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Friday, May 14, 2010

The Christian Delusion: Chapter Eleven--Why the Resurrection is Unbelievable

Chapter 11 in The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails (ed. John W. Loftus) is by Richard Carrier. Richard has a Ph.D. in Ancient History from Columbia University, was editor-in-chief of the Secular Web for several years and is the author of a number of journal articles as well as the author of two books, Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism (2005) and Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn't Need A Miracle To Succeed (2009). He is also a major contributor to The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave (2005), Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth (2010), and of course The Christian Delusion. Richard served as an unofficial editor for TCD as well as contributing two chapters. His current research focuses on the modern philosophy of naturalism, the origins of Christianity, and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome. He has debated William Lane Craig, Mike Licona as well as other Christians and Muslims.

In chapter 11 of TCD, "Why The Resurrection is Unbelievable," Carrier attempts to apply the Outsider Test for Faith to the question of Jesus' resurrection. He argues that if one applies the same criteria in judging the historicity of the NT documents as one does in judging other ancient documents, then one will conclude that there is no more reason to believe the NT's miracle claims than the claims of other ancient documents.

He writes:
Fifty years after the Persian Wars ended in 479 B.C. Herodotus the Halicarnassian asked numerous eyewitnesses and their children about the things that happened in those years, and then wrote a book about it. Though he often shows a critical and skeptical mind, sometimes naming his sources or even questioning their reliability when he has suspicious or conflicting accounts, he nevertheless reports without a hint of doubt that the temple of Delphi magically defended itself with animated armaments, lightning bolts, and collapsing cliffs; the sacred olive tree of Athens, though burned by the Persians, grew a new shoot an arm’s length in a single day; a miraculous flood-tide wiped out an entire Persian contingent after they desecrated an image of Poseidon; a horse gave birth to a rabbit; and a whole town witnessed a mass resurrection of cooked fish! (pp. 291-92)
Carrier asks: Do you believe these things happened? Well, why not? Herodotus was an educated man, a critical historian, he consulted eyewitnesses, and he clearly saw nothing to doubt in these events (p. 292). He makes an excellent point. Herodotus is one of the best ancient historians and he is writing just 50 years after the events he reports. Yet, the fact is that virtually no one believes these events happened as described, including evangelical Christians. It is not just Herodotus either, as Carrier says in a footnote: Herodotus is just an example. Ancient and medieval literature was filled with incredible stories no one believes anymore. For examples, see Richard Carrier, Sense and Goodness without God, pp. 211-52 (p. 310).

Why don't we all just accept Herodotus' word that these things happened as he reported? Because we know from our experience and that of countless other people, especially after centuries of scientific research (p. 292) that these things are very unlikely. In addition, we also know people lie, even if for what they think is a good reason. They also exaggerate, tell tall tales, craft edifying myths and legends, and err in many ways. As a result, as we all well know, false stories are commonplace. But miracles, quite clearly, are not (p. 292).

But aren't the gospels different? Aren't they clearly historical as many evangelical apologists would have us to believe? Carrier opines:
I see no relevant difference between the marvels in Herodotus and the many and varied tales of the resurrection of Jesus. Even the most fundamentalist of Christians don’t believe half of them. When the Gospel of Peter (yes, Peter) says a Roman centurion, a squad of his soldiers, and a gathering of Jewish elders all saw a gigantic walking cross hopping along behind Jesus as he exited his tomb, and then saw Jesus grow thousands of feet tall before their very eyes, there isn’t a Christian alive who believes this. And yet that was among the most popular Gospels in the Christian churches of the second century, purportedly written by someone who was alive at the time of the events it reports. So why don’t Christians believe Peter’s Gospel anymore? Well, for many of the same reasons we don’t believe the marvels of Herodotus. But why then believe any of the other Gospels, those according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? (p. 293).
He is right. If one were to treat the NT documents as one does the writings of Herodotus or the non-canonical gospels, the miracle claims of the NT would be dismissed as legends.
There is no good reason to treat these stories any differently than those we find in Herodotus, certainly not if these claims are to pass the OTF. Yet at least we know when and where he wrote, and know something of who he was and how he got his information, and that he was trying to report the facts as best he could find them out, and that he personally had no agenda here, no need for us to believe him, no great mission he was trying to accomplish by telling these tales. Not so for the Gospels. So when it comes to miracles, if we don’t believe Herodotus, we surely can’t believe the Gospels. That’s why I don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead: it simply isn’t a plausible event, and is not supported by any sources I trust. If this were any other religion, say the Heaven’s Gate cult or a growing sect of Victor Hugo worshippers, then that would be the end of it (p. 296).
What would it take in order to believe the miracle claims reported in the NT? It would take extraordinary evidence. Carrier writes:
Denying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is among the rhetoric now resorted to by those who genuinely expect superman to fly down from outer space and kill me. So I have to say something about this first. If I tell you I own a car, I usually won’t have to present very much evidence to prove it, because you’ve already observed mountains of evidence that people like me own cars. But if I say I own a nuclear missile, you have just as much evidence that “people like him own nuclear missiles” is not true. So I would need much more evidence to prove I owned one, to make up for all the evidence I don’t have from any supporting generalization. Just think to yourself what it would take for me to convince you I owned a nuclear missile, and you’ll see what I mean. In contrast, the odds of winning a lottery are very low, so you might think it would be an extraordinary claim for me to assert “I won a lottery.” But lotteries are routinely won. We’ve observed countless lotteries being won and have tons of evidence that people win lotteries. Therefore, the general claim “people like him win lotteries” is already confirmed, and so I wouldn’t need very much evidence to convince you that I won. So “I won a lottery” is not an extraordinary claim. But “I own a nuclear missile” clearly is.

Now suppose I told you “I own an interstellar spacecraft.” That would be an even more extraordinary claim—because there is no generalization supporting it at all. Not only do you have tons of very good evidence that “people like him own interstellar spacecraft” is not true, you also have no evidence this has ever been true for anyone—unlike nuclear missiles, which you know at least exist. Therefore, the burden of evidence I would have to bear here is truly enormous. Just think of what it would take for you to believe I really did have an interstellar spacecraft, and again you’ll see what I mean.

Once you realize the common sense of this, it’s obvious that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. To deny that’s true is simply irrational. But there is no more evidence supporting the generalization that “people like Jesus get resurrected from the dead” than there is for people owning starships. Therefore the claim that Jesus arose from the dead is an extraordinary claim, and thus requires extraordinary evidence—more evidence, even, than I would need to convince you I own an interstellar spacecraft. For you actually have evidence confirming the generalization that “there can be an interstellar spacecraft.” We could build one today with present technology. But we have no comparable evidence at all confirming the generalization that “there can be miraculous resurrections from the dead.” That doesn’t mean miracles must be impossible. It only means we have less evidence that miracles are possible than we have that interstellar spacecraft are possible. And that means the claim that Jesus rose from the dead is even more extraordinary than the claim that I own an interstellar spacecraft. Think again of the kind of evidence I would need to convince you I had such a vehicle. I should need more evidence than that to convince you Jesus rose from the dead. Just as would be required to convince you a whole village witnessed a pot of cooked fish rise from the dead, or anything else as incredible
(pp. 298-99).
The simple fact is that we don't have extraordinary evidence or even strong evidence to believe the gospel accounts. None of the evidence is extraordinary enough to justify believing an extraordinary explanation. All the evidence we have is ordinary, and has ordinary explanations. In fact, those ordinary explanations actually explain the evidence better (p. 307). What we find in the NT and early Christian history can all be explained better by naturalistic causes. Carrier argues:
Only an ordinary explanation can easily explain why Jesus only appeared to die-hard believers, and then, much later, to only one of millions of outsiders across the entire planet. If God Himself were really appearing to people, and really was on a compassionate mission to reform and save the world, there is hardly any credible reason he would appear to only one persecutor rather than to all of them. . . . [He] could have visited Pilate, Herod, the Sanhedrin, the masses of Jerusalem, the Roman legions, even the Emperor and Senate of Rome. He could even have flown to America (as the Mormons actually believe he did), and even China, preaching in all the temples and courts of Asia. In fact, being God, he could have appeared to everyone on earth. He could visit me right now. Or you! And yet, instead, besides his already-fanatical followers, just one odd fellow ever saw him.

