-trick pony of the sort of flavor of criteria you are appealing for – asking for – just is not necessary to grant.

Which simply reveals an uneven special pleading beneath the surface on a few levels.

I’m satisfied with those few levels leaking through as it’s just not about the reliability of Scripture. It’s about the reliability of a particular flavor of skepticism.

History’s tid bits just keep surfacing on the side of the O.T. and N.T. such that the 10/2 jury vote has 1) not been shown to be beyond reasonable doubt and 2) secular archeologists refer to both for lines of direction and 3) the 2 votes against have a few layers of special pleading leaking out all over the floor.

There are no arguments here.

Merely observations of an odd skepticism’s treatment of texts as compared to general treatments.

Jenna Black #192:

As you may recall, I asked our atheist interlocutors this question, phrased slightly differently, two or three times and got no answer: Are you telling us why you don’t believe in Christianity or are you making the argument that we Christians don’t have enough information about Jesus to “go on” to be Christians in the first place?

It’s closer to the second; I’m saying you’re accepting evidence for Christianity that you wouldn’t accept for other beliefs. Even if we put aside any doubts about the authorship of the Gospels, and assume we really have some kind of witness account there; many other claims of extraordinary events are also backed up by the testimony of eyewitnesses, and you would not accept most of them. That looks to me like an inconsistent application of skepticism.

scbrownlhrm #193:

I’m merely commenting on some of the various examples laced throughout this thread of “the skeptic’s” imprecise thinking, Non-Christian straw-men, and uneven, hyper-skeptical (special pleading) treatments.

“Various examples” which you choose not to specify. Now you’re just making generalised complaints without actually pointing out where I’ve done any of those things.

Such sloppiness reveals unfortunate emotional commitments to presuppositions as sourcing such uncritical rationalizations levied as “arguments”.

Vague and speculative. None of this contains any substantial criticism of anything I’ve said.

BillT #194:

Been over and over and over this ground too many times. If you think you’ve been successful then good. If you have one thing you’d like to go over again I’d be glad to comment.

Then let’s go back to my statement at the end of #150, but putting aside any doubts about the authorship of the gospels, and assume there really are eyewitness accounts in the NT.

In short, the evidence so far presented consists of written claims, some of which are by people who may or may not have been witnesses; which copy each other to some extent; all from people favourable to one particular opinion closely related to those claims; and which have no corroborating physical evidence supporting anything other than incidental details.

Are you telling me I should accept an extraordinary, unprecedented event like the resurrection of a corpse, based on the testimony of a few witnesses with no physical evidence? And if I can find similar witness support for other extraordinary, unprecedented events, should we accept those too?

Are you telling me I should accept an extraordinary, unprecedented event like the resurrection of a corpse, based on the testimony of a few witnesses with no physical evidence? And if I can find similar witness support for other extraordinary, unprecedented events, should we accept those too?

Ophis,

I think there are a few unwarranted assumptions in this statement. First of all, that it’s “…based on the testimony of a few witnesses…” Our understanding is that the risen Christ appeared to at least 500 people (at one time) and likely twice that overall. And that information is in the NT text so it’s available for verification to those that wanted to confirm it.

Second, as you must know, the physical evidence is the empty tomb. This was a tomb guarded by Roman soldiers who faced execution for failing their orders. Yet, there was no body. There is a huge amount of internet information and discussion on this this topic so I’ll stop there.

I believe the confluence of information we have is quite substantial. Knowledge of the original text, a text written during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses to the events that were described, who were alive and available to confirm it’s content to members of the early church.

Ophis & SteveK,

Steve is correct about examining the evidence from the gospels in regard to the jury analogy. The decision in this “trial” is whether or not we can, beyond a reasonable doubt, accept the gospels and NT as truth. The decision to be a Christian is a spiritual, moral, intellectual and life/worldview decision of such transcendent importance in my life that of course, I examine and reexamine the evidence continually, and my faith deepens as a result. There is no inconsistency in how I weigh the evidence of the NT. If I were a juror in a capital murder trial and had to make a decision about someone else’s life or death, I would apply the same high level of scrutiny and analysis to that evidence as I do to my Christianity. I believe that the same is true for all committed Christians.

BillT,

I think there are a few unwarranted assumptions in this statement. First of all, that it’s “…based on the testimony of a few witnesses…” Our understanding is that the risen Christ appeared to at least 500 people (at one time) and likely twice that overall.

Even if that were so, you don´t have their testimony and don´t know what exactly they saw (or not). If you have one witness who tells you that what he saw was also seen by 1000 others, you still have just one witness and not 1001.

Second, as you must know, the physical evidence is the empty tomb. This was a tomb guarded by Roman soldiers who faced execution for failing their orders.

Well, apologists like Craig keep saying that all historians accept that Jesus was buried in a tomb, but that is simply not the case. And many do not accept this for good reason, because some parts of the story are simply more than fishy, example:
“11 While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.”
– this story reports a private conversation among conspirators, so how does whoever wrote Matthew know what was said during this conversation? Either this story is just made up, or the author of Matthew knows it because the “story has been widely circulated” – which would make this nothing but gossip. Stuff like that makes the whole story about what the romans allegedly did or didn´t do with the body of Jesus not very trustworthy.
Btw, try finding one other ancient text that is considered to be a source of historical information and that reports the contents of private conversations that the author himself did not participate in. You won´t ever find stuff like that in Herodotus’ Chronicles for example.

I believe the confluence of information we have is quite substantial. Knowledge of the original text, a text written during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses to the events that were described, who were alive and available to confirm it’s content to members of the early church.

Again, Christianity was a failure among the Jews. Those that were in the best position to check out all the evidence were precisely those that overwhelmingly did not convert – Christianity was only a success among the Gentiles.

Andy,

If Christianity was “… a failure among the Jews” is wasn’t a failure in Jerusalem as I described above. Jerusalem wasn’t a 100% Jewish city and we have record of Jews, members of the Sanhedrin, and Roman Centurions belonging to the church in Jerusalem. All of these people plus the gentiles who were part of that church were eyewitnesses and in every bit as good a position to know the truth about the claims of Christianity. And that’s not to mention that there were large numbers of non-believers in Jerusalem that were eyewitnesses to Christ’s ministry and they were available to be questioned by seekers as well. (BTW, the verse you quote above is evidence for the empty tomb, not against it.)

BillT,

If Christianity was “… a failure among the Jews” is wasn’t a failure in Jerusalem as I described above. Jerusalem wasn’t a 100% Jewish city and we have record of Jews, members of the Sanhedrin, and Roman Centurions belonging to the church in Jerusalem. All of these people plus the gentiles who were part of that church were eyewitnesses and in every bit as good a position to know the truth about the claims of Christianity.

And yet:
Neither the Law-observant gospel of the Jerusalem church nor the Law-free gospel of the Hellenists and Paul made much impression upon the people of Israel. Throughout the first century the total number of Jews in the Christian movement probably never exceeded 1 000 and by the end of the century the Christian church was largely Gentile.
My point is, only a teeny-tiny minority of those that were in the position to know, became Christians – the overwhelming majority did not. That is easy to explain if Jesus was not as impressive a miracle worker as the Gospels describe him to be and if he in fact did not rise and appeared to hundreds. If hundreds of people saw the risen Christ and thousands saw his miracles before the crucifixion – then why did only a handful convert?

(BTW, the verse you quote above is evidence for the empty tomb, not against it.)

Those verses are evidence for the author of Matthew either a) making stuff up out of thin air or b) relying on gossip.
If you think there are other possibilities, then how, in your opinion, could the author of Matthew possibly know the contents of a private conversation among conspirators that he himself did not participate in?

Those in the best position where the earliest converts.

Does the Skeptic have proof of 1000 Jews in 100 years.
Them’s soms realz numbers!

I guess Paul’s miracles did the trick for the Gentiles.

Case closed?

My point is, only a teeny-tiny minority of those that were in the position to know, became Christians – the overwhelming majority did not.

This is not news to anyone. Scripture documented this 2000 years ago. The gate is narrow. You’re late to the party, Andy.

SteveK,

This is not news to anyone. Scripture documented this 2000 years ago.

Why are you telling this to me? Tell it to the one who said:
“We also know that Christianity grew rapidly in it’s early days during which time the eyewitnesses to the facts described in the NT were alive.

So, if the story isn’t true, how could this happen. How do thousands of people all over the region become Christians believing the (rather unbelievable) facts in the NT. Travel was reasonably easy and safe and anyone could have gone to Jerusalem and fact checked the entire story. In fact, we can be sure (given this remarkable story) that they did. And after they did, they were still Christian and Christianity continued to grow rapidly. The validity of Christianity is built on the eyewitnesses to the facts described in the NT. That’s how we know it’s true.”

Early Christianity had churches in every major city in the Mediterranean, including as far away as Rome, by the mid 60’s only thirty years after Christ’s ministry. And your numbers are a bit misleading. As I said, there were lots of non Jewish eyewitnesses who were members of the church in Jerusalem which had to number between 500 and 1000 by itself. Jewish eyewitnesses aren’t any more reliable than any other eyewitnesses. “The Rise of Christianity” by Rodney Stark I think gives somewhat more complete numbers and is generally accepted as the most accurate research on the subject.

