Jesus is Like (But Not Like) Others

Great, so at least we agree that you had no idea of what you were talking about when you compared scholars who accept the reliability of the Gospels (with regards to the relevant facts being proposed here) and Jesus mythicists. Please refrain from such ridiculous comparisons in the future.

This is true, but misleading. One might as well say that the New York Times is not a primary eyewitness account for almost everything they report on. That doesn’t mean we can’t reliably deduce what happened from reading it.

Quite a lot, actually, namely, the general argument about whether Jesus was resurrected from the dead. Historians are free to say that historical method prevents them from making a direct argument about the Resurrection in a peer-reviewed journal (as opposed to facts surrounding the Resurrection). That doesn’t prevent us as people from discussing the philosophical and theological implications of certain historical events.

Yes, there are scholars who don’t endorse claim #2. For example, Bart Ehrman thinks that Jesus was not buried in a rock tomb. But it’s not the case that there’s a consensus that #2 didn’t happen, either. Rather, there’s divided opinion, with strong arguments to support the historicity of the burial and empty tomb (see the relevant section in my resurrection article for links to more details.) In fact, Habermas himself surveyed the literature and found that about 75% of scholars support arguments for its historicity.

Still, this lack of unanimous consensus on the empty tomb makes #2 the weak link in the list of facts. It makes my case for the Resurrection not airtight. But I’m fine with that.

There’s a lot of good evidence for #3, btw. The ancient creed recorded and transmitted by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:3-7 is a very important piece of evidence.

So does this mean that even if claims #1 to #4 were unanimously agreed upon by scholars to have been historical fact, you would still deny the Resurrection could explain them, as that would be contrary to our observations today, that no dead person rises from the dead? I’m confused.

Finally, it seems that you are still struggling to understand the nature of this two-step argument. I can grant that historical method alone cannot prove that Jesus was resurrected. As Jon Garvey mentioned, historians no longer judge such supernatural claims. However, that does not stop you or I from judging the implications of certain historical facts, even if our conclusions wouldn’t be proper to put in a professional journal, for example.

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Man! The special pleading from the pro-Resurrection side of this discussion is so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

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That is even a larger assumption if we are talking about a secondary author. The very thing we are skeptical of is that women ran back to the disciples and reported an empty tomb. The author of the article just assumes it is true.

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I made no such comparison, and have already corrected you on this.

Sure, but irrelevant. What we are discussing is how one determines which historical events occurred. Historians are the people we rely on for that.

Not my claim. No consensus means we can’t use it as evidence, since there is every chance it is just a made up story.

Yup. And since Paul is not even claimed to have encountered the resurrected Jesus, that blows the whole Christian account out of the water. Funny how apologists don’t seem to appreciate this.

Yes. This is known as “rational thought.” When confronted with a phenomenon which can be explained by stuff that happens, or by something that never happens, choose the former.

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Yes… and that’s why, multiple times, I’ve also referenced places you can go to find reasons to believe that the Gospels are reliable accounts, as this article arguing for the resurrection assumes. This is a two-part argument.

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Please stop evading and changing the history of this conversation, Faizal. Let me quote you on what you said:

The above statement is false, as I demonstrated by showing the great asymmetry between the two groups of people. It’s clear from our conversation that you know little about NT scholarship. You have not discussed the views of any skeptical scholars in substance, but prefer unsubstantiated sweeping statements. In fact, I’ve been the one quoting skeptical arguments for you.

It’s quite relevant when historians have decided beforehand that historical method cannot be used to analyzed supernatural events directly. Don’t you want to know the truth, instead of just a tentative conclusion based on academic convention?

How does that follow? “Every chance” it is a made up story if there is no consensus? No consensus doesn’t mean anything goes, by the way. That’s just not how NT scholarship works. Here’s a blog post from an NT scholar on how to understand consensus, majority, and minority positions in the field:
https://criticalrealismandthenewtestament.blogspot.com/2014/09/consensus-and-quackery.html.

(Btw, this is similar to a creationist arguing that the fact that there is debate over some mechanisms of evolution makes it more likely that evolutionary theory is false.)

You don’t even know what I’m talking about with regards to 1 Cor. 15. It’s widely accepted that there, Paul is not talking about his own experiences, but quoting an ancient creed that he got from others. It’s mainly about other people’s experiences of the risen Jesus (Peter, the Twelve, James, and five hundred people).

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Well, that’s it, everyone! There’s not really much use to argue about history now, since Faizal has openly admitted that no amount of historical evidence will make him believe a miracle happened. All this arguing about the reliability of the Gospels is a red herring. In fact, this should have been admitted up front.

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Nope, he hasn’t. At most he’s merely stated that a historical consensus alone would not suffice to convince him. He’s not saying that sufficient evidence to warrant belief in a miracle could not exist in principle.

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I’m not talking about other kinds of evidence. I’m talking about historical evidence.

Please read the passage you quoted, carefully, and you will see how you have misrepresented my claim. Here, I’ll repeat it: “I have not denied that there is a small minority of scholars who believe the Gospels are accurate first person accounts, just as there is a small minority the believes Jesus was completely mythological.”

Do the people you are citing contend that the Gospels are accurate first person accounts?

Historians have determined the best way to determine the truth in their discipline, with good reason. It is not just an arbitrary academic convention. Your only argument against their method is that it does not allow you to claim your faith position as an historical fact. I don’t think they are going to care about your hurt feelings, sorry.

No, it is like pointing out that genuine areas of disagreement are just that. BTW, there is no reason to take Habermas’s claim of 75% agreement on the “empty tomb” at face value. He cherry picked a small group of scholars who were heavily weighted towards supporting his position. And he still couldn’t enough of them to verify this tale of the empty tomb.