If Jesus was a god and really wanted to save the world, he would have appeared and delivered his Gospel personally to the whole world. He would not appear only to one small group of believers and one lone outsider, in one tiny place, just one time, two thousand years ago, and then give up. But if Christianity originated as a natural movement inspired by ordinary hallucinations (real or pretended), then we would expect it to arise in only one small group, in one small place and time, and especially where, as in antiquity, regular hallucinators were often respected as holy and their hallucinations believed to be divine communications. And that’s exactly when and where it began. The ordinary explanation thus predicts all we see, whereas the extraordinary explanation predicts things we don’t see at all
(pp. 308-09).
Thus, as Carrier clearly demonstrates, when the OTF is applied to the story of the resurrection of Jesus, the only conclusion is that it is not historical. There is no more reason to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead than there is to believe the things Herodotus reported, the claim that Muhammad ascended to heaven on a winged-horse or that the angel Moroni gave Joseph Smith golden tablets. These are all inventions of the fertile imaginations of men.

65 comments:

  1. Ah, but Dr. Carrier forgot the Philosophical Argument From Unfairness :

    1. If the resurrection is not true then all I believe in is a delusion, and quite silly ;

    2. I would not want that, and it would be quite unfair, especially given all the time I have spent worshiping my buddy Jesus.

    3. The world can not be that unfair, and I refuse to accept that.

    4. Therefore, the resurrection is true.

    Don't you feel silly now for forgetting that?

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  2. But there is no more evidence supporting the generalization that “people like Jesus get resurrected from the dead” than there is for people owning starships. Therefore the claim that Jesus arose from the dead is an extraordinary claim, and thus requires extraordinary evidence—more evidence, even, than I would need to convince you I own an interstellar spacecraft.

    To take this thought further:

    Many of the same people who claim that Jesus did rise from the dead probably also claim that it's impossible for others. They'll deny stories, like, say, Prometheus having his liver eaten out every night by an eagle (technically not resurrection, but, hey, we do know that livers are capable of regeneration...) or all the Greek/Roman heroes who went down to Hades and came back again (Aeneas, Herakles, Odysseus, etc.). So not only are they attempting to make extraordinary claims in the light of negative evidence, they're also denying all other similar claims in the process.

    Back when I was leaving Christianity I mentioned to my girlfriend that I could well end up an atheist. She said, "No. You might be an agnostic, but that's as far as I can see you going." My response was that I was already an atheist about all but one god, so what made that one last god so special?

    Also, I was kind of a smug prick then. And now...

    Andre: Ah, but Dr. Carrier forgot the Philosophical Argument From Unfairness :

    Bazinga!

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  3. I really like the explanation regarding extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Especially the various examples he gave.

    But the whole, "If Jesus was a god and really wanted to save the world, he would have appeared and delivered his Gospel personally to the whole world. He would not appear only to one small group of believers and one lone outsider, in one tiny place, just one time, two thousand years ago, and then give up". Some might argue that he is just making assumptions here and this is where "faith" comes in. Jesus may not want to show himself to everyone because that forces belief.

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  4. If "belief" is necessary to keep people out of Hell, then doesn't Jesus have a moral imperative to "force belief"?

    ...Not that I actually think that showing Himself to everyone on Earth would actually force anything. I see that more on the order of making absolutely certain that people have enough information to make an informed decision.

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  5. I've heard this explanation from Christians (I once was one) that heaven would actually be worse for the person than hell since they chose to live in a way that denies God. They reason that nobody would want to spend eternity in heaven with someone they denied all of their life and wanted nothing to do with. Personally, I just have a heard time believing someone would prefer some form of isolation, torture and neverending anguish and anger over a supposed "paradise". Especially, if we had all the evidence to make a logical decision.

    Christians, for the most part, also wholeheartedly believe that the Bible is more than enough evidence for someone to make a good decision. As well as, what I would call "subjective" influences and promptings of the Holy Spirit.

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  6. Confidential,

    Was Paul "forced to believe"?

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  7. Ken,

    This is Hume warmed over. Why is this presented as a new argument?

    1. Epistemology is not ontology, even though modernism was haunted by the Cartesian anxiety for certainty.

    Let me ask you this, what do you think OJ Simpson did that fateful night with his ex-wife and her husband? Most people think he did it without being able to demonstrate it. It wasn't demonstrated in court, so are we epistemologically justified in believing that OJ really is a murderer?

    How about this. Say Carrier tells me that he has a space craft and I don't believe him until he takes me to his basement where I get to see it and sit in the cockpit. I'm justified in my belief that he has a spaceship, but you may not be justified in believing me when I tell you about it. So who's belief is properly justified? It's a relative case, and so sometimes we have to let go of verificationism.

    2. We don't live that way, either. Hume himself didn't apply his skepticism (which included our knowledge of basic principles, like cause and effect) in his daily life. I bristle a bit when it's claimed that everyone lives this way. We obviously take claims at face value from people (like how people swallow Jesus Mythicism without looking into it).

    3. The Herodotus accounts and the later gospels are not analogous situations to the gospels or to Paul's letters. I would be interested to see how Carrier accounts for the tales that Herodotus presents, but I bet he's not having to also explain burgeoning movements and skeptics coming to belief. I guess, unless he does have an analogous situation where a set of hallucinations produces a uniform belief among believers and convinces skeptics. Then we could really start to talk about background plausibility.

    Ok, I'll stop my ranting now and wait for the push back.

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  8. Great point Ken. Unless he brushes it off as a bizarre hallucination or is just being deceitful than he was forced to believe. It was shoved literally in his face. Wish I could have that experience. Why can't everyone be given such a luxury? The Christian might say, "because most of us aren't as influential as Paul or have the capability of impacting the world as Paul". Well, Richard Dawkins could probably impact the world on a greater level than Paul today if had a Damascus experience. Theres more people in the world to influence today than there were back in the late first century. All Richard would need to do is write a book and it would impact millions instantaneously. But, its still just Richard's experience and is not my or your experience. So, why would we believe that? An outspoken atheist doing a complete turnaround would probably persuade some people though. Sorry, I'm rambling but great point!

    I think we should all have the same chance to experience God on that level. Otherwise, God is just playing favorites. Paul had access to the OT writings and he knew about Jesus to some degree. So, why did he get this undeniable experience?