BillT,

Early Christianity had churches in every major city in the Mediterranean, including as far away as Rome, by the mid 60’s only thirty years after Christ’s ministry. And your numbers are a bit anemic. “The Rise of Christianity” by Rodney Stark I think gives somewhat more robust numbers and is generally accepted as the most accurate research on the subject.

The only numbers that are relevant to what I am pointing out are the numbers of jewish Christians. The Jews were in the best position to know, and they overwhelmingly did not convert – Christianity only became successful among the Gentiles.
If Rodney Stark contradicts this and has some evidence to show that the Christian community around Peter in Jerusalem was actually large and kept growing rapidly, then by all means quote him saying that – that would certainly be news to me.

Andy,

AD 70 seems left unaccounted for in the Math.

Many factors seem left unaccounted for.

Including Prophesy and the fact that those in the thick of it had the best information and were the earliest converts.

If motive for belief counts as evidence then those closest to Christ have the best reason to fear for their life, the best information, and yet comprise the earliest converts.

Good point about those factors being strong evidence.

And Andy, if you can’t figure out why Jews would have been reluctant to convert to Christianity, besides the evidence, you should put your thinking cap on.

The Jews were in the best position to know, and they overwhelmingly did not convert – Christianity only became successful among the Gentiles.

This is not true. The gentiles in Jerusalem were in the very same position to know. His ministry was a public one.

BillT,

This is not true. The gentiles in Jerusalem were in the very same position to know. His ministry was a public one.

I know. And you are not contradicting what I said, note that I said:
“virtually all the original eyewitnesses to Jesus` alleged miracles and alleged post-crucifixion appearances were Jews…
the Jews were ON AVERAGE in a much, much better position to evaluate the evidence for Christianity then the Gentiles were”
– I can also tone it down and change the “virtually all” to “by far the most”, doesn´t affect my point at all.

It may not effect your point but you point isn’t very compelling. Lots of non Jews were eyewitnesses and lots of them became converts. On the other issue you might think about who it was that lead the persecution of Christ, their overall cultural orientation and the Biblical prophesy.

BillT,

It may not effect your point but you point isn’t very compelling. Lots of non Jews were eyewitnesses and lots of them became converts.

Those “lots of converts” among the Jews in total amounted to nothing but a teeny-tiny community that in the entire first century never exceeded ~1000 people. While Christianity spread like wildfire among the Gentiles… And if Christianity is true and early conversions were driven by evidence, then this is the exact opposite of what one would expect to observe.

I can’t help it if you can’t use your thinking cap on the other issue.

Translation: “I don´t really have a point here but I don´t want to admit that”.

1) In the first 50 years Gentiles out-number Jews by magnitudes, were direct observers of Christ, had the best information, and make up the larger group of coverts.

2) In the first 50 years Jews were out-numbered by Gentiles by magnitudes, were direct observes of Christ, had the best information, and make up the smaller group of converts.

3) A.D. 70 isn’t accounted for in the Math.

4) Prophecy isn’t accounted for in the Math.

Now we are told that eyewitnesses that are Gentile are not relevant.

Despite #243.

Andy,

You’re floundering again.

Math and Prophecy are hard to argue against.

Andy,

The obvious math – and prophecy – *easily* predict exactly what we find.

In the first 50 years……large groups and small groups all talking among themselves and so on. Large stays large and small stays small. And prophecy.

Andy,

1) In the first 50 years Gentiles out-number Jews by magnitudes, were direct observers of Christ, had the best information, and make up the larger group of coverts.

2) In the first 50 years Jews were out-numbered by Gentiles by magnitudes, were direct observes of Christ, had the best information, and make up the smaller group of converts.

It’s simply an observation of facts. Helpful facts.

The standard is (so far anyway) that those with the best information ought to convert. Well that is what happened. We expect that to happen if the best information is good.

And that is what we find.

Given the population densities, over that first 50 years we expect that particular extrapolation to follow trajectories which reflect such basic demographic facts.

And that is what we find.

A.D. 70 and Prophecy are two separate sets of data, but we have enough to go on already without those two, so, well, it’s enough.

Melissa,

The author of the paper you cite admits himself that he is engaging in speculative calculations. That seems to me to be a little flimsy to build your case on. All the initial members of the church (prior to the late 30’s) would have been predominantly Jewish.

That being said, the church was probably a very small percentage of the total Jewish population in Jerusalem.

And it eventually all but died out completely. Yes, the initial members would have been jewish, but they couldn´t convince more than a handful of other Jews that they are telling the truth – while Paul could convince the Gentiles. Regarding the numbers, you could be much, much more generous with the numbers and it still wouldn´t affect the point – Christianity spread like wildfire among the Gentiles but the Jews didn´t buy it (and still don´t). And if we assume that Christianity is true and that conversions in early Christian history were driven by evidence – this is totally unexpected, because the Jews had better access to the evidence than the Gentiles did.

Andy,

Have you even read the paper you’re using to support your thesis? The author begins with a constant rate of 40% growth in Christianity. That rate does not change for his calculations whether it is growth before the mission to the Gentiles or after.

Also there is a good historical reason why the church is Jerusalem died out which I’m sure you must be aware of.

Andy,

The facts and demographics not only fail to contradict the Christian model’s predictions, they actually fit it rather well. Whereas, on several levels they present your ad hoc model with a burden of proof to overcome which you’ve not demonstrated you can do. As Bill T alluded to, your whole driving theme here is rather unimpressive, and given the weight you need to overcome you’re floundering as you just keep repeating, eyes closed, “But the Gentile’s don’t matter!”

Your entire ad hoc model must give strong evidence that 50 years of direct access to the best information should *not* have caused the Gentile group to grow.

You’ve not even come close to making a case for that.

1) In the first 50 years Gentiles out-number Jews by magnitudes, were direct observers of Christ, had direct access to the best information, and make up the larger group of coverts.

2) In the first 50 years Jews were out-numbered by Gentiles by magnitudes, were direct observes of Christ, had direct access the best information, and make up the smaller group of converts.

You want to argue against a “Summation”. And that summation is what 50 years of direct access to the best evidence predicts, and then, combined with that is what population densities predict. How unfortuante for you that both/each predict exactly what we find.

Each on their own predicts what we find – and when combined they sum to a real problem for your ad hoc attempts here.

Your entire ad hoc model must give strong evidence that 50 years of direct access to the best information should *not* have caused the Gentile group to grow.

But you have not presented an argument for that.

Given that it is impossible for the Jews to out-number the Gentiles, and worse, given that you’ve *not* given good evidence that 50 years of direct access to the best information should *not* have caused the Gentile group to grow, and worse still, given that the growth which we find tracks right along with the Christian model’s predicted trajectories based on easily proven demographics, given all of that, the Christian is quite happy with his case, even as the burden of proof which your assertions must meet is as of yet just too high to overcome by anything you’ve given us.

Andy,

We expect the Gentile group to outnumber the Jewish group. We expect Israel to be scattered. We expect the Jewish group to be smaller than the Gentile group.

Just like today.

There have always been Jewish Christians.

Then too.

Just like today.

It is all rather coherent with Christianity.

Whereas:

Your entire ad hoc model must give strong evidence that 50 years of direct access to the best information should *not* have caused the Gentile group to grow.

You’ve not done that.

Not even close.

So your model is far less plausible than the Christian’s.

Andy,

else the jewish Christian community would have actually become sizeable instead of all but dying out.

I’m trying to follow your reasoning here, but it’s difficult. I think you need to provide more information to make your case that those with less access to the evidence were more likely to convert. The primary piece that is missing is the conversion rate of Jews in Jerusalem per population as opposed to Jews in other cities. I’m not sure whether that information is available or not. i don’t think you can mount a case without this evidence.

I would like to reiterate what Jenna wrote earlier, that I doubt anyone converts solely on the basis of the historical case. I do think that the alternative scenarios are no more compelling than the Christian explanation and do have their own holes that need filling. Which Alternative a person finds compelling probably has more to do with other reasons.

Andy,

Your entire ad hoc model must give strong evidence that 50 years of direct access to the best information SHOULD NOT HAVE caused the Gentile group to grow. We expect it WOULD grow.

Jewish Christians have *always* existed since then. Prophecy aside.

LOTS of geographic areas gave VANISHED as far as their Christian status went. The TINY TEENY Jewish “nation” is just ONE OF THOSE.

You seem to think that is magically different than any other random “groups” which have ALSO undergone that SAME change across history. Gentile groups of Christians were APOSTATE back then TOO.

So what?

In short: Some geographical area lost a big % of its Christian numbers – THEREFORE Christianity is unreasonable.

Andy,

And, on average, a Jew would a) have been much more likely to have been in the audience when Jesus was preaching, or performing miracles, or when he rose and “appeared to many” etc.pp. and b) also much more likely to have close friends or family members who were eyewitnesses.
Do you disagree with that? If so, on what grounds?

I’m just trying to establish what information you have to support your claim that those with access to more evidence were less likely to convert, all other things being equal. You really do need to compare the conversion rates of Jews living within the influence of Jesus 3 year ministry and the fledgling church and those who were at a distance from that otherwise I’m not sure how you hope to draw valid conclusions.