The unfortunate fact for you is that the majority of competent academic historians do not even bother with the question of the authenticity of the Gospels because they know it’s a trivial and foolish question to begin with.

Exactly my point. And yet you apologists insist that the resurrection of Jesus would not be believed unless it had been directly witnessed. If that were the case, then Christianity would have been limited to those disciples who believe they witnessed his resurrected person, and died out when they did.

The number of logical errors involved in your creed can never be fully enumerated. You guys just keep coming up with more.

That is not quite accurate. I do hold that we can never demonstrate that a literal miracle has occurred, because that would require a priori knowledge of the laws of nature.

But a claim like that a guy came back to life after being dead for three days could easily be demonstrated if it had happened, and this is what we are discussing.

So am I. The claims that the resurrection occurred rests on some other discipline made up by the religious and which has no name or defined methodology. Its rules seem to be made up post-hoc to reach whatever conclusion one wishes to reach.

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The people I’m citing contend that the Gospels contain enough reliable eyewitness testimony that we can have confidence to say that some key events in them most likely happened, given the religiously neutral standards of history. The Christians in this thread were not claiming any more than that. (Jon Garvey, Josh, and Matt would most likely agree with me.) This position is not a fringe one, and is not remotely comparable to Jesus mythicism.

Why should I bother to respond to these statements when 1) They are entirely unsubstantiated, and 2) You have not demonstrated any substantial knowledge of the issues and the field of NT studies, not even its liberal and skeptical proponents? Why should anyone believe you when you mention “the majority of historians”?

I reminded of the saying (used in creation-evolution debates) that it takes 10 times more effort and time to refute a wild, unfounded assertion.

You’re completely out of your depth here, Faizal. That’s a strawman argument which no one has advanced.

Demonstrated by what means? Not historical, apparently. It seems that for your personal epistemology, no amount of evidence is enough to convince you that a dead man rose again 2000 years ago, because you’ve ruled out history. Maybe if someone rose again today with cameras to record every detail, you could be convinced.

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People who don’t want to believe won’t believe, even when it’s true. It’s a deafness.

‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

So true. Especially when people are resistant to gaining understanding for themselves.

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It’s also not what I was talking about.

Exactly what strawman did I commit there? Are you saying that, according to Christianity, no one ever actually encountered Jesus after he was resurrected? If it not part of the standard apologetic argument that the only reasonable explanation for the Disciples belief in the resurrection is that they physically encountered Jesus after he had been killed?

You again misunderstand my position. I don’t blame you, these issues can be complicated.

I am saying that history HAS NOT demonstrated that a man rose from the dead 2000 years ago. This is no accepted by the overwhelming majority of experts in history, and as far as I am aware it is not claimed in any standard university level history textbook.

It remains possible that there COULD HAVE BEEN sufficient historical evidence to demonstrate it had happened. But that is simply not the case.

We also don’t have sufficient historical evidence to determine that Julius Caesar had eggs for breakfast on the morning of his 28th birthday. That does not mean it did not happen, nor is the reason because if he did have eggs it would have been a supernatural miracle.

The only reason people feel the need to determine whether Jesus really did rise from the dead is that there are millions of people who have based their worldview on the belief that he did. The unfortunate fact, however, is that there is not sufficient evidence to demonstrate this, and if the question was no more important to people than that of what Caesar had for breakfast on his 28th birthday, everyone would just concede this point and be done with it.

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Here is where you run into the problems of the internal contradictions of your position.

You deny my claim that the majority of competent academic historians do not even bother with the question of the authenticity of the Gospels. If I am wrong about that, then answer me this: How many historians did Habermas survey? What percentage of the world’s competent academic historians does this represent?

After you’ve figured that out, try defend your position that Habermas is not guilty of cherry picking.

If we were to survey people who have written books about whether Bigfoot exists, would it surprise you if authors who believe Bigfoot exists are vastly over represented, compared to the number of biologists overall who believe it?

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Comments on Jesus is Like (But Not Like) Others

This is in contradiction with your earlier post, where you openly admitted the following:

Have you changed your mind since then?

I now remember that we went through this exact topic back in February. In fact I’m feeling some deja vu here, since your arguments are almost identical to the ones you said back then. Last time, I dutifully chased down Habermas’ claim and listed the scholars he likely surveyed. And you didn’t even engage with that, so my work was for naught. Nevertheless, I’m linking it here for the benefit of any observers to our dialog:

https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/daniel-angs-argument-for-the-resurrection/4659/19

As I said a few months ago:

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Close in time keeps them better cultural controls. We want to know the common behavior of people in that time and in that culture. Moving farther from that time and culture makes the inference less reliable.

No, this does not apply to Buddhism. If we understand it as a branch of Hinduism, it was started long before Siddhartha. If we understand it as a distinct religion it began directly with him and his followers. There was no discontinuity, and not historical puzzles here I’ve learned about.

There is an interesting relationship between Buddhism and Christianity. Both are faiths that are well understood as responses to suffering but each gives different answers, and define “good” in a different way: “rise above” vs “enter in”, the lotus and the cross.

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There is no contradiction between those two statements. Please explain what contradiction you think you see.

Good, so you already have the information at your fingertips to make the calculation I have asked for. So please do. Note, however, that I asked for how many historians he has surveyed, not just generic “scholars.” Otherwise, you are just playing the game that creationists play, when they cite “scientists” who deny evolution.

This is again a misrepresentation of my position, which is not that we cannot know anything with certainty about the NT. Rather, it is that we DO NOT know much with certainty about the NT.

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Daniel, can you give me an example of what you consider to be eyewitness testimony in the Gospels?

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