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  9. If I remember the Bible correctly Paul did not say that the vision he experienced on the road to Damascus was Jesus. He said it was "the Holy Spirit"

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  10. Clare,

    No he said he heard a voice which said: "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest" (Acts 9, 22, 26)

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  11. What evidence is there for the resurrection?

    Anonymous unsourced documents mentioning loads of people that not even Christians in the first century ever mentioned as having existing.

    The cast of characters in the Novels is amazing , considering that virtually none of them appear in letters written by Christians to each other, where nobody ever mentions even having heard of an empty tomb, Judas, Thomas, Lazarus, Bartimaeus, Joseph of Arimathea, Joanna, Salome, Barabbas, Nicodemus etc etc.

    If there had been an empty tomb, then for decades Christians would have been hammered by (false in that case) accusations of grave-robbery.

    Yet the earliest Novel has no hint of any such accusations and naively says Jesus followers knew they could access the tomb if some big strong men (perhaps fishermen) could be found to roll away the stone.

    A later Novel had to change all that by making clear that the tomb had been guarded.

    Clearly Mark's Novel had caused Christians to be accused of grave-robbing.




    Clearly there had never been any charge of grave-robbing levelled against Christians before Mark's Novel, because the first Novel says the body was just there to be taken if somebody could move the stone.

    Nobody in a movement that had been hammered for decades with accusations of grave-robbery would have written like that. Matthew's Novel proves that.

    And if there had been no (false) charge of grave-robbing before Mark's Novel, then there could not have been any empty tomb.

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  12. this kind of argumentation is so weak, not even funny...I thought Carrier was a smart man.

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  13. "1. If the resurrection is not true then all I believe in is a delusion, and quite silly ;

    2. I would not want that, and it would be quite unfair, especially given all the time I have spent worshiping my buddy Jesus. "


    I wonder, Andre, if it isn't you who is guilty of this fatuous argument, re-stated as:

    1. If the resurrection is possibly true then all my conclusions may be delusions, and quite silly ;

    2. I would not want that, and so I will ignore the vast majority of scholars who disagree with my view and instead latch onto any lone scholar who supports the view I want to be true.

    etc

    Regardless of the truth or otherwise of the resurrection, it can be easily established that the majority of qualified NT scholars and historians believe (1) the Jesus was executed and buried, (2) his tomb was found empty, (3) many subsequent followers had some sort of experience of him being alive afterwards, and (4) these beliefs were a significant reason for their subsequent actions to defy extreme persecution and convert the Roman world.

    In support, let me offer a small number of the many quotes and expert opinions that could be offered in support:

    1. Atheist historian Robin Lane Fox and non-believer Michael Grant, both classical historians, both accepted the historical validity of the empty tomb. NT scholar Jacob Kremer: "by far, most scholars (translation, or "exegetes") hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements concerning the empty tomb." Norman Perrin, Uni of Chicago: "The more we study the tradition with regard to the appearances, the firmer the rock begins to appear upon which they are based."

    2. The sceptical Jesus Seminar accepted that the disciples had some visionary experiences of Jesus after his death. And the cautious EP Sanders wrote: "That Jesus' followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know."

    3. Philosopher Gary Habermas reviewed several thousand recent papers on the historical Jesus and concluded that about 75% accepted the above "facts".

    Of course that doesn't make it all true. But it does suggest that latching on to Richard Carrier because he supports your opinion, when the majority of scholars think differently, leaves you open to the charge you bring against believers. Do you go with the evidence or do you not?

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  14. Hi UncleE

    My comment was an attempt at humour - sarcastic, "atheist" humour. I apologize if I offended you, as I seem to have done. Maybe I will try and include a smilie next time.

    But while you raised these issues - why do you believe that I am only going by what Carrier says? Did I say that?

    And I would really appreciate it if you could be so kind as to show me where the majority (think carefully of what that implies) of NT scholars agree with that view. If you are saying that the majority of Christian NT scholars agree I must point out that maybe that is what they should say. They are biased. If you want to play a numbers game, let's mix in the view of Muslim scholars, Jewish scholars (God's own people), and people like Michael Martin and the sources cited by Carrier.

    The resurrection, and the "facts" upon which you guys vase your assumptions, are not conceded, they are not common cause. If they were, and if the majority of credible scholars accepted it and the evidence was credible of course I would hardly fail to be convinced.

    The topic that Ken started was specifically about Carrier's chapter. Somehow my support for Carrier has now turned into me basing my view on Carrier alone. Theists love accepting that atheists (a) don't know the state of the art on their own arguments and (b) have an a priori view that is incompatible with belief.

    It is exactly because I follow the evidence and the probabilities that I do not accept what you derive from the "evidence".

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  15. So no evidence to refute Carrier, except an argument from authority.

    And Habermas is such a bad scholar that he does not realise that if 75% of people support a theory, that theory is , by definition, incredibly controversial.

    Can you only imagine what people would say if TWENTY-FIVE percent of biologists doubted Darwin's theory?

    Christians would never cease claiming that the theory was controversial.

    Look they would say, TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT of scholars doubt evolution.

    Habermas has a double-standard that is simply astonishing in its sheer audacity.

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  16. And if there had been an empty tomb, then there would have been charges of grave-robbing.

    But the first Novel was obviously written before any charges of grave-robbing existed.



    So there was no empty tomb, no more than there was a second gunman who shot JFK.

    This is obvious.

    Matthew's Novel proves that charges of grave-robbing could only have appeared after Mark's Novel said that followers of Jesus were wondering who could move the stone for them so they could get at the body.

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  17. "I apologize if I offended you, as I seem to have done. "
    Andre, thank you, but I wasn't offended, just disagreed with you and questioned your consistency.

    "why do you believe that I am only going by what Carrier says? Did I say that?"
    "Somehow my support for Carrier has now turned into me basing my view on Carrier alone. "
    Perhaps I offended you? If this is so, I will apologise. Better still, let's both agree not to be offended! : )

    You made a deliberately supercilious argument which I thought owed any force it had to implying believers didn't care about evidence and scholarship. I was simply drawing your attention to the possibility that the boot was on the other foot. No more than that.

    "If you are saying that the majority of Christian NT scholars agree"
    No I didn't imply that or say that. I simply said "qualified NT scholars and historians" with no mention of their personal beliefs. Further, you will notice that the first two I quoted were known to be non-believers. The Jesus Seminar was not known for being friendly to conventional christianity either.

    "They are biased."
    I have shown that you cannot say that about many of the scholars. Now you expect me to believe that Richard Carrier is less biased than RL Fox or Michael Grant or The Jesus Seminar or EP Sanders? Again, I think your argument rebounds on you.

    "let's mix in the view of Muslim scholars, Jewish scholars (God's own people), and people like Michael Martin and the sources cited by Carrier."
    I'm sure there's space for them in the 25%! But I think this sectarian view you are putting forward does you no credit. Peer reviewed scholarship tries to remove bias, and a charge of bias is a very serious one to make. Until you justify it, the facts about scholarship stand.

    "I would really appreciate it if you could be so kind as to show me where the majority (think carefully of what that implies) of NT scholars agree with that view."
    I have done so in the limited space a comment box provides. The Habermas survey was fairly large and inclusive. Read enough scholars and you'll find many of them make statements not so much about what they conclude, but their view on the broad consensus of their colleagues. I quoted two such scholars, and there are many more.