Andy,

You are making a number of unsubstantiated assumptions in your argument here. 1. That the Jews in Israel, particularly Jerusalem had better access to evidence about Jesus than the Gentiles who became Christians. On what basis do you make that claim? Of course you realize that in the very early days of the Church, there was no such thing as Christianity. Christians were considered a sect of Judaism, so no conversion was necessary.

2. You seem so assume that the fate of the Christians among the Jews was separate and apart from the fate of the entire community of Jews in Israel under Roman rule (oppression), such that we can disaggregate and separate what was happening to Christians in this population. You don’t appear to have any historical information that makes such a distinction.

3. You assume that Christianity’s alleged lack of growth (undocumented) among the Jews versus its success among the Gentiles says something negative about Christianity when in fact, the opposite is true. Think about it. Christianity immediately spread rapidly among groups who were not familiar with Jewish religion, law and traditions, what was the “glue” that held Jewish communities together. The phenomenon of the growth of Christianity is testimony to its truth and power as a universal religion. It means that Jesus’ followers did as Jesus had commanded them to do and did it well:

Matthew 28:19
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

I recommend two excellent books on this subject:

Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler (Ed.) (2011). The Jewish annotated New Testament.

John Shelby Spong (1996). Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish eyes.

Jenna,

You are making a number of unsubstantiated assumptions in your argument here. 1. That the Jews in Israel, particularly Jerusalem had better access to evidence about Jesus than the Gentiles who became Christians. On what basis do you make that claim?

“Jesus travelled a lot, preached a lot and performed many miracles. And, on average, a Jew would a) have been much more likely to have been in the audience when Jesus was preaching, or performing miracles, or when he rose and “appeared to many” etc.pp. and b) also much more likely to have close friends or family members who were eyewitnesses.”

Of course you realize that in the very early days of the Church, there was no such thing as Christianity. Christians were considered a sect of Judaism, so no conversion was necessary.

This is nitpicking. If you don´t want to call an event where a Jew chooses to join this new sect a “conversion” but rather something different, be my guest – it´s just semantics.

2. You seem so assume that the fate of the Christians among the Jews was separate and apart from the fate of the entire community of Jews in Israel under Roman rule (oppression), such that we can disaggregate and separate what was happening to Christians in this population. You don’t appear to have any historical information that makes such a distinction.

Persecution of religious minorities didn´t stop the spread of Christianity among the Gentiles – so why should it have stopped the spread of Christianity among the Jews?

3. You assume that Christianity’s alleged lack of growth (undocumented) among the Jews

Undocumented? I don´t know if you have noticed, but the Jews overwhelmingly still do not believe in Jesus.

versus its success among the Gentiles says something negative about Christianity when in fact, the opposite is true.

Then by all means, construct this argument:
“That the Jews didn´t buy Christian claims is actually evidence for Christianity because [….]”

Think about it. Christianity immediately spread rapidly among groups who were not familiar with Jewish religion, law and traditions

Maybe because Paul made most of those jewish idiosyncracies optional?

Jenna,

According to scholars published in The Jewish Annotated New Testament (2011) there was no clear distinction between Judaism and Christianity

Paul the apostle used to be called Saul of Tarsus. And, if the NT accounts are correct, he was a Pharisee and persecuted the followers of Jesus until his conversion experience (on the road to Damascus). And this presupposes that there was a new sect that was somehow distinguishable from Judaism (if it wasn´t distinguishable, the Jews could not have persecuted them) and that a Jew like Saul of Tarsus could “convert to” this new sect.

Andy, do you have any scholarly references to back up your conclusions about the early history of Christianity?

I already cited a paper above. And that Christianity was a largely Gentile movement by the end of the 1st / beginning of the 2nd century does not seem to be very controversial afaict (and even if it would be, at some point this transition from “largely Jew” to “largely Gentile” MUST have happened for the simple reason that Christianity now is a world religion while the Jews still overwhelmingly don´t buy it).

Jenna,

Because in Jesus’s time and in the decades of early Christianity, Jesus’s followers were mostly Jews and Jesus was a Jewish rabbi whose teachings were consistent with a messianic interpretation of Judaism, they were not “converts” when they became followers of Jesus…

Again, this is just semantics. If you don´t want to call it “conversion” then call it something else – it´s beside the point. The point is that the vast majority of Jews did not become followers of Jesus in the early history of Christianity, never did become followers of Jesus in the later history of Christianity, and are still not followers of Jesus today. While other cultures rapidly became fully christianized. Christianity started as a jewish movement and within little more than one lifetime, it was a largely Gentile movement and within one century more, it was an overwhelmingly Gentile movement – it was a huge success among the Gentiles but the Jews overwhelmingly didn´t buy it.

Andy,

If we assume that the jewish community around Peter grew at least as fast as the largely hellenistic community around Paul, this could not have happened unless the jewish Christian community would have been systematically killed (and there is no historical record for that). So, the natural conclusion is that the community around Paul was growing rapidly while the community around Peter didn´t – so that Christianity, despite starting out as a largely jewish movement, became a largely Gentile movement within just one lifetime.

I’m still not seeing how any of this shows that those with better evidence were less likely to accept the claims of the early church. That is what you’re trying to show isn’t it?

Clearly the number of people with direct (or close to) access to that evidence, i.e. not hearing secondhand and unable to access first hand witnesses in their immediate circle of friends and family was limited, probably most of these assessed the claims in the first decade of the church. So we have the early Jewish church in Jerusalem.

Now you need something to compare this growth with. To avoid the complications of worldview differences you need a Jewish community outside that immediate circle, one in say a distant city that grows at a faster rate than the growth of the church in Jerusalem (as long as you could control for particular local factors).

When Jerusalem was destroyed that church went the same way as the rest of the population and this was also the impetus behind the final breakaway of the Christian church from Judaism. Christ followers of all descriptions would have been more or less swallowed up in the movement as a whole.

Look, we’re all hamstrung by a lack of evidence from this period. The data we do have in necessarily filled in by speculation, but I don’t see that the evidence you’re presenting logically follows to your conclusion.

Melissa,
what I do not understand is on what grounds you want to isolate Jerusalem from wider Judaism. Jesus travelled a lot, preached a lot and performed many miracles. The people who were direct witnesses to this or who knew someone personally that was a direct witness to this were not in any way limited to Jerusalem (and even if, Jerusalem was a trade hub and the Jews that witnessed Jesus there would not only include citizens of Jerusalem). There is thus no a priori reason to expect that the jewish-christian community would be limited to Jerusalem instead of rapidly spreading to other predominantly jewish cities (i.e. exactly what happened to Christianity in the hellenistic world!). My point here is that Jews (in general, not just Jews in Jerusalem) were more likely to have first- or second hand eyewitness evidence available – based on what the NT claims about where Jesus did and did not go, preach and perform miracles.

When Jerusalem was destroyed that church went the same way as the rest of the population and this was also the impetus behind the final breakaway of the Christian church from Judaism. Christ followers of all descriptions would have been more or less swallowed up in the movement as a whole.

1. That is already very telling – sacking Jerusalem was apparently sufficient to kill the entire jewish-Christian movement. And that means that Christianity did not spread among Jews as it did among the Gentiles (else there would have been jewish-Christian communities outside of Jerusalem).
2. The sacking of Jerusalem happened within the lifetime of actual eyewitnesses – most of which were Jews. And why should those have “given up” on trying to spread the good news among their people? Even after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews would still have had the best access to eyewitness evidence for Christianity – but they didn´t buy it.

Look, we’re all hamstrung by a lack of evidence from this period. The data we do have in necessarily filled in by speculation, but I don’t see that the evidence you’re presenting logically follows to your conclusion

Let me try to summarize the points we can agree on:
1. The initial Christian church was composed out of Jews, centered around Peter in Jerusalem. Which means that the Jews had a “head start” / Christianity started out as a predominantly jewish movement.
2. By the end of the 1st century, Christianity was already a largely Gentile movement.
3. Among the Gentiles, Christian communities were rapidly established in many cities while jewish Chrisitanity was almost exclusively limited to Jerusalem.
4. On average, a 1st century Jew would have been more likely to have either been an eyewitness himself or personally know one or more eyewitnesses (with “eyewitnesses” not just meaning those that saw the risen Christ but also those that were eyewitnesses to, say, the feeding of the multitude, or those that saw the risen Lazarus etc.pp.).

Do you disagree with any of these points?

Jenna,

Please note here that what I question is not the history of the rapid and extensive growth of Christianity among the Gentiles or the demographics of the followers of Jesus, but your conclusion that this says something negative about or detracts in some way from the NT evidence and truth, nor does the Jews’ rejection of Jesus as the Messiah.

That is fine by me. The point I was specifically contesting was, that the reason for why Christianity spread so rapidly was the superior evidence for Christianity. This claim is, as I tried to argue, contradicted by the facts – if the evidence is the reason then those with best access to the evidence should have experienced the most drastic growth, but they didn´t – quite the opposite. So the reason(s) for why Christianity spread so rapidly must be found elsewhere.

Why are you so insistent on these points?

I saw someone making a claim that I disagreed with, particularly, I contested this claim:
“We also know that Christianity grew rapidly in it’s early days during which time the eyewitnesses to the facts described in the NT were alive.
So, if the story isn’t true, how could this happen. How do thousands of people all over the region become Christians believing the (rather unbelievable) facts in the NT. Travel was reasonably easy and safe and anyone could have gone to Jerusalem and fact checked the entire story. In fact, we can be sure (given this remarkable story) that they did. And after they did, they were still Christian and Christianity continued to grow rapidly. The validity of Christianity is built on the eyewitnesses to the facts described in the NT. That’s how we know it’s true.”
– and that spawned the discussion that we are now having.