    The consensus of scholars is a powerful thing, especially for a non-expert like me, and should be followed until there is good evidence against it. But they are not claiming the resurrection occurred, only that those 4 statements are considered historically true. So you are free to form your own conclusion about the resurrection, but your jibes about christians and evidence are, in this case, wide of the mark and appear to show you to be less interested in scholarly evidence than I am.

    "Theists love accepting that atheists (a) don't know the state of the art on their own arguments and (b) have an a priori view that is incompatible with belief."
    I'm sorry Andre, but I don't understand what you are getting at here. Let me say again I was simply reacting to your implication that christians avoid evidence and suggesting you were ignoring evidence. I wasn't trying to point out any more than that.

    Best wishes.

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  18. Brad,
    I had overlooked your comment until now. I intentionally avoid the phrase extraordinary evidence because of the rhetoric used by critics of Hume. However, I believe all he was saying is that unless there is much stronger evidence to believe a miracle happened than it is to believe there is a natural explanation, belief in a miracle is not justified. He wrote: That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish .

    You ask about O.J. Simpson. Most people believe there is sufficient evidence to say that O.J. committed the murder. The fact that the criminal jury did not agree is beside the point. A jury did find him responsible in a civil trial and there seems to have been bias among the criminal jurors.

    Yes, we do take the word of people for many things but not when the claim is incredible. We, as Carrier rightly points out, tend to require more and stronger evidence than just someone's word for amazing claims.

    The reason why the claims of Herodotus did not produce the movement that the early Christian's claims did is obvious. Herodotus was not starting a movement. As Carrier said, Herodotus did not have an agenda. The early Christians did and they made one's eternal destiny dependent upon whether one believed the claims or not.

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  19. Unkle E,

    I could accept all four of the so-called "minimal facts" that you cite and still reject a supernatural explanation for those facts. BTW, that is precisely what the majority of scholars that Habermas loves to cite do. It is evangelicals and other conservatives who insist that the best explanation of the "facts" is a literal resurrection.

    Thus, I really don't see the force of Habermas' point.

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  20. What I think UnkleE is claiming is that a 75% 'consensus' on an empty tomb is overwhelming while a 99.9% consensus for evolution means the theory is controversial.

    Perhaps if Habermas just produced some evidence for an empty tomb.

    Like the name of one person who ever named himself as having seen it.

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  21. Ken said: "Thus, I really don't see the force of Habermas' point."

    I don't know what point, if any, Habermas made from those facts. MY point was quite simple. I was not suggesting it "proves" the resurrection happened, as of course one can consider several hypotheses about what actually happened to cause those facts. (BTW, on my reading, I don't think it is true to say that "that is precisely what the majority of scholars that Habermas loves to cite do". Most historians I have read separate historical "fact" from their personal conclusions, as in the Sanders quote, so one cannot say for sure what they believe.)

    But my aims in first making a comment were much more modest. I was simply reacting to what I thought were overstatements and inconsistencies in Andre's "argument" and pointing out that on this matter believers have some good evidence as historical evidence goes. One thing that seems to me to stifle thoughtful discussion (assuming that is what we want) is a highly one-sided view of the evidence and one's opponents' views. I was simply trying to restore some balance. Thanks for the opportunity.

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  22. So once more , what is the evidence for this empty tomb?

    Just tell us! That is all we want to know!

    Does any person in the first century name himself as ever having seen an empty tomb?

    Give us the name of one person who wrote a document claiming he had seen an empty tomb.

    Where is this evidence? Where?

    And then explain why there were no charges of grave-robbing until after 'Mark' wrote his Novel about how the Jesus-followers were planning to access the body.

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  23. Steven,

    I had lunch with Mike Licona last month. We both live in ATL and we had a lively discussion. He told me that he no longer uses "the empty tomb" as one of his "minimal facts." Not because he doesn't believe it, he does; but because it is the hardest to support.

    I have maintained that if there really were an empty tomb, Peter on the day of Pentecost would have mentioned it. He would have said: "Look folks, the tomb is right over there and its empty. Go and ask Joseph of Arimathea and he will tell you that he put the body of Jesus there and rolled a stone over the door. "

    It would have been a powerful apologetic tool but Peter nor anyone else mentions it in Acts. And of course Paul never mentions it. How can it be such a strong apologetical tool TODAY and yet it wasn't THEN?

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  24. How can Licona abandon the empty tomb and expect people to believe in a resurrection?

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  25. Licona believes in the empty tomb himself, he just doesn't argue that it is a minimal fact that all NT scholars accept like Craig and Habermas do.

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  26. So how can he abandon it, if he believes it is a fact?

    If he can't demonstrate that it is a fact, why does he think it is a fact?

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  27. Steven,

    Sorry. I wasn't clear. I should have said that he no longer uses it in debates. He has abandoned using it in debates but he still believes in it.

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  28. If he can't demonstrate that it is a fact, why does he think it is a fact?

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  29. @Ken
    I have maintained that if there really were an empty tomb, Peter on the day of Pentecost would have mentioned it. He would have said: "Look folks, the tomb is right over there and its empty. Go and ask Joseph of Arimathea and he will tell you that he put the body of Jesus there and rolled a stone over the door. "

    On the day of Pentecost Peter declared that Jesus had risen from the dead. If there were not an empty tomb, why wouldn't someone say "Look folks, the tomb where Jesus was buried still has his body in it." (The tomb would have had the stone near it with the seal placed on it as described in Matthew 27.) We do know that Christianity continued to grow and Peter went to his death still professing Jesus to have risen from the dead. It makes more sense that the the empty tomb was not an issue of debate on Pentecost because the people there already believed this. In Acts 1 Jesus had shown himself to the Apostles over a 40 day period of time after the ressurection.

    Steven,

    You have asked for the 1st century documents of the empty tomb. Where are the 1st century documents that Jesus' body was still in the tomb?

    If the tomb were not empty why didn't the Romans use it as a way to keep Christianity from growing? It would have been easy for them to produce the body since they had guarded the tomb.

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  30. 'Where are the 1st century documents that Jesus' body was still in the tomb?'

    There is somebody who has no idea about history and trying to prove miracles.

    'If the tomb were not empty why didn't the Romans use it as a way to keep Christianity from growing?'

    Another bizarre question from somebody who is admitting that he has no evidence for a resurrection.


    Why didn't the authorities just produce the body of Elvis to stop people claiming Elvis had not died?

    According to Acts, the Romans could not see anything wrong with Christianity.

    Preaching a resurrection was not illegal, no more than it was illegal to preach that there was a spaceship in the Halley-Bopp comet.

    Believe me, if Pilate had wanted to stop Christianity he would have started killing people, not exhibiting rotting corpses through the streets of Jerusalem and Corinth, which would have been illegal anyway.

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  31. 'We do know that Christianity continued to grow and Peter went to his death still professing Jesus to have risen from the dead.'

    Of course we don't.

    What we do know is that Jacob Whitmer demanded that his testimony about the Book of Mormon be put on his gravestone.

    Christians simply laugh at claims that this testimony is evidence while demanding that people accept the testimony of somebody who never wrote a word about any empty tomb.

    Double standards? Of course!

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  32. Ken, sorry it took so long to get back,

    I'm going to state my main point from the beginning: I don't think the charge of circularity can be avoided by followers of Hume.

    His argument is based on the background knowledge that the uniform experience of people is that miracles don't occur, but we have numerous accounts of miracles throughout the world. The only way out is to categorically dismiss them because...our uniform experience is that miracles don't happen?

    What if we applied probabilities to these miracle reports? Let's say that given a sample of miracle claims, we establish a 99% probability that these people are either deluded, irrational, biased, or dishonest. When you start piling these claims on top of each other, the probability that they are all wrong becomes less than 50% after 70 claims, but you know that there are ubiquitous first-person miracle experiences even today. I think that the only way out for the strong naturalist is a dogmatic assertion that there is only a 100% probability that all of these people are wrong, which is a hefty claim to lay at the feet of humanity.

    Then, and only then, does Hume's argument obtain.

    But then the next charge is that Carrier's hand-waving model of hallucinations, both individual and group, are unattested in our history. It would be extraordinary for a movement like Christianity to take off in the direction it did (and does) based on solely mystical religious experiences. That's how insular religious communities get started (like the Essenes), but not how a major religion based on a historical event gets started. I think that his model is subject to the same challenges that Hume raises.

    Your point about the OJ trial actually illustrates my point about the relativity of our epistemic positions. OJ was found liable (technically not guilty) in a civil trial where the burden of proof was less than a criminal trial, so has the actual even been established? Not in the eyes of the legal system of the United States, but I think in this case it's obvious that the ontology of the situation is separate from what the lawyers could establish.

    Let's look at the empty tomb, too. Licona doesn't utilize the empty tomb in his arguments because it can't be established at a very high level of skepticism, like you can do with the crucifixion, the disciples' beliefs, and Paul's conversion. But just because he can't use it in a very restricted doesn't mean it didn't happen, or that it can't be demonstrated with a sense of certainty to a degree less than the crucifixion. Once again, epistemology is relative (listen to Derrida!!), and there really is a world outside of our mental reconstruction of it.

    BTW, I want to call you on an argument from silence in reference to Peter's Pentecost sermon, but I'm not even sure what you do with Acts 2:29-32.

    That's enough for now, I'll be interested to see what you think of this.

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  33. Brad,

    Thanks for your comments. Do you personally require the same amount and quality of evidence for any and every claim that a person makes to you?

    I think all Hume is saying or at least what I gather from what he is saying is that it requires a lot of solid and reputable evidence to conclude that something supernatural has taken place. If he is saying more than that, fine, I am not here to defend Hume per se . I am here to make the common sense assertion that some claims require stronger evidence than others.

    As for the Acts 2:29-32 passage, yes that could be taken as a reference to the empty tomb. I should have made my point more clearly. What I meant to say was that it would seem that Peter would mention Joseph of Arimathea as the one who laid Jesus in his own tomb (as the gospels claim) and then invite the people to go and check it out with Joseph. I am not offering this as a huge argument against the resurrection but as one small piece of the puzzle.

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  34. You know what, Ken, I think that I look at the source first more often than I look at the claim. There are people that I trust generally, those I trust in certain areas, and those that I don't trust at all. I think that is the common sense position, even though requiring evidence is not invalid.

    Many politicians, for instance, claim all sorts of mundane things, but because of the source I tend to disbelieve what they say, even if there is nothing immediately implausible about their claim.

    My wife, however, has my trust, and because of that, when she tells me something, I tend to believe the claim absent of corroborating evidence.

    See, the unintended consequence of Hume's doctrine is that you can't be justified in believing a miracle even if you've experienced it (Hume himself did deny that we have knowledge of cause-effect relationships). But if you can't trust your own senses, then how can you make any epistemic decisions?

    I guess I just think that you are asking people to use a method to come to a decision that they normally don't use. But what's more, there is no established criteria for the necessary amount of evidence for each extraordinary claim. If the standards of proof are constantly moved, then we can end up with an OJ situation where he was acquitted of the murders but still found liable. (I suspect this may be what you're doing with Peter's neglect of JoA's role in the honorable burial, but surely you already know the slippery nature of arguments from silence, so I'll let that go.)

    I think Licona is on to something when he stresses that we need to bracket out all of our background knowledge and deal with the case at hand, letting the evidence itself set the parameters. That's what all good detectives do.

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  35. While Licona cannot demonstrate an empty tomb, it is a well-established fact that Christian converts scoffed at the very idea of their god choosing to raise corpses.

    And there could not have been an empty tomb, as Mark's Novel would have tried to defend against the charges of grave-robbing that would have happened for decades before he wrote...

    'What I meant to say was that it would seem that Peter would mention Joseph of Arimathea...'

    No such place as Arimathea has ever been found.

    Not one Christian in the first century named himself as ever even having heard of Joseph of Arimathea.

    There is no evidence for him, outside unsourced, anonymous Novels, which Carrier smashes in his chapter 11.

    All Christians can do is plead double-standards and say they accept their unsourced miracles, and reject miracles in Islam or in Herodotus.

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  36. 'Licona doesn't utilize the empty tomb in his arguments because it can't be established at a very high level of skepticism...'

    Translation. The evidence for it stinks so much that even Christian apologists dare not use it in debates.

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  37. Ahhh, the Carr Authorized Version (CAV) of my life again.

    Hey, I'll talk with you about the evidence for the empty tomb as soon as you tell me how these Novels came to be. Any model will do.

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  38. Brad,

    You are right. The source is very important. But even if my wife tells me something that is extremely unusual, I am going to ask for evidence. For example, if I ask her how much money is in the checking account before I go to the electronics store and she tells me that we have one million dollars in the account, I am going to want evidence. I can't just take her word for it and begin to spend as if I have a million dollars. Even though she might be sincere, she can be mistaken. If she tells me something that is not unusual like we have a few thousand dollars in the account, I don't need any evidence. Her word is good enough.

    Now my wife is intelligent so if she said we have a million dollars in the account, she would have some reason to believe that but it would be such an extraordinary claim that I would have to see strong evidence before I would believe it.

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  39. Ken,

    I think my point has more force when you move out of the hypotheticals and into real life. Do you think your wife would claim to have a million dollars in the bank account without warrant? I think you'd be more inclined to take her word for it than someone off the street, like me. But you would be even more inclined if it was the president of the bank who told you that you had a million dollars in your account.

    Also, if your wife told you that there was a million dollars in the account with true sincerity, she would be hurt if you didn't believe her. So if the bank president told you that you had a millions dollars, instead of just offense, you might be skeptical of his claim on pain of irrationality. (I think you can see where I'm going with this)

    But I'm feeling we're coming to the agree to disagree point of the conversation, so I'll wait for your reply and hopefully have some more good conversation on the atonement.

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  40. So Brad continues to show his ignorance of history and his inability to think rationally by demanding that people produce the provenance of his unprovenanced works.

    Brad, they are UNPROVENANCED. That is why they are not evidence.

    If I could produce provenance for them, they would not be unprovenanced.

    Sheesh.

    Brad's logic is as bad as somebody who wants to know who created urban legends. Duh dude, the origins are unknown....

    Now perhaps Brad will demonstrate an ability to discuss rationally by admitting there are no sources for the empty tomb that are worth anything more than the sources for aliens landing at Roswell.

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  41. 'Do you think your wife would claim to have a million dollars in the bank account without warrant?'

    Would Brad trust anonymous, unprovenanced rumours which told him that his wife had a million dollars?

    Yes, Brad claims that he would believe it until somebody showed why somebody would spread such rumours.