Is the fact that Jews don’t accept Jesus as the Messiah one of the reasons that you don’t believe in God or Christianity?

It doesn´t rank very high among the reasons I have for believing Christianity to be false, but yes.

Or do you really think that the Jews’ non-acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah should provoke skepticism among Christians about Jesus’ divinity?

That depends on what your reasons are for considering Jesus to be divine. If the historical record is a very significant part of why you consider that to be true, then the issue of the Jews is something that you should consider IMO.

IOW, what exactly is your argument?

Is it really so mysterious? I saw a claim that I disagreed with (see above) and explained why I did so, you (and others) disagreed with my assessment and that started the discussion we are now having.

Andy,

Thanks. This comment clarifies some of your arguments for me. I think that one fallacy or weakness in your argument is that you are conflating two different discussions: the credibility of the witnesses to Jesus’ life, ministry, execution on the cross, and resurrection from the dead that is the basis for the credibility of the gospels and the NT, with your argument “access to evidence” from those who witnessed these events from among the followers and family of Jesus. The rapid growth and endurance of Christianity is testified to by the growth and endurance of Christianity as people became Christians and formed Christian communities through hearing the Gospel (both oral tradition and written documents). It is unconvincing for you to argue that the redactors and their sources who knew Jesus of the gospels are less credible because of the rapid spread of Christianity among people who only knew about Jesus Christ through the preaching of the Gospel through his followers, the Gentiles. This argument doesn’t hang together.

Please elaborate on your reasons for believing that Christianity is false. I ask this hoping that this conversation demonstrates our willingness as Christians to address your questions thoroughly and sincerely. Could you list your top five or so reasons for believing that Christianity is false? Otherwise, I sense we are getting bogged down when, as I understand it, the purpose of this thread is to address Tom’s question: “Skeptics, could you tell us where it was that you acquired your impression of the church as being unquestioning, insufficiently skeptical, overly trusting?”

Andy,

The problem here is that you are treating your premise as if it were established fact: that there should have been more “converts” to following Jesus among Jews than there were, when this is an out-of-context hypothetical and not an established fact, and then claiming that this has implications for the truth of the gospels. Your argument fails to convince since there is no logical or empirical linkage between your claim and the alleged “evidence” (which is purely speculative) that you provide. This, I think is your argument expressed as a syllogism:

There were more Jews among the followers of Jesus than there were Gentiles.

Christianity spread more quickly among the Gentiles than among the Jews.

More Jews should have “converted” to Christianity (although it wasn’t Christianity yet) than Gentiles.

This is evidence that the people who knew more about Jesus were less convinced of the truth about Jesus than those who knew less about Jesus.

Did I accurately state your argument?

Andy,

Thanks for taking the time to set out your argument above because it is an interesting question but I think you need more evidence to make your case. With respect to your point 2, there were communities of the Hellenist Jews that fled from persecution in Jerusalem and established Christian communities in other cities. Some of those would be Torah observant, some not, but with the complete break from the Jewish community most of those would be swallowed up into the mixed Jew-Gentile community. The Roman church is probably one example of an early mixed community. In the case of the Roman church many scholars believe that it was majority Jewish until the expulsion of the Jews.

It would also be helpful also to have some estimates of the Christian per population of each ethnicity otherwise we cannot draw any meaningful conclusions from just a general observation that Gentile Christians outnumbered Jewish Christians.

One interesting point to note is that among Jews, according to your point 2, those in Jerusalem were more likely to convert than their counterparts in other cities. On average they would have had more access to the evidence which supports the conclusion that the spread of Christianity was Influenced by access to the evidence. I don’t think that’s a valid conclusion and I’m sure you don’t either, there are many factors involved, I think you might have too lightly brushed over possible difference between the Jew and Gentile people or the mission to them that may be important to this question.

Finally I don’t see anywhere is the claim you have quoted that amounts to a claim that access to eyewitness evidence was the reason for the spread of Christianity.

SteveK #212:

How so? Considering that each case is contextually different, there may be good reasons to reject those other beliefs. The evidence is different and the testimony is different, right?

To stay with the jury analogy, just because you decide to convict on one case doesn’t mean you are being inconsistent when you decide not to convict on another case. Saying the claims in both cases is “extraordinary” doesn’t tell us anything about how to decide the case based on the evidence.

Ideally, different decisions by a jury are related to different levels of evidence. But the claims of Christianity are based on a level of evidence that it’s easy to find for other claims. Everything that’s been presented in this thread is ultimately dependent on biased and sometimes interdependent accounts.

We have that kind witness testimony for Mormonism, for bigfoot, for alien abductions, for ancient claims of miracles by the pagan gods, and many other claims. Christians generally reject such testimony, but when it comes to the claims of Christianity, this witness testimony suddenly becomes a reliable guide to what happened, even though we can’t cross-examine the witnesses, and we can’t back their claims of resurrection up with anything from outside of their statements. That’s what I see as inconsistent. If I accept the “witness testimony” (if that’s what it is) in favour of Christianity, then I don’t see why I shouldn’t also accept the witness testimony for numerous other claims, some of which are incompatible with Christianity.

Andy and Ophis,

There are a handful of reasons your line of approach is failing to gain any traction:

Firstly,

“Laymen who do not understand historical method sometimes demand sources for the life of Jesus outside the New Testament–as if a document’s being later collected into an anthology somehow impugns its historical credibility! Never mind; what we now see is that there are such sources, but that the most important ones are not those which came later than the New Testament documents, such as Josephus or Tacitus’ testimonies, but rather those which came before the New Testament documents were written and were used by New Testament authors.”

Secondly,

Far better work than anything we’ve seen here is done by Bart Ehrman to discredit the N.T. even as many others do an intellectually satisfying job of refuting that more robust work.

Thirdly,

“The idea that the abundance and age of the manuscripts of the Gospels is evidence for their historical reliability is a misconception fostered by popular Christian apologetics. [……. And apparently believed by layman-skeptics ……] It’s true that the New Testament is the best attested book in ancient history, both in terms of the number of manuscripts and the nearness of those manuscripts to the date of the original. What that goes to prove is that the text of the New Testament that we have today is almost exactly the same as the text as it was originally written. Of the approximately 138,000 words in the New Testament only about 1,400 remain in doubt. The text of the New Testament is thus about 99% established. That means that when you pick up a (Greek) New Testament today, you can be confident that you are reading the text as it was originally written. Moreover, that 1% that remains uncertain has to do with trivial words on which nothing of importance hangs. This conclusion is important because it explodes the claims of Muslims, Mormons, and others that the text of the New Testament has been corrupted, so that we can no longer read the original text. It’s awe-inspiring to think that we can know with confidence that when we pick Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, for example, we are reading the very words he wrote almost 2,000 years ago. But, as you say, that doesn’t prove that what these documents say is historically accurate. We could have the text of Aesop’s fables established to 99% accuracy, and that would do nothing to show that they are true stories. After all, they are intended to be fables, not history. People in the future would say something similar about the Joe narratives, no matter how many copies existed. Now, as you point out, the Gospels are intended to be history. That is the import of your comment that the Gospels “are historical” even if they are not true. That is to say, the Gospels are of the literary genre of historical writing. They are not of the genre of mythology, fiction, or fable. This is an extremely important insight. Something of a consensus has developed within New Testament scholarship that the Gospels are closest in genre to ancient biographies…”

Fourthly,

Andy, on CON-version and DE-Conversion and NON-Conversion:

The N.T. records everything you are saying and none of these have anything to do with either the reliable historicity of the N.T. nor of its truth/falsehood given, that is, the way you’re presenting them.

We find:

1) Direct observers in the midst of Christ and His miracles in the Gospels rejecting Christ for many different reasons. The rich young man and many others come to mind.

2) Actual followers of Christ in the midst of His miracles in the Gospels subsequently turning away and finally rejecting Him.

3) We find these cases to be the case with Jews.

4) We find these cases to be the case with Gentiles.

5) The N.T. describes folks with 50 years of the direct access to the best evidence displaying a permanent embracing of Christ.

6) The N.T. describes folks with 50 years of the direct access to the best evidence displaying permanent rejection of Christ.

7) The N.T. describes folks with 50 years of the direct access to the best evidence displaying a season of embracing Christ followed later by a final rejection of Christ.

8) All of the above are still observable today.

Jenna and Melissa are pointing out the obvious, that these seem to be presented by you as evidence against something and that you don’t show why that is the case. Those eight experiences are merely described as having happened and then in a gigantic leap just presented as evidence against credibility. Yet the surrounding information of population demographics, prophecy, religious science, and as Melissa and J.B. keep pointing out, a small but select handful of key historical details surrounding all of the above are all missing.

Motivations for CON-version and for DE-Conversion and for NON-Conversions just don’t help you in the way you are claiming/presenting.

Your claim that, “A group of people who DE-Convert is evidence” is just bizarre – especially since Gentile groups are also described as “going-apostate” along the way and all of that in those critical first fifty years when all of the above had direct access to the best evidence.