    This is Brad-history - a position he consistently holds to.

    His position is that he will believe any rumours until somebody is able to 'tell me how these Novels came to be'!

    This is his stated position , which he *repeats* whenever he is asked for evidence for this alleged empty tomb.

    No wonder even some apologists realise they cannot produce any historical evidence for the empty tomb, as else they would have to resort to logic which frankly makes Christians look like desperate to find any answer to sceptics.

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  42. Steven, I asked for a model, which you are still yet to give. Ehrman has a model, so did even Bultmann, but you still engage in special pleading for your theories.

    Really, if you are going to question my ignorance and rationality (which I do freely admit), you need to at least have an alternative model. As it is, you cannot say anything because you don't even have anything to bring to the historical discussion.

    I'm familiar with Price's midrash designation of the gospels, but that, frankly, is a failed model. It cannot account for all of the texts, and it certainly cannot account for all of the corroborating evidence.

    Steven, even scholars who don't accept any known authorship for the gospels still can place them historically, and with a fair amount of geographic accuracy (eg. Mark in Rome, Matthew in Syrian Antioch, John in Ephesus all first century), and so they are still historical data which must be accounted for in any historical reconstruction.

    I might tend to agree with you if we didn't have Paul's letters, the early church fathers, Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, and more. You might be able to separate each of these and attack them individually (because any of them individually are sufficient to at least establish Jesus' existence), but the cumulative weight of all of them is, frankly, overwhelming.

    Price has to turn his model-saver charge of interpolation on all the passages which are problematic (e.g. 1 Co. 15, Galatians 1, Josephus' references to James, John the Baptist, and Jesus) But pretty soon the "obvious" interpolations become "obvious" attempts to save his model.

    I can't force you to believe anything historically, that is just the nature of historical argument. But I am at least trying to show that standards of proof are relative. I'm not trying even to accuse you of irrationality, but I can plainly say that you have no historical model to even test as of now.

    Once again, if you will produce it, even defend Price's model afresh, I will gladly discuss it.

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  43. Ken, sorry for the sidetrack, I'll try not to respond in kind and hijack your blog.

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  44. Brad continues to insist that he will believe anything only if people cannot show where his rumours come from.

    This is a bizarre interpretation of history, where Christians believe more firmly the less they know about why their Old Books were written....



    'Steven, even scholars who don't accept any known authorship for the gospels still can place them historically, and with a fair amount of geographic accuracy (eg. Mark in Rome, Matthew in Syrian Antioch, John in Ephesus all first century)....

    All guesses. Perhaps good guesses but guesses.

    Brad is simply ignorant if he thinks that those have been established as facts.

    No surprise there...

    And what if they are facts?

    Brad appears now to be claiming he will believe rumours if people can make educated guesses about what town and century they originated in!

    How does knowing where a Novel was written mean it can be believed - outside Bradland, a world where normal rules of logic do not apply?

    It is not possible to have a rational discussion with somebody who has no evidence for what he believes other than unsourced, unprovenanced works that mention people and places that not even a named Christian in the first century ever claimed existed.

    It is like somebody believing in Hansel and Gretel and demanding to know who wrote the story and why before not believing in it.

    Brad's performance in this blog only demonstrates the impotence of Christians to produce evidence despite 2000 years of looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

    Brad, put up or shut up! Produce some evidence for this empty tomb.

    Difficult, as even Mike Licona has apparently given up trying to demonstrate it.

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  45. It is interesting that Brad starts talking about the OJ Simpson trial or whether he would believe his wife when asked to defend this alleged resurrection.

    People defending real facts, like whether the American Civil War happened, or whether William invaded England, do not start by changing the subject to OJ or their wives.

    Brad's whole approach simply shouts out that his facts are not real facts and must be defended in a different way from real facts.

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  46. Steve, I'm still waiting for an historical model.

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  47. Brad,

    I think we are closer to agreement than it might appear. We both agree that a belief is justified if a proper authority tells us. Depending upon the nature of the claim, we might require even more evidence than the testimony of one authority. For example, if my wife tells me we have a million dollars, and the bank President tells me I have a million dollars, because of the claim is so extraordinary, I am going to want to have more evidence. It could be that my wife and the bank president are playing some type of joke on me (as MTV calls it, "being punked"). So, I am going to want to know where the money came from and then check with the source and verify that it was properly given to me and that there was no mistake.

    I would not go through all of this evidence gathering and verifying if my wife had told me that we have a couple thousand dollars instead of a million dollars. The nature of the claim required me to gather more evidence.

    Christians basically believe in the resurrection because they accept the canonical NT as authoritative. They believe that they are inspired by God and thus can be trusted. Non-christians don't.

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  48. Brad continues to demonstrate he has no idea of history, by demanding that people say who wrote Hansel and Gretel and why before he does not believe it.

    If only he could find ONE person in the first century who ever claimed to have seen an empty tomb...

    At least the Mormons can produce named people who went to the grave demanding that their testimony be put on their headstone.

    Brad's evidence is weaker than Mormons evidence which explains why Licona feels he cannot defend an empty tomb in a debate.

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  49. Ken,

    I think you're right on this, that it comes down to a basic intuition about the gospel narratives (plus the Pauline letters). You lost your trust over internal doctrines, I'm guessing, so maybe that's where our next conversation is.

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  50. I have followed this discussion with interest but without further comment until now. I think you are both coming to a joint conclusion which I can share.

    In my opinion, there is good evidence for the resurrection to be placed against the proper level of scepticism one should have about such an extraordinary claim. It seems folly and unreasonable to deny that there is evidence, so the two questions are (1) how good is the evidence? and (2) how strong is our initial scepticism?

    WL Craig and others argue that the evidence is so strong and the alternative hypotheses so weak that the resurrection becomes one of several arguments supporting christian belief.

    I personally have never used it that way, because I think for most people the initial scepticism is greater than would allow that conclusion. But I do think that:

    (i) the evidence is enough to provide food for thought for any reasonable person (and so can be used by Craig as part of a suite of arguments), and

    (ii) if I already have reason to believe both in God (via classic natural theology plus, perhaps, personal experience) and in Jesus (via historical study and an assessment of his character and teaching and the options to explain those facts), then my initial scepticism will be lower and it is no difficulty to believe in the resurrection.

    The moral of the story for me is that (a) we need to consider the whole suite of evidence, and (b) we need to clearly understand and state both the evidence and our level of initial scepticism.

    Thanks for the discussion.

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  51. There is no "evidence" for the resurrection. There is speculation and apologetics - no evidence. If Jesus was raised from the dead that act would make a difference to the world (other than there being millions of Christians!). There is no change in the world, in fact things are getting worse. The resurrection was not necessary, made no difference, and was 2 000 years ago.

    Belief in the resurrection is a matter of pure faith - nothing more. Christians will stop doing damage to their religion when they stop trying to package this myth as history and as fact.

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  52. G'day Andre,

    1. From the dictionary:

    Evidence: "1. A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment. 2. Something indicative; an outward sign."

    2. The historians' conclusion that Jesus indeed lived, died, was buried, and his tomb found empty; the claims of experiences of a risen Jesus which a majority of historians think were real regardless of the explanation; the several independent records of Jesus' life, the consistent preaching of the very earliest christians that Jesus was alive, the impact of this preaching on the world of the time - these are all factors helpful in forming a conclusion, indicative, an outward sign.