Unfortunately for you Christ Himself describes the very same events with His parable of the sower in which there just is going to be those groups who embrace Him only to eventually leave Him. Jews rejecting Christ is laced throughout the Gospels and Israel’s reaction there then and here today has a peculiar import if one has even a basic working knowledge of religious science. Which you don’t seem to.

In short: Embracing Christ only to later reject Christ happened among both Jew and Gentle. That simple descriptive is meaningless in the way you’re presenting it.

Miracle:

Even worse for you is that Christ describes the Miracle (for those who seek “them” rather than “Him”) as a mechanism which leads to eventual deception as all sorts of con-men do all sorts of grand-buzzy-bling things. You’ve not shown Christ to be wrong – that is to say – you’ve just not given any evidence or shown that the Miracle itself is in fact the primary engine of either conversion or of a conversion’s sustenance. You just foist that the Miracle-Alone is both of those things, even when *Scripture* and experience and common sense and history all tell us otherwise. The Miracle does have import, yes, but this nonsensical inference of yours that it must grant immunity to DE-Conversion is just bizarre and ludicrous. It’s even bordering on embarrassing. Both Scripture and plain old common sense tell us otherwise.

Just as the act of embracing Christ and later rejecting Him occurring among the Jews and among the Gentiles is a meaningless observation the way you’re presenting it, so too is the presence of the Miracle and DE-Conversion likewise meaningless the way you’re presenting it. Neither of those can do the work you are asking them to do the way you are presenting them. And Israel’s interface with Messiah is besides the point. In fact, all of those actually support Christ’s words, and, in fact, by affirming His Words then they, all, also thus affirm our own current experience today as it too reflects all the same patterns.

Motivations for CON-version and for DE-Conversion and for NON-Conversions just don’t help you in the way you are claiming/presenting as evidence against something. You don’t show why any of that helps your case and worse you ignore how all of it – every bit of it – affirms Christ’s words and historical credibility. Those eight experiences are merely described as having happened and then in a gigantic leap just presented as evidence against credibility. Your use of DE-Conversion is farcical and your use of Miracle is incomplete and shallow. And through all of that the surrounding information of population demographics, prophecy, religious science, and as Melissa and J.B. keep pointing out, a small but select handful of key historical details surrounding all of the above are all missing.

sctrollhrm,
frankly, you are too stupid to follow this conversation. I don´t mean that as an insult – this is a simple observation. Example:
“The idea that the abundance and age of the manuscripts of the Gospels is evidence for their historical reliability is a misconception fostered by popular Christian apologetics. [……. And apparently believed by layman-skeptics ……]”
– if you could read on a 4th grade level or higher, then you would have noticed that not a single skeptic here assumed that “the abundance and age of the manuscripts of the Gospels is evidence for their historical reliability”. Quite the contrary, it was a Christian in this thread that defended this idea and a skeptic that pointed out the reason for why the idea is a misconception.
I cannot take you seriously based on your shocking lack of intelligence, and I also find you personally unlikeable based on your incredible arrogance and dishonesty – and I told you many times already to stop talking to me.

sctrollhrm

Andy’s claim that Skeptic’s don’t believe the misconception alluded to by Craig is contradicted as many Skeptics keep referring to “witnesses” and to “eyewitnesses” and talking about how we need MORE WITNESSES (the Christian does *not* call for MORE) for the Jury analogy – thereby proving that laymen skeptics believe the misconception.

What you are saying here is quite literally “skeptics ask for MORE WITNESSES*, therefore, skeptics believe that the “the abundance and age of the manuscripts of the Gospels is evidence for their historical reliability””.
The only appropriate response to this I can think of would be this.

*Actually, skeptics did not even ask for “MORE WITNESSES” here but what the hell.

scbrownlhrm #289:

There are a handful of reasons your line of approach is failing to gain any traction:

Firstly,

“Laymen who do not understand historical method sometimes demand sources for the life of Jesus outside the New Testament–as if a document’s being later collected into an anthology somehow impugns its historical credibility! Never mind; what we now see is that there are such sources, but that the most important ones are not those which came later than the New Testament documents, such as Josephus or Tacitus’ testimonies, but rather those which came before the New Testament documents were written and were used by New Testament authors.”

I’ve already said what the problem is, and it nothing to do with the NT documents being collected together later. The problem is that the entire historical case for Christianity is reliant on the claims of people who were all favourable to a particular religious position related to their account.

Secondly,

Far better work than anything we’ve seen here is done by Bart Ehrman to discredit the N.T. even as many others do an intellectually satisfying job of refuting that more robust work.

“I saw another argument, and the people in it were smarter, and I think my side won”.

Thanks for that useful contribution.

Thirdly,

“The idea that the abundance and age of the manuscripts of the Gospels is evidence for their historical reliability is a misconception fostered by popular Christian apologetics. [……. And apparently believed by layman-skeptics ……]

I’ve addressed the historical claims while explicitly assuming the traditional authorship of the gospels as we have them today. I’ve done this several times. If you want to respond to me, go back and read what I actually wrote, rather than responding to a version of me that exists only in your head.

Moreover, that 1% that remains uncertain has to do with trivial words on which nothing of importance hangs.

So the ending of Mark (from 16:9 onwards), containing all of that Gospel’s claims of post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, is trivial and contains nothing of importance?

Even worse for you is that Christ describes the Miracle (for those who seek “them” rather than “Him”) as a mechanism which leads to eventual deception as all sorts of con-men do all sorts of grand-buzzy-bling things. You’ve not shown Christ to be wrong – that is to say – you’ve just not given any evidence or shown that the Miracle itself is in fact the primary engine of either conversion or of a conversion’s sustenance.

Maybe you should mention that to the people here who are trying to demonstrate the truth of Christianity by trying to prove that one particular miracle happened. Go and speak to BillT, who is insistent that Christianity could only grow early on if people were carefully verifying the miracle of the Resurrection.

sctrollhrm,

I cannot count the times that Skeptics appeal for documents CLOSER to Christ’s time and for MORE than “just four and one of those is questionable”.

Oh I can easily believe that you “cannot count” those times, particularly if the number is larger than 10. However, this does not necessarily mean that they also believe that “the abundance and age of the manuscripts of the Gospels is evidence for their historical reliability”. The only one who did believe that in this thread was a Christian, and the one who corrected him on that was a skeptic.
And that is why quoting Craig the way you did here in this context (repeatedly…) was completely idiotic. You are unable to follow the conversation on any level and you are embarrassing yourself by pretending that you can.

Andy,

Stupid is a comment about me. And it was directed at me.

Not at my argument.

Not at my statements.

While I consider your theme flawed and weak, you as a writer and contributor overall are above the average.

Stupid directed at people is very different than ignorance charged against them. As I’m sure you’re well aware of.

sctrollhrm,

Stupid is a comment about me. And it was directed at me.

Not at my argument.

Not at my statements.

Yes, I did call you “stupid”. And I meant it and explained why I did call you that, the label “lacking intelligence or common sense” fits you like a glove.

Andy, Ophis,

On pointing out missteps:

The “Later today” seemed self-explanatory. Duties called.

It seemed clear enough.

I’ll aim for more clarity on that phrase if you need me to.

Do you need me to clarify “later today”?

Jenna,
the analogy does not really work. First of all, because you only have a text, not an actual witness that is testifying. If you believe that the text was written by an eyewitness, fine, but that is something that actually needs to be established – and the vast majority of scholars are not convinced that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses.
Second, we cannot talk to the witnesses. When I read something like:
“11 While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.”
– then I would like to ask the person who reports this “you yourself did not participate in this conversation, so how the hell do you know what was said? Are you making stuff up or relying on gossip?”
I cannot ask such a question. But if we had actual witnesses, I could ask it.

Also, just out of curiosity something else wrt the burden of proof. Do you believe that at least some people were actually abducted by aliens? If not, what proof do you have that the testimony of people that claim they were abducted by aliens is not trustworthy? If you have none, what happened to the burden of proof here?

And we have the “testimony” of the created order and of moral reality to evaluate.

Jenna Black #306:

Of course we cannot cross examine them. We can’t hold the fact that they are dead against their truthfulness. But we do have their testimony to assess nonetheless.

Well, it’s not like they died just to avoid a cross-examination. We can’t say that dying was an act of dishonesty. But the fact remains that they can’t be cross examined, and saying it’s not the fault of the authors doesn’t stop it being a problem.

Ophis,

It is you and Andy, not I, who are stretching the juror analogy beyond its logical and rhetorical limits.

Melissa,

No without some kind of estimate of the figures you can’t even do that. I think if you do the maths on different scenarios you’ll find that out yourself.

Alright, lets do a scenario together:
Group x numbers 200 people and group y numbers 20 people. Assuming that y grows at 4% per year and that x grows at an equal or higher rate than y, what is the minimum number of years it would take until group y outnumbers group x?

How does it follow? Serious question.

Sorry, I have no idea how I could make it any clearer. But out of curiosity, here is the comment again:
“We also know that Christianity grew rapidly in it’s early days during which time the eyewitnesses to the facts described in the NT were alive.
So, if the story isn’t true, how could this happen. How do thousands of people all over the region become Christians believing the (rather unbelievable) facts in the NT. Travel was reasonably easy and safe and anyone could have gone to Jerusalem and fact checked the entire story. In fact, we can be sure (given this remarkable story) that they did. And after they did, they were still Christian and Christianity continued to grow rapidly. The validity of Christianity is built on the eyewitnesses to the facts described in the NT. That’s how we know it’s true.”
– you seem to interpret this in a way that does not entail eyewitness evidence (if your interpretation does entail eyewitness evidence, then what exactly are we disagreeing about?), but how do you interpret the comment then?

Ophis #310
It takes us to a worldview where obligations are facts of reality, similar to the universe being a fact of reality.

Melissa,

I see where you’re going wrong. You’re not working out a converts per population of the ethnic group which is surely the most relevant figure if you’re going to draw the conclusion you’re trying to.

I´m not entirely sure what exactly you mean by “converts per population of the ethnic group”. Literally, that would mean (#converts/#people belonging to the ethnic group). Is that what you mean? If so, I don´t see how that has any relevance whatsoever for my conclusion. The total sizes of the respective groups would only start to matter if the fraction of converts in a group approaches 100%, as long as both groups still have potential converts, my conclusion (that the group that started out as the bigger one can only become outnumbered by the other group, if it has a smaller growth rate) is independent of the total sizes of the respective groups.

That because Christianity relies on the truth of an historical event, it would not have spread if the evidence did not attain some reasonable level. That is clearly a different proposition to “the reason for why Christianity spread so rapidly was the superior evidence for Christianity.” and the first does not entail the second.

Originally, your objection was a different one:
“Finally I don’t see anywhere is the claim you have quoted that amounts to a claim that access to eyewitness evidence was the reason for the spread of Christianity.”
and the reference to eyewitness evidence seems to be rather clear in the quoted comment…. But somehow, I doubt that we actually disagree about anything of signficance here.

SteveK:

How is “a worldview where obligations are facts of reality” in #315 distinct from a worldview containing the “moral reality” of #307?

Melissa #316:

That because Christianity relies on the truth of an historical event, it would not have spread if the evidence did not attain some reasonable level.

Some other religions rely on historical claims, and have spread. What is the evidence that early Christianity had a higher level of evidence than, for example, Mormonism, and that this evidence was important in allowing Christianity to spread?

Ophis,
It’s the same. I was being more specific so you could see that Christianity fits, and why others won’t.

Andy,

My list is almost done.

A bit to go.

In the meantime I’ll add Israel’s general rejection of Christ as the Messiah to the list of things you actually think count AGAINST the credibility of Christianity’s truth predicates.

Ophis, RE: #314

You ask this in your comment #314: “Is there anything I’ve said in particular that goes beyond this testing of evidence against a standard, and so misuses the analogy?”

You actually get closer to understanding the juror analogy in this comment. The analogy is regarding the standard of evidence (aka standard of proof) which is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” When I stated that I would apply this same standard of evidence if I were a juror in a capital murder trial, I am addressing whether or not the evidence convinces me of the truth beyond a reasonable doubt. Or, IOW, does the evidence meet the standard of credibility that I set as my highest standard, the bar of truth that the evidence must “jump over” to convince me beyond a reasonable doubt. This does not extend the analogy to mean that Jesus-era witnesses must be available to be cross-examined personally, which is obviously an unreasonable standard to hold the gospels to, and rather silly as well. So yes, you have misused or misapplied the analogy, or, as I express it, you have overextended the analogy beyond its logical and rhetorical limits.

I know that the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard is the highest standard of evidence. I would not be a Christian if Christianity did not meet this high standard. It most certainly does. None of your arguments are new. They have all been addressed hundreds of times in scholarly and “popular market” theological treatises and books. I can recommend several books that give a very thorough treatment to the sort of objections you raise, including books by Simon Greenleaf, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, J. Warner Wallace, John Stout, and Gregory Boyd. This book is one that entered my library recently that is excellent:

N.L. Geisler & F. Turek (2004) “ I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.”

Ophis,
Islam would also fit. Atheism, no.

What would count as evidence for a fact of obligation? Maybe before that question I should ask if it’s reasonable to think that we are factually obligated to truth, goodness and rationality?

Andy,

Yes, I would be. But for a completely different reason than you think. I would be laughed out of town because I would present static data (one point in time) and derive a conclusion about something dynamic (about change over time – something like “success in spreading among the population”) from this

Except that the data you are presenting us with is equivalent because your beginning point is the fact that Gentile Christians vastly outnumbered Jewish Christians.

Your example here has nothing to do with my argument, I am talking about rates, and my conclusion that the growth rate of one group must have been higher than the growth rate of the other does follow.

And I’m trying to point out that that is not the evidence you need to present to show that Christianity spread less successfully within the Jewish population. What you need to compare is the percentage of population converted after x years of mission.

I want to make it clear that I don’t know the answers to these questions. What you’ve presented here is a superficial analysis of a limited amount of data. You can’t draw the kind of conclusions you want to from it.

SteveK,
“It´s not an assertion”
– It isn´t? If “Islam would also fit. Atheism, no.” is not an “assertion”, what is it then?

See #330

Andy,
If you’d like to enlighten me regarding atheism, please do.

It’s not a stunt, it’s actually my view. If I have an incorrect understanding then I hope someone will help me.

How does that link relate to atheism?

What is the meta reality according to atheism?

Andy,
With #342 in mind, how would atheism respond to 327? In what way are we factually obligated to truth and rationality?

SteveK,

What is the meta reality according to atheism?

This question relies on a false premise. There is no meta-ethical theory that would logically follow if mere atheism is true (there are some that could not be true if atheism is true however). Similarly, there is no meta-ethical theory that would logically follow if mere theism is true (but there also would be some that could not be true).

FYI – I was referring to a specific kind of moral reality, Andy, and the one I had in mind doesn’t fit within atheism.

Alright. So what kind did you have in mind and how do you know that it exists?

With #342 in mind, how would atheism respond to 327? In what way are we factually obligated to truth and rationality?

1. Atheism doesn´t “respond” to anything (just like mere theism doesn´t), you have to specify a particular atheistic worldview.
2. What does an “obligation to truth and rationality” mean? That you should not lie and act as rational as you can?

Andy,

No, I do not need to compare those at all – the total percentage is actually completely irrelevant to the claim I made. Consider this hypothetical example:
Mormon missionaries started to target China and Japan 50 years ago, and in this timeframe
– Mormomism has spread in China so that there are on average 10000 new converts per year.
– Mormonism has spread in Japan so that there are on average 100 new converts per year.
This would be all I need to know to make the claim that Mormomism has been more “successful” (wrt spreading in the population) among the chinese than it was among the japanese. The total population sizes of the chinese and japanese populations respectively, and the percentages of the populations that correspond to converts, are completely irrelevant for this assessment.

If you want to define successful the way you have then it is actually completely irrelevant to your argument. I didn’t think I needed to keep reminding you of what you’re trying to provide support for and could just use a shorthand phrase. Let my summarise you argument so you can see what it is that you need to show.

1. The Jews were more likely on average to have access to evidence from eye witnesses.

(We both agree with this)

2. Was controversial and did not produce a sound argument. It should be something like the Jews were less likely on average to accept the gospel than the Gentiles.

(This is what I am focused on.)

3. Access to the eye witness evidence is not directly correlated with acceptance of the gospel.

As you can see this argument is sound and I’m trying to get you to understand that the acceptance per population is crucial in providing support for 2 not irrelevant.

Now the final answer is neither here nor there because no one was arguing that access to eye witness evidence was correlated to acceptance of the gospel but I want you to think through your own claims more carefully and consider what kind of evidence might show it to be true.

Andy,

Given your figures above I calculate that the likelihood that any particular Chinese person will convert to Mormonism in any given year is roughly ***edit roughly equal (100 times less) to a Japanese person.

(Plugged in the wrong population but you can see where I’m going with this)

Andy,

Yes, I see where you are going with this. And it is meaningless wrt success in spreading in the population. Lets use your example:
“Now, what do you think would happen if you were presenting an actual study claiming that the spread of x was more successful in population A than population B and the data was:
A 10 cases of x in a population of 100
B 5 cases of x in a population of 10.
You would be laughed out of town.”
And imagine further that this is the data from year 100, while in the year 90 (which was also the founding year of x) it looked like this:
A 1 cases of x in a population of 100
B 5 cases of x in a population of 10.
This would mean that x grows extremely fast in A, while it doesn´t grow at all in B – all of the x in B are actually founding members of x and they did not manage to find even just a single person who wants to convert. Looking at this and saying that x spreads more successfully in B because at one point in time 50% of B are x while only 10% of B are x, would be completely and utterly ridiculous – the percentage doesn´t tell you anything what-so-ever about the success in spreading in the population. The growth rate – the change over time – tells you that.

So you’re responding by ignoring completely what I just wrote in the last two comments to further explain my view … and you think I’m fixated on my own opinion? Is the problem that you disagree with my wording in premise 2 above?

Melissa,

Is the problem that you disagree with my wording in premise 2 above?

What is premise 2? This:

2. Was controversial and did not produce a sound argument. It should be something like the Jews were less likely on average to accept the gospel than the Gentiles.

(This is what I am focused on.)