    3. Therefore there is evidence for the resurrection.

    Not evidence that you accept, agreed. Not evidence without alternative explanations, agreed. Not evidence without its problems, agreed.

    But evidence nevertheless, according to the definition of the word.

    Therefore, "Belief in the resurrection is not a matter of pure faith", but of faith built on evidence. I'm sorry you've come to a different conclusion, but trying to deny evidence is not a very helpful way to justify your conclusion. Wouldn't it be more truthful to simply say "" I draw a different conclusion from all the evidence."?

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  53. I was using "evidence" in the legal sense, it would have been clearer if I said "proof".

    But to point out the hole in your argument I must again argue that if it was as simple as there being evidence, even in the sense that you used it, then faith would not need to come into it. You would simply, as you say, have assessed the "evidence" and come to a different conclusion. That is not faith, it is the acceptance of evidence.

    What seems more reasonable is to say that you have arrived at your conclusion based on faith, and then termed it "evidence". That also explains why I don't see the "evidence".

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  54. Andre

    Thanks for your response. But I believe you are mistaken in all three of your statements here (sorry).

    "I was using "evidence" in the legal sense, it would have been clearer if I said "proof"."
    I don't think this is accurate. In court, all witnesses give evidence, some for the prosecution, some for the defense. Both sides cannot be successful, so clearly at least one presents evidence that is not proof, and generally both sides do. But if you are arguing that there is no proof of the resurrection, then we have no argument - there are very few things in life which we can prove rigorously like 1+1=2.

    "But to point out the hole in your argument I must again argue that if it was as simple as there being evidence, even in the sense that you used it, then faith would not need to come into it. You would simply, as you say, have assessed the "evidence" and come to a different conclusion. That is not faith, it is the acceptance of evidence. "
    Why is this a hole? Did I ever say that it was "necessary" that faith come into it, or that faith and evidence are opposed and mutually exclusive?

    I think you are working (perhaps unconsciously) from an over-simplified binary concept of faith vs reason, where everything is either one or the other, with no middle ground. But such a view is clearly unreal. Even the most anti-intellectual christian believes in the Bible and its historical accuracy, and so believes in facts = evidence. So it is quite obvious that evidence (however poor you may think it is) as well as faith are involved.

    So, if we use evidence in its normal sense, of information on which to base a conclusion (that conclusion may be capable of being proven, or it may not), then I can only repeat - there is evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and each of us judges that evidence according to our presuppositions and experience of the world, etc. There is clearly not enough evidence to constitute a proof, so we have three choices (1) remain agnostic and make no conclusion, (2) disbelieve it, or (3) believe it. Anyone making choice 2 or 3 makes a jump from something which is uncertain (i.e. neither view can be proven) to a decision. I base my jump on faith in God, you presumably base your judgment on scepticism about the miraculous.

    "What seems more reasonable is to say that you have arrived at your conclusion based on faith, and then termed it "evidence". That also explains why I don't see the "evidence"."
    So you can see I disagree here too. (i) I have arrived at my conclusion based on both faith and evidence, and the evidence must have come first otherwise I wouldn't even know there was a resurrection. (ii) I have always distinguished between what I regard as evidence and what I believe beyond the evidence. (iii) And I think the reason why you don't see the evidence is because you are confusing evidence with proof.

    Again, may I say, wouldn't it be simpler and more accurate to recognise there is evidence but no proof, and you have resolved the uncertainty one way and I have resolved it another? That way we can respect each other while disagreeing.

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  55. Hi Steve,

    Sorry, I’ve been out for a couple of days with a medical issue in the family.


    I said, 'Where are the 1st century documents that Jesus' body was still in the tomb?' and you replied, “There is somebody who has no idea about history and trying to prove miracles.”

    I said, 'If the tomb were not empty why didn't the Romans use it as a way to keep Christianity from growing?, and you said, “Another bizarre question from somebody who is admitting that he has no evidence for a resurrection.

    You said, “Why didn't the authorities just produce the body of Elvis to stop people claiming Elvis had not died?”


    I will try to explain what I meant. Pilate knew that Jesus spoke of His resurrection before the crucifixion. Pilate took precautions before the burial and it is reasonable that he would have presented evidence to disprove the resurrection unless he changed his mind or was unable to disprove it.

    From Matthew 27
    62The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63"Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' 64So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first."
    65"Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how." 66So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.
    Pilate would have had the authority to produce the body. Unless you have different evidence, Matthew indicates that the circumstances of sealing the tomb and guarding it were out of the ordinary. If the tomb was not empty, it is reasonable to believe that Pilate would have had an account written that would contradict the accounts in the NT.

    Had the body of Jesus been produced and verified by the disciples, the credibility for belief in the resurrection would have been taken away. Yes, there are people who believe that Elvis is alive and say that they have seen him even though it was an open-casket funeral. An obvious difference in the case of Jesus was that he had said that he would be raised from the dead and the Roman authorities were trying to protect that from becoming a rumor. The argument can shift to the missing body, but whether or not the tomb was empty could only be used to disprove a miracle, (the resurrection). That is the point I was making.

    You said, “Believe me, if Pilate had wanted to stop Christianity he would have started killing people, not exhibiting rotting corpses through the streets of Jerusalem and Corinth, which would have been illegal anyway.”

    This is an either/or argument and I am not presuming to know what Pilate would have done. I am not saying that Pilate wanted to stop Christianity, but that he had the intention of quenching a possible rumor of the resurrection. Some writings speak of Pilate becoming a Christian after the crucifixion. It is speculation to guess Pilate’s motives after the crucifixion because I could just as easily say that there are no accounts from Pilate against the resurrection because he believed in it himself.

    .

    The references of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts about the resurrection can never be more than secondhand information to the participants of this discussion. You have been consistent in asking for a firsthand account of the empty tomb from a first century reference. Would that make any difference in reaching a conclusion? Even if the two Marys wrote their own novels and were now discovered, how would that affect your opinion of whether the resurrection happened?

    There is an empty tomb with the sign “He is not here for he has risen” in a garden outside of Jerusalem, but that is not proof that it was actually Jesus’ tomb.

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  56. Steve,
    You had mentioned "trying to prove miracles." Not to side track the discussion, but what would be a good definition of a miracle since we are addressing the resurrection?

    Personally, I believe that miracles cannot be proven—only believed. Scientific proof for a natural law is never reached but only becomes more and more probable by repeated experiments. The nature of a miracle is that it defies a scientific principle or law without invalidating it. For example, if I say that rain will fall upwards and then it happens, that would be a miracle because a law of nature has been broken, but the law still remains accepted. On the other hand, if I said I will create mice by putting dirty rags in an attic, you might tell me that that was thought to have been true at one time but has been disproved.

    I would love thoughts of others on this.

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  57. UnkleE

    I'm a trial lawyer so I am quite glad to see that debates surrounding the different use of terms are alive and well. :)

    I'm rushing around a bit so I would like to spend a bit more time with this thread, maybe over the weekend.

    If I can just deal with your last paragraph briefly at this stage - I respect your position, my apologies if I created any contrary impression. I just don't believe there is "evidence", and a fortiori no "proof".

    Talk later.

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  58. Andre,

    Just a brief response to your reply ...

    "I respect your position, my apologies if I created any contrary impression."
    I didn't mean to infer that you had disrespected me, it was a more general statement. But thanks.