? If so, you seem to be attached to the strange idea that missionary work does not require any time at all but can rather happen instantaneously – so that the rate of how fast an idea spreads in a population is irrelevant to know how successful it is, and all that you need to know instead is the percentage of a population that accepts the idea at any arbitrary point in time. This would mean that if I fly as a missionary to China tomorrow, and manage to convince two chinese people to convert, you would calculate the likelihood for the chinese to convert as 2 divided by the number of chinese people.
If that is what you mean – I explained in various ways why this makes no sense at all. If that isn´t what you mean, you have to elaborate in what exactly “premise 2” is supposed to mean.

Andy and Ophis,

Melissa has a point about premise 2 as we’ll see shortly:

#295 #296 #297 have several misunderstandings, primarily about where Christians and Skeptic’s claim the weight of evidence either is present or is not present.

***There was this: “I saw another argument, and the people in it were smarter, and I think my side won.”

That was in response to my, “Far better work than anything we’ve seen here is done by Bart Ehrman to discredit the N.T. even as many others do an intellectually satisfying job of refuting that more robust work.”

J.B. echoed awareness of the same pathetic state of affairs that things – being so bad on your end – may require a bit of reading-up: “I know that the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard is the highest standard of evidence. I would not be a Christian if Christianity did not meet this high standard. It most certainly does. None of your arguments are new. They have all been addressed hundreds of times in scholarly and “popular market” theological treatises and books. I can recommend several books that give a very thorough treatment to the sort of objections you raise, including books by Simon Greenleaf, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, J. Warner Wallace, John Stout, and Gregory Boyd.”

Given that we are dealing with folks who believe that Israel’s general rejection of Christ as the Messiah is on the proverbial list of things many Skeptics actually think count AGAINST the credibility of Christianity’s truth predicates, there is a serious need on your part to become more familiar with what you are actually arguing *against*, hence these directories for you to go read-up on. And, also, as none of these arguments are new, and as you’ve no clear understanding of Christianity’s claims, the word-count needed here would be prohibitive.

***There was this: “So the ending of Mark (from 16:9 onwards), containing all of that Gospel’s claims of post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, is trivial and contains nothing of importance?”

That was in response to this: “Of the approximately 138,000 words in the New Testament only about 1,400 remain in doubt. The text of the New Testament is thus about 99% established. That means that when you pick up a (Greek) New Testament today, you can be confident that you are reading the text as it was originally written. Moreover, that 1% that remains uncertain has to do with trivial words on which nothing of importance hangs.”

It is confusing why one would respond that way other than one having a complete misunderstanding of Craig’s point, as both Acts and Revelations and Paul describe Jesus appearing post resurrection. That confusion on your end about Craig’s actual point falls right in line with the fact that Israel’s general rejection of Christ as the Messiah is on the proverbial list of things many Skeptics actually think count AGAINST the credibility of Christianity’s truth predicates. Hence, again, the need to read-up on mine and JB’s suggested areas.

***There was this: “Maybe you should mention that to the people here who are trying to demonstrate the truth of Christianity by trying to prove that one particular miracle happened. Go and speak to Bill T who is insistent that Christianity could only grow early on if people were carefully verifying the miracle of the Resurrection.”

This shows a complete misunderstanding of the Christian’s claim on 1) what “Seeing A Miracle” can and cannot grant and on 2) the human elements within a person’s conversion to this or that set of beliefs and on 3) The place of Christ’s resurrection in the Christian’s search for truth being the “ONLY” power behind growth. Your reply makes a monotone, monochromatic, droll swipe of the brush across all of that and blindly plugs in “Seeing-Miracle” as the whole show for all three. Wow. You have it postured such that “Seeing A Miracle” itself is in fact two things: 1) the primary engine of conversion and 2) the primary power behind a conversion’s sustenance (it grants immunity to DE-Conversion). But Christianity says none of this and your claim that Christians claim that the “ONLY” way Christianity spread was by seeing miracles is unsubstantiated. And you just fail to bring in *other* data and factors and so we can only guess that you think such was the only way stuff spread. This is so painfully obvious that Melissa also keeps pointing it out:

“…….1) It should be something like the Jews were less likely on average to accept the gospel than the Gentiles. This is what I am focused on. 2) Access to the eye witness evidence is not directly correlated with acceptance of the gospel. As you can see this argument is sound and I’m trying to get you to understand that the acceptance per population is crucial in providing support for [your claim] of 2 [being] not irrelevant. Now the final answer is neither here nor there because no one was arguing that access to eye witness evidence was correlated to acceptance of the gospel…”

None of us expect you to get this key flaw in your argument, that “Seeing-Miracles” is not what you claim it is. Melissa, JB, and I are just astounded at this line of argument from you. So we come back to Christ’s words and the plain fact that you’ve not shown Christ to be wrong – that is to say – you’ve just not given any evidence or shown that “Seeing-Miracle” itself is in fact the primary engine of conversion or the primary engine of a conversion’s sustenance (it grants immunity to DE-Conversion) or is the ONLY way Christianity spreads – is the ONLY item involved in the very experience of coming to believe a set of truth claims. IF your theory was correct, that Seeing-Miracle is the ONLY item involved in conversion and/or the spread of Christianity, THEN the entire Christian machine should have evaporated somewhere around 100 or 150 AD. But that did NOT happen and so EITHER Seeing-Miracle has NEVER stopped being present OR the Skeptic’s whole thesis is not only merely unsubstantiated but is also refuted by unassailable evidence in the present day. How unfortunate for the Skeptic’s hyper-skeptical and uneven treatments of data. And none of that has anything to do with the math which Andy’s thesis will need to produce as per Melissa’s points, as the math is yet another layer of problems for the Skeptic’s thesis besides all the rest here. As for the place of Christ’s resurrection in Christian theology, it is key, but it is not key in the way you laughably assert in all of this.

There was this: “The problem is that the entire historical case for Christianity is reliant on the claims of people who were all favorable to a particular religious position related to their account… Show me where I’ve said that the only problem is that the witnesses are not numerous enough. I want the quote.”

But Craig’s quote (which you read as it was the SAME quote you quoted) was general enough to show you the burden of proof you must bring, but which have not yet shown us: “But as you say, that doesn’t prove that what these documents say is historically accurate. We could have the text of Aesop’s fables established to 99% accuracy, and that would do nothing to show that they are true stories. After all, they are intended to be fables, not history. People in the future would say something similar about the Joe narratives, no matter how many copies existed. Now, as you point out, the Gospels are intended to be history. That is the import of your comment that the Gospels “are historical” even if they are not true. That is to say, the Gospels are of the literary genre of historical writing. They are not of the genre of mythology, fiction, or fable. This is an extremely important insight. Something of a consensus has developed within New Testament scholarship that the Gospels are closest in genre to ancient biographies……”

Obviously you disagree with the evidence of genre – but – that is fine. We’re happy with the overall congruence in that arena. But that you missed that point about the skeptic’s wanting MORE witnesses OTHER than what we have reveals the skeptic’s missing of the whole point about *genre* and that just reveals yet ANOTHER misunderstanding of what the Christian is and is not claiming. Perhaps mine and JB’s reading lists will help you read-up a bit on what you are actually arguing *against*.

Finally, again just as a reminder, we’ve added Israel’s general rejection of Christ as the Messiah to the proverbial list of things many Skeptics actually think count AGAINST the credibility of Christianity’s truth predicates. That reveals what all the REST of these items reveal – a complete lack of understanding about what one is arguing about. Perhaps mine and JB’s reading lists and Melissa’s (and other’s) point about [conversion / seeing-miracle] will motivate you to read-up a bit more as it’s clearly needed.

Andy,

Always with all the HEAT and all the EMOTING and all the NAME CALLING.

I’ve clearly hit a nerve…..

The suggested reading(s) may prove helpful for you in the future.

Andy,

You seem to be strangely fixated on the point that I am somehow pressing for figures at a fixed time. To be clear my original example was just to illustrate how the relative populations can affect our conclusion. Since then I have tried to show you how similarly it makes a difference if we are talking about comparative rates of conversion as well. I may not have spelled it out for you, I didn’t realise I ‘d need to. Did you not notice that I included the time frame in my analysis of the Chinese/Japanese example. To remove any confusion. Taking your Chinese/Japanese example the likelihood, on average, of any Chinese person accepting the gospel over the last 50 years is roughly the same as a Japanese person on average. Is that a long enough time span for you?

And once again if you think that premise 2 is wrong then rewrite it.

Melissa,

Taking your Chinese/Japanese example the likelihood, on average, of any Chinese person accepting the gospel over the last 50 years is roughly the same as a Japanese person on average. Is that a long enough time span for you?

What would be a “long enough time span” would be whatever time it takes until the entire population was exposed to all relevant information about the idea, but that is something that you in practice never know. You do not know it for the hypothetical example here (how many chinese know nothing or extremely little about the idea after 50 years? A million? Ten million? Five hundred million? How would you know?) And you also do not know it for the early history of Christianity. That is why the total sizes of the Jew and Gentile populations are not informative here, they are completely irrelevant – the only thing that is informative wrt how successful the idea was is the rate of how fast it spread.

And once again if you think that premise 2 is wrong then rewrite it.

Alright, your premise 2 entails a “likelihood to accept” parameter that is in practice unknowable – because for any non-trivial and real world example, you never know the fraction of the population that has actually been exposed to all relevant information. And the “likelihood to accept” is therefore a useless parameter to evaluate how successfully an idea spreads in a population. The rate of how fast an idea spreads in a population on the other hand is usually knowable and therefore a much better parameter to evaluate how successful an idea spreads in a population. And that is why I have based my argument on the growth rate of an idea in a population and why I see no reason to change it to your “likelihood to accept”.

sctrollhrm,
#291. That´s all.

sctrollhrm,
good, now you see it. Now go play somewhere else.

Ophis,

Once again you unfortunately miss the point(s) of what Christianity claims and does not claim. Your “in some way dependent” is clever as it agrees with Melissa’s and Christianity’s Polychromatic model and disagrees with Andy’s Monochromatic model affixed to rate. Israel’s general rejection of Christ as Messiah AFFIRMS the Polychromatic model.

Later today…….

Ophis,

“Any”?

A bit Monochromatic and so we can ignore it. There are Christians TODAY who have never seen a miracle OR those like myself who came to Christ prior to the whole empty tomb dissection. *AND* there are the polar opposites. Polychromatic is how real experiences in real people in the real world actually take place. Any model which fails to take it all in isn’t bring honest.

More later as I’m able…….

“And, besides, Israel’s general rejection of Christ as the Messiah AFFIRMS the credibility of Christianity’s truth claims.”
Of course it does. Because math! And because polychromatic! And because trimotional ontological singular frames!
You should write a book, the world needs more laughter.

“This “ALL MIRACLE” and “ALL RATE” and “NO MIRACLE” stuff isn’t Christianity’s claim in the least.”
– While it certainly is “THE SKEPTIC´s” claim, I mean, we uttered gibberish like “Christianity is false because “ALL MIRACLE” and “ALL RATE” and “NO MIRACLE”” all the time in this thread amirite?

sctrollhrm,
so Christianity expects whatever is observed because random troll says so. Got it. I think you have just found a golden ticket that allows you to ignore every evidential challenge against Christianity that anyone ever thought or will think of:
“No, ur wrong! Chrisistanity liek totaly predicteted this and stuff because I say so.”

BillT asserted something similar in #152. Both are clearly asserting that the growth of early Christianity could not have happened without a process of people checking the historical miracle claims of Christians for themselves. That assertion is unsubstantiated, and that is what I have argued against.

If I could butt back in for a bit and clarify on the two points being made by Ophis and Andy. I’d like to reference the aforementioned 1 Cor 15:3-7. This is a creedal statement accepted by 90% of all theologians, both skeptical and believing, as dating to within a few years of Christ’s ministry. I think it addresses both issues.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.
6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,
8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born..

As for Ophis’ point that Christianity could or did grow without eyewitness verification we have this account of the church in Jerusalem. It consists of at least somewhere between 500 people (“five hundred of the brothers and sisters…” i.e. believers) and reasonably maybe 1,000. This church is made up of almost exclusively of people who actually were the eyewitnesses to Christ’s ministry. Among them they have seen virtually every minute of his prior three years. From this group of eyewitnesses the church grew in the next 35 years to have churches in every major city in the Mediterranean. These eyewitnesses were the bedrock of that church.

Also, we have Paul’s statement “most of whom are still living,” Why would he say that some 20 years after the events described here. Not much interpretation is needed for these plain words. He’s inviting anyone who reads this to personally verify these facts with those eyewitnesses. So we have virtually everyone’s basic instinct to verify fact based propositions, especially life changing ones, and Paul’s direct invitation for anyone to come and verify it with these specific eyewitnesses to these events. I don’t think we need to go any further to establish this point. However Ophis, I think it’s your turn to provide any evidence you have to the contrary. You haven’t yet and thus I think this proposition stands unless effectively rebutted.

As far as Andy’s assertion that Christianity was a failure among the Jews we also can look at this account. The church in Jerusalem reasonably consisted of somewhere between 500 people (“five hundred of the brothers and sisters…” i.e. believers) and maybe 1,000. This is the church in primarily Jewish Jerusalem. There are multiple accounts of Jews belonging to that church and it defies any logic that some reasonable percentage were not Jewish. So, we have Jews in Jerusalem, who were in the best position to know the truth of Christianity’s claims, being members of that church. Certainly, when the church spread throughout the primarily gentile Mediterranean, an area where Jews were a distinct minority, the numbers of gentile believers became the vast majority. However, the initial church in Jerusalem obviously had plenty of Jewish believers. This is not remotely controversial.

Andy,

The burden of proof is on you to tear down #374 and #375.

sctrollhrm,
thanks for confirming #291 again.

Andy,

I’m not arguing. I’m happy to let you run with your assertion that Israel’s general rejection of Christ as the Messiah ought to be added to the proverbial list of things that actually count AGAINST the credibility of Christianity’s truth predicates.

It’s helping our case.

BillT:

As for Ophis’ point that Christianity could or did grow without eyewitness verification we have this account of the church in Jerusalem.

That passage doesn’t actually say they were in Jerusalem. Acts 1:15 states that there were only 120 people in the church in Jerusalem at that time, so either Acts was wrong, Paul was wrong, or the appearance happened among some other group outside of Jerusalem; if it’s the last one, they could plausibly have been anywhere in Judea or Galilee. So it could be pretty hard to track them down, and Paul hasn’t given any information that would be useful in finding them.

It consists of at least somewhere between 500 people (“five hundred of the brothers and sisters…” i.e. believers) and reasonably maybe 1,000. This church is made up of almost exclusively of people who actually were the eyewitnesses to Christ’s ministry. Among them they have seen virtually every minute of his prior three years.

Where do you get the idea that they were all eyewitnesses to the whole of his ministry? When Peter asks for such a person to replace Judas as an apostle, there are only 2 candidates out of the 120 people present. From that point, Acts has the church growing by making brand new converts, so by the time you get up to 1000 people, the vast majority of Christians would be non-witnesses.

From this group of eyewitnesses the church grew in the next 35 years to have churches in every major city in the Mediterranean. These eyewitnesses were the bedrock of that church.

Not from “this group of eyewitnesses”, but from Paul; he’s the one doing the work of setting up churches around the Mediterranean, and he hasn’t seen a moment of Jesus’ life.

He’s inviting anyone who reads this to personally verify these facts with those eyewitnesses.

If so, he’s provided no information that would allow that to be done. Are the Corinthians supposed to sail off in the vague direction of Judea and wander round asking people if they’re one of the 500?

So we have virtually everyone’s basic instinct to verify fact based propositions, especially life changing ones,

That should be how it works, but it isn’t. If it was, Mormonism wouldn’t exist; Mormonism is as dependent on historical claims as Christianity. The Jehovah’s Witnesses would be long gone, having fallen victim to their numerous failed prophecies of the end of the world.

Christians today generally have little interest in verifying their beliefs. Go and read Tom Gilson’s post on “the loneliness of thinking Christianly”:

For the past three years or so, at apologetics conferences across the country, I’ve asked numerous groups this question: “How many of you who have a real interest in apologetics, worldview, and other aspects of Christian thinking feel very alone in your church?” In every case, at least three-quarters of the people raise their hands.

Sure, there’s a few people who have an interest in the verifiability of Christianity, but there’s a huge mass of others who just don’t care about it. Very few conversion stories start with “I carefully investigated the evidence”. I wish everyone really did have an instinct to verify important life-changing propositions, but observation shows me that’s just not the case.

and Paul’s direct invitation for anyone to come and verify it with these specific eyewitnesses to these events.

What exactly were these events? I’ll refer you back to the problems I pointed out at the start of #286; Paul’s claim is so vague that it’s useless for any attempt to verify anything at all, and it’s not clear exactly what he’s claiming to have happened.

I don’t think we need to go any further to establish this point.

I disagree. The entire idea of Corinthian Christians sailing to Judea, seeking out the 500 witnesses, somehow successfully finding them, verifying their story in an intellectually satisfying way, and returning to the Corinthians who were all ready to immediately give up their religion if verification wasn’t found, comes entirely from your imagination. You have not provided a single shred of evidence that it ever happened; all we have to support this story is supposition. And you’re trying to use that to support a claim of miraculous resurrection.

However Ophis, I think it’s your turn to provide any evidence you have to the contrary. You haven’t yet and thus I think this proposition stands unless effectively rebutted.

So you expect me to base a belief in resurrection on a story that you’ve essentially made up? I really think you have the burden of proof here.

Nevertheless, I’ll point out that, as I’ve said above, both modern Christianity and modern new religious movements, including ones whose claims depend on assertions about historical facts (eg Mormonism), do not work in the way you suggest, and there’s no reason to assume the early church was any different. To the early pagans viewing Christianity from the outside, Christians seemed like gullible uneducated people, who took everything on faith, as we can see from the descriptions by Lucian, Galen and Celsus. 1 Corinthians 1:26 describes an early church made up mostly of the uneducated and unintelligent, and 2:1-5 shows that conversions were not based on being convinced through rational argument. In all of the conversion stories throughout Acts and the Pauline Epistles, none are shown as being the result of careful empirical investigation of the resurrection story.

That’s reason enough to doubt your unevidence supposition. And let’s remember that we’re not trying to prove that supposition for its own sake; it’s supposed to be the basis for believing that the Son of God rose from the dead, and converting to Christianity. That’s an awful lot to rest on a supposition about what might have happened.