    "I just don't believe there is "evidence", and a fortiori no "proof". "
    I was thinking after I last posted that I should have made the explicit statement that evidence is not the same as proof. You, as a trial lawyer, would know that evidence sometimes leads to proof, but often doesn't, and I guess this statement reflects that.

    It would be helpful to see how you define "evidence", so we can see if we have a disagreement or not (or more likely, exactly where the disagreement is).

    Best wishes.

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  59. UnkleE

    In a trial court, by the nature of the adversarial system, each side must present it's allegations, submissions and arguments, and until we have a ruling we generally refer to that as "evidence" yes. In that legal sense I don't really have a problem if we speak of evidence that was rejected.

    I am just more used to, on the internet and in general discussions, to be wary of using "evidence" as anything approaching accepted evidence, as I often get misquoted as having accepted some dubious proposition.

    For the purposes of our discussion here, and having made my concession as above, I would prefer to use "evidence" very much in the same bracket as "proof / proven". Your distinction is however more accurate than mine, and I accept it.

    So yes, in that sense, there is "evidence" for the resurrection. But, and this is a second reason why I am reluctant to use this term in discussions on religion, then I must equally concede (as I hope you will) that there is evidence for Gabe having dictated the updated word of God to Mohamed, that Mormonism has a point and Judaism is true because of their own "evidence".

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  60. Andre,

    I appreciate what you have said, and the thoughtfulness behind it. I'm not sure we have much more to discuss unless we were to go into the worth of the evidence (my sense) for the resurrection, and I think that's too big a topic for here! So there's only (in my mind) this one matter you have raised:

    "then I must equally concede (as I hope you will) that there is evidence for Gabe having dictated the updated word of God to Mohamed, that Mormonism has a point and Judaism is true because of their own "evidence"."

    This is a worthwhile question. I'm not sure what I think about these matters because I have little knowledge of them. But let's examine them, using my previous definition: Evidence: "1. A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment. 2. Something indicative; an outward sign." And for the purposes of this exercise, I'll require evidence to meet both of these requirements.

    On this basis, the resurrection gets to this first base - the historians can tell us things that are both helpful in reaching a conclusion (they are relevant to the question and objectively known) and are an outward or physical sign (i.e. not something intangible such as faith or intuition). There might be other NT matters for which there wouldn't be evidence in this sense, they are believed on a combination of faith and reason, building on matters for which there is evidence.

    Now what is the nature of the evidence for Gabriel and Mohammed? The historians can tell us that Mohammed truly lived and that some of the historical events occurred, but they can't tell us about Gabriel and I don't think they can offer any evidence for the religious claims. I'm only working from meagre knowledge, but I'm guessing the Koran is, historically, in the same position as christianity would be if there were no gospel stories, only Jesus and Paul's teachings and the book of Acts. So I doubt there is evidence for Gabriel speaking to Mohammed as we've defined it, only the belief it is true if you trust the Koran.

    I would think the evidence for Joseph Smith might be even weaker than for the Koran, and requires faith with very little evidence.

    But perhaps I have been too strict. Perhaps, if you allowed evidence to meet only one of the two definitions, then the above two might pass. But I think evidence has to at least have some physical or objective base, and I'm not sure if there is such in those two examples.

    What do you think, on reflection?

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  61. Hi UnkleE

    I think that you have failed John Loftus's Outsider Test of Faith. Muslims will tell you much the same thing : how an illiterate peasant changed when God's word was dicated to him in the most beautiful language, language which he could not have made up, how Islam spread against the most unbelievable odds, how the Quran is backed by historical facts etc etc. Heard that before? I have.

    I find that a lot of people's strength of faith comes from an ignorance of anything but the most basic of "facts" from other religions. The more you know about the details of other faiths the more you see that your "historical fact" and your "strong evidence" has been done - sometimes better and more cogently, by other faiths.

    But I agree that this is maybe not the best place to discuss this in greater detail. Thanks for the discussion.

    Regards

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  62. Andre, I won't prolong this as I think we both feel happy to stop, but I can't let one thing go.

    "I think that you have failed John Loftus's Outsider Test of Faith. "

    I think this is quite wrong - not just because that test is based on faulty logic, but because I didn't fail it, except perhaps through some ignorance which I confessed. Consider:

    1. I set up objective criteria.
    2. I applied those criteria as objectively and as knowledgably as I was able in the short space available, using historical information, not feelings or faith or intuition.
    3. I justified my conclusions on the basis of those objective and factual matters.

    Note that I distinguished between the following:

    1. Historical background - which both christianity and Islam have in their scriptures and which, to my limited knowledge, both beliefs pass, as would many other beliefs we would both regard as wrong. This is not a hard aspect for any belief to pass. (e.g. I could accurately describe factual events which happened yesterday, then claim I was abducted by aliens yesterday. The accurate reporting of events would be a necessary first condition of valid evidence, but not sufficient in itself to support the other claims.)

    2. Historical facts directly relevant to the question in hand.

    Re the resurrection, the historical facts are Jesus' death, the empty tomb, some experiences of unspecified nature by the disciples, the belief in the resurrection from the earliest days, the independent attestation of the event in various sources known for reasonable historical accuracy, etc.

    Re Gabriel inspiring Mohammed, what historical facts can verify that? I can't think how you would verify that any more than you could historically verify the virgin birth (I believe it, but not on the basis of direct historical evidence).

    3. Matters of faith, built on evidence, reason and faith but not directly verifiable historically. Such as the virgin birth or my belief in Jesus as divine. I have good reasons for those beliefs because I have already concluded that the gospels are good historical documents, but I wouldn't expect a non-believer to draw the same conclusions.

    I think you chose a poor example, but it was your example, so I used it. But it points up a problem for your thesis. Most religions (I think, making a very broad generalisation) offer in their scriptures or teachings #1 & #3 in the above categories - e.g. there is evidence that the Buddha, Mohammed, Baha'u'llah, David, perhaps Moses, etc all lived and that some historical events are accurately described (#1), and there are claims that these leaders are speaking on behalf of God, which cannot be historically verified (#3). But few religions offer much in #2, and the resurrection is one of few events that can properly fit into #2. I think you need to do a lot more work if you want to develop an argument along the lines you have outlined.

    I think the problem is that many non-believers think in binary terms - proof=fact or non-proof=non-fact=false. But as I suggest above, the way and degree to which we know things is more complex than that.

    And so I think I have answered your question logically and fairly, and the so-called Outsider Test is irrelevant.

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  63. UnkleE

    I don't agree with your assessment on the OTF, not what it is or how you performed in the test. I still won't be able to give you a pass.

    But I suppose that is a topic on its own.


    I am traveling and will be all but unavailable for this, as pleasant and as interesting as it may be.

    If you have any additional comments I will only be able to meaningfully contribute here on or after Wednesday.


    Regards

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  64. No further questions Your Honour! : ) Thanks for the discussion.

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  65. Ken,
    the part of your post that refers to extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence seems to be ultimately reducible to showing that the Resurrection Hypothesis doesn't pass the background knowledge explanatory virtue. In other words when you compare this hypothesis with a naturalistic one and choose an epistemic criterion for evaluation, the former doesn't pass background knowledge but it might pass explanatory scope, explanatory power and other virtues while it's rival may not. So, if I'm right, I hardly see how this makes the resurrection unbelievable.